STAR TREK: TOS - Final Frontier

by Diane Carey

  He came reasonably close to t’Cael and stood at attention, allowing for either of two choices—protocol or candor. “My Lord Primus,” the subcommander said simply.

  Quietly t’Cael asked, “What is the condition of the Swarm?”

  “The commanders have been notified about Commander Idrys’ arrest and are awaiting your announcement as to any changes in the command order of the Swarm. Meanwhile, War Thorn and Soar are continuing with inspections of merchant vehicles. All Swarm ships are approximately one light-day from us at present.”

  T’Cael nodded and surveyed the bridge, allowing his presence to test the mood. Ry’iak was still here; perfectly expected. At least there hadn’t been an eruption into chaos yet. Not yet. “Advise the commanders to disregard any further information about the arrest unless it contains my personal encoded authorization.”

  “Yes, Primus.”

  [128] “Centralize communication from the Swarm to this ship and be sure no signals are sent without my approval.”

  “Understood, Primus.”

  “And release the commander to my personal custody.”

  Kai’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Caught between two distinctly powerful authorities with no clear tripping of the scales in either direction yet, the subcommander was paralyzed. His immediate loyalty should be to the Primus. But the Primus was out of favor with the Supreme Praetor ... and the Praetor was wirepulling the Senate and the Praetorate ... and there were rumors of Federation trouble on the wind. Who would emerge predominant? How could he keep hold of what he had cultivated so far without risking his chance for advancement?

  Personal fears, yes. But there was also a fear for his Empire. A rumor could easily be based on a frightening truth.

  Primus Kilyle was watching him. Large dark eyes, wide with anticipation, patiently unblinking, studied him. No time limit. The decision could take the day, if necessary. The Primus would wait.

  “My Lord Primus ...”

  Expressive brows rose in question over t’Cael’s eyes.

  Kai’s tongue was dry. “My Lord Primus, I dare not.”

  One brow went down and the other stayed up. “Why not?”

  Kai had trouble talking. Once again his mouth opened without any sound.

  Ry’iak chose this moment to interrupt. “I urge you to reconsider, Subcommander Kai,” he said. “After all, Commander Idrys has a luminous record as an officer of the Swarm. Even so wicked a crime as familial murder shouldn’t erase it.”

  T’Cael shifted his gaze from Kai to Ry’iak, unavoidably frowning at the Praetor’s annoying little pawn. Ry’iak was making sure to drive home the nature of Idrys’ crime, keeping it alive in the minds of the bridge crew.

  Ry’iak stepped out of the protection of the structural rib that had been his hiding place. Rather like a rodent emerging from a hole.

  “Even though her uncle’s death would advance her greatly in her family, why should she connive to leave the Swarm? Is this so undesirable a duty? I find it hard to believe that the commander could crave advancement,” Ry’iak said.

  T’Cael couldn’t keep from glaring with unshielded disgust. “Yes,” he said, smoldering. “I find it hard to believe also.”

  [129] He knew perfectly well, and damnably so did Ry’iak, that every person on the bridge craved advancement and didn’t understand not craving it. Suspicion of Idrys was branded deeper into the leather of their loyalty each time Ry’iak spoke. Yet if t’Cael cut him off too soon, he would lose the crew’s trust. The only way he could earn the fidelity of these officers was to prove he had something more than his position on his side.

  Time for more candor. He turned to Kai.

  “Subcommander,” he began, “do you believe the accusation?”

  Kai frowned. “Sir?”

  “Do you think the commander is capable of such a crime?”

  “I simply do my duty,” Kai responded limply.

  “No one with a mind simply does duty, Subcommander,” t’Cael said. “I’m not asking you as your superior. I’m not asking for a soldier’s reply, Kai. But as one who worked closely with her, as one who felt loyalty to her, do you really think Idrys could participate in kinship murder?”

  The question was far more complicated than it seemed. T’Cael knew he was simplifying things, playing on Kai’s relationship with his commanding officer. Idrys’ reputation and her manner would stand for themselves if given the chance.

