Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [79]
capable of breaking someone’s skull when placed in the right hands.”
“Actually,” Worf told him, “Klingon legend is full of references to the rikajsha being used as a weapon. I assure you,” he said, “I would allow no such plants in the botanical gardens of the Enterprise. his
Morgen nodded. “I know. I checked.” A pause. “At any rate, I couldn’t avoid Gerda’s attacks forever. That first blow had been a telling one, and it put me at a severe disadvantage. Before she was done, she’d broken one of my arms in two places and cracked a couple of ribs. But I was able to reel-and stagger around long enough to avoid being killed before help could arrive. And arrive it did-compliments of dumb luck.
“It seems a crewman named Stroman, a geologist with a bent toward charcoal sketching, had been doing studies of some of the specimens in the botanical garden. Noticing that the rikajsha was missing-had been violently uprooted, in fact-this crewman notified Pug Joseph on the bridge. Picard and Ben Zoma overheard and wondered about it, and they contacted Gerda. Seeing it was she who had brought the plant there in the first place, they thought she might know something about it.
“Unfortunately-for Gerda, not for me-their call went unanswered. Gerda had left her communicator in her sleeping quarters so as not to be traced to the shuttle deck. She had no idea that anyone was trying to reach her-nor, I suspect, would she have cared very much at that particular moment.
“Concerned, Picard queried the computer about her whereabouts. It told him that she was in her room-even though she was supposed to be on her way to engineering, to help calibrate a new navigation system.
“Even more concerned now, the captain had Pug Joseph dispatch a security team to Gerda’s quarters. At the same time, Ben Zoma ordered Cadwallader to conduct an internal sensor search for Gerda just to confirm that she was truly in her room. We’d had instances of people forgetting their communicators, and he didn’t want the security team wasting time on a wild chase of-what is the expression?” He looked to Worf for help.
“Goose,” the Klingon offered. “A wild goose chase.” “Right. Thank you. After a little while-internal sensor searches being the slow things they are-Cadwallader determined that Gerda was not in her quarters at all. She was on the shuttle deck-where neither McDonnell nor myself were responding to Cad’s intercom calls. Moments later the captain, Ben Zoma, and Pug burst in and rescued me-just as Gerda’s blows were starting to connect again.” Morgen smiled humorlessly. “You see what I mean? Dumb luck. Except for anticipating Stroman’s desire to sketch the rikajsha, Gerda did everything right. She picked a time and a place when I would be relatively isolated from other crewpeople. McDonnell was the only one who would be around-and he was someone she could easily deal with. What’s more, there was little chance of anyone finding my body before she made good her escape.” He stopped himself. “Do you know about that? The escape, I mean?”
The security chief shook his head. “Not very much. As I said, the computer was far from helpful.”
“It was masterful-in theory, anyway. The Tagh’rat-the Klingon splinter group’s ship-was awaiting Gerda’s signal. When she finished with me, she needed only to contact her allies and open a hole in the
shields—using the shuttle deck’s instrumentation. By the time the hole was recognized and closed by bridge personnel, the Tagh’rat would have gotten close enough to snare Gerda in its transporter beam and take off.”
Worf had to agree. It was a good plan. If Gerda had been successful in her assassination attempt, it would probably have worked. “I wish,” the Daa’allyit said, “That I could have made Stroman part of my escort. I didn’t have that option, though. He died