Serpents Among the Ruins Page 4

  “Break orbit, Commander,” Harriman told her. “Go to warp eight when it’s safe to do so.”

  She worked the helm, the thrum of the impulse engines rising as they engaged. She looked up at the main viewscreen just once, as the arc of the Koltaari world slipped from sight. Linojj felt a tightness in her belly, a sick, sinking feeling at leaving the peaceful people to the marauding hands of the Romulans. But she also thought once more of her own homeworld, and of the hundreds of other aligned and nonaligned planets in and around the Federation, their billions of inhabitants, and she knew that Captain Harriman was right: Starfleet was not yet prepared to go to war, and if the crew of Enterprise had attempted to liberate the Koltaari today, the results would have been disastrous—both for the Federation and for the Koltaari.

  It might still be disastrous, she thought. War had been coming for a long time, she knew, but it had never been closer than right now. Today, Vokar and the Romulans had begun the countdown.

  Minus Ten: Foxtrot

  The asteroid hung in space like an afterthought, a barren, craggy rock the universe seemed to have flung together for no particular purpose. Foxtrot XIII, irregularly but unremarkably shaped, bore no conspicuous variations from any of its dozen namesakes. Less than five hundred kilometers along its greatest dimension, it appeared lifeless and alone against the glittering backdrop of stars.

  No, not alone, Lieutenant Commander Rafaele Buonarroti saw as he peered at a monitor in one of Enterprise’s cargo holds. On the small viewscreen, a gleam of light had emerged from beyond the asteroid, a distinctive gray-white shape. Enterprise had been scheduled to rendezvous here with Agamemnon, but Buonarroti would have immediately identified the ship—or at least its class—anyway. The curved engine nacelles of the Odysseus vessels represented an experimental Starfleet design three decades old—a design that, while functional, had been abandoned when theorized efficiencies in warp-field generation had never materialized. Only two of the eight ships built remained in active service, and Buonarroti had heard recent talk that Agamemnon itself might soon be decommissioned. For now, though, the old vessel kept company with the dun, seemingly empty asteroid.

  Seemingly empty, Buonarroti knew, but not actually empty.

  Beside him, Captain Harriman reached down and pressed a touchpad on the detached console into which the monitor was set. The image shifted, bringing Foxtrot XIII and Agamemnon closer. The old ship measured only about two-thirds as long as Enterprise, Buonarroti recalled from the specs, and carried a corresponding crew complement of approximately five hundred. But despite its smaller size and the still-ultramodern appearance of its bowed nacelles, Agamemnon looked bulky and boxy to him, particularly when compared with the sleek, streamlined form of Enterprise.

  “Are we ready to go once we’re in range, Rafe?” the captain asked, pronouncing Buonarroti’s nickname with a short a and long e: Rah-fee. The two men stood on the other side of the console from the expansive square stage of a cargo transporter. Buonarroti looked up from the monitor and over at Harriman before responding.

  “Yes, we’re all set, Captain,” he said, then peered around at the cargo that Enterprise had hauled here from Space Station KR-3. Throughout the hold, outsized metal containers of various shapes had been stacked high. Security mechanisms, a trio of green lights glowing steadily on each, had been affixed to all of the containers. One light indicated an engaged magnetic lock, the others the active states of sensor and transporter inhibitors. If any cloaked Romulan vessels penetrated the nearby Neutral Zone to gather intelligence—and Starfleet Command believed such reconnaissance to be commonplace these days—then their crews would be able neither to scan the contents of the containers nor to transport them away; the inhibitors obstructed sensors and prevented the containers from being beamed from anywhere but directly atop a transporter pad. “I’ve already received the coordinates from the outpost,” Buonarroti told Harriman, “and I’ve modified the transporter protocols not to record the details of what we beam down.” He paused, then added, “La lotta continua.”

