Star Trek® Cast no Shadow

by James Swallow

  The fact was, for all her understandable reticence to venture into Klingon territory, Valeris was intrigued by the morsels of data Spock and the intelligence officers had put before her. The logical course of action, she told herself, would be to seek a path to escape as soon as possible. Although she believed that Commander Miller’s intention to honor the agreement between them was honest, Valeris had learned firsthand that the actions of the admirals at Starfleet Command were subject to personal whim and political expedience in equal measure.

  But the old code had sparked her interest. Kallisti. She mouthed the word to herself. Many years had passed since she had spoken it aloud. She could not deny that she wanted to know how it had come to be enmeshed in this new attack on the Klingon Empire.

  For the moment, she would remain and do as she had been ordered to. Miller appeared to be refreshingly direct for a human, and that would make dealing with him palatable. But the other one . . . Lieutenant Vaughn struggled to keep his emotions in check beneath a façade of professionalism, but it was clear that the young officer had nothing but antipathy for Valeris. He clearly hated her, doubtless projecting a loathing for all things that did not follow his personal code of conduct onto her persona.

  Valeris had seen the same dislike writ large across the faces of other crew members aboard the Excelsior, from the officer in the transporter room to the guards who stood sentinel outside her cabin. What did they see when they looked at her? A traitor? A collaborator? A dupe?

  She crossed to the table. The handful of personal items from her cell on Jaros II had been beamed up to the ship and deposited here, along with a change of clothes in a commonplace civilian design. Valeris’s slender fingers found a memory module among the items and she lingered over it, considering its contents. Finally, she gathered it up and settled into a chair, turning to the computer on the desk.

  The memory module dropped into a slot on the side and the screen came to life. A menu scrolled down the length of the display, vid recordings of individual interview sessions arranged by date and time, pages of case notes appended to each one. Valeris chose a file at random, the text unfolding to fill the screen. She immediately recognized Doctor Tancreda’s mannerisms from the writing style. The file Valeris had selected was part of a debrief, an “exploration,” as the Betazoid had liked to term it, a recollection of key events from the Vulcan woman’s past that informed the person she had grown to become. Her eyes narrowed as she read the conclusions Tancreda had made.

  Can a Vulcan truly know what hate is? asked the psychologist.

  5

  Seven Years Earlier

  U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A

  The Neutral Zone

  Federation-Klingon Border

  Valeris entered the botanical gardens to find it empty, as she had intended. The open atrium, spanning the width of the Enterprise’s secondary hull from port to starboard, was lush with greenery from a handful of Federation member worlds, although nothing Vulcan grew here: the nutrisoil substrate could not support the hardy desert plants of her home planet. Instead there were dwarf trees, bushes, and flowering vegetation from worlds like Earth, Halkan, and Efros.

  She hesitated at the entrance, listening intently to be certain that she was alone. The only sound was the faint murmur of the shallow waterfall at the far end of the compartment, feeding the artificial stream that wound across the space. Satisfied, Valeris strode quickly along the pathway until she reached the rockery where Alyssum and Jaisone flowers provided a spray of color among the green and grey. The lieutenant had memorized the exact positioning of the rocks before the Enterprise had left spacedock, knowing full well that she would need to return to them now.

  With care, Valeris bent down and turned a pale marble-white stone on its side. There was an indentation the size of a humanoid thumb on the base, and she stroked it with her index finger; then the stone opened like a strange, fossilized blossom, revealing a concealed compartment within.

  Inside was a handheld communicator, adapted far beyond Starfleet standard. The stone closed itself as she moved away and Valeris examined the device. It had a slot for a memory chip, which she dutifully inserted. The Vulcan crossed to a bench beneath the large viewports and sat. In her hand the device came to life, trains of indicators flickering back and forth.

