by David Mack
For the sake of my reputation—not to mention the staggeringly huge bounty on Gaila’s head—I will see him delivered back into the hands of the law.
He watched the supply ship speed into the void on the farthest edge of the Net Gain’s sensor range. Shadowing it into uncharted space was a gamble, but if, as Brunt suspected, Gaila was haunting this sector looking for easy targets, this was the sort of prey he would choose.
He set his autopilot to a stealth tracking mode and kicked back with a Slug-o-Cola.
I feel lucky. Let’s roll the bones and see where they lead.
“Everyone, please grab a seat and settle so we can get started.” Theron watched the expedition’s two dozen department heads and deputies shuffle past one another as they looked for open seats. The Husnock hall had been laid out like an amphitheater with tiers rising in an arc around a stage, though the expedition had needed to retrofit it with seats designed to accommodate humanoid anatomy. Not all of the seats had fit neatly into the rows, a fact that sometimes made it take longer than Theron would have liked for large groups to assemble.
Waiting beside him was Doctor Kilaris. Out of sight behind the curtains they had draped along either side of the stage were a pair of security guards. Though the guards’ presence at a routine staff briefing seemed superfluous to Theron, the expedition operated under strict protocols handed down by some Federation bureaucrat who, despite being more than a thousand light-years away, presumed to know what was best for Theron and his team.
Kilaris nodded at Theron. He looked out at the audience. The last few folks were easing into seats, and the aisles were clear, so it was time to get started.
“Good morning, friends,” Theron said. “As promised, we have big news to share.” He stepped aside and indicated with a theatrical gesture, “Doctor Kilaris, everyone.”
The Vulcan woman stepped to center stage. “Thank you, Doctor Theron.” She faced the audience. “Welcome, esteemed colleagues. Yesterday, members of my team independently confirmed a discovery I made late last week: a hard-copy codex that appears to present Husnock text in parallel with lines written in an ancient dialect of T’Kon.” She lifted her chin to cue her deputy, Doctor Cadman Greiss, who activated a holographic projection that filled the space behind her with a semitransparent representation of facing pages. “As you can see, the page on the left shows Husnock script, while the one on the right is written in the ancient dialect of T’Kon that was excavated eight years ago from an archive on Delphi Ardu IV.” She gestured toward Greiss, who called up the next image in the projection: the same pages, with several details highlighted in various colors. “By noting similarities in the patterns of information density and tracking the frequency of syntactic interruption, we have been able to use the T’Kon portions of the codex to perform rough translations of the Husnock text.”
A hand shot up from within the audience. Theron took it upon himself to play the part of a moderator. “Yes, a question, Doctor Mukherjee?”
The architectural engineer stood and swept a few strands of her black hair from her face. “Is there a risk that we’re giving the Husnock a bit too much credit here?”
Kilaris raised an eyebrow at the query. “Could you be more specific?”
“The codex you uncovered seems to be relatively new, but ancient T’Kon dates back over half a million years. If we presume the Husnock were attempting their own translation of T’Kon, should we allow for the possibility that they mis-translated it? And if so, might we then mistranslate the Husnock by comparing it against a factor we know well, such as T’Kon?”
If it bothered Kilaris to be put on the spot by her peers, she hid it well, Theron thought. The Vulcan tilted her head as she considered her response. “That is a risk, one we considered before announcing this discovery. However, from what we have learned about Husnock science, they were an extremely intelligent and technologically sophisticated species. And we have found other codices that seemed to contain translation matrixes, but this was the first that translated a language known to us. Based on the volume of work the Husnock have done in this field, I think it is reasonable for us to conclude that they were experienced and adept at xenolinguistics.”
Mukherjee nodded and said as she sat down, “Thank you, Doctor.”