  Kai was thinking hard. He wouldn’t give a gut reaction, not to a superior he didn’t know very, very well.

  “I can see where a veteran soldier might take wide steps to recover from dishonor,” he said cautiously. “Even I might.”

  By those last words, t’Cael perceived how deeply wounded Kai felt by his commander’s dishonor, and that the subcommander understood very well how this event could either work for him or against him. Those words were a clear warning. T’Cael silently vowed not to dismiss them too quickly.

  “Anyone might,” Ry’iak interjected in that tone of measured loudness. “I can certainly see why the commander would be driven to such action, hoping to gain a more prestigious zone of patrol. But dishonor is unforgiving. She chose an unwise path out of it.” He meant to keep the crew aware of the rankness of her crime. “If she were simply a traitor to the Empire, things would be so much simpler. But murder of a kinsman ...” He forced himself to shudder for all to see.

  T’Cael remained facing Kai. At least now he knew for certain that Kai considered this patrol area lowly and inglorious. Another rung on a greased ladder.

  [130] “Your loyalties seem contradictory, Kai,” t’Cael said. “You’ll have to choose to stand with your commander or against her. Or events will choose for you.”

  Kai stood silently. It was a horrible truth, this idea that his future would be out of his own control if he failed to make a decision, even the wrong one.

  T’Cael lowered his voice. “I want her released.”

  His tone sent a shudder down every spine. To a degree, even his own.

  “Let’s examine the nature of the arrest order,” t’Cael went on, by design not giving Kai a chance to answer. “Idrys has been accused of a nonmilitary crime. Can she be held prisoner in a military vessel that she herself commands? Or does her duty to the vessel override the weight of a civilian accusation? Remember that she hasn’t yet been convicted.” He folded his arms in contemplation and paced the bridge, his movements calculated to draw the attention of the officers around him. “Let me see if I can remember the rules.” He touched his lip, then held up a finger. “Ah, yes. The arrest order for an officer of the Imperial Fleet must be of military issuance. This order, however, came from Senate Council, is that correct?”

  First pausing to see if that admission might hurt him any, Kai acknowledged, “Correct, Primus.”

  “And the Senate Council isn’t a military body.”

  “I must correct you, my Lord Primus,” Ry’iak interrupted.

  T’Cael pivoted slowly.

  Ry’iak backed off a step or two, trying to make the move appear casual, but wasn’t quite intimidated enough to keep quiet. “The Senate Council now boasts status as a praetorial authority, and therefore by extension is a military body.” He glanced around to see if the crew was still waffling. “But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to release the commander. After all,” he said with a nervous laugh, “she can’t walk away from the ship, can she?” He swept his arm in a gesture that took in everyone present. “I’m certain officers of this sturdiness could bear any punishment we would be dealt for releasing her without orders. The worst that could happen would be some form of torture. No death, I’m sure.” He knew, and they knew, he was alluding to forms of punishment that made death look like home-planet shore leave. He waited while his words sank in, then turned back to t’Cael. “My Lord Primus, perhaps there is a flaw in the rules that will work in the [131] commander’s favor. Allow me the honor of examining the codes of law on your behalf.”

  The Fiel
d-Primus still had his arms folded. They stayed folded as he closed the space between himself and Ry’iak.

  Ry’iak had experience with those folded arms; he took a nervous step backward, but realized the advantage he would lose if he backed off any further. He stood his ground; poorly, but he stood it.

  T’Cael hovered before him like a thundercloud.

  “I will allow you to hang yourself by the genitals. And that is all you will ever do on my behalf.”

  T’Cael refused to move or even to blink. His black eyes bored into Ry’iak until the younger man had to move away. Ry’iak tried to cloak his retreat in casualness, but everyone saw it for what it was as he crossed the bridge to a safer zone.

  The master engineer’s mouth curled into a snicker. The navigator and bridge centurion indulged in a glance at each other. They’d been watching each other carefully, gauging reactions. Now they were sure they were feeling the same thing—at least, for the moment.

  T’Cael turned once again to Kai. “Kai, I promise you this. If Idrys is guilty of even the tiniest complicity in this crime, the hand that executes her will be mine.”

