Tuvok himself was currently under guard in the mess hall. The Liberator didn’t have a brig—prisoners weren’t often a consideration in their line of work—so Hudson stuck him there while he went over the data and sent Mastroeni to check out his story.
The door chime rang. “Come on in,” he said. The door opened to the short, compact form of his second-in-command. “What do you have for me, Darleen?”
As the door closed behind her, Mastroeni let out another of her snarls. “I hate to say it, but everything checks out. Eddington went over the records on DS9, and Tuvok was recently assigned to the Hood and the Hood has been patrolling the Cardassian border lately. His family is listed as having lived on Amniphon at the time of the rockslides.”
“What about his requests for leave?”
She shook her head. “DS9 doesn’t have records that complete about officers not actually assigned to the station, and he couldn’t really dig that deep without arousing suspicion. However, I got Quiring to hack into the Vulcan central net.”
Hudson’s eyes widened and he rose from his chair. “What!? Are you out of your mind? Darleen, you don’t hack the Vulcan net!”
Mastroeni almost smiled. “Quiring did. At least a little. He got out before anyone caught on to him, but he was in long enough to verify that T’Pel and all the little Tuvok-lets moved to Amniphon three years ago. What about the stuff he gave us?”
Sitting back down, Hudson glanced at the small viewscreen on his desk. “Well, the codes he gave us aren’t anything we haven’t gotten from Eddington, but Tuvok wouldn’t know that. If nothing else, it worked as a good-faith gesture. And this artifact thing he found could be damn useful.”
“You’re not sure?”
Tilting his head, Hudson said, “It depends. It’s one of two possible artifacts left over from a ninety-thousand-year-old empire.”
A snort escaped from Mastroeni’s lips. “And it’s still supposed to work?”
“Two others have been dug up, and they both worked just fine.”Too fine, he thought with a shiver, having just read the reports of the epidemic on Proxima a hundred years ago, and the near-destruction of one of Bajor’s moons only a few months ago. “One possibility is that it can manipulate weather patterns.”
Mastroeni’s eyes widened. “That has all kinds of entertaining possibilities.”
“I agree.” Hudson leaned back in his chair and fixed Mastroeni with a serious look. “The problem is, the other possibility is that it’s a telepathic weapon that enables the user to control other people’s minds.”
It woud be inaccurate to say that Mastroeni’s face darkened, given her near-permanent scowl, but that scowl did appear to deepen. “If it’s a telepathic weapon, I don’t want a damn thing to do with it.”
“Neither do I. But—”
Slamming a hand on the wall, Mastroeni said, “I mean it, Cal. I won’t have us going that way! I’ll destroy the thing!”
“Good luck.” Hudson chuckled. “Those things are apparently indestructible. That’s why they’re still intact and working after ninety millennia. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter—point is, we need to track this thing down, and Tuvok’s given us the energy signature. I think we ought to follow it. And I think we need to keep Tuvok alive. He’s earned at least that much.”
With obvious reluctance, Mastroeni said, “I agree—but only that much. So far, he’s done everything right, but he’s also done everything I’d expect a Starfleet infiltrator to do. I want a phaser pointed at his head every minute of every day.”
Hudson sighed, knowing that she was serious, regardless of the impracticalities of such a plan. Still, he figured it would probably be wise to assign McAdams to Tuvok, at least for the time being. Unlike Mastroeni, she would keep a clear head, and was much less likely to fire without provocation or orders.
He got up and proceeded to the mess hall, Mastroeni right behind him. McAdams and Schmidt were on opposite sides of the room—McAdams’s lithe form leaning against the wall near the door, Schmidt’s massive body crammed into one of the mess-hall chairs across the hall, both of them with phaser rifles conspicuous. Tuvok sat placidly in the middle of the room, his elbows resting on one of the tables, his fingers steepled together near his forehead. Probably something vaguely meditative, Hudson thought.
At the new arrivals’ entrance, McAdams straightened up. “He’s just been sitting there, Skip. I don’t think he’s even blinked since he sat down.” She grinned. “Better check, make sure his eyes haven’t gone all crusty.”
