Star Trek: Vanguard: Precipice

by David Mack

  He shifted his weight to keep blood flowing to his fingers; to prevent himself from touching the wrong switch at the wrong moment and giving away their presence to either Kane or the Klingons, Pennington was sitting on his hands.

  T’Prynn hovered over the sensor station behind Pennington. “Passive sensors are detecting a transport from the Zin’za,” she said, her voice calm and neutral. “Signal strength and duration are consistent with a life-form transport.”

  “Will that data tell us what he gives the courier?”

  “Negative,” T’Prynn said. “These sensors are not precise enough for us to gauge the exact variance in mass.”

  A new rough-edged voice said over the comm, “Tonar to Zin’za. Delivery has been made. Ready to transport.”

  The first Klingon voice replied, “Acknowledged. Stand by. Energizing.”

  More data flew across T’Prynn’s screen. “Another transport cycle has begun,” she said. “The Zin’za is beaming someone or something back from the Ali Baba.”

  Over the comm, Joshua Kane said, “This fulfills our contract. A pleasure doing business with you, as always. Ali Baba out.”

  Swiveling her chair toward Pennington, T’Prynn said, “The comm channel has been terminated.” She got up and moved forward into the pilot’s seat. “Now comes the dangerous part.”

  “Hang on,” Pennington said. “We’re sitting within striking distance of a Klingon battle cruiser, hoping it doesn’t notice we’re not really a piece of space junk, and this isn’t even the dangerous part? Then why is my colon tied in a knot?”

  T’Prynn kept her eyes on the long-range passive sensors and noted the movements of the Ali Baba and the Zin’za. “Our new imperative is to follow the Klingon cruiser,” she said. “We must attempt to determine where it is taking whatever it is Joshua Kane stole from Vanguard.”

  “How do we know he stole anything? For all we know, based on these intercepts, he could have been delivering beer.”

  She glanced at him, then resumed studying the sensor readout. “We cannot be absolutely certain,” she said. “However, a preponderance of evidence currently in hand suggests this is the case. Logically, the most probable means of obtaining the knowledge we seek is to follow the Klingon vessel.”

  Pennington rolled his eyes. “More warp-shadow mimicry?”

  “For now, yes. However, it will be much more difficult to fool the Klingons’ sensors than it was to trick Ganz’s. We will need to stay at the very edge of their sensor range, which will put them just outside ours. It will be, as I have heard humans say, a touch and go procedure.”

  “Not a job for the autopilot, then,” he said.

  “Correct.” One of the blips on the sensor screen vanished. “The Ali Baba has gone to warp. As soon as the Zin’za makes the jump to warp speed, we will plot its course and lay in a long-range pursuit plan.”

  Watching her work, Pennington felt his latest pang of regret over having volunteered for this quixotic mission. “Say we follow the Klingons all the way to wherever they’re going. What then? Do we have a plan? Or are we just a dog chasing a car?” She threw him a bemused look, and he added, “Are we not going to know what to do even if by some miracle we catch up to them?”

  “Our objective is to observe, gather verifiable and actionable intelligence, and relay it to Starfleet as soon as possible.”

  Waving his hands, he replied, “Wait, wait, wait. Are we talking about a peek from orbit kind of observation, or is this going to be more of a run through the Jinoteur shooting gallery type of observation?”

  The second blip disappeared from the sensor display. “The Zin’za has gone to warp,” T’Prynn said. “Initiating warp core restart.” As she powered up the Skylla’s main reactor, she added, “Please bring the impulse drive back online.”

  “Aye, skipper,” Pennington said. He flipped switches and was relieved to feel the vibrations from the ship’s power plant course through the deck plates under his feet. With any luck, the ship would soon be at least a few degrees warmer than a meat locker, once the life-support system came back to full power.

  Casting a sidelong glance at T’Prynn, he said, “You still haven’t answered my question. How much heat are we going to take for this little quest of yours?”

