Tales from the Captain’s Table (26 page)

I put the prod to good use on its original owner and soon had the medkit in hand. I passed the kit on to the doctor and tore into the crates.

The doctor did what she could with the Nausicaan supplies and what little else we could find, but it wasn’t enough.

Approximately fifteen minutes before our own troops arrived, Double-O One passed into beagle heaven.

Everyone around the table was quiet. Porthos laid his head across Archer’s arm.

Finally, Big Ears spoke up. “Porthos was indeed a great warrior.”

Everyone nodded.

“Double-O One gave the ultimate self-sacrifice,” Archer said, satisfied he’d given his audience a story they’d never forget. He scratched the beagle’s soft ears. “He traded his life for mine and the doctor’s. A sacrifice I’ll never forget.”

“What about the doctor’s daughter?” Shran asked. His antennae curled forward in the curious expression Archer had grown to appreciate.

Archer cleared his throat. Leave it to the Andorian to want the steamy details. “Cari was extremely grateful that I’d managed to bring her mother home safely, though they were both distraught at losing Porthos, as was I. It surprised me how quickly I’d grown fond of Double-O One. Doctor Findalot recognized what good partners we’d made. She promised me first pick from Double-O One’s clone litter.”

Archer held the beagle high in his lap.
Time for the clincher
. “The
Enterprise
is honored to have Porthos the Second on board as protector. And I am honored to call him friend.”

Big Ears slammed his fist on the table. “This honored friend has yet to drink with us. A drink! A drink for Porthos the Great!”

Everyone turned toward the bar. Cap’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe he’d rather have some cheese?”

Archer glanced down at Porthos. The beagle licked his lips and gave a soft woof.

“No cheese,” Archer said. “He’ll have Peruvian water, please. Shaken, not stirred.”

Cap smiled as he prepared Porthos’s Peruvian water. The theme today seemed to be bringing fresh faces to the bar: Picard bringing Riker, Sisko bringing Kira, and now Shran bringing Archer.

Sisko and Kira departed right after Archer’s story. Gold was still sitting at his table, neither eating nor drinking, and another Starfleet human had just entered. This one had been here before, of course—but Chakotay’s last trip to the Captain’s Table saw him a Maquis cell leader, fighting against Starfleet. Cap wondered if the story of how he went from one to the other would be the one he’d tell this day.

Then a furtive figure ran through the front door into the pub, and Cap smiled again. This was about to get interesting….

S
he pursued him into the empty marketplace, confident of his capture as she finally closed the gap. Beneath the silvern glare of a waxing moon, she easily kept him in view. He fled past vending stalls—not staffed at this time of night—that marched between the old mortar-and-brick buildings on either side of the agora.

Not for the first time since she’d arrived at Temecklia II, Captain Demora Sulu counted herself fortunate that Strolt had made his way to this once-thriving spaceport at this time. Transporter inhibitors had always blanketed the complex, but five or ten years ago, he might have been able to find assistance here among the throngs of vendors and travelers, or at least blend in with their great number. Even at this time of night, the marketplace would have been filled with those hawking wares and services, and those looking to acquire one or the other. But the viral pandemic that had swept the population and numerous wayfarers a few years ago had triggered a dramatic decline in civilian traffic, and lying beyond Federation space, the port had never seen more than a few Starfleet vessels. So close to the Tzenkethi border, and with the Coalition’s recent aggressive attempts at expansion, the spaceport had subsequently never recovered.

Now, bathed in the hoary moonlight, the open-air bazaar appeared immaculate and new, but Sulu knew better. Even in the days it had flourished, this place had been unclean and timeworn, and in recent years, the Orlenti had allowed the entire facility to fall into disrepair. The nighttime illumination revealed the surroundings in soft tones, but veiled a multitude of unflattering details.

As Strolt ran, his long coat flaring out behind him, he glanced back over his shoulder at her. Perhaps twenty or twenty-five meters separated them now, and Sulu’s strong legs and aerobic stamina carried her closer with every stride. He was, like her, a human, and she felt confident that he could not outrun her.

Suddenly, though, Strolt darted left and dived between two stalls. With three sides meeting at right angles and rising up waist-high, the vending booths provided cover for Strolt to duck out of sight, but no place he could remain hidden for very long. But concealment might not be his aim right now, Sulu knew. If he could find time enough to arm the explosives he had stolen just moments ago, he could escape her—or threaten to escape her—in the most permanent way.

Sulu dashed to the left and hied along the open backs of the stalls. She wished that she had a phaser with her, or even a tricorder. As she approached the area where Strolt had gone, she slowed, calculating that he had to be in one of the next three booths. But she did not see him in either the first or the second, and so as she neared the third, she grew even more cautious.

But she found the third stall empty too.

