Gauntlet Read online

  “Someone has to go after the

  White Wolf and attempt to

  recover the cargo” . . .

  . . . Admiral McAteer said, his voice steely with resolve. “But even if recovery is no longer possible, I want to end the menace of this pirate once and for all.”

  He had barely finished his sentence when half a dozen hands went up. Volunteers, Picard thought. No doubt they included the captains who had been thwarted by the White Wolf in the past. If he were one of them, he too would have wished to settle the score.

  If the captains who had hunted the White Wolf were any judges, the man was impossible to find, much less apprehend. And if his colleagues wanted the assignment that badly, he would do his best not to stand in their way.

  “I appreciate your eagerness,” McAteer told them. “I understand how important it is to you to bring the White Wolf to justice. But I think we need a new approach to the problem.”

  A new approach? Picard repeated inwardly. He wondered what the admiral had in mind.

  He was still wondering when McAteer turned to him and smiled like a fox noticing an unguarded henhouse. “Captain Picard,” he said, “I’m giving you this job.”

  Michael Jan Friedman

  Based upon STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION®

  created by Gene Roddenberry

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2002 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from

  Paramount Pictures.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

  this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue

  of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-2795-5

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com/st

  http://www.startrek.com

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  This, the first in an ongoing series of Stargazer books, owes its existence to a number of people beyond its humble and shiftless author. John Ordover, Pocket Books editor, was the one who first encouraged me to take a stab at an ongoing series along the lines of the one pioneered by my friend Peter David. Scott Shannon, Pocket publisher, approved the darn thing for reasons I still can’t fathom. And Paula Block, who heads up Paramount’s licensed publishing program, didn’t scream too loudly about it when it crossed her desk. I would like to recognize the efforts of all those who helped me work out the science behind the character Jiterica and the Lazarus star system, which plays a key role in this book. The guilty parties include Allyn, Michael, Todd Kogutt, Deborah and Baerbell from the PsiPhi bulletin board run by Dave Henderson, as well as physicist Dave Domelen.

  I would also like to express gratitude to David Stern, my first Star Trek editor, for giving me the chance to introduce the Stargazer crew in the first place; Larry Forrester and Herb Wright, who gave the Stargazer its place in Star Trek continuity with the TNG episode “The Battle”; and all the other TV and novel writers who provided me with walls to bounce off as I boldly go where few thought it prudent to go before.

  Chapter One

  Captain’s personal log, supplemental. We have arrived at Starbase 32, where Commander Gilaad Ben Zoma and I are to attend a convocation of starship captains and their executive officers. While such gatherings have rarely taken place before, our newly minted Admiral McAteer seems intent on closely coordinating the activities of all ships in his sector.

  Ben Zoma thinks the entire meeting will be a waste of time—particularly the cocktail party the admiral is hosting this evening. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to the opportunity to rub elbows with my fellow captains.

  No doubt there is a great deal I can learn from them . . . considering I have officially been on the job less than a week now.

  JEAN-LUC PICARD, captain of the Federation starship Stargazer, surveyed the imposing dome-shaped room that opened before him. It was filled with a sea of crimson uniforms and gold-barred sleeves, along with several matching crimson-draped tables bearing pale bowls of Andorian punch and piles of dark brown finger sandwiches. Glancing at his first officer, Picard said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many command officers in one place.”

  Ben Zoma, a man with dark good looks and a mischievous glint in his eye, smiled at the remark. “One well-placed photon torpedo and you’d wipe out half the fleet.”

  “Perhaps not half, Number One.”

  “Close enough,” Ben Zoma insisted.

  “Think of it as a unique opportunity,” Picard told him. He regarded a knot of a half-dozen men and women gathered around the nearest punch bowl. “A chance to pick the brains of those more experienced at this than you or I.”

  Ben Zoma, like Picard, had been promoted only recently. Before being named first officer of the Stargazer, he had served as the vessel’s chief of security.

  “Follow me,” the captain said, meaning to take his own advice.

  Joining the group by the punch bowl, he smiled at the glances that came his way. Then, as he helped himself to some punch, he listened in on the conversation.

  “Of course,” said a man with red hair that had begun graying at the temples, “I had never done anything like that before. But the circumstances seemed to call for it.”

  A large-boned woman with dark features nodded. “I’ve been in that situation myself.”

  A second woman grunted. She didn’t look like the type who smiled much, despite the youthful scattering of freckles on her face. “I think we all have,” she said soberly.

  “I hate to interrupt,” Picard chimed in, “but what are we talking about exactly? An encounter with a hostile force? A brush with some undiscovered phenomenon?”

