STAR TREK: TNG - Stargazer: Three Read online

  “From the Federation colony on Setlik Three. Apparently,” said Wu, “the engineer there is a friend of yours.”

  [20] Understanding dawned on the Gnalish’s lizardlike face. “Chiidasi. Moraal Chiidasi.”

  “It seems this Chiidasi fellow served with you on one of your previous assignments—the Onjata, I believe?”

  Simenon’s grunt confirmed it.

  “He must have thought quite highly of you,” Wu continued, “because when he had some trouble with the colony’s power source, you’re the one he contacted.”

  The engineer shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Their matter-antimatter generator was a lot like the warp engine on the Onjata. He knew I was familiar with it, that’s all.”

  “That was one reason,” Wu agreed. “The other was that he considered you—” She held up her padd and read from it. “ ‘The best engineering mind in all of Starfleet.’ That’s rather high praise, Mr. Simenon.”

  He dismissed the notion with a flip of his scaly hand. “That’s just Chiidasi showing his gratitude.”

  The second officer smiled to herself. “No doubt. Anyway, I thought you would want to know.”

  “Thanks,” said Simenon. Then, without any further ado, he went back to his work.

  Wu shook her head. Her colleague was quite the interesting character. If his manners were anywhere near as highly developed as his engineering instincts, he would have been the most cultured individual in the fleet.

  As it was, she gathered, he was just its best engineer.

  From space, Wayland Prime looked to Vigo like most M-class planets, a ragged curtain of clouds partially obscuring an incredibly slow and complex dance of land and water.

  [21] Even more complex—but a lot less noticeable through the starboard observation port of Vigo’s shuttle—was the unusual network of magnetic storms that laced Wayland Prime’s upper atmosphere.

  The storm layer served as a natural security system for the Level One Development Facility, making it impossible to transport from the Stargazer to the planet’s surface. After all, the last thing Starfleet wanted was to make the secrets of its weapons technology easy pickings for enemies and opportunists, and the galaxy seemed to contain a surfeit of both.

  Unfortunately, the storm layer also made communication with anyone off-planet an uncertain proposition. Only during the occasional lull in magnetic activity could a voice or data signal punch through to the outside universe.

  “It might get a little bumpy here,” said Idun Asmund, the Stargazer’s primary helm officer, as she made some adjustments in the shuttlecraft’s attitude. “But it shouldn’t be anything we can’t handle.”

  “That’s good to hear,” said the weapons chief.

  Idun’s warning turned out to be a timely one. The shuttle began to bounce as if it were hitting one solid object after another. It went on like that for a minute or so, jolt after jolt. Then the ride began to flatten out.

  By that time, they were diving through the bottom of the cloud layer and heading for the barely visible northernmost continent, a massive spiral with a spine of high mountains that boasted one of the few patches of fertile green on the entire globe. Idun made a small course adjustment and pulled the shuttle toward the innermost part of the spiral.

  [22] Vigo watched as the clouds thinned and then fled altogether, leaving him with an unobscured view of his destination. That was when he caught sight of it—the dark, U-shaped building where some of the Federation’s greatest engineering minds labored to improve Starfleet’s existing array of tactical options.

  And one of those minds belonged to Ejanix. It was hard for Vigo to believe—and not because Ejanix’s brilliance had ever been the least bit in question. It was simply that university instructors on a world like Pandril seldom rose to interstellar prominence.

  Vigo laughed softly to himself. Not seldom, he thought. Never.

  Idun glanced back over her shoulder at him. “Did you say something?” she asked.

  “No,” the weapons chief replied. “Nothing. I was just thinking of something humorous.”

  Humorous indeed, he added silently. The first time he met Ejanix, he had been a university student and Ejanix a fledgling instructor. It was clear to Vigo from the first day of school that his new teacher was someone special—someone brighter and more dedicated than his colleagues.

  But no matter how bright Ejanix might have been, no matter how dedicated, no one had expected him to receive an invitation to teach on Earth.

  Nonetheless, that is what happened. A man named Onotoyo, who was retiring as Starfleet Academy’s tactical-engineering expert, was asked to make a list of recommendations as to his replacement.

