by Dave Stern
“You should know.”
“I do. All the more reason why you should believe what I’m telling you. Democracy in a number of years, yes. Democracy now, no. They will never accept it.”
“Why not let the Council decide that?”
Makandros shook his head. “I misspoke. What I should have said was, Elson will be able to convince them not to accept democracy. They will fight for him. To the bitter end.”
Kairn was silent a moment. “And your plan? Assuming we agree to a truce?”
“We join forces,” Makandros said. “We back Sadir’s son for leadership of the Council. He takes command in his father’s name and, in turn, gives Lind a seat.”
Kairn shook his head. “The Guildsman will never agree to this. Be a figurehead? No.”
“Not a figurehead,” Makandros said. “With Lind, myself, and the boy, we will be able to fashion a majority. Submit a plan for a gradual transition back to democracy.”
“And Elson? What does he do during all this? Sit back and watch his power being snatched away?”
“He’ll have no choice. Move against the general’s son?” Makandros shook his head. “His own troops would turn against him.”
“You have a lot of faith in Sadir’s child.”
“I know him,” Makandros said. “He will listen to me.”
Kairn nodded slowly. “Where is the boy now?”
“With his mother. Where that is, we don’t know for certain. We know they are no longer in the Kresh. Our best guess is that they have taken refuge in one of the new satellite colonies.”
“Between the Belt and Denari.”
“Exactly.”
“Elson’s forces control that portion of space. You’ll have to go through them to get at the boy. How do you propose to do that?”
Makandros smiled. “The general has made a common amateur’s mistake. He has spread his forces too thin, on too many fronts. He has removed the Planetary Defense Battalion from their positions around Denari and sent them scurrying all around the system—to attack my forces, seek out your ships, secure the outer colonies. Only a minimal force remains on defensive duty. Within the past twenty-four hours, I have sent the bulk of my forces to attack the weapons facilities at Kota, which will further pressure him—”
“Kota?” Archer and Kairn spoke at the same time. They glanced at each other. The captain nodded for Kairn to continue.
“Two of Archer’s crew members have gone there, in search of his vessel. We had recently intercepted intelligence stating that it was there.”
Makandros shook his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but Enterprise is not at Kota. I can tell you that for certain. I would have received news.”
Archer’s heart sank. Not only had Trip and Hoshi gone off on a wild-goose chase, but they were flying into the middle of an all-out war.
“That is unfortunate news,” Kairn said. “We can only hope for their safe return here.”
“Indeed,” Makandros said. “But to return to the matter at hand, do we have an agreement, Marshal? Can we meet to discuss this further?”
“An agreement.” Kairn nodded slowly. “Yes. At least the beginnings of one. I will contact the Guildsman, and we will talk further.”
Makandros smiled. Kairn, albeit grudgingly, did the same.
Archer couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of satisfaction at his own small role in bringing about the truce. But that satisfaction was tempered by the question now burning in his brain: If his ship wasn’t at Kota, where was it?
Thirteen
THE DOOR to the mess slid open, and the two Denari soldiers threw him inside.
Travis—Ensign Travis Mayweather of Starfleet, helmsman aboard Enterprise, now a prisoner aboard his own ship—landed facedown on the deck, his hands somehow managing to splay out in time to avoid actually landing face-first.
He heard footsteps coming toward him.
His legs shuddered involuntarily, the movement courtesy of the electric shocks Colonel Peranda had been applying to him in the hope of forcing a confession. Since Travis had nothing to confess, though, this session—their second in as many days—was mostly a matter of Peranda applying the shock rod until Travis was unable to speak.
A shadow fell over him.
Travis managed to turn his head.
Chief Cooney stood over him, hands on hips.
“You all right, kid?”
“Been better,” Travis said.
Cooney knelt down next to him and slowly helped Travis onto his hands and knees. The ensign rested there a minute, trying to get himself under control.
“All right,” he said finally.
The chief eased him up on his feet and held his arm while he got his balance.
The others—the rest of the humans who were helping run Enterprise for Peranda—had come forward as well: Hess and Ryan from his ship, Al-Bashir and Yee from Daedalus. Someone was missing, Travis realized. Right. Westerberg—he was piloting the ship. He was the only other qualified helmsman besides Travis aboard. They could use the autopilot for limited amounts of time, of course, but while they were on impulse—in normal space—Peranda needed a capable hand at the helm.
And since the warp engines had failed yesterday morning, impulse was the only method of propulsion available to them right now. “Failed” was the wrong word, actually.
The warp engines had been sabotaged—a neat bit of damage done to the intermix circuitry, which would take them days to fix. Peranda was convinced one of the humans was responsible, and he was determined to find the guilty party. So far, his torture sessions had failed to force a confession.
That only seemed to be making him madder. And his sessions more intense.
Hess stepped forward and took Travis’s other arm.
“Here. Let’s sit you down.”
She and Cooney guided him to a nearby table and pulled out a chair for him.
“You want something to eat?” the lieutenant asked.
Travis shook his head. “In a minute.”
