STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2298 - The Sundered

by Michael A. Martin

  Chapel was crouching near Sulu. “Now would be a good time for a plan, Captain,” she said in a low voice. “Before they decide to escort us straight to the nearest airlock.”

  “Sit tight, Chris,” Sulu said, sensing a great deal of uncertainty in their captors’ body language. “Something tells me these soldiers won’t want to take on that kind of responsibility.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” said Chapel.

  Glancing toward Akaar, Tuvok, and Burgess, Sulu saw the same calculated stillness in each of their gazes. He suspected it masked completely different mental preparations. Akaar was likely planning how best to tear the Neyel limb from elongated limb, should the need arise; Tuvok seemed to be carefully evaluating every word and gesture; Burgess was no doubt engineering a last-ditch plan to negotiate with them, should the situation deteriorate further.

  But it was Jerdahn who spoke up first on their behalf. “Adjun-drech’tor Bannohn, in case you do not recall me, I am Subaltern Jerdahn from Level 47, Post 16. As you can see, I have spent some time among these humans, and believe them to be ... different from most other species we have encountered before.”

  The leader of the Neyel forces snorted, his mouth twisted into a derisive grin. “Why should I care what a waste reclamation worker thinks? These humans fired upon our vessel, hulling it and killing many Neyel in the process.”

  Sulu felt his heart sink for a moment. Jerdahn was apparently only a lowly maintenance tech. Clearly, his opinion held little sway here.

  But Jerdahn didn’t flinch from the provocation. Instead [247] he puffed up his chest and squared his massive shoulders. “My present occupation has nothing to do with my old life, nor the knowledge I still retain, Adjun-drech’tor. It would be in your best interest to remember that.”

  Bannohn flinched almost imperceptibly. Sulu noticed it, however, and he suspected that others in his boarding party might have picked it up as well. Clearly, Jerdahn is more than just a maintenance tech. That’s good.

  “Although many facts remained to be confirmed, my belief grows that this group may indeed be OROM,” Jerdahn continued.

  As a noisy muttering began amongst the soldiers, Jerdahn addressed Sulu’s group as well. “If they are indeed an Other Race of Men, they must command respect. Their actions have shown them to be gentle unless provoked, rather than a dangerous or hostile species fit only for killing or enslavement.”

  The angry guard who had earlier spoken of the loss of his Gretsel snarled and brandished a vicious-looking knife. “He speaks heresy. How many truly OROM aliens have the Neyel met since the Long Fall from Far Aerth? He is clearly under their influence. Look! He even wears their garb.”

  Jerdahn held up his hand, and amazingly, the Neyel troopers quieted. “I think I’m well aware of what is heretical and what is not,” he said with conviction. “I wear their garb because they clothed me. My garments were destroyed when I was blown into space. I would have been killed and gone, had they not recovered my body just before death embraced it.”

  “So what are you proposing we do with them?” the Neyel squad leader asked, clearly refusing to show Jerdahn respect by using his name.

  “They must speak with the drech’tor and his visor,” Jerdahn said. “Oghen’s Flame is currently ensnared by the Devils, as is the humans’ own ship. If our crew is to have hope of escaping this trap, then we must work with the humans.”

  Jerdahn stepped forward, staring directly into the leader’s [248] eyes. The action might have seemed defiant, but Sulu didn’t sense that any of the soldiers felt threatened.

  “I believe that this is not just a matter of the survival of our persons and our vessel, Adjun-drech’tor Bannohn, nor of the humans and their Excelsior,” Jerdahn said. “These people may represent the salvation of worlds, perhaps even of the entire Neyel people. You must allow us to speak of this to the drech’tor. Immediately.”

  The gray-hued leader stared intently into Jerdahn’s eyes, and Sulu saw him flinch almost imperceptibly yet again.

  What power does Jerdahn have over him? he asked himself. And will it be enough to convince whoever commands this ship to cooperate with us?

  Minutes later, Sulu and the group had ascended through several levels of the Neyel vessel, Oghen’s Flame. Sulu assumed that they were traveling toward the core. None of his team said anything, especially since their armed Neyel escorts still looked ready to shoot them dead or slice them into pieces if they stepped out of line, “either verbally or physically.

