Precipice

by David Mack

  “Three,” Bridy Mac said. “The Klingons annexed FGC 62-24–Gamma last month. They call it Gr’oth now.”

  Shaking his head, Quinn said, “That’s just great.” He reached the end of the terse command directive on the data slate. “Is this all your SI pixel-pushers sent? What about advance intel on the third planet?”

  “There is none. That’s why they’re sending us.”

  “Lovely.” He gave the data slate back to her. “Hand me that towel, will ya?”

  She grabbed a soft cotton towel from atop the cargo container behind her and tossed it to him. He caught it, mopped the sweat from his face, and draped it around his neck as he stood up. “Did you put in the new coordinates yet?”

  “I decided to give you the honor,” she said with an insincere half smile.

  Quinn headed for the ladder. “In other words, you still can’t figure out how to run my custom nav computer.”

  “Let’s just say I’m not used to working with something so primitive,” she retorted, following him across the cargo deck.

  “Primitive? It’s cutting edge!”

  “I was talking about you.”

  “Okay, that was just cold.”

  He climbed the ladder and strode across the main deck toward the cockpit. I wonder what Tim would say if he could see this ol’ ship today, Quinn mused, remembering his months of bizarre drunken adventures with reporter Tim Pennington. Back then the Rocinante had resembled nothing so much as a flying bar; now there wasn’t a drop of alcohol anywhere on board. I bet Tim wouldn’t even recognize ol’ Rosie like this. Or me, for that matter.

  Bridy Mac had never asked Quinn about his former traveling companion and partner in misadventure, and he hadn’t volunteered any information about Tim—or any other facet of his past—in all the months he had worked with her. He made no secret of his being more than mildly smitten with Bridy, but even though she was a right pretty bit of eye candy to have aboard on a long haul, the truth was that he missed his friend.

  Who’m I kidding? He smiled. I just liked taking his money when we played poker. Poor guy couldn’t bluff for shit.

  He stepped into the cockpit, dropped into the pilot’s seat, and punched in the new coordinates. “Ready to set sail,” he said as Bridy Mac eased herself into the copilot’s seat. “Give the word, m’lady, and our next jaunt—”

  “Just go already.”

  Quinn engaged the warp drive. “Yes, ma’am.”

  7

  February 21, 2267

  Reyes awoke to an ear-splitting screech that sounded like a diamond-tipped saw chewing through steel.

  His eyes snapped open as he flinched from the clamor. Rolling over on his hard metal bunk, he realized the unholy racket was coming from the corridor outside the brig. He sat up and looked through his cell’s force field.

  The door to the corridor slid open, and two Klingon soldiers backed into the brig. They were dragging something. Each warrior held a long pole with a hydraulic grasping apparatus affixed to the end. Trapped in the prisoner-control devices was a struggling Tholian.

  Clad in a full-body environment suit of shimmering bronze Tholian silk, the shrieking prisoner thrashed and flailed wildly, fighting to break the Klingons’ grip. Pushing the crystalline arthropod from behind were three more Klingon troops; two prodded the creature forward while one labored to control the Tholian’s whipping, scorpionlike tail.

  The entire group—prisoner and captors alike—stumbled awkwardly from side to side, slammed against bulkheads, and lurched forward and backward and diagonally. If not for the skull-piercing din, Reyes might have found the spectacle funny. At the very least, he respected the tenacity necessary to capture a Tholian alive.

  He got up, stood at his cell’s force field, and watched the Klingons herd the screeching Tholian. They pulled the creature off balance until it toppled forward, then they shoved it into the cell opposite Reyes’s and released it. The soldier closest to the control panel for the other cell activated its force field.

  The Tholian charged the Klingons. It struck the invisible barrier, which flared bright white and crackled with shocking energies as it repelled the attack. Undaunted, the Tholian charged again. There was another flash of light and a sharp electric buzzing, and the creature was thrown against the far wall of its cell.

