“Riker to Enterprise.” He tapped his comm badge and the dull tone of a closed frequency whined back at him. “Out of range maybe,” he mumbled, taking a pace toward the lighted console panels.
Slowly the room seemed to brighten, the panel’s lines becoming crisper, Riker’s form now well defined next to her. She could see their feet. There had been light all along—it was their eyes that slowly came on.
Three walls, smooth and metallic like the floor they had pulled themselves up from gave way to the one wall of panels and lights they now stood before. Opposite was a vertical slit that went from the top of the blank wall to the bottom. A door.
Still dazed, Deanna wasn’t sure of anything. Was the momentary confusion she felt Riker’s or her own? She knew there was concern that was definitely his—the feeling was powerful yet comforting. His emotions were always familiar, and their mere presence bolstered her.
“Where are we?” she asked, more to herself than to him.
Riker patted her hand and pulled away to step closer to the wall of lighted panels. “I don’t know, but I’d say we’ve been transported here from the planet . . . wherever here is.” He rubbed his shoulder as if he’d been struck hard by something. “Maybe a cargo transporter, too. Or a long distance transporter. It was a rough ride.”
She felt her brows draw together. “I don’t understand. How do you know that?”
He moved his hand along one of the panels, avoiding any buttons or pads. “I don’t. Just assuming that what we’re feeling is the aftereffect of some kind of transporter—and since it was so abusive, possibly a cargo beam.” He looked above at blank panels which may have been inactive computer screens. “You ever used an older transporter?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, why?”
“They used to immobilize you first before transport. And cargo transporters even today don’t have the same comforts of personnel transports. Why waste the energy on frills? A crate won’t care.” He made a sweeping gesture with his phaser—when had he taken the weapon from its holster?—to take in the entire wall. “This may be a transporter console. Let’s make sure not to touch anything that might set off something serious. Last thing we want is to tell whoever brought us here that we’re awake and kicking.”
Curiosity and anxiety were suddenly his emotions of choice, Deanna realized. They covered his concern in pulsing swells and nearly blocked out the pain in his leg. She wondered if humans were aware of the fluidity of their emotional broadcasts. When excited their feelings could be torrential, when relaxed they were like slow ocean waves ebbing back and forth almost gracefully. Human emotions held a charm for Deanna, Riker’s especially.
She stepped closer to him, basking in that charm. “Who would bring us here?”
He turned back, that apprehension taking over the curiosity. “I don’t know. I was going to ask you the same thing.”
She could feel his anger well, beginning to pepper his other emotions. His thumb hovered near his phaser’s trigger. He was waiting, readying himself.
Deanna needed to turn herself away from that feeling. She needed to do her job, and let him do his.
“Well,” she began, giving the console a serious once-over, “looking at the evidence we have I’d say whoever built this console is about our height, and had digits to push buttons with. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to reach a console that they obviously need.”
Admiration and a twinge of surprise now mixed with all the other emotions that had been radiating from Riker.
“I did go to the Academy as well,” she said playfully. “Reasoning 101 is a prerequisite.”
Riker nodded. “I stand admonished. All right, Commander,” he motioned to the panel. “I’ll let you open the door without pressing the button that beams us into open space.”
She glanced at the panel, then looked back into Riker’s eyes. “What’s on the other side of the door may be as bad.”
Riker pulled in a deep breath and squeezed the handle of his phaser. “Maybe. But if we’re going to find out whose ship we’re on, and if we’re going to deal with that, we can’t just sit and wait.”
* * *
“Hidran justice must be satisfied!”
Grit and dust and thirsty air ground against Urosk’s skin. It was not hard to maintain ferocity in an ocean full of irritants. The Hidran captain curled his wet-cloak closer around him and hissed at Picard. He was determined to wait no longer.
Picard’s flat, white teeth flashed. “Is not all justice the same, Captain?”
What kind of question? “No, it is not. Klingon justice allows for the murder of innocent Hidran. Hidran justice does not.”
“Does Hidran justice allow for the murder of innocent Klingons?”
