Precipice

by David Mack

  Muttering low, vile curses in a smattering of alien tongues, she steeled herself for a fight.

  A hand clasped McLellan’s shoulder.

  She spun, lifted her phaser, and nearly shot her partner in the face.

  He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Ease up, Bridy Mac.” The lean, clear-eyed scoundrel was standing in a nook along the warehouse’s back wall. McLellan realized she must have walked past him moments earlier without seeing he was there. She had no idea how, when, or where he’d learned to hide himself so perfectly; for now, she added that mystery to the growing list of things she still didn’t know about Cervantes Quinn.

  Lowering her weapon, she shook her head and rolled her eyes at the fiftyish man. “Dammit, Quinn, I nearly killed you.”

  “Join the club,” he said, flashing a good-ol’-boy grin.

  Recalling the mission profile she’d written for this op, she snapped, “I thought I told you to stay with the ship.”

  “Yeah, an’ we both know how good I am at followin’ orders.” Nodding in the direction of her pursuers, he drawled with deadpan calm, “Looks like you got yerself a spot o’ company.”

  “Looks like,” she replied.

  “Lucky for you I poked my head out, then.” He pointed at the silo field. “Here’s my plan for savin’ your skin. We haul ass through here, shootin’ out them stilts as we go. These big-ass silos come down in a heap, coverin’ our backsides. We go up that last set o’ stairs, jump off that catwalk, and catch that rusty comm dish, which I reckon’ll break free when we hit it. Then we ride it down the slope and over the edge into the gorge. Play it right and we should have a fair-to-medium-soft snow landing.”

  Despite knowing there wasn’t a drop of booze anywhere on Quinn’s clattertrap of a ship, she stared at him and wondered if he was drunk.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  He smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

  At the far end of the warehouse someone turned the corner, aimed a flashlight beam directly at Quinn and McLellan, and started yelling for reinforcements.

  Quinn drew his stun pistol and dropped the distant shouter with one shot.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said to McLellan. “My plan is so stupid, you’d rather take fifty-to-one odds on a stand-up fight?”

  Armed men appeared at either end of the alley, on rooftops, and just about every other place in McLellan’s field of vision. She gestured at the silos with her phaser and said to Quinn, “I’ll take the ones on the left?”

  “Deal.”

  They hurdled over the low concrete retaining wall and sprinted into the iron maze of the industrial yard.

  A chaotic firestorm converged upon them. Ricocheted plasma bolts kicked up sparks, and disruptor blasts cut like blades through the twisted old steel around McLellan and Quinn.

  There was no point returning fire. She and Quinn would need all their luck and marksmanship to pull off his crazy plan. With their weapons set to full power, they vaporized struts under each silo as they ran past.

  They didn’t have to hit all the struts—decay and gravity would do most of the work. Quinn and McLellan were just giving the silos a few nudges in the right direction.

  Deep metallic groans preceded the whining of distressed iron, which within seconds became the screech of buckling steel. One by one the silos pitched sideways and slammed to the ground, splitting open and gushing forth their toxic contents.

  McLellan and Quinn kept shooting and sprinting across the sprawl of cracked cement while looking over their shoulders at the surge of caustic acid lapping at their heels.

  They reached the last staircase half a step ahead of an acid bath. A barrage of enemy fire pierced the metal avalanche they’d left in their wake and pinged off the catwalk railing and the wall behind their heads.

  Running side by side, the duo leaped off the end of the catwalk toward a huge comm antenna. As Quinn had predicted, it broke free of the narrow stand on which it was mounted. Clutching the feed horn in the center of the parabolic dish, they rode it in free fall to the snowy slope below.

  The convex side of the dish slammed against the ground, and they raced downhill at a perilous speed.

  Plasma bolts and disruptor beams peppered the hillside around them, kicking up steam and dirt. McLellan volleyed a few shots back at the smugglers, despite there being no way for her to aim with any accuracy during the bumpy slide down to the ravine. She was rewarded by the sight of a few sizable explosions lighting up the night sky behind her.

