Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [72]
"I wouldn't count on it," Janeway said.
Janeway watched the closest Televek raise his weapon and take aim as he stumbled toward her. Then the forest blurred and disappeared.
CHAPTER 13
Daket stood beside his cruiser, leaning on a flanged section of the hull, catching his breath. He'd been in the woods with one of his teams, going over scores of unremarkable ground echo readings, killing time while he waited for Tolif's team at the downed shuttle to report in. Then the latest round of quakes had shaken the forest hard enough to bring trees crashing down and send the bedrock heaving up.
Daket was still young and agile, thank the stars, and probably just plain lucky, he guessed. After all that he'd been through, he was still here, still alive and well. He was destined to collide with greatness one day, he had no doubt of that, but at times like these he wondered whether the universe clearly understood that fact.
Somehow he'd managed to sprint into the clearing before the second, even more violent quakes had hit. For a time he worried that the end might well be at hand for all of them, that this absurd planet might have come to claim them, but this second round of tremors had finally subsided like the others.
Temporarily...
The clearing around the cruiser had remained fairly stable, and the cruiser itself had come through the experience unharmed, but Daket knew that was part luck as well, and he didn't trust to luck. The quakes were getting worse, and the next one might spell disaster. All of which only made his current set of dilemmas that much more convoluted.
Not one single member of this team wanted to die here, and Daket would not hold on to his status as a director for long if the others decided they could not trust him in that regard. And neither could he blame them. Indeed, in their position, he would have been plotting exactly what he knew they were plotting.
Not that he was willing to die, either. He had been certain from the outset that the risks on this mission would be unacceptable.
Daket didn't like to take chances. He never did, in fact, unless he was forced to do so. Which was the case at present, of course. His was a difficult position.
Despite the intensive foot searches and scanning operations his teams had been carrying out for days now, he had been unable to discover an access route to the exotic, and doubtless extremely valuable power source that lay several kilometers below his feet.
Nor had he learned much more about his elusive target. In short, his mission was a complete failure.
He had managed in his reports, however, to describe his team's efforts and circumstances in a truly superlative light, as would any proper associate, or director, so as to make himself and his crew seem utterly commendable. The trick, certainly, was to report all of the positives and omit all of the negatives--nothing every bottom-fed manager and assistant in the sector didn't do. But Daket liked to think he was especially good at it, and he thought he had proven that fact on Drenar Four.
Even that small success seemed threatened now, however. The problems were being compounded. It wasn't just the dead ends, the earthquakes, the volcanoes, the injuries, or the endless complaining that Gantel and his people incessantly poured down on him from their stable orbit--it was the new aliens now. They weren't content with troubling Gantel, apparently.
"Find their shuttle'" the third director had said. "Be certain there were no survivors," he'd said. "Then repair their shuttle and we will take it with us," he'd said.
It had all sounded simple enough.
Nothing had worked out that way.
The small craft from the Federation starship had landed, not crashed.
Not only had this left the ship intact, but several armed and able survivors had emerged as well. And before Tolif's team could reach the site, the Drenarians had taken the visitors to their village. Their town was no fortress, certainly, but a great amount