Picard had never enjoyed being reminded that he owed his life to an artificial heart, and that was especially true now that Batanides and Zweller had come back into his life. After all, the only reason he now needed the synthetic organ was because the three of them had once lacked the simple common sense to demur from a fight against three bloodthirsty Nausicaans.
Picard spoke into his combadge, his manner somewhat gentler. “Objection noted. And if it’s any consolation, Doctor, we won’t need to stay behind the barrier for more than a few minutes at the most. Picard out.”
Hawk quietly cleared his throat. “Everything’s green to go, Captain.”
“Then, I trust that means you’ve put your misgivings aside?”
“Truthfully?” Hawk said. “Not entirely. It still strikes me as a horrible waste. But we don’t have a better option.”
Picard appreciated Hawk’s candor. “Then let’s get under way,” he said as he took control of the helm.
“Cloaking system still functioning properly,” Hawk said, looking up from one of his indicator panels. No one would be able to observe the scoutship’s departure from the Enterprise.
Picard brought the scoutship smoothly forward, guided her through the wide launch bay, and departed for the inky blackness beyond. The viewer now showed the livid red-and-ocher daylight side of Chiaros IV.
Seeing that their heading was already laid in, Picard instructed Hawk to engage the impulse engines at warp point-two. Crossing the approximately five AUs that separated Chiaros IV from the subspace singularity’s cloaking field would be slow going at that speed—the journey would take about three hours—but pushing the scoutship’s engines any harder would risk drawing unwanted Romulan attention. Even at this velocity, they would still reach the cloaking field a few minutes before the Enterprise’s departure deadline. And a few minutes ought to be all the time Data would require.
Hawk acknowledged Picard’s order and adjusted the forward velocity to twenty percent that of light. Chiaros IV quickly turned away into the darkness and fell away into the infinite night of the Geminus Gulf. The commandeered vessel dove outward beneath the ecliptic, arcing headlong toward the singularity.
“Your captain’s beverage is delightful,” Grelun said to Riker and Troi. “The human Urlgray who devised it must surely be a god among men.”
Sipping from a mug that looked absurdly tiny in his enormous hand, the Chiarosan sat shirtless at the edge of a bed that seemed scarcely capable of supporting his weight. Now that Will Riker was in close quarters with Grelun, he noticed that the rebel leader smelled faintly of freshly turned earth and lilacs. The aroma, as well as Grelun’s fierce mien, reminded him absurdly of Worf.
But what struck Riker most was Grelun’s astonishing recuperative powers. Less than three days after he had regained consciousness—and had refused further dermal regeneration treatments—Grelun’s body bore not a trace of the severe disruptor burns he had sustained during the battle in the rebel compound. Even the coarse brown hair on his thick-thewed arms had grown back almost completely.
Riker was just as impressed by the huge Chiarosan’s quiet dignity, as well as by the extreme delicacy with which he held his drinking vessel. Surely, he could have smashed it with a mere twitch of his fingers.
“I must thank you again for the hospitality that you and your captain have shown me,” Grelun continued, setting the mug down on a bedside table. “These are splendid quarters, though I must confess that the floor serves me better as a sleeping place than does this child’s cot.”
The Chiarosan bared his razor-sharp metallic teeth as he finished this last utterance. Though Riker was reasonably certain the mannerism was the equivalent of a human smile, he was still glad that he had posted a pair of security guards, both armed with compression phaser rifles, just outside the cabin door.
“We wanted to make you as comfortable as possible,” said Counselor Troi, who stood beside Riker. She appeared confident that the Chiarosan posed no danger. Still, Riker was uncomfortably aware that Grelun could easily snap her neck without even having to rise to his feet.
Grelun tipped his head in apparent perplexity. Riker wondered for a moment if the universal translator had malfunctioned. Or perhaps the Chiarosan tongue simply contained no word that corresponded to “comfort.”
“No matter,” Grelun said. “We have much larger problems, you and I. Your captain even now risks his life to expose the treachery of my predecessor’s outworld allies.” He practically spat this last word.