  He sounded more gung ho than he had intended. But then, he was feeling rather gung ho.

  That is, until the others looked at him as if he had placed his hindquarters in the punch bowl. There was an awkward silence for what seemed a long time. Then one of the officers, the man with the red hair, offered a response.

  “I was talking,” he said, “about putting my dog to sleep.”

  Picard felt his cheeks grow hot. “Yes. Yes, of course you were. How silly of me to assume otherwise.”

  No one replied. They just stood there, looking at him. Finally, he took the hint.

  “If you’ll excuse me . . .” he said rather l
amely.

  When no one objected to his doing so, Picard separated himself from the group and strolled to the other side of the room. Ben Zoma walked beside him, a look of bemusement on his face.

  “Gilaad,” Picard said to his first officer, “is it my imagination or was I just snubbed?”

  Ben Zoma looked back at the group they had just left. “I’d like to tell you that it’s your imagination, Jean-Luc, but I don’t think I can do that.”

  “What I said was admittedly a bit inappropriate, given the tenor of the conversation. But it wasn’t deserving of that kind of response. Someone else might even have laughed at it.”

  Ben Zoma nodded. “True enough.”

  “Then why did they react that way?” Picard asked. He looked down at his newly replicated dress uniform. “Did I put my trousers on backward this evening?”

  “Your trousers are fine,” his friend said. “I have a feeling it has more to do with the age of the person inside them. You are the greenest apple ever to take command of a Starfleet vessel.”

  Picard couldn’t argue the point. “So I am.”

  At the tender age of twenty-eight, he was the youngest captain yet in the history of the fleet. Even younger than the legendary James T. Kirk, and that was saying something.

  “And it’s not just your age,” Ben Zoma said, ticking off the strikes against the captain on his fingers. “You’ve never had the experience of serving as first officer. You would never have gotten your commission so quickly if Captain Ruhalter hadn’t been killed in the course of a battle with hostile aliens. And—because an inexperienced whippersnapper like you couldn’t possibly have gotten a captaincy on merit—it was probably a political appointment.”

  Picard grunted. “Thank you, Number One. I was beginning to actually feel capable of commanding a starship for a moment there, but you have managed to completely disabuse me of that notion.”

  “My pleasure,” his friend told him archly. “What’s a first officer for if not to deflate his captain’s ego from time to time?”

  “Indeed,” Picard said thinly, sharing in the joke at his own expense.

  He looked around the domed room again and noticed a few sidelong glances being cast in his direction. They didn’t exactly look like expressions of admiration.

  Perhaps Ben Zoma was right, the captain reflected. Perhaps his colleagues were looking at him differently because of his age and relative inexperience.

  But if the looks on their faces were any indication, he wasn’t just an object of curiosity. He was an object of disdain.

  It hurt Picard to think so—even more than he would have guessed. After all, they had no firsthand observations to go on. They could only know what they had heard.

  Yet these were starship captains and first officers—men and women who represented the finest the Federation had to offer. Picard would have expected them to be more welcoming of a fledgling colleague, more sensitive to his situation.

  Apparently, he would have been wrong in that regard.

  As was often the case, Ben Zoma seemed to read his thoughts. “All in all, not the friendliest-looking group I’ve ever seen.”

  “Nor I,” Picard said. “I get the feeling I’m running a gauntlet.”

  “If you are, it’s undeserved. You’ve earned your command, Jean-Luc.” He jerked his head to include the other captains in the room. “Maybe more so than they have.”

  Picard didn’t want to appear to feel sorry for himself, even if it was just in front of Ben Zoma. However, his colleagues’ doubts weren’t all that was bothering him. If they were, he could have taken the situation in stride.

  Unfortunately, the glances they sent his way underlined a much more troublesome and insidious fact: the captain harbored some doubts himself.

  Weeks earlier, when Admiral Mehdi called him into his office, he had expected the admiral to lay into him—to chew him out for the chances he had taken against the Nuyyad. Instead, Mehdi had ordained him Captain Ruhalter’s successor.

  Picard had been too stunned at the time to question the admiral’s judgment. He had been too excited by the challenge to consider the wisdom of such a move.

  But was he qualified to be a captain?

  He had seized the reins in an emergency and brought his crew out of it alive, no question about it. But did he have the ability to command a starship over the long haul? Was he a long-distance runner . . . or just a sprinter?

  “You’re not saying anything,” Ben Zoma pointed out. “Should I send for a doctor?”

  The captain chuckled. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” He caught sight of a waiter with a tray of food. “Perhaps an hors d’oeuvre will brighten up the evening for me. I’ve always been partial to pigs in blankets.”

