Текст книги "The Best and the Brightest"

Автор книги: Susan Wright

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

“I don’t know, honey, it sounds risky,” her mother finally counseled. “You’re so close to graduating.”

“You’re right,” Jayme agreed. “But nothing else in my life has been risky, so I think I can handle this.”

When Jayme got back to her quarters a few evenings later, with only one week left in her tour of duty on Jupiter Station, there was a message waiting from Moll Enor. Her dark, serious face was so beautiful that Jayme reached out and touched the screen.

“I’m sure you’ll accomplish whatever you set out to do,” Moll said simply. Then she smiled, and for a moment, it was like they were talking in real‑time, Jayme felt so close to Moll. Then the blue Starfleet symbol filled the screen and the transmission was over.

The other message was from her older sister, Raylin, stationed on Deep Space Station 2 in the Allora Prime system. Raylin had already made Lieutenant, and was third in command of engineering on DS2. Jayme remembered how their mother had cried when she found out.

“Jayme!” Raylin exclaimed, her expression horrified. “You don’t even like to get a hypospray! Remember how you screamed when I sliced open my thumb with the laser cutter–”

“Don’t listen to her, Jayme!” her sister’s husband cried out, as Raylin tried to shove him out of the viewscreen. “We needa Miranda in blue!”

Raylin pushed him from the view, holding him off as she tried to talk over his babble, trying to put some sense into her little sister.

Jayme started smiling, then giggling, holding her stomach she was laughing so hard. Her brother‑in‑law was right–it was about time a Miranda represented Starfleet in the blue uniform.

Chapter Eight

NEV REOH SAT GLUMLY waiting in yet another dark and dingy bar on Station 14, in orbit around Beltos IV. This bar was just like the one last week on Station 26, and the one the week before on Station 7–a warren of narrow ledges and tables bolted to the walls around a space of zero‑g in the center.

The weightless center was where the Orion animal‑women danced. The thrumming beat of the music vibrated from the beam supports of the bar, and tiny laser lights called the exotic green women to shadowed ledges.

What made it worse was that Reoh knew someone like Titus or Jayme or Bobbie Ray Jefferson would revel in this exciting environment, while he kept trying to loosen the collar of his new Starfleet uniform, still uncomfortable after a month on active duty as a grade‑three ore examiner for the Beltos IV mining colony.

Every shipment of dicosilium (and the rarer dilithium) that was sold to the Federation had to be checked for purity and radiation‑contaminant levels. The Beltos IV mining settlement was near the Rigel system, in the most densely populated area of the Milky Way Galaxy, yet it was under rule of the Pa’a. The Pa’a had thus far refused to become a member of the Federation.

Hence the need for a rotating crew of ensigns with geophysics qualifications. Reoh had dragged his spectro‑analyzer through more broken‑down freighters and storage compartments than he could count while making his way among the orbiting string of transfer stations around Beltos IV.

Every one of the stations had at least a dozen dancing bars like the one he was in. It made Reoh uncomfortable to know that the Federation couldn’t do a thing about the exploitation of the Orion animal‑women, except to ensure that no slaves were exported out of the solar system. Here and there, Reoh could see the Starfleet uniforms of the officers who ran the border patrols, ensuring that this pocket of Pa’a corruption was contained. Yet even the Starfleet personnel were drawn to see the Orions–who could resist their magnetic pull?

A green hand clasped the pole near his feet, then another appeared, as the sweetheart‑face of an Orion animal‑woman emerged from the darkness, pulling herself up to his perch. Her lips parted as she glided through the air, undulating as she came closer. Her dark green eyes were filled with promise as her tongue slipped between her teeth.

Horrified, Reoh forced himself to look away. He wouldn’t contribute to the degradation of these poor slaves.

“You want me,” she whispered, her hand clasping his perch.

“Uh, no, thank you, Ma’am.” Reoh uneasily smiled to let her know it was nothing personal. “I don’t think so.”

“You are unhappy . . .” she murmured.

“No, really, I’m fine, thank you. I’m waiting for my next appointment to arrive.”

“I think you wait for me. . . .”

Reoh tried to look at her, but she was drawing herself up behind him. “No,” he told her uneasily, “it’s a Pa’a captain.”

Her hands slipped over his shoulders, her kneading fingers sending shivers down his spine. Her rumbling purr moved near his ear, then an icy‑hot trail flashed up his skin as she licked his neck.

Reoh tried to untangle her green arms from around him. How had she managed to do that so fast?

