The Dark Veil

by James Swallow

  For Kirsten, because she’s m’r-f’n awesome

  Historian’s Note

  This story takes place in 2386, seven years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and one year after the “Mars Incident” and Jean-Luc Picard’s resignation from Starfleet.

  ONE

  The Romulans kept William Riker in the cell for several hours, ignoring all of his attempts to communicate with them.

  He knew he was being observed and scanned every second of that time, by sensors hidden in the walls or some mechanism in the chamber’s only illuminator.

  The glowing globe, no larger than an apple, floated deliberately just beyond his reach on silent antigravs. It threw weak, jaundice-yellow light down around him, and when Riker moved about the small, narrow cell, it followed.

  If he spoke out loud, Riker’s voice echoed off the gray metal walls in odd, flat tones, almost as if the noise was being stifled. He snapped his fingers a few times and sang the first couple of lines from “Fever” to test the acoustics.

  He let the sound bounce, listening to the shape of it. The deadening effect was completely uniform. His captors had him in a sensor blind, and nothing—not even his voice—would be allowed to escape.

  They hadn’t taken his communicator badge, and clearly that was because they didn’t need to. It gave a dispirited chirp when he tapped it, the tone signaling total disconnection. The device’s internal chronometer still kept time, though, and he set it to mark the duration of each standard hour.

  When it became clear his captors were in no hurry to return, he spent a while exploring the confines of the chamber. Like everything Romulan, it was a puzzle.

  No clearly indicated controls to extend a sleeping pallet or reveal a ’fresher unit, nothing to dim or brighten the glow-globe. Eventually, through a process of trial and error, Riker found that if he pushed at certain seams in the wall plates, a seat of sorts extruded out of the floor, and retracted if the process was reversed.

  He sat, absently drumming his fingers. Riker had never been able to grasp the Romulan need for inessential obfuscation and complexity.

  Sure, he could see the motive to keep things concealed from a perceived enemy, even the sense that some cultures had to protect themselves from members of their own kind. But was it really necessary to make every tiny little thing so damned cryptic?

  As an Academy cadet, he’d once listened to a noted xenoethnologist give a lecture on Romulan civilian life, explaining how the simple act of turning the handle on the door to one’s house might mean navigating visual riddles and a complex hidden locking mechanism.

  How can they live like that? It was a question that nagged him for weeks afterward. A younger Will Riker mused on the answer, reaching for an understanding that was beyond him. What kind of life must you lead when your whole culture is built around the tenets of concealment, of complication, of deceit?

  His old friend and former captain, Jean-Luc Picard, had once told him of an Andorian proverb regarding the citizens of the Star Empire: A Romulan will scheme for ten years to have you bring them a cup of water, but never once admit that they are thirsty.

  He still didn’t truly understand them, despite numerous encounters with them both in battle and in conversation. It was dangerous to apply Federation values to them. For the Romulans, the act of hiding one’s self was as automatic as breathing in and out.

  “And you’ve paid for it, haven’t you?” Riker voiced the rest of the thought out loud, casting a sideways glance at the glow-globe above him, wondering what those monitoring him would think of that. “In the end, the bill comes due for every lie that’s told.”

  But it wasn’t just falsehoods at the heart of Romulan culture, it was more complicated than that. It was a matter of trust, and in that arena, the United Federation of Planets had fallen short.

  Riker felt a bleak mood gathering like black clouds on a far horizon, and he blew out a breath, as if that would carry them away.

  A few moments later, one wall of the cell dematerialized. The chamber didn’t have a conventional door or a force-field barrier, and this was the only way in or out.

  Standing on the threshold were a pair of sullen centurions, a light-eyed and olive-skinned female, and a paler male with heavier brow ridges, both dressed in what Riker recognized as Romulan uniforms. Black baldrics across their chests were highlighted with silver detail, indicating their ranks and positions. He thought they were low-level officer cadre, something equating roughly to that of a Starfleet ensign or junior grade lieutenant. Neither of them seemed particularly happy to have this duty.

  The woman threw something at Riker and he caught it: a pair of heavy magnetic cuffs with a connecting chain.

  “I don’t really wear jewelry,” Riker noted, making no attempt to don the restraints.

  The Romulans said nothing, waiting, watching him silently. The moment stretched and became uncomfortably long.

  Riker let the cuffs drop to the deck. “We can keep up the staring contest all day, if you’d like.” He was pretty good, he had to admit. His record was a full two minutes without blinking, and that was up against the laser-like glare of his young son, Thaddeus. That thought pulled up the corners of his lips in a faint smile.

  The woman glanced at the man, and an unspoken communication passed between them. She stepped back, making room for Riker to move out of the cell.

  Was that some sort of test? he wondered. Did I pass it or fail it?

  The male Romulan led the way, down through tapered corridors that all seemed identical. Riker spotted some symbols on the walls in certain places that might have been signage, but they could have been decorative for all he knew. The color palette was uniformly drab gray and faded tan, and he noted a recurring threefold motif in consoles and panels as they passed. One screen in every three would be a false one, another test, another layer of everyday riddles.

