Keren shook her head.
Replacing his phaser on his hip, Shar took out his tricorder. A quick scan revealed at least one Yrythny inside, hiding in the dark. He put his tricorder away, pausing to focus his senses on any discernable energy. Curious, he thought, his antennae twitching. The energy is charged—intense—but not angry, not so much fearful either. More like…worried?
Shar braced himself on the window ledge and pushed off to get the leverage he needed to throw his leg over. Straddling the frame, Shar shifted to a sitting position and soundlessly dropped to the floor. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the dark; surveying the cramped quarters, Shar saw no evidence of a break-in. He considered taking another tricorder reading, but he froze where he stood when he heard the intruder shuffle around in the next room.
In a flash, a hooded figure streaked toward the apartment door. Shar lunged to block his escape. A plant-filled urn tripped him, sending him careening over the top of the couch.
The hooded figure unlatched the door, throwing it open, admitting the bright lights of the inner compound. Shar winced, squinting enough to see Keren’s intruder pause, also blinded. Untangling himself from the clutter, Shar lurched for the door, grabbing onto a wrist. He pulled back, dragging the intruder back into the apartment. The intruder brought his forearm and elbow down, the hard blow breaking Shar’s grip. Clutching at the knobby Yrythny fingers proved futile; the intruder eluded him, escaping into the hall. Shar staggered outside, realizing whoever it was had vanished.
Keren came in from the balcony and turned on the lights. She immediately went to a floor tile in one corner of the room and pried it open, revealing a secret compartment. “The datachips are still here,” she said with relief. “Are you all right?”
Shar sat down on the couch. “Whoever it was seemed more interested in escaping than in hurting me,” he said, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing his eyes.
“Did you get a good look at him?”
Shar shook his head. “But I did notice something. There was a mark on his hand. I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
Eyes wide, Keren sat down beside Shar, draping her arm over the top of the couch and tucking her legs up beneath her. “Describe it.”
“A blue starburst pattern over the palm. A tattoo?”
Keren considered Shar soberly, her lips pressed tightly. She had something to say, he waited—and then the moment passed.
“Let me check the alert status before you leave,” she said. “I’m surprised we haven’t heard anything by now.” She left Shar sitting on the couch, nursing his bruised arm, while she checked her terminal. “This is odd. The alert has been changed. Martial law is still in effect, but patrols—unarmed—won’t be coming in until morning. Questioning is voluntary. That’s unprecedented.”
My turn for secrets. Thank you, Ezri.“The danger seems to have passed. I should be heading back to my quarters.”
“Thank you,” Keren said simply.
Accepting the proferred datachips finished the business between them. They took reluctant leave of each other, Shar knowing that Keren, too, understood that their unusual relationship would end here.
Careful to avoid being seen, he moved swiftly through the Old Quarter. He encountered few Yrythny until he reached the outer neighborhood. As the modules transitioned from the antiquated crude technology to the newer, modern systems, crowds increased. Where he could, Shar looked at the palms of those walking by. Once, he thought he might have seen the mark and he followed the Yrythny for almost a kilometer past his own turnoff before losing him in the crowd. Maybe I’m imagining things, he thought. Darkness can deceive the eye. Becoming conscious of his own exhaustion, he made his way back to his quarters.
He didn’t drift immediately off to sleep. Lying on his back, Shar held his hands in front of him. With a finger, he traced the shape of the mark on his own palm, over and over.
With a satisfied grin, Bowers looked up from his station. “U.S.S. Defiant ready to go, sir.”
Vaughn turned in his chair to face forward. “Conn, prepare for launch.”
“Gladly, sir,” Tenmei answered, hands dancing over her console. “Avaril, this is the Federation Starship Defiant requesting departure clearance.”
“Defiant, this is Avaril. Bay doors opening. You are cleared to depart. Safe travels.”
Like great teeth-lined jaws, the doors groaned open, and Prynn eased the starship through, into open space. “We’ve cleared the Avaril, Captain.”