  After a moment, the Tholian fumbled to its feet but seemed to have no further intention of challenging its cell’s unseen barrier. Scuttling slowly around the tiny space, it appeared to resign itself to its captivity.

  Looking worn out, the five Klingons grumbled low curses as they left the brig. None of them spared so much as a glance in Reyes’s direction. The door slid shut behind them.

  Reyes stood at the front of his cell and said nothing while he watched the Klingons’ newest guest explore its confinement. The creature made a number of low scratching and clicking sounds as it probed the ceiling and bulkheads.

  Then it took note of Reyes and turned to face him, but said nothing. The two regarded each other for several seconds.

  Breaking the silence, the Tholian said through its pressure suit’s vocoder, “I am Ezthene.” The translated voice had an unmistakably masculine quality.

  “Diego Reyes. What’re you in for?”

  At first, Ezthene seemed perplexed by the question. Then he said, “I was captured while trying to reach Vanguard.”

  Reyes immediately took a keener interest in the conversation. “Why were you going to Vanguard?”

  Ezthene hesitated before answering. “I was a high-ranking member of the political castemoot on Tholia. After our vessel Lanz’t Tholis returned from Jinoteur, the Ruling Conclave issued an edict calling for the escalation of military force in the Shedai Sector. I … dissented.”

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  Ezthene made some curious gestures with his forelimbs as he spoke. “I had met with a member of Lanz’t Tholis’s crew, a weapons officer named Nezrene. She convinced me there was more to be gained by cooperating with the Federation than by opposing it. Together, we petitioned the Ruling Conclave and asked it to sanction the diplomatic pursuit of a truce. They refused.”

  Nodding, Reyes said, “And they held a grudge.”

  “To put it politely, yes,” Ezthene said.

  “The impression one gets of your society from the outside looking in is that it doesn’t much care for iconoclasts.”

  “True. Nonetheless, we exist.” With an expansive motion of his forelimbs, Ezthene continued. “Suspecting we would be in danger after provoking the Ruling Conclave, Nezrene and I decided to seek asylum on Vanguard. To improve our chances, we split up and took separate, mutually unknown routes. I can only hope she was not captured as I was—or suffered a worser fate.”

  “Well, if she makes it to Vanguard, she’ll be okay.” Reyes thought about the difficulty the Klingons must have gone through to capture Ezthene and the expense they had likely incurred by hiring mercenaries to capture Reyes himself; he suspected the two abductions were related. “Do you happen to know why the Klingons want you alive?”

  “Not yet,” Ezthene said. “I was hoping you could explain that, Commodore.”

  Reyes lifted his brow in surprise upon being addressed by his former rank. “You know who I am?”

  “Yes,” the Tholian replied. “You became quite well known after the Gamma Tauri IV massacre.”

  “Did you hear I got court-martialed and convicted?”

  Ezthene made a few soft clicking sounds his vocoder didn’t translate. Then he said, “I was unaware of that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Reyes said. “But I’m not called commodore anymore. I was stripped of my rank when I got convicted.”

  Bending its lower limbs to simulate a bow, Ezthene said, “I meant no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “How, then, shall I address you?”

  “Diego is fine.”

  Peering across the dimly lit brig with eyes that glowed with the golden fire of molten ore, Ezthene a
sked, “So, Diego, do you know why the Klingons have taken us?”

  Reyes saw no point in lying. “Nope.”

  “We should consider some of the possibilities,” Ezthene said. “Perhaps they wish to interrogate us for intelligence to use against our peoples.”

  “I’ve been here for three days,” Reyes said. “So far, no one’s asked me a goddamned thing.”

  Ezthene ruminated quietly for a few seconds. “There were rumors the Klingons had placed a bounty on your life.”

  “It wasn’t a rumor,” Reyes said. “But if that’s all this was, they could’ve killed me weeks ago. And whoever grabbed me handed me over in a hibernation pod. If they plan to put me on trial back on Qo’noS, why thaw me out before I get there?”

  “Excellent queries,” Ezthene said. “In any event, their vendetta against you would still not explain my presence.”

