She gave him a thoughtful smile. “After you’ve rested, I want to discuss your treatment. I also want you to report to me any unusual symptoms you have. Anything. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Raynr Sleven answered dutifully. He touched his unkempt rat’s nest of ebony hair and his unshaven face. “My appearance—”
“I’ll send our barber by,” said Crusher. “He’s Bolian, but the Antosians I know swear by him.”
[61] “Thank you, Dr. Crusher, for everything.” The tousled lieutenant beamed at her with a look of adulation.
“It’s been an hour and ten minutes,” complained Deanna Troi, pacing across the command platform on the bridge. She stopped and threw a disgruntled gaze at the image of three Romulan warbirds on the viewscreen. “Our friends aren’t very punctual.”
“Counselor, may I speak with you in my ready room?” said Captain Picard, motioning her toward his private office. The door whooshed open, and he stepped inside with the Betazoid on his heels. She was still smoldering over some injustice or other, and he wasn’t sure what it could be.
“You don’t seem yourself,” he remarked. “Is something troubling you?”
Troi stopped her pacing and rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t think so, except for the usual lack of sleep. But there is something about the Barcelona ... and whatever it harbors. It gives me a feeling of dread so overpowering that I respond in anger. And it seems to be getting worse. I’ve probably transferred some of this angst onto the Romulans, but I don’t like the way they’re treating us.”
“Neither do I,” admitted Picard, tight-lipped. “But we’ve got to stall for time as best we can until reinforcements arrive.”
With a sigh, she let her tense shoulders slump. “I’ve been meaning to go to sickbay. Maybe this would be a good time to check on the survivor and our other casualties.”
“Go ahead,” said Picard with an encouraging smile. “I don’t think your opinion of the Romulan commander is going to change any time soon.”
The companel on his desk chirped, and the Andorian’s urgent voice broke in. “Captain Picard, we have just gotten a message from the Javlek. Because they have received no answers to their hails from the Barcelona, they are boarding her.”
[62] “Tell them to stop!” insisted Picard, rushing toward the door. “It’s too dangerous.”
“They aren’t answering hails,” reported the Andorian.
Captain Picard strode back onto the bridge and addressed his tactical officer directly. “Have they actually started sending people over?”
“Yes,” answered the Andorian as he studied his board. “Transports are in progress from the Petrask, which must be their troop ship. It’s quite a contingent—three squads of eight each.”
“Open a channel,” said the captain, stepping in front of his command chair. Troi eased into the seat behind him and seemed as composed and confident as ever.
“Commander Kaylena of the Javlek,” pleaded Picard, “you must stop sending troops over to the Barcelona. They’re all in danger for their lives. Not from us, but from certain anomalies. Plus there are deadly levels of unidentified radiation on that ship. Please, Commander, listen to me and withdraw your boarding parties.” The captain looked expectantly at his tactical officer.
The tall Andorian shook his head. “No response, no acknowledgment.”
“It’s their funeral,” said Deanna Troi with unexpected harshness. She swiveled in her chair and regarded him icily. “This would be a good chance to escape.”
He tapped his comm panel. “Bridge to Data.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Delay the probes, and return to the bridge immediately.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Captain Picard stared grimly at the viewscreen, where four vessels lolled in the deceptive tranquillity of space. “Tactical, keep sending them my last message. And go to red alert.”
Centurion Tarsek stood motionless in the unfamiliar corridor of the Starfleet ship, with red lights casting an eerie pall over his [63] eight-man squad. He was glad of their black environmental suits, which no doubt hid the fear on their faces. The haughty gray-haired warrior didn’t want to see fear. These fresh troops had tasted killing in the planet with the moss creatures, but that wasn’t the same as a humanoid enemy, especially one as devious as Terrans.
They were in the rear, outside the aft torpedo room, where scanners had discovered two life-forms. Tarsek checked the portable scanner on his wrist to see which way the life-forms were headed, and he picked them up immediately. They were stationary in the torpedo launcher, a logical place to protect if a ship still wanted to maintain some offensive capability.
