Survivors - Jean Lorrah [48]
“How many people aboard Starbound knew about the consignment of dilithium crystals?”
“The Captain, First Officer, and Security staff.”
“Why were you told, Ensign? You were only a trainee.”
“Except for Commander Adin, the Security staff were all trainees. In order to do our job, we had to know about the dilithium crystals.”
“Mm-hmm. Mr. Adin exercised his judgment to waive your security clearance in that instance, proper procedure under the circumstances. Interestingly, though, he did not share with you another piece of information which he had learned at Starbase 36. Ensign Yar, if you expect to encounter hostile Orions, with what weapon would you arm your away team?”
“At least Phaser Two, sir.”
“Why not simply hand phasers?”
“Orion males are very difficult to kill with a hand phaser. You must hit a vital organ, or the Orion will only be injured. While we are taught to avoid battle if at all possible, it is sometimes necessary to threaten-and in the case of Orions, Phaser Two can be a deterrent. If they start a fight, they’re risking their lives from any direct hit at the higher settings.”
“So-reducing your weaponry to hand phasers gave the Orions a great advantage. But was everyone aboard the Starbound such a poor shot that not a single Orion was hit in a vital organ?”
Yar remembered drilling a few very precisely herself. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”
The prosecutor smiled smugly at her. “And you are right not to think so, Ensign. The information Mr. Adin did not share with you is that the Orions have developed a new personal armor. It’s lightweight, flexible as heavy cloth-and it absorbs and diffuses enough of the energy from a phaser bolt that a hand phaser kill-setting shot to the heart may stun for a few moments, at most. Any other body shot won’t even drop your target. It’s even some protection against Phaser Two-but these Orion pirates made certain none of the Starbound crew had Phaser Two or higher available. In other words, there were no Orion bodies after the battle because none of the Orions were killed.”
Yar stared from the prosecutor to Dare, and back. “And … you claim Commander Adin knew this?” she asked.
“He learned of it in a Security briefing at Starbase 36. Can you think of any reason he did not share the information with the Starbound Security staff?”
Dare looked as if he had been hit by a stun bolt. His defense attorney was staring at him, surprise, disgust, and anger mingled in his expression.
Yar had no answer for the prosecutor, but she did have a question. “You mean it was hopeless? There was no way we could have stopped them?”
“Oh, you did stop a few-in fact, an amazing number. The logs show quite remarkable sharpshooting from Security trainees in their first test under fire. But the Orions were only stunned. In that armor, with the protective helmets they always wear, an Orion can be killed only by a direct shot through the eye. Not much of a target.”
“Oh,” Yar said weakly.
Dare had known: they couldn’t kill the Orions, but the Orions could kill them.
“We should have surrendered!” she blurted out. She stared at Dare, who stared back wild-eyed and pale. “Oh, Dare-why? Why did you let us fight? The Orions would have had no reason to kill if we had just let them board, made no effort to stop them! Maybe … maybe they still would have slaughtered the officers, but there’d have been no cause for them to shoot trainees.”
Dare shook his head, slowly. “No,” he said. His defense attorney put his hand on his arm, but Dare shook him off. “No!” he insisted. “There was no such Security briefing on Starbase 36-or if there was, I was not notified. Check the records! If it happened, I wasn’t there. I didn’t know!”
He played right into the prosecutor’s hands. The records were produced. It was a secured meeting, in which some highly classified information was discussed; therefore no computer log of the meeting could be presented in open court. But the agenda could-parts of it blanked out on the screen for security reasons. The matter of Orion