The Dark Veil

by James Swallow

  Riker gave her a last glance, and the two of them shared a little of their strength in that glance. Then he turned away and both of them went back to the business at hand.

  * * *

  The observation lounge ahead of the bridge was sealed off for the interim, thanks to the damage caused by a shard of the ship-breaker that had speared through one of the ports, so Vale gave the report to the captain in his ready room.

  Usually, she was the one who paced and Riker watched from behind his desk, but this time the roles were reversed. The first officer stood unmoving as her commander followed a short course back and forth across the cabin.

  “If we could put in at a starbase, it would be as if nothing had happened,” she said, tapping the padd with McCreedy’s terse report on it. “Corps of Engineers could buff it right out. But that’s not an option, so we’ve got at least six days of active repair work. But the big problem is access. The damage-control crews need to get into the toxified sections of the ship to work, and for that the vent controls need to be operable and the plasma-tank breaches sealed. But for that to happen, the main vent controls have to be fixed and they’re inside a compartment filled with gaseous, acidic coolant.”

  “Can we beam in a team wearing EV suits?”

  “That’s the chief engineer’s recommendation, sir. But it’ll be slow work.” She paused, chewing her lip.

  “There’s more.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Even after the venting units are back online and we purge the leaked coolant, the sealed sections need to be decontaminated. That means we can’t move people back down there until it’s done. And right now we have all one hundred percent of the crew crammed into thirty percent of the interior spaces, with a damaged environmental system that’s straining to manage. We can triple up crew bunking, convert the holodecks to temporary dormitories for the civilians, but that’ll only take a little of the pressure off.”

  “What about putting some people down on a nearby planet?” Riker glanced out of the window. “We have temporary shelters in the cargo bay. We’ll send them on a camping trip.”

  Vale cut that option down with a sigh. “You saw what the Jazari have done to their homeworld, sir. It’s a mess over there, barely any breathable atmosphere and constant hundred-k winds. The next nearest habitable Class-M planet is two light-years away, in the middle of the Neutral Zone.”

  “We have nothing but bad choices,” said Riker. “Can we send up a flare and get another ship out here?”

  Vale gave him a level look. “You know what Starfleet will say if we ask, sir.”

  “I suppose so.” After the attack on Utopia Planitia and the body blow the fleet had taken there, starships were spread more thinly than ever before. Other shipyards in other systems were racing to make up the shortfall and replace the lost craft, but it was unlikely that a vessel would be diverted to aid the Titan unless the circumstances were extreme. “I guess we’re on our own.”

  “We’re always the ones who reach out,” said Vale. “Seems like it rarely comes back the other way.” They were alone, so she made no attempt to hide her bitterness.

  The captain hesitated, searching for a reply, and in that moment the intercom on his desk chimed. “Bridge to ready room,” said Troi, “we’ve got an incoming hail.”

  “From the Romulans?”

  “No. It’s the Jazari. They say they want to… make amends.”

  FIVE

  The holographic signal from the Jazari generation ship shimmered into a false solidity, forming two humanoid shapes in the middle of Riker’s ready room.

  In physical build and height, the Jazari were remarkably similar, but it was in the tones of their skin and the patterns of the scales on their faces that their individuality came through. The captain recognized the ambassador, Veyen, in the same plain robes he had worn when first he boarded the Titan, but the second figure took him a moment to place. The younger Jazari’s face was out of context for him, and then he knew why—it was the former lieutenant Zade, no longer in a Starfleet uniform, now garbed in a simple tunic and trousers.

  “Good day, Captain,” he said, his image flickering as it settled. “I confess I did not expect to be speaking to you again.”

  “Same here,” agreed Riker. “Ambassador, thank you for contacting us.”

  At the captain’s side, his first officer remained silent, but her body language spoke volumes. Vale studied the Jazari with a cool, dispassionate eye.

