by Greg Cox
The constant stream of busy passersby tugged at the back of his mind, however. There was something about all this nocturnal activity that bothered him, but it took him a moment or two to put his finger on the problem: How had the thieves managed to transport their booty through these well-populated hallways without being spotted? It made no sense. After all, they had not gassed the entire palace into unconsciousness, so someone should have noticed a huge parade of thieves carrying all manner of extravagant gifts through the corridors of the palace, and yet, apparently, no one had. The furrows on Worf’s brow grew even deeper as he examined the problem. Never mind where the gifts are now, he thought. How did they get there?
He quickened his pace, the sooner to reach the High Hall of Ceremonial Grandeur. If only there was a turbolift to rush him to the scene . . . ! He was on to something, he knew it. He would recover the gifts before the dawn, and demonstrate once and for all the efficacy of Klingon forthrightness as opposed to the endless verbal circumlocutions that the Pai seemed to have mistakenly confused with honor. The Pai talk about honor, he concluded, but the Klingon achieves it. A savage grin lifted the corners of his lips. Victory was within his grasp. He could taste it on the air, despite the sickly-sweet perfumes with which the Pai polluted their very atmosphere. He looked forward eagerly to searching the empty crime site once more, and indeed he was almost there. . . .
His comm badge beeped urgently. He stopped abruptly, less than fifty meters from the soaring double doors of the High Hall of Ceremonial Grandeur. “Worf here,” he barked.
“Mr. Worf,” Captain Picard’s voice said. “We have an emergency. The Green Pearl has disappeared.”
The harem was in an uproar. Nubile serving girls and scantily clad concubines shrieked in alarm as Picard, accompanied by Lord Lu Tung himself, hiked past the massive armed guards, down the incenseladen hallways, past a multitude of doorways offering glimpses of dozens of luxurious boudoirs, to the very heart of Lu Tung’s harem. Picard barely noticed the voluptuous pulchritude on display; his mind was filled with the dreadful implications of this shocking new development. He paid enough attention to his surroundings, though, to note that his presence alone was not responsible for the obvious consternation and excitement spreading through the harem. News of the Pearl’s disappearance was traveling quickly. He just hoped the G’kkau had not learned of the bride’s absence already—provided, that is, that they were not directly responsible for it.
Picard had barely left the Dragon’s kitchens when Beverly informed him that the Pearl was missing; in fact, he had been searching for the palace infirmary in hopes of finding something to settle his upset stomach. All hope of intestinal relief disappeared entirely when he learned that the bride—the very linchpin of the Pai peace settlement—had vanished mysteriously. Acid had churned in his gut as he’d raced through the palace, encountering Lu Tung along the way. Picard couldn’t help wondering what Lu Tung had been doing away from his own quarters, especially this late in the evening, but there seemed no tactful way to interrogate a father whose only daughter might have been abducted.
Lu Tung paused before a forbidding iron door embossed with the image of a ferocious dragon. Picard looked on as the former rebel commander used some sort of laser concealed in a ring to activate the lock. Ruby eyes sparkled in the skull of the dragon, shortly before the entire door dematerialized. Lu Tung stared at the now-open doorway with a bewildered expression on his face.
“This is impossible,” he declared. “The Eyes of the Dragon have guarded this portal since the hour I departed. No one could have entered or departed this chamber. No one!”
Picard was inclined to believe him. Lu Tung appeared genuinely shocked by his daughter’s disappearance. His formerly implacable visage betrayed signs of grief and anger; his broad face had flushed nearly as pink as the walls beyond the doorway. His hands trembled as he spoke, although whether he shook from fear or fury Picard could not tell.
He briefly wondered if Q could be responsible for the Green Pearl’s inexplicable vanishing act. This seemed like one of his pranks; hiding a bride the night before a pivotal wedding might appeal to his cosmic sense of the perverse. But no, Picard chided himself, he could hardly get into the habit of blaming Q for every bizarre mystery he encountered. Q, as annoying as he could be, was hardly the only source of chaos in the universe. Would that my life could be that simple, Picard thought.
