by Diane Carey
“It would violate their laws. They never violate their own laws.”
“Mm . . . well, considering they could mash us like grapes—”
He glanced at Scott, whom he noticed was putting the comm broadcast on and off at just the right times.
“Vellyngaith,” he called, “give me one reason why I should believe an offer of surrender instead of just opening fire on you right now, given our past relationship.”
“Commander, I beg to you, general to general. Our weapons are exhausted. We have expelled them against a new enemy. We have become desperate. I wish to come aboard your ship, to prove my truth to you. Scan us. We will bring nothing. I know you can do this with what you have. Bring me there, with these people standing around me. We will prove ourselves to you.”
Beam them over? Here? Who had beaten them so badly that they were “desperate”?
On the screen, thirteen very large, imposing, and well armed Kauld ships hovered. A herd of hyenas standing before a single stubborn stag. They were quite capable of ripping the stag to little leathery shreds. Why did they want to lie down before it?
Vellyngaith must know he was putting his life on the line to come over here. If he wanted to commit suicide, he could do it back home. Did he think the frigate would be somehow vulnerable if he were aboard?
No, couldn’t be.
He didn’t want to ask for opinions again and seem wishy-washy in front of people who needed to have confidence in his judgment. There was a certain amount of professional performance expected of him, or at least he expected it of himself. How often were captains just acting confident?
“Get out the coin,” Bonifay grumbled.
Keller snapped him a look, but the clever bosun was grinning at his own comment. He hadn’t meant it the way Keller was about to take it.
The little joke between them gave him a vitamin shot.
“Put red alert on standby,” he said. “Maintain yellow alert and battle stations. Put the shields on manual. Mr. Scott, can you do that with the transporter? Scan them for weapons?”
As Scott worked the engineering boards, the lights on the bridge shifted from red to day-normal. Keller instantly wondered if that was a good decision. Another gamble. If the enemy was coming on board, he wanted to be able to see very clearly.
“For hardware and energy, yes.” Scott’s brows popped up. “Not reading any. Still a gamble, though. They’ve got what looks to be fifteen life-forms in a pack, ready to beam over.”
That spared Keller’s having to ask the not particularly ridiculous question about whether or not the frigate even had transporters.
“Okay, just let me think.”
“Might not have time.”
Keller held out a hand—an enormity, considering whom he was silencing. “If they’re bluffing, they’re gonna kill us. If they’re surrendering, they’ll wait a minute while I think.”
The carpet fibers blurred before him as he paced in front of the command chair, turned and paced back. As he turned once again, the fibers began to sharpen, his eyes and mind to focus all at once.
He looked over to Bonifay at the nav set. “Have we got sidearms here?”
Bonifay slid out of his chair, crossed to his right and opened a panel in the wall part of the quarterdeck housing. Another smart move—the whole quarterdeck was really a huge storage locker, and every panel a hatch. He pulled open the second one from forward. Inside was a bank of hand phasers.
He looked at Keller. “No security team to use them.”
“Break ’em out.”
Phasers were delivered to all hands. True to the proffer, Vellyngaith was waiting, apparently patiently, and not releasing the firepower they knew he possessed.
Phaser in hand, Keller clicked the weapon to the kill setting. He would take some chances, but not all chances.
And he was strengthened, if not relieved, when Shucorion took a weapon.
The phaser felt good, secure, in his fist. He was glad to have it. There was something peculiarly stiffening about being able to defend himself, or make an ultimate decision that he had every right to make. Its presence made him calm down, settled him inside, gave him the seaworthiness to think clearly, because he knew he possessed the strongest option. Once Vellyngaith and his whoevers came aboard, then thirteen to one wouldn’t matter anymore. This phaser guaranteed that.
He glanced around. Everyone was standing. To his left, Shucorion held his phaser in both hands, gripped in one, cupped in the other. On the port quarterdeck, Savannah and Scott were both standing ready.
