“But not on the colony itself?” Kirk had wanted to know.
[142] “No, not on us. But the ship’s gone, Uncle Jim. There’s no way to repair this kind of damage.”
Kirk had hoped his nephew had been wrong, but as they skimmed over the burning wreckage, he had to agree with Alex’s assessment. As they settled in for a landing, Kirk saw the flames dying as chemicals were sprayed on them. As soon as they stepped out of the shuttle, Alex rushed up to them.
He looked dreadful. He was wild-eyed and sweating, and reached to clasp Kirk’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re back, Uncle Jim, we—What happened to your face?”
Kirk waved it off. “A little accident. Chekov is more in need of treatment than I am. A ... wiring accident, which we’ve already taken care of.”
He didn’t particularly enjoy lying to his nephew, but it was obvious to him that the Falorians had fired on the colony in retaliation for the break-in. The less Alex knew, the better, at least until Kirk could better assess the situation. Alex ran his finger through his soot-darkened hair, his eyes drawn inexorably to the inferno.
“Did you see who did it?” Kirk asked.
“Huh? Oh. We’ve got their signal, but no one actually saw anything. We were all asleep. We don’t recognize the ships at all.”
Skalli came rushing up, her long legs carrying her swiftly across the dewy grass. “Oh, Captain Kirk!” she exclaimed. Tears of sympathy welled in her huge eyes. “Your face! What happened? Oh! And Mr. Chekov, your hands, your poor hands!”
[143] “Pavel, go with Skalli to see Dr. Sherman. Skalli, stay with him.” It would keep her out of his hair. “Alex, let’s you and Scotty and I go look at the records.”
Before they left, Kirk took a quick look back at the crowd that was busily damping the flames. Among them was Julius, bare-chested and clad only in pajama bottoms. His torso glistened with sweat and looked orange in the light of the dying fire. As if feeling Kirk’s gaze upon him, he turned. Their eyes locked, and Kirk saw a brief expression of anguish cross Julius’s face before the younger man turned away quickly.
Kirk thought about the pirated equipment he’d seen in the complex, and then turned to follow Alex.
“See? It’s nothing we know,” Alex said as they looked at the images on the screen.
Kirk could make a pretty good guess, and so could Scott. They exchanged glances. Kirk wondered how much he ought to reveal at this juncture. He decided to start with the truth.
“That’s a vessel built by a species that is known to have dealings with the Orion Syndicate,” he said. “See that shadow on the hull?” He pointed to a thin, dark line. “That indicates a false panel. They can remove it to display the mark of the Syndicate when it serves them, and hide it when it doesn’t.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “Really? Do you think they’re dealing with the Falorians?”
Surprised, Kirk said, “Yes, we do.”
“No wonder they wanted that shield,” Alex said. “I’m sure they don’t trust the Syndicate at all. Maybe they [144] stopped dealing with them and the Syndicate retaliated by attacking our ship.”
Kirk sighed quietly. Alex still bought Lissan’s story about the facility being a resupply base. And now was not yet the time to disillusion him. Alex was not a liar, and if Lissan returned to the colony and Alex understood fully what was going on, Alex would give them all away.
“Maybe you’re right,” was all he said.
The cool night winds blew away the smoke, and the colony awoke to a crisp, bright dawn. Its cheerful roseate glow made the ruins of the mighty colony ship look even more stark and desolate. It was black and twisted, a dark skeleton silhouetted against the morning sky.
Kirk was up early, helping everyone scavenge what they could. According to Alex, all the damage had been caused by a single strafing run of the unknown vessel. It had not made a second pass, which would have utterly destroyed everything. Clearly the attack had been to simply make sure they had no means of escape. Utter destruction had not been deemed necessary.
Scarcely had he begun pitching in when he heard the hum of a transporter. Kirk glanced over to see Lissan materialize in the Courtyard. He choked back a wave of anger. If he had any hope of discovering and thwarting the Falorian plans, he had to maintain a façade of trust. He would let Lissan set the tone for this meeting.
