by David Mack
Yereb fell like a cut tree and landed facedown on the deck, revealing the blade jammed deep between his shoulder blades . . . and the green Orion woman standing behind him, flanked by two men—a Klingon and a Balduk—both with disruptors aimed at Slokar and his comrades.
“Welcome back, Commander Slokar,” the woman said. “My name is Nilat, and I bring you greetings and salutations from the Orion Syndicate.”
Slokar and Varoh reached for their sidearms.
The Klingon and the Balduk fired.
Disruptor shots punched through Slokar’s torso and Varoh’s neck. The barrage continued and engulfed Motar. When the shooting stopped, Slokar and his brothers-in-arms were splayed on the deck, all three of them riddled with smoldering wounds that reeked of burnt meat.
Nilat strolled over to the mortally wounded Slokar, squatted beside him, and with delicate finesse pilfered the data chip of Husnock command codes from his clenched fist. “On behalf of my employer, thank you so very much. We truly could not have done this without you.”
As she stood, the bulkhead that separated the ops bay from a vehicle bay retracted, revealing the rest of Slokar’s valiant crew—all dead and stacked like cordwood.
Vile curses drowned in Slokar’s blood-filled throat.
The Klingon asked Nilat, “Should we put them with the others?”
She considered it, then shook her head. “Don’t bother. We won’t keep this ship long enough for it to matter.” She drew her disruptor and smirked at Slokar. “Tell the Wind I said hello.” She aimed and fired—and Slokar’s tegol, freed at last from the prison of his flesh, soared with the Four Winds to the Heart of the Sky, where his ancestors awaited his coming.
Twelve
* * *
A crimson flash on the moon’s surface snapped Vale’s eye from her command console to the Titan bridge’s main viewscreen. “What the hell was that?”
Tuvok checked his console. “An explosion inside the crashed Husnock vessel.” He keyed in new commands. “Magnifying.” The image on the screen enlarged, but there was no longer a view of the wrecked starship, only a spreading crown of black smoke obscuring the surface.
“Not helping,” Vale said. “Where’s the away team?” When Tuvok failed to answer immediately, she turned toward ops. “Rager, tell me you’ve filtered out the radiation.”
The human woman looked dismayed. “Still working on it, Captain.”
“Dammit.” Vale stood and paced in front of her chair, growing more agitated with each passing moment of situational blindness. “Someone tell me something.”
Pazlar swiveled away from the sciences console. “I’ve analyzed the thermal signature of the blast, and the chemical composition of the resulting cloud. Both are consistent with high-yield explosives manufactured by the Klingons. Such munitions are frequently sold through black-market channels, which would suggest the explosion was triggered by the Nausicaans.”
The next person to pipe up was Lavena. “Captain, I can adjust our orbital position to give visual sensors an oblique but unobstructed angle on the blast site.”
“Do it.” Vale returned to her chair. “Tactical, stay sharp. If anything moves on the surface, in the atmosphere, or anywhere else in this system, I want to know about it.”
It took a few minutes for Lavena to guide the ship into an adjusted orbit. As soon as the maneuver was completed, she signaled Tuvok, who refocused the visual sensors and routed to the main viewscreen an image of a mountainside turned to fire and molten rock.
From the engineering console, Torvig asked, “Where is the Husnock ship?”
“Incinerated,” Tuvok said. “It is possible the Nausicaans’ explosion ignited munitions or deuterium fuel reserves that survived the vessel’s crash. Or perhaps both, judging from the extent of the damage to the surrounding terrain.”
The fiery wound in the moonscape stoked Vale’s concern for her personnel, and for the civilians they had been sent to rescue. “Do we have any idea where the away team is?”
Rager straightened and responded with excitement, “Captain, I have a lock on the runabout. It’s airborne and heading for orbit.”
“Incoming message from the Nechako,” Tuvok said. “Admiral Riker reports all personnel are aboard, plus the four civilians.” New alerts sounded on Tuvok’s console. He silenced them as he reviewed the incoming sensor data. “Three more ships launching from the surface. They are also heading for space, on divergent headings. One appears to be the Nausicaan ship, the other two are of unknown origin—a small starhopper and an Orion argosy.”