“I think you have the wrong customer,” he told her. He could barely make out the other animal‑women– sometimes two or three women–twining themselves around the men resting on the nearby ledges.

“Please . . .” He had to lean closer to hear her breathy little voice, which hardly penetrated the thrumming music. “I will be in trouble if you send me away.”

Reoh stopped trying to hold her off, looking her right in the face. “Are you serious? You mean you’re punished if a customer doesn’t pay for a dance?”

She nodded, busy nestling closer.

“All right, give me your finger,” he agreed, holding the tab so she could press her delicate hand against it. He felt bad. He had been sending women away all day, waiting for Captain Jord to let him inspect her cargo of dicosilium. From what he’d learned in the past few weeks, allbusiness was done in the dancing bars. “Are the other girls punished for not getting dances?”

“I know only my master,” she murmured, seemingly content with curling up next to him on the ledge. But he kept having to capture her wandering fingers, lulled by her gentle stroking of his hand or his chest.

“What’s your name?” he asked, pulling back to see the bronze green sheen of her cheeks, the startling whites of her eyes.

“Meesa,” she breathed.

“Meesa,” he repeated, helplessly trapped by the warm scent of her, the feel of her in his arms.

Reoh shook his head, and pushed her away slightly, trying to get hold of himself. He felt like he had been fighting off Orion animal‑women ever since he got to the Beltos system, but this one was more persistent than most. He had been rejecting her advances for nearly an hour before finally giving in. It usually wasn’t difficult to hold himself back. Except for momentary lapses of pheromone‑induced lust, he mostly felt pity for them, trapped in these hellholes.

“Here,” he said, taking her hand and pressing her fingertip to his charge card once more. “There’s another dance. Now, I have to be going. No, thank you very much,” he assured her, scraping her off as he pushed into the glide lane that carried him through the bar.

He glanced back as he was leaving, but he couldn’t see Meesa anymore. He wondered if he had misread Captain Jord’s message and gotten the wrong bar. That wouldn’t be unlikely in these warrens the Pa’a called space stations.

Reoh consulted his tricorder and hitched the spectro‑analyzer more securely on his shoulder. The jostling crowds were mostly natives from Beltos IV, trading their precious minerals or trying to obtain permits from the ruling Pa’a to travel to other planets in the system, or even enter Federation space. Only two gates on each station led to the docking rings–a passenger gate and a cargo gate. Both were close‑encrypted by Starfleet personnel, running the front lines of border control. Despite the safeguards, smuggling was a big business among the various arms of the Pa’a.

At the very least, Captain Jord wasn’t going anywhere until Reoh validated her encryption pass for the cargo. He also had to give her the coordinates where her vessel could penetrate the automated sensor‑scan buoys at the edge of the system.

Reoh pressed his thumb to the sensor padd of the passenger gate, uneasily aware of the many envious eyes of loiterers on the levels above and below him, watching the traffic through the immense portal. As he phased through, a silver‑tinted Pa’a bustled up and pressed his encryption pass against the sensor padd. The high‑ranking Pa’a pushed past Reoh, heading to the upper docking ring where the better vessels were in port.

Reoh’s ancient shuttle was parked among an assortment of Starfleet ships. Because the stations weren’t under Federation rule, Starfleet officers were required to stay on their ships rather than transient quarters. Reoh preferred that anyway. He felt comfortable in his shuttle, the Dilithium Node, which had been in service in the Beltos system longer than he had been alive. A modern replicator was jammed awkwardly into one corner and the bunk was barely wide enough for him to lie down, but it was home.

There was a voice‑only message from Captain Jord, informing him that she would be delayed and would be unable to meet him until the next day–at the same dancing bar. Reoh methodically checked to make sure he had found the right one.

He really didn’t mind the delay. He had one other inspection to perform in the next couple of days, then his rotation was up and he could return to Starbase 3 for R&R before his next month of duty. He was looking forward to seeing the starbase again. It was one of the biggest in the Federation, servicing a wide variety of systems and species. He had only spent three days on board before shipping out for Beltos IV.

Reoh shook his head at the thought of this assignment. Who would have thought geophysics would be so exotic? He loved rocks, and that was really the only reason he had chosen geophysics. Rocks were safe and enduring. After his spectacular lack of faith in himself as a Vedek and in the Bajoran religion, he had desperately needed to belong to something that was as close to permanent as he could find–the planets themselves.

The Academy was also an enduring place. Stricken with sudden longing, Reoh checked the chronometer for the time at the Academy. It was late, but Jayme usually stayed up until all hours. He sent the signal.

