After
Commander Enikal had joined Major Kendall for another round of business
negotiations, Rishana had excused herself from Lafayette and retreated to the Hawk.
It
was about time for the next transmission from the video bug, the last one the
limited energy cells of the small device would provide.
Rishana
was still not very happy with spying on people like this, but the first
transmission alone had provided more information than the last two days of
investigations had turned up. She knew Dar had been somewhat reluctant to bug
Kendall's office, too. On the other hand it had been his decision to make and he
had made one argument that had convinced Rishana. Given the choice between using
her telepathic abilities and a video bug, Rishana would always choose the latter
and of all alternatives it was the fastest. The sooner they gathered the
intelligence they needed, the sooner they could leave and the lower would be the
risk of making a mistake that blew their cover.
'And
the sooner I can get back home.'
Half an hour of keeping lecherous pirates at bay had been enough for one day.'
And all I got are some rumors, half of them contradictory. At least Lafayette's
reaction was noteworthy enough.'
A
blinking light on her panel announced the latest surveillance transmission had
been received and Rishana activated the playback. Only twice during the last two
hours someone had been in the improvised conference room. The first time it had
been Kendall, receiving another transmission from Minister Novak.
It
had been a short call, just long enough for Novak to tell the major to expect
the "final phase" to commence within the next forty-eight hours and
prepare accordingly. Rishana found Kendall's reaction to his orders intriguing -
shock, doubt, and relief, which were slowly replaced by a grim determination.
The
same determination filled Kendall's voice as he made a call of his own later and
instructed the Talkhans posted to all privateer ships to expect new orders soon.
Almost everyone he contacted showed a similar reaction, going from surprise to
determination, just as Kendall had. And no one had any questions. They all knew
what was going on, or at least suspected what their orders would be.
Rishana
filed that thought away for later contemplation as she watched Kendall leave the
room. She had the computer advance to the next time anyone entered the room and
saw Kendall and Morin Vados sit down at the conference table. Just as the two
started to discuss the price Vados had offered on his weapons the image became
grainy and blurred.
"Computer,
the signal is deteriorating. Is the transmitter running out off power
already?"
"Negative.
The strength of the scan is constant during the entire surveillance
period."
"Then
what is causing this interference?" Rishana asked and quickly added:
"Just give me the most likely explanation."
"Interference
caused by another sensor device using a frequency similar to our own
surveillance device."
"Someone
else is listening in?"
"Affirmative."
*****
‘Dar,
I have just sent our report to the Valkyrie.’
Still nothing. They had practiced long enough, but without a line of sight or a
moment to fully concentrate on her, Dar was probably having difficulties getting
his thoughts through to her.
‘I
am sorry to do this, but I need your go-ahead, so I will briefly read your
thoughts. Please try to concentrate only on what you want me to receive.’
Rishana
reached out and tried to find the Bolian’s mind. Thoughts passed by her mind
like signposts rushing by a speeding train. There he was.
‘...
risky, but we have no choice. Go ahead, but keep in touch. It’s risky, but
we...’
Rishana
withdrew as quickly as she had entered Dar’s mind and the signposts rushed by
again in reverse order, each a little different now, yet still clear enough to
read.
How
easy it would be to just stop and read the signs, enter an unsuspecting mind,
listen to the soft background murmur, wrest all the information she needed from
Kendall’s thoughts. Would that be any different from listening in on his
conversations with an electronic bug?
Rishana’s
thoughts stopped and she looked around the mental landscape. Each sign was
different. Different sizes, different shapes, different colors. Yet if only she
wanted to she could read each mind without effort. Risha would do it, she would
take the easy way, but that was only a role she had to play, it wasn’t her.
‘Oh
come on, it would spare you so much trouble and no one will ever have to
know.’
“No!”
Rishana vigorously shook her head and forced herself from the telepathic
landscape.
Before
Rishana had time to dwell on the experience the door chime of the outer door
rang and she got up to see her visitor in.
*****
“Nice
little ship you’ve got here,” André Lafayette remarked.
“I’d
like to think so, too. Have a seat, please.” Rishana pointed at one of the two
easy chairs, but remained standing as Lafayette sat down. She leaned against the
computer console, both hands behind her back, the fingers of her right touching
the grip of the stunner she had placed just out of the privateer’s sight.
“Captain
Lafayette, I’ll get straight to the point.” The privateer looked somewhat
surprised, but replied with an inviting gesture and a “go ahead.”
“I
need your help and you will provide it.”
Lafayette
leaned forward, his hands on the armrests of his chair, ready to propel himself
forward. “You seem quite sure of that.”
“I
am.” Rishana bobbed her head without taking her eyes off the privateer. “So
will you, once I fill you in on the details.”
