Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [142]
Kochman shook his head sadly. “Somebody’s got to stand up to the guy. Otherwise, he’ll just keep on making people feel like dirt.”
Perhaps my colleague is right, Vigo reflected. Perhaps the only way to improve the situation in the weapons section is for someone to let Werber know how we feel.
But the Pandrilite knew with absolute certainty that that someone wouldn’t be him.
Standing at his captain’s left hand, Picard watched Idun Asmund bring the Stargazer to a gentle stop. Then he eyed the bridge’s main viewscreen and the Federation facility that was pictured there.
Starbase 209 was shaped roughly like an hourglass top, its bulky-looking extremities tapering drastically to a slender midsection. In that regard, it was no different from a dozen other starbases Picard had visited in the course of his brief career.
What’s more, he had seen plenty of ships docked at those facilities. But none of them even vaguely resembled the dark, flask-shaped vessel hanging in space alongside Starbase 209—a vessel whose puny-looking warp nacelles projected from its flanks as well as its hindquarters.
Ruhalter leaned forward in his center seat. “Interesting design, isn’t it?” he asked, clearly referring to the ship and not the base.
“Interesting, all right,” said Leach, who was standing on the captain’s right. “And if I may hazard a guess, it’s the reason we’re here.”
The captain didn’t respond to the remark. But then, he didn’t seem to know much more than the rest of them.
Suddenly, Picard was struck by a feeling that he had seen the flask-shaped vessel somewhere after all…or something very much like it. But if not at a starbase, where would it have been? The second officer wracked his brain but couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Sir,” said Paxton at the communications console, “I have Captain Eliopoulos, the base’s ranking officer.”
Ruhalter sat back. “Put him through, Lieutenant.”
A moment later, the image of a fair-haired man with a dark, neatly trimmed beard appeared on the screen. “Welcome to Starbase two-oh-nine,” he said. “You must be Captain Ruhalter.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Ruhalter. “Your place or mine?”
The casual tone seemed to catch Eliopoulos off guard. It took him a moment to reply, “Yours, I suppose.”
“Done,” said Ruhalter. He turned to Leach. “See to Captain Eliopoulos’s transport, Number One. The command staff and I will be waiting for you in the ship’s lounge.”
The first officer darted a glance at Picard, no doubt wondering why his subordinate couldn’t have taken care of Eliopoulos’s arrival. Then he turned and entered the turbolift.
As the doors slid closed with a whisper, the second officer regarded the viewscreen again. The more he studied the strange vessel, the more familiar it seemed to him. He could barely wait to hear what Captain Eliopoulos had to say about it.
Two
Picard watched the ship’s new chief medical officer enter the lounge with some difficulty. Carter Greyhorse was so big and broad-shouldered, he could barely fit through the door.
“Good of you to make it, Doctor,” said Ruhalter, from his place at the head of the dark, oval table.
Greyhorse looked at him, then mumbled an apology. Something about some research he was conducting.
“Be thankful I’m inclined to be lenient with ship’s surgeons,” the captain told him. “I never forget they can relieve me of my command.”
The doctor’s brow furrowed beneath his crop of dark hair.
“That was a joke,” Ruhalter informed him.
Greyhorse chuckled to show that he got it, but his response lacked enthusiasm. Clearly, Picard reflected as the doctor took a seat beside him, humor wasn’t Greyhorse’s strong suit.
In addition to Ruhalter and Picard himself, five other section heads had arrived before Greyhorse. They included Weapons Chief Werber, Chief Engineer Phigus Simenon, Communications Chief Martin Paxton, Sciences Chief Angela Cariello and Security Chief Gilaad Ben Zoma.
Simenon was a Gnalish—a compact, lizardlike being with ruby-red eyes and a long