Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [29]
Nijil nodded, then spoke. “It is easier to unravel a weave when one has pulled a single thread. If we target a Coalition vessel that is of little intrinsic importance, something that is not likely to be missed immediately, we will have grasped the very thread that leads us to other, more consequential ships.
Valdore raised one eyebrow as he considered his chief technologists words. The time to strike against the Coalition was coming, but to assure victory, whatever specific blow he was going to deal would have to be carefully considered and flawlessly planned.
He smiled. When the hammer finally fell, the Coalition would not even have time to wonder about what had hit it.
SIX
Monday, July 14, 2155 Enterprise NX-01, near Altair VI
T O A RCHER , the regulation-required inspection of the United Earth Space Probe Agencys port facilities at Altair VI had seemed all but interminable. The fact that the planets surface gravity, at least in the areas not outfitted with artificial gravity plating, was fifty percent higher than Earth normal didnt help matters any. And despite the protective eyewear that he and Malcolm Reed and everyone based at the Altair VI colony donned whenever the inspection checklist had required them to venture outside, the intense brightness of the sun had given Archer a nearly equally intense yearning for a welding mask.
Archer was thankful, at least, that the proceedings had gone largely without incident, and that the few areas in the central compound and its surrounding out-buildings that werent quite up to Starfleet standards and UESPA code hadnt affected any critical systems. Fortunately for everyone concerned, Altair VIs mild and relatively Earth-like climate, particularly at the high northern latitudes where the bulk of the settlements had been established, rendered the planets few thousand human colonists safe from pressure-dome blowouts and other similar technological catastrophes, if not from distant Altairs intense, ultraviolet-heavy brilliance. The few small problems that had been discovered during the inspection had been put right within a couple of hours with the aid of Enterprise s new chief engineer, Lieutenant Mike Burch, and his able crew.
After he had finally finished with the inspection and the final exchanges of pleasantries with the ports command staff, Archer and Reed returned to Shuttlepod One and took it back into the green-tinged sky that overlooked the northern seaside port facilities. Archer turned the shuttlepod as it gained altitude, allowing him to take in the welcoming vista of the Darro-Miller settlement that had risen over the carbon dioxide-in-fused Altair-water aquifers to the south. The pioneer town was still growing quickly, already home to nearly twenty-two thousand humans; more than a few of these settlers would no doubt soon participate in the creation of other settlements, either elsewhere on this world or on the even more challenging surface of the systems still largely untouched fourth planet.
The magenta-and-white mountains beyond Darro-Miller rolled into view next, fronted by an enigmatic jumble of ruined stone columns and temples that had been left behind untold eons ago by some long-extinct sentient race. Archer looked on wistfully as the tantalizing ancient vista quickly vanished over the horizon and the shuttlepod arced upward toward a standard orbital insertion.
“They say the statues the archeologists found down there look almost human, Reed said, almost as though hed been reading Archers mind.
“Its amazing to find traces of anything that looks so much like we do almost seventeen light-years from home, Archer said as he returned his full attention to the console before him. “I wish we had at least a solid week down there to go picking through those ruins. The mysteries of where those ancient people had gone, where they had originatedand whether