Riker tensed at Grelun’s mention of Picard’s secret incursion behind the Romulan cloaking field. Grelun was somehow aware of the mission, despite his not having been briefed about it.
Zweller, Riker thought sourly. We should have arrested him as soon as he came aboard. Even now, he’s trying to play both ends against the middle.
“You disagreed with Falhain’s decision to accept aid from the Romulans,” Troi said to Grelun, her tone matterof-fact. It was clear that she wasn’t asking a question.
Grelun raised and lowered his shoulders in an elaborate triple-jointed shrug. “I did not want an alliance with any outworlders. But during Falhain’s rule of the Army of Light, my opinion was neither day nor night, and was not sought. While my leader lived, it was my part to go where he led and do as he bid.”
Grelun paused to raise his cup for another drink before continuing. “Falhain’s untimely slaying changed this.”
Riker hadn’t seen exactly how Falhain had died during the skirmish in the Chiarosan capital; he’d already been knocked unconscious by the time the deed had been done. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that maybe Grelun had witnessed Falhain’s death, or perhaps even arranged it. Could he somehow be concealing from Deanna his own complicity in the rebel chief’s demise?
“Whatever you might think of us,” Riker said carefully, “your people will be on their own against the Romulans if the referendum forces the Federation to withdraw from your world.”
“That is now spilled grain,” Grelun said. “My people will fight any who seek to conquer us.”
“You won’t be able to direct a revolution from a Federation starbase,” Riker pointed out. “That’s where we’ll have to take you next, if you’re really serious about petitioning the Federation for political asylum.”
Grelun straightened his back, looking both resigned and defiant. “Should you not worry instead about your more immediate problem? Ruardh will send her forces against this ship if you do not surrender me to her before you leave this system. She is implacable. She will not allow me to escape without a fight.”
A look of deep understanding crossed Troi’s face. “You want us to return you to your people. You want to continue leading the resistance against Ruardh’s government.”
“Of course I do,” Grelun said, his eyes narrowing with menace, his voice an angry growl. The fur on his neck rose, like that of an agitated cat. “Do you think me a coward?”
“Of course not,” Troi said calmly, standing her ground; it was unwise to show fear to a Chiarosan warrior. “I think of you as a leader in exile.”
At that, the tension in Grelun’s muscles relaxed visibly. Leaning forward, he said, “You could end my exile. You could return me to the hinterlands to which my people have withdrawn. From there, I could continue the fight.”
“Are you telling us that your asylum request was just a tactic?” Riker said, his eyebrows ascending involuntarily.
Grelun folded his massive arms across his chest. “He who fights and retreats in the now may fight and win in the fullness of time.”
Riker did not enjoy being manipulated. But he knew that Grelun and his people had few alternatives to subterfuge. Having seen the carnage Ruardh’s regime had inflicted upon the rebel tribes, Riker couldn’t say he wouldn’t make some of the same choices Grelun had.
But there were still rules that had to be observed.
“Are you withdrawing your asylum request, Grelun?” Riker said.
Grelun studied him, as though over a hand of five-card stud. “What would be the consequence of such an action?”
“We would be legally bound to turn you over to the Chiarosan authorities,” Troi said sadly. Riker saw tears forming in her dark eyes; she, too, had seen the carnage.
Riker expected to see rage welling up in Grelun’s visage. Instead, there was only sorrow there. “Even after I have shown you the villages of the slain? Even after your own instruments have recorded the ghosts of the slaughtered children?”
“Your people deprived us of the tricorder evidence we gathered in the village,” Riker said. “Until both sides stop shooting long enough to let us gather new evidence, we have no objective way to back up your allegations against Ruardh. And no legal way to get around her extradition request.”
The last thing Riker wanted was to condemn someone—anyone—to certain death. He hated the situation, and was frustrated with himself for his failure to find an honorable way out. But he knew that Deanna’s analysis was correct: they had to either grant asylum to Grelun or else extradite him. It was a clear and apparently irresolvable conflict between law and morality. Still, Riker clung to the hope of finding an acceptable third alternative.
