Star Trek: New Frontier: Books 1-4

by Peter David

  "That is—

  " And then a light began to flash on the control panel, a sharp warning beep catching their attention. Kebron immediately began to bring the ship around as Si Cwan demanded, "What's happening?"

  "We're being targeted. They're going to fire on us."

  "They're . . . what?"

  Si Cwan looked out the main window, catching a glimpse of the Kayven Ryin as the shuttle craft started to angle away from it. A motion on the aft section caught his attention. Despite their distance, his eyesight was formidable and he zeroed in with impressive visual acuity. What he saw were two gunports opening, and twin heavy-duty phaser cannons snapped into view. And the last thing he saw before their view of the science ship was cut off was the muzzles of the cannons flaring to life.

  "Brace yourself!" shouted Kebron. "I'm trying to bring the warp drive on line before—"

  He didn't have time to complete the sentence before the Marquand was struck amidships by the phaser cannons. The runabout spiraled out of control as Kebron fought to regain command of the battered ship. To his credit, he never lost his cool. Indeed, it might not have been within his makeup to become disconcerted.

  Si Cwan was not strapped into his chair. As a result, he was tossed around the interior of the cabin, reaching out desperately to try and grab hold of something, anything, to halt himself. He crashed against one wall and felt something in his shoulder give way.

  Sparks flew out of the front console as Kebron tried to institute damage procedures. The shuttle craft was rocked again, and Kebron shouted, "We have to abandon ship!"

  "What?" Si Cwan was on his back, looking around, stunned and confused.

  There was a gash in Si Cwan's head which Kebron hoped wasn't as bad as it looked. It wasn't going to look good in his service record if he'd left with a live passenger and returned with a corpse. The notion that the status of his record might be utterly moot didn't enter into his considerations. He was not prepared to admit that as a possibility. "Warp engines are down. We're perfect targets out here. We have to assume that they're going to keep shooting until they blow us to pieces."

  "Why are they doing this?"

  "As a guess: because they want to kill you. I'm simply the lucky bystander." He grabbed Si Cwan by the arm and Si Cwan howled in such agony that Kebron quickly released him. He knew he hadn't pulled on Si Cwan with any force; the mere movement of the arm had been enough to elicit the screams, and he realized that Cwan's arm was injured. "Get up!" he said, urgency entering his voice for the first time. "We have to go."

  "Go where?"

  "There!" Kebron stabbed a finger in the general direction of the science vessel that they had come to aid. Si Cwan was staggering to his feet and Kebron grabbed him by the back of the neck, which somehow seemed a less injurious place to hold him. He propelled him toward the two-person transporter nestled in the cockpit of the shuttle craft.

  Fire was beginning to consume the main console, smoke filling up the interior of the shuttle craft. Moving with surprising dexterity considering their size, the Brikar's fingers yanked out a small panel from the wall next to the transporter, revealing a red button which he immediately punched. It was a failsafe device, provided for a situation precisely like this one, where voice recognition circuitry was failing and setting coordinates through the main console was an impossibility.

  The emergency evacuation procedure was activated, an automatic five-second delay kicking in, providing Kebron and Si Cwan that much time to step onto the transporter pads. Si Cwan was nursing his injured shoulder as Kebron half pushed, half pulled him onto the pads and hoped that they actually had five seconds remaining to them.

  The transporter automatically surveyed their immediate environment and locked on to the first, nearest destination that would enable them to survive. And an instant later, Si Cwan's and Zak Kebron's bodies dissipated as the miraculous transporter beams kicked in, sending their molecules hurtling through the darkness of space to be reassembled in the place that was their only hope for survival: the science vessel Kayven Ryin. The vessel which had assaulted them, and now provided their one chance to live . . . if only for a few more minutes, at best.

  When Zoran saw the Marquand backing away, he began to tremble with fury. "Where are they going? We gave them what they wanted. Si Cwan spoke to his sister. Get them back here!" And he cuffed Rojam on the side of the head. "Get them back!"