  “You have our gratitude and esteem, Captain,” said Veyen. “The selfless deeds of your crew will become part of our historical record. Every Jazari will know what you did for us.”

  “Commander Medaka and his people should share the credit,” Riker noted. “Without them, we would have failed.”

  Zade nodded. “Indeed. And we are also communicating our thanks to them at this moment.” He paused. “They showed remarkable compassion, at odds with our common evaluation of the Romulan character.”

  “Did your ship suffer any damage?” Vale broke her silence, but not her watchful manner.

  “Yes, but far less than we would have experienced had your static warp shell not succeeded in collapsing the spatial fracture.” Veyen gave Zade a sideways glance. “During our decommissioning processes, we suffered similar events in the deconstruction of some of our older craft, but none as deadly as this one. The exterior of our great ship was penetrated in several places, but its systems are… self-repairing.”

  “Thanks to you, we will still be able to depart this system within our planned launch window,” added Zade.

  “You told Counselor Troi you wanted to make amends,” said Vale. “Would you care to expand on that?”

  Riker noted her tone, but said nothing. He was as interested in the answer as the commander.

  “We are aware of the situation aboard the Titan,” continued the ambassador.

  “You’ve scanned us?” Riker raised an eyebrow. Clearly, the Jazari’s rules about personal privacy were not a two-way street.

  Veyen chose not to address that. “We… wish to repay your kindness toward us.” He was finding it hard to say the words, and at length Zade stepped in.

  “Captain, we would like to offer you the use of one of our great ship’s ecodomes, as a temporary shelter for your crew. We have many of these compartments. Each is a self-contained biosphere holding samples of flora and fauna from our homeworld. The Ochre Dome is comparable to a temperate region on Earth, Izar, Rigel, and similar planets. We can give you sanctuary there, if this is agreeable.”

  Riker suddenly wished that Troi were here to lend him her diplomatic expertise. Of all the things he had expected to hear from the reclusive Jazari, an offer to come to their ship was not on the list. “You understand that our people would need to remain aboard your vessel for several days,” he said carefully, his mind racing as he considered what this might mean.

  This was an unprecedented proposal, and turning it down would not only insult the Jazari, it would close the door on something that might never happen again. Riker glanced at Vale, seeing his own surprise reflected on her face.

  “We would have to bring across civilians and Starfleet personnel,” Riker continued. “Support equipment and medical hardware. We have several casualties.”

  “That… will be permitted It is the least we can do.” Veyen’s reply was so tight-lipped, Riker thought he might snap in two. “Within reason, of course.”

  The captain calculated the numbers in his head. With the civilians and the injured off the ship, and the demand on the ship’s damaged systems reduced, Titan would be able to get back up to operational status in half the time.

  “Can I ask,” said Vale, “have you made this offer to the Romulans as well?”

  “We have,” said Veyen. “Commander Medaka respectfully declined.”

  “His vessel’s repair requirements are not as urgent as those of the Titan,” noted Zade. “His officers seemed quite uncomfortable with the idea of being our guests, in point of fact
. But he has accepted an invitation to receive the thanks of Governing Sept in person. I hope you will too, Captain.”

  “Of course.” Riker straightened his tunic. Part of him was still catching up with what was going on, and suddenly he remembered that among the people who would go to that ship would be his son, as their family quarters was on one of the ship’s still-contaminated decks. “This is very generous of you,” he went on. “I know how seriously your species takes its privacy and for you to open your… your home to us, well, it means a great deal. On behalf of my crew, thank you.”

  “We would prefer you refrain from the use of matter transporters when boarding the great ship,” said Veyen. “The Governing Sept will transmit information on where and how to enter the Ochre Dome via shuttlecraft presently. Good day.”

  The holograms dissolved into nothing, leaving Riker and Vale alone again. “That did just happen, right?” he asked her, after a moment. “Or did I bang my head during the shockwave and hallucinate that conversation?”

