Ghost of a Chance (19 page)

Jonal seemed to worry over the tactical console for a moment after that, tapping at it sporadically. Then he straightened, his expression one of mild satisfaction.

Chakotay made an effort to straighten as well, but Tassay seemed disinclined to allow it. She had her other hand around his throat now, but she wasn’t squeezing very hard.

“I’ll bet you don’t even think I’m cute,” he said to her. When she made no reply, he added, “I thought we were just starting to get somewhere. I had a little country house with a white picket fence all picked out.”

Tassay adjusted her grip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you don’t,” Chakotay said.

“Open a channel to Gantel,” Mila told Jonal, apparently anxious.

Jonal nodded silently, then worked at the console. “Done!” he shouted the moment contact was established, obviously pleased with himself.

Suddenly the screen was no longer filled with the planet’s smallest moon.

“We have a visual,” Stephens said as the fact became evident.

The face on the screen was that of a male who could have easily been Jonal’s brother. The room in the background was well lit and decorated with colorful tapestries. Several other figures stood about, apparently attending the communication. They all looked much the same.

The women could have been Mila and Tassay’s sisters.

“You’re all Televek,” Paris said, stating the obvious, squirming to no avail.

“So it would seem,” Chakotay muttered.

“Gantel,” Jonal said, acknowledging the image on the screen.

“The bridge is secured. We are in control of the ship.”

Gantel’s expression didn’t change. “Already?”

“There was no choice. They are fairly bright, as you know. They were about to scan Shaale’s fleet. They would have figured the situation out.”

“That is what I like about you, Jonal, your ability to adapt. It is just as well. Our pods are ready. The teams have been assembled. We can begin launching almost immediately. You haven’t damaged anything valuable, have you?”

“Of course not.”

“So you are pirates,” Chakotay said.

“Oh, we are much more than that, and you, my friend, are a fool,” Mila replied. She jerked Paris off the floor to punctuate the statement, and to still his struggling body. “All of you are fools. No wonder you wandered so far from home and got lost.”

“I liked Jonal’s opinion better,” Paris muttered.

“Whatever, it still doesn’t change the fact that they have some very impressive technology,” an impatient Gantel said from the screen.

“Most of which we will find quite valuable, I am certain. Jonal, do you intend to stand there like that until we relieve you?”

“No, of course not,” Jonal replied. He turned to Chakotay.

“Commander, tell all of your people to move toward the forward area of the bridge, between the helm and the main screen. They won’t be needed for a while, and we can keep a better eye on them there. We will tend to all stations. Your only task now is to wait quietly.”

“And after you’ve stripped Voyager of whatever you want, what will you do then?” Chakotay asked, as the bridge crew began to comply. “What happens to us?”

“They’ll either kill us, or leave us here to die,” Paris said bitterly.

“We have no intention of stripping your vessel,” the Televek commander answered from the screen again. “I plan to take the whole vessel home!

After we’ve finished using it to help retrieve our salvage from the planet, of course.”

“Do you have any intention of helping those people down there?”

Chakotay asked, his tone implying he already knew the answer.

“We are interested in the defensive system that protects them,” Gantel said. “We have no need of the Drenarians, nor do we need any of you.

The most obvious solution is to escort all of you down to the planet, once we’ve disarmed the system. Then we’ll let the universe decide your fate.”

“Leave all our troubles behind,” Jonal said, smiling at Chakotay.

“It is amazing that so primitive a race could create such a ship,” Tassay remarked.

“Indeed,” Mila said.

“Such a windfall,” Gantel agreed.

“We aren’t so primitive,” Paris said. “What makes you think you’re any better?”

“Oh, but we are better, and we are right,” Jonal said, letting go of Rollins and motioning him to join the others, who were nearly all gathered in front of the viewscreen now. Mila let go of Paris, who moved slowly away from her. Finally Tassay let Chakotay go as well.

Jonal and Mila collected two discarded phasers and trained them on the crew.

“You are barbarians, thieves, and liars,” Chakotay said in response.

