by David Mack
Captain Spock pulled himself back into the command chair and sleeved a smear of green blood from the gash on his forehead. “Damage report.”
Lieutenant Kevin Riley struggled to coax a response from the smoldering remains of the navigator’s station. “Excalibur’s weapons fired at full power, sir. We’ve lost shields, and warp drive is offline.”
“Casualties?”
Commander Scott looked up from the sensor display at his station. “Twelve dead, seventeen wounded. Daystrom’s M-5 unit must’ve gone haywire,” he said. “Potemkin’s been destroyed, and Hood and Lexington are in worse shape than we are.”
“Analysis?”
Scott frowned. “One more hit and we’re done for.”
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura swiveled her chair from the communications console to face Spock. “Captain, Commodore Wesley is hailing Excalibur,” reported the striking, brown-skinned human. “He’s receiving no response.”
“Helm,” Spock said, “initiate evasive maneuvers.”
Jabbing at his console with mounting frustration, Ensign Sean DePaul replied, “Helm’s not responding, sir, and phasers have overloaded. Should I arm photon torpedoes?”
Scott protested, “Torpedoes? At this range, without shields? Are you mad?”
“Excalibur’s coming around for another pass,” Riley declared.
Spock had anticipated a scenario such as this weeks earlier, when Enterprise had received its orders to participate in war games to test M-5—famed scientist Richard Daystrom’s latest invention, a multitronic computer he claimed could run a starship not only by itself but also with greater speed and precision than with a living crew. Daystrom’s boast had proved disastrously true. Granted control of one Constitution-class starship, M-5 had destroyed another and crippled three more in a single attack run. Its reaction times and ability to anticipate the responses of the four crewed vessels arrayed against it had been nothing less than superhuman.
Rising from his chair, Spock asked, “Mister Scott, do you have access to our library computer?”
“Aye, sir,” Scott said as Spock joined him at the science station.
“Call up the data charts for Lexington’s and Hood’s command consoles,” Spock ordered.
Keying in the request to the memory banks, Scott said, “Here they come.” The classified schematics appeared on the screen in front of him. He aimed a questioning look at Spock. “Sir … are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
“We have no hope of defeating M-5 by orthodox means,” Spock said. “Therefore, logic demands an unorthodox response.”
“But why not call up Excalibur’s console chart?”
Entering his command authorization into the system, Spock said, “Because M-5 has no doubt anticipated this response and changed Excalibur’s prefix codes.”
The first officer’s voice dropped to a fearful whisper. “And if Captain Martinez and Commodore Wesley have done the same … ?”
Arching one eyebrow, Spock replied, “In that case, Mister Scott, we are all about to die.”
Commodore Robert Wesley waved away the smoke stinging his eyes and barked orders at the bridge crew of the I.S.S. Lexington.
“Get those fires out, dammit! Horst, get a fix on Excalibur’s position, now! Number One, tell engineering we need warp speed on the double!”
His crew seemed to be dazed; they responded to his commands as if trapped in slow motion. The commodore pushed his way to the upper deck of his bridge and shook the bloody-faced science officer until the man’s eyes focused. “Snap out of it, Clayton! Get the sensors working and report!” Clayton nodded, turned, and hunched over the sensor console while he worked its controls.
Wesley hurried back to the helm. He pushed the dead woman slumped in the chair to the deck, and then he armed the main phaser bank.
I never should have trusted Daystrom or his crazy machine, he castigated himself. The scientist had seemed less than entirely stable, but his reputation as the genius who had unlocked the secrets of duotronic circuitry decades earlier had been enough to earn a measure of Wesley’s trust. Daystrom had assured Wesley that M-5 could destroy Enterprise during the war games and make it look like an accident, thereby ridding Starfleet of Captain Spock and his sympathizers. Daystrom never said the multitronic system would try to kill the rest of us, too, Wesley raged as he locked his ship’s weapons on the approaching I.S.S. Excalibur.
His first officer, Commander Zeke Dowty, called out from an auxiliary tactical station, “Sir! Enterprise is falling back!”
“Hail them,” Wesley snapped at his communications officer.
The slender Andorian shen frantically flipped switches on her console. “Comms are offline,” she said, turning toward Wesley.
Lexington’s helm went dark under Wesley’s hands even as the ship accelerated into an attack maneuver against the fast-approaching Excalibur.
From the science station, Clayton shouted in alarm, “Our self-destruct package just armed!”
Scrambling to a command console, Dowty asked, “Is it the M-5?”
“Negative,” Clayton said, eyeing a computer readout. “It’s Enterprise!”
Dowty shouted, “Engage the override!”
Damn you, Spock, Wesley fumed.
He knew it would take his crew only moments to overcome the usurpation of their command console’s prefix code. But as he watched Excalibur bear down on his ship and the Hood, he knew those were moments they would never have.
