Star Trek - [Mirror Universe 003]

by Shards

  "Spock?" Of all the names Zhao had expected to hear, that had not been one of them. The Vulcan renegade, the dangerous man whose reputation had extended even this far, to the Empire's distant fringes. The officer who defied all attempts to assassinate him. The man who had killed the heartless James Kirk, who some said had a terrible power at his fingertips. Spock, hated by many and admired by more. Zhao had to admit that he placed himself firmly in the latter camp, not that he would have said it openly.

  If Klisiewicz had been there, his response would have been immediate, placing the woman in the brig, if not terminating her on the spot. Internecine alliances and compacts between Imperial officers, while commonplace, were tolerated only when it was to the Empire's ultimate benefit. It was widely held that Spock's intentions were not ones that favored those in the corridors of power on Imperial Earth. But the Vulcan admiral's bold stance against the machinations of the Empress's court had struck a chord with Endeavour's commander, and in that moment, he decided to hear T'Prynn out.

  She saw she had his attention. "In revealing my identity and intent, I have shown you a degree of trust, Captain. Will you return that confidence?"

  "I will," he agreed. "Nothing said in this room will leave it."

  The woman continued. "In Admiral Spock's considered opinion, there is a critical situation developing in the Taurus Reach. The existence of the Vanguard station, Imperial Starbase 47, is a threat to the stability of the Terran Empire. If left unchecked, Starfleet's operations within the Reach will soon ignite a conflict that will ruin important plans for the Empire's future."

  "Whose plans?" asked Zhao. "I doubt you mean those of Empress Sato."

  T'Prynn ignored his interruption. "Admiral Spock requires that the command of Commodore Diego Reyes be terminated with extreme prejudice and that Vanguard's operations be neutralized."

  Zhao gave a bitter laugh and let his rice bowl clatter to the table. "And you come with this to me? Spock conjures this demand from the air and expects me to fulfill it for him, to turn against my commanding officer, throw away my life?" He snorted derisively. "And the lives of my crew?"

  The woman fixed him with a steady gaze. "The admiral guarantees three rewards if you succeed."

  "Only three?" Zhao sat back and folded his arms. "Let me hear them, then. If only so I can give a complete accounting of your treachery to the Office of Imperial Inquisition when I report you for this madness."

  "First, you will be granted the rank currently held by Reyes, with all the power and status that entails."

  Despite himself, Zhao stiffened a little at her words. Reyes had made it clear in no uncertain terms that the Endeavour's commander would never advance in rank, not while the shadow of Vanguard loomed large over the Reach.

  "Second," she continued, "you will have the chance to recover the life of someone very important to you."

  He was on his feet in an instant, his hands balling into fists. "You don't speak of her!" Zhao snarled. "You do not speak of her in my presence!"

  T'Prynn showed no alarm, no concern over his abrupt flash of fury. "And third, you will recover the honor you have lost."

  His anger, potent and towering, was suddenly bled away, vanishing as quickly as it had come. Zhao felt a rush of cold run through him. An understanding.

  "This is the admiral's offer, Captain Zhao. Do you accept?"

  He found himself speaking without being conscious of it, his thoughts churning. "I...I will consider it."

  She watched the passage of emotions across the face of the human, reading them in his eyes, the tightening of the skin around his lips and a hundred other subtle cues that Zhao was not even aware of. She had studied the man and done what she could to ensure that she would attract him on their first meeting, but it was not until now, when they were alone together, that T'Prynn felt she truly had an insight into him. Her mission was to persuade Zhao to take up Spock's flag and turn against the man whose boot was pressed against his neck; but humans were so ephemeral, as hard to predict as they were easy to read. Her eyes fell to the data card on the table; she recalled the brief touch of the admiral's hand on hers as he gave it to her.

  The dry, sullen heat of her homeworld, the dust suspended in the still air of an alleyway in Vulcana Regar. Weeks ago now, but as fresh in her mind as if it had been moments.

  T'Prynn offered the three figures before her the ritual gesture of an open hand, fingers split. "I am here."

  The tallest of the three mirrored her actions, and she saw the lines of his face in the shadows cast by an awning overhead. "T'Prynn," he said, his words resonant. "It is agreeable to see you."

  She inclined her head. "Admiral. I came as quickly as I could." There was a weariness in her words that she could not conceal, despite her best efforts. He was strange that way; something about Spock's presence disarmed her, made every element of her tradecraft seem insubstantial. T'Prynn was discomforted by her inability to hide things from him. Deep inside, the very smallest ember of resentment burned in her.

  If he noticed, he made no mention of it. "We move forward," Spock explained. "The progression is slow but steady. Your contribution continues to be of great value."

  Another being might have thanked him for the compliment. T'Prynn said nothing, feeling no need to acknowledge what was obvious.

