Mosaic (14 page)

back. There was no way she was going to cry in front of

him, no way she'd let him know this unfair punishment meant

anything to her. She lifted her chin and looked him right

in the eye.

"Yes, sir, was she snapped, and turned on her heel and

stalked out. As she left, she heard Hobbes talking softly

with her father, apologizing, trying to take more

responsibility for the incident, hoping to spare Kathryn.

She hated him for it.

Indignation mounted in her. How could her father treat her

like this? He was never around anymore, always off

conferring with Starfleet officials-what right did he have

descending on her just to mete out punishment? The unju/s

of it enveloped her like a noxious fog.

But those thoughts didn't suppress the one that had tickled

her mind ever since they had climbed up the rockface from

the quarry: some day, she would go back there. She would be

prepared. She would dive into the quarry, enter the cave

opening, and explore the Olympus Mons system. No matter

what her father had to say about it.

"REPORT." CAPTAIN JANEWAY STRODE

ONTO THE BRIDGE WITH renewed determination.

She had managed to sleep for another hour, and now felt

focused and clearheaded.

"Repairs still under way, Captain. Warp engines are still

down, but impulse could be on-line shortly. The weapons

array is partially restored; we have one phaser bank

operative."

"Any sign of the Kazon?"

"As far as we can tell, they're still in orbit of the

planet. This nebula fogs up the sensor readings a bit, so

we can't track them as accurately as I'd like."

Janeway sat at her chair. "Bridge to Engineering."

"Torres here, Captain," a voice answered.

Janeway had no doubt that B'Elanna Torres, the half-Klingon

chief of Engineering, had been hard at it since the attack.

"What's your closest estimate on impulse capability?"

"Within the hour."

"And warp drive?"

There was a silence. Then, somewhat carefully, "I'm not

sure. We're having some problems."

Janeway thought it through. They couldn't show their face

to the Kazon without warp capability and with only one

phaser bank. They would be completely vulnerable. Better to

take a little more time and get every system working.

"Keep me posted, Lieutenant," she said, and signed off.

She had just turned to Chakotay when Tom Paris interrupted,

urgency in his voice. "Captain, we've got activity in the

nebula. It's a ship."

"Kazon?"

"I think so. In this soup it's hard to tell for sure."

Janeway's mind raced. Without weapons, without warp, with

sensors inaccurate, it was folly to try to engage the

enemy. They were going to have to be the fox in this hunt.

"Go to minimum energy signature. Shipwide.

Set shields to scatter active scans." As soon as she'd

spoken, lights began to blink out and there was a decline

in the ambient hum that always accompanied life on Voyager.

Consoles flickered to darkness; only a few dim emergency

lights near the deck provided illumination. It was a

ghostly atmosphere. But with all systems offline except

lifesupport and passive sensors, they would be almost

impossible to detect.

Now, they simply had to wait and hope the Kazon would tire

of the hunt and go away.

Jal Sittik stood in the midst of an overgrown copse,

trying not to let his men know how perplexed he was. The

Federations were proving remarkably elusive. First they had

vanished into the depths of a thick grove of trees and

brush that Sittik, following, had found impenetrable; then

they reappeared on the other side of the copse, almost

within view, registering clearly on his sensing indicator.

His squad should have overtaken them easily. But they were

nowhere to be seen, and had all but disappeared from the

indicators. Sittik put his hands on his hips again, a pose

of confidence that he felt would satisfy his men while he

tried to decide what to do now. But to his irritation Jal

Miskk approached.

Miskk's headdress was only slightly less elaborate than

his own, another fact that irritated Sittik. He believed

Miskk cheated with his markers, claiming kills that were

not personally his, but those of the entire ship. Sittik

would personally never stoop to such deception, and it

annoyed him that others might think that Miskk could claim

anywhere near the number of kills that he had.

Miskk now looked at him with a gaze that was unmistakably

insolent. "Well," he sneered, "where are they?"

Sittik glared at him, swelling his chest as much as

possible in order to intimidate Miskk. "Are you saying you

don't know?" he sneered right back. Miskk's eyes narrowed

and the two men stared at each other, the challenge

charging the air between them.

Sittik enjoyed these moments, for he had a stare that could

wither even the most arrogant of his comrades. And, after a

moment, Miskk looked away. Sittik crowed inwardly, a silent

cry of victory. He loved conquest. The moment caused him to

envision briefly the barely clad bodies of the women who

would be awaiting his triumphant return to their colony.

He swept his sensing indicator along the horizon, arm

extended fully-a gesture of power.

His men would see his strength, his confidence, and realize

this momentary setback was just that, a minor obstacle to

their eventual victory.

He pointed toward the thick grove of fruit trees that lay

less than half a kilometer away. "They've taken cover

again," he announced.

"Your group will flush them out."

"If they're so close, why are there no readings on our

sensing indicators?" "I see life signs in the grove,"

retorted Sittik. "Do as I say." "I don't believe the life

signs are those of the Federations-was "Miskk, I am in

charge of this mission. Obey my command or it is you who

will spend two weeks in chains."

Sittik was gratified to see Miskk flush with color, start

to speak, and then swallow his reply.

With a curt nod, he gestured to his men and they moved

toward the dense grove of trees.

Then Sittik resumed his scanning, desperately trying to

figure out where the Federations really were.

Harry Kim was getting frustrated. But it was better than

sitting around, wondering if the Kazon would find them.