  Owing to his appreciation for his heritage, Buonarroti had an affinity for employing Italian phrases. Combined with his slightly drawn-out cadences—common to humans raised in the Alpha Centauri system—it made for a distinctive way of speaking. He remembered, back when he had first been assigned to Enterprise, the captain’s inability to contain a smile whenever Buonarroti had spiced his dialogue with Italian, but Harriman had long ago become accustomed to such verbal idiosyncrasies. Buonarroti had served under the captain for fifteen years now, the last half as his chief engineer.

  Now, not only didn’t Harriman smile, but his jaw tightened. “I’m afraid that’s an understatement, Rafe,” he said. A saying Buonarroti used often enough that just about everybody on board understood its meaning, La lotta continua translated as The struggle continues.

  The captain gazed around the hold at the cargo containers, his expression drawn, his body language hinting at his weariness. The last couple of years had been difficult for all of Starfleet, with the uncertain relations among the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons threatening the peace more and more each day. Seven months ago, immediately after the Romulans had taken the world of the Koltaari, Enterprise had been assigned to Foxtrot Sector to patrol the Federation side of the Neutral Zone and conduct defense-readiness drills at the thirteen outposts in the region. And just nine weeks ago, Enterprise had been ordered to team with Agamemnon to deliver enhanced weaponry to the outposts and to rotate outpost personnel. Buonarroti knew that Starfleet crews stationed full-time along the Neutral Zone were routinely reassigned to other posts in order to minimize fatigue and stress, a policy Starfleet Command had recently reinforced by choosing to rotate out entire crews from the outposts, at shorter intervals.

  The incongruity of the operation, as far as Buonarroti was concerned, lay in the anxiety it had produced in the crew of Enterprise and, he was sure, in the crew of Agamemnon. Enterprise ferried weapons from Space Station KR-3 to the Foxtrot asteroids and then returned to the starbase with the reassigned outpost crews, while Agamemnon delivered the new crews and also provided special technicians to install the new weapons. The tasks served as constant reminders of the precarious state of interstellar relations, and the repetition of those tasks for each outpost only helped to heighten the feeling of dread aboard ship—probably for no one more so than the captain, Buonarroti thought. Beyond carrying the burdens of his crew, Harriman also must have felt pressure from Starfleet Command; each time Enterprise arrived at KR-3, he would invariably be called into hours of meetings with the top brass. Buonarroti knew of the captain’s experiences with the Romulans through the years, and the engineer was sure that the admirals wanted to make use of whatever the captain had learned as a result of those experiences.

  “Well, it sure looks like an impressive amount of firepower,” Buonarroti observed optimistically. Although Starfleet Command had classified the contents of the containers, it had been an open secret that, in recent days, the Federation had been designing and manufacturing improved—and perhaps even new—armaments. He only hoped that the weapons experts on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone performed their jobs better than their counterparts in the Romulan and Klingon Empires, and that if shots eventually did blaze through the darkness of space, the enhanced weaponry would prove decisive for the UFP.

  “Yes, it does look impressive,” Harriman said.

  “I’d love to see what Starfleet Tactical’s come up with,” Buonarroti told the captain. He had voiced such desires before, during Enterprise’s runs to the other outposts. He understood that times of military necessity often resulted inimpressive leaps of technological progress, and as an engineer—as with other engineers he knew, and perhaps all engineers everywhere—he enjoyed getting his hands on whatever advanced equipment he could. That had been one of the primary reasons he had joined Starfleet: on a starship, the opportunities to work on different technologies were numerous—from life-support and
environmental control, to warp and impulse engines, to weapons and defensive systems, to sensors and scientific equipment. For him, Enterprise essentially constituted an enormous playground.

