Vectors 28

Pexlini

"So name me another palace," I say to Hal Welti, who sighs.

"Buckingham," he says. "Blenheim. Palais de la Concorde -"

"Aw, no, those are too obvious. I've heard of those. C'mon, I want an obscure one."

"Can you have an obscure palace?" Ajbit asks, giving me a stony look. "I thought the point of them was to be ostentatious."

"Well, one people haven't heard of, so much. Like the Ostankino Palace." I turn to meet Ajbit's gaze. "You look like you don't approve, much."

Ajbit shrugs. "It just feels a bit... well. Dead men's shoes. Ghoulish."

"Well, yeah, see your point, but... too good an opportunity to pass up, right?" The Hazari ground casualties were savage, but the ships in the armoured docking bays were largely undamaged. Hazari salvage laws entitled me to a share in the assets I'd helped to protect - and it wouldn't make sense for my cover identity to miss out on the opportunity. And, for that matter, the real me knows the importance of acquiring Delta Quadrant tech for analysis by Starfleet.

So, I have scored myself a new ship - a salvaged Hazari destroyer. And Ajbit can like it or lump it. Meanwhile, I want to think up a name. Starfleet's shipyards churn out hundreds, maybe thousands, of new ships every year, and since giving them names is an unbreakable tradition, they are desperate for any sort of repeat-useable naming convention. Me, I name all my ships after palaces on Earth....

I look around the cramped bridge of the Ostankino. Yeah, it looks pretty palatial to me, or it would if someone would finally give the viewscreen a wipe down.

Still, a trade up to a Hazari destroyer will be a good thing. I can see several of them on the tactical display right now, running a tight patrol pattern around the planetoid. Most of them will keep on doing exactly that, but three pairs have been detached - one pair has already left with the Brathana, and the others are falling into position with ourselves and the Timor right now.

"Timor signals ready to go to warp," Voesyy reports from comms.

"Narayanhity," says Hal. "Dechenchholing."

"That sounds like a good one," I say. "Vo, tell M'eioi good hunting from us, willya?"

"Right," says the Rigelian. "Also, Y'Nadan is on the line, asking what the hold-up is."

I turn to look at Goyar. "Still some mild fluctuations in the starboard phase coils," he says, "but they're within tolerances, and I guess we're good to go."

"OK." On the tac display, two Hazari destroyers and the Timor flash with warp-field icons and are gone. No reason to delay, then. "Vo, tell Y'Nadan we're ready to go. Ajbit, Goyar - let's punch it." I settle back in the command chair. "Dechenchholing?"

"Former royal residence of the King of Bhutan," says Hal.

"Where on Earth's that?"

"Asia. Mountainous bit."

"OK." Truth be told, I don't know Earth geography all that well, but what the heck, I trust Hal. "Well, anyway, it's different," I say, as we go to warp.

---

The Underspace exit is a tedious long way away, if you're going the long way round via normal warp travel. Plenty of time for me to catch up on some sleep, rest my aching body, maybe use those eyedrops the doc gave me. As it is, I still look and feel like I've been beaten up in the middle of the worst hangover in history.

But it turns out I don't have time for any of that. "Incoming subspace transmission from the Brathana," says Voesyy. "Flagged urgent, eyes-only."

"Oh, sheesh. Plug in that one-time PADD, willya?" We have worked out an extra layer of encryption, based on one-use enciphering overlays - whoever's listening to Delta Command should see nothing but gibberish, unless they have crazy levels of fractal decryption expertise on tap, in which case all bets are off. Voesyy connects up the PADD, and the viewscreen hazes over, then clears to show Rrueo's face. Her whiskers are drooping bad.

"Rrueo was deceived," she says without preamble. "Ge'Sirn led us to some random point in space, disabled Rrueo's engines, and then departed - Rrueo must assume towards this Nessick's true location."

Oh, darn. And other words. "What's your status?" I ask.

"Ge'Sirn stuck to the letter of his agreement. Arguably. We have no crew casualties, but our warp drive is still offline and will be for some hours before repairs can be completed. It will be up to Pexlini and M'eioi to intercept Ge'Sirn - hopefully, once he has reached Nessick."

"Two birds with one stone, OK." And oh, darn, again. Brathana represents the biggest chunk of our available firepower, and now it looks like we have to take on two Hazari destroyers as well as a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser. This is shaping up to be not a good day, I reckon. "Vo, get a line to the Timor, let's clue M'eioi in on the change in plans. Ajbit, patch in the telemetry from N'Drask's ship - I take it N'Drask is with Ge'Sirn?"

"Joined at the hip, Rrueo thinks." She glances offscreen. "Rrueo cannot materially assist further - Rrueo must tend to her repairs."

"OK. Keep this frequency open, and we'll send coordinates for a meet-up as soon as we know what those coordinates are. Pexlini out."

"I have the Timor," says Voesyy.

