RUN HISTORY PLASMA EXHAUST PROBLEMS

The computer acknowledged his request.

As it worked, Travis wondered, suddenly, if this wasn’t Lieutenant Reed’s work again-another little piece of sabotage to keep the Denari busy.

The lieutenant’s smiling face flashed before Travis’s eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile too.

“Something funny, Ensign?” Peranda asked.

Travis was all at once aware that the colonel had risen from his seat and was standing over his shoulder, watching.

“No, sir.”

“What are you doing? That’s not the helm console.”

Peranda wasn’t as thick as he seemed, Travis realized. He thought quickly.

“Well, we passed a comet a little ways back. In our solar system, they tend to bunch up-travel in groups-Oort clouds, we call them-so I thought it would be worth cross-checking the database to see if-“

Peranda held up a hand. “Enough. Is it a danger to us?”

“Doesn’t seem to be, no.” Travis made a show of frowning and clearing the console, as if he were dissatisfied with what he saw there.

“Very well.” Peranda turned on his heel. “Cooney, how are we doing?”

“We’re busy.”

“Busy?” Peranda sounded ready to explode. Travis turned in his seat and saw that Cooney looked just as frustrated as the colonel. He was, in fact, glaring right at him, as if daring him to say something else.

One of the Denari engineers saw the same thing, and moved to head off any possible confrontation.

“We do know a few things, Colonel,” the engineer said. “Even if we have yet to reach any conclusions.”

“Well?” Peranda folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead.”

“The exhaust is not venting properly,” the Denari replied. “As the instruments show.”

Another Denari spoke. “We need to go EVA and clear the blockage.”

“There is no blockage,” Cooney said. “The sensors show that as well.”

“The sensors must be wrong,” the Denari said.

“Then why is all the other data we’re picking up from them checking out?”

“I don’t know, but-“

“Cooney, would we benefit from physically examining the manifold?” Peranda put in.

“Sure,” Cooney said.

“Then I suggest we do just that.”

“Fine.” Cooney threw up his hands. “Give the order. I’ll tell engineering to start preparing to shut down.”

“Shut down?”

“To send someone out to examine the manifold, we’ll have to turn off the reactor.”

“What?” Peranda turned to the Denari engineer who had spoken. “Is this true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course it’s true,” Cooney said. “That exhaust is coming out of there at about a hundred million degrees Kelvin. No one in an EVA suit can get within a mile of it.” He smiled. “I don’t think your General Elson would be too happy about us stopping dead in space for the six hours it would take for that surface to cool down.”

Peranda did not look happy. “Is there no other way to see what’s happening in that manifold?”

“No,” Cooney said. Then, “Well, give me a minute.”

Travis was thinking too. All of this was seeming familiar to him now-a problem with the plasma exhaust, looking for a way to find out what that problem was without going EVA…

He sat up straight in his chair.

This exact same thing had happened before. Not more than a couple weeks after they’d started out from Earth. They’d found a ship-a cloaked ship-hiding in the trail of their plasma exhaust. Using it to recharge their own depleted engines. Causing unexplained power fluctuations aboard Enterprise.

A cloaked ship, belonging to a race called the Xyrillians.

His mind raced. Could they be back again? Not likely. Not this far out. And wouldn’t they just hail Enterprise this time? So not the Xyrillians.

Could it be another cloaked ship? Someone else who knew their trick of siphoning off energy from a starship? Who, then? The Klingons? The Xyrillians had done the same thing to them, after all. Except this was too far out from Klingon space. And the Klingons didn’t use cloaked ships.

But the Suliban did. Except they were so far ahead of Starfleet technologically, why would theyThe answer hit him like a ton of bricks.

He suddenly knew, without a doubt, that there was a ship out there. And he knew, just as certainly, who was aboard it.

“I might have an idea,” Cooney said slowly. “What if…”

All at once, a chill went down Travis’s spine. He didn’t like the thoughtful tone that had crept into the engineer’s voice. It made him wonder if Cooney had reasoned out the problem the same way Enterprise’s crew had, those many months ago.

He couldn’t take that chance.

Acting on pure instinct, Travis abruptly cut Enterprise’s speed in half.

The ship’s inertial dampers, try as hard as they might, couldn’t compensate entirely.

Everyone on the bridge who hadn’t been firmly seated went flying forward. Travis heard the sound of bodies hitting the deck, grunts of pain, shouts of surprise and anger.

“Mayweather! What the hell!” He heard feet tromping toward him.

He looked up and saw Cooney, face beet-red with anger, leaning over him.

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Travis said, trying to sound as frantic as possible. “It happened again. Look.”

He pointed at his console.

Cooney responded even as he was looking down.

“I almost cracked my skull wide open because of that little stunt of yours, so-“

To the man’s credit, when he saw the message Travis had put up on his console, he didn’t freeze up. His eyes widened only slightly as he took it inDO NOTHING

-and then continued talking, as if nothing at all had changed.

“-I’d like an explanation for what you think you’re doing.”

“And I’m telling you,” Travis said, putting an edge on his own voice, and at the same time wiping the message off his screen, “if you look right here, you’ll see we had another fluctuation.”

