Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [50]
Picard turned to Idun. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”
The helm officer frowned at the hologram as if she were sizing up an adversary. “As Mr. Simenon says, it will not be an easy feat. There is much we do not know about this system.”
“But can we do it?” Picard pressed.
Idun responded as if to a challenge, her eyes steely with resolve. “I believe we can.”
That weighed more heavily in the captain’s estimate than anything else that had been said. After all, Idun was the one who would have to execute the maneuver.
He looked around the table. “Any other comments?”
No one offered any. Not even Simenon, who still seemed more wary of the idea than any of the others.
“Very well, then,” Picard said. “We execute the maneuver in one hour. Let’s see to it that there are no delays.”
Everyone got up and filed out of the room. At least, that’s what Picard thought. It was only as he reached to switch off the hologram projector that he noticed someone lingering by the door.
It was Wu.
“A question?” he suggested, leaving the projector untouched for the time being.
“No question,” she said. “Just an observation. It is a significant risk you’re taking. I thought you were somewhat more conservative in your approach to command.”
The captain smiled a wry smile. “You’ve been reading my personnel file, I see.”
“Commander Ben Zoma made it available to me. I felt it was my duty to read it.”
And so it was, Picard told himself. Nonetheless, knowing Wu had read his file made him feel vulnerable in her presence—much more so than he would have imagined.
“I will concede that I am deliberate sometimes, Commander—perhaps to a fault. And I will also concede that I have the utmost respect for the obstacles placed in front of me. But make no mistake—I will not shy away from them.”
Wu looked thoughtful. “I’ll remember that.”
Then she left him as well.
Picard looked back at the hologram of Beta Barritus. There was only one thing missing from the three-dimensional representation—the White Wolf that lay at the heart of the solar system, daring the captain to find him.
The muscles in his jaw rippled at the thought. One step at a time, he counseled himself. That is the way to catch a White Wolf—one small step at a time.
Then he reached across the briefing room table, switched off the little hologram projector, and returned to what would undoubtedly be a very busy bridge.
The man called the White Wolf sat in the captain’s chair of his ship and drummed his fingers on his armrest.
“What is it?” asked Turgis, his Klingon second-in-command, who had come to stand beside him in the lurid red light of their bridge.
The White Wolf glanced at him, as slyly narrow-eyed as his namesake. “What do you think it is?”
His second-in-command’s expression turned into one of disgust. “Starfleet,” he spat.
The White Wolf nodded, a grim smile pulling his lips back from his teeth. “They’re after me.”
“You’ve picked them up on sensors?”
“Not yet. But I don’t need sensors to tell me when someone’s hot on my trail.” His nostrils flared. “I can feel them stalking me, Turgis. I can feel the fire in their blood.”
“You’re the White Wolf,” the Klingon reminded him. “Any Starfleet captain would give his soul to bring you in.”
“No doubt.”
“But none of them ever will. Whoever’s come hunting us will go home empty-handed.”
“Like all the others.”
“And there have been many of them.”
The White Wolf grunted softly. “You make it sound as if the outcome has already been determined.”
Turgis grinned, exposing knife-sharp teeth. “Hasn’t it?”
And they laughed, the bridge of their ship ringing loudly with the sound of their defiance.
Chapter Fifteen
IT SEEMED LIKE JUST A FEW YEARS AGO that Picard’s mother had warned him about looking directly at the sun. Now, it seemed, he did nothing but look at suns.
Of course, the one that burned on his viewscreen at the moment wasn’t any ordinary dynamo of nuclear fusion. It was one that would