UNIFICATION by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC035000
Published: 1990-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

FOR RIKER, the week at Qualor Two had passed like a day. After the astonishing explosion of the smuggler’s ship, the Enterprise had gone into synchronous orbit around the planet in order to investigate. Klim Dokachin had put the full resources of the formidable Zakdornian computer system at their disposal, as well as the combined sensibilities of several dozen of his colleagues to whom the desecration of their surplus depot was tantamount to sacrilege.

Riker found, after his initial period of discomfort with Dokachin’s officiousness, that the rotund little man was a treasure. He had taken the theft of his ships and his materiel as a personal affront, and would leave nothing undone in order to uncover the perpetrator. The Zakdorn were methodical and fastidious to a fault, but in a case like this they were of inestimable value.

He and Gretchen Naylor had spent hours with Dokachin at a computer console, tracking manifests and logs. They had uncovered a trail of lost materiel that went back well over a year, and which included sensor arrays, deflectors, computers, armament, and almost anything else integral to the fitting of spaceships.

And then there were the two missing ships: the T’Pau, the quest for which had begun this whole adventure; and the Tripoli, the huge cargo ship that had been used to store equipment that was routinely stripped from starships consigned to the depot.

It was, reflected Riker, an ambitious and remarkably clever plan. The Tripoli—they weren’t sure how yet—had quietly been slipped from its docking space. Whenever shipments were beamed to its coordinates, the smuggler’s ship apparently took its place and received the goods, then warped away with no one the wiser.

“It seems to me that would mean there was a collaborator on the surface,” mused Riker. They were on board the Enterprise, seated in one of the small security offices on Deck Nine; Riker was leaning back in his chair, absorbing the information Gretchen was relaying to him, mulling it over, worrying it like a pup with an old sock. “The computer would have to have been reconfigured to indicate the Tripoli was still there. Unless the locking coordinates were showing on the computer, whoever was programming the transport would have known there was nothing there.”

Gretchen was nodding, her glossy black hair pulled back today into a thick braid. Riker noted idly that he liked that look on her. “I think there was someone else involved, too,” she was saying. “So does Dokachin. He’s written a scanning program to look for patterns in computer usage during the last year. He’ll cross-reference the usage patterns with personal and duty logs to find who might be responsible.”

Riker nodded his approval. “We need to find that person. They might be our only link to whoever it was that piloted the smuggler’s ship.”

“Dokachin will transport on board at fifteen hundred hours,” said Gretchen. “Maybe he’ll have some results by then.”

“That leaves time for lunch,” said Riker, realizing that it had been hours since breakfast. “Join me?”

“We have a replicator in the conference room,” offered Gretchen.

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