Putting the problem aside for the moment, he decided to walk on, in the hope that he might find another survivor. But as he negotiated the first bend in the corridor, all he came across was another corpse.
It was Murata, one of the engineers. He was human, but he looked a lot like Redonna now, his skin contracted around his bones so tightly it was painful to look at him. And like Redonna, he was well past the point where he might have benefited from Nikolas’s help.
Around the next bend, Nikolas found three more bodies. Sadly, he identified them in his head. Happy-go-lucky Jetraka, who had just celebrated his hundred and seventh birthday. Kroda the Tellarite, who had been so indignant when one of the other crewmen jostled him in a corridor. Yellowstone, the chess player. All of them sucked dry, like ancient mummies.
But not Nikolas. Why not? he asked himself. What bizarre providence had spared his miserable life when all these others had been sacrificed?
Moments later, he came to the doors that gave admittance to the bridge. As he approached them, they whispered open for him, revealing the scene beyond.
The Iktoj’ni’s command center was a good deal smaller than that of a Federation starship. It held only three stations—the captain’s, the helm officer’s, and the navigator’s. There was no room to accommodate a communications officer, an engineer, a sciences chief, or a weapons officer.
Still, the bridge had been a busy place, with personnel coming and going all the time. Usually, Nikolas added silently.
Not now, though. Those who had come and would have gone were stretched unmoving among the beginnings of blue and orange stalagmites, their handheld computer devices spilled from their grasps. And those ensconced in the three control stations were slumped forward in them, as if they had gone to sleep and had yet to wake up.
But they won’t be doing that, Nikolas thought with a sinking feeling. Not if they’ve fallen afoul of the same thing that killed Redonna and the others.
Just to be sure, he approached Captain Rejjerin, who had ignored Starfleet’s warning for the sake of making her ship’s delivery date. A Vobilite, she had ruddy, mottled skin and tusks that protruded from the corners of her mouth. Nikolas felt her neck for a pulse. There wasn’t any, and her skin was icy to the touch.
Just like the others, he thought. There wasn’t a mark on her, but she had clearly been dead for some time.
Is everyone dead? he thought.
And how in blazes had they died? What kind of weapon could rob a person of their life’s energy that way?
Then he saw something else—the configuration of stars on the large, octagonal viewscreen that covered the bridge’s forward bulkhead. It was wrong, it seemed to him, different from what it should have been.
Someone else might not have noticed. But Nikolas had sometimes served as a navigator on the bridges of Federation starships, guiding them through this part of space. He knew what the screen should have looked like.
Gently, he removed the helm officer from his station, which was wet with the drip from a stalactite directly above it, and laid him on the floor. Having already begun to stiffen, the fellow lay grotesquely on his side, with his head laid across his outthrust arms.
Nikolas forced himself to ignore the helmsman’s corpse and concentrate instead on the helm controls. They weren’t all that different from those he had manipulated in his Starfleet training sessions.
A small screen in the upper right corner showed him their course as a red line on a black-and-yellow grid. Sure enough, it had changed since the attack.
The Iktoj’ni wasn’t heading for the trading world called Djillika any longer. She was on a course that would take her into the portion of space occupied by the Ubarrak.
And she was doing so at full speed. Nikolas felt his throat go dry.
Ubarrak territory was the last sector he or any other Federation citizen would be advised to visit. Though the Federation wasn’t officially at war with the Ubarrak, the possibility of an armed conflict was always implicit in their strained and often hostile relations.
Slipping behind the helm console, Nikolas slowed the cargo hauler to a crawl. Then he punched in a new heading—one that would take the vessel back to the heart of Federation space—and engaged the thrusters.
When he looked up at the viewscreen, he saw the stars scrolling from one side to the other, reflecting his course change. Much better, he thought.
Suddenly, Nikolas heard footfalls. Heavy ones, too heavy to belong to one of his crewmates.
