He had become an object of intense curiosity—the human suspected of setting off an explosive device in the middle of Six Corners Plaza.
With a quartet of directed-energy weapons trained on him, Picard had no choice but to proceed in the direction the Cataxxan had indicated. As he did so, he saw the expressions on the faces of the merchants on either side of him.
Hatred burned in their eyes, no matter the shape or color or number of them—hatred and a desire for retribution. Nor could the captain blame them. He wanted to know who had set off the explosion as much as they did.
Perhaps even more.
His jaw muscles working furiously, Picard allowed himself to be escorted through a hatch and into another airlock—his mission suddenly very much in jeopardy.
Chapter Three
“ANOTHER CUP?” Wu asked.
Ben Zoma, who—through an enormous act of self-control—was still sitting on the other side of the desk in the captain’s ready room, shook his head. “No, thanks. Two’s my limit.” He picked up the white ceramic mug the second officer had given him and peered into it, swishing around its contents. “Besides, I didn’t even finish this one.”
“It’s a good blend, though,” said Wu.
“It is,” Ben Zoma agreed. “No complaints.”
“Glad you liked it,” she told him.
They both fell silent. But it was clear that they didn’t really have coffee on their minds.
From the time the second officer poured their first cups, she had studiously avoided the subject of Captain Picard. After all, Ben Zoma and the captain were more than colleagues—they were close friends—and Wu had seen no point in adding to her superior’s anxiety.
At least, until now.
“I hate to say it,” she began, “but it looks like—”
“The rendezvous was a flop,” Ben Zoma said, sparing her the trouble. “It never came off.”
“And the captain hasn’t communicated with us,” Wu reasonably concluded, “because he’s attempting to improvise.”
Her superior looked at her for a moment. Then he shook his head from side to side.
“No. If he could have contacted us, he would have. Something is stopping him.”
Wu smiled. “You sound so certain.”
Ben Zoma shrugged. “You work with someone day in and day out, you get to know him pretty well—what he would do, what he wouldn’t do. If we haven’t heard from the captain, it’s because he’s got his hands full.”
“So what do we do?” the second officer asked.
“That’s a good question,” he said. “We can’t just swoop in with the Stargazer and try to pull him out of there—not unless we want to alert the Cardassians, the Ubarrak, and everyone else in the sector that something’s going on.”
Wu couldn’t argue with the man’s logic. “We hold our present position, then?”
“For now,” Ben Zoma told her.
She didn’t ask how long “now” would last.
But even if the captain was in some difficulty, there was no one more clever or resourceful in Wu’s estimate. Surely, Ben Zoma appreciated that as well, and would give his friend every opportunity to succeed on his own.
“A day,” he said abruptly.
Wu looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s how long I’m giving him,” said Ben Zoma, as if he had read her thoughts. “One day.”
Picard gazed across his cramped, brightly illuminated cell at the individual who served as chief of security for this section of Oblivion.
His name, according to the other security personnel in the detention facility, was Steej. Like all Rythrians, he had a lean frame, generous flaps of skin for ears, and eyes that appeared eager to escape their sockets.
His uniform, like those of the city’s other security officers, was black and blue, with what looked like an inverted fleur-de-lis emblazoned in silver on the left side of his chest. His rank was denoted by a series of three concentric silver ovals that sat on his right shoulder.
The security director consulted the padd in his hand. Then he looked up at Picard.
“Your name is Hill?” he asked in a surprisingly calm and melodious voice.
“Yes,” said the captain. “Dixon Hill.”
It was the name of the hero in a habit-forming series of twentieth-century pulp detective novels. Picard had felt confident when he assumed the identity that no one in Oblivion would have heard of it.
“Mister Hill,” said Steej, “we have a problem here. An explosion. Casualties. Property damage. And though we’ve secured a suspect, we have no idea why he would do such a thing.”
“Nor do I,” Picard said.
The Rythrian tilted his head, as if to examine his subject from a different angle. “You claim innocence, then?”
The captain shrugged. “I was headed for the plaza to get a bite to eat when the explosion took place. I know as little about it as you do.”
“Yet we have a witness who pointed you out. He says he saw you set off a bomb in the center of the plaza.”
“He’s lying,” said Picard.
An unpleasant, high-pitched piping sound emerged from Steej’s throat. “I doubt it, Mr. Hill. Ioro Tajat is no stranger to this place. He knows what I would do to him if I discovered he was purposely misleading me.”
“Nonetheless,” said Picard, “he’s lying.”
The skin around the Rythrian’s eyes twitched almost imperceptibly. “And Ioro has reason to do this because…?”
Picard shook his head. “I don’t know what his reasons are. I only know I didn’t set off any bombs.”
“I see,” said Steej. He consulted his padd again. “You’re here on business. A dealer in—”
“Duotronic relays,” said the captain.
It was his cover story, one he had concocted days before he actually set foot in Oblivion. And thanks to his Starfleet training, he actually knew enough to pass as someone who traded in such equipment.