“Captain,” Urosk began, imitating what he thought was a human shrug, “I have yet to meet an innocent Klingon.”
Picard was quick with a response. “That may have been true at one time, but surely you can see they have changed.”
Urosk cocked his head toward the door. Beyond its wooden frame was the hall where his Ambassador had died. “I see death, Picard. What is it you see in Hidran blood?”
Silence ground in Urosk’s point, as he intended.
Finally Picard spoke. “I see what I see in all blood. Loss.”
That answer took Urosk by surprise. If any statement could be more un-Klingon in philosophy, the Hidran captain couldn’t fathom it. This was a strange alliance indeed that brought the Federation and the Klingon Empire together if they were truly this different. The question was, who controlled whom? Did this peaceful Federation hold the entire Klingon population at bay with platitudes and peaceful thoughts? Urosk thought that unlikely.
A knock at the door and Picard’s hazel eyes jumped away from Urosk. Curious eyes, rather dull to Urosk who was used to a planet full of bright and glossy colors that had to radiate through the natural thickness of a humid atmosphere. Human eyes seemed alive only when they moved.
Commander Kadar pushed into the room, followed by Worf. Both were unarmed. Only Picard held a weapon, and that was holstered at his side. A better opportunity to avenge Ambassador Zhad’s death might never present itself.
Urosk considered that . . . but lost the moment when the woman entered, her phaser at the ready as it always was.
“I’d like to join you, Captain,” Barbara said to Picard in a tone Urosk was unable to decipher.
Unsure of what part the woman played in all this, Urosk listened intently. She seemed to have a good idea of her position, however, as she stepped in front of Worf and Kadar and lowered herself into the seat next to the Starfleet Captain.
“Of course, Doctor.” Picard nodded and gestured toward the two remaining chairs in front of table. “Gentlemen, please be seated.”
“I prefer to stand.” Urosk mashed his gravel voice across the room, knowing that the Klingon ego would force Kadar to remain standing as well. There was endless benefit in knowing your enemy, and Klingons were nothing if not well understood to every Hidran who had suffered the past seventy years. The Klingons had turned the Hidran into a race of people bitter and angry, and while someday that might be forgiven, it would never be forgotten. The Hidran had been a cloistered people: a united democratic government on the edge of interstellar flight. Perhaps they were quarrelsome people in a broad sense, but they were not alien hunters who snarled their way across space.
The Klingons were. And for their own defense the Hidran had to effectively evolve into hunters themselves.
Or at least they had to act the part.
“Picard,” Urosk barked, quickly yanking his arm out from his cloak long enough to shake an accusing finger in Worf’s direction, “Why isn’t this Klingon in custody? Do the legal charges of the Hidran government mean nothing?”
“They are meaningful, Captain, and I do appreciate your concerns.” Picard rose, taking on a more formal stature. “I have relieved Lieutenant Worf of duty, and my chief medical officer is currently examining—�
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Urosk bolted forward. His arms swung out from under his cloak and he slammed his orange palms flat against the table, leaning forward. “Relieved him of duty? That’s an outrage! Is that the penalty for murder, Picard? What is the punishment for genocide? Confinement to quarters?”
Urosk felt anger heat his face as silence skewered Picard back, mentally if not physically. The Starfleet captain’s mouth was open slightly, an expression that could have been surprise. Urosk wasn’t sure.
“Captain,” Picard began, “I cannot act until I know what to act upon. At this point Lieutenant Worf is presumed innocent.”
Urosk turned, twisting a glare into Worf’s eyes. No. A Klingon face is never innocent.
The Hidran captain jolted his tall frame upright, away from the table Picard stood behind. “Picard, bring me your evidence of his innocence now, or I will see his blood on my hands before you can kill me for the attempt.”
Chapter Seven
HE STRETCHED OUT AN ARM, his fingers grasping for a nightstand that didn’t seem to be there. Groaning through the fog of grogginess that came with waking from a deep sleep, he tilted up and reached a bit farther before the realization struck that he wasn’t in his cabin.
