Star Trek: Enterprise: What Price Honor? by Dave Stern

Author:Dave Stern
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743462792
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2002-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

LIEUTENANT REED’S QUARTERS

1/17/2151 0708 HOURS

THE COM SOUNDED, or Reed felt sure he might have fallen asleep on his feet in the shower, with the water still pounding on his back.

“Bridge to Lieutenant Reed.”

He stepped out of the stall, and the water automatically shut off. He grabbed for a towel and the com at the same time.

“This is Reed. Go ahead.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. The captain requests your presence in the situation room immediately.”

That was Travis—Ensign Mayweather. Reed checked the time on his monitor and saw that there was still almost two hours before his shift started.

“What’s it about?”

“Don’t know. But he got me up early to cover for O’Neil. She’s going to be there. All the senior officers as well.”

O’Neil was Lieutenant Donna O’Neil. D.O., everyone called her. She was the duty officer on third shift—night watch on the bridge. Her presence there told Reed that whatever the meeting was about, it had something to do with events that had taken place during her shift.

“Huh,” Reed said, wondering what that something was. “Thanks, Travis.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So you’re the duty officer now? Alone on the bridge?”

“That’s right.”

“Stay out of the chair.”

“Very funny. Bridge out.”

Reed smiled. He’d caught Travis in the captain’s chair once, early on in their mission, and had never let him forget about it. Tweaked him every chance he could. Mayweather took it well—no surprise there. He was a good kid—had the makings of a fine officer. A little excitable, perhaps, but then what young ensign wasn’t?

Alana, he thought. She wasn’t.

Reed finished getting dressed and reported to the situation room—which was really not a room at all, but a separate area at the rear of the bridge. Archer, Trip, Hoshi, and O’Neil were already there.

“Malcolm,” the captain said, greeting him. Then Archer turned to O’Neil. “T’Pol’s coming?”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said. “She’s just completing an analysis of that interference.”

Reed assumed O’Neil was talking about the trouble they were having with sensors. He wondered why T’Pol was worrying about that now.

“All right. We can get started without her. Most of this she already knows, anyway.” Archer looked around the table. “Sorry to get everyone up so early. But as you’ll see, I think the situation warrants it. D.O.?”

“Thank you, sir,” O’Neil said. “Approximately forty-five minutes ago, we detected small-arms fire at the Sarkassian outpost. Roughly comparable in energy output to a series of bursts from our phase pistols. We believe a battle of some sort was taking place. Again, our sensor readings are not entirely reliable, but we feel almost certain there were several fatalities associated with this battle.”

“Goridian had friends,” Reed said. “They attacked the Sarkassians.”

“That was my first thought too,” Archer said. “Then we saw this.”

While he spoke, O’Neil had gotten out of her seat and gone to the computer station at the far end of the room. She turned the monitor now so it was visible to everyone.

“During the battle, we intercepted the following transmission,” she said. “We’ve cleaned up the signal as much as possible, but it’s still .

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