“Is
that so?” Lafayette sounded more relaxed and sank back into his seat, but his
eyes were glued to where Rishana’s hands vanished behind her back.
“Yes,”
she stated. “I know you, or at least Shadira, have been listening in on
Kendall. How do you think he would like to know that?”
Before
Lafayette had a chance to react with more than a surprised look she continued,
“it can stay our little secret if you do me a favor, Captain. I don’t want
to cause you any trouble. Kendall, now he is a different story.”
André
Lafayette carefully studied her face from narrowed eyes and drummed his fingers
on the chair’s armrest for a few seconds. “Alright, what is it you want?”
“I
want you to take your ship for a ride. Once you do, your task is simple...”
“...and
then you return here and no one will have to know about it except you and me,”
Rishana concluded. “I don’t think it will violate your agreement with the
Talkhans and if we do it right we could both gain something from it we want.”
So
far Lafayette had just listened, becoming more attentive every second, and
Rishana had slightly relaxed, withdrawing her hand a few centimeters from the
stunner hidden under the computer panel.
“And
if I do this, Kendall will never know that I eavesdropped on him?”
“Yes.
That’s the deal.”
Lafayette
grinned. “I don’t suppose you will share with me whatever you learn, despite
the fact you will need my help to come by this information in the first
place?”
“I
will share it,” Rishana promised. “Just understand that I will have to wait
until it doesn’t jeopardize my own mission, before I do so.”
She
stepped away from the console and the hidden stunner, and her hands came up
empty. “Do we have an agreement?”
Lafayette
rose and shook her hand without a word and made for the airlock. “I’ll be
waiting for your signal,” the privateer said as the door opened.
“Good.
Just one more thing, a small personal favor, Captain.” When Lafayette turned
and looked at her a small smile appeared on Rishana’s face. “Perhaps I could
borrow one of Shadira’s outfits for a while. My wardrobe really isn’t suited
for this kind of work.”
*****
Shimmering
blue lights engulfed Rishana Hagen as every molecule in her body was transformed
into energy and sucked through space to Lafayette’s ship, the Tiger.
Before she had
fully materialized, the blue haze changed to a bright orange glow as her
transporter signal was relayed to her final destination. Suddenly her body
reformed on the surface of the moon she only knew as Talkha B.
Rishana
ducked behind a boulder, looked around, saw no one. Carefully she rose and
looked beyond the rocky outcropping. What she saw was an assembly of converted
cargo containers, very much like the privateer base, yet this was what Kendall
and Novak had referred to as the Alpha Site.
Four
large structures, a few smaller buildings that appeared to be converted cargo
containers too, a landing pad with two large shuttles on it. Rishana reached for
her binoculars and studied the base. There were more Talkhan soldiers than she
had expected, some of them moving between the buildings, some of them patrolling
around the makeshift base. It would take more time than she had anticipated to
gain access and to find out what the Talkhans were hiding here.
Rishana
reached for her handheld communicator and hit the send-button three times. Each
signal Lafayette picked up on the prearranged frequency meant half an hour he
would have to wait before he transported her back to the Hawk.
‘Let’s hope he can convince his overseers long enough that he is just
running some engine tests.’
Not
being able to beam directly to this base from the Hawk
had been some bad luck, but it couldn’t be helped. ‘Let’s hope Dar can
keep Kendall busy long enough,’ Rishana thought as she stowed away her
binoculars and reached for the hypospray she kept on her belt.
She
injected a dose of tri-ox into her bloodstream and started to circle the Talkhan
base, looking for a place that would allow her to find out what was going on
without being noticed.
*****
Three-quarters
of an hour later Rishana had finished checking the perimeter of the base and
found an approach that would give her a chance. With the regular patrols it
would still be risky, but at least the Talkhans use of so many human guards
suggested a lack of perimeter sensors.
Rishana used her
tri-ox again to compensate for the moon’s thin atmosphere and waited until one
of the two-man patrols had disappeared behind one of the larger buildings. She
started towards the base, moving from cover to cover.
A
boulder here, a trench there, pausing, watching out for the next patrol. ‘All
clear, where is the next cover?’ On the move again. She would never make
it. The next patrol would come around the corner and spot her. Was time suddenly
moving faster or was she slowing down?
Rishana
lay in the shadow of a small rocky outcropping as the patrol walked by, between
her and the nearest building. The soldiers looked in her direction for a second
and Rishana almost started to dig herself into the ground, but then the
guards’ eyes wandered off. They hadn’t spotted the dark-clad woman hidden in
the shadows.