“What happened here?” exclaimed Lissan, staring at the remains of the Mayflower II.
He was good. If Kirk hadn’t known better, he’d have [145] bought it hook, line, and sinker, just like Alex did. Alex and Julius stepped forward to greet the Falorian.
“It happened last night,” Alex said. “This ship came out of nowhere and just started firing. It was awful. Do you have any idea who it might be?”
Lissan shook his head, looking pained. “Regrettably, I do. It appears we are both victims. You see, last night our facility was broken into. Whoever it was did a great deal of damage and even stole some things. I would imagine it is those same people who destroyed your vessel.”
He turned to look Kirk directly in the eye as he said this, and Kirk felt a chill. Lissan knew, all right. He knew who had broken into the facility and what they had taken. The stakes in this dangerous game had just gotten higher.
“Why?” Alex asked, all earnestness. “We’ve done nothing to anyone.”
“I told you that we were dealing with some very unsavory people. We did our best to keep the riffraff out, but sometimes one fails.” This was most definitely aimed at Kirk. Out of the corner of his eye Kirk saw Julius glancing from Lissan to Kirk.
“I don’t suppose you’d be able to help us with repairs?” Kirk said, looking innocent.
“As I have told you, our technology is nowhere near your level,” Lissan lied smoothly. “We have our hands full simply repairing our own damage.”
“I see,” Kirk said, and smiled gently.
“Please let us know if we can help,” Alex said.
Lissan inclined his head. “You are most kind. I am [146] certain that at some point you will be very helpful indeed to us. Farewell.”
He touched a button on his chest and dematerialized. Kirk gave his nephews an avuncular smile and put a hand on each of their shoulders. He felt Julius stiffen beneath his touch.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“I have to—” Julius began, but Kirk squeezed his shoulder. Once they were safely inside Alex’s quarters, away from prying eyes, Kirk whirled. He seized his youngest living relative by the front of his shirt and shoved him into a chair, hard.
“I want to know what the hell is going on, Julius,” he demanded. “You’re going to tell us everything.”
Chapter Thirteen
JULIUS’S PALE FACE flushed bright red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Uncle Jim—” Alex interrupted, but Kirk pressed on.
“Come on, Julius. Alex may only want to see the good in you, but I’m a little more detached. I know you’re involved in something, but I want to know just how deep it goes.”
Julius laughed shakily, turning to Alex for support. “I don’t know what’s got into him.”
“Yes you do. You know where we were last night, just like Lissan knows where we were. Did you tip him off, Julius? Were you happy to sell your old uncle down the river? You’re damn lucky that Lissan decided to attack just the Mayflower and not the colony.”
Julius said nothing, only glared at Kirk with an intense hatred.
“Uncle Jim ... where were you last night?” Alex, his voice soft, pained.
[148] “Tell him, Julius. Tell him where I was and what I saw.”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Because you’re in this so deep that you’re about to drown,” Kirk shot back. “I can’t believe that my own nephew—”
“Oh, yes,” Julius sneered, “your own nephew. The nephew of the great Captain James T. Kirk. God forbid that any of us should do anyth
ing to sully your spotless reputation. Well, you taught me better than you know, Uncle Jim. I’m not the first person in this family to break a few rules in order to get things done!”
The accusation stung, because Kirk knew Julius was right. “Yes, I’ve bent the rules. Sometimes I’ve even broken them. But I never would have sacrificed my own family—”
“I didn’t know why they wanted you so badly!” Julius shouted. “They, just—it was part of the deal, and we had to have Sanctuary, so—”
Alexander had gone pale. “Juley,” he said, his voice alarmingly steady and calm, “Juley, what have you done?”
And like a twig snapping beneath a fierce wind, Julius Kirk broke. His body sagged, and all the tension drained out of him. Moisture filled his eyes and he wiped at them with the back of his hand. When he spoke, his voice was low and ragged with pain.
