The Dark Veil

by James Swallow

  Redei made a visible attempt to compose himself. “The Jazari people have no quarrel with the Romulan Star Empire. We have never been your enemies. Your actions are unwarranted!”

  Helek halted. “If you believe the machines are to be trusted, you are mistaken.” She adjusted the probe. “Once again, I implore you. Answer me.”

  Vadrel hesitated. “Major… His physiology is unfamiliar, it makes it difficult for me to establish a threshold for identifying false statements. We should consider that he may be telling the truth. He may not be aware of the location of the synths.”

  “No.” Helek had been the lead investigator in hundreds of invasive interrogations like this one, and her experience had seen her dig out answers for the Tal Shiar from all kinds of subjects—not just Romulan malefactors, but Terrans, Vulcans, Talarians, Andorians, and more. She had a sixth sense for obfuscation and mendacity. Her clarity of vision was the reason the Zhat Vash had chosen her to become one of them.

  Helek used the photic probe again, and the Jazari writhed in horrible silence once more. She kept the device there for long and agonizing seconds, enough that it would have made a human’s heart burst from the strain. Then she relented and wandered back to the tool tray.

  “There are no artificial life-forms on board our vessel,” rasped Redei. “Please do not continue to harm me.”

  “The probe’s damage is temporary,” she explained, ignoring the prisoner’s words. “I have devices here capable of stimulating organic nerves while keeping them physically undamaged, allowing me to hold a subject in a state of intense pain virtually forever.” Helek picked through the tools, selecting a curved blade. “But those techniques can take days to break a prisoner’s will, and I am impatient. Sometimes the more direct methods are the best ones.”

  “I cannot give you the answer you want,” said Redei. “This is senseless!”

  “You continue to lie to me and I am going to punish you for it,” she replied. “I will do harm to you, and continue to do it until you answer truthfully. Even if I have to carve the information I want out of your brain matter.”

  Helek leaned forward, and with the care of a fisher slicing bones from a fresh catch, she cleanly cut Redei’s right eye from its socket.

  * * *

  As a concession to the urgency of the situation, the Jazari allowed the shuttlecraft Armstrong to pass through a force-field barrier in the arch of the Ochre Dome and the small craft put down a few hundred meters away from the temporary encampment.

  Riker didn’t wait for the drop ramp at the rear of the shuttle cabin to open fully, and he scrambled out and broke into a run. He didn’t care how it looked. At that moment he only cared about his son.

  Deanna rushed up to meet him, flying into his arms. His wife’s beautiful face was streaked with tears and they held each other tightly. Riker felt his eyes burning and the bleak, fathomless panic he was struggling to keep in check began to rise. He forced it away, desperate to remain strong for himself, for Deanna, and for Thaddeus.

  He had been on the bridge, talking with Commander Vale, when it happened. Titan’s course had it directly over the environment dome, and Riker had actually seen the flash of light inside it, a momentary blink of crimson out by the hemisphere’s edge.

  He immediately knew something was wrong, but the cold realization of that soon turned into the most terrible of any parent’s personal horrors.

  “Talk to me,” he said softly, fighting to keep his voice steady.

  “He’s alive,” managed Deanna, around a sob. “But it’s bad, Will. Oh, it’s very bad.”

  Our son. The shape and power of that concept was heavy in Riker’s heart. The thought of their boy being taken away from them would overwhelm him if he allowed it, and that couldn’t happen.

  Alone in the shuttle, in the few minutes it took to fly down from the Titan, Riker had allowed himself a moment of pure, unguarded fear—just so he could meet it head-on, so he could try to be ready for the very worst. But now he needed to lock that away. He had to be the captain as much as the husband and father.

  He pressed Deanna’s head to his chest and they held each other for a moment. Then Riker heard a discreet cough and found Doctor Talov standing a few meters away.

  “Captain, Counselor,” said the Vulcan. “If you will both come with me?”

