The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [56]
“Worf to Captain Picard.”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, I have completed the latest sensor probe of the flagship.”
“Pipe the results down to sickbay, if you will.”
“Aye, sir.”
Picard walked a few steps over to a convenient display unit and, after a very brief delay, the screen glowed and a three-dimensional matchstick representation of the flagship built up quickly. Cubes and squares and blobs of color then began popping up here and there, denoting the apparent purpose of that particular area of the flagship. Text flowed rapidly up the right side of the display.
Picard looked at a huge red area at the tail of the craft. “Half the aft section of the ship must consist of engine and engine alone,” he mused. “Remarkable.”
Riker studied the diagram. “I don’t see any indication of fuel storage, Captain,” he said. “I suspect they don’t have much fuel left. They may have drained themselves dry to get here as quickly as they did, figuring they could refuel after they’d dealt with the Lethanta. I expect that the fuel tanks were carried outboard and rebuilt into something else as they were emptied.”
“I agree,” Picard said. “The Krann waste nothing.” He pointed at a large gray area roughly amidships. “What have you been making of this, Will? We’ve seen it after every sensor sweep. The configuration remains remarkably consistent between our probes.”
“The gray color indicates ‘no important function,’ of course,” Riker said, scratching his bare chin. “I don’t believe that for a moment, though. That area reads just like empty cargo space but, as you say, the Krann aren’t wasteful. They couldn’t afford to be. They’d soon turn an empty cargo bay into additional living space or something else useful. That whole area looks too innocent.”
“Are they somehow shielding whatever’s really there from our sensors?” Troi hazarded.
“I believe they are, Counselor,” Picard said, “but I couldn’t begin to tell you how they’re going about it. Makes you think, though.”
“That should be where you put us, Captain,” Riker said, tapping the screen. “Right on the edge of that gray area—in that small alcove there.”
“Agreed,” Troi added. “We need to take a look around in there for ourselves.”
“I concur,” Picard said. “If that area contains some sort of a threat to us, we need to prepare ourselves for it. Further, we still haven’t managed to find an explanation concerning the origin of the three warp blips that brought us here in the first place. We need to know if the Krann have cracked the secret of warp drive. The answer to all our questions may lie right there, somewhere in that gray area.”
“If it does, Captain, we’ll find it,” Riker said.
“I know,” Picard told him. “I’d like you two to be ready to beam over to the Krann flagship in ten minutes. I’ve still some arrangements to make with the operator on duty in Transporter Room Three.”
They materialized in a confined area filled with neatly marked and labeled storage bins. The area was utterly clean.
They listened carefully. No one else was anywhere around.
Riker sniffed. “This smells like fresh air,” he said, surprised. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was smelling some weather coming in—rain, I mean.” He sniffed again. “That’s exactly it. It smells like it’s going to rain. I think I can even smell flowers.”
“They may do that on purpose, Will,” Troi guessed. “The Krann may find it helpful or even necessary to have their environmental conditions mimic planetary ambient factors as closely as possible. It may be a public health measure—physical, mental, or both. There’s a great deal we don’t know. After all, we don’t make multigenerational star trips. I wonder what Beverly might have to say about it?”
“Maybe we can get her over here later to take a look,” Riker said. “Look—every wall I can see is painted