“Fine,” he told Scott. It was Scotty, wasn’t it? He looked up at the man to make sure. Indeed it was his chief engineer. The captain looked around groggily. “Everyone else?”
“Lieutenant Palamas, Doctor McCoy, and Tainler are fine, sir. And Ottenbrite and Kaalburg are embarrassed that they let the Kenisians get the drop on them.”
Suddenly Kirk was more alert, and he pushed himself to his feet with Scott’s help. “Spock? Ambassador Pippenge?”
“Unaccounted for. I have the landing party searching for them.”
Where could they be? He looked hastily around and noted the Kenisian mines, as well as the computer kiosk, were gone. He’d spun around so quickly that he nearly lost his balance.
Hand back on the captain’s arm, Scott helped him maintain his footing.
“What happened, sir?”
The captain rubbed his temple and steadied himself both physically and mentally. “A Kenisian disruptor,” Kirk said. “Set to heavy stun.”
“Aye,” Scott said through a grimace. “I assumed that much, sir.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know, sir. We patrolled the edges of the star system, as ordered. When the increased sensor range didn’t show anything, I took us to the Kenisians’ last known position. Nothing. We tried to track their ion trail . . .”
Scott walked with Kirk as he checked on McCoy, who was sitting, back against the wall and knees up.
“I’m fine, Jim.” McCoy, still recovering, gestured for the captain to check on the others.
Tainler was already up and bowing over Lieutenant Palamas. Unlike the humans, the ambassador’s aide was accustomed to the atmosphere, and the stun hadn’t affected her as badly.
“Tracked it where?” Kirk asked.
“That’s the thing,” Scott said. “Sensors . . . well, they reported the Kenisian ship all over the system and beyond. There’s no way they could have traveled that distance in that time.”
Swallowing roughly over a dry throat, Kirk searched for an answer as to how that was possible. He couldn’t imagine a way, but his thoughts were likely still muddled from the disruptor stun.
“Recall the landing party, Mister Scott.” The captain pulled in a deep, unsatisfying breath and turned to face Tainler. “May I ask that your people continue the search, just in case.”
“Just in case, sir?” Scott asked.
“I doubt either Spock or Pippenge is here.”
Tainler looked around as if they were hidden somewhere in the room. “Then where are they?”
“The Kenisian vessel,” Kirk said.
“But where is that?” Tainler asked.
“I don’t know,” Kirk admitted. “But I’m going to find it.” He flipped open his communicator, and with a quick chirp it found its frequency. “Kirk to Enterprise.”
“Enterprise. Uhura here, sir.”
“Stand by, transporter room. We’re beaming up.”
JAMES KIRK MARCHED onto the bridge. Experienced Enterprise officers knew from his stride that the captain was not happy. Sulu was already vacating the command chair for his station before Kirk was two steps out the lift, but instead of heading to the center seat, the captain went straight to the science station.
“Report.”
Ensign Chekov turned away from the scanner cowl. “No luck, sir.” He flipped a switch on the console, and a display above them became a map of the star system. A small globe showed the planet’s position, and a smaller blip indicated the Enterprise. When the ensign hit two buttons and toggled a switch, the screen populated with several hundred dots that cut paths this way and that across the system.
“That’s the Kenisian ship’s reported activity?”
“Yes, sir. It’s impossible. They’d have to be traveling in the system for months, not the hours they had.”
Impossible wasn’t what Kirk wanted to hear. “I need answers, mister.” He ground his teeth tightly until his jaw began to ache.
“I know, sir.” The young man shook his head, struggling to find a solution that wasn’t apparent to either of them.
Kirk rubbed his eyes and looked up at the display again. Searching for a pattern, he saw several possibilities, but all were improbable.
Also searching the display, Chekov mumbled, “It’s no wonder we couldn’t find them anywhere—this suggests they were everywhere.”
