“Sir,” Rungius reported. “The Ven ships are firing.”
“Brace yourselves,” Pressman commanded. Everyone did, but no barrage landed.
“Sir,” Rungius corrected. “The Ven are firing on the Omistolian ship that held us—on Oxxreg’s ship!”
Will blew out a sigh of relief. The kilometers were passing by the second, thousands upon thousands of them. They weren’t out of range yet, but apparently Oxxreg had bigger problems right now. Captain Pressman ordered that Oxxreg’s ship be put on the main viewscreen, and the whole bridge watched as four Ven ships fired upon it at once, green beams lighting up the sky. Then the Omistolian ship exploded, parts of it spiraling out into space, trailing smoke. The concussion wave from the blast caught up to them a few moments later, pushing them even farther away from the battle.
“Mr. Riker, ahead warp six, if you please,” Captain Pressman said.
Will laughed. “I do please, sir. I please very much. Warp six it is.” He moved his fingers across the control panel like an experienced hand, and reveled in the fact that he, a kid from Valdez, was at the conn of a starship.
And that it could fly really, really fast.
Chapter 38
Kathryn Janeway came back into the situation room just as the cheers were dying out. She walked straight to Kyle’s side, barely sparing a glance for anyone else. “It looks like I missed something,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s just fine,” he told her with a grin. He patted the back of the chair next to him. “Have a seat, Ensign, and tell me what you found out.”
She spoke quietly into his ear for a couple of minutes, and Kyle felt his gaze drawn to the person of Vice Admiral Bonner, who, alone among the individuals in the room, seemed not to be celebrating the Pegasus’s escape.
Admiral Owen Paris came over to Kyle, giving Janeway an inquisitive look but saying nothing, and clapped Kyle on the back. “Congratulations, Kyle,” he said. “It looks like you’ve still got the touch.”
“Thank you, Owen,” Kyle said. He spoke louder than was strictly necessary, but he did it on purpose, wanting to attract attention. “I’d like to ask you something, though.”
“What is it?” Owen said. He looked a little taken aback, though he must have known that Kyle had been using Janeway for some private purpose.
“I’d like to know who it was that ordered the Pegasus into that space in the first place. I understand they went in looking for the pirates, but I believe they were acting on intelligence supplied by Starfleet Command. Was it Vice Admiral Bonner?”
Owen hesitated for a moment before answering, as if unsure what can of worms he might be opening. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, it was. How did you…why do you ask?”
“I thought it might have been,” Kyle said. He noticed that by now he had the attention of everyone in the room, including Bonner, who stared at him with undisguised contempt.
“I don’t know if I appreciate this line of conversation,” Bonner objected. “This man is a civilian; what business is it of his whether or not I ordered that? Anyway, we had no reason to doubt the intelligence.”
“He’s right, Kyle,” Admiral Paris said. He still sounded hesitant, as if he didn’t want to shut Kyle down, but he needed to maintain the proper protocols. “Is this going somewhere?”
Kyle rose from his seat. He trusted Owen, and because he did he trusted Ensign Janeway. But he sure hoped her information was accurate.
“It is, Owen, and I’ll ask you to let me finish this.”
“Absolutely not!” Bonner exploded. “What is this, some kind of civilian tribunal?”
“Nothing of the sort,” Kyle assured him. This was his second strategic ploy of the day. He hoped it played out as well as his first. “But my son’s life was in danger today, and he helped save a lot of other lives. I think I’m entitled to a few questions and answers, here.”
“You have no official status here, Kyle,” Owen reminded him. “You’ve been missing for nearly two years. You are here as a favor to me, and I’ll ask you not to push things too far. That said, I agree, you are entitled to some answers.”
“I most strenuously object,” Bonner blustered. He lurched from his seat, face red and blotchy again, scalp dripping with sweat.
“Horace,” Owen said. “Sit down and shut up.”
Bonner glared at him, but noticed that everyone else in the room was staring, and finally returned to his seat.
“Kyle, you’d better explain yourself,” Owen suggested.
