Star Trek® New Frontier by Peter David

Author:Peter David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

SI CWAN

II.

ZORAN THOUGHT THAT HE was going to go out of his mind.

He felt as if the damned shuttle craft had been hanging there forever, tantalizingly, frustratingly just out of reach. He had wanted to send multiple messages to it, telling them to get over to the ship immediately, that help was desperately needed, that they were going to die within seconds if immediate aid were not provided. But Rojam had cautioned against it. “They have their own instrumentation,” he advised Zoran. “If we try to trick them, if we tell them there’s immediate danger when there isn’t, they’ll be able to see through it.”

“Maybe we should take that chance,” Zoran urged.

“Then again, maybe we should not,” fired back Rojam. “What should we say? That our engines are in danger of exploding? That our life-support systems are failing? These are not possibilities, because their own onboard readings will tell them that we’re lying. And if they know that we’re lying, then they’re going to start to wonder what the truth is. And if they do that, then we have a major problem.”

“Damn them!” snarled Zoran, pacing the room. His long and powerful legs carried him quickly around the perimeter, and his blue body armor clacked as he moved. His red face was darker than usual as he mused on the frustration facing him. “Si Cwan wasn’t part of the plan, but now that he’s here … damn him and damn them all!”

“Damning them isn’t going to do a bit of g—” Rojam began to say. But then he stopped as a blinking light on the control panel caught his attention. “Incoming hail from the Marquand,” he said.

“It’s about time!” Zoran fairly shouted.

“Will you calm down?” Juif said in exasperation. “If we’re in communication with them and Si Cwan hears your bellowing, that’s going to be the end of that!”

With effort, Zoran brought himself under control as Rojam answered the hail. “We were beginning to wonder, Marquand.”

“We needed to speak with the Excalibur,” came the deep voice that they knew to be the passenger other than Si Cwan. “What is your present emergency status? How long can you survive aboard your vessel?”

Zoran was gesturing that Rojam should lie, but Rojam was quite certain that that was not the way to go. He believed in all the reasons that he’d put forward to Zoran, and there was one other element as well: If Si Cwan was aboard the Marquand, not all the hosts of hell would get him to depart without his sister at his side.

“Lie!” Zoran hissed in a very low voice. “They’re going to leave if we don’t!” And the way his fist was clenching and unclenching told Rojam a very disturbing truth: namely, that if answered the question from the Marquand accurately and then the shuttle craft turned and left for the mother ship, Rojam would very likely not live out the hour. Not given the mood that Zoran was presently in.

But he felt he had to trust his instincts, and on that basis, he said, “Life-support systems are presently holding together.

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