That’s it, isn’t it? Kirk thought, and he was reminded of an instance where a cloaked ship had been found by using their proximity to a star with a strong flow of plasma. “They were everywhere and nowhere,” he whispered. “Overlay the local stellar wind pattern.”
Leaning into the console, Chekov worked the controls. When he tapped a last button, the display changed, and a layer of color rolled out from the star like galactic arms. The strongest points of Kenisian ion concentration coincided with the plasma currents.
Chekov gasped lightly. “Sir, what did they do?”
“They seeded the star, Mister Chekov.” Kirk pressed his lips into a thin line. “They used the stellar wind to disperse their own trail, and mask their true comings and goings.” It was genius, in its way, and on a certain level Kirk had to admire it. Still, frustration tensed his muscles and balled his fists at his sides. “We can’t track them.”
“Then how do we find them, sir?” Chekov asked.
“Spock will contact us.” He turned to Uhura. “Monitor all subspace frequencies.”
“Aye, sir,” Uhura said. As the captain passed her station, the communications officer whispered, “Can we be sure he’ll be able to?”
Stepping to the command chair, Kirk watched Maaba S’Ja spin below them. The truth was there was no way to know.
He swiveled toward the engineering station. “Operational status, Mister Scott?”
“All systems repaired and functioning, sir.”
Good. Kirk nodded his approval. But where to go?
And, once the Enterprise found the Kenisian vessel, what could they do? If this weapon was as bad as Spock said—and the captain was sure it was—what was his next step?
That would have to wait. First, find them.
“Ready a series of probes, Mister Chekov.” Scratching a slight itch on his palm by running it against his pant leg, Kirk began formulating a plan. “The weaker the stellar wind becomes, the more their real ion trail may show itself. Let’s take a look.”
A STARSHIP’S CREW QUARTERS were not luxurious, nor were they meant to be. They were utilitarian, relatively spartan, and spoke to no particular culture. This was intentional by Starfleet, as the crews were a collection of myriad civilizations, all with very different tastes in décor. The Kenisian cabin offered to Spock was quite different.
The more time he spent aboard Zhatan’s vessel, the clearer it became that culturally they were closely related to Vulcans. The fabric on the bed was similar to one he’d seen at his father’s sister’s house when he was five. She had many antiquities, and much of the decoration in that cabin looked akin to what he now saw. Not identical, but from similar roots.
Zhatan noticed he was examining things with great focus. “It is pleasing?”
“It is . . .” Spock traced his finger along a small figurine that sat on a shelf. The sculpture was a bird not native to Vulcan. Perhaps it could be found on the world the Maabas now called home. Regardless of origin, the artistic style was reminiscent of the early Vulcan masters. “. . . familiar.”
“One of us fashioned that,” Zhatan said. “Centuries ago. It’s called a h’roole and sings a sweet song just before dusk.”
That, Spock thought, was a significant piece of information. While the Kenisian commander referred to herself as “us,” she also modified it with the phrase “one of.” That suggested individuality heretofore unseen. Who was Zhatan as a singular being? Assuming the process of shautish-keem was as the Vulcan myth described, the distinct personalities housed within the being should be able to assert themselves as individuals. And with practice, the original mind sho
uld be able to hold sway over the others.
Who is she now? Which one, Spock wondered, of a multitude?
“You admire the workmanship?” Zhatan asked, indicating the bird sculpture.
“Very well crafted.” He nodded. “Similar to the Heta’ar period on Vulcan.” He picked it up, examined it again, and put it back on the shelf, slightly askew from where it had been. “Where was this created?”
“In a different lifetime.” She reached over and adjusted the figure, “fixing” the position that Spock had deliberately misaligned.
A penchant for artistic endeavor did not soften his view of her. Earth’s Hitler painted. Kodos of Tarsus IV was a thespian. That Zhatan of Kenis Prime crafted decorative figurines did not mitigate her desire for mass murder.
“So not these fingers?” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled away. “Those are not the hands of someone hundreds of years old.”
