“No time for that, sir.” She tapped her Starfleet insignia badge, which she wore on her chest in spite of being out of uniform for this assignment. “Three to beam in.”
Kyle braced himself for the momentary vertigo that always overtook him when he was transported, and then it was over and he was standing in Owen Paris’s office.
“Thank you for coming, Kyle,” Owen said, rising from behind his desk.
“I’m not sure that I had a choice,” Kyle answered. “The ensign said there was an emergency.”
“That’s right,” Owen said. He excused the two security officers, asking them to wait in the hall. They would continue to keep their distance from Kyle, but would stay alert just the same. “Come on,” Owen said to Kyle. “I’ll explain as we go.”
“Go where?” Kyle asked, rushing to keep up with Owen. The admiral had already started down the hall, his strides long and purposeful.
“Situation room,” Owen replied. “We’ll be met there by the others.”
“What others?” Kyle queried. “What’s happening, Owen?”
Owen slowed a moment to give Kyle a chance to catch up, and when he explained he did so in low tones, so that not even the security officers following behind could hear him. “It’s a ship, the Pegasus.Captain Erik Pressman in command.”
“I don’t know him,” Kyle said. “What’s he like?”
“He’s a good officer. A bit too ambitious for my tastes, but otherwise I have every faith in him.”
“So what’s the problem with the Pegasus?”
“We’ll be there in a moment,” Owen said. “And you’ll see.”
He led the way through a door guarded by yet another gold-uniformed security officer. Inside, a long, curved table stood in front of a vast display screen. In addition to the seats around the table, there were a dozen workstations, and beyond those, auditorium-style seating for a couple dozen more. No one else was in the room when they arrived, but there was an image on the screen. Two planets, one reddish and the other predominantly green, but with orange splotches here and there. Arrayed around the planets were fine-lined spherical grids that intersected one another. In the area of intersections was a blinking red dot.
“That’s Omistol,” Owen said, pointing to the planet on the right. “And Ven, on the left. Heard of them?”
“I think so, but not recently. I’ve kind of been out of the loop recently.”
“I know you have, Kyle,” Owen said. “But we’re going to ask you to catch up fast now.”
“You still haven’t told me what’s going on,” Kyle reminded him. “Or what this has to do with the Pegasus.”
“Omistol and Ven have been at war for almost three years,” Owen said. “A vicious, bloody, terrible war. Each side has lost more lives than it can afford. We keep thinking the war will end because one side or the other will realize that they’re both committing suicide. So far, though, that hasn’t been the case. They’re still at it.”
Kyle nodded. He could follow this, all right, but he wanted Owen to get to the real point.
“Those grids on the display show each planet’s claimed sphere of influence. As you can see, there’s an overlap. That’s a big part of the problem, right there—they both want to control that section of space, which is a main shipping lane for their system. It’s not the whole problem, but it’s kind of symptomatic of the greater issues. They both claim that space, and neither will relinquish that claim. The red dot in the middle of the disputed territory? That’s the Pegasus.”
“What’s it doing there?” Kyle asked. As he did, the door opened again and more Starfleet officers filed in. Kyle recognized Vice Admiral Horace Bonner and Admiral J. P. Hanson, but none of the others, a mix of captains and some of their staff people.
“Captain Pressman was responding to reports that a pirate—one that has been preying on Federation ships, not too far from Omistol and Ven—had taken refuge in the disputed zone. He went in intending only to investigate the report and capture the pirate vessel if it was, in fact, inside there, and to leave immediately if it wasn’t.”
“And was it?”
“The Pegasuswas unable to locate the pirate. What it located instead was trouble.”
“Why?”
“Because the fleets of both Omistol and Ven were moving toward one another, in force. Omistol’s ships were cloaked. They were on the Pegasusbefore Captain Pressman knew they were coming.”
“Cowardly bastards,” Kyle growled. “I hate cloaking.”
“So does every civilized people,” Vice Admiral Bonner put in, joining the conversation. “Welcome back to the fold, Mr. Riker.”
“Thank you, Vice Admiral,” Kyle said. They shook hands. “It’s nice to be back, I think.”
“As you can see, we’ve brought you back at the best possible time. For us. Maybe the worst for you, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.
Bonner looked a little surprised. “You haven’t told him, Owen?”
“I’ve been trying to fill him in on the whole picture,” Owen Paris said. “Not just the details.”
“If the details are important,” Kyle said, “then I’d like to know them as well.”
“Very well, Kyle,” Owen relented. He looked like he was sorry to have to say it. “One of the bridge officers on board the Pegasusis your son, Will.”
Chapter 36
Will had tried every trick Starfleet Academy had taught him, and a few new ones he’d made up on the spot, trying to break the grip of the graviton beam that held them in place. The Omistolian warship was gigantic, half again the size of the Oberth-class Pegasus,and its tractor beam powerful beyond even the experience of Captain Pressman. Beads of sweat appeared on Will’s upper lip and at his temples, not from the heat but from the exertion and concentration he applied to the problem. And still nothing worked.
The worst part was, they had come here for nothing-chasing a shadow, a ship that wasn’t here in the first place. Captain Pressman had warned them of that possibility before they’d entered the system. But they had all agreed that it would be worth the risk if they could find Heaven’s Blade,the pirate vessel that had been making this region decidedly unsafe for Federation freighters. The Bladehadn’t been here at all, though. If by chance it had passed this way, it hadn’t stayed long.
The word that it might be here had come in from Starfleet Command shortly after they’d transferred Endyk Plure to the ship that would carry him to Earth. After a brief conference with his officers, during which the phrase “suicide mission” had come up a few times too often for Will’s liking, Pressman had given the orders to move into the war zone between Ven and Omistol. And so they had. They had still been in the disputed zone, looking for the elusive Heaven’s Blade,when the Omistolians had decloaked. There had been a brief verbal exchange between Captain Pressman and the leader of the Omistolian force, but no shots were fired. And then, when Captain Pressman gave the order to Will to get them out of here, now, the tractor beam had been engaged. They had gone, since then, exactly nowhere.
“We could try blowing them out of the sky,” Marc Boylen suggested. He’d already suggested it, a couple of times, with no luck.
“Mr. Boylen,” Pressman reminded him. “The ship holding us in its beam is just one of many. It’s far larger than we are and far more heavily armed. We’re a scientific exploration vessel, not a warship. Even if we could beat that one ship, they have many more. We would be begging for them to wipe us out.”
“May I speak frankly, sir?” Lieutenant Commander Rungius asked. Bethany Rungius was the ship’s chief of security, a hard-nosed officer with a reputation for making hard decisions quickly.