Orphans - Kevin Killiany [16]
Tev’s white Starfleet suit, stockier than the usual cut, was perhaps a heartbeat behind. Stevens was glad to see the others—including Lauoc—matching his cautious approach. At least some of the away team was sane.
Lauoc Soan was their security contingent. Stevens didn’t know him well, but he was glad the Bajoran was along. Not that he was concerned about any possible danger from the colonists—or would they be “natives” on a ship so large? Tev was already showing signs of not adjusting well to being under Kairn’s command. The two might need a referee and he wasn’t up to it.
Domenica had wanted three security officers on the mission: herself, Lauoc, and Rennan Konya. The Klingon captain had rejected Konya out of hand; he didn’t want a Betazoid “mind reader” near his officers. Nor had he liked the idea of a security officer who outranked the mission leader being along.
But Lauoc, chin high on most people and muscled like a piece of beef jerky, had impressed the old Klingon. Part of it had been the web of scars from a Breen neural whip rising from his collar to just below his left eye, and a lot of it had been that Lauoc had served on the Abraxas, but it was the way he didn’t blink when Langk had threatened him that earned him the nod.
In fact, when the big lieutenant had scoffed at the idea of a Federation runt coming along to protect him, Kortag had surprised the hell out of everybody by pulling him from the mission. The warrior had started to puff up in protest, but the look in his captain’s eye had deflated him pronto. Stevens had the impression he’d be scrubbing induction coils by hand for the foreseeable future.
The second surprise had been Kairn’s tapping Pattie instead of one of his own to fill the vacancy. Except for that big guy, these Klingons were not running true to type.
With a start, Stevens realized he had daydreamed his way to within a hundred meters above the spinning nose of the giant ship. Wouldn’t do to meet oblivion mid-musing. He tapped his nav boosters lightly, slowing his rate of approach a bit.
The rotation was slowest at the center, but it was still enough to send Stevens stumbling as he touched down. He noted only Pattie and Lauoc seemed oblivious to the spin. In fact, the Bajoran seemed to land mid-stride on his way to the center of the target. With a few quick motions he erected the homing beacon.
“Da Vinci to away team.” Shabalala’s voice crackled in his helmet.
It should not have crackled at this range. Instinctively Stevens looked for the da Vinci, but quickly looked down. The spinning canopy of stars was impossible to look at. He made a mental note to keep his eyes on the ground as much as possible.
Hull,he reminded himself, not ground. Though it was hard to think of a surface a dozen kilometers across as anything but the ground. It was a dark gray-blue he noticed, now that he was looking at it, and pebbled, with wide, feathery arcs of light gray and white.
“Boarding party here,”Kairn said.
“You’re about four kilometers from the entrance,”Shabalala said. “Bearing one four seven.”
The bearing was of course relative to the homing beacon. The spinning surface made any objective reference system irrelevant.
Without a word, Kairn strode in the indicated direction, clearly expecting the others to follow.
One thing about Klingon leadership,Stevens thought, they don’t micromanage.
Abramowitz exclaimed suddenly.
“Problem?”Tev demanded.
“Footprints,”she said with a shaky laugh. “But they’re ours. I thought the gray was part of the hull material, but it’s dust.”
“Micrometeorite debris, held to the surface by the vessel’s forward motion,”Pattie said. “The spiral drifts are caused by its rotation.”
“Restrict transmissions to mission specific information.”With that, Tev ended the conversation.
Tellarites, on the other hand…Stevens did not complete the thought.
For the next twenty minutes