“Hello?” Jayme finally answered, blinking sleepily.

“Did I wake you?” Reoh asked.

“Who is that? Nev Reoh?” Jayme said blearily. “Gad, almost didn’t recognize you in that uniform.”

Proudly, Reoh straightened his blue‑shouldered jacket. “I’m a level three geo‑inspector in the Beltos system.”

“Glory be,” Jayme yawned. “Orion animal‑women! Having fun yet?”

“Uh, not really,” he admitted. “It’s mostly dust and rocks, you know.”

“I can understand you’re distracted, what with everything that’s happening,” Jayme agreed.

Reoh felt like he’d missed part of their conversation. “What do you mean?”

“In the Bajoran system. They’re battening down the hatches.”

“Cardassians?!” Reoh asked, his voice rising in a frightened squawk.

“No, the Dominion.” Jayme finally seemed to wake up. “Where have you been the past few weeks?”

“In the Beltos system–”

“Yeah, I guess the rumors wouldn’t have reached you yet. Everyone here at the Academy knows, of course.”

“What’s wrong with Bajor?” Reoh demanded.

“We found out the Dominion are shape‑shifters. They’re the ones who control the Jem’Hadar, and they’re practically invading through the wormhole.”

“Invading!”

“Well, not yet. But everyone expects them to.” Jayme shifted through some clips on her desk. “I’ll send you some of the reports. I’m surprised they haven’t called you to DS9. There are so few Bajorans in Starfleet.”

“There’s not much for a geophysicist to do on a space station by a wormhole,” Reoh said numbly, thinking over the implications of Bajor being smack on the front lines of an invasion. His people never seemed to get a break.

Jayme yawned. “You could be some sort of liaison.”

“I’m no Sito Jaxa.” The thought of his Bajoran friend, a former member of Nova Squadron, still brought him near to tears. Jaxa was believed to have given her life last month by returning to Cardassia as a prisoner of war in order to protect a Federation informant. “I could never be a hero.”

“That’s nonsense. Heroes are just people who do what needs to be done.”

Reoh wasn’t sure why Jayme was smiling, but he couldn’t ask because she said she had an exobiology exam the next day. Before signing off, she sent a burst transmission of the Academy news service clippings on the recent developments.

Reoh stayed up half the night listening to the reports. He also accessed the Bajoran news on the Federation subspace channel. It didn’t look good.

He kept remembering his six months leave in the Bajoran system right after he graduated. He had never been to the homeworld before, so he had taken a complete tour of the colonies and most of the major continents of Bajor, visiting all the great historic sites he had studied during his life.

But it hadn’t felt like home. He had talked to other Bajorans who claimed to have had an immediate sense of completeness at being on Bajoran soil and among their own people. A homecoming, they all told him. Maybe it was his disenfranchisement from so much of the Bajoran spiritual life, feeling like he had no right to the comfort of his religion when he had failed his people.

It was worse when he ran into someone he knew from the resettlement colony on Shunt. Ran Sisla was married now and working in one of the fishing villages of Karor. She had been uncomfortable with him, remembering him in his former Vedek’s robes when he had acted as the spiritual leader of their tiny community in the north country of Shunt.

Reoh never did get to sleep that night, thinking over his mistakes and wishing he had done things differently. If he had never fooled himself into believing he was called as a Vedek, his life might have gone very differently. He wouldn’t have felt such a need to leave Shunt. He could have been on Bajor right now, helping his people.

Then again, nothing was what it appeared to be. In the last weeks of his vacation on Bajor, Vedek Winn had accused Vedek Bareil of being a Cardassian collaborator during the Resistance. Bareil had withdrawn from the election, and Winn was now Kai.

Reoh had written his astonishment to Ro Laran– whom he wouldn’t exactly consider a friend, but she was a fellow Bajoran in Starfleet. But his communique had been returned undelivered. Soon after, he received a Starfleet notification that Ro had gone AWOL and was believed to be cooperating with the Maquis, who had recently taken a more militant stand in the Demilitarized Zone. The communique added that any information as to Ro Laran’s whereabouts should be forwarded immediately to Starfleet Headquarters, etc. etc.

Meanwhile, he was alone in a very strange solar system, crawling through endless storage containers and checking ore for crystalline impurities.

Nev Reoh tried to wait outside the dancing bar for Captain Jord, but the enforcers insisted he move along or pay the door fee to get in. Once inside, he was able to secure a ledge near the lit entrance. Almost immediately, he had to fend off the advances of Orion animal‑women.

