Two to transport back." "Yes, sir." "We never had this conversation," insisted Shek as the tingle of the transporter beam gripped Ro's spine.
"You don't know us!" "Nevertheless," said the Bajoran, "we won't forget your help." After they were gone, the two pirate captains looked at one another and shook their heads in amazement.
"Do you think they stand a chance?" asked Shek.
"None!" scoffed the Orion. "A tiny transport against the entire Dominion? They'll have to get very lucky." "Something tells me that Captain Picard knows a thing or two about luck." Shek tugged on an oversized earlobe. "Maybe they will disrupt the Dominion long enough for us to pull offa caper or two. Let's go to the chart room and plan it." The Orion slapped his scrawny partner on the shoulder. "Now you're thinking. Lead the way!" Before the two scurvy captains could exit the holodeck, the Ferengi's comm badge chirped. With a scowl, he tapped it and answered, "This is Captain Shek. What is it?" "Captain," said a quavering voice, "that ship which just left--three men beamed over from transporter room two when the others beamed back. Desert they did, sir!" "The scoundrels!" growled the Ferengi, reaching for the handle of his whip. "Listen, hail the Bajorans and tell them they've got stowaways!" "We tried that, sir, and there's too much interference. The plasma storms are really bad out there-- they'll be lucky if they make it through. Should we go after them, sir?" "No," growled Shek, "not if the storms are bad.
Plus, we've got to meet the Plektaks here. Who did we lose?" "The three Romulans." "Good riddance," muttered Shek. "Out." Rolf chuckled. "I told you not to take them on. Now they've decided to grab their own ship and go freelance. Pretty good timing." "Captain Picard's luck just turned the other way," muttered the Ferengi, shuffling out the door.
Will Riker stood at the door of Shana Winslow's quarters, wondering how far he should go in the pursuit of special treatment for the Enterprise. Logic told him that no matter what he did, it wouldn't make any difference. Maybe in the field, under fire, Winslow would be willing to make quick and dirty repairs; but in her current post, she was determined to follow procedures. He didn't think she would make any exceptions for an amiable dinner date.
Then why was he here, paused to follow Shana into her private chambers? He had to answer that he was interested in the woman, not what she could do for him. She had lost her family and her ship, and his heart went out to her. Will knew how many people doubted his sanity over his refusal to leave the Enterprise to take command of another ship. But the Enterprise and her crew were like no other ship. They were family, and the Enterprise was home.
"A penny for your thoughts," said Winslow as her door slid open.
He smiled wistfully. "I'm afraid I was thinking about my ship and her crew. I can be awfully singleminded." "Me, too." She motioned toward her small but tastefully appointed cabin, standard issue, as if she hadn't really moved in yet. "Would you like to come in for a drink?" "Yes, I would." She led the way. "I have to warn you that even the replicators are offering reduced selections these days.
We have to ration both raw materials and power consumption." "Do you still have cold water?" "I think so," she answered with a smile, moving toward the food slot. "One cold water. Please, have a seat." "On the ship, our biggest problem is a lack of experienced personnel," said Riker, dropping into a cushy sofa. "It doesn't do any good to throw bodies at a problem unless they have the experience to deal with it." "Tell me about it." Winslow brought him a glass of water, carrying it in her natural hand. "How would you like to have to compete with ships of the line for good people? The admirals just want to throw everybody into the front, forgetting all about the support services. We've shut down two wings of the station-- nobody to do maintenance." "I noticed." Riker sipped his water and looked quizzically at her. "You're not drinking anything?" "I'm going back now. I have a hard time carrying more than one glass at a time." Riker fought the temptation to jump up and fetch her a drink. Instead he watched her laboriously get herself a cup of tea and return to the sofa. He was flattered when she sat down close beside him.
"Ah," said Winslow with a sigh. "Now, where were we?" "We were complaining about how we don't have enough good people." "These are extraordinary times," said the engineer.