He gave the signal for the scouts to move out, and his two bravest rushed down the corridor to confront danger. Without breaking communications silence, he used hand signals to move his squad forward, bringing up the rear himself. The old centurion had a war wound in his left knee joint, and he swore it got sore when there was danger around. Right now it was no worse than usual; he could have been taking his morning walk in the greenhouse on the ship.
Tarsek followed his squad down the red-hued corridor until they reached a locked hatchway that was guarded by a recognition system. His scouts were already rigging plasma explosive charges; but Centurion Tarsek felt magnanimous, so he called out, “Inside the torpedo room, listen to me! Open the door and give yourselves up. We only want to search the ship and question you briefly. You will not be harmed!”
The centurion waited for his men to finish rigging the charges. They nodded to him and moved back down the corridor, along with the rest of the squad. “Call out, bang on the door, or do something!” he ordered. “Or we will use force to gain access. Surrender now, or I cannot be responsible for your lives!”
Tarsek waited again, and there was no response. The old centurion shrugged. “Very well. Stand by to ignite.” He jogged toward his scouts, who were stationed behind vertical beams at an intersection [64] in the corridor. Dropping his hand, he gave the order to detonate, and everyone ducked. No one wanted to stare at a plasma charge going off in a confined area, because the light went beyond bright to searing. The brilliant explosion created a shock wave which nearly knocked the old Romulan off his feet, and smoke and dust filled the corridor.
“Attack!” he ordered, his voice booming over the comlink in his helmet. The need for silence was certainly over after that blast. His squad rushed toward the smoky gash in the hatch, which was just wide enough for one man at a time to enter. He heard no firing, which was good.
Meanwhile, the centurion checked the scanner on his wrist and noted with satisfaction that the number of life-forms inside the torpedo room had doubled.
Then he heard the scream—a mangled cry of horror. This was followed by bleats of alarm and half-a-dozen voices babbling at once. “Be valiant!” growled the centurion, rising from his position to lead his squad. “Press forward!”
Instead they were stampeding back, overrunning his rear position. Two of his men crashed right into Tarsek, spinning the centurion around. With the butt of his disrupter rifle, he smashed one soldier in the face and dropped him to his knees. “No one called retreat! Get up, you coward!”
The bleeding soldier could only babble and point toward the gash in the hatchway. With a scowl, the centurion turned to look, and the anger on his face froze into a fresco of pure terror. Slithering from the gash was some tentacled creature that was as black as space. Its body was almost opaque except for a dozen eel-like jaws, which snapped, writhed, or chewed on bits of bone and environmental suit. Behind the beast, there was nothing but darkness—a black void into which most of his squad had vanished.
He hauled the bleeding man to his feet and pushed him down the corridor after the other fleeing soldiers. As the centurion plodded away from the nightmarish beast, he felt as if his legs were mired in [65] quicksand. He activated his comm channel. “Squad one to Petrask. Situation urgent! Encountering unknown hostiles. Abandon the mission a
nd evacuate!”
A voice crackled in his ear. “Losing your signal. Too much interference. All squads—” In a burst of static, the voice stopped completely, and Tarsek was forced to look back.
Like a giant slug with a dozen bristling antennae, the dark beast oozed down the corridor, closing upon the old warrior. Where it passed, it left a trail every bit as dark as itself, seeming to erase the deck, bulkheads, and ceiling behind it. Tarsek began blasting it with his disrupter, but the thing absorbed his blazing beams without slowing down. In desperation, he set his weapon to overload and threw it into the oozing maw. It disappeared with a crackle of lightning.
The centurion was no longer sure if he faced death, which he understood, or something worse. But he was certain he couldn’t outrun this.