  “Here comes the fun part,” Quinn said.

  McLellan turned back in time to see the ground come to an end beneath their improvised sled. They were back in free fall, plummeting more than a dozen meters to a curving slope of windblown snow that filled the end of the ravine.

  Their bone-jarring landing made her feel as if she were about to cough up her stomach. They spun and slid down the snowdrift, turning McLellan’s world into a sickening blur.

  The comm dish scraped over sand and slowed. It ceased spinning and came to a halt in front of the open aft gangway to Quinn’s beat-up old Mancharan starhopper, the Rocinante.

  “All aboard,” Quinn said. He staggered to his feet and stumbled up the ramp into the mottled gray cargo ship.

  It took McLellan a few seconds to regain her balance and stand up. As she climbed the aft ramp into the ship, she heard alarmed voices coming from the wooded cliff high above the ship’s port side. “Quinn? Company on the left flank!”

  “Copy that,” Quinn called back from the cockpit.

  Seconds later, a series of emerald-hued flashes lit up the woods above the ship’s left wing. Thunderous explosions split the air half a second later. Then all was quiet.

  “That oughtta do it,” Quinn hollered over the rising whine of the Rocinante’s engines. “Seal the hatch. We’re outta here.”

  McLellan closed the gangway and moved forward through the main cabin to the cockpit. As she settled into the copilot’s chair, Quinn guided the ship to a swift liftoff. By the time McLellan put up her feet, they had cleared the atmosphere and were starbound.

  She asked, “You mined the woods above the ship?”

  “Seemed like a wise precaution.” He adjusted some settings on the helm, then shot her a rakish grin. “So admit it. Not a bad bit o’ rescuin’, right?”

  “It had its moments,” she said, not wanting to puff up her partner’s ego any more than he was already doing for himself.

  For the past year they had worked together in the Taurus Reach as covert operatives of Starfleet Intelligence, gathering information, seeking clues to the ancient and dangerous race known as the Shedai, and disrupting the activities of criminals and Federation rivals throughout the sector.

  SI had recruited McLellan shortly after the return of the U.S.S. Sagittarius from the now-vanished Shedai world known as Jinoteur. As the second officer of the Sagittarius, McLellan had experienced the transformative power of the Shedai firsthand. That, coupled with her expertise in flight ops, combat tactics, and computer science, had made her an attractive recruitment prospect for SI.

  As for why SI had sought Quinn’s services, she imagined it might have had something to do with the fact that he’d risked his ship and his life to save the downed Sagittarius by bringing a replacement antimatter fuel pod to it on Jinoteur. But sometimes she wondered if maybe he’d been hired by mistake.

  She asked, “Did you get all the tannot ore?”

  “Every kilo,” he said. “We’re gonna make a fortune selling this stuff when we get home.”

  “We can’t sell it,” she chided. “It has to be impounded.”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the market value of—”

  “If you sell it, it’ll be used to kill people.”

  He sighed. “Right. Sorry. Old habits.” Casting a sly sidelong glance in her direction, he said, “Seein’ as I did kinda save your life back there, maybe tonight we could tie our hammocks togeth—”

  “Just fly th
e ship, Quinn.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  3

  February 18, 2267

  Red desolation stretched across the horizon and filled Tim Pennington with an aching loneliness.

  He stood alone in the shadow of an automated water-collection station on the edge of the desert outside ShiKahr, the capital city of Vulcan.

  Behind him, the giant primary star of 40 Eridani—which, during his months-long stay on Vulcan, Pennington had learned was called Nevasa—dipped beneath the jagged peaks of the Llangon mountain range, while its binary companions trailed a few degrees above it. To the south, the monstrous orb of Vulcan’s sister planet, T’Khut, dominated the sky.

  His journey to this remote node in ShiKahr’s municipal water-supply network had not been easy. He’d left his short-term lodging before dawn. The city, which was laid out in a circular pattern with boulevards emanating from its center-like spokes on a wheel, had a mass-transit system that was easy to navigate, and it had carried Pennington as far as the outer perimeter. There he’d hitched a ride on a hovercar that was traveling to some small settlements out on the Shival Flats. The driver had let him off approximately ten kilometers from the collection station. From there, Pennington had hiked alone up into the rocky foothills.

