Suddenly, understanding dawned in the younger man’s face. “Then that’s it?” he asked. “That’s the answer?”
Shumar smiled, basking in the glow of his discovery. “I’d bet my starship on it.”
In fact, that was exactly what he would be doing.
Aaron Stiles shifted in his center seat. “Anything on scanners yet?” he inquired of his navigator.
Rosten shook her head. “Nothing yet, sir.”
The captain frowned. It had been clear from the increasing integrity of the ion trail they had been following that the enemy wasn’t far off. It could be only a matter of minutes before they picked up the triangular ships and got a handle on the odds against them.
Not that it mattered to Stiles how many aliens he had to fight. This time, there was no retreat. One way or the other, he and his comrades were going to put a stop to the attacks.
“Sir?” said Rosten.
The captain glanced at her. “You have them?”
“Aye, sir,” his navigator assured him.
Stiles got up from his seat and went to stand by Rosten’s console. Studying it, he could see a series of green blips on the otherwise black screen. He counted six of them.
Good odds, he thought. Excellent odds.
He returned to his seat and tapped the communications stud on his armrest. “Stiles to Hagedorn.”
The captain of the Horatio responded a moment later. “I know,” he said over their radio link. “We just noticed them. I’ll contact the others.”
“Bull’s-eye formation?”
There was a pause on the other end. “You know me too well, Captain. Bull’s-eye it is. Hagedorn out.”
Stiles smiled grimly to himself, then turned to his weapons officer. “Power to all batteries, Mr. Weeks.”
“Power to all batteries,” Weeks confirmed.
“Maintain speed,” the captain told his helm officer.
Urbina checked her instruments. “Full impulse.”
Darigghi came over to stand by Stiles’s side. “It would appear a confrontation is imminent,” he observed.
The captain resisted the temptation to deliver a sarcastic comeback. “It would appear that way.”
“I realize I was not very helpful in our last clash with the aliens,” the Osadjani went on. “If there is something more I can do this time, please let me know.”
Stiles looked up at Darigghi. It wasn’t at all the kind of statement he had expected from his first officer.
“I’ll do that,” the captain assured him.
Darigghi nodded. “Thank you.”
Stiles leaned back in his chair. Maybe a leopard could change its spots after all.
“Navigation,” he said, “any sign that we’ve been spotted?”
“None, sir,” Rosten replied. “It’ll be—”
The captain waited a moment for his navigator to finish her sentence. When she didn’t, he turned to her—and saw that she was focused on her monitor, her brow puckered in concentration.
“Lieutenant?” he prompted.
Rosten looked up at him. “Sir,” she said, “I’ve received a message from Captain Shumar and Captain Matsura. They’re asking all of us to return to Oreias Eight.”
Stiles felt a spurt of anger. “Are they out of their minds? We’re on the brink of a battle here!”
His navigator’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, sir.”
The captain hadn’t meant to chew her out. It wasn’t her fault that Shumar and Matsura had gone insane.
“Sorry,” he told Rosten. “I should know better than to shoot the messenger.”
The woman managed a smile. “No problem, sir.”
“Why are we being recalled?” asked Darigghi.
Rosten shrugged. “They say they’ve discovered something that makes it unnecessary to confront the aliens.”
His teeth grinding angrily, the captain opened a channel to the Horatio again. “This is Stiles,” he snapped. “Did you receive a message from Shumar and Matsura?”
“I did,” Hagedorn confirmed.
“And what do you think?”
“I think we’ve worked hard to track the aliens down. I also think we’ve got an opportunity here to end their activity in this system.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
He had barely gotten the words out when another voice broke into their radio link. “This is Captain Cobaryn.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Go ahead,” he said.
“I cannot imagine that the recommendation we received sits well with you. After all, we are close to engaging the enemy.”
“Damned right,” Stiles replied.
“Nonetheless,” said the Rigelian, “I trust our colleagues’ judgment. I do not believe they would have sent such a message unless the value of their discovery was overwhelming.”
“Same here,” a fourth voice chimed in.
Stiles recognized the voice as Dane’s. It was just like the Cochrane jockey not to follow protocol and introduce himself.
“Ever heard the one about the bird in the hand?” Stiles asked. “Right now, we’ve got the aliens where we want them. We may never get another shot like this one.”
“This isn’t just Shumar talking,” Dane reminded them. “It’s Matsura too. He knows how you feel about stamping the aliens out.”
“And despite that,” said Cobaryn, “he is asking us to turn around.”
Try as he might, Stiles couldn’t ignore the truth of that. If it had just been Shumar trying to rein them in, he wouldn’t even have considered complying. But Matsura had an Earth Command officer’s mentality.
For a moment, no one responded, the only sound on their comm link that of radio buzz. Then Hagedorn spoke up.
“I hate to say this,” he said in a thoughtful, measuredvoice, “but it sounds like we don’t have much of a choice in the matter. If there’s a chance to avoid bloodshed, we’ve got to take it.”
Stiles felt his stomach muscles clench. They were on the verge of completing their mission, for crying out loud. They were this close to showing the aliens that Starfleet wasn’t an organization to be taken lightly.
But he couldn’t argue with Hagedorn’s logic. Even in war, one had to seize the bloodless option if it became available.
