FOREIGN FOES

by Dave Galanter

  Picard nodded and pivoted back to the screen.

  “Kadar, disarm your weapons as a show of good faith.”

  “Out of the question, Picard,” the Klingon chuckled darkly. “Your quaint little tactics may work with the Hidran. I am a different matter.”

  “When it comes to the needs of your peoples, there is no difference.”

  “You dishonor us, Picard. We were lured here with a lie.”

  Picard pressed his lips into a thin line. That was true. He had wagered that there would be enough time to prepare the Hidran to talk with the Klingons and vice versa. He’d gambled that he could keep both sides in the dark as to the other’s arrival. He’d lost.

  “An arguable point, Captain, but you are here, and your government has asked the Federation for assistance that only the Hidran can supply.”

  Kadar lost the grapple with his anger and growled at Picard. “I will not talk with them! You are fools to trust the Hidran! They do not kill for honor or for game. They just kill. Without thought. Without reason. We will not stay!”

  “That’s your choice, Kadar. I cannot force you to stay.” Picard turned his back to the screen. “Lieutenant Anderson, inform Starfleet Command we request another Klingon delegation for discussion on the Hidran matter. One that can handle the situation.”

  The main viewer shimmered back to the starscape view. Picard glanced at Deanna.

  “Anger and frustration clashing with intense pride,” the empath said. “I think you have him where you want him, sir.”

  A corner of Picard’s mouth drew down. He wasn’t quite ready to believe that.

  “Captain,” Anderson called, “the Klingons have signaled that our message to Starfleet is ‘unwarranted.’ They’re entering orbit around Velex.”

  Picard glanced at Deanna. His brows went up, a little surprised that a failed plan had so quickly given way to one that had worked—for the moment.

  “Well,” Deanna sighed, “that was more difficult than we thought.”

  Picard shook his head and lowered himself back into the command chair. “That, Counselor, was the easy part.”

  Chapter Two

  “PHASERS DOWN!” Data leveled his weapon at the two Hidran. “I would not want to injure either of you.”

  Zhad and Urosk laughed, a loud mocking growl that could not be mistaken for anything but ridicule.

  Riker accepted Data’s glance. There was no annoyance in the android’s features. How often had Riker looked for a flash behind Data’s gaze that could not be dismissed as merely electrical? The android shouldn’t have liked to be laughed at, if even just a little, but that didn’t play on his face, behind those bright sulfur eyes.

  Suddenly Urosk tensed and launched himself forward.

  Riker snapped his attention back. “Data!” he warned.

  The android twisted to one side and with his free hand sent Urosk stumbling across the floor and into Worf.

  Ambassador Zhad aimed his disrupter and fired.

  Riker rolled away, then skidded to his feet as the orange bar of energy scattered on the marble floor. He wasn’t sure if it was the weapon blast or anger, but he felt a flush of heat rise in his face.

  Worf seized Urosk, spun him around and rammed a knee into the small of the Hidran’s back. The Klingon pulled Urosk’s elbows together with his right hand and wrenched the weapon away with his left.

  Riker squinted as Zhad targeted him again. At the edge of his focus he saw Data grab the ambassador’s leathery wrist and bend it back—Zhad cried out in angry pain. The android holstered his phaser, ripped Zhad’s own weapon away, then released the ambassador from the vice with a quick shove.

  Zhad stumbled back, crumpling like so much musty laundry, a mound of damp limbs against the cold stone wall.

  Data reset the ambassador’s disrupter to stun and trained it on its owner.

  Riker spotted his weapon on the floor, snatched it up, and aimed it at Urosk. With a nod he gestured for Worf to release the Hidran captain.

  The Klingon loosened his grip. Urosk jerked himself away, spun around, and faced the one who’d humiliated him so. Dank burgundy fingers tensed over an empty holster.

  “That’s enough!” Riker said.

  The Hidran captain braced himself, but did not move forward.

  Worf stood in front of him, looking like an Old West gunfighter—a phaser in each fist.