  She looked almost serene as she entered data into the navigation system. “Ideally, we would remain as distant as possible from our observational targets. We should not attempt to take direct action unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  He harrumphed with bitter humor. “Who do you think you’re kidding? It’s always bloody necessary.”

  35

  August 19, 2267

  Until the deal was done, it was Zett Nilric’s job to be the eyes in the darkness, the fair witness to the transaction.

  He was alone aboard his argosy, Icarion. The modern cargo ship was equipped with the latest state-of-the-art automations, which enabled him to work solo most of the time. It also afforded him the opportunity to travel in a modicum of comfort, which made his current long-term surveillance effort bearable.

  Zett had been there for days. He had dropped out of warp a few million kilometers away, then coasted into position on inertia. Thrusters had sufficed to bring his ship to a halt without doing anything to announce his presence.

  There was only one seat in Icarion’s spacious cockpit. It was located at the forward end of the compartment and centered under the wraparound transparent canopy. Zett cast a tired look at the sensor screen to his left. It showed the Klingon battle cruiser Zin’za and Joshua Kane’s vessel, the Ali Baba, holding station a few thousand kilometers from each other. So far the Klingons appeared to be unaware that Zett was lurking nearby as an observer to the exchange, and there was no sign of any other ship in the area, and no hint of a betrayal.

  Good, Zett thought. It’s nice to see the Klingons exhibit a sense of honor once in a while.

  Reclining, he caught his ghost of a reflection on the canopy overhead. Thanks to the darkness of the cockpit, his glossy black skin was all but invisible when mirrored against the backdrop of space. His charcoal-colored suit was nearly as hard to see. Only the pale violet twists of his braided beard bounced back enough light to be visible on the transparent metal overhead, though at first he mistook the spectral image for a smudge on the canopy’s exterior.

  By now I’m sure Ganz’s court is in chaos, he thought, baring a grin of gleaming black teeth. As the Orion crime boss’s chief enforcer, it was Zett’s job to keep order aboard the OmariEkon and deal with any delicate problems that might arise during the regular course of business. He didn’t like to be away from his employer for too long, though not because he liked Ganz or acted out of any sense of loyalty to him. It had been Zett’s experience that Ganz, like many people in positions of power, often placed the blame for serious mishaps on the shoulders of people who were absent and therefore unable to acquit themselves. Zett had seen too many people learn the hard way that out of sight didn’t always mean out of mind—sometimes it meant out of luck.

  An alert beeped softly on the sensor readout. The Klingons were beaming someone over to the Ali Baba.

  So far, so good, mused Zett.

  He imagined one of the Klingon officers paying Kane his exorbitant fee for executing an all but impossible heist from a secure Starfleet lab on Vanguard. No doubt it would gall the Klingons to pay a thief when their blood burned for combat and conquest. There was a risk they might take out their frustrations on poor Joshua Kane. If the deal went sour, it was Zett’s job to cover Kane’s escape if possible; if it wasn’t, then his orders were to note which ship had been responsible for the betrayal, and leave the rest to Ganz’s network of underworld operatives.

  Another soft beep turned Zett’s head. The Zin’za was beaming its courier and prize back from Kane’s ship. Moments later the Klingon cruiser powered up its impulse engines and maneuvered away on a rimward heading deeper into the Taurus Reach.

  At the same time, the Ali Baba engaged its engines an
d set a course in the opposite direction, back toward the explored region of this hotly contested sector.

  Kane’s ship was the first to make the jump to warp speed. The Klingons followed suit, and Zett’s sensor showed nothing but empty, quiet space.

  Another day, another paycheck, Zett thought as he sat forward. He would wait thirty minutes for the Klingons to move out of sensor range before bringing Icarion’s warp drive online, then he would set a course similar to that of the Ali Baba. If all went well, he would be back on the Omari-Ekon in a few weeks.

  He was about to restart his impulse drive when a buzzing alert on his console made him stop, watch, and listen.

