Collective Hindsight (Book 1) - Aaron Rosenberg [5]
“So this one is the free zone, where anybody can pass through because nobody’s looking,” Fabian volunteered, and Gold nodded.
“Precisely. And both sides have agreed—without openly saying anything—that neither side will block this one system. It’s the open channel, in case they want to negotiate or surrender.” He didn’t bother to mention the reverse option.
“But we can’t just leave it like that,” Fabian mentioned, half to himself, and once again Kieran admired his friend’s perceptiveness. Fabe might not be the fanciest guy around, but very little slipped by him, especially if it had to do with tactics. “We’ve got to keep an eye on what they’re doing, just like they’d want to keep an eye on us.”
“Of course. Their method is to send a patrol ship through here every few days, just to make sure the system is still clean and safe.” Gold grinned. “Ours is a little more subtle. Commander?”
At Gold’s prompt, the dark-skinned Vulcan typed in a command, and an image appeared on the room’s main screen. It looked like nothing so much as the stylized image of a large, pitted rock. “The official designation of this asteroid is R5-3791. It’s one of over a hundred small asteroids in the system, composed of iron, lead, silicon, and carbon, with bubbles of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen inside.”
Kieran glanced over at Fabian, who’d started grinning. “What’s so funny? It’s a damn space rock!”
His friend shook his head. “You’ve got to start reading something other than those pirate stories, Duff. Sure, it’s a rock—with exactly the right elements to hide a staffed base inside.”
Silently Kieran cursed himself. Damn, he should have caught that! The air bubbles were the real giveaway, and he noticed Pattie’s antennae waving in good-natured laughter at his expense. At least Salek wasn’t laughing—not that he ever did.
“Okay, okay—so I missed it. We’re talking about a hidden outpost.” Gold nodded for him to continue. “So we set up a station inside that rock, their sensors only see the chemicals already present, and we can watch them come and go. Nice. I take it something’s wrong with the outpost?”
“The outpost itself is fully functional,” Salek put in, “as are all of its crew. The problem lies beyond it, but within the system.” He tapped his padd, and a new image appeared on the room screen. “Specifically, it lies here.”
“Okay, now I’m stumped,” Carol volunteered from farther down the table. “I’ve never seen a ship like that before.” And Carol knew every major race’s vessels, and a lot of the minor ones.
“No one has, as near as we can ascertain,” Salek informed her. “The vessel does not match any record, nor even partial accounts. It is a complete unknown.”
“Well, it doesn’t look Cardassian, anyway,” Pattie commented. “They’d never build anything without their typical nacelle configuration—it’s too ingrained in their design philosophy.”
“It’s not one of theirs,” Gold agreed. “And it’s not one of ours. We don’t know whose it is. But it’s taken up residence there, and that’s bad news. So your job,” he glanced at Salek, then around at the others, “is to figure out whose it is, what it’s doing there, and then make it go away. All before the Cardassian patrol comes back, sees it, and starts getting suspicious. Our number-one priority is to protect the secret of that outpost.”
“We will arrive in approximately two point seven-five hours,” Salek informed them. “During this approach, Duffy will scan the vessel repeatedly, compiling information as our sensors pull in more details. Stevens will assist me in analyzing the data and creating