by Diane Duane
“Please repeat,” the lift’s computer said sweetly. “That did not make sense.”
Jim laughed. “Oh, yes, it did! Deck five.” He yawned again, thinking for the moment less about the vagaries of Fleet than about his bed.
Much later in the evening he was still yawning, but the thoughts behind the yawns were very different. Jim sat as he had been sitting for nearly an hour now, with the twelfth page of Uhura’s report burning on the screen in front of him. An annoying document, this; like the dispatch from Starfleet, what it did say was less revealing than what it didn’t.
The first part of it concerned civilian and military shipping, and was utterly unilluminating. Fleet ship movements in the sectors bounding the Neutral Zone, and in the sectors farther away, were routine and undisturbed. And business was progressing as usual in the Neutral Zone, as far as long-range sensors based in the Zone inspection stations could tell….
Those few agents whom the Federation had managed to insinuate into the Empire knew that their chief value lay in staying alive and unnoticed; so they dared do nothing that would attract attention to themselves—such as pry too closely into areas of real interest, including the seats of government and the counsels of the great. As a result, their reports tended to be brief and scanty of detail. But in the reports for the last three months, Jim found more than enough to interest him.
He had long been fascinated by the “modifed tri-cameral” or three-house legislative-executive branch of this Emperorless Empire. The Tricameron was comprised of a “Senate”—evenly divided against itself into a half that proposed and passed legislation, and a half that vetoed it—and a “Praetorate,” a sort of quadruple troika or duodecimvirate: twelve men and women who implemented the Senate’s decrees, declared war or peace, and (it seemed to Jim) spent most of the time squabbling amongst themselves for power. That was partially due to the nature of their office, since a Praetor could be “made,” by election or manipulation of influence. But a Senator could only be born—the senatorial office was hereditary, passed from father or mother to eldest sister’s-son or -daughter: and the only thing that could remove a Senator from office was death.
That was what interested Jim right now. For over the past few months, it seemed several Senators had lost their posts in just that fashion. Considered by itself, this fact was unremarkable. Often enough, some Senator or Praetor would antagonize another one possessing more influential alliances, and pay the price by being publicly executed, or ordered to commit suicide, by a majority of the Twelve. But four different senators, from both the proposing and vetoing sides of the Noble House, had died recently…of what were reported as natural causes.
Jim sat there thinking that an inability to live after being poisoned was natural enough. Yet at the same time he was disturbed, for as he understood it, assassination was not the Romulan style. It was supposed to be disdained as a dishonorable act, a sign of barbarity and weakness in the person who hired the assassin: the type of “irresponsible” behavior that made the Romulans despise the Klingons. One more thing that made no sense.
Irrational. Illogical. And the Romulans are still culturally close enough to their parent Vulcan race not to have given up logic entirely….
Four deaths are hardly enough to allow me to deduce logically that all hell is about to break loose over there. But the Romulans are so…so consistent…that the irrationality seems huge.
Damn Fleet! They won’t give me even a hint of what’s going on. Postulating worst case…always a wise course of action, where Starfleet’s concerned…how am I supposed to prevent a war, or at worst win one, if they won’t tell me how they expect it to start?
Unless… Unless what? Some piece of information hand-carried to Fleet, not yet disseminated? Some highest-level intelligence too sensitive to declassify or openly transmit? What could be that sensitive?
Or…unless they don’t know what’s going on either…and want us to find out… Jim breathed out, thinking of old stories of how the great cats were once hunted on Earth; with “beaters” who would run into the brush where the tigers were hiding. There the beaters would hoot and shout and hit around them with sticks, banging on pots or on shields, so that the noise would panic the tigers and make them break cover, revealing themselves. Or else make the tigers, in understandable annoyance, attack the beaters. And there we’ll be, three starships and a destroyer, parading up and down outside the borders of the Neutral Zone, shouting and beating on pots….