  Turning toward the sensor readout, Zett saw an energy reading from another impulse engine core. It was fewer than ten thousand kilometers away. At first he thought it must be for a very small craft, such as a shuttle, but then he realized certain elements of its power signature were inconsistent with that conclusion. Must be well masked, he reasoned. Which means someone is trying very hard not to be seen.

  The discovery that he was not the only one spying on Kane’s meeting with the Klingons made Zett smile. He wondered who else might have a motive for being there, and how they had known where the rendezvous had been scheduled to take place.

  He sat back and continued his observation. The other ship took its time restarting its warp drive; whoever was running it was savvy enough to give the Klingons a decent head start. When the other lurker in the darkness finally made the jump to warp speed, it followed a course clearly intended to make it appear to the Zin’za’s crew as a mere warp shadow. The maneuver was a classic trick superbly executed, and it was exactly what Zett had expected the other ship to do—because he was about to do the same thing.

  Normally, once goods and payment had been exchanged, there was no more need to safeguard the deal. In this case, however, Zett worried that if the mysterious interloper somehow sabotaged the transaction after the fact, the Klingons might decide to seek revenge on the last known parties involved. Zett couldn’t take that chance, especially not with a contract this valuable.

  More important, he needed to know how the coordinates for Kane’s secret meeting with the Klingons had fallen into the wrong hands. Whoever had been out there hadn’t followed the Ali Baba or the Zin’za to the rendezvous; they had to have been waiting for as long as Zett had been, if not longer.

  Either someone aboard the Omari-Ekon had talked, or the internal security on Ganz’s ship had been compromised.

  Either way, Zett decided as he brought his warp drive online, whoever they are, they know too much. And that makes them my problem to sort out.

  Interlude

  36

  August 24, 2267

  A lot of time had passed, and Jetanien and Lugok had run out of interesting things to say to each other.

  “These are three months of my life I will never get back, Jetanien,” Lugok grumbled over dinner one evening.

  Between slurps of his pungent broth, Jetanien replied, “It’s not as if you were doing anything that will be missed.”

  They had taken to eating outside their respective ships, though not necessarily together. The Chelon and the Klingon sat several meters apart, facing each other only indirectly. Both of them were middle-aged and not especially athletic, so the sport of choice atop their shared mesa had become volleying insults.

  “I can smell that swill in your mug from here,” Lugok said. “What did you say it was called?”

  “N’v’aa,” Jetanien said. “It’s a Rigelian fruit cocktail.”

  “Stinks like pest repellant.”

  “Regrettably, it is no such thing. If it were, it would have driven you back into your ship long ago.”

  The two diplomats went back to eating in black-mooded silence for a while. Jetanien finished his broth and opened a package of pickled Keesa beetles. He knew not to offer any to Lugok, who months earlier had made a tremendous fuss about the repugnance of consuming dead food.

  As Jetanien savored the acidic tang of the preserved insect crunching between his mandibles, Lugok said apropos of nothing, “He’s not coming, you know.”

  After swallowing his mouthful, Jetanien replied, “He might. Passage out of the Romulan Star Empire is anything but simple.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lugok said. “Three months late? Whoever heard of such a thing? Why are we even here?”

  Spearing another beetle with his fork, Jetanien said, “I would not presume to speculate on your motives for remaining. Mine are my own.” He paused before pushing the next forkful into his maw. “However, if you find yourself inclined to share something of substance to offset your months of inane bluster—”

  “Forget I said it,” Lugok cut in.

  Dinner dragged on, mute and cheerless.

  In truth, Jetanien had speculated at length as to why Lugok continued to bide his time on Nimbus III. For all the man’s complaining, he had not once threatened to leave. His repeated demands for Senator D’tran’s whereabouts, or his assertions the Romulan statesman would never arrive, did not seem to be sincere declarations of belief. Rather, they appeared to be invitations for Jetanien to reassure Lugok that their patience would be rewarded—if only they waited a while longer.

  They concluded their evening meal as the sky turned dark. Jetanien passed the early night hours reading a classic work of Tellarite literature entitled The Blood Country. It was far more violent than he had expected, but the writing had been gravid with subtle metaphors and hidden meanings.

