Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [63]
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STUDYING IDUN’S CONTROL PANEL over her shoulder, Ben Zoma frowned. “Then that’s it?” he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from his helm officer.
“I do not see any alternative,” Idun said.
Ben Zoma nodded. “All right. I’ll inform the captain.”
Picard had spent the last three hours in his quarters trying to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Ben Zoma didn’t like the idea of waking him. However, the captain had asked to be apprised of any significant development, and this one certainly qualified.
The first officer looked up at the intercom grid embedded in the ceiling. “Ben Zoma to Captain Picard.”
No response.
“Ben Zoma to Captain Picard,” he repeated.
This time he got an answer. “I heard you the first time,” Picard said, his weariness evident in his voice.
“Sorry,” Ben Zoma told him, smiling sympathetically. “But I thought you should know—”
“I had a dream,” the captain interjected. “A wonderful dream. We had figured out a way to make the sensors work, long- and short-range, interference or no interference.” He yawned. “We were hot and heavy on the trail of the White Wolf.”
Ben Zoma’s smiled tightened a bit. “Then this is a rude awakening in more ways than one. According to Idun, sensor range has diminished too precipitously for us to continue our forward progress—especially with our deflectors in such sorry shape.”
A long pause. “I see,” said Picard, his voice unmistakably full of disappointment.
It had to be a bitter pill for his friend to swallow, Ben Zoma reflected. Having come so far, only to be stymied by what was really a mere technical problem . . .
“All stop,” Picard commanded, “until we can devise a way to see in this muck.”
The first officer turned to Idun, who looked utterly disgusted with the situation—like any Klingon denied a confrontation with her enemy. “You heard the captain,” he said. “All stop.”
“Aye, sir,” she told him, and cut impulse power.
Without the application of braking thrusters, the Stargazer would continue to drift forward on momentum alone. But she wouldn’t go very fast or get very far that way.
Ben Zoma swore under his breath. For the moment, it seemed, the hunt for the White Wolf was on hold.
The man called the White Wolf pushed his sensor screen away on its swivel and leaned back into his captain’s chair.
“You’ve found them?” asked his second-in-command, the ruby-red light casting his blunt features into sharp relief.
“I have,” the White Wolf told him. “They’ve survived the twisters in one piece.”
Turgis’s expression was one of grudging respect. “Really.”
“Yes. But they’ve stopped moving. Either they’ve lost impulse power or their sensors have finally failed them.”
“Their sensors, most likely.”
The White Wolf nodded judiciously. “Most likely.”
He himself had had trouble in that area for a long time. And when he finally came up with a solution, it had been a product more of good fortune than of expertise.
“They’ll linger there for a while,” Turgis speculated disdainfully, “then turn around and go home—and brag about how close they came to capturing us.”
The White Wolf cast a sidelong look at him. “You think so? None of their colleagues have gotten even this far.”
The Klingon sneered. “There’s a big difference between beating the twisters and beating us.”
The pirate smiled. “There is indeed.”
And they laughed, as they had before whenever