The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [122]
“Verterium cortenide,” Archer said. “And dilithium, all in one place. Huh.”
T’Pol seemed almost pleased with herself. “As I said, Captain, we are fortunate. Even if the planet cannot supply processed verterium cortenide, we can synthesize the material from raw orestocks of polysilicate verterium and monocrystal cortenum, both of which are present in abundance on Haurok leh-keh.”
“It sounds almost too good to be true.” Archer rose from his chair and approached the starboard tactical station, where Lieutenant Reed was studying a chart of local space. “Malcolm, do our charts have any information on this planet?”
The Englishman nodded. “UESPA has charted the system, but never visited or explored it. It’s known as Cygnet on our charts. It’s a bright B-type star with seventeen planets. Based on communications interceptions, the fourteenth planet appears to support a high-order civilization. But that’s essentially all we know about the place, Captain.”
“So it’s likelier than not that they’ll know we’re coming before we arrive,” Archer said.
Reed nodded. “I wouldn’t assume we could sneak up on them and simply take whatever we need.”
“One of the things we need is access to an advanced repair facility, Malcolm,” Archer said, returning to his chair. “We’ll need all the goodwill we can muster if we’re going to expect Cygnet XIV to furnish that. Ensign Leydon, start laying in a course for the planet. Engage at maximum safe speed as soon as Lieutenant Burch says it’s safe to do so.”
“Aye, sir,” said the helmsman as she started making the necessary calculations on her board.
Turning his chair toward the comm station, Archer said, “Hoshi, we’re going to need your linguistic expertise.”
“I’ve already begun a multifrequency search of the subspace bands,” Ensign Sato said, an expression of intense concentration creasing her porcelain features as she listened via her earpiece to voices audible to no one else. “I’m hoping to find some comm traffic originating in the Cygnet system while I’m studying the linguistic data Commander T’Pol just sent me from the Vulcan database.”
Archer smiled, feeling an infusion of real enthusiasm for the first time in weeks. Enterprise was on a mission of exploration again—a genuine first contact situation, at least for the starship’s human contingent.
But that enthusiasm was tempered by the harsh knowledge that this mission could easily end in utter disaster for his injured ship should anyone make a serious mistake.
Monday, December 8, 2155
For perhaps the first time during the long months that had passed since Captain Archer persuaded her not to transfer from Enterprise, Ensign Hoshi Sato felt that her skills were essential.
It wasn’t that the Cygneti language had been all that difficult to figure out, at least in terms of its broadest phonetic, grammatical, and syntactical characteristics. The basic work had taken less than a day. It was the cultural assumptions that underpinned that language—what was a language but a species’ cultural operating system, an ultimate expression of its most fixed assumptions regarding both itself and the outside universe?—that had posed the most formidable challenge to her skills. And it was a challenge that easily could have consumed an entire career.
Four days into her analysis of the few snippets of Cygneti comm traffic Enterprise’s EM and subspace receivers had intercepted so far, most of it apparently low-security, entertainment-oriented material, she still wrestled with the curious lopsidedness of the language’s gender characteristics, not to mention the frustration of the previous morning’s apparently mutually baffling attempt to exchange intelligible hails with personnel at a Cygneti