Stifling a curse, he said, “Agreed. Gibraltar out.”
And with a stab of his finger, he severed the link.
He was about to give Urbina instructions to come about when Darigghi saved him the trouble. As the captain looked on, doing his best to contain his bitterness, he saw the stars swing around on their viewscreen.
One thought kept going through his mind, over and over again: Shumar had damned well better know what he’s talking about.
Hiro Matsura could feel a bead of perspiration trace a stinging path down the side of his face.
“Let me get this straight,” said Stiles, who was studying the amber-colored shell fragment that Matsura had just handed him. “You dug this out of a mound of dirt and decided to call us back from an imminent confrontation with the enemy?”
He didn’t sound impressed. But then, Matsura reflected, Stiles hadn’t heard Shumar’s theory yet. Neither had Hagedorn, Dane, or Cobaryn, who looked a little befuddled themselves as they stood by a gutted mound in the blazing light of Oreias.
“It wasn’t just what we found,” Shumar responded patiently. “It’s what it all represents.”
“And what does it represent?” asked Hagedorn, who seemed inclined to exercise patience as well.
Matsura picked up another of the orange-yellow fragments that he and Shumar had laid on the ground beside the ruined hill. This piece was more rounded than some of the others, more obviously designed to fit the anatomy of a living creature.
“We asked ourselves the same question at first,” he told Hagedorn. “What was it about these shells that compelled someone to bury them? And who did the burying? Then Captain Shumar came up with an explanation.”
Shumar picked up on his cue. “The
re’s a scientific theory that alien species exhibit remarkably similar behavior, even when they’re separated by many light years.”
“I believe I’ve heard of it,” said Hagedorn. “Underwood’s Theory of Parallel Development, isn’t it?”
“Exactly right,” Shumar confirmed. “And with Underwood’s thinking in mind, I asked myself why I would have buried these shells—why I would have buried anything, for that matter.”
“To honor the dead,” Cobaryn blurted. He looked around at his fellow captains. “I am quite familar with human customs,” he explained.
“Captain Cobaryn is right,” said Shumar, smiling at his colleague’s enthusiasm. “We demonstrate our respect for our deceased friends and relatives by burying them.”
Dane looked perplexed. “But I don’t see any bodies lying here. Just a bunch of shells.”
“True,” Matsura conceded. “But maybe that’s where the resemblance to human customs ends. Maybe this species sheds its shells, like certain insects on Earth—and feels it has to bury them, because their shells were once a living part of their anatomy.”
“And if it’s true,” said Shumar, “that these shells have some spiritual value to this species, is it any wonder that it would object to offworlders intruding on its burial grounds?”
“In other words,” Cobaryn added, following his friend’s logic, “the aliens who attacked Oreias Five and Oreias Seven . . . did so because we encroached on their sacred property?”
“It looks that way,” said Shumar.
The captains exchanged glances as they mulled what Shumar and Matsura had told them. No one was outwardly incredulous.
“Makes sense, I suppose,” said Dane, speaking for everyone.
“But we’re not certain this is the answer,” Hagedorn reminded them. “We have no conclusive proof.”
“Scientists seldom do,” Shumar pointed out. “Often, they have to go with what their instincts tell them. And right now, my instincts are telling me we’ve hit the mark.”
The sun beat down on the six of them as they absorbed Shumar’s comment. Matsura, of course, had already accepted his colleague’s explanation. He was thinking about the next step.
“So,” he said, “what do we do now?”
Matsura had barely gotten the words out when his communicator started beeping. In fact, all their communicators started beeping.
He took his own device out, flipped it open, and spoke into it. “Matsura here,” he replied.
“Captain,” said Jezzelis, his voice taut with apprehension, “there is an alien armada approaching Oreias Eight.”
Matsura’s mouth went dry. “Exactly what constitutes an armada?” he asked his first officer.
“I count fourteen ships, sir. And according to our sensor readings, their weapons have already been brought to full power.”
Matsura looked at the others, all of whom seemed to have received the same kind of news. Their expressions were grim, to say the least. And it wasn’t difficult to figure out why.
With the Yellowjacket all but useless, they were out-numbered almost three to one. Not promising, Matsura thought.
Not promising at all.
Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books
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#6 • The Abode of Life • Lee Correy
#7 • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
#8 • Black Fire • Sonni Cooper
#9 • Triangle • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
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#11 • Yesterday’s Son • A.C. Crispin
#12 • Mutiny on the Enterprise • Robert E. Vardeman
#13 • The Wounded Sky • Diane Duane
#14 • The Trellisane Confrontation • David Dvorkin
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• Gene DeWeese
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#65 • Windows on a Lost World • V.E. Mitchell
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#70 • Traitor Winds • L.A. Graf
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#90 • Belle Terre • Dean Wesley Smith with Diane Carey
Star Trek: The Next Generation ®
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Vendetta • Peter David
Reunion • Michael Jan Friedman
Imzadi • Peter David
The Devil’s Heart • Carmen Carter
Dark Mirror • Diane Duane
Q-Squared • Peter David
Crossover • Michael Jan Friedman
STAR TREK®: NEW EARTH - BELLE TERRE Page 22
