The Dark Veil

by James Swallow

  “No! No shooting!” Medaka forced his way past Vale and the others, interposing himself between her team and his men. The commander put the disruptor pistol in his belt and raised his hands. “Stop this.”

  “Stand down and return to your cell, sir.” The lead trooper took aim. “You are accused of collusion with the Federation. We saw the holographs.”

  “You saw what Helek wanted you to see. She lied.”

  “Then explain why these Starfleet intruders are standing with you!” One of the other troopers couldn’t hold his silence. “You are a traitor!”

  Medaka turned to Vale, Kono, and East. “Drop your weapons. This won’t work unless you do as I say.”

  Vale frowned, but then she did as he asked. Warily, Kono and East followed suit.

  Medaka stepped forward, making himself the only target. “If I wished to sacrifice this vessel, I could have done so before now.” He looked to each of the troopers one by one, singling them out. “I know all of you. You’ve been my trusted crew for years. Desseh, you have two daughters who are dressmakers. Hutor, you find a new lover every time we make port. Lebre there plays zhamaq so well than no one on the ship will game with her. Umbran sends most of his pay home to his sister, so she might buy passage out of the danger zone.” He let them consider that for a moment. “Have I ever lied to any of you in all the time we have served the Star Empire?”

  A ripple of doubt went through the security troopers, and their weapons wavered. “But you stand with them, Commander.” The trooper called Lebre jutted her chin at Vale and the others. “They’re the ones who let us down. The ones who promised to help Romulus, and then reneged. How can we trust them?”

  Medaka glanced at Vale. “These people did not make that choice, their leaders did that. They are little different from us.” He took a breath. “But I am not asking you to trust them. I am asking you to trust me. Major Helek has exceeded her authority and her mental state is uncertain. So decide now who you wish to lead you.”

  For a moment, Vale thought things might go the wrong way. But then, one by one, the Romulans put up their weapons, and the tension in the air faded. “What are your orders, sir?” said Desseh.

  “We will start by getting our ship back…” Medaka picked up Vale’s phaser and handed it to her. “Perhaps our guests from Starfleet can help.”

  Vale took the weapon. “Welcome back, Commander.”

  “Oh, I never left,” said Medaka.

  * * *

  “Confirmed,” said Garn, speaking in a half snarl as he read the data off a portable panel. “Contact lost with Felle and my men on the lower decks. It’s likely that Medaka has escaped from the cells.”

  Helek swore under her breath. “I should have executed him when I had the chance.” She raised her voice, growing louder so everyone assembled on the bridge would hear her. “You see? I am proven right! Even now, Commander Medaka is colluding with Starfleet aboard this ship, scheming to take control of it! All to prevent our mission from succeeding.” She looked toward Maian. “Do you understand? What I am doing is more important than his life, than yours, more important than mine.”

  Those last words left Helek’s mouth, and a wash of cold went through the major’s body. The vision of the Admonition was there, like a storm out at the horizon of her consciousness, always threatening to close in and engulf her. She would never be able to escape it. Perhaps she was not meant to.

  The Zhat Vash had chosen Sansar Helek because of her single-mindedness, because of the bottomless, simmering anger that fueled her. Perhaps this was the moment in which she would fulfill her purpose.

  Only she saw clearly now. Only she had the unbending strength of will.

  What must be done? Helek heard the voice in her head.

  “Anything and everything.” She whispered the rote reply to herself.

  “Major?” Close by, Sublieutenant Kort was watching her with an air of alarm.

  She ignored him and strode to the helm console, pushing Maian out of the way. The veteran moved to resist, but Garn came in and shoved him viciously toward the back of the bridge.

  “I need weapons,” she ordered. “I need them now!”

  Vadrel spoke up from the engineering station. “Major… that is not possible at this time. The primary weapon’s firing channel was damaged in the last attack. Disruptor grids are still offline. It will take time to—”

  “We have no time,” she growled, and Helek worked the helm, swinging the prow of the Othrys away from the Titan and toward the great Jazari vessel. The generation ship filled the image on the main viewer. “Every second we delay we give them an opportunity to escape us.” She girded herself. “Engines, then. Impulse power.”

