Star Trek - TNG - 08 - The captain's Honor

by David

  The Centurion followed.

  "Should we break orbit and follow, sir?

  In case Captain Sejanus needs our

  help?" Wesley asked.

  "No," Picard said firmly.

  "Absolutely not. Our assignment and our

  responsibility is to protect Tenara. Just

  keep both ships on the main viewscreen."

  If Sejanus does get himself into trouble,

  I'll have no choice but to go to his aid.

  The main viewscreen showed the running

  battle. The Centurion was right behind the

  M'dok ship, pouring huge amounts of energy

  into it in the form of phaser bolts and photon

  torpedoes.

  "The M'dok are only moving at about

  one-tenth warp, sir," Worf said. "That first

  barrage from the Centurion must have crippled

  them."

  There was something unspoken in what Worf said

  approval of Sejanus' tactics. Picard

  understood the Klingon to be saying that if one were

  forced to fight, then that was the way to do it. Picard

  hoped that Worf had not failed to see how

  unnecessary it had been for Sejanus to fight at

  all--that it had been the appearance of the

  Centurion on the scene, coming in

  unexpect edly from deep space, that had

  precipitated the battle.

  "Turning and fighting, at last," Worf said

  with undisguised satisfaction. "The only

  choice left to them at this point."

  "A channel to the Centurion, Mr.

  Worf," Picard said.

  "Channel open, sir."

  "Captain Sejanus," Picard said, "I

  urge you to break off this engagement now, before there

  are casualties."

  Sejanus' face filled the screen.

  "We--"

  A loud burst from the M'dok ship indicated

  that the fight was truly joined--and

  suddenly the uneven battle no longer seemed

  so uneven.

  The M'dok counterattack was vicious and

  unrestrained. The percentage of energy they were

  diverting from their deflector shields to their

  phasers was almost total--and the Magna

  Romans found themselves under such heavy bombardment

  that they were in no position to take advantage of

  that lowering of the M'dok shield energy.

  "Centurion taking some damage," Worf

  said. "Their shields will be in danger soon, at

  this rate."

  At some level, Picard had known it would

  come to this--to his being drawn into a battle

  by Sejanus, inffbeing forced to take lives and

  to endanger his ship. "All right! We'll go

  to help them. Mr. Crusher, lay in course and

  initiate. Mr. Worf, full power

  to shields. And then full phaser power as soon

  as range permits."

  But even as the Enterprise was on its way,

  the Centurion suddenly accelerated

  directly toward the M'dok ship, full in the

  face of its continuous phaser barrage.

  Still sluggish, and no doubt astonished, the

  M'dok were unable to maneuver out of the way. The

  two ships collided at an immensely high

  closing velocity.

  More precisely, their shields collided.

  Both sets of shields flared as they radiated

  the kinetic energy that had just been dumped into them.

  The ships bounced away from each other like rubber

  balls.

  But it had been a glancing blow, and it had

  been under Sejanus' control. So while the

  Centurion wobbled drunkenly for a moment and

  then came back under control, its shields low

  but still intact, the M'dok ship spun away,

  rotating wildly, and in one area its shields

  went far too low for safety. As soon as that

  area rotated back into view, photon

  torpedoes flashed out from beneath the Centurion's

  saucer and into the area of weakened M'dok

  deflector shields.

  The M'dok ship exploded soundlessly. The

  marvelous construction of metal and energy and

  design, of science and technology, of

  hardware and software, erupted in a minuscule

  fragment of a second into a boiling, expanding

  cloud, glowing in every color, a mad

  orgy of self-consuming energies.

  The terrible image faded, and space was

  empty once again.

  "Captain Sejanus hailing you again."

  "On-screen."

  Sejanus' face was a mask of confusion.

  "Picard, why didn't you come to our defense?"

  For a moment Picard was too stunned

  to respond. Then he gathered his wits. "You

  deliberately forced this encounter, Captain. I

  do not condone the needless slaughter of an

  opponent!"

  "Needless slaughter!" Sejanus looked

  surprised. "We are talking about the animals

  who butchered an entire village--or perhaps

  you've forgotten that story, Captain!"

  "Perhaps you've forgotten what we're doing

  here," Picard said. "It was the appearance of your

  ship, and the way you chose to come on the scene, that

  made the M'dok fight. You forced it."

  "If you recall," Sejanus said icily,

  "we were fired upon first."

  "Semantics, Captain," Picard

  replied. "And what about your own ship and crew?

  How dare you risk their lives

  unnecessarily? That engagement should never have

  happened! The M'dok were fleeing!" His voice

  had risen in volume. Picard realized he was

  close to losing control, to shouting out his anger.

  "They came to this planet to attack,"

  Sejanus said firmly.