The sudden, bizarre image of Spock banging with straight-faced efficiency on a saucepan abruptly made Jim realize how very late it must be getting. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and rubbed his eyes—then rested his chin against his folded hands and stared once more at the screen. Page twelve of the report stared back at him, burning there golden and still. Jim had read Uhura’s careful compendium backward and forward several times now, but page twelve kept pulling him back. On page twelve were listed the Romulan vessels patrolling the far side of the Neutral Zone, and their schedules. The ships were maintaining those schedules to the minute, as usual. Jim would have been very surprised indeed if they hadn’t; Romulans were always punctual as clockwork, in peace as in war. And there on the list were the old familiar names—Courser, Arien, Javelin, Rea’s Helm, Cuirass, Eisn, Wildfire. Enterprise and her crew knew those names well from many brushes in the Neutral Zone, many skirmishes, many long dull patrols spent pacing one another on either side of the line. Jim leaned slowly forward, propping his chin on one fist, and stared at the screen.
The usual names…in the usual places.
All the names but one.
Where the hell is Bloodwing?
Unnoticed by its owner, the fist clenched.
Chapter Three
“Khre’Riov?”
Ael stretched in her center-chair in the bridge, and turned her head just enough to show she was paying attention to Centurion t’Liun, without actually having to look at her. “Ie?”
“Nniehv idh ra iy’tassiudh nnearh.”
What you mean, of course, is that my gig is allowed to be “ready” because your security people have checked it and failed to find anything that would confirm your suspicions of me. Fool! Do you think you’re dealing with someone who works on your level? Aloud, all Ael said was “Khnai’ra rhissiuy, Enarrain”; and if the thanks was rather warmly phrased, so much the better. It would confuse t’Liun into a standstill.
Ael got up from her hard seat and headed for the lift, and sure enough, t’Liun was standing there at her post when she could have been sitting, and gazing at Ael with what t’Liun doubtless thought was perfectly faked respect. How I detest you! Ael thought as she went past the narrow, dark, cold-faced little woman. You would sell your sisters’-sons and -daughters to Orion slavers for a quarter-chain of cash if the deed would buy you power. No matter, though; you and yours will be rid of me soon enough. Ael stepped into the lift. “Ri’laefv’htaiell, Enarrain,” she said, and waved the lift doors shut.
T’Liun headed down toward the center seat as ordered, but rather hurriedly. That was the last thing Ael saw as the doors closed on her; and it made her laugh. How she wishes I would leave her that seat forever! And she laughed softly about it all the way down to engineering, where her gig was kept.
It was a pretty little ship—a one-man scout, actually, very sleek and lean, with a high-absorption black coating and warpdrive capacity. It was many years newer than Cuirass or any of her sorry equipment; and this was because it was Ael’s own, brought with her from Bloodwing—the one thing she had insisted on taking. Privately she called it Hsaaja, after the first fvai she had demanded to ride as a child—a cranky, delicate, annoyed and annoying beast that was eternally hungry. This Hsaaja, like the first, was a glutton where fuel consumption was involved. But also like the first, nothing of his size could match him for speed…and neither could some larger craft: Cuirass, for example. Hsaaja’s presence made t’Liun acutely nervous. That suited Ael very well.
The ship
stood with his forward cockpit open. She went up the ladder, settled and sealed herself in, then called the upper engineering deck and told tr’Akeidhad to go ahead and exhaust the smaller, lower deck where Hsaaja stood. His instrumentation came on and the power came up at the sound of her voice; air hissed out of the deck, the sound of the pumps becoming inaudible. The doors rolled away, and the lights went down, leaving Ael in starlight and the flashes of the landing beacons set in the floor. She took Hsaaja out on chemical jets, and once well clear of the ship, cut in the ion-drivers and headed for her fleet.
They were all at the prescribed distance for fleet maneuvers, about a hundredth of a light-second from each other and from Cuirass—well out of visual range. Ael considered kicking in just a touch of warpdrive, then decided against it. Not from any concern about panicking t’Liun, who was certainly monitoring her course—that would in fact have been a minor pleasure. But she saw too little of realspace these days; and the otherspace in which ships moved while in warp was a wavering, uneasy vista, not pleasant to look at at all. She sat back, handling the controls at her leisure, and took her own good time.