  “Thirty percent impulse velocity is available,” said Vadrel, reading off the data.

  “That will have to be enough.” Helek studied the shimmering orb-shaped module between the tines of the Jazari ship’s secondary hull. Their main power core was there, a singularity-based source generating the volatile tetryon field Vadrel had detected before. All it would take was an impact in the right place, an uncontrolled release of those energies, and the Jazari ship could be killed.

  She thought of the synthetics teeming aboard the alien hulk, each capable of the same violence as the one she had trapped in the laboratory. Helek had been powerless against it, the fear it instilled in her real and terrible. They can’t be allowed to live. But she could wipe them out if she was willing to take the ultimate step. If she had the courage to do it.

  Helek’s fingers seemed to work of their own accord as they manipulated the thruster controls and pushed the Othrys onto a new course. The warbird began to move, slowly picking up speed, aimed like an arrow toward the Jazari vessel.

  Maian saw her intentions. “No, you cannot!” He surged forward, trying to stop her, but Garn was already there and he intercepted the veteran, grabbing him by the throat. The two men fought, struggling against each other.

  “This is what must be done,” said Helek, and an odd calm descended on her.

  “Major…” Vadrel was suddenly close at hand. His face creased in panic. “You’ll destroy this ship. You’ll kill us all!”

  “That is the price the Zhat Vash require,” she said quietly. “We must pay it. For the future of our species.” A smile crossed her lips. “Don’t fear, Vadrel. This is your chance for redemption. To erase your debt to every soul on Romulus.”

  “I won’t let you!” He took a step toward the thruster controls, reaching out to turn them away from the collision course. His chest met the double-tipped blade of Helek’s combat dagger as she brought it up and pushed it into him, burying the weapon to the hilt in Vadrel’s torso.

  A gush of dark emerald blood flowed out of the scientist’s mouth and his pale eyes went wide with shock. Helek, her hand still gripping the knife, gave the weapon a savage twist that tore open his heart. Then she released her hold on the handle and he fell back to the deck with a crash, choking and dying.

  * * *

  There was consternation on the Othrys’s engineering deck when Medaka arrived with Vale’s away team and a contingent of security troopers. With the assistance of the two Jazari, Lieutenant Hernandez had overpowered the crew and taken the warbird’s Reman chief engineer captive, but they were unable to take control of the ship’s systems.

  Hernandez stood on the access walkway, pointing toward the warbird’s singularity core inside its spherical metallic shell. “We can’t get into it, Commander,” she explained. “There’s a level-six force field surrounding the unit, controlled directly from the bridge. We don’t have the firepower to burn through something like that.”

  Vale saw the crackling sheath of the field glittering around the power core, and nodded. “I’m not sure shooting off energy weapons around a caged black hole is a good idea, anyhow.”

  Below them, on the support deck, Commander Medaka had released the engineering team and he stood in earnest conversation with the female Reman towering over him, while
Ensign Kono and the Jazari kept a wary distance.

  Lieutenant Commander East approached, his expression grim. “I made contact with the Titan,” he reported. “We have a new problem. The Othrys is under way and closing on the Jazari generation ship.”

  “Helek’s going to renew her attack,” said Hernandez.

  East shook his head. “No, it’s worse than that. Livnah predicts we’re on a collision course. Helek intends to ram it.”

  Vale took that in, hearing boots on the maintenance ladder behind her. Commander Medaka appeared, with his Reman engineer following close behind. “I assume you have the same information I do?” Off Vale’s brisk nod, he went on. “I think Major Helek planned for this from the start,” he said. “She’s been waiting for the opportunity to take my command. All the vital systems are protected by deflector screens, including the bridge. She used a Tal Shiar software weapon on my ship. Locked me out of it.”

  East frowned. “Probably the same intruder program she tried to deploy against the Titan.”

