Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [16]
He had studied Ubarrak spacecraft thoroughly enough at the Academy to identify their weaknesses, of which there were several. If he were on a Federation starship, he would have known how to take advantage of them.
But Nikolas wasn’t that fortunate. He was on an Yridian cargo hauler, and an old one at that, with tactical systems that had been outdated and inadequate even before the alien with the silver eyes saw fit to destroy them.
Now, the Iktoj’ni had no shield emitters, no weapons batteries, no conceivable way to defend herself. The cruiser’s weapons officer had to be thinking it was his birthday, or whatever occasion his people liked to celebrate.
Yet Nikolas’s companion remained unfazed in his growing maze of mineral deposits. He regarded the warship as if she were a novelty, an amusement—as if the idea of the Iktoj’ni being reduced to atoms, and her two living occupants along with her, was of no particular relevance to him.
The human would have tried again to get them out of there, but it was no use. The alien clearly wasn’t going to allow that. For some unfathomable reason, he wanted to confront the Ubarrak.
“What in blazes do you think you’re going to accomplish?” Nikolas asked him.
The alien didn’t bother answering. He just kept staring at the viewscreen.
A moment later, the Ubarrak’s weapons ports began to glow with a sickly bluish light. We’re in weapons range, Nikolas thought. Any moment now, they’ll let us have it.
The alien had to be thinking the same thing. However, the knowledge obviously wasn’t moving him. Was he insane? the human wondered. Was that why he faced death so carelessly?
Suddenly, the warship began belching packets of deadly azure energy, one after another. They were photon projectiles. Nikolas had seen pictures of them back at the Academy.
In a matter of seconds, they would plow into the cargo hauler like daggers and rip her apart. The human watched them with morbid fascination, bracing himself for the impact.
But it never came. The packets of blue brilliance splashed against the viewscreen, threatening all kinds of violence, but somehow they failed to make their presence felt.
Nikolas didn’t get it. Giddily, he checked the monitors on the helm console. None of them registered any damage to the transport. Not even a scratch.
How is that possible? he asked himself.
He looked to his grotesque companion for an explanation—just in time to see the alien turn away from the viewscreen. He actually looked as if he were bored.
Nikolas returned his attention to the screen, still unable to believe that the Ubarrak’s barrage could be so ineffectual. But by then, it had stopped. The warship wasn’t firing anymore.
“What happened?” Nikolas muttered, never meaning for anyone to hear the question.
“It’s difficult to fire,” the alien said in the most casual of tones, “when your mind has been erased.”
Erased? The word echoed eerily in Nikolas’s mind. An Ubarrak battle cruiser had a complement of nearly a hundred warriors, each one carefully selected and highly trained…
But not this battle cruiser, he realized with a tightening of his throat. Not anymore.
“Fortunately,” the alien added in the same inappropriately casual tone, “their ship is in perfect condition.”
Picard regarded Serenity Santana’s image on his desktop monitor screen. “All right,” he said, “I will take you at your word—unless and until you give me reason to do otherwise.”
She looked pleased and disappointed at the same time. “Honestly, Jean-Luc, I thought we had learned enough about each other to get past all that.”
In fact, the captain had gotten to know Serenity quite well in the couple of days before the Stargazer left her galaxy, when he and his crew were restoring the ship to the condition in which she had originally crossed the barrier.
But he knew that she would put Magnia’s welfare ahead of anything else. That made her someone to be treated warily, despite what had transpired between them.
“I wish I could say so,” Picard replied.
If Serenity took offense at the remark, it wasn