Kilvennan’s shaggy hair plastered his forehead and picked at his eyes. His brown knit shirt, sweated into a sop, provided the only relief from the snapper burns. “Should be along here somewhere. This drone’s one of the older ones. Don’t know the tech very well . . .”
“It’ll be in this direction.” Suddenly recognizing the layout, Kirk angled off to their right, the cyclospanner clunking in his hand with every crawling stride.
“What if you’re wrong?” Kilvennan called after him. “We don’t have time—”
“When I was seventeen my father got me a summer job on an industrial freighter. It had the same kind of cutting system. This looks familiar.”
Coming up in front of them was a sizzling, stinking mass of scorched coils and a huge blackened area of bulkhead. The destroyed shield array!
“Over there!” Kilvennan pointed through a web of cables. “Jesus, it’s red!”
Raw overload pulsed through the side of the drone, turning the metal itself rosy with energy. A brief shuffle, and Kirk crouched before the phaser-torch relays.
“Same basic components,” he assessed quickly. “Different arrangement. When I get the spanner in there and interrupt the Sherman-Kelly flow, you give it your family’s emergency shutdown code.” He bared his right arm and shoved the cyclospanner into the gap between the firing linkage and the coil housing.
Kilvennan shielded his face with one hand. “This how you got famous? Backing people into corners and twisting until they squeal?”
“Forty seconds,” Kirk counted. “Are you thinking about your children?”
The privateer’s dark eyes grew clever. “If I comply, no charges against my mother.”
“No deal.” Intense and uncharitable, Kirk winced hard all the way to his jaw as electrical activity rushed past his arm, buried to the elbow in the housing. “If your mother’s been enhancing her phaser capacity, she’s going to be held responsible. The Expedition’s going to make it to Belle Terre if I have to push it there. I don’t hear you squealing.”
A huff of frustration blew from Kilvennan’s nostrils. “You son of a bitch . . . E-shut down, Webb GCX Trident Obstruct-Michael.”
The cutting torches burped, and the whine of harassment suddenly evaporated. Around them, the drone ship stopped its relentless pulsing and went to neutral engines. The hum of the tractor beam faded with a miserable groan. The whine of overload faded away. The red metal cooled toward ugly gray.
Relieved, Kirk slumped a little. “That was close. As soon as Spock confirms the power-down, he’ll beam us out of this sauna.”
Instantly exhausted, Kilvennan let his throbbing head drop back against the coolant tubes. “You’re a bully, Captain Kirk.”
Feeling his sandy hair going dark with perspiration, his face russet and blotchy, Kirk retrieved his burned arm from the housing. His forearm was scorched with a dozen electrical burns. His white knit sleeve smoldered. The cyclospanner thunked to the crawlway grid.
“And don’t you ever forget it,” he piped.
