Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [94]
“Tuvok appears to be inside Vikr’l Prison, which is located within one of the outlying districts of Ki Baratan,” Jaza said. “The readings are pretty thready, though. I’m picking up indications of kelbonite and fistrium inside the prison walls. Not a lot, but enough to cause some interference with our scans, even with the new high-res sensor nets. We might have better luck if we could get our sensors closer to the prison.”
“Seems like quite a stroke of luck that you happened to find him,” Vale said as she rose from her chair and approached Jaza’s science station.
“He may have been located in a deeper section of the prison before now,” the Bajoran said, frowning as his fingers moved deftly across the console in front of him. “If he’s just been moved toward the perimeter, that might explain why the scanners couldn’t find him until now.”
“Can we get a transporter lock on him?” Riker asked.
Ranul Keru spoke up from the tactical station, aft of the captain’s chair. “I’m afraid not, sir. The prison appears to be equipped with wide-dispersal transporter scramblers. All we’d get back would be a pile of protoplasmic sludge.”
Riker studied the image on the viewscreen, his eyes narrowing. If I send a rescue team down there, I put the Romulan-Reman power-sharing negotiations in jeopardy. I’d risk giving Durjik and his followers a real reason to reject the Federation. And it didn’t help matters that the prison was so close to the capital city of the Romulan Star Empire.
“Sir, I’m also detecting what appear to be weapons discharges within the prison perimeter,” Keru said. “The Romulan and Reman life signs we’re reading are all moving around quite a bit.”
“A prison riot?” Vale said, looking up from the data she was reading at Jaza’s station.
Which means this may be our only opportunity to get Tuvok out of there alive, Riker thought. As wary as he was, he knew he couldn’t afford to delay taking action any longer.
“Commander Vale, Commander Keru, assemble an extraction team,” Riker said, an edge in his voice. “I want your best people on this. Go in, get Tuvok out, and don’t get caught. I do not want anyone to know that Starfleet was ever there. Use the Handy. She’s already been outfitted for this sort of thing.”
Vale’s eyes widened, but she nodded crisply. “Yes, sir.” A moment later she and Keru were sprinting to the turbolift. Keru was already calling into his combadge for his security team.
Riker felt a twinge of regret; had this been the Enterprise, he would have been the one leading this rescue mission. But now, he had larger responsibilities. Despite his half-joking promise to Captain Picard that he intended to ignore the advice of his new first officer, he understood the wisdom of keeping a ship’s captain on the bridge.
“Mr. Jaza, patch everything over to my ready room, and then take the bridge,” Riker said, rising from his chair. “Inform Dr. Ree that we may have injured coming within the hour. Lieutenant Rager, I want you to monitor the Romulan communications channels. Find out everything you can about this riot, and get the information directly to the away team, encrypted and scrambled.”
Riker moved toward his ready room, tapping his combadge as he walked. “Admiral Akaar, Commander Troi, to my ready room, please.”
Dusk was deepening into night over the Romulan capital city. The shuttlecraft Handy dipped through the low-rolling clouds toward Vikr’l Prison. The sleek type-11 craft was the only one of the ship’s complement of eight that Admiral Akaar had authorized—illegally—to be equipped with a cloaking device.
Vale and Keru both agreed with the unorthodox decision, especially given the potentially volatile nature of their interaction with the Romulans. Vale thought it made little sense that both the Romulans and the Klingons were permitted cloaking technology, while the Starfleet convoy was hampered by decades-old agreements with a Romulan government that no longer even existed.
Vale looked around the shuttle at the assault team that Keru had assembled.