  His first officer looked skeptical. “Really?”

  Picard smiled at him. “No. But they’ll do in a pinch.”

  He had already embarked on an intercept course with the waiter when he felt a hand on his arm. Turning, he saw a tall fellow with a seamed face and a crew cut the color of sand.

  Like Picard, he wore a captain’s uniform. “Pardon me,” the fellow said. “You’re Jean-Luc Picard, aren’t you?”

  Picard nodded. “I am.”

  The man extended his hand. “My name’s Greenbriar. Denton Greenbriar.”

  Picard recognized the name. Anyone would have. “The captain of the Cochise, isn’t it?”

  Greenbriar grinned, deepening the lines in his face. “I see my reputation’s preceded me.”

  In fact, it had. Denton Greenbriar was perhaps the most decorated commanding officer in Starfleet.

  Picard pulled Ben Zoma over. “Captain Greenbriar, Gilaad Ben Zoma—my executive officer.”

  The two shook hands. “A pleasure to meet you,” Greenbriar said. He turned back to Picard. “And a pleasure to meet you, sir. I’ve heard good things about you.”

  “You have?” Picard responded, unable to keep from sounding surprised. Embarrassed, he smiled. “Sorry, Captain. It’s just that I feel like a bit of an oddity here.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Greenbriar. “Just because you’re the youngest man ever to command a starship?”

  “Well,” said Picard, “yes.”

  “People are often not what they seem, Jean-Luc.” Greenbriar took in the other men and women in the room with a glance. “Looks to me like our colleagues here have forgotten that.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Picard told him.

  Greenbriar shrugged his broad shoulders. “Admiral Mehdi is a sharp cookie. Always has been. If he has confidence in you, I’m certain it’s well deserved.”

  “It is,” Ben Zoma agreed.

  Picard felt his cheeks turn hot. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m not sure what I find more uncomfortable—the cold shoulder or the company of flatterers.”

  Greenbriar laughed. “That’s the last bit of flattery you’ll get from me, Captain. I promise.”

  And with that, he left to refill his glass.

  Ben Zoma turned to Picard. “That was refreshing.”

  “Unfortunately,” the captain replied, “it’s not likely to happen again this evening.”

  “What do you say we find something else to do?”

  Picard frowned. It was a tempting suggestion. He said as much. “Nonetheless,” he continued, “I feel obliged to stick it out here a while longer.”

  “Your duty as a captain?” Ben Zoma asked.

  Picard nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

  So they stayed. But, as he had predicted, no one else came near them the rest of the evening.

  Not even Admiral McAteer. In fact, Picard couldn’t find the man the entire evening.

  Chapter Two

  CARTER GREYHORSE, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER on the Stargazer, watched Gerda Asmund advance on him in her tight-fitting black garb. The navigation officer’s left hand extended toward him while her right remained close to her chest, her slender fingers curled into nasty-looking claws. “Kav
e’ragh!” she snarled suddenly, and her beautiful features contorted into a mask of primal aggression.

  Then her right hand lashed out like an angry viper, her knuckles a blur as they headed for the center of his face. Greyhorse flinched, certain that Gerda had finally miscalculated and was about to deal him a devastating, perhaps even lethal blow. But as always, her attack fell short of its target by an inch.

  Looking past Gerda’s knuckles into her merciless, ice-blue eyes, Greyhorse swallowed. He didn’t want to contemplate the force with which she would have driven her flattened fist into his mouth. Enough, surely, to cave in his front teeth. Enough to make him choke and sputter on his own blood.

  But she had exercised restraint and pulled her punch. After all, it wasn’t a battle in which they were engaged, or even a sparring session. It was just a lesson.

  “Kave’ragh?” he repeated, doing his best not to completely mangle the Klingon pronunciation.

  “Kave’ragh,” Gerda repeated, having no trouble with the pronunciation. But then, she had been speaking the Klingon tongue from a rather early age.

  The navigator stayed where she was for a moment, allowing Greyhorse to study her posture. Then she took a slow step back and retracted her fist, as if reloading a medieval crossbow.

  “Now you,” Gerda told him.

  Greyhorse bent his knees and drew his hands into the proper position. Then he curled his fingers under at the first knuckle, exactly as she had taught him.

  Gerda’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t criticize him. It was a good sign. During their first few lessons, she had done nothing but criticize him—his balance, his coordination, even his desire to improve.

  To be sure, Greyhorse wasn’t the most athletic individual and never had been. When the other kids had chosen sides to play parisses squares, he had invariably been the last to be picked.