Star Trek Discovery- Fear Itself

by James Swallow

  On the screen, the still-slowing vessel performed a ninety-degree roll into a horizontal position, and across its surface, multiple hatches irised open one after another.

  “What is it doing?” Burnham heard Ensign Troke ask, from the other science station.

  “They’re deploying something,” she said. “Thrusters are firing.”

  As one, a dozen bullet-shaped objects burst out of the open silos along the length of the other ship’s hull, and swarmed together into a geometric formation. Ensign Januzzi tracked one of the objects with the visual feed, and it grew distinct.

  Burnham recognized it at once. The same projectile-like fuselage, ventral engine nacelle, and twin solar array of a Peliar escort drone.

  “The, uh, carrier has come to a dead stop,” reported Gant. “Drones are moving to intercept us.”

  “Detmer, put some distance between us and them,” said the captain.

  “Trying,” replied the helmswoman, “but they’re gaining on us!”

  “If we had warp drive, we could leave them eating our ion wake . . .” The first officer didn’t bother to finish the sentence.

  On her panel, Burnham saw the same thing the Andorian did. The drones were splitting apart, spreading wide. “Captain, I think they’re trying to surround us.”

  “All right, we’ve been polite enough,” said Georgiou. “Red alert! Battle stations!”

  “Battle stations, aye!” repeated Gant, and across the bridge, the illuminator panels in the walls flashed to a stark crimson shade.

  “Comm,” continued the captain, “warn them that if they don’t back off, we will consider it an act of open aggression and defend ourselves.” She looked back at the helm. “Detmer, evasive maneuvers.”

  “Evasive, aye,” said the ensign, and the starscape outside shifted as they went into a hard impulse turn.

  “We can’t outrun them.” The thought escaped Burnham’s lips as she watched the drones breaking into smaller packs, attempting to position themselves at all points around the Shenzhou. One or two of the smaller robotic ships, each armed with a single phase cannon, would have been an easy win for the cruiser in a head-to-head conflict. But this many, acting in concert, represented a grave danger. A cloud of dune hornets can bring down a le-matya, she thought.

  “Options,” said the captain. “And quickly, we’re running out of room here.”

  “Wide-angle phaser salvo,” said ch’Theloh. “We take out a few of the drones, the others might think twice. That or photon torpedoes set to proximity detonation, could be enough to blast a hole through the swarm—” He broke off and grabbed the back of the captain’s chair to steady himself as the Shenzhou pivoted sharply, faster than the gravity control could compensate.

  Burnham gripped the sides of her console and rode out the turn. Her eyes were fixed on the screen in front of her. “They’re tightening the noose.”

  “Thank you for that cheerful analogy, Lieutenant,” said Georgiou. “Detmer?”

  “She has a point, Captain,” said the helmswoman, through gritted teeth. “There’s too many of them. It’s only a matter of time before they run us down.”

  “Then we do this another way. All stop.” The captain stood up. “Lieutenant Oliveira, divert all available power to shields, if you please.”

  “Aye, Captain,” came the reply.

  “Let’s look them right in the eye.” Burnham watched her commander stride into the middle of the bridge and glare out of the main viewport, past the shifting formation of the drones to where the carrier craft floated in the darkness. “We’re done playing the role of the hunted.”

  “All stop,” said Detmer. “No forward momentum.”

  “We’re having a staring contest now?” Ch’Theloh glanced at Burnham, looking for a reply.

  “Somehow, sir, I don’t think we’ll have long to wait.” Burnham had barely finished speaking when a chime sounded from Mary Fan’s console.

  “Incoming hail from the Peliar carrier,” she reported.

  “And suddenly they’re in the mood for a conversation,” Georgiou said lightly. “Now that they think they have us right where they want us.” She stiffened and pulled her uniform straight. “All right, Ensign. Put them on.”

  A holographic form shimmered into being in front of the main viewport. An older Peliar male, clad in a dark-red shipsuit with a silver tunic and an austerely patterned headdress, stepped forward and gave the Shenzhou’s crew a withering, chilly once-over.