Zhatan smiled. “We cannot be seduced, Commander.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I assure you, that was not my intent.” And in fact, it was not. But he was trying to make some sort of connection with her. Not mental, as that presented certain dangers. But there may come a time, Spock knew, when it might be necessary.
“You plot against us.” Zhatan pointed to herself, and a rather antagonistic smile played on her lips. Or was it arrogance? She sat in one of the more plush chairs within the living area of the cabin, and motioned for him to take the other.
Nodding toward her, Spock sat. “I consider all alternatives.”
“Including helping us?”
“Affirmative.” Spock placed his clasped hands in his lap. “That is one of the options offered.”
Almost mimicking his body language, Zhatan sat similarly to the Vulcan—hands also in her lap, her elbows at the same angle against the arms of the chair. He thought this was a subterfuge, as there wasn’t anything particularly Vulcan about the way in which he sat. She was trying to give him a false confidence that Kenisians and Vulcans were so similar that little dissimilarities didn’t matter. It was a tactic that suggested she knew very little of modern Vulcans.
“May we be involved in your thought process?”
Spock raised a brow at the invitation. Was it an appeal to meld? After the attack on Captain Kirk, such a request would be forcefully denied.
“Forgive us,” Zhatan said, seeming to appreciate his caution. “We were not suggesting anything more than verbal discourse.” Again she smiled, and had she truly been trying to seem more Vulcan than Kenisian, that was an expression she should have hidden.
“Discourse is always preferred to violence.”
“We would not attempt violence against you.”
“Indeed?” Spock had recently been stunned to unconsciousness at Zhatan’s command, but he decided not to remind her of that fact.
“Violence would not work to sway us against our will,” she explained. “We don’t believe it would influence you, either.”
“Yet you took forceful action against Captain Kirk.”
She replied in an ancient form of Vulcan, in a phrase that translated more or less to, “He is of a different tribe from thee.”
Racism, Spock thought, was not unusual in the ancient Vulcans. Fear—the root of racism—is one of the most base humanoid emotions. If Zhatan were trying to show how similar she and Spock were, she had just demonstrated how untrue it was. She was a throwback to the time before Surak, when their homeworld was fractured and violent.
“I will not,” Spock said slowly, “assist in the construction of a weapon which would bring death to billions or perhaps even trillions of life-forms.”
Zhatan frowned.
“However,” he added, “it would be immoral to not attempt to limit the destruction you seem determined to inflict.”
She smiled deeply.
There would be no likelihood, Spock decided, that he would be able to dissuade Zhatan from her perilous course. Given that, he would need to proceed with slowing her efforts while attempting to alert the Enterprise to whatever he could ascertain about her plans. “You shall have my assistance.”
Standing, Zhatan motioned toward the doorway. “Then let us begin.”
THE KENISIAN scientific facilities were admirable. More robust than the Enterprise’s labs, Spock equated the quality to a starbase level.
The expanse was nearly double that of Enterprise’s cargo bay. Individually enclosed labs lined the walls to either side. Three areas used for testing or simulations were open, and much of the equipment Spock could see looked familiar enough for him to deduce a Federation analog. Others looked downright Vulcan in style, and the remainder were completely alien to him.
In the very center of the complex was what appeared to be a staging area. On a dais—with cables and monitors attached—was a larger, more modern version of the ancient mines they’d found at the abandoned Kenisian installation. To one side were what appeared to be the fourteen original mines filled with the na’hubis compound.
Just past that area, toward the right, was a small complex of computer consoles. Nearby was the ancient Kenisian kiosk taken from the installation, as well as a Maabas terminal, presumably also transported up from the site. At the Maabas console sat Ambassador Pippenge.
There were no guards near the ambassador, Spock noted. The only security were the two armed Kenisians just outside the door they’d entered.
“Impressive, is it not?” Zhatan asked.