"Starfleet has fought plenty of conflicts before, but we've never been stretched so thin, over such a long period of time--with no end in sight." Riker sighed. "There is an end in sight, but it's not one we want to think about." "That bad, huh?" She shook her head. "I know the shortages and pressure we're under, but I don't really get a feel for it. I wish I were out there--with you people." "We're holding our own," he lied. "Even without you." Winslow smiled sweetly at him, her dark eyes glimmering. "I suppose we have to make the most of every moment we're alive. That's something I really haven't learned to do since the Budapest went down.
Sometimes it's just so easy to get caught up in your work." "I know," said Riker, his arm curling around her shoulder. "Maybe this is a good time to start." She snuggled back into the crook of his arm and closed her eyes. "Can I just sit here for a moment?
Human contact, and all that. There's one thing you don't get much in Starfleet--a hug. They ought to have a couple of people in charge of hugs, just to dispense them randomly." Riker settled back, too, his arm around this very agreeable women, not in any rush himself. In his younger years, he would have been all over Shana, but now the simple contact felt good. He hadn't had much time for hugs either.
When she finally opened her eyes, they sparkled like two black opals, faraway and dreamy. Her face had beauty, ruggedness, and character--the face of a woman who worked too hard for too little in return.
Looking surprised, she touched his other arm, as if trying to make sure he was real. That was when he knew he had to kiss her.
Riker bent low, and she angled her chin upward, closing her eyes again. As his mouth was about to taste her honey and tea-scented lips and her hand gripped his bicep, an urgent beep sounded on a nearby comm panel.
"I'm sorry, Will," said Winslow apologetically as she rose to her feet. "I told them not to call me unless it's an emergency." "I understand," said Riker.
She tapped the panel and said, "Winslow here." "This is Lieutenant Harflon, work detail three on the Seleya," came a crisp voice. "The energy fluctuations in the IPS are still affecting the grid. Lorimar said you had an undocumented fix for this, and the work orders say to call you." "Yes, yes," she answered. "Is the test flight still scheduled for oh-eight-hundred?" "Yes, Commander." "I'll be right there. Out." Winslow winced at Riker as she headed toward the door. "Sorry, Will. But you know, this might not take long. You're welcome to make yourself at home... relax." "How come the Seleya is getting special treatment?" asked Riker, following her out into the corridor. "Because it's the admiral's ship?" "Could be, except that it's been in my shop for a week already, and the admiral is like you-- impatient." She headed determinedly toward the turbolift.
"Well, then... what about enjoying life?" Winslow waved as she entered the turbolift. "In case you hadn't heard, there's a war on! Dinner tomorrow, same time?" "Sure." The turbolift door shut, leaving Riker to shake his head in amazement. He turned and headed back the other way, curious to see if any of his crew were still at the Bolian Bistro.
On a large moon where the atmosphere was so thin that day looked like night, Data sat in the powdery dust, watching his portable instruments. They were attached by wires to a small sensor array which he had mounted on the roof of his shuttlecraft. Doing so had helped him target the Badlands.
In his short stay on the nameless moon, Data had monitored considerable traffic in Dominion ships moving to and from the front. He kept diligent notes on the enemy ship movement, thinking that someday the information might be important. But he hadn't found the Orb of Peace, nor had he detected the return of the Enterprise. Even concentrating long-range sensors on the Badlands, he had yet to locate any ship that could possibly be the Bajoran transport or its emergency beacon.
As far as he could tell with the shifti
ng borders, this moon was located well into Cardassian space, and he dared not go any deeper. Going farther would only endanger his mission without substantially increasing his odds of success, which were not good to begin with. Data calculated that the odds of the Enterprise or another Starfleet vessel finding him were less than one in four. He preferred not to calculate the odds of recovering Picard, Geordi, Ro, and the Orb of Peace.
In this instance, the android couldn't be sure that patience would have the desired effect, but he counseled himself to be patient anyway. Nevertheless, Data had recurring thoughts about Japanese soldiers in World War II stranded at their jungle posts years after their war was over. He thought about not ever seeing his friends again, and he academically considered the grief and worry he would be experiencing if his emotion chip were turned on.
