In any case, it was a start, however imperfect. At least it meant the New Humans wanted to find a peaceful settlement. Terrell just had to build on that and bring both sides to the table.
* * *
Haru Yamasaki had to admit that Captain Terrell was a fine negotiator. The captain had not only convinced Governor Kisak to come to the table opposite Sungkar once more, but had made a case for peace and unity that was at once impassioned and reasonable. With the concessions Sungkar had offered, the governor had agreed that the charges on both sides of the recent confrontation should be dropped as a gesture of good faith. Yamasaki had calmly, courteously accepted the consensus, agreeing that the most important thing was restoring the peace of the community.
In private, though, he erupted in rage and screamed into the couch pillows—at least until he flung them across the room and knocked over a lamp and his second-place spelling trophy from middle school. On reflection, he was glad to see the trophy broken; he’d always hated it, a constant reminder that he’d fallen short of perfection in others’ eyes. It had been the fault of that damned pronouncer anyway. “Ultimo” should have been a simple enough word to spell, but he couldn’t be blamed that the old woman had overpronounced the first syllable so artificially that it had sounded more like “altimo.” He should have protested at the time, but he had been too numbed with shock. It had been the first of many times that his chances for achievement had been undermined by others’ folly.
And this negotiation was another. The espers had always thought they were better than him, better than everyone. They had only gotten worse in the past five or six years, since whatever freak phenomenon had triggered this new mutation, this dangerous amplification of their unfair advantage. Now they’d manipulated Terrell into taking their side.
“Why can’t he see?” Yamasaki muttered to himself as he swept up the remains of the broken trophy. “Negotiating with them isn’t compromise, it’s a concession to the enemy. They’re an aberration. They shouldn’t even exist! Humans should remain human!” He went out back and dumped the debris into the recycler. “It’s just not fair.”
“No, Haru Yamasaki. It is not fair.”
Yamasaki was a trained security officer, so when he heard the voice of an intruder in his yard, he spun, ready to defend himself with whatever was at hand, even if it was just a dustpan.
Before him stood a being in scarlet-and-black combat armor with claw-like adornments on its blank, opaque visor.
He yelped, fell backward to the ground, and stared up at it in fear. “What … what do you want with me?”
“We want what you want. For humans to remain human. For the alternative to exist no longer.” It offered him one gauntleted hand. “We sense that you believe in this principle as strongly as we do. And we need your help to enforce it.”
Yamasaki was intrigued. At last, someone appreciated what he had to offer. He took the armored humanoid’s hand and let himself be pulled upright. “Tell me more,” he said, grinning.
Eleven
Resolving the dispute between the Terebellan factions proved less challenging than Pavel Chekov had feared. It turned out that the majority of the population was humbled and troubled by the fighting that had broken out, unaware that tensions had gotten so bad between the New Humans and their immediate neighbors. For every human colonist whose view of humans with enhanced abilities was colored by fears handed down since the Eugenics Wars (which, admittedly, had been a very long time ago), there were others who still gave more weight to the “Human” than the “New” and began asking why members of their own species were being treated as hostile.
Thus, Governor Kisak and the council under Agkan found themselves facing political pressure from a hitherto-silent majority to drop their hard line and reconcile with the New Humans. In turn, Sungkar and her people made a renewed effort at public outreach to reassure those who still mistrusted them—like having their telekinetic healer speed the recovery of the farmhands who had been telekinetically injured, and offer similar healing services to others in need, sophont and livestock alike. Or using their connection to the haipa cats and giant corvids to encourage them to hunt farther afield from the Terebellans’ farmlands and leave their livestock alone.
