Chapter Five
The Valiant hung
in space, it's impulse engines moving it slowly across
the massive starfield. Still 10 lightyears away from the mist of the Bryson nebula.
The whole of the crew besides the senior staff was confined to quarters, the seniors were all on the bridge.
« Now, we know that we
have a traitor on board. We must discover who it is. » started the captain. « And having no clues besides the fact that one of our crew is in
any case the saboteur. »
« It could be even one
of us. » Gregory Eskina said, he was standing near the
turbolift at the back of the bridge.
« Yes. » said the
captain nodding. « In any case, I know that I'm innocent. »
«
Captain. » Burnel smiled. « I think we all 'know' that we're innocent...
»
He smiled back : « Good point, miss Burnel. »
« So what do we do ? » asked Stevenson. « Trust no one ?
»
« I don't know. » the
captain said. « I don't even know if we should continue this mission if someone
wants to blow us up. This attack was surely a warning, whoever did this musn't have wanted us going to find the ship carrying those
samples. »
« I believe we should
continue. » said Tarses. « Like admiral Patrickson
said. If someone got ahold of those samples we could
be looking at some pretty ugly political and/or biological wars. »
« I agree with the
doctor. » said Stevenson. « I can get the hatch back onto the core, it'll just take an extra day. But we can't let anyone
get those samples. »
The captain nodded thoughtfully : « All right. Mister Stevenson, get to work
A.S.A.P. You'll need radiation suits, sickbay can
provide them for you. Dismissed. »
* * *
« Report. » the
man on the screen said.
« The explosion of the
hatch was a success. »
« Excellent, are
they discouraged ? »
« No, they're fixing
the hatch at this moment, they're still on course to
the nebula. »
« What
? ! Stubborn fools...Why didn't you try to discourage them to continue ? »
« I didn't want to
bring down suspicions on me. »
The man grunted : « All right,we need
to plan a larger-scale attack and a backup plan which can be implemented in the
nebula. I'm sending the information to you now. »
« I will try to stop
them dead in their tracks this time. »
« Good. »
The screen turned black
and the one who was being ordered by the man turned to his partner
: « Okay, I got the information. This is what we're going to do... »
* * *
The next day, commander Kline strolled onto the bridge followed by
lieutenant Stevenson who was looking real happy.
« Captain
! » the engineer said. « We've just finished installing the new hatch on
the warp core. We're ready to go. »
« Excellent,
lieutenant. » the captain smiled . « Miss Burnel, set
a course for the Bryson nebula. Maximum warp. »
«
Yes, sir. »
The captain took a deep
breath and said :
« Engage. »
Burnel didn't move.
Burnel still stayed
immobile.
« Miss Burnel ? Is there a problem ? » he
asked.
« Strange, I was about
to ask the same question, captain. » said commander
Kline.
Sutter was staring at
what was playing on the bridge, so was Mantion at her tactical station.
« What are you talking
about, commander ? »
« As
if you didn't know. » Stevenson said. « We intercepted the subspace
channel you were communicating on yesterday, captain. »
Stevenson explained to
the rest of the bridge crew : « He's been in contact
with someone who didn't want us to get to the Bryson nebula for some reason. He
was the one who sabotaged the hatch. And he was preparing another move, he had blocked half of the deuterium infusion
currents. The extra antimatter would overload our engines in no time and we
would be stuck in space for at least two weeks. »
« But one thing we
still don't know. » said Kline. « What was the backup plan ?
»
« Why
? » Sutter asked. « Why didn't you want us to get to the Watan ?
»
Kline sighed : « Throw him in the brig, mister Stevenson. »
The engineer pulled out
a hand phaser and escorted the former captain off the bridge.
« I'll be in the
captain's ready room. I need to contact admiral Patrickson.
» Kline walked into the ready room.
Sutter was staring
wide-eyed at the turbolift out of which Anderson and Stevenson had gone. She
glanced and Mantion and saw that she also had a similar expression.
Suddenly, she heard a
giggle coming from Burnel. The navigator was amused, presumably at their
expressions.
« Why didn't you tell us ? » Janna asked.
« You can never be to careful. » Sylvia answered. « And I didn't want to miss
the look on your face. » she laughed again.
« Captain Anderson ? » Patrickson was
shocked.
« Yes, he sabotaged the
hatch and was about to overload our engines. » Kline explained.
Patrickson
breathed in and out loudly then said : « I can't
understand how someone like him could be integrated into Team 1
itself...Well...I'm making you captain of the Valiant for now, commander
Kline. Congratulations. Commander Sutter will be your second-in-command and you
can choose your Ops officer, I would recommend Gregory Eskina, your
crypto-specialist. »
«
Aye, sir. »
« Good luck,
commander. » the rear-admiral said before signing off.
Kline walked onto the
bridge and told the crew : « Uh....I'm the captain
now. Commander Sutter, you'll be first officer, and mister Eskina will be our
Ops officer. »
Eskina and Sutter
exchanged glances, then she let him take her place and
took her own on the first officer's seat.
« Okay. Set a course
for the Bryson nebula. And no one will stop us now. » he ordered.
« Aye. » said Burnel.
Somewhere else in the
ship…
Great...the
officer thought Now that he's been captured I need to do everything by myself...
