Star Trek Mirror Universe - The Sorrows of Empire

by David Mack

  “Fine,” Marcus said. “And you can call me Carol.” Tilting her head toward the corridor, she added, “Would you like a brief tour of the facility?”

  Lurqal nodded. “I’d love one.”

  Marcus led her through the passageways of space station Regula I, which were crowded with white-garbed civilian scientists. “It’s a good thing you got here when you did,” Marcus said. “We’ve been without a good computer engineer for a few months, and everything’s running behind as a result.”

  “What happened to your last computer engineer?”

  The question darkened Marcus’s mood. “A tragic accident,” she said. “He was installing some new cables on a lower deck when an old plasma conduit ruptured inside his crawl space.”

  Good, Lurqal thought. They don’t know he was assassinated to set the stage for my insertion. Wrinkling her face to convey shock and dismay, she replied, “My God, that’s terrible.”

  They arrived at what Lurqal had expected would be the upper deck of the station’s operations level. Marcus and her team had transformed the open space into their primary laboratory.

  “This is where the magic happens,” Marcus said. “Tonight at dinner I’ll introduce you to everyone, but I can point out a few of our more notable team members from here.” She pointed around the room. “Those are Doctors Tarcoh, Gek, and Koothrappali.” Gesturing at a much younger human man with curly blond hair, she added, “And that’s my son, David. He’s one of our project leaders.”

  Her son? Interesting. “What project is he leading?”

  “That’s classified.” With a gentle touch on Lurqal’s elbow, Marcus added, “We should move along and finish getting you settled.”

  “Of course.”

  The blond scientist led Lurqal to a turbolift that took them down to one of the station’s lower levels. Along the way to their next destination, Marcus pointed out the various specialized labs her team had set up, and she waxed eloquent about many of their experimental new technologies. Lurqal noted it all for the report she would be expected to submit to Imperial Intelligence via secure subspace comm.

  She interrupted one of Marcus’s prideful spiels to observe, “There don’t appear to be any military personnel anywhere on this station.”

  Marcus smiled. “That’s right.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, working on all this top-secret stuff. What if the Klingons or the Tholians try to take over the station?”

  “I’d pity them,” Marcus said. She grasped Lurqal’s shoulder in a manner the Klingon spy could only imagine was meant to be reassuring rather than a gross violation of her personal space. “I know it looks like we’re alone, but trust me—we’re not. Now, let’s focus on more important matters.” She handed Lurqal a small stack of colored data cards. “The blue one is your meal card for the station’s commissary. The red one is for picking up clean clothes, bedsheets, and bath linens from the supply office. Use the green one for refills on personal supplies, and the yellow one’s for accessing the entertainment library: books, music, vids—pretty much everything from the recorded history of the Terran Empire.”

  “Great,” Lurqal said, holding up the cards. “My cup runneth over.”

  “I have a dozen other places I need to be right now. Can you find your own way back to your quarters?”

  Nodding, Lurqal said, “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks,” Marcus said, already hurrying away. “And welcome to the team!”

  Lurqal waved good-bye to Marcus and then navigated the simple path back to her assigned quarters. Her official duties were not scheduled to begin until the next day after she had “settled in,” as the humans were fond of saying, so she decided it would be a good time to check in with her handler, who was nearby awaiting her comm signal on the cloaked cruiser I.K.S. Zin’za.

  She locked her door. From her travel bag she took a surveillance-detection tool disguised as part of her makeup kit. Two careful scans revealed no sign of monitoring devices in her quarters. Satisfied her abode was secure, she assembled several other items from her travel kit into a secure comm unit. The pieces fit together in a matter of seconds, and she activated the device.

  It hummed for a moment—then it crackled with static interference. She adjusted its settings in search of a clear frequency but found only more noise.

  Running a diagnostic, Lurqal suspected the comm was about to deliver her some bad news. She was right.

  Jammed, she fumed as she saw the results of the unit’s feedback analysis. The entire station’s surrounded by a scattering field. She switched off the device.

  There would be no unauthorized transmissions in or out of the station as long as the scattering field remained active. That explains why this place is such a well-kept secret, Lurqal realized. Then she reconsidered Marcus’s warning: I know it looks like we’re alone, but trust me—we’re not. Looking out her window, Lurqal wondered where a Starfleet ship could be hiding—and then the slow turning of the station brought the Mutara Nebula into view.

  This op just got a lot harder, Lurqal brooded. And a whole lot riskier.

  2284

  33

  Hearts and Minds

  The echoes of Spock’s voice faded away into the vastness of the Common Forum, and for a moment stretched by anticipation all was silent. He had delivered his proclamation of citizens’ rights, uninterrupted, to a sea of stunned faces. It was done now, and it could not be undone, and there was naught to do but wait in the heavy swell of anxious quietude for the reaction.

