“Maybe it’s a turbolift,” suggested Maltz. “Or a transporter.”
“Or a disposal unit to disintegrate the bodies,” said Herbert.
After a moment, Leah asked, “Are we going in there or not?”
For once, Gradok did not immediately volunteer, and Brahms didn’t blame him. There was something unsettling about this gleaming metal compartment at the end of the dark tunnel, not far from where hundreds of helpless beings hung in suspended animation.
“If we only had some way to test it,” said Brahms.
Without warning, a huge explosion sounded behind them, shaking the undergound passageway and causing dust to cascade down. The two Klingons and two humans whirled around and shined their lights down the corridor, where all they saw was smoke. Leah instantly drew her tricorder from her pouch and checked for life-signs, finding dozens of them about a hundred meters away.
“What in Klin was that?” snarled Gradok.
“The Romulans,” answered Leah. “They’re in the chamber with all the bodies, coming closer.”
“Romulans!” snarled Maltz, making it sound like an expletive. He lifted his disruptor rifle and assumed a firing crouch. “I am not going to be captured by Romulans.”
“They’re our allies!” said Herbert, his voice a strangled squeak. “Can’t we make a deal with them?”
“There is no dealing with Romulans,” answered Maltz. “I will not jeopardize my blood oath to please Romulans. In this narrow passageway, we can hold out against an army.”
Another explosion ripped through the underground chamber, rocking the passageway again, but still there was no sign of the Romulans. Herbert drew his phaser, gripping it nervously. Without warning, the teenager turned and shot a beam that struck Gradok, and the big Klingon slumped to the floor.
“Traitor!” shouted Maltz. He fired his disruptor, but Herbert anticipated that action and ducked out of the way of the deadly beam. Then he scrambled down the dark tunnel, moving awkwardly in the bulky suit.
“Don’t kill him!” ordered Brahms.
Maltz reluctantly lowered his disruptor rifle and just scowled instead. Then he turned on his heel and dove through the open door of the portal. No sooner had the Klingon entered the gleaming compartment than his body disappeared in a blinding flash.
Leah was about to follow him when another beam streaked from the darkness and struck her in the back. That was the last thing she remembered before she collapsed to the floor beside Gradok.
twenty-two
Maltz floated out of the chamber at the other end of the transporter link and gaped in awe at his surroundings. He was inside the most monumental space dock he had ever seen, a sphere containing literally hundreds of ships from every corner of the galaxy. As far as the eye could see were rows upon rows of sleek metal hulls, floating on moorings that expanded outward like spokes from a glowing central hub.
As he looked more closely, he realized that some of the vessels were centuries old, and others were partially disassembled, as if they had been salvaged for parts. But some starships looked brand-new and in perfect working order, such as the four squat Defiant-class vessels closest to him—no doubt the missing task force from Starfleet.
The old Klingon tried to turn around but couldn’t do so while floating weightlessly, so he drew a small harpoon gun from his pack and shot it behind his head. After hearing a satisfying clink, he tugged on the rope and found it taut. Now he had an anchor with which to pull himself around. The effort was worth it, because the view behind him was no less remarkable. Through a somewhat clouded but expansive viewport, he could see a gray, foreboding planet, as close as if he were in orbit ... or slightly farther out.
“I’m inside the moon!” he croaked to himself with amazement. He was at the outer edge of a hollow sphere that was easily as big as Lomar’s moon, and he was looking through a camouflaged viewport. Like every other discovery, this one only reinforced his certainty that the enemy deserved no mercy.
“I am left alone ... alone to destroy these monsters. It is my destiny.” His blistered lower lip quivering and his rheumy eyes filling with tears, Maltz went on, “I will smash the wicked weapon and kill the woman who birthed this monster. If no living soul knows my glory, the heroes in Sto-Vo-Kor will know! Redemption will be mine ... at last.”
Maltz breathed deeply, trying to calm his war spirit for the immense task ahead. He looked again at the ugly planet in the window, thinking that if he watched long enough, he might see the hated Romulans cruise past. He chuckled with delight. It was funny that the overconfident Romulans were completely ignorant of this treasure trove of starships right under their noses. It had to stay a secret—at least until he made his escape.