“You have the relays on your ship?” Steej inquired.
“I do,” Picard confirmed. “But my ship is elsewhere at the moment, making a delivery.”
Actually, it wasn’t his ship at all, but an Ajanni trader the Federation happened to have in its possession. In fact, though it was hardly common knowledge, the Federation kept a great many non-aligned vessels on hand, never knowing when one of them might come in handy.
In Picard’s case, the trader had been used to drop him off, nothing more. No doubt it was already back in whatever obscure shipyard it had been plucked from.
“A pity,” the Rythrian said archly. “If your ship were docked here, it would have lent some credence to your story. As it is, you could be almost anyone.” He tilted his head again. “Even an assassin.”
“Which I am not.”
“Or so you say.”
Picard felt a pang of resentment. It was true that he wasn’t what he purported to be. But how could anyone believe him capable of setting off a bomb?
“Look,” he said, “you’ve got no real proof that I did anything wrong. Only the word of a single witness. For all we know, it was he who set off the bomb.”
“True,” the security director conceded. “But I know him. And I don’t know you.”
“But there’s no evidence,” Picard insisted.
“Which,” said Steej, “is no doubt as the guilty party intended. But we’ll find something. We always do. Until then you will be our guest.” His eyes hardened. “And if we find out you’re lying, Mr. Hill, you will wish you had never heard the name Oblivion.”
The captain forced himself to keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t let Steej’s threats provoke him into saying something that might expose him.
Unfortunately, the security director seemed determined to find proof of the charges against him. And even if he couldn’t, it might be months until he satisfied himself that Picard was innocent after all.
By then, Demmix would be gone—or worse. And the Federation would have lo
st the information the Zartani had offered them.
“No doubt,” said Steej, with a fluttering of his nostrils, “we will have occasion to speak again.”
With that, he got up and gestured to the lone officer outside Picard’s cell—a one-eyed Tyrheddan, like the wounded female in the plaza. The electromagnetic barrier was deactivated long enough for the Rythrian to exit, then restored to its previous intensity.
Steej paused to impart some instructions to the Tyrheddan. Then, with a last glance at his prisoner, he withdrew from that part of the detention facility—leaving Picard to stew over his circumstances.
Clearly, the captain thought, this Ioro Tajat is lying through his teeth, purposely trying to get me in trouble. But why? And for whose benefit?
And what about the bomb? Was Ioro Tajat in on that as well? And if so, had he set it off specifically to frustrate Picard’s mission here?
The captain hoped not. Because if Ioro Tajat knew what Picard was up to, it meant someone had received advance notice of his plans to rendezvous with the Zartani.
Who might that someone be? An associate of the Zartani? Or—Picard hated to even consider this possibility—someone on his own ship?
He shook his head. His crew was trustworthy, every last one of them. He refused to believe that any of his people could have betrayed him this way, regardless of whatever temptation might have been placed before them.
It had to be someone else.
But either way, the Zartani was in danger. His survival depended on his ability to keep his identity a secret, and it appeared that the secret was out.
As Picard faced that fact, he caught sight of someone entering his part of the detention facility—someone dressed not in the black and blue of the city’s security force, but in a charcoal gray dress with a large and unusual hat.
It was the woman who had been sitting next to him at the bar.
He regarded her with suspicion. After all, it was quite a coincidence that her path had crossed his a second time, and in the space of little more than an hour.
Might she have had something to do with the bomb? the captain wondered. Or my incarceration? Or both, perhaps?
And why is she here now? he asked himself. To offer some tidbit of false information that will further damn him as a criminal?
He watched through the transparent barrier of his cell as the woman approached the Tyrheddan security officer. Leaning forward over the desk between them, she whispered something in the fellow’s tiny, round ear.
The security officer laughed, making a sound like rocks scraping together. Then he whispered something back.
Wonderful, Picard thought. They are old friends. How else could they be conversing so easily?
He shook his head, only now recognizing the full extent of his naïveté. The woman in the hat, the bomb, his accuser…it had all been a trap, and he had walked right into it.
How foolish could he have been? How blind? Cursing himself, he forced himself to watch as the security officer and the woman continued their conversation.
With his loudest laugh yet, the Tyrheddan pressed a stud on his desk and opened a drawer. Then he bent over to get something out of it.
Picard frowned. Were they talking about him? Commenting, perhaps, on how easily he fell prey to their scheme?
He was still wondering when the woman picked up a heavy-looking stauette on the security officer’s desk and slugged him over the head with it.
As the officer collapsed in an insensible heap, the woman grabbed the handle of his hand weapon and slipped it out of his belt holster. Then she headed for Picard’s cell.
The captain entertained the possibility that she would use the weapon to kill him. He continued to suspect as much as she purposefully pressed the pad in the bulkhead that would deactivate his cell’s energy barrier.
But no sooner had the energy wall fizzled away than the woman turned the pistol around and extended it to him. He looked at her for a moment, caught off guard.
Then, warily, he took it.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s go!”
