CHAPTER 9
Supplemental
USS Independence, Deck 3
Occupied Cardassian Territory
After some debate, bin Nadal had allowed Jinal to perform a minimal amount of first aid to “Lieutenant” Chase’s wound. The bleeding, at least, was stopped. In addition, however, the security chief insisted that a sedative be administered to the Section 31 agent. She would no longer be a threat.
Once Jinal finished, he asked, “How did you know she was lying about me?”
Now that Nicole was unconscious, Karim allowed himself to relax a little. He took one large breath in an attempt to center himself. “First off,” he finally responded, “How would she know what your hologram said?...unless she was watching.”
The Romulan nodded.
“And second,” he looked at Jinal, “I saw how fearful you were…are of what I and others will think of you now.”
Jinal was surprised at how quickly bin Nadal cut to the core of his concerns. He looked at the carpet, “I don’t know how tell you how…regretful I am about deceiving you…all of you.” Again, his eyes watered, “I suppose no one will trust me again, even if I don’t get discharged from the fleet.”
Karim inhaled deeply and avoided eye contact.
Jinal noticed his distinct lack of reassurance. The Romulan continued, “I’ve seen first hand how the crew shuns Commander Windslow. They don’t do it to his face, of course, but I hear them talk behind his back…They’ll do the same to me.”
Out of necessity, and desire, the security chief changed the subject, “How much time do we have?”
After a grimace, the engineer took out his tricorder, “Two hours, twelve minutes.”
“We need to get a message out.”
The Romulan composed himself slightly and said, “The shuttles. That’s how she was probably planning to leave. I bet their computers are operational.”
“It’s a plan,” said the Persian. They began to walk toward the shuttle bay. After a few tense moments, Karim offered, “If you were out to break any records, I’m afraid you’re too late.”
“Sir?”
“You’re not the first Romulan in Starfleet. I’ve heard of at least two others.”
It was a slight attempt to put the engineer at ease. Jinal would take what comfort he could get.
*****
The heavy door of the shuttle bay cracked; then, a hand came through…and another. The two men grunted as they forced the hatch open. It wasn’t open all the way, but enough for them to enter.
Jinal strode to the nearest Icarus class runabout. Bin Nadal came behind him with a slight limp, though he still couldn’t feel much by the way of pain. The engineer released the entrance to the shuttle and sat in the pilot’s seat. He tapped a control…then again. He held his head in annoyance.
“What’s wrong?” questioned Karim.
“Whatever lock-out protocol she used, it affected the shuttle’s computer as well.” He spun around in the seat, “I can’t do anything.”
Karim rested an arm against the hatch of the runabout.
“And I doubt she’d be willing to release control,” Jinal added.
Bin Nadal shook his head, “We’re not even going to try that. I don’t want that woman awake, let alone have access to a shuttle. She’s too dangerous. God knows what she could do.” He thought for a moment and headed for the aft of the runabout. “What about the emergency transceivers. They’re self contained.” He reached the storage unit and opened it. It was empty. “Where is it?”
“I’ll check the other shuttles,” offered Jinal. A few minutes later, he came back and reported, “They’re gone. All of them.”
“Where they being worked on or something?”
“No.”
Karim looked away, “She could have transported them somewhere so we couldn’t find them.”
“We don’t have time to search the whole ship,” the engineer observed.
“Assuming they’re not floating in space.”
Jinal threw up his arms in frustration, “Then, I don’t see how we can get a message out.”
Karim was taken back slightly as Jinal shed his Vulcan persona. “I can’t believe I never suspected him. I’m I that bad of a security officer?” He brought himself to focus on the problem at hand. While he was in the academy, he heard a story about a Starfleet officer that was kidnapped by Ferengi a few years earlier. That officer was able to get a message out with limited access to the Marauder’s computer. “How did he do it again?” The answer came. He looked at Jinal, “Does the subspace interference suppressor still have juice running threw it?”
“Juice?”
“Power.”
