Orphans - Kevin Killiany [14]
Kairn’s hand hesitated midmotion. He knew Captain Kortag’s heart; there was little chance the two ships would part on friendly terms. He lacked the guile to smile as he retook his dagger.
Commander Gomez presented the remaining Federation engineers, introducing four more humans, a lone Bynar, and the Tellarite. Though Kairn did not retain names, he was impressed by the range of specialties included. What role would a cultural specialist or a physician play in engineering? This team was obviously intended to deal with a wide range of situations without support.
He introduced himself and Langk when she finished. Captain Kortag had already identified himself to the only person aboard the Federation vessel who mattered.
The courtesies attended to, Kortag took the proffered seat, identical to the Federation captain’s facing him from the opposite end of the table. Langk and Kairn sat at either side of him as Gomez and the Tellarite flanked their own captain.
In Federation fashion the others attempted to leave the visitors enough space, crowding toward their end of the table. However, even with their security chief standing by the door, there simply was not enough room for formal separation. Kairn found himself elbow to elbow with the Nasat, which, he decided, he did not mind at all.
For the next forty minutes the technical data flowed freely. The Federation engineers had done a thorough job of modeling the alien vessel. They had missed the entry ports, but their deep scans revealed much of the structure that had eluded the Qaw’qay’.
Even Langk was not immune to the spirit of cooperation, questioning the Tellarite’s assessment of some detail, then conceding the point. Kairn could not remember the last time that had happened.
Kairn found himself comparing the two captains. Both followed the multiple conversations with evident interest and comprehension, but offered no comments of their own. Clearly each was comfortable with letting the specialists under their command work in their own way. The two looked to be of an age, but he knew nothing of how human longevity compared to that of Klingons. For all he knew, Captain Gold was twice as old as Captain Kortag, or had only half his years.
When his captain shifted slightly in his chair, Kairn knew the period of conviviality was about to end. Langk realized it, too, straightening in his seat and resuming his imperious warrior’s air. The others, of course, noticed nothing.
“Have you determined their point of origin?” Kortag demanded.
“No,” the Tellarite, whose name, Kairn recalled, was Tev, said shortly.
“No,” Kortag echoed, and waited.
Kairn knew his captain understood why they had been unable to discover the colony ship’s home system. He wondered whether Kortag thought the Federation was withholding information or simply using the issue as a pretext for confrontation. Both seemed likely.
“From its current heading, we know the vessel passed through the Dancido system about six hundred years ago,” the Tellarite said. “Where it was attacked, apparently over a protracted period of time, by the Dancidii.”
“Six hundred years ago?” asked the smallest human female. The cultural specialist, if Kairn recalled correctly. “That was during the Dancidii unification. They hardly had space flight then. Their armament would have been—”
“Primitive nuclear missiles,” Tev finished.
The image of the colony vessel on the viewscreen rotated, shifting from a schematic diagram to a graphic representation. Centered in the screen was a ragged trench about a third of the way back from the leading edge of the cylinder. Kilometers wide, it formed an uneven collar ringing half the ship’s circumference. Several craters of various sizes were grouped around the trench.
“There was apparently a structure here which the Dancidii took to be the control center,” Tev said. “It was the target of at least fifty low-yield nuclear warheads.”
Kairn knew from their analysis of the rotational rocket control network, something invisible to the Starfleeters