“They are machines.” Helek loaded the last word with venomous menace. “Synthetic life-forms with no soul and no emotion. They fake everything about themselves, and they have done it in order to conceal their true intentions.”
“Show me proof,” said Medaka. Like most Romulans, he had always found the idea of artificial beings to be unsettling. Their society was rife with myths and old stories of evil mechanical duplicates and false beings, ancient cautionary tales woven into the tapestry of Romulan culture. But Medaka was also a scholar as much as he was a warrior, and he knew enough not to dismiss the idea of a civilization of alien synthetics out of hand.
The holoscreen cycled through deep-sweep sensor scans of what appeared to be a Jazari male, revealing—as Helek stated—the metal and polymers beneath a sheath of cultured flesh.
Medaka’s thoughts reeled as he tried to process the torrent of information, and dozens of questions demanded answers. Does the Federation know of this? Are the Jazari’s stated intentions truthful, or is there another agenda? Are these machines a threat to us?
As if she read that final thought in his eyes, Helek’s lips compressed into a thin grimace. “It is my sad duty to report that the Jazari have already acted against us. In the past few hours, one of their agents boarded the Othrys and it killed a crew member. Vadrel and I almost suffered the same fate.”
“What?” Medaka could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Why was I not informed immediately?”
“I had to be sure the ship was secure,” she told him, tapping another control on the tablet. “As your second-in-command, that was my primary responsibility.”
The commander’s chest tightened as he watched the moment Helek described play out. The holoscreen showed a robed Jazari in one of the ship’s laboratory work spaces as it savagely attacked the major and the scientist Vadrel. He saw it stab crewman Hosa through the throat and then attempt to choke Helek to death. Beside him, the major absently rubbed at a line of yellow-green bruising around her neck.
Shocked silent, Medaka watched Vadrel scramble for a fallen disruptor and shoot the murderous alien in the back. As it collapsed to the deck, the android’s synthetic innards were clearly visible in the footage, through the horrible wound in its torso.
“It boarded by remotely co-opting one of our cargo transporters,” Helek went on. “I believe it came here to terminate Vadrel and wipe out all evidence of the scans we took aboard their generation ship.”
“What scans? I specifically ordered—”
Helek bowed her head, becoming sorrowful again. “I disobeyed that order, sir. For the Tal Shiar. I forced Vadrel to conduct covert scans while we were on the Jazari vessel. Somehow, this android discovered what had been done and it moved to erase the gathered data. And now Hosa is dead, and the responsibility for his loss is mine.”
Medaka forced himself to stop reacting to what Helek was showing him and consider it dispassionately. It was easy to falsify holographic footage, especially for someone as well trained in deception as a Tal Shiar agent. Even the digital watermark in the corner of the frame signifying its authenticity was not enough to convince him.
But what if this is genuine? The secretive nature of the Jazari was well documented, and if they were indeed synthetic beings, their mere existence in these troubled times was a volatile possibility.
“You want proof, Commander,” said Helek, offering him the cloth bag she was carrying. “Here it is.”
Warily, Medaka reached inside the bag and his fingertips touched a curve of cold metal. He drew out the object within; it was a distended silver skull. The intricate mechanism grinned up at him, and he could not prevent a crawling shudder passing over his flesh.
* * *
The moment Helek was waiting for finally came.
From the second she entered the Othrys’s observation chamber, the major’s every word and motion had been a carefully judged and nuanced performance, designed to maneuver Commander Medaka into the emotional state he was now experiencing.
He doubts, she thought. Even as he hates me and the Tal Shiar, he still doubts.
That tiny crack in his contempt was the weakness she needed to exploit him, to bring Medaka around to the path that the Zhat Vash had laid out. Helek needed the commander to see what she saw, to understand that the machine life hiding under their grotesque skin masks was fit only to be eradicated. But to get him there would take finesse.
Helek pushed on. The foundation stones of the conspiracy were already in place. All she needed was to build upon that solid base.
