Precipice

by David Mack

  “Itten bitten little ditten …”

  Dochyiel keyed his comm to the ship. “Zurtmank, Ertobor. I think you need to come see this.”

  “Copy that,” Zurtmank replied. “On our way.”

  “Oaten boaten little dotin’,” chanted the human, whose pants were now bunched around his ankles. He appeared to be growing dizzy from spinning in a circle.

  Behind Dochyiel, the ship’s ramp lowered and his two crew-mates hurried out to stand beside him and laugh at the spectacle. “What a mess,” Ertobor said between guffaws that made his finlike Tiburonian ears flap back and forth.

  “Nish diddly oat dote, bode oh ska deet dot …”

  “Go ahead and shoot,” Zurtmank shouted at the human, displaying his finely honed Balduk sense of humor.

  “Don’t miss,” Ertobor yelled. In response, the human pointed the blaster at his own genitals, and all three of the smugglers exploded with hysterical laughter.

  The human came to an abrupt halt and declared in a grave voice, “G’night, mates.”

  Dochyiel steeled himself, expecting to see the man blow his head off.

  Zurtmank and Ertobor collapsed to the ground, limp and unconscious. Their faces were contorted and each had one shoulder pressed up against his head.

  Spinning to face their attacker, Dochyiel beheld the most beautiful Vulcan woman he had ever seen.

  In a blur she poked him in the chest with her index finger.

  His head spun, and his knees buckled.

  As he felt consciousness slip away, he hoped the woman had killed him—because if she hadn’t, his boss would … and he would make it hurt a lot more than this.

  * * *

  “This is a lovely ship you’ve stolen,” Pennington said as T’Prynn guided the vessel into orbit.

  “I am glad you approve,” she replied.

  He looked around the cockpit and poked at the consoles. “I guess we’ll have to recode its transponder,” he said. “Before our ship gets reported as stolen.”

  “Correct.” Fixing him with a detached stare she added, “One might get the impression you have done this before.”

  He laughed nervously. “Me? No, no. But Quinn told me stories about his younger days. Taught me a few things.”

  “I see.”

  He pointed at the console nearest him. “I could fix the transponder now, if you like.”

  “Not until we have warped out of orbit.”

  “Right,” he said. An alert beeped and flashed on the bank of displays beside her. Pennington pointed at the blinking light. “What’s that?”

  “Space-traffic control on Ajilon requesting our flight plan.” She checked the navigation computer and short-range sensors. “They have no means of restraining us, and there are no ships close enough to respond that are capable of overtaking us, so we are going to ignore them.” She entered a new course into the ship’s helm, engaged the vessel’s stealth systems, and jumped it to warp speed.

  As stretched starlight drifted past outside the cockpit canopy, T’Prynn said, “You may reprogram the transponder now.”

  “On it,” Pennington said, setting to work. After only a few minutes he looked up and said, “Done. I hope you don’t mind, but I changed our ship’s name to Skylla. In Greek mythology, it was one of the immortal horses that pulled Poseidon’s chariot.”

  “If that is your wish, I have no objection.”

  “Thank you.” He finished his task and reclined to watch the stars melt past. “So … what’s next?”

  Staring into the darkness ahead of them, T’Prynn saw only possibilities. “Now we go hunting,” she said.

  15

  March 23, 2267

  “Things have certainly gotten a bit more interesting,” Reyes said from the back of the Zin’za’s bridge.

  A pack of angry Klingons turned aft and glared at him. They seemed decidedly unamused at having their long-awaited siege of Starbase 47 preempted by a nigh-omnipotent race of interstellar meddlers known as the Organians.

  Addressing the Federation and the Klingon Empire, an elder of the Organians known as Ayelborne had appeared simultaneously before the leaders of both nations, and on the bridge of every starship and combat-ready installation of both sides in the imminent conflict. He had rendered the weapons and surfaces of all major systems’ controls too hot to touch. In essence, he had warned both sides to behave themselves or else lose their toys.

  Reyes found it kind of funny.