Sulu checked out the next as well, without success, then stopped. Strolt should have been here somewhere. She’d seen the point where he’d lunged from the central path, and she’d followed quickly in that direction. He might have been able to move from one stall to another beside it, but she would have seen him had he moved more often or farther than that.

Turning back the way she’d come, Sulu bent low and studied the ground, visible in the reflected glow of the moon. A rough, cracked tarmac spread throughout the marketplace, covered in patches by sand that had blown in from the eastern desert plain abutting the town. Squinting, she could make out her own footprints here and there, but then back by the second stall, she spied the front half of a different, larger boot. She hunted around for other such tracks, and located a second, and then a third, leading off to the side, toward the building there.

Sulu looked up, expecting to see a door or window ahead, but instead saw an alleyway, extremely narrow and easily missed. Still, she had run right past it, and she chided herself now for having been less observant than she’d needed to be. Wasting no time, and concerned that she’d already lost the Federation fugitive, she charged forward.

Aware that she might be rushing headlong into an ambush, Sulu simply put such thoughts out of her mind. Temecklia hung in space too close to the Tzenkethi border for her to worry about her own safety. She would have to pick up Strolt’s trail quickly if she had any hope at all of learning his mate’s current location and preventing her from reaching Coalition territory.

As Sulu sped on, it surprised her to see neither doors nor windows fronting on the alley. Peering upward, past the tops of the buildings on either side, she saw a thin sweep of stars. There appeared to be no possibility that Strolt had rapidly scaled the sheer, three-story brick walls. Barely wide enough to accommodate two average-sized humans side by side, the passage seemed not quite right to her, but before she could give much thought to why that might be, she reached the alley’s end.

A single door stood there, unmarked and strangely out of place. Distinctive, composed of vertical wooden slats bound together by coarse metal bands, it reminded Sulu of one at a winery on Argelius II that she’d often visited. As she slowed to a walk, she saw a slip of light along one side of the door, which obviously stood ajar. From beyond the jamb emanated voices and laughter, punctuated by what sounded like the ring of glassware.

Unwilling to abandon her pursuit of Strolt, Sulu reached out, placed her hand flat against the surface of the door, and pushed. She wished again that she carried a phaser or tricorder, or even that she wore a Starfleet uniform. While her simple gray jumpsuit would draw little attention, neither would it command any respect.

The door swung open, one of its hinges creaking. The voices and other sounds grew louder. With the same urgency as when she’d hunted for Strolt in the vending stalls, Sulu moved quickly through a small circular vestibule and into the main room of a tavern. Dark woods dominated the walls and ceiling in an old-Earth style, with several pieces of artwork hanging at tasteful intervals. Tables of various shapes and sizes sat scattered about, each surrounded by matching chairs. Along the inner wall, opposite Sulu, an ornate mahogany bar stretched almost the entire width of the room.

She peered around carefully, searching for Strolt among the tavern’s many patrons. There did not seem to be an empty seat anywhere. She saw several humans, and even what appeared to be a Terran dog on one man’s lap, but as she gazed about, she spied individuals from a wide assortment of other species. A pair of Gorn communicated in rasps and hisses at the near end of the bar. An Otevrel—doubtless an exile, considering her distance from home—sat alone in a corner, a half-filled crystalline goblet held before her in two of her tendrils. And at a small table near the center of the room, an unlikely quartet drank and laughed together: an Axanar, a Tholian, a Corvallen, and a Cardassian. Oddly, though, nowhere did Sulu see any Orlenti.

As many species as she could identify, at least as many she could not. But irrespective of their anatomy, quite a few of those present appeared clad in one form or another of official attire. The Tholian, the Cardassian, and one of the Gorn wore the uniforms of their particular space fleets, although the Gorn’s tunic seemed well out of date. Sulu saw no obvious members of Starfleet, but she did notice on the left breast of one man’s garb a familiar metallic chevron. Dressed in a one-piece, dark-gray uniform, with lighter shoulders and a crimson undershirt, the man looked essentially human, although a pattern of blue lines showed on one side of his forehead, above his left eye. Sulu thought the markings decorative, but supposed that they might be naturally occurring. Another man—similarly clad, but without the facial characteristics—sat at a table by himself.

She finished scanning the room, and saw no sign of Strolt. But she also noted no windows or doors anywhere, other than the one directly behind her, through which she’d just entered. On either side of the bar, though, two parallel halls led toward the back. Sulu randomly selected the one on the right and headed in that direction.

The short corridor led to a smaller room, also with no evident exits. Most of the patrons there crowded around a couple of gaming tables. Sulu swiftly surveyed the lively scene, then hurried back to the main room via the other hallway. She passed two doors on the way, just as she’d passed two doors in the first hall. One pair led to restrooms, and Sulu assumed that the others opened to storage areas, or perhaps to an office. Regardless, they were bounded by the front and back rooms and the twin corridors, and so likely wouldn’t provide a means of escape for Strolt. To confirm her reconnaissance of the tavern, though, she approached the bar, where a lone man worked.