He found Beverly standing in the middle of a chamber of overpowering pinkness. A sulky-looking adolescent girl squatted nearby on top of a stack of rosy, brocaded cushions. For a second, Picard permitted himself the hope that the Green Pearl had turned up alive and well, but the apprehensive look on Beverly’s face quickly dispelled that notion. “Hsiao Har,” Beverly explained, nodding toward the girl. “The Heir’s daughter by his first wife. She was keeping Yao Hu company.”
“Yao Hu?”
“The Green Pearl,” Beverly said. She took a deep breath as the missing girl’s father approached them. She surely wasn’t looking forward to this confrontation, but she turned to face the man directly. “Lord Lu Tung, I am so sorry. I only left her alone for a minute.”
Picard half expected Lu Tung to shout at Beverly, to hurl curses and invective at her, blaming the foreign woman for disaster that had befallen them all. Instead, he dismissed her apologies with a wave of his hand. “I regret that you have become entangled in our private sorrows,” he said. Emotion warred with sober dignity in Lu Tung’s solemn mien. Picard had to wonder how sincere the warlord’s grief was; had Lu Tung himself arranged the Pearl’s disappearance in order to sabotage the peace? Only Lu Tung appeared to have access to the harem. Who else could have bypassed the dragon in the door?
Lu Tung cast a heavy gaze toward the young girl on the pillows. “Has she said anything?”
“Not a word,” Beverly said. “I’ve tried to convince her to tell me what happened, but she’s keeping mum. I think she’s protecting Yao Hu, or thinks she is.”
That bodes well for the Pearl, Picard thought, since it suggests that the girl fled of her own free will. A surprise elopement complicated matters, but at least it was better than an abduction. With luck, the Green Pearl was still unharmed, although he wondered how long she could remain safe with assassins and alien invaders threatening all of Pai. Runaways often found more trouble than they anticipated.
Lord Lu Tung loomed over Hsiao Har. His deep voice rumbled from somewhere deep within him. “Hsiao Har, daughter of Chuan-chi, granddaughter of the Imperial Dragon, I charge you upon your honor to tell me everything you know about what has become of my daughter.”
Hsiao Har looked up at him, open defiance written all over her face. “Go to any one of the Twenty-Five Hells,” she said. “Perhaps the Frozen Hell of Overambitious Fathers. That would be fitting.”
Lu Tung’s face darkened. “This is no joke, girl!” he said, raising his hand as if to strike Hsiao Har.
“Sir!” Picard protested, stepping forward. Before either man could make another move, the Dragon charged into the room. Troi followed quickly behind him. The Emperor wore only a single saffron robe that strained to cover his Buddha-like proportions. His bare feet kicked the pillows out of his way; Picard noted that the Dragon’s toenails were nowhere near as lengthy as his flamboyantly extended fingernails. He was surprised to see the Emperor up and about; he would have thought the Romulan ale would have put the Dragon out for the night.
“What vile trickery is this?” he bellowed. “Where have you hidden your daughter, Lu Tung?”
“Hidden?” Lord Lu Tung turned on the Dragon, forgetting Hsiao Har for the moment. “How dare you suggest this is my doing! I bring my only daughter your palace, and look what has become of her. My own flesh and blood stolen away under cover of night! Don’t speak to me of trickery, Nan Er.”
The Dragon looked as though he had been slapped across the face with something particularly slimy and disgusting. “Traitor!” he cried. “You have no right to call me by my given name. I am
the Dragon—your Dragon—and I should have known better than to trust your two-faced protestations of peace. But I never thought you would sacrifice your own daughter to sabotage our alliance.”
“Sacrifice?” Lu Tung shot back. “What greater sacrifice could there be than to let my daughter marry that cold-blooded excuse for an Heir?”
“Gentlemen!” Picard said loudly, stepping between the two men before they could come to blows. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“But he is a liar and a traitor!” the Dragon shouted. “Why, if I had my sacred sword . . . !”