The painful memory of the transporter room flooded in, as did the odor of sickbay, and he cracked out a weak call for Dr. Crusher.
“Doctor . . . Beverly . . .”
“Dr. Crusher is planetside, Geordi. Dr. Peiss is attending. And I am here.”
The voice was unmistakable.
“Data,” Geordi sighed, “what happened?”
“You are ill.”
That was his friend Data, as matter-of-fact as ever.
But Geordi didn’t feel ill. What he felt was . . . blind.
He angled up, eyes open but unseeing, and turned his head toward the sound of Data’s voice. “Yeah, I figured I was probably here for my health. What’s wrong? Where’s my VISOR?”
He heard the bio-blanket rustle at his side, and imagined Data’s hand was now on the bed. The mental picture of that, even though he couldn’t be sure it was realistic, was of concern. If Data was apprehensive about saying something—Data, the android of thousand-word answers to yes or no questions—then something was very wrong.
“Your VISOR is in Bioengineering. It’s been tested for possible malfunction,” Data said finally.
Has been. Past tense. “And?” Geordi prodded.
“No malfunction was uncovered. Dr. Crusher did find neural rejection of your visual cortex bionic implants. They have been removed.”
Geordi brought one hand to his temple, and felt the smoothness of his own skin where there had been an input sensor just hours before. It had been decades since he’d felt that smoothness. Decades since . . .
“Everything is dark.”
“I am sorry, my friend.”
Geordi wanted to answer that Data need not be sorry . . . but didn’t. Instead, the chief engineer began to listen. To the steady rhythm of the android’s breath in front of him, to the hum of the medical scanner panel above him.
He remembered what it was like for the other senses to pick up the slack for a sightless man—and remembered that it wasn’t the same as eyes, artificial or otherwise.
“Do you have any pain?” Data asked.
“No.” Geordi answered quietly and quickly, and without thought. Then he realized it was true—he didn’t feel any pain, and that too was a feeling he hadn’t had in decades.
“Data—will I be okay?”
Somehow the android must have known what his friend meant. “We do not know if the VISOR implants can be re-implanted. But you are otherwise physically sound.” There was a slight pause as Data grasped Geordi’s hand in his own, perhaps mimicking a human gesture he had seen before. “You will be fine, Geordi.”
“I guess I’ll have to rely on your optimism.”
“It is not optimism. I base my conclusion on the evidence available.”
Geordi chuckled. “Then I guess I’ll have to put my faith in that.” He felt himself smile, and noticed the absence of the implants again as his new skin stretched in places it hadn’t a day before. “When will Dr. Crusher be back?”
“Presumably when she has proved Lieutenant Worf’s guilt.”
Guilt? Geordi bent himself anxiously toward Data. “What are you talking about? What’s happened?”
“Much has happened. It began when our white-noise transmission was taking far more energy—”
“Give me the condensed version and save me the trouble of trying to read the book, huh, Data?”
“Of course,” Data said, the small joke lost on him. “It would appear that Lieutenant Worf has murdered the Hidran ambassador, and that Commander Riker and Counselor Troi have either been abducted or are dead.”
“Not necessarily.” Deanna tapped her finger near the glowing pink button. “Red doesn’t have to mean ‘danger.’ You’re applying a very human cultural concept to a situation where no human may be involved.”
Riker frowned and shifted his phaser from one hand to the other. His palms were moist with nervousness and delay. If they didn’t hurry, whoever had brought them here might come back. “What do you suggest? Eeny-meeny-miney-moe? We have to try something.”
Deanna huffed. “If you’re going to base your decision on poor concept formation, you might as well be arbitrary. You’re just as likely to get the wrong result.” Her voice held that irritating tone that patronized and lacked patience.
He nodded. “That’s annoyingly logical.” He shrugged consent and opened a palm toward the console. “Okay. It’s your call. I’ll go cower in a corner.”
He turned his back to the console, assuming that the door would open up and someone would be waiting. He tapped in the highest stun setting—the painful one—and stood ready.