  Furious and insulted, Zhad dragged himself up and over to Urosk. “I will see that you all die for this.” He pulled the communicator from his captain’s belt and growled into it. “Meliosh, tell me you have defeated the Klingon ship.”

  “Ambassador, I regret to report . . . a stalemate.”

  Zhad sharpened his glare on Worf, but spoke to Urosk. “Relieve Meliosh as first officer. He does not deserve the rank!” He held the communicator before the captain’s face.

  “He is a competent warrior, Ambassador,” Urosk said in a tone that Riker almost recognized as one he’d often heard from Picard.

  “Do it!”

  But Urosk hissed at him in the Hidran tongue and pulled him toward the far end of the hall.

  Riker rubbed his tender shoulder and croaked out an order for Worf to keep an eye on them.

  Nodding, Worf handed the Hidran weapon to Riker. The Klingon shifted his own phaser to his right hand and set out to follow the two Hidran at a distance.

  The comm badge on Riker’s uniform chirped. He tapped a channel open. “Away team.”

  “Picard, here. Report, Number One.”

  “The Hidran are a bit . . . resistant, sir, but all’s under control down here. They’re off sulking, hopefully ready to bargain.”

  “Don’t be too sure, Mr. Riker,” Picard said. “These are a hard people, by necessity. In their experience, those who bargain are those who die. It’s going to take more than one threat to change that. I’ll be down shortly. Picard out.”

  Riker rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against his lower lip. He wondered if Picard meant there would be more threats, or that threats were useless. And he wondered where his part in the next move would lie. If one thing was true it was that Picard could still pluck surprising rabbits out of hidden hats.

  Unfortunately, thanks to the Klingons’ irritatingly early arrival, this plan of Picard’s had failed. Originally the captain had hoped to talk the Hidran into accepting a conference with the Klingons, who were to arrive after Picard had a chance to make sure they understood the conditions he’d worked out with the Hidran. The fact that neither side knew the other was coming was supposed to assure no one would cause an incident that would “politically require” the other side to drop out.

  Riker shook his head. Nothing ever, ever goes as planned.

  “That was a nice move with Ambassador Zhad, Mr. Data,” Riker said, still keeping one eye on Worf and the Hidran across the hall. “You acted very quickly. In fact, you saved my tail.”

  Data nodded a salute. “Thank you, sir. However, I was surprised by Captain Urosk’s attack. I did not expect him to underestimate my abilities.”

  Examining the Hidran disrupter he rolled in his palm, Riker chuckled. “You assume it’s obvious that you’re an android, don’t you, Data?” he asked, thumbing the weapon’s safety.

  “I have never considered it, sir. I suppose so.”

  Riker looked up. “Why wouldn’t he think you were human? Because you don’t look exactly like other humans?”

  There was silence as Data considered.

  “Let me put it this way,” Riker continued. “Would you notice minor variations in a Hidran’s appearance?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  Riker swallowed a sigh. “All right, would I notice?” Data paused and considered that too. “I do not think so, sir,” he said finally.

  Riker shook his head, a chuckle rising in his throat—

  “Drop all weapons!”

  Riker swung toward the unfamiliar angry voice. A woman’s voice.

  Who was she? And why was she pointing
a phaser at him?

  As she stomped toward the Enterprise officers, silver-blond hair brushing her shoulders, she kept her weapon high in spite of the two armed security men flanking her. “I said drop them.”

  “I’m Commander Riker—” he tried to explain.

  “I don’t care if you’re the president’s personal shoe stretcher! There was phaser fire in here, and that wasn’t part of the bargain. You’re the ones holding the phasers. Put them down!”

  Riker looked from her to the security men and back. Hired help. One of them had his weapon’s safety on.

  “Okay.” He shrugged, holstered his phaser, and nodded for Data to do the same. “They’re down. Now, who are you?”

  She took another step toward him, her phaser angled down only slightly. Impatient hazel-green eyes blazed with a steady determination. “What’s going on in here?”

