Of course, if it all goes bad,he reminded himself, you’ll have plenty to do.
15
Reyes sensed he was not alone in his quarters the instant he stepped into the room.
Waiting until the door slid closed behind him and without looking, he pivoted to his left and ducked his head, driving forward with his left shoulder until he collided with the person lurking against the bulkhead just inside the door. His action caught his unknown visitor in the chest, and Reyes heard a grunt of surprise at the sudden action. No sooner did he connect with his shoulder than he lashed out with his arm, looking to land a strike with the edge of his hand against the intruder’s face. He was fast, but the other person was faster, and Reyes felt his arm’s motion arrested as a tight, unforgiving grip closed around his wrist. Trying to pull back, Reyes got his first good look at the intruder, who was dressed in beige coveralls and appeared to be slight of build, and he realized he was facing off against a human female.
What the hell?It was all he had time to think as he felt another pair of arms wrap around him and lift him off his feet in order to pull him away from his opponent. Whoever it was, he also was human, with muscled arms partially exposed thanks to beige sleeves rolled to a point just below the elbow. Reyes tried to squirm free or at least loosen the new attacker’s grip, but the effort was fruitless. He managed to kick his holder’s shin, eliciting another grunt of pain, though the grip on him did not weaken.
“Commodore Reyes!”
Hearing his name and former rank caught him off guard, and Reyes jerked his head around to regard the first intruder, who was stepping closer to him. She looked to be in her late twenties or perhaps early thirties, with short brown hair and dark brown eyes. The woman held up her hand, open and empty, while the other pressed against her chest where Reyes had struck her.
“Commodore Reyes,” she repeated. At the same time Reyes felt the arms around his chest release him, and he dropped several centimeters to the deck. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Who the hell are you?” Reyes growled, reaching up to rub his left shoulder where it still stung from his earlier actions. “Room service?”
Shaking her head, the woman replied, “No, sir. Lieutenant Mary Jane Hetzlein.” She gestured over Reyes’s shoulder. “My valet is Chief Petty Officer Joe Gianetti. We’re part of Starbase 47’s security detail. Lieutenant Jackson sent us.”
Reyes turned to regard the other man, whose hair was black and shorter than Hetzlein’s. The man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Sorry for the rough treatment, Commodore,” Gianetti said.
Waving away the apology, Reyes snapped, “I’m not a damned commodore anymore. Is Jackson out of his mind, sending you over here? Are you tryingto ignite an interstellar incident with the Orions?” He wondered about Ganz’s first reaction should he or any of his people get wind of the presence of Starfleet personnel sneaking around his ship. Would he start the process of covering his tracks or hiding whatever needed to be hidden or destroyed, or would he jump straight to the part where Reyes and his two visitors ended up somewhere with the muzzles of disruptor pistols jammed in their mouths?
“I don’t know all the details,” Hetzlein said, reaching up to wipe her brow, “but Lieutenant Jackson told us he was operating with direct authority from Starfleet Command. Our orders are to extradite you back to the station, by any means necessary.”
Reyes frowned. “Well, then you have a problem, Lieutenant, because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jackson warned us that’d be your answer, sir,” Hetzlein replied, “which is why he added that ‘by any means necessary’ bit at the end.”
Shaking his head, Reyes said, “You realize I’m here because the Orions granted me asylum, right? Theoretically, I could walk out of here any time I want; why do you think I haven’t done that before now?”
“I’m guessing it has something to do with not wanting to go back to a Starfleet brig,” Gianetti said.
“Bingo.” Reyes knew that the only thing his extraction, peaceful or otherwise, would accomplish would be to see him returned to a Starfleet brig. That likely was his ultimate destination, assuming Ganz or one of his goons did not kill him, but if there was a chance that he could help T’Prynn to obtain the data she needed from the Omari-Ekon’s navigational logs, then he had to risk staying here a bit longer.
Hetzlein asked, “Do you really think Ganz would just let you walk off this ship? Not so long as he thinks you’ve got some value.”
“You’re not here because you’re worried about me,” Reyes said. “Starfleet’s worried that I’ve turned traitor, and they want me out of here before I can do any more damage. Does Admiral Nogura know about this?”
“Admiral Nogura and the station’s senior staff have been insulated from this operation, sir,” Gianetti replied, “in order to shield him with plausible deniability should anything go wrong.”
Reyes opted not to mention the covert communications link he shared with T’Prynn, reasoning that if she was aware of the operation, she would have alerted him to be on the lookout for Hetzlein and Gianetti. It also was probable that neither of them had any knowledge of the mission she was overseeing, and likewise did not know of his subcutaneous transceiver. The device was his lifeline, he decided, not to be shared with anyone except as a last resort.
Which could be any minute now.
“From what I know of Nogura,” Reyes said, “when he finds out about this, you’re going to wish the Orions had captured you.” Regardless of whether the operation was successful, Reyes could see no means by which its execution and details might be kept secret. This extraction, successful or not, would become evident in short order, at which point the Orion government would without doubt dispatch the first in a series of harshly worded complaints to Starfleet Headquarters and the Federation Council. Given the already precarious state of relations between the two powers, there was no telling how the Orions might react to this incident, or what sort of recompense they could demand.
Looking to his would-be kidnappers, Reyes asked, “Okay, so you’re here to extradite me. Why are you talking to me, instead of stuffing me in a duffel bag and trying to carry me out of here?”
“We considered it,” Gianetti said.
Hetzlein cast a scowl in her companion’s direction before adding, “If we could’ve beamed you out of your quarters, we would’ve done that by now.”
“Which raises another question,” Reyes said. “How the hell did you even get aboard in the first place?”
She tapped the patch above her left pocket. “We just walked in the front door. So far as anyone else knows, we’re freight-haulers, from one of the civilian ships docked at the station, just looking to drink, lose some money, and have a good time.” Their coveralls were of a type Reyes recognized as being in common use aboard civilian merchant freighters. Above each of their left pockets was a patch denoting a shipping company that Reyes knew contracted with Starfleet as well as private sector construction and colonization organizations to transport matériel to worlds throughout the Federation. Below the patch was a tape with the name Tai’ Shaninscribed upon it in black letters. Reyes thought he recognized the name from various colony status reports and docking clearance requests during his tenure as commander of Starbase 47.
Skeptical of this idea, he asked, “And you guys have the sort of credits that can get you aboard a gaming vessel like this?”
Gianetti said, “We do if we’ve been on a long-haul run to a remote colony and back for seven months.”