Vale was back on her feet. “Helm, intercept the argosy. Ops, hail the runabout, tell them to go evasive until we clear them to land. Tuvok, tell the Canterbury to stop the Nausicaans.”
He looked up from his console. “And the starhopper?”
“Let it go.”
Vale hated to let any of the alien vessels slip through her grasp, but the Wasp was still too far out of range to assist in the roundup. While the runabout might have been able to halt the starhopper, Vale had no intention of sending the small ship into a potential combat action with civilians aboard. Either the starhopper, a small craft that carried at most a handful of passengers, or the larger Orion argosy was going to escape. Choosing to detain the larger ship might prove to be a mistake, but at this point she had to try to reel in the biggest fish that she could.
“Raising shields,” Tuvok said. “Charging phasers and tractor beam.”
Lavena accelerated the Titan out of orbit into a pursuit heading. “Closing on the Orion ship at full impulse,” the Selkie said, her voice filtered through her aquatic breathing mask.
“Ops,” Vale said, “open a channel to the argosy.”
A few quick taps on her console, then Rager replied, “Channel open.”
Vale stood to better project authority with her voice. “Attention, unidentified Orion vessel. This is Captain Christine Vale, commanding the Federation Starship Titan. Halt your vessel and prepare to be boarded. Acknowledge this command or be fired upon.”
“They’re changing course,” Lavena said. “They’re attack—”
Twin blasts of disruptor fire filled the viewscreen, which flared white with static as the Titan shook for half a second. Then the interference on the screen cleared to show a pinwheeling curtain of stars as Tuvok reported, “Direct hit, forward shields holding.”
“Coming about,” Lavena said. “Matching their—” She stopped and stared at her console, then looked back at Vale. “They’re gone, Captain.”
Tuvok added, “Captain, they appear to have cloaked.”
“An Orion ship with a cloaking device?” Vale shook her head. “Who says crime doesn’t pay?” She checked her command monitor. “How’s Canterbury doing with the Nausicaans?”
“The Nausicaan ship has engaged in a series of textbook evasive maneuvers,” Tuvok said. “The flight pattern suggests the ship is operating on autopilot.”
Suspicion and alarm filled Vale’s thoughts. “Move us closer, see if we can knock out its shields without inflicting too much damage—I want that ship captured and its logs analyzed.”
“Moving to intercept,” Lavena confirmed.
“Locking tractor beams and phasers,” Tuvok said.
The Nausicaan ship and the Canterbury both grew larger on the main viewscreen, both of them locked in an erratic dance of chase and escape. Then the Nausicaan ship rolled out of its evasion pattern—and accelerated directly toward the Titan.
What the hell?
“They’re on a ramming trajectory,” Rager said. “Twelve seconds to impact.”
Tuvok’s console flooded with alarms. “Captain, they’ve dropped their shields. I’m reading no life-forms—and its self-destruct system has engaged.”
Vale sat and white-knuckled the arms of her command chair. “Evasive, starboard! Fire phasers and sound collision alarm!” Alert sirens whooped over the ship’s PA system but were barely audible over the sudden groaning of its spaceframe, the resonan
t whine of the impulse engines, and the screeching of its phaser banks all firing at once.
On the viewscreen, the Canterbury peeled away in a high-impulse maneuver as the Titan’s phaser barrage sliced through the defenseless Nausicaan ship. It exploded in a blinding flash that forced Vale to shut her eyes and look away. A shock wave buffeted the Titan, which rocked and shuddered. Then the glare and the tumult faded away.
Vale let go of her chair’s arms and seethed. The other two alien ships had vanished into the soup of radiation pouring from the gas giant, and there was nothing left of the Nausicaan vessel but superheated gas and a quickly expanding cloud of dust. “Tuvok, report.”
“Minor damage to our shield generators,” he said. “All decks report secure.”
“Lower shields, go to yellow alert,” Vale said. “Everyone, look for anything that might tell us where the Orions or that starhopper went. Helm, take us back to orbit and recover the runabout.” She stood and headed for the turbolift. “I’m going below to meet the away team and find out what happened down there. Mister Tuvok, you have the conn.”