His neck cracked as he turned to starboard. There, on the deck beside him, Zane Bonifay was pale, but also ready. Above him, Zoa had her strong legs braced, her knees bent, both arms straight out forward, and a phaser in each hand.
A whole new set of alarms went off in Keller’s head. He put out a hand to get Zoa’s attention. When her blue-dot eyes locked on his, he crisply instructed, “You’re my last line of defense. You fire last, not first. Understand? Do you understand me?”
He held his position. She was making up her mind whether this was a compliment or something else.
Her shoulders relaxed very slightly. “I hav’t.”
Was her word any good? Should he tell her she was Vulcan-like again?
Welding his instruction into place with a final nod, because he only half believed her, Keller stepped back and motioned Shucorion back as well, to make room on the forward deck for the unwelcome contingent about to appear.
“All right, Mr. Scott,” he began, “beam them aboard.”
Only seconds later the blue-gold buzz of transporter beams brightened the bridge. Keller’s chest tightened as the beams settled down into fifteen blue-skinned people. Obviously they were from the same strain as Shucorion’s Blood race, but the culture was completely different. For one thing, they wore jewelry and feathers, beads and brighter colors than the Blood. In comparison with the utilitarian and thrifty Blood, these people looked instantly frivolous.
The assessment might not be fair at all, of course, but that was the first impression.
In front of the group stood a large man with long backswept silver hair that had been knotted with feathers and beads. Vellyngaith.
A warrior command of a whole new hostile culture, one of the most dangerous personalities in the Sagittarius Cluster.
Such a reputation would’ve been borne up rather better, had he not been holding a bundled-up baby in his arms.
If he figured Keller wouldn’t shoot at a guy holding an infant—well, he was right.
And about half of these people were women. Keller hadn’t expected that either. The Blood didn’t fly with their women. He’d expected the same of the Kauld.
He felt suddenly silly holding a bunch of weapons on what looked just like a family reunion.
Vellyngaith met Shucorion’s eyes in a moment of surprise, then simply accepted his enemy’s presence on board this ship and ignored him.
“Commander Keller?” he began.
“I’m Keller.”
Without another word, Vellyngaith stepped forward, shoved the burbling baby into Keller’s arms, never mind the phaser or anything, then lumbered to his knees and crawled all the way down, until he was completely prostrate on the deck in front of Keller.
He took hold of Keller’s ankles and pressed his face to the carpet.
One by one all the adults in the group also went to their knees, then down on the deck, until the carpet was completely obscured by a field of prone forms.
“Kill me,” Vellyngaith entreated, his words muffled by his arms pressed to the sides of his noble face. “Take my son. Take my wife and all these women of power. Kill the Cabinet. Arrest our generals. Imprison our soldiers. We will swear to anything! But help us . . . help us!”
Chapter Twenty-two
KELLER STARED DOWN.
At his feet lay a fan of mortal bodies, some sobbing freely. Whether in fear or shame, he couldn’t guess.
In his arms, the little Vellyngaith cooe
d and waved his tiny blue fists. At least they had babies and not polliwogs. One thing in common. For him and for his crew, malevolence simply melted away.
Well, a start’s a start.
A shocked silence plied the bridge. Even the bleeps and whirs of the consoles seemed to fade under the astonishment.
Keller looked to his side, hoping to get a gauge of the situation from Shucorion.
He got it. Shucorion was backed all the way up to the locker under the sci-deck, rendered completely stupefied, shocked, even horrified.
Keller wobbled briefly, but his ankles were being held in place by Vellyngaith’s grip of tribute.
He managed to turn enough to shuffle the baby over to Bonifay, who moved the little guy behind the command chair, out of the line of Zoa.
Though he almost fell over, with his legs being passionately held in place, Keller managed to lean over some and speak softly.
“Ah . . . you don’t have to stay on the ground . . . but why don’t you go ahead and say what you came to say.”
Vellyngaith not only stayed on the deck, but spoke into the carpet, forcing Keller to listen extra carefully.
