Chapter 2 - The Hidden Places
Jack and Hank walked out of the turbolift on Deck Twenty-two with Melissa Vargas toward the doors to the Captain's Yacht. They arrived at the entrance stopped. Jack turned to Melissa and nearly shuddered when he saw the same look in her eyes he'd seen in Mei-Wan's when her friend Robin Nelson had died. It was a look that said: Please, do something.
"Good luck, sir," Melissa said.
"Thanks," Jack responded.
Neither of them were in the mood to give the other false hopes.
"Be careful, sir," Melissa got out barely above a whisper.
He smiled at her and nodded.
Hank touched the control next to the doors and they opened a moment later. Hank Evans entered the small craft.
Melissa stepped closer to Jack. "I hope..." she started, but couldn't finish.
He put his arms around her and held her tight. "I know, Melissa."
Jack released her and took a step back wishing there was something he could say to her--- to himself--- that would make things any better, but he knew the only thing that would help would be to bring Melissa's best friend, Jack's wife, back alive.
He quickly entered the yacht, leaving Melissa to stand alone in the corridor.
Jack entered the pilot's section of the yacht where Hank was already working to get them going. The Chamberlain's captain stowed his luggage in a compartment and sat in the seat next to Hank.
"You know, this is the 'Captain's Yacht'," Jack said, a bit irritated with his friend.
Hank sat at the pilot's station continuing to work, not even turning to Jack.
"There's one thing you need to understand," Hank began in a stern voice. "Once we take off, I'm the one calling the shots."
"Now just a damn minute..." Jack got out before Hank cut him off.
"No, you wait just a damn minute," Hank said. "You don't have a clue where to go or who to see about your father and Mei. You have zero contacts in the Kel-j'na Region. I on the other hand have thousands, but they won't talk to a Federation starship captain. They will talk to me. So you make up your mind here and now."
Jack took a deep breath; mad as hell at Hank for pulling this.
"You decide how important getting them back is to you," Hank said. "We do this my way or we don't do it at all."
"Go to hell, Evans," Jack spat.
Hank grinned "That's one thing you still have to learn, kid--- giving up control over the things you never had control of in the first place."
"Hank…" Jack grumbled.
"I'm not trying to be an ass," Hank said quietly. "But you have to decide which is more important, your pride, or your wife and father."
"You know the answer," Jack said, his head lowered.
"I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew."
Jack looked up as the yacht's systems came to life.
Hank turned to him. "This won't be easy for you, Jack. You're going to have to make some hard choices before this is over. Harder choices than you could ever imagine. I just want you to understand that whatever I do and whatever I ask you to do that it's to help us save Mei-Wan and Jeremiah."
"I know, Hank. I know," Jack said with a nod. "You call the shots on this one, no matter how much I bitch about it."
"Good," Hank said, touching several controls on the panel before him. "We'll have a little time to talk some things out on the way there."
"On the way where?" Jack asked.
"The Jykasda system."
***
Some seventy-five light years away from the U.S.S. Chamberlain, a Skorr cruiser moved about the outskirts of the Bornoq star system. The large craft's bussard collectors illuminated the thin hydrogen gas present as the ship passed through it.
Aboard the vessel, a young woman sat in the command section of the ship listening to communications supposedly from the system they were just entering to determine what kind of civilization might be present on the fifth planet. Instead Ahwi Dasari adjusted the panel in front of her to listen for other signals.
She stopped as something caught her attention and adjusted the gain on her equipment. An encoded transmission played itself out in the small receiver in her right ear.
After it finished, she made other adjustments.
"This should be easy," she whispered.
The two Skorr officers who were at the helm and navigation stations didn't bother to turn around. They rarely paid her any attention. She liked that, especially now.
The transmission replayed itself in her ear. "To all Federation starships, from Admiral Fergus Simmons, Commander in Chief of the Kel-j'na Region, stationed…"
Ahwi frowned and skipped forward. "I doubt that part is worth listening to," she said. "Can't that old windbag ever shut up?"
The transmission with Simmons' voice started again. "... point one three, near the Haborym system, the starship Balthazar was attacked and destroyed. It is believed that Admiral Jeremiah McCall and Lieutenant Mei-Wan McCall were captured and taken prisoner during this attack..."
Ahwi's brow tightened and her eyes narrowed as she continued to listen.
"...rescue operations are currently being planned. However, little information is known about who is responsible or why they did this. Any ships in the area with pertinent information, please forward it immediately to Starfleet on Kel-j'na. This is Admiral Fergus..."
"Well, you're up late," a deep voice said behind Ahwi.
