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  That did not mean that his younger sibling could not frustrate the hell out of him at times. Now, for instance.

  “We leave for Juhraya in less than two days, Gi, and we’re behind schedule as it is. Have you seen the size of the shipment? We’ll have to use the shuttlebay to fit it all aboard.” Turning back to Ross, he added, “We’re freight haulers, Commander, not soldiers. Let the military handle that sort of silliness.” With that, he grabbed one of the padds from his desk and rose from his chair. “I’ll be in Cargo Bay 4,” he said, not even bothering to give Ross another look as he moved past the Starfleet officer toward the doorway.

  The hallway outside the office, like all of the corridors on Ulrika’s Hope, was narrow and utilitarian. Metal grating clanked beneath the soles of his boots as he walked. Similar plates covered most of the ship’s corridors and overhead maintenance conduits, offering easy access to the networks of pipes and optical cabling running throughout the ship.

  Outside the soundproofed walls of his office, the thrum of the Hope’s engines was palpable even though they had been cycled down to minimal power as the ship orbited Madellin Prime. All of the metal surfaces vibrated in concert with the faint droning sound that had long ago become a comforting friend to him. So attuned was Aldo to the tone of his ship’s beating heart that he could perceive even the slightest variation in the engines’ operation by hearing alone. Having witnessed this for himself on many occasions, the vessel’s chief engineer had told him many times that Aldo had missed his calling and had wasted his life as a shipmaster.

  Sorry, Colv, Aldo mused as he thought of the Tellarite overseeing the engines two decks below as though he were an overworked mother hen, you’re on your own there, my friend.

  Reviewing the details of their latest shipment on the padd’s display screen, Aldo did not even look up as he walked. The layout of the Hope had long ago been burned into his memory, so much so that he could walk from the bow of the ship to its stern with his eyes closed. He diverted his attention from the padd only to exchange greetings with one of the seven other men and women who served aboard ship not as a member of his crew but rather as a part of the extended Corsi family.

  “Still on for tomorrow night, Aldo?” asked Gret, the ship’s Bolian navigator, as he walked past.

  Aldo smiled as he nodded in response. “Nineteen-thirty hours. Don’t be late or you’ll go hungry.” He too was already looking forward to the following evening when he and the crew would beam down to the Corsi home for his wife’s traditional predeparture supper. The festivities would be repeated on the first night after they returned from their trip.

  It would be bad luck to leave without some of Ulrika’s Kaferian apple strudel, after all, he mused with a small private smile. Even the gods would not tempt Fate so.

  As he continued to walk, Aldo heard the measured footsteps of Commander Ross keeping pace behind him.

  “Mr. Corsi,” the Starfleet officer said, “I can appreciate that you’re a busy man, and I assure you that I have no desire to disrupt your schedule, but sending one of our ships near the Topin system will almost certainly attract the Cardassians’ attention. You, however, travel through that sector often enough that they’re comfortable with your presence there.”

  Stopping in his tracks, Aldo turned to face the officer, for the first time deciding to use his larger and more muscular frame to his advantage. Leaning closer to Ross, he spoke in a low yet forceful voice. “We have been able to travel freely in that part of space, Commander, because we do not bother anyone. In fact, we’ve even traveled in Cardassian space on occasion, and always with their blessing, precisely because of the trust we have earned from them. The Cardassians have larger concerns than a single small freighter, and I prefer to keep it that way.”

  “Aldo,” Giancarlo began, his tone one of caution. “Please.”

  If Ross was intimidated by Aldo’s proximity, he did not show it. Instead, he responded with an equally stern tone. “Mr. Corsi, though Madellin Prime and the bulk of the area covered by your regular routes might not concern the Cardassians today, you can be sure that won’t last forever. Our intelligence reports show that they’re working to expand their territory, including into the Juhrayan system. It’s critical for us to know how far they’ve progressed if we’re to have any chance of defending against any action they might be planning.”

  “We’d be helping to possibly protect our families and friends, Aldo,” Giancarlo added. “That seems worth a little inconvenience, don’t you think?”

  Aldo regarded his brother with disappointment and shook his head. For whatever reason, Giancarlo Corsi had always been enamored of Starfleet. Though attending the Academy and serving on a starship in deep space had been a dream of his since childhood, Gi had not passed the entrance examinations. Still, that had not deterred his admiration for the service and his support for other family members who had chosen Starfleet as a way of life.

  He had also noticed in recent months that his brother’s infatuation was beginning to rub off on his daughter, Domenica. More than once she had mentioned wanting to join Starfleet when she grew up. At first it was easy to dismiss such statements as those of a precocious child who knew nothing of what she might want five minutes from now, much less fifteen years hence. Like her mother, however, Domenica was very much aware of the world and indeed the universe around her. Aldo suspected that this topic would be revisited often as his daughter grew older, especially if Gi continued to be an influence in her life.

  Once this trip is over, he decided , I’ll have to make my feelings on this known once and for all.

