The Dominion War: Book 3 by Esther Friesner

Author:Esther Friesner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 1999-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

ON THE VIEWSCREEN of the Orb of Peace was an amazing sight, which Ro hadn’t seen in what felt like an eternity. It was pure, unadulterated space, with nothing but stars and nebulae glimmering as far as the viewscreen could scan. After days of negotiating the murky clouds of the Badlands, she felt as if she could pilot regular space with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, there was a war raging in that beautiful starscape, so they were stopped on the outer edge of the Badlands, deciding how best to proceed.

“Captain,” said Enrak Grof, “from this point onward, I believe your plans are rather sketchy.”

“First we need to collect information,” declared the captain, undaunted by the obstacles facing them. He turned to the assembled group, which consisted of Grof, Ro, Hasmek, and Sam Lavelle. “We need an observation point, from where we can keep an eye on the collider. We need to find out how close they are to making the artificial wormhole operational. Some of you have been there—do you know of such a place?”

“Working on the collider, we only saw what we could see with the naked eye,” answered Sam. “And our course to the black hole was closely monitored.”

“I never paid much attention to where we were,” admitted Grof.

When no one else commented, it was left to the Romulan to step forward. “My previous ship made a pass very near the collider, and we noticed that one of the planets in that grid has a large outer ring. You might be able to hide a small ship like this one in that ring, and you could track them from there with your sensors.”

Picard crossed to the science station and brought up a chart of the sector on the viewscreen. “Can you locate this planet?”

“I think so.” The Romulan stepped in front of the viewscreen and pointed to a black cloud in the center. “Okay, here are the Badlands.” He moved his finger slowly to the left and asked, “Can you enlarge that region?”

Picard consented to the request, and they soon focused on the likely location of the magneton collider. While they were doing that, Ro checked the ship’s data banks from the conn, and she found confirmation of what the Romulan was telling them.

“Captain,” she cut in, “the ship’s computer shows a planet matching that description in solar system SU-395. It has a fairly large ring system.”

Hasmek smiled smugly. “I haven’t steered you wrong yet, have I, Captain?”

“But how do we get there?” asked Sam. “Without the Dominion swarming all over us.”

“It’s a pity that you don’t have a Romulan cloaking device,” said Hasmek.

Captain Picard gestured thoughtfully at the Romulan. “I’ve considered this problem. Every time we cut straight across space, the Dominion picks us up on their long-range sensors and sends a ship to investigate. The problem is that we stick out when we’re all alone. But there must be other merchant traffic in this sector. What if we were to follow closely behind another merchant ship, maybe even a convoy?”

Hasmek smiled.

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