“The grantors have returned. They bring not dynadrive this time, but death. A force, a fiend, a blight—it came to the next solar system and destroyed an entire planet before our eyes. It sprayed our ships, ruining our armor. It sucks away energy as you and I take a drink. It turns now toward our planet. You have science far beyond ours. . . . Help us, we beg . . . Help us, help us . . .”
“You wrecked my ship,” Keller reminded, “drove my captain to his breaking point, threatened our colony, and now you want help?”
“I beg it. Everything is destroyed. Our fleet will never recover. We are all here to sacrifice ourselves. We will sign any treaty, join you, live conquered, but let us live. Name your terms.”
“You’ve got ships,” Keller said. “Fight your own fight.”
“Our science is not like yours. We’ve been in space but a few years. You’ve been for generations. Our weapons could not scratch it. We have no time to evacuate our world. You can meet this threat.”
Keller pressed one hand to a hip and the other to his face. This was nutsy.
“Why don’t you stand up?” he invited. “We’ll handle this man to man. Get right up. All of you folks, stand right up.”
Shuddering and breathing with effort, Vellyngaith got to his hands and knees. There he paused, so long that Keller reached down to pull him to his feet. The battlelord who had moments ago seemed so elegantly strong now seemed weak and aged.
With obvious effort and inner resolve, Shucorion came forward. “What is this, Battlelord?” he demanded. “What drives such as you to our ankles?”
“You were right,” Vellyngaith said to him. “The galaxy is too big for squabbles. All Kauld are willing to become subjects of Federation. Anything, anything . . . anything.”
“What did it do to the planet?” Mr. Scott asked. “Blow it up? Cut it up?”
Vellyngaith looked up at him, sheer terror filling his eyes. “The planet . . . is gone!”
His words virtually echoed.
“Vanished?” Scott demanded. “No debris? No wash?”
“Nothing!”
Certainly that was more terrifying than a giant explosion. Just—gone?
“Wait a minute,” Keller interrupted. “This thing in space—it turned, you said? Was it a ship?”
“No, no ship. A blot in space. A moving poison!”
“But it changed course?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s not a natural object. What was on the planet it consumed? What kind of energy?”
Vellyngaith closed his eyes. Pure shame rose in his face. “Olivium.”
Exasperated, Keller huffed, “ ’Zat so. And just how did olivium end up way over there, on the other side of your solar system from where we are?”
“I put it there. To hide it.” Seeing where this was going and genuinely wishing to rush the project, Vellyngaith drew a breath and blurted the whole story. “I have been in collusion with a walking flaw named Maidenshore. He has been stealing olivium from the colony and giving it to me to hide on his behalf. He would then use it to—”
“Yeh, I think I’ve got that angle,” Keller interrupted. “Skip that part.”
“My thanks. He has been stealing from you, and I have been stealing from him, dividing everything he gave me and storing it not in one place, but in two. I took half of everything and buried it deep in our home planet, and the rest I buried in the planet which has been eaten by this force, this imminence that comes. This ghoul! This blight!”
Keller made a calming gesture and actually found himself patting his enemy’s shaking arm. “Now, don’t overreact. . . . Let’s work this through. You think it’s after the olivium? Because that means we’ve got ourselves a pattern of events going on here. Sounds the same as what’s happening on Belle Terre, except on a way bigger scale.”
He turned to Scott, and got a nod of confirmation for his sleuthing.
“And it eats energy,” he threw in, just to see if anyone disagreed.
No one did.
“Let our people live,” Vellyngaith pleaded again. “We surrender. We understand now that the galaxy is too big. We have no soldiers left who can fight. We stand ready to have done to us what we would have done to Blood Many. We will change. Execute me, all of us here—set up your own government. We will be your subjects! Shucorion, speak for us all! Tell him we are sincere!”
He was nearly in a panic. His eyes were ringed, exhausted, as he turned to his longtime opponent and made a motion that seemed he might go down on his knees again.
