Star Trek - TNG - Dominion War 1 - Behind Enemy Lines

by Behind Enemy Lines (lit)

  Winslow stepped away from him and pushed a few strands of hair back into place. "I should think twice about public displays of affection, or the other captains will think you have the inside track." "Well, don't I?" asked Riker with a grin.

  "I mean, for getting your ship serviced faster." "Ah." His hands encircled her waist. "That's not on my mind anymore." Winslow gently pushed him away. "We need to be more discreet. Shall we return to my quarters?" "It's your call," said Will, giving her a graceful way to escape his clutches. Under the best of circumstances, he knew he could be something of a wolf, and these weren't the best of times. He only knew that Shana Winslow filled some empty spot within him, and he hoped he did the same for her. These weren't good times to be alone.

  "I'm inviting you," she answered, taking his hand and squeezing it. "But, Will, I want you to know that I... my body is--" "You're an oasis of beauty," insisted Riker. "I've got a few scars, too--we can compare them. The Klingons gave me a dandy one when I served aboard the Pagh, and it's in a place few people get to see.

  Then this Borg scratched me across the back with a drill bit--" Winslow snuggled into the crook of his arm. "I look forward to exploring all of them." They walked slowly through the suddenly quiet aquarium, and Riker asked, "Are you going to get any emergency calls?" "Not tonight. The admiral's ship is gone." She gave him a worried smile and gripped his forearm tighter.

  "Unless all hell breaks loose--" "It won't tonight," Riker assured her. "Maybe tomorrow, but tonight the galaxy is going to stand still for us." After several shifts and a dozen loads of Corzanium, a professional level of confidence was creeping into the work of the tanker crew. No longer was every extraction from the black hole into the recom chambers a white-knuckled dance with death. More and more, the process was like a slow-motion relay race, where the baton kept getting handed off until it crossed the finish line. The flaky Cardassian equipment began to seem stable, even adequate.

  They began to think of the Eye of Talek as a deep mining shaft instead of a black hole, and they called it simply "the Hole." It was still dangerous, to be sure, but the Hole was no longer the ominous mystery it had been when they had first seen it. For good or evil, they began to see the black hole as a resource to be plundered.

  Grof was still bossy, but he was in a fairly good mood over their progress. The best result of their latest fight was that Grof was now keeping away from the bridge entirely, which suited Sam just fine. Most of the others were good company on the bridge, whenever they filled in at relief or simply stopped by to hang out. But even his best friend, Taurik, wasn't around very much. In the pecking order, it was beginning to seem as if the real action was belowdecks in the cargo hold, and Sam was just an afterthought, like the shuttlecraft pilot on the company picnic.

  Nobody thought much about the Jem'Hadar ship off starboard, except for Sam. He watched it every spare moment and thought about it constantly. After all this time, he still didn't have a plan to capture the attack craft or disable it. He didn't know whether the Jem'Hadar were getting cocky and overconfident at all, but they deserved to be. So far, everything had gone their way. Patience, Sam told himself, a good idea will come. An opportunity will present itself--be ready to act.

  Perhaps his troubled thoughts were distracting him that first shift of the day, when he should have been at his most alert. But why was Enrique so unobservant at the tactical station? Why was nobody even at the ops station? Were the Jem'Hadar groggy from their white stuff?. It probably wouldn't have made any difference, but somebody should have seen that meteoroid come streaking out of nowhere, headed straight toward the Eye of Talek.

  The meteoroid caught them at the most critical juncture of the extraction, when they had just extended the tractor beam into the black hole to attract the escaping Corzanium. The probe hung on the edge of the event horizon, centimeters from plunging into another realm of space and time. It couldn't have appeared at a worse time.

  "Oh, my God!" muttered Enrique when he saw the thing on his readouts.

  Both he and Sam stared up at the viewscreen in time to see a monstrous rock as big as a house come hurtling past them. As if that near miss wasn't bad enough, the meteoroid crossed the tractor beam, breaking the seal with the probe. The delicate piece of machinery, which they had babied since dropping the first one, was sucked into the blackness in a microsecond. It disappeared from Sam's readouts like a phantom blip.