Then he saw Meesa slightly above him. A brutish Rigellian miner was trying to attract her attention with a purple laser light, signaling her to come to him. Reoh quickly motioned for Meesa to join him.

She was at his side in a flash, her expression so grateful and pleased that he suddenly realized how young she was–like a first‑year cadet. She snuggled next to him, fitting into the crook of his arm, holding up her finger to be validated on his charge card.

Reoh nervously hoped that he could push the woman away without too much fuss when Captain Jord arrived. It wasn’t the most professional situation she could find him in, but what did she expect, asking him to meet her in a place like this?

“How long have you been dancing here, Meesa?” He was grateful that this time she seemed content to cuddle rather than try to seduce him.

She squirmed up to bring her lips closer to his ear. “This many days,” she whispered, holding out all of her fingers but one.

“That’s all?” he asked, his voice cracking at her sudden closeness.

She nodded, leaning her head back against his shoulder. It was so intimate, yet they were sitting in a crowded room with a couple hundred strangers barely visible through the shifting lights of the bar. In the center, a long‑limbed Orion was contorting into unbelievable positions as she spun and rolled in midair.

He cleared his throat. “You come from Beltos IV?”

Meesa nodded, her tiny chin quivering and her eyes filling with tears at the memory.

“I’m sorry!” Reoh exclaimed, fumbling for something to wipe her eyes. “You didn’t want to leave?” he asked helplessly.

“I have nothing,” she murmured, looking down at her hands.

“That’s awful,” he said for lack of anything better.

He sat with her for the better part of an hour, hardly speaking. She actually dozed off. He was consumed with pity for the poor woman who was obviously worked round the clock, one of thousands who were burned out in the slave trade.

When it was finally clear that Captain Jord wasn’t going to appear, again, Reoh pressed Meesa’s finger to his card a few more times, telling her, “You can get some sleep now.”

Her eyes lingered on him a moment, struck by his girl of time. That made him feel even worse, that she would be so surprised and touched by such a simple thing. He watched to make sure she got through the crowd without being snared by a reveling Pa’a crew‑member or vacationing Beltos miner. She disappeared through one of the little slave‑holes, leading to the prophets knew where in the bowels of the place.

Shuddering in sympathy, Reoh left the dancing bar.

“Conditions are intolerable!” he pleaded with Commander Keethzarn, the security supervisor of Starbase 3. “You should see what they make these women do!”

Commander Keethzarn was half‑Human and half‑Vulcan, but at first Reoh had thought he was a Romulan, since he had never seen a pointy‑eared humanoid smile. But even with only a few days on Starbase 3, he had heard of Keethzarn’s very humanlike exploits of fun that were practically legendary. Some of the other security officers said he was aiming to be known as the “happiest Vulcan in the galaxy,” and everyone pretty much figured he had the title won, hands down.

“Slow down, Ensign,” Keethzarn told him. “I’ve seen the dancing bars. And I hate to tell you, kid, but I’ve seen far worse than that. We’re always working on ways to stop the slave trade on Beltos. Soon as we plug up one hole, four other leaks show up.”

“Can’t the Federation at least make them close the dancing bars on the stations? There’s . . . there are Starfleet officers in there.”

“The station’s regulations are an internal matter, kid.”

As one of the oldest cadets at the Academy, Reoh wasn’t used to being called “kid.” But he figured the commander called all ensigns that.

Keethzarn gave him a sympathetic grin. “Don’t let it get to you. We’ve been working on that cesspool for a century, and already the slave quarter has shrunk to half its size. It’s only a matter of time before the Pa’a are squeezed out.”

“Time?” Reoh asked, feeling the furrows being permanently etched into his forehead. “Meesa doesn’t have time. She’s stuck in there now. All of them are.”

Keethzarn glanced sideways, motioning for someone to wait. “I tell you what, Ensign. You make a report of the situation there on Station 14 and drop it by my office when you get back to Starbase 3.” The Commander grinned, looking like a plump‑checked elf. “Leave the problem to the higher‑ups who know how to deal with it, kid. Or you’ll wake up one day old before your time.”

Reoh returned to the dancing bar that night with a tricorder covertly tucked in his jacket. He was going to submit the most thorough report Commander Keethzarn had ever seen.

He quickly found Meesa again, as if she had been waiting for him to come. She showed him to an upper ledge where the music didn’t penetrate his bones so deeply, where he could talk to her if he wanted.