  He gave only one name—that of a university teacher on Pandril who had published a monograph on cutting [23] recharge times in phaser batteries. Before Ejanix knew it, he was being wined and dined by the head of the Academy, who entreated him to move to San Francisco and become a member of the most prestigious faculty in the Federation.

  Of course, Vigo reflected, the Vulcans might have taken exception to that honorific. In any case, Ejanix accepted the position—which put him in a position to instruct Vigo a second time when Vigo was accepted into the Academy.

  And no educator was ever happier to see a former student. Ejanix was waiting for Vigo in his dormitory room when he arrived, defying any number of unwritten rules against professor-student fraternization. And he stayed there for hours, discussing everything from the deficiencies of Niagara-class propulsion systems to his travails in trying to replicate traditional Pandrilite delicacies.

  Had Ejanix been less prized by the Academy, he might have been reprimanded. As it was, the institution seemed willing to look the other way.

  In later years, Vigo came to understand the intensity of Ejanix’s friendship. Vigo himself had always wanted to join Starfleet and see the galaxy. He had looked outward to the stars, seeing his future there.

  Ejanix, on the other hand, had only aspired to be a university instructor. He hadn’t ever envisioned a time when he might leave Pandril and live on some other world. As a result, he wasn’t prepared for the loneliness, the cultural isolation, the lack of the familiar in everyday existence.

  So when Vigo showed up at the Academy—not just a fellow Pandrilite but someone Ejanix had actually [24] known and taught—Ejanix latched on to him the way a drowning man might latch on to a buoyant kyerota sac.

  Over the years Vigo spent at the Academy, the urgency of Ejanix’s need for companionship diminished. But at the same time, the two Pandrilites developed a truer friendship—one based on mutual respect and affection.

  Meanwhile, Vigo managed to become one of Ejanix’s best students, thriving on his professor’s enthusiasm and innovative thinking. When honors were handed out in tactical engineering, Vigo was seldom very far down the list.

  The last time he had seen Ejanix was at his graduation from the Academy. By that time, Vigo had already earned a berth on the Gibraltar patrolling the outskirts of Federation space in the vicinity of the Romulan Neutral Zone.

  He and his mentor had sworn to keep in touch afterward, and for a while they had kept that promise via subspace packet. But in time, Vigo’s resolve had thinned and apparently so had Ejanix’s, and even their occasional correspondence was put off in favor of more pressing concerns.

  For the last two years, Vigo and Ejanix hadn’t communicated at all. But the weapons chief had heard about his old instructor’s transfer to the facility on Wayland Prime and his subsequent work on the Type Nine project.

  Despite the two-year lapse in their friendship, Vigo had no doubt that Ejanix would be glad to see him. They would pick up right where they had left off. Maybe Vigo would even have time to teach his mentor the game of sharash’di.

  He recalled the look of joy and relief on Ejanix’s face [25] that first night at the Academy, and—despite himself—the weapons chief had to laugh again.

  “Nothing again?” asked Idun, not even bothering to turn aroun
d this time.

  “Nothing again,” Vigo confirmed.

  Abruptly, the communications monitor came alive on the shuttle’s control console. The face that appeared on it belonged to a woman with a dark complexion and long, black hair drawn into a braid.

  “This is Chief Echevarria,” she said, “of installation security. You’re cleared to land.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Idun.

  Moments later, she set the shuttle down on an open flat embraced by the U-shaped complex. “Enjoy your stay,” she told the Pandrilite as she triggered the mechanism that opened the hatch, letting in the eminently breathable air of Wayland Prime. “I’m sure it will be stimulating.”

  “No doubt,” said Vigo. He smiled at her. “I’ll tell you all about it when you pick me up.”

  “I look forward to it,” said the helm officer, without the slightest hint of irony in her voice.

  Vigo wrested his garment container from the aft storage compartment. Then he ducked to avoid the upper threshold of the hatch and stepped out onto the native ground cover, which was short, wiry, and blue-green in color.