  "What's going on?" demanded Grof over the ship's comm.

  There was no time for Sam to reply, because the meteoroid's path was altered by the tractor beam. It passed through the beam again, caught hold, and jolted the ship. Having much greater mass than the probe, the meteoroid abruptly dragged the tanker toward the Eye of Talek.

  "Cut the tractor beam," ordered Sam, but it was too late. Angry footsteps sounded on the ladder behind him.

  "We're falling into the hole!" yelled Enrique.

  Sam threw every forward thruster into full reverse, and they were tossed out of their seats by the opposing forces. He heard Grof roar with rage as he was dumped off the ladder, but Sam was totally preoccupied with his job now. With every reflex, instinct, and sliver of experience he had, Sam worked the controls in a desperate attempt to save the Tag Garwal and themselves.

  But the response was sluggish--it was as if the ship were under water, a submarine. Sam realized it was the gravity from the Eye of Talek and possibly some unknown effect of the event horizon. They were too low--on a reentry course with something they couldn't possibly reenter.

  Finally Grof stomped up the ladder and stormed out of the hatch, his face purple with rage. "What are you doing, you idiot? You're wrecking my ship!" "Shut up," growled Enrique. "He's trying to save it.

  Look at the viewscreenmit's a huge meteoroid!" Sam heard gasps as the giant rock disappeared into the hole, which had come close enou~ to fill the entire viewscreen with blackness. M1 of this was on the periphery of Sam's senses, as he strug~ed with the helm. Perhaps a first-class shuttlecraft with a slew of thrusters would have survived this descent, but not the awkward antimatter tanker, which was not a terrestrial craft. It didn't have enough power to fill this kind of cavity.

  "Pull out!" bellowed Grof. "Before we hit the event horizon." "I'm going into wa~ drive," declared Sam.

  "No!" said Grof. "They... they'll kill us." "Not if we're already dead." He was about to apply an emergency procedure that would probably tear them apart, when something else jolted the Tag Garwal. Sam looked at his controls and was amazed to see that their plunge into the hole had been slowed by eighty percent.

  "The Jem'Hadar ship," said Enrique. "They've got us in their tractor beam." Sam changed the viewscreen immediately, putting up the pulsing blue vessel, which was closer than it had ever been before. It was even in transporter range! although they had just saved his life, his first instinct was to disable them. But he wasn't prepared--it was too sudden.

  He again jammed on the jets and finally began to pull away from the gaping singularity, which had swallowed a gigantic meteoroid and a probe without so much as a burp. The Jem'Hadar ship backed away quickly, but Sam was already counting in his head how many seconds they had stayed within his transporter range. They didn't release his ship and return to their former position until the tanker was well out of danger. For almost a minute, they had been vulnerable.

  Sam didn't relax until the Tag Garwal was safely parked in her former orbit. He felt an odd mixture of anger, fear, and elation. They had almost gotten killed, but they had learned a valuable lesson: the Jem'Hadar were willing to risk their ship and their lives to save the tanker from disaster.

  He flicked on the comm. "Captain here. We're okay now, but we lost that probe. Start looking for damage." He tapped it off.

  Grof breathed a raspy sigh of reliefi "You see, Sam.

  Now what do you think about the Jem'Hadar?" "I think the damned idiots should have shot down that meteoroid before it got to us!" ~owled Sam.

  "Enrique, open a channel to them." "Belay
that order," said the Trill. "Sam, I beg you, don't do an~hing foolish." "I'm the captain of this star-crossed ship," muttered Sam. "Enrique, do it." After a brief pause, the dark-haired human punched his panel. "Opening hailing frequencies.

  Audio and visual." Sam stud up and whispered to Grofi "Have some faith in me, will you." "You're on," said Enrique.

  Sam straightened his jumpsuit and stared resolutely at the viewscreen. "I wish to thank our escort for their quick action in saving the Tag Ga~al. Our entire crew is in your debt, because we would have been lost, along with our valuable cargo.

