Ghost Dance

by Christie Golden

  There were a few stray bits to gather on this planet: dark matter that had killed an ancient tree, that had turned a fresh rivulet into poison. The Entity found them all. With a sense of deep satisfaction, it moved on.

  CHAPTER

  13

  JEKRI FOUND, TO HER SURPRISE, THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT to be her old self in front of her crew. For the last few weeks, she had been practicing the Vulcan mental disciplines that Dammik R’Kel had taught her. She had achieved a sense of inner calm that dampened her normal fire. Things did not irritate her as they used to, and she had to put on a show of snapping and growing irate at small errors.

  While she was pleased that there was a definite effect from her meditating, she did not know if the most important aspect had succeeded. Until someone tried to read her thoughts, she would not know if her mental blocks were effective.

  No one had suspected anything. Jekri answered to no one save the Praetor and the Empress. The Praetor, who appeared, at least, to still be an ally, had done nothing to contact her, and the Empress—

  Jekri frowned as she sat at her console. This, at least, she did not have to feign. As chairman of the Tal Shiar, little was withheld from her. There was the occasional clash between her offices and that of the military, but more often than not she was the victor in such confrontations. Now, however, she was looking at an encrypted message that had been intercepted a few hours ago. It was not one of the dozen or so codes with which she was familiar.

  “Kaleh to Sharibor,” she said tapping her communications badge.

  “Sharibor here, Chairman.”

  “Which do you value less, your job or your life? Because I am inclined to eliminate one or the other at the present moment. I’m in a good mood, so I’ll give you your choice.” She was joking, of course, but only by a hair.

  “Chairman?”

  “I have before me an encrypted message. I can’t even determine who sent it or to whom it was sent. Are you not my chief of decoding?”

  An uncomfortable pause. “My entire team has spent the last few hours on this, Chairman. I passed it along to you in the hopes that you might have an insight that we lacked.”

  Fury rose in Jekri like a red wave. Almost at once, the mantra she had learned at Dammik’s feet came into her mind: Anger serves no master. Tame it, and control it. She didn’t want to. Jekri kept her position through skill and intimidation. But other words Dammik spoke came to her.

  We can begin with this—controlling your outbursts. I imagine such a skill would be extremely useful to the chairman of the Tal Shiar.

  My temper is under my control.

  Perhaps, when you deem it to be useful. Perhaps when you are negotiating with an ambassador, or the Praetor, or the Empress, you can control what you say and how you behave. But you must learn to control it at all times. You must not insult a child whose plaything has made you trip, or a servant who has prepared the wrong food.

  Or, thought Jekri now, a loyal underling who has tried but failed.

  “In the future, Sharibor,” she said, her voice calm, “I wish to be notified. I do not wish to be surprised with this information and your lack of progress.”

  “Certainly, Chairman.” Jekri wasn’t certain, but she thought she detected a note of relief in Sharibor’s voice.

  “I will notify Subcommander Verrak. We will meet you at your station. Perhaps more brains working on this puzzle will solve it.”

  “As you will, Chairman.” Yes, it was there, a definite lightness in the voice. Sharibor was married and had children. She could ill afford to have all opportunities barred to her, as would certainly be the case if she were abruptly removed from such a sensitive position.

  In a few moments, Jekri was at the encryption station. Most Romulan vessels had one, but on such vessels as warbirds they were smaller and manned by only a few soldiers. It was a subdivision of communications/operations. Here, on the personal vessel of the chairman of the Tal Shiar, it was a huge station. It comprised almost a full level and had some of the finest brains in the Empire. There were over two dozen Romulans stationed here at any given time, more during sensitive missions or whenever Jekri felt they were needed. Now, there were thirty-five warm bodies on duty.

  Sharibor Krel was their head, a large, awkward female who had a bit of a reputation for clumsiness, but whose fingers flew over a console and whose mind was as brilliant as any Jekri had ever encountered, up to and including the missing Telek R’Mor and the hated Lhiau. Jekri had once confided to Verrak that she would rather have Sharibor and a primitive calculating device than the finest computers the Empire could provide. Something that was thwarting her and her entire team was something Jekri needed to know about, and fast.