  Eventually, they were herded into a large rounded chamber that seemed both ceremonial and functional. Narrow tapestries festooned the walls, but between each of them were large monitors that showed various internal and external views of the ship, as well as the space surrounding it. On one of them, Sulu could see Excelsior, while another was focused on one of the wedge-shaped Tholian vessels and the energy web filaments that emanated from it.

  A Neyel man was watching one of the monitors closely, as was a female Neyel who was seated nearby. Both were dressed in garments that were clearly of better quality than those worn by the soldiers, but still seem to retain a completely utilitarian function.

  Ignoring the soldiers, Jerdahn approached the pair and began speaking to them. He kept his voice low enough so [249] that the universal translator couldn’t pick up what he was saying, but Sulu saw Jerdahn gesture toward them several times during the conversation.

  Finally, the male approached Sulu’s group, his tail switching languidly behind him. “You are Hikarusulu?” he asked. “You are the drech’tor of your ship?”

  “I’m the captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior,” Sulu said, offering what he hoped was a nonthreatening smile. He gestured toward the others in the boarding party. “I bring with me Federation Ambassador Aidan Burg—”

  “I am Joh’jym, the drech’tor of the Neyel Hegemony Fleet Cruiser, Oghen’s Flame,” the Neyel man said, interrupting Sulu. He gestured toward the woman. “This is my visor, Oratok.”

  Since neither of them offered their hands to shake, Sulu didn’t offer his. He noticed that Burgess was regarding him almost as intently as were the Neyel leaders.

  Oratok spoke, her voice soothing, almost purring. “Jerdahn says that you have come to us with knowledge and offers of peace, although even today you have aided the Devil scourge and caused the deaths of many Neyel.”

  “I’ve taken no one’s side in this conflict,” Sulu said. “The actions I took were intended solely to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians on the planet.”

  Oratok sniffed disdainfully, her tail switching back and forth behind her in agitation. “There are no ‘innocent’ Devils, Hikarusulu. Either we eradicate them, or they will us.”

  Sulu decided that the best way to persuade Joh’jym and his visor to make peace was to “humanize” their adversary. “ ‘Devil’ is an interesting term,” he said. “It implies an assumption of evil intent.”

  “They have attacked Neyel vessels every time a vessel of ours encounters one of theirs,” Joh’jym said. “No other assumption is prudent.”

  “Perhaps, in the absence of more information about [250] them. Your adversaries may have a similar name for you in their own language,” Sulu said, ignoring Burgess’s warning scowl.

  Both of the senior Neyel officers chuckled. “They are creatures of pure instinct,” Oratok said. “The Devils have no language.”

  “Tholians,” Burgess said, stepping forward. “They call themselves ‘Tholians.’ In their own language, of course.”

  “Ridiculous,” Joh’jym said. “The Devils are as incapable of speech as is the hull of this ship.”

  Jerdahn approached the drech’tor and spoke. “The humans possess devices which can translate our speech into theirs, and back again.”

  “As we’ve also done with the Tholians,” Burgess said, nodding. “With your permission, we would like to make your speech and that of the Tholians mutually comprehensible.”

  Neither Joh’jym nor Oratok appeared convinc
ed in the slightest.

  “You speak of skiffy things,” the visor said, her purring voice becoming more of a growl. “Impossible things.”

  “We have no reason to lie to you,” Sulu said. “And we have every reason to wish for a peaceful end to your conflict with the Tholians.”

  “And what reason have you to wish us well, after having traded fire with us?” Oratok asked.

  Sulu drew a deep breath. Here’s where it gets even dicier, he thought.

  “Because your species and mine are closely related,” he said. “If your doctors compare samples of our blood to yours, they can confirm this.”

  Joh’jym’s eyes narrowed and his voice grew low and dangerous. “If we decide to exsanguinate you, Hikarusulu, it will not be for study.” He gestured toward Bannohn and the other guards, who approached and made ready to take the prisoners away, including Jerdahn.

  [251] This is not good at all.

  “Wait!” Jerdahn shouted. “Hikarusulu and his people are Neyel-kindred. I know it does not appear so, but it is true.”

