Shadow of Heaven

by Christie Golden

  And it made perfect sense. Even the name made sense now—Shepherds, good tenders of their flocks. No wonder Tialin hadn’t wanted to tell them this at the outset. She feared they’d be too frightened to do anything, paralyzed with the sheer horror of it all, as Janeway was paralyzed now.

  There was nothing less than the fate of every single universe in existence at stake.

  Her mind flew to what must be happening in the Alpha Quadrant. Eager Romulans, piling on cloak after cloak, creating more mutated dark matter, pulling more matter into this universe than there ought to be. The stuff expanded at an exponential rate. How close were they to oblivion? Years, months, days, moments?

  She realized that she was cold, was trembling. She’d faced challenges before, even looked Death square in the eye, but this—her limited, human mind was having trouble wrapping itself around the concept of the end of everything.

  “That perfect balance,” Telek was saying, “which allows all of us to be here in this room right now, is what Lhiau is trying to tip. Lhiau is tricking us into playing with the mutated dark matter, to create more matter in this universe and less matter in others. Our universe will suffer the Squeeze; others, the Freeze.”

  “But why?” The voice was plaintive, frightened. Clearly, at least one member of the council believed what Telek was saying. “Wouldn’t Lhiau destroy himself as well?”

  “Not at all,” said Telek. His face shone as if lit with an inner light. Righteous anger sat upon his features. “You see, the Shepherds live in the rifts between the universes. It is as if they are playing a game. When this is done, the playing board will be cleared, ready for a new game. I cannot do anything to stop my fellow Romulans from contributing to their certain doom by using the dark-matter cloaks, but the ship Voyager may be able to help delay the destruction long enough for the good Shepherds to stop their renegade comrade. This, my friends, is why you must let Captain Janeway go. We need to embark as soon as possible to—”

  “My compliments, Dr. R’Mor,” interrupted Eriih, a sardonic smile twisting the slash in his face which served as a mouth. “Captain Janeway did not tell us you were so accomplished a storyteller.”

  Telek gaped. For a moment, Janeway’s world swirled in a mist of red and gray, fury and shock warring for her consciousness. They did not believe Telek!

  “Your tales will no doubt help your time awaiting trial to pass quickly.” Eriih gestured, and at once two guards stepped up toward Telek.

  “No!” Janeway wondered who had yelled so loudly, and then realized it was she herself. She moved without thinking, and cried wordlessly as the forcefield surrounding her chair sent a shock throughout her system. “Didn’t you hear him?”

  “What Dr. R’Mor says is true,” said Tuvok. “I have mind-melded with him and read his thoughts. He cannot lie in such a contact.”

  “But he can lie verbally to us. And you can too,” said Eriih.

  “Vulcans do not lie,” Tuvok replied calmly.

  At that, Eriih threw back his head and laughed. “I will say this for you Federation representatives, you do have quite vivid imaginations. My time was not wasted today. I was well entertained, and you have given us Telek R’Mor as well.”

  “No.”

  The voice was as quiet, as assured, as Janeway’s had been frantic. She looked around, to see who was daring to utter such a defiance.

  Ulaahn stepped forward. He held a weapon pointed directly at Eriih. “You will release them both,” he said in that same calm tone.

  Eriih stared at his old friend. “You cannot mean that you believe this tale? Ulaahn, we are not children, to be bought off with a story!”

  “You have not seen what I have seen,” said Ulaahn. “I have been aboard their vessel. I have seen how they utilize this Shepherd technology. And,” his voice cracked slightly, “I have been in the clutches of this dreadful dark matter. It has driven me to murder, Eriih. I have seen too much, I know too much, to believe that they would concoct so elaborate a lie just to free their captain.”

  He looked over at Janeway. “You,” he said to the guard standing behind her. “Shut down the forcefield.”

  The guard did not move. “Do it!” cried Ulaahn. “I have killed two hundred and eighty-three people already. I will not hesitate to kill one more to do what I believe is right!”