BELLETERRE COLONIAL EXPEDITION
PRELIMINARY MANIFEST OF SHIP PARTICIPATION
(TO BE REVISED UPON ADDITIONAL ENTRIES)
NOTE: MANIFEST DOES NOT INCLUDE PRIVATE VESSELS WITHOUT PUBLIC DUTY ASSIGNMENT
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, COLONY BELLETERRE PROJECT OCCULT STAR SYSTEM, SAGITTARIAN STAR CLUSTER
AUTHORITY: UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS COLONIAL MAGISTRATE OFFICE OF SETTLEMENT
SHIP NAME
CLASSIFICATION
OWNER/AUTHORITY
MASTER
YUKON
CONESTOGA
UFP LEASE
BATTERSEY
OREGON TRAIL
CONESTOGA
UFP LEASE
TRAUTNER
LEWIS AND CLARK
CONESTOGA
PRIVATE
MAITLAND
MANDRAKE ANACHRONAE
CONESTOGA
PRIVATE
RAMPION
PROMONTORY POINT
CONESTOGA
UFP LEASE
HARVEY
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
CONESTOGA
UFP LEASE
BURCH
HAMPTON ROADS
CONESTOGA
PRIVATE
NICKLE
COMANCHE
CONESTOGA
UFP LEASE
GEGLIO
LAKOTA
CONESTOGA
CORPORATE
BRANCH
SACAJAWEA
CONESTOGA
CORPORATE
KATT
COLUNGA
MULE ROUNDHOUSE
GRAYMARK ENG. HQ
M. SCOTT
HUNTER’S MOON
ENFORCEMENT
PRIVATEER
KILVENNAN
ROYAL YORK
ENFORCEMENT
PRIVATEER
GILLESPIE
ZAVADA
ENFORCEMENT
PRIVATEER
SHEPPARD
RATTLESNAKE
ENFORCEMENT
PRIVATEER
SUNN
POLYNESIAN
CONESTOGA TENDER
UFP LEASE
MARKS
MABLE STEVENS
VIP TRANSPORT
PRIVATE
CHALKER
AMERICAN ROVER
PATHFINDER
PRIVATE
SMITH/GLASS
J. Carpenter,
Spec. Agent
TWILIGHT SENTINEL
CORONER SHIP
PRIVATE
NELSON
BROTHER’S KEEPER
MERCY SHIP
STARFLEET LEASE
SKAERBAEK
PANDORA’S BOX
INDUSTRIAL
PRIVATE
BLAINE
CRYSTOBEL
COMMERCIAL PILOT
PRIVATE
WEBB
WEBB ONE–NINE
FACTORY DRONES
CRYSTOBEL
AUTOPILOT
MACEDON
COMMERCIAL TOW
CORPORATE
WALTERS
IROQUOIS
INDUSTRIAL
CORPORATE
ISRAEL
RED BARN
CATTLESHIP
CORPORATE
KEJ
QUINCY B. HOBBS
CATTLESHIP/DAIRY
PRIVATE
SEMPATI
NORMANDY
PRIVATE
MAXMILLIAN
UNCLE JAKE’S POCKET
HOTEL VESSEL
PRIVATE
DURANT
NORFOLK REBEL
TUGANTINE
PRIVATE
BRIGGS
KALEONAHE
MINE SHIP
PRIVATE
FOLSTER
FOGGY DEW
DAIRY BARGE
PRIVATE
MEKO
HEIDI
RANCH BARGE
PRIVATE
DVORAK
ANNIE B
RANCH BARGE
PRIVATE
FORSMARK
CHARGER
EQUINE STABLE
PRIVATE
BROWN
BLACK SWAN
GARDEN SHIP
PRIVATE
GAINES
OLYMPIAN
ORGAN LAB
UFP LEASE
GUE
UFP OFFICIAL ESCORT
IMPELLER
CUTTER
STARFLEET
MERKLING
ENTERPRISE
STARSHIP
STARFLEET
KIRK
REPUBLIC
CUTTER
STARFLEET
DESALLE
BEOWULF
COMBAT SUPPORT TENDER
STARFLEET
AUSTIN
ADDENDUM: BE AWARE—THIS IS ONLY A PRELIMINARY I. E. PART
IAL MANIFEST. UNTIL TWO (2) WEEKS PRIOR TO LAUNCH DATE ROSTER IS OPEN FOR ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS. COMMANDS MAY ALSO CHANGE.
NOT LISTED: SINGLE-FAMILY PRIVATE VESSELS, MULE TENDERS, RUNABOUTS.
* * *
COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—FIRST AND SECOND OFFICERS
Senior First Officer: SPOCK, Cdr.
Duty Station: Starship Enterprise
RESPONSIBILITIES:
All ships’ manifests.
Licensure and qualifications.
Customs, warrants, liens.
Letters of Indemnity, contracts, clauses.
Insurance, special interests.
Charters, Port Risk Policies.
Clearances, releases, registries.
SECONDARY:
Coordinate with Lt. Cdr. Uhura, Chief Safety Officer.
All safety drills, communications.
