The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [26]
“All right,” Hek finally said, frowning harshly. “I’ll admit the timing fits, Graff. You could be right. Damn, what a dismal turn of events. We would have had the Lethantan leadership cold if only we’d launched the drones a bit earlier. Whose fault do you think it was?”
“There is no blame to be assigned here, Presider,” Graff said. “The alien ship had not even entered this star system when we launched the drones several weeks ago. The transit time to target was considerable at this distance, even for a high-velocity drone. The timing of the launch was based on the position of the fleet relative to Nem Ma’ak Bratuna and the tactical need for the drones to arrive during the workday, to enhance our chances of catching the members of the leadership inside the building.”
“I didn’t ask you that, Graff,” Hek said coldly. “I asked you whose fault you thought this disaster was.”
“I, uh, I will begin investigating the matter immediately, Presider.”
“Do that,” Hek said abruptly. “The High Council will want to know. I’ll expect your report on this desk by the dinner hour.” He pointed at the door. “Go.”
As Graff left the room, he wondered which of his friends in the officer corps he would sell out this time. The list of Graff’s sacrificial offerings to the need of Presider Hek to punish simple bad luck was becoming a rather long one.
Chapter Seven
THE BRIDGE WAS QUIET, as it usually was before everything was about to happen. Picard thought of the bridge as being in “calm before storm” mode.
The contact team had been back for about an hour. Upon their return to the Enterprise, Picard had ordered a shuttle pilot beamed directly into Justman, which had then been flown back to the Enterprise without incident. The captain had spent the time since then sitting comfortably in his chair on the bridge, sipping at a cup of tea, and waiting for the Lethanta to call him. If they did not, he would have no choice but to leave them to themselves.
“I believe it will be all right, Captain,” Troi said. As usual, she was sitting to his left, a quiet presence that steadied him. “They need us, and they know it.”
“I’m not worried about that, Counselor,” Picard said, “but we’re losing time. I wonder how Geordi and Data are doing—”
“La Forge to Captain Picard,” came Geordi’s voice.
“Ah. Yes, Mr. La Forge?”
“If you’ll take a look at the main viewscreen, Captain, I think you’ll see that we’ve defeated the Krann cloaking device.”
Picard nodded to himself as thousands of bright specks began to appear on screen. “Thank you, Mr. La Forge.”
“Incredible,” Riker breathed. “You told me about this, Captain, but seeing it is something else entirely. There seems to be a million of them.”
Ro glanced over at the Ops panel. “Only a little over a hundred and sixty-three thousand, sir,” she reported.
“I stand corrected, Ensign,” said Riker. “That’s much better.”
“Data and I have refined the tachyon sweep routine of the main sensor array to defeat whatever it is the Krann are doing to hide themselves,” La Forge continued. “This should work for any expectable cloaking configuration the Krann manage to come up with for their probes, their manned ships, whatever. We figured that since the Krann don’t have faster-than-light drive or communications, they wouldn’t know enough about tachyons to be able to hide theirs from us.”
“Well done, both of you,” Picard said. “Mr. Data, when you’re finished down there, please return to the bridge.”
“Aye, sir.”
Picard turned to Troi. “Now all we do is wait for a call,” he said. “I don’t believe Kerajem will wait much longer, if he’s going to call us at all.”
“Captain,” Worf said, “I am now able to display a visual of the lead Krann ships. They have come close enough now to be visible