“Not at all, Commander,” Jonal said. “You see, we represent a leap in evolution far beyond what any one aboard Voyager could boast. Our instincts are empathic. They no longer alert us to primitive dangers long vanished from our way of life. We react instead to other intelligent beings’ minds, to their psyches, their most immutable characteristics. This facilitates familiarity and, with practice, manipulation.”

“So now we’re buddies,” Stephens said, shaking his head.

“You knew exactly which buttons to push with each one of us, in order to win our trust,” Paris said.

Jonal nodded. “Once we had spent a little time with you, yes.”

“You’re salesmen,” Chakotay said grimly. “Natural born salesmen.”

“Sure,” Paris moaned. “And we bought a lemon.”

“Nine lemons, if you count the cruiser in orbit with us,” Rollins said.

“The other eight are approaching at warp eight, according to the last sensor data I saw.”

“We are well adapted to survival in an advanced social environment,” Mila said, looking straight at Paris again. “While you are still better suited to life in an armed camp set in some wilderness outback.”

“I’d like to take you out into the wilderness,” Paris told her, smiling sickly at her.

“You still find me attractive, don’t you?” Mila cooed, smiling back.

“I knew you did.”

“I find you repulsive,” Paris said, suddenly glaring at her.

“But I would like to do something primitive to you, like break your neck.”

“I should silence you right now!” Mila shouted at him.

“I see no reason not to,” Gantel said from the screen. “None of them will survive in any case.”

Mila’s grin returned, but her expression was filled with malice now.

She glanced at her two companions, who quietly nodded to her.

“How can you call yourselves advanced and still have so little regard for life?” Chakotay challenged them.

“We have exceptional regard for life, Commander,” Jonal said.

“Our own.”

“I won’t let you kill him,” Chakotay said bitterly, stepping forward, all but blocking Mila’s shot.

“You will once you are dead,” Tassay said, taking the phaser from Jonal and aiming it at the commander.

Mila raised her arm and aimed her weapon as well. Jonal frowned.

“Get on with it.”

“Very well,” Mila answered.

But with that all three Televek suddenly began to change into pillars of sparkling matter. They cried out in hollow, echoing voices as they disappeared from the bridge in a fading cloud of transporter particles.

Cheers burst from the lips of every officer present.

Chakotay turned to Stephens and made a quick hand motion, two fingers drawn across his throat.

Stephens reached the ops station in three leaps and complied.

The main screen went blank. He looked up, panting.

“Transmission terminated, Commander.”

“Unlock everything,” Chakotay told him. He took another breath.

“Computer, release all controls, authorization code alpha-fine, abacrom-dexter, six, four, zero, nine, two.”

“Control status, normal,” the computer replied.

“Chakotay to transporter room!” the commander shouted, slapping hard at his comm badge. “How—” “The aliens are in custody and headed for the brig, Commander, and Lt. Torres is on her way up to see you right now,” the transporter officer replied. An instant later Lieutenant Torres stepped once more onto the bridge.

“Torres!” Chakotay said, holding both hands out toward her, grinning.

“B’Elanna!”

“It is me,” she kidded. She smiled back, purposely demure, as she met him halfway and returned his embrace. He let her go almost at once.

“It seems Neelix wasn’t the only one in this part of the galaxy who’d never seen a transporter before,” she told him.

“I bet they’ll never forget it,” Chakotay replied.

Torres smiled at the others. “I suppose they left without even saying goodbye.”

“As a matter of fact, they were just about to,” Paris told her as he reclaimed his station. “Thanks,” he said, when B’Elanna looked at him.

“I’m just glad they’re gone,” Rollins added as he began working to restore normal control.

“Yes,” Chakotay said less enthusiastically, looking up at the blank screen, well aware of what was out there. “But I’m afraid most of them haven’t gone very far.”

Gantel leaned forward in his chair, opened his mouth—and found no words appropriate to the occasion. A splendid series of curses came to mind, but by then it was too late even to curse.

The Federation ship had broken contact. He uttered the obscenities under his breath for his own benefit. Then he turned to his crew.