Spock sat facing Enterprise’s main viewscreen and watched Excalibur pummel Hood and Lexington with phaser beams. The two crewed vessels flanked Excalibur at point-blank range and returned fire, their phaser beams flaring impotently against the shields of the computer-driven starship passing between them.
“Now,” Spock said.
Commander Scott pushed a button, and the view-screen flared white as Lexington and Hood exploded—exactly as Spock had programmed them to do.
When the conflagration faded, only fragments remained of the three Constitution-class starships. The cloud of minuscule debris spread slowly against a cold backdrop of space and stars.
“All decks secure from Red Alert,” Spock said.
The crimson lights on the bulkheads ceased flashing.
Moments later, Scott was at Spock’s side with a data slate in hand. “Mister DeSalle says we’ll have warp power restored in two hours, Captain.”
“Very good, Mister Scott. Please continue supervising repairs.”
“Aye, sir.”
As Scott stepped away, Uhura swiveled her chair toward Spock. “Captain? Commodore Enwright is requesting an update on the war games.” She glanced at the viewscreen. “Shall I tell him M-5 lost?”
Arching one eyebrow, Spock replied, “M-5 outfought us three-to-one, Lieutenant. It can hardly be said to have lost.”
“Very well. Should I tell the commodore M-5 malfunctioned?”
“Yes,” Spock said, though he did not believe the supercomputer’s killing spree to have been the least bit accidental. “And you may add that M-5 has been decommissioned.”
“Aye, sir.” Uhura turned back to her station and relayed Spock’s message to the commander of Starbase 6, which had hosted the ill-fated combat exercise.
Spock steepled his fingers in front of him as he pondered the day’s tragic events. I seem to have underestimated the resentment my advancement has provoked, he brooded. All at once it became clear to him the Tantalus field device would not be enough to guarantee his ascent to power.
He was going to need allies.
5
The Quality of Mercy
Elaan, the Dohlman of Elas, paced like a caged tiger. Spock watched the swarthy, lavishly bejeweled beauty prowl back and forth. She threw angry glances in his direction. They were alone together in Lieutenant Uhura’s quarters, which Spock had designated as Elaan’s cabin for the duration of this mission.
Grabbing a small statuette off a nearby shelf, she shouted, “You have no right to keep me here!�
�� She hurled the figurine at Spock, who remained still and let it fly past, confident from the moment she’d thrown it that her hysteria had compromised her aim. “I am a dohlman! On my world, you would be—”
“We are not on your world,” Spock corrected her. “We are aboard the Enterprise. And as a passenger on this ship, you are required to recognize my authority.”
A fiery fit of temper propelled her across the cabin to confront him. Her eyes glistened with tears, and she looked on the verge of weeping. “Have you no mercy? No compassion? I am a dohlman, born to rule … to conquer.” A single tear rolled down her left cheek to her jaw. Spock noted the subtle manner in which she lifted her chin, an invitation for him to wipe away her concocted grief.
He turned his back on her. “I am well acquainted with the reputed properties of Elasian tears, Dohlman.” Spock stepped over to the small table that stood against one wall and set the toppled teacups upright once more. “Let us continue reviewing the protocol for your introduction to the Troyian Caliph.”
Her footfalls were soft, the gentle pattering of bare feet on the carpeted deck. She approached from behind him, and his keen Vulcan hearing was alert for any warning of an attack. Elaan had already stabbed and wounded Petri, the Troyian ambassador who was originally given the task of educating her in Troyian protocol. Because of Petri’s subpar combat reflexes and ensuing convalescence in sickbay, the only person from whom Elaan would consent to receive further instruction in etiquette was the highest-ranking individual on the ship: its captain.
She slipped past Spock, eyeing him first with suspicion, then with perverse amusement. “The Empire’s never taken an interest in our conflict before,” she said, dropping her voice into a slightly lower register, giving her words a smoky, seductive quality. “Some of the Empress’s envoys have even encouraged us to fight.” Moving behind her seat at the table, she continued. “But now you arrive and convince Caliph Hakil to accept a marriage as grounds for a truce and a treaty. Why?”
“A nonviolent resolution to the situation is the most desirable outcome for all parties,” Spock said.
“Not for me,” Elaan shot back. “I’d much rather kill the Troyians, down to their last infant. I’ve dreamed of cleansing their world in fire and salting its ashes. How is this outcome desirable for me?”
Spock pulled his communicator from his belt and flipped it open. A triple chirp signaled his standby channel was open. “Bring him in,” he said into the device, and then he closed it and placed it back on his belt.
Moments later, the door to the corridor opened, and two security guards dragged in Elaan’s bodyguard, Kryton. The young man’s clothes were torn, and his face was bruised and bloody. He was barely conscious. “We caught him sending transmissions to a nearby Klingon cruiser,” Spock said. “He has been conspiring with them to sabotage this mission, because he desires you for himself.”
“Absurd!” Elaan cried. “I am a dohlman!” She stared in horror at Kryton, who hung limply in the hands of the two Starfleet guards. Disgust filled her voice with venom. “You’re but a lowly soldier—you could never be my mate!”