Maltz let go of the rope to grab his disruptor rifle, which he aimed at the sleek transporter chamber. He unleashed a barrage of blazing beams, ripping the circuitry to shreds. Within seconds, the chamber exploded in a dazzling aurora, and the concussion propelled him backward, spinning at slow speed.
The Klingon flailed his arms for a moment, to no avail, until he realized that he would soon hit one of the vessels. The lanky warrior stretched his legs out straight, trying to time his collision, and he stuck feetfirst to the hull of a shiny Defiant-class small cruiser. After swaying on his feet for a moment, Maltz thanked Kahless for the magnetized soles of his boots.
The Klingon clomped across the saucerlike hull of the freshly minted vessel, looking for the gangway hatch. He finally found it on the underbelly of the ship, and he was relieved to see that the hatch had been left open. That was very careless of the enemy, but he loved it when an enemy was overconfident. They thought they had nothing to fear from these humanoid races they had fooled for countless centuries, but the Klingon would teach them otherwise.
Maltz opened the hatch and clomped inside the spacecraft, turning himself rightside-up in the process. Once inside the vessel, he carefully closed the hatch and looked around, the beam from his helmet the only light. He appeared to be in a storage area with photon torpedoes stacked all around him.
The Klingon found an access panel, which opened to a maintenance tube with a ladder leading upward, and he began to climb. He reasoned that he was down, and the bridge had to be up. It wasn’t a large ship, and he found the heart of the vessel with no difficulty. The bridge had an efficient layout, with most of the stations facing forward as in Klingon vessels.
“Computer,” he said loudly, “resume life-support.”
At once, the lights blinked on, and the whir of air circulation sounded in his ears. Ah, it was wonderful that Starfleet engineers were such trusting souls, thought the old Klingon. Years of living in a Federation stronghold had taught him most of their terminology and technology, and he assumed he would have no trouble turning this discovery to his advantage.
He noticed a plaque on the bulkhead, which gave the name of the ship as Unity. That was ironic, thought Maltz, considering it now had a crew of one. The Klingon strolled up to the main viewscreen as he removed his helmet. It felt good to breathe freshly manufactured air again.
“Computer,” he said with authority, “on main viewscreen, show me the most recent video log of activity on the bridge.”
“Now displaying most recent log record before system shutdown,” said the female voice of the computer. With that, the large screen came to life, showing images of a harried crew running around. Maltz sat in the pilot’s seat, disturbed by the padded, contoured feel of a chair built for pampered humans, not for Klingon warriors. He stiffened his back, trying to make himself less comfortable, as he watched the drama unfold on the screen. Finally he would learn what had happened to the ill-fated task force, and he hoped to learn more about the enemy in the bargain.
Leah Brahms shook her head and painfully opened her eyes—only to focus with difficulty upon a pair of intense black eyes gazing down at her through a green-tinted faceplate. Slowly the cadaverous face pulled away from her, and she realized that she had been nose-to-nose with a Romulan, eve
n though her own helmet had been removed.
“No lasting damage,” said a voice behind her. “She will recover fully.”
“Hello, Dr. Brahms,” said a cultured voice. “Or should I call you Captain Brahms?” The hawklike face regarded her with mild amusement.
“Did you shoot me?” she asked hoarsely.
“No, that would have been our operative.”
“Your operative,” she echoed. “You mean ... Herbert?”
The slim figure shrugged in his gleaming green environmental suit. “Yes, he is not actually human, nor is he young,” answered the Romulan. “He was an agent we put on Protus for just such an emergency. We were very fortunate that he was able to join your crew when he did, or your refusal to cooperate would have resulted in casualties.”
Leah gritted her teeth and sat up, anger flashing in her green eyes. “Where is Herbert now?”
“Aboard our ship, being debriefed by my intelligence officer. So is the Klingon we apprehended.” The Romulan smiled like a snake. “I am Commander Jagron of the D’Arvuk, and it’s imperative that you cooperate with us. That is why we kept you on the planet—to help us. Where is the other Klingon?”