“I did what I had to do to get you Sanctuary,” he said. “They wanted technology. I gave them technology. Then they wanted information. I got it for them. Then they wanted weapons. I got those too. Finally, they wanted [149] you, Uncle Jim. That was the deal-breaker. I had to get you here, and now they’re preventing us from communicating with the outside and have destroyed the only way we have to get off this damned planet. Oh, God, I’m such a fool.”
Alex stared, open-mouthed. “Julius,” Kirk said gently, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Violently, Julius wrenched away from the hand that was meant to comfort. “Don’t touch me, you bastard!” He was sobbing now. He turned his wet face to Alex and reached out a hand to his brother. “Alex, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I had to do it. We spent years looking for a place. You know that. I didn’t mean for it to ... first it was just a little technology, nothing classified, and then some weapons ... a couple of phasers or so ... then they were going to leave us alone. We got the colony, just like you always wanted. I got it for you, Alex. I did everything for you, just like you used to do everything for me. I never forgot that.”
Kirk’s heart ached in sympathy for Alex as he stared at his brother. “Juley, my God, did you really think I wanted you to become a—a gunrunner for me? Do you think I wanted to buy Sanctuary at the price of the lives of innocent people? Am I that much of an obsessed, single-minded monster to you that—”
“Alex!” The anguish in Julius’s cry would have melted the hardest of hearts, but Alex, dealing with his own pain of betrayal, turned away from his brother.
Slowly, Julius looked to his uncle. “This is all your fault,” he said between clenched teeth. “You let us rot. You came just long enough to make yourself feel that [150] you’d done your duty and then left again, whereas we had to—God, Uncle Jim! Why didn’t you even try to find out what was really going on?”
“I’m sorry,” Kirk said. Julius blinked, startled at the ready apology. “I didn’t know, and you’re right, I didn’t try to find out. I had my career, and I thought I was doing something important, something useful for the betterment of humanity. I tried to be a good uncle to you, but I see now I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe one day you’ll forgive me. But right now, if you want to help, you have to tell me everything you’ve done and everything you know.”
Julius took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped a final time at his wet eyes. He stole a quick glance at his brother, who still stood facing the wall.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “It started a few years ago. I’d tried to talk various alien species into giving us a planet, but without the backing of the Federation they weren’t interested. I began to realize that I had to have something more to offer them than what Alex had authorized, so I started keeping my ears open for any edge I could find.”
Kirk thought that Julius’s obvious need and desperation must have made him an easy target. He could see Julius in his mind’s eye now, frantic to help his brother fulfill his dream, and burning with a bitterness that made him seize the first opportunity that came along.
“It never seemed exactly innocent, but at first, they didn’t seem to want a lot.”
“They who?” Kirk suspected, but he had to know.
[151] “The Orion Syndicate,” Julius said. Alex made a small sound in his throat and shook his head. He still hadn’t turned around to face his brother. “They said they could help, and they did. They helped me get what the Falorians wanted.”
“Last night,” Kirk said, deciding the time for his own confession had arrived, “Scott, Chekov, and I went to check out this so-called facility. Have you been there, Julius?”
The young man shook his head. “I didn’t even know about it until they told us.” His voice was filled with self-disgust.
“It’s some kind of laboratory and research facility. In the very heart, deep in the earth, is an enormous control center. They’re monitoring hundreds of places scattered throughout the Federation, including Starfleet Headquarters itself.”
Alex had turned around now and stared at Kirk with wide eyes and parted lips. Julius’s flushed face had paled again, and he looked slightly ill.
“Their technology level is much higher than they’re letting on,” Kirk continued. “And part of the reason is that this research facility is crammed with Starfleet technology. They even fired a standard-issue phaser at us.”
Julius rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his head. Mercilessly, Kirk plowed on.
