Star Trek Mirror Universe - The Sorrows of Empire

by David Mack

  Nobody laughed this time. Praetor Vrax ceased his pretense of civility and became openly sarcastic. “I suppose, Senator Pardek, you’ll next be telling me that Emperor Spock really does possess tremendous psionic abilities, and that it was the power of thought alone that enabled him to slaughter the Empress Hoshi Sato III and her entire Imperial Guard Corps?”

  Dead silence. A few stifled coughs echoed then were lost amid the dry scrape of shuffling feet.

  “No,” Pardek said as diplomatically as he could. “I think the Vulcans, who long resented sharing power with the Terrans who enslaved them, made a major leap forward in the arms race—and Spock chose that moment to show the Vulcans’ hand.”

  Mumbles of agreement bubbled up in isolated patches around the Senate chamber. Taking note of it, Vrax nodded. “Agreed. And until we know more about that weapon, I am inclined to support Senator Narviat’s recommendation for discretion.” He looked back at Pardek. “As to the spread of the pacifist movement on Vulcan … do you really have no better hypothesis, Senator Pardek?”

  Abashed, Pardek answered, “Not at this time, Praetor.”

  Vrax shook his head. “Thank you, Senator Pardek. I would prefer an explanation that does not require me to believe in magic or mythology. You may sit down.”

  It hadn’t been permission so much as a directive, and Pardek settled into his seat. The debate continued around him. He made no effort to conceal his disgruntled glowering.

  So they don’t believe my theory, he consoled himself. Not surprising; I’m not sure I believe it, either. But there’s one thing I am certain of: Spock is deliberately setting up his people to take a fall, and I have no idea why.

  Pardek considered a thousand reasons why Spock might sabotage his own empire; none of them made sense.

  As a junior senator, there was little Pardek could do directly to guide the affairs of the Romulan Star Empire. Weighing his options, he decided he would back Senator Narviat’s proposal of military disengagement when it came time to vote. Pardek doubted the Tal Shiar would be able to infiltrate Vulcan any better than it had so far—which was to say, barely at all—but emphasizing covert intelligence rather than overt conquest would keep the Romulan Star Empire out of the Terran-Klingon crossfire. Pardek simply hoped it would buy his people enough time to determine what Emperor Spock was really up to.

  “I must say, Admiral Cartwright,” remarked Colonel Ivan West as he sat down at the dinner table, “this is by far the best-catered secret meeting I’ve ever been to.”

  Admiral Lance Cartwright chuckled as he settled in at the head of the table. Colonel West’s observation had struck a chord because it was true. The table was dressed with crisp white linen and set with dishes of fine crystal and utensils of solid, polished silver. Cartwright’s domestic servants had just cleared the appetizer course—a salad of baby greens tossed with warm slices of braised pear, walnuts, and a light vinaigrette—and brought out the next course, bowls of creamy pumpkin soup. Special dishes were served to the nonhuman guests.

  Laughing with Cartwright were six visitors, high-ranking Starfleet officers who had been invited to his home this evening. They swapped small talk as a Bolian waiter refilled their glasses. Cartwright, West, and Admiral Thomas Morrow all were drinking cabernet. General Quiniven of Denobula was abstaining from liquor this evening and nursed a glass of Altair water instead. Admirals Robert Bennett and Salliserra zh’Ferro gladly accepted refills of their illegally imported Rom-ulan ale. Commodore Vosrok, the Chelon director of Starfleet Intelligence, was half sitting, half kneeling on a glenget, a piece of furniture designed for his nonhumanoid anatomy, and drinking N’v’aa, a beverage from his homeworld that, up close, reeked of brackish vinegar. Cartwright made a mental note never to drink at Vosrok’s home.

  The banter remained light while the servants moved through the lavishly decorated dining room, serving soup, refilling water, replacing sullied utensils, and setting out freshly baked rolls and glass dishes filled with whipped butter.

  “I’ll give you credit,” Morrow said to Cartwright. “You know how to live like a grand admiral.”