By the second day of negotiations, Sungkar and Kisak were laughing together like the old friends they had once been, and the remaining points of contention were being resolved in quick succession. The only hitch in the proceedings was that Haru Yamasaki had called in sick that morning, leaving the security arrangements in the hands of his deputy and Lieutenant Nizhoni. “If things are going so smoothly, you’ll have no need of me anyway,” the security director had told Chekov over his communicator. As usual, though, he was not as good as he seemed to think he was at masking the passive-aggressive hostility beneath his deferential words. Yamasaki was clearly a man who resented losing or being outperformed at anything. It was no doubt why he disliked the New Humans so much. But in Chekov’s estimation, he was still an intelligent and rational person. Hopefully that meant he would come around in time, as most of his fellow colonists now had.
All in all, Chekov was confident that a settlement would be signed by lunchtime, and Reliant could be on its way.
Until two whirling shimmers of light suddenly appeared on either side of the New Human contingent and resolved into a pair of chillingly familiar, faceless armored figures.
The Naazh had returned.
Before Chekov could react, the one on the left—an unfamiliar Naazh in heavy, clean-lined blue-and-silver armor—drove a buzzing, vibrating toothed blade through Ravi Mehrotra’s heart from behind. Beside him, Leilani Sungkar and Maya Arias let out choking gasps and convulsed in pain, and Chekov realized that the telepaths must have felt their companion’s death within their minds.
As the gathered delegates screamed and scrambled for the doors, the second Naazh, wearing scarlet-and-black armor that Chekov recognized from the Enterprise, closed menacingly on the staggered Sungkar. Nizhoni’s phaser beam struck it from behind a moment later, and a pair of the Terebellan security officers fired on the blue one. Neither Naazh was affected by the fire.
Did the Naazh survive the explosion? Chekov wondered. Or is it another in duplicate armor?
Recovering, Maya Arias moved in front of Sungkar and extended her hands. She roared in anger, and a telekinetic surge pushed the red Naazh back with surprising force.
“Not this time,” the Naazh said as it struggled against the surge. It certainly sounded like the chilling voice from the Enterprise attack, though it was hard to be certain through the filtering. It held its hand before the red crystal on its belt, then flung the hand forward. A bright flare of red light surged from the crystal and staggered Arias. A second later, the Naazh’s armored hand closed around Arias’s neck and crushed it.
By now, the Reliant and Terebellan security personnel had succeeded in spiriting Sungkar and the remaining New Humans out of the room. The red Naazh strode after them, casually shaking off fire from multiple phasers. “You can’t run forever, deviant,” it declared as it followed them through the exit.
The blue-armored Naazh shook Mehrotra’s lifeless body off its whirring short sword and turned to Chekov and Nizhoni. “We have no quarrel with you,” it said. “Just leave us to our work.”
“Why are you doing this?” Chekov demanded. “Is it because the New Humans defended the Aenar against you?”
The featureless blue helmet held on him for a moment. “It is because they should never have existed.” It touched its belt crystal and disappeared in a flash of dimensional energies.
Nizhoni had already drawn her communicator—a return to the old flip-open design, since the wrist communicators had proven awkward to use. “Nizhoni to Reliant,” the security chief said. “The Naazh have attacked the New Human negotiators and killed two of them.”
“This is Azem-Os,” the first officer’s breathy, owlish voice replied. “We’re getting reports of more Naazh attacking the New Human comp
ound. Multiple fatalities already.”
Nizhoni caught and held Chekov’s gaze, and he nodded. The two of them had always known this day might come again, and this time, with help from Starfleet Security’s research labs, they were more prepared. “Beam us up, Commander,” Chekov told Azem-Os. “And tell security to initiate the Phantom Protocol.”
* * *
When Chekov rematerialized in the New Human compound alongside Nizhoni’s security squad, they found themselves in the midst of chaos. Several human bodies littered the ground, all mutilated horribly. The surviving New Humans had gathered together in one mass, with the children and older or weaker members being guarded by brightly attired adults with hands extended defensively—no doubt more telekinetic adepts. But Chekov was heartened to note that, in addition to a squad of Terebellan security officers, a number of the compound’s neighboring farmers and townsfolk were on the defensive line as well, protecting their fellow colonists with whatever weapons or farm implements they had available.
