Waiting as Quinn engaged the ship’s impulse engine and began his computations for taking the ship to warp speed, Pennington turned in his seat to ask the questions that had been gnawing at him since before the privateer boarded the vessel.
“All right, Quinn, you planning to tell me what’s going on? What kind of trouble are you getting me into?”
Looking up from the helm console, Quinn regarded him with a skeptical expression. “What are you talking about?”
Pennington rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell. I saw you talking to T’Prynn in the corridor before we left. Why’s she pulling your leash this time?”
His eyes narrowing in suspicion and irritation, Quinn’s voice dropped in volume as he replied, “Now hang on, I don’t know what you might have heard, but…”
Holding up a hand to forestall any more of what he was sure would be Quinn’s attempt at skirting the truth, Pennington said, “Look, I know all about you and T’Prynn. She’s got something on you, just like she seems to have her bloody claws into a lot of other things on that station. She wants you to do something while we’re out here, doesn’t she?”
He knew it was a risky move, revealing his knowledge of Quinn’s clandestine relationship with the Vulcan. For that reason alone, he elected to keep private the fact that he had observed the freighter pilot’s first meeting with T’Prynn, deep in the bowels of the station’s massive storage facility and supposedly away from prying eyes and ears. Her plan for the covert rendezvous had been sound, save for the random combination of chance, bitter fate, and guilt that had conspired to have Pennington down there at the same time.
I’m trying to dispose of one secret, and I find myself dealing with someone else’s.
After the loss of the U.S.S. Bombayand her crew, including Lieutenant Oriana D’Amato, the ship’s helm officer and the woman with whom he had been sharing a short but fiercely passionate love affair, Pennington had gathered everything he could find that might link the two of them. Personal belongings, gifts they had exchanged, anything that might inadvertently be discovered and delivered to her widowed husband, Pennington had collected it all while still in the throes of his own grief. While seeking a garbage-disposal chute to dispose of the illicit evidence, he had chanced across Quinn and his would-be handler.
Of course, T’Prynn’s agenda soon would expand beyond inflicting misery upon the life of a tramp freighter captain, as Pennington was to learn firsthand.
Looking back on it now, I might have been better off if I’d putmyself down one of those chutes.
Not that he would ever seriously consider such a course of action, and not that it mattered right now, anyway. What was important was that he was certain T’Prynn had coerced Quinn into doing something questionable, perhaps even dangerous, during this flight to Boam II, and he needed to know how it affected him.
To his credit, Quinn appeared to consider the question before nodding—more to himself than Pennington—as if reaching a decision.
“Okay,” the pilot said, “but you have to swear you’ll keep your mouth shut about this. None of that damn reporter ‘on-and-off-the-record’ crap of yours, you understand?”
Pennington held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fair enough.”
Pausing to draw what might have been a calming breath before releasing a heavy sigh, Quinn said, “Here’s the deal. We have to go and pick somebody up.”
“Dammit, Quinn,” Pennington shouted, cutting off the pilot’s next sentence. He rose from his seat, fully prepared to launch into a tirade that would question Quinn’s integrity, intelligence, manhood, and genealogy—but the rant never made it past his lips as his head struck a control panel that formed part of the cockpit’s sloping overhead. Stars danced in his vision as he reached for his head, dropping back into his chair and wincing as a warning alarm wailed through the confined space.
Grunting in his own form of pain and irritation, Quinn fumbled for a bank of instruments near his left hand. A few frantic presses of controls later and the siren ceased its ear-piercing screech. “You mind watching what the hell you’re doing? You almost purged the life-support system.”
Still grasping the top of his head, Pennington glanced up at the control panel, which featured far more pieces of adhesive tape and what looked to be grease stains than he considered sanitary. “Sorry,” he said. After another moment spent probing his scalp in a search for blood that, thankfully, produced no results, he looked to Quinn once more. “I said I heard you talking to T’Prynn. I didn’t catch it all, but I heard her say she wants you to pick up some kind of sensor drone.”
Quinn sighed again. “Okay, okay.” Reaching into the pocket of his dilapidated jacket, he produced what Pennington recognized to be a trio of standard Federation data cards. He fanned the multicolored squares in his hand as though playing poker. “She wants me to track down a sensor drone, download the data it contains, and replace it with whatever’s on these.”
“What’s on them?” Pennington asked.
Shrugging, the pilot replied, “Damn if I know. I figure she’s up to something with Starfleet Intelligence, trying to mislead the Klingons or something.”
Given the pain he still was feeling, it took an extra moment for that last part to register with Pennington.
“Wait,” he finally said, sitting up in his chair. “Klingons? You mean she asked you to intercept a Klingon sensor drone?”
“You got it,” Quinn said as he returned the data cards to his pocket. “Figure the drone’s data is important to her, and whatever’s on these is fake. Maybe she’s trying to monitor ship movements or something.”
“And you don’t think this might get us killed?” Pennington asked, making no effort to rein in his rapidly escalating anxiety.
“Oh, I’m absolutely sure it could get us killed. If we get caught, that is.” Turning back to the helm console, Quinn looked up once more and smiled. “So, we should probably avoid that.”
“Fine idea, mate.” Shaking his head, the pain he still felt making him regret the action, Pennington tried to get comfortable in his seat. “Okay,” he said finally. “So, we go to Boam II, then catch this thing on the way back?”
Quinn shook his head. “Not exactly. T’Prynn gave me a set of coordinates and told me that I have to intercept it at a certain location at a certain time, otherwise I don’t get what she’s after. She says these things don’t have a lot of power, or computer memory, or whatever. They do whatever scanning they’re supposed to do, transmit their data to a predetermined point of receipt, and then wipe their data cores to make room for whatever they’re tasked to scan next.”
“So if we get to the probe after it transmits whatever data T’Prynn wants,” Pennington said, “then we’re out of luck.”
“You got it.”
Nodding, the journalist leaned forward in his seat until he could get a better look at the computer display on Quinn’s console. He recognized a series of Federation star charts, though he could not read the entire screen thanks to a smudge or smear of something on the panel. Reaching out, he rubbed away the offending obstruction with the sleeve of his shirt. “So, what systems are near the rendezvous point?”
“That’s what I’m checking.” Quinn pointed to the monitor. “According to the charts, we’ll be near the Jinoteur system.” Shaking his head, he added, “Never heard of it.”
“Neither have I,” Pennington said, though he knew that his and Quinn’s knowledge of the Taurus Reach meant little to nothing in this situation. With so much of the area still unexplored, even by unmanned sensor probes, there simply was no telling what mysteries lay within this unknown region of space.
Or, why T’Prynn might be interested in one of them.
As Quinn resumed his warp calculations, Pennington considered the privateer’s original theory about the Vulcan’s reasons for the assignment she had given him. “Why would she need data from a Klingon sensor drone to learn about Klingon ship activity? Starfleet’s already got listening outposts and sensor arrays strung out all over the Taurus Reach.” Indeed, he knew that a line of monitoring and relay stations had been brought to bear in this part of space and dedicated to Vanguard’s oversight of the region. Making use of state-of-the-art technology, such fully automated outposts also were currently being deployed along the Federation-Klingon border. Reportedly, they soon would replace the asteroid-based outposts and their crews who stood vigil along the Neutral Zone separating the Federation from territory claimed by the Romulan Empire.