  However, Aldo found himself thinking with no small amount of reluctance that Gi, damn him, had a valid point. So did Ross, for that matter. The Federation and the Cardassian Union had been at odds for years. Conflicts between the two powers were frequent, and it was not a question of if, he knew, but of when and where such a skirmish occurred in this part of space. When that happened, people like him, his brother, and the thousands of other merchants who traveled this area of space undoubtedly would be placed in harm’s way.

  He could not help the sigh of exasperation that escaped his lips. “How would this work?”

  “My people will install the sensor equipment,” Ross said, “and I and a small team will travel with you on the run. The plan is to conduct a brief series of covert scans of the Topin system as we pass nearby on our way to Juhraya. We’ll have the equipment calibrated so that it will function without a change to your established route through the area. You won’t have to deviate a bit from your normal routine.”

  “The Cardassians don’t look too kindly on spies,” Aldo countered. “They’ll make no distinctions between Starfleet and simple freight haulers if we’re caught.”

  “Come on, Aldo,” Gi said. “They wouldn’t be asking us to do this if they thought there’d be any real danger, would they?” He looked to Ross for confirmation, but the commander shrugged as a small frown creased his features.

  “I’d be lying to you if I said that there was no risk,” Ross said, “but we feel that it’s minimal. The whole idea is to get the scans as fast as possible, and when we pass out of range, that’s it. No stops, no hanging around the area. We want it to be just another run as far as you and the Cardassians are concerned. In addition, Starfleet will underwrite the cost to you for the entire trip.”

  At any other time, Aldo might have accepted such an offer. This far out from the Federation’s center of influence, the time-honored practice of buying and selling goods and services was still the driving mode of economics, especially when dealing with merchants and customers who were not aligned with the Federation. Maintaining the Hope in good working order, keeping it stocked with supplies, to say nothing of paying the crew enough to carry on with their own lives was all done through buying, selling, or trading as appropriate. Gold-pressed latinum, for example, would be most useful when dealing with his Ferengi clients.

  There was every reason to believe that this woul
d be a low-risk undertaking, just as Ross and Giancarlo were asserting. It was rare for the Hope to be stopped by patrol ships even when the freighter traveled in Cardassian space, let alone boarded. This run would take them near Cardassian territory, though they would not actually cross the border.

  Why, then, was his gut warning him that getting involved with this Starfleet officer was a huge mistake?

  Chapter

  5

  As he studied his surroundings, Ensign Tobias Donovan had to ask himself, and not for the first time during the past three days, where precisely he had gone wrong.

  “This is definitely not what I had in mind when Starfleet Intelligence came looking for me.”

  Looking up from a compact control console that mirrored the one Donovan was operating, Lieutenant Hu’Ghrovlatrei regarded her companion with an amused expression. “Feeling a bit misled, are we?”

  Donovan indicated the interior of their makeshift operations center. “You have to admit that this isn’t the most exciting way to spend our day. Sitting around hunched over computer consoles, waiting for something interesting to come along? This isn’t what I joined Starfleet for, you know.”

  An Efrosian, Ghrovlatrei had a long mane of bright white hair that seemed to glow in the tiny room’s reduced lighting, contrasting sharply with her dull orange-hued skin and the muted gray of the standard one-piece jumpsuit she wore, identical to those favored by many of the Hope’s crew. Her piercing cobalt blue eyes, however, twinkled in the dim illumination cast off from the status monitors arrayed before both officers. “Part of the adventure of serving in Starfleet is waiting for the unexpected to occur. It is also part of the frustration. Patience, my young friend. Everything cannot always be exciting, even in our line of work.”

  “Now there’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one,” Donovan replied, though he knew his friend was right. That did not make it any easier to accept the fact that, for the moment at least, he was bored out of his skull.

  A third-generation Starfleet officer, Donovan had grown up listening to the stories told to him by his father, mother, and grandmother of their experiences serving aboard starships and exploring far-off worlds. While his mother had commanded both a science vessel and a patrol ship monitoring the Neutral Zone near Romulan space before retiring, both his father and grandmother had served in the Starfleet Security Division. He had not inherited his taste for adventure from his mother, and it was almost a given from an early age that Tobias Donovan would follow in his father’s footsteps.

  One afternoon during his final year at the Academy, however, a woman with three pips on the collar of her Starfleet uniform came to visit him. She told Donovan how she had reviewed his record and about how impressed she was with the test scores he had accumulated during his years of study.

  “You have a bright future,” she had said. The natural talents he appeared to possess, if properly cultivated and allowed to mature with the appropriate level of supervision and mentoring, could become powerful assets to Starfleet.

  Must have been a standard recruiting lecture, Donovan decided.

  It was impressive, however, as was the additional training he had received following graduation from the Academy and receiving his commission. Uncounted hours of classroom and field instruction in intelligence gathering and covert operations had been only the tip of the iceberg, with the promise of even more excitement waiting for him as soon as he undertook his first mission.

  What he had not expected was for that assignment to stuff him inside a packing crate.

  Along with Commander Ross, he and Ghrovlatrei had installed their sensor equipment inside a large Type XII storage module, a model often used by colonists when first establishing a presence on a new world. Once emptied of its contents, the interior of the Type XIIs could be converted into a temporary shelter until more permanent dwellings were built. Ulrika’s Hope was already carrying five such containers in the bowels of this mammoth cargo bay, making it that much easier for theirs to blend in. Should the module be scanned, a masking field projected from within would show the cargo container to be filled with agricultural equipment as described in the ship’s manifest.

