by Diane Duane
Jim stood; the room emptied—swiftly of Denebians, more slowly of the other species. Finally only the three of them were left—the two hominids and the brown, baggy Deirr, looking uncomfortably at one another.
“It’s hardly a pat hand, Jim,” Mike said. “I would much rather you cheated.”
“I am considering tucking you two up my sleeve,” Jim said. “Nhauris, let’s go down to your quarters and talk.”
Much later, Jim leaned over the helm console and said, “How about it, Mr. Sulu? Do you think you can make it work?”
“No question, Captain.” Sulu was seated at the console, making minute adjustments to a set of programmed flight instructions. Beside Jim, looking over Sulu’s other shoulder with great interest, was Subcommander Tafv. He and Sulu had been consulting for nearly an hour now, “choreographing” the “battle” they would fight in Romulan space.
“It’s just like the wargames simulations back at the Academy,” Sulu said, “except with real ships. We’ll have to use phasers at higher-than-minimal power in order to wipe out our muon trail properly and leave the right heat and photon residues to fool any investigator. Screens will be up at normal power on both ships for the first few passes—but see, here in the fourth pass Enterprise will ‘take a hit’ on number four screen, which will go down and allow the damage to the port nacelle that Mr. Scott’s arranging—”
“Will be arranging,” Jim said, his ears still burning slightly from Scotty’s private conversation with him, in one of the turbolifts, about what Jim was planning to do to his precious engines. “I don’t think he can bear to start just yet. Go on, gentlemen.”
“We will use a separate burst of phaser fire to make the actual cut in the nacelle,” Tafv said. “That way there will be less chance of hurting the reinforcement your chief engineer will be installing on the inner hull, so that the matter-antimatter converter in the nacelle can still function. That is probably the most delicate part of the operation. After that, Mr. Sulu has programmed the Enterprise’s navigations and gunnery computers to make another pass at us and do us some damage—a ‘missed shot’ at our own port nacelle that will instead hull us in one cargo hold, causing the usual explosive decompression and scattering various supplies all over the area. However, it will not be enough to stop us; Enterprise will be ‘limping’ badly at that point, and we will chase her until she’s forced to turn and fight because of ‘overheating’ in the remaining, overstressed nacelle. We will answer with more phaser fire, while Enterprise’s, due to the fueling of phasers from the already overtaxed nacelle, drops off. Then screens will go down, and the commander will send her message ahead to Fleet Command. At this distance from Romulus we will have some six hours’ grace before it reaches them—during which time we will jointly fake whatever else needs faking; the use of the intruder control system, various burn marks and damages from ‘fighting in the corridors,’ and so forth.”
“At the same time,” Sulu said, “we’ll be transferring control to the auxiliary bridge, and coaching the Romulan ‘invaders’ in how to handle communications and so forth, for when the escort comes along and demands to know what’s really going on.” He stopped then, looking a little disconcerted. “Captain—one problem. What if they want to board, rather than just examining us by ship-to-ship communication?”
Jim shook his head. “The commander thinks she can prevent that,” he said, “but if they do board—well, we’ll get some acting practice, that’s all. There shouldn’t be too many Romulans to fool, anyway—it’s not as if a whole crew would beam over and inspect every bit of the ship. We shouldn’t have to deal with any more than twenty or thirty Romulans tops—and if we can’t fool thirty Romulans—” Jim stopped abruptly, grinned at Tafv. “Sorry, Subcommander. Some habits are hard to break.
“Yes, I agree,” Tafv said, smiling slightly. “But the effort is interesting. Captain, will there be anything else? I am going to be needed on Bloodwing shortly.”
“If you gentlemen are finished, then by all means go ahead,” Jim said. Tafv bowed slightly to Jim, waved two fingers at Sulu in a small saluting gesture, and hurried off the bridge.
When the lift doors had closed behind him, Sulu sat back in his chair and looked up at Jim with an expression both worried and bemused. “Sir,” he said, “is it all right to say that I trust you completely—and I wish I could say the same for them?”
