“I was not the one who drew a weapon.” His reply was flat and toneless. Saru could not find the energy to fight. “Your crewman did that. You should have ordered your men to surrender peacefully. Then no one would have been hurt.”
“Weakling!” Nathal spat the curse at him. “The children of Peliar Zel are proud. We fight to defend what is ours.” She stared into his eyes. “You are the cause behind all of this! Why could you not have just gone on your way? Instead Starfleet had to meddle in the affairs of others, and now we pay the price!”
Saru looked up at her. “Shout at me if it will make you feel better. But know that it does nothing to help our shared circumstances.” He waited for Nathal to berate him further. Had the Peliar captain seen him assisting the Gorlans to fire on the Shenzhou? If she had, there was nothing he could do to prevent her from revealing it to everyone.
“Some things about this whole sorry mess are starting to make sense to me,” said Yashae, breaking the tension.
“What do you mean?” Hekan’s nostrils flared.
Yashae jerked her thumb over her shoulder, in the general direction of the transport ship’s warp core. “Lieutenant Commander Johar and I, we both knew there was a stink off that whole nadion pulse. That kind of event doesn’t come on accidentally. A hundred things have to go wrong for it to just happen.”
“Clarify,” said Saru. He had a bad feeling where the Vok’sha’s explanation was going to lead, but he let her get to it on her own.
“We’re at warp. We’ve been at warp for hours now, but there’s been no sign of that pulse effect reoccurring. I admit, we’re not familiar with Peliar tech, but a warp drive is a warp drive. The basic mechanisms are all the same. At the time I wasn’t certain, but after all the guns coming out?” Yashae’s lips thinned. “I am now.”
“You’re saying the nadion pulse was deliberately triggered?” Subin paled. “A person would have to be utterly reckless or extremely desperate to do something like that.”
“As desperate as the Gorlans?” said Yashae, glancing at the other technician.
Saru kept his eyes on Nathal. “It was most likely their first attempt to waylay this ship, but they failed to account for the full effects of their sabotage.”
Nathal’s face darkened with new rage. “Vetch. He betrayed us. He could have killed us all!”
“And when your starship arrived, they saw another opportunity to move against us.” Hekan glanced at Saru. “Dragging the Federation into their plans along the way.”
“We should never have brought those savages on board.” Nathal stalked away a few steps, her hands tightening into fists. “How could we ever believe they would accept our goodwill? It is true what is said about them, the Gorlans only respect violence.”
“Is that so?” Saru studied Hekan. Of the Peliars he had encountered so far, the second officer seemed the most moderate.
“Many of my kind consider the Gorlan people to be a threat to our safety and our resources on the Alpha and Beta Moons.” Hekan broke eye contact. “When the time came to decide their future, those beliefs were the core motivation. So we decided to find them a home . . . away from ours.”
“There is proof we were right,” snapped Nathal, jabbing a finger toward Johar. “Our gravest fears about those stunted barbarians, borne out! They lie, kill, and steal, even when we offer aid! It is all they know!” She summoned Hekan back to her side with a sharp gesture. “I won’t allow it. We are going to take our ship back by force.” Nathal turned a hard look toward the Starfleet group. “Do not get in our way when that happens.”
Saru could feel the conversation slipping away from him again, the same empty feeling that had torn at him when he was among the Gorlans. “No . . . no.” He rose to his feet, his hands curling in the air. “Be careful, Commander. Rash actions brought us to this juncture, and more of the same will only send us down a dangerous path.”
Nathal made a derisive snorting noise through her quadripartite nostrils, and strode away with Hekan at her heels.
He let out a long, exhausted breath. “This is not how I wanted my first command scenario to unfold,” Saru said quietly.
“I’m just going to come right out with this and say what we all are thinking,” Weeton began. “She’s right.”
“That’s not what I was thinking,” muttered Zoxom.
Weeton went on. “These Gorlans are dangerous, and they clearly have little regard for anyone’s lives. They’ve put everyone on this freighter in serious jeopardy, at least twice over. And every minute we’re not doing something about them, we’re putting more distance between us and the Shenzhou. We don’t know what state our ship is in, we don’t know who is alive or dead back there.”