  “Federation vessel,” he boomed, “lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Your craft and your crew are deemed in violation of Peliar Zel Cohort star-law. Defy us and we will use force.”

  “I’ll do nothing until you identify yourself,” the captain said mildly, refusing to match his tone. “I’ll show you how it is done. I am Captain Philippa Georgiou, commander of the Federation Starship Shenzhou. We are unaware of any violations.”

  “I am Admiral Tauh, of the Alphan Defensive Primary. And I will be the arbiter of what you will or will not do, Captain Georgiou.” Tauh motioned to someone out of range of his holo-transmitter.

  Burnham saw the sensor sweeps react. “Captain, the drones are targeting us.”

  Georgiou acknowledged with a nod. “Admiral, you appear to be laboring under a misapprehension. We’ve done nothing to break any Peliar laws.”

  “We found the wreckage of the escort,” Tauh seethed. “An automated distress call drew us to those coordinates before it was cut off. Did you silence it?”

  “You’re talking about the star-freighter,” said the captain.

  “Our escort obliterated, our ship missing. And what else do I discover? An ion trail leading to a rogue Starfleet vessel disrespecting our borders. I will have the truth from you.” Cold, stony anger radiated from the Peliar admiral’s manner, enough that Burnham felt it like frost in the air.

  “I’m happy to provide it, sir,” replied the captain. “But not at gunpoint.”

  “You are aliens here. You are in no position to make demands.” He leaned in until his dark, stormy aspect was almost filling the bridge. “My daughter was aboard that transport. Do not doubt I will take any measure in order to ensure her safety.”

  “My people are aboard your missing ship as well, Admiral,” said Georgiou. It was a risk to reveal that, thought Burnham, but it might also be the only chance she had to establish a rapport with the stone-faced Peliar commander. “Why don’t we take our hands off our weapons and talk about how we can get them back?”

  Tauh’s silence seemed to stretch forever, but then the admiral flicked a hand toward his subordinates once more, and on her screen, Burnham saw the targeting sweeps from the drone blink out.

  “I warn you, Captain Georgiou,” growled Tauh. “If you have answers I find lacking, it will not go well for you. And no agreements between politicians on your worlds or mine will temper my response.”

  The hologram vanished and no one spoke. Finally, Troy Januzzi broke the silence. “Can I stop holding my breath now?”

  Georgiou turned away, catching Burnham’s eye as she did. “I’m afraid, Ensign, that we’re just getting started.”

  • • •

  In silence, they gathered around the captain’s station on the upper level of the Peliar freighter’s command deck, watching the images streaming to the curved screens suspended from frames overhead.

  Saru stood at the back of the group of Gorlans, conscious of his own presence among them. He felt like an interloper at a wake, at once able to understand the emotions churning around him and disconnected from the ones they affected. But Madoh and his red-bands, Kijoh and the others, all of them were looking down at the dark end point to the lies they had been told about the so-called sanctuary world.

  As the freighter’s autonavigator began to settle it into a stable geostationary orbit, the nature of the planet beneath was revealed in full. Saru used the tricorder the Gorlans had allowed him to keep to parse the feed from the ship’s sensor array, rendering the dat
a into Federation Standard. What he saw reflected there gave him pause.

  The planet was just barely on the right side of habitable, clinging to the definition of a Class-M world. The atmosphere was thin but breathable, the gravity high but tolerable. But few could look upon it and not see a harsh, desolate place bereft of any kind of comfort. Much of the surface registered as composed of black metallic sand, broken up by high mountainous regions and the thin oceans. Native flora and fauna were sparse, and powerful storm cells swept with alarming regularity from pole to pole.

  Perhaps, with time and the application of advanced technology to terraform the surface, this planet might have been able to bloom. But as it was right now, Saru could only see a bleak wilderness where long-term survival would be a constant challenge, even to a species as hardy as the Gorlans.

  “This is where they chose to abandon us,” said one of the red-bands, quiet shock in his words.