  “I have heard enough,” Joh’jym said with a wave of his tail. “Take them away. I will decide their disposition later. After we’ve freed ourselves from this cursed Devil-web.”

  “We should interrogate them,” Oratok said. “We need to know everything they do about the Devils.”

  Rough hands grabbed Sulu’s shoulders. The entire group was being hustled toward the door. If there was ever a time to pull a trump card, this was it.

  Sulu raised his voice so everyone could hear him clearly above the tumult. “We know about Vanguard.”

  Utter silence swept the room.

  “Release them,” Joh’jym said after a seeming eternity. Sulu began breathing again. He glanced toward Burgess, whose eyes reminded him of the twin moons of Andor at full phase.

  The drech’tor approached closely. Half a head taller than Sulu, the Neyel looked down to meet his gaze, and regarded him with obvious caution. But Sulu also glimpsed something else behind the hard coals of the drech’tor’s eyes.

  Curiosity.

  “Say on, Hikarusulu,” Joh’jym said. “What do you know of Holy Vangar?”

  Here goes. “I know that your ancestors were once people very much like us. Centuries ago, they hollowed out an asteroid and made it their home. They called it Vanguard.”

  “The Great Rock,” Oratok said reverently. She looked stunned.

  Sulu continued, not wishing to lose his momentum. “Then an accident lost Vanguard among the stars. Your ancestors never again saw their birthworld.”

  “Auld Aerth,” Joh’jym said in a surprisingly gentle tone. “Far Aerth.”

  Sulu nodded. However inhuman these people seemed [252] now, he could see that they attached mythic, perhaps even religious, significance to the now all but timelost story of their origins. He hoped he could use that to build a bridge between his crew and the Neyel.

  “Far Earth,” Sulu repeated, though he sensed that the universal translator was missing some subtle nuance of accent. “Far Earth. The homeworld of the Oh-Neyel, your forebears.”

  “We think of it often,” Joh’jym said solemnly. “We know that we will find it again someday, and enfold it into the bosom of Neyelkind. Perhaps soon.”

  “Once the Devil menace that stands in our way has been extirpated,” Oratok said, her eyes flinty.

  Not for the first time, Sulu wondered whether Earth’s culture would really be able to reabsorb the Neyel, or if it would be the other way around. One problem at a time.

  “Then you have good reason to consider making peace with the Tholians,” he said. “Perhaps they can be persuaded not to bar your path to Far Earth. We can help you achieve that.” And, while we’re at it, stop an offshoot human species from waging a genocidal war that can only destroy us all.

  Though Sulu could see that the now-silent Joh’jym had, at least for now, succumbed to his curiosity, Oratok evidently hadn’t abandoned her initial wariness.

  “How can you know these things, Hikarusulu?” she asked, her hard face now giving nothing away. “How can creatures so unlike us recite our most sacred tales?”

  “It’s as I tried to explain before. My species and yours ... are related.”

  Sulu noticed then that Burgess had sidled over to him. She was staring at him in horror, as though he were about to step on a rock that was actually a ravening Manarkan sand bat.

  He recalled what she’d told him on the way to the transporter room. “It’s clear from our interviews with Jerdahn that [253] these people have shrouded their origins in a complex body of mythology. They might even worship their ancestors as gods. So we should avoid mentioning being born on the same planet the O’Neill colonists came from.”

  “Why?” Sulu had asked. After all, the Neyel were a warp-capable species, so there were no Prime Directive issues at play.

  Burgess looked surprised at his question. “We want to maintain our credibility, don’t we?”

  “Of course we do.”

  “And if some alien who didn’t look even remotely human landed among us and claimed to have been a college roommate of Muhammad or Jesus, well, how believable would that be?”

  Still considering how to expand on his answer to Oratok’s question, Sulu recalled the chilly reception the Greek god Apollo had received from the crew of the Enterprise.

  “Where we come from,” Sulu said at length, “knowledge about Old Earth is almost commonplace. Much of its history and literature still exists, scattered around the galaxy.”

  “We’ve, ah, studied the literature extensively,” Burgess said.