Suddenly, there was flash of light—like a transporter beam—and a figure in a white radiation suit appeared behind him. “Hold onto me!” he said, wrapping an arm around the startled Romulan. In his other hand was a cylindrical metal tube. Tarsek gripped his savior just as the blackness reared up like a hellish wave. He tried to stand erect to meet his death, but the bottomless jaws cowered him.
Then he felt the miracle of the transporter beam as it spirited his molecules away, along with those of the brave figure in white.
Tarsek was instantly gratified to find that he was standing with his fellow soldiers from the mission. Seven of them in all, counting their savior. But it was an unfamiliar, brightly lit transporter room not on any Romulan vessel. It was empty, except for a hulking human at the main transporter console.
“Please,” said the man, holding up his hands to show they were empty. “We’d appreciate it if you put down your weapons. We have just saved your lives.”
[66] Tarsek ripped off his helmet and barked, “Put down your weapons!” In confusion and relief, the soldiers did as he ordered.
“Step off the transporter platform,” ordered the human, “and we’ll rescue more of you. Data?”
The hero in the white suit remained on the platform, a sling of cylinders hung over his shoulder and a tricorder in his hands. He looked as calm as if he were headed to dinner. After Tarsek ushered the others off the platform, he turned to give the brave officer a salute, hand to chest. The hero acknowledged it before transporting off in a sparkling column of light.
“I’m Commander William T. Riker,” said the other human, working the transporter controls. “Welcome to the Enterprise. Just be patient. I’m busy right now.”
“Thank you, Commander, and your brave assistant.” Centurion Tarsek saluted him, too, and he glowered at his fellows until they all saluted the human.
six
“I didn’t kidnap them,” said Picard, addressing the angry visage of Commander Kaylena on the bridge viewscreen. “I saved thirteen of your crew members. You don’t have any idea what they encountered on the Barcelona, and neither do we. When you didn’t use some kind of signal amplifier to transport your people back, you condemned them to death.”
The dark-haired Romulan bristled at that suggestion. “We would have retrieved them.”
“What happened to the eleven we didn’t retrieve?” asked Picard.
“That’s what I would like to know.” The Romulan’s dark eyes drilled into him. “If you think holding them will save your ship—”
The turbolift door opened, distracting Picard from her arresting face. He turned to see Riker, accompanied by Data and a gray-haired Romulan with a weathered countenance. “One moment please,” said the captain apologetically. “I’d like you to hear from someone who was there.”
Picard motioned to the Romulan to approach the command center, and the grizzled veteran did so. He clicked his heels and respectfully saluted the image on the viewscreen. “Commander Kaylena, I [68] am Centurion Tarsek of the Fourth Legion. I owe my life to the crew of the Enterprise, as does every survivor of our mission. Once I make a full report, you will see how their heroism and quick action saved us, especially the bravery of the one they call Data. It saddens me to report that not all were rescued.” He lowered his head, as if he recognized his own failure to be more careful.
Commander Kaylena’s expression softened into an irritated scowl. “Centurion, report to their transporter room. I expect you and the others to return to your posts as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Commander.” With a click of his heels, the gray-haired centurion hurried toward the turbolift, where an escort awaited him.
Once again, Captain Picard tried to muster some charm for his recalcitrant counterpart. “I feel it’s more important than ever that we meet face-to-face and share what knowledge we have. Before you disrupt our mission, you ought to know what we’re doing.”
“Very well,” answered the Romulan commander. “When you return my personnel, you may come along for a brief meeting. But our requirements haven’t changed. End transmission.”
When the viewscreen reverted to a view of the ships arrayed against them, Captain Picard let out a sigh of relief. He had bought more time, plus a face-to-face meeting, during which he hoped to buy more time yet. He wouldn’t hurry over to the Javlek—let her cool her heels waiting for him.
“Captain Picard,” said a feminine voice. He turned to see Deanna Troi seated behind him; the counselor had been so quiet since the emergency started that he had almost forgotten she was there.
“Yes, Counselor?”