She turned quickly and touched a control on her panel, stopping the replay of the transmission. She smiled as she saw the source of the voice was Janus Osmand.
"Janus," she said with more volume that she'd wished.
He hesitated a moment as he sipped a steaming liquid from a ceramic cup.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Just listening," she answered, taking a deep breath and forcing a smile to her face.
"Something interesting, I hope," he said, trying to get a better look at her panel and the information displayed on it.
Ahwi touched several controls removing all evidence of the Starfleet transmission. "Not really. Just some Federation chatter."
"Anything important?" he asked.
"Not really," she sighed. "Just some of the usual crap about keeping an eye out for you and some Federation ambassador sending encoded messages back to the Federation Council about what to do about Cajma.
"Cyrus Wakernaggle," Osmand said. "I know about him."
She stared at Osmand a moment. "You know 'about' him?" she asked with a smile. "That sounds quite intriguing, Janus."
"Perhaps later I'll tell you some interesting stories about Mr. Wakernaggle."
"Oh, come on," she pleaded.
"Not tonight, girl," Osmand said with a grin. "You should get some sleep."
Ahwi shrugged her shoulders. "I tried."
"Did you take anything?"
She shook her head and went to work again at her communications panel.
"Go down and see the medical officer," Osmand suggested.
Ahwi glanced up at him. "I like staying up late. Listening for stray signals always calms my mind."
He looked at her a moment. "Are you still having dreams about your parents?"
'Not so much now," Ahwi shrugged. "Not nearly as much as last year."
"You miss them very much, don't you?" he asked gently.
Ahwi nodded.
"Seeing your parents die when you were so young will be with you the rest of your life, Awhi," Osmand said. "But I know you can work past it."
She turned to him as if to say something, but her eyes filled with tears.
"You know I'm here for you, child," he said.
"I know, Janus."
He walked slowly out of the room, leaving Ahwi to her listening.
She took a breath to force back the emotion she felt building in her. She didn't have time for such indulgences anymore. She had things she had to do and very little time to do them and she still had far too many details to work on.
Always the details, she thought. Why can't anything be simple?
***
Ensign Natalie Fowler walked down the corridor on Deck Seventeen at 2334, hoping she'd get a chance for some sleep before too long. The new commander of the Archaeology Section, Lieutenant Sunita Mahajan, was driving her crazy with inventories of equipment and other crap that Natalie felt was better suited to the new members of their section, Ensign Albert Tainey and Ensign Carmela Navarro, but Sunita, in her wisdom, or lack of it as Natalie decided, thought it was the perfect job for her.
"Bitch," Natalie whispered under her breath.
Give someone a promotion from Lieutenant Junior Grade to full Lieutenant and the power goes to their head, Natalie thought as she made her way to the science officer's array of labs and offices.
She strolled through the outer office area toward the lair of the head of the Chamberlain's Science Department wondering how to get back at Sunita, but she knew the anger would pass by morning. Natalie was only using it to hide from all of the bad news they'd gotten lately.
Natalie Fowler respected and looked up to Mei-Wan McCall, not just as a fellow officer, but as someone whose career she'd followed and wanted to emulate. They'd become close the last several months and aside from a few weeks of indecision on Mei-Wan's part, Natalie considered her someone she could talk to, and on a certain level, a friend. She was glad to learn from Melissa Vargas a half hour earlier that they now believed Mei-Wan hadn't died in the destruction of the Balthazar, but had been taken away from the ship's wreckage to some unknown location.
Natalie hoped the captain and Hank Evans found her.
The young red-headed ensign touched the panel next to the science officer's door and waited. She held up the PADD in her left hand and was tempted to take a peak, but decided it might not do good things for her career.
A moment later the door opened and Kyle Hoffman greeted her.
"What is it, Ensign... Ensign..."
"Ensign Natalie Fowler," she said. "From the Archaeology Section."
Kyle's eyes brighten a bit at that. "You've been on the Chamberlain for a while, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir," she said, finding it hard not to smile. After a moment she offered the PADD to him. "Lieutenant Commander Vargas asked me to deliver this to you, sir."
Kyle accepted the device, but kept his eyes on the shapely young ensign. "Come in and take a seat," he said. "If you're not too busy."
"Thank you, sir."
Kyle walked around the desk piled several inches high with various personnel and department reports. He sat as Fowler took the seat across from him.
"I've been trying to get a chance to speak to everyone in the department the last couple of days, but haven't gotten around to the Archaeology Section just yet," Kyle said as he quickly scanned the information on the PADD she had brought.
A moment later a frown came to his face. "Damn."
"Something wrong, sir?" Natalie asked.
