The Conquered: Rebels #1 by Dafydd Ab Hugh

Author:Dafydd Ab Hugh [Hugh, Dafydd Ab]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Space Opera, Sports & Recreation, Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9780743420556
Google: GhpJ8UlU9rkC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2000-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Jadzia Dax sat in the Defiant’s lonely command chair—lonely not only because all her comrades were down on the planet below, but because she felt she should be with them. Julian said her wound was healing nicely, and that she’d be ready to fight in another day or two, but that meant nothing now.

Stupid, she berated herself, fretting won’t help them. She tried to keep a poker face for the duty shift on the bridge, Ensigns Weymouth and N’Kduk-Thag (with a glottal stop; Dax couldn’t quite pronounce it) and Lieutenant junior grade Joson Wabak, a good-looking Bajoran man that made Jadzia think fondly of her wilder days.

Curzon had had lots of “relationships” that he’d given little long-term thought to, but in her female years Dax had rarely been quite that frivolous.

Suddenly, Lieutenant Wabak at Ops jumped in startlement and stared intensely at his threat board. “Commander,” he said hesitantly, “we were just scanned.” Dax considered. “Random sweeps by the Cardassian ships. Right?” “No, ma’am.” Wabak looked up nervously.

“We’re being scanned by the planet.” “By the planet?” Dax half rose. “By the Natives?

Or is it a Cardassian probe?” “I mean scanned by the planetary defense system in orbit...Not the Cardassian ship, ma’am.” Uh oh... Dax almost sprinted to the threat board. Looking over the lieutenant’s shoulder, she double-checked his read. He was absolutely right: the scan came from orbit, and it wasn’t a Cardassian signal-processing system.

Dax uttered a single Klingon oath before she remembered she was in charge: raw ensigns (and jaygees) did not want to hear their commanding officer get upset. “All right, so we’ve been detected by the planetary defense systems; they’re not firing on the Cardassians...Any reason to think they’ll fire on us?” “Well,” hedged Wabak, “we are a lot closer than they are.” “Mr. Wabak, how much higher in orbit are the Cardassians?” “We’re at half-synchronous, about forty-three thousand. The Cardassians are all somewhere around a hundred thousand kilometers.” Ensign N’Kduk-Thag cleared his throat; it sounded like sandpaper across a washboard. “The Cardassians would doubtless prefer to be at a much closer orbit to support their troops,” he said, speaking perfectly correctly but without inflection.

“Or even at the one percent atmospheric level, to cover the entire planet more quickly,” added Wabak, “like a low orbit with a one- or two-hour period.” Ensign Weymouth said nothing; she sort of contracted within herself—earning a possible “down” on her OOD watch, whenever Dax got around to doing the CDO log.

“In either case,” continued the monotone of Ensign N’Kduk-Thag, “the Cardassian ships would not be so far away from the planet’s surface unless they were afraid of being detected and classified as an unfriendly object by something—presumably the planetary defenses.” The opening salvo of something struck them at just that moment. “Incoming,” shouted Lieutenant Wabak, somewhat belatedly.

There was no shock; the Defiant didn’t rock or shudder. The beam that struck them was nondestructive, fortunately—since of course they had no shields. They were “silent running,” as the Trill recalled submariners used to call it centuries ago; the cloak was incompatible with shields.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.