Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [81]
Finally, the captain considered the viewscreen, which had reverted to an image of the gas clouds surrounding them. “Mr. Paxton,” he said, “see if you can raise Captain Greenbriar.”
In a matter of moments, Greenbriar appeared on the viewscreen. For a man who had just lost a space battle, he didn’t look very disappointed. He seemed as pleasant and easygoing as if he and Picard were standing around the punch bowl at McAteer’s cocktail party.
“Good shooting,” Greenbriar told him. “My compliments to your weapons officer.”
Picard didn’t feel inclined to join in the jocularity. “What’s going on here, Captain?”
The other man frowned, accentuating the lines in his seamed face. “I guess there’s no point in trying to conceal it any longer.”
But Greenbriar’s tone of voice belied his expression of resignation. It suggested that he was stalling for time, still looking for a way to secure the victory.
Picard glared at him. He was through playing games, especially the sort that put the welfare of his ship and crew at risk. “The truth, Captain. And I mean now.”
Greenbriar regarded him for a moment. Then he nodded soberly, appearing to accept the fact that he was out of options.
“I’d appreciate it if we could speak in private,” he said.
Picard considered it for a moment. Then he turned to Ben Zoma. “I’ll be in my ready room. You’ve got the bridge.”
His first officer nodded, though he would no doubt have preferred to hear what Greenbriar had to say. “Aye, sir.”
Casting a last wary glance at the viewscreen, Picard repaired to his ready room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
PICARD SAT BACK IN HIS CHAIR and studied the same craggy visage that he had seen on the viewscreen. Except now, it filled the computer screen on his desk.
“You must be a little confused,” Greenbriar said.
“To say the least,” Picard responded. “Try as I might, I cannot imagine why you would attack a Starfleet vessel, unless you have aligned yourself with a pirate who has become the bane of this entire sector. And if you have, that begs yet an even greater question.”
Greenbriar nodded. “It’s difficult to explain. Maybe it would be better if I let the pirate speak for himself.”
Picard shrugged. “If that is what it takes.”
A moment later, Greenbriar’s image was shunted to the left side of the screen, making way for the image of another man on the right. The White Wolf, Picard thought.
But the pirate wasn’t at all what the captain had expected.
For one thing, his hair wasn’t white; it wasn’t even gray. And he wasn’t the crafty old veteran he was cracked up to be. The White Wolf was a baby-faced young man, barely out of his twenties if Picard was any judge of such things.
“Captain,” said the pirate in a soft, cultured voice. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you. But under the circumstances . . .”
Picard frowned. “Captain Greenbriar promised me an explanation. I’m waiting to hear it.”
The White Wolf nodded. “Of course. My name is Carridine. And contrary to what you may have heard about me, I’m more of an exobiologist than I am a pirate.”
It sounded familiar. “Emil Carridine?” Picard asked.
The pirate looked at him. “I see you’ve heard of me.”
“If I recall correctly, you come from a wealthy family on Earth. Some years back, you embarked on a series of planetary surveys in a previously unexplored part of space—”
“And was never heard from again,” the White Wolf said. “But I hadn’t disappeared. Not really. I had only assumed a different identity.”
“So I gather,” Picard told him. “The question is, why?”
Isn’t it always? Carridine’s expression seemed to say.
“During one of my routine planetary surveys,” he said, “I found a world I called Daribund. It was ridiculously rich in latinum—a huge prize for anyone with a yen to get rich quick.”
The White Wolf’s eyes lost their focus as he remembered. “If it had been a barren world, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But Daribund was populated by a pre-sentient species with an extremely fragile niche in the planet’s ecosystem. Any mining enterprise on that world would have doomed