A Time to Kill

by David Mack

  He marched past them, his pistol nakedly brandished.

  “We have to call the constables,” Itani said, blocking his path. “We can’t—” He pushed her aside and kept walking.

  “They’re all part of the military,” Bilok said. “Just like the one who came to kill me. Kinchawn’s declared war upon us. Stand and fight, or stand aside.”

  Dasana fell into step behind him, her own plasma pistol shaking in her white-knuckled grasp. With her free hand she readied her personal com. “What should I tell the others?”

  “Shoot to kill, and meet at Kinchawn’s office. We’re taking back the government.”

  Chapter 52

  U.S.S. Enterprise-E

  THIRTY SECONDS HAD PASSED since Krogan’s warning. Picard felt a growing sense of dread, like a cold ache in his gut. In just over two minutes the Klingon attack fleet would begin its assault, turning all of Tezwa into a killing field. Adding insult to the injury, two dozen of his best personnel, including most of his senior officers, were standing on the front line of a war that didn’t have to happen.

  The tension gripping the young officers who surrounded him was tangible. He trusted all of them to meet the challenges of their duty, no matter what that might entail. He didn’t share their anxiety. What haunted him, he realized, was loneliness.

  To his right—where he expected to find the reassuringly solid presence of Will Riker—sat Perim, a Trill woman whose piloting skills were second to none, but who seemed ill prepared for the role of first officer. To her credit, she masked her awkwardness with quiet grace.

  Looking past Perim, he saw Wriede at tactical, substituting for Vale.

  Lieutenant Magner was only a semiregular face at the helm, and it was jarring to see Ensign Le Roy at ops when Picard had, after fifteen years, grown accustomed to the inimitable precision of Lieutenant Commander Data at that station.

  He felt like a teacher whose star pupils had graduated, leaving him behind to greet a class of fresh-faced new students who had come to take their desks. All the old voices of counsel were absent now, and he felt terribly alone, surrounded by strangers while perched on the lip of the abyss.

  The disaster was eighty-two seconds away when an alert chirped from Le Roy’s console. The young officer couldn’t conceal her rush of renewed optimism. “Captain, incoming signal from Commander Riker!”

  “On speaker,” Picard said. Le Roy nodded to him that the channel was open. “Picard here.”

  The first officer sounded badly fatigued; his pronunciation was a bit slurred. “All teams ready, Captain,” Riker said. “Standing by for your order.”

  “Well done, Number One. Target the guns on the Tezwan fleet. Let us know the moment you’re ready to fire.”

  “Aye, sir…. Targeting now.”

  Picard was about to indulge in a moment of hope when Le Roy declared, in a voice for the entire bridge, “Sixty seconds.”

  Perim showed slightly more discretion, leaning close to Picard to whisper her concerns. “Captain, controlling those guns is only half the battle.”

  “Quite right, Lieutenant.”

  Sparing him the need to elaborate, another com signal beeped, this time on Wriede’s console. “Captain,” the tactical officer said. “Encrypted data coming in from…” He paused, in a moment of what Picard considered to be completely understandable shock. Wriede completed his sentence, even though he didn’t sound like he believed it: “…from Qo’noS.”

  Picard smirked at Perim with the well-earned bravado of a man who’d made a career out of dodging bullets, both figuratively and literally. “That is the other half.”

  Chapter 53

  I.K.S. veScharg’a

  “CAPTAIN, the Ya’Vang is in attack position.”

  “Good.” Fleet Captain Krogan of the I.K.S. veScharg’a made final adjustments to the deployment pattern of his attack fleet. Zurka, his first officer, waited at the tactical station for the captain’s next order. “Order Captain Rota to decloak on my signal,” Krogan said. “The honor of first strike will be hers.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Zurka said.

  Krogan was prepared to overpower the Tezwan ships by a comfortable margin. The planet’s artillery presented a formidable challenge, but defeating it would only make his victory all the more glorious. He had spent the four hours en route planning a complex pattern of cloaking and uncloaking that he was certain would confuse the targeting systems on the planet. He didn’t expect it to prolong any individual ship’s survival by more than a few minutes, but in those few extra minutes he could inflict enough damage to lay waste to every gun on the planet. What little of Tezwa’s natural resources and civilian population survived would be easily cowed and subjugated for the glory and enrichment of the Empire.