  Not a soul on the bridge doubted it.

  T’Cael illustrated the point by holding up his hand for as long as it took to convince them of his resolve.

  Suddenly a loud warning whistle cut through the ship. The bridge systems whooped alert status into their ears and momentary shock stapled every man to his place.

  “Subcommander!” the bridge centurion called, bending over his readout screen.

  Kai answered over the noise. “What is it?”

  “An intrusion! Some kind of ship in the sector—”

  “A cargo vessel?”

  “No, sir. Detecting heavy energy waves!”

  “Battle alert!” Kai instructed.

  The whooping changed to a distinct howl at the touch of the centurion’s hand on his console. “How close is this intruder?”

  “Nearly visual range, sir.”

  “How did it appear so suddenly?”

  “Evidently out of hyperspace.”

  T’Cael stepped to the navigation board. “From which direction?”

  [132] The navigator swiveled his head from Kai to t’Cael, momentarily confused about which to obey. “No way to tell, Primus.”

  “Is there no way to track back on an energy trail?”

  “I detect no such trail, Primus. I don’t understand why not.” He peered into his viewer, then ominously, raised his eyes to the main viewscreen. “Visual contact,” he murmured.

  They all looked up.

  At the center of the viewscreen, growing larger and more frightening with every space distance that fell behind Raze as she closed in, was the fiercest vessel they had ever seen.

  Kai actually gasped. He leaned forward over the navigation console, and simply stared.

  Wicked white, it hung in space and named on an imaginary string. Its hulls were designed like weapons of war: battle shield, club, and lance. Even at this distance, they could see laser portals, a heavy sensor disk, engines bigger than most whole ships, and a haughtiness that soldiers of their fabric understood very well.

  Even t’Cael was moved to step closer to the screen, struck silent by what he saw. His experience told him a hateful thing. A single word might as well have been painted across the huge ship as clearly as the wings were painted across Raze.

  And every man on the bridge knew that word.

  Invasion.

  “Kai,” t’Cael began.

  “Yes—yes, Primus?”

  “Summon the Swarm.”

  “Yes, Primus.”

  “And, Kai.”

  “Sir?”

  “Release Idrys ... now.”

  “At once, Primus.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE MIGHTY INTRUDER was completely unmarked. The only color other than pure ivory was the dark red of the sensor disk and a few docking lights blinking on the hull. Not a mark. Not a flag, not a pennant, not a number, not a symbol, not a clue. No crowing by those who had made it. Only its size, its battle-forward beauty, and its presence here gave any hint about the aspirations behind her. Who would send out an unmarked vessel? Who but invaders wishing to conquer?

  T’Cael tried to keep his shoulders from hunching under the pads of his jacket. His voice was low. “Energy readings?”

  Kai bent over the science station. “Low readings of ion pulsations ... indications of low hyperlight engine energy ... tremendous concentrations of magnetism clinging to its outer skin, but dissipating quickly.” He straightened, and stared out at the huge face on intrusion. “If those portals are weapons outlets, they outgun us twenty-fold.”

  Dark brows gathered over dark eyes. “Low hyperlight emissions,” t’Cael murmured. “Are its engines down, then?”

  “Or is it a bluff?” Idrys appeared from behind him, and her voice filled him with relief that she was here, where she belonged, at precisely the moment of his need for her loyalty and her experience—her trustworthiness.

  [134] T’Cael paced the central command station on the cramped bridge. “Signs of battle damage?”

  “No sign of damage of any kind,” Kai read off, the science station monitor turning his face a muted green. “The trespasser is untouched.”

  “Bring all systems to battle readiness,” t’Cael ordered. “Arm all energy missiles.”

  “Missiles armed,” the helmsman reported.

  “Raise defense shields.”

  “Shielding raised.”

  “Stand by gunnery stations fore and aft. Place auxiliary sensors on wide scan in case there are more intruders in the distance. Prepare all supplementary artillery backup systems, and bring the ship’s engines to power edge for sudden maneuvers.”