  Sharibor rose quickly at the approach of her commander—too quickly, for she slammed her elbow into the console. She closed her eyes briefly against the pain.

  “Chairman, I ask your forgiveness.” Sharibor spread her hands, nearly missing a cup she had placed on the console. “I am unaccustomed to failure and did not know how to properly react.”

  That, Jekri could well believe. “I cannot remember the last time you failed me, Sharibor,” she said generously.

  Sharibor’s curved eyebrows rose in surprise at the calm reaction. She glanced at Verrak, who had come up quietly behind his commander, and then at Jekri, and decided not to pursue the matter.

  Instead, she took them both through the lengthy process the encryption had undergone. Sharibor knew off the top of her head over forty-seven different encryptions. The technology that graced the Tektral was the best to be found in the Empire. Sharibor’s staff ranged from an elderly man who sometimes confounded enemies by utilizing codes that had been deciphered and, therefore, forgotten decades ago to fresh-faced top graduates of the various Romulan academies. Most encrypted messages were decoded with a casualness that would shock those who sent them.

  This one, though, remained elusive. Jekri watched the letters, in no language she understood, curl across the screen.

  “There is no pattern, no recognizable language, nothing. We might as well be looking at a message from a completely alien race,” said Sharibor in her deep, gruff voice.

  “Any hint as to the origin?”

  “No. We traced it back through three separate routes before the signal degraded.”

  Jekri’s hours of meditation had sharpened her senses even as they had given her clues on how to calm her sometimes raging emotions. She had always trusted her hunches, and everything inside her screamed that this pointed to Lhiau, somehow, some way.

  She straightened and looked Verrak in the eye. “It has something to do with Lhiau,” she stated.

  Verrak glanced down, uncomfortable with her bald statement. “Chairman,” he said, “we all know that you have reason to dislike Lhiau. However, perhaps it is not wise to assume that every problem we encounter is caused directly by him.”

  “On the contrary, Second,” said Jekri, her voice sharp, “I have every reason to look first to Lhiau if there is trouble. The Empress has changed her policy radically.” Jekri stopped just short of mentioning the Empress’s recent bizarre behavior. Such things could be construed as treason among her enemies, and Jekri was hardly veruul enough to assume that her vessel was free of those who would make their personal fortunes by trampling over her.

  “It may indeed be that R’Mor’s wormholes were responsible for the destruction of the fleet. But until we know for certain, it is entirely in keeping with Romulan law and custom that we assume outsiders are the troublemakers, not our own people. Sharibor, have you attempted to cross-reference the signals emitted by Shepherd technology with the signal of this obstinate message?”

  Sharibor blushed green. “No, Chairman. I had not. The Shepherds are our allies. I thought—”

  “The Earthers are fond of sayings, Sharibor. Some of them even make sense. One of them says to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. This to me is wisdom. I would have Lhiau suckling at my breast like a newborn bab
e if I thought it would help me keep watch on him. Now, set your team to this task, and report to me if you find anything. Report to me if you don’t. Have I made my wishes clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, Chairman,” said Sharibor stiffly. There was more than a touch of the idealist about the homely Sharibor, despite the cynical nature of her job. It obviously rankled to consider Lhiau, who was posturing as the savior of the Empire, under suspicion.

  For the briefest of moments, this troubled Jekri. Then she hardened her will. Sharibor was under her command. She would do what Jekri told her to do. Such was ever the Romulan way.

  She turned and strode toward the turbolift. Verrak fell into step beside her. She sensed his disapproval, but he said nothing until they entered the lift.

  “Deck seventeen,” she told it, and it hummed into motion.

  “Permission to speak freely?”

  “Granted.”

  “There is no one who understands your reasons for distrusting Lhiau more than I,” said Verrak earnestly. “And you know that I share your distrust. But he is the Empire’s ally and the Empress’s special favorite at the moment. Do you think it is wise to set yourself against him so openly?”