There wasn’t much to find out about Meesa’s scant two decades of life. She had been raised in a creche, working her natural trade since she could remember, dancing even as a tiny girl with a host of other Orion animal‑girls, trained in the most seductive maneuvers. She had succeeded in a manner of speaking, and was purchased by “master” after “master,” and was finally brought to Station 14 to dance.

It almost broke his heart to hear her simple voice. “Maybe,” she whispered, rising up to breathe right into his ear. “Maybe you can be my master now.”

He swallowed, patting her arm without saying a word.

Reoh performed his other scheduled investigation for a Pa’a transport the next day. He had also left several messages for Captain Jord, but he hadn’t heard from her. So he was on his way into the dancing bar again, tricorder cleverly concealed on his person, when a rough voice accosted him from down the corridor, “Ensign Nev!”

A Pa’a woman in her middle years stood there, with hair shorn so short there was only a faint silver fuzz across her skull. “Is that you?”

“Captain Jord?” he asked, stopping uncertainly at the doorway.

“I’m in a hurry,” she said, turning on her heel. “Let’s get on with the inspection.”

Reoh looked longingly back at the dancing bar, wishing he could have at least said hello to Meesa. He kept worrying about her.

Captain Jord led the way through the freight gate to one of the upper levels. The Belle Starwas a transport ship, but Jord was obviously one of the midlevel Pa’a, trusted with the delicate cargo and the enticing run to Federation planets. Pa’a had been known to jump their route before, with the captain and two‑man crew turning pirate for a chance of freedom.

Reoh accepted the manifest from Captain Jord, who curtly gestured belowdecks saying, “Come to ops when you’re done.”

“Here’s your encryption pass, Captain Jord.” Reoh handed over the approved departure notice.

Jord examined it carefully. “I hope you haven’t made me late with this shipment, Ensign Nev. Where were you yesterday?”

Reoh shook his head. “I was waiting at the bar.”

“Well, you must have been having a good time because I didn’t see you.”

Wondering if he should be insulted, Reoh straightened his shoulders. “I was waiting for you at the time you requested.”

“Sure, I get it.” Jord’s smile twisted in a knowing grin. “I have a few slaves in that bar myself.”

He looked at her with distaste. “Does Meesa belong to you?”

“I don’t know their names.” Jord shrugged, checking off the approval marks for each storage bin on her tricorder to confirm the manifest was complete. “I only cash out their dance totals.”

Reoh felt like he was choking in the foul air as he clutched his spectro‑analyzer to his chest. “You’re horrible people, you Pa’a! Enslaving those poor Orion women, using them to make money for yourselves.”

“Since whendoes the Federation care, as long as they get their dicosilium?” Jord drawled.

“There are more important things than rocks!” Reoh cried out irrationally.

“Calm down, Starfleet.” Captain Jord seemed amused. “We’re all slaves in one way or another. The Pa’a expect me to work harder than I can, and I expect my girls to work hard. There’s no room for deadwood in Beltos.”

“That’s so . . . so . . .” he said inarticulately.

“So practical?” Jord asked. “Listen, the only people I ever hear talking about freedom are in Starfleet, and you don’t look all that free to me, or what are you doing here? Everyone I know is trying to get out of here before the whole thing blows up in our faces. Why are you snooping through other people’s ships when you could be anywhere in the galaxy?”

“This is my duty–”

“Good, you do your duty.” Captain Jord put her print on one of the encryption passes and handed it back to him to file with the border patrol. “My duty is to stomp on anyone who gets in my way. I don’t care if they’re a slave or a Starfleet ensign.”

He backed up, actually frightened by the malevolence in her flat, silver eyes.

“Now get off my ship,” she ordered.

Reoh stumbled as he turned and tried not to walk too fast as he left the room. But his spine crawled with the thought of her looking at his defenseless back. He really thought she could do anything, even shoot him, because he had irritated her.

He went straight to the dancing bar and tracked down Meesa. He had to wait while one obsessed supernumerary insisted she dance number after number for him.

Finally Reoh got Meesa to himself, up on their private ledge out of the main pathways of activity. She was so pleased to see him, like a kitten starving for simple affection.

Reoh stayed for quite a while, and before he left he gave her a tiny spindle communicator. “That’s in case you need to get hold of me. I’ll be in range whenever I’m in this system.”

She looked down at the spindle, then up at him. “You leave here?”

“Tomorrow.”

Her lips pursed together. “When will you come back?”