“Thank you, Owen. I will. Vice Admiral Bonner sent the U.S.S. Pegasus on a wild goose chase into disputed, dangerous space, even though, in fact, there was no information that Heaven’s Blade was anywhere in the vicinity.”
There was an audible gasp from some in the room, and murmured conversation among others that quickly stopped when Kyle continued. “That part is just speculation, though I suspect if we examine the Vice Admiral’s logs we’ll see that it’s true. Something else is definitely true, though, confirmed for me just moments ago by the very capable Ensign Janeway. Vice Admiral Bonner had a stepson on Starbase 311 with me—a young man named Charles Heidl. Mr. Heidl was a scientist, not a military officer. Although Vice Admiral Bonner and Mr. Heidl were very close—as close as any father and son, I would guess, from what I’ve been able to learn—the relationship between them has been kept very secret. Possibly because Vice Admiral Bonner had, on numerous occasions, arranged for Starfleet favors for Mr. Heidl. Chief among these was helping to arrange funding, transportation, and a facility on Starbase 311 for some of Heidl’s experiments.”
Bonner looked at Kyle, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, like a fish in a tank. Owen addressed Janeway, still seated next to where Kyle had been. “Is this true, Ensign Janeway?”
“Yes, sir. Once Mr. Riker told me precisely what to look for, it wasn’t hard to find the details.”
“We know that the Tholians attacked Starbase 311,” Kyle went on. “We know, through intercepted communications, that the Tholians did so because of intelligence, which they deemed believable, that Starbase 311 was to be the launching point for an incursion into Tholian space. Further, we know through hard experience what kind of response that would surely generate among the Tholians—precisely the kind that it did. A swift and vicious assault. That intelligence—again, this has been confirmed in the past few minutes by Ensign Janeway—came from the starbase itself.”
“Someone on the base signaled the Tholians and invited attack?” Captain Jensen asked, incredulous.
“That’s correct, Captain,” Kyle replied calmly. “There’s one more piece to the puzzle, but this one I haven’t yet been able to confirm. Even Ensign Janeway isn’t a miracle worker, it seems, and we’ll need a bit more time to study this. But I recall that Starfleet or the Federation was planning an investigation into experiments on Starbase 311—to be specific, whatever experiments Mr. Heidl was engaged in. Becoming aware of this investigation, Vice Admiral Bonner contacted Heidl and ordered him to shut down the experiments and destroy the evidence, according to their prearranged plan. The best way to ensure that the experiments would never be investigated in depth, of course, was to arrange the destruction of the starbase. So the Tholians were contacted. And they came, and all of us on board—all except me, by the merest twist of fate—were killed.”
Kyle had moved closer and closer to Bonner as he spoke. Bonner couldn’t take his eyes off his accuser, and his face seemed almost to be collapsing in on itself as the truth of his crimes was revealed. His gaze was full of hatred, and his hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own, twisting and wringing one another as if they were possessed.
“What was it, Bonner?” Kyle demanded, bending close to his prey. “Genetic experimentation? Something banned by the Federation, at any rate. Something that couldn’t be done closer to home, where the authorities might stumble across it.”
“I can’t…I can’t tell you!” Bonner cried. “He’ll…he
’ll…”
“You’ll be telling a court martial, soon enough,” Owen Paris said. “You might as well come clean.”
“Actually, I think I can guess,” Kyle said. He glanced over at Janeway, who understood the signal and rose from her seat. “Based on what’s happened since. It was some kind of mind control experiment, wasn’t it? If we run a check, I suspect we’ll find that the crew members who have attacked me were all, at one point or another, stationed at Starbase 311. Long before the Tholian attack, of course—probably long before I was there. But while Mr. Heidl was there, running his experiments. And even after it was all over, they remained susceptible to suggestion.”
“But…isn’t Heidl dead?” Owen asked. “Or did he make it off the starbase in time?”
Bonner was simply shaking his head now, tears beginning to run down his cheeks. Kyle couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for the man, though.