  "However, that meteoroid should not have been allowed to get so close to us. I know you consider that your primary mission is to watch us, but you've also got to watch the sky. That meteoroid must have had a trajectory that could be tracked. You have to be our shield and look out for us. If you do that, it will make our job easier." Sam put his hands on his hips and waited.

  "They're responding!" said Enrique nervously.

  "On screen." A spiny, cracked, gray face appeared on the screen.

  The Jem'Hadar lowered his heavy lids and nodded.

  "Message acknowledged. We will add the service you requested to our duties." "Thank you." Sam allowed them a polite smile, although he didn't get one in return.

  "Out," said the Jem'Hadar before the screen went blank.

  Sam turned to look at Grof, who appeared relieved, terrified, and amazed at the same time. "You got them to change their mission." "To help us stay alive," Sam added. "I guess they think that's a good idea. Don't you?" "Yes, yes," answered Grof. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Sam. I didn't know what had happened." "Yeah, but you're awfully quick to blame your coworkers for everything that goes wrong, when sometimes it's just a matter of Murphy's Law." "Murphy's Law?" asked Grof. "I'm unfamiliar with that concept." "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Grof nodded sagely. "Yes, I can see the wisdom in thinking along those lines. And I must take responsibility for only bringing three probes, which I thought would be sufficient." "Let's take a look at the one we dropped," Sam suggested. "Maybe there are some parts we can replicate." They heard footsteps on the ladder, and Taurik emerged from the hatch. "We have secured the cargo and the equipment, but we did suffer minor damage. I suggest we suspend operations for the rest of this shift to make repairs and review our procedures." "Absolutely," said Grof. "We can't be too careful.

  From now on, we follow the maxim called Murphy's Law. We learned a valuable lesson today." "Yes, we did," agreed Sam, although he wasn't talking about the same lesson. He had learned the chink in the Jem'Hadar's armor, but it would require a great deal of courage to exploit it.

  There was really only one person he would need to take into his confidencemLeni Shonsui, the transporter operator. For the time being, the fewer people who knew, the better; plus Shonsui disliked Grof and wouldn't be inclined to talk to him. The Trill had to be kept in the dark and neutralized, when the time came.

  He looked up to see the professor giving him a warm smile, which he found rather unsettling while he was scheming to murder the man. "You did a superb job during the crisis, Sam, and I was wrong-- it was a good idea to contact our escort. From now on, I'm going to temper my criticism." "Good idea, Grof." Sam patted the Trill on the back and steered him toward the ladder. "We might as well get along, because we're all going to hang together."

  Chapter Fourteen

  SAM COLLAPSED INTO HIS BUNK in the alcove off the bridge of the Tag Garwal. He was vaguely aware of the lowered voices of Taurik and Woil as they held down the bridge and monitored shipwide systems. It was downtime on the tanker while they licked their wounds after the near-fatal accident. Apart from the shaken nerves, the major effect was obvious: they were down to one probe with only about a fourth of their projected cargo in the hold.

  Unfortunately, this meant that Sam would have to put his plans into effect before they accidentally destroyed the third and last probe. He had no doubt that they would head back to base with half a load rather than none, and he knew he might never get another opportunity to escape like this one, with a ship.

  Sam struggled to push all these conflicting concerns and details out of his mind. He had always been a worrier, even when he was a little kid. In the last couple of years, he had learned not to let it show so much, but it hadn't gone away entirely. Since developing more faith in himself, Sam now made quicker decisions and backed them up more forcefully. He guessed he was learning to command, although most of the time he felt helpless and frustrated.

  Of all the commands in the galaxy, this had to be the worst: in charge of both the ship and the mutineers, perched on the edge of a black hole with phasers breathing down his neck. That realization didn't console Sam as he struggled to clear his mind and fall asleep.

  Finally the lieutenant succumbed to exhaustion and slipped into an agreeable dream. In this dream, he was a lowly ensign back on the Enterprise with Ogawa, Sito, Taurik, and those veteran officers like Riker and Worf, who seemed so wise and calm. Now he knew they must have been sweating out every crisis along with the rest of the crew, but it was their job not to show it.