  The unit was covertly probing Enterprise’s computer network, infiltrating the system and worming its way into the starship’s communications grid. Valeris did not need to glance up at the chronometer above the entrance to the gardens to know the time: just before nineteen hundred hours, just seconds from the moment when Enterprise’s automated comms array would make contact with the nearest subspace beacon. It was a regular occurrence, scheduled by Starfleet for every ship: Enterprise and all the other vessels on deployment would send a stream of crosstalk back and forth across the Federation communications net, transmitting minor updates and ship’s logs, getting time-base amendments, mapping corrections for galactic drift and a hundred other minor pieces of data.

  The regular transmission also provided the perfect cover to hide a clandestine signal. Done correctly, Valeris could open a channel through the device in her hand, and no one up on the bridge would be any the wiser.

  It was almost time; still, she could not stop herself glancing away for a brief moment out through the tall viewports and into the black of space beyond. On the other side of the transparent aluminum windows, the sight was dominated by the elongated, predatory shape of a Klingon starship, moving in steady lockstep with the Starfleet vessel. Valeris’s analytical mind processed what she saw; a D-7M K’tinga-class battle cruiser, the hull an uncommon stone-grey instead of the usual steel or copper green of the Imperial Defense Force. She noted irregular bulges in the hull, telltale signs that showed this craft sported modifications beyond those of a line warship. Kronos One was purported to be a vessel of peace and diplomacy, and yet, Valeris could quite clearly see the maws of photon torpedo bays and the blunt emitter heads of disruptors. Even as it drifted abeam, the ship exuded an air of stately menace. For a moment she wondered if there was a Klingon crew member doing as she was now, staring across the vacuum and weighing up the dimensions of their enemy. She had no doubt there was: the Klingons were almost incapable of anything but a martial, aggressive outlook.

  The communicator beeped once and she held it close to her face. “Kallisti,” she said, and a faint crackle sounded from the speaker. It recognized her vocal signature, and the channel went active.

  “Status?” said a voice. It was laced with distortion and static, but Admiral Cartwright’s dour tone was unmistakable.

  “Nominal,” she replied. “Contact has been made.”

  “Understood. When will they be coming aboard?”

  “Thirty minutes. A formal dinner has been prepared.”

  Valeris heard something that might have been a chuckle. “Of course it has. I’m sure that’ll be an evening to remember . . . ” The admiral paused. “Listen carefully. You will proceed to access the ship’s munitions database and edit certain files. Details will be loaded onto the data chip. Do it while Kirk and his officers are at the dinner.”

  She nodded. “I understand.” But she did not—not fully; Cartwright had seen fit only to enlighten her to certain elements of what he called “the operation.” Valeris had already placed surveillance taps in certain sections of the ship’s computer architecture, notably to monitor key sections of the Enterprise such as the bridge, main engineering, even the captain’s cabin; but so far she had not been ordered to utilize any of the data she had gathered. This new directive would not be the first time she had made adjustments to conceal activities taking place aboard the ship. Earlier in the voyage, Cartwright had ordered her to ensure that certain items of landing party equipment—notably, a pair of environment suits and two phaser pistols—were logged as in storage, when in fact they had been removed. Not for the first time, she wondered how many operatives working under Cartwright’s direct command were stationed
aboard the ship. She knew of Burke and Samno, but were there others? Valeris discarded the thought. It was of no consequence.

  “Is that all?” she asked. The Vulcan was mindful of the passing seconds; soon the beacon signal would cease and the communications hidden within it would end as well, or risk detection.

  “No,” said Cartwright. “You understand the seriousness of this operation. There are many variables, and it may become necessary . . . to take more proactive measures if the situation demands it. Extreme sanctions may be required. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes.” There was no question of it: he was asking her to kill. Valeris’s hand tensed around the communicator as a moment of doubt echoed in her mind. Of course she was proficient with a weapon, of course she was more than capable of the act. But Valeris had never been faced with the need to take a life in anything other than a combat situation.

  “You’ll know what to do,” he said. “Don’t forget, a single error . . . a single failure of will . . . and all that we’ve done will come apart. We will all hang together.”