  “I think you will agree,” Ghrovlatrei said as she turned back to her sensor console, “that this is one assignment where a lack of activity is not necessarily a bad thing. Besides, it seems that the less Mr. Corsi has to hear from us, the happier he will be.”

  Donovan chuckled at the remark. While the Hope’s master had not been the most cordial of people when the Starfleet officers had first boarded, his brother had been very welcoming. A few of the freighter’s crew also were Starfleet veterans and had been enthusiastic about being able to serve once more, even if only in a small capacity. Aldo Corsi, however, had made it clear to Commander Ross that he would tolerate nothing that might distract the crew from their jobs during the run.

  “So far it’s a safe bet that he’ll never see us,” he replied. “For a region of space that’s supposed to be heavily patrolled by the Cardassians, they certainly don’t show themselves very much.” In fact, they had encountered only one patrol ship since leaving Madellin Prime, and it had been an uneventful meeting to say the least. The Cardassians had not even bothered to board the ship, and Donovan had detected only a passive sensor sweep as he and Ghrovlatrei secreted themselves inside the modified cargo module and waited to see whether or not their ruse would survive its first test. It had, with the patrol ship leaving the Hope to continue on its way; just another freighter on its scheduled run. The rapport Corsi and his crew had formed with the ships in this sector had worked in their favor, at least on that occasion.

  Sighing as he leaned back in his chair, Donovan looked to the ceiling and was just noticing that it had not changed much in the three minutes since he had last looked at it when a telltale beep sang out from behind him. Turning in his seat, he bent forward to examine the sensor control console, ensuring as he did so that the unit’s recording functions had been activated. Given the need for the team to maintain absolute stealth, data obtained by the sensors would be retained in the unit’s computer memory storage until it could be transmitted to Starfleet Intelligence. Attempting contact while the Hope was still so close to Cardassian territory had been deemed too risky by Commander Ross.

  Designed for use by ground troops in rugged environments and enhanced for the specific uses of intelligence gathering by field agents, the compact array of display monitors and computer interfaces was housed within a portable container that was only slightly smaller than a standard Mark V photon torpedo tube. One person armed with an antigravity carrier could move the equipment in its case with little effort. Despite its size, however, the sensor control unit possessed functionality nearly equal to that found on the bridges of most Federation starships, and right now that functionality was calling out to Donovan.

  “What is it?” Ghrovlatrei asked as she leaned toward his console.

  Donovan shook his head. “Automatic alert signal. We’re within scanning range of the Saltok system.” He knew from the briefing that Ross had provided prior to the Hope’s departure that the ship’s route to Juhraya would take them past this solar system. Even as he made the statement, however, he knew that something was not right. The alarm should not have sounded simply because they were nearing the system.

  As if reading his thoughts, Ghrovlatrei consulted the array of status displays until she found what she was looking for and pointed to it. “Sensors are picking up ship activity.”

  “Yeah, but just barely,” Donovan replied. “Looks like either a small vessel or a larger one running on minimal power. Judging by these readings, I’d bet the Hope’s own sensors aren’t strong enough to pick it up from this distance.” Even set for low-power passive scanning, the Starfleet equipment they had installed in the cargo module was several times more effective than even the freighter’s primary navigational sensors.

  Frowning, Donovan reached for his padd and scrolled through the information he had
downloaded to it in preparation for the mission until he found what he wanted. “According to our files, this system’s uninhabited.” He reached to the console and adjusted several controls, watching as two of the status monitors shifted their displays in response to his commands. “That ship has a Cardassian power signature.” That was surprising, as the Saltok system was outside Cardassian territorial boundaries.

  So what are they doing there?

  “Look,” Ghrovlatrei said as the Efrosian indicated another display where three more readings were registering. “Just like the first. Perhaps they’re escape pods.” She shook her head after only a moment, though. “No, if that were the case then we would be picking up a distress signal. Besides, I don’t see any signs of wreckage or anything that might be a disabled ship.”

  “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this,” Donovan said as he tapped one screen with a finger. “All of the readings are pretty close to the moon orbiting the fifth planet.”

  Consulting her own padd, Ghrovlatrei said, “The moon is Class-D according to our information, possessing few useful natural resources, especially for the Cardassians.”

  “Well, something about it’s got their attention,” Donovan countered. Of course, their current situation prevented him from really getting a detailed look at the moon or the ships. It would be so easy to bring the vague readings into sharp focus, but that would require increasing the power to the sensors and abandoning the passive scanning mode in favor of more invasive procedures, something they were forbidden from doing, at least for the moment. Donovan was sure, however, that Commander Ross would want to be informed about this.

  His hand froze midway to his communicator badge, though, as the sensor console told him that none of their caution mattered any longer.

  * * *

  Aldo was bringing the first bite of his dinner to his mouth when from across the table he shared with Giancarlo and Commander Ross he heard the sound of the Starfleet officer’s communicator badge saying, “Donovan to Ross.”