“What do you think about that?”
“I don’t think she should hurt anyone. And there shouldn’t be a war.”
Kirk used every technique Spock had ever taught him to keep his face from registering what he felt. He could not lead his child in this. “What do you think we should do?”
Joseph straightened, as he had when he had spoken to Admiral Janeway. “She’s a bad guy. We should stop her, Dad.”
“You mean, beam down there, as she said?”
Kirk saw Joseph’s eyes register apprehension. At far too young an age, he was faced with what all children want and fear at the same time: control.
“By myself?” he asked.
“No,” Kirk answered. “Never by yourself.”
“Us?”
Kirk nodded. As terrifying as this felt to him, the decision had to be his son’s. Kirk knew it was the only way either of them could ever live with the results of what might happen.
Joseph held firm. “We should beam down, Dad. We should stop the bad guys from hurting anyone.”
Pride and fear mixed equally in Kirk as he motioned to Joseph to come to him.
“Mister La Forge,” he said, “contact Norinda. Tell her Joseph and I will beam down together in a transporter swap. Tell her that Captain Picard, Mister Scott, and Doctor Crusher are to be on the pad at her location or there is no deal.”
“Aye, sir,” La Forge said, and he turned to his board.
With Joseph at his side, Kirk went to Worf. “Mister Worf, by any chance would you have a bat’leth?”
Worf squared his shoulders. “A bat’leth would be difficult to conceal. But I am a Klingon warrior in Romulan space. I sharpened my mek’leth on the journey here.” He leaned forward. “And I have daggers.”
Kirk approved. The mek’leth was the Klingon short sword. And he was familiar with it. “May we borrow them?”
Worf bared his teeth as if he were personally going into battle. “I would be honored.”
Riker joined them. “You know, we do have hand phasers on the yacht.”
“I doubt they’ll make it past the transporter filters, but you know what else we could use?”
Riker’s broad grin eclipsed his beard. “A starship? Fortunately, I know just where to find one.”
Kirk looked across the bridge, saw McCoy’s scowl, knew he didn’t approve. But it was far too late to worry about exposing Joseph to danger. Starfleet Intelligence had failed them all in that regard.
All Kirk could do now was remain determined not to repeat the error.
And with his son at his side, he was ready to stop the bad guys.
25
JOLAN SEGMENT, STARDATE 57488.2
“Two minutes, Captain,” La Forge said.
Kirk crouched down by Joseph, to look into his son’s eyes as an equal. “Say it again,” Kirk prompted.
Joseph sighed, and Kirk could see how nervous he was. But he knew that would pass once they were on their way.
“The bad guys won’t hurt me,” Joseph recited. “They think that I’m special and that I can help them. But they might tell me lies about Mommy and you. And I don’t believe lies.”
“I love you,” Kirk told his child. “And your mother loved you.”
A small smile appeared on Joseph’s face as he fell into one of their bedtime rituals. “How much did she love me?”
“More than all the stars you can see. More than all the stars you can’t see. More than all the stars that ever were or will be…”
They recited the last line together, each tapping a finger against the other’s nose. “And that’s how much I love you, too!”
Kirk prepared himself and Joseph. “Whatever they tell you, don’t ever forget that.”
“I won’t,” Joseph said, then added in Klingon, “jIH lay’.”
“One minute,” La Forge said. “I have three life-forms on the pad in the target chamber…Picard…Crusher…and Scott, confirmed. Linking carrier waves.”
Kirk stood beside Joseph on the single large pad in the bay. Kirk wore the same civilian clothes and jacket he had on when the Calypso had been boarded by the still unidentified intruders. He had a hand phaser in one pocket, a large civilian communicator in another, and Worf’s mek’leth slung in a back harness under his jacket. The phaser would not get past the weapons filter on Norinda’s transporter, but if it were a typical Romulan installation, bladed weapons were so common that the mek’leth might not be noticed.
Joseph wore clean overalls, bright red, with a civilian communicator sealed in his chest pouch, and a d’k tahg dagger in a scabbard attached to a loop at his waist. He was under strict orders never to use it against a person, but Kirk could imagine many scenarios in which a good knife could be a useful tool.
“Carrier waves linked,” La Forge said. “Fifteen seconds.”
“Just remember the plan,” Kirk said to Riker, Worf, and McCoy, who stood with La Forge behind the operator’s station at the front of the bay. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to stop that war. So get Picard to the Tal Shiar first, then come looking for us.”
Kirk could see that they all had a comment they wanted to add, probably saying how much they hated that plan. But Joseph’s presence constrained them.
“Energizing…” La Forge said.
Kirk’s hand squeezed Joseph’s shoulder as the transporter bay dissolved into light all around them. A moment of nonexistence later, the light shimmered away, to show that the bay had been replaced by a vast greenhouse dome, with a grass floor, large shade trees, and even a rushing stream.
Kirk looked around from the vantage point of the raised transporter platform he and Joseph stood on. Immediately, he saw Norinda, standing by a transporter console with Virron, Sen, Nran, and a fourth Romulan unknown to him.