“That bastard,” Cooney said, “Peranda. Don’t know what he thinks this is going to get him, except a crew too sick to work.”
“I’ll be all right,” Travis said, though he didn’t know for sure that he could take many more sessions. But no matter, Travis couldn’t confess to something he didn’t do.
Though he did have a sneaking suspicion who the guilty party was.
A few days earlier, Lieutenant Reed had been brought on board. He’d been largely confined to the armory—the Denari, it seemed, were intent on building a phase cannon or two of their own. Reed had been plucked out of the prison where the captain and the rest of the crew were being held to help them do just that.
“I’ll help build them their cannons, all right,” he’d said to Travis, the first time the two of them were alone in the mess hall. “Not that they’re ever going to get to use them.”
Travis had frowned.
“Sir?”
“There’s a war going on, Ensign,” Reed had told him. “These people who attacked us, and someone else. I don’t know who they’re fighting, or why, and I don’t care. All I know is, I’m not going to let them use our weapons to kill other people. The captain wouldn’t want that.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Travis agreed. “But how can you stop them?”
Reed had smiled cagily. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, don’t worry. But here’s the question for you,” he leaned in closer. “How can we stop them from using Enterprise to do the same?”
“Sir?”
“They’re going to take our ship into battle, Ensign. We can’t let them do that—no matter what.”
“Are you suggesting we destroy Enterprise?”
Travis had spoken louder than he’d intended. Luckily, the only other people in the mess were Yee and Ryan, at a table in the far corner.
“Keep your voice down,” Reed said. “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But…there are other ways of incapacitating he
r.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
Reed had opened his mouth to speak—
At which point Cooney sat down at their table, and the lieutenant clammed up like a shell. Travis had no opportunity to talk to him in private after that, but he saw Reed one more time, just before the lieutenant left the ship. He’d come to the bridge to show something in the firing control circuits to a Denari officer, and on his way out, glanced over at the helm and at Travis. A satisfied glance. An everything-is-taken-care-of kind of glance.
Travis was now pretty certain it meant that the problem of sabotaging Enterprise had been taken care of.
The door to the mess opened, and Peranda strode in, four soldiers a step behind. He looked angrier than Travis had ever seen him.
The colonel put his hands on his hips and glared daggers around the room.
“I’m deciding,” he said between gritted teeth, “which one of you to kill.”
Cooney snorted. “If you haven’t figured it out already, Colonel, none of us knows a thing about the warp drive. Maybe it was one of your own idiots who are always poking around down there.”
Peranda drew a phase pistol and took a quick step toward their table.
He put the barrel of his weapon right up against Cooney’s head.
“It sounds to me as if you’re volunteering to sacrifice yourself, Cooney. Is that the case?”
Cooney didn’t flinch. “I’m just offering a little advice, Colonel. I hate to see you wasting so much of your time chasing after answers you’re not likely to get.”
Peranda smiled. “I’m not talking about the warp drive now. We have another problem—another case of sabotage, I fear.”
Travis exchanged a quick glance with Hess. What problem? She shook her head. It was clearly the first she was hearing of it as well.
“Go on,” Cooney said.
“This problem is with our impulse engines. We’re losing power. And none of my engineers can figure out why.”
“Your engineers can’t figure it out?” Cooney smiled. “Gee, that’s a surprise.”
Trip could see Peranda visibly control himself. Cooney hadn’t been on Enterprise more than a week, but the man already knew the systems inside and out. As well as Hess, if not better. The colonel knew that, no doubt—which was why he didn’t do what he so clearly wanted to: squeeze the trigger and blast the man across the room.
“All of you,” Peranda said, looking around the room, “have an interest in seeing this problem fixed. In giving me answers, if you have them. I won’t continue to be as patient as I’ve been, I can promise you that.”
Lieutenant Reed, Travis thought. It had to be him—again. Of course, disabling the warp drive would only stop them from reaching the war quickly. To make sure they didn’t get there at all…
He’d have to do something like this.
“Mayweather.”
Travis looked up to find Peranda’s eyes fixed on him.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
Travis blinked. Some of what he’d been thinking must have shown on his face, and the colonel had picked it up. Not good.
“No, sir. There isn’t.”
Peranda smiled. “I think perhaps there is. I think, perhaps, another session is in order.”
Travis’s hand shook involuntarily.
Cooney stood up, so suddenly that Peranda had to step away. The soldiers, who had remained behind the colonel while he was talking, had their weapons trained on the engineer in a heartbeat.
“Easy, fellas,” Cooney held up both hands. “Let me take a look at this problem, Colonel. Give Travis a break.”
Peranda was a good-sized man; he had Archer’s build, if not the captain’s character. He looked like he could handle himself in a fight.
Cooney made him look like a little boy.
The engineer was one of the biggest men Travis had ever seen—definitely the biggest he’d ever encountered aboard a starship. Sometimes, he had no doubt, that size got in the way: when trying to track down a wiring fault, crawl through an access tube, or work in a space designed for the average-sized man.
Not now, though. Now the size was an advantage.
Peranda, despite the fact that he held a weapon, gave ground.
