Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [34]
Picard had opted to leave them where he and his officers found them. Unlike the individual who had transported so many of his friends to the cargo bay, the captain didn’t have the time to perform such services.
As for Brakmaktin…if he was hiding, he had done a superlative job of it. It seemed more likely to Picard that the alien had left the Iktoj’ni on the vessel that attacked her, exchanging ships as he had done with the scout.
“Mister Ben Zoma,” the captain said, again employing the com device in his helmet.
“Aye, sir,” said the first officer. “Ready to beam out?”
Picard was about to reply in the affirmative when Pierzynski said, “Hang on, sir. Something doesn’t jibe.”
The security officer was studying his tricorder, a look of consternation on his face. The captain asked Ben Zoma to stand by, then moved to Pierzynski’s side and took a look.
“This is the crew manifest,” said Pierzynski. “I downloaded it when we were up on the bridge. There are fifty-nine names here. But we’ve only accounted for fifty-eight bodies.”
“We could have missed one,” said Iulus.
Joseph shook his head inside his helmet. “I don’t think so. We were pretty thorough.”
“Even if we have overlooked someone,” Picard observed, “there is nothing left for us to accomplish here. We need to return to the Stargazer.”
But before he had finished, he saw Pierzynski’s eyes open with surprise. “This can’t be right,” the officer muttered.
“Lieutenant?” said Picard.
Looking up at him, Pierzynski handed over his tricorder. Its screen showed the captain a column of names.
And the one at the top was Andreas Nikolas.
It wasn’t exactly a common name. And though Picard didn’t know what had become of the ensign after he left the Stargazer, it wasn’t unusual for those who left the fleet to turn to commercial shipping as an alternative.
But everyone on the away team had known Nikolas. If they had come across him, they would have known it—and said something.
Which meant they hadn’t seen him in the course of their search. And as Pierzynski had pointed out, they were a body short…
A body who could have carried thirty-three others there to the cargo bay and arranged them on the deck. Nikolas was a good friend—he had demonstrated that on the Stargazer. If his comrades had perished and he was the only survivor, he would certainly have done what he could for them.
A drop of ice water collected in the small of Picard’s back. Was that it—the solution to the mystery of how the bodies had gotten there? But if it was, it raised more questions than it answered.
For instance, how had Nikolas survived when the others had not? And if he wasn’t on the ship, a corpse among all the other corpses, where in blazes was he?
“Captain?” said Ben Zoma over the com link.
Picard licked his lips. Was it possible that when Brakmaktin left the Iktoj’ni, he had taken Nikolas with him? Why would the Nuyyad have done that? What could he have gained by it?
The captain tried to figure it out. Unfortunately, none of the answers he came up with were happy ones.
“Sir?” Ben Zoma said, his tone noticeably more urgent this time.
“I am here, Gilaad,” Picard assured him. He looked around at his companions, addressing them at the same time. “And you will be surprised to hear what we have discovered….”
Nikolas was sitting in the Ubarrak mess hall among the fourteen Ubarrak he had carried or dragged there, eating something that reminded him of fresh mahogany shavings and curdled milk, when he heard words slither through his brain: There’s a squadron coming to meet us.
Though the advisory wasn’t accompanied by a voice per se, there was no doubt in his mind where it came from. Or why.
For the better part of a second, Nikolas considered remaining where he was. After all, he wasn’t in a position to change the outcome of what was going to happen. Why give the alien the satisfaction of seeing his horror?
But he didn’t know how Brakmaktin would react if he stayed where he was. He might cut an even broader swath of destruction