The Dark Veil

by James Swallow

  “We’ll need the ship too, of course,” continued the Riker analog. “Is that a problem?”

  “No. Does it surprise you to hear a Romulan say that?”

  “The Jazari will deal with the crew for us.”

  “Very well.”

  Medaka pulled the blade and flicked it into a fighting stance. “I should slit your throat for this,” he spat. “You’ve gone too far this time, Helek!”

  She eyed him, unintimidated by his threat. “I wanted you to be a part of what will come next, I really did. But I knew there was a good chance you would remain the same intractable, iconoclastic fool you have been in the past. That’s why I had Vadrel prepare a secondary option… If the Jazari data was not enough to convince you, then I knew I had to discredit you, utterly.” Helek brought her hands together. “What you have just seen has been relayed to every station on the bridge. The crew are all witnesses to your cowardice, Medaka. Your sad betrayal.”

  “It’s a fake!” he snarled.

  “Yes. But they’ll never know it.”

  The door behind Helek hissed open and Garn strode in, flanked by Crewman Felle, another member of the warbird’s security team. Both men had disruptors drawn, and Medaka knew if he made even the smallest threatening motion, he would be cut down where he stood.

  The commander opened his fingers and let the ceremonial blade drop to the deck, signaling his surrender.

  “Take this traitor into custody,” ordered Helek, feigning regret. “Place him in isolation. As of now, I am assuming command of the Othrys.”

  * * *

  The long, stifling silence on the warbird’s bridge seemed to go on forever as the captured footage on the crew’s screens lay frozen in its final moments.

  It was Decurion Benem who found her voice first, and when the Garidian sensor operator spoke, it was in a hushed, incredulous whisper. “I do not believe it. The commander would never… He would not…”

  “Betray us for himself?” growled Dasix. The towering Reman female lurked in the shadows at the rear of the command deck, close to the dim displays of the engineering console. “Are you certain of that?”

  “Watch your tongue, Engineer,” said Lieutenant Maian. As most senior officer on the bridge, the old veteran stood next to the commander’s chair.

  “You dispute it?” Dasix glared at him. “Medaka has always been willful, we all know that.”

  “The Terran captain forced his hand.” Sublieutenant Kort nodded at his own statement. “Forced him to choose between his family and this ship. What kind of cruelty is that, I ask you?”

  At the navigation console, Hade-Tah said nothing, staring fixedly at its screen. The Taurhai’s sharp features showed no emotion, no clue as to its inner thoughts.

  “Helek is behind this,” said Benem. “It’s the only explanation.” She twisted in her chair, taking in all the other members of the bridge crew. “We have to act before—”

  “Act?” Maian cut her off. “In what way, Decurion? Major Helek is now the ranking officer. This isn’t some Klingon scow, you cannot challenge her to a death duel if you dislike her.”

  Benem was going to say more, but then the turbolift at the rear of the bridge arrived and deposited the subject of his ire before them. Helek marched into the middle of the compartment, but it escaped no one’s attention that Centurion Garn had accompanied her. The security officer took up a post where he could observe them all, his thick arms folded over his chest.

  Helek seemed to sense Benem’s accusation still lingering in the air, and she gave her a long, neutral look before nodding to Maian. The veteran returned to his primary station at the helm, but Helek didn’t take the command chair.

  She let out a sigh of regret. “It is my duty to inform you that Commander Medaka has been relieved of his post. You have all seen the recorded evidence of his betrayal. He was a good officer, but with a weakness that our enemies preyed upon. He will answer for his failure.”

  Benem couldn’t stop herself from muttering something under her breath, and Helek rounded on her.

  “You wish to speak, Decurion?” The major stared down at the Garidian.

  “I’ve served with Commander Medaka all my career,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “I’d like to hear his side of this.”

  “Understandable.” Helek gestured toward the turbolift. “I would prefer you remain at your station, but report to the brig if you wish. There, you may speak to the commander for as long as necessary.” Her tone was level, but the inference was clear. Defy me and join Medaka in the cells.