  “I understand,” she repeated.

  “I know you do. That’s why I gave you this responsibility. One last thing: you may detect an intermittent surge of neutron radiation during the next few hours. Ignore it—”

  Valeris never let him finish. She snapped the communicator shut and buried it beneath her tunic as the footsteps she had heard from the corridor grew louder. Composing herself, she glanced up in time to see a lone figure rounding the corner from the botany lab.

  “Captain.” She rose to her feet automatically.

  Kirk slowed slightly as he approached, his keen gaze searching her face. “Lieutenant. Aren’t you supposed to be on the bridge?”

  “My duty shift does not commence for another nine-point-two minutes, sir.”

  “Ah.” He nodded and gestured to her. “At ease, Valeris.”

  “Can I assist you in any way, Captain?”

  “No.” Kirk gave a slow shake of the head. “I’m surprised to find you down here. Usually at this time of day the gardens are deserted. Sometimes I like to take a walk here . . . clear my head a little.”

  “It is a tranquil space,” she offered, careful to stand so that he would not notice the bulge beneath her jacket. If she were found with the covert communicator on her, it would be difficult to explain away.

  However, the captain’s attention was clearly on other matters. His gaze drifted to the window and the other ship. “I could use a little tranquillity,” he told her. “This is going to be a long day—for all of us.”

  The right thing to do—the intelligent thing to do—would be for Valeris to excuse herself and allow Kirk the opportunity he wanted to gather his thoughts. And yet, Valeris felt a strong compulsion to stay, to engage him. So far she had found precious little opportunity to speak with the captain directly, and her first overtures to him in his cabin earlier in the day had not gone as she wished.

  There were many things Valeris wanted to ask him, and against her better judgment they pressed at her to be said aloud. “Did you ever think that we . . . that you would be here, sir?” she said. “After everything that has happened with them?” Valeris gave a slight nod toward the distant Kronos One.

  Kirk was studying the lines of the Klingon ship just as she had done earlier. Perhaps he was looking for points of weakness or admiring the brutalist design ethic of the alien craft. “Honestly?” He shook his head. “Not in a million years. I always thought that one day it might come to war . . . Or, at best, that Starfleet could stand by and hold the line while the Klingons burned themselves out . . . ” Kirk gave a humorless smile. “But peace? A real, honest peace? No.”

  She had to be careful now. To say too much at this moment could tip the balance. “Do you think we can trust them?” Valeris already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “Trust . . . ” he echoed. “I used to have plenty of that. These days I have to dig a lot deeper to find it.” At last Kirk turned away from the viewport. “I’ve shed plenty of their blood over the years. I don’t take pride in it. I did what was needed.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We can’t measure them by our standards, Lieutenant. I’ve known some Klingons who showed courage and honor. They have their code, just as we have ours. But . . . ” He halted, frowning. “But they can show you respect in one breath, and then bury a knife in your back the next. You ask me if we can trust them? I don’t know that we can. I want to believe it’s possible, but I’ve spent years of my career facing Klingon aggression, and I don’t know if they can transcend their nature.” He gave the rueful smile again. “I don’t know if I can transcend mine.”

  Valeris took a moment to frame her reply. “I . . . appreciate your candor, sir.”

  He seemed to shake off the moment of introspection, and suddenly a more vital, more focused aspect was upon him. “It was hardly that, Lieutenant. And ultimately, whatever reservations you and I may have, we still have our orders. And we have a duty to offer the olive branch, even if it’s to the devil himself. That’s détente.”

  “A word of French origin. Traditionally, it means to loosen the catch upon a crossbow, but since the early twentieth century it has come to describe a lessening in political tensions.”

  Kirk nodded. “Gorkon wants us all to take our hands off our guns. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?”

  “Are you asking my opinion, sir?”

  “Always,” he replied, an edge of challenge in his tone.

  “An easement in Klingon-Federation hostility would be beneficial . . . if Chancellor Gorkon does in fact intend to seek it. If this offer of peace is not merely an attempt to take advantage of the Federation and prepare for later acts of belligerence.”