Calmly, Spock explained, “Not as long as you remained Dohlman of Elas. However, once he had helped the Klingons conquer the Tellun system, you would be equals—as slaves of the Klingon Empire. A minor step down the social ladder for Kryton … but a significant demotion for you.”
As she looked back at Kryton, her pity turned to fury. “You will pay dearly for this betrayal, Kryton.”
The bodyguard’s eyes were dull and half-glazed with pain. He lifted his head at the sound of her anger. “I did what my heart bade me, Dohlman,” he croaked through bloody, swollen lips. “I love you. …”
“You are not permitted to love one such as me!” She whirled toward Spock. “Captain, please tell your men to remove this presumptuous worm from my chambers!”
The captain nodded at the guards, who pulled Kryton out of the cabin and took him back to the brig for his imminent execution, which Spock had postponed only until after this planned exhibition. For a change, Elaan was silent. Spock concluded she most likely was brooding over the sudden revelation that her staunchest defender had been about to sell her into slavery.
Finally, she broke her reverie. “Captain,” she asked, “is that Klingon ship still nearby? Do they still plan to attack, to prevent my wedding to Hakil?”
“No,” Spock said. “I have dealt with the Klingons.”
Elaan looked quizzically at him. “I heard no alerts, no sounds of combat. Did they flee? Or did you strike your own bargain with them?”
“They are no longer part of the equation, Dohlman,” he said. “I suggest you leave it at that.”
The less said, Spock reasoned, the better. The Tantalus field device had enabled him to uncover Kryton’s treachery; once the Klingon ship’s precise coordinates had been locked in, Spock had found it remarkably easy with the Tantalus field to eliminate the Klingon crew en masse while leaving their vessel intact. He had already ordered Mister Scott to capture the Klingon cruiser and tow it back to Starbase 12 for a complete analysis, from its disruptors to its spaceframe. It was a fortuitous addendum to his growing list of accomplishments, but his principal objective for this mission remained incomplete.
“I have spared you from becoming a slave of the Klingons,” Spock said. “And I would also spare you the indignity of being enslaved by the Empire. Marry the Caliph of Troyius and end the war between your worlds. United for your mutual defense, you will be able to negotiate from a position of strength for your worlds’ immensely valuable commodity.”
Perplexed, she tilted her head and squinted suspiciously. “What commodity, Captain?”
“This one,” Spock said, reaching forward. He touched the long crystalline jewels that formed her ornate neckpiece, arcing down in a semicircle atop her chest. “Dilithium crystals, more abundant on your planet than on Halkan or even on Coridan. Elas and Troyius are in possession of the largest natural deposits of high-quality dilithium in all of known space.”
“But the imperial engineers surveyed our planets decades ago,” Elaan said, unable to hide her surprise. “They said they found nothing of value!”
“They lied,” Spock said. “Because your two worlds are so well armed and well fortified, it would have been exceptionally costly for the Empire to conquer you in open combat. It was easier to provoke you into a prolonged war of attrition, so that when your worlds became so weakened they could no longer oppose an invasion, the Empire would eradicate you all.”
The more he revealed, the sharper her focus became. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because the Klingons apparently are ready to conquer your worlds by force—an outcome Starfleet cannot permit. My orders are to halt your conflict by force of arms, and to subdue your worlds in preparation for an occupying force.”
“Then the marriage … ?”
Spock nodded his affirmation. “A plan of my own making. If the Klingons attempt to annex your worlds, you will be better able to repel their attacks if your defenses are intact and united. This will also reduce the number of Starfleet vessels and personnel that must be committed to defending you, freeing our resources for other objectives—and preserving your autonomy from direct imperial oversight.”
“Slaughter would have been quicker,” Elaan said.
“But less effective,” Spock replied. “And more costly. Better for all if peace can be achieved without impairing the value of either world to the Empire.”
For the first time since he had met Elaan, she smiled. “You speak almost like a statesman, Captain Spock. And I say ‘almost’ only because I’ve never heard one sound quite so reasonable.”
“Then you accept my proposal? You will wed Caliph Hakil?”
She gave an enthusiastic nod. “I will,” she said with conviction. “And I shall do more besides. Once our worlds are united, I will see to it that the exclusive mining rights for our dilithium are not given to the Empire.” Before Spo
ck could counsel her that defying the Empire might undo all the benefits of uniting with Troyius, she added, “I will, instead, grant them directly to you, Spock.” She strode to the bed and sprawled herself across it. “As a sign of my enduring gratitude.”
“Most kind,” he said, fully aware of the understatement. With control over such an enormous wealth of dilithium crystals, Spock’s path to the Admiralty was all but assured. It was more than he had hoped for; he had intended only to cultivate a future ally in the person of Elaan. Instead, he had acquired himself a patroness—and a very generous one, at that.
Perhaps, he mused, I have underestimated the persuasive value of fairness and mercy. If it can spur such generosity in one, how will it affect the many?