Now
there was just flat empty ground between her and the base. Four hundred meters
without any cover. If she made it without being seen she could hide behind the
cargo crates stacked against the side of a huge container turned warehouse.
The
guards had almost moved out off sight, but she decided to wait a little longer.
If one of them looked back and saw her... no. There were a lot of guards for a
base that should be a secret to anyone outside the army, but they couldn’t be
everywhere and it was only four hundred meters.
*****
When
Rishana ducked into the shadow behind the crates her breathing was labored and
heavy. At the Academy she had been a decent sprinter, but she was sadly out off
shape. ‘I need more training. Or maybe not,’ she continued her
thought. ‘Next undercover mission, I’ll just say No and let someone else
do the running around.’
At
least she had reached the first of the four large containers. Like the rest of
them, this one had two entrances – one large gate and a smaller personnel door
– arranged side by side and facing the center of the base. When Rishana had
seen it through her binoculars there had been no one on guard, but that could
have changed.
She opened her
tricorder and studied the display. The building was filled with crates and
boxes, all holding some sort of equipment manufactured from high-tech materials
and no one was inside. The next human life-form was sixty meters away, around
the corner of the next building and he wasn’t moving. All she needed now was a
little luck.
Peering
over the top of the cargo crates Rishana made sure no guards were in sight,
before she rose and took two steps towards the building’s corner. She leaned
against the wall and tried to steady her breathing, which was still heavy with
exhaustion. Something about the situation seemed familiar, but she dismissed the
thought quickly. It was probably just the similarity between the privateer base
and this site.
Rishana was
tempted to use her hypospray again, but decided it was better to go slow for a
few minutes than risk any unwanted side effects. After a few seconds she managed
to calm her breathing. Now there was nothing to hear, nothing at all. Again the
déjà-vu struck her, only this time much stronger.
A uniformed man, a weapon, a flash of light.
It
was too much to ignore. Rishana sank back into the shadows and tried to
concentrate on the memory that was making a hit-and-run attack on her mind -
it didn’t work. She could not get a hold of the fleeting image.
The
tricorder told her that nothing had changed. Rishana ran her hands through her
hair and tried to make up her mind what to do next. Her hair. For how long had
she worn it long, to avoid being reminded of the Norns, of Skuld, before she had
cut it short again? Skuld had had control of her visions, because she drew on
the power of the Well of Urd. Was that it, was it all a vision of the future –
her future?
For
weeks she had tried to fight back the visions, for weeks she had tried to be
what she had once been, but now her gift could be the difference between
life and death. Rishana closed her eyes and tried to focus her mind on the image
of the glistening pool, the green mist, the giant tree – the one memory she
had tried to avoid during what seemed an eternity, but was only a few weeks.
There
the vision was, but it was not alone. Countless images assaulted her mind, tried
to force themselves on her. ‘NO!’
She
fought back, tried to shut down the connection between the memory of a place
long gone and the ability that had lain dormant in her for most of her life. The
Well of Urd was gone. Rishana had witnessed its destruction. She concentrated on
that memory, the image of the giant Aesir station disappearing in a flash of
light, its debris scattered by a wave of expanding energy.
The
visions faded slowly, but Rishana just barely managed to hold on to the one she
had been looking for. Once she rounded that corner she would be discovered, shot
at, maybe taken prisoner, maybe killed.
‘I
have come this far, there must be a way.’
In her vision she had made no sound, stayed out of the guards field of vision,
so how could he have known she was there? Or was the sound just missing from the
vision? No, she had heard her own breathing, but nothing that would give her
away. Until she had worked it out, all she could do was stay in the shadows.
“Of
course, the shadows,” Rishana muttered. She was hidden in the shadow of some
cargo crates, but the shadow was thrown by a lamp behind her. As soon as she
moved away from the crates, right at the corner of this building, her own shadow
would be thrown into the guards field of vision. All she had to do was circle
around the back of the building and approach the entrance from the other side.
*****
Rishana
closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall. Video bugs, lock picks,
how had Commander Westmore come up with all this stuff? And what other gadgets
did he have access to? ‘Oh well, never
look a gift horse in the mouth.’ She had come here to find out what the
Talkhans were up to, not admire the little toys Westmore had provided.
She
dug out the small flashlight stored in one of the inside pockets of her black
leather coat, briefly wondering what equipment Shadira usually kept in these
pockets. The outfit Rishana had borrowed looked both seductive and functional,
but at closer inspection the emphasis was clearly on utility, despite
appearances.
Most
of the crates inside the cavernous building were labeled in Ferengi and
Federation Standard. As Rishana made her way through the warehouse she kept the
flashlight in her right and the tricorder in her left. Maybe the labels on the
crates told the truth and maybe not. She couldn’t make much of the readings
she got, but if the labels were wrong Dar would be able to recognize it from the
tricorder readings.
