“I need to access the hardware directly,” Quinn said through gritted teeth.
“Then why not go out in an envirosuit?” Pennington’s suggestion was an attempt to rankle his traveling companion more than anything else. During the days it had taken to travel from Yerad III to the probe rendezvous point, his efforts to goad Quinn into exasperation or frustrated silence had become his favorite pastime.
“That’s actually an excellent idea,” said Sakud Armnoj from where he sat on a fold-down jump seat situated just aft of the Rocinante’s cramped cockpit, “because you know he’s just going to miss again.”
Oddly, and despite the sadistic fun he himself had been having at Quinn’s expense, Pennington found the fussy Zakdorn’s relentless complaints and bickering—most of it aimed at the pilot—not nearly as amusing. In fact, the accountant’s constant needling annoyed him as much as it did their shared whipping boy.
Maybe we should have brought his snotty beast with us just to shut him up.Thankfully, they had not. After regaining consciousness following his encounter with Quinn’s stun pistol—and after much wailing and complaining as he gathered his accounting files and other materials for Ganz—Armnoj finally had relented and seen to it that his prized pet was placed in the care of a trusted neighbor before the Zakdorn was whisked away to the Rocinante.
Pennington tried to tune out the newest volley of Armnoj’s bleating voice. “If you had a tractor beam on this worthless excuse of a ship instead of an antiquated grappling hook, you’d have been done by now.”
“Stifle your hole before I weld it shut!” Quinn shouted, not even bothering to turn from the helm console.
“As amazing as this sounds,” Pennington said, affecting mock sincerity, “I think I might actually agree with him this time.”
Grunting something unintelligible, the pilot regarded him with a wan smile. “Well, hell, maybe I’ll just stuff you both in the cargo hold for the next week, seeing as how you’re so agreeable and all.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively before returning to the business at hand. “We’re in range,” he said, indicating a status gauge on the helm console which had begun flashing green. “Lock on target.”
“Even if he manages to hit it,” Armnoj said, “the take-up reel will just jam like it did last time, when he missed!”
“Shut up!” Quinn and Pennington yelled in unison.
Maneuvering the grappling hook’s targeting controls with his right hand, Pennington watched as an indicator light turned from dark blue to amber. He felt his finger tighten against the grappler’s firing trigger.
“Hurry, dammit, before we drift too close!” Quinn shouted.
“Almost got it,” Pennington replied, watching the targeting screen as the sights moved to line up with the computer-generated image of the man-sized sensor drone. Then the crosshairs illuminated as bright yellow at the same time the target lock indicator glowed red. “That’s it!”
He uttered the exclamation at the precise instant a pair of maneuvering thrusters on the drone’s hull fired. Pennington pressed the grappler’s firing control, but he was too slow. The drone moved out of the target lock and angled away from the Rocinante,leaving the grappling magnet and its length of flexible duranium cable to sail harmlessly through space.
“Oh, for crying out!” Quinn shouted.
“He missed again,” Armnoj said with no small amount of superior satisfaction. “I knew it.”
Muttering what Pennington recognized as a string of particularly vile Rigelian oaths, Quinn pounded several of the helm controls in a frenetic sequence that Pennington found difficult to follow. “Damn proximity sensors,” he said. In response to his commands, the Rocinantepitched to starboard as Quinn once again set about giving chase after the sensor drone. Rising from his seat, he prompted Pennington to vacate the copilot’s chair by hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “You’re fired. Sit over there and don’t touch anything. I’ve programmed the autopilot to maneuver us to the limit of the grappler’s range. Hopefully that’ll leave enough distance to avoid setting off the drone’s collision avoidance software.”
“Sorry, Quinn,” Pennington said with a measure of sincerity. Glancing toward Armnoj, who was studying them both with his customary air of condescension, he leaned closer to the pilot and asked in a low voice, “You think we’ve been here too long?”
“Dunno,” Quinn replied. “The damn thing’s probably sent some kind of distress call by now. Whether the Klingons actually answer it is another matter. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean it’s already transmitted its sensor logs and purged its data storage core.” He adjusted the grappler’s targeting scanner and set about resetting the device for another attempt.
It took only moments for the Rocinante’s autopiloting system to maneuver the dilapidated Mancharan starhopper into position. Pennington watched as Quinn manipulated the grappler’s controls with ease. The audible signal of the target scanner locking its crosshairs on the drone had only just begun to sound when the pilot pressed the trigger, and Pennington saw on one display monitor the image of the drone as the grappler slammed into the unmanned probe, locking on and holding against the device’s weathered, beaten hull.
“Nice shooting,” Pennington offered with genuine admiration.
Ignoring the compliment, Quinn instead keyed another set of switches on the grappler’s control console. “Now, we bring it into the hold and get this over with,” he said. “That is, assuming its thrusters don’t fire again.”
Pennington frowned, renewed concern edging into his voice. “You think they will?”
“Sure,” Quinn replied, shrugging. Glancing back toward Armnoj and speaking loud enough for the Zakdorn to hear, he added, “It’ll probably drag us into the nearest star, where we’ll blow up real good.”
“ What?”came the shocked reply from just outside the cockpit, evoking a satisfied smile from the pilot.
After locking Armnoj inside the one part of the ship where he was likely to cause the least trouble—the shower stall—Quinn and Pennington made their way to the Rocinante’s hold, where, thanks to Quinn’s skilled marksmanship with the grappler, the now inert Klingon sensor drone lay in the center of the small cargo bay’s dull, scuffed deck.
“Don’t worry,” Quinn said as he paced a circle around the probe. “The grappler’s electromagnets were strong enough to jam any outgoing comm signals. There’s no way it got off any kind of distress signal.”
“If it didn’t send one during our first three tries to nab the bloody thing,” Pennington replied as he scrutinized the drone. Essentially a cylinder lying on the deck, it measured two meters in length, its outer shell a series of rectangular plates. The seams between the hull sections were visible, and he even noted a few that had been creased, breaking their seal. Had the grappler caused that?
“According to T’Prynn,” Quinn said as he walked over to a nearby worktable and retrieved a piece of equipment Pennington did not recognize from a worn leather satchel, “this little gizmo should take care of the hard part.” The device, whatever it was, looked to be slightly larger than a Starfleet-issue tricorder. Rectangular and sporting a silver finish, it possessed a flap that Quinn opened as he walked back to the probe.
“What is it?” Pennington asked.
Quinn replied, “Some kind of scanner thingamabob. If I set it up right, it’ll download the drone’s data, then replace it with some mumbo jumbo T’Prynn made up.” Shrugging, he added, “She explained the basics, but I was nursing a warp-five hangover at the time. The salient details may have eluded me.”
“Fancy that,” Pennington replied, rolling his eyes before returning his attention to the sensor probe. “I wonder what this thing has that T’Prynn wants so badly.” He frowned, remembering what Quinn had told him of the assignment the intelligence officer had given him. “If it works the way you told me, then whatever data it was set to transmit had to have been collected from that system it passed through most recently.” Did the Jinoteur system harbor some value to Starfleet, particularly with regards to the presence of Starbase 47 in the Taurus Reach? Might it have any connection to why the Tholians were so agitated by the Federation’s encroachment into the region?