Kirk checked his pocket and the phaser was missing as he had expected. But he felt the welcome pressure of the mek’leth on his back, and the civilian communicator was with him as well.
He pulled it out, switched it on. “Kirk to Calypso. Are they on board?”
La Forge replied promptly. “All present, in good health. Captain Picard requests the contact information for the…representative that Norinda promised him.”
Kirk stepped down from the platform and Joseph followed, staying close.
“Do you have that information?” Kirk asked.
Norinda held out her hand for the communicator.
Kirk gave it to her.
“Captain Picard,” she said into the communicator, “I offered you love. I offered you peace. I offered you understanding. You rejected it all. You lied to me, and you deceived me.”
Kirk stared at Norinda. She was building to something. She was speaking as if she did not even need to hear Picard’s response.
Picard did not seem to sense what Kirk had.
“I told you the truth. I told you that sometimes there were other things we needed, but that we were both committed to stopping this war.”
“I think you don’t fear war enough,” Norinda said. “I think you do not really know what war is. So now, you will have your chance to learn. And perhaps when the war is over—in the months or years or decades it will take to spread through your precious galactic quadrants—then you will know what it means to reject love, and so, at last, you will come to embrace it.”
“Don’t do this,” Kirk said to her. But she wasn’t listening to him any more than she was to Picard.
“Norinda,” Picard’s voice pleaded. “I do know war. That’s why I must stop this one. Give me the name you promised! While there’s still time.”
“You should not have rejected me,” Norinda said. “Jolan True.” Then with sudden violence, she threw the communicator onto the grass and in the instant it hit, Nran fired a disruptor and destroyed it.
Kirk reached for Norinda’s arm, forcing her to listen to him. “You can’t condemn millions to death because Picard disappointed you!”
With unexpected strength, Norinda pulled her arm from his grip
. “Picard chose death over love. You all do.”
“Picard did what he thought best—for peace! If you’re angry about the holographic duplicate of my son, look!” Kirk waved his hand at Joseph. “Here he is! I’ve kept my word! Show us all that you know what love is. Show us all that you can forgive!”
Norinda shook her head. “You understand nothing about love. When all are loved, when all share peace and understanding, then all are the same, and there is no need for forgiveness.”
“But you heard Picard. We’re not all the same.”
“In time,” Norinda said, “you will be. Totally the same.”
With that, she took her attention from Kirk, held out her hand to Joseph. “T’Kol T’Lan, I am Norinda.”
“I know,” Joseph said in a sullen, challenging tone.
Norinda smiled.
Kirk watched with horror as her features began to subtly change, with her Romulan forehead smoothing and expanding, growing fine Klingon ridges.
“Joseph! Look away from her!” Kirk called out in warning to his son.
Norinda’s face reset to its Romulan form in seconds as she turned to Kirk. “Why deny your son? You all want something. Something I can give.” She pointed to the four Romulans. “They understand. They accept my gifts. But not your friends. Not you. Why?!”
To Kirk, the answer was simple. “Because your gifts aren’t real,” he said, moving to stand between her and his son. Shielding Joseph from what he should not see.
But Norinda merely reached out to the portable transporter console, and activated several controls and a transporter warble began to sound.
She was beaming something—or someone—in.
A column of light formed on the raised platform.
Kirk readied to defend himself and Joseph should a Reman bodyguard suddenly appear and attack. He knew it couldn’t be anyone from the Calypso. The ship was already out of range.
“Here is a gift,” Norinda said. “It is what you want. And it is real. Will you reject this, too?”
And then the light faded.
Kirk gasped.
It was Spock.
26
S.S. CALYPSO, STARDATE 57488.3
Beverly Crusher was insistent. “We have no choice, Jean-Luc! We have to warn them. It’s the last chance we have to stop the war.”
“And it could be just the thing that starts it,” Picard argued.
Crusher threw her padd on the fold-down chart table in the Titan’s yacht, still docked with the Calypso. He, McCoy, and Scott were seated at the table. Crusher, Riker, Worf, and La Forge were standing around it.
“If we do nothing, Jean-Luc, it’s going to start anyway. So what do we have to lose?”
Picard matched her throwing of the padd by banging his fist on the table. “I will not gamble with the lives of billions of people simply because I don’t know what else to do!”
“How about a measured warning?” Riker suggested, and Picard understood he was trying to find a middle ground. “I could get word to the commanders I deal with in the Romulan Fleet.”
“But what could they do in less than a day?” Picard asked.
Worf snorted in derision. “They would evacuate their friends and family from likely target zones, then applaud the destruction of Remus.”
“We have no time left for diplomatic initiatives,” Picard said. “Even if we had tried that from the beginning, there are too many factions on Romulus, too many differing opinions on how Remus should be handled. And there’d be no way to tell if Tal Shiar operatives were manipulating the message.”
“There is another possibility,” Worf suggested. Picard and everyone else in the passenger cabin looked at the resolute Klingon. “The Titan will arrive in less than six hours. That will give us approximately ten hours to attack and disable the three Reman warbirds that the Tal Shiar hope will launch a counterattack on Romulus.”
“Now that’s a Klingon for you,” McCoy said. “Stop a civil war by starting an interplanetary one.”