  “Time is against us,” rumbled the Reman. “Commander, we must consider evacuating the Othrys.”

  Medaka raised his hand to silence her. “I’ll not surrender my vessel to the Tal Shiar.”

  “Helek shielded your bridge…” Vale considered Medaka’s words. “Using the same deflector matrix as your ship’s defensive shields?”

  The Reman made a terse sniff. “What of it? As long as those shields remain in place, we cannot transport onto the command deck.”

  Vale’s lip curled in a slight smile. “Actually, we’ve got a way around that.”

  East snapped his fingers as he caught on. “Livnah’s counterprogram got us on board, and it’s still active!”

  “Sir, I said we’d help you get your ship back,” noted Vale. “I meant it.”

  Medaka made an after you gesture. “Then by all means, Commander, lead on.”

  * * *

  With each passing second, the warbird’s acceleration increased. The Jazari hulk loomed large before the Romulan vessel, the flanks of it growing until it filled the main viewer.

  Helek’s awareness became hyperfocused, as if each instant were captured in crystal, perfect and flawless.

  She was filled with a certainty that she had never known before. She would succeed, and the great threat predicted by the Admonition would, at least for a while, be forestalled. A good fate for a true patriot and daughter of Romulus, she told herself. A hero’s death.

  Her hand was covered in sticky green blood, Vadrel’s vitae cooling on her skin. His corpse lay at her feet, her dagger still protruding from his chest. The dead man’s sightless eyes stared up at her, silently reproachful. Accusing her from the afterlife. Seeing into Helek, and the lies that made her hollow.

  A cold shiver shocked through her. “Do not look at me.”

  “Major?” Centurion Garn came toward her, thinking her words were for him.

  “Look away!” She kicked at Vadrel’s body with the heel of her boot, and his head lolled, his face turning from her as if ashamed by her conduct. “I will not be denied.”

  A familiar buzzing cut through the air, and around the bridge columns of sparkling light phased into being. Helek saw human forms taking shape—Romulans and Starfleet, appearing at all points of the command deck.

  Impossible! She ducked forward, desperate for a weapon, clutching at the dagger lodged in Vadrel’s chest.

  A phaser blast shrieked over her head and struck Garn before he could open fire, knocking the centurion down in a heap. She heard the bridge crew calling out in alarm, but none of that mattered. All that was important was the next second, getting the knife, staying alive just long enough to complete the Zhat Vash’s mission.

  Her hands closed around the haft of the blade, but it was slippery and she could not remove it. Helek spat in anger, and tore it free with a jerk as a shadow fell over her.

  “This ends now,” said Medaka, holding a charged disruptor on her.

  She rose slowly, clutching the dripping knife. “Silence, traitor. You and your Federation friends have no place here. You betray everything the Empire stands for!”

  “No one is listening to you, Helek.” Medaka gestured with the pistol, and she looked around the bridge.

  Maian was back at the helm, veering them away from her suicide heading. Kort, and those alien fools Benem and Hade-Tah, all stood away from their stations, hands raised, disobeying her commands. She saw the human woman Vale and a dark-haired male of her kind standing alongside Romulan security troops. Their weapons were all toward her.

  “You are cowards and fools.” Disgust filled her, and she glared at Medaka. “I will not surrender. I will never abandon my cause.” She took a step toward him brandishing the combat blade. “You will have to murder me first.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” said Medaka. “The Tal Shiar, or whoever guided you, that is what they desire. Nothing but fear and death.” He let out a hollow sigh. “Has Romulus not had its fill of that?”

  “Then let me die!” she spat, pushing herself up against the muzzle of the commander’s lethal disruptor.

  “That is expected of me,” Medaka admitted, “but I don’t think I will.” He pulled back his weapon, throwing a look at Vale.

  The woman fired, and the phaser’s stun blast overwhelmed Helek’s nervous system with light and sound, turning her world to darkness.