  “Are there any other ships in the system?” Madoh shot Kijoh a questioning glance, and in turn she looked toward Saru.

  The Kelpien frowned, tapping into the sensors once again. “Scanning range is limited. As far as I can see, this is the only craft in near-orbital space.” A cluster of blips flickered into existence as the sensor sweep passed over the surface of the sanctuary world, and he studied them closely. “Curious. I am detecting evidence of starship-grade metals on the planet. Tritanium and other alloys.”

  Kijoh moved to one of the vacant consoles and mirrored the same data to it. “Saru is correct. Several clusters on the southern continent, here and here.” She pointed out groups of signals in an area of flatlands close to the foot of a mountain range.

  “Something crashed?” said Madoh.

  “No. Those are cargo modules.” Saru ran a quick comparison to the container pods fitted to the spine of the star-freighter. “They are of Peliar origin. It looks like they soft-landed.”

  “Life signs,” said Kijoh, switching the sensor view over to a different scan filter. A myriad of data points filled the zones around the downed pods, each one indicating a living being down on the surface. The closer he looked, the more Saru could pick out elements of what appeared to be a shantytown settlement built up around the grounded cargo modules. “All Gorlan,” added Kijoh. “No Peliars detected.”

  “How many?” Madoh bit out the words.

  “Approximately two hundred thousand.” Kijoh went pale. “Thank the Creator, we have found our people.”

  “What is left of them,” said Madoh. He glared at Saru. “You see, Kelpien? Here is the truth! The ships the Peliars sent before this one, coming to this barren ember to cast us away. This is the reality of their false promises.”

  “How could we live in such desolation?” Kijoh asked the question to the air. “The weakest of us could never survive down there.”

  Saru thought of Ejah, the hub, and her delicate form. That place would end her, he realized. And then another, more troubling thought rose to eclipse that one. If this was the “world of ash” that she had predicted, then what of her other warning? Could Ejah’s extranormal abilities encompass something as incredible as precognition? As a being of rational and scientific thought, Saru found the concept difficult to process, but still the Kelpien’s blood ran cold at the dark possibilities her words represented. Destruction, on threads of fire.

  Across the command deck, the elevator platform clanked open and the speaker Vetch emerged, along with a pack of armed Gorlans and a handful of the Peliar crew. Saru saw Commander Nathal among them, and at her side the second officer Hekan and the engineer named Riden.

  “What do you want with us now?” demanded Nathal. “I swear to you, we will die before we help you!”

  “I want you to answer for your deceit!” said Madoh, shoving Saru aside as he strode across to meet the Peliar captain. He waved two arms toward the gray-black, ashen planet on the viewscreen. “Peliar Zel promised us a refuge! You gave us no choice but to leave, and we agreed!”

  “We agreed because you Alphans and Betans told us the sanctuary would support our people.” Kijoh’s voice was thick with emotion, and Saru sensed a powerful wave of abject despair radiating from her. “Look at it.”

  “Look at it!” bellowed Madoh, and he grabbed Nathal, shoving her violently toward the scanner screen.

  Nathal shook him off and glared at the monitor. “What is this? This isn’t the sanctuary, you fools!”

  “The commander does not lie,” Hekan called out. “I’ve seen the colonial reports for the refuge world. It’s a verdant, abundant place!”

  “You did something to my ship, you did something wrong!” snarled Nathal, and she turned her ire on Saru. “You helped them, Starfleet? We came out of warp in the wrong place!”

  “I assure you, I did nothing,” Saru said stiffly. “And no alterations to your vessel’s course were made.” He showed her the control console. “Even as we speak, this ship is still acting under the autonomic controls that your crew activated.” Saru nodded toward Riden, who watched silently from across the compartment.

  “That is not possible . . .” Nathal pushed past the Kelpien to see for herself. She jabbed at the console, bringing up the navigation subsystem.

  The freighter’s line of transit redrew itself across the local star map for Nathal, and as Saru watched the realization dawning on the Peliar commander, he saw the fight drain out of her.