  “Sorry, Rafe,” Harriman said. “You know how careful Command is being these days.” As always happened during periods of interstellar tensions, suspicions had been raised about the possibility of Romulan operatives having infiltrated not only the Federation, but Starfleet as well. Such occurrences, Buonarroti knew, were not without precedent. The most notorious episode of Romulan espionage had occurred just three years ago at the Antares Advanced Design Laboratories, where Starfleet worked to develop, among other things, means of penetrating the latest cloaking technology; a woman who’d been working there for several years had been unmasked as an Empire spy. And Buonarroti knew that Starfleet had conducted its own covert operations in Romulan space; at least as far back as forty years ago, another Enterprise had violated the Neutral Zone and two Starfleet officers—Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, if Buonarroti remembered his history correctly—had purloined a cloaking device, an incident that had sparked the conflicting consequences of increasing friction between the two powers, and at the same time averting war because of the technological parity engendered by the theft.

  “I understand Starfleet’s concerns, Captain,” Buonarroti said. But before he could say more, two short electronic tones interrupted him, followed by Commander Sulu’s voice on the ship’s intercom.

  “Bridge to Captain Harriman,” she said.

  Harriman touched a control on the console, opening the channel. “This is Harriman,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  “We’ve arrived at the outpost along with the Agamemnon,” Sulu said. Buonarroti glanced down at the monitor and saw that Enterprise now orbited Foxtrot XIII. “Both Commander Sasine and Captain Rodriguez have signaled that they’re ready to begin.” Buonarroti looked up at the captain, but Harriman gave no indication of anything but professionalism. Still, Buonarroti assumed that the captain’s heart must have begun to beat a bit faster at the mention of Sasine’s name; the two had been romantically involved for eight years now. Sasine had served for a brief tour of duty aboard Enterprise, but she and Harriman hadn’t become a couple during that time. She’d left the ship after less than a year as second officer to take on the position of exec aboard New York, and from there she’d moved on to commanding various starbases and outposts. After her time on Enterprise, she and the captain had met again at a Starfleet briefing on Romulan activity, and they’d been together ever since, although usually across many light-years.

  “Acknowledged,” Harriman said evenly. “Lower the shields, Demora, and inform Amina and Esteban”—Commander Sasine and Captain Rodriguez, Buonarroti knew—“that we’ll commence transporting down the matériel immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” came Sulu’s brisk reply.

  “Harriman out.” The channel closed with a brief tone, and then the captain said, “Let’s get going, Rafe. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  “Sir, are you sure you don’t want me to assign somebody else to this duty?” Buonarroti asked. He’d made the same suggestion during Enterprise’s stops at each of the other Foxtrot outposts, but the captain had always insisted on taking on the task himself, and he did so again now.

  Harriman bent and retrieved a meter-long device covered on one long side with grappling pads, and with a cylindrical handle at each end: an antigrav unit. Buonarroti stooped and picked up his own antigrav, then followed the captain to the nearest cargo container. The two men would use the antigravs to move each of the containers onto the transporter pad so that they could then be beamed down to the outpost. It would not be backbreaking work, but it did require an effort to maneuver the massive containers without allowing them to drift into a bulkhead. There were also a lot of containers, and it would likely take the two officers more than six hours to complete the task. Having already completed a full day shift, Buonarroti knew that he would be exhausted when they had finished in the hold. Still, he felt privileged to have been selected by the captain for the task. Because of the sensitive nature of this mission, Harriman obviously felt most comfortable doing it himself, and other than the three officers at the top of Enterprise’s chain of command—Captain Harriman, Commander Sulu, and Lieutenant Commander Linojj—Buonarroti carried the highest security clearance on the ship; coupling that with his transporter expertise, the captain had clearly believed him to be best suited to assist.

  At first, the two men worked in relative silence, the only sounds the slightly metallic clanks of their footfalls on the decking, the low hum of the antigravs, and the treble whine of the transporter. Having been through this process twelve times previously, Buonarroti and Harriman set to the job with a clear sense of the effort needed, along with a grim seriousness that naturally accompanied preparing for war. For his part, Buonarroti simply wanted to get past this duty, not just here at Foxtrot XIII, but at all of the outposts. The entire crew of Enterprise no doubt felt the same, he thought, and then realized that the captain must actually have looked forward to arriving at Foxtrot XIII.

  “We’re making good time,” Buonarroti said as he and Harriman settled an enormous cubic container, more than four meters on a side, onto the transporter pad.