“Chekov was injured when we downloaded some information from their computer systems. I took this.” He held up the padd, which he had safely ensconced in a jacket pocket. “We were able to determine that the [152] research is centered around nanotechnology. They’re planning something big, gentlemen. Something that could potentially harm the Federation. But we don’t have enough information yet.”
Kirk caught and held Alexander’s gaze. “Alex, you’ve got some of the best minds in the quadrant assembled here. We’ve got to put them to work. The Falorians obviously don’t have any intentions of letting us leave.”
He glanced at Julius. “Was that it, Julius? Were we supposed to be hostages?”
Julius finally looked up, and he seemed to have aged a decade. Kirk had always thought the saying that one’s eyes were “haunted” was a cliché of the worst sort, but now he vividly understood what the phrase meant. Julius did look haunted, by ghosts of his obviously rough childhood and the fear of what he might inadvertently have done to his own people.
“It never occurred to me, Uncle Jim. When they wanted you so badly, I assumed it was just to wave it in the faces of the Huanni. They hate them so much. I would never have put Alex in harm’s way. Never. I’d die before I’d do that.”
Kirk latched on to what Julius had said. “The Huanni—they hate them? Even now? Why?”
“I don’t know. Some ancient racial thing, I think. I—I thought that’s what they wanted the weapons for, but they never asked for anything big enough to start a war with.” A muscle twitched near his right eye. “At least, not from me. Guess I wasn’t a big enough fish. Uncle Jim, it’s obvious to me that I was just some kind of [153] stepping-stone. They’ve cut me out of the loop, and from here on in, I swear to you, I don’t know what they’re planning.”
“I believe you, Julius. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”
T’SroH stared at the images of flickering fire. “The colonists remain unharmed? Particularly Kirk?”
“It appears so,” Garthak replied. “But their ship is completely destroyed.”
“The colonists’ ship is destroyed,” T’SroH mused aloud. He drummed his sharp-nailed fingers on the arm of his chair. “Their communications are being monitored and all outside messages are not being transmitted. When the shield of this facility was lowered, we detected signs of advanced technology and not a few weapons. These Falorians have built an enormous spacedock about which the colonists know nothing. They are in contact with the Orion Syndicate. Kirk obviously knows something. He yet lives, which means that the Falorians deem his life has value to them.”
He
made his decision. “Contact the chancellor.” He had enough to warrant alerting her to the situation. She might have a chance to complete her DIS jaj je sooner than anyone had expected.
Spock sat alone in his quarters, absently plucking the sweet-sounding strings of his Vulcan lyre. The act soothed him, though he was well aware that what he was doing was much more akin to what humans called “jamming” than performing the demanding, rigid, [154] thousand-year-old Vulcan songs traditionally played on the instrument.
He permitted himself to continue. He found that this action busied his fingers while simultaneously freeing his mind. His thoughts turned now to the last, nearly disastrous meeting between himself and the High Council.
Gorkon’s dream, even now, was far from universally shared among the Klingons. Spock had found Gorkon to be a reasoned, far-sighted individual, particularly so for a Klingon. While his daughter shared her father’s dream, she did not have his temperament. Loud shouting matches often erupted when she spoke, in which her council eagerly joined. The cacophony was offensive to both Spock’s ears and sensibilities, both of which were delicate. Yet he knew that peace was possible, and he recognized, as far too few of his contemporaries did, how much the Klingons could contribute to the Federation if they ever decided to officially seek membership.
Spock was pleased, however, with how well things were working on the less political front. McCoy’s medical staff interchange was weeding out those who were far too biased to be effective ambassadorial doctors and bringing to the forefront those who might have fewer commendations but more open minds. And he had to confess, he personally was enjoying the rehearsals of Earth music and Klingon opera. Uhura had obviously greatly impressed the explosive Karglak. Wars had been won by less.
His door chimed. Spock raised an eyebrow. This was [155] his private time, and he had left orders not to be disturbed. Curious as to who would violate his order for privacy and why, he called, “Enter.”
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