Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [8]
Picard sampled his colleagues’ reactions. The Vulcan beside him was nodding his head in quiet agreement, but many of the other captains seemed less than enthusiastic.
Ruhalter, Picard’s predecessor, would have come down firmly in the latter group. Picard had no doubt of that. Ruhalter was a man who had preferred to respond instinctively, avoiding meetings and planning sessions as much as possible.
If the same topic was being discussed in the first officers’ briefing, Ben Zoma would be resisting it as well. Picard had no doubt of that either.
Nor could he help agreeing with his predecessor and his exec.
Captains had always been chosen for their ability to act on their own. It was the strength of the fleet, indeed one of the principles on which it had been built, and it didn’t seem wise to inhibit it.
On the other hand, McAteer was the man Starfleet had put in charge of this sector. If he thought it was time for something new, Picard would at least try to keep an open mind about it.
The admiral looked out over his audience. “I’ve made up a list of missions that we need to tackle. The first one—and the most critical—is the capture of the pirate known as the White Wolf.”
McAteer’s announcement fell like a stone into the midst of the assembled captains. In the ripples of silence that followed, Picard saw his colleagues exchanging glances.
He had no trouble understanding why.
“For the last two years,” McAteer said, “the White Wolf and his crew have raided Federation cargo ships left and right. And every time we’ve sent a Starfleet vessel after him, he’s managed to elude us by hiding in one of the odd features of Beta Barritus—which, as you’ll note, is rather a unique system by anyone’s reckoning.”
As he finished his sentence, he manipulated the controls before him and created a hologram to one side of the podium. It was a computerized representation of the Beta Barritus system—a sun surrounded by a thick layer of gases and who knew what else.
But then, Beta Barritus was a Lazarus star—one that had burned out and somehow resurrected itself. It couldn’t help but present an unusual set of problems to anyone seeking to plumb its depths.
Which was why the White Wolf, a man reputedly named for the color of his hair as well as his resourcefulness, had picked Beta Barritus as his favorite hiding place.
“Until this point in time,” the admiral told the assembled captains, “the apprehension of the White Wolf has been a low priority for us. That changes as of this moment.”
Picard wondered why that might be. McAteer didn’t take long to satisfy his curiosity.
“His latest attack on a defenseless transport vessel took place less than a week ago. It netted him a cargo of exotic flora from Elekiwi Prime.” The admiral scowled. “I think you all know how difficult it is to extract anything from that world—and how valuable such cargo can be to our research people at Starfleet Medical.”
Picard nodded. Elekiwi Prime was a dying world, increasingly beleaguered by volcanic eruptions and resulting clouds of carbon dioxide. A team of scientists had risked their lives to obtain the flora samples in question, knowing that plant life wouldn’t survive conditions on the planet much longer.
“Someone has to go after the White Wolf and attempt to recover the cargo,” McAteer said, his voice steely with resolve. “But even if recovery is no longer possible, I want to end the menace of this pirate once and for all.”
He had barely finished his sentence when half a dozen hands went up. Volunteers, Picard thought. No doubt they included the captains who had been thwarted by the White Wolf in the past. If he were one of them, he too would have wished to settle the score.
Picard studied the hologram of the White Wolf’s hiding place. Beta Barritus appeared to be a complex system indeed. It presented the kind of obstacles Picard had heard about, even read about, but had never personally encountered.
If the captains who had hunted the White Wolf were any judges, the man was impossible to find,