  “Also true,” Reyes said. “Unless you ticked them off. Did you ever insult some random Klingon’s mother?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  Reyes frowned with boredom. “So much for that theory.”

  “Is it possible,” Ezthene asked, “we are being held for ransom?”

  “Maybe you are,” Reyes replied. “But me? Not a chance.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Unable to help himself, Reyes let out a grim chortle. He wondered whether Ezthene could appreciate his gallows humor as he replied with a taut smile, “Haven’t you heard? I’m dead.”

  8

  February 21, 2267

  Days of hiking through the mountains had left Pennington tasting nothing but dust and dried-fruit rations. After a long night’s march over broken ground, he was glad to have the intimidating peaks of the L-langon mountain range behind him.

  He and T’Prynn reached Toth’Sen, a settlement just beyond the southern end of the Khomir Pass, shortly after dawn. The small agrarian village glowed like burning gold in the light of early morning. Like most cities and towns on Vulcan, it had been built around a rare oasis of fresh water and green vegetation. Its main roads radiated from its center and were linked at regular intervals by circular boulevards.

  “I need to procure supplies for our journey,” T’Prynn said. She stopped in front of a small meditation temple. “Wait for me here until I return. Do not speak to anyone. Is that clear?”

  Too tired to argue, Pennington said, “Crystal.”

  Without further explanation, T’Prynn vanished down a street toward the village’s center.

  Pennington took off his pack and set it against the temple wall. He planted his hands on his lower back and stretched until he felt a few vertebrae release their tension with satisfying pops. His entire back ached, from his shoulder blades to his pelvis—a consequence of spending three days sleeping on a thin bedroll stretched over rocky soil.

  Flexing his fingers, he found dehydration had left his skin feeling brittle and tight. He fished his last canteen of water from his pack and drained half of what was left in it.

  There was no shade where he was standing, so he picked up his pack and moved around the corner, beyond the suns’ reach. He sat down on the dusty ground and leaned against the overfilled pack.

  And he waited.

  It hadn’t occurred to him to ask T’Prynn how long she would be gone. He silently berated himself for not being more curious.

  Spindrifts the color of nutmeg flew low to the ground.

  Nevasa burned brighter as it ascended by slow degrees.

  From somewhere in the heart of the village, a lonely melody of flute music, as soft as a breath and as light as air, rippled through the town’s deep reservoir of silence.

  Toth’Sen began to stir. Then all at once it was awake.

  Pedestrians cast wary glances at Pennington as they passed by. He began to feel self-conscious and exposed. Maybe I should find someplace less visible to wait, he thought. Then he remembered T’Prynn had instructed him to stay at the temple.

  Nearly two hours passed without any sign of T’Prynn, and he began to fear she had, in fact, ditched him. That’d be just brilliant, he brooded. Alone and broke on Vulcan. He smiled as he thought, Might not be a bad start for a novel.

  He had started to nod off when T’Prynn finally returned. She was almost silhouetted against the pale red sky. He squinted up at her. She had traded her large pack for a small canvas overnight bag, which was slung over her shoulder. He asked, “Where’s your gear?”

  “I exchanged it to facilitate the creation of new travel documents.”

  Lifting his arm to shield his eyes so he could see her expression better, he said, “You paid someone to forge a new ID for you? I didn’t know Vulcans did that sort of thing.”

  “Not all of this planet’s residents are Vulcans,” T’Prynn said.

  “And I made the documents myself. My payment was merely for access to the necessary materials and equipment.”

  “Right,” Pennington said. Overcoming the stiffness in his legs and back, he got up. “Someone gave you that kind of access in exchange for camping gear?”

  “Actually, Mister Pennington, your pack contains the bulk of our outdoor survival equipment. Most of the contents in my pack were relics from the commune at Kren’than, which outside the settlement are rare and considered rather valuable.”

  “I’ll add forgery and theft to your growing list of crimes,” Pennington said. “Did you at least get a good price for your loot?”

