Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [102]
“Sure,” Scott said. “If Kozara and his playmates haven’t figured out the auxiliary broadcast cutoff, I can send a limited coded subspace message from one of the Jefferies tubes. Right down around this bend is one.”
They shuffled down the dim corridor, red emergency floor lights casting weird shapes on their legs and faces. Riker got to the tube access first, and opened it for Scott. Scott’s snowy hair was pink in the emergency lights as he fingered the bulkhead control panel for the tube’s hatch release. The elderly man would have some trouble climbing up into that constricted space, but he was the only one who knew how to send a message from in there, and the process would slow down if they tried to relay.
As he assisted Scott in climbing into the tube’s maw, Riker was already thinking ahead. He glanced over his shoulder at Bateson. “Sir, I suggest we run a guerrilla operation from down here. Make the ship unworkable for them. Capture or isolate as many of Kozara’s crew as possible. He’s got us trapped down here, but we’ve got the ship’s major engineering at our fingertips. We can do this.”
“Whatever battens your hatch,” Bateson grumbled, lagging back.
Still supporting one of Scott’s boots in his palm, Riker turned. “Captain? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Oh, permission to gloat, Mr. Riker. Will you get it over with?”
“Gloat, sir? I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean this. The galaxy is a more complicated place than when … when I was a real captain.”
“Now, captain …”
“Look, Will, I blew it. At least rub it in a little, so I don’t feel so pathetic.”
“You had a one-dimensional distrust of Klingons because that’s what you needed to survive in your time,” Riker replied. “I never said I didn’t understand. You just found out that Kozara’s not one-dimensional anymore. In your time, there weren’t many older Klingons fighting. Since then, they’ve learned the value of their older warriors’ experience. Cultures change, Captain.”
“I didn’t know they’d changed so much.”
“They had to change. They had to get smarter, or we’d have put a stop to them long ago. Peace can do funny things. They’ve learned a lot about us, we’ve learned about them. Our cultures aren’t so mysterious anymore.”
“He still wouldn’t have taken the ship if I’d withdrawn when you recommended it.”
“Sir, he wouldn’t have taken this ship either way without a saboteur on board, and you couldn’t have known there was one here.”
“Yes … I wonder who it was. Which of our crew—”
“Let’s not get into that,” Riker warned. “The damage is done. We’ll smoke the saboteur out.”
“How?”
“It’ll be whoever is up on the bridge with Kozara when we get up there.”
“What if none of ours is up there?”
“I don’t know,” Riker said, irritated that he didn’t have all the answers yet.
“Well, I know this for sure,” Bateson said, “everybody on board was confirmed human before we embarked, except for Ensign Yuika and Engineer Ush. And all my crew from the Bozeman are human.”
“Doesn’t mean much,” Riker told him. “Klingons aren’t beyond hiring humans, and some humans aren’t beyond working for Klingons. A human willing to work with an alien culture against the Federation is a very valuable commodity. Just like the spies the Federation has in other cultures. It’s a fact of life in a hostile universe.”
Watching Scott bump around inside the Jefferies tube, Bateson leaned against the tube’s support strut. “Hmmm … imagine William Riker admitting the universe might be hostile. And, of course, once again, you’re the one who’s right.”
“All right, Morgan,” Riker sighed irritably, “snap out of it. We have to launch an underground offensive from down here. Would you please put me in charge of that maneuver, since I know more about large modern ships than you do?”
Momentarily startled at being called by his first name by someone he thought didn’t like him, Bateson contemplated that and came to an instant decision. “Yes, fine. Have at it.”
“In that case, I need you to tell me what you know about Klingons.”
“What? I was all wrong!”
“No, sir, you weren