  Raising his glass in appreciation, Cartwright replied, “The amazing part is that I do it on a vice admiral’s salary.” More polite laughter filled the room. He watched the last of the servants exit, and the doors swung closed behind them, leaving him and his guests in privacy. “To business, then,” he said, and his guests nodded in agreement. “I’ve sounded out each of you individually, so I imagine you’re all aware why I’ve asked you here tonight.” After a pause for effect, he stated plainly, “Emperor Spock is determined to destroy the Empire to which we have all devoted our lives. Before he’s done, he’ll kill us all. He must be stopped.”

  Cautious mumbles of assent traveled around the table as each guest looked around to make certain he or she was not alone in speaking treason against the Emperor. Their mutual affirmation seemed to encourage them. West, who sat on Cartwright’s left near the head of the table, was the first to respond directly.

  “I’m sure we all agree with you, Admiral,” West said. “But opposing Spock won’t be easy. I know of a few more admirals who are ready to turn against him, but most of the officer corps and almost all the enlisted men still support him.”

  Jumping in, Admiral Bennett said, “And don’t forget how popular he is with the people. Assassinating him might just make him a martyr. A coup against Spock could start a rebellion.”

  Quiniven waved his hand dismissively. “No matter,” he said with arrogant surety. “The people can be kept in line.”

  “Oh, really?” was Vosrok’s sarcastic reply. “Have you forgotten that Spock granted the people such rights as—”

  “Rights given with a word can be revoked just as easily,” Quiniven said. “The citizens of the Empire have never had to shed blood to secure their rights. They wouldn’t know how.”

  Cartwright sipped his dry red wine as the conversation took on a life of its own. Admiral zh’Ferro looked down from her end of the table and quietly remarked, “We will also have to kill Empress Marlena.”

  “Easily done,” Colonel West replied.

  Admiral Morrow, who had been enjoying his soup one carefully lifted spoonful at a time, set down his spoon and cleared his throat. “Neutralizing Spock and Marlena is only the first step,” he said. “And I don’t mean to say doing so will be easy. But before we take that step, we should know what we intend to do next. Once they’re gone, who should take their place?”

  “Not another Vulcan,” West said. “That’s for damned sure.”

  Quiniven’s upswept eyebrows and facial ridges gave a sinister cast to his broad grin. “And who would you rather see on the imperial throne, Colonel West?”

  Defiantly lifting his chin to the Denobulan’s challenge, West replied, “Someone who deserves it. … A human. Someone of noble lineage, verified ancestry.”

  “Please,” implored Admiral zh’Ferro, “tell me you aren’t suggesting who I think you are.”

  “Why not?” West retorted. “He was born to rule!”

  Within seconds, it was apparent that everyone else in the room knew exactly of whom West spoke, and that no one agreed with his recommendation. All shook their heads in mute refusal. Despite trying to remain neutral, Cartwright himself joined the chorus of rejection. “I’m sorry, Ivan,” Cartwright said. “They’re right. We can’t put Ranjit Singh on the throne. It’d be a disaster.”

  West pushed away his bowl of soup and fumed. “Ridiculous,” he said. “He’s a direct descendant of Khan Noonien Singh. No one has a better claim to the Terran throne than he does.”

  Quiniven tempered his usual haughtiness, no doubt in an effort to reach an accord. “With all respect, Colonel, bowing to the whims of megalomaniacs is what got us into this predicament. Installing another one as emperor is hardly the ideal solution.”

  “The general’s right,” Morrow said. “Besides, if I know our host, I think you’ll like his plan for the Empire even better tha
n your own.”

  With new curiosity, Colonel West turned slowly and looked at Admiral Cartwright. “Do you have a plan, Admiral?”

  Cartwright dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “It’s more a vision than a plan,” he said. “We need a military government at the imperial level. Martial law, no civilians. Kill Spock, the Senate, the Forum … all of them.”