“And you are a fool, Nan Er,” Lu Tung said. “You have always been a fool.” He looked on the Dragon with outright contempt. Picard saw a hard-won peace falling to pieces before his eyes.
“Excellence, please!” he said. “Lord Lu Tung, we have no time for these futile recriminations. We must think of the Pearl!”
His argument struck home. Lu Tung backed away from Picard, turning away from the Starfleet captain and his longtime emperor and adversary. Picard saw Lu Tung’s shoulders shake from the exertion required to control his emotions. When he turned to face Picard once more, the rebel general had regained most of his dignity and poise. Now, Picard thought, if only I can calm the Dragon as well.
But Troi was way ahead of him. “Exalted One,” she said, holding on to his arm. “You must contain your mighty fury until we can discover the truth. Restrain yourself, for the sake of the poor, unworthy girl whose safety we are all so concerned about.”
“Well,” the Dragon said grudgingly, “perhaps I can delay my wrath a little longer. Still, I will not tolerate deception beneath my own roof.”
“Nor is there any reason you should,” Picard said. Well done, Deanna, he thought. He noted that her blue gown, although still intact, looked rather more disheveled than before. Shoving the matter aside for the moment, he addressed the Emperor in a firm tone. “First we must determine the precise nature of that deception.”
“Well, I had nothing to do with the girl’s disappearance,” the Dragon insisted.
“Nor did I,” Lu Tung said glumly, “although that should go without saying.”
The two powerful Pai lords eyed each other suspiciously, but they no longer looked like they were ready to declare bloody war, at least not right away. Thank heaven for small favors, Picard thought. He took advantage of the lull in hostilities to sidle closer to Troi. The Betazoid counselor fell back from her close proximity to the Dragon. “We came as soon as we heard about the Pearl, Captain,” she whispered. “The Dragon insisted.”
He inspected her carefully. She appeared none the worse for her sojourn in the Dragon’s chambers. “I hope you were not too inconvenienced. Earlier, I mean.”
“The Emperor is a remarkable man,” she said, a coy smile playing upon her lips. “And full of surprises.”
Her reply was curiously vague, Picard thought, but now was not the time to pursue the matter.
“So?” the Dragon said petulantly. “Now what are we to do?”
“Perhaps,” Picard suggested, hoping to reinforce the sense of common purpose, “someone should notify the Heir?”
“Why?” the Dragon asked, looking quite surprised by the notion. “He scarcely knows the girl. Let him enjoy his party.”
“Let me see if I got this straight,” Geordi La Forge said. “We can’t attack the G’kkau directly, and we can’t even lay a string of photon mines along the Empire’s borders without violating the Prime Directive. Is that right?”
“You have summarized our predicament quite concisely,” Data said, “which is why we require another option, preferably one that will incapacitate the G’kkau ships rather than destroying them.”
Easy for you to say, La Forge thought. He still hadn’t figured out how to put on a fireworks display that would impress the jaded Pai. Now Data needed a deliberately roundabout way to immobilize an entire alien fleet. The life of a Starfleet engineer was never an easy one. . . . He examined the bridge’s main viewscreen through his VISOR. The viewer now charted the progress of the G’kkau invasion force through the nebula, each approaching warship indicated by a small yellow triangle silhouetted against a swirling violet background—or at least that was how they appeared to La Forge; sometimes, he knew, his color perceptions were more vivid than those received by ordinary humanoid eyes. On the graphic display, the G’kkau fleet resembled a swarm of buzzing yellow-jackets en route to Pai. There had to be some way to slow them down, he thought. Some sort of interstellar fly trap. “What kind of drive do they have?” he asked.
Lieutenant Melilli answered him. “It’s a primitive form of hammer drive, sir. A beta-neutrino drive capable of speeds in excess of—”
“I know the drive,” La Forge said impatiently. The last thing he needed now was a lecture on alternative warp sources, not unless they could provide him with some snazzy fireworks by the time the sun rose on the Imperial Palace. “I did some of my Academy work on one.”