  Now the guard did move. He pressed a button on the wall and the hazy yellow-green forcefield disappeared. Janeway rose, surprised her legs would hold her. Ulaahn threw something in her direction. Her hands came up automatically to catch her comm badge and phaser. As she affixed the badge above her left breast, she demanded, “Ensign Riley. He comes too.”

  “Do it!” Again the security guard touched the buttons on the wall, and Ensign Riley materialized in the room. He quickly moved to stand beside his captain, Tuvok, and Telek R’Mor.

  “You will pay for this disruption of our legal system, Ulaahn,” warned Eriih. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do.

  “I certainly shall,” answered Ulaahn, “with rejoicing in my heart that I have not been obliterated by a rogue Shepherd’s pique. Every day I have the privilege of being alive to stare at my cell wall I shall count as a blessing. Go, Captain. You have a duty to perform.” His eyes held hers. “See that you succeed.”

  “We will, Ulaahn,” she told him, fiercely willing herself to believe the words as she spoke them. “I promise you.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  IN A DISTANT, LOGICAL PART OF HER MIND, THE PART THAT was not obsessing about food and dwelling on the agony coursing through her veins, Jekri Kaleh marveled at the efficacy of the Romulan penal system. In just a few short days, she wasn’t certain exactly how many, they had come close to breaking even the former chairman of the Tal Shiar. How did lesser mortals manage to hang on to their sanity?

  The dispassionate physical exams and experiments. Waking her at odd hours while she tried desperately to sleep, to steal time to repair her injured body. The thrice-damned guard, shutting off the forcefield, firing his weapon at stronger and stronger levels, reactivating the field, then walking off laughing. The pitiful food.

  Her logical self latched on to that thought. In the food had come her chance of salvation. Each meal brought something new. She was no technical expert, but the equipment was not unduly complicated. Besides, she welcomed the mental stimulation of trying to assemble the tool her mysterious benefactor was sending her. By this point she realized it was a laser scalpel. She had hoped it was a small disruptor, one of the tiny ones the Family of the Blade sometimes carried, but she would gladly accept whatever weapon she could get. Thus far, she could detect no energy cell. Whoever it was obviously planned to save that for last. If there were any investigation of the process by which her food was sent to her, it would be more easily detected than simple metal.

  If only her wrist would heal. But it gave no sign of doing so. The doctors had embedded something just beneath the flesh and it was becoming infected. From time to time, they would check on it, but made no move to stop the infection. It itched, and hurt, and the flesh was a sickly puffy green. It was hot to the touch.

  Jekri steeled herself and began to probe her left wrist with her right fingers. The pain was excruciating, but she pressed her lips shut against the shriek that wanted to escape and continued. The object was hard, round, and artificial. A tracking device, in case she should escape?

  The thought unnerved her totally. Escape was what was carrying her through the hours of torment. It was the light that kept her focused, kept her from going mad or committing suicide. She had to remove the thing embedded in the soft, infected flesh of her left wrist.

  Of course, she might do nothing more than hasten her own demise. She was no doctor. She did not know which veins lay where, or what tendons could be damaged if she tried to remove the foreign object. And once she removed it, provided she was successful, they would notice it right away. What would they do then? Probably insert another one, perhaps in her back, where sh
e could not reach it.

  Perhaps it wasn’t a tracking device. Perhaps it was a pellet of slow poison. Maybe it was—

  She shook her head. “No,” she whispered fiercely. Panic and flights of terror-riddled fantasy would avail her nothing. But the thing in her wrist could be trouble if it was not removed.

  The only thing missing was the energy cell to operate the laser scalpel. Otherwise, she was ready to make her move. Every day had brought a piece of the scalpel. Surely today the final piece would arrive. Jekri made her decision. The thing in her wrist had to come out. Now.

  Jekri looked around her cell. Everything was filthy, even the little bit of water they gave her once a day. She’d have to risk further infection.