  Riker could feel a faint vibration through the floor beneath him, and it gave him a point of commonality to hold on to among all this unfamiliarity. Anyone who had lived enough of their life on a starship knew that low hum, knew that it meant the pulse of a vessel at rest. So the warbird he was aboard was not currently in motion, and that was something.

  Or is that hum part of an elaborate fiction? Unbidden, the question popped into his thoughts. Are the Romulans faking that sound to make me think we’re not at warp when in fact we are? And if that’s so, then where is the Titan—?

  He smiled at nothing, catching himself before he went down the wormhole after that line of reasoning. This was what being around the Romulans did to people, he reflected. They dragged you into their mindset, the gravity of their ingrained cultural paranoia pulling you into the same thought process, whether you wanted to or not.

  In recent days, William Riker had had his fill of half-truths and hidden agendas. These things were insidious, and hard to wash off once you got a little of it on you. He cleared his mind of such thoughts and concentrated on the moment.

  * * *

  Presently, the narrow corridor widened to reveal a heavy door, which drew back with a theatrical hiss as Riker and the centurions approached. The captain was two steps into the wide chamber beyond before he realized that his escorts hadn’t followed him in.

  Another glow-globe dropped down from above to hover over his head and illuminate him as he took in the space. The room was circular and empty, built so that those within it had nowhere to hide. Riker’s first thought was of an arena, a fighting pit, and he flashed back to those old Federation briefings that had first equated Romulan culture to one of Earth’s most ancient and militaristic imperiums. Were they going to make him fight like a gladiator?

  He wasn’t alone. Two more glowing spheres cast light on other figures. To his right, with her w
ounds dressed with dermal regenerator tabs, a female Romulan with metallic-red hair and sallow skin stood watching him. Major Helek of the Tal Shiar studied Riker with the same confident scorn she had exhibited on their first meeting. Perhaps it was beneath him to think it, but some part of Riker would have liked to find her defeated and fearful after all that she had done. Instead, she glared back at him with the air of someone who had already declared victory.

  To his right, and as far as he could be from Helek while still standing in the same room, was Commander Medaka, the captain of the Romulan warbird Othrys. His teak-dark face was weathered and grim, and he threw Riker a warning look that gave the Starfleet officer his first sense of exactly how dire this situation was.

  In a gallery up above the circular chamber, a group of figures in heavy robes moved in shadow, past the light cast by more floating glow-globes. Riker made out the silhouettes of four humanoids with the close-cut hair and pointed ears of Medaka’s people. A Romulan tribunal, he guessed, here to pass their final judgment on the three of us.

  “I am Judicator Kastis.” One of the shadows gestured, and a stern female voice issued out across the chamber. “Know that in this place, I am the hearing eye and the seeing ear. The laws of Romulus speak through me.”

  Medaka and Helek bowed their heads briefly at this ritual intonation, but Riker remained where he was, watching for cues.

  “As I utter the words now, we will conduct this tribunal in Federation Standard, in deference to Captain Riker’s presence,” continued Kastis, “and in the interests of openness with the United Federation of Planets.” The judicator said the word as if it was sour to her, ashen and alien on her tongue. She indicated the three shadowy forms around her. “Tribune Delos will observe for Major Helek. Tribune Nadei will observe for Commander Medaka and the Romulan Senate. And our… visiting advocate will observe for the human captain.”

  Riker shielded his eyes, trying to peer past the light from the glow-globes to get a good look at the person assigned to him, but it was impossible to pick out anything. The shadow gave him nothing, no face, no hint of gender, only uncertainty.

  He knew little of Romulan legal practices. Was Riker’s silent watcher his lawyer, his judge? Executioner, even? He banished that last notion with a grimace.

  Will Riker stood foursquare behind his every decision, even after everything that had happened over the last few days. What that would mean here and now in this place, he couldn’t know. But there would be no obfuscation from him, no wordplay or clouding of the truth.

  And once again, something came back to Riker, something Picard had said to him, years earlier on their very first mission together. If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.

  “The events of recent cycles in this sector are troubling to the Romulan people,” said Nadei in a clear, basso tone. “Armed conflict at our borders. Unchecked aggression from alien powers. Insurrection and subterfuge. These three are at the heart of it. The facts of the matter are held between them.”

  Kastis inclined her head. “So noted. Commander Medaka, Major Helek, Captain Riker. You will be detained in this place until you have answered all charges and specifications put to you, in a manner that satisfies this tribunal. At that time, we will rule on sentencing and dispensation.”

  Medaka and Helek nodded, and at length, Riker did the same. He had agreed to participate in this process for the good of Federation-Romulan relations, and it was far too late to back out now.

  But when Helek’s head rose again, she was staring straight into the gallery and starting as she meant to go on. “I will save the honored tribunal their time and their effort with one clear assentation.” She pointed in Riker’s direction. “The human and his cohorts bear all responsibility for what has transpired. As the Federation and their Starfleet have always done, he has attempted to entrap our people and bring us low.” She shook her head, and in the pause Riker was unsure if he was allowed to interrupt. For the moment, he let her carry on. “To my shame, I did not realize until it was too late that Commander Medaka, through weakness of his character and active subornment, was a factor in that plot.”