  “Enough to make my documents and buy us passage on a private transport to Ajilon,” T’Prynn said. “An offworld merchant whose business here has concluded offered us a ride to the spaceport in Khomir. There we will board our transport and leave Vulcan.”

  Pennington shook his head. “I know it might seem like a great plan, but I think you’re forgetting a few things. A new ID won’t be enough to get you off Vulcan. Even though the UFP says its worlds have open borders, the reality—”

  “I am aware of my homeworld’s stringent regulation of its citizens’ movements on and off the planet,” T’Prynn said. “My new travel documents will enable me to overcome any impediments to my travel.”

  “But they’ll scan your DNA so they can verify your identity if and when you return,” Pennington said. “The moment they do, they’ll know who you really are. And that’ll be the end of your little holiday.”

  She regarded him with determined eyes. “It is therefore imperative that you help me prevent Vulcan Security from forcing me to submit to such a scan.”

  He wondered if she was being deliberately obtuse. “How am I supposed to do that? All Vulcan citizens have to get scanned before leaving the planet.”

  “Which is why I must become a citizen of a world that exempts its people from such invasions of personal sovereignty.”

  It took a second for Pennington to realize what she was proposing. “You mean Earth citizenship? But the only way for me to help you become an Earth citizen would be …” His voice trailed off as understanding dawned.

  “Correct,” T’Prynn said, taking him by the hand and leading him inside the meditation temple. “We are getting married.”

  9

  February 22, 2267

  A pair of Klingon soldiers led Reyes into a dimly lit briefing room. “Hello, Diego,” said Ezthene.

  Reyes nodded at the Tholian, who was being shadowed by two Klingon guards of his own. “Morning,” Reyes said.

  “Sit down,” said one of Reyes’s guards. Reyes pulled out a chair from the conference table and took a seat.

  A week had passed since Ezthene’s arrival, but this was the first time Reyes had seen him since their first night of shared captivity. By the next morning, the Klingons had modified a small compartment to provide the kind of superheated high-pressure environment Ezthene needed if he was to remain a long-term prisoner; just as with most other varieties of self-contained environment suits, the Tholian’s silk garment could function for only so long before needing to be recharged and replenished.

  The same st
ench that pervaded every other corner of the ship—a musky blend of sweat and unwashed hair, coupled with a pungent odor of spilled alcoholic beverages—had crept into this cabin, as well. Reyes wondered how much of the stink emanated from the ship itself and how much came from its crew.

  Captain Kutal entered. “Before we begin, you both should know that while I have been told to treat you as guests, if you make even the slightest gesture I don’t like, I will kill you without warning. Do you understand?”

  Ezthene said nothing.

  Reyes yawned, then said to Kutal, “Just get on with it.”

  Kutal growled at Reyes, then looked at the two pairs of guards. “Dismissed.”

  The order provoked wary glances between the four soldiers. They looked to Kutal for confirmation. He tilted his head toward the portal behind him. Moving with bitter resignation, the warriors filed out of the compartment. Kutal locked the door behind them.

  “Now it’s time for you both to meet your benefactor,” he said. He pressed an intercom switch mounted on the tabletop and said, “We’re ready.”

  Another door slid open, and a lone figure strode in. He was a tall, lanky Klingon with a proud bearing. He had thick, curling brows, and his jawline was adorned by a well-groomed beard. The ornate decorations of his robes and sash identified him as a member of the Klingon High Council.

  Reyes would have recognized the man even if he’d been garbed in a burlap sack. He uttered the Klingon’s name in a hostile whisper: “Gorkon.”

  Councillor Gorkon gave Reyes a small smile. “You remember me,” he said. “How flattering.”

  Hearing the Klingon’s voice brought back a flood of bad memories from Reyes’s years as captain of the U.S.S. Dauntless. On numerous occasions he had crossed paths with Gorkon, who back then had been the commanding officer of the battle cruiser I.K.S. Chech’Iw. More than a few lives had been lost on both sides during those so-called skirmishes.