It was a relief to be free of the environmental suit. Wearing one always reminded Will Riker of how much he took his freedom of movement for granted. Returning the suit to its locker in the Nechako’s aft compartment, he bid it a silent good riddance.
He recognized the familiar pattern of a gentle bump followed by the dwindling whine of the runabout’s engines. They had touched down in the Titan’s main shuttlebay.
Riker turned to face the four civilians, who had shed their own environmental suits and packed them into the runabout’s spare storage module. “Any questions before we get out?” They shook their heads. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
Keru opened the port hatch. He and sh’Aqabaa were the first ones off the runabout. Sarai ushered Sethe and Modan out ahead of her, then she motioned for Riker and the civilians to go. He led the rescuees off the Nechako and into the Titan’s shuttlebay, where Captain Vale, Doctor Ree, and Riker’s aide Lieutenant Ssura stood, awaiting their arrival.
Vale stepped forward and greeted the civilians. She nodded at the Vulcan woman. “Doctor Kilaris.” Next she shook the Tellarite’s four-fingered manus. “Doctor Pek.” Then she faced the Bynars and smiled. “Doctors Zero One Zero and One Zero One. Welcome aboard the Titan. Do any of you require urgent medical attention, for any reason?”
Kilaris replied, “No, Captain. None of us are injured or in distress.”
“Glad to hear it. That said, Starfleet regulations require us to perform a cursory medical examination of each of you, just to ensure none of you are experiencing delayed symptoms of physical shock or psychological trauma.”
The Tellarite scowled. “And if I’d rather not be poked and prodded by your lizard-doctor? What happens then?”
“You are free to refuse to be examined,” Vale said. “In which case, I’ll have my security chief escort you to guest quarters for a mandatory three-day observation period.”
Pek harrumphed. “A perfect illustration of why I never applied to Starfleet.”
Vale ignored the engineer’s gripe and faced Riker. “Admiral? Are you okay?”
“Shipshape.” He stepped aside and beckoned Vale with a tilt of his head. Away from the group, he asked in a confidential tone, “What was all the shooting we saw on the way up?”
She matched his discreet volume. “Three ships left the planet’s surface shortly after you did. We identified one as the Nausicaans, another as an Orion argosy. The third was a starhopper with a blank transponder code. That one’s still a mystery.”
“Maybe not.” Riker took from his pocket the data chip Brunt had foisted upon him inside the wreck. He waved to Ssura, who hurried to his side. Riker pushed the chip into Ssura’s paw.
The Caitian eyed the chip. “Sir? What’s this?”
“An invoice,” Riker said. “From a Ferengi named Brunt.” To Vale he added, “I’d wager he’s the one in the starhopper.”
Studying the chip, Ssura asked, “An invoice for what, Admiral?”
“Services rendered, I suspect.”
A twitch of whiskers. “And what should I do with it?”
“Honestly? I don’t give a damn.” He turned back to Vale. “Where are they now?”
She looked confused. “Who? The Nausicaans, the Orions, or the Ferengi?”
“Any of them. All of them. Pick one.”
“We fragged the Nausicaans’ ship, but we didn’t detect any life-forms aboard. The Orion ship cloaked, and the starhopper slipped away in the confusion.”
Riker nodded as he pieced together the details in his imagination. “As far as we know, three of the four Nausicaans we fought inside the wreck escaped, and they probably had a full crew on their ship. But if their vessel was empty when you destroyed it, either they’ve commandeered the Orion ship, or the crew of the argosy took the Nausicaans out of play.”
Before he and Vale could continue their speculations, Sarai stepped over to interrupt their private chat. “Excuse me, sirs, but Doctor Kilaris has intel you need to hear.”
The XO led Riker and Vale back to the four civilians, who looked quite anxious—all except Kilaris, whose Vulcan sangfroid was truly impeccable. She stepped forward to meet Riker and Vale. “Captain. Admiral. It is imperative that you know what it was that the Nausicaans sought inside the Husnock vessel.”
“We’re listening,” Riker said.
“Security codes and military command protocols. It seems the Nausicaans discovered the wrecked Husnock vessel and determined its computer core was intact. But without a working knowledge of the Husnock’s language and technology, they were unable to access its contents.”