  The rent-a-bicep security men were less resolute. They wanted to be behind the woman, not next to her. There was probably nothing in their three minutes of extensive training that mentioned anything about pointing phasers at someone in a Starfleet uniform. Starfleet personnel just weren’t the bad guys. They were the ones called when the bad guys showed up.

  “I asked you first,” Riker said.

  “Barbara Hollitt. I’m in charge here.”

  Yes, you are, aren’t you? Riker suppressed a smile. She was not gorgeous. Not a vision. But she was exciting somehow, attractive.

  “What happened in here? I was assured there’d be no problems.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Hollitt,” Riker said, gesturing to the dark smudges where Zhad’s disrupter had scorched the floor. “We had a little trouble, but it’s under control.”

  She glanced from the floor back to Riker. “See that it stays that way, please.”

  “We will,” Riker said. “And something tells me that if we don’t, you will.”

  Barbara smiled and a spirited flash glinted in her eyes. “Indeed I will, Mr. Riker.”

  “Not less than twelve men, Picard,” Kadar said.

  Picard tapped his communicator off and leaned his compact form against the meeting hall’s granite table. “Mr. Riker, what about the Hidran beaming down twelve crewmen?”

  Riker turned to Data who shook his head.

  “Impossible, Captain.” The first officer clasped his hands behind his back. “Their landing party is only outfitted for six.”

  “Then have them add six more to their regular team, gentlemen.”

  “It is not that easy, sir,” Data said. “The Hidran need to breathe one hundred percent humidity with a substantially higher oxygen mix. The masks they wear are surgically implanted and only a few members of their crew are so equipped.”

  The captain let out a short breath and touched his comm badge. “Captain Kadar, you will beam down only six crewmen, including yourself.”

  “Twelve,” Kadar insisted.

  “Six. Not twelve. Not seven. Six. Picard out.” The captain hit the communicator again and it signaled off. “Everything is a struggle,” he muttered. “If the Hidran have six men, the Klingons want twelve, and then the Hidran want twenty.”

  “I’m afraid I sympathize with the Klingons on this one, sir,” Riker said. “The Hidran are a tough lot. Anyone who can win a war with the Klingons . . . Their ambassador eats Klingons for breakfast.”

  Data’s eyes widened. “Sir?”

  “Don’t be so literal, Mr. Data,” Picard said. The android lowered his gaze. “Sorry, sir. They are a curious people. Early contact with them by Federation surveys classify them as combative, but hardly as hostile as they are now.”

  “Seventy years of war might change that, Commander,” Picard said, taking on that professorial tone Riker knew too well. “The Hidran had to be harder, stronger, to survive a war with the Klingons. The Hidran may not have won, but they certainly did not lose.”

  Riker stood straight by his captain’s side, but his focus was not on his duties. Barbara Hollitt had entered the hall by the far doors, and his thoughts faded away from his responsibilities. He shut his eyes, tried to listen to Picard—the man whose control he envied, whose demeanor he wanted to emulate.

  “. . . you too would find that which was necessary to survive.”

  “I am fascinated, sir,” Data said.

  Picard nodded. “Splendid, Commander, because I want you to do a little research into the Hidran side of this conflict. We’re quite familiar with the Klingons’ history. All we know of the Hidran is that, like the Klingons, they claim both victory and victimization. Find out what you can. Perhaps the Hidran will allow you access to their computer banks.”

  “Aye, sir. That should give us a different perspective.”

  “Indeed.” The captain raised a finger. “Also, I want a frequency shield to block unauthorized transporter and communicator use during the negotiations. I need no last-minute maneuvering by either side. But we will want to keep access for ourselves.”

  Data nodded. “We could blanket the planet in a white-noise transmission, sir. That would mask out their frequencies but leave certain coded ones available to us.”

  “Good. I want that within the hour.”

  “Aye, sir. I believe that from the sensor array we can transmit a—”

  Picard cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Yes, yes. Work now, explain later, Commander. Dismissed.”

  “You Klingons know nothing but death. You should taste of it yourselves!”

  “You, Zhad, are not fit to be killed!”

  “And a Klingon is not fit to kill me!”

  “I’d like to test the truth of that statement.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, Klingon?”