Her jaw worked furiously in anger, and she finally spit out, “I wouldn’t tell you that, even if I knew.”
“I see.” Jagron’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, and he motioned to the ornate chamber at the end of the narrow tunnel. “We know he went into this device, but our attempts to operate it have failed so far.”
He gave her a pained smile. “I would hate to have to leave you here ... now that you’ve been exposed to the fungus.”
“Are you threatening me?” snapped Brahms. “I’ve been through more than you could possibly imagine! We didn’t get here much before you did, and I’m sure your spy already told you how we found the shuttlecraft and a couple of crooks from Protus. Then we started exploring, and this is as far as we got. If you’re here, then you’ve seen everything I’ve seen! So take your ridiculous threats and go somewhere else.”
“Living with Klingons hasn’t done much for your disposition.” Jagron frowned under his hood and turned to the minions waiting behind him. “Team leaders, have all your teams concentrate their search in this complex. Tell them to exterminate the moss creatures as needed.”
With nods of acknowledgment, several of the suited Romulans withdrew into the darkness, and Jagron turned to shake a fist at Leah. “If you’ve been lying to me, you will pay. Tell me how this chamber works.”
“I don’t even know what it does,” she answered. “Maltz could be dead, for all I know. Why don’t you walk in there and see?”
“I have,” replied Jagron as he strolled into the empty chamber and turned to glower at the human. “Are you saying you haven’t learned anything about the Genesis Wave from this place?”
Leah shook her head with frustration. “While you’re standing here asking me stupid questions, maybe the enemy is getting away. Did you ever think of that? Or maybe they’re planning another attack with the Genesis Wave. I don’t care if you leave me here or not, as long as you do something.”
“I feel we are closing in on our prey,” Jagron said as he stepped from the empty chamber. “You’ll be taken to our medical center and examined.” He motioned to two more centurions, who hustled forward and picked Leah up.
Leah thought about saying something snide and spitting at this arrogant, two-bit potentate. But he was wearing an environmental suit, so it would be an empty gesture. Now that she thought about it, maybe this whole quixotic search had been an empty gesture.
Maltz sat back in his pilot’s chair, his mouth hanging open at the image on the viewscreen. It was an oblong, brownish asteroid, which wouldn’t have been remarkable except for one thing: It was fake! One after another, the other ships in the task force had been absorbed into an immense opening in the side of the asteroid, and the mostly human crew of this ship, Unity, were preparing to go next. They were total zombies, under the sway of several moss creatures, which lounged in the background, occasionally stepping forward to talk to the crew.
In those instances, the humans’ faces registered absolute bliss when they talked to these monsters. It was sickening, but the video log wasn’t fooled by their mind-clouding powers, unlike the weak-willed humans.
When it was over, Maltz checked the console where he had captured crucial data from the log. He had the warp signature of the fake asteroid, and he knew the exact location where they had captured these ships. It was incredible, but any force that built this fake moon could have done the same thing with an asteroid. It wasn’t much different from a Dyson Sphere.
The Klingon had a burning certainty that Carol Marcus and the fiends behind the Genesis Wave were aboard that false asteroid. He was also certain that it was the location of the emitters that sent the wave on its genocidal onslaught. He would end the destruction and bathe in their blood.
Maltz rubbed his hands together and gazed at the Starfleet instrument panel. All of the security safeguards had been disabled, much to his advantage. Maybe he could use the ship’s sensor to locate a Klingon ship in this mothballed fleet, and then transport over to it. That seemed unlikely, however, because they were awfully far from Klingon space, as he well knew. Better to use a shiny new Starfleet craft than a rusted hulk from bygone days. A more logical use of the sensors would be to find the exit from this immense cage, although he could always blast his way out if he had to.
That might be move fun.