Slowly he shook his head. “I don’t know. Sometime next month, I’m sure.”

Her indrawn breath revealed her horror. Reoh felt like he was deserting her. He had started out only trying to help her, but now it felt like he had incurred some sort of obligation.

He showed her how to operate the spindle communicator, and repeated that she was to call him if she was ever in danger. If he wasn’t in range, a message would be sent, and he promised to locate her though the transponder in the spindle.

She didn’t seem reassured. She followed him all the way to the door of the bar, her eyes pleading with him to stay. But he had no choice but to leave.

Nev Reoh wrote a ten‑page report to Commander Keethzarn, ending with another four pages pleading to be allowed to bring Meesa with him to Starbase 3. Reoh worked for hours on the communique, and was fairly pleased with his persuasiveness. He was even prepared to delay his departure another day and lose one of his R&R days on Starbase 3, in order to give the commander time to reply to his request.

Getting ready for bed, the communicator beeped at him. He didn’t know what it was at first, then it beeped again. He leaped for his jacket and the companion to Meesa’s communicator.

Opening the spindle, he said carefully, “Hello?”

In the silence, he wondered if Meesa’s “master” had taken the communicator from her, or if she had lost it somehow. Then her tinny voice came through, “Help me.”

“Meesa, is that you?” he asked, straining to hear.

“I’m Meesa,” she agreed.

“Are you in the bar?” There was such a long silence that Reoh thought she was gone. “Meesa, where are you? Answer me!”

“Master took me from the bar,” she said.

“Where are you now?” Reoh asked, frantic.

“Hmm . . . inside a box.”

Reoh realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere like this. Meesa was probably fairly street‑smart on her own turf, but Orion animal‑women were taught to communicate in other ways than with words.

“You hang on to that communicator,” he told her. “I’ll track you down.”

Reoh left through the passenger gate and made his way down to the lower levels, following the transponder signal of Meesa’s spindle. These levels housed warehouses and holding cells for import/export merchandise for the planet Beltos. He kept his eyes on his tricorder for lifesigns, aware that he could be walking into a trap. But all he found was room after room filled with stacks of every size of storage container imaginable.

He began to methodically shift through the maze and finally tracked the transponder to a large square container almost as tall as he was. Meesa had said she was in a “box.” The transponder pointed at the container even when he climbed over some barrels to circle it.

Rapping on the side, he listened for a response. It felt more solid than it looked. The tricorder indicated it was hermetically self‑contained, yet distorted Orion humanoid readings leaked through. Something in the sealant was interfering, but he could tell there was at least one Orion inside, maybe even two.

“Meesa,” he said into the communicator.

“Yes?”

“What is your master doing with you?”

“We are going away.”

Reoh gripped the communicator harder. That’s what he had figured. Meesa’s master was planning to smuggle her off‑world. They must have figured a way to get the container through the cargo gate without tripping the border sensors. Perhaps this was one of the “leaks” Keethzarn had spoken of.

Reoh was tempted to simply walk away and let the container go through as planned. Meanwhile he could get the transponder to Commander Keethzarn so he could track Meesa and destroy the smuggling chain.

Yet he knew he couldn’t do that. It would take almost an entire day to get to Starbase 3 and back, and Meesa could have been shipped out and sent into warp for parts unknown long before they returned. He could ask Keethzarn to send border security to the station, but that would take a few hours. The container could be gone by the time he got back, and the thought of Meesa trapped in the hold of a freighter was enough to make him act immediately.

“Hang on,” he said through the spindle. “I’m going to take you to my ship.”

An antigrav pallet was nearby, and it only took a few minutes to load the container. Even for a station that never sleeps, there was a lull in the activity in the middle of the third shift. Reoh got the container all the way to the cargo gate without attracting too much attention.

When one Pa’a official passed him, eyeing the large container, Reoh lamely offered, “Putting in a new bunk in my shuttle.”

“Double‑wide,” the Pa’a said with a wink, leaving Reoh completely red and embarrassed, knowing there wasa woman stashed inside the container.

Reoh overrode the gate sensors to get the container through without sounding an alert. Since it was a Starfleet gate, it wouldn’t be noticed until the beginning of the next shift, when the border patrols downloaded the logs. Hopefully by then he would be explaining to Commander Keethzarn, and everything would be all right.

He kept thinking to himself– it’s only one small Orion animal‑woman. What’s the harm? Even if he did get a reprimand on his record, or demoted, what was that worth compared to saving another sentient being’s life?