  Talov led them to the infirmary tent, past knots of Titan’s displaced crew and civilian complement who stood around in worried silence. Riker briefly met Lieutenant Hernandez’s gaze, and the woman gave him a nod of support. Her dark eyes were shimmering.

  “Macha feels responsible,” Deanna said quietly. “But it wasn’t her fault.”

  It’s mine. The words formed in Riker’s mind, weighing him down. Thaddeus and Deanna and all the rest of them were only down here because of the choices he had made. I’ve put them in harm’s way, he told himself.

  His wife sensed the turmoil in him and she took his hand. He squeezed it back, grateful for her presence.

  Thad was on a collapsible biobed, his small frame beneath a life-support arch. The boy’s usually pink complexion was sallow, drained of vitality. A breather mask covered his nose and mouth, and a neural monitor band sat across his pale, sweaty forehead. Riker had to fight down the primal urge to gather up his son and carry him away.

  To where? The traitorous voice in his thoughts sounded out the question. What good would that do?

  “Thaddeus is in a medically induced coma,” began Talov. His tone was surprisingly gentle, and not what Riker had expected from the eminently logical physician. “It was the safest choice given his condition. He has suffered serious bodily trauma, resulting in broken bones, tissue damage, and, most critically, an injury to his skull.” He paused to let them process his report. “I have done what I can to alleviate the pressure to his brain, but I am afraid my options are limited.”

  “There was an uncontrolled explosive event,” said another voice. Riker turned to see Zade standing in the infirmary’s entrance vestibule. Drifting above and behind him, a small glowing orb appeared to be monitoring the conversation.

  “An accident?”

  “It appears so, Captain,” said Zade. “The great ship’s systems use a series of distributed power nodes throughout the vessel, and one of them suffered a critical overload. It may be a remnant effect from the subspace fracture that damaged our vessels…” He trailed off. “I am truly sorry, sir. Thaddeus must have been playing nearby when the node overloaded. He was caught by the edge of the blast.”

  “Was anyone else…?” Deanna tried to speak, but her voice caught.

  “Yes.” Zade anticipated the rest of the query. “It appears that one of my people perished in the event. He may have been attempting to stop the overload when it occurred.” The Jazari glanced at the floating orb, then away. “The details are unclear at this time.”

  Riker listened to his son’s weak breathing and the gravity of it drew his attention back to the boy’s pale face. “Doctor, what’s your prognosis?”

  Talov took a moment to choose his words. “There is hope, but I must be clear to you. Thaddeus’s condition is critical. How he progresses through the next few hours will determine if he survives.”

  “Can we get him back to sickbay on the Titan?” said Deanna. “If that would help?”

  “It would not,” Talov replied. “Moving him, via shuttle or transporter, is not recommended. In my opinion, it presents too great a risk to the child. I strongly advise that Thaddeus remain here for the time being.”

  “We will help if we can…” said Zade. He trailed off again, once more looking to the orb.

  Talov stepped away, and motioned for Zade to follow. “We can discuss it outside.”

  Zade gave a wooden nod, and left with the Vulcan. The orb drifted silently after them.

  When it was just the three of them, mother and father each took one of their son’s hands and held it.

  “I let this happen,” said Deanna, her words thick with emotion. “Thad
wanted my attention, but I was so focused on keeping everyone here in good spirits, I neglected him.” She took a shuddering breath. “Will, before this happened, I told him off. What if that’s the last thing I ever get to say to him? He misbehaved and I was annoyed about it—”

  She couldn’t say any more, and fresh tracks streaked down her face.

  “No.” Riker’s voice broke and he felt his own tears come. “Deanna, no, don’t say that. He knows you love him, he knows we both love him. You’re not to blame for this. Please tell me you believe that.”

  “How could it happen?” His wife’s question was so plaintive that it cut into Riker’s heart like a dagger. “Did we do this? By staying out here, did we do this? Should we have left Starfleet when Jean-Luc did?”

  He couldn’t answer that, not without spiraling into a gulf of self-doubt and what might have been. His wife’s thoughts echoed his own, blame coiling inward, becoming corrosive.