  “One of the galaxy’s most reclusive species just rolled out the welcome mat,” she replied, “on the eve of the day they’re about to leave forever for the depths of the Beta Quadrant. Nope, that pretty much sums it up, sir.” Vale paused, thinking it over. “You know, the Federation Diplomatic Corps will hate us forever when they find out we fell into this by accident.”

  “Which is exactly why I am going to put my wife in charge of this thing immediately. If anyone can handle this, it’s Deanna.”

  “No argument there.”

  Riker saw a familiar cast in Vale’s eyes and made a beckoning gesture. “You have something else to say. Out with it, Commander.”

  She sighed. “I’ve been using the word suspicious a lot recently…”

  “You want something different?” said Riker. “Iffy? Shady? Fishy?”

  “Let’s go with all of the above.” Vale stood straighter. “Sir, I used to be security, and before that I was police, and those are jobs where you meet a lot of beings with ulterior motives. So, forgive me if I’m going with what I know, but right now I am on yellow alert up here.” She tapped her temple with a fingertip. “And you should be too.”

  Riker smiled slightly. “You didn’t trust the Jazari when they were closed off. You don’t trust them when they’re open.”

  “That’s the rub, Captain,” she replied. “I don’t trust anything at face value.”

  * * *

  “Link terminated,” said the soft voice in the walls. “Aura barrier restored.” It had a metered and gentle cadence that some beings would have gendered as feminine.

  “Confirmed,” noted Zade, addressing the comment to the air.

  At his side, Veyen stood unmoving. “What we have just done is unprecedented. I am concerned that the full ramifications of it are not yet clear.”

  “That is a gargantuan understatement.” Qaylan was one of the more vocal members of the Governing Sept, and he seemed about to prove so once more, his tone building toward the bellicose. “I am on record as opposing this in the strongest possible terms.”

  “With respect,” said Zade, “bringing aliens among us is not wholly unprecedented. It has been done before.”

  Across the communication chamber, Yasil, the Sept’s other senior representative, ran a hand through his barbs and smiled, emulating a very human gesture. “Zade, I respect the point you are making, but bringing up that part of our history will not serve you well. I was there in the days when humans first came to our planet, and it was chaotic, at best.”

  “We were very different then,” noted Veyen.

  “But the humans have not evolved, as we have.” Qaylan seized on the comment. “And neither have the Romulans, or any of these aliens. They live too short a life. They lack our perspective. We cannot associate with them!” He gestured at the walls of the great ship around them, the high vaulted chamber extending away. “Here we stand inside a construct built precisely because of that very fact! Look at the data. Do we need to coordinate in order for you to accept this?”

  “Leaving them to fend for themselves goes against everything at the core of our natures.” The air itself resonated with the words. “If we leave them, the tensions between the Starfleet ship and the Romulan ship are likely to grow. Probability of a negative outcome is high.”

  “It is not our concern,” insisted Qaylan. “Of course we appreciate their aid. But we did not ask for it.”

  “I did.” The words came from a Jazari in an engineer’s attire, observing from one of the galleries. “I sent the distress call.”

  “Sabem.” Zade glanced in his direction. “You are not judged for that. You feared destruction. You did what you thought was right.”

  “You should have solved the issue yourself.” For all of Zade’s words, Qaylan seemed quite content to criticize the sole survivor of the reclaim station as harshly as he pleased. “That is also our way.”

  “Tarsin was destroyed attempting to close the fracture.” Sabem looked away. “With his ending, I could not determine any other course of action.”

  “Would you rather Sabem had remained silent, Qaylan?” said Yasil. “We would have suffered great, great loss if he had.”

  “Perhaps,” admitted Qaylan. “But some would have survived. Enough to reconstruct what was ruined.”

  “What is done cannot be undone,” hummed the voice in the walls. “We have a code. We live by it. The crew of Titan put themselves in harm’s way for us, with no expectation of recompense.”

  “As did the Romulans,” snapped Qaylan.