  Naturally, the Klingons didn’t.

  The executive officer of the Zin’za, a hulking thug named BelHoQ, stormed across the cramped space of crimson light and murky shadows to tower over Reyes. “This must be some kind of Earther trick,” he said with a voice that sounded as if it were made of gravel. “Your kind knows they are going to lose this war, so they asked these yIntagHpu’ to interfere.”

  “I’m guessing you weren’t the captain of your debate team in school, were you?” Reyes pointed at the image of the equally crippled U.S.S. Endeavour and Starbase 47 on the main viewer. “You and your friends were about to get your asses handed to you. If anybody was looking for the ref to stop this fight, it should’ve been you guys.”

  BelHoQ bared his teeth in a growling snarl.

  Captain Kutal barked, “Enough! BelHoQ, man your station!”

  The XO backed away from Reyes, breaking eye contact only once they were several strides apart.

  From his post near where Reyes stood, tactical officer Lieutenant Tonar grumbled, “It seems we’ll have to wait until another day to take our revenge for Mirdonyae V.”

  Reyes had no idea what had happened at Mirdonyae V to piss off the Klingons, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “So, is that it? Is this why you woke me up and dragged me in here?”

  Eyes wide with rage, Kutal snapped, “I brought you here to see your precious station reduced to fire and fragments! So you could bear witness to our moment of victory!”

  Mocking the Klingons’ fury with an insolent smile, Reyes replied, “How’s that working out for you?”

  Kutal looked as if he were about to erupt in a profane stream-of-consciousness rant when the communications officer interjected, “Captain?”

  “What is it, Kreq?”

  “Priority message from High Command, sir.”

  Quaking with bottled-up rage, Kutal said in a deathly quiet voice, “Put it on-screen, Lieutenant.”

  Kreq worked at his console for a moment. Then the image on the main viewer changed to an older, gray-maned Klingon standing in front of a black banner decorated with the Empire’s trefoil emblem.

  “All fleet commanders,” said the Klingon.

  “This is General Garthog. Stand down. Withdraw from Federation space and return to regular patrols. High Command, out.”

  The transmission ended, and the screen reverted to the view of Starbase 47 and the Constitution-class ship holding position between the station and the Zin’za.

  Reyes watched Kutal clench his fists and slowly open them. A black cloud of anger followed the captain as he returned to his chair on the bridge’s elevated center dais. He sat down. “Lieutenant Kreq, hail the rest of our squadron.”

  Seconds later Kreq said, “Channel open, Captain.”

  “All vessels, this is Captain Kutal. We have new orders from the High Command. Stand down. Disengage from attack formation and set course back to the Somraw Anchorage. Kutal, out.” He nodded at Kreq, who cut the channel. “Helm, lay in the course and prepare to lead the fleet home.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the helmsman.

  Vanguard and the Endeavour vanished from the main viewer as the Zin’za and its fleet broke formation and maneuvered away. In less than a minute the Klingon ships had regrouped in a traveling formation and jumped to warp speed, on a heading back to their own space. Reyes was relieved the battle had been averted, but he also felt a renewed sense of despair that he was being carried away from it still in the custody of his enemies.

  BelHoQ checked the bridge’s
duty stations, then made his sotto voce report to the captain, who responded with a curt nod then waved him away.

  Reyes was considering asking his guards to take him to the head so he could do something productive when Kutal walked aft to confront him.

  “Starfleet and the Federation will blame this travesty on Ayel-borne and the Organians,” Kutal said. “The Klingon High Command will no doubt do the same.” He stepped forward and pressed his nose against Reyes’s. “But if I find out your little summit with Gorkon had anything to do with today’s debacle, I’ll make sure you both suffer and die in disgrace.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Reyes said. “I was just happy to have a front-row seat so I could watch Vanguard kick your ass.”

  Kutal’s mouth stretched into a broad, evil grin. Then he said to the guards lurking nearby, “This petaQ is stinking up my bridge. Take him back to his quarters.”