Hsaaja’s computer already was displaying the three new ships’ ID signals—strings of numbers and the code for their class type. Klingon ships, all right. I do wish Command would stop buying those flying middens, Ael thought. But then Command couldn’t, as Ael well knew. The Rihannsu had entered into a trade agreement with the Klingons: an agreement that was nothing but a fair scabbard over a sharp sword—the threat of war if the Rihannsu should fail to buy a certain number of ships every year. It was the old story, the old saying: “Buy a murderer once and you will get lifetime service.” And the Klingons, with their present economic problems, would like nothing better than the excuse of a broken treaty to justify raiding the Rihannsu outworlds. So ch’Rihan fulfilled its half of the agreement, more out of fear than integrity. And the Fleet was now about half a collection of poor old warbirds falling into ill repair, because spare parts for them were no longer being made, and half Klingon ships which could be repaired—with spare parts sold at extortionate prices—but which immediately malfunctioned again anyway.
Planned obsolescence, Ael thought bitterly, as her ship coasted closer to the nearest of her fleet. Or maybe it’s true what they say, that the Klingon government contracts for its ships to be built by the lowest bidder….
Still, her curiosity got the better of her. She tapped her console for more information from the ID signals. Names came up along with the numbers: Arakkab, Kenek, Ykir. Ael stared at her datascreen; but there the names hung in black and blue, with no alternate Rihannsu naming, no extra information. Klingon names? she thought, in some bemusement. Maybe they simply haven’t had time to assign them decent names yet? But that seemed ridiculous. No Rihannsu ship was allowed into service without being properly named; it would be terribly unlucky, not to mention an insult to the Elements and to the ship itself—one that the ship would surely avenge on its crew at some point.
Ael’s unease did not show on her face: it never did. But it was down in her stomach already, clenching there like a fist. On an uncomfortable hunch she told her ship’s computer to scan behind her, read the ID of the ship she had just left.
KL Ehhak, said her datascreen.
And it was all suddenly and horribly plain. Ael did not need to go any nearer to the other ships, though she did, for completeness’ sake and to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious. She found, on final approach to the first ship, exactly what she knew she would: a brand new K’tinga-class warship, with Klingon markings on the exterior. Before she had even set foot out of Hsaaja onto its hangar deck, she knew exactly what was going to happen to her and this fleet in the next few weeks. She was going to be ordered to lead them across the Neutral Zone and into Federation space, there to start a “Klingon” war with the Federation. She and her fleet would, of course, not survive the experience; she would be permanently out of the Senate’s way. And while the Klingons and the Federation were busy blowing one another to plasma, for months—years it might be—the Rihannsu would be off doing other things.
What? Ael thought, while the obsequious, annoying commander of “Arakkab” welcomed her and escorted her around his ship; while her body did all the proper things, smiled, or laughed in a reassuring fashion at nervous jokes, or made appreciative remarks about new (and ill-made) equipment. What will they do? Raid both sides, most likely. Do something about our sorry economy in the most direct and dishonorable way possible. Pillage those worlds where the war has passed, scavenge about behind Klingons and Federation like a sseikea skulking behind a thrai, picking up scraps. They will take advantage of the disorganization and mistrust of such times, use them to expand, to enlarge the Empire at the cost of both sets of enemies. And when one of the great powers has reduced the second to slavery or powerlessness, then the new voices in the Senate will cry out for war. “Hit the winner now, while he is weak,” they’ll say. More war, more death. Perhaps even victory—but, O, dishonorable, vile—
The tension of the fist clenching her insides got no less as time went on, as she beamed over to Ykir with some of the officers from Arakkab, and was greeted in turn by another commander, whose thick-featured face she later thought of with grim pleasure—for these people and these ships deserved one another. O Fire above us and Earth below, she thought. Convicts, failures, the castoffs of Command. No doubt very proud of being given new ships, and a mission. How far will that get them? For Intrepid was out there waiting, along with Constellation, and worse still, the destroyer Inaieu; and worst of them all, Enterprise. Even with Bloodwing, with a crew both skilled and utterly loyal to her, she had survived her encounters with Enterprise with the greatest difficulty. And some of her own relatives had not been so lucky. What would happen to this poor lot?—newly assigned, from the look of them, and incompetents all, in ships falsely named? And what would happen to her, for that matter—in a ship full of paid help, already busy with treachery to her, a ship itself wearing an alias? Not all her skill could save her from a ship whose name had been taken from it. There was no tampering with names.
