“Took a hell of a risk.”
Garrett was about to point out that there hadn’t been a lot of alternatives, but Bat-Levi hailed from the bridge. “Glad to hear you’re up and around, Captain.”
“Thank you, Commander.” But I’m freezing my butt off.“As soon as I get some clothes, I’ll be up. Status?”
“We’ve cleared the nebulae cluster. We took some minor structural damage aft. Repairs are under way. Other than that, we were lucky.”
“Seems to be the word of the day. Have you been able to reach Starfleet?”
“Actually, there’s a message coming in now. Commander Batanides, Starfleet Intelligence.”
Likely reporting that Burke and Sivek were back at Starfleet Headquarters, with Halak in tow. With everything that had gone on, thoughts of Halak had been far from her mind. But now Garrett felt a mantle of depression drape itself over her shoulders. “Pipe it down here.”
Garrett heard Bat-Levi giving orders. Then: “You’re on, Captain.”
Garrett straightened, even though she was on audio. She just wished she had some clothes. It was so cold in Sickbay her skin prickled with gooseflesh. Garrett chafed her bare forearms with her hands. “Garrett here.”
“Captain.” Batanides’s voice was tense. “We’ve been trying to reach you for days. What’s going on there?”
Briefly, Garrett went over the events of the past few days, concluding with their rescue of the Atawhean ship. “We’ve just gotten clear of interference from the nebula…”
“That’s just it,”Batanides broke in, clearly agitated. “Whywere you there to begin with?”
That brought Garrett up short. She and Stern exchanged glances; Stern hiked her shoulders. “Those were our orders,” Garrett said.
“From whom?”
“Why,” said Garrett, confused, “from you.Don’t you remember? We spoke. When Commander Halak was remanded to Lieutenant Burke’s custody. I lodged a formal protest and…”
“Captain, I assure you,” said Batanides, her voice saturated with urgency, “after our first contact about Lieutenant Burke coming aboard, you and I never spoke. And I know for a fact that Commander Halak couldn’t have been remanded to Burke.”
“Whaaat?” Stern drawled. “What the hell kind of game…?”
Garrett cut her off with a wave of her hand. “What are you talking about, Marta?”
“I’m saying that you never received orders to proceed to the Draavids. Commander Halak never made it to Starfleet Headquarters. And I knownow that Lieutenant Burke was in no position to be aboard your ship, taking custody of anyone.”
“And why not?”
“Because, Captain Garrett,” said Batanides, “Lieutenant Laura Burke is dead.”
“All right, here’s the situation,” said Garrett, an hour later. After signing off from Batanides, she’d taken a hasty sonic shower and thrown on a clean uniform. But she still felt like hell. Ignoring the ache in her head, she leaned her forearms on the table in the briefing room next door to her ready room and eyed each of her senior officers in turn: Stern and Bat-Levi to her right, Glemoor, Bulast, and Kodell ranged along her left. And, finally, Tyvan: Garrett had debated then decided that, for better or worse, part of Tyvan’s job was to take the pulse of the crew…and its captain. And doing a damn good job of that.
“Commander Batanides indicated that debris from the shuttle piloted by Lieutenant Burke—the realBurke—was discovered several parsecs away from Starbase 12, in an isolated section of space lousy with asteroid fields. A navigator’s nightmare, which probably explains why it took so long for anyone to connect up the wreckage with Burke, or findit, for that matter.”
“How did they know to start looking, Captain?” Tyvan asked. “Did you inquire?”
Garrett and Stern exchanged glances. “You want to answer that?” asked Garrett.
“Not really.” Stern fidgeted an instant then said, “Me.” She continued, a little defensively as if someone were about to take her to task for going behind her captain’s back, “I got an old friend on the horn. I asked him to do some checking up on a couple of things, and he asked questions, and that got back to Batanides, and then shestarted digging around, and well,” Stern’s voice trailed off. She punctuated the silence with a shrug.
“Okay,” said Tyvan, in the silence. He gave Stern a bland look. “Just asking. Didn’t know if I’d been making myself too scarce to have been in the loop.”
“Good thing she did,” said Garrett, amused despite the current situation. Ah, Jo, someone who gives as good as he gets, how do you like them apples?“Anyway, there’s no doubt. Burke’s ship was sabotaged. The recovery team found traces of divalent triceron.”
“An explosive,” said Glemoor. “Very powerful, highly unstable. Also illegal.”
“Clearly, whoever blew up Burke’s shuttle wanted to make it look like an accident, or pilot error. Starfleet Intelligence thinks the Qatala planted the bomb.”
“And Burke’s body?” asked Bat-Levi.
“Vaporized. Burke also had a passenger. Batanides said that Burke had been undercover for months, infiltrating the Qatala. Her mission was to make contact, gather information, and, if possible, secure a contact willing to turn on the Qatala and provide detailed information on the Qatala’s drug distribution network as well as arms sales to various parties, particularly the Cardassians. Two weeks ago, the real Burke informed SI that she’d secured a contact and was on her way back.”
“Any idea about the contact?”
“Not a clue. Starfleet Intelligence believes that someone caught on to Burke and alerted Qadir, who then arranged for her accident. That way, Qadir could take care of Burke and the traitor at the same time.”
“I’ll wager the Burke wesaw was the real Burke’s passenger,” said Tyvan.
“Probably, and the person Qadir used for the job. Except she seems to have her own agenda.” Garrett nodded toward Bulast. “What do you have?”
“I ran an analysis on Burke’s transmission to Starfleet,” said Bulast. “Remember, shewas the one who gave me the coded frequencies. By filtering successive frequencies, I found a coned signal insidea real secured channel, like a hand in a glove. This coned signal rerouted the Enterprise’s transmissions to a subspace transceiver programmed with Starfleet authorization codes. You talked to the real Batanides at first, of course; that’s how Burke was able to get aboard the ship. Thereafter, you were talking, for all practical purposes, to a computer program. If we’d been on visual, which we weren’t, you’d have seen a holographic projection. The technology exists, of course; it’s a variant of cloaking technology, but more primitive. When I traced the subspace transceiver signals, I found they emanated from Enterprise,specifically from a shielded compartment in the floor panels of that shuttle Halak brought back from Farius Prime. Burke probably planted the transceiver when she searched the shuttle. She had to have stolen the transceiver, though. It’s programmed with top-secret authorization codes that SI confirms are the genuine article. Anyway, this probably explains why we were ordered to the Draavids. Burke must have known that, eventually, Starfleet would contact us with news about the real Burke, or that we might use another channel to raise Starfleet. The nebulae were insurance; it kept us in a communications blackout.”
“But they—she, whoever she is—had to know we’d find the transceiver eventually,” said Bat-Levi. “Why leave it behind?”
Garrett scooped her auburn hair with her hand, wincing as she tugged on her scalp wound. Gingerly, she fingered the lump on her forehead. Stern was right; the lump was the size of a small orange. “I think eventuallyis the operative term. All she needed was to get away, and she has. But I’ll just bet those records Burke foundin Halak’s log and the shuttle are fakes. Bulast, any word from the V’Shar?”