Picard had a million questions elbowing each other in his head. However, he resisted the impulse to ask any of them. After all, they had to get out of the detention center before any of the other security people came around.
Leading the way to the diamond-shaped hatch that served as an entrance to that portion of the facility, he touched the bulkhead pad beside it. The hatch opened quickly and quietly, exposing a long, straight stretch of corridor.
“Not that I’m complaining,” the captain said with a glance at his companion, “but what made you decide to risk your life for a perfect stranger?”
The woman’s eyes seemed to lose their focus for a second. Then she said, “I’m a pretty good judge of character. I didn’t believe you were responsible for that bomb.”
Picard recalled the way she had spoken to him at the bar, as if she believed they had met before. Maybe that was why she was inclined to trust him—because she felt she knew him.
“Even so,” he said, “it was quite a gesture.”
The woman shrugged. “I was in a tough spot myself a while back, and someone went out on a limb for me. Let’s just say I was returning the favor.”
The captain absorbed the information. “Then, whoever helped you, I’m indebted to him—as well as to you.”
She made a sound reminiscent of amusement. “I’ll remember to thank him for you.”
The hatch at the far end of the corridor was shaped like an arch. Another bulkhead pad opened it for them, revealing a compact, well-lit room that might once have served as a lounge or a mess hall.
But now it was full of equipment—workstations, sensor readouts, and a half-dozen wall-sized banks of security monitors, displaying more than a hundred key locations throughout Steej’s section of Oblivion.
Fortunately, only two of the workstations were manned by security officers. And even more fortunately, neither of those officers looked up to see who had entered the room.
At least, at first. And by the time one of them did, Picard had taken aim at him.
With a squeeze of his phaser’s trigger, he sent a seething red beam across the room. The officer, a human, was blasted out of his chair.
The other uniformed individual in the room, a black-and-white-striped Dedderac, whirled in his seat and drew his weapon. But Picard was too quick for him. With another squeeze of his trigger, he slammed the Dedderac into the massive bank of monitors behind him.
The captain hadn’t seen either of the officers move to sound an alarm, but he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t done so. Taking his companion’s hand, which was unexpectedly cold to the touch, he drew her through the maze of equipment.
Even though he hadn’t noticed any other security officers in the room, he remained alert for an ambush. But none materialized. He and his savior reached the exit unmolested.
Opening the diamond-shaped hatch they found there, they emerged from the detention center into a long, hangarlike space—one that had the inverted fleur-de-lis of security rendered in silver on each of its bulkheads, and a half dozen exit hatches. The place was surprisingly empty except for a single uniformed figure, who was standing in the center of the enclosure and searching himself as if he had misplaced something.
As luck would have it, the figure was Steej.
It seemed to Picard that the Rythrian hadn’t noticed him yet. That was the good news.
The bad was that Steej was a good sixty meters away, too far for Picard to trust his accuracy with an unfamiliar weapon. And if he missed, the Rythrian would be close enough to the exit on the far wall to escape—at which point he could clamp down on the captain and his benefactor with all the power at his disposal.
Gesturing for his companion to remain where she was, Picard started in Steej’s direction. He moved as quietly as he could, hoping the scrape of his footgear on the hard metal surface wouldn’t betray him.
Fifty-five meters, he thought. Fifty. Forty-
five…
That was when Steej turned, moved to do so either by instinct or perception, and looked back over his shoulder. Still closing on him, the captain squeezed off a blast.
At first he thought it was going to hit its target. Then he saw it slice past the Rythrian and bury itself in the bulkhead behind him.
With a curse, Steej pulled out his weapon and fired back. But by then Picard had gone into a roll. He saw a blur of bloodred brilliance, but felt no impact—meaning his adversary had missed as well.
Capitalizing on the fact, Picard came out of his roll and unleashed another bolt. This time, he hit the Rythrian in the shoulder, spinning him about and sending his phaser flying from his hand.
Holding his shoulder, Steej tried to run. But Picard pursued him, took careful aim, and knocked the security director off his feet with a well-placed beam.
Satisfied that Steej wouldn’t be calling for help until someone found him and revived him, Picard looked to the woman in the hat. She was waiting by the entrance to the detention facility, as he had instructed her to do.
“Which way?” he asked, his voice echoing urgently throughout the enclosure.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the woman pointed to one of the hatches on her left. “That way,” she said.
Trusting that she knew what she was talking about, Picard followed her lead.
Chapter Four
ENSIGN ANDREAS NIKOLAS DIDN’T KNOW how long his friend Obal had been speaking to him before the fact finally registered in his brain.
“…an Ubarrak warship,” the Binderian said grimly. Then he looked at Nikolas, obviously expecting a reaction.
The human looked across the mess-hall table at Obal. He could have pretended that he had been paying attention, but he didn’t think he would be very convincing.
“Sorry,” he said finally. “I guess I wasn’t listening to that last part.”
Obal heaved a heartfelt sigh. “I don’t believe you were listening to the first part either, my friend. Or the middle part, for that matter.”
Stargazer Oblivion Page 3