Stun
grenades, transport inhibitors, portable force-field emitters, portable
generators outfitted with recharging stations adaptable to almost any hand-held
weapon this side of the Delta Quadrant – at least that was what the Ferengi
advertisement stenciled on the side of the crates proclaimed.
And
just when she had been convinced the Talkhans were preparing for a huge space
battle it suddenly looked like they were preparing for a prolonged infantry
engagement. Rishana glanced at her tricorder to make sure everything had been
recorded when she suddenly saw the pattern.
One
generator, one recharging station, two crates of stun grenades, six transport
inhibitors, three force-field emitters. The same arrangement was found
everywhere throughout the warehouse.
The
equipment was set up for a group of soldiers to come in, load up on one batch of
equipment and make room for the next group coming in to collect their latest
toys.
‘Stun the hell out of everyone, make sure no reinforcements can beam in, then take position behind some forcefields. And all with some juice to spare to recharge a squad’s weapons. What the hell are these people up to?’
The
beeping of her tricorder tore Rishana from her thoughts. Someone was nearing her
position. No, not just someone. At least a dozen people were approaching the
warehouse and a shuttle had just sat down right in front of the building’s
larger gate.
Rishana
closed her tricorder and moved into the farthest corner of the warehouse,
shutting off the flashlight as fast as she could, just as the huge gate rolled
up and the shadows of several people danced across the room.
“Move
it people!” someone called out. “We need to get the shuttle loaded ASAP!”
Only seconds later there was the sound of people streaming into the warehouse,
accompanied by a deep hum Rishana thought came from several anti-grav cargo
platforms.
She
groped for her communicator and brought it close to her lips. “Lafayette! I
need transport as soon as possible! Get me out of here right now!”
*****
The
orange glow subsided and Rishana found herself in a small compartment that was
completely unfamiliar to her - a compartment she shared with André Lafayette
who just stepped from the transporter controls.
Rishana’s
hand reached for the stunner at her belt and she pointed it at the privateer
before Lafayette had a chance to react.
“Why
did you bring me here?!”
“Whoa,
relax!” Lafayette raised both hands to his shoulders and continued, “you
wanted out and I got you out. We are still out of range of your ship. What was I
supposed to do?”
Rishana
relaxed a little, but kept the weapon pointed at the privateer. “How long
before you can transport me to my ship?” She bit her tongue as she almost
called it the Hawk, a name she never had mentioned to Lafayette before,
one that didn’t sound very Bolian.
“About
four minutes,” Lafayette replied as he slowly lowered his hands and took
another step away from the transporter console. He recognized her weapon as only
a stunner. On the other hand he knew full well what the wrath of an enraged
woman could be like and weapons had little to do with it.
“Good.”
Rishana kept her gun at the ready, but inwardly she relaxed. With the Tiger
circling half the moon outside transporter-range of the Hawk it was
likely the truth and had Lafayette wanted to double-cross her she wouldn’t
have her weapon any longer.
“While
we wait, why don’t you let me have a look at your letters of marque,
Captain?”
It
was about three minutes later that Rishana stepped away from the small
wall-mounted display and smiled at André Lafayette. “So you are authorized to
seize any vessel that comes within Talkhan territory, stop them, search their
cargo, and confiscate anything on a very long list of contraband. And once the
Talkhans declare a ship a hostile vessel they can order you to attack it without
regard for the cargo.”
“Yes.”
André leaned against the wall, his arms akimbo, just as he had stood while the
green-skinned woman had studied the file he had called up for her.
“Are
you willing to go against a Galaxy-class ship to fulfill your contract, Captain
Lafayette?”
André
Lafayette made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort. “No way! I’m
going to stand by my contract, but I am not suicidal. What do you think I am,
some kind of suicidal dimwit?”
“No,
that’s not what I think.” Rishana shook her head and her smile widened. “I
just think you should make sure everyone on your crew shares that sentiment. At
least that’s what I would do if I were in your place.”
Rishana
holstered her stunner and stepped back to the transporter platform.
“I
see.” Lafayette glanced at the
transporter panel. “Thirty seconds to transporter range.” He double-checked
the target coordinates before he looked up and asked, “what’s your part in
this?”
“I
am the person that can keep you alive. Is there anything else you need to
know?”
“No,
I guess not,” Lafayette replied. “Coming into transporter range any second
now.”
“Good
luck to you and your crew,” Rishana said and she really meant it.
“Yeah.
Same to you,” Lafayette reluctantly replied as he activated the transporter
controls and the Orion vanished from the Tiger’s transporter platform.
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