  The sky overhead was pale blue in spots and cloud-covered in others, the temperature cool and the humidity high. It was like Vigo’s home on Pandril at the height of summer, the only season when temperatures were consistently above freezing.

  As the weapons officer closed the hatch behind him, [26] he saw a door open in the middle of the U shape. A figure in a black jumpsuit emerged from it. It wasn’t Ejanix; his Pandrilite stature would have given him away.

  Vigo’s welcomer, a slim, black-and-white-striped Dedderac, inclined his head as he approached. “Welcome to Wayland Prime,” he said in a slightly nasal voice. “I’m Riyyen, one of the engineers who labor here—and incidentally, the administrator of the place.”

  “Lieutenant Vigo of the Stargazer.”

  Riyyen smiled. “Yes, I know. You’re the only Pandrilite on the guest list.” He indicated the door he had come from with a tilt of his head. “Come on. I’ll show you your quarters.”

  “Thank you,” said Vigo.

  He was a bit disappointed that Ejanix hadn’t been able to meet him. But then, his mentor was probably busy elsewhere in the complex—perhaps with some refinement of the Type Nine.

  With a wave to Idun, he let her know he was good to go. A moment later, she took the shuttle back up.

  Vigo watched it go for a moment. Then he followed Riyyen into the development facility.

  Chapter Two

  CAPTAIN JEAN-LUC PICARD gazed at the Mara Zenaya system, a large red dot on the black-and-green grid of his desktop monitor screen. Then he looked back at his first officer, Gilaad Ben Zoma, who was peering over Picard’s shoulder to study the screen at the same time.

  The man’s dark, Mediterranean eyes were smiling even if the rest of his face was not. But then, Ben Zoma wasn’t exactly the doom-and-gloom type.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” asked the captain.

  “To say the least,” said his first officer. “With all the jockeying for power going on in this sector, with all the noise coming from the Cardassians and the Ubarrak and who knows who else ... you would think the Stargazer would be assigned to deal with at least some of the repercussions.”

  [28] “Yes,” Picard chimed in. “Just like every other starship between here and the Beta Quadrant.”

  “But no,” said Ben Zoma. “In his infinite wisdom, Admiral McAteer has decided to send the Stargazer—and only the Stargazer—on a scientific mission.” He sat down beside the captain on a stretch of polished, black desk. “Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

  Picard leaned back in his chair. “Clearly, I’m not the admiral’s favorite captain.”

  Of course, he and Ben Zoma had arrived at that conclusion some time ago. Weeks earlier, McAteer had attempted to discredit Picard by pitting him against the White Wolf, an elusive and seemingly unbeatable foe.

  Had it not been for Cortin Zweller, an old friend of Picard, the captain would never have known of the admiral’s agenda. But Zweller had alerted the captain to McAteer’s distrust of him—a product, apparently, of his age and inexperience.

  Picard frowned. It wasn’t easy being the youngest officer ever to command a starship.

  Fortunately, he had Admiral Mehdi in his corner. It was Mehdi who had placed Picard in the center seat after the death of Daithan Ruhalter, Picard’s predecessor.

  Mehdi hadn’t let himself be deterred by the fact that Picard was only twenty-eight years old, or that he had never had a chance to serve in the capacity of first officer. The admiral had made his choice despite all that.

  But from McAteer’s point of view, Picard was too inexperienced to take on such a tricky assignment. And apparently, he wasn’t alone in that regard. There were officers at every level who questioned Picard’s fitness to do his job.

  [29] At first, the expressions of doubt had bothered him. Now he found he was getting accustomed to them.

  “Unfortunately,” the captain said out loud, “there is nothing I can do about Admiral McAteer. He is my superior. He can have me deliver flowers if that’s what he wants.”

  “And probably will,” Ben Zoma returned, “if he thinks it’ll keep you out of the limelight.”

  Picard chuckled, though he knew he was really laughing at himself. A sad state of affairs indeed.

  “Well,” he said, “if we’re to conduct a scientific study, let’s at least make the most of it. I want all department heads briefed inside and out on the phenomenon.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll find more than McAteer expects and make a name for ourselves despite him.”