Kyle set the PADD down and stared ahead, not looking at Fowler, but seething with anger at someone else.
"Sir?" she asked again.
He turned to her, breaking his fuming. "Yes?"
"Is there something wrong?"
He forced a smile, but his jaw tightened despite the face he wanted to present. "Uh, just some bookkeeping from my former command."
She nodded, figuring there was more to it. "Well, if there's nothing else..."
Kyle sat up a bit taller in his chair. "Were you close to Lieutenant McCall?"
"She was my section commander, but I'd like to think we were friends too," Natalie replied.
"She's a talented scientist. It would be a horrible waste if..." He smiled warmly and looked at Fowler. "You remind me a lot of Mei-Wan when she started out," Kyle said. "Did you know I was her section commander on the Farragut?"
"Yes, I believe she mentioned that once," Natalie said.
"We were good friends too," Kyle said softly.
Fowler leaned forward in her seat. "Do you know much about the escape pod that was found?"
"No, just that she had been aboard it when it left the Balthazar," Kyle responded. "The captain, Evans, and Vargas have kept most of the details to themselves."
"But you're the science officer."
Kyle let out a long breath. "Captain McCall doesn't like me very much."
"You're a friend of his wife, why wouldn't he..."
"It's because I'm her friend," Kyle interrupted.
Natalie understood.
He rose to his feet. "You know, I was just about to get something to eat. Would you like to join me?"
Natalie stood as well and started to shake her head. She really wanted to get some sleep.
"We could discuss where you see your career going and where you'd like to be in the next five years," Kyle said with a growing smile.
"Right now, I've got an inventory to finish," Natalie remarked.
Kyle frowned. "Why would you being doing inventories? Didn't Archaeology get a couple of new personnel?"
Natalie slowly nodded and grinned. "Yes, but that's not my call."
"That's absurd," Kyle grunted. "Didn't you work with Mei-Wan on the Ancient Progenitor materials?"
Natalie tried her best to suppress a smile. "Yes."
"I want you back on that," Kyle said. "I'll talk to Sunita tomorrow morning. We'll get you off that inventory duty. You'll start working where Mei-Wan left off."
"Thank you, sir!" Natalie said, finally smiling.
"Now," Kyle began, stepping up to her. "How about some dinner?"
She agreed and they vacated the office. Kyle Hoffman left behind the PADD with his orders to report to Corvanis for the inquiry into the death of the Ravenscroft's crew. He had more important things to do with his evening.
***
Five days later, the yacht Bucephalus, cruised through space at warp speed toward a destination Jack McCall knew only by the name of the system. Hank Evans had so far refused to tell him why they were headed there. Jack was less than pleased.
Hank sat at the pilot's station as Jack walked up to him.
"You get much sleep?" Hank asked.
"A little," Jack answered as he took the seat in front of the yacht's communications panel.
"You really should get some rest, Jack. Once we get started on this you may not have much opportunity for it."
Jack turned to him. "Exactly when are we going to get started?" Jack asked, more than a little irritated.
Hank dismissed his question. "We'll need a better ship than this piece of crap for one thing and we'll need some hard currency," Hank said. "And a lot of it."
"All right, Hank," Jack said, his frustration reaching the breaking point. "I want to know right now where we're headed and why!"
Hank took a long breath. "Jack, just calm down and take it easy."
"Calm down?" Jack shouted. "Calm down?! My wife and father may be out there dying somewhere and all we've done is lollygag across this godforsaken region of space the last five days! And you want me to calm down?"
"Yes."
"Go to hell!"
Hank stared at him for almost a minute. "You feel better now?"
"No!"
"I suggest you get this out of your system, Captain," Hank said, biting off the last word. "Or I'll send you back to your damn ship and let you stew there."
Jack folded his arms across his chest.
"I've done this kind of search almost a hundred times, Jack. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
Jack felt like screaming, but he turned away instead.
"That's better," Hank said. "I want to get Mei and Jeremiah back too, but running off without any idea of where we need to go might make you feel better, but it won't do a damn thing for them."
"I know," Jack whispered. "It's just being stuck in this ship, I feel like I'm doing nothing."
"There's not much I can do about how you feel," Hank said firmly.
"Why won't you tell me where we're going?"
"Because there are some secrets I still want to keep," Hank replied.
"Now who's not showing trust?"
"I do trust you, Jack, but you're a Starfleet captain. You're loyalty is to the Federation and as such, I need to keep a few things from you until I'm sure you intend to go through with this."
"I don't have a choice."
"Yes you do," Hank said. "You can still go back and just accept that Mei and your father are gone."
"No," Jack told him. "I can't do that."
