Intellivore - Diane Duane [18]
Chapter Three
THE BRIDGE SETTLED into the steady give-and-take of reports and updates that had become familiar over many chases. But one thing became clear to Picard quickly. They were catching up very fast.
“No change in their position?” he said to Riker after a while.
“None,” Riker replied, looking over Data’s shoulder at the console. “They’re just sitting there.”
“A rendezvous, perhaps?”
Data shook his head. “There is no evidence of other ships in the area, Captain. If it is a rendezvous, it is one they have missed. Or perhaps someone else has.”
“Possibly waiting for a pickup from one of their support ships,” said Riker.
Picard thought about that for a moment. “Shields,” he said.
“Shields up.”
Riker looked up at Worf. “Arm the phasers and photon torpedoes—”
“Armed,” Worf said, in a tone of voice that suggested that they had been that way for some time now. “Ready to fire.”
“Purely as a matter of caution,” Picard said. “Oraidhe?”
“We’re with you, Captain,” said Clif’s voice.
“Marignano?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him to be playing possum, Jean-Luc,” said Ileen’s voice. “Not after the drubbing that the Lalairu gave him. If I were him, I’d play dead.”
And indeed, that seemed to be what he was doing. “Still no movement—”
“None, Captain,” said Data.
They all gazed at the screen, waiting. Picard felt once again the old familiar urge to get up and pace, and repressed it. He sat and waited for that first faint gleam of light—
“Visual coming now,” Data said, “at extreme range.”
They were diving into a star system. In the distance, the primary, a small type F, glinted a clear pale green. Just visible in its light, a spark, not moving relative to them or the star. Slowly, the spark grew brighter, the light it reflected from the primary spreading over and defining a shape.
“Dropping out of warp,” Riker said. “Half impulse. Mr. Worf—”
“Ready, Commander.”
Slowly Enterprise coasted in. The shape grew more and more clearly defined—one of those needly forms they had seen attacking the Lalairu ship. It was a narrow four-sided pyramid, drawn out long and thin. The ship was not quite motionless in space; it was tumbling slowly, more or less end-over-end.
“Do you want me to put a tractor on it, Captain?” said Worf.
Picard shook his head. “I’d sooner not take the chance that adding our own vectors to it might in some way damage our analysis. Let it tumble. Bring us alongside at about ten kilometers, and match.”
“Aye, sir,” Data said. Slowly the vessel’s image in the viewscreen stabilized, while the starfield behind it began a slow and stately pinwheeling. From Marignano, Captain Maisel said, “Matching tumble, Oraidhe.”
“Confirmed,” Captain Clif said. “Weapons locked on.”
On the screen, Marignano and Oraidhe took up positions matching Enterprise’s on the far side of the pirate vessel, seeming to come to rest against the pinwheeling stars. “You’ll want to check me on this,” Maisel said from Marignano, “but I’m getting very low life-sign readings. Only one or two … but at the same time, my sensors would seem to indicate almost no biomass on this ship.”
No bodies, then, Picard thought. What can this mean?
“Have we another Marie Celeste here?” said Captain Clif’s voice, sounding somewhat bemused.
“I’m preparing away teams,” said Maisel.
Picard nodded at Riker. “Number One, see to our own team’s composition. Mr. Data, do our sensor readings confirm Marignano’s?”
“Present readings would indicate no more than five life signs on the vessel; possibly as few as one. I confirm also that biomass is strangely lacking.”
Picard looked over the outside of the ship. Pirate vessels tended to be less aesthetic than purpose-built spacecraft; they were usually largely modular, with alterations made on them higgledy-piggledy at clandestine illegal refitment facilities out in the depths of space. As a result, their outsides frequently looked as if bits and pieces