“The Shenzhou was rendered immobile, it was not destroyed,” insisted Saru.
“Right, Lieutenant, you saw what went down, so you more than anyone should see the sense in what I’m saying.” Weeton didn’t pause for breath. “We have no idea where the Gorlans are taking us. What if they’re going to execute us when this is all over, or worse? They could wind up selling us to the Orions or even the Klingons . . .”
Saru raised his hand in a halt gesture. “We must hold back and evaluate the situation before we do anything.” He dug deep to find some of the same steel he always saw in Captain Georgiou. “Rash actions, ill conceived, will result in more errors.” Saru drew a deep breath. “I have made that mistake once already,” he admitted.
But Weeton was up to speed now, and he barely acknowledged the Kelpien’s attempt to slow his train of thought. “But we don’t have the luxury of waiting around, am I right? The longer we delay, the more the Gorlans solidify their position. What I’m saying is, we have to be proactive! We have to do something, somebody has to make a command decision here . . .” He looked over at the table where the chief engineer lay. “What do you think Lieutenant Commander Johar would say? I think he’d agree with me, can we ask him? We can ask him, right?” Weeton turned his attention on Zoxom. “You could wake him.”
“Yes,” replied the nurse, “but waking him is not a good idea.”
“I think he’d want to be a part of this conversation, don’t you?” Weeton scanned the faces of the others, ending with Saru. “Don’t you?”
“I will not be responsible for putting anyone else in undue danger,” Saru blurted, trying to maintain control of the exchange.
“So you agree,” said Weeton, misreading Saru’s reply. “The chief engineer is a command-level officer, he has the rank to make those kind of choices.”
“Lieutenant Saru is the ranking officer,” began Yashae.
“Yes, but he’s . . .” Weeton faltered, and Saru got the immediate sense that the ensign had barely prevented himself from saying something disparaging. “I mean, no offense, but the lieutenant is not—” He came to an abrupt halt. “You know what I mean.”
I am not what? Saru’s thoughts echoed with the question. Not strong enough? Not respected enough?
And what if he is correct?
Saru drew himself up and looked down at the ensign, marshaling all the firmness he could muster, hiding how hollow it made him feel. “I assure you, Ensign Weeton, I am capable of making whatever ‘command decision’ is required. Am I clear, mister?”
“Okay, maybe I should have worded that better,” said the ensign. “My point is, I was just thinking of the team, sir. I mean, after what you just had to deal with on the bridge, with the hijacking and all, I thought maybe you would—”
“That I would wish to abrogate my responsibilities? You are mistaken.” They were all watching him now, and Saru knew that how he handled the next few seconds would set the tone for whatever would come next.
Weeton carried his thoughts close to the surface, saying what he meant and meaning what he said, but the others—Yashae, the taciturn Mazarite Subin, and Zoxom—were harder to read. If Saru couldn’t prove to them that he was a leader worth following, when the time came to follow an order they might hesitate and make the situati
on worse.
But how could Saru instill that respect in them if he doubted himself the most? The ghost of the choice he had made up on the bridge of the freighter clouded every thought in his head. With effort, he forced himself to push that aside.
“I am the senior officer,” he told them. “The decision is mine, and mine alone to make.” Saru met Weeton’s gaze, searching it for the ensign’s true thoughts, but finding nothing he could be certain of.
“Aye, sir,” said the human.
Without warning, the hatch on the far side of the chamber shuddered open, and there were three more red-banded Gorlans crowding at the doorway. Saru recognized one of them as the male with the white-streaked hair along his arms and head, and they briefly locked eyes before his gaze raked over the hostages.
The Kelpien knew a hunter when he saw one. The Gorlans entered the chamber and went to the Peliar group, gesturing for them to stand up. The warrior with the white hair looked from one resentful face to another, before finally settling on the second officer, Hekan. He barked out an order in his native tongue, and from across the room, Saru felt the invisible flare of his electrostatic aura, a silent flash of anger-analog.
