Alex noticed a contact on her sensor boards, which caught her attention. It was as Kana had promised: a large space station, easily capable of holding a thousand or more persons in comfort. It was also right along the line of the warp trail they had been following. Whoever had flown from the Daedalus yard, this was where they had ended up. She was inclined to agree with her companion, and believe that it was the Daedalus crew who had been flown here. Maybe that was wishful thinking.
She took the ship out of warp, and brought up the enhanced visual sensor image on the monitors. Major Tyler joined her in studying the twig-like space station. It was an ugly, impractical form, and it seemed very dark to Alex's eyes. It took her a moment to realise this was because there were no windows. The only reason they could see the station at all was because of the lanterns strung around its exterior, presumably to help visually guide in docking ships.
Tyler dropped into the sensor position, took a moment to familiarise himself with the layout of the instruments, and ran a discrete scan; low power, to minimise the chance of it being detected. "Structural materials match the fighters that engaged us before. It's not a shipyard. I'm detecting minimal weaponry; just a handful of outdated plasma turrets. One moment…there are fighters on patrol. Not a large squadron and their patrol route isn't very efficient. They're not expecting any trouble."
Alex brought the ship to relative stop. She leant over Tyler's shoulder and read his screens, almost surprised to see that he had interpreted the data correctly. "Life signs?"
"Checking now," new numbers scrolled across the monitor. "This is interesting. Bio-scanner detects approximately a hundred humans over there, eighty Tellarites, forty Andorians…a handful of other Federation species."
"Daedalus' crew."
He nodded. "It looks like it."
Alex slid back into the helm seat. "All those 'you're wasting time following that warp trail' comments, Major? You can apologise any time now."
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"Nain to Endeavour."
"Endeavour; Brok here," the Bolian tactical officer replied, moving into the centre seat so that he could converse comfortably with the helmsman, whose image filled the main screen. Her red eyes tracked his movements, displaying the blend of amusement and contempt she always wore when talking to him. They were best of enemies, a relationship that suited them both down to the ground.
"You're in command, Blue? I didn't realise things were so desperate over there."
"Captain and first officer are supervising repairs, and our airhead second officer's entertaining some marines."
"She's not having as much fun as it sounds. But still, you've got the big seat? What, Pini wasn't available?"
"Charming," he replied. "What do you want, Nain?"
"We've located the Daedalus crew. Coordinates enclosed."
Brok looked over at Cartwright, who nodded when the numbers appeared on his board. "We've got them. You're going to suggest an extraction operation, aren't you?"
"This place is minimally defended, Blue. A handful of fighters and some plasma turrets. We can hit it, get our people out, and be gone before reinforcements can get here."
"It would take hours to shuttle two hundred-fifty personnel to the fleet."
"Use the transporters." She saw Brok's face and continued before he could speak. "I know. I don't like it either. But you're right; we have to get them to our ships fast. All ships using their transporters, we can have them all aboard in minutes."
Brok realised that she was making a sensible suggestion, but like most Starfleet officers, like most people, he wasn't in love with the transporter. Getting torn apart at the molecular level and rebuilt somewhere else…it wasn't something he ever wanted to experience. He doubted many of the Daedalus personnel were in a rush to go through it, either.
"I'll pass it along to the captain. Be advised, Alex, that we're still not ready for action. Chief Fran's revised his repair estimates upwards."
"Engineers," grinned Alex. "Always takes twice as long and costs twice as much as their first estimate. All right, we'll take a look for ourselves."
She had found the Daedalus crew, and now the starship captains could formulate a rescue plan. Anyone else in Starfleet would have left it at that. He knew his shipmate, though, and knew that she wouldn't.
"Alex…"
Why was he bothering to argue? She wouldn't listen. He knew that as surely as he knew his skin was blue.
"This place suffers from the usual prison issues: prisoners outnumber guards a dozen to one. All we've got to do is get aboard, open some doors, and the place is ours."
"If they send a distress call…"
"They'll find it won't get anywhere." A cruel grin plucked at her lips. "My ship was designed for pirate operations, Blue. No one sends any messages I don't want them to."
He wondered how often she had used the illegal features installed on her ship, how often she had played the part of the smuggler or the pirate. He didn't really want to know.
"You know what the captain will say."
Alex Nain grinned very broadly. "Yeah. And he knows I'll ignore him and do my own thing anyway. Look, I've already talked it through with Tyler, and he agrees with me. We slip aboard, neutralise their defenders and release the prisoners. You guys get here as soon as you can. Then, as a fleet, we can retake the Daedalus."
Brok thought the plan sounded far too risky to be sane. It was much more likely that Nain and the marines would be captured or killed than achieve their objective. He told her so.
"Maybe. So you'd better hurry up and get here, hadn't you? Nain out."
The tactical officer instructed Sturnn to re-establish contact, but he was unable to. Alex's ship could block incoming signals as well as outgoing ones.
Anticipating the captain's feelings at this turn of events, he pressed the ship-wide intercom on the armrest and called, "Bridge to Captain Drake."
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"As I promised, the Starfleeters have led us to our men." Ragh said, smugly.
The main view screen showed a tactical display of the prison station, a clutch of orange dots representing the Klingon life forms held aboard. They had followed the Starfleet stealth craft to this location, or rather; they had followed the warp trail the Starfleet ship had flown along. Their sensors had been unable to detect the craft since it had activated its shields; they had only known it had launched at all because the ship had briefly registered when Endeavour had launched it, before the scrambling-shield went up. Ragh had reasoned (that was, he had guessed) what course the craft would follow.
"We should attack," Kem'Tok declared.
"Unsound."
The captain turned on him. "Explain yourself, Tactician."
"We would reveal ourselves to the Starfleeters before we are ready."
"Pah! We can smash their puny little ship."
"Yes," he spoke as he would to a particularly dim child. "But can we stand against their fleet? No."
Kem'Tok growled. "I will not hide from my enemies."
"I am not suggesting that we do. But we would be foolish to fight two enemies at once. These…p'tahk that captured our ships, they are our most dangerous foe here."
"You are suggesting…alliance?" Kem'Tok spat out the word. "Alliance with the Federation?"
Ragh and the rest of the crew were as appalled by the idea as Captain Kem'Tok himself.
"No! Merely, we let them do our work for us. They will attack the installation, free their people." He pressed a button and green Federation life signs appeared on the screen. "Let them weaken themselves taking the station. Then we will take it from them."
Kem'Tok at last understood. He liked it. Battle against the Federation ships, and the station. Even with the Starfleeters weakened from capturing the station, victory would bring glory and promotion his way.
"Very well." He sank comfortably into his chair. "We shall wait, and prepare. Hail our reinforcements. Order them to join us immediately."
It was the first intelligent order Ragh could remember Kem'Tok giving, and he obeyed it with uncharacteristic readiness.