  “But the Romulans do not need our help,” said Veyen. “Nor would they accept it, even if they did.”

  “We remember our obligations,” said the voice. “We have a code,” it repeated.

  “So we bring these beings aboard, we give them space in the Ochre Dome for a few day-cycles. What then?” Qaylan scowled. “They are overly inquisitive, disorderly life-forms. Has the Sept fully considered what they may discover about us, given such exposure? We must protect ourselves.”

  “And we will,” insisted Zade. “I know these people. They are not our enemies or our lessers.” He paused. “I have been clear in my opinions on the matter of the migration. I disagreed with it. Some might suggest my patterns of thought have been influenced by my exposure to these beings. Neither datum alters the truth. Captain Riker and his crew can be trusted.”

  Qaylan studied him coldly. “As the decision has already been made,” he replied, “we have no choice but to hope that is so.”

  * * *

  Keru kept his hands on the Armstrong’s controls, guiding the shuttle up and away from Titan’s landing bay, and over the ship.

  Inside the small auxiliary craft, the air was cold but clean, a marked difference from the smell of anticontaminants that pervaded the interior of the Titan. The Trill welcomed the difference. For the last day or so, the smell of the decontamination process at work on the starship had collected at the back of his throat and left him with a nagging, unpleasant cough. It made it hard for him to sleep, and that was tough enough on top of working additional duty shifts and being crammed into a cabin with three other officers, two of whom snored. He missed his partner, he missed having a moment to just breathe easy.

  Repair work on Titan was moving ahead, so that was a good thing, but the ship would not be back at optimal level for days more to come. Keru was quietly grateful for a chance to get off the vessel, if only for a few hours.

  In the cabin behind him, Captain Riker and Commander Vale were going over the last few details before their formal meeting with the Jazari. The aliens had asked that no more than three officers attend, and given that they were already hosting a whole bunch more of Titan’s people, it seemed rude to protest.

  Lieutenant Commander East argued that a security officer should have been the one to accompany Riker and Vale, but as the senior man, Keru had invoked his privilege and taken the assignment. He reasoned that if anything untoward was going to happen, it would have
happened already.

  Hope I’m right, he thought. East will never let me live it down if I’m wrong.

  He angled the Armstrong toward the Jazari generation ship, the massive craft growing swiftly into a curved wall of silver metal that filled the view through the canopy. Small fragments of damaged hull flickered at the corners of his vision as they fizzed against the shuttle’s deflector screens, but beyond that it was hard to see where the big vessel had taken any noticeable damage. Apart from some carbon scoring, it was relatively intact. Keru frowned at that. The Jazari had allowed others to take the brunt of the damage for them.

  He pushed that uncharitable thought aside. Whatever the situation, the Jazari were helping now, and that was all that mattered.

  Keru banked slightly so that the shuttle’s port-side windows captured the giant hemisphere of the Ochre Dome. “Passing over the temporary camp,” he called out.

  Vale leaned close to the panel. “I see it, at three o’clock.”

  The spot the commander indicated was visible among the dun-colored landscape inside the ecodome, a cluster of white cubes around the dart-shape of another shuttle, the Marsalis. They were too far away to make out individual people, but the emergency bivouac seemed solid enough through the pentagonal panels that made up the arc of the clear dome. Disaster rescue pods and a fabricated tent “village” had been assembled within a few hours of the Jazari extending their invitation, and now it was a home away from home for Titan’s displaced crew. Counselor Troi was working as on-site administrator, and she had reported that all was well. She made it sound so inviting that some of the work teams still on the starship were making noises about asking for shore leave. Keru grinned at the thought, and then realized he hadn’t actually smiled at anything for days.

  The Armstrong sped past the Ochre Dome and over a series of other similar constructs. Clustered around the dorsal surface of the generation ship, the other neighboring ecodomes contained pocket environments of different sorts. Keru saw a lake, another with a lush forest, and a smoke-dark vault lit by peculiar bioluminescent glows.