  “We are here for him,” he said firmly, holding on to that single truth. “And Thad is the best of you and me. He’ll get through this, and we’ll be here to help him back. We have to believe that.”

  She said nothing, and Riker leaned in close to hold her tightly.

  * * *

  Hot, acidic bile rose in Vadrel’s throat and the scientist turned away, forcing himself to choke it back down. His fingers whitened around the medical scanner in his grip, his palm slick with sweat.

  Vadrel heard the guard, Hosa, give a low and sneering grunt at his queasiness. Behind him, Major Helek deposited the flesh she had sliced from the captive Jazari on a sample tray, without the slightest flicker of emotion. After the eye, she had removed part of Redei’s nasal canal and several facial nubs.

  Since the day the Tal Shiar had placed him in Helek’s service, Vadrel had nursed the fear that his “handler” possessed sociopathic tendencies, and now he belatedly understood that the reality was far worse than that.

  On the examination platform, the Jazari was trembling with pain response, and a half mask of bright blood covered the side of his face around his ruined eye socket. His breath came in tight, short gasps.

  “I will keep asking,” Helek was saying. “And I will keep cutting. I will stop when you reply.” She repositioned the curved blade in her hand, studying her subject as she considered what she would remove next.

  “Major!” Vadrel couldn’t help himself, and the words spilled out of him. “Is this really… the most efficient way to conduct this interview?”

  A shadow of irritation briefly passed over Helek’s features. “What is the subject’s condition?”

  Vadrel said nothing, unwilling to give her the information she wanted.

  The woman stepped away from her captive and came closer. With one gloved hand, Helek snatched the medical tricorder from Vadrel’s fingers and considered the data on the device’s readout. “He has only been lightly maimed,” she noted. “Life signs remain strong.” She toyed absently with the bloody blade in her other hand. “Our friend here is doing well, given the circumstances.”

  Doing well. Vadrel scowled at the way Helek said it, as if she were complimenting a child taking its first steps. “I am not comfortable with this. There are other methods,” he insisted, “less messy—”

  She spoke over him. “You find my technique unpleasant?” Helek showed her teeth. “Why would I possibly care about what you find comfortable?” She shoved the tricorder back into his hand. “For a moment there, Vadrel, it almost sounded as if you were challenging me. But that can’t be right, can it? I must be mistaken. Because a man as intelligent as you, in a position as tenuous as yours, would never do something so unwise.”

  Helek glanced in Hosa’s direction, and the veiled threat was there.

  “Do you want your guilt to be revealed to everyone?” She barely breathed the question, so only he would hear it. “Would you like the crew of this ship to know what you and your colleagues are responsible for?” She leaned in until her lips were almost touching the high curve of his ears. “There are many like Hosa aboard the Othrys. They have so much to lose in what is coming. I think they would like someone to blame. Don’t you?”

  The roiling churn in Vadrel’s belly was replaced by an altogether different variety of nausea—the horrible sickness that came from knowing there was no escape from one’s own mistakes. In his life before this one, the man who was now Vadrel had been a part of a project so secret that it defied even the most byzantine of Romulan schemes. But the fires of its failure had condemned billions to certain death, and he shared a great deal of the responsibility.

  “We both understand the magnitude of your crime,” whispered Helek, and she gestured toward the twitching Jazari technician. “This amount of bloodshed is tiny in comparison.” She leaned back. “You will help me. And you will not challenge me. Yes?”

  “Yes,” he said, admitting defeat once again.

  She put down the blade, narrowing her eyes. “Let us try something more potent. Bring me a neural fractionator.”

  Vadrel removed the device from its container. A hemispherical object little bigger than a Kaferian apple, the fractionator was capable of projecting energy fields through bone and flesh, directly into cerebral matter. Correctly attuned, it could dechain or reorder neurons in certain parts of the brain, even down to the most basic autonomic physiological functions. Set one way, it might make a person forget how to breathe. Set another, and it could rewire pain centers to create endless storms of agony.