No, Data decided, war required a level head, good judgment, and that ethereal commodity known as good fortune. Unfortunately, it appeared as if he would have to wait for the good fortune part.
Chapter Eleven
THE EYE OF TALEK LOOMED before them like a hole punctured in the fabric of space, notable for an absence of stars and a golden halo of gas and dust streaming into it. The black hole was the size of a saucer section on a big starship, but almost brilliantly black, like the sun as seen in a photographic negative.
Sam turned away from the viewscreen and looked at Grof, who was beaming with pleasure. "Isn't it magnificent?" asked the Trill with a grand sweep of his arms.
"'Scary' is the word I would use," replied Sam. "I thought you said this was a small black hole." "It is. If it were a large one, we couldn't have come this close." "What's on the other side?" asked Jozarnay Woil, the Antosian material handler.
Grof laughed. "There is no other side--it's a celestial body with gravity so strong that not even light particles can escape. An old professor of mine used to call this singularity a 'gravity graveyard.' The smaller the black hole, the older it is. Over time, some material will escape through natural quantum stepping, so in ten billion years, maybe this black hole will shrink to nothing. For now, it's the only place where Corzanium can be found." "However," said Taurik, seated at the corm, "the main reason our task is so difficult is that gravity warps space. At a distance directly proportional to the mass of the collapsed object, an event horizon occurs.
In essence, the material making up the black hole exists in a different space-time continuum, which is why the gas and debris seem to disappear when they enter. This is also why we must quantum-step the Corzanium out, particle by particle." "Have you and Horik made the adjustments to the tractor beam?" asked Grof.
The Vulcan nodded. "The metaphasic shield enhancer is on-line and has been integrated with tractorbeam operations." "Excellent!'~ Sam's mind wandered while Grof and Taurik engaged in a rapid-fire discussion of various scientific aspects of their mission. He was more concerned about the Jem'Hadar attack ship that had trailed them halfway across Cardassian space, just to make sure they attended to business and didn't try to escape. Sam was determined to disappoint them and escape anyway.
Since they didn't have any weapons and couldn't run fast enough from the small warship, the only plausible plan was to escape in the attack craft itself.
Either that, or they had to use their transporters to damage the Jem'Hadar shiprain effect, tossing a monkey wrench into their engine.
While Grof, Taurik, and Woil continued their discussion, Sam used the ops console to locate the Jem'Hadar ship. The small but deadly craft had assumed an outer orbit around the Eye of Talek at a distance that was a hundred kilometers beyond their transporter range. The trick would be to lure it closer with some kind of catastrophe or emergency. But what?
The Jem'Hadar were undoubtedly prepared for an escape attempt, and they were certainly under orders to make sure the prisoners perished rather than escaped. As prisoners and crew, they were expendable, but their cargo was not. The tanker would soon be very important to the Dominion and the war.
That meant they would have to extract a large amount of the exotic ore before they could make their move--probably by making the tanker appear to be threatened. If they weren't careful, they could all die in an accident before they had a chance to make a break for it. Reluctantly, Sam tuned back in to ongoing conversation, figuring he had better concentrate on their mission for the time being.
Jozarnay Woil still looked confused as he scratched the bun of tight black hair atop his head. "Professor, can you go through the high points one more time?
Listening to you and Taurik is over my head." Grof thrust his finger into the air. "To begin with, the Corzanium is extremely volatile until we quantum-step it beyond the event horizon and recombine it in the chamber. The sequence goes like this: Using the tractor beam, we lower the mining probe into the black hole just above the event horizon. Then we bombard the hole with tachyons, which changes the terms of probability and quantum-steps the particles, expelling them in the process. You might compare this to drilling in a typical mining operation.
Now we have escaping matter which we can guide into the probe with the tractor beam. Then we beam the probe on board and put it in stasis.