Vadrel’s work in altering the security footage from the laboratory was exemplary, and for the majority it was unchanged from the actual holoscans. Helek’s new narrative simply adapted what had already taken place.
She explained away her clandestine use of the cargo transporter by reframing it as an invasion by a Jazari spy. Making an honest admission of her disobedience over the secret scans helped to cloak the rest of the lie by giving it an element of truth. And feigning guilt over Hosa’s death pushed the commander ever closer toward Helek’s desired outcome. If she could bring him under her sway, Medaka would do the work for her.
A Tal Shiar agent would never admit an error. They would deny, dissemble, decry, but never accept the possibility that they had failed. This was what Commander Medaka expected of Major Helek, and so she disarmed him and gave him the exact opposite.
“My orders from the Tal Shiar were to learn all I could about the Jazari. But I never suspected…” She paused, building the tension. “Commander, what Vadrel’s scans discovered on board that craft is nothing less than a weapon of interstellar mass destruction.”
“That is an extreme accusation,” said Medaka, frowning. “Can you back it up with evidence?” Helek showed him more scans, this time of the giant power core at the heart of the Jazari ship. He peered at them. “I see an exotic drive system and nothing else.”
“You see what you are meant to see,” countered Helek. “Do you recognize the core’s energy signature?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “It uses an isolytic form of tetryons. Incredibly powerful particles… and in the right quantities, a highly potent stellar inhibitor. Deployed correctly, a tetryon pulse can arrest all fusion within a star.” She let him dwell on that grim possibility. “It is a star killer.”
“What you say is so,” he admitted, “but tetryons can also be used for benign purposes.”
“Few but a fool would dare to,” she snapped. “And these machines are not fools.” Helek gestured at the steel skull that Medaka still gripped in his hand. “Vadrel interrogated the memory bank of that one and what he learned confirms our worst suspicions.”
She had to act swiftly now, to cement her narrative in Medaka’s mind as the true, real version of events. Helek brought up a tactical plot on the holoscreen, shifting the display to a map of the local sector of space.
“The Jazari ship does not intend to travel out into the unmapped regions of the Beta Quadrant,” she explained as a course projection sketched itself across the display. “Their vessel’s actual path will take it past the edge of the Neutral Zone, where our forces are most thinly spread… and into Romulan space.”
“To what end?” demanded Medaka.
“To burn every habitable world they find with their tetryon weapon.” She kept her voice pitched low, laced with fear and fury. This was the fullest part of her lie, and she had to sell it to him. “They will deny the refugees from the core worlds a place to start their lives again.” She touched her throat. “They will strangle us.”
“I cannot accept this,” said Medaka. But he was wavering, and Helek knew it. A lifetime of knowing the Federation as an enemy, and synthetic life as against the order of nature, was in every Romulan born. That cultural inertia was on her side.
The major saw her opportunity and took it. “The Tal Shiar have been monitoring the Jazari for some time, Commander. This collusion with Starfleet confirms they are our enemies. Tell me, did you not wonder a
bout the origin of that spatial fracture, the so-called accident that first brought us here? I believe it was a weapons test that went wrong!”
“The Jazari called for help.”
“One of them did, and that was against the wishes of their Governing Sept. It seems the Terrans and their machine allies underestimated the power of their killing tools.”
“You cannot know that.”
“The Tal Shiar knows,” she insisted. Now Helek went for the final step, and she schooled her expression to appear contrite. “It goes against my pledge to say this, but I cannot remain silent. You must know what I know. The Tal Shiar have long suspected that the star-death is not a natural phenomenon. We believe it was engineered by the enemies of the Empire.” She jutted her chin in the direction of the Titan, moving off to their starboard side.
“I have heard these stories,” said Medaka. “They are nothing but baseless paranoia and conspiracy theories.”