“I’m not interested in your opinion, Cooney. I think Ensign Mayweather here knows—”
“Colonel, just let me have a look. If I can’t find what the problem is, you’re free to talk to Mayweather.”
“I’m free to talk to Mayweather anytime I want,” Peranda said. He looked from Cooney to Travis then, and nodded. “Very well, Cooney. There’s no sense in our being at odds over this—if it truly is a mechanical fault. Come with us, and see what you can find out.”
Cooney nodded and then, with a quick glance back at Travis, followed Peranda and his soldiers out of the mess.
The door slid shut behind them.
Travis sat back in his chair and exhaled a sigh of relief.
“I owe him one,” he said. “I couldn’t have gone through another one of those sessions right now.”
Hess nodded. “He’s a good man, Cooney.”
She was looking at Travis with a strange expression on her face. “Ensign? Is there something you want to tell me?”
Travis suddenly realized that whatever Peranda had seen on his face before, Hess had noticed it too.
Should he tell her what he suspected about Lieutenant Reed? She was his superior officer, after all. And it wasn’t as if she was going to run down to Peranda and tell him.
And yet…
He hesitated. All he had were suspicions. What if he shared those, and they turned out to be wrong? Worse, what if he shared those, and Peranda forced Hess to talk? Lieutenant Reed would suffer then, for no good reason. And if his suspicions were correct, and Peranda found out…
Not only would Reed suffer, but the Denari would have an invaluable clue as to exactly what had been done to the warp drive. It would be easy to trace Reed’s movements around the ship, and figure out when and where he could have accessed the intermix circuits.
“Ensign,” Hess repeated, “did you hear what I said?”
Travis nodded slowly. “I did. And you’re right. There is something.” He smiled. “I think I am hungry, after all. Excuse me a minute.”
He got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. He sensed Hess’s eyes on him the whole way.
He wasn’t happy about lying to her, but the alternative, he decided, was worse.
In the kitchen, he found Ensign Ryan sitting at a long, low counter, cutting vegetables with a tablespoon. Yee was standing over him.
“Travis,” Ryan said, smiling. “I’m making stir-fry. You hungry?”
“I am, but—not for that, thanks.” Travis was starving, in fact, and it was going to take Ryan far too long to put together his meal. The Denari had gone through the kitchen and taken out anything that could be used as a weapon, which included, unfortunately, all the knives and forks.
Food, though, was the only good thing about this enforced bit of captivity. Those who’d been left aboard Enterprise had the run of the mess—and there was a lot to run through. Hess, Ryan, and he were eating like kings every night. Or captains, anyway. Lobster, steak, ice cream—anything and everything they could want, in whatever quantities they cared to consume. Funny thing was that neither the Daedalus crew nor their Denari captors were able to enjoy the ship’s bounty along with them. Something about Enterprise’s stories made them ill. They had to stick to the supplies the Denari had brought aboard.
That was fine with Travis. Kept them out of the kitchen, and left more for him. Not that there was any shortage—after all, there was food enough for a crew of eighty. A year’s worth, if rationed correctly.
Though every time he went into the stores, it did seem to him like they were making a small dent in the vast quantities inside.
Travis put together a quick sandwich and took it back to his table. He sat down and began to eat.
Eve
ry so often he looked up to find Hess still watching him, that same skeptical expression on her face.
Fourteen
ARCHER HAD BEEN BACK aboard Hule for half a day, after the two fleets—Guild and DEF—had rendezvoused for a series of meetings between their leaders. The captain had even managed, courtesy of an eager Porthos, to squeeze in a moment with Makandros early that morning and make two requests of the general. First, that he bring the Enterprise crew from Rava here, so they could all be together. Second, that he give Archer the Stingers he had asked for.
Makandros had readily acceded to the first—the ships from Rava were just now arriving, a half-dozen in all. The captain was waiting in Hule’s cavernous launch bay, waiting for his people to begin disembarking. As for the second request…
“I’ll need some time to consider that,” had been the general’s answer.
From the look in Makandros’s eyes when he said that, though, Archer was not optimistic. It was hard for him to fault Makandros’s reasoning, however. With the truce between Guild and DEF forces a seeming fait accompli all-out war with Elson would soon follow. It would take six ships to transport his crew, and the captain realized that six ships was far too many for the general to spare under these circumstances.
He should scale down his request and ask for a single vessel, one that he himself would pilot. In fact, rather than wait for Makandros to turn him down flat or, worse yet, send a subordinate to do that—worse because Archer would be unable to bargain with a subordinate; he would have to wait until the general agreed to see him again, and that could be a long time once fighting began—the captain decided he should seek out Makandros now and present his alternative proposal.
T’Pol, Yamani, and the remainder of the crew that had been aboard the Stinger with them were there with Archer, along with Doctor Trant, who had come over from Eclipse. They formed a kind of welcoming committee, guiding the crew to the area that had been set aside for them in the bay. Trant moved among them, passing out the masks she’d had made up for them. The rest of them gave out supplies Makandros’s people had prepared at her direction.