Data keeps saying that I rely on traditional problemsolving methods less than a quarter of the time, Riker thought. Maybe now’s the time for yet another unorthodox solution.
“Let’s speak off the record, Grelun,” he said aloud. “Starfleet officers are bound by laws that respect the sovereignty of democratically elected governments. Whether you intend to leave your world behind or not, if you withdraw your asylum claim we’ll have to hand you over to Ruardh immediately. You’d be giving us no other choice.”
Grelun sat in silence as he considered his scant alternatives. “Then I shall not withdraw my request,” he said finally. “But I will find the means to return to the Army of Light, and to lead my people to freedom.”
Troi turned toward Riker, concern etched on her brow. “Can we still consider his asylum request, Will? He’s just admitted that it was only a ruse.”
“Maybe according to your empathic sense,” Riker said. “But I’m not sure that’s admissible in a Federation court. Besides . . . weren’t we speaking off the record?”
Troi smiled, evidently satisfied with that.
“Tell me, Commander Riker: What will you do when Ruardh attacks?” Grelun said earnestly. “And she will attack, rest assured, probably within the hour. When that happens, will you raise arms against this ‘sovereign government’ your laws respect so well?”
Riker wasn’t sure what to say to that. After an awkward pause, he said, “I’m sure the captain will negotiate a resolution everyone can live with.”
“If he survives his present undertaking,” Grelun said earnestly.
“Jean-Luc Picard is an extremely resourceful man,” Riker said. “And he has a pair of excellent officers at his side.”
“Then I will pray that will be enough,” Grelun said.
The voice of Lieutenant Daniels issued from Riker’s combadge. “Bridge to Commander Riker.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“You wanted to be alerted when the captain’s scoutship reached the edge of the Romulan cloaking field, sir. That’s due to happen in a little under ten minutes.”
“I’m on my way,” Riker said, then excused himself.
Data sat motionless behind the scoutship’s cockpit, his golden eyes unfocused. Interfaced directly with the ship’s systems, the android consulted the sensors and confirmed that the cloaking field lay dead ahead. It was almost time to begin the mission’s most critical phase.
He heard the captain speaking, his voice sounding as though it had traversed a great distance before reaching him. “Any sign we’ve been detected, Mr. Hawk?”
“Negative, Captain. Our cloaking frequency still matches the data we got from the telemetry probes. The maximum harmonic variances aren’t even worth mentioning.”
Picard sounded relieved to hear that. “Good. Mr. Data, it appears there’s nothing standing in our craft’s way. Let’s hope that means there’s nothing standing in your way, either.”
Data paused to damp down the output from his emotion chip. Nervousness was an emotion he did not particularly enjoy.
“Contact with the cloaking field in fifteen seconds,” Hawk said. Data listened as the lieutenant began counting down. He recognized the slight quaver of apprehension in the lieutenant’s voice, and understood its source well enough. After all, if the Romulans had indeed somehow managed to rotate their cloaking-field harmonics at any time since the Enterprise had last probed the area, then the scoutship would immediately become conspicuous. A warbird could be upon them in moments, ending the mission ignominiously—and there would be no time for a second attempt.
Data’s android perceptions were now attuned to an extremely minute resolution, which enabled him to notice the trillions of separate information cycles that occurred every second within his positronic brain. Each of those seconds seemed to last for hours, enabling Data to review most of the onboard library of Romulan literature, music, and drama in an eyeblink. Using an infinitesimal fraction of his positronic resources, Data listened as Hawk continued with his countdown, leaving protracted lacunae between each word.
“Four.”
Data reiterated the mission plan two thousand and seventy-one times, while simultaneously reviewing the probability theory equations of Earth’s Blaise Pascal as well as the collected sonnets of Phineas Tarbolde of the Canopus Planet.
“Three.”