  Picard shook his head. "I've been trying

  to avoid putting you in this position, but you've

  made it necessary. In addition to the orders

  Admiral Delapore sent both of us, he

  also included coded orders specifically to me,

  giving me the authority to place myself in

  supreme command of both our ships and the entire

  Tenaran operation. I didn't want to invoke

  that order, but your behavior makes it

  unavoidable, and I am now doing so."

  "Why, that's nonsense!" Sejanus

  blustered. "Why should I believe that?"

  Picard straightened again and lowered his voice

  to its normal level. "I'll have a copy of

  my orders transmitted to your ship immediately,

  and of course you can contact Starfleet Command for

  verification, if you like."

  "I'll do that," Sejanus said. "Rest

  assured, I will most certainly do

  that."

  Sejanus' image disappeared.

  "That fool," Picard muttered softly,

  taking his seat again. Is he deliberately

  trying to start a war?

  "Picking up an interesting anomaly on the

  planet's surface, sir," Data said,

  breaking in on Picard's train of thought.

  "What kind of anomaly?"

  "We just caught it on our last pass,

  sir. An unnatural concentration of

  metallic elements. Coming over the area again

  now."

  "On viewscreen, please."

  At first, it seemed to be merely an

  elongated clearing
in the Tenaran forest, with something

  glittering at one end of it. "Magnification,"

  Picard called out.

  The picture ballooned outward, and

  Picard could see that the clearing was not a

  natural one--that trees had been shattered and

  thrown violently aside, that the ground had been

  plowed up--and that the glittering object was

  actually many objects, the remnants of a

  ship.

  "M'dok," he said. "But how did they get

  past us?" He opened a channel to engineering.

  "Mr. La Forge, what happened to the

  satellite net?"

  Geordi's voice came back clear and

  strong. "Nothing, sir. It's working just fine."

  "An inept landing," Worf said, nodding

  toward the picture on the viewscreen. "Perhaps

  it killed them."

  Picard shook his head. "Didn't you know that

  cats have nine lives, Mr. Worf?"

  "Sir?"

  "Never mind. We'll make no

  assumptions. Mr. Data, scan the

  wreckage, please."

  "Aye, sir." After a brief pause the

  android said, "No organic traces in the

  wreckage, sir."

  Picard grunted. "Then they're somewhere in the

  forest."

  He had no need to say any more than that. The

  forest stretched for thousands of square kilometers

  below them, impenetrable from above even with their

  sophisticated instruments. The M'dok could be

  hiding anywhere in it, and the Enterprise

  would have no way of finding them. Everyone near that

  crash site was in extreme jeopardy.

  Picard rose to his feet. "Mr.

  Worf, please find Commander Riker for me on

  the planet's surface. And contact the

  Centurion and have them warn their personnel

  to be on the lookout for the M'dok. I'll be in

  the ready room."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "And, Mr. Data?"

  "Yes, sir." The android turned in his

  chair to look at Picard.

  "Find out how they got past us, and make

  sure it doesn't happen again!"

  It took close to half an hour for Worf

  to locate the Enterprise's first officer.

  Finally Picard was speaking to Commander Riker's

  image on the small screen on the ready

  room's desk.

  Picard filled him in on the arrival of the

  M'dok ships, and the destruction of one of them

  by the Centurion. "Now we've just detected

  signs of a crash landing on Tenara by another

  M'dok ship. We can detect no signs of

  bodies inside the wreckage, so we must

  assume that the M'dok survived the crash and

  are now at large on the surface--probably

  within the forest somewhere outside Zhelnogra, where

  they are hidden from our sensors. I'm

  transmitting the coordinates of the crash to you

  now."

  Riker's expression grew tense. "That's

  very bad news, Captain. Has there been no

  response from the M'dok Empire to our offers

  to help them fight the plague?"

  "None yet, I'm afraid." He shook

  his head. "Number One, this may mean war

  yet."

  "I sincerely hope not, sir--especially

  if Tenara ends up being the battleground."

  Riker paused. "How did this ship sneak by the

  satellite net?"

  "Commander Data thinks that the two ships we

  saw were sent to record as many hours as possible

  of the satellites' sensor broadcasts, so that

  they could later analyze them and learn

  to duplicate them. The ship that crashed used that

  knowledge to dupe the satellites."

  "Could they have staged the battle to allow that

  second ship to sneak by?"

  "Absolutely not," Picard said firmly.

  "Captain Sejanus deliberately

  provoked that incident."

  Riker shook his head. "I still have trouble

  believing that of a man like Sejanus, sir."

  "I have the feeling none of us knows him as

  well as we thought, Number One." Picard

  changed the subject. "How's your survey

  coming?"