“Are they?” countered Helek. “Is it so hard to believe that the Federation would rather see our kind become extinct?” Again, she pressed on before he could offer a reply. “A decade ago, the Empire stood strong and unassailable. But then the war with the Dominion came, a war that Starfleet brought here from the Gamma Quadrant. And we were forced to fight in it.”
“We had no choice.” Medaka had crewed a warbird during that conflict, and he knew it all too well. “The Dominion took the Cardassian Union and they would have eventually taken us, given time.”
“But the war sapped the Empire’s strength,” Helek continued. “And then Shinzon and his Reman allies took advantage of that to stage his coup. Romulus was made weaker still… and our enemies saw it.”
“I know our history,” Medaka snapped. “I was a part of it! And as much as the Federation are our adversaries, I know them. In three centuries, they have never initiated military hostilities without provocation. What you suggest is beyond them.”
Helek let her lip curl into a sneer. “Yes, you know Starfleet. So do I. They have to be the heroes of every story, don’t they? No Starfleet captain would ever be so ignoble as to attack us openly! A war would get their delicate hands dirty. Better for them, cleaner for them, to let us choke to death on our own.” Helek snorted. “With a little push, of course.” She gestured around, taking in the infernal, amber-red skies around them. “Put yourself in the place of their leaders, Commander. You see your most ancient enemy hobbled by losses against the Dominion, with a Senate riven by internal conflict. It is the perfect moment to accelerate the rot. Then word of the star-death comes, and your enemy asks for help. But you cannot be seen to refuse! That would tarnish your perfect, unblemished self-image.” She held out her hand. “So help is offered, only to be snatched away because of a terrorist attack.” She made her open hand a fist, walking away to the nearest port, to stare down at the vast Jazari ship. “A synthetic terrorist attack.”
“I cannot accept that Starfleet would attack their own shipyards,” Medaka insisted. “They would not collude against their own people.”
She heard the hesitation in his voice, and like a disruptor cannon locking on to a target, she homed in on it. “A Romulan state with its heart torn out, its armada in tatters, and its people scattered with no new worlds to live on. That is what our enemies want. You know it, and I know it.”
Medaka made an effort to rebuff her line of attack. “Your theory is riddled with voids. The Federation have banned all synthetic life. If what you say about the Jazari is true, why would they ally with them? And why would the Jazari dedicate the whole of their race toward invading Romulan territory?”
“The Federation ban is a lie, like all the others they hide behind. And the machines…? They act on cold logic. They crave resources to construct more of their kind, and those riches are more easily plundered from dead worlds than live ones. Their alliance with the Federation benefits both sides.”
Every attempt the commander made to counter her argument had a retort. Helek suppressed a smile, savoring the anticipation of bringing Medaka to her side. He might resist, he might even believe that he was beyond all this, but he was a pureblood Romulan, and Medaka could never escape that.
The reality of living a Romulan life, reflected Helek, was that one was predisposed to believing all those around you were hiding dark secrets. Because they always are.
“If even some of what you say is true…” he began, and the major allowed herself that brief smile. “Then this is a grave matter indeed. I am compelled to act. For the good of Romulus and our people.”
She gave a short bow. “I will order Maian to sound the call to battle stations and take the ship to Condition Scythe—”
Helek was a half step to the door when Medaka shook his head. “You will do no such thing. I said I would act. I did not say I would arm our weapons and make ready for war.” He tossed the android skull back to her, and she caught it awkwardly. “Never forget that I am in command here, Major, and I do not take kindly to those who try to manipulate me with an arsenal of half-truths.” He made a low spitting sound. “What kind of fool do you think I am?”
* * *
Medaka was furious at the Tal Shiar agent’s arrogant, scheming behavior.
He guessed there was some measure of fact in among her words—the most convincing lies always had a grain of truth in them, after all—but the callous, unprincipled manner in which she had tried to corrupt him was insulting in the extreme.