Data monitored and corrected an almost undetectable engine-output imbalance—which he attributed to the close proximity of the subspace singularity—and at the same time revisited Kurt Gödell’s axiom negating the recursive validation of mathematical systems.
“Two.”
He reviewed the mission plan several dozen times yet again while composing a complex contrapuntal string interlude based on large prime numbers and the mathematical constructs of Leonardo Fibonacci and Jean Baptiste Fourier. At the same moment, he extracted from the ship’s computer core the rules to a multidimensional Romulan strategy game that was strongly reminiscent of the meditative Vulcan pastime known as kal-toh.
Stop fidgeting, Data told himself.
“One.”
Just as the ship crossed the threshold, Data transmitted a simple handshake code to one of the buoys located on the Romulan array’s periphery, then patiently awaited a response. After an eternity—which concluded in an almost negligible fraction of a second—the countersignal arrived. The buoy appeared to have accepted his credentials, recognizing him as a part of its own programming. His foot, as Geordi might have said, was in the door.
Data briefly permitted some real-time visual inputs to enter his accelerated consciousness. He watched as the Romulan array winked into existence on the forward viewer, along with the nearest few dozen of the outermost layer of buoys. From the array’s still-distant center, the subspace singularity’s accretion disk stared out like a baleful red eye. Though he was tempted to pause and continue admiring the vista before him, Data instead shut down his optical inputs and shunted those resources back toward his mission objectives. He resumed parsing time infinitesimally.
“I can see some of the nearer cloaking buoys,” Picard said. “There must be thousands of them out there. It’s extraordinary.”
Data felt a stab of envy, since the sensory information he was receiving at the moment couldn’t really be described as sight. For about a femtosecond, he longed to see everything the two humans in the cockpit were seeing. He wondered if the abstract polygonal shapes and solid geometrical forms now impinging on his consciousness resembled the universe as Geordi La Forge perceived it. He put the matter aside for later consideration.
Redoubling his concentration on the task at hand, Data extended a significant portion of his positronic matrix through the scoutship’s communications system, across a frigid gulf of space, and back into the
spaceborne cloaking buoy with which he was linked. He entered the labyrinth of hyperfast subspace channels and positronic pathways that connected the buoy to thousands of identical others. Dozens of blocks of angular Romulan text, each of them scrolling past at lightning speed, flickered almost tangibly before him, though he knew that their ideographic code was visible to no one else. He read them, digested them, analyzed them, and memorized them as though each byte were taking weeks to move through his quickened sensorium. Slowly, he channeled still more of his positronic resources through his subspace connection with the Romulan security network, bringing his artificial metabolism to a near standstill.
“Initiate Phase One, Mr. Data.” Picard’s voice was glacially slow, his words like millennia-old potsherds that required long and painstaking reassembly.
“Acknowledged,” Data said, opening his aperture into the Romulan network ever wider. Now, forced to use a great deal more of his cognitive resources than before, Data put aside still more of his background activities, concentrating on the swiftly churning labyrinth of visual icons that crowded his subjective “sight.” Still, it wasn’t a severe challenge; all he had to do was repeat particular Romulan algorithms and follow specific electronic pathways he and Geordi had discovered during their lengthy analysis of the scout vessel’s computer core. Still, the work took more and more of his attention, and Data felt an increasing sensation of something akin to kinesthesia. It was as though the torrent of information in which he now swam had palpable form, becoming an extension of his artificial body.
Disguising several of his own subroutines as maintenance programs, Data slipped into an information channel normally reserved for Romulan engineers and repair technicians. An agonizingly slow search—which lasted just short of half a second of objective time—deposited him inside yet another subsystem, this one designed to allow Romulan technical personnel to adjust the entire facility’s cloaking-field harmonics. He immediately began making subtle alterations to the programming code contained on several of the array’s most critical isolinear chips. At the same time, he altered the scoutship’s cloaking frequency so that it would continue to blend in with that of the array.
Rogue Page 23