The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [36]
“You heard him, Dina—if I don’t, he attacks. Maybe he was bluffing, maybe he wasn’t. If he’s willing to talk, maybe he isn’t as far over the edge as he looks.”
She frowned. “You shouldn’t put yourself—”
“—in danger, I know. You’re not the first first officer to give me this song and dance,” DeSoto said, remembering an incident almost a decade earlier on this very same bridge with Lieutenant Commander William T. Riker. “But right now, I don’t have a choice.”
Voyskunsky’s wide lips pursed. “All right, but if you turn up dead, I’m putting you on report, sir.”
DeSoto grinned. “Noted.”
“Do you really think this is the ‘new face’ of the Maquis?”
Shaking his head, DeSoto said, “Doubtful. Especially if he’s telling the truth about the Geronimo. My guess is he’s gone rogue, and is using the Maquis name to make a bigger stink.”
“Sir?” Dayrit said. “I’ve got something.”
Both DeSoto and Voyskunsky walked around to the tactical console. With a pudgy finger, Dayrit pointed at a sensor reading. “I’m reading the forcefield that ch’Ren’s using. It is proof against communications—but not against transporters. The problem is, getting a lock would be difficult. But a standard-issue transponder should be able to penetrate with no problem. If we program it to send a constant lowlevel signal, I doubt that ch’Ren will pick it up—it should read as background comm traffic, especially with the additional EM activity from all the thunderstorms he’s been cooking up down there.”
DeSoto put a hand on the security chief’s shoulder. “Good work, Manolet. Have one ready for me in Transporter Room 3.”
“Yes, sir,” Dayrit said with a rare smile.
Turning to the ops officer, Voyskunsky said, “Jose, I want you tracking that transponder signal every second. If anything happens to the signal—it changes, it modulates, and especially if it goes away—beam him out of there immediately.”
“Will do,” Kojima said with a nod.
“Let’s hit it,” DeSoto said. “The bridge is yours, Dina. I hope to be back soon. I still want a rematch of that Go game.”
Voyskunsky grinned her huge smile. “You’re on, Captain.”
Hudson gathered Chakotay, Tuvok, Mastroeni, Torres, Seska, and McAdams in the mess hall. Tuvok stood against one of the walls by the door, and both Chakotay and Hudson stood with their backs to the rear bulkhead. The other four sat around the largest of the tables. Torres had a padd in her hand, while Mastroeni’s hand hovered near her phaser. Hudson noticed that Mastroeni had made a point of sitting where she could keep an eye on Tuvok.
“Your friend,” Hudson said to Chakotay, “has gone over the edge.”
“And he’s going to take the rest of us with him,” Mastroeni added.
“These two colonies are peaceful—they’re not affiliated with the Federation, Cardassia, or the Maquis. If we let him—”
Chakotay interrupted Hudson. “We’re not going to ‘let’ him do anything. We have to get the artifact back. If we don’t, the Maquis will lose whatever sympathy we have in the Federation. Starfleet and Central Command will come out in force against us.”
Tuvok added, “In addition, such a radical departure from the usual methods will divide the Maquis itself. From what I have seen, the organization is already relatively fractious—in part by design. By committing genocide in the Maquis’s name—”
“We know what’ll happen,” Torres snapped. “Chakotay’s right, we have to get the artifact back.”
Mastroeni shook her head. “The nanosecond we come out from behind this moon, the Hood’ ll be all over us.”
Seska nodded. “She’s right. I for one have no interest in spending the rest of my life in a Federation prison.”
“Actually, we won’t have to leave our hiding place,” Torres said. “I can boost the gain on the transporter so we can get to the surface from here. We’ll have to go down one at a time, but I can do it.”
Chakotay nodded. “Good. Then we can go in, get the artifact, and get out before DeSoto even knows we’re there.”
“Even if he does know we’re there, it won’t matter much,” Seska said. “You heard his deal with Tharia—he’s going down alone.