  A roar of applause surged up from the members of the Forum, a wave of sound like floodwater breaking against a dam. Exultant and energized, the thousands of gathered representatives from worlds throughout the Empire stood and applauded and chanted his name with almost idolatrous fervor. Stomping feet rumbled the hall. Its lower level was packed on three sides with tiers of seats for the Forum members, and its spacious balconies served as a gallery for citizen observers, or for the Senate during joint sessions of the legislature such as this one.

  Faces grim and forbidding communicated the Senate’s reaction. Like mannequins of stone, its members looked down with ashen-faced horror at the populist turn their government had just taken. A few shook their heads in disbelief. Spock presumed they were unable to comprehend why he would have chosen to give more power to the citizenry than to himself. In all likelihood, he knew, they would never understand. Regardless, the one power Spock still reserved for himself was that his word carried the absolute force of law.

  He let the applause wash over him for a moment, not because he enjoyed it but because it would help cement this moment in the minds of those hundreds of billions of citizens throughout the Empire who were watching it on the subspace feed. This was a threshold moment for their society, and he knew it would be important for them to have the requisite time to absorb its full importance. Nearly a minute elapsed as the cheering and applause continued unabated. Sensing the moment had run its course, Spock bowed his head to the legislature. As thousands of arms were extended in salutary reply, he withdrew from the podium in the center of the Forum and departed, surrounded by his elite Vulcan guard, through the rear exit.

  Marlena was waiting for him in the turbolift, which carried them to their private residence on the uppermost level. She clutched his arm tenderly. “You were magnificent,” she said softly. He glanced in her direction and saw her smile.

  “Most kind,” he said, his old habit of understated humility intact despite more than seven years of imperial privilege.

  The turbolift doors opened, and they exited to their airy, sunlit residence. Sarek stood in the doorway to their parlor, flanked by two more of the elite Vulcan guards. “Your address went well,” Sarek said as Spock and Marlena passed him.

  “As well as could be expected,” Spock replied over his shoulder to Sarek, who followed him into the parlor.

  The guards closed the double doors behind Sarek, giving Spock at least a m
odicum of privacy with his wife and father. Marlena and Spock sat next to one another in matching, heavy wooden chairs. Sarek sat to Spock’s right, at the corner of a long sofa. All three of them were aware of the servants hovering just out of sight at all times, and they kept their voices low. “You’ve won the hearts of the people,” Sarek said. “But the elites are already conspiring against you.”

  “Enemies are a consequence of politics,” Spock said.

  Folding his hands in his lap, Sarek replied, “Your reign will not last forever, Spock. The most probable consequence of your latest action is that you will be assassinated by someone acting on behalf of your political opponents.”

  “I am aware of my rivals’ ambitions,” Spock said. He beckoned a servant as he continued. “However, I do not consider them to be a risk.” A female servant unobtrusively took her place in front of the trio. To her, Spock said, “Plasska tea, service for three.” With a genteel murmur of “Yes, Majesty,” the servant slipped away.

  Sarek waited until the woman was well out of earshot before he spoke. “Spock, the threat posed by your rivals is not a trivial one. If you are killed or deposed, your progressive regime will almost certainly be replaced by one of a decidedly reactionary temperament.”

  The cool demeanors of the two Vulcan men made Marlena’s undercurrent of anger all the more palpable by comparison. “His assassins will not succeed,” she said to Sarek. “I will see to that.”

  Expressing his incredulity with a raised eyebrow, Sarek asked, “And how will you do that, my dear? With what resources?”

  “I am not without means, Sarek,” she retorted. “This would not be the first—” Spock silenced her outburst with a gentle press of his palm on the back of her hand. Marlena took his admonition to heart and pursed her lips while suppressing the rest of what she had intended to say.

  It was Spock’s opinion that Sarek need never be told of the Tantalus field device, or of the role it had played in Spock’s assumption of power. It had been a terrible risk revealing its existence to Saavik, but Spock’s long-term plans for her had made it crucial to test her loyalty as early as possible.

  Silence reigned over the parlor until the tea was delivered and poured. All three of them sipped from their cups and nodded their approval. Then Sarek set down his cup and, once again with a conspirator’s hushed voice, continued the conversation. “Let us assume your wife is correct, and assassins pose no threat to you. Even if you succeed in your goal of abolishing the Empire, once you place its fate into the hands of a representative government, it will almost certainly be corrupted from within. The Senate will be first among those looking to consolidate their power; they will learn how to manipulate popular sentiment and fill the Common Forum with their own partisans. Gradually at first, then more boldly, they will steer the republic back toward totalitarianism. Ultimately, they will elect one of their own as dictator-for-life … and the Empire you are laboring to end will be reborn. The rights you granted to the people will be revoked; they will resist, and rebel, and be brutally suppressed. Civil war will rend the Empire, and its enemies will exploit that division to conquer us outright. All that you have done will have been for naught, my son.”

  Spock finished his own tea and set down the empty cup. “All that you predict, I have anticipated,” he said. Leaning back in his chair, he continued. “That is why the republic must be destroyed by its enemies before it lapses back into empire.”

