Chapter Six – Discoveries

"This certainly looks impressive," Doctor Jascar remarked as he took in the array of sensor devices placed around the biobed.

"Oh well, you should see the inside of a warp nacelle when it goes through it's pre-firing sequence, then we can talk about impressive sights." Ben looked over his shoulder with a grin and Theron smiled in return.

It had taken almost two hours to set up and calibrate all the sensors and most of the time Commander Tucker had been making small talk, but Theron didn't complain. Here he had suddenly met someone who was both down-to-earth and, like himself, not afraid to speak his mind. Somehow the engineer had managed to distract him from his worst thoughts for a while, but at the same time Theron Jascar suspected there was a lot more to Commander Tucker than met the eye.

"Well," Ben stated as he stood up and stepped to the control panel, "we are all set, so here goes nothing." He activated the battery of sensors he had linked to the sickbay computers and turned to the Valkyrie's CMO. "A full scan may take a while and I could use a coffee right now. How about you?"

* * * * *

"The cloud's density is dropping off and the temperature is rising slightly. We must be approaching one of the fully formed stars," Tarin stated. "If we don't run into any Cardassians, it could be a good place for us to get a little rest and carry out some repairs."

Commander Westmore snorted and rubbed his neck. "I start to doubt we will ever find Cardassians in this stupid cluster." It had taken them six hours to reach the Trantor's last known position and another eight to find a route deeper into the nebula that a Cardassian cruiser would have been able to take. Half the time Captain Veal had starred at the sensors and navigational controls, trying to plot a course, and the other half of the time had been filled with sudden course changes, warning klaxons of overtaxed shields and the groaning sound of tortured hull frames.

He swiveled his chair around and ran his eyes over the shuttle's passenger compartment. Most of the wall panels had been ripped open and revealed a jumble of wiring and conduits, many of them patched up in a haphazard fashion. He was no great technician, but at least their last encounter with one of the smaller and less detectable protostars had given him something to do.

"I'd say you are right about the repairs," he opined. "I just hope you are a better engineer than I am."

"Commander, I have many talents, but engineering is not one of them." Tarin sounded a little worn out, now that the prospect of getting some sleep broke through her concentration. "Let's find a save place to stop first and we can worry about the repairs later."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Westmore turned to the forward window again, just in time to see the soft glow of a star appear behind the swirling mists. Soon the shuttle was clear of the nebula and the soft glow turned into the harsh light of a large white sun. He studied the sensors for a moment. "The nebula reaches pretty close to the sun, about two AUs on average."

"Quite interesting," Tarin remarked. "Usually one would expect the solar winds to disperse the nebula a lot more, but than again the gravitational forces inside a protostar cluster are nothing if not unpredictable."

"So I have noticed. At least you know how to find your way through it," her companion answered with some grudging respect, but before Tarin could reply the Commander noticed something on the sensor readout.

"I am picking up an ion trail. It's pretty faint, but it certainly the exhaust from a starship's impulse engines."

Tarin checked her own instruments. "I see it. Let's follow it." She set a course and accelerated the shuttle to full impulse speed.

"So much for our repairs, not to mention some sleep," Commander Westmore grunted.

"Don't worry, you will get both," Tarin replied with a smile. "I just want to find out where they reentered the nebula before their ion trail decays too much. We wouldn't be able to follow it in the cloud anyway, but at least it will give us a better idea of where they went."

* * * * *

"Not as good as new, but I guess it will hold." Westmore closed the last of the wall panels and started to stow away the repair tools, while Tarin checked the Ops station.

"Shields at nominal strength, life support back at 80% and structural integrity field within normal parameters." She turned to the Commander with a wide smile. "Not bad for two amateurs."

"Yes." Alex Westmore closed the toolkit and stood up, looking at her with a small wry smile of his own. "I am starting to think we might make a good team after all."

Tarin was astonished by the Commander's display of emotions. It took her a moment to recover from her surprise, but then her smile widened. "Oh no, I think you are finally becoming a fine member of my team," she replied with a wink.

Westmore wasn't given time for a reply as a high-pitched sound from the Ops station filled the shuttle. He scrambled for his seat as Tarin moved over to the Helm controls and shut off the proximity alert as Westmore checked the sensors.

"Three Cardassian ships just entered the clear zone around the star. It's three troop transports and they are heading straight for the coordinates that old ion trail reentered the nebula." The Commander didn't look up from his station. "So far no sign that they have detected us."