"After that, Mr. Woil, you work your magic and transfer the ore from the stasis field into the recom chamber. Then it's just like any other metal, except that it has a unique resistance to gravity." The Antosian shook his head. "No wonder it's so rare." "We wouldn't be here if it weren't," muttered the Trill.
"Remember, we only have three probes," said Sam, trying to sound interested. "We can't afford to lose any." "That will be plenty," countered Grof.
"When do we start?" asked Woil.
"There's no time like the present!" The Trill clapped his hands together.
"I would take issue with that," replied Taurik.
"While some of us have been sleeping, others like myself have been on duty for twenty-five hours straight. Although you make the extraction process sound relatively simple, it is anything but. A mistake by any one of us could destroy this ship and all aboard." "But we could get a start," countered Grof. "Take some readings, prepare the equipment." "A mistake in any of those tasks would be equally disastrous," answered Taurik.
"He's right," said Sam, putting a friendly hand on Grof's beefy shoulder. "Let's get some rest. Do you think our shadow would mind?" "Forget them," said Grof irritably. "They're merely an escort--/am in charge of this mission." "But they have the weapons," Sam reminded him.
"Oh-six-hundred hours," grumbled the Trill, checking his chronometer. "No later than that." "Okay, no later," Sam assured him. "Woil, can you tell the others?" "Sure, Captain." The Antosian climbed down the ladder, and the last thing to disappear was the bun of black hair atop his head.
"I want this to go smoothly," warned Grof, "And if it doesn't," said Sam, "you can harangue me about it in the next life." The Trill shot him a look of disgust. "Remember, I'm an unjoined Trill--I only get one life." Then his glower changed into a tepid smile before he clomped down the ladder, pulling the hatch lid shut behind him.
"Is he mellowing, or is he crazy?" asked Sam rhetorically.
"I think a bit of both," answered Woil. "The question is, what are we?" "We're hiding our time," said Sam, biting off the wrapper of a rations bar.
"All instruments and systems back on-line," said the young man at the ops panel with obvious relief.
On the viewscreen of the Orb of Peace, the murky but alluring dust cloud called the Badlands faded from view. The rectangular transport finally escaped into open star-studded space.
Ro Laren looked up from her conn and turned to see a dozen young pseudo-Bajorans gathered on the cramped bridge, beaming at her. The final leg through the Badlands had been extremely tense, with plasma storms rippling all around them, and most of the crew had peeked into the bridge to offer support or look for camaraderie.
Ro gave them a smile and said, "Well done." "Well done to you," declared Captain Picard, who then leaned back in his seat at the tactical station and took a deep b
reath. "There aren't many people who could have made it through there." "Nobody else was foolish enough to try," answered Ro. She stood and stretched, thinking that she was more stiff now than she had been when she was tied to a chair on the pirates' ship.
"Captain Ro, I think you deserve some relief, and some rest." Picard motioned to one of the young bystanders to take her place at the conn, and Ro didn't resist. She stepped aside and let the blond woman have her seat.
"Our course is laid in," Ro told her. "Just take her to maximum warp, when ready." "Yes, sir." The Bajoran turned to Picard and asked, "Any sign of enemy ships?" "There are a few possible ships on long-range scans, but none of them are headed to intercept us. I think we're finally clear of the border patrol." Ro let out a sharp breath. At last, they were behind enemy lines.
Picard squinted at his board and reported, "I'm picking up something that might be the artificial wormhole. It's where our friends said it was." "Can you put it on screen?" "Yes, but it won't be very clear. These aren't the most accurate scanners and screens." A large, gleaming cylinder appeared on the viewscreen, floating in the blackness of space. It might have been mistaken for some kind of space probe or satellite, except for the bright blips that surrounded it like fireflies swarming around a log in the woods. Ro knew these insignificant blips were in reality mighty warships, tankers, and troop transports.
Star Trek - TNG - Dominion War 1 - Behind Enemy Lines Page 16