  “All systems comply,” Idrys spoke into her intraship communicator, after which she calmly tapped out the authorization codes for such heavy use of their arsenal.

  T’Cael’s black eyes tightened as he glared at the alabaster warship. He had trained himself long ago to be cautious first, trusting last. “Maneuver Raze into maraud position.”

  Kai swung around. “One lone ship against that?”

  Calmly turning, t’Cael allowed a brief silence to burn between them. “We are only one ship. We cannot become more until the Swarm arrives. Do you prefer to run away and hide until then?”

  Kai squirmed. Then he came to attention. “No, my Lord Primus.”

  “Maraud position.”

  “At once, Primus.” Stiff-lipped, angered at his foolishness before the crew, Kai nodded to the helmsman to implement the position.

  T’Cael paced the small area in front of the viewer as though he dared not leave that space, as though somehow it made him closest to the big alabaster vessel, as though he could know something about it sooner than anyone else. “Be sure to maneuver Raze into maraud position in full crossbow style. Present our smallest profile to the intruder.” The crew executed the maneuver hunched over their controls, well aware that the Primus was watching them. “Compare its design to all known designs in every available index. We must know who they are.”

  “They are infiltrators,” spoke a voice considerably less welcome to t’Cael than any he had heard so far, and certainly the voice of experience where infiltration was concerned.

  [135] Bridling himself, t’Cael ignored Ry’iak’s comment and reiterated, “Be sure to trace designs of major governments for at least the past half century, ch’Havran time.”

  “We are doing that, Primus,” Kai answered, his nervousness poorly disguised.

  T’Cael cast a glance at Idrys to see if he was reading Kai right, and apparently from her compressed lips, he was. Kai didn’t like having Idrys back on the bridge. He wasn’t sure what codes were being broken, but certainly some were, and not codes inclined to be gentle when they were ruptured. Idrys’s presence here put Kai in third command again at just a time when he might have glimpsed advancement. Yet that ship out there frightened the subcommander also, t’Cael coul
d tell. A fright, and a temptation. Things could move in any direction now.

  “Primus,” Kai addressed, once more in control of himself.

  “Report.”

  “None of our indices carry record of that configuration, nor of any configuration, even remotely like that shape. The disk and engine pods are distinctive, yet they seem to have evolved from nothing.”

  T’Cael closed his eyes and folded his frustration inside his arms. “So much for the wisdom of keeping only trim abilities in warbird computers.”

  “Until we contact the mothership,” Idrys said, “we have no way of knowing what our spies might know about that shape.”

  “The Empire is afraid even to tell itself what it knows,” t’Cael told her, rather mournfully. He paced in front of the viewscreen as though he could circle that unknown vessel and choke an identity out of it. “We besiege a ship that may not be unknown to the Council at all, yet it’s unknown to us. How can we know? They’ve done nothing more threatening than appear. We may be putting our guard up against a potential ally.”

  “Or an enemy so great the Supreme Praetor is afraid to tell of its existence,” Idrys added.

  Ry’iak, quivering with fury, swung out from his hiding place behind the strut. “The Praetor fears nothing! And who could keep a vessel of that kind a secret?” He swung his hand toward the viewer and indeed there was a plume of truth in his words. Even the Praetorate would not be able to hide the existence of that big and powerful a ship.

  Idrys came close to t’Cael and spoke in a tone that was private, yet not a whisper, for a whisper would draw suspicion. “We must appear [136] strong, even though we are one ship. Do we fire on them? A warning burst?”

  “Is that your recommendation?” t’Cael asked her.

  She thought about it, then made her answer slow and delibarate. “No. I recommend communication. Try to find out their intentions. Why they invade our space, and how so suddenly.”

  “I concur,” t’Cael said. “Prepare a dispatch to the intruder. Demand identity and declaration of intentions.”

  “Language, sir?”

  Problem on top of problem. Was it safe to assume the interloper knew it had come deep into Rihannsu space? There was no more widespread language than that of the Homeworlds, not for hundreds of lightyears. And Raze was hardly hiding its identity, with its glossy black hull and preybird feathering.