  Brawny soldiers hauled Reyes away. He cooperated, but it made little difference to the Klingon guards, who seemed to like dragging him rather than letting him walk. He wondered how they planned to carry him down the ladder to the next deck.

  Then they reached the ladderway and hurled him down through it.

  He landed hard on the deck below, enduring most of the impact with his hands, elbows, and chest. Before he had a chance to assess whether he’d suffered any broken bones, his guards had descended the ladder, grabbed him, and resumed portering him to his quarters.

  The door to his room hissed open, and the guards hurled him like a meaty bowling ball into the gray-green broom closet with a bunk and toilet that laughingly passed for quarters on this ship. He was grateful to come to a halt against his bunk frame without losing consciousness. The door slid shut, and he heard the gentle thump of magnetic bolts locking him inside.

  Home, sweet home, he mused grimly, climbing onto his bunk.

  There was something on the unpadded slab other than a threadbare blanket and a thin pillow: a book.

  He picked it up. It was thick and heavy, leather-bound and embossed with gold-foil trim. Printed on its cover: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Beneath the title was a reproduction of the Bard’s signature.

  Tucked inside the front cover was a note, handwritten on a scrap of parchment. Reyes plucked it out and held it to the light so he could see it better.

  “I hope you approve,” it read, “though I think these plays were all better in the original Klingon.” Then he saw the signature on the note and laughed.

  “Best regards, Gorkon.”

  Interlude

  16

  May 26, 2267

  Jetanien stood alone on a barren mesa in the midst of a yawning plain. Behind him sat his warp-capable diplomatic shuttle, parked and camouflaged.

  Soon the sun would set. Another wasted day would draw to a close, and Jetanien would retire for the evening inside his tiny vessel, eat a reheated meal from the cache of provisions he’d brought from Vanguard, and go to sleep wondering where he had gone wrong.

  Already days had passed in silence and solitude since his arrival on Nimbus III. The remote planet had seemed like an ideal setting for a clandestine political summit. Unclaimed and all but unpopulated, it was politically neutral and had little in the way of arable soil or exploitable resources. This was a rock for which no one would be willing to fight a war.

  Whether that made it a good place in which to broker a lasting peace, or a good place to die in peace, remained to be seen.

  Resting one clawed manus over the other in front of him, he watched a hundred shades of crimson bleed up from the horizon. He tapped his chitinous beak in amusement at one of his fleeting thoughts. Did I really call this “a remote planet”? Aren’t all planets remote, when one thinks about it?

  The sky had a thousand hues and was utterly empty. The Chelon diplomat searched it for any sign of the two peers he had invited here to meet him. The limited window of time during which they had agreed to meet had begun two days earlier.

  Jetanien had been there at the first appointed hour. The others had not, but that was to be expected. In moments when his pessimism got the better of him, he feared they would never come at all.

  Regardless, he was not dismayed or deterred. He would wait as long as was necessary. He was committed.

  Listening to the wind and the dry susurrus of sand over stone, he reflected on the countless mistakes he had made in the past two years, the deadly blunders and the sobering gaffes.

  I thought I could forge a new interstellar order, he berated himself. What arrogance! What audacity!

  He pictured the face of Anna Sandesjo, a Klingon spy disguised as a human woman who had finagled herself a position as his senior attaché. His staff had detected her subterfuge fairly soon after her arrival on Vanguard, but Jetanien had overruled the regulations that demanded they report her to Starfleet Intelligence and the base commander.

  I thought we could tap her comms, use her to find out what the Klingons really knew. Shame as deep as an ocean welled up inside him. I gambled with her life—and she died for it.

  One failure after another haunted him. Political missteps, such as letting the trilateral talks with the Klingon Empire and the Tholian Assembly degenerate into a litany of threats, made him question his wisdom. Military miscalculations, such as not doing enough to forge an agreement between Starfleet and the settlers on Gamma Tauri IV, had costs thousands of lives.

  My life is a leitmotif of hubris, he brooded.

