Pointing to another area of the ravine, th’Vlene replied, “As for the other Klingon, she didn’t have any obvious signs of trauma, but she looked like what we saw at the colony, sir.”
“Interesting,” Blair said, his attention shifting between where th’Vlene had pointed and the general direction of the settlement. Nodding toward the mysterious, drone-like object, he said, “She’s between this thing and the colony.” That seemed to lend some additional weight to his idea that the drone, along with its twenty-three destroyed counterparts, might well be some kind of broad-based antipersonnel weapon. How had they gotten here undetected? Were they moved into position by hand, or dropped from orbit? Without a more detailed examination of the drone, there would be no way to answer such a question, along with the hundred or so others Blair was contemplating, such as how the Tholians, however many there might have been, had kept their presence a secret. Where was their ship? Not in orbit, or it would have been detected by the Defiant’s sensors. Was it here, hidden? That made more sense. If the Klingon colony here was in truth just an actual agricultural outpost and not part of a larger, clandestine military operation, then the inhabitants likely would not have had access to the same levels of sensor and weapons technology used by the imperial forces. A party with sufficient skill, particularly if they were employing covert infiltration tactics, could very easily exploit such a shortcoming.
Maybe the colony was targeted for exactly that reason. The thought at once saddened and angered Blair, for the devastation that had been wreaked as well as the idea that the Tholians had with deliberate calculation targeted civilians with whatever weapon they had created. Such an overt, unjustifiable act would only serve to further deteriorate the already fragile political situation in this part of the Taurus Reach. And here we are, stuck right in the middle.
“Get this thing ready for transport,” he said. “We’re taking it with us. You’ll start your investigation on our way back to Vanguard. Meanwhile, I want every sensor scan you can throw at this planet. The Tholians had to have a ship. I want it found.”
Nyn nodded. “Aye, sir.”
His communicator beeped for attention, and Blair reached for the device and activated it. “Blair here.”
“Defiant here, sir,” replied the voice of Commander Mbugua. “ It’s time for you to call it a day, Skipper. We’ve got company.”
Uh-oh,Blair thought. “Klingons?”
“ No, sir,” the first officer replied. “ Long-range sensors are picking up three Tholian ships, heading this way at high warp. They’ll be here within the hour.”
Th’Vlene said, “It seems someone else heard the colony’s distress call.”
“That, or the Tholians sent their own,” Blair countered, then nodded toward the drone. “Or one of these things fired off a call for help before self-destructing. Doesn’t matter now.” He was gripped by the sudden thought that everything they had seen of the mysterious Tholian technology here had smacked of tracks being covered. Perhaps the devices had self-destructed so as to give the Tholian government plausible deniability for what had happened here?
“Nyn, get this thing back to the ship, now.” For all Blair knew, this was the lone remaining piece of evidence implicating the Tholian Assembly as instigators of interstellar war with the Klingons.
If that was the case, and with more Tholian vessels fast approaching, Blair was certain of only one thing: The best place to be right at the moment was anywhere but here.
30
As the doors to his office slid aside, Admiral Nogura was greeted by the sight of T’Prynn and Ming Xiong. The duo was standing in the open area between his desk and the door, obviously waiting for him to arrive.
“I’ve never really liked it when my own meetings start without me,” Nogura said, eyeing his charges as he passed them on his way to the food slot set into the rear wall of his office.
“We hadn’t started, Admiral,” Xiong said, the expression on his face one of such concern and sincerity that Nogura almost felt a small pang of guilt for making what he had intended to be a mood-lightening remark.
Almost, but not quite.
“I directed that at myself, Lieutenant,” he said, waiting until the food slot’s door slid upward to reveal a cup of green tea resting in a saucer. “Flag officers make comments such as those in order to avoid offering a proper apology when they’re running late. Stick around Starfleet long enough, and you’ll one day be able to keep people waiting, too.” Retrieving the tea, Nogura made his way to his desk and lowered himself into his high-backed chair. Gesturing toward the pair of chairs in front of him, he said, “Those aren’t decorative. Somebody use them.” As Xiong settled into one of the chairs, leaving T’Prynn to stand behind him, Nogura lifted his teacup from its saucer. “So, I take it we have some sort of new development?”
Turning to walk to the wall-mounted viewscreen on the left side of the admiral’s office, T’Prynn replied, “Yes, Admiral. We have completed our analysis of the navigational data obtained by Mister Reyes from the Omari-Ekon.” Without waiting for further instructions, she took the square blue data card she had been carrying in her right hand and inserted it into a reader slot situated next to the screen. She then pressed a sequence of keys on the control pad next to the reader, and the screen flared to life. A wash of computer data coalesced into the image of what Nogura recognized as a standard Federation star chart. Moving to the side of the screen so as to offer an unobstructed view, T’Prynn clasped her hands behind her back.
“Based on navigational and chronological data recorded by the Omari-Ekon’s main computer,” she said, “we believe that the Mirdonyae Artifacts originated in this star system. Federation stellar cartography databases currently list this system as FGC PSR 0108+143.”
Shifting in his seat, Xiong said, “It’s a pulsar, sir, estimated to be two hundred million years old. As you can tell by the database, we haven’t given it much attention in terms of exploratory research.”
“But the Vulcans have,” Nogura countered.
T’Prynn nodded. “Indeed. Our star charts refer to it as Eremar. The only information we possess was provided by automated survey probes, dispatched centuries ago. As with much of the Taurus Reach, Vulcan never sent crewed vessels to that region.”
“So, where is this Eremar system?” Nogura asked, leaning back in his chair as he sipped his tea.
“Approximately thirty-five light-years from our present position,” T’Prynn replied, tapping the control pad again. In response to her command, the star chart magnified, this time highlighting and bringing into sharp relief one section of the Taurus Reach with which Nogura was becoming increasingly familiar.
“In the center of this … what did you call it? Tkon Empire?” he asked.
“We believe this to be the center of what once was the Tkon civilization, Admiral,” Xiong replied. “At least, according to the information we’ve so far been able to obtain on that area, including information supplied to us by Cervantes Quinn and Bridget McLellan from their mission to retrieve the stolen Mirdonyae Artifact.”
Nogura said, “Yes, of course. Their encounter with the Shedai … Apostate?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Xiong replied.
Offering a nod of thanks, Nogura eyed the image on the viewscreen. “That looks to be a bit of a hop from here,” he said. “Do we know why the Omari-Ekonwas in that vicinity in the first place?”