Cooney bent over the console, as if studying it.

“We didn’t pick up anything back here,” one of the Denari engineers said.

Travis sensed someone else coming up behind him-Peranda.

“Well, Cooney?” the colonel asked.

“Seems like something went through the circuit here, all right,” Cooney said, straightening. “Seems like Mayweather here overreacted a bit as well, though.”

Travis almost smiled, the man sounded so convincing. Instead, he said angrily, “Anytime you want to take the helm, be my guest.”

Cooney chuckled in response, and went back to his station.

“Now then, Cooney,” Peranda said. “You were going to suggest?”

“Ah.” Cooney made a disgusted noise in his throat. “It’s not going to work.”

“What?”

“What I was going to suggest.” He sounded frustrated. “I need a break.”

“We do not have time for breaks,” Peranda said icily. “We have a schedule to keep.”

“I need a break,” Cooney repeated. “I’m not doing anyone any good up here.”

Travis had turned just enough in his chair to see Cooney nod to one of the other engineers, ignoring the colonel entirely. “Keep working,” he said to them. Then he looked up at Peranda.

“Colonel, I’m going to get something to eat, and I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Then, without waiting for a response, he left the bridge.

 

Travis, though, was stuck.

He had six more hours to go on his shift, and there was no way he could do anything now until that time was up. And what if he was wrong, anyway? What if he’d just taken considerable risks with his own safety and Cooney’s for nothing?

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He’d been so absorbed in thought he hadn’t heard their approach.

He looked up and saw Westerberg.

The man smiled.

“You want to break early?” he asked. “I had too much coffee.”

Their eyes locked. Travis felt like he could read the man’s mind.

Cooney had sent him.

“Yeah. Sure,” Travis said, standing. “Getting hungry anyway.”

Westerberg settled into the helm chair. “See you in a few.”

Travis turned to go.

Peranda was standing in front of him.

“Mayweather, is there a problem?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Travis said. He forced himself to smile. “Westerberg’s doing me a favor.”

“A shift change. It’s early for that, I believe, isn’t it?”

“Like I said-he’s doing me a favor,” Travis said.

“Out of the kindness of his heart?”

“Out of my inability to sleep,” Westerberg said. “Not that big a favor. You’ll cover the next one for me Travis-right?”

“We’ll talk about it,” Travis said.

Still, Peranda didn’t move. He eyed the two of them-Travis and Westerberg-for a moment longer. Finally, the colonel nodded. “All right. Go.”

Travis moved to the turbolift.

Footsteps fell into place beside him. One of the Denari soldiers.

The two stepped inside the turbolift together. Travis’s last sight of the bridge was Peranda, spun all the way around in Captain Archer’s chair to watch him leave.

He nodded to the soldier next to Travis, who nodded back in return.

Not a good sign, Travis thought. The colonel suspects something.

They rode the lift down to E-deck in silence. The soldier followed him out, heading toward the mess. Another bad omen. They had soldiers with them all the time-heck, the ship was crawling with them-but this one was following him, specifically. To see what he did.

Which meant he couldn’t go straight to Cooney. Peranda would know something was up then. But he didn’t have time to waste. Cooney had told Peranda he’d be back in half an hour, and a big chunk of that time was gone already. And even assuming Travis was right about who was out there, he still didn’t know how to go about contacting them, much less trying to get them back aboard Enterprise. That would require a miracle of sorts. Or at the very least, a remarkably good sleight-of-hand. A magic trick.

The old saw-Arthur C. Clarke’s maxim about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic-popped into his head.

All at once, Travis had an idea. The beginnings of one, at least.

He refined it as he entered the mess. The soldier stopped at the door, joining the other guards there.

Cooney was seated by himself, at a table near the observation window. Ryan and Yee were the only other ones in the room, seated next to the kitchen entrance.

Travis walked past them and joined Daedalus’s engineer.

“You know,” Cooney said as Travis pulled out a chair, “that guard is watching you.”

“I know. Peranda told him to.”

“You know?” Cooney’s eyes went wide. “Then why did you sit here? He’s going to think we’re up to something.”

“We are.”

“And you don’t mind if he tells the colonel about it?”

“Not at all.”

“Not at all.” Cooney looked at him in disbelief again, then shook his head. “You just put my neck in a noose, you know. Mind telling me what’s going on? Why you pulled that little stunt back there, with the engines?”

“To stop you from finding out what’s really causing the power fluctuations.”

“Why?”

Travis told him.

Cooney frowned. “That’s a lot of supposition.”

“Maybe. I have a way to test my theory.”

“Go on.”

“I need your help.”

“I gathered that.”

“It’s going to be risky.”

“I’ve been in Denari prisons before. They don’t scare me. Only thing is”-he nodded toward the guard-“how are we going to do anything with him watching us?”

Travis smiled. “We’ll bring him along.”

“Bring him along?”

“That’s right. We don’t want to keep the colonel in the dark, do we?”

Cooney shook his head. “You lost me now, kid.”

Travis leaned forward. “All right. Here’s what I propose we do.”

He took a deep breath then, and laid out his plan.