  A nagging inner voice told him he was wasting his time. That he should not have come alone, no matter what had been asked of him. That perhaps he should have told someone where he was going before he’d left ShiKahr.

  Too late now, he lamented.

  An arid sirocco whipped up a frenzy of sand on the plains below his vantage point. Soon it would spawn a sandstorm that would grow as it moved east and scour the city throughout the night.

  He shook his head, disappointed in himself. Great, now I’m stuck out here. Why don’t I ever learn? Always following my gut, never using my head. That’s how I get into these cock-ups.

  Pennington had been scheduled to leave Vulcan weeks ago. He was beginning to wish he had done so.

  Then he felt the slip of parchment in his jacket pocket and remembered the peculiar encounter in the ShiKahr Spaceport three weeks earlier that had persuaded him to stay …

  “I’ve got good news and bad news, Tim,” said Dr. Jabilo M’Benga as he emerged from the bustling crowd of Vulcans and assorted aliens in the ShiKahr Spaceport.

  Pennington looked up from his data reader, on which he had been perusing the latest headlines from the Federation News Service. “What’s the word?”

  The Starfleet physician gave a small frown. “The bad news: I can’t go back to Vanguard with you.” A smile of elation broke through his mask of pretend gloom. “The good news is the reason why. I’ve been recalled to Starfleet Medical on Earth pending a transfer to starship duty.”

  With a fraternal slap on M’Benga’s shoulder, Pennington said, “S’great news, mate! If you can find us a pub on this dustball, the first round’s on me.”

  M’Benga shook his head. “Sorry, can’t.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I have less than an hour to throw my gear in a duffel and beam up to the Tremina before she ships out.”

  “Well, you’d better get movin’ then,” Pennington said. “I’d hate for you to miss your ride on account of me.”

  They shook hands. “Thanks for coming to Vulcan with me,” M’Benga said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Pennington said with a small chuckle. “Nothing useful, anyway.”

  “You never know.” M’Benga let go of Pennington’s hand and took a step back, apparently eager to start his journey. “I’ll drop you a line as soon as I hear where I’m getting posted.”

  Pennington nodded. “I’ll be back on Vanguard in a couple of months. Might be a little hard to reach while I’m in transit.”

  “Sure,” M’Benga said, edging back another step. “But stay in touch, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Pennington replied, knowing it was an empty promise. He waved to M’Benga. “Godspeed, Jabilo.”

  “Good-bye, Tim.”

  M’Benga turned and jogged away through the crowd on his way to an exit. He moved with the kind of energy that belongs to people who have something worth running to.

  Heaving a tired sigh, Pennington plodded across the spaceport’s broad atrium. Its soaring arched ceiling made the young journalist think of red stone ribs joined by a crystal membrane the color of rosé champagne. It was shortly before noon, and all three of Vulcan’s suns were visible high overhead.

  The air inside the spaceport was cool by Vulcan standards but still warmer than Pennington preferred; he was grateful for its lack of humidity, however. Vulcan had made him appreciate the saying, “Yes, but it’s a dry heat.”

  As he walked toward a row of automated travel-booking kiosks, he reflected on how he’d come to Vulcan months earlier. It had been almost a year since he had witnessed the emotional sundering of T’Prynn, the former Starfleet Intelligence liaison to Starbase 47, in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing attack on the Starfleet cargo transport Malacca. Moments after the cargo ship had erupted in flames, T’Prynn let out an anguished scream and collapsed.

  Remanded to the medical care of Dr. M’Benga, a human physician who had specialized in Vulcan medicine, T’Prynn had languished in a coma for months. Finally, M’Benga had persuaded Starfleet to allow him to transport T’Prynn back to Vulcan, in the hope that an ancient ritual grounded in Vulcan telepathy might hold the key to her recovery.