Swiveling in his seat, he saw the alien looming over him, his eyes glowing feverishly. But he wasn’t returning the human’s scrutiny. His head was tilted to one side, as if he were listening to something Nikolas couldn’t hear.
What’s going on? Nikolas wondered. Giving in to an impulse, he turned back to the viewscreen—and saw that the stars had begun moving back the other way again. Glancing at his helm console, he noticed that his course change had been nullified. Once again, they were heading for Ubarrak territory.
What the hell…?
Behind him, the alien stood gazing at the screen. He looked pleased with what he saw.
“We have resumed course,” he said in that strange, discordant voice of his.
A part of Nikolas couldn’t believe the invader had reset the helm controls without touching an instrument panel, or that he could stop a moving turbolift or make a cavern out of a ship’s corridor. But another part of him was starting to believe that it was possible—and that if the alien had done those things, he could drain the life from Nikolas’s comrades as well.
It seemed crazy. And yet, the evidence was starting to pile up. The invader possessed abilities far beyond anything Nikolas had ever seen.
But that didn’t mean the alien was a match for the Ubarrak. Not all by himself, in a lightly armed cargo vessel.
“You don’t want to go where we’re headed,” Nikolas said reasonably. “The Ubarrak don’t like outsiders.”
“I know,” said the alien, his voice every bit as harsh and ringing as before. “I noticed that when I reached into your mind to find a destination.”
Ignoring Nikolas, he turned to Rejjerin and raised a four-fingered hand—and the captain ascended from her station. With a horizontal gesture, the alien slid her through the air to another part of the bridge. Then he dropped his hand, and Rejjerin plummeted to the deck with a thud.
With the captain’s chair vacated, the alien settled his bulk into it. Then he turned to the viewscreen, where the stars were streaming by, and took on a look of contentment.
“I don’t think you understand,” said Nikolas. “The Ubarrak will destroy us on sight.”
“I understand perfectly,” said the alien, his mouth spreading again in a smile.
Nikolas thought about trying to incapacitate the bastard, but he knew that he would fail. And then there would be one more pale, shriveled corpse on the Iktoj’ni.
No, he thought, I’ll bide my time. Eventually, he’ll let his guard down. He has to sleep sometime.
He had barely completed the thought when the alien sent words into his mind: I don’t, actually. Not anymore.
“Nonetheless,” he added out loud, “assault me if you like. It won’t make any difference. We’ll still follow the course we’re following now.”
Nikolas’s heart sank in his chest. The alien might not have been as scary as the Ubarrak, with all their ships and their armaments, but he was starting to come in a close second.
Chapter Two
PICARD WAS STUDYING a block of text on his desktop monitor when he heard the sound of chimes, announcing the presence of someone outside his ready room door.
“Come,” he said.
The doors opened on command, admitting Picard’s friend and first officer, Gilaad Ben Zoma. As usual, Ben Zoma’s expression was a cheerful one—until he saw the captain’s.
“Must be pretty grim,” he observed, “whatever it is.”
“I am afraid so,” said Picard, leaning back in his chair. W
ith a gesture, he indicated the monitor screen. “These are the charges Admiral McAteer will bring against me. He was nice enough to send them in advance.”
Actually, niceness had nothing to do with it. They both knew that it was a requirement of the proceeding.
“What does he say?” asked Ben Zoma, pulling out the chair opposite the captain’s.
“Nothing good, I assure you.”
Ben Zoma had had the pleasure of listening to McAteer’s objections in person, when he and the admiral were working together against the D’prayl. Still, he wanted to hear the specifics.
“For instance?” he said.
Picard sighed. “I never hailed the Nuyyad in accordance with Starfleet protocols, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to tell their side of the story. Instead, I destroyed the vessel pursuing us. Then I attacked another of their vessels—the one in orbit around Magnia. And to add insult to injury, I went after the Nuyyad’s supply depot.