“No one made it off in time,” Kyle said. “The last thing Ensign Janeway checked for me was a travel log. Vice Admiral Bonner was in deep space when the Tholians attacked. He was, in fact, not too terribly far from Tholian space. I believe he went there to help his stepson eliminate evidence, and to provide a ride home for Mr. Heidl. For whatever reason, though, Mr. Heidl missed the boat.”
“He went back,” Bonner mumbled, his face buried in his hands. “I…we went there to bring him home.” He dropped his hands and turned his head slowly, facing everyone in the room, as if they were all his accusers. “We came to my ship, but we had forgotten to make sure some of the records were destroyed. So we went back.”
Kyle noted the change in subject pronoun, and realized that Bonner’s problems were even deeper than he had thought. And he had thought they were pretty bad indeed.
“What was it, Bonner? Am I right?”
Bonner nodded and answered wetly. “Mental control and manipulation. Limited range, but very…effective. We made…remarkable progress. But then, we went back and…we talked, via closed-channel communications. ‘They’re here!’ we shouted, and then we could hear the noise of the Tholian torpedoes, and the explosions. We didn’t…didn’t hear Charles anymore, but the channel stayed open and we heard the rest of it. The Tholians, when they boarded the starbase and searched it, destroying every survivor. Except one. Except Riker.”
“Horace,” Owen said, his voice gentle. “You’re saying ‘we.’ What do you mean by that? Who?”
“He’s…he’s in here, with us. Charles. We can’t explain…maybe our mental powers were so well developed, by that time…that we were able to make the jump across space.”
And maybe, Kyle thought, you’re just nutty as a fruitcake.
“Horace, we can get you some help,” Owen said.
“No!” The word was an explosion. “We don’t need your help!” Bonner leapt from his chair, sending it flying backward behind him, and whipped a phaser from his belt holster. He aimed it at Kyle and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 39
Kyle had expected something like this, though he wasn’t at all sure what form it would take, and he had warned Ensign Janeway to get ready for it. At his signal she had taken up a place at the light panel for the room, and as soon as Bonner drew his weapon, she slapped at the panel, plunging the room into utter darkness. Kyle threw himself to the floor, underneath the solid conference table. He heard the phaser discharge, saw the room briefly illumined by its beam. Shouts rang out all around the room.
Kyle rolled out from under the table, close to where Bonner had been standing. He willed himself to be calm, collected. He breathed slowly but shallowly, trying to keep his breath and his heartbeat quiet. Kyle Riker had played a lot of anbo-jytsu in his time. He didn’t need to be able to see to fight.
Bonner, for his part, wasn’t a difficult target. He sobbed once and drew in his breath, and Kyle charged him. In the dark he misestimated Bonner’s height, slightly, and hit him higher than he’d wanted, his shoulder colliding with the vice admiral’s chest instead of his ribcage. Even so, they both fell back. But Bonner crashed against a wall and didn’t go down. The phaser discharged again, its beam jetting harmlessly into the ceiling, sending down a cascade of sparks but injuring no one.
Kyle grabbed for Bonner’s wrist, but the man was strong in spite of his insanity—or maybe because of it, Kyle thought. He took a couple of hard blows to the head as he wrestled Bonner in the dark. He wasn’t sure how many more of those he’d be able to shrug off. He needed to take Bonner down, fast.
The lights came back on. “See here, Bonner,” Kyle heard Admiral Paris saying once he could see what was happening. Bonner ignored him, and Kyle tried to ignore everything. Bonner’s madness had indeed given him strength—or else he was right, and there were two people in him, each contributing his own strength. In spite of Kyle’s best efforts, Bonner had managed to angle his wrist so that his phaser was pointed directly at Kyle’s head.