  Rojam barely felt the physical abuse. He was too concerned with the Marquand suddenly moving away from the station, as if they had tumbled to the trick. More on point, he was concerned with how Zoran was going to react, and what precisely Zoran might do to vent his displeasure. Hailing the shuttle craft, he tried to control the growing franticness he was feeling as he asked, "Why are you backing off?"

  From the shuttle craft there came nothing more than a brief, to-the-point response: "We are returning to our vessel. a situation has come to our attention. Marquand out."

  "They know! They know!" roared Zoran.

  Rojam's mind raced as he tried to determine the accuracy of the assessment. "I . . . I don't think they do. Suspect, perhaps, but they don't know. They want to see what we'll do. If we're just cautious . . ."

  "If we're cautious, then they're gone!"

  "We don't know that for sure! Zoran, listen to me—!"

  But listening was the last thing that Zoran had in mind. Instead, with a full-throated roar of anger, the powerfully built Thallonian knocked Rojam out of his seat. Rojam hit the floor with a yelp as Zoran dropped down at the control console. "Get away from there, Zoran!" Rojam cried out.

  "Shut up! You're afraid to do what has to be done!" Even as he spoke, Zoran quickly manipulated the controls.

  "I'm not afraid! But this is unnecessary! It's a mistake!"

  "It's my decision, not yours! You're lucky I haven't killed you already for your incompetence! And if the phaser cannons you rigged up don't perform as you promised . . ."

  But the need to complete the threat didn't materialize, for the phaser cannons dropped obediently into position, even as their targeting sights locked onto the Marquand.

  "In the name of all those whom you abused, Si Cwan . . . vengeance!" snarled Zoran as he triggered the firing command.

  The phaser cannons let loose, both scoring direct hits, and the cries of triumph from the half-dozen Thallonians in the control room was deafening. Actually, only five of them cheered; Rojam pulled himself to sitting, rubbing the side of his head where Zoran had struck him. "This isn't necessary," he said again, but he might as well have been speaking to an empty room.

  The shuttle craft was pounded by the phaser cannons, helpless before the onslaught. The Thallonians cheered every shot, overjoyed by Zoran's marksmanship. Even an annoyed Rojam had to admit that, for all his faults, Zoran was a good shot. Of course, having computers do all the work certainly helped.

  "Hit them again!" crowed Dackow, the shortest and yet, when the mood suited him, loudest of the Thallonians. Dackow never voiced an opinion until he was absolutely positive about how a situation was going to go, at which point he supported the prevailing opinion with such forcefulness that it was easy to forget that he hadn't expressed a preference one way or the other until then. "You've got them cold, Zoran!"

  Zoran fired again, this time missing the shuttle craft with one phaser cannon but striking it solidly with the other.

  But as Zoran gleefully celebrated his marksmanship, Rojam commented dryly, "What happened to having Si Cwan's throat in your hands, enabling you to squeeze the life out of him?"

  The observation brought Zoran up short for a moment. "If you had done your job better, I might have had that opportunity," he said, but it seemed a hollow comeback. The truth was that Rojam's statement had taken some of the joy out of Zoran's moment of triumph. Granted he had won, but it wasn't in the way he would have liked.

  And then a flash consumed the screen as the shuttle craft erupted in a ball of flame. Automatically the Thallonians flinched, as if the explo
sion posed a threat to them. Within mere seconds the flame naturally burned itself out, having no air in the vacuum of space to feed it. The fragments of the vessel which had been the Marquand spun away harmlessly, the twisted scraps of duranium composites no longer recognizable as anything other than bits of metal.

  "Burn in hell, Si Cwan," Zoran said after a long moment. The others, as always, nodded in agreement.

  Only Rojam did not join in the self-congrat ulations. Instead he was busy checking the instrumentation on an adjoining console. "What are you doing?" asked Zoran after a moment.

  "Scanning the debris," Rojam informed him.

  "Why?" said Juif, making no effort to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "Are you concerned they still pose a threat?"

  "Perhaps they do at that."

  The pronouncement was greeted with contemptuous guffaws until Rojam added, "They weren't aboard the shuttle craft."

  "What?" The comment immediately galvanized Zoran. "What are you talking about? Are you positive? It's impossible."