“What is worse, according to the admiral, is my reliance on the word of Serenity Santana, whose information had already proven unreliable. In fact, he says, the Federation still has no concrete proof that the Nuyyad represent any threat whatsoever.”
Ben Zoma made a sound of disgust. “Starfleet itself was suspicious of the Nuyyad, or it wouldn’t have sent us to their galaxy in the first place. And we were attacked almost immediately after we crossed the barrier—a battle in which Captain Ruhalter and several others were killed.”
“It’s true that I was relying at least partly on the word of Serenity Santana,” Picard conceded.
“However,” Ben Zoma pointed out, “you received the same information from a second source—Jomar.”
“True,” said the captain. Jomar was a Kelvan, and therefore at odds with Santana’s people. Yet his description of the Nuyyad as unrelenting aggressors agreed with Santana’s.
“And you were hardly in a position to observe protocols,” said Ben Zoma. “The Stargazer was badly damaged—by the very people McAteer would have had you hail. If you hadn’t destroyed them, they would have destroyed us.”
Picard frowned. “Had the Nuyyad been less hostile to begin with, or had I enjoyed a wider array of options, or had the stakes not been so high…of course I might have proceeded differently. But under the circumstances, I do not see that I had a viable alternative.”
“Nor do I,” said Ben Zoma.
“Thank you,” said the captain.
“Don’t mention it,” said his friend. Unfortunately, Ben Zoma wasn’t the one he would have to convince.
“Captain?” came a voice over the intercom. It belonged to Elizabeth Wu, the petite but efficient woman who served as the ship’s second officer.
“Have we arrived at Pandril?” Picard asked.
“We have, sir. Lieutenant Asmund is establishing an orbit now.”
The captain turned to Ben Zoma. “Care to come along and see Vigo off?”
The first officer quirked a smile. “Of course. There should be someone there he actually likes.”
Nikolas had spent hours carrying out the chilling task of lugging corpses to the Iktoj’ni’s main cargo hold.
The lighter ones he had slung over his shoulder. The heavier ones he had dragged by their ankles. None of them were easy, and they had gotten progressively harder as time went on.
But it didn’t seem right to leave his crewmates where they had fallen—especially those stationed on the bridge, whom the alien telekinetically tossed aside whenever he felt they were in his way. So Nikolas had gone through the cargo hauler deck by deck and compartment by compartment, locating the deceased and laying them in rows, side by side.
One of the first bodies he discovered in the engine room was that of Shockey, the redheaded woman who had helped him stop a fight and then tended to the knife wound he had suffered. She had been lying at the foot of a console—more than likely her post in the event of an alert.
Nikolas had liked Shockey. She had been so direct, so down to earth, so clued in to the ways things worked on the Iktoj’ni. But then, a lot of his crewmates had been likable—back when they were still alive.
He had collected thirty-three bodies—more than two-thirds of the crew—and was about to pick up his thirty-fourth when he heard a proximity siren go off. It was a security feature the captain had never seen a need for, but Nikolas had set it before he left the bridge. After all, Rejjerin wasn’t in charge any longer, and he wanted to know if someone was approaching the ship.
Fortunately, the mineral formations hadn’t invaded the lower decks yet, so Nikolas was able to reach the turbolift at a limping, stiff-legged run. Moments later it deposited him on the bridge level, which had become even thicker with the alien’s obstructions and therefore necessitated slower going.
Still, he reached the bridge in a matter of minutes, bursting in to see that the alien was standing beside the captain’s chair. He seemed unperturbed by the sound of the alarm, his attention focused on the forward viewscreen.
As far as Nikolas could tell, there was nothing on it but the Doppler rush of stars. But if the alarm had gone off, there had to be something more.
Slipping into the embrace of the navigation station, Nikolas ran a sensor sweep. It showed him that a ship was indeed approaching. He polled the sensors for more information—and got it.
The vessel was Ubarrak—an Ayatani-class battle cruiser, as big and powerful as any warship in the sector. And her weapons batteries had been powered up, which meant that her captain was anticipating a fight.