  The anger, the old familiar friend, rose again inside Jekri, but its heat was cooled by Verrak’s undeniable logic.

  “No,” Jekri said, surprising them both with the word. “You are correct. It is not wise to draw such unwanted attention to myself. Thank you for your caution, Second. I shall be more discreet in the future.”

  He stared at her as the floors rushed by. “Again, if I may speak freely?” At her nod, he continued. “Chairman, you are different. You hide it well enough from the rest of the crew, but I have served with you far too long not to notice. Do you know something you have not shared with me?”

  She could hear it, if she listened for it: the faintest hint of pain that she would keep something from him, from the one who knew her best and served her wholeheartedly. She did not wish to hear, to acknowledge his hurt.

  “You are not privy to the innermost thoughts of my mind,” she said. “Not you, not Lhiau, no one. You know what I wish you to know, when I wish you to know it.”

  He stiffened slightly, the old mask of studied indifference dropping into place. “Of course, Honored Chairman.”

  “Although,” she said, though she did not know why she felt compelled to speak, “you do know me better than anyone. And there are things that I have shared with you that I have shared with no one else. Know that, my old friend, and be content.”

  “I am content,” he said, though she knew he lied.

  They rode in silence the rest of the way.

  * * *

  Jekri stared at the burning flame of the oil lamp. She sat with her legs crossed, her hands quiet in her lap. Her eyes unfocused, letting the flame lose its distinct shape and become a blur of orange, red, and yellow.

  Look within the flame. She could almost hear Dammik’s soft voice in her ear. Look and see not its form, but its essence. See the heat, the passion that is fire. Know it, and take its strength for yourself. Harness fire.

  The chime at her door caused her heart to leap into her throat. She had been utterly lost in the fire meditation, and it took her an entire second or two to recover her composure. With a quick breath, she extinguished the flame and rose. At her touch, the door hissed open.

  Sharibor stood there, looking as wretched as Jekri had ever seen her. “Permission to enter?”

  Nodding, Jekri stood aside and let her pass. Sharibor’s gaze fell briefly on the still smoking lamp, but she said nothing. Jekri wondered if she suspected anything. More likely, Sharibor was surprised to find her icy commander in possession of something as romantically old-fashioned as an oil lamp.

  “I assume you have deciphered the encryption?”

  Mute, Sharibor nodded and handed her commander a personal data pad.

  Jekri inhaled swiftly, the calm she had briefly grasped from the fire meditation fleeing. She had been right. Lhiau had been the author of the message, and he had issued it from the royal palace, with the full knowledge and blessings of the bewitched Empress. It was to the highest levels of the military and, she saw to her horror, to her own people.

  Quickly, she read. The glory and final triumph of the Romulan Empire is in jeopardy. Even as we are positioning our warbirds along the Neutral Zone, preparing for the surprise onslaught of a slow-witted Federation, there is a traitor in our midst. We do not wish to startle the populace, so the instructions that follow are highly classified. The chairman of the Tal Shiar, Jekri Kaleh—

  Sharibor moved in utter silence, strange for one normally so clumsy. There was no revealing scrape of boot on floor, no shadow falling over Jekri to alert her. But her senses were already finely honed, and the meditation she had just completed had left her subconscious alert.

  Jekri whirled, knocking the disruptor out of Sharibor’s hand with a swift kick. Quick as a snake, faster than Jekri had ever seen the large woman move, Sharibor lunged forward with a kaleh that must have been hidden behind her back. It was already in her right hand, arcing toward her belly in a professional underhand stroke by the time Jekri’s foot hit the ground from her kick. She sprang back and fancied she could hear a whizzing sound as the knife barely passed her abdomen.

  Jekri rushed her attacker as Sharibor stabbed at her again. She seized Sharibor’s right hand and bent the wrist up sharply. Jekri slammed her right hand into the inside of Sharibor’s wrist. The pain would be agonizing, but Sharibor uttered no sound, not even a wordless hiss. Still, the knife fell from her grasp.