  Even Riker was nice to him in this dream, which was like an endless party in the Ten-Forward lounge.

  Promotions, recommendations, congratulations, and salutations all around! It was like graduation from high school. In fact, some of his old high-school chums were there, too, which struck Sam as odd for a few seconds, until he remembered that this was the Enterprise. Anything was possible on the Enterprise/ He danced with Jenny, his high-school flame, on the dance floor of the Ten-Forward lounge in his dress uniform. Hot dog/Does it get any better than this?

  After they danced, they walked off to a dark corner where they could study the serene starscape together and hold hands, while listening to the soft jazz of Riker's quartet. He could feel her hands in his, caressing his chest, stroking his face-- Real hands shook him forcefully. "Captain, wake up!" insisted the Antosian, Jozarnay Woil.

  Sam bolted upright, disappointed to find his dream replaced by stark reality. "What now?" "Another ship has just arrived." Sam rolled off the bed and pulled his shoes on. He dashed out to the bridge and gazed at the viewscreen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sure enough, another ship had approached the Jem'Hadar craft at a respectful distance, and the two seemed to be parlaying. He didn't recognize the ship or its origins; it was an inelegant craft, possibly even uglier than the Tag GarwaL "Is that another tanker?" he asked Taurik on the conn.

  "Negative," answered the Vulcan. "The warp signature identifies it as Bajoran. I would say it is a transport, perhaps a scientific vessel." "Bajoran?" muttered Woil, shaking his head. "This war just gets weirder and weirder." Sam's sleepy vision and foggy mind cleared as he studied the strange craft, wondering if he dared to hail them. That would depend, he supposed, on how the Jem'Hadar treated the new arrivals. Unless they were part of the club, he sincerely doubted that their guard would let them hang around the prison work party.

  Still there might be some way to use their presence to his advantage, and this could be an opportunity waiting to be snatched.

  "Should we tell the others?" asked Taurik.

  "No," answered Sam. "Look, they're leaving. Track them, Taurik." "Yes, sir." The bridge crew watched silently as the boxy ship made an awkward turn and retreated. "Maintain longrange view," ordered Sam.

  Observing the Bajoran vessel proved worthwhile.

  She hadn't gone very far before she stopped and turned around to watch them. Sam wondered if the strangers could provoke the Jem'Hadar enough to chase them and desert the tanker, even for a few seconds.

  "They have moved outside weapons range," reported Taurik. "Although I can hardly believe they would be any match for the Jem'Hadar craft." "Maybe it's the Eye of Talek they're interested in," said Woil. "You know, tourists." "Or a scientific team," suggested Taurik.

  Whatever the ship was doing here, Sam didn't want to lose an opportunity. If the Bajorans could be coerced into playing a role in the
ir escape, he had to find a way to do it.

  "How close are we to first shift?" asked Sam.

  "Twenty-nine," answered Taurik.

  "I think we should get everyone up and get an early start on the day's work," declared Sam, rubbing his hands together as if he were Grof. "Let's put that probe out there and grab some more Corzanium." Taurik gave him a raised eyebrow, but he still rose from his seat and headed for the ladder, ready to carry out the orders.

  Woil looked at him point-blank and smiled.

  "You've got something planned, don't you?" "Just don't get too attached to your job," cautioned Sam.

  Ro Laren stood on the bridge of the Orb of Peace, flanked by Captain Picard and Commander La Forge, who was seated at the conn. According to their shorthanded work regimen, one of them should have been in Engineering and the other one asleep in his bunk, but all three had come to the bridge to survey their target: The Cardassian mining vessel floated in space, looking like a glint in the Eye of Talek. To Ro, it seemed incredible that they could deal a crippling blow to the Dominion's plans merely by destroying this insignificant craft. Thus far, all of the Ferengi's intelligence had been correct, even though they had paid a high price for it. The mining ship had to be destroyed.