Hudson smiled and approached the prisoner.
Tuvok looked up. “My suspicions were correct, I see.”
Frowning, Hudson said, “What suspicions, Mr. Tuvok?”
“Your voice over the comlink sounded sufficiently similar to the voice on record as belonging to a former lieutenant commander in Starfleet named Calvin Hudson. Your face matches that record as well. It is therefore reasonable to deduce that you are he.”
McAdams grinned. “Well, if he does wind up joining, he can fill Sakona’s old role of class pedantic.”
Mastroeni shot the other woman a venomous look, no doubt angry that McAdams used the name of one of their fellow Maquis, but Tuvok said, “If you are referring to the woman who was captured on Deep Space 9 last year, it is my hope to prove more useful to you than she was.” He turned his impassive gaze on Hudson. “You have investigated the data?”
“We have.” Hudson rubbed his chin. “So far, it looks promising—but I don’t see any good reason to trust you. On the other hand, I have half a dozen reasons to shoot you on sight.”
“I will assume, since you have not shot me on sight, that you’re willing to give me the benefit of the doubt for the nonce.”
“For the nonce,” Hudson said with a nod. “We’ll enter these energy readings into the computer, see if we can track it down.”
“I will join you on your bridge,” Tuvok said, standing up.
Hudson smiled. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Tuvok. Our bridge doesn’t have much walking-around room. We’ll keep an open channel down here.” He pointed to the viewscreen on the side wall. “I’ll tie that in to the main viewer so you can see what we see. Let us know if we do anything wrong.”
Dryly, Tuvok said, “I will assume that request is limited to anything you might do in relation to the Malkus Artifacts.”
Mastroeni raised her phaser. “Good assumption, Vulcan. You’ve been living on borrowed time since you first entered the DMZ, and it’s only a matter of time before someone burns your head open with a phaser.”
Tuvok seemed unmoved by the threat. “All mortals live on ‘borrowed time,’ madam. Concerning oneself over-much about the nature of how one gives that time back, so to speak, would be an illogical waste of resources.”
“Darleen!” Hudson barked just as Mastroeni raised her weapon.
After a moment, Mastroeni calmed down and lowered her weapon. “Don’t push me, Vulcan.”
Tuvok continued to look unimpressed.
Hudson grabbed Mastroeni by the arm and led her out, giving both McAdams and Schmidt nods as he left, indicating that they were to remain on guard. As soon as the door closed behind them, he spoke. “Will you stop that, please? I know you don’t trust him, but we’re not killing him if we don’t have to, and if he is legit, I don’t want him expecting a phaser in the back from you.” As they approached the door to the bridge, which was on the same deck, he added, “Unless, of course, you’re just trying to intimidate him, in which case you’re wasting your time. He’s obviously one of the more imperturbable types.”
Mastroeni snarled again. “I just don’t like him.” With that, she opened the door to the bridge.
Hudson sighed and followed, settling into his chair. He entered Tuvok’s chip into one of the slots in the console in front of him, then called up the energy signature. Not for the first time wishing like hell they had a ship with a working voice interface, he manually fed the signature into the ship’s sensors and then
did a long-range scan.
“I think this is a waste of time,” Mastroeni said. “We’re not going to find anything. We should just shoot him and then get as far away from—”
The sensor alarm beeped. “We’ve got something,” Hudson said with a certain amount of satisfaction. Mastroeni’s caution was understandable, of course, but there was enough of the Starfleet officer left in Cal Hudson that he didn’t feel comfortable with a first mate who insisted on shooting a person down in cold blood.
“That’s in Cardassian space,” Mastroeni said, peering at the sensor display in front of Hudson. “Right over the border.”
“Nearest planet is Nramia.” Hudson pursed his lips. “That’s on the list.”
Mastroeni shot Hudson a look. He didn’t need to explain any further. The Maquis had a list of planets that were viable targets. Hudson knew that one of the other cells—though he did not know which, nor would he know—had targeted Nramia, a colony that had a military outpost.