Tarin nodded. "Good thing we are so close to the sun, but let's not take any chances." She shut of several of the shuttles systems and cut the impulse engines to stand-by, relying on thrusters only to keep them in a stable orbit long enough for the Cardassians to move out off detection range again.

For a few seconds they both watched the computer displays in silence, but a question remained on both their minds. Commander Westmore was the first to put it into words. "Care to explain to me how the Cardassians managed to move those ships through the cluster, Captain?"

"I wish I could." She still couldn't believe what her own eyes told her. "Each of the transports is twenty times larger than our shuttle and I bet they are not very maneuverable. There is just no way they could have found their way through the cluster, even if they followed a pre-mapped route, as the environment here is too unstable for any map to be of use for more than a few days."

"I guess you are right. And even if the Cardassians updated their maps of the cluster frequently enough, they would have to transmit the data to any new arrivals from within the cluster to avoid detection and that seems impossible with all the interference." Westmore leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. "Whatever they are up to, they have outsmarted us for now."

"For now maybe, but I am sure you want to know how they did it, and so do I." Tarin sounded grim. The Cardassians usually didn't bring their lightly-armed troop transports to the front unless they were part of a major operation and even then only when they had enough attack ships and cruisers in the region to secure the area. Whatever the Cardassians planned, they would have a sizeable force nearby and if they had found a safe way to navigate through the cluster they could take the Federation by complete surprise.

* * * * *

Ben had just replicated two new cups of coffee and he handed one to Doctor Jascar before he sat down in one of the visitor chairs in the CMO's office again. He took a sip, then placed his cup on the desk. "May I?" he asked, pointing at the framed photograph on the desk.

After a while Theron Jascar broke the silence. "Have you ever been married, Commander?" Ben glanced over the rim of his cup, but the older man was looking down at the photo of his late wife.

"No," he shook his head, "but I am engaged."

When Theron looked up he saw a smile play around Ben Tucker's lips and noticed the twinkle in the younger officers eyes. "I am surprised you took this commission with a fiancée waiting for you somewhere."

Ben's laughter shook his whole body and he almost spilled his coffee. When he had recovered he put the cup down and grinned at the Doctor. "You don't hear much about what's happening on this ship, do you?" He didn't give Theron time for a reply and pushed his chair back. "The first scans should be finished by now. Let's take a look at the results."

He strode towards the intensive-care ward without explaining his amusement to Doctor Jascar. If Theron wanted to know, he would have to ask or find it out some other way. Ben had started to like the older man, but he agreed with many of his crewmates that the Doctor needed to come out of his shell sooner or later. Maybe he could bait him to pay a little more attention to the rest of the world.

* * * * *

"Now what," Tarin muttered as she watched the three blips on the sensor display come to a full stop near the edge of the nebula.

"They are activating their com-systems," Westmore stated, "but it seems they are not making any transmission."

The seconds ticked by, but the Cardassians didn't make a move until suddenly...

"They are on the move again, course 265, mark 114." Tarin was baffled. The Cardassians moved into the nebula on almost, but not quite, the same course the ion trail they had found moved in. "Have they sent a message at all, and if they did, did they receive a reply to it?" she asked Commander Westmore.

"Not as far as I can tell, but I am checking the sensor logs now." He was puzzled, but Alexander Westmore had never been one to give up so easily. It took him a few moments to find it, but signals intelligence had been thoroughly covered in his training. "There. Take a look at this." His pointing finger hovered a centimeter above the readout, but he withdrew his hand as Tarin leaned closer.

She whistled softly. "So this is how they do it. Using a modulated chroniton pulse to cut through the interference is ingenious." Tarin leaned back into her chair as Commander Westmore slowly nodded. "Yes, maybe it is, but your admiration for the Cardassians aside, what are we going to do next?"

Captain Veal powered up the impulse engines and set a course before she replied. "Well, of course we are going to follow them." As the shuttle accelerated towards the edge of the cloud she added: "Why don't you get us some breakfast, now that the replicator is working again?"

Alex Westmore slightly raised an eyebrow in his usual fashion, but then stood and headed for the small passenger compartment. The way the Captain became more calm and concentrated the tighter a situation got had started to win his grudging respect, but if that alone would be enough to stop the Cardassians remained to be seen.

* * * * *

"No," Ben shook his head, "nothing out of the ordinary here. No substances in the air that shouldn't be there, no radiation, no..." His voice broke off as one of the computers suddenly gave off a series of beeps, only to fall silent a second later. He checked the readout that now only displayed a steady sinus wave. He called up the sensor logs and suddenly the wave turned into a jumble of sharp spikes.