“We’d like to see your precious strategy get you out of this,” Bonner snarled. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Kyle released Bonner’s wrist suddenly. Since Bonner had been fighting against the pressure Kyle had been putting on it, the sudden action made his arm drop precipitously. Kyle sidestepped the phaser blast, which tore a hole in the floor, and moved in with a left jab at Bonner’s middle. The left was a feint. When Bonner moved to block it, Kyle instead threw a right that connected hard with Bonner’s chin. Kyle thought he might have broken a knuckle, but he didn’t care. Bonner’s head snapped back, blood already trailing from his mouth, and slammed into the wall behind him. Kyle followed up with another left, a real one this time, but Bonner was already sliding down the wall, unconscious. Kyle caught his wrist and worked the phaser from his hand, then let the vice admiral fall to the floor.
“Sometimes, Vice Admiral Bonner,” he said in reply to the man’s final statement, “all the strategy in the world isn’t worth as much as a good right hook.”
“Is he insane, do you think, Kyle?” Owen Paris asked him later. “Even with all of our science, all our knowledge, there’s so much we don’t know about the human mind. We can’t build ships that can go in and explore it like we do outer space. We’re only guessing at so much of it. Is it possible that Heidl really is, somehow, in there with Bonner?”
They were in Owen’s office. They had eaten some lunch, and Kyle felt better, more relaxed and contented, than he had in a very long while. He took a sip of excellent coffee. “I’ll leave it to people smarter than me to figure that out,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s just nuts. He had to listen to his stepson die. The Berlin came to drop off the team that was to investigate Heidl’s experiments, then it left. Bonner was on that ship, keeping it just far enough away to not be able to help when the Tholians came, but trying to keep it close enough that Heidl could escape to it. Heidl went back, as Bonner said, but then the attack came and no one could beam off the starbase anymore. He tried to launch a shuttle—our records prove that someone tried to—but he couldn’t do that either. He was trapped on the starbase, and Bonner was stuck listening to him die. Then he couldn’t tear himself away from listening to the rest of the invasion either. It must have been then that he went insane, or started to.”
Owen steepled his hands and tapped his fingertips against his mouth. “You’re probably right,” he said. “At least, that story fits the facts that we know. The other facts—what Heidl and his friends were working on, why Bonner went on that trip and why he couldn’t save Heidl—we’ll just have to speculate on. Or take Bonner’s word for.”
“I’m not sure I’d do that,” Kyle suggested. “Bonner’s word probably isn’t good for much.”
“What amazes me,” Owen said, “is how long he was able to function here. We’ll go through his records thoroughly, and maybe we’ll find that he wasn’t really functioning all that well. But he seemed to be. He passed. Except that he was also busy planning his revenge on you, for surviving when Heidl couldn’t.”
“And on Will,” Kyle r
eminded him. “It’s no coincidence that it was the Pegasus he tried to sabotage.”
Owen’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t even thought of it that way,” he said.
“Your mind isn’t devious enough,” Kyle said. “You sure you want to go into space again?”
“I hope a devious mind isn’t a necessary prerequisite,” Owen replied. “From listening to the Pegasus today, though, it sounds like courage is.”
Kyle simply nodded, and Owen continued. “Who do you suppose that was,” he asked, “who spoke up, volunteering to initiate the auto-destruct since the first officer wouldn’t? The voice sounded awfully familiar to me.”
Kyle just looked at Owen, sitting across the desk from him. “You know who it was,” he said.
“I know who I think it was. And his name’s Riker.”
“Of course it was Will,” Kyle confirmed. “Who else but a Riker? He was willing to blow up his own ship to pull off a bluff—moving close enough to the enemy to guarantee that if the ship did auto-destruct, it’d take both ships with it. Given that the phrase ‘self-sacrifice’ didn’t seem to be in their vocabulary, the Omistol had to cut their tractor. Will’s a chip off the old block, that’s for sure.”
“He’s the image of his old man,” Owen said with a friendly smile. “I hope I have a crew full of young people just like him on the Al-Batani. I hope Tom grows up just as gutsy.”
“If you have a crew like that Ensign Janeway,” Kyle told him, “you’ll be in good shape.”
“She’s a peach, all right,” Owen agreed. “Kyle, I just can’t wait to get out there.”
Deny Thy Father Page 34