Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [52]
But which one would the aliens grab first? The shuttle team’s best bet seemed to be the container closest to the cargo bay door, which wasn’t more than a hundred meters away—but they couldn’t be certain of it. And the longer it took them to smuggle themselves aboard a warship, the more punishment Starfleet would be forced to endure.
“Just one problem,” said Horombo, using his palmlight to inspect one of the containers. “They’re locked.”
Indeed, the container had four clasps positioned at regular intervals around its lid. They were each about the size of Ben Zoma’s fist, with a small, horizontal readout and a keypad.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said McAteer, uttering his first words since they entered the supply drone.
“Not in terms of getting in,” said Ben Zoma, choosing his words carefully so as not to make the admiral look bad. “But after we’re inside, we’ll have to reactivate the locks.”
“Of course,” said McAteer, as if he had already considered that aspect of the situation.
“I think we’ll be all right,” said Horombo, scanning the locking mechanisms with his tricorder. “They don’t look all that complicated.”
McAteer seemed pleased with the observation. “Didn’t expect they would be.”
It was Chen who finally cracked the code and opened the locks. They opened slowly, with a whirring sound.
Climbing up on Ben Zoma’s back, Garner lifted the container’s lid and used her palmlight to take a look inside.
“What’s in there?” Ramirez asked, her face cast into stark relief by the play of light beams.
“Rolls of something,” said Garner. “Registers organic.” She whistled. “A fair amount of bacteria here. Hard to say if it’s harmful or not.”
It wasn’t the best news. Their suits afforded them their own air supplies, but only for a limited amount of time. And when they arrived on the alien warship, they would want to sacrifice protection for freedom of movement anyway.
As Garner climbed down, she said, “A bit of a problem.”
But there was a solution. “Let’s get that stuff out of the container,” said Ben Zoma, “and put it somewhere else. Then we’ll cleanse the inside of the container with our phasers.”
“We’ll need to record its mass,” said Chen, “so we know how much to add to our own.”
It was a good point. They didn’t want to give the aliens any reason to question what they were bringing aboard.
“That’ll be your job,” Ben Zoma told him.
“Maybe we should keep a little of the stuff,” said Paris, “to line the inside of the container—in case they run a scan.”
Another good point. But then, they were back to square one with regard to the bacteria. Or maybe not….
“Let’s try this,” said Ben Zoma. He indicated the container’s immediate neighbors with a sweep of his hand. “Check these other monsters for bacteria. If they’re germ-free, we can transplant some of their contents into this one.”
“Sounds good,” said McAteer, apparently feeling he had to say something.
As it turned out, the next container they opened was free of the bacteria. Luck, it seemed, was still on their side.
Ben Zoma assigned three of the security officers—Horombo, Ramirez, and Garner—to empty out the first container. Then he, Paris, and Chen undertook to empty the second one.
The cargo they handled was pale, flat, and flexible. It was packed in rolls as Garner had indicated, each of them half a head taller than Ben Zoma and probably just as heavy. Being organic, it seemed likely that it was a foodstuff of some kind.
McAteer, to his credit, didn’t stand around and watch everyone else work. Joining the first team, he pitched in and worked as hard as anyone.
Little by little, they created two stacks a good forty meters apart from each other, to minimize the possibility of cross-contamination. Then Ben Zoma’s team went to work on the first container, scouring it with wide-angle phaser beams.
When their tricorders stopped registering bacteria, they began filling the container with germ-free cargo, using approximately half the stack they made—enough to reach the mass level that had existed