Was she looking for Spock’s approval? Despite the risk he might offend her, he was noncommittal. “It should be adequate.”
If a frown pulled at her lips, he had to admit it was rather slight. “We don’t desire the destruction of the galaxy. That’s why you’re here.”
His lips a thin line, Spock was cautious in reply. “How much destruction do you desire?”
“H-how much? Th-there . . .” Zhatan stammered, and he turned to meet her eyes.
Calmly, Spock pressed further. “Which of those within you decides the parameters, and what are their limits?”
“Parameters of what?” Her voice was suddenly soft, and she seemed to be confused.
“The purpose of the weapon you hope to employ is annihilation.” Spock spoke evenly, hoping to keep Zhatan off-balance. “You don’t wish too much destruction, therefore you must have a value-based formula defining how much devastation you will require.”
“One star system,” she said, seeming to regain her composure.
Which star system? Spock wondered. “And if you obliterate two in the process?”
“That would be pitiable,” she said, “but the fault would lie with those who initiated this conflict, not with we who would end it.”
“How pitiable would it be,” Spock asked, “if we can only limit the weapon to ruining three systems? Or four? Or ten?”
She was silent, so Spock continued.
“How many innocent lives are to be deemed forfeit to your plans?”
At this, Zhatan said nothing. After a long moment, she walked away and motioned him to join her. “You will have access to all the data and material you need related to our designs and research.”
Spock considered his options. Zhatan was moving the conversation past his questions, and therefore he thought it best to do the same. “I will need computer access to do additional scientific investigation. If you allow me to communicate, covertly, with Federation databases, I should be able to—”
Zhatan cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Commander Spock, do not insult us. There will be no access to our main computers, nor communication links to your Federation. We are not fools.”
She showed him to the console next to the Maabas ambassador. “We expect reports on your progress every two hours. Do not disappoint us.” As she turned away, Zhatan said to Pippenge, “That includes you, Ambassador.”
The ambassador was dumbstruck. Immobile, he watched Zhatan cross the lab. It took two minutes, twelve seconds for her to exit as she kept stopping t
o talk to various scientists, and then and only then did the ambassador allow himself to shudder.
When he’d composed himself, Pippenge rose to embrace the Vulcan. “Mister Spock, I am so glad to see you.”
Arms pinned to his sides, Spock uncomfortably attempted to reassure the ambassador. “Thank you, sir. Please disengage, and I will explain our options.”
There were several Kenisian scientists within earshot. Given the acute hearing which Vulcanoids possessed, Spock knew covert communication with the ambassador would be difficult.
Pippenge backed away, patting Spock’s arms and smoothing his uniform tunic as he did. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Commander.”
“An apology is unnecessary.” Spock motioned toward the chair in which Pippenge had been sitting. “Please.”
The ambassador sat, and Spock took the seat next to him. “I have informed Zhatan,” he began, “that I’ve agreed to aid the Kenisians toward their end of limiting the destructive properties of their na’hubis mines.”
As a political animal who dealt with words on a daily basis, Spock hoped Pippenge could read between the lines and see the more tacit message he was trying to send. Later, if they could discuss things in detail, the Vulcan trusted he could fashion a jamming device which would give them privacy from the covert monitoring that was surely in place.
“You have agreed . . .” Pippenge repeated, and then his eyes widened in understanding. “I see, Mister Spock.” He turned back toward his computer console. “Then I shall endeavor to cooperate in the same manner.”
“I assume,” Spock said, turning to his own console, “that the task they wish you to accomplish is taking more time than either you or the Kenisians anticipated.”
Again, the unspoken message was one he hoped Pippenge would understand.
“I’m afraid it is,” the ambassador said, and Spock wasn’t quite certain if Pippenge was playing along with the subterfuge or was merely confounded by his assignment. “I am not, as I explained to them, any kind of computer expert.”
“I believed they were going to harvest your DNA to assist them in their pursuit.”
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