“I’m sorry, Mister Reyes, but that’s all the time I have for this at the moment. Would you mind if I scheduled a follow-up session for tomorrow at this same time?”
Reyes shrugged. “I’ll check my calendar, but I think I’m free.” As he watched Moyer collect her data slate and return it to the briefcase she lifted from the floor to lay atop the table, he added, “I appreciate you being so polite about all of this, Commander. I mean, it’s not as though I can refuse requests like this, right?”
“I don’t see a reason to create an air of animosity where none’s required,” Moyer said, closing her briefcase. “I tend to reserve the harsher tactics for those I deem deserving of them.”
Comprehending the implicit meaning behind her words, Reyes offered a small smile of gratitude. “Thank you, Commander.”
Nodding, Moyer said, “We’ll likely be having a few of these sessions before I’m finished, during which we’ll be delving into the more unpleasant aspects of your time with the Klingons and the Orions. There are many people in Starfleet who want to charge you with treason, or collusion at the very least.”
“And what do you think about any of that?” Reyes asked.
Moyer’s eyes shifted to the table for a moment before she returned her gaze to his. “I think I’d like to be your lawyer, should it become necessary for you to retain counsel.”
“I appreciate the offer, but let’s see what happens, first,” Reyes said. “Nogura’s main problem will be making sure that even with all that’s happened, the secrecy surrounding the meta-genome can still be protected. For what it’s worth, I think that can be done, but there are a few loose ends that need tying off.”
“Including you?” Moyer asked.
Reyes sighed in agreement. Of all the threads dangling from the worn yet still intact quilt of security enveloping Operation Vanguard, he was perhaps the one requiring the most immediate —if not judicious—attention. With all that remained at stake, Nogura’s choices so far as to what to do with the disgraced former commodore might come down to simple expediency, with the aim of defending the most valuable aspects of the project’s clandestine status. Were his and the admiral’s roles reversed, Reyes would view the matter in the same way.
“Yes,” he said. “Even me.”
33
On the bridge of the Defiant,Thomas Blair shifted in his seat in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position. No matter what he did, the ache in the small of his back continued unabated. Indeed, it had begun to radiate outward, across his hips and down into his thighs. His shoulders felt like little more than piles of knots, and hammers seemed to be pounding beneath his temples, driving spikes directly into his brain. For perhaps the sixth or seventh time in an hour—he had lost count—Blair swiveled the command chair to face the engineering station at the back of the bridge. As he had done during each previous iteration of this exercise, he asked the same question.
“So, how are we doing?”
Sitting at the console, Kamau Mbugua, who often filled in at the station while the Defiant’s chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Stevok, toiled belowdecks, replied, “Holding steady at warp 8.1.”
Blair nodded at the report, offering a small, sardonic smile. “I suppose there’s no point asking if Stevok might coax just a little more juice out of the old girl?”
“I think we both know what he’d say to that, Skipper,” Mbugua said.
Unlike many chief engineers with whom he had served over the course of his career, Stevok was never one to offer anything but exact answers for any queries posed to him. He did not inflate repair estimates and then complete his tasks in a time frame well within such forecasts in order to bolster his reputation as someone capable of extraordinary feats. Likewise, he did not underplay or exaggerate the abilities of the vessel in his care. When asked how well the Defiantmight perform at a sustained rate of high warp speed, Stevok without embellishment or undue worry had answered that the ship’s engines would be able to withstand such a demand for no less than 9.6 hours.
According to the chief engineer, those same engines also would be unable to handle the strain for anything more than 9.9 hours.
Rising from his chair and reaching behind him to rub the small of his back, Blair moved the railing separating him from the science station. “Any change in our pursuers?”
Clarissa Nyn turned in her seat. “No, sir. The Tholian ships are still gaining on us, if only slowly. According to our long-range sensors, they’re giving chase at warp 8.3.” She did not need to say anything else. Blair could do the math as well as she could, and he knew that even if the Defiantcontinued its evasive course, the trio of Tholian vessels would overtake his ship long before it could reach help, and perhaps even before any other starships might close the distance themselves and be in a position to render aid. Blair had already ordered a comprehensive report detailing their findings on Traelus II and their current situation to Starbase 47 along with a call for assistance, but the truth of the matter was that the Defiantwas a long way from any sort of help. All of this had made him settle on a series of course corrections designed to change direction at irregular intervals when the ship came within proximity of other star systems and other interstellar phenomena. Much of the area they had been traversing during the past day had not previously been visited, at least not by any Starfleet vessels and—so far as the library computer’s record tapes were able to confirm—not by any known civilian ships, either. The Defiant’s current heading was still largely linear, adjusted as needed to remain parallel to the border separating the Taurus Reach from Tholian space.
Tholian space,Blair mused. That’s funny. One of the first things learned about the Tholian Assembly after the Federation’s first contact with the reclusive, xenophobic race was their habit of taking over systems beyond their defined territorial boundaries. It was not unusual for a Tholian vessel to travel into an unclaimed region, after which the ship’s commander would declare it an annex of the Assembly. Given their penchant for such actions, Blair had at first wondered why the Tholians seemed reluctant to conduct similar expansionist activities in the Taurus Reach. Upon learning of the race’s apparent connection to the Shedai, Blair decided he could not fault the Tholians for wanting to give this region a wide berth.
Sounds like a pretty damned good idea, right about now.
Releasing a tired sigh, Blair turned away from the railing and made his way back to his chair. He glanced at the chronometer mounted just above the astrogator between the helm and navigator positions, and realized he had been on the bridge for nearly ten hours without any sort of respite save the cups of coffee brought to him by his yeoman at irregular intervals. In fact, it had been the last cup of coffee, brought to him by the young woman who served as his yeoman during gamma shift, that made Blair realize just how long he had remained here. Though most of his alpha shift crew had taken breaks at one point or another, each of them had, through unspoken agreement, elected to remain at their posts rather than surrender their stations to officers from the oncoming duty shift. He knew he could order his crew to their quarters for much needed and deserved rest, but what would be the point? Who could sleep now, with enemy ships chasing after them?
You need rest,Blair reminded himself. Your people need rest. They need to be sharp if and when the Tholians catch up.He was considering calling his yeoman for another cup of coffee, a thought that in turn elicited his latest lamentation about the notable lack of food slots on the bridge, when Ensign Sabapathy called out from the communications station.
“Captain, I’m picking up a distress call.”
His eyes narrowing in suspicion and confusion, Blair turned back to his communications officer just as Mbugua crossed over from his station. “Distress call? Out here?” Blair noted that the commander’s expression was one of skepticism, which Blair was sure mirrored his own.