  He downed the final tart dregs of bloodwine from his metal mug, then sucked loose a few savory chunks of gagh that had lodged between his razor-sharp incisors and canines. Unlike some flag officers, Krogan was no glutton, but he knew not to go into battle hungry. Some warriors believed that an empty stomach gave them greater fury; it was his opinion that it led to fatigue and slow wits.

  He slammed his fist down on the intraship com. “Krogan to all dropships. Prepare for launch. Qapla’!” With another brusque slam of his palm, he closed the channel. “Zurka, report.”

  “All wings ready to attack on your order.”

  “Has Picard’s ship left the system?” Like many of the elder soldiers of the Empire, Krogan considered the name of that ship to be an expletive, an ill omen, a curse best never said aloud.

  “No.”

  “Fek’lhr take him, then.” Raising his voice to a rough-edged bellow, he barked orders around the bridge. “Arm disruptors and torpedoes! Stand by to disengage the cloak! On my signal, order the Ya’Vang to begin the attack!”

  He lifted his left hand, in anticipation of snapping it forward for emphasis as he issued the order that would deliver the Empire’s icy revenge upon the upstart world below. It is a good day to die, he reminded himself as he prepared to speak.

  Then his bridge turned darker than the deepest pit of Gre’thor.

  The viewscreen, the overhead lights, even the com panels—all were offline, utterly without power. Dim, white emergency lights snapped on where the bulkheads met the deck, casting fuzzy and distorted shadows on the ceiling as it silhouetted the bridge crew. Krogan growled in disgust as he watched the younger officers hammering futilely at their consoles. From every station came the same frustrated report: All systems offline.

  Goza, the communications officer, was the only one who had anything useful to report. “Emergency coms still functioning,” she said. “The rest of the fleet is dead in space.”

  The crew’s speculations multiplied faster than tribbles, but none of them added up to anything better than a wild guess. A new weapon? A natural phenomenon? Zurka turned to Krogan. “We’re unable to restore main power, Captain,” he said, both furious and ashamed. “We have no explanation.”

  Krogan was almost frothing at the mouth with irrational rage. “You don’t?” He wore the darkness like a mask over his bitter dishonor. “I can explain it in one word!” A murderous growl propelled the obscenity that escaped his snarling lips:

  “Enterprise.”

  Chapter 54

  U.S.S. Enterprise-E

  “THERE THEY ARE,” Perim said.

  Picard watched the Klingon armada emerge from under cloak. The battle group consisted of more than sixty vessels, all of which were now poised in strategic attack postures in orbit above Tezwa. Wriede had downloaded the data packet from Worf in barely enough time for Le Roy to configure the subspace signal and transmit the master command code to the still-cloaked fleet. The moment she confirmed that control had been established, she and Wriede coordinated the emergency shutdown of the entire Klingon invasion force.

  Which now lay dead in space, helpless before the two dozen Tezwan vessels moving to take advantage of the Klingons’ sudden incapacity. “The Tezwans are raising
shields and charging weapons,” Le Roy reported.

  “Enterprise to strike teams,” Picard said. “Fire at will.”

  Less than four seconds elapsed between the order and the action. Even though he knew the artillery was firing at reduced power, he still winced as he watched the fiery blasts streak up from the planet and inflict crippling blows on the Tezwan ships.

  Seconds after the cannon fire began, it ceased. In orbit over Tezwa, two fleets lay immobilized—one by force, the other by sabotage.

  “Ensign Le Roy, report.”

  “All Tezwan vessels are showing heavy damage to power systems,” she said, running a confirmatory sensor sweep. “Several are ejecting lifeboats…. Five are signaling their unconditional surrender—to anyone.”

  Picard knew better than to gloat; a disaster of epic magnitude had only just been postponed—it was not yet avoided. He could only hope that in the next several minutes, before the Klingon fleet succeeded in overriding the command lockout, someone in the Tezwan government would take advantage of this momentary reprieve to sue for peace, at any price.