  “We are,” Harriman said, deactivating his antigrav with a tap to its control pad. “We must be getting good at this.”

  “Maybe we can sign on as stevedores on a merchant ship if our Starfleet careers don’t work out,” Buonarroti said with a chuckle.

  “Some days, Rafe,” Harriman said, “that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

  Buonarroti deactivated his antigrav, pulled it from the surface of the container, and then walked with the captain back over to the console. He rechecked the settings for about the hundredth time, triggered the sequence, then slid the three activator controls up the lengths of their channels. The high-pitched quaver of the transporter filled the hold, and then the container shimmered out of its existence on Enterprise.

  As the two men made their way to the next container, Buonarroti said, “I think I know another reason why at least one of us is moving so quickly.”

  “Oh?” Harriman said without looking up, instead simply reenergizing his antigrav and setting it against one surface of a dodecahedral container that reached to just above their heads.

  “You’ve got a date tonight, don’t you?” Buonarroti asked, smiling.

  Now Harriman glanced up, and Buonarroti was pleased to see a grin creep onto the captain’s face. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”

  “Well, say hello to the commander for me,” Buonarroti said. He switched his antigrav back on and attached it to the container.

  “Somehow, Rafe,” Harriman told him, “I don’t think your name’s going to come up tonight.”

  Buonarroti laughed, a hearty guffaw that echoed loudly through the hold. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose it will.”

  Harriman took hold of the handles of his antigrav, and Buonarroti did the same. “All right, one, two,” the captain said, and on “three,” the two men hefted the container, then slowly maneuvered it toward the transporter pad. “I’ve been looking forward to this time with Amina for quite a while,” Harriman said as they moved.

  “I believe it,” Buonarroti said. Even though Enterprise had been in Foxtrot Sector for the last half-year or so, the crew’s grueling schedule had not allowed for any downtime at any of the outposts. Harriman and Sasine had seen each other for only the shortest of times, and only on official business. The captain had stayed focused during that time, Buonarroti knew, but he also guessed that Harriman would have greatly anticipated being able to spend time again with his innamorata. Today, after they had finished transporting the containers down to the outpost, that time would finally arrive. As the specialists aboard Agamemnon took over to install the weapon systems, the Enterprise crew would have a day of light duties before beaming up the current Foxtrot XIII crew in favor of
their replacements. “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?” Buonarroti asked. “I mean, since you’ve spent any significant time together?”

  “Eleven months,” Harriman said, peering around the container at Buonarroti. “Eleven and a half, actually. We took that vacation on Pacifica.”

  “That’s right,” Buonarroti said, remembering back a year ago to when both the captain and the executive officer had taken leave, and Lieutenant Commander Linojj had taken temporary command of the ship for nearly a month. “What I recall about that trip of yours is that you came back to the Enterprise more exhausted than when you left it.”

  Harriman stepped up onto the transporter platform and moved slowly across it. “That’s right,” he said. “Amina and I never managed to relax, but we sure had a wonderful time.” The captain’s eyes shifted upward, and Buonarroti imagined him visualizing that romantic trip. “We swam and sailed, and hiked the Peragoit ruins. And almost every night, we ended up dancing at this bistro in Jennita…it’s this little town that sits at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.” The beautiful cobalt blue waters of Pacifica were well known throughout the Federation. “And the dance floor in the club actually projected out beyond the edge of the cliff…it was breathtaking. And our bungalow—” Harriman stopped, looked over at Buonarroti, and blinked, apparently embarrassed by his reverie. “Sorry,” he said, and then, “One, two, three.” As before, they coordinated their movements, this time lowering the container to the transporter pad.

  “It’s all right, Captain,” Buonarroti said. “I’ve been to Pacifica, so I know that it’s conducive to amore.”

  “It is,” Harriman agreed, “but right now, I’ll take that hunk of gray rock out there. It may be an asteroid with a military base buried beneath its surface, but for me, it’s an oasis in the desert.”