The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [21]
Exacerbating the painful nostalgia was the fact that the artifact that Tuvok had found with the Hood’ s sensors while on the night shift at ops—and, according to the Vulcan, had then wiped from the ship’s records—was one of four. Two others had been discovered, one only a few months ago on one of Bajor’s moons. Ben was involved in that mission. So if I do chase this thing down, it’ll be another connection to Ben. Seems we can’t get away from each other, even when I try….
Hudson shook his head. Thinking about Ben led to thinking about Ben and Jennifer, which led to thinking about Gretchen. He shook his head, forcing himself to pay attention to the data in Tuvok’s chip.
Tuvok himself was currently under guard in the mess hall. The Liberator didn’t have a brig—prisoners weren’t often a consideration in their line of work—so Hudson stuck him there while he went over the data and sent Mastroeni to check out his story.
The door chime rang. “Come on in,” he said. The door opened to the short, compact form of his second-in-command. “What do you have for me, Darleen?”
As the door closed behind her, Mastroeni let out another of her snarls. “I hate to say it, but everything checks out. Eddington went over the records on DS9, and Tuvok was recently assigned to the Hood and the Hood has been patrolling the Cardassian border lately. His family is listed as having lived on Amniphon at the time of the rockslides.”
“What about his requests for leave?”
She shook her head. “DS9 doesn’t have records that complete about officers not actually assigned to the station, and he couldn’t really dig that deep without arousing suspicion. However, I got Quiring to hack into the Vulcan central net.”
Hudson’s eyes widened and he rose from his chair. “What!? Are you out of your mind? Darleen, you don’t hack the Vulcan net!”
Mastroeni almost smiled. “Quiring did. At least a little. He got out before anyone caught on to him, but he was in long enough to verify that T’Pel and all the little Tuvok-lets moved to Amniphon three years ago. What about the stuff he gave us?”
Sitting back down, Hudson glanced at the small viewscreen on his desk. “Well, the codes he gave us aren’t anything we haven’t gotten from Eddington, but Tuvok wouldn’t know that. If nothing else, it worked as a good-faith gesture. And this artifact thing he found could be damn useful.”
“You’re not sure?”
Tilting his head, Hudson said, “It depends. It’s one of two possible artifacts left over from a ninety-thousand-yearold empire.”
A snort escaped from Mastroeni’s lips. “And it’s still supposed to work?”
“Two others have been dug up, and they both worked just fine.”Too fine, he thought with a shiver, having just read the reports of the epidemic on Proxima a hundred years ago, and the near-destruction of one of Bajor’s moons only a few months ago. “One possibility is that it can manipulate weather patterns.”
Mastroeni’s eyes widened. “That has all kinds of entertaining possibilities.”
“I agree.” Hudson leaned back in his chair and fixed Mastroeni with a serious look. “The problem is, the other possibility is that it’s a telepathic weapon that enables the user to control other people’s minds.”
It woud be inaccurate to say that Mastroeni’s face darkened, given her near-permanent scowl, but that scowl did appear to deepen. “If it’s a telepathic weapon, I don’t want a damn thing to do with it.”
“Neither do I. But—”
Slamming a hand on the wall, Mastroeni said, “I mean it, Cal. I won’t have us going that way! I’ll destroy the thing!”
“Good luck.” Hudson chuckled. “Those things are apparently indestructible. That’s why they’re still intact and working after ninety millennia. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter—point is, we need to track this thing down, and Tuvok’s given us the energy signature. I think we ought to follow it. And I think we need to keep Tuvok alive. He’s earned at least that much.”
With obvious reluctance, Mastroeni said, “I agree—but only that much. So far, he’s done everything right, but he’s also done everything I’d expect a