  * * *

  The turbolift doors hissed open and Deanna Troi stepped out onto the bridge of the Titan, adjusting her uniform jacket. Despite the obvious signs of damage on some of the panels, it still felt good to be back among the familiar, after days aboard the Jazari generation ship. A sonic shower and some freshly replicated clothes had gone a long way toward making her feel human again.

  The counselor had invoked the privilege of rank to put off Doctor Talov’s demands that she report for a mandatory examination after returning to the ship, unwilling to miss what was about to happen. After everything they had gone through, she wanted to be here for the end of it.

  Troi glanced down at her son, who dithered on the lift’s threshold. “Thad, what is it?”

  “Kids aren’t allowed on the bridge of a starship,” he said, chewing his lip. “That’s what Uncle Jean-Luc always said.”

  “Well, consider this a special treat,” she told him, offering the boy her hand.

  Thad became very serious. “All right.” He drew himself up. “I don’t need to hold your hand, Mom. I’m good.” And then, in a perfect imitation of his father, Thad pulled his little tunic straight and strode forward, as bold as any captain taking his first command.

  “Master Riker.” Keru gave Thad a wink as he passed by the tactical station, and then a smile for his mother. Troi trailed her son toward the front of the bridge, where her husband was waiting by the main viewer.

  The screen showed the generation ship, now framed against the distant plumes of the plasma storms they had left far behind. Its conical prow pointed out toward uncharted territory, and beyond that, the deep void of extragalactic space.

  “We’re at a safe distance,” said Lieutenant Cantua, at the helm. “Holding station.”

  “Othrys confirms same.” At the ops station, Ensign Shae had taken Hal Westerguard’s post, and the young Deltan male was all business, treating this moment with the seriousness it deserved. Troi didn’t miss how Cantua gave the navigator a sad glance, recalling the loss of her friend. Westerguard and Cantua had been close, coming up together through Starfleet Academy, forming the kind of bonds that only shared adversity could forge. As the last shuttles carrying the Titan’s evacuees back from the Jazari ship returned, Riker had offered the Denobulan woman the chance to stand down for a few days, but she refused it.

  Troi could see the Romulan warbird a few thousand kilometers off the port bow. Like the Titan and the Jazari ship, it was showing signs of damage, but like them it had weathered the storm and come through it stronger.

  “Hey, kiddo.” Riker gave
his son a smile. “I thought you would want to see this.”

  Thad’s expression crumpled. “Are we going to say goodbye to them?”

  “That’s right,” said Riker. “We’ve all been through a lot these past few days, but now we’ve got to go our separate ways.”

  “Power levels building inside the Jazari ship,” reported Livnah from the science station. “I read precursor effects initiating in several subspace domains.”

  “They’re opening a wormhole,” said McCreedy, the thought of such a thing stirring awe in the engineer. “Or something like it.”

  Keru glanced down at his panel. “Incoming hail from the generation ship.”

  “Open channel.” Riker gave the order, and a holo-comm image formed in front of the screen.

  “Good day, Titan.” Zade stood in the middle of the ghostly image field, and Troi could make out the faint traces of other Jazari close by. She saw Keret, the technician she had met on their ship, the council leader Yasil, and scowling in the background, the eternally querulous Qaylan.

  “And to you,” said the captain. “Are you ready for departure?”

  “Indeed. The events of our exodus have been… complicated. On behalf of my people, I wish to thank you for your amity and your compassion. It will be remembered.”

  Yasil moved closer, becoming better defined. “Captain Riker, Commander Troi. We are leaving, but our trust remains. I know you will keep the confidences we shared with you.”

  “You have our word, sir,” said Riker.

  “Mom, what does he mean?” Thad was confused.

  “When you’re older, maybe I’ll tell you,” she whispered. Troi thought of the hidden reality of the Jazari’s true synthetic nature, and recalled their shared promise to hold that secret safe. No word of it would appear in the Titan’s logs, and anything Thad recalled or the other crewmembers had seen could be explained away. “Thank you for giving our crew safe harbor… and for what you did to save the life of our son.”