Shucorion watched this, and his astonishment changed before Keller’s eyes to some kind of irritation. He moved toward Vellyngaith and all the other Kauld who were watching in polite silence. He wasn’t intimidated at all anymore.
“All my life,” he began, “I believed we had to win by destroying all others. But these people have come here with a new way, a powerful way. They are all industrious, and they are not trying to break each other. They do not dominate. Understand—they have no wish, no plan to dominate you, and after this short season with them, I have no such wish either. You can live, we can live—let us rise to their level, not make them sink to ours.”
“I have offered my own execution!” Vellyngaith thundered. “What more must I do!”
Disgusted, Shucorion folded his arms. “I haven’t been with these people long, but I shall make a gamble with you. I gamble that this man will not kill you. Just hope he doesn’t leave it to me. I am not so good in the heart yet.”
Keller pressed back a flattered smile, but didn’t interrupt. Shucorion paced away a few steps, troubled and now angry.
“Blood Many once believed as All Kauld,” he went on, “that we had to fight or be overrun. We won not by fighting, but by refusing to fight. We have no more need to fight, because we have a mighty friend now. We’re part of Federation now, and they won’t allow what we’ve been doing to each other. We will let you live, and we expect you to do the same for us.”
“What must I say to you?” Vellyngaith spread his hands beseechingly. “We will go to the ankles of Federation! All Kauld will shrink willingly, if only we can be saved!”
Passionate, Shucorion closed the distance between them in two steps. “When will you understand? They don’t want subjects, Battlelord! They have no conquered peoples among them! Everyone here is involved for himself, for his own best interest, and this way everyone prevails. Get this through your beads and feathers!” He actually poked Vellyngaith in the heavy placquet of necklaces on his chest. “There need not be winners and losers. There can be winners and winners!”
Seemed simple. Like the punch line to a morality play.
Maybe it wasn’t so simple for the people of the Sagittarius Cluster.
Keller remained silent, though he felt the grilling eyes of his own shipmates behind him, and the intensity of the Kauld presenc
e. All these people were leaders of a whole planet. Here they were, on his stitched-together bridge, begging him to save their entire world.
The burden pressed down on him. He blew it to start with, should’ve taken over the other ship at the right time, and now until Starfleet got somebody in here to court-martial him and relieve him of command, he owed all the colonists on Belle Terre the promised protection, he owed the Federation a safe cache of olivium, he owed the Blood a bond of alliance, and suddenly the Kauld rushed in and asked him to owe them too.
Mr. Scott’s words flooded back to him. He’d found out what the enemy wanted.
And he had no idea how to tell them what the truth looked like.
Chapter Twenty-three
THE MOOD WAS one of amazement on the frigate’s bridge. Shucorion, Vellyngaith, Keller—all were amazed at something, if not the same things.
Winners and winners.
Nick Keller felt charged to make good on that instruction.
As Vellyngaith lowered his head in salute to Shucorion’s revelations, all the other Kauld also lowered their heads. They weren’t ashamed, exactly, but he had humbled them with apparently new concepts.
Keller stepped between them. “How far away is this thing?” he asked Vellyngaith.
“Between our solar system and the other.”
“So, between Whistler and the solar system on the far side. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Shucorion confirmed, sparing Vellyngaith the trick of discovering what was whistling.
“Are you armed as powerfully as you were before?” Vellyngaith asked. “Do you have the power of the other ship?”
Not exactly a question Keller dared answer. His head was spinning. “Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of fire-power here. I don’t suppose you can decoy it,” he suggested to Vellyngaith. “Maybe pull the olivium out of your planet and move it somewhere else.”
Vellyngaith’s grayish-blue expression paled in embarrassment and sorrow. “Would take months.”
Keller sighed. “Yeh, well, I figured if you could do it, you’d have already done it.” He pulled the Challenger coin from his pocket, slapped it down on the helm desk and pointed accusingly at it. “Shut up, you.”