  Until then, however, all Picard could do was continue to play his part in this imminent interstellar tragedy.

  “Picard to strike teams. Well done, everyone. Destroy the artillery system and begin your retreat. Picard out.” He returned to his chair and sat down. “Helm, move us into orbit over Tezwa. Let’s finish this, and bring our people home.”

  Chapter 55

  Tezwa—Keelee-Kee

  “IT WAS OUR OWN ARTILLERY, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  “Damn!” Kinchawn swore, swatting a lamp off his desk. It smashed to the floor of his office and scattered broken glass over the feet of General Minza, who had personally delivered the bad news. “How much of the system is compromised?”

  “All of it.”

  “By whom?”

  “We’re not yet certain. What we do know is that our fleet is dead in space, and more than sixty Klingon warships are in orbit, positioned to strike all our major cities.”

  Kinchawn’s mind raced through the possible scenarios. Had a rogue faction risen up within the military—one loyal to Bilok? Or had the Klingons somehow sabotaged the artillery defense system? The latter scenario seemed implausible until he recalled the report of a suicide attack by a lone Klingon cruiser. They sacrificed their ship to land strike teams, he concluded.

  “One more thing,” Minza said. “Bilok’s alive. I don’t have all the details, but the Gatni ministers have armed themselves and are gathering right now.”

  Kinchawn pushed his skeletal fingers across his scalp. His skullfeathers ruffled with a brittle sound. His breath came only with effort, as if the air were suddenly thick as sap. Sixty warships, he thought. Hundreds of thousands of Klingon warriors. He pondered how long his now-crippled military would fare against such a fearsome war machine. An open conflict would be hopeless; the Klingons would annihilate the tattered remnants of the Tezwan army in days, if not hours.

  He couldn’t begin to fathom what horrors the Klingons would reserve for him personally. Public execution? Torture? He had heard blood-chilling accounts of the Klingons’ rare gifts for painful retribution, which exceeded even his own tolerance for inflicting such measures. Would they assign some grinning demon to kill him by degrees, taking his life one piece at a time? It seemed likely; of all the things for which the Klingons were renowned, mercy was not among them.

  Kinchawn stepped behind his desk and hurled the framed print of the Civil Charter from the wall. Behind it was a computer panel. He placed his hand on the genetic scanner and stood still as it scanned his eyes. “Initiate emergency protocol Jee-lim ko’Cha,” he said, triggering a silent alert that would summon his fellow Lacaam’i ministers to join his flight.

  A circular design in the center of his office floor opened like an iris. A capsule-shaped turbolift, large enough for only one person, rose from the floor. Checking the wall panel, Kinchawn confirmed that his most sensitive personal data files had all been destroyed. He walked to the capsule and stepped inside.

  “Put the army on a resistance footing,” he said to Minza. “Gather the senior officers and rendezvous at the redoubt as soon as it’s safe to travel.”

  “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  He pressed the switch and descended toward his executive escape shuttle. This emergency exit had been designed into the Ilanatava ostensibly as a precaution against foreign attack. But Kinchawn and the other Lacaam’i had long known that the greatest threat to them was not Tezwa’s enemies, but its citizens.

  Four minutes later, Kinchawn settled into his luxurious escape transport, surrounded by dozens of his political allies.

  Their pilot guided the ship vertically out of its secret hangar, emerging from a now devastated park several spans from the Ilanatava. Rising above the city, the ship rocketed away into the night. Kinchawn watched the spires of Keelee-Kee retreat into the distance. The Klingons will pay for this in blood and shame, he vowed. Today is theirs…but every day that follows will be mine, until they are gone.

  Chapter 56

  Tezwa—Kolidos Firebase

  “IN ABOUT SIXTY SECONDS,” Scholz said, “we’re gonna be up to our necks in Tezwans.”

  Peart eyed the glowing-hot wall of smoldering debris that blocked the exit. The pungent stench of burned wiring and molten polymers filled the narrow corridor. The rest of Sierra Team stood behind him, looking about as flustered as he felt.