She went right through Ykir, and then through Kenek, extrapolating at furious speed, while the bland or confused or malicious faces around her never noticed a thing. Forget staying on Cuirass and surviving, she thought. And even if I should—what then? Capture by Enterprise or one of the other ships. Processing, and release—back to the Empire. A shameful death, and a protracted one, while the Senate laughs. No indeed; I shall die before it comes to that.
Yet my young friends would like that, would they not? They think they have me netted. Honorable suicide would suit them nicely. My death in battle would suit them too, or my execution in disgrace back home. Perhaps they even think I might suicide rather than carry out my dishonorable orders to cross the border in the first place. Surely the question of honor would come up—should I receive those orders. And Ael smiled just once at a moment she did not need to, while looking up some ugly conduit full of circuitry in Kenek’s engine room. She silently blessed the bureaucracy, just this once, for getting her orders stuck in itself. She resolved that when she got back to Cuirass, she would help those orders stay stuck for a while.
“Hra’vae?” she said in apparent wonderment, while some under-officer explained to her (inaccurately) some detail about the marvelous new Klingon gunnery conduits. She was thinking of Bloodwing’s new equipment, and her anger was turning humorous—her most dangerous mood, as Ael knew well. She made no attempt to abate it. She would need to be dangerous for the next few days. Treachery, she thought. I cannot abide treachery. As they shall come to know….
Eventually the tour was done. Ael beamed back to Arakkab, and bade its commander a very cheerful farewell—strongly intending that the two of them should not meet again until they had both passed out of this place where the Elements were physical. She got back into Hsaaja and took off for Cuirass again, noting as she approached how very worn the bird-of-prey shadows along its
underbelly were, in what bad shape the ship appeared to be. At one time, this would have scandalized her. Now she did not worry. It would shortly be none of her concern.
One thing she did, before she came about where Cuirass could scan her. In the shadow of Kenek’s deflector screens, up at minimal power, she hit a control in Hsaaja, and felt the slight bound of the ship as explosive bolts knocked something out of a concealed hatch. She could not see the object—it was covered with the same nondetectable coating as Hsaaja was—but her datascreen came alive as it went, reading out the readiness of the little probe’s engines, the status of its tiny computer. In an hour or so it would have maneuvered its way around behind Kenek on shielded impulse drive. In the nightwatch of the four ships, it would burn out its little primary pod in a single one-second warp eight burst. Tafv would find it, and its message, before the ship’s night was over.
Then it would all begin.
Ael went back to Cuirass to get ready.
Chapter Four
The space around sigma-285 Trianguli was, to put it baldly, dull. Not one of the stars in the area had a name; and hardly any of them seemed worth naming anyway. They were, generally speaking, a weary association of cooling red dwarfs—little Jupiter-sized stars of types N and R, and here and there a sputtering S-type “carbon” star with water-vapor in its atmosphere. (“Running out of steam,” Uhura remarked, looking over Spock’s shoulder at the data-breakdown on one of them.) Some of the stars had planets, but those were dull too—bare rocks, where life might have been, millennia ago, but certainly wasn’t now. There was nothing on those worlds that anyone wanted. Which was just as well; right next door to the border with the Neutral Zone would have been an uncomfortable place to live.