Commander Jagron cringed behind his green-tinted faceplate and turned away from the desiccated, vivisected corpse they had found in what appeared to be a medical laboratory. It might have been a sickbay, but if so, it was one of the coldest and most heartless medical facilities he had ever seen. What had they been doing to this poor humanoid when they cut him up? Were they in such a hurry that they had to leave him here, opened up and drying like a carcass at the side of the road? Even for a man who could stomach a considerable amount of cruelty, this was a bit much.
“I’m detecting some of the fungus,” said a science officer using a tricorder.
“I would imagine,” answered Jagron distastefully. He turned to the specialists he had working on a computer terminal in the laboratory. “Have you retrieved anything?”
“Not yet, Commander,” answered a gray-haired centurion. “They are using a high-level Federation encryption program, which we hope to crack in a few minutes.”
The slim Romulan scowled, thinking that all this effort had better pay off soon. The complex was fascinating, but its infrastructure was clearly devoted to maintaining itself, not the Genesis Wave. Half of his crew was occupied with exterminating the enemy, and the other half lagged behind them, often exploring areas that had been damaged. If they weren’t careful, they might be here for days, sifting through the layers of this eerie operation. In all they had seen, there was no direct evidence of the Genesis Wave.
“Bridge to Commander Jagron,” said a familiar voice in his helmet. It was Petroliv, his lover and most trusted officer, and she sounded agitated.
“Go on.”
“Commander, a Starfleet ship has appeared out of nowhere, and then has gone quickly into warp.”
“Out of nowhere?” he asked doubtfully.
“We think they may have been hiding on the moon—or behind it,” she explained. “From its warp signature, it’s a Defiant-class small cruiser. There are some anomalies around the moon that we should investigate. What should we do?”
Jagron cursed under his breath. “I would pursue this ship, but we can’t get everyone back on board quickly enough. Put long-range scanners on it and try to track it. We may have to leave personnel here, with shuttlecraft for support, while we rejoin the Enterprise. What have you learned from our prisoners?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “Even though they arrived before us, they don’t possess any significant knowledge. Our operative confirms everything they say. Leah Brahms lost her husband and colleagues on S
eran-T-One, so this is a personal matter with her. The Klingon we’re holding is just a soldier. The Klingon who got away, Maltz, was at the Genesis Planet ninety years ago—he saw the original device.”
“So he may have special knowledge,” said Jagron thoughtfully. “And where did he go? This becomes frustrating, staying here. Ready two shuttlecraft for launch, and begin withdrawing the away teams. Start with my team. We’ll decide quickly how many people to leave on the planet.”
With disgust, the Romulan looked around at the cold laboratory, then at the gruesome, sliced-up corpse. “I am ready to leave Lomar.”
“Commander,” said Petroliv in the tone of voice she used when she was about to suggest something naughty, “I have an idea for our two visitors, Brahms and Gradok. They can’t tell us anything, and they’re really no threat. To return them to the Enterprise would only result in a lot of questions. Why don’t we leave them here on Lomar, where we found them? We’ll have a sizable force, and they’ll be safe. Certainly Brahms can help our people with encryption and codes.”
“Very well,” answered the Romulan commander. “As always, I like the way you think. No one’s government can squawk that we mistreated them, since this is where they wanted to be. Ready the prisoners for transport.”
Geordi La Forge stared at a vast meadow with its gently waving grasses and shiny pools dimpling the landscape, all of it bathed in the golden glow of sunset. If this sight weren’t magnificent enough, in the center stood a perfect, towering tree—the refuge he had always sought. At the base of the tree stood Leah Brahms in a flowing white dress, waving happily at him. He saw the gleaming meadow as clearly as he had seen sunset on the Ba’ku planet, when his eyes had functioned normally. Logic told him he shouldn’t see this or anything at all without his ocular implants—or being immersed in a dream—but he was wide awake.
The engineer knew he had to rise to his feet and walk up that hill to the tree. Although it looked like a simple matter, a sickness had weakened him, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy. It would require all his will and a major physical effort—he was certain of that. He gripped the sides of his bed, which was resting on the edge of the meadow, and he threw his legs over the side and climbed out.
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book Two Page 24