  Flipping through schematic details on his tricorder, the deputy chief of security searched frantically for another path out of the desert firebase, which was set to self-destruct in a few minutes, with or without them. He preferred it without, if possible.

  T’Sona watched him, her demeanor disturbingly calm under the circumstances. “Logic would suggest,” she began, in a tone of voice that made Peart’s eyebrows furrow with contempt, “that in the event of emergency, there likely would be a—”

  “A shuttle hangar,” Peart interrupted. “One level down and across to the north. Let’s go.” Pushing through the trio, he led the way, jogging at a pace just shy of running for his life.

  All the corridors looked the same, and in Peart’s haste to make his retreat they all blended together into a rolling backdrop of shadowy gray corners and flashing red emergency lights. The prerecorded alert he had triggered, in accordance with his orders to help the base’s Tezwan personnel escape, ran on a short loop. The nasal voice, presumably speaking in one of Tezwa’s many dozens of major languages, urged all personnel to “evacuate at once.”

  The hangar door did not open at Peart’s approach. He slammed into it, and found himself pinned as Scholz and Morello collided with him as well as each other. Aloof and clearly more dextrous, T’Sona stood off to one side of the pileup.

  Pushing back from the door, Peart lifted his rifle and blasted the door lock. Acrid smoke spewed beneath the shower of sparks, and the door opened with a grinding scrape.

  The hangar was half the size of the smallest one on the Enterprise, and it housed only a single small shuttlepod. Sierra Team sprinted to the tiny craft and piled in. Peart slid into the pilot’s seat while T’Sona secured the hatch.

  The nasal voice reverberated in the empty hangar outside: “You have three minutes to reach minimum safe distance.”

  “The forcefields are down,” T’Sona said. “The Tezwans should now be free to evacuate.”

  “Except we have their only shuttle,” Scholz said.

  “Sir,” Morello said. “If we take the only shuttle, how will the Tezwans escape?”

  “They will use the emergency exit,” T’Sona said, trumping Peart’s reply. Morello just sat there with his jaw open.

  Scholz looked at Peart as if he had just shot the man’s dog. “Is that true?”

  “Yup,” Peart said as he powered up the shuttlepod’s engines and confirmed it was fueled and ready to fly.

  Scholz quaked with aggravation. “Then why are we—”

  “’Cause I don’
t want to be standing in a desert with a hundred ticked-off Tezwans after we blow up their base.”

  The two engineers looked at each other and both silently conceded that there was some merit to that argument.

  T’Sona, meanwhile, leaned forward and looked up at the hangar doors, which also doubled as its externally camouflaged roof. “Lieutenant,” she said, “do you know the code to open the hangar doors?”

  “Not exactly,” Peart said. “I’m working around it.”

  She pointed out the cockpit windshield at a squad of armed Tezwan security personnel who had just entered the hangar. “You may wish to work faster.”

  Scholz was beginning to frazzle. “Let’s blast it and go!”

  “We don’t have any weapons,” Peart said flatly.

  “Ram it,” Morello said, clearly thinking on Scholz’s level.

  “And you call me crazy,” Peart said. “Look at those doors. We’d be guacamole.”

  Scholz cringed as the Tezwans aimed their plasma rifles at the shuttlepod. Morello shut his eyes. T’Sona looked bored.

  “Worth a shot,” Peart said as he opened the throttle and pointed the craft’s nose at the roof. Flashing a maniacal grin, he fired the main engine. “Ramming speed!”

  Everything was a blur and a jolt, followed by a lurch and a teetering, spinning escape from an airborne cloud of smoke and debris. The hull groaned and the engines screeched. Oily smoke puffed from the sizzling helm controls. Outside, electric-blue plasma blasts arced past the craft, doing no damage.

  Scholz and Morello’s stunned gasps of numb surprise overlapped in the tiny cabin. The view in front of the shuddering craft dissolved into wisps of passing clouds, which parted to reveal a cinnamon sky. Peart whooped with equal parts relief and excitement. “Yeah! Now that’s a takeoff!”