The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [83]
The gate was closed and had two armed guards stationed at a booth just to its side. Troi’s talents gave her no ability to learn anything useful from their body language. The guards seemed relaxed, but—
Troi hoped Will had caught the same tube car that she and Wiggin had, and that he was still following her. Geordi had been right about the communicator blackout. She had not heard from the Enterprise since shortly after the car had entered the gray zone. In fact, the communicator was completely dead within the zone, thanks to whatever kind of sensor-killing field it was that was blanketing everything here. With her communicator nonfunctional, she could not even attempt to contact Will. Troi was tempted to look around the platform for him, but Wiggin might catch her at it and grow suspicious.
This whole idea was mad, she fretted. She chastised herself for stupidly allowing herself to be mouse-trapped so neatly by this besotted boy. She had only Will Riker’s conjecture that their presence aboard the flagship had been detected, and that this young Krann was actually an operative who had been assigned to them. If Wiggin was genuine, it meant that Troi was trapped in what appeared to be a high-security area with no possibility of beaming out. Just how was she supposed to get inside a Krann security zone without being caught, anyway? Wiggin had apparently assumed right off the bat that she had one, since she was the spouse of a supervisor.
Troi knew she had put Will at risk, too, if he had managed to follow her here. Given the circumstances, she hoped he had not. Thinking about it carefully, the counselor decided that she might have a chance to make a break for it while the guards processed Wiggin at the security entrance. Just a quick lunge through the open archway nearby and on into the concourse just off the station, and she’d be away, lost in the crowds. Then she’d try to head out of the gray area and contact the ship. If Will was still following her, he would figure it all out and do the same thing.
But Troi also knew that if Wiggin was a Krann operative after all, then everything would be fine because he was doing an excellent job of leading her around by the nose. It meant that she was being taken to Bay Fourteen for a reason. She was being taken to see something, and a little thing like a security clearance wouldn’t matter. If the Krann already knew of her presence aboard their flagship and wanted to arrest and detain her, they’d have done so by now.
It was odd, but Troi knew that her continued safety depended on Wiggin being a complete phony. If he was genuine, she was dead. Either way, she’d soon find out.
“Here’s where I work,” Wiggin said. “It’s a lot more impressive inside, let me tell you.”
The first thing Troi noticed as she and Wiggin drew closer to the security gate was that the guards were waving people through rather casually. That was a good sign.
“Is it always this crowded?” Troi asked as they slowly oozed their way toward the security gate with the rest of the crowd.
“The next watch is arriving for duty,” Wiggin told her. “Like I said, it’s a bad time.” He fished in one of his pockets and extracted a small, round object that looked like a coin. “Get your disk ready, and we’ll go right on through.”
“Uh, Wiggin, I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but I don’t have my disk with me.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t have my disk. I must have, uh, dropped it somewhere. Perhaps I lost it somehow at the party. You know how it is. I’m sorry.”
“Hull, wait a minute. We’re almost at the gate.” Wiggin called over to one of the guards, an older Krann in a green uniform. “Guss! Guss!” He waved, and the guard spotted him. Wiggin took Troi’s hand again and sidled over to the guard post.
“Hello, Wiggin,” the guard said. “What are you doing here? Pulling some extra duty?” He looked Troi up and down, and his eyes seemed to say, Another one, Wiggin?
“No, nothing