  Kirk studied her for a moment, and Valeris fell silent. Had she overstepped her bounds? For a human, the captain of the Enterprise was most difficult to read.

  Then at length he turned to walk away. “I guess we’re going to find out. Hopefully, before the end of the dessert course.” Kirk gave her a last nod. “As you were, Lieutenant.”

  When he was gone, and she was certain she was alone, Valeris removed the isolinear data chip from the port on the side of the communicator and then returned the device to the hiding place inside the artificial stone.

  The chronograph read nineteen-fifteen; secreting the chip in her tunic, Valeris made her way toward the turbolift to report early for her bridge duty shift.

  As the doors closed, Kirk’s words echoed in her thoughts. I did what was needed.

  I will do the same, she told herself.

  6

  U.S.S. Excelsior NCC-2000

  En Route to the Klingon Neutral Zone

  United Federation of Planets

  The briefing room was a blank-walled compartment on the lower decks of the Excelsior, little more than a space with a viewscreen and a rectilinear table surrounded by a few chairs. Sulu sat at the far end, in what was traditionally the captain’s seat, from which he would normally brief his staff. Today the discussion was going to be led by another. Miller was seated to his right, leaving Vaughn to serve as a functionary and operate the computer mounted on the table.

  The lieutenant looked up as the door opened and Valeris entered, a security guard at her back. He glimpsed another, a stocky Caitian, standing at stiff attention out in the corridor, just before the doors closed.

  “Reporting as ordered, sir,” said the first guard, a human woman with a close-cut cowl of red hair.

  “Thank you, Crewman,” said Sulu.

  Vaughn saw her nod and step back to block the door, one hand resting close to a holstered phaser. Clearly, Sulu’s people were on the alert, and the lieutenant took grim comfort in the fact that they had as little trust for the Vulcan as he did.

  “Take a seat,” Miller told Valeris.

  She stood for just long enough to make it an issue and then sat down in the chair at the farthest end of the table. Her hands knit together in fr
ont of her and she displayed an air of cool disinterest.

  Miller threw Vaughn a sideways nod, and he tapped the activation key on the console. From this point on, every word uttered in the room would be recorded, sifted for meaning, and measured for levels of stress and possible deceit.

  Valeris inclined her head toward Sulu by way of a greeting. “Captain,” she said. “Thank you for my accommodations. They are preferable to a brig cell.”

  “Don’t mistake it for any kind of generosity on my part,” he replied. Sulu’s voice was low and wintry. “If it were up to me, you would never have set foot on my ship. But needs must.”

  “Indeed.”

  Miller cleared his throat. “Commencing,” he announced, for the benefit of the recording scanners. “Interview with asset Valeris, currently in custody of Starfleet Intelligence Command field operations. Present at this time: Commander Darius Miller, Captain Hikaru Sulu, Lieutenant J.G. Elias Vaughn, Crewman Lisle Tiber. This interview is to be considered security level three data.”

  “I was not aware Captain Sulu would be involved in this discussion,” Valeris said, ignoring the implied speak-when-you’re-spoken-to protocol. “Given his connection with my . . . conviction, does he not represent a possible bias?”

  Sulu’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a rather obvious ploy, don’t you think? Attempting to disrupt the situation before the discussion even begins? Imposing your own rules?” Valeris opened her mouth to reply but he didn’t allow it. “This is my ship. Nothing goes on aboard her that I don’t know about. And I have a perfectly good first officer to see Excelsior doesn’t get lost on the way to the Klingon Empire while I’m down here. So if my presence in the room makes you somehow uncomfortable, my advice to you is . . . deal with it.”

  Miller nodded. “Yeah, what he said.” The commander picked up a padd before him and checked something. “So. You are going to explain to us the origin and meaning of the code ‘Kallisti,’ the alleged connection with the Gorkon assassination and this Kriosian activist group.”