"What is it?" Theron asked, looking over the engineers shoulder.

"It's a burst of chroniton radiation, not strong enough to be picked up by the ship's sensors, but..." Doctor Jascar pushed him away before Ben could finish his sentence.

Theron's hand slammed on his thigh and his face contorted into a mask a anger. "Damn! Extended exposure to chronitons is harmful to humanoids and my equipment is set up to detect it, but this is less than ten percent below the standard detection level." He hurried to one of the sickbay monitors. "I need the exact time-index of that chroniton burst."

Ben leaned over his equipment again and gave the Doctor the data he had asked for. After a moment the Doctor cursed again. He shouted "Nurse!" and from the next room one of his staff rushed into the intensive care ward. "15 cc of Hyronalin, stat!"

"What is it?" Ben asked after the Doctor had pressed the hypospray at Lieutenant Hagen's neck and injected her with the anti-radiation drug.

Theron took a step away from the biobed and turned to the diagnostic unit again. Without looking away from the readouts he replied: "The moment that chroniton radiation hit her, the neural activity in Lieutenant Hagen's telepathic cortex increased another four percent."

He turned away from the monitor and sighed. "The Hyronalin should counter the radiation, but it will need some time to take effect. In the meantime we should try to find out if this is really the cause of Miss Hagen's condition or not." Theron straightened his back and looked the engineer straight in the eyes. "Consider yourself volunteered for going over our sensor logs, Commander Tucker."

As Ben noticed a small, almost imperceptible, smile on the Doctor's face he didn't complain. Instead he threw his hand to his forehead in mock salute and replied with a "Yes, Sir," before he winked at the Doctor and headed for the bridge.

* * * * *

"What do you assume the Valkyrie will do next?" Glinn Detor asked his Commanding Officer in the privacy of the Gul's quarters.

"Ah, my dear Detor, you worry too much about what others may or may not do, instead of focusing your attention on our own task," Gul Me'rok stated. "You overestimate the cleverness of Starfleet and underestimate our own abilities at the same time, but unlike you I have every confidence that a lone starship, Galaxy-class or not, will not be able to stop our advance once we start our offensive or hinder our plans in any significant way."

Detor felt relieved by Me'rok's confidence. He had turned down two offers of his own command to stay at the Gul's side and not once had he regretted his decision. The Commander of the Second Order had always been able to read his enemies' intentions and Me'rok had suffered not even a single defeat at the hands of Starfleet during the prolonged Cardassian-Federation conflict of the last decade.

Gul Me'rok refilled their glasses with Kanar before he added: "Still, I expect this confrontation to be nothing if not interesting." Noticing his officer's inquisitive expression he pushed a padd across the desk. "I have taken some time to study this Captain Veal, but have a look for yourself."

He sipped his Kanar while Detor studied the file Cardassian intelligence had collected on Captain Veal. "Interesting," the Glinn finally remarked. "I would have expected them to send someone who was a career command officer, but I still fail to see why this would be significant to any confrontation we may have with the Valkyrie or her captain."

Gul Me'rok slowly placed his glass on the table and stopped himself from criticizing the younger man. He knew Detor had stayed at his side to learn from him and he was willing to further the Glinn's education as much as he could.

"While you will have noticed that Captain Veal has not been a command officer for very long, you may have also noticed from several of her previous missions, including the recent battle of Vulcan, that she is unlikely to favor conventional battle tactics. No," he leaned back and ran his fingers around the rim of his glass, "here we have someone who may be able to surprise us, precisely because she is not a traditionally trained command officer."

As Detor slowly nodded Me'rok downed the last of his Kanar. "Add to that her background in space sciences and what do you get?"

The Glinn thought about the question for a minute, but then he suddenly rose. "I'd better notify our perimeter patrols."

Gul Me'rok leaned back with a smile. "So you see it now?" he asked.

"Yes, I guess I do," Detor replied with a smile of his own. "Someone else might not send a reconnaissance force into the cluster, but Veal knows enough about space sciences to think it feasible and her inquisitiveness as a scientist may overrule the caution of a commanding officer. Now, if you will excuse me."

As the door close behind Glinn Detor, Me'rok was still smiling. A few more years from now Detor would make a fine Gul and Me'rok would be able to retire, secure in the knowledge that Cardassia's fate was in the hand of capable officers.

Prologue    Chapter 1    Chapter 2    Chapter 3

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