"At some point you may have to accept that as the outcome of this little trip, Jack. I can't make any promises."
Jack closed his eyes not wanting to consider such a thing. "We're not at that point yet."
"All right," Hank said, spinning his chair about to face Jack. "First, you're going to have to empty all of that Federation indoctrination you've had crammed in your skull for most of your life."
"What?" Jack asked.
"Just listen and shut your mouth for a change, McCall," Hank said with a slight smile. "I may ask you to do things that run contrary to everything you believe in."
Jack leaned back in his seat, but held his tongue.
"I won't ask just to be cute," Hank continued. "But if you don't do as I tell you, not only won't you ever see Mei or your father again, you'll probably get the two of us killed. The places we'll be going don't operate under your Federation philosophy or Starfleet's code of ethics."
Jack gave him a nod.
"But there are rules, Jack--- rules that you follow or you'll end up a mess of goo in some back alley on a world you've never heard of," Hank said.
Jack watched Hank, wondering what he was getting himself into, but he didn't care. He had to find his wife and father.
"Do I have your word that you'll do whatever I tell you?" Hank asked.
Jack looked down at the deck for a period of time lost in thought, certain only of his desire to find two of the most important people in his life.
"Yes," Jack answered quietly. "I'll do whatever you ask."
Hank observed Jack for several seconds making sure of his younger friend's determination. "Good," Hank replied, turning back to the piloting controls. "Prepare to drop out of warp."
Jack got up from the comm station and went to the navigator's panel.
He peered out the front viewport and watched the stars stop streaking past as they entered normal space. In the distance he saw a large gas giant planet surrounded by a field of asteroids.
"Now," Hank began. "I have to do this just right to trip the sensor buoys."
Hank touched several controls that made the yacht bank quickly to port and head toward the asteroid field.
"You sure about this?" Jack asked.
Hank grinned. "Relax. This'll just take a minute."
The craft cruised past several dozen small asteroids going faster than Jack thought warranted or sane. There were several points in their journey through the sea of city-sized hunks of rock he was certain the inertial dampeners were sure to fail, but fortunately for Jack and the contents of his stomach, the system continued to function.
Hank smoothed out their course as they approached a very large, roughly spherical asteroid which filled their field of view.
"That's it," Hank said. He turned to Jack. "This thing handles like a wheelbarrow. You really need to have Starfleet give you something else for a yacht."
Jack watched as they took up a low orbit about the asteroid. "Now what?"
Hank got up and walked over to the communication panel. His fingers danced across the controls. "Now, we go in."
"You have to send some 'open sesame' message?" Jack asked with a smirk.
Hank lifted his brow. "Not exactly."
A flash of energy filled the yacht's control room for only an instant, but it was enough to hurt Jack's eyes.
"What the hell was that?" he demanded.
"We're in," Hank said as he went back to the pilot's station and began shutting the yacht's systems down.
"Is that so?" Jack asked. "I didn't see any secret doorway open and I certainly didn't feel us move."
"Come on," Hank said, satisfied the craft was shutting down. "Get your gear."
Jack shook his head, but followed Hank anyway.
The rear airlock of the yacht opened and Jack followed Hank into a large hanger where the craft they'd spent the last five days rested.
"How the hell did we get in here?" Jack asked as he looked up at the ceiling, two hundred feet above.
"Dimensional displacement," Hank said with a smile. "A little bit of technology I picked up several years ago."
"Nice," Jack said looking about the hanger with its endless array of pipes and conduits overhead. "I assume we're inside that asteroid."
"Yep," Hank said. "There's no exit to the surface."
"How far down are we?"
"About thirty kilometers or so."
"Well, well, well," a sultry voice echoed through the hanger.
Jack and Hank both turned to look for its source.
A beautiful blonde glided toward them wearing a low cut, full length, silk night gown that highlighted her ample breasts. Jack guessed she was in her early twenties, but her eyes seemed to belong to someone much older and wiser.
"I was beginning to wonder," the woman said in a low, almost raspy voice. "It's been almost two years, Hank."
Jack looked at Evans wondering first, why Hank would leave a woman waiting here for him for that long and second, how he could leave this woman here alone for that long.
Hank and the woman embraced and joined their mouths in a kiss that lasted more than a minute by Jack's reckoning.
Finally they pulled themselves apart; both smiling.
"Jack," Hank said. "Meet Daphne. Daphne, this is Jack McCall."
"So you found him," Daphne said, smiling at Jack.
"Well, not exactly," Hank told her. "But that's kind of a long story."
"I do have the time, Hank," she remarked with a grin as she ran her hand seductively down his arm.
"The problem is, we don't," Hank said.