“Absolutely,” Jim said, “because that’s exactly the way I feel about it. However, the only way to prove someone trustworthy is to trust them. I just wish it wasn’t my ship and my crew I had to trust them with….”
Sulu looked up at Jim and nodded. “Captain,” he said, “we’re with you. It’s not only the Romulans who have mneh—whatever-it-is.”
“Yes, Mr. Sulu,” Jim said. “I know. And thank you.” He sighed. “I suppose I’d better get down there and see how poor Scotty’s doing with ‘blowing up’ his engine….”
“I bet he’s doing most of the ‘blowing up’ himself,” Chekov said quietly from beside Sulu.
“Mr. Chekov,” Jim said, “amen to that. Mind the bridge, gentlemen. We won’t be in it for long….”
And so it was that, several hours later, a lone Federation starship ventured out of its own space into the proscribed space of the Romulan Neutral Zone, and was found trespassing there by a ship whose ID read ChR Cuirass. The Federation ship tried to escape, but it was too far into the Zone to make it back into its own space before being caught by Cuirass and brought to battle. The engagement was brief and fierce, characterized by a virtuoso set of evasive maneuvers by the Enterprise’s helmsman, and the dogged, never-say-die pursuit of Cuirass; but in the end virtuosity was not enough to save the Federation ship, one of whose engines overloaded during a particularly high-power turn-and-fire maneuver. Cuirass was quick to exploit the problem, and though she took some hurt herself in the exchange of fire that followed, she blew a hole eighty meters long in the Enterprise’s starboard nacelle. “Oh, m’ poor bairn!” someone was heard to moan on the Enterprise’s bridge; but the Romulans who heard the exclamation only laughed softly, and those who didn’t began raining phaser fire on the Enterprise’s weakening screens. Number four went down, and others followed; a great many Romulans beamed aboard the beleaguered ship, right into the bridge, securing it before the Enterprise’s own security or intruder-defense systems could act. They took that intruder-defense system and used it to their own advantage—gassing most of the crew into unconsciousness and locking them up, then confining the captain and bridge crew and threatening him with the death of his whole crew unless he unconditionally surrendered his ship.
Faced with the inevitable, he did so. For only the second time in Federation history, a living captain gave up his command and was locked away to await trial with various of his officers. And a Rihannsu commander stood proudly on a Federation starship’s bridge, called Rihannsu High Command, and informed them that she had captured the U.S.S. Enterprise.
High Command had not yet heard from three other Rihannsu ships, in another part of homespace, concerning the sudden disappearance from their area of Cuirass, pursued by another warbird. The three commanders of the ships with the Klingon names were still in conference aboard Ehhak, trying to figure out what story to tell Command that would save their necks.
So there was celebration at Command when the message came in; and a three-ship escort was detached from other duty to help Cuirass bring the Enterprise in. Judges were selected from the Senate for the war-crimes trials, and various people in the science and shipbuilding departments of Command became abnormally cheerful at the thought of the happy months of analysis ahead of them. Some Senators and Praetors grumbled bitterly among themselves. There was nothing to be done about t’Rllaillieu; throw the cursed woman into a dungheap and she came up covered with dilithium crystals. There had to be another way to get rid of her.
They would have been pleased to know that there were already various people working on the problem.
Chapter Eleven
She could not get used to it—she knew she would never get used to it—this business of standing on the bridge of a Federation vessel, not as a prisoner, but as an ally.
It was bizarre to look around her and see the captain sitting there as calm in his center chair as she might be in hers, looking around at a bridge where Rihannsu worked alongside Terrans and other odd creatures. Her own crewpeople were rather bemused about it themselves, but they applied themselves to their work, and saved their wondering for their few off hours. They had a lot to learn in a very short time.
They were her best. Bloodwing had been through its share of trouble over the last three years, and several times had had to be not only refitted but supplied with new people to replace those lost in this or that battle. Of her two hundred crew, only about fifty had been with her for more than ten years—an assortment of canny old creatures who lived almost wholly by their wits, and crazy young ones who had survived this long mostly by trusting her blindly and doing everything she told them. Some of them, by keeping their eyes open and learning from what she did, had become prime command material—though they usually loudly claimed that they would never be as good as she was, did the subject ever come up. Among this latter group were many of her officers; and she loved them dearly, feeling that she had more than one child. They looked up to her like a mother. It was to this younger group that Ael was “susse-thrai”; the elder group just called her “our commander,” and smiled at the youngsters.