  The statement seemed to perplex Sarek. “What beneficial end would that accomplish?”

  “Liberty crushed by one’s own government carries the poison of betrayal,” Spock said. “If so extinguished, it will be almost impossible to rekindle, and our cause shall be lost. But freedom lost to conquest focuses the people’s anger outward, and unites them in common cause against a foreign oppressor.”

  “You intend to let the republic fall?” Sarek asked. Upon Spock’s nod of confirmation, he continued. “A dangerous gamble. What if such a rebellion fails to materialize? Or simply fails? Staking the future of our civilization on the success of a future insurgency seems a most foolish proposition.”

  As Spock rose from his chair, Sarek did likewise. Spock turned toward Marlena. “Will you excuse us a moment?” Marlena cast wary looks at both Spock and Sarek, and then she got up and walked with prideful calm from the parlor.

  Once she was in the next room, and the door closed behind her, Spock said loudly, for the servants lurking in the wings, “Leave us.” Like spooked mice, the domestics scurried away. A clatter of closing doors marked their exits.

  Able to speak in full privacy at last, Spock still whispered. “Steps will be taken to ensure the success of the rebellion,” he said. “The groundwork for an insurgency is being laid now, while we have time to prepare in safety. If my plan is successful, the Klingon-led occupation of the former Terran Empire will last less than one hundred fifteen Earth years.”

  With unconcealed suspicion, Sarek said, “And if it fails?”

  “Then several millennia of Vulcan and human scientific achievement will be lost forever.”

  “And what are these steps you’re going to take?”

  “Not I,” Spock said. “You.”

  34

  Omega’s Genesis

  After spending most of seven years as a virtual prisoner in the imperial residence, Emperor Spock appreciated returning to a starship. Recent refits had made them faster, more comfortable, and more powerful than ever before.

  At his behest, the Enterprise, now in its seventh year under the command of Captain Kevin Riley, had been standing by to beam up Spock from the palace after his meeting with Sarek. With the Empire devolving into chaos following his declaration of rights and freedoms for the people, it had seemed an opportune time to slip away. During his absence, Marlena would reign as Empress, freeing him to make this journey incognito.

  Liberating as his departure was, it carried an element of risk he hadn’t faced in close to seventeen years. For the first time since he had slain Captain Kirk, he was without the protection of the Tantalus field device, which remained safely concealed in his and Marlena’s private quarters on Earth. Fortunately, the judicious use of the device over the years had cultivated such a profound culture of fear with respect to Spock’s purported psionic powers that it was unlikely he would be challenged during this brief sojourn from the throne.

  The boatswain’s whistle sounded over the ship’s intercom.

  “Attention, all hands. Stand by for secure transport. Captain Riley, please report to the bridge.”

  As the channel closed, the door signal buzzed. Turning to face the door, Spock said, “Enter.”

  The door slid open, and the ship’s first officer, Commander Saavik, stepped inside. “Your Majesty,” she said with a reverent bow of her head, then she looked up and delivered the formal salute. He noted she avoided making eye contact with him, and her demeanor seemed stiff.

  “At ease,” he said. “Is it time?”

  “Yes, Majesty. The facility has been prepared, and a secure transport conduit is standing by.”

  “Then let us proceed.”

  Saavik nodded and led the way out the door into the corridor. Spock followed her. A pair of his elite Vulcan bodyguards fell into step a few paces behind him. Moving until he was almost parallel with Saavik, he said in a confidential tone, “You seem preoccupied.”

  “Not at all, Majesty,” she said as she stepped into an open and waiting turbolift car. He and his guards followed her in.

  The ride was brief. As soon as they stepped off into another empty, sealed-off corridor, Spock subtly signaled his guards to fall back a few paces to give him privacy. “You are uncomfortable with the proclamation I made on Earth.”

  “I have said no such—”

  “Prevarication does not suit you. Speak plainly. I would know your thoughts.”

  Her apprehension was palpable. She eyed him with guarded suspicion. “Do I address the Emperor?”

  “You address your men
tor, and your Academy sponsor.”

  That seemed to reassure her. Glancing over her shoulder to make certain the bodyguards would not overhear her, she whispered to Spock, “Undermining your own power was an error.”

  Her assertion intrigued him. “How so?”

  They turned a corner toward the transporter room. “The Empire and its ruler are one,” she said. “By diminishing yourself, you diminish the Empire. You invite conquest.”

  “Which is stronger, Saavik? One man, or ten men?” He let the analogy sink in for a few seconds. Before she could answer, he continued. “An empire that derives its strength and authority from one person alone is weak, because its foundation is too narrow. One whose power derives from the mutual consent of the many rests upon a broad and unshakable base.”

  “Which is stronger, Your Majesty? A sheet of metal foil twenty meters square, or the blade of the knife that slices through it?” She paused a few meters shy of the transporter room door, and Spock and his guards halted with her. “Diffusing the power of the Empire throughout its people robs it of focus,” she added. “A quality our enemies possess in abundance.”