  "It's not impossible, and they weren't there," Rojam said with growing confidence. "There's no sign of them among the debris. I wouldn't expect to find any bodies intact . . . not with the force of that explosion. But there should be something organic among the wreckage. I'm not detecting anything except pieces from the shuttle craft."

  "Are you saying they were never aboard? That it was some sort of trick?" Zoran's anger was growing by the minute.

  "That's a possibility, but I don't think so. If they were never at risk, then they went to a great deal of trouble to try and force our hand. But here is a thought: Some of those Federation shuttles come equipped with transporter pads."

  "You think they may have evacuated before the ship blew up."

  "Exactly."

  "But the only place they could have gone to . . ." And then the growing realization brought a smile to his face. ". . . is here. Here, aboard the ship."

  Rojam nodded.

  Beaming with pleasure, Zoran clapped a hand on Rojam's back. "Excellent. Excellent work." Rojam let out a brief sigh of relief as Zoran turned to the others and said briskly, "All right, my friends. Somewhere in this vessel, Lord Si Cwan and his associate, Lieutenant Kebron, are hiding. Let's flush them out . . . and give our former prince the royal treatment he so richly deserves."

  SELAR

  III.

  SOLETA GLANCED UP from her science station as she became aware that McHenry was hovering over her. She glanced up at him, her eyebrows puckered in curiosity. "Yes?" she asked.

  Glancing around the bridge in a great show of making certain that no one was paying attention to them, McHenry said to her in a lowered voice, "I just wanted to say thanks."

  "You're welcome," replied Soleta reasonably, and tried to go back to her studies of mineral samples extracted from Thallon.

  "Don't you want to know why?" he asked after a moment.

  "Not particularly, Lieutenant. Your desire to say it is sufficient for me."

  "I know I was 'spacing out' earlier, like I do sometimes, and I know that you were defending me. I just wanted to say I appreciate it."

  "I was aware that your habits posed no threat to the Excalibur," she said reasonably. "I informed the captain and commander of that fact. Beyond that . . . what is there to say?"

  "Why'd you leave, Soleta? Leave Starfleet, I mean."

  The question caught her off guard. Now it was her turn to look around the bridge to make sure that no one was attempting to listen in. She needn't have worried; eavesdropping was hardly a pastime in which Starfleet personnel habitually engaged. Still, she was surprised over how uncomfortable the question made her feel. "It doesn't matter. I came back."

  "It does matter. We were friends, Soleta, back at the Academy. Classmates."

  "Classmates, yes. I had no friends." She said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that there was no hint of self-pity in her tone.

  "Oh, stop it. Of course you had friends. Worf, Kebron, me . . ."

  "Mark, this really isn't necessary."

  "I think it is."

  "And I say it isn't!"

  If they had been trying to make sure that their conversation did not draw any undue attention, the unexpected outburst by Soleta put an end to that plan. Everyone on the bridge looked at the two of them in unrestrained surprise, attention snagged by Soleta's unexpectedly passionate outburst. From the command chair, Calhoun asked, "Problem?"

  "No, sir," said Soleta quickly, and McHenry echoed it.

  "Are you certain?"

  "Quite certain, yes."

  "Because you seem to be having a rather strident dispute," he said, his gaze shifting suspiciously from one to the other.

  "Mr. McHenry merely made a scientific observation, and I was disagreeing with it."

  And now Shelby spoke up, observing, "It's rare one hears that sort of vehemence from anyone, much less a Vulcan."

  "Lieutenant Soleta cares passionately about her work," McHenry said, not sounding particularly convincing.

  "I see," said Calhoun, who didn't. "Mr. McHenry, time to Nelkar?"

  "Twenty-seven minutes, sir," McHenry said without hesitation, as he turned away from Soleta and headed back to the conn.

  Calhoun never failed to be impressed over how McHenry seemed to carry that knowledge in his head. Only Vulcans seemed nearly as capable of such rapid-fire calculations, and McHenry seemed even faster than the average Vulcan.

  Which Soleta, for her part, did not seem to be. Her outburst had hardly been prompted by some sort of scientific disagreement. But Calhoun didn't feel it his place to probe too deeply into the reasons for it . . . at least not as long as he felt that his ship's safety was not at issue.

