He decided that he would preprogram the holding cells’ forcefields to come down in six hours. Six hours would give Picard ample time to get a shuttle close enough to the compound to beam every Starfleet captive to safety. And because even the Chiarosan government probably couldn’t intercept such a brief, tightly focused subspace transmission, the rebel compound’s location would remain beyond the reach of Ruardh’s military machine.
It was a win–win scenario. Zweller grinned at his own cleverness.
WORKING, flashed the tricorder as it continued trying countless security‑grid access codes. Another crimsonblinking minute passed. Then two.
Three minutes. More sweat flowed, this time stinging his eyes. He brushed it away with his palm, stifling a curse.
Four minutes. Why the hell was this taking so long?
He heard the deliberate clip‑clop of a soldier’s boots. The sound approached, then withdrew, then ceased entirely.
His hands had begun to shake. I’m getting too old for this.
Then, in green: SECURITY GRID: ACCESS APPROVED. The muscles in his calves and shoulders were aching from his awkward, upward‑reaching stance. His fingers had become slippery with sweat and his arms were growing numb. Not wanting to risk revealing his presence by using the tricorder’s voice interface, he began scrolling and entering the icons that would transmit his data‑burst to the Enterprise.
The tricorder’s display flashed an interrogative icon. Then he saw what he had done. He had inadvertently mistaken one icon hierarchy for another. It was the equivalent of making a typographical error on a computer equipped with an old‑style keyboard interface.
He began scrolling and entering commands again, more slowly this time. The shaking of his hands intensified. Muscle fatigue was making his right leg begin to shimmy. He entered the final icon in the command sequence.
TRANSMITTING.
He never heard the footfalls of the stealthy Chiarosan guard whose rough hands seized his shoulder half a second later.
Will Riker was surprised when a pair of very angry, very large Chiarosan warriors suddenly marched him and Troi from their cell, only to escort them into another similar one located a fair distance away.
He was even more surprised to see Commander Cortin Zweller awaiting them there, already confined in the cell. Zweller appeared to have lost his favored guest status; his tricorder was missing and his face bore several bruises that hadn’t been there when they had parted company some twenty minutes earlier.
Riker found it difficult to suppress a wry smile. So, evidently, did Deanna.
“I take it that Grelun has declined your request for our early release,” Riker said blandly.
Zweller responded with a humorless chuckle. “ Vehemently. I suppose he moved all the other prisoners, too, once he suspected that I’d transmitted their transporter coordinates to the Enterprise.”
A surge of hope swelled within Riker’s chest. He made certain his back was to the guard standing on the other side of the forcefield before he responded. “And did you?”
Zweller shrugged, then spoke in a barely audible whisper. “I think so, but there’s no way to be sure. But I am certain about one thing–I managed to sabotage the security grid before I got caught. I don’t think they’ll discover it until after it’s too late.”
“And what will that accomplish?” Troi wanted to know.
Zweller absently touched a bruise on his forehead and winced. “The detention‑cell forcefields should come down in a little less than six hours. I tried to send a burst‑message asking the Enterpriseto send a shuttle for us then. If they can get to within a few kilometers of us, they should be able to beam us all out of here, even through all the atmospheric interference.”
“If your message got through, then the captain will get us that shuttle,” Riker said quietly. He needed to buoy his spirits. This was a slim hope, but it was something.
“Fat lot of good it’ll do us if Grelun’s moved everybody around,” Zweller said. “The shuttle crew won’t know where to try for a transporter lock. And they won’t have a lot of time to run scans if Grelun scrambles his fighter craft to intercept them.”
“I’m afraid I have more bad news,” Troi said, her eyes closing.
“I don’t see how things can get much worse now,” Riker said.
“I do. I’m picking up extremely strong emotions from Grelun. He no longer has any intention of releasing us.” Her eyes came open then, twin pools of apprehension. “He’s furious, Will. If the referendum doesn’t go the way he wants it to, Grelun intends to declare total war on his opponents. He’ll probably start by executing all of his prisoners, and then . . .” she trailed off.
“And then?” Zweller prompted.
“The rebels have left Chiarosan civilians out of the conflict so far, but–”
Riker finished the thought for her. “–but the gloves will be off if the pro‑Federation side wins.”
“Judging from the ugly state of Grelun’s emotions,” Troi said, “you can expect a bloodbath. A long, drawnout planetary civil war.”
Zweller smiled. “You’re overlooking an important detail, Commander Troi. The pro‑Federation side doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance on Vulcan of winning the referendum.”
Riker shot a grave look at Zweller. “I might be inclined to agree with you, Commander. Except for the one thing that youseem to have overlooked.”
“Which is?”
Riker pointed toward the stone ceiling. “Which is that the man commanding the Enterpriseis Jean‑Luc Picard. The man who served as Klingon Chancellor Gowron’s Arbiter of Succession. Thanks to the captain’s diplomacy, the Klingon civil war lasted for months instead of years.”
Zweller’s smile faltered then. “Diplomacy wasn’t his strong suit when I knew him, Commander.”
“It’s never a good idea to underestimate Captain Picard,” Troi said.
Zweller looked up at them both. “Then for everyone’s sake, you’d both better hope he fails in a big way this time.”
Never during the nine years he had so far spent serving alongside Captain Picard had Will Riker thought he would find himself agreeing with such a sentiment.
Now, he had no other option.
Chapter Seven
“Launching probe, Captain,” said Data, his hands gliding over an ops panel.
Hawk watched as Picard leaned forward in his seat, staring at the forward bridge viewscreen as the small probe sped off into the starry blackness. The captain’s eyes narrowed, as if by squinting he could see more clearly what the probe saw.
Data turned. “Would you like me to activate visual telemetry, sir? It would be more effective.”
Hawk stared at Data. The android’s directness always amazed him. Coming from anyone else, Data’s question might have seemed an insult, but Hawk–and everyone who had ever served on the bridge–knew better.
“Yes, Data,” Picard said, settling back into his chair.
The image on the viewscreen changed only slightly, though digital counters and coordinate graphics appeared around the edges, showing the data that the probe was recording as it sped through space.
While they had been supervising the technicians who had worked on the probe, Data, Hawk, and La Forge had analyzed the sector maps, using the residual radiation traces found on the Slayton’s wreckage–as well the starship’s velocity and trajectory–to pinpoint the probable site where the vessel was destroyed. Not surprisingly, this location was very close to the volume of space that Hawk’s sketchy sensor data labeled as the likeliest source of the first subspace slippage, as well as the probable epicenter of the half‑dozen or so lesser spatial disturbances that had followed.
A quick visit to the stellar cartography labs had provided Hawk and Data with further scientific background of the Geminus Gulf. Hawk was somewhat surprised to discover just how little there was to go on. According to the few pertinent records that Keru had managed to retrieve–which had come, thanks to the barrenness of the Gulf, mostly from some of the more obscure stellar cartographical journals, as well as from his correspondences with colleagues serving aboard other Federation starships–the random subspace fluctuations in the vicinity had intensified substantially over the past two years. Prior to that, even the most patient and long‑suffering researchers hadn’t seen fit to spend much time taking readings in the Gulf; one science‑vessel commander had characterized the entire region as a kind of “interstellar tabula rasa.”