  “Maybe,” his first officer allowed generously. “But it’s not very likely.”

  Picard sighed. “You know, Commander, you could have lied to make me feel better.”

  “I could have,” said Ben Zoma. “But I don’t want to sully an otherwise flawless reputation. Don’t forget—if the admiral gets his way and you’re stripped of your rank, I’m next in line for the captain’s chair.”

  Picard had to laugh. If there was anything McAteer would have liked less than a twenty-eight-year-old in the captain’s chair, it was a twenty-seven-year-old like Ben Zoma. “The department heads, Gilaad. In the briefing room. Ten minutes.”

  “Aye, sir,” Ben Zoma assured him. Then he left the captain’s ready room to carry out his orders.

  [30] Picard glanced at his monitor one last time. Under different, more tranquil circumstances, he might have looked forward to a pure research mission, even enjoyed it.

  Just not now, when the entire sector seemed to be balanced on a razor’s edge.

  Finally, with a sound of disgust, he eliminated the graphic from the screen. Then he swiveled in his chair, got up, and headed for the briefing room.

  Nikolas sat down opposite Lieutenant Obal in the Stargazer’s mess hall and surveyed his friend’s food tray. “Okay,” he said, “what have we got here?”

  “Roast chicken with giblet gravy,” the Binderian announced proudly.

  Nikolas had to wince. Obal—and apparently, every other member of his species—bore an unfortunate resemblance to a plucked chicken, as Joe Caber had often pointed out. Apparently, Obal had missed the irony when he put in his dinner order.

  But then, Nikolas had been encouraging him to try a wider range of foods. Obal had simply done what he thought his friend wanted him to do.

  “Great,” he said. “How do you like it so far?”

  Obal shrugged. “Well enough. It’s not plomeek soup ... but then, what is?”

  For some reason, the Binderian’s favorite dish of all those he had tried was some kind of bitter Vulcan gruel. Go figure, Nikolas thought.

  “And what did you select?” asked Obal.

  Nikolas looked down at his tray, where an oversized [31] plate contained a plentitude of assorted delicacies—most of them from Earth, but not all. “The usual,” he said.

  “Considering the quantity of food you eat,” said Obal, �
��it’s a wonder you’re not overweight.”

  Nikolas had heard the remark before, though it had always been laced with a certain amount of envy. “What can I say? I’ve got the old Papadopoulos metabolism.”

  Obal tilted his head. “Papadopoulos?”

  “My mother’s maiden name,” Nikolas explained. “Every man in her family ate like a pig and looked like he was on a starvation diet. I’m guessing that’s where I got it.”

  “Heredity is a powerful force,” Obal observed.

  He said something more, but Nikolas didn’t hear him. He was too distracted by the feminine figure that walked into the mess hall at that moment.

  A figure often seen in duplicate on the bridge and around the ship. A figure no red-blooded man could ignore.

  Nikolas wasn’t sure if it was Gerda or Idun. Then he remembered that Idun had worn her hair up that day, and her sister had worn hers down.

  Idun then, he told himself.

  She was wearing a regulation uniform—a jacket with black pants—that seemed designed to conceal her considerable physical attributes. And yet, she looked fantastic in it.

  Knowing it was rude to stare, the ensign tried to keep from looking in Idun’s direction. But he couldn’t help it. It was physically impossible.

  [32] She was just too beautiful.

  “Nikolas?” said Obal.

  Nikolas tore his gaze away from Idun long enough to glance at his friend. “What?”

  “Pardon me if I am wrong, but it appears you are staring at Lieutenant Asmund.”

  The ensign sighed. “You’re not wrong.”

  Obal made a face. “I was afraid you would say that. You know that you are going down a very dangerous road, do you not? A road you have traveled before?”

  Nikolas nodded. “I know.”

  “Then you will desist?”

  “I wish I could, Obal. She’s just ...” He shook his head ruefully. “Irresistible.”

  The security officer made a face. “I will have to take your word for it. As you might imagine, my people have different standards of physical beauty.”

  Nikolas wasn’t surprised. Though he had never seen a female Binderian, he would have to guess that Idun had little in common with her.