Cheers exploded from every station; Vaughn savored the moment. “Follow Consortium shipping lane to grid number 8-5-1 delta, Ensign Tenmei.”
“Yes, sir.”
Until the femtobot defense was on-line, Vaughn anticipated taking advantage of the nonaggression treaty that protected the Consortium shipping lane. The Cheka wouldn’t touch them through those sectors unless they wanted to forfeit all their matter rights.
“Leishman to bridge. We’re good to go in engineering.”
“Good work, engineering. Ensign Tenmei, when we’ve cleared the particle fountain perimeter, lay in a course for Vanìmel, warp five.” Vaughn breathed deeply. Tonight, he would sleep. First, he would read—maybe that Klingon romance novel he’d won in the poker game. He would drink a steaming mug of mulled cider and then he would sleep.
“Gordimer to Commander Vaughn. Lieutenant Nog is missing!”
Vaughn smiled. He’d discreetly released Nog to his quarters 45 minutes ago. The chief engineer had been quite convincing in his traitor role. A career in holoacting surely awaited him should he ever find Starfleet not to his liking. Once underway to Vanìmel, Vaughn had intended to explain the ruse to the entire crew. “Nothing to worry about, Ensign. Lieutenant Nog has been released to quarters.”
“Begging your pardon sir, but I checked the brig logs and I already know you used your codes to release Nog. I assumed you’d decided he’d be safe confined to quarters, so I didn’t question it. But on my last pass through the ship, I stopped by Nog’s quarters to see how he was doing and the lieutenant wasn’t there.”
“Computer, locate Lieutenant Nog,” Vaughn ordered.
“Lieutenant Nog is not aboard the Defiant.”
Once again, every eye on the bridge focused on Vaughn.
“Well, that wasn’t part of the plan,” he said through his teeth. Taking a deep breath, Vaughn clasped his hands together and raised them to his lips. So much for sleeping. “Ensign Tenmei, when we reach the end of the shipping lane, find an asteroid and park the Defiant behind it. Ensign Cassini, sweep the Consortium for any Starfleet homing beacons.”
He had an answer within seconds. “I’m picking up a low-frequency homing device coming from Consortium grid 4–7–5. It’s the Avaril, sir.”
Not surprising. Not surprising in the least.“Address intership.”
“Intership open,” Bowers acknowledged.
“Attention all hands, this is Commander Vaughn. Lieutenant Nog has been abducted and is being held on the Yrythny ship Avaril. Our return to Vanìmel will be postponed until he is safely returned to us. Strategy and possible solutions will be discussed at the crew meeting scheduled at 2200 in the mess hall. Vaughn out.”
“Sir,” Cassini said, “Why would Chieftain J’Maah take Lieutenant Nog?”
“I don’t think it’s Chieftain J’Maah, Ensign. In fact, I’d bet Chieftain J’Maah doesn’t know Nog’s aboard the Avaril and that whoever has taken him has him well hidden.”
“Any clues as to who it is?” Bowers asked.
“We’ll probably find that out about the same time J’Maah does.” He wasn’t sure who exactly was responsible, but he hoped the bogus cloak specs he’d deliberately left aboard Avaril would unmask the perpetrator. Apparently Vaughn and Nog’s sleight of hand had been too convincing—or not convincing enough—because Nog was snatched along with the tech, possibly because giving the Cheka an engineer familiar with the technology would sweeten whatever deal was being made.
Time to dip i
nto my bag of tricks and see what we can come up with. Getting Nog off the Avaril before the Yrythny ship pulled a disappearing act of its own might require more than magic.
Any doubts the Assembly might have had about Ezri’s fitness to be a mediator vanished after her swift, decisive intervention averted violence in the Old Quarter. During their midnight meeting, she persuaded Rashoh to see the folly of offensive action when the Wanderer population was already inflamed. The Assembly leadership’s astonishment at her prescient understanding endowed her with a certain degree of clout. All she’d done was spell out logical consequences, where both Houseborn and Wanderer leadership lacked the emotional or intellectual distance to find reason themselves.