Hudson hesitated at first. He didn’t want to barge in on someone else’s operation—but if one of the Malkus Artifacts was on Nramia, he had to find it sooner rather than later. They certainly couldn’t risk the Cardassians getting their hands on it.
Besides, there was no timetable for the attack on Nramia that Hudson was aware of. So for all he knew, whoever was attacking wouldn’t be doing so for weeks yet.
“Set a course for Nramia, Darleen. Warp six.”
They made their way toward the Cardassian border in silence. Hudson took advantage of the time to finish reading the report from Eddington that he’d started. What got his attention in particular was the Defiant. Hudson remembered Ben Sisko talking about the ship—a warship originally designed for use against the Borg—when the latter was assigned to Utopia Planitia. The ship had been outfitted with a cloaking device, on loan from the Romulan Star Empire with the proviso that it be used only in the Gamma Quadrant.
I wonder if there’s any way we can get our hands on that….
“Cal, we’ve got a problem. Actually, two.”
Hudson looked up. “What?”
“I’m not reading the energy signature anywhere near Nramia anymore. However, I am picking up five ships bearing down on the planet, and they’re all Galor-class.”
Hudson immediately called up a long-range scan of Nramia itself. Something didn’t look right.
Tuvok’s voice sounded suddenly over the intercom. “Those readings should not be accurate. Nramia’s northern continent is mostly desert and should not experience such extremes of precipitation as are being shown in that scan. In addition, the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, one that would, in the normal course of time, take decades. The logical deduction is that the Malkus Artifact in question is the weather controller, and it has already been used.”
“Gee, all that from a long-range scan,” Mastroeni said, rolling her eyes.
“I would also surmise—”
“This ought to be good,” Mastroeni muttered.
Tuvok continued as if Mastroeni hadn’t spoken. “—that the artifact is already in the hands of fellow Maquis.”
Hudson smiled. Nice touch, he thought, referring to them as “fellow.”“It’s possible the Cardassians have it.”
“Unlikely. If that were the case, we would still be reading the artifact’s emissions. I recommend that we abandon our course to Nramia and attempt to relocate the emission.”
“Much as I hate to agree with our—guest, he’s right,” Mastroeni said.
Hudson nodded. “I agree, too. Those Cardassians’ll have itchy trigger fingers, and they’ll probably blame the Maquis whether or not we’re actually responsible. Change course back into the DMZ. I’ll try to reacquire the emission.”
“Changing course 284 mark 9.” Mastroeni then frowned. “We’re picking up a weak distress signal at 173 mark 6.” She looked up. “It’s a Maquis call sign—a current one this time.”
“Go,” Hudson said, then looked down at his readout as the sensor display beeped. “I’ve got the artifact emission.”
“Good. We can pick it up after we check out the distress call,” Mastroeni said.
Hudson grimaced. “It’ll be sooner than that. The emission’s at 173 mark 6.”
Mastroeni looked up sharply.
“Warp eight, Darleen. I’ve got a nasty idea about what’s happening.”
To her credit, Mastroeni didn’t hesitate, even though the maximum safe cruising speed for the Liberator was warp seven-point-three.
Then Hudson tried to boost the gain on the distress signal. “—otay of the Geroni —mayday, we need imme—ance. Repeat, this is Chakotay of— nimo, we need immediate assista—”
That was followed by the sound of wrenching metal.
A shiver went down Hudson’s spine and he froze in his chair. Anyone who had ever lived on a starship, as Hudson had most of his adult life, learned to fear that sound, because it meant that the hull—your lifeline, the only thing separating you from the unforgiving vacuum of space—might well be buckling.
“I lost the signal,” Mastroeni said.
“Warp nine.”
Mastroeni didn’t even look up, trying as she was to regain the distress call. “That’s crazy, Cal, we can’t—”
“I said warp nine!”
This time she did look up. Cal Hudson rarely raised his voice—but he wasn’t in the mood for an argument, and he wasn’t about to let Chakotay and his people suffer any more than they had to. He didn’t know Chakotay well, only that he too was ex-Starfleet, that he was from Trebus, and that he had already carved out a good reputation among the Maquis for both efficiency and fairness. But even if he were a total stranger, he would not allow him to suffer the agonies that awaited him if the Geronimo’ s hull ruptured.