  Twelve faces, wrenched in anger, sat at opposite ends of the large table.

  His hands hidden beneath that table, Riker gripped his holstered phaser. He flexed his fingers, trying to cool his sweaty palm. He wanted to shift the weapon to his left hand but refused to take it from its holster if it wasn’t necessary. And he just knew that in the one moment when the phaser was out of hand, he’d need to use it to stun a violent delegate.

  “Make sure no one dies,” Picard had ordered, giving Riker the most difficult task of all. He knew they had weapons—security couldn’t very well frisk-search official government delegations. They’d be insulted and, boom—the talks would be over.

  No, this was the only way. Riker just had to be sure his timing was right. A shot too soon, and the Federation would be taking sides. A shot too late, and someone would die. The line was painfully fine.

  He clutched the phaser handle tighter, tense fingers squeezing the perspiration from between his knuckles. He was a raw nerve, with nothing to rely on when his moment to act might be, if at all, except for Deanna. She sat at his right and had promised to touch him, mentally if necessary, if the feelings of hate in the hall grew to the point of murder. His eyes would shift between her and the delegates, and he prayed he wouldn’t be looking one way when he should’ve been looking the other.

  He glanced at her, and lingered too long. She wrung her trembling hands, all the emotions biting at her, twisting her heart as well as her head, while Picard sat on the other side of her, relaxed, withdrawn. The only thing missing from the picture was a book in his hand and his legs outstretched over the table.

  “You will stay away from our mining planets or we will destroy you!” Zhad spat.

  Kadar pushed himself half out of his seat, pressing his palms flat on the tabletop.

  Riker stretched forward a little, ready.

  “Those planets are ours! They are the spoils of war!” Kadar roared.

  Picard looked from Kadar to Zhad, waiting for a response.

  The Hidran ambassador’s color grew ruddy with anger. “The treaty we were forced to sign was a one-sided piece of rubbish. We have the moral obligation to deny its edicts.”

  “You were forced into nothing!” Kadar pounded his fist on the table and the vibration sent a computer clipboard clattering onto the floor.
Riker forced a flinch inward.

  Zhad hammered the table with both fists, as if to one better the Klingons with his own storm of anger. “You assure us no alternatives and call that choice?”

  Picard said nothing, but this time looked up with intent. There was something more than insult there. With the Hidran insulting the Klingons, the Klingons insulting the Hidran, and both threatening death for what had seemed like hours, finally they’d grown weary enough to deal with actual issues. And Riker knew that had been Picard’s wager.

  Kadar rumbled to the captain, “The Hidran lies about a treaty that is one-sided in their favor. It is obvious that nothing will come of these . . . discussions.”

  “We lie?” Zhad bolted from his seat.

  Riker moved his thumb on top of the phaser’s trigger.

  “Sit down, Ambassador,” Picard ordered.

  Zhad remained on his feet, his thick legs pressed against the table, his fists tight rocks against his thighs. “Do you not hear these lies? Do you listen to your ‘trustworthy’ allies?” he hissed.

  Picard’s eyes hardened and he stood abruptly, his chair grinding the floor as he pushed it back. The captain paced over to Zhad and Pulled out the ambassador’s seat. “Sit down.”

  Indignant and offended, Zhad sat back down. “I will be talking with your superiors, Picard,” he muttered. “You have ruined these negotiations.”

  “No matter. The negotiations are over.”

  A brief roar fell into mutters, then into death-like tacitness as Picard’s glare seemed to strike every eye—except Riker’s.

  “You’ve had the chance to talk. You chose to argue instead. Kadar, the Hidran need aridium shielding for the power reactors you left them—”

  “That they took from us—” one of the Klingons bellowed.

  “Irrelevant!” Picard hammered down the outburst. “They have the reactors, they need the aridium. Only you can supply it. You will.”

  Kadar folded his arms and sat back. “Really?”

  Picard ignored him and pivoted toward the Hidran. “Ambassador Zhad, the Klingons need the vaccine for the virus they contracted on your planet.”