She wasn’t about to admit that had it not been for the anonymous message, she would have gone to bed without a second thought. No need to needlessly confuse the outcome. In the following days, a grateful Assembly Chair Rashoh readily agreed, on behalf of the Upper Assembly, to provide DNA samples to Shar for his genetic experiments. Rashoh’s reasoning had been that Shar would put to rest, once and for all, any doubt of the Houseborn’s superiority. Whether Shar would finish his research in a timely fashion was debatable, but he could always transmit the results to Vanìmel when and if he drew any substantive conclusions.
In Ezri’s eyes, her diplomatic victory vindicated her methodology. There had been a few moments along the way when she doubted her own competence, worrying that the Yrythny conflict would only be settled through war. Even Shar’s insistence that a scientific solution should supersede diplomatic initiatives caused her to waver in her commitment to see the talks through. In hindsight, thanks to Dax’s cumuluative wisdom, she’d instinctively known the best course from the start.
With Shar analyzing Yrythny DNA and word from Vaughn indicating that the Defiant was three days out from Vanìmel, Ezri recognized she’d reached a place where she needed to pull all her fact-finding, interviews and analyses together. The Assembly expected, and deserved, a proposal and they would have one.
She didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Shar, who might or might not have concrete results before Vaughn returned. The underground might launch another attack. Yrythny life didn’t stand to change much before Dax left.
Returning to her quarters, Ezri stood on her head to think. She considered her knowns. The most reasonable among the Houseborn, Jeshoh for example, still had legitimate, significant doubts about the Wanderers’capacity for self-regulation, and House Tin-Mal was proof enough to him. From her own experience on Vanìmel, Ezri wasn’t convinced the planet could sustain unlimited Yrythny proliferation. If the Wanderers were allowed to reproduce, both sides would have to impose limitations on reproduction unless the sustainability questions could be suitably resolved. The Wanderers, justifiably, wanted to be held as equals, to escape servile lives, to take consorts and mate as other Yrythny did—and they were prepared to use violence to secure those rights if the Houseborn didn’t agree to their demands.
Ezri didn’t need blood rushing to her head to conclude that she didn’t see a way that these two castes could continue to coexist on the planet unless one side or the other was willing to divvy up the ring city, the oceans and the arable land. Partition it all. Nothing in Vanìmel’s history or her knowledge of either side led her to believe that the Yrythny would accept this as a solution.
Dropping her feet back to the floor, Ezri slowly stood up, trying to avoid the lightheadedness that often followed a headstand. Padds and datachips covered her couch. She picked through the pile, searching for inspiration, passing over histories, legislative calendars until her hand hovered over starcharts for the surrounding sectors. Hadn’t Vaughn’s last message said that they’d figured out how to make Nog’s femtobot defense work? Once the Yrythny had that technology and could use it to defend themselves, her solution would be much more hopeful than it currently seemed. It wasn’t a glamorous solution or an original one, but it had the benefit of successful precedents.
She touched her combadge. “Dax to Candlewood.”
“Go ahead.”
“Bring me anything in the Sagan’ s database on Earth’s 16th through 18th century colonial movements.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
Ezri plopped into a chair and threw her feet out in front of her. The triannual Yrythny Homecoming was scheduled to begin the day after tomorrow. Three times a year, Houseborn Yrythny returned to their House of origin to go into the waters with their consort and lay eggs. A good time to announce her proposed treaty. “Yes. Please set up a meeting with Assembly Chair Rashoh. Tell him I think I’ve got something he’ll want to hear.”
Sitting down at the terminal, Ezri forced herself to work on the draft proposal. Her hands hung in the air; mentally, she drew a blank as she tried to coax out the language. At least I have something to offer. Throw in a few Dax flourishes and they’ll be pleased. I’m sure of it. Of course they will. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they have any ideas of their own and this is a solid solution.
Her hands remained suspended over the terminal keys.
Nothing else has been proposed. What are you waiting for, Dax? Go for it.
Drawing from the initial draft of the Khitomer Accords, Dax composed the opening of the Yrythny Compromise, all the while unable to ignore the nagging feeling that she ought to wait. But didn’t she know everything she needed to know by now? She’d lived longer than all of them put together.