The Bajoran officer gave La Forge an icy look.
Ouch, La Forge thought. He mentally added Melilli Mera to the long list of women he’d managed to get on the wrong side of. “Anyway, the trouble with betaneutrino drives, and the reason Starfleet largely abandoned them, is that they tend to interact in nasty ways with high-energy plasma and positively charged particulates.” His eyes widened behind his VISOR. “Exactly the sort of thing you find in a good-sized nebula!”
“The G’kkau don’t seem to be having any problem,” Melilli pointed out.
“They must be using a low-frequency EM emitter as a buffer,” La Forge said. “Yeah, that would do it, as long as they managed to modulate the EM so that it stifled the beta emissions, which are what react to the nebular material.”
“Interesting,” Data said. He rose from the captain’s chair and walked over to where La Forge was standing. “Geordi, would it be possible to render their neutrino drive vulnerable to the influence of the nebula?”
La Forge scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose so. It wouldn’t be too hard to adapt the photon mines so that they neutralized the buffer effect. Then their own beta emissions might trigger a chain reaction which could shut down their engines entirely.” He considered the possibilities. “They’d have to be pretty close to the mines, though.”
“That can be arranged,” Data said. La Forge admired Data’s confidence; his positronic brain seldom seemed bothered by indecision, maybe because he could run through all his options more quickly than could La Forge or anyone else. “How soon can the mines be readied?”
La Forge sighed. What he wanted to do was get back to his fireworks problem; once he tackled a challenge, he liked to see it through to the end without any distractions. Still, stopping the G’kkau obviously took priority. “An hour. Maybe ninety minutes tops.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Melilli said. “I’m obliged to point out that even this passive approach might be seen as a violation of the Dragon Empire’s autonomy.”
“That is correct, Lieutenant,” Data acknowledged. “Therefore, we will be planting the mines well away from Imperial space.”
“But, sir—” She paused as if realizing she was about to overstep her authority. At Data’s nod, however, she continued. “But then we’ll be far from the G’kkau’s approach to Pai!” Melilli objected. “Why do you suppose they will go out of their way, delaying the certain annihilation of the Dragon Empire, just to chase a Federation starship around a minefield?”
I was kind of wondering that myself, La Forge thought.
“We must give them an incentive, Lieutenant.” Data turned to face the conn. “Lieutenant Tor, please set a course for the epsilon sector. Computer, access what is known of G’kkau vocabulary and usage.”
La Forge couldn’t wait to see what Data had in mind. This is going to be good, he thought.
Two muscular Pai warriors stood between Worf and the entrance to the harem of Lord Lu Tung. Each man brandished a scimitar and a surly expression. They were also armed with h
and weapons, Worf observed, although they hadn’t drawn them yet. He wondered briefly if he could draw his own phaser before the guards could fire their weapons; it would be intriguing to match Klingon reflexes against the Pai variety. If the Green Pearl was truly missing, however, there was no time to fight another duel, no matter how appealing the prospect.
What a shame, Worf thought. Two against one . . . honorable odds indeed.
“Stand clear,” he barked to the guards. “My captain requires my presence.”
“Neither man nor beast,” one of the guards replied, as if uncertain as to which category Worf fell into, “may enter the Forbidden Sanctum of Lord Lu Tung.”
The Pai warrior sneered at the Klingon in a manner Worf found most insulting. Worf was tempted to make the Pai eat his own scimitar, but concluded that a phaser blast would be quicker. On stun, of course, with a wide-angle dispersal. His hand drifted toward his weapon. . . .
His comm badge chirped. “Lieutenant Worf?” said the captain’s voice.
“Yes, Captain,” Worf said, giving Picard his full attention. Stunning the guards would have to wait for a minute or two.
“Where are you now?” Picard asked.
“Outside the harem,” Worf said, glowering at the guards. “Lu Tung’s men appear reluctant to admit me to the women’s quarters, but I expect to have the matter resolved shortly.”