  Shocked silence followed Cartwright’s declaration. General Quiniven was the first to recover his composure. “Assassinating Emperor Spock and his wife might be logistically feasible,” the Denobulan noted. “But to wipe out the Forum and the Senate would require destroying the imperial palace, and that’s far more difficult. Its shields can stand up to half the fleet—and Earth’s orbital defense network would shred us before we could breach its defenses.”

  “All very true,” Cartwright said. “Fortunately, we have an alternative.” He looked down the table at the director of Starfleet Intelligence. “Commodore Vosrok, would you kindly tell the other guests what you told me last week, about S.I.’s latest innovation?”

  Vosrok was a hard person to read by means of body language. His leathery face betrayed little or no emotion, and his thickly scaled body was stiff and slow-moving. Even as the other guests fixed their attention upon him, he seemed like a dark, vaguely amphibian statue at the end of the table. Blinking his topaz-colored eyes, he said, “Starfleet Intelligence has discovered and refined a new explosive compound called trilithium. So far, it’s undetectable by any of the security scanners inside the palace. It won’t take much to incinerate everyone in the Forum chamber—maybe a few kilograms. As I’m sure you’re aware, the search protocols at the palace are quite stringent. To smuggle the explosive in, it will have to be disguised as something else, something above reproach that will not be searched and that can get close enough to Emperor Spock and Empress Marlena to ensure their annihilation.”

  At the first sign of Vosrok’s pause, Admiral Bennett asked, “And that ‘something’ is what, exactly?”

  The Chelon paused to sip his drink. Cartwright appreciated the sly sadism of Vosrok’s dramatic timing. In molasses-slow motion, Vosrok put down his glass, swallowed, and took a breath. “The trilithium,” he continued, “will be disguised as the armor of one of Spock’s elite imperial guards. Our assassin will wear it into the Forum during a joint session of the legislature, and, on a signal from myself, turn the entire government to dust in a single blast.”

  Vosrok’s plan was met with the same incredulous stares that had stifled Colonel West’s proposition. Quiniven shook his head and looked almost ready to laugh. “One of Spock’s guards? Are you mad? He recruits only Vulcans and makes them spend years proving their loyalty before they can serve in the palace. You will never infiltrate his guard corps.”

  Vosrok looked at Cartwright, who broke the news to the table: “We already have.”

  2289

  40

  Missives and Messengers

  Korvat was more than just a desirable place to start a colony, and it was more than the Klingon Empire’s first solid foothold inside what had once been inviolable Terran space. Listening to General Kang address the assembly of Klingon and foreign dignitaries as the Kling-ons asserted their claim to sovereignty over the planet, Regent Gorkon knew this annexation was nothing less than a test of the Terran Empire’s collective will.

  The Terrans’ sole representative at the ceremony, Ambassador Curzon Dax, arrived late and made no effort to be inconspicuous. Quite to the contrary, he seemed intent on disrupting General Kang by walking brazenly up the center aisle, his footfalls snapping sharp echoes. Gorkon watched from the balcony level as, down below, Dax forced himself into a front-row seat, jostling aside several high-ranking Klingons in the process. Kang, to his credit, ignored the obnoxious Trill and continued his address, the force of his voice stealing back the attention of the audience and subduing its angry mutterings about the latecomer.

  “This world,” Kang bellowed, “has been the rightful territory of the Klingon Empire for more than a century. Too long has it been neglected, left under the careless dominion of the Terrans. By right, we have reclaimed it in honorable combat. But the Terrans, unable to defend this world by force of arms, now wish to beg for its return with diplomacy!” The large number of Kling-ons seated in the auditorium roared with indignation, exactly as Kang had incited them to do. “Once, the Terrans were warriors, and they understood warriors do not talk, they act. They were an enemy we could respect.” Grumbles of glum agreement rolled like an undercurrent through the crowd. “But now they are weak and fearful, plying us with concessions and bribes. They are not the warriors we used to know; they are nothing more than jeghpu’wI, waiting for us to put our boots on their necks!” Furious howls of approval and a thunder of stomping feet filled the hall.