Worf growled under his breath. “Our attacks on the warbirds will not be an act of war. It will be a preemptive strike to preserve peace.”
Picard knew they didn’t have time for McCoy and Worf to start a debate that was in reality an argument neither could win, so he intervened at once. “That still does nothing for the millions of Remans who will be killed when their communes are destroyed at the Hour of Opposition. And in the confusion that would certainly arise between a Starfleet vessel attacking Reman ships…” Picard locked eyes with the two verbal combatants. “…followed by explosions in Reman communities, there is a very good chance that interplanetary war could be triggered.”
“Then why don’t we find the bombs,” La Forge said, “or whatever it is that the Tal Shiar are going to use to destroy the communes? No bombs. No destruction. No reason for the crews of the warbirds to take revenge.”
“Unfortunately,” Picard said to clarify their situation, “Norinda did not specifically say that bombs would be used. Life-support systems might be poisoned. Ships might be deliberately crashed into the surface domes. Power plants could be sabotaged. The food and water supplies. We just wouldn’t know what we were searching for.”
“But surely there’s nothin’ wrong with at least makin’ the attempt?” Scott asked. “We don’t have all the answers, but we do have some. We know the three communities that have been targeted, the ones linked to the warbirds Atranar, Braul, and Vortral. With the Titan’s sensors, we’d have a very good chance o’ spottin’ the most likely means of mass destruction.” He listed them on his fingers. “Antimatter bomb. Fusion. Fission. And if we pick th’ proper orbit so we’re equidistant from all three communities at th’ Hour of Opposition, then we can certainly protect them from missiles, torpedoes, or crashing spacecraft.”
No one objected right away, and Picard took that as a good sign.
Then La Forge added his support. “Captain, I agree with Scotty. It’s a place to start.”
“Very well,” Picard said, looking around at his team. “Do we have any way of accessing the Romulan Central Information Net? Is there a Reman equivalent? Anything that would give us maps and specifications for the three communes so the Titan will be able to identify anything out of the ordinary?”
Riker seemed confident he could access the necessary information as part of a general request for trade data. He knew the people to contact on Romulus, which by now was only a few minutes distant by warp.
“Then let’s get started,” Picard said, and dismissed the group to begin their work.
Scott was right; the attempt had to be made.
Even if it was too little and too late.
27
JOLAN SEGMENT, STARDATE 57488.3
Kirk stared at a ghost.
He told himself that what he saw stepping down from the transporter pad in the center of the greenhouse chamber was just another of Norinda’s cruel illusions.
Spock was dead. Three thousand Romulans had witnessed his murder. Kirk had seen the visual sensor recordings. Felt the agony of loss.
“Captain,” Spock said.
He stood before Kirk in a version of a Romulan assessor’s uniform. He looked more gaunt than the last time Kirk had seen him, somehow frailer, as if he had succumbed to an illness or—
“Spock?” Kirk said. “Is it you?”
“Given that we are both acquainted with Norinda’s skill as a shapeshifter, your hesitation in accepting the evidence of your eyes is understandable. However, logic suggests that—”
“It is you!” Kirk just managed to refrain from embracing Spock, but Joseph felt no such constraints.
“Uncle Spock? Are you all right?”
“As well as can be expected,” Spock said as he gently extricated himself from a hearty hug around his legs.
Kirk shot a glance back at Norinda and the Romulans. They were huddled together, discussing something of greater importance than Spock’s return from the dead.
Kirk looked down
at his son, who now stood between him and Spock. “Joseph, this is a time to be quiet and stay close, okay?”
“Okay.” Joseph looked up wide-eyed, but unafraid.
“I need to know,” Kirk said to Spock. “How is this possible?”
Spock raised an eyebrow, as if Kirk had asked a question to which he should already know the answer. “Captain, ‘when you have eliminated all which is impossible’—”
Kirk finished it. “—‘then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ You didn’t die.”
“Not this time.”
“The assassination was staged?”
“I believed a dramatic event was necessary to appeal to the emotionalism of the Romulans, in order to call attention to reunification of our people.”
“You believed?” Kirk said. “You staged your own murder?”
“I was unwilling to risk anyone’s life but my own. And my time in the public eye is over.”
Kirk looked again at Norinda, this time saw her watching him, or, more probably, Joseph. “You can tell me more later.”
He dropped his voice. “Spock, how did you get here? Why are you with her?”
Spock shrugged. “I am her prisoner, for reasons which I do not entirely fathom.”
Kirk saw Norinda smile at the fourth Romulan whom he had never met.
“Spock, this is important. These people think that Joseph is the new Shinzon.”
Kirk could tell Spock was startled by that fact by the quiet way he said, “Indeed.”
“But right now there’s a civil war about to start, between Romulus and Remus.”
“Tensions have been high since the coup, but—”
“No,” Kirk urgently interrupted. “The situation’s being manipulated. Staged. Spock, I have to know. Was your staged death completely your idea? Or did you have help?”
“I had help, of course. It required considerable logistical support.”
“Then tell me if any of this sounds familiar,” Kirk said.
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