Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [1]
He felt Riker’s questioning eyes follow them into the lift. The first officer should know what was going on, and there was a subtle chastisement in that trailing gaze.
A twinge of resentment boiled up in Picard as the lift doors closed. Not at Riker, but at Toledano. If the Federation had briefed him, told him what was going on, had followed procedure for covert missions, he’d have known whether he was dealing with Romulans or Orions or lizards or insects by now. He’d have reviewed the situation and informed his officers. Certainly no information could funnel off the ship without their knowing about it, and those witnesses would’ve been just as safe. Might it be asking so much for the Federation to trust its captains as much as the captains trusted their officers?
Instantly in his head he heard the arguments both ways, and pressed his lips rather than voice the thought to Commissioner Toledano, who would eagerly detail the Federation’s side. Picard would be obliged to counter with the captains’ side, and since he was already hearing it all in his mind, why hear it again in the lift?
“Mr. Worf, have you notified your security team?” he asked, determined to change his mind’s subject.
“Four guards will meet us in the transporter room, sir,” the big Klingon rumbled. “Also, one engineering technician, who will shut down the transport’s engines, if they are not shut down already.”
“Very good. Commissioner, I would appreciate some idea of exactly why I’m sending guards to my transporter room.”
Toledano, a middle-aged man who had once been handsome and was now a somewhat silver-haired echo of that, sighed. “Captain, I can’t talk to you about this yet.”
“Regardless, I have to be able to give my team some idea of what they’re looking for, or they won’t be able to do their jobs. They won’t be able to protect anybody if they don’t know what they’re protecting against.”
The commissioner frowned, tried to add that up, and sighed a second time.
“These two people are witnesses to an event that could tie an interstellar espionage network to a person we haven’t been able to implicate,” he said. “No one on that transport knows who those two people are. When we get on board, the witnesses will disclose their identities to us, and we’ll take them into custody. That’s all there is to it, really.”
“Mmm,” Picard responded, and thought very little else. He fixed his eyes on the lift doors before them.
“No one on board this transport knows who the witnesses are?”
“Except the witnesses themselves,” the commissioner said.
“Of course.”
“They did all this themselves. They contacted us, they arranged transport, they didn’t purchase tickets or book passage until the last possible second—we don’t even know what they look like.”
Worf’s comm badge beeped then, and he tapped it. “Lieutenant Worf.”
“Security, sir. Transporter Room One is under repair. The molecular stabilizers are off-line.”
“Very well. Divert to Transporter Room Three. Worf out.” The Klingon touched the controls. “Diverting to Room Three, sir.”
“Very well,” Picard said. Another forty-five seconds in the lift.
“Hopefully, by the time we reach the transporter room, Mr. Riker will have pulled that transport over and be holding it. We should be able to beam directly on board and isolate your two witnesses straightaway.”
“I’ll breathe a sigh of relief then, Captain,” the commissioner told him.
In the transporter room they came upon Worf’s four security guards and Ensign Jensen, a new transferee barely out of Starfleet Academy but one who Worf had high hopes for. Since the Enterprise was so far away from central Federation space, the young man had been on two starships, two transports, and four Starfleet supply ships just to get out to the Enterprise. He was twitching with anticipation to actually beam out in the captain’s company.
Picard could tell—he’d seen the look. And Jensen’s eyes never once left him. As if the commissioner’s jolly attention weren’t altogether plenty.
“Ready, sir,” the transporter officer said as they walked