Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [61]
“Yes,” Spock reluctantly admitted. “Even the UFP diplomatic corps cannot breach imperial space. This time, the royal family wants us in, but no one else does. Perhaps… secrecy required concessions I should not have made this time.”
“Sir?” Riker straightened at Data’s side. “We’ve got something here”
The android touched his controls and read off, “The Romulan defector Rekk Devra Kilmne is no longer living in the Federation” “Where is he, then?” Picard asked. “We’ll go get him.” Data swiveled around in his chair, his expression particularly childlike. “No, sir… he is no longer living in the Federation.”
Riker held out a hand that stopped what seemed to be turning into a debate of unclarity, and looked at his captain. “Rekk Devra was murdered, Captain… fifteen months ago, during a visit to Deep Space Nine.” A mantle of chill descended upon the bridge, as winter cloaks northern hills. Spock felt it, and saw that all the others also felt it. Shoulders tightened, pensive glances traveled, fists clenched, lips pressed, Strange how a revelation could be so tangible, so very present.
The last living uncontaminated royal family member, dead. Whoever was driving the force of this plague was a critical step ahead. And now… what?
Chapter Twelve
Combat Support Tender Saskatoon, Starfleet Registry CST 2601
“DAMAGE CONTROL, TOP DECK!” “Take some of the new midshipmen up there with you.”
“Right. You and you, and your friend over there, come with me.” “And this one.”
On the severely angled bridge deck of the Saskatoon, Eric Stiles hooked the nearest midshipman and handed him to Jeremy White as Jeremy rushed past him, dragging the other three kids.
“Did it hit us or just skin us?” Stiles tossed as an afterthought as he brushed hot bits of plastic from his shoulders. “Mr. Perraton, have somebody trim the deck gravitational compensators, please. Rafting hands, man umbilicals one, two, and four.”
“Direct hit, midships upper quadrant, lateral shield, port side.” “Did you say upper quadrant?”
“Upper. At least I think it’s there-” Jeremy’s words became garbled as he disappeared into the bulky body of the CST, jumping through hatch after hatch until he got to the tubular companionway that would take him to file operational deck above the middle of the ship. Smoke rolled freely from chamber to chamber through the body of the CST, a ship built on lateral lines to avoid transfer of equipment up and down ladder wells. Despite its 200-meter LOA, the tender only had three decks. Factories didn’t need stairways.
“Rats,” Stiles muttered, surveying the shattered trunk housing that had just been blown all over the deck. “Ship to ship.”
To his right, at the comm station, Midshipman Zelasko controlled a cough and squeaked, “Ship to ship, sir.”
Nearly choking on the acrid smoke from fried circuits in the deck and sparks on the smoldering carpet, Stiles held onto the helm stanchion as the CST rolled noticeably under him. “Captain Sattier, I’ve got to be able to get closer than this. If both our ships can’t move off as a unit, you’ve got to kick those fighters off harder when they come into range. I know you’ve never done this before, but-“
“Sorry, Commander-Fire!” The captain’s voice from the Destroyer Lafayette crackled back at him through the electrical charges of phaser and disruptor fire in open space. “Sorry again. Two units got past us. I can’t move off with a kinked nacelle, not even on impulse, without knowing what else is damaged up there.”
“The arbitrariness of battle is for you to worry about, Captain, thank the god of problems.”
“He said cheerily” Travis Perraton edited from the other side of the narrow horseshoe-shaped bridge, where he was dodging from station to station coordinating the next few moves. To somebody on the upper deck, he spoke into a communit. “Just control the damage, Adams, don’t repair it yet. We don’t come first out here, remember?”
Spitting dust from his neatly