  The rattling of sabers at Mirdonyae V, to rescue the captured Starfleet officer Ming Xiong from Klingon custody, had only pushed the Federation and the Klingon Empire one step closer to war. Liberating Xiong had been absolutely necessary; Jetanien had never doubted it. But an accidental triggering of the mysterious Shedai machinery on that world had led to the planet’s premature destruction, and the Klingons were making as much political hay from the tragedy as they could.

  War seems inevitable, Jetanien lamented. Will history say that I was to blame? That my misjudgments paved the way?

  He bowed his head until his chin almost touched the top of his chest carapace. You narcissistic fool, he chastised himself. Millions of lives are on the brink of destruction, and you’re fretting over your reputation? You’re worrying about your legacy when others are fearing for their lives? How petty you are.

  Looking up, he drank in the majestic, bleak beauty of the planet around him. Barren, utterly desolate, worthless but for its atmosphere, this blighted orb represented his best hope of making his career stand for more than a farce. It was his last chance to create something of enduring, tangible value to the galaxy.

  Part of him was unable to believe his plan could work. It seemed too far-fetched. Too optimistic. Too invested in ideals such as peace, trust, and hope.

  The sun’s edge sank below the horizon. In the sky, fiery streaks of red turned violet and purple. Stars peppered the darkling heavens.

  Despondent, Jetanien walked toward his shuttle, prepared to consign another day to the abyss of time.

  As he neared the open hatchway of his shuttle-turned-shelter, he heard something behind the cries of the wind, a rising shriek of thrusters underscored by the low thunder of displaced air. He stepped back from his shuttle, arched his back, and looked up into a growing point of light.

  A ship was descending toward the mesa.

  Jetanien adjusted his pristine white-and-gold raiment and straightened his black fez, making sure its white drape was centered behind his head. Then he held his hat in place as he watched the first of his invited peers arrive.

  The small personal transport slowed as it completed its vertical descent and touched down on the mesa, only a few meters from Jetanien’s vessel. Its roaring thrusters shook the ground as it settled into its landing, then they went silent as the ship powered down.

  Its design was distinctively Klingon in origin.

  Jetanien stepped toward it as its side hatch slid open.

  Lugok, the Klingon former ambassador to Vanguard,
emerged from the vessel and strode forward to meet him. Taking the Chelon’s manus in his powerful grip, Lugok said, “Jetanien, you crafty old petaQ. I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

  “I might have said the same of you,” Jetanien replied, shaking the Klingon’s hand. “But I’m encouraged to see you have not entirely given up on diplomacy.”

  Releasing his grip and withdrawing his hand, Lugok said with a jagged smile, “Don’t go all soft on me, Chelon. I just came to see if D’tran of Romulus actually shows up. After all, the man’s ancient, practically a piece of history himself. Who wouldn’t want to meet him?”

  Folding his arms, Jetanien replied, “Regardless of your motive for making the journey, thank you for coming.” Gesturing to his shuttle, he added, “I was about to have dinner. If you—”

  “I prefer to eat alone,” Lugok said.

  “Very well.” Jetanien turned and went back inside his ship. Until D’tran of Romulus arrived, he would still be only waiting. But now at least he had company.

  PART TWO

  Night’s Black Agents

  17

  May 29, 2267

  Most mornings, Captain Rana Desai’s walk from her quarters on Starbase 47 to the main entrance of the Starfleet JAG Corps’ complex in the station’s core was short and free of distractions. Today it was a gauntlet.

  Desai had barely taken one step through the front door when she was set upon by packs of junior officers, all of them pushing data slates at her while calling out hurried requests.

  “Captain, I need you to sign this …”

  “Can you approve this change-of-venue order, sir?”

  “Have you ruled on my discovery motion yet, Captain?”

  She scribbled her signature, fired off curt answers, and delegated several bits of tedium. Just when she thought she had weathered all the obstacles keeping her from her desk, she was intercepted by one of her senior personnel, Lieutenant Holly Moyer. The willowy redhead, who kept her long straight hair tucked in a regulation bun while on duty, appeared beside Desai. “Good morning, Captain.”