“Pardon me,” she said. She kept the front door in view, and an eye out for Strolt.

The bartender glanced over at her from where he stood. “Help you, ma’am?” He twisted a towel in and around a drinking glass, presumably drying it. A white-haired man, he stood about the same height as Sulu did, though given his stout frame, he probably outweighed her by fifteen to twenty kilos. She attempted to estimate his age, but perceived a paradoxical blend of youthfulness and experience in his aspect, an improbable combination of innocence and wisdom. At first glimpse, she’d thought him human, but as she regarded him now, some quality she could not quite place made her believe otherwise.

“Are there any ways out of here besides through the front door?” she asked him.

“Every entrance and exit we have,” the bartender said, “is right there.” He raised the hand in which he held the towel and gestured toward the vestibule.

“All right,” Sulu said. “Thank you.” She started to move away, back toward the door, but then the bartender stopped her with a question.

“Something for you to drink, ma’am?” he asked.

Sulu looked back over at him. “No, nothing for me,” she said. “Thank you.” She considered whether or not she should try to enlist the bartender’s assistance. She would check the restrooms herself, but suspected that the other doors in the halls might be locked. In that case, she would have to—

Rapid movement caught Sulu’s eye, and she looked over at the right-hand corridor just in time to see Strolt withdrawing into it, out of her view. She hastened in that direction, careful not to run, wary of drawing attention to herself, and wanting to avoid panicking the tavern’s patrons.

As she drew nearer the hall, she saw Strolt standing within it, a few paces back from the main room, staring at her. Disheveled, unshaven, and with deep circles beneath his eyes, he looked as though he hadn’t slept soundly in days. His long, light-brown hair hung down around his face in matted clumps, and his russet, calf-length coat draped loosely around his lanky, perhaps under-nourished form.

Sulu met his gaze, and she stopped moving at once, recognizing the desperation showing in his countenance. Verifying her fears, the renegade freighter captain reached into his coat, his hand sliding beneath the wrinkled fabric as though retrieving a concealed weapon. Sulu didn’t know whether the past few minutes had provided him the time needed to arm his purloined explosives, but she could not risk assuming that he hadn’t done so—not with so many people close at hand, and not in view of the stakes involved. With Strolt dead, Sulu would not be able to ascertain the whereabouts of Zeeren Tek Lom-A, his Tzenkethi mate, who would then be able to abscond back to her native space and deliver to her people the sensitive matériel, deployment, and mission information Strolt had appropriated from Starbase 143. With the Coalition forcibly trying to extend their borders and expand their territories, and with their increasingly imperialistic tendencies, their acquisition of Starfleet operational data would undoubtedly put Federation lives in jeopardy.

Sulu took a step forward, and Strolt’s arm tensed. Fear appeared on his face, but so did a grim determination. The implication could not have been clearer: He would kill himself in order to avoid capture, even if doing so resulted in the loss of innocent lives.

Raising her hands waist-high, Sulu made patting movements, her palms toward the floor. She intended it as a placatory gesture, a calm, unspoken plea to Strolt that he should reconsider resorting to violence. He peered back at her evenly, but did not remove his hand from within his coat. Sulu saw the weariness in his eyes, in his posture, the aura of imminent defeat he seemed to carry with him, and she realized that, right now at least, she would have to let him go. If she didn’t, he would detonate the explosives and take to his grave the secret of Zeeren’s route back to her homeland—and he would kill scores of people in the tavern.

Before Sulu could begin to retreat, though, she felt a presence at her side. She turned her head to see the bartender standing beside her, holding in his raised hand a stemmed glass filled with a dark red liquid. “For you, ma’am,” he said. “I think you’ll enjoy this.”

“Oh…no, thank you,” she said, unhappy to be disturbed during this critical juncture with Strolt. Thinking of the most efficacious means of dismissing the bartender so that he would not return, she said, “I’m afraid I have no money.”

“Money?” he said, and his mouth widened into a lopsided smile. “Here at the Captain’s Table, our customers pay for their drinks with something other than money. They pay with stories.”

“I’m afraid I don’t—” Sulu started, keenly aware of Strolt’s presence in the hallway, but the bartender interrupted her.

“Don’t what?” he asked. “Don’t have stories?
Everybody
has stories.” Again, he proffered to her the glass of what appeared to be wine.

Around them, Sulu realized, the tavern had quieted, the conversations and laughter silenced, the shifting of chairs and the clink of glassware stilled. She peered about and saw that the collective attention of the tavern’s patrons had swung toward her. At the table nearest where she stood, a pre-Shift Frunalian male rose to his feet, stepped back, and then with a wave of one chitinous hand offered up his vacated chair to Sulu.