Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [51]
“You are joking,” Minshaya said at last.
“I wish I were,” said Picard.
Nguyen shook her head. “That’s outrageous.”
Shastakovich made a sound of disgust in his throat. “Don’t worry. You’ll beat him.”
Picard wished he were half as certain as his colleague. “Thank you for saying so.”
The others expressed the same sort of sentiment as Shastakovich. However, Picard could see in their eyes that they were just being supportive. They knew the kind of trap he was in, and how slim the odds were of escaping it.
“In any case,” said Minshaya, “we did not come here to talk about our friend Picard. We came to discuss strategy.”
“Indeed,” said Shastakovich. “Let’s get to work. Judging from the reports, this will not be easy.”
Suddenly, they were all business. Picard took a seat and endeavored to adopt the same attitude.
“How do you work a battle?” asked Veracruz, throwing the question out to the entire group. “Do you like to take the offensive? Or do you prefer to hang back and let the enemy come to you?”
Shastakovich turned to Picard. “Why don’t we start over here and work our way around the room?”
Picard nodded and said, “Well, it depends…”
Kastiigan sat down at his desk in the sciences section and went over the report from the Exeter, which the captain had made available to all his section heads. It was basically a list of newly arrived vessels.
The Hood, commanded by Captain Benderrek. The Valdemar, commanded by Captain Calabrese. And the Etrechaya, which had been commissioned only a couple of days earlier.
That made thirty-two vessels in all. It was already one of the most powerful forces in Starfleet history, and still more ships were on the way.
But then, the invaders were powerful too. Otherwise, they couldn’t have taken those other ships so easily.
Kastiigan sat back in his chair. There would be no negotiating with this enemy—he had heard his crewmates agree on that time and again. The invaders were too vicious, too implacable, too alien. The only way to stop them was to overcome them.
Combat, the science officer thought. Just the prospect of it made his heart beat a little faster. It was what he had hoped for when he signed on with the Stargazer months earlier. It was what he had dreamed about.
Since Kastiigan’s arrival on board, Captain Picard had put his life on the line several times. So had a number of his officers. But never Kastiigan. Not even once.
He had expressed his desire to do so on more than one occasion. He had started out subtly and grown increasingly blunt. And yet, his requests had fallen on deaf ears.
Over and over again, he had watched others assume the risks that should have been his. And with each oversight, his disappointment had gotten a little keener.
It had gotten to the point where Kastiigan was resigned to his fate. He had given up hoping that he would ever have the opportunity he longed for.
Now, with a clash of such huge proportions imminent, his hopes were rekindled. Finally, he stood a chance of seizing the glory that had so far eluded him.
And it might not be at the captain’s behest. In battle, one never knew when the need for sacrifice might arise—a situation where a single death might prevent a great many others.
If it comes, Kastiigan thought, I’ll be ready. The way his stint on the Stargazer had gone, he couldn’t depend on getting a second chance. He just had to make sure he didn’t waste the first one.
Ben Zoma stopped and regarded the collection of containers in front of him, using his palmlight for illumination.
“And they’re the next ones to go?” he asked.
“They’re among the next ones,” said Garner. “But we won’t be able to fit inside any of the others.”
There would be plenty of room for them to fit inside the gigantic specimens before him. There were nearly a dozen of the dark, cylindrical behemoths, each one almost as large as the Livingston. And the aliens had started out with even more of them, judging by the circular dust-marks left on the floor.
Of course, Ben Zoma and his team needed only one of the containers. As big as the things