“Commander,” said the captain, breaking her out of her thoughts, “anything from Bloodwing?”
“Nothing new,” she said. “But your Lieutenant Kerasus was busy translating the last communication from Command a little while ago. She should have it for you shortly. Oh, Captain, it was choice.”
He looked oddly at her smile. “How so? I thought it was fairly dry, from what you told me.”
“Well.” She sat down opposite him at one of the auxiliary science stations. “That is why I suggested the lieutenant translate it into Basic for you; there were nuances that I am incompetent to render. I am a thorn in the Senate’s side, you see; a major annoyance to them. Command likes me no better, since it’s the Senate that appropriates their funds, and the retirees holding down desk jobs in Command all study to dance to their masters’ harps. They sent me out on Neutral Zone patrol in the first place in hopes I would be killed—an ‘honorable’ duty assigned for a dishonorable purpose. Lieutenant Kerasus called it ‘being sent to Gaul.’ Where is Gaul, by the way? Some kind of prison planet?”
The Captain shook his head, smiling. “No, it’s on Earth, and the wine there is very good…but don’t drink the water.”
She knew a joke when she heard one, even if she didn’t understand it. “I shall not, then. But at any rate, the tone of the communication was, shall we say, rather sour. They had to do me honor—but it annoyed them to do so. Nor did Command dare send me too much ‘help’ in bringing you home. I might take offense—and should my star rise again in the Senate, as may now seem likely to them, they would be slitting their own wrists in angering me. You will see when you read the communiqué. Lieutenant Kerasus strikes me as a very skilled officer, and I’m sure you will find the text amusing.”
Jim nodded. “Three ships, you said?”
“Yes. Rea’s Helm and Wildfire, which I think you know, have been pulled off Neutral Zone patrol in other areas to attend us; and Javelin, which usually does courier runs between Eisn and the Klingon borders, was out this way on an errand to Hihwende and is also being dispatched. This is good luck for us, Captain. Two of these, the commanders of Helm and Javelin, are old unfriends of mine—too politic to argue with me, though, when I am obviously in a position of power. The third, Wildfire’s commander, I don’t know—but that may work to our advantage as well.”
“I’ve wondered ever since I heard the name,” the Captain said, “who ‘Rea’ was….”
Ael looked at the captain from under her brows, a mischievous expression. “You would have liked him, Captain. He was a magician whose enemies captured him and forced him to use his arts for them. They told him they wanted him to make a helmet that would make the person who wore it proof against wounds. So he did—and when one of those who captured him tried it on, the demon Rea had bound inside the helmet bit the man’s head off. A corpse will not care how you wound it….” She laughed at his wry look. “Enough, Captain. Soon you will be asking me what a ‘bloodwing’ is—”
“That would have been the next question, yes….”
“Later,” said Ael, standing, as Lieutenant Kerasus came in. “And you will tell me what great ‘enterprise’ your ship is named for….”
She went over to stand by the gorgeous dark-skinned woman, Uhura, and her own crewwoman Aidoann, while the captain, with occasional snickerings, read the document the lieutenant had brought him. Aidoann t’Khnialmnae was Ael’s third-in-command, a tall young woman with bronze-fair hair and a round, broad face that could be astonishingly complacent or astonishingly ferocious, depending on the mood that rode her. “How are you doing, small one?”
It was their old joke, and here as anywhere else Aidoann flicked her eyes sidewise, stifling a reply until they should both be off duty. “Well enough, khre’Riov,” she said. “Lieutenant Commander Uhura has been very patient with me. I don’t doubt I will have the more important features of this board mastered by the time the skill is needed.”