* * *
COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—MASTER OF THE HOLD
Chief Inspector and Chartering Broker: DANIEL MERKLING, Capt.
Duty Station: Starfleet Cutter Impeller
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Payload manifests.
Coordinate all baggage masters.
Warp trim.
Stowage.
Obstructions.
Coordinate with Federation Bureau of Shipping.
* * *
COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—STRESSMASTER
Chief Inspector: RAY AUSTIN, Capt.
Duty Station: Starfleet Combat Support Tender Beowulf
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Oversee all lines, cables, antigravs, clamps, fittings, gates, doors, coamings, straps, hitches, bolts, restraining gear, cargo nets, storage hammocks, bulkheads, gammonings, hydraulics, magnetics, mesh, gangways, fusion welds, corrugated bulkheads.
Oversee above for space-emergency tolerance.
Retrofit all ships for universal docking collars.
* * *
COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—REARGUARD
Senior Readguardsman: ANTON (Tony) DeSALLE, Capt.
Duty Station: Starfleet Cutter Republic
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Rearguard coordinator.
All recruiting and training of reserves.
Policing of restricted areas.
Flexible response.
* * *
Chapter Three
Cluster Z-80, Sagittarian Stellar Group
United Federation of Planets Catalogue: Star System “Occult”
Planet Four: “Belle Terre”
“HOLY SMOKE, Dogan! You’re always in your own world! Wake up! We have red alert!”
Ah, double-deep space. Demonic possession for the frustrated few.
The survey scout’s deck smelled from overworked sensors and burned circuits. Broiled boards all over the deck, cluttered with tools and cable parts, same as always. Nobody minded doing the work, but nobody cleaned up either. Normal enough. Helm on standby, manned, no tractors, engines idle, thrusters zero, weapons cold, artificial gravity nominal, life-support green, cargo doors shut, hatches clamped, spark blinds hanging on the consoles, radiation sheets draped here and there with armholes gawking open, so on, so on, so on. So why the red alert?
Over there, trembling on his stool like a bug on a griddle, the twitchy analyst cranked around from his sensor displays and barked, “Dogan! Come here!”
“Clam up. My head’s drummin’.”
A deep sucking breath—clears the skull like a wire brush. Good long suck on the pipe . . . this was a good pipe. Teakwood, Tidewater tobacco. His last pinch or two of the old broadleaf.
Mitch Dogan trundled out of the narrow companion-way, thinking about old wrestling holds. He’d sure do some of ’em different if he had the past back for a couple minutes.
The red-alert panels flashed in his face. His own voice, high-pitched and gravelly, banged through his skull worse than the warning alarm. His bathrobe dragged behind him, picking up bits of dirt and metal shavings. The undercooked feeling of getting rousted in the middle of the night churned his stomach. He tried to reconstruct the dream he’d been having when they woke him up.
At three feet two, with arms as thick as his chest, he was like three barrels strapped together, with feet. Still drowsy, he shuffled along the circular ramp that went all the way around the bridge. Up here on the ramp, he could be at eye level with his crewmates. They’d built it for him few years back. Sure made a difference.
He paused just starboard of the main screen and communed with a worn poster showing an exaggerated flicker-animate picture of himself, eyes flaring, arms flexed, lips curled back, red hair up like a zombie, short legs twisted, with Anchorhead McHale squished between his knees. Mitch “The Barrel” Dogan! New Chicago’s answer to high-yield neutronium! Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!
Ten years ago, yeh. The glory days on Altus IV, suckin’ tourist credits to the tune of raving crowds, living on company-bred prime rib instead of cold rations. Oh, yeh! Them was the days!
Eh, anyway, a sports figure’s career is always short, no pun intended. But them really was the days.
While Dogan rubbed away the cobwebs, the agitated science analyst finally had enough and slammed one coiled appendage on the ramp behind where the command chair used to be before they swapped it for a used low-gain generator. “Dogan! Pay attention to work! The quake moon’s mass is changing! It reads hollow inside!”