“You are most welcome, Doctor.” She gave another nod to Greiss, and he switched the holographic projection to a detailed close-up of a section of Husnock text. “Some of the most important elements of our discovery, as mundane as they might seem, are insights into the Husnock’s use of punctuation.” Kilaris pointed at numerous symbols in the text. “It is our hope that by analyzing the way that they annotate their text, we might learn to parse their syntax and grammar. Because of deficiencies in our understanding of those factors, however, several aspects of this text continue to elude us.
“First, because we have no guide for written Husnock grammar, we cannot be certain the word order in their text matches that of the T’Kon passages they translated. Consequently, we are unable at this time to construct a reliable lexicon of Husnock vocabulary. Second, because we are uncertain whether the codex is a transliteration or an idiomatic translation, our task of—”
A screeching disruptor shot interrupted her presentation.
Theron and everyone else in the room turned toward the rear of the auditorium, from whence the shot had come. Tall brawny humanoids armed with short disruptor rifles and wearing patched-together body armor and battle-scarred helmets charged in through the entrances on either side. In a matter of moments they flanked the seated scientists, none of whom stirred from their seats. Everything went quiet for a second—
Then the expedition’s security guards pivoted out from behind the stage curtains and opened fire. It was a brave move but a stupid one. Their phasers, set to stun, caromed off the intruders’ armor. Then the intruders returned fire, overwhelming the two security agents in barrages of disruptor pulses of unmistakably lethal setting. The last few shots ripped through the men as they crumpled to the stage, both dead before they hit the floor.
From the rear of the armored group came one figure, taller than the rest. His helmet was marked with short crimson streaks in orderly rows. Theron recognized them as the hash marks soldiers used to boast of their kills in combat. This man’s helmet bore more marks than Theron could count in a glance as the decorated intruder approached the stage.
Theron stepped forward to meet him. “I’m Doctor Maxwell Theron, head of this expedition, and I surrender on behalf—”
He swatted Theron aside with a crushing backhand slap. The blow knocked Theron off his feet. He landed hard on his back, stunned and afraid for his life. In a guttural voice the painted one rasped, “Not here for you.” He said to his men as he pointed at Kilaris, “Take her.”
Two of his men seized Kilaris’s arms. Proving her genius, she didn’t struggle.
Then the leader looked at the department heads and pointed again. First at Doctor Gav glasch Pek. “Grab that one.” Then at the expedition’s resident computer experts, the Bynar pair 010-101. “And them.” He stomped back up the aisle to the exit.
More of the thugs dragged Pek and the Bynars out behind Kilaris, who looked back at Theron, her dark eyes betraying not even an ounce of fear.
For a moment, Theron hoped the worst was over. Then he heard the painted leader growl a parting order to the rest of his men.
“Kill the others.”
The command deck of the argosy Silago-Ekon was bathed in green light for two reasons: its Orion commanding officer, Nilat, found it restful for her eyes, and she liked that it made most of the members of her multispecies crew look more like her. Not that being painted with emerald light could hide the cranial ridges of her Klingon first officer, K’mjok, or the finlike ears of the Tiburonian communications specialist Ninivus. And Nilat was fairly certain that the coal-black skin, eyes, and teeth of their Nalori pilot Ang-Harod would look the same in any light.
All the same, every little bit helped.
<
br /> She swiveled her command chair toward K’mjok, who stood hunched over the hooded sensor display, his stern face creased by a perpetual scowl. “XO, status.”
K’mjok straightened as he faced her. “The merc ship just beamed up its strike team.”
“Any sign they’ve detected us?”
The Klingon shook his head. “Negative.”
“Well done, XO.” Nilat made a mental note to ask management to pay K’mjok a bonus share for recommending an effective strategy to conceal the Silago-Ekon during this reconnaissance. On his advice they had switched to low-power mode and parked the ship above the planet’s northern pole, where the magnetic fields from the planet’s core would mask it from nearly all sensors. So far they seemed to have evaded being noticed by the Federation research team on the surface and the recently arrived mercenary vessel, which had just staged a commando assault against the scientists.
Ninivus looked up from the comms console. He held one hand over the ear in which he wore a wireless transceiver unit. “Commander. Receiving a distress signal from the expedition.”
