They had known each other so long Stern read Garrett perfectly. “Not my call to make, Rachel. That was just a strong painkiller.”
Stern replaced her hypospray, then pushed up and bent over Pahl. There was an atonal whirling sound as she ran her tricorder over the boy. “This one, we can help. Jase was right; there’s nothing here. Far as I can tell, his brain’s shut down, that’s all. Traumatic withdrawal. The sooner we get him aboard, the less psychological damage there’ll be.” When Garrett didn’t respond, Stern continued, “Rachel, we don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean?” asked Halak. Jase had quieted, but he still held the boy in his arms. “What’s going on, Captain?”
“One word,” said Stern, pushing to her feet. She winced as her knees cracked. “Cardassians.”
The color drained from Halak’s face. The face he turned to Garrett was grave. “Captain?”
Without looking up, Garrett nodded. “In a minute. Jase.”
Halak felt Jase stir, and in another moment, the boy lifted his face from the hollow of Halak’s chest. Jase’s face was splotchy and swollen from crying, but his eyes were dry now, his tears spent. Without another word, he disengaged himself from Halak’s arms, and Halak let him go.
Jase dropped to his knees. Put his arms around his father’s neck. “I love you, Dad,” he whispered into Kaldarren’s ear. “I’ll always love you.”
There was no indication that Kaldarren heard, and after a few seconds, Jase kissed his father’s cheek and stood. He backed away until he stood a few inches from Halak.
Halak didn’t touch him. He said only, “It’s hard, son.”
The boy nodded but didn’t turn around. Wordlessly, they watched Garrett.
Still kneeling by Kaldarren’s side, Garrett pulled first her right then her left hand from their respective gloves and let her bare fingers trail over Kaldarren’s features. She closed her eyes. This is what it’s like to be blind and so you memorize the face of the person you love and you pour all your love into a single touch.
Garrett touched Kaldarren’s face again and again: tracing his broad forehead, that fine nose, his high cheekbones. And something extraordinary happened. With every pass of her hand, Kaldarren’s face softened beneath her fingers; the deep lines etched on his face smoothed; and she heard his breathing grow less labored and more like sleep. At last, Kaldarren exhaled a long, deep sigh.
It’s his soul.Garrett knew this was absurd, but the thought sprang to her mind anyway. He’s letting go, but I’m here, I have him, and I’ll carry his soul like memory.
Finally, Garrett ceased. She opened her eyes, sat back on her heels, and let her hands rest on her thighs. She stared down at Kaldarren for a long moment.
Good-bye, my love.Kaldarren’s face wavered in her vision, and the hot burn of tears pricked her eyes. Good-bye.
She stood then, her heart full of grief, her will stronger than steel. “I’m ready,” she said, cupping Jase’s hot cheek with her right hand. Their eyes met, and for an instant, she imagined that their minds joined, and that Jase knew what his parents had shared. Or maybe it was just an illusion.
Then Garrett pulled on her gloves and retrieved her helmet. She clipped her helmet to her waist, and the snap was crisp and sharp. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 35
The problem with a stationary orbit, lunar or otherwise, is that it’s very boring. Same scenery, same bunch of coordinates. Same old, same old. Talma yawned. Well, at least, she was comfortably bored.
Only one real glitch so far: an odd signature about an hour ago. At first, she’d thought nothing of it. It had been a simple variance in the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum—there briefly and then, just as quickly, gone. Hunkered down behind the planet’s larger moon, she had no way to study the blip further. Sure, it could have been a ship, but then where had it gone? Her mind drifted to the Cardassian scouts she was sure were only hours away, if that. But a Cardassian scout ship would have continued its sweep, and she would have seen the ship on sensors as it came out of her blind spot. So, probably just a glitch and this was understandable, what with all the junkin this system. Talma smiled. How apt.
And speaking of Vaavek: Talma rechecked the ship’s chronometer, saw that it was only five minutes later than when she’d last checked, and cursed. He was late.
Why? Two possibilities: Either Vaavek had found the portal and was simply delayed, or he hadn’t. Following from those conclusions, if Vaavek had found the portal, Halak was dead. If he hadn’t, Halak was still alive but wouldn’t be for long. Ditto for Vaavek, actually. (Her mother always said she never hadlearned to share.)
Of course, if she was planning on vaporizing Vaavek, likely the Vulcan had worked out a way to do the same to her. She’d have to be careful around him—doubly so if he’d found the portal.
She’d manage. That was the problem with Vulcans; they could exaggerate, but they weren’t devious. So Talma doubted that Vaavek had bothered to sabotage the T’Pol’s engines the way she’d sabotaged the shuttlepod. If they hadn’t found the portal and Halak was still alive—something she could ascertain in a flash before the shuttlepod even got close—all that would be required was one phaser hit in just the right spot…
Her concentration was broken by a shrill bleat from the T’Pol’s comm. Talma started, her heart ramping up a beat or two as a squirt of adrenaline coursed through her veins. The bleat came again, and Talma confirmed: Vaavek’s signal, all right. Set on a prearranged frequency, piggybacking onto the periodic signal emitted by the neutron star. Any ship in the vicinity (a Cardassian scout, say) wouldn’t hear or suspect a thing, not unless it knew what to look for. Vaavek was on his way back, with the goods.
A signal within a signaclass="underline" again, simple. Elegant. Clean. Just the way she’d done with the Enterprise,coning her signal inside another signal. A grin tugged at the corners of her lips. Those dopes. Out-thunk by a dirt-poor kid from one of the roughest planets in the galaxy.
The signal came again.
Engaging her sensors at maximum— the better to avoid unpleasant surprises in Cardassian trappings, my dear—Talma nudged T’Polfrom lunar stationary orbit. She was delighted that the scenery was about to change.
“Got something,” said Glemoor.
Bat-Levi, who was seated in the captain’s command chair, leaned forward. “What?”
“Movement,” said Glemoor, and he was reminded of his perusal of old Earth history: literature of submarine battles and then of classic Starfleet maneuvers. James T. Kirk, as he remembered rightly: a splendid warrior, Glemoor decided, and superb tactician. Kirk’s first run-in with Romulans, for example: a classic and required reading for any tactical officer interested in the principles of stealth warfare.
“Movement?” Bat-Levi echoed. She stepped down from the command chair and hovered behind Glemoor’s left shoulder. “What? A warp signature? Impulse engines?”
“No,” said Glemoor. “I mean, movement.”
Castillo, who had called up the same display on his station, shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
Bat-Levi’s eyebrows mated as she bent to study Glemoor’s readings. “He’s right. There’s nothing there.”
“No, there is. It’s simply that you don’t know what you’re looking at.” Glemoor’s tone wasn’t smug; he was just imparting facts. “There’s too much interference in this general vicinity to distinguish easily between true vessel signatures, or plasma trails and ambient ionized plasma. So, in addition to my usual sensor scans, I’ve calibrated the sensors to detect changes in the wave particle fronts surrounding both the planet and its moon, on the theory that a ship might be hiding there.”