“Slime down, smart boy,” Dogan waved a thick hand. “Anybody seen my eyedrops? Marvin, did I leave my eyedrops on the helm? You didn’t stick ’em some-place I ain’t gonna look for a million credits, did you, you skinny bottom-feeder?”
The helmsman shrugged over his knob of a shoulder and scratched his big square chin. “Roib put some on his toenails.”
“I know you’re lying because he ain’t got toes.”
“What’re you wearing your robe for?”
“I got a chill—what’d you care? Holy smoke, somebody turn off the stinkin’ alert bell! Who turned that thing on anyway? I didn’t even get a chance to go to the head. What’d we have red alert for, hanging here in the middle of nothing, can’t even move a hundred meters because of Gamma Night?”
Emil Pashke, busy at his cartography station, pointed across to the science array. “Roib made us turn it on.”
Dogan grunted. “Him again, like a hangnail. Roob, you punk, listen to me. You ain’t trained right. You wake me up at zero—what is it?—four hundred lousy hours, and what you got to tell me is a moon’s mass is changing right while we’re looking at it? Three years running this pothole tank around the survey beat and you still ain’t got a clue what rises from hell when some insensitive spud wakes me up from my beauty sleep?”
Roib’s three pool-table-green eyes rolled, then settled into a scowl. “The mass . . . is changing.”
“Every couple of seconds, yeh.” While the rest of the crew waited to see what would happen, Dogan abused his eyes with a knotty knuckle. “We got this Class-M planet, we got nine moons, nice pretty little star system, newly catalogued star, and the Federation making big bets on whatever we tell ’em next. The Fed wants this system surveyed for a new colony, the farthest away ever, and we send ’em a survey that says the biggest moon is slipping in and out of its own mass. Then they put us in a paper room and feed us apple-sauce, no cinnamon. Why don’t you stand up and do ‘Swan Lake’ for us. Eh? Marvin’ll dance the girl’s part. Eh? Eh?”
Laughter boomed around the crew at Roib’s expense. Dogan scratched his beard and took bows, blinking now that his eyes weren’t stinging so much. Around the bridge, the only active screens were the local ones, about a third of what the bridge had to offer. These “windows” showed whatever the short-range sensors could pick up, not much more than the crew would see if they looked out a porthole. No magnification, no enhancement. When the sensors woke up at Gamma Dawn, they’d be able to count the cells on local fauna down there on the new planet, but not till then.
When the stir died down, Dogan turned away from the frustrat
ed analyst and looked at the bored quarter-master. “Hey, Grady, call the galley and tell that toothless wonder of a cook that if he don’t defrost some of the meat we hunted down on that funny brown planet two months ago, I’m gonna come down there and introduce him to a whole new way to fry flesh. And tell him I’m tired of mushrooms. No more mushrooms. Throw’m right out.”
“But I like mushrooms,” Grady rebutted, leaning on his elbows and yawning.
“Yeh? Let’s have a party. We’ll wallpaper Grady’s rack with mushrooms. Roob can reach both ends of the deck at the same—”
“Dogan!” Roib screeched. “Work! We have to notify Starfleet!
“Starfleet? What’d you want to tip off those prima donnas for? They’ll just laugh. I bin an independent contractor for longer than mosta those bootlickers been alive.” Dogan lumbered to that side of the bridge and peered Roib right in the eyes. Well, two of them, anyway. “Ever since I known you, kid, you think every blip on the scanner is something new and exciting and it never is. You always keep thinking you’ll find the big wonder. Forget it. We’re a survey unit. Everything we do is dull. Get used to it.”
Roib’s shuddering dropped away, replaced by annoyance. His voice lost its chime. “Being around you, I’m already used to dull.”
“Whatever you’re reading, you made a mistake,” Dogan insisted. “You don’t have spatial bodies this dense that are hollow inside. You don’t have ’em. Got it? Baby physics. There ain’t no such thing.”