“Oh…well, even if it doesn’t, I could connect it to a battery,” replied the Romulan. He continued, “Even if I get it running, the Section 31 program would prevent me from accessing…”
Bin Nadal cut him off, “You don’t need to change anything. I just need to know if you can turn it on and off.”
“I suppose, but what can you do with a warp field phase adjustment sub-system?”
“You’re about to find out. Let’s go.”
*****
In the bowels of ship, Jinal finished his jury rigging. “It’s operational. Now what do you want me to do?”
Karim shifted his weight in the small crawl space. “Now we use Morse Code to send a distress signal.” He sighed, “…and hope someone pays attention to their sensors.”
“I’m not familiar with that type of communication.”
“It’s called an SOS. It’s based on long and short tones, in this case, subspace background noise,” explained bin Nadal. “Turn it on three times quickly, then three longer times, then three times quickly again.” He bit his lip, “Or is it…three long, three short, three long?”
Jinal looked away from the machine and toward the commander, “You don’t remember the sequence?”
“Hey!” started the security officer, in a half-earnest voice, “I’ve been through a lot today. Give me a break!”
A slight smile came to the Romulan’s face, “It shouldn’t matter. It just needs to be a repeating pattern. If anyone notices it, they’ll know something is odd.” He disconnected and connected the power supply from the device several times. When it was done, he said, “I’ve repeated the long-short-long pattern three times.”
Bin Nadal understood the chance was slim that anyone would even notice the signal, but at least the attempt was made. Jinal looked at him as if expecting further orders. He had no more to give. After several seconds, he thought of an obvious course of action. “Couldn’t we get the crew to the escape pods and manually launch them?”
Jinal took out his tricorder and entered some data. He frowned, “No, we’re too deep into the radiation field. Without, being able to control the thrusters and the minimal armor; they would die just as fast.”
Karim brainstormed again, “Well, can you fire up one of the impulse engines and turn the ship about?”
“Yes, but I’d need at least twelve hours to do it without the computer,” was his disheartening response.
The security officer was persistent, “Thrusters?”
“Five hours.”
Bin Nadal sighed, “Could we manually eject a torpedo or mine and rig it to explode to divert us?”
Jinal shook his head again, “It’d have to be close to push us. Without shields or the structural integrity field, that would be suicide.”
“And if we eject the warp core and detonate it?”
“Same problem.”
Karim was getting agitated, “Ok, chief engineer, do you have any ideas?”
The Romulan stared blankly at a random gel pack for a full minute, before responding, “There’s no way we can stop the ship from going deeper into the radiation.”
“I didn’t live through the last few hours just to die anyway!” burst the tactical officer.
“The nacelles,” said Jinal, almost oblivious to bin Nadal’s outburst.
“What about them?”
“They’re the most heavily shielded part of the ship. If we could get the crew into them, they might survive,” the last part was rather unconvincing.
Karim nodded, “The anti-grav carts in the cargo bays should still be working, right?”
“Yes, they’re independent units.”
“We only have about an hour and a half. Let’s get started.”
The two began crawling out of the access area, when Jinal suddenly stopped.
“What’s the matter?” inquired the Persian.
The engineer looked up, “How do we pick who we get first?”
It was a disturbing question. In all practicality, they wouldn’t have time to move all one-hundred-seven people. The reality set in...They would have to decide who would live and who would die. It was an overwhelming burden. Finally, Karim said, feigning confidence he didn’t feel, “We’ll get the children and their parents first. Then, start on deck one and work our way down.”
Luckily, Jinal didn’t add to bin Nadal’s contrition by objecting. The two silently press on. In the back of their minds, both knew their efforts were merely an exercise in futility, but it gave them the illusion of hope.
END OF CHAPTER 9
I too appreciated the fact that some part of his brain freely offered up the information to make the pain stop after his higher functions had shut down. Very gritty. The man’s a trooper, though. When he recovers, I hope for her sake Chase is already captured or dead. If not, she’s going to find Bin Nadal’s disposition to be very unpleasant.
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