  Oratok gestured toward the viewscreen on which a Tholian ship was visible. “If your words are truthful, Captain, then why did you attack us?”

  “I must apologize if you interpreted our actions as an attack,” Sulu said evenly. “We did not fire first against you. As I said, we were protecting the Tholian civilians upon whom you were firing. It was only after you attacked our ship that we returned fire.”

  “The order of things matters not so much as the intent,” Adjun-drech’tor Bannohn said from nearby. “Had you not interceded, we never would have fired upon you.”

  “Our mission to this part of the galaxy is one of peace,” Burgess replied. “We were attempting to negotiate a détente with the Tholians, after decades of misunderstanding and conflict.”

  [254] “So you, too, consider the Devil scourge an adversary. Yet you defend them against your own blood?” Joh’jym asked, his eyes wide.

  Sulu shook his head. “We weren’t aware of our kinship with you at the time. In the course of our earlier discussions with the Tholians, we became ... aware that they were in conflict with another force. It was only upon our investigation into that conflict that we discovered who and what the Neyel are. But what we still don’t understand is why you attacked a weaponless colony world.”

  “Thanks to our attack, their weaponry is not currently operating,” Joh’jym said. “But our own detection devices have traced its effects to this world. There can be no doubt.”

  Sulu found that answer confusing in the extreme. “I don’t understand. There’s very little technology evident on the planet, apart from some power stations and several environmental forcefield generators. In fact, we’ve found no evidence of military activity or weaponry of any sort down there—only the debris and radiation residue from a recent space battle in this system.”

  “Do not fall prey to Devil trickery, Captain. Because you halted our attack, they may succeed in reconstituting their weapon. When in use, the Devil machinery causes devastation in Neyel space as its effects are propagated across the Rift.”

  The drech’tor gestured for the group to follow as he walked over to one of the larger viewscreens. He touched several symbols on it, and an external starscape appeared, overlaid a moment later by a tactical grid that obviously represented an aperture leading into the nearby interspatial rift.

  “The pathway toward our home lies through here,” Joh’
jym said. He touched another symbol and the screen changed yet again, depicting a graphic of the Milky Way Galaxy, which swiftly shrunk in size. A representation of a smaller globular star formation appeared beside the Milky Way graphic, and [255] swiftly increased in diameter until many of its individual stars were visible. Another interspatial entrance appeared in the midst of the star cluster.

  “Over forty-three worlds in this volume of space, the Neyel Hegemony rules,” said Joh’jym, pride evident in his voice.

  Tuvok leaned toward Sulu, speaking quietly. “Sir, he has identified the Small Magellanic Cloud as the far terminus of the interspatial rift located in this system.”

  It took a moment for Sulu to digest that. The Small Magellanic Cloud lay 210,000 light-years from Earth. Centuries before anyone aboard Excelsior had even been born, the human species had ventured further into the unknown than even Starfleet’s fastest long-range exploration vessels. It was awe-inspiring.

  Joh’jym either hadn’t heard Tuvok’s interjection, or had chosen to ignore it. “When active, the Devils’ weapon threatens a number of key Neyel planets with destruction. The weapon is even capable of destabilizing several of the stars that lie near our side of the Rift.”

  Sulu’s mind raced. From the beginning of this mission, he had distrusted the Tholians, but he had attempted to put his suspicions aside in the interest of peace. The Tholians had certainly done their best to hide the truth about their conflict with the Neyel from the Federation, and members of the Assembly’s political and scientific castes had clearly conspired to keep secret the knowledge of the human genome that the Neyel carried.

  But whether they had done this in pursuit of peace was still an open question.

  On the other hand, Sulu was painfully aware that his own actions as captain of Excelsior—whether mandated by Starfleet or not—had stretched the limits of peaceful Tholian-Federation interaction, perhaps past the breaking point. He had trespassed upon their territory not only with sensor probes, but also with his own ship and crew.

  [256] Now, Excelsior was balanced on a razor’s edge, caught between the two warring factions: the Tholians, who had actively sought a rapprochement with the Federation; and the Neyel, who were apparently completely unaware of the existence of either the Federation or of Starfleet, and yet were the descendants of humanity and heirs to its birthright of freedom and dignity.