  Intimidated, Benem turned back to her panel, and at length Helek settled into the command chair. She sat erect, like a monarch upon a high throne.

  “I want each of you to understand what has happened here,” she went on. “For some time, it has been suspected that Commander Medaka’s loyalty was… wavering. I was put aboard this ship to observe him.” Helek paused to let that sink in. “I did not expect to uncover a defection in progress… and worse still.” She drew her padd, keyed in a code, and the main viewer began a playback of the footage Helek had shown to Medaka on the observation deck.

  The bridge crew watched as the Jazari killed Hosa, drawing gasps of surprise from Kort and Hade-Tah; but then they all fell silent when Vadrel’s disruptor blast revealed the true nature of the androids. Helek gave them the same narrative she had offered to Medaka, of a synthetic alien infiltrator aboard the Othrys, a Starfleet ship in league with these duplicitous machines, and a plot against the peoples of the Star Empire. None of them voiced a challenge.

  “Many of you knew Uhlan Hosa,” she said. “You know he was no weakling, so you understand the danger just one of those machines presents. And there are thousands aboard that ship. An entire army of soulless automatons.”

  “The commander couldn’t have known…” insisted Kort.

  “Of course,” Helek broke in. “He deserves our pity, not our anger.” Then she snarled. “It is the Federation who warrant our unfettered fury! It seems it is not enough for them to watch the Romulan Empire perish slowly from the coming star-death. They seek to speed along the process with the help of their machine allies.”

  “Major Helek.” The veteran Maian was the linchpin of the bridge crew, and when he spoke, the rest of them listened. “What are our orders?”

  She took a breath. “We are outnumbered by the Jazari. The Starfleet ship can match us for power and maneuverability. But we have the element of surprise. The androids have yet to respond to the termination of their infiltrator, so we must act swiftly before they realize their plan has failed. We must be audacious and show no hesitation.”

  Maian turned to Kort and Benem. “Combat officer, sensors officer. Present a battle approach to the Jazari ship. Target power and defensive systems.”

  The two officers accepted the commands, and presently a holograph flicked into being at Helek’s side. She gave it a once-over. “Good.”

  “The Titan is the bigger threat,” Dasix rumbled, her voice carrying from the rear of the bridge. “Even in its wounded condition.”

  “The master engineer’s point is well made,” said Helek. “Prepare a firing solution for the primary plasma weapon on the Titan, and bring all weapons to ready state.”

  “Setting Condition Rapier,” said Kort, his hands dancing over his panel.

  “As regrettable as the events that have brought us to this moment are,” began Helek, “today we will affirm the one truth that can never be challenged or betrayed: Romulus does not forgive.” She brought her fingertips together in a point and set her gaze forward, before giving Maian a curt jut of the chin.

  “Execute attack,” said the lieutenant.

  TWELVE

  “Steady as she goes,” said Riker.

  He felt the faint tremor through the deck of the Titan as the starship passed close to a towering pillar of churning energetic plasma, the massive continent-sized plume throwing a hellish glow across the bridge.

  Of course, close was a
relative term in deep space. Such was the size of the plasma column that it seemed near enough for Riker to be able to reach out and touch it, but that was an optical illusion. It was hundreds of kilometers distant, a vast tendril of unchained energies rising up and out of the main cell.

  The storm zone filled the viewscreen off the Titan’s port bow. It was a great swath of slow-rolling plasma that blotted out everything in every direction. At the heart of that colossal interstellar tempest, plasmatic fires burned as hot as newborn stars, the radiation they threw off illuminating the dust clouds and inert ejecta that littered the rest of the sector.

  It was a stunning sight to behold, and on any other day Will Riker might have found time to be daunted and fascinated by it in equal measure. But his mind was constantly being pulled away, toward the pronged shape of the Jazari generation ship framed as a long black shadow against the plasma storms, moving in sync with his vessel.

  “Holding steady,” reported Westerguard. “The Jazari and the Romulans are maintaining separation.”