“There’s a warship out there,” said Nikolas.
“I am aware of it,” the alien told him, his composure undisturbed.
“This is just a cargo hauler. We don’t stand a chance.”
His companion glanced at him, then shrugged his massive shoulders. “We shall see.”
He doesn’t know what he’s up against, Nikolas thought. And by the time he realizes his mistake, it’ll be too late.
“You can still turn back,” he said.
The alien grunted, as if the human had said something funny. But he made no move to turn their ship around.
Nikolas had tried it the easy way. Now he had to try something else. Without warning, he darted across the bridge to get to the helm controls, hoping to bring the ship about.
But as soon as he got near the console, he was greeted with a flash of blue-white energy—one that would have cooked him to a crisp if he had come a little closer.
His nostrils full of ozone, Nikolas glared at the alien. “You don’t know what you’re doing. All you’re going to accomplish is getting us killed.”
The alien didn’t seem moved in the least. He was still taking in the sight of stars streaming by on the viewscreen, his silver eyes gleaming majestically.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Nikolas demanded. “If we go up against that ship, we’ll be destroyed.”
“Perhaps,” said the alien. He turned a sidelong glance on the human, cold enough to turn his insides to ice. “And then again…perhaps not.”
Picard had been dreaming—something about the marathon on Danula II that he had won as a freshman at the Academy—when he was roused by his second officer’s voice on the intercom.
“Sir?” said Wu.
“Picard here,” he said, sitting up in bed and running his fingers through his hair.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but we’re being hailed by an unidentified cargo vessel. Whoever’s in command wants to speak with you—and you alone.”
“Have they given any indication of what they want?” he asked, pulling aside his covers and swinging his legs out of bed.
“None,” came the answer.
“Very well,” said the captain. “I will take it here in my quarters.”
“Aye, sir.”
Padding across the carpeted deck to his closet, Picard took out a clean uniform and slipped it on. Then he sat down in front of the small, space-efficient workstation in the anteroom of his quarters and accepted
the communication.
Instantly, the Federation insignia on the screen—a disk displaying a field of gleaming stars resting in the embrace of twin laurel wreaths—gave way to a different image entirely.
It was that of a woman, and a very beautiful woman at that. She had long black hair gathered into a ponytail and eyes the color of rich, dark chocolate. And it wasn’t the first time the captain had seen her…
Though the last time had been in another galaxy.
Ben Zoma moved his bishop from level 2 to level 3 on the three-dimensional chessboard, then sat back in his chair. “You really think ‘brilliant’ is the right word, Lieutenant?”
“I do,” Urajel confirmed from her seat on the other side of the table as she studied the multilevel chessboard with her shiny black eyes.
She was an Andorian, one of the brighter stars in Mister Simenon’s engineering section. And she had a refreshing way of speaking her mind that had always appealed to the first officer, though never more than now.
“I have served with some remarkably resourceful people,” Urajel continued, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the buzz in the observation lounge, “and I can’t recall any of them devising such a novel way to communicate.”
She was talking about the maneuver Ben Zoma had pulled off just a handful of days earlier. Stuck in an unfamiliar craft that he had borrowed from an armada of hostile aliens, prevented from contacting the Stargazer—or any of the other Federation ships lined up against the invaders—by jamming signals, he had nonetheless found a way to defuse the situation.
After all, the aliens didn’t really want to fight. They just wanted to retrieve someone who belonged to them, an individual whom the Federation would willingly relinquish once they confirmed his true identity.
But it was Ben Zoma’s job to get that information across—at the very least, the part about the possibility of avoiding bloodshed—before the battle got under way.
So he took a roll of flat, pale foodstuff, dyed it with a message Picard alone would understand, and sent it floating out into the void. Seeing the message—a reference to the Picard family vineyard—the captain sent up a red flag. And soon after, what might have been a bloodbath of historical proportions was rendered moot.
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