Hekan was marched out of the group and forced to stand to one side, much to the consternation of her comrades. Then two of the Gorlans crossed to the Starfleet team and the same study was made of them. The white-haired warrior settled on Yashae, for reasons Saru couldn’t be sure of, and made a sharp come here gesture, his aura-flash rippling silently in its wake.
“No.” Saru raised a hand and held her back. “You are not going anywhere.” He faced the Gorlans and stepped forward in the engineer’s place. “You want someone to go with you?” he asked, even as he knew they would only barely be able to understand him. “Take me, not her.”
Yashae shook her head. “Lieutenant, it’s all right . . .”
“No,” Saru repeated. “I will not see anyone else put at risk. I will go.”
The Gorlans seemed to grasp what was going on, and accepted the substitution without further action.
Saru took a step toward the hatch, then looked back toward his crewmates. “Ensign Weeton, you’re in charge until I return. Keep our people safe.”
Weeton accepted the order without further comment. “Will do, sir.”
Hekan threw him a worried look as the two of them were marched away, through the hatch and down the corridor beyond. “You may have just volunteered for death,” she told him.
“I refuse to believe that,” he said. Of its own accord, Saru’s hand went up to the back of his scalp and touched the subdermal sacs where his threat ganglia lay. For now, they remained quiescent.
• • •
No matter what the circumstances, before she entered the captain’s office, there was always a similar flash of emotional recall for Michael Burnham. A fragment of memory from her childhood, of each and every time she was summoned to her adoptive father’s study for a “discussion,” whether it was to address her academic progress or her continued assimilation into Vulcan culture.
In each instance, try as she might to moderate it, there was always an ember of emotion that years of learning logic and control could never fully conceal. Sarek had been a patient teacher, but he had never allowed her to falter, and even now Burnham felt that same need to show stoicism before her mentor, to resist the corrosion of any doubts.
Of course, Philippa Georgiou was not Sarek of Vulcan—the two of them were poles apart—but the approval of the Shenzhou’s captain was as important to Michael Burnham now as Sarek’s had been to her young self all those years ago.
Her commanding officer rose from the chair behind her desk and gave Burnham a brief smile, but it was forced. Almost a day had passed since the surprise attack from the Peliar transport ship had crippled the Shenzhou, and if the captain had rested in that time, Burnham wasn’t aware of it.
Standing as rock-rigid as he always did, Commander ch’Theloh was at a port, peering out into the blackness. His antennae quirked at her arrival, and he picked up a data pad lying on the desk before Burnham could see what was on it. Still, she caught a quick glimpse of an image. Was that the face of a Kelpien? Saru? She couldn’t be sure.
“Reporting as ordered,” she began.
“Any new data from the long-range scans?” The Andorian went straight to business.
Burnham shook her head. In the aftermath of the incident, she had been paired to work with Jira Narwani, teaming up with the ensign to repair and enhance the sensors. With the ship adrift and vulnerable, it was vitally important for the crew to be aware of any potential threats while they were still at a distance. Enclosed inside a virtual-environment helmet, Jira extended her senses out to watch for alien vessels while Burnham had worked to interpret the ion trail left behind by the fleeing Peliar transport ship. “The Tholians haven’t taken any interest in us yet, sir.”
“Oh yes they have,” Georgiou gently corrected. “They just want us to think they haven’t.” She shot ch’Theloh a look and then went on. “That’s not why I asked you to report. We need your opinion on something.”
The first officer picked up the thread of the conversation. “You work closely with Lieutenant Saru. You’ve done so for some time, yes?”
“Yes, sir.” Burnham frowned. Jira had told her that Saru had gone back to the Peliar ship shortly before it had attacked them, but no one seemed to know why. “Is he—?”
“We do not know the status of any members of the rescue team,” ch’Theloh said bluntly. “But certain facts are coming to light, and given your close association with Lieutenant Saru, the captain thought your input would be valuable.”