  “Storm activity is within expected parameters, Captain,” said Livnah, peering at her science console. “If we maintain this velocity, the flotilla should pass beyond the turbulent zone within fifteen hours, and reenter open space.”

  “Don’t get comfortable,” warned Vale. Seated at Riker’s right-hand side, the first officer addressed her comment to the whole bridge crew. “Plasma storms are notoriously unpredictable. We need to take each moment as it comes.”

  Riker glanced at the empty chair to his left. Usually, his wife would be there, and he felt her absence keenly. She was over on the Jazari ship, facing the worst that any parent should have to experience, but the bounds of duty meant he had to be here, unable to be with Deanna when she—and their son—needed him the most.

  Some days, I hate this job. The silent admission hung in his thoughts, and he absently ran a hand over his uniform collar, feeling the four gold rank pips pinned there. Jean-Luc never told me how heavy these things could be.

  An alert tone sounded on the tactical console behind him, breaking Riker’s reverie. The captain turned as he heard Keru give a low grunt. “Problem, Commander?”

  The burly Trill’s brow furrowed, accenting the patterning of dark spots down the sides of his bearded face. “I’m reading an aspect change on the Othrys. Alterations in their power curve.”

  “They’re speeding up?” Vale asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Negative, the power isn’t going to their engines.” Keru’s frown deepened. “Or deflectors, for that matter.” He looked up from the screen. “Captain, this is a shift to an offensive stance.”

  “Toward what?” But even as Riker said the words, he had a horrible sense that he already knew the answer.

  The timbre of the alert suddenly became shrill and insistent. “Sir, the Romulans are breaking formation!” Lieutenant Cantua called out the warning from the flight operations station. “Sensors now reading high-energy precursor events inside the warbird’s forward hull!”

  That could mean only one thing. “They’re powering up their primary weapon,” said Vale.

  Ever since the days of the first Earth-Romulan War, the Star Empire had equipped their warbirds with a singular, deadly weapons system—a directed-energy plasma projector capable of unleashing a fireball of hyperaccelerated matter. Although it would never be as controllable as a photon torpedo or as flexible as phasers and disruptors, the plasma weapon was far more destructive, capable of burning through deflector shields and turning the tritanium hull of a starship to slag.

  Like the storm raging off the bow, it was a force to be reckoned with, and it could kill an unprotected ship in a single strike.

  “Shields up!” called Riker. “Red alert!”

  “Aye, Captain.” Keru gave a nod. A new shade of crimson light bathed the bridge as warning indicators lit up.

  “Sir, be advised, our deflectors are coming on slowly,” warned McCreedy, working the panel at engineering. “Main energizer is still below optimal function.”

  “Work with what we have, Karen.” Riker leaned forward in his chair, scrutinizing the fast-moving Romulan ship. “Where are they going?” He took a breath, formulating his next command. I’ll put us between them and the Jazari ship, he decided, then find out what the hell Medaka is doing…

  But Vale’s reply cut that intention down. “Othrys is turning toward us. They’re starting an attack run!”

  “Cantua, warn them off,” ordered Riker.

  “Negative response to hails,” said the Denobulan.

  Keru gave a shout. “Captain, on the screen!”

  Riker’s head snapped up to see the Romulan warbird coming at them straight on, and there at the tip of its beaked prow, a sinister glowing shimmer formed as the plasma weapon was uncaged.

  “Engineer, divert all power to forward deflectors,” said Vale. “Ready for—”

  “They’re firing!” Westerguard warned as the plasma bolt burst from the warbird’s beaked maw in a gout of hellfire, and streaked toward the Titan. In milliseconds it grew from a speck of baleful light into a blinding miniature star.

  “Helm, hard to starboard!” Riker was suddenly on his feet, one hand gripping his command console to steady himself. He felt the deck pitch beneath him and the pull of the Titan’s structural integrity fields as the ship pivoted sharply.

  But the damage his vessel had suffered was still evident, and the captain sensed it in the sluggish turn. Too slow. Too slow!

  “Incoming fire, brace for impact!” Vale barked out the warning over the intraship as Cantua desperately tried to drag them out of the line of fire.