Even so, they hardly seemed adequate to face down the four Naazh who advanced relentlessly toward them, unaffected by phaser fire or plasma rifle discharges, and only briefly staggered by telekinetic surges. Chekov recognized the blue-and-silver one who had killed Mehrotra, along with the white-armored, antennaed Naazh from the Enterprise, or another in matching armor. Could the different designs represent specific units or specializations rather than unique personalizations? Or were the Naazh just impossible to kill?
The other two hunters were new: one in black-and-brown armor styled almost identically to that of the white Naazh, the other in dark green armor with gold trim, its smooth visor topped with three sharp spikes and adorned with gold tracings that conveyed the vague impression of a fanged mouth on its lower half. Though they were heavily outnumbered by those they faced, they strode forward with easy confidence, and the green one was even laughing in anticipation. Clearly they believed that their opposition was no match for them.
Chekov intended to prove them wrong this time.
At Nizhoni’s signal, two of her security troops, Scott Crick and Tong Chi Kiang, moved out behind the Naazh carrying the large device they had beamed down with, while the rest of her team and Chekov moved in to confront the armored attackers, drawing the special weapons they had brought to supplement their heavy-duty body armor.
Chekov found himself confronting the blue Naazh again, and the sleek-armored killer studied him curiously. “I told you to stay out of this.”
“I don’t serve you. I serve them.” He tilted his head back toward the New Humans and the other Terebellans defending them.
“Your choice,” the Naazh said, lunging at him with its whirring short sword.
Chekov blocked the sawlike blade with his duranium baton, its shaft crackling with a nadion charge that surged into the Naazh’s blade. The foe grunted in surprise and reeled back as Chekov pressed the attack, getting in a pair of good blows that discharged energy into the armor. Finally, breathing hard, the Naazh managed to recover from its surprise and begin blocking his swings. But all those years fencing with Sulu had taught Chekov well, and he held his own. The batons had been Sulu’s idea, back in those last months on the Enterprise when the crew had brainstormed anti-Naazh tactics in case they ever returned. Phasers were terrific at a distance, but in close-range melee combat, they were difficult to aim and provided no defense against a blade. Contrary to the old saying, bringing a knife to a gunfight could be highly effective if you were close enough to reach your enemy before they could aim and shoot—or if you had armor that was immune to their fire. Since the Naazh favored melee weapons, they had to be fought with melee weapons.
Soon the blue Naazh gave Chekov an opening and he stabbed the tip of the baton at one of the seams in its armor, above the silver belt-like strip around the waist. An intense energy discharge was released from the tip, drilling into the armor’s weak point, and the Naazh cried out in pain and fell back. Once it had some distance, it touched its sapphire-blue belt crystal with its free hand, then reached it out as if waiting for a sidearm to materialize in it.
But nothing happened.
The Naazh stared at its hand in apparent surprise, and Chekov grinned. Crick and Tong had done their work well. The device they had activated was a modified communications beacon, of the type designed to be seeded in deep space in order to boost subspace signals’ range and speed. They were thus capable of emitting powerful subspace fields. Spock and Chekov had carefully studied the recorded sensor readings from the Naazh attack on the Enterprise’s rec deck, analyzing the energies of their dimensional transporters in order to determine what subspace frequencies and field geometries would inhibit them. Now it looked like Spock’s theories had been proven correct, as they usually were.
Chekov closed in on the blue Naazh, noting that the other three armored warriors were also reacting to their sudden inability to summon new weapons and armor. Nizhoni and Crewman Sanzio had managed to snarl the black-and-green Naazh with bolas made of fullerene-reinforced cable, strong enough to be used in a starship grappling line from the old days. The green one was struggling, its arms bound to its sides, but the black one, whose legs had been hobbled, had rolled deftly into a sitting position and was already beginning to slice through the durable cable with its sword.
Nizhoni’s voice emerged from the speaker in Chekov’s security helmet. “Commander! Colony security reports that the red Naazh has teleported away. Ms. Sungkar is safe for the moment.”