  Dax sat with his arms folded, looking bored. As the bellicose chanting of the crowd began to subside, the Trill stood and walked up the nearby stairs onto the stage with Kang. The room fell silent as the two men faced each other. Kang returned Curzon’s unblinking stare, then Curzon spat at the ground in front of Kang’s feet.

  “Pathetic,” Dax said with naked contempt. To the crowd, he added, “All of you!” He prowled like a hunting beast across the front of the stage as he hurled his sarcastic verbal attacks. “Such mighty warriors! You conquered an unarmed farming colony less than a light-year from your border. This is the greatest victory you’ve scored against the Terran Empire in sixty years?” He shook his head and sneered. “What a miserable empire you have. Congratulating yourselves for the least audacious victory in our shared history. I’m ashamed to think I once respected you as soldiers.” Now he turned and directed his comments at Kang. “I wasn’t sent to beg for Korvat; I was sent to negotiate the safe return of its people. But I’ve changed my mind, General. I hereby request you execute our colonists—because they would be shamed to death if they had to return home and admit they were conquered by petaQpu’ like you.” Dax walked back to the stairs and looked out at the Klingons in the audience. “You want me to call you warriors? Bring your fleet to Ramatis. We’ll send it back to your widows in a box.” The Trill descended the stairs and strode back down the center aisle, ignoring the hostile jeers and overlapping threats. All the way to the exit, he never looked back. Then he was out the door, and the Terran-Klingon negotiations for Korvat were ended before they had begun.

  Energized and enraged, the crowd surged with a magnetic fervor, but Regent Gorkon found himself more interested in General Kang’s reaction. Kang paced to the back of the stage, where he stood alone and silent, peering through the shadows into some dark corner of himself.

  General Chang, Gorkon’s senior military adviser, leaned over from the seat next to the Regent’s and said in a low voice, “The Trill got under Kang’s ridges.” Gorkon grimaced at Chang, who sat on his left. The general always sat on Gorkon’s left side, to make sure his intact right eye—and not his triangular, leather eyepatch-faced the Regent.

  “For a diplomat,” Gorkon said, “Dax goes out of his way to provoke us. Why would Spock send us such an envoy?”

  Chang picked up a bottle of warnog and refilled his stein with the pungent elixir. “Perhaps Dax was chosen in haste,” he said, offering to refill Gorkon’s stein. The Regent declined. Resealing the bottle, Chang added, “It’s possible Spock did not realize how the man would comport himself.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Spock,” Gorkon said. “It also doesn’t track with Curzon Dax’s reputation.”

  “True,” Chang said. In the decade since Spock had begun reforming the Terrans’ political landscape, Dax had emerged as one of Spock’s most skillful negotiators. For him to inflame the battle rage of the Klingon Empire by losing his temper over such a minor affront was horribly out of character.

  An unlikely notion pushed its way to the forefront of Gorkon’s thoughts. He guzzled the last dregs of warnog from his stein, then he asked, “Would Spock and Dax deliberately sabotage these talks
?”

  Chang squinted his right eye as he considered the question. “To what end, my lord?”

  “To push us closer to war,” Gorkon said.

  This time the general chortled. “As if we needed the push.” Becoming more serious, he added, “After all the efforts Spock made to establish diplomatic relations, for him to suddenly reverse his foreign policy makes no sense.”

  “Then how should we interpret Ambassador Dax’s actions?”

  Leaning back in his chair, Chang said, “There is a third possibility, my lord, one I have raised before. Maybe Spock’s diplomatic efforts were strictly domestic. By using enticement and diplomacy to pacify his own people, he is free to deploy all his Starfleet assets against external threats.”

  It wasn’t based on a social model the Klingons would tolerate within their own empire, but Gorkon had to admit Chang’s theory made sense. For Spock, being able to direct all his empire’s strength outward, instead of having to constantly deploy forces to quell internal uprisings, would be an enormous tactical advantage. “If you’re right,” Gorkon said, “then all of Spock’s progressive reforms have been a prelude to a war—one he now feels confident goading us to begin.”