  “If the deck slanted as much as your utterances, we would all stumble.” Medaka eyed her warily. “As is her way, the major views events through a lens that only she can peer through. And it is a narrow aperture indeed.”

  “Commander Medaka’s reputation for operating in unconventional fashion is well documented,” Helek insisted. “I’m sure the tribunal have viewed his military record. One need only consider the eclectic crew gathered under his command to see that he has never been one to follow the letter of Romulan law…”

  “I took you on,” Medaka countered.

  “You may pretend that was your decision, if you wish,” said Helek, from the side of her mouth.

  Frowning, the Romulan captain looked to his human counterpart, giving him tacit permission to speak.

  “There’s a lot of blame to go around here,” said Riker, opening his hands. “A lot of emotions running high, despite all the coolness on display. You want me to help you place that blame so you can move on and call it done? I’m not here to do that. But if you want to know the facts? I’ll give that to you without hesitation.”

  Medaka offered him a tiny nod. “Good opening,” he said quietly.

  “Fine words.” Delos punctuated his reply with a barely perceptible snort. “But let us hold no illusions as to what we have invited into this chamber. A representative of the so-called United Federation of Planets. Our benign galactic neighbor, as they would have us believe. The ones who offered us the helping hand of a friend in our darkest hour… only to snatch it away when their mood changed.” Delos leaned forward and pointed at Riker. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you have any allies here, human. You are William Thomas Riker of the planet Earth, formerly crewman aboard the adversaries Enterprise and latterly of the battle cruiser Titan—”

  “The Titan is an explorer, not a ship of war,” Riker protested, but Delos talked over him.

  “The Empire knows you well, Riker,” said the tribune. “A man of the Enterprise, a vessel which, in and of itself, carries a name synonymous in Romulan history with acts of base trickery!”

  Delos could only be referring to a mission from the era of the storied Captain James T. Kirk, when that earlier Enterprise’s crew had orchestrated the first intact capture of a cloaking device. Romulus had never forgiven Starfleet for the success of Kirk’s clandestine operation. And Delos’s history lesson didn’t end with that.

  “A vessel you served aboard as first officer,” he went on, “in missions that accepted the Empire’s traitors, interfering with our private, internal politics… and let us never forget, saw you participate directly in the bloody rebellion of the treacherous Shinzon of Remus!”

  The silent advocate leaned close to Kastis and whispered something to her. Kastis accepted the hushed words and raised her hand. “I have been reminded that Captain Riker and his colleagues fought bravely to oppose Shinzon during the clone’s brief reign of terror, not aid him. Let us not lose sight of that.”

  “But to what end?” Delos gestured at the air. “Only so the Federation might benefit from the confusion sown in the wake of that atrocity!”

  “We defeated Shinzon at the cost of our dearest blood,” said Riker, unwilling to let things end there. In his mind’s eye, he saw his friend and shipmate Data, that most unique of beings, going out to willingly give up his existence, without a moment’s hesitation. Had he not, a man like Delos might not be alive now to belittle that noble sacrifice, and Riker told him so, his jaw stiffening in annoyance.

  The battle against Shinzon and his Reman allies, with the lethal thalaron weapon in their possession, had almost finished the Enterprise. While those events were seven years past and gone, the echo of them was still something Riker carried close. Delos’s glib dismissal of that and past events such as the tragic defection of the Romulan admiral Alidar Jarok, and the plo
t by factions on Romulus to invade the planet Vulcan, was equally grating. Riker wondered if this was some deliberate ploy on the part of the tribune.

  Was he trying to draw out an angry reaction, or was that how Romulans really saw those events from their side of the Neutral Zone? Not as the Federation’s attempts to make the right choices in difficult circumstances, but as the schemes of an enemy who wanted to destroy their way of life? This intransigence fatigued Riker more than he was willing to admit.

  There had been a time, in the war against the rise of the Dominion, when the Romulans put aside their enmity to join the Federation and the Klingons to defend against a greater foe. Riker had been one among many who dared to hope that from the ashes of that horrible conflict, something good might grow.

  He wanted to believe that an accord might be found in the wake of their shared fight. The first mission of his new command, after his promotion to captain of the Starship Titan, had been to open a dialogue with the Romulan Empire.

  For a time, they wanted to talk. The veil between two cultures held closed for centuries opened a measure. But only for a short while.

  Now it seemed to have fallen again, becoming heavy and impenetrable. Riker studied Medaka, the closest in this place to his own rank and position. A fellow captain, who had walked the same path as Riker but on the other side of the Neutral Zone. If he expected to find support, it was no longer present. The Romulan’s face was unreadable.

  For a fleeting moment in time, there had been the real possibility of détente. But all of that had been pushed aside with one revelation. The first falling domino that was even now reshaping the geopolitics of the entire quadrant, with worse to come.

  The supernova.

  Like every other officer of captain’s rank and above, Riker had first learned of it from a Starfleet priority-one message, transmitted directly to his ready room. He watched as a hologram of the fleet’s commander-in-chief, Admiral Bordson, worked his way through a tersely worded briefing that sounded the death knell for a civilization.