  "You understand my time is limited, that the Empire's future requires my full and complete attention."

  "I do."

  "Consider a dam holding back a lake," he said carefully. "It is old and crumbling. It is best that it be dismantled and the water allowed to find an equilibrium."

  "A somewhat simplistic analogy for the Terran Empire."

  "Quite so, but adequate for this discussion. The dam has cracks that will widen if left unchecked, that will result in an uncontrolled flood. These flows must be stanched before they bring the entire structure down. What you have done, T'Prynn, is to enable me to tap those flows, control them or obstruct them. I wish you to understand the value of your work."

  "I do," she repeated. "Not that my understanding is required. Only my obedience."

  "I regret some measure of coercion was required on your part, in order to have you prosecute certain missions." Spock's admission was unexpected. "I hope you will understand it was necessary."

  Necessary? The hot ember in T'Prynn's heart throbbed. Was it necessary to hold my secrets over me for all this time? She applied a degree of iron self-control, reaching into herself to silence the dissention-and other, more strident voices and desires.

  "The Empire's future requires a total commitment, and I have surrendered my life to that duty," he continued. "But for now, I must move with caution. I cannot tip my hand to the Empress. This is why your covert skills have such importance." He looked away to the other figures, and for the first time, T'Prynn caught a scent from one of them.

  Human. A female. She peered into the depths of the figure's hood but could discern only the vague impression of a face. Spock's concubine, the one called Moreau.

  "Many obstacles lie in the path of the Empire's deconstruction," said Spock. "Of late, I have learned of a most pressing problem." He offered her a data card, and she took it, brushing his fingers. "Vanguard station, a starbase constructed out on the edges of Imperial space, in a zone known colloquially as the Taurus Reach. It sits within range of both Klingon and Tholian territories. It is fast becoming a potential flashpoint for interstellar conflict."

  She turned the data card over in her hand. "For what reason?"

  He did not answer her immediately. "For my plans to succeed, it is imperative that the Taurus Reach be left to the militant Tholians. Without Fleet involvement, they will drive off any probing expeditions from the Klingons, and the area will remain stable. The Empress Sato, however, has other ideas. She has turned control of Vanguard over to one of the Empire's most brutal officers, one Commodore Diego Reyes. Do you know of him?"

  She nodded. Diego "Red" Reyes, as he was called, had a reputation for butchery and arrog
ance that broke limits even among the ruthless men and women of the Fleet. A thief in his youth who graduated to hardened criminal status in the barrios of Earth's lunar complexes, after being pressed into Starfleet service, he had risen to high rank through callous cunning and sheer violence. It was said that among his record of atrocities, Reyes had personally obliterated the colony governed by his wife in retaliation for her divorce, killing thousands of innocents and turning the world's surface to glass. T'Prynn had encountered the fringes of the man's influence in missions within Orion space, where the commodore had connections with the crime syndicates.

  "The Empress has given the Reach to Reyes. In return for keeping the colonies there in line, the commodore has a free hand to do as he wishes." Spock paused. "His governance of the zone resembles that of a feudal bandit warlord more than an Imperial officer."

  "You have a source inside his command?" Given the admiral's breadth of information, it seemed a logical deduction.

  Spock confirmed her conclusion with a nod. "I have cultivated an agent within the staff involved on 'Operation Vanguard' and learned the true purpose of Starbase 47's presence in the Reach. Vanguard station is the nexus for a series of scientific missions across the zone, gathering and conducting research into relics of alien technology from a highly advanced precursor civilization. These ongoing intrusions are antagonizing the Tholian Assembly and drawing the attention of the Klingons."

  "And that is why you wish to move now?"

  He nodded. "My source has fallen silent. I am concerned that Reyes's staff have discovered something that will radically alter the balance of power in the quadrant. This cannot be allowed to occur, but I cannot openly oppose the commodore at this time."

  She looked at the data card again. "You want me to eliminate Reyes?" She had killed many for Spock, men and women, from range and from close enough to taste their last breaths. She remembered them all.

  "I require you to cultivate a cat's paw in order to eradicate the threat that Reyes and Vanguard present to my plans. All of the information you will require is in your hand."

  When T'Prynn looked up at him again, she could not keep the weariness from her expression. She had come there today hoping, as she did each time, that he would free her from this servitude. The endless cycle of lies and subterfuge, the duplicity of being Spock's spy piled on top of the everyday deceit of life in the Imperial Fleet, dragged her down like iron chains. She wanted nothing more than to end it. To be free to be who she was, unfettered by her secrets.

  "This will be the last," she said, the words tumbling from her lips. "After this, I will walk away." T'Prynn met Spock's gaze. "I believe in your vision, Admiral, and I will do all I can to serve that. But I have reached my limit with the Empire and the blood I must wade through as a Fleet officer, the mendacity of it. This far and no further." She held up the disc. "I do this, and I leave Starfleet behind, forever."