  Jetanien knew it was time to go to bed each night when Lugok yelled across the gap between their ships, “Give me a good reason not to cut your throat tonight, Chelon.”

  Every night, Jetanien shouted back his reply, “Because I would slay you in kind, and then there would be no one to greet Senator D’tran when he arrives.”

  “Sleep well—if you dare,” Lugok called out.

  “Good night, Lugok.”

  Each night they turned off the exterior lights of their ships and retired behind unlocked doors to rest themselves for another day spent in idle anticipation.

  That night would be different.

  A great thunder of engines shocked Jetanien back to consciousness just before sunrise. He scrambled off his sleeping platform with all the haste his heavy, carapace-covered bulk could muster and lumbered outside into the chilly predawn air. Lugok was already out of his ship, staring straight up at the massive vessel descending toward them.

  As it neared the mesa, the new ship shifted course and continued past them. A few kilometers from the mesa it hovered over a small hill. Broad doors on its underside opened outward with a great clamor and whine of machinery. Light flooded out of the belly of the long, podlike vessel.

  Lugok and Jetanien wandered together toward the mesa’s edge, both watching the metallic leviathan hovering nearby, waiting with hope and anxiety to see what would emerge through the enormous starship’s ventral doors.

  A flurry of loose matter fell from the ship. The dark cascade struck the small hill beneath the ship and spread over it like a fluid. For several seconds the torrent continued, a steady outpouring of solid debris.

  As the purging ended, a cold breeze carried the odors of rotting garbage and chemical waste across the mesa.

  The big ship closed its cargo bay doors, climbed into the sky, became a shining speck among the stars, and vanished into the night.

  Jetanien and Lugok stared at the festering hill of garbage.

  The portly Klingon laughed. His guffaws were loud, hoarse, and rich with bitterness. He continued his cynical cachinnation as he returned to his own ship and slammed the door behind him, leaving Jetanien alone at the mesa’s edge.

  Jetanien found this turn of events to be an apt metaphor for his career.

  And on that note, he went back to bed.

  PART THREE

  One Little Victory

  37

  September 9, 2267

  It was one of the most impressive bits
of piloting Pennington had ever seen in person. As soon as T’Prynn guided the Skylla out of warp into a system of planets orbiting a yellow main sequence star, she slipped into a close-quarters dance with a large asteroid and set the small ship on its surface without so much as a bump.

  “Anchor deployed,” she said, turning toward the sensor suite. “I am tracking the Zin’za. Monitor the communications between it and the vessel in orbit of the third planet.”

  Pennington nodded. “Right.”

  He slipped a small transceiver into his ear and patched it in to the passive subspace antenna. At first the intercepted signal sounded like shrill noise and static. He routed it to T’Prynn’s decryption module. Seconds later he was listening to dialogue between deep, gravelly Klingon voices. Engaging the universal translator circuits and the recording unit, he told T’Prynn, “Got something.” He routed it to her transceiver before she asked, because he knew she would want to hear it.

  Captured in mid-sentence, the first voice said, “… continues on schedule. How soon can the artifact be delivered?”

  “We will beam it down as soon as we reach orbit. Send final coordinates for transport.”

  “Acknowledged, Zin’za. Transmitting coordinates now.”

  T’Prynn shot an inquiring look at Pennington. He glanced at the data screen, confirmed they were receiving the coordinates being sent to the Zin’za, and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “They are moving into orbit,” T’Prynn said. “Lock in their transport coordinates.”

  “Already done,” Pennington replied. “Now what?”

  “We wait,” the Vulcan said.

  “And after that?”

  His question seemed to vex her. “The Zin’za’s mission seems to be limited to delivering an artifact to the planet. We will remain on this asteroid until the Zin’za completes its business. After it departs, we will wait for the other Klingon vessel to move to the far side of the planet from our position. Then we shall make a precision warp jump into orbit and try to reach the surface before they detect our presence.”