  He offered it to her, but the major was no longer paying attention to him. Over by the doorway, Hosa had a finger pressed to a communicator clip in his ear.

  “Centurion Garn reports that Commander Medaka returned from the Federation ship a short while ago,” said the guard. “He seeks you, Major.”

  Helek let out a frustrated hiss and walked to an intercom module on the wall, tapping an activator stud. “Find me the commander.”

  A moment later, Medaka’s voice issued out. “Major. You’re not on the bridge.”

  “I’m dealing with an issue belowdecks,” she replied. “Do you require my presence?”

  Vadrel found himself hoping that Medaka would summon Helek away and put at least a temporary stop to this horror, but that did not happen.

  “There’s been an incident on board the Jazari generation ship. A fatal accident.”

  “How terrible.” She sounded like she was going to yawn.

  Medaka didn’t seem to notice. “They appear to be dealing with the aftermath. But in addition, it seems a civilian from the Titan was badly injured. In the interests of continued amity, I have made an offer to Captain Riker of medical supplies, should they be needed. Have Vadrel put something together for them.”

  “I will attend to that immediately.” Helek’s expression showed her intention to do no such thing.

  “The civilian is a child. Riker’s son,” noted Medaka. “See to my orders, Major.”

  “Your compassion does you credit, sir,” said Helek, and she closed the channel.

  Vadrel hesitated, casting around. “I will have the infirmary prepare a package of—”

  “Don’t be foolish.” Helek snatched the fractionator out of his hand and gave him a withering look. “We have far more important work to do here.”

  * * *

  “ ‘Captain Riker and his crew can be trusted.’ ” Qaylan said the words in a pitch-perfect imitation of Zade’s voice, throwing the quote back across the council chamber to where the other Jazari stood silently. “It would seem not.”

  Zade found the faces of the diplomat Veyen, the elder Yasil, and his old friend Keret among all the others in the Sept’s gathering. Only Keret gave him the support he was searching for. The others stood in silence, waiting for him to respond to Qaylan’s statement.

  “Your implication is unclear,” he began. “Do you mean to suggest our guests from the Titan are responsible for the incident in the Ochre Dome?”

  “I mean to question the motives of these Starflee
t people entirely,” retorted Qaylan. “I mean to show that having them on board our great ship is a huge error! We must deport them all immediately. If not, we risk further such ‘incidents’ and perhaps greater losses.”

  “Our preliminary findings suggest that the overload of the energy node was accidental,” said Keret, stepping up to be heard. “A great misfortune, we all can agree. The loss of our kindred Redei is keenly felt, and the injury to the human child is saddening…”

  “Did he cause it?” snapped Qaylan. “The boy? Riker’s son is a perfect exemplar of their lawless behaviors! The boy got into the Azure Dome even though he knew it was forbidden, and interfered with the growths within it!”

  “His name is Thaddeus.” The air vibrated, and the bodiless voice hummed from the very walls around them. “He did no harm, I saw to that. He was merely curious.”

  “I wonder if that curiosity was responsible for this accident,” said Qaylan. “And the ending of Redei! Not through malice, of course, but through ignorance! This child should not have been where he was, and yet his parents and guardians allowed him free rein on board our vessel. It proves what I have always said, the humans and their like are supremely undisciplined!”

  Yasil’s normally mild expression was downcast. “It is regrettable that nothing of our kindred survived the fatal discharge.”

  Zade had seen the datum from the drone scanners that surveyed the damaged zone inside the Ochre Dome. Anything caught in the field of the node’s critical failure would have been atomized instantly, including poor Redei.

  Keret shifted uncomfortably. “It is correct that bio-traces from the site correspond to the presence of Technician Redei there at the time of detonation. However, drone coverage of that dome was down-cycled due to the presence of the Titan evacuees, so no direct observation of the blast was recorded.” He paused. “There are some anomalies in our readings.”

  “If you will please elucidate?” said Veyen, breaking his silence.