  Spock answered without hesitation. "Agreed."

  The corridors of the station became real around her, and Commander Lurqal stiffened. It was force of habit; every other time she had been transported aboard an Imperial craft, it had been with disruptor and mek'leth in hand, ready to strike out and kill everything she saw. It felt peculiar to be under different, almost cordial, circumstances. She eyed the walls of the complex and took in the troop of Imperial security officers arrayed around the reception area. They stood at parade-ground ready, clearly meant as a gesture of respect for the new arrivals; but she had no doubts that they would draw their phasers if any Klingon in the delegation made the slightest aggressive move. She heard a grunt from Turag at her side; the envoy from Qo'noS was no more impressed than Lurqal was.

  The commander took a moment to gauge the scope of the chamber. The walls were adorned with rich hangings and battle pennants, flags lined with brocade drooping down to the deck, and here and there what appeared to be trophy items. The skulls of aliens, pieces of shredded hull metal recovered from dead enemies. Lurqal recognized what was certainly part of a hatch from a Romulan troopship.

  She sniffed. Such displays were beneath the notice of a true warrior. Lurqal preferred to have her deeds speak for themselves, instead of constructing a museum to aggrandize them; but then the profligate display was certainly in character for the man who commanded this station, if Turag's intelligence reports were to be believed.

  And now that man approached them, with a heavy-set Orion a step behind him and a bowed bond-slave following. His uniform tunic was heavy with showy decorations and rank insignia, and at his hip rested a long-barreled energy weapon. The human's face was craggy and lined, with old scars upon a shorn skull. His right eye was an augmetic replacement, a bulbous thing of polished steel. It stared back at her with an unblinking red lens. He had a mocking grin playing about his lips.

  "At last," he began. "Here you are. Welcome to my castle keep, Envoy. Welcome to Vanguard."

  "Thank you, Commodore Reyes," Turag said silkily. "I must confess, my agents were quite surprised by your overtures to us." He gave a little laugh. "We thought this might be some attempt at subterfuge on your part. Perhaps a ham-fisted attempt at assassination?"

  "Really?" Reyes mimicked Turag's tone and manner. "That would have been a silly thing to do, don't you agree?" He glanced at Lurqal for a split second, and she felt the man's gaze rake over her. "And you are?"

  "Commander Lurqal is my military counterpart," Turag explained. "If what you have to offer us appears legitimate, she will make an evaluation for the Klingon warfleet."

  She took her cue. "We have come as you requested, Reyes. I suggest you show us why we should waste our time with you as soon as possible. My people are not known for their patience."

  The commodore grinned. "I do like a woman who knows her own mind. Don't you agree, Ganz?" He addressed the comment to the Orion, who nodded slightly, maintaining an air of watchful menace at Reyes's side. "You're right. Why waste time? Let's cut to the chase." He beckoned them to follow. "C'mon. Let me show you why you ought to get into bed with me."

  Lurqal grimaced at the ugly metaphor but said nothing and fell in line with Turag and his bodyguards.

  Reyes threw a look over his shoulder as they walked. "Let's put our cards on the table. I know you ridge-heads know about Erilon and all the other places we've been digging up inside the Reach." He winked. "You know something's out here, something big, but you don't know what, and you still want it anyway, right?" He eyed Lurqal.

  "Whatever has value to an enemy has value to us," she retorted. "We can take it or destroy it."

  "If you can actually get it, yeah," replied Reyes.

  Turag's manner cooled. "Did you bring us here to insult us, Commodore?"

  Lurqal answered before Reyes could speak. "He brought us here to impress us." She gestured around at the walls of the starbase. "The commodore is showing off his space fortress."

  "I am, at that," Reyes admitted, turning the red eye on her. "But that's just the curtain raiser. See, we've found a few things out here, Commander. Leftovers, of a sort. Relics from a species that at first we thought were dead and gone. Technology that makes our starships look like rowboats. But I'm getting ahead of myself." He patted the Orion on the shoulder, a gesture of familiarity that drew a cold glower from the emerald-skinned alien. "Ganz here, he and I have come to an understanding about a lot of things. We've both had a...I suppose you could say it was an epiphany. I've come to realize my own worth, if you follow."

  "I don't," Lurqal replied.

  Reyes's grin widened, and he flicked at the Imperial insignia on his tunic. "One thing I've learned is that out here in the dark, the Earth is a long, long way away. A man has to be his own emperor as captain of a ship or starbase. And after a while, the size of that small kingdom..." He chuckled, amused by himself. "Well, it gets a little tight around the britches, you know what I mean?"

  "You want more power."

  "And I'm going to get it. Matter of fact, you're going to help me."