  She recalled a Vulcan meditation, one that Dammik had told her would help her control her reactions to pain. True, pain was a physical thing. It was the body’s reaction to something amiss, a way to alert the brain to damage that could result in injury or death. But the brain determined whether the damage was great enough to warrant attention. The damage was the message; pain was just the messenger. Once one was alerted to the damage the pain signaled, Dammik had told her, one could decide what to do about it. The pain no longer served a useful function. One could ignore the pain to the point of banishing it altogether.

  Jekri first made sure that the recording devices she had discovered were still broken. It had become almost a daily ritual. Jekri would break all recording devices and, while she was gone, someone would come in and repair them. But at least she had a few hours of true privacy.

  Confident that she was not being watched, she sat down on the pile of rags, closed her eyes, and began to consciously calm her mind. She addressed the agony in her wrist, and acknowledged the message it delivered. Feeling a bit foolish at first, she intoned, “I have heard the pain. I know what it is telling me. I dismiss the pain, for it is no longer of use to me.” She repeated the ritual phrases several times, then opened her eyes.

  She stared levelly, dispassionately, at the inflamed area. She concentrated on turning down the volume of the message the pain screamed to her, until to her surprise it was merely a throbbing ache.

  Now.

  One of the pieces of metal which her outside assistant had transported was long and, if not sharp, then at least sharper than her stubby fingernails. She felt for the piece in the rags, extracted it, and poised it over her wrist.

  There is no pain.

  With a cold focus, she began to cut at the inflamed skin.

  The pain exploded along her nerves, right down to her toes, and she gasped. No, she would not be defeated by her own weakness! There was no pain, not for Vulcans, and for this moment she was no Romulan, but a Vulcan, born and bred on the red, hot planet, where there was no pain, no pain—

  She placed the sharp tool against the hardness of whatever had been inserted into her body and dug around. Jekri hissed between clenched teeth, and clung to her mantra of “there is no pain” like a lifeline. Blood and pus trickled down her pale skin, and she smelled the scent of rot.

  The metal tool found the base of the implant, and carefully levered it upward. Rotting flesh parted and a small circle popped up and out, to land in the rags.

  There is no pain.

  Except her inflamed nerve endings shrieked loudly to the contrary. There was a bloody hole in her wrist now. Gingerly, Jekri flexed her fingers. Everything moved properly, though for a moment the world went gray and she feared she was about to lose consciousness. Grimly, she bound the injured limb with filthy cloths, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. Green liquid seeped through the cloth, but eventually slowed and finally stopped. The white-hot agony subsided to a sharp, angry ache.

  Sweat dotted Jekri’s face. She turned her attention to the small implant that had been embedded in her wrist. It was covered with blood and other fluids. She poured water on it, wiped it off—and joy shot through her.

  Her salvation had been in her body all along. One of the doctors was part of this outside plot. Jekri held in her hands the energy cell that would operate the weapon that had been transported to her in bits and pieces. The female doctor, who had done such dreadfully painful things to her, was also apparently an ally.

  Quickly she gathered up the pieces and began to assemble them. Her body was still reeling from the incredible pain she had just subjected it to, and she was growing weaker by the day for lack of sufficient nutrition. Her fingers were clumsy and her brain was not as alert, as sharp, as it ought to be, but she managed. Within a half-hour she had before her a laser scalpel. It was not the ideal weapon, but at this point, Jekri was willing to use a rusty spoon as a weapon, if it would mean getting out.

  She had three escape routes. The first was the way she normally entered and exited the cell. She would somehow need to dismantle the forcefield, then find a way out of the area without being captured. If only she had had a chance to study the layout of these old prison cells, she’d have a better chance of escaping via that route.

  Another was the elimination hole. She had considered and dismissed that for the simple reason that, small as she was, she could not fit down into the chute. A few more weeks, she mused to herself, and she might be able to do it. But she had no idea where the elimination hole led. Had this been a more contemporary prison, there might have been some sewage system into which her excrement was emptied. But these cells were hundreds of years old. Most likely they were simply holes, covered when filled.