“Now,” he ordered.
Riker heard her pull in a breath and slowly press the alien button into the wall.
Nothing. Not even a beep.
He began to turn his head toward Deanna, to rib her about the decision . . . but before him the wall opposite the panel console began to silently slide away, pulling itself apart from the slit that was the door’s opening.
He turned back toward the wall and a rush of sour air rode in at him. Whoever might be waiting behind the door obviously didn’t need the fresh air Riker and Deanna did.
Beyond the now open doorway was a corridor of brightness. The incoming stale air fouled the atmosphere in the “transporter room” or “holding cell” or wherever they were.
No alien presented itself to be shot. Somewhat disappointingly, Riker and Deanna seemed to be alone.
He nodded toward the new corridor that lay before them. “Good choice.”
“What’ve you found, Doctor?”
Picard’s tone, at once prodding and apprehensive, made Beverly feel as if she were back in front of a panel of medical officers at one of her final Fleet oral examinations.
Barbara, to the captain’s right, with a white lab coat over what Beverly had noticed was a beautiful gown, looked especially like one of the severe physicians meant to awe and unnerve young doctors.
Now, as then, Beverly stood uneasily before a grim jury of harsh expressions. Here, however, she was not the one being judged. And the stakes were not her medical career and a prestigious post, but the life of a man who had saved her life more times than she had patients’ fingers to count on.
She’d considered lying. Not just at this moment, as Picard was prompting for answers, but minutes before and deeply and seriously. But lying, like murder, had consequences, and she did still believe her friend to be innocent.
The Hidran didn’t have that faith in Worf’s character, and she knew that as well.
Beverly studied the Hidran captain’s face, half hidden by the same type of mask that had been torn from the ambassador, causing his death. Would he give Worf the benefit of doubt? No. No mask could hide that fact.
“Ambassador Zhad died of suffocation
,” she began slowly, looking mainly at Picard as she stated the obvious. From the corner of her eye she could see Urosk and Worf tense, and she cleared her throat, another stalling tactic, before she pressed on.
“His breathing mask, surgically implanted, mal-functioned and was subsequently pulled out of its implanted base.” She looked back down at the computer pad in her hand, and thumbed in a few commands. “There is cellular residue with DNA patterns matching the Ambassador’s, as well as Lieutenant Worf’s, on the surface of the mask.”
Urosk straightened, sucking in a quick breath.
Picard looked immediately away from Beverly and to the Hidran. “Captain, so far that does support Mr. Worf’s explanation of the events that took place outside the hall. Please allow us to hear the rest of Dr. Crusher’s findings.”
Nodding, Urosk relaxed slightly.
With a short sigh Beverly mustered her voice up again. “There is chemical evidence of recent skeletal muscular exertion, as well as the ambassador’s blood and tissue under his own fingernails.”
“What would ‘skeletal muscular exertion’ imply?” Urosk asked, his demanding voice a hammer on Beverly’s ears.
She hesitated, shaking her head and shrugging. “There could be many causes. It’s not—”
The Hidran captain rose. “A struggle, yes?”
Taken aback by Urosk’s height, Beverly stepped backward a bit. Either Zhad was shorter than his captain or seven feet tall was only intimidating when it was alive and growling. “Not necessarily a struggle,” she said.
Urosk turned away from Crusher and looked straight down at Picard. “But it could have been.”
There was no question for her to answer, and she looked back at Worf who was as motionless now as he’d been when she entered. At Worf’s side, Commander Kadar—had he been here all the time?—seemed to be covering a smile.
“Well, Picard.” Urosk stalked toward Worf, placing himself between the captain and his security chief. “I am convinced of the Klingon’s guilt. Do I take my prisoner into custody?”
Picard pursed his lips and crimped his eyes into determined stones. “No. Mr. Worf has the right to a fair and objective trial. He will not be subjected to an unwarranted execution behind a curtain of prejudice. Since that would evidently be the case if I were to release him to your custody, this is the only choice I can make.”
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