“Maintain comm silence and translate.”
The Tiburonian furrowed his graying eyebrows. “The expedition’s chief of security is signaling Starfleet with a priority alert. She says they’ve been attacked by a force of unknown origin. Four of their senior people have been kidnapped, and as many as twenty have been killed.”
Nilat kept her expression blank, but inside she seethed. Amateurs. Sloppy and stupid. If my people had struck first, we could’ve gotten in and out without bloodshed, and been light-years away before anyone knew what happened. She nodded at Ninivus. “Monitor that channel for a reply. XO, watch long-range sensors for responding vessels.”
Her weapons officer, a scar-faced Balduk named Trunch, looked up from his station. “Commander, merc ship breaking orbit. Tracking their heading on passive sensors.”
“Assess their tactical strength.”
He grimaced at the XO. “Same distortion that hides us, blinds us.”
Even without looking Nilat felt K’mjok tense at the criticism. The Klingon and the Balduk had detested each other since the day they met a year earlier, and it had been all Nilat could do to keep them from turning her bridge into a brawlers’ pit. She glared at K’mjok, a silent warning for him not to be baited, then she aimed her withering look at the Balduk. Both men backed down, deferring to her authority.
Not bad for “a skinny girl” my father said would “never amount to anything.”
She rose from her chair to stand in the center of the command deck. “Helm, pursuit course. Keep the mercs at the far edge of our sensor range, and put us in their baffles.”
“Pursuit course, ghost protocol,” answered Ang-Harod, her long and graceful fingers executing the new heading. “Laid in and engaged.”
To a stranger’s eye the crew of the Silago-Ekon might look like undisciplined rabble, but to watch them in action was to realize they were all seasoned professionals. It gave Nilat reason to hope they might yet salvage this botched assignment.
As she sat, K’mjok sidled up to her. “Commander. A question?”
“Speak your mind, XO.”
“The mercenaries are gone. The colony on the surface remains vulnerable. Why not continue our mission as planned?”
She turned a weary eye toward K’mjok, who still wore the black leather uniform and metallic sash of an empire from which he had long since been expelled. “Because the next phase of our mission would have been to abduct key personnel from the expedition and extract vital intel from them.” She looked at the retreating alien ship on the main viewscreen. “Our rivals must have come here with the same plan—and I’m betting they took the very people we need to question. But even if they haven’t, I don’t want to risk being in orbit when Starfleet arrives.”
The dishonored Klingon expatriate huffed. “So what is our plan now? Follow the hired guns and watch them claim the prize we came for?”
“Don’t be such a pessimist, K’mjok. We’re going to let the mercs do the dirty work. Then, once they’ve led us to the reward we must both be chasing, we will take it from them, and leave their burning corpses behind for Starfleet.”
Five
* * *
The turbolift doors opened to reveal the bridge of the Titan. Standing in wait for Admiral Riker was his aide, Lieutenant Ssura. The Caitian hurried to catch up as Riker strode past toward Captain Vale’s ready room. Riker held out his hand. “What do we have available?”
Ssura fell in beside Riker and put a padd into his hand. “Just the Titan and its AQ frontier ships, sir. The Ajax is the farthest out, but the Canterbury and the Wasp can rendezvous with us in sixteen hours, en route.”
Riker looked up from the padd and glanced toward the bridge’s center seat, in front of which stood Commander Tuvok, holding the conn. The admiral nodded once at Tuvok, who returned the simple greeting. Then the ready room door slid open ahead of Riker, and he and Ssura proceeded inside.
Awaiting them in the ready room were Vale and Sarai. The captain was seated at her desk, and Sarai stood at ease in front of it. Both officers looked up at Riker’s brusque entrance. “Sorry to barge in, Captain,” Riker said. He handed the padd to Vale. “But time’s a factor.”
“So you said.” Vale, whose penchant for frequent changes to her hair color had most recently manifested itself in a multicolored dye job whose subtly layered swirls evoked the churning mists of a nebula, reviewed the report with concern. “Twenty dead, four abducted. Do we have any intel on the suspects?”