He and Kes had begun to explore the underground structure

as soon as Tuvok had organized the group into teams. It was

proving to be vast, and so far was producing more mystery

than enlightenment. There were kilometers of mazelike

corridors that would have taken days, if not weeks, to

chart. But that was all.

Corridors, all constructed of that strange material which

possessed organic qualities.

No chambers that he could detect, in spite of the most

sensitive of tricorder readings. No bodies, no skeletons,

no drawings, no artifacts. Nothing that might be expected

in a tomb of what had seemed to be such a ritualized

society. After he and Kes had been searching for half an

hour, he turned to her in frustration. "I don't understand

it. They went to great lengths to hide this structure; it

must have been of value to thembut there's nothing here."

"There must be something here. We just haven't found it

yet.

"Tricorders aren't showing anything that would give us a

clue." He turned in a circle, tricorder extended. "Just

stone . . . stone . . . and more stone.

Or whatever one calls this stuff. It looks like an inert

mineral, but it definitely has an organometallic

component."

Then suddenly his eyes widened as he spotted something

besides stone on his readout. "Kes-are you getting a

reading? Up above ground?" Kes lifted her arm to point in

the same direction he was, and he saw her brow furrow

slightly. She looked over at him. "Kazoo," she said grimly.

Unmistakable Kazon life signs flickered on their

tricorders. The Kazon were above them, tramping through the

sod that served as the ceiling for the underground tunnels.

They couldn't hear anything-the ceiling piece was half a

meter thick and well insulated with sod-and they assumed

the Kazon couldn't hear them.

Yet they found themselves whispering. "Kim to Tuvok."

"I'm here, Ensign."

"I'm picking up Kazon life signs above us."

"Acknowledged. We have the same readings. All teams should

be at the ready. But stay where you are.

I'd rather have us spread out in order to make it more

difficult for them to detect us."

"Yes, sir." He turned to Kes, who continued to study her

tricorder intently.

"If we read their life signs, you'd think they could read

ours." "Maybe they can. But figuring how to get down here

is a different story. I found the mechanism because I

realized what the pattern on the ground represented. But

I'm betting the Kazon were just tracking us. They haven't

gone through the thought processes I did. As far as they're

concerned, we were on the surface, and now we're not. I

don't think they'll figure out how we got here."

"I hope you're right."

"Let's keep going. I'd like to find out what this

underground maze is all about."

She nodded and they moved off down the corridor, scanning

continuously, wrist beacons bravely knifing through a

darkness that seemed to have been undisturbed for-how long?

There were nothing but questions here. For another fifteen

minutes they wound their way through corridors, carefully

charting their course on the tricorders; without that map,

they'd never find their way back to the others.

They searched the walls, the ceilings, the

floorseverything, for a sign, no matter how tiny, of

something besides the strange building material. And came

up empty.

"I'm stumped," Harry admitted. "There just doesn't seem to

be any reason for all these passageways. Can you imagine

how long it must have taken to build them?"

"Whoever did had a lot of patience. Maybe that's something

you could use a little more of."

He looked sidelong at her and grinned. Kes was softspoken

and unassuming, but underneath her dainty exterior was a

will of iron and an insight into others that was

extraordinary. Of course, she had unique mental abilities-even she wasn't quite sure what they entailedbut even

so, she had a way of getting right to the point of things.

"Noted. But the unbelievable amount of time they spent on

this layout only supports my argument: it was extremely

important to them. Something's here, something they wanted

protected above all else."

"A leader's body? Treasure? A map?"

"Any of the above. Or none of them."

"Whatever it is, I can't imagine that it could be of much

use to us. Maybe we should think about getting back to the

others."

Kim had already begun thinking the same thing, but he

didn't want to admit it. "I'm not curious because we might

find something useful. I'm curious because it's so

mysterious. All those skeletons, and now this underground

maze-I just want answers."

Suddenly he heard her emit a little gasp, and he stopped

immediately, shining his wrist beacon toward her. In the

glare of the light, her eyes looked like those of a cat's

in the moonlight, wide and wary.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Something. . ."

Harry studied her carefully. She was partially telepathic.

Was she sensing something there in the soundless, lightless

corridors? Slowly, she turned in place, eyes closed now, as

though trying to locate the source of some vague, faint

melody. Her mouth was slightly parted, and he could hear

the delicate sound of her breathing. Then she shuddered

slightly. He waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it

was she was experiencing.

Finally, she turned back to him, eyes open once more. "I

seemed to hear something . . . something far away . . . and

then it faded." "What did it sound like?"

"It's hard to describe. Maybe-like water, dripping onto

wood." "Could you tell where it was coming from?"

She shook her head. Clearly the moment had passed. "Didn't

you hear it at all?"

"Nope. Not a thing."

She took a breath, then looked at him a bit sheepishly.

"It's gone. I can't get it back."

"Then let's keep walking."

They proceeded down the corridor, scanning carefully,

until they reached a bend that forced them to turn right.

When they did, they saw three armed Kazon warriors

straight ahead of them.

The first strike of the Kazon ship arrived with only

seconds of warning, snapped by Tom Paris from the conn

position. "Kazon weapons powering, Captain."

A scant heartbeat later Voyager was rocked with the

unmistakable thooop of percussive plasma flares.

"They're trawling," said Chakotay softly.

"Just sending out flares and hoping they hit something."