  The final option was the ventilation shaft. It was covered by a grate, but that would yield to the laser with ease. The shaft was wide enough for her narrow shoulders. Once, she knew she could have climbed the smooth surface with ease. Her body was strong and well disciplined. Now, she was weaker. She did not trust her body as once she used to, but there might be no option.

  Jekri wanted badly to test the laser scalpel, but she knew that its operation would make a distinctive humming noise. To activate it would be to draw attention to it. She could not risk detection until she was ready to use it to escape.

  Now that she had the means of escape within her hand, she felt strangely hesitant. Every step along this dark path had been familiar, though she had never experienced any of it firsthand before. She knew that what she was feeling was a predictable reaction. Some prisoners grew used to their prisons, and as a result eventually became as tractable as anyone could wish them. Jekri’s dark brows drew together in disgust at the thought of herself falling into that category. She was a warrior, a warrior of shadow. She was the Little Dagger, and she would never surrender, not in mind, not in body, not in spirit. She clutched the small tool until her hand hurt. She had to leave soon, before she lost her will altogether.

  She stood and looked up at the grate. Extending a hand, Jekri probed along its edges, as she had done many times before. Her fingers could find the edges, red with rust, and see the welds that had set it deeply into the stone ceiling. Up inside the shaft was darkness, but it was from here that air came. If she could follow that shaft far enough, she—

  Footsteps. The guard. Jekri almost quailed. The sadism of the guard had been the most difficult thing she had had to endure here. She could steel herself for the doctors, choke down the poor food, but the guard came at unpredictable intervals and each time he fired, the setting was one notch higher.

  She flung herself down on the rags, feigning sleep. The laser scalpel was in her hand, hidden beneath the rags. He liked this the best. He was a coward of the vilest sort. Looking into her eyes while he fired unnerved him. She heard his heavy breathing, a rumble of a chuckle. The familiar sound of the forcefield being turned off reached her pointed ears.

  She sprang more quickly than she would have believed. His eyes widened as she leaped on him, her mouth open in a silent snarl of pure hatred. His weapon was drawn. As if in slow motion, she saw him lift, point, squeeze.

  Jekri slammed into him, bringing her damaged left hand down as hard as she could on his wrist, causing the weapon to clatter onto the stone fl
oor. He was a big man, and scars crisscrossed his face, but now that ugly face wore an expression of terror. He knew who she was, what she had done, what she was capable of, and what he had done to her.

  She brought her small, clenched right fist crashing down on his windpipe. It crunched most satisfactorily. He gurgled, his eyes still rolling in his head. Deftly she flicked the laser scalpel and heard the soft hum. It was working.

  Jekri could feel him tense. In an instant he was going to utilize his superior weight and pin her beneath his large body. She had the element of surprise, but he had strength. She did not hesitate. In one smooth arc she brought the laser scalpel down and plunged it into his body.

  He cried out and writhed in pain. She sprang off him, a dancer now, awaiting a second chance. As he rolled over, attempting to rise, she found and took it. She darted forward and sliced him from throat to belly. He fell forward and green blood began to pool beneath the writhing form.

  It was perhaps the most morally just murder Jekri Kaleh had ever committed. She stepped back, panting and trembling from the exertion. She was so weak! She hated herself like this. Once she caught her breath, she armed herself with the dead man’s disruptor. She almost took the communication device as well, but at the last minute decided against it. Who would she be talking with? And perhaps they could trace her through it. Best not to risk it.

  She quickly scanned her cell, her home for the last—who knew how long it had been. She had the only thing she needed. Hope gave her energy as she sprinted off to find an exit. She would need to hurry. She did not know the guard’s route or how long it would be until someone missed him.

  The area was enormous. She guessed it was at least a square kilometer, perhaps more. And it would appear that she was the only prisoner here. She grimaced; it was a dubious honor. Moving as quickly as she could, she trotted past cell after cell. Nothing, no one, no exit. Cursing the precious time lost in this fruitless quest, she ducked into the nearest cell and looked upward. Yes, there was a ventilation shaft here as well. She lifted her face toward it and sniffed. Cold air, but fresh. And this grate was in worse shape than the one in her own cell.