  If it did become an issue, though, he would not hesitate to question Soleta and find out just what exactly had caused her to raise her voice to McHenry despite her Vulcan upbringing.

  "Vulcans," he muttered to himself.

  Soleta turned in her chair and looked questioningly at Calhoun. "What about Vulcans, Captain?" she asked.

  He stared at her tapered ears, which had naturally zeroed in on the mention of her race, and he said, "I was merely thinking how what we need on this ship is more Vulcans."

  "Vulcans are always desirable, Captain," she readily agreed, and went back to her analyses.

  The main lounge on the Excalibur was situated on Deck 7 in the rear of the saucer section, and was informally called the Team Room, after an old term left over from the early days of space exploration. It was to the Team Room that Burgoyne 172 had retired upon hish returning to the ship. S/he had felt a certain degree of frustration since s/he had not had the opportunity to complete hish work on the Cambon. If there was one thing that Burgoyne disliked, it was leaving a project unfinished.

  And then s/he saw another potentially unfinished project enter the Team Room. Dr. Selar had just walked in and was looking around as if hoping to find someone. Burgoyne looked around as well and saw that all of the tables had at least one occupant. Then s/he looked back at Selar and saw an eversobrief look of annoyance cross the Vulcan's face. That there was any readable emotion at all displayed by the Vulcan was surprising enough, and then Burgoyne realized the problem. Selar wasn't looking for someone to sit with. She was trying to find an unoccupied table.

  Her gaze surveyed the room and she caught sight of Burgoyne. Burgoyne, for hish part, endeavored to stay low-key. S/he gestured in a friendly, but not too aggressive manner, and waved at the empty seat opposite hir. Selar hesitated a moment and then, with what appeared to be a profound mental sigh, approached Burgoyne. Burgoyne could not help but admire her stride: she was tall, almost regal of bearing. When Selar sat down, she kept her entire upper body straight. Her posture was perfect, her attitude unflinching.

  "I believe," Selar said in her careful, measured tone, "that our first encounter was not properly handled . . . by either of us."

  "I think the fault was mostly mine," Burgoyne replied.

  "As do I. You were, af
ter all, the one who was rather aggressively propositioning me. Nonetheless, it would not be appropriate to place the blame entirely on you. Doubtlessly I was insufficiently clear in making clear to you my lack of interest."

  "Well, now," Burgoyne shifted a bit in hish chair, "I wouldn't call it 'aggressively propositioning' exactly."

  "No?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  Burgoyne leaned forward and said, "I would call it. . ." But then hish voice trailed off. S/he reconsidered hish next words and discarded them. Instead s/he said, "Can I get you a drink?"

  "I am certain that whatever you are having will be more than sufficient."

  Burgoyne nodded, rose, disappeared behind the bar, and returned a moment later with a glass containing the same dusky-colored liquid that was in hish glass. Selar lifted it, sniffed it experimentally, then downed half the glass. It was only her formidable Vulcan self-control that prevented her from coughing it back up through her nose. "This . . . is not synthehol," she said rather unnecessarily.

  S/he shook hish head. "It's called 'Scotch.' Rather difficult to come by, actually."

  "How did you develop a taste for it?"

  "Well," said Burgoyne, and it was obvious from the way s/he was warming to the subject that s/he had discussed this topic a number of times in the past. "About two years ago, I was taking shore leave on Argelius Two . . . a charming world. Have you ever been there?" Selar shook her head slightly and Burgoyne continued, "I was at this one pub, and it was quite a lively place, I can tell you. It was a place where the women were so . . ."

  Burgoyne was about to rhapsodize about them at length, but the look of quiet impatience on Selar's face quickly dissuaded hir. "In any event," continued Burgoyne, "I felt very much in my element. We Hermats are sometimes referred to as a rather hedonistic race. That's certainly a sweeping generalization, but not entirely without merit. In this pub, however, watching the Argelians and assorted visitors from other worlds engaging in assorted revelries and debaucheries, why . . . I felt that my humble leanings were dwarfed in comparison.