  “This is wrong,” she repeated, but now her words were hollow and distant. “They told us where we were taking you, there would be a fair chance.”

  “Lies. And lies. And lies,” hissed Madoh. “Is that all your kind know, Peliar?”

  Without warning, a bright-blue alert sigil flashed into life across all of the command deck’s visual displays. Saru heard a strident, echoing bell tone, very different from the warning siren that had met him when he first boarded the transport ship. “What is that?”

  A long, lingering groan of metal on metal sounded through the hull of the huge vessel, and on the screens, preprogrammed thruster controls were coming on line to adjust the ship’s orbital attitude. It entered a slow roll, shifting to present its ventral hull to the planet.

  “The cargo modules,” said Hekan in a dead voice. “That’s the release cycle. When it is complete, they will be ejected from the ship.”

  “Down to the planet,” said Saru, looking back at the cluttered surface scan.

  9

  * * *

  The humming cascade of rematerialization rippled over Burnham’s skin as it dissipated, and she experienced that familiar, abrupt shift in location that was peculiar to beaming. The octagonal panels of the Peliar transporter pad glowed brightly beneath her feet, and it took a second for her eyes to adjust.

  The Starfleet-standard gravity and environment of the Shenzhou was replaced by the atmosphere of the Peliar carrier’s interior space, and she attuned quickly, shifting her weight. The air in the alien ship had a faintly spicy quality to it, and she wondered if that was unique to the vessel, or something to remind the crew of their homeworlds.

  Burnham filed the thought away. Each time she encountered a species she had never met before, her curiosity to learn more about them pushed to the fore. But this was not the time to conduct a survey, obviously or not. She was, and her captain with her, very much in harm’s way.

  “Thank you for allowing us to board your vessel, Admiral Tauh.” At Burnham’s side, Captain Georgiou described a shallow bow of greeting. “I hope we can settle this matter amicably.” She went to step off the pad, but Tauh raised his hand.

  “Remain where you are. This conversation will be a short one.” Tauh had been waiting for them in the large, open compartment the Peliars had set up for the meeting. Burnham guessed it was a storage bay of some kind, a wide chamber with a raised, ring-shaped catwalk overhead. A couple of his crew—most likely officers, judging by the headdresses they wore—flanked Tauh silently, and above on the walkway, she saw armed security guards cradling stubby disruptor weapons. The admiral
was taking no chances with them.

  “Who is this?” Tauh asked, pointing at her.

  “Lieutenant Michael Burnham, one of my junior officers,” explained Georgiou. “My second-in-command insisted that I not come over here alone.”

  The captain, as usual, was downplaying things. Commander ch’Theloh had turned ocean dark when Georgiou told him she was going to beam over to meet with the admiral, and in the end she had made it an order for the XO to remain where he was. Burnham could picture him pacing the Shenzhou’s bridge, ready for even the slightest sign of duplicity from the Peliars.

  “You allow your subordinates to influence you that much,” sniffed the Peliar, glancing at his own executive officer. “My adjutant Craea here suggested I meet you with all the formality and warmth of a diplomatic welcome. But then, he is from Beta Moon, and our Betan cousins are sometimes soft-hearted. I rejected such a show of obvious sycophancy.”

  The captain gave the lieutenant a brief look. Back in the ship, Burnham had asked her why she was taking her along instead of someone like Zuzub or one of the more imposing-looking security officers. This situation doesn’t need someone who’s quick with a phaser, she replied, it needs someone observant.

  Burnham took a breath of the spiced air and resolved to see everything and ignore nothing.

  “I owe you an explanation,” Georgiou went on. “My ship is outside of its patrol zone, that is true. We are within a sector of space that is claimed by a number of stellar powers. But I have good reason.”

  “Your missing crew,” said Tauh with a grimace. “If we are to believe you.” He cocked his head, examining the Shenzhou’s commander. “I will tell you now, in the interests of clarity. I have reason to suspect you entered our space on a mission of provocation.”

  “Our purpose here is altruistic,” Georgiou countered. “But I will admit, it has pulled us into a situation that we did not anticipate.”