"Put 'em on." Blue cat face replaced by black cat face. M'eioi's whiskers look more cheerful, but I guess that'll change in a moment. "Ge'Sirn sucker-punched the Brathana and has lit out after Nessick for himself," I tell her. "Change of plan. We're going to track them down."

It makes sense. It makes sense based on one huge assumption - that the Nessick Ge'Sirn knows is the same one Tuarak mentioned. OK, so that's maybe a pretty enormous assumption - as Ge'Sirn himself pointed out, it's kind of a big galaxy out there, plenty of room for two people to have the same name. But, hell, we have to start assuming somewhere, right?

"I can link up to the tracking devices you put on N'Drask's ship," says M'eioi.

"Yep, makes sense, we're doing the same now." I glance at Ajbit. Then I take a long hard look at Ajbit, who is wearing a fearsome Bajoran scowl, and we are talking about a species that scowls real good, here. "What's the matter?"

"Tracker is not responding," Ajbit says shortly. Uh-oh, I think to myself.

M'eioi is leaning to one side, talking to someone out of my line of vision. She turns back. "We're not receiving a signal from those tracking devices," she says. "They might be out of range -"

"No. Not unless N'Drask's clean out of the quadrant already. Oh, darn. I reckon he's caught on."

"The fact that we followed them to the meeting point -"

"Yeah. And very likely Rrueo let something slip. Ferasans, they're really prone to grandstanding. Cultural thing, comes with the whole earning-a-name bit. They do something, they want recognition for it." I swear under my breath. "As Starfleet officers, of course, we respect the validity of the loudmouthed furballs' stupid culture, but it don't half make our lives harder -"

"Just a moment." M'eioi's grass-green eyes are focused on something below the screen. Console, probably. "You sent me the specs on those things. That warp contrail modulator, now...."

"Yeah, that thing should light up N'Drask's warp drive like a parachute flare, except by now he's found it and tossed it off the ship."

"That needn't matter," says M'eioi. She is frowning in intense concentration. "It leaves a secondary subspace harmonic behind, a sort of standing wave. It takes weeks for that to dissipate, and if you've got the ship's drive signature on file, it should be detectable from several parsecs away...." Her voice trails off into muttering.

I shoot a questioning glance at Voesyy, who shrugs. "It's subspace field theory, sir, a bit over my head."

"Feed me the Brathana's current location," says M'eioi. Well, what have I got to lose? I nod to Voesyy, who does the business.

And there seems nothing left to do, except watch the screen where M'eioi is muttering.

"Got it," she says, at length. "Well, got something. Sending the raw data now."

"What've you got, exactly?" I ask.

"Line of N'Drask's subspace trajectory up to the point where he removed the device," M'eioi says. "If he doesn't know about the secondary harmonic - and he didn't strike me as much of a warp theorist - then he might not realize that contrail's still detectable. In which case - we have his current course and speed, and we know how long he's been on it -"

"Got it," says Voesyy. "Processing now.... It checks out, as far as I can see. Patching through to navigation, plotting an intercept locus now."

"Awright," I say with some feeling. "Punch up a star map or something, let's see where we're going."

M'eioi's face vanishes from the screen, to be replaced by a patchy-looking map of the Delta Quadrant with a long smeary line drawn across it. I lean forward to study it. Darn, and other words, again. The line goes near as dammit the opposite direction from the course M'eioi took, she and her Hazari backup are way out of position.

Also... try as I might, I can't see anything interesting on that line. If this is N'Drask, he's not heading for any inhabited system, or a major deep-space station, not one he can reach inside a month, anyway. There is an odd scattering of nebular material here and there, and there is a trace of something unrecognizable - which, now I look closer, might just be where Vebanillo spilled soup on the screen a little while back.

"Signal Y'Nadan about the change of plan," I say, "and let's drop out of warp, compare notes, try and figure out what the yeeps they might be aiming for." Maybe Y'Nadan knows about some back-of-beyond outpost where this Nessick might hang out....

Ostankino shudders as she drops to sublight speeds. A short while later, Y'Nadan is patched into the conversation, and cursing fluently while he's brought up to speed. Something tells me Ge'Sirn's name is going to be mud in these parts when all the dust's settled.

Y'Nadan is reviewing the star chart when Voesyy speaks up. "Sensor contact, sir, at extreme range. Approaching under power."

OK, let's assume that's not good news. "Yellow alert. Got an ID?"

"Not yet, but -" Voesyy looks up. "Incoming hail."

"Let's hear it."

A brief pause, then, "Hazari." I haven't heard much of that voice, but I hate it already. "I have been seeking Hazari, but not those Hazari. Those Hazari are superfluous."

And blue light boils across space, the thunderous glare of a polaron barrage accompanied by the livid blasts of tricobalt explosions. There is no doubt who we're dealing with, now -

And Y'Nadan's destroyer and its consort reel in the midst of the barrage, flames spouting from their hulls. Dead or crippled - either way, out of the fight.

Leaving just me and the rapidly approaching shape of Tuarak's interdictor cruiser.

I knew this was shaping up to be a bad day.