  For one dizzying second, Riker hoped they might make it through unscathed, but Titan’s turn was too wide. The core mass of the burning plasma bolt streaked past the starship’s starboard side, but the crackling corona of energy around it hammered through the weakened shields and seared a line of fire across the ship’s saucer-shaped primary hull and over one of the warp-drive nacelles.

  Titan reacted like a living thing, shocked into motion, veering wildly away. Riker fell back into his seat and held on as the ship shuddered, trying to right itself.

  “Good work, Mister Cantua,” said Vale, “that could have been a hell of a lot worse!”

  “Damage report.” Riker threw McCreedy a wary look and the chief engineer nodded grimly.

  “Shields down to forty-seven percent, hull damage on decks six through ten. Phaser banks offline, working on getting them back.”

  “Damn it.” Riker muttered the curse. “This makes no sense!” Had Medaka been playing him from the start? The captain thought back to the conversation they had shared in the Titan’s conference room and he couldn’t make that possibility stick. Will Riker always trusted his gut, and that instinct was telling him the Romulan commander wasn’t the kind of man to bury a knife in an unprepared foe.

  “Are they coming back at us?” said Vale. “They hit Titan with that again, we might not shake it off a second time.”

  “Negative, the Othrys has altered course.” Livnah read off the data from her sensors, and Riker’s blood drained from his face at her next words. “The warbird has opened fire on the Jazari generation ship.”

  * * *

  From the outside, the reparation capsule was a tube of translucent material resembling frosted glass.

  Troi watched glowing trains of blue and orange light move around the circular walls in complex patterns, stopping here and there to gather into knots of color. The capsule was one among a dozen suspended on arms of polished marble, although the others were inert, and among them drifted a handful of the floating orb drones that had spoken to her back in the infirmary tent. Every few seconds, the orbs gave off blinks of illumination that reflected from the chamber’s shiny walls.

  She put out her hand and laid it on the side of the tube, feeling the pulse of warmth within the material. “Can he hear me in there?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Zade. The Jazari stood close
by, his head tilted at an angle as if he were listening to something that only he could hear. “But Thaddeus is aware of your presence.”

  “The boy is calmed by your proximity,” said Friend, the now-familiar, disembodied feminine voice echoing around them. “Curious. He exhibits a low level of tele-empathic potentiality.”

  “He’s part Betazoid, like me,” said Troi.

  “Does that comfort you?”

  “It’s something,” she admitted. “I wish I could hold his hand.”

  Zade shook his head. “The capsule must remain sealed for the duration of the reparation program. The system uses nanoscale technology to repair damaged materials on a molecular level.”

  “Nanites?”

  “Yes. But they cannot exist outside of the capsule’s control field.”

  As the Jazari spoke, the light trains on the wall of the tube shifted to become a map of her son’s nervous system. Blinking dots collected around injured areas of his brain, and the tiny molecule-sized devices swarmed to those locations to repair what was damaged.

  “Do not be afraid, Commander Troi,” said the voice. “We are aware you have had undesirable encounters with nanite technologies in the past, during your time aboard the Starship Enterprise. Please know that our systems are wholly benign.”

  She wanted to believe that, more than anything, if it meant getting her son back in one piece. “This is… how you heal your own people?”

  “When reparation is required,” it replied. “The incidence is rare. Jazari are long-lived and we are cautious.”

  Troi’s unanswered questions came to her once more. “Exactly how old are you, Mister Zade?” She vaguely recalled that Zade’s Starfleet record put him somewhere at the low end of his thirties in standard years.

  “We do not measure time on the same scale as humans.” The reply was a deflection, and he knew it.

  Inside the tube, the light shifted again, and she felt her son’s aura change and soften. His fear was waning. He felt safe.

  Please let that be true. Troi offered the thought to whatever benevolent powers or fates might be watching over them at this moment. As an empath, she had always possessed some measure of belief in the numinous and the spiritual, and as her son lay on the edge of survival, she desperately wanted every element of the universe to be looking out for him.