“Not yet,” Ssura said. “The expedition’s chief of security says the intruders disabled the camp’s sensors, starting with the visual. So all we have are a few witness statements saying they were big, wore body armor and helmets, and carried military-style weapons.”
Sarai asked, “How did they escape?”
“A ship in orbit,” Ssura said. “It might have been picked up by one or more of the orbital sensor relays, unless they disabled those too. But if there are scans of their ship we’ll be able to download that data from the relays once we reach the system.”
Riker added, “All three of our sister ships are joining us, though Ajax might be a bit late.”
Sarai looked perplexed. “Four ships? That response seems excessive, sir.”
“Trust me, it’s not.” To Vale he continued, “We’ll meet up with the Canterbury and the Wasp en route, then proceed together to—” He realized he didn’t know the name of their destination. “Ssura, where’d you say we’re going?”
“The report identifies it as FGC-779852c.”
“Does it have a name that’s more user-friendly?”
The Caitian shook his head. “None on file, sir.”
“Then I’m giving it one, just for convenience. Let’s call it . . . Rishon.”
His suggestion stoked Vale’s curiosity. “Why ‘Rishon,’ sir?”
Riker drew a breath as he exhumed dark memories. “Twenty years ago, while I was serving as first officer on the Enterprise-D, we answered a distress call from the planet Delta Rana IV. By the time we arrived, the entire planet had been laid waste—except for one small plot of grass and a single house in the middle of it. We beamed down and found two people living there, an old married couple, Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge. They claimed to be the last survivors of an unprovoked attack by a species he called the Husnock.
“But neither they nor their house were what they seemed. Kevin wasn’t human, he was an energy being known as a Douwd, and he had powers on par with the Q. He confessed to us that after the Husnock destroyed the planet—and killed his wife, Rishon—he exterminated the entire Husnock species with a thought. Fifty billion of them, dead in an instant.”
The first officer remained confused. “Forgive me, sir, but what does that have to do with the expedition? Or the kidnappings?”
“Uxbridge described the Husnock as ‘a species of hideous intelligence,’ ” Riker said. “And even though he rendered t
hem extinct in a single moment, he left behind all that they had made. Their entire civilization. Dozens of colonized worlds. A fleet of starships and a network of support facilities. Plus a stockpile of the most devastating munitions ever devised. All lying abandoned somewhere in unexplored sectors of the Alpha Quadrant, waiting to be found. If the arsenal of the Husnock falls into the wrong hands, countless lives will be in danger.”
Vale put the pieces together with a grim nod. “And the expedition that got attacked—they were excavating a Husnock planet?” Noting Riker’s nod of confirmation, Vale frowned. “Which means the scientists who were taken must know something that their abductors think will help them take control of the Husnock’s weapons.”
“That’s the current thinking at Starfleet Command.”
An anxious look passed between Vale and Sarai. Then the captain asked, “Mission priorities, Admiral?”
“For now, our chief objective is the rescue and safe return of all four abducted members of the expedition. You’ll get their dossiers in your briefing packets. Our secondary mission is to arrest their kidnappers before they can acquire Husnock technology.”
That proposition met with a dubious look from Sarai. “And if they do acquire Husnock weapons, vessels, or munitions?”
“Then we have orders to deprive them of said plunder, by means of whatever force proves necessary. I suspect there are some at Starfleet Command who’d prefer we capture any Husnock technology intact—but I’ll be just as happy to see it all destroyed.”
“Understood, sir,” Vale said. “Number One, summon department heads for a mission briefing, and have the helm take us to Rishon at maximum warp. And start running battle drills at your discretion. If we’re going to meet resistance, I want to be ready.”
A quick nod from Sarai. “Aye, sir.” The trim Efrosian woman turned on her heel and left the ready room at a quick step. She started snapping out orders the moment she set foot on the bridge, even before the ready room door closed behind her.