Marooned - Christie Golden [49]
"What about the distortion field?" Chakotay asked Carey.
"Captain Janeway was right about that as well. It's probably artificial too. We know that it protects the atmosphere from the ion storm, and if the ion storm is a construction-"
"Then the need to protect the atmosphere from the ion storm has to be a construction," finished Chakotay. "I'll buy that. A storm and a distortion field that are both artificial and three apparently derelict vessels that spring to life when we get too close. This is an elaborate security operation, yet it's designed to look natural, as if whoever set this up didn't want to be noticed. Someone wanted Mishkara well protected, but overlooked."
"I'd say that would be an ideal situation for the Ja'in," said Kim, "except those relics look very old."
"We don't know how long the Ja'in have occupied this area of space," Chakotay countered. "It's an interesting question, no doubt about it, but our primary need is to get to our people down there on Mishkara. And that means somehow getting past the sentry ships, whoever placed them there."
Kim and Carey exchanged glances. Chakotay didn't miss the gestures and inquired, "Do you have a solution for me, gentlemen?"
"I'm not so sure it's a solution," said Kim, "but it is a suggestion."
"Suggestion, idea, proposal, initiative-whatever you want to call it, Mr. Kim, I'd welcome it."
"Okay." Kim laced his fingers together and leaned forward. "The most important problem facing us right now is how to get around those sentinel ships. We can't do anything else until we do that. I've discussed this with Lieutenant Carey, and he thinks we might be able to pull it off. What I'm suggesting is, we beam over teams to each of the sentinel ships. Once there, we can start analyzing them, see if we can't figure out what makes them tick. With any luck, we'll be able to determine how to deactivate their programmed attack response."
Chakotay frowned. "That's a pretty risky solution." Kim managed a wry grin. "I said it was a suggestion, Commander."
"So you did." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. The tension and worry were beginning to get to him, and he thought rather grimly that it would get worse before it got better.
"How do you propose we do this? Those ships have shields, not to mention very effective weaponry."
"The shields, like the weapons, only activate when we get within a certain distance," said Carey. "Here's what I think we should do."
Chakotay did not like the plan, but it was the only one they had. He realized, as he sat in Janeway's chair, that both his hands had clenched into fists. He took a deep breath and forced his fingers to uncurl.
"Bridge to engineering."
"Lieutenant Dalby here, sir."
"How is the reconfiguration of the transporters coming?"
He could hear the pleasure in Dalby's voice as he replied. "Beautifully, sir. We've managed to readjust the targeting scanners to permit differing destinations. The only problem is, in order for this to work, the transporter operators will have to use the Joystick to manually target the controls for the third ship. It's going to slow things down a bit, as well. Rematerialization is going to take approximately eight point four seconds."
"What about the range?"
"Well, I'm afraid that Carey was right when he said the diffusion of energy would decrease our minimum range. We've got to get within ten thousand kilometers of the ships before we can begin transport."
Chakotay punched up a few schematics on his console and swore underneath his breath. The ships had "come alive" when Voyager was approximately ten thousand kilometers away from them.
"We are going to be cutting this one close," he said aloud.
"Aye, sir," replied Dalby.
Chakotay nodded to himself. He'd much rather have beamed the three teams to the derelict ships in three different sessions, keeping their distance