  For reasons that even he still found opaque, Pennington had asked to accompany M’Benga and T’Prynn to Vulcan. He had asked himself several times what he was really doing there, and each time the answer eluded him.

  His actions weren’t driven by affection—of that much he was certain. Several months before her breakdown, T’Prynn had sandbagged him; she had used phony sources to feed him a story about the Tholian ambush of the U.S.S. Bombay that despite being true had been seeded with enough doctored evidence to discredit it and him. Apparently not content with sabotaging his career, she’d tried to blackmail him with evidence of his extramarital affair with a female officer who had died on the Bombay.

  He owed her no favors, no allegiance, and no forgiveness. So why in God’s name had he traveled hundreds of light-years to sit by her bedside as some Vulcan mystic pulled her back from the brink of her own personal hell? He still didn’t fully understand how she had become the victim of a rare form of psychic possession by her former fiancé, whom she’d slain decades earlier.

  Clutching the mandala she had given him as a token of her gratitude, and that he now wore on a coarse hemp lanyard, Pennington remained at a loss for answers.

  A masculine voice said, “That’s an interesting medallion.”

  Pennington stopped and turned to face the speaker. It was a Vulcan man dressed in a hooded beige robe. His face was tanned but still had a greenish cast. He wasn’t a youth but not yet middle-aged. Beyond that, Pennington found it difficult to gauge the ages of adult Vulcans based solely on appearance.

  “I’m sorry,” Pennington said, stalling while he got his bearings. “What’d you say?”

  “Your medallion,” the man said, gesturing with his chin toward the mandala resting on Tim Pennington’s chest. “It is quite unusual. How did you acquire it?”

  The manner in which the man asked his question made Pennington uncomfortable. “A friend gave it to me.”

  “Odd,” the man said. “Such rarities are usually bequeathed only to family members.”

  Pennington broke eye contact and tried to sidestep the Vulcan. “You must be mistaken.”

  Blocking his path, the Vulcan said, “It comes from the commune at Kren’than, does it not?”

  At the mention of T’Prynn’s native village, a technology-free retreat populated by mystics and ascetics, Pennington froze. He suspected the man was not really interested in the medallion. Facing him, Pennington was wary as he said, “Yes, it does.”

  “As I thought,” the man said.

  The Vulcan handed him a scrap of frag
ile parchment that had been folded in half. As soon as Pennington took hold of it, the stranger walked away at a brisk pace and blended back into the earth-toned sea of robed Vulcans crowding the spaceport.

  Pennington unfolded the note.

  There were three things written on it: a set of geographic coordinates, a precise time, and a date exactly three weeks in the future.

  He folded it and put it in his pocket.

  His mind was a flurry of questions. Who was this Vulcan who’d asked about the mandala? Why had the stranger given him this information? What did it mean?

  It was too good a lead to pass up. Something was afoot, and Pennington had to know what it was.

  His return to Vanguard would have to wait.

  The shadow cast by the water-collection tower stretched eastward and vanished into the edge of the approaching night. Lightning flashed in the west, a harbinger of foul weather. Something wild roared in the darkness and sounded much closer than Pennington would have liked.

  He checked his watch, which had been synchronized with ShiKahr’s master clock. It was one minute before the time written on the parchment he’d received weeks earlier.

  As he stood and listened to the wind, he considered for the first time that perhaps the note was a warning of an attack—and he had foolishly placed himself in its crosshairs. The trail to the tower was shrouded in darkness now that the suns had set, but nonetheless Pennington considered making a run for it.

  The alarm on his watch beeped twice.

  A hand grasped his shoulder.

  He yelped in surprise and spun around.

  A tall, lithe figure stood before him in a brown desert robe whose cavernous hood was draped low, concealing the person’s face.

  “Right!” he shouted. He pulled the folded note from his pocket and waved it accusingly. “Now that you’ve spooked me half to death, would you mind telling me why?”

  The stranger drew back the hood. It was T’Prynn.

  She met Pennington’s stare with a humble look.