CHAPTER 3
Hoshi was beginning to think this time they would succeed. They'd caught up to the freighter, which was limited to warp 2, and had quickly boarded it.
Unlike last time, however, none of this ship's crew had been killed. A few had been injured -- that was to be expected when anyone went against Klingons. But the freighter's captain had quickly decided there was no way his crew could win this fight and had prudently surrendered.
"The last of them has been put aboard the escape pods," Kleth reported.
"Then let's get rid of them," Hoshi said, moving to the console on the freighter's bridge that would launch the pods.
Garef, who had taken over the helm, stopped her with his excited announcement. "Captain! There is a ship approaching at high warp!"
"What kind of ship?" Hoshi asked harshly as she rushed to look over his shoulder at the readout.
"An Earth ship," Galef said, sneering.
Kleth joined them. Peering at the readout, he sucked in his breath. "It is a Starfleet vessel," he said.
The rage that burned constantly as a low flame within her surged. "Damn it! Not now!"
She couldn't take on Starfleet. That wasn't part of her agenda. The last thing she needed was Starfleet hounding her, making her task more difficult.
"We're going to have to abandon this one, too," she said to Kleth. "There's no way we can take it in tow and get away with it."
She saw the intensity in his dark eyes dampen a bit as he came to the same conclusion. They were no match for a Starfleet vessel, but she knew he would have enjoyed such a fight.
"Return to the Falcon!" Kleth ordered at the top of his voice.
So well-trained were the crew that none opposed his order, although they couldn't hide their disgruntled expressions. Those nearest the airlock would reboard the Falcon that way, but the rest would transport back. Hoshi watched as two of the Klingons on the bridge were beamed off before she ran back to the console that controlled the escape pods.
She hurriedly pressed some buttons, releasing the escape pods. "That should keep those 'fleeters busy for a while," she said in grim satisfaction.
Two more Klingons were beamed away, and Kleth grinned at her from across the bridge. He and Hoshi were always the last to leave any ship they had boarded. It was a point of pride for Hoshi, as captain, to be the last to return, making sure her crew got back safely to the Falcon.
"What's taking so long?" Hoshi asked Kleth after a few moments passed and she didn't feel the familiar tingle of the transporter. Time was running out for them to escape.
Kleth opened his communication module. "Report! Why haven't we been beamed back!"
"The transporter circuit has overloaded," came the reply. "Resetting now, but it has to recharge."
"Damn it all to hell!" Hoshi screamed, feeling her aspirations slip away.
Kleth came to stand by her so it would be easier for the transporter operator to lock onto them. Giving her a fierce smile, he pulled the disruptor from the holster at his waist.
"We will be ready for them, little one," he said with a growl as he put his back to hers.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Mayweather asked as he, Reed, T'Pol and two security officers stepped onto Enterprise's transporter platform.
"It's been done before," Reed replied.
"With Humans?"
"Yes, with Humans," T'Pol interjected, then added almost as an after-thought, "and other life forms."
Reed shot the Vulcan a smirk, amused by her dry wit. If he had to go into a confrontation with pirates, his first choice of allies would be cool, logical, strong Vulcans who knew how to fight.
"We're beaming directly onto the bridge," T'Pol continued. "Do not expect it to be unoccupied."
All five held their phase pistols ready.
Running her gaze around the perimeter of the bridge, Hoshi saw the sparkling effects of a transporter as five people materialized. They were smart, she'd give them that -- they weren't materializing clustered in a group, but at various spots around the bridge.
She could take out one, possibly two, before she would draw return fire. The fact that she would be shooting to injure, not kill, would slow her down.
She drew a deep breath, and behind her heard Kleth do the same. As one, they dropped into crouches, careful not to fire until the materialization process was complete. To do so any sooner could kill the person, as the disruptor beam would spear through their insides.
Kleth got off the first shot, causing the pistol to fly out of the hand of one of the Starfleet men. Hoshi's shot a second later clipped a Vulcan female's arm, causing her to stumble backward.
She heard Kleth fire again, followed quickly by the distinctive sound of Starfleet-issue pistols being fired, but her attention had shifted to a dark-haired man standing near the navigation console. She hesitated a second as she took in his appearance, riveted by his clear grey-blue eyes.
Her delay was her downfall and, as he locked eyes with her, he fired, his shot striking her in the chest.
Sliding into oblivion, she thought it odd that being shot by a phase pistol felt remarkably like the tingle of the transporter.
"They got away," Archer said as Reed stepped off the transporter platform.
Reed allowed the irritation he felt to be heard in his voice. "Why didn't you fire on them?"
"We couldn't. There were too many escape pods in the way," the captain replied. "Where are the others?"
"Mayweather's manning the helm until the freighter's crew is back on board," he said, his British accent crisp as he bit out the words, frustrated by their failure to stop the pirates. "T'Pol's checking to make sure the Klingons didn't leave any booby traps."
"Klingons?" Archer echoed. "That was an old Klingon warbird, but pirates don't always use ships from their own planets."
Reed grunted in agreement before saying, "The freighter captain said all of the pirates were Klingons, except for one." He paused, remembering the brown eyes that had stared into his across the freighter's bridge. "There was a Human woman with them."
"A Human woman?"
"Do you need your hearing checked, Captain?" Reed asked sarcastically as he made his way out of the transporter alcove, followed by Archer. "You seem to be repeating parts of everything I'm saying."
"Commander Reed!"
Archer's bellow didn't stop Reed, but he did slow down enough that he could look back over his shoulder as he walked. "Yes, Captain?"
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To the bridge," he said. "If we hurry, we may be able to pick up their warp trail."
The two men made the rest of the trip to the bridge in silence. Archer's fuming didn't bother Reed in the slightest. He'd dealt with men like him before, and Archer would get over his snit soon enough.
Instead, his mind kept going back to those few moments on the freighter's bridge before the pirates had beamed away. The Human woman had been dressed in Klingon battle garb, albeit a down-sized version of it. She was a petite woman, attractive, black hair cascading over her shoulders to rest on the golden epaulets adorning the shoulders of her uniform. A gold sash had been draped around her hips. He found the whole idea of a Human woman in the voluptuous leather outfit worn by Klingon warrior females provocative.
She had gazed at him down the barrel of a disruptor, clearly intent on shooting him. What had made her hesitate?
More importantly, what was she doing with a band of rogue Klingons?
Reed went to an unoccupied station in the situation room, allowing Archer to issue the commands to start the scanning for the warp trail. As he pondered where to start his research, Reed was struck by the fact that Klingons usually didn't allow their victims to get away, so the escape pod diversion had to have been her idea, and to know how to do that, she had to be familiar with spaceships.
Accessing the Starfleet data banks at the console, he entered a series of commands for employment listings of Human women occupied in the interstellar shipping trade. Entering a description of the woman's appearance narrowed the results to several dozen. One by one, he called up pictures of the women on the console, deleting those that didn't match.
He'd gone through about thirty of the entries when he stopped. The face of the woman from the freighter stared out at him from the screen. It had to be her -- the same raven hair, the same intense eyes.
Reed was gazing thoughtfully at the screen when Archer walked over. "Is that her?" he asked.
Reed mentally gave the captain points for realizing what he was doing. "Yes, that's her. Hoshi Sato. Co-owner of H-S Shipping."
"What's she doing out here with a bunch of Klingons?" Archer asked, voicing the same question that Reed was pondering.
"We'll have to do a bit more research to find that out," Reed answered, punching more commands into the console. "I doubt, however, that our data banks will be able to tell us why she was wearing the rank insignia of a Klingon captain."