“Fine, warp nine,” she said. “I just hope our hull doesn’t go the way of theirs.”
Chapter Five
ROBERT DESOTO WAS NOT LOOKING forward to this impending conversation.
About two hours after Tuvok left, he had put in a formal request to Starfleet Command to enter the Demilitarized Zone. He then awaited the call back from Admiral Nechayev denying the request. All according to plan. If Tuvok was able to find the artifact, or if the artifact made its presence known in some more overt manner, the plan might change, but for now Tuvok needed a clear path to get on the Maquis’s good side.
Instead, Nechayev’s small face with its even smaller features appeared on the screen on the desk of his ready room and informed him that she needed to get back to him, and she would contact him again in one hour on a secure channel, along with Gul Evek.
Voyskunsky had been in the ready room with him when Nechayev’s call came in. She frowned. “That wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”
DeSoto shook his head. “What’s the old saying? The plan of action is usually abandoned three minutes into the mission?”
“Something like that, though my experience says that estimate is often generous.”
Smiling, DeSoto said, “Obviously the board has changed shape somewhat.”
The captain decided to take the second call alone in the observation lounge. A secure channel from Alynna Nechayev meant captain’s eyes only—he’d judge afterward how much Voyskunsky needed to know, though his instinct would be all of it. It was never a good idea for a captain to have to keep things from his first officer.
The more spacious observation lounge, with its viewscreen on one of the walls, gave DeSoto more room to walk around, which he had a feeling he was going to need. Since this promised to be a long talk—Evek and Nechayev both were overly fond of the sounds of their respective voices—he wanted room to move to disguise the fidgeting.
One hour and twenty-five minutes after Nechayev said she’d get back in touch in an hour, Dayrit said, “Incoming transmission from the U.S.S. Nimitz. It’s Admiral Nechayev—priority alpha.”
Voyskunsky grinned toothily. “Nice to know that the admiralty’s reputation for promptness remains none
xistent.”
Merely rolling his eyes in reply, DeSoto got up from the command chair. “Pipe it through to the observation lounge, Manolet, and make sure it’s secure on our end, too. You have the bridge, Dina.”
Still grinning, Voyskunsky said, “All our hopes and dreams go with you, sir.”
DeSoto snorted. “That makes it all worthwhile.”
As soon as he arrived in the observation lounge, DeSoto activated the viewscreen. It revealed a split screen, with Admiral Nechayev’s pinched features on the left and the rectangular head of Gul Evek on the right.
“Thank you for waiting, Captain,” Nechayev said.
DeSoto came within a hair of saying something offhand about needing the nap, but with Evek on the line, he needed to present the front of the outraged ship captain who’d lost an officer to the Maquis. “I didn’t have much choice, Admiral.”
“I understand. But I hope you understand that this is a delicate matter—even more delicate than you might realize. Captain Robert DeSoto, may I present Gul Evek of the Sixth Order.”
“From what Admiral Nechayev tells me, Captain,” Evek said without any kind of preamble, “the catastrophe on Nramia relates to this artifact of yours.”
DeSoto’s head swam. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to know anything about an artifact, since Tuvok’s cover story had the information wiped from the Hood’ s sensor logs. Conveniently, he also had no idea what Nramia was or what manner of catastrophe was involved. So his confusion was genuine when he said, “Excuse me?”
“My apologies,” Evek said, sounding completely unapologetic. “I had assumed the admiral briefed you.”
“That was the purpose of this call,” Nechayev said primly. “Captain, it seems that another one of the Malkus Artifacts has surfaced. You’re familiar with them, of course.”
“Of course,” DeSoto said.
“Apparently, the Maquis have discovered a third artifact. And it’s capable—”
Evek shifted in his seat. “It’s capable of destroying a planet, Captain. Right now, my entire fleet is engaged in rescue operations to evacuate Nramia because your terrorist friends warped the weather patterns sufficiently to make it uninhabitable. I can assure you, our response will be appropriate.”
The Brave and the Bold Book Two Page 6