Pek stepped up beside Kilaris. “That’s why they took us.”
“We assumed as much from a review of your dossiers,” Vale said. “What I need to know right now is, what do the Nausicaans plan to do with the intel you helped them steal?”
“They claimed they had found an arsenal of Husnock weapons,” Kilaris said, “and a fleet of their ships. Enough to let them conquer any opponent they wanted.”
Riker’s mood darkened as he considered the state of play. “It’s a good bet whoever’s on the argosy has those codes. Whether it’s a Syndicate crew or the Nausicaans, it doesn’t matter. We can’t let them use that intel.”
“Agreed,” Vale said. “But until we figure out how to punch through all this radiation and strip away the protection of their cloaking device, I have no idea how to find them.”
“I do,” Pek said. When he realized all eyes in the shuttlebay were now on him, he puffed out his chest and stood a bit taller. “I snuck a bit of malicious code onto the Nausicaans’ data chip. If the data on the chip is accessed by a networked terminal on a starship, the chip will program a detectable phase misalignment into the ship’s warp coil regulators, one that will make them send out Cochrane distortion at a precise frequency of twenty-one point six MC.” A faux-humble shrug. “Should make them pretty easy to track at warp, even through a cloaking device.”
Sarai lifted an eyebrow. “Pretty easy? That’s an understatement. Distortion like that would stick out like a sore thumb if—” An admiring nod and a thin smile as she grasped the genius of the Tellarite’s sabotage. “If you know to look for it.”
“And now we do,” Riker said.
Vale said to Sarai, “Number One, escort Doctor Pek to the bridge and have him brief Commander Tuvok.”
“Aye, sir,” Sarai said. “Lieutenant sh’Aqabaa, you’re with me.”
As Sarai and sh’Aqabaa led Pek out of the shuttlebay, Riker considered a more pessimistic scenario. “Captain, it’s possible the chip isn’t on the argosy. Or, if it is, there’s no guarantee it’ll be read by a terminal connected to the ship’s datanet. We need to find a way to break through its cloaking device, just in case Pek’s gambit doesn’t pay off.”
“I’ll have Xin work on it.” She gently took hold of his arm and led him a few meters away from the group. This tim
e she whispered. “How far does Starfleet expect us to take this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Say we catch the argosy, and whoever’s on board won’t give up the chip. What then?”
There was no point sugarcoating the truth. Orders were orders.
“In that case,” he said, “we blow them to hell.”
There were a great many places in which Sarai might have expected an unprovoked ambush, but the corridors of the Titan were not among them.
She and sh’Aqabaa had escorted Doctor Pek less than two sections away from the main shuttlebay, and the turbolift was just a few meters ahead of them, when Deanna Troi’s voice called out from behind them, resounding with an almost lyrical quality: “Commander Sarai!”
The salutation made sh’Aqabaa and Pek slow their strides, but Sarai mumbled, “Keep walking,” so they did. It was a childish gambit to pretend not to hear a fellow officer, but there was work to be done, and months of Starfleet-mandated counseling after Sarai’s “incident” in the field a few years earlier had conditioned her to dread speaking to members of Troi’s profession.
Just a few more steps to the turbolift . . .
“Commander,” Troi called again, her tone unimpeachably cordial. It would be difficult to justify not stopping, but Sarai was adamant that she—“Dalit!”
Hearing her given name spoken with edge and volume stopped Sarai cold. Old feelings of guilt and alarm clouded her thinking. In a moment’s reflection she realized why. She sounded just like my mother. It was like a shard of glass in Sarai’s brain. That same castigating tone was the one Tanara Sarai had used whenever young Dalit had incurred her wrath.
Sarai turned to face the ugly music. Confused and maybe sensing her tension, sh’Aqabaa and Pek halted to wait beside her, as anxious as if Troi had called their names, as well.
Troi quick-stepped down the corridor to catch up to them. She flashed a disarming smile. “For a moment there I thought you couldn’t hear me.”
“My apologies, Counselor. I was a bit preoccupied.” A transparent lie. Would the half-Betazoid counselor and diplomatic officer call her on it?