“Acknowledged,” Chekov said. “But that means it will be coming here. All teams, watch the perimeter of the damping field!”
He lunged at the blue Naazh with the tip of his baton, hoping to do more damage, but the enemy knocked the shaft aside with its short sword. As they circled each other, Chekov saw that Nizhoni and Sanzio had ganged up on the bound green Naazh with their own batons, and it convulsed and fell under their combined attack. However, the black Naazh had cut itself free and was joining its white-armored twin in a renewed charge at the New Humans and their defenders. The white one had summoned its sidearm before the damping field had risen, and it aimed coldly and fired on the defenders, taking down one of the telekinetics as well as an Arbazan security officer and a Suliban farmer.
Then, astonishingly, the next plasma bolt splashed off thin air. Chekov had to parry another thrust of the blue Naazh’s blade, but after a moment he spotted the gathered telekinetics holding their ground, eyes shut and bodies trembling in intense concentration as more bolts scattered against the psionic barrier they had erected. It was as if the danger had awakened some new escalation in their abilities.
Bolts of sizzling plasma now shot forth from the other direction. “It’s the red Naazh,” Tong called. “It’s trying to take out the beacon! Shield is holding … returning fi— Aaahh!”
Compartmentalizing his concern for Tong, Chekov pressed his assault on the blue Naazh, determined to end this before the red one managed to take out the damping field. They ended up locked in a slow, fatal dance as they strained with all their might to hold off each other’s weapons. The Naazh’s strength considerably exceeded Chekov’s, but the continuing discharge of the energy baton into its armor was hurting it, canceling its advantage.
The dance turned Chekov far enough around to see the red Naazh continuing to fire at the beacon, bolts smashing into its deflector shield and making it flicker visibly. Crick had retreated behind the shield, dragging the injured but moving Tong beside him, and was firing back on the red Naazh with little effect, unable to get clear to use his bolas or near enough to deploy his baton. It was only a matter of moments, Chekov estimated, until the field collapsed and the Naazh would be free to summon more, deadlier weapons out of thin air.
What happened next was almost too fast for Chekov to register. There was a piercing cry from above and a streak of gold, and then the red Naazh was dragged skyward with such force that it dropped its sidearm. Craning his neck, Chekov saw that it was being carried off in the talons
of one of Terebellum’s giant golden corvids, whose mighty wings gleamed in the sun.
In moments, the huge bird was high enough that Chekov could barely see the red-and-black figure in its grip struggling. But then the red shape parted from the gold, plummeting toward the ground. Just before it reached the upper perimeter of the damping field, though, it was engulfed in a spherical flicker and vanished. One foe had left the battlefield.
Now a pair of haipa cats were racing toward the white-and-black Naazh. Like the corvid, they were coming to the aid of the New Humans they had communed with. But they lacked the advantage of surprise now, and Chekov feared for their safety as the white Naazh turned its sidearm on them.
But the telekinetics had learned from their avian friend. Concentrating as one, they stared at the white Naazh, crouched down with fists clenched before them, then flung their arms skyward with a roar. The antennaed warrior was hurled dozens of meters into the air. It, too, teleported away before it hit the ground.
The black Naazh and the green one followed it soon thereafter, the former as it came under fire from Crick wielding the red Naazh’s fallen plasma blaster, the latter after being rendered effectively helpless under Nizhoni and Sanzio’s attack. Apparently it was easier for their dimensional technology to take things out of the field than draw them into it. That was fine with Chekov.
Now only the blue Naazh remained, standing there startled at the sudden collapse of its forces. “Give up now,” Chekov panted, “and you won’t be harmed.”
That just seemed to make it angry. “Arrogant interloper!” it cried, confusingly, and lunged at him with its blade held high. It left itself wide open for Chekov to jam the baton into its shoulder joint, the energy discharge weakening its arm and allowing the Reliant officer to wrench the short sword from its grip.
“Last chance! Surrender!” Chekov cried.
The Higher Frontier Page 17