Kirk ran out of gas a couple of hours after the raid and excused himself to take a brief nap, leaving DeSalle in command. Once in his quarters, Kirk took the opportunity to have a conversation with Decker out of the Klingons’ earshot.
“Matt, I’d like to keep your crew on the Enterprise until we get our own people back, if that’s all right with you. I’ll feel better having numerical superiority here, in case the Klingons get any ideas. There have already been some scuffles.”
“I was going to suggest the same thing, Jim,” Decker replied. “By the way, you look like hell. When’s the last time you got some sleep?”
Kirk smiled ruefully. “Now you sound like my chief medical officer.”
“He giving you a hard time,” Decker asked.
“No, he is one of the abductees, but I can just imagine what he’s going to say when we spring him.”
“Jim, I’ve been meaning to ask you why you’re allowing several dozen Klingons on the flagship of Starfleet. You know they’ll steal every secret they can get their hands on.”
“I know, Matt, but I had to roll the dice. We were stuck in the Neutral Zone, a lot closer to the Klingon fleet than to Starfleet. I did not want to be sitting there on my thumbs with a skeleton crew when they showed up. We would have been attacked immediately.”
Decker pursed his lips and nodded. “I suppose you’re right, but what are you going to do once this is all over? You know as well as I do that Klingons can’t be trusted, and once this is all over, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to commandeer the Enterprise as a prize for their chancellor.”
“Hence my desire to keep your crewmembers on board for a while. Are you sure you’ll be all right without them for a few hours – or perhaps days?”
“Everyone will have to pull double shifts, which I imagine they’re doing on your ship, but we’ll be fine. What really has me concerned is how many more ships are lurking in this nebula, and what kind of armament the pirate base has at its disposal.”
Kirk yawned. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. If the data we downloaded from the pirate ship computer is accurate, we should be within sensor range of the base in about three hours. With any luck, they won’t be expecting us.”
“Agreed, Jim. Why don’t you get some shut-eye so you’re fresh for the assault?”
“I’m already half asleep, Matt. Kirk out.”
Kirk lay back on his bed and closed his eyes, drifting off immediately. His dreams were twisted and turbulent, though, affording him little rest. In his dreams, the pirate base appeared to be three times the size of a Federation starbase, and it was bristling with torpedo launchers of the type he had seen on the Narada. Worst of all, Nero and his hatchet-man Ayel had been cloned repeatedly and were staffing all positions of the station.
On the Bridge, DeSalle occupied the center seat while one of the Pompeii pilots took the helm. “What’s on our sensors, Commander,” he asked Koloth.
“My dear Lieutenant–”
KadRiQ cut him off. “If I hear you use that word again, I’ll scoop your heart out and feed it to my targ,” he bellowed.
Koloth was properly chastised. “Sensors are clear, Lieutenant, though occasionally there are some echoes that could be contacts, sensor ghosts, or just clumps of nebula matter. Range is severely limited in the nebula, and the sensors cannot get and hold a consistent image at anything other than very short range.”
“So,” KadRiQ commented, “the Enterprise sensors are not perfect after all.”
“Which is precisely the reason why I opted to be a helmsman and not a science officer,” DeSalle replied drily.
Koloth’s eyes widened as he stared at the scanner. “Red Alert, Lieutenant Uhura,” he called out. “Incoming!”
DeSalle jumped up. “What is it, Commander?”
Before Koloth could respond, a volley of saffron-colored disruptor bolts plowed into the unshielded dorsal side of the primary hull. The ship instantly listed way to right as its inertial dampeners struggled to right the ship. DeSalle was thrown across the Bridge, hitting his head on the railing and sliding to the floor, out cold.
Sparks flew around the Bridge as KadRiQ rushed to the command chair. “Helm, initiate evasive maneuvers! Koloth, where’d that disruptor fire come from?”
“I believe the enemy base station found us before we found them,” the Klingon first officer reported.
“Get me a firing solution, now!”
Uhura took the initiative to call a medic to the Bridge, then turned to KadRiQ. “Captain, I have Captain Decker on video.”
Decker’s eyebrows rose when he saw KadRiQ in the center seat. “Where is Captain Kirk,” he demanded.
KadRiQ swiveled to face Uhura. “Well, Lieutenant?”
“He reports he is on his way, but turbolifts are offline. He is having to make a climb and maneuver around damaged sections of the primary hull.”
KadRiQ turned back to the viewscreen. “The lieutenant left in command was injured, so I have taken over here, Decker. Was your ship hit too?”
Decker shook his head. “No, we got lucky this time. We never even saw them. Did you?”
“No, but my science officer Koloth is about to provide us with an explanation that he swears, on his life, is correct.”
Decker narrowed his eyes, but Koloth cut him off. “Er yes, Captains, I think I know what happened.”
“You think,” KadRiQ growled.
“The pirates have dropped sensor buoys throughout the nebula, and as a result, they have been able to track our approach and triangulate our position to get a firing solution.”
Decker was incredulous. “The pirates don’t have that kind of advanced technology. Only the Klingons and Federation do.”
A burst of static followed Decker’s statement. When it subsided, a second image shared the viewscreen with Decker. “You are mistaken, Captain. We also have that kind of technology.” The speaker’s skin was a pasty gray, with a flared, cobra-style neck edged by twin spinal cords. The face was scaled and ridged, and it was covered with dark, slicked-back hair. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gul Laket, of the Cardassian Third Order. We have your two ships surrounded. You will surrender immediately, or we will destroy you. You cannot escape.”
To be continued…