Under cloak, Defiant shadowed Avaril.
The Yrythny ship hadn’t strayed too far from the Consortium shipping lanes to Vanìmel. Once Nog had been rescued the Defiant wouldn’t have far to go to reunite with the away team, though Vaughn hadn’t been able to contact Ezri and update her as to their latest dilemma. To avoid detection by the Avaril, the Defiant had remained under cloak and maintained communications silence.
Having left Bowers, Prynn, and Senkowski manning the bridge, Vaughn went to the mess hall to meet with the rest of the crew for the strategy session. The bridge team would attend via the ship’s comsystem. Part of Vaughn’s agenda for the meeting was to buoy morale. Nog’s kidnapping had been a blow. Every crewman wanted to help, but no one knew how. By bringing everyone together, Vaughn hoped to make his team feel like they could make contributions to solving the problem.
By the time Vaughn arrived, five minutes early, the crew had already assembled. Eager to go to work. Excellent.“Let’s start with what we know. Ensign Leishman, your report,” Vaughn said.
“Wherever Nog is being held, there’s some kind of transport inhibiting field in place. We can’t beam him off. If he’s moved, we might be able to grab him, unless the inhibitor is something on his person. But in order even to make the attempt we’d be risking exposure.”
“The Avaril’ s offensive weaponry and maneuverability are limited,” Gordimer interjected. “If we decloak and fix phasers or torpedoes on them, they might give up Lieutenant Nog without a fight.”
Shaking his head, Julian countered, “We could be in an indefinite standoff, waiting for one side or the other to blink. If Nog’s kidnapping has been done without J’Maah’s knowledge, who’s to say the kidnapper won’t escape with Nog while we’re arguing with J’Maah. Or worse, kill him.”
“J’Maah might not be involved at all. This could be a conspiracy in his ranks,” Vaughn said. “With members of his crew going against orders, the Avaril and her 1,800 crewmembers could be in serious danger.”
Bowers’voice suddenly rang out. “Captain. We’ve picked up something new on long-range sensors. You’re going to want to see this.”
“What is it, Sam?”
“Judging from the biosignatures I’m picking up…I think it’s a Cheka warship, sir,” Bowers said.
“Show me,” Vaughn ordered.
On the viewer of the mess hall companel, blade-winged starship appeared. Not as large as the Avaril, but definitely more powerful, if its energy output readings were any indication. In a fight, the Defiant might be the underdog.
“Sensors show the Cheka vessel is following a trajectory that’ll have it intercepting the Avaril five hours out from Vanìmel at current speed.”
So is she planning on poaching the Avaril?Or is she meeting up with them? Vaughn mulled over both possibilities, looking for clues as to which one was most likely. He kept returning to the fact that whoever had sabotaged the deal on the Exchange had used the Cheka as a go-between. The Yrythny cut a deal with the Cheka. What the Cheka want is clear—the cloaking device. But what the Yrythny want—that they’d be desperate enough to deal with the devil on…
An idea struck him. “Sam, keep track of the Cheka’s progress. Let me know if it changes course. See if you can listen in on their communications. If they’re in contact with anyone, I want to know who. And I want details about that ship. Life-forms, energy sources, propulsion, tactical systems, everything.”
“I’m on it,” Bowers replied.
Vaughn turned back to his crew. With all eyes fixed on him, Vaughn clasped his hands behind his back and announced, “I think I’ve figured out how to get Nog back.”
16
Oh, to see the look on Vedek Yevir’s face when he learns I went walking with Gul Macet! Kira thought, amused by the shocked expression on Prylar Kanton’s face as they passed him. Kira knew that being seen publicly with Macet would have only minimal impact on her reputation. Those who knew her well would see her as being fair-minded; those who were wary of her would have another item to add to their arsenal of reasons why she wasn’t trustworthy. A public walk also assured that she could honestly answer any who might express concerns about a potential conflict of interest: if she had something to hide, she wouldn’t be talking about it in public.
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