  "Fine, sir. I'll be sending back

  preliminary reports tomorrow, but it seems that

  all the Tenarans will need from us are basic

  supplies and perhaps a few pieces of heavy

  machinery to rebuild." He hesitated a

  moment. "Are we having problems with the

  government, sir? With Melkinat?"

  Picard shook his head. "I'm afraid I

  don't understand."

  "Well ..." Riker looked uncomfortable.

  "I'm afraid his daughter seems to have turned

  against us--me--over the last day or so. Very

  strange."

  "Nothing you've done, I trust?"

  "No sir," Riker said emphatically.

  "She was supposed to complete the survey with us

  and then return to Zhelnogra, but now she's

  gone off on her own. I'm at a loss

  to explain it."

  "Well, contact me again when you rendezvous

  with her in Zhelnogra. Perhaps one of us will know

  the reason for her change of attitude then."

  He exchanged a brief smile with his first

  officer. "Picard out."

  The small screen went dark.

  "Mr. Worf?"

  "Aye, sir."

  "About those personal-defense training

  classes you wanted to conduct down on the

  planet's surface?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "I think now would be a good time to start

  arranging those."

  The M'dok commander stretched lazily,

  purred with satisfaction, and curled up into a

  ball. He was comfortably fed (for the first time in

  how long?), pleasantly warm, and intended

  to sleep for the next few hours. He was on his

  way to doing just that when a hissing voice he

  knew all too well interrupted

  him.

  "Commander! Darkness! Now would be the perfect

  time."

  The squad leader seemed determined to sink his

  teeth into that afternoon's argument again, to nibble at it,

  worry at it, growl over it--in short,

  to drive the commander mad with it.

  He opened one eye and bared his teeth.

  "Squad Leader! Orders! Now would be the

  perfect time for punishment for insubordination."

  "But if we fail to move now, and the Federation

  finds us, then who will be in the wrong?"

  The commander could sense the growing feeling in the

  others that the squad leader was right. The most

  elementary of battle tactics seemed to be

  escaping them; this plague was making them

  into animals. It was time to reassert himself. He

  rose halfway and shook himself, throwing off

  sleepiness, then stood erect. The commander was the

  tallest and broadest of the party--which was in large

  part why he had risen to a higher rank than

  any of the others. Now he glared down at them,

  growling as the fur along his shoulders and on his

  head rose, making him look even bigger. The

  other M'dok stepped back nervously and

  avoided his eyes.

  He sneered,
and his foot lashed out, into the

  pile of bones on the ground before him. Tenaran

  bones flew into the air and showered down on the

  squad leader. To have the bones of prey thrown

  upon him was one of the worst insults a M'dok

  warrior could suffer, but suffer it he did, and in

  silence. He had to.

  The sun had set two hours earlier. On

  the horizon, the moon was a thin sliver. Even

  for humans who lived in rural surroundings, like

  the Tenarans, the landscape was only dimly

  lighted. But to the M'dok, the light was more than

  adequate for killing. It had been daylight

  when this party had descended upon a tiny

  village, inhabited by only two families,

  and killed everyone there. Now the commander wanted

  to sleep until the meal was properly digested,

  but the squad leader wanted to keep moving,

  to head toward the much larger town ahead of them.

  We need our minds and bodies clear before

  then, the commander knew.

  "Enough!" he snapped. "It was I who

  devised the method of deceiving the satellites and

  thus found a way of landing on this world

  once again, despite the Federation defenses.

  I decide when we move--and where."

  The squad leader, his eyes still averted,

  grumbled to himself, bent to pick up a human

  leg that still had some meat on it, and retreated behind

  a tree.

  Satisfied, the commander dropped to the ground

  again, curled into a ball once more, and began

  to drop off to sleep. The stray thought crossed

  his mind that perhaps he would be wise to have the squad

  leader tied up until morning. But he was too

  sleepy and full of food to bother.

  It was the first serious error the commander had ever

  made. It was also the last.

  Chapter Nine

  "Attack me," Worf ordered.

  Ingerment, the young Tenaran man standing in

  front of him, giggled. The other young Tenarans

  seated in a circle around the two giggled in

  response. Ingerment stared at the ground.

  "I said, attack me!" The deep,

  rumbling voice was louder this time.

  Ingerment giggled again, but this time with more

  nervousness than amusement. The others did not

  giggle at all. They were beginning to look

  uncomfortable--and some of them, scared. Still, nothing

  happened.

  "Attack me!" Worf roared. The

  Tenaran turned pale, his eyes widening in

  fear. He raised his right hand, hesitated, and

  then shoved Worf lightly in the chest.

  Worf raised his face to the ceiling of the

  gymnasium and howled the ancient cry of a

  Klingon warrior. The Tenarans all