“I’ve never seen anything like that!” Triness said, an unfamiliar touch of nervousness in her voice. “It is as if my own eyes—” “That’s why I want to see it again,” Gantel said. “Run the last few minutes of transmission back. We need another look. Have the computer analyze the images:” They watched again as Jonal, Mila, and Tassay vanished from sight and the screen went black. The computer was of no immediate help.

“It looks as though they were vaporized somehow,” Triness said as the cruiser began to come about. Her eyes narrowed as she and Gantel stared at the blank screen. “Yet no weapon was used, at least not by anyone on their bridge.”

“None we know of,” Gantel said. His gaze drifted, until he sat looking at his feet, staring at as fine a pair of K’Heplian leather boots as had ever walked a deck. This was the kind of situation that could go either way. Boon or bust. With the fleet due to arrive in no time, whatever he did next would make the difference between risk and ruin.

The problem was, no hint of a solution seemed willing to present itself.

But he couldn’t just stay here, doing nothing.

“Range to target?” Gantel shouted.

“Four hundred thousand kilometers,” the helmsman said.

“Close to one hundred thousand immediately.”

The screen lit up again with a view of near space. The planet’s smallest moon filled most of the field, but a minute spot could be seen crossing its equinox, moving into the light. The moon began to grow as the cruiser drew forward.

“Whatever they did, they must have done it from a remote location,” the navigation officer said, taking her chances by speaking out of turn.

“So the technology may have control limitations.” Her comment was met with nods all around.

“Still, imagine the power such a device would give an aggressor,” Triness said.

“Imagine the price it would command!” Gantel exclaimed.

“More than enough to make up for the loss of the envoys,” Triness suggested.

Gantel nodded agreement. “And a hundred like them.”

Then Triness seemed to come to some fresh perspective. She looked at Gantel as if he had changed color.

“What is it?” he asked.

“At the moment,” she said, her eyes drifting back toward the main viewer, “I am most concerned about… the range of the weapon.”

Gantel considered this briefly. He had to agree. They were already getting very close to the Federation ship. “It’s range must be limited, or they would have used it against us by now.

What is our present distance?”

“One hundred fifty and closing.”

“All stop.”

“Agreed, the device must have a short range,” Triness said.

“Or,” Gantel suggested, “they were saving it. Keeping it a secret until they needed to use it.”

“Indeed,” Triness said, her lips pursed in speculation.

Gantel leaned forward to peer at the Federation ship. “This must be done right. Whatever this device is, it must be ours. I want to present it to Shaale myself.”

That was the key, of course. The kind of bold maneuver that would put him in very good stead with the first director, perhaps even earn him a special commission. But more importantly, he would, if he handled the deal correctly, retain the distribution rights to the device. And if the stars were on his side, the distribution profits would be in addition to whatever windfall came from the recovery of the defensive system on Drenar Four.

Overall, this would be the most successful, most profitable mission in memory—anyone’s memory, so far as Gantel knew!

Surely that possibility was worth the risk, a thousand times over.

The Federation ship was apparently a treasure trove of technological wonders. Even if nothing of value proved recoverable from the planet itself, the capture of Voyager, intact, meant Gantel would succeed.

The hard part, of course, would be doing just that.

“Have they raised their shields yet?”

“No,” Triness reported. “Their shields must still be down. I have raised ours.”

“Very well, let’s get a little closer.”

***

“I didn’t know the transporters were functioning again,” Chakotay said, as he watched the Televek approach. The cruiser came to an abrupt halt, maintaining a little more distance than earlier.

B’Elanna shrugged. “They weren’t, until… well until just a couple of minutes ago. I was trying to tell you we were close when I came up here the last time.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Everyone seemed a little… preoccupied.”

“I guess we did at that,” Chakotay said, an intended note of apology in his voice.

“Anyway,” Torres went on, “when the ship lurched both ways and came to full stop I had a pretty good idea what was going on, and who was behind it. When the bridge was suddenly isolated, I knew.”

“You were completely right about them,” Chakotay said. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”