“She’s afraid now. She doesn’t know what to do. And she’s hiding something.”
Picard nodded in agreement, because he could sense it, too. The veneer was about to crack.
* * *
[69] Chellac had been to some desolate, commerce-forsaken places in his long life, but he had never been anywhere more foreboding than the moon of Meldrar I. The developed side with the prison was not too lively either, but at least it had a spaceport and some shops. This bleak wilderness had nothing but gray sand, weather-beaten mountains, and a few scrubby plants growing in the thin atmosphere. A perpetual twilight hung over the place. Although the large moon had fairly normal gravity for humanoids, the Ferengi had to draw frequently on the oxygen mask hanging at his side. He was glad it was Yorka carrying the box and not him.
“Uh, where do you think you’re going?” asked their nervous shuttlecraft pilot, a young human female who traipsed after them.
“I told you before,” grumbled Yorka, “we need some solace in the wilderness. You don’t have to come. Why don’t you stay with the shuttlecraft?”
“But you’re my responsibility,” she insisted. “We’re not even supposed to be out here!”
“You didn’t have any qualms when we tipped you extra and asked if you would take us anywhere,” said Chellac, trudging through the sand, trying to keep up with the three Bajorans.
“Well, I didn’t know what you wanted to do,” said the pilot anxiously. “I thought you just wanted to see the usual spots—the usual tour. Say, wouldn’t you rather see the Xnar Treasure caves? They’re right past the dunes!”
“This is where we want to be,” answered the Ferengi, “and we don’t have much time if we intend to get back to the freighter before she leaves. So either leave us alone, or tag along and keep your mouth shut. What’s your name?”
“Cassie Jackson,” she answered.
The Ferengi smiled sincerely. “Cassie, someday when you’re a veteran pilot, you’ll realize that the occasional suspicious fare like us is the spice of life. Who knows what opportunity this might present? You’ll wish this happened more often, trust me, dear.”
[70] “I don’t think I’ll trust you,” said the young woman, “but I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
With Yorka in the lead, clutching his box, the small party trudged across the lunar landscape. The Bajoran was followed by the two acolytes, the pilot, and the Ferengi, who huffed liberally from his oxygen tank. Their shadows were obscured by the dimness of perpetual dusk as reflected off the mammoth bronze planet which hovered in the sky.
Captain Picard materialized in the
Romulan transporter room with the old centurion at his side, plus the last of the rescued Romulans. “I bid you farewell, Captain,” said Tarsek with a bow. “My gratitude to Data and your crew.”
“I’m glad we could help,” answered Picard.
“All detainees report to the medical center!” announced a voice. “All detainees report to the medical center!”
As Tarsek and his fellows marched swiftly toward the exit, Picard stepped off the transporter platform in a more leisurely fashion, looking for an official welcoming party. He spotted the commander herself, standing in the corner, half-bathed in shadows. She was taller than he expected, with a regal bearing; since Romulan officers depended upon family influence to gain their commissions, she was probably of noble birth. When she stepped toward him, he admired her healthy physique before finding himself again looking at her fierce eyes, which were darker and more intense in person.
It was difficult to guess her age, but he assumed it was close to his own. Even a Romulan with excellent family connections would need to put in a lot of years before getting command of this ship and this task force.
“Commander,” he said warmly.
“Captain Picard,” she answered with a nod. “Welcome aboard the Javlek. Would you like a beverage in our officers’ retreat?”
[71] “Thank you, yes,” he readily agreed.
Side by side, they left the transporter room and strolled down the elegant corridor, which was adorned with golden metallic trim and mosaic designs executed in jewels and tile. Passing crew members were respectful but kept their distance.
“You think we are treating you unfairly,” said Kaylena, “that our demands are unreasonable. Don’t you recall that the Federation agreed to return our technology to us when this emergency began? I can show you the correspondence and documents.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to board our ships and conduct searches,” answered Picard firmly.
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book Three Page 7