“I haven’t much needed to be patient, Commander,” said Uhura. “The antecenturion is very quick—”
Aidoann cocked her head. “All right, Aidoann, then,” Uhura said. “It’s a pity she’s not—no, I beg your pardon, I mean—”
“Not one of your crew?” Ael said. “No offense taken, Lieutenant Commander. For the moment, at least, she is.” She glanced at Aidoann. “How has Khiy been doing with the helm?”
They all three glanced down at the small, slim, dark man sitting beside Mr. Sulu, with Mr. Chekov looking over his shoulder and giving advice. “Rather well, I think,” Aidoann said. “At least the ship has not crashed into anything yet.”
“Commander?” said the captain, looking up from his center seat. “What’s this about this other ship?—Battlequeen, is it?”
“That’s the one that will not be here,” Ael said, turning away from Aidoann and stepping down into the center again. “Be glad of it. Battlequeen is commanded by Lyirru tr’Illialhae, and Lyirru is a reckless, bloodthirsty idiot who would certainly want to beam over here at first sight of you. He has done enough stupid things in the past to be deprived of his command if he were anyone else—but unfortunately he has friends among both Praetors and Senators, and he’s the delight of the expansionist lobby in the Tricameron. However, the kind Elements have put him safely out of our way for the moment—there’s a rebellion going on out on one of the colony planets, as you see, and he’s off putting an end to it. I just hope he leaves the planet there when he’s done; it would be just like him to blow it up in a fit of pique.”
She saw on the captain’s face what he thought of such tactics, and was heartened. “Fine. As long as he stays out of our way…” He handed the report back to Lieutenant Kerasus, who took it around to Mr. Spock. “I see what you meant about the tone of that thing. Bureaucracy doesn’t change, does it?”
“Apparently not. —Captain, I want to make the rounds and see how my people are settling in; would you care to come with me?”
“I’ll join you later, Commander,” he said. “I have some work to finish up here. Just tell the lift where you want to go; once it dumps you out on a given floor, ask it for directions—it’ll answer, all the lifts have been put on the translator network.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
She stepped into the lift. Its door closed on her, and Ael stood for a moment irresolute, wondering where to go. Then she remembered that Tafv had gone off with Hvaid t’Khaethaetreh, one of her subalterns, to see about accommodations near the recreation department. “Recreation deck,” she said to the li
ft, and obediently it whooshed off.
The amiable sound of many voices down the hall told Ael which way to go as surely as the computer could have. She went down toward it, her usual purposeful stride slowed to a stroll, as it had again and again over the past few hours. She could not get used to how large this ship was. Bloodwing was a hole by comparison, cramped, dark and barren. I am getting spoiled, she thought. If I am not careful, I will begin to covet this ship. And even thinking that thought is dangerous….
The doors to recreation were open. She stepped in and was astonished to see how very many people were in there. People of all kinds. That was another thing she was having trouble getting used to. When the Rihannsu had left Vulcan, astronomy had been old, but spaceflight was still in its infancy; and generation ships had been all they had. They had met no other species in their travels, and ch’Rihan had had plenty of animal life, but no other intelligence. For thousands of years the Rihannsu had not dreamed of any other life in the universe; even Vulcan had become almost a legend. But then came the days of starflight, the rediscovery of other species, and the First War that resulted in the setting up of the Zone. What had been mere ignorance and isolation turned rather suddenly into a politically-based xenophobia, the idea that anything not Rihannsu would most likely either shoot at you or steal from you. The Klingons had not helped this impression. Now, though, Ael looked around this bewildering collection of aliens—all these Terrans and Tellarites and Andorians and Sulamids and three kinds of Denebians, and whatnot else—and was bewildered. Four hundred kinds of ‘humanity,’ the ship’s library computers called them. She found that bizarre. There was only one kind of humanity, everybody knew that. But to judge from the way these people worked together, one would think they didn’t know it….
It would have been the rankest discourtesy, of course, to display that attitude among hosts who thought otherwise. So Ael walked on through the room looking with cool and (she hoped) polite interest at all the weird things with tentacles and the odd-colored men and women, eating and drinking and playing together, and privately wondered how they stood one another.