  Using her momentum, Jekri slammed her small body into Sharibor’s large, muscular one, pinning the larger woman against the bulkhead. Before Sharibor could recover, Jekri had stepped under Sharibor’s right arm, which she still clutched, whirled the assassin around and yanked her arm up behind her back.

  What she did next startled her. Her left hand came up, as if it had a will of its own, and clamped down on the side of Sharibor’s neck. Fingers placed themselves in proper alignment and she squeezed. Silently, Jekri’s would-be assassin dropped to the floor unconscious.

  Shaking and breathing heavily, Jekri stared. She had not had the faintest inkling that Sharibor was a plant. The woman had served Jekri with apparent loyalty for many years. She had perfectly played her role of bulky, gawky intellectual, deflecting any suspicion as easily as she might a victim’s attack. But she had been well trained—trained the way Jekri herself had been trained. Trained as a professional assassin, a member of the Family of the Blade, planted deeply, awaiting an order that might come any day, or might never come at all.

  Veruul! She cried silently. How could you not have seen it? The answer came swiftly: for the same reason Jekri’s own victims, years ago, had never seen it in her. Oh, Sharibor was good, very good, there was no doubt about it. And yet Jekri was the one still standing, though her knees felt weak. She had triumphed.

  Part of her victory was her own training and instincts, but she could not deny how significant a role her Vulcan meditations and exercises had played in her being able to escape with her life. She had foolishly turned her back on Sharibor to read the decoded message and would never have seen the attack coming. One gentle squeeze of a finger on the trigger of the disruptor and Jekri Kaleh would no longer be a problem to anyone.

  But her mind had been alert, fresh from her meditation; her fingers had automatically formed themselves into the right position to deliver the famous Vulcan nerve pinch. She recalled practicing it at Dammik’s, never being able to get it quite right. But when she had needed it, her subconscious had taken over and had literally saved her life.

  Maybe those Vulcans were on to something.

  She took a deep, steadying breath and went to her closet to search for something with which to bind her prisoner. She was glad that she had used the nerve pinch instead of killing Sharibor outright. Maybe they would be able to get some useful information out of her before they killed her.<
br />
  She emerged with a sash from a formal dress she seldom wore. Jekri wrinkled her nose at the flimsiness of the material, but it would have to serve. Quickly she trussed up the unconscious Sharibor. Standing over her, the rage and shame at having been duped the same way she had duped others won out over her newly acquired Vulcan calm, and Jekri kicked Sharibor in the belly. Hard.

  She touched her communications device with one hand as she removed her own disruptor. “Kaleh to Verrak.”

  “Here, Chairman.”

  “Come to my quarters.”

  “At once, Chairman.”

  For not the first time, Jekri was glad of the false affair she and Verrak were pretending to have. Now, when they heard this command, her crew would merely exchange knowing glances among themselves. Before, Jekri’s request would have drawn unwanted attention.

  Only a few minutes passed before Jekri heard the chime at her door. Keeping the disruptor trained on Sharibor, she went to the door and touched it. It hissed open and she pulled Verrak inside before he could see what was on the floor in her quarters.

  He gasped when he saw the prone figure of Sharibor and turned a questioning face to his commander.

  “Family of the Blade,” Jekri spat. “I should have realized it years ago, but they trained her well.”

  “Apparently not as well as they trained you,” said Verrak admiringly. He reached to touch her face, as if to reassure himself that she was all right, but Jekri stepped quickly away.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No, just unconscious. Watch her while I finish reading this.” She snorted. “She was a good assassin, but she was also a good code breaker.”

  She finished reading the message that Sharibor had decoded—or perhaps had not decoded, but had already known about. That would be a useful bit of information.

  The glory and final triumph of the Romulan Empire is in jeopardy. Even as we are positioning our warbirds along the Neutral Zone, preparing for the surprise onslaught of a slow-witted Federation, there is a traitor in our midst. We do not wish to startle the populace, so the instructions that follow are highly classified. The chairman of the Tal Shiar, Jekri Kaleh, is to be eliminated as a dangerous element. Care is to be utilized. It must not be done in a public setting, and there must be no arousal of suspicion. Disposal of the body should be thorough.