“I don’t follow.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t say Saru and I are close. I mean he’s . . .” Burnham found herself unconsciously imitating the Kelpien’s hand gestures. “You know how he is.”
“No,” said the first officer, “I really don’t. I believe your human term is, he’s a closed book.”
“Saru is a private being,” said the captain. “And I’ve respected that about him. But the commander is right.” Georgiou tapped a keypad on her desk. “And you were the last person to speak to him before he left the ship.” A holoscreen blinked into being, showing a monitor’s view of the interior of the Shenzhou’s shuttlebay. In the corner of the frame, Burnham saw a tiny version of herself in conversation with Saru. “Do you recall what he said?”
“Did he seem agitated?” added ch’Theloh. “Was his behavior uncharacteristic in any way?”
I believe this situation has affected me more deeply than I was aware of. Saru’s words came back to her in a rush. “He was . . . distracted.” Burnham paused, thinking about it. “No, actually the word he used was disquieted. We talked about the situation, we disagreed about some of it.”
“Be specific,” said the Andorian.
“The difference between following regulations to the letter and understanding when to bend them.” As the words left her mouth, she stiffened.
“I think Lieutenant Saru may have taken your point too literally,” said the captain. “He was not authorized to return to the Peliar ship. He deliberately went back, I believe to make contact with the Gorlans once again.”
“You think Saru’s actions had something to do with the attack on us?” Burnham blinked, trying to frame that. She knew better than most that navigating the complexities of interactions with an alien culture was difficult, but she couldn’t accept that someone like Saru could provoke a violent response, accidentally or otherwise.
Ch’Theloh waved the data pad in his hand. “We’ve been going over our sensor scans of the ship, just before the attack. Numerous Gorlan life signs were detected on the upper decks of the ship, along with energy signatures that could be weapons discharges. It’s possible that, for whatever reason, Lieutenant Saru’s attempts to converse with the Gorlans were the catalyst for them to act in an aggressive fashion.”
“With all due respect, sir, that’s a reach. Do we have proof that the
Gorlans were behind the attack? It could have been the Peliars.” Burnham met the first officer’s gaze, and neither the captain nor the commander challenged her comment.
Ch’Theloh had always been dismissive of Saru’s prim, aloof manner, and now she found herself seeing the seed of genuine distrust in the Andorian. He was looking to her to cement that point of view, she realized, and if anything, that made Michael all the more determined to stand up for her absent crewmate. She had her own issues with Saru, that was true—but it didn’t seem fair to lay this all at his feet.
“Saru isn’t reckless,” she went on. “He’s the absolute antithesis of reckless. It’s just not in his nature.”
“Fair point,” allowed the first officer, and he wandered back to the port, resting one hand on the old optical telescope positioned before it on a tripod. “We are attempting to form a picture of what may have transpired on the Peliar ship. And we must accept that Mister Saru was an unexpected variable in the mix.”
“It’s not like him to disobey an order,” said Georgiou, her gaze briefly turning inward.
“Did he?” Burnham looked at the captain. “You didn’t literally order him not to go back. I don’t believe Saru would return to the freighter without a solid reason.”
“Perhaps so. But there is another troubling piece of data to consider.” Ch’Theloh turned and studied Burnham carefully. “Just before we were fired upon, Lieutenant Gant detected what appeared to be multiple, intermittent weapon locks coming from the Peliar ship. They briefly targeted sections of the Shenzhou such as the bridge, the crew quarters, infirmary, and mess hall.” He let that sink in. With their shields down, any hits in those areas would have incurred grave loss of life. “Then, at the last second, the weapon locks shifted to direct fire against our warp nacelles. At very specific components of the drive.”
Burnham felt her skin chill. “What are you suggesting, sir?”
“Unless the Gorlans or the Peliars had precise technical readouts for a Walker-class cruiser in their data banks, there’s no way they would have known where to aim in order to hobble us so effectively.” Captain Georgiou grimly laid out the reality of it. “A Starfleet officer would have known.”
Star Trek: Discovery: Fear Itself Page 11