“I didn’t rise to the command of a Mogai-class warbird by letting your kind work me like a puppet,” he snarled, finally allowing all his loathing for the woman to show. “If you want to stoke hatred and violence toward the Titan and the Jazari, then I have no doubt that is in your interest only, and not for any goal as grand as the preservation of the Romulan Star Empire.” He was disgusted with her. “Even for the Tal Shiar, this is an underhanded tactic. You seek to ignite a war where no conflict exists, at the worst possible moment in our history!”
“We are at war,” she barked, “we have always been at war! With the Terrans, with the machines! You are blind if you think you know what peace is!” It was as if a veil fell from Helek’s face, and for the first time Medaka was seeing through to the real person beneath it. What he glimpsed there was ugly and full of hate. Not dedication, not duty, but something barely controlled. An obsession.
His hand dropped to rest on the pommel of the ceremonial commander’s blade sheathed at his belt, a clear warning to Helek to stand down. “I will be the judge of when and how this vessel goes into battle,” he told her. “Riker is an adversary, but he is also a man of candor, of honor. He and his fellow officers have been trying to aid us. I refuse to accept that he is poised to attack.” Medaka considered his options. “I will speak with Riker on this. I’ll make my judgment then on who is the threat this day, and who is not.”
Helek’s anger waned and she gave a reluctant nod. “I have made an error. Mark this moment well, Commander, for it is rare to hear an agent of the Tal Shiar admit a fault. But I believed that my oratory would be enough to cut through that superior self-confidence of yours. I thought I could take a different tack, appealing to your patriotism and the innate suspicion of our kind, rather than doing something as clumsy as threatening you and your family. I misjudged.” She chuckled. “You’re even more obstinate than your files suggest.” Her studied veil dropped back into place, and now Helek’s expression became one of exaggerated disappointment. “Oh, Commander,” she sighed. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”
Medaka had reached the end of his tolerance with the other officer. “This is over.” He reached for his wrist communicator and began to speak. “Security—”
“I wouldn’t do that,” interrupted Helek, tapping a key on her padd. Medaka’s communicator instantly went dead.
He slowly lowered his hand, tightening his grip on the blade. “Don’t try to get in my way, Major,” he warned. “My crew are loyal. If you move against me, you will fail.”
“I would,” sh
e agreed, “and they are. But loyal to the Empire, yes? Not just to you.” Helek tapped out a code on the padd. “If the great Commander Medaka was shown to be disloyal, I am sure they would do what was right.”
“I am no traitor,” he snarled.
“A moment ago, that was so,” said Helek, and on the holoscreen new footage began to play. “But now the reality is different. And you will be whatever the Tal Shiar says you are.”
The images were grainy and distorted, but suddenly it became clear to Medaka what he was seeing. A view from the eye of a tiny camera mounted in the clothing of an unseen figure, framing the interior of a cabin on a Starfleet vessel. And there, caught at the edge of the frame, was Captain Riker.
“I have studied human customs. I am an exception.” Medaka heard his own voice, his own words but altered and edited.
“Yes,” Riker replied. “I’ll pass that on to Starfleet Intelligence.”
The commander reached up to touch the Imperial insignia on his uniform. He tore it off and stared at the metal shape of the great raptor, with the globes of Romulus and Remus held in its claws. The eyes of the raptor were tiny pinholes, and behind them glittered the lens of a sensor camera.
“I had Vadrel do it,” explained Helek. “He embedded a tracking module and a scanner. So I could surveil you wherever you went.” She opened her hands. “And see what I found? Such treachery.”
“Odd, that I can openly admit this to you, an outsider, but never to my own crew.” Medaka recognized things he had said to the Starfleet captain while he was aboard the Titan, but now the context had been shifted to give them a different meaning. “This is not an abstract thing, it is personal.”
“You’ve been very useful to us,” said the fake Riker. “Your defection will put us in your debt. We’ll find a home and a new life for you and your family, far from Romulus. Far away from the devastation that will come.”
A bark of laughter escaped Medaka’s lips at the ridiculousness of what he was seeing. “This is idiocy,” he snapped. “Pure lies!”
The Dark Veil Page 20