by Diane Duane
And then the corona simply collapsed back against the star, falling flat, vanishing. For a long horrible moment, nothing happened—
Flash! A blinding sphere of high-level ionization leapt away from the star and blasted outward. The pursuing Romulan vessels that dove into view and toward the star a few moments later were caught by it. The effect, powerful enough in its first flush to propagate into subspace, deranged their warp fields. In tiny flashes of light they were annihilated, blown to plasma, and the plasma swept away before the relentlessly expanding front of an ion storm a hundred thousand times more powerful than anything that nature could have produced.
The view changed, backed off hundreds of millions of kilometers to show a planet like Earth—laced about with the orbits of satellites, patched under its swirls of creamy weather with the sapphire blue of seas, the greens and browns of continents, and on the nightside, great spills and spatters of the lights of civilization. Past that planet, its innocent-looking star was visible, but so was the only faintly visible wall of furious ionization that was tearing toward the world through local space. “I’ve sped it up a little now,” Scotty said, “and marked it, for there’d be no seeing it this far out except with instruments. Ten minutes or so, this would take. But now—”
Like a tidal wave, completely invisible but marked as a hot blue line in the reconstruction, the ion storm struck the bowshock of the planet’s magnetic field. For a fraction of a second, a faint glitter of massive particle annihilations and alpha and beta emissions manifested itself along the intersection’s curvature, but the bowshock could offer no slightest resistance to an event of such intensity. The ion storm blasted past and through it, stripped away the planet’s Van Allen belts, and a second later swept over the world in a wavefront now some forty thousand kilometers thick.
In orbit, every satellite was either scorched out of commission or simply slagged down to a lump by the sheer intensity of the radiation. A second later the whole planet’s atmosphere was a maelstrom of hectic light from top to bottom. The upper reaches and the ozone layer went wild with blue and green and white auroral fire, not just the usual small circles one saw from space when a star hiccuped a minor flare at one of its satellite worlds, but huge interlocking circles that grew and ran across and around the planet’s sphere, indicators of massive imbalances of potential. Millions upon millions of massive lightning strikes five or ten or twenty miles high leapt up from the ground or down to it everywhere; cities went dark as power grids went down all over that world, overloaded or destroyed; weather systems had imparted to them huge doses of heat energy that would derange the planet’s entire atmospheric ecology with days or weeks of violent windstorms and vicious torrents of rain. Shortly there was no light left on the planet’s surface but that of the scourge of lightning which would take days yet to die away, and the millions of wildfires the strikes were still kindling, while the upper atmosphere convulsed and rippled, burning blue with continuing ionization, and the tattered remainder of its ozone layer evaporated away. The seeded star’s storm-wavefront passed, ravening on out into the system, vanishing from view. But in its wake, the surface of a class-M planet was swiftly becoming an image of Hell….
Jim nodded at Scotty. Scotty looked uneasily at the burning image, and touched a control: it vanished.
“You’ll understand why Starfleet is sitting tight on the details of those routines at the moment,” Jim said. “But they’re not so foolish as to think they’re going to be able to do so forever. The secret will get out—if not from the Romulan side, from ours. Starfleet’s desire is to find an ‘antidote’ or countermeasure that will make the Sunseed routines essentially useless, and to disseminate that information freely to every inhabited star system. They want to teach every vulnerable system a way to make both ships and planets effectively immune to the routine, able to stop it as soon as someone starts to use it.”
Ael looked doubtful. “That will be a good trick,” she said, “if you can find a way to bring it about. Do not forget, either, that my people have been using this tactic defensively against the Klingons, along our shared border, for some years. They may start using it offensively against you…and not just your shipping. Any defense you can produce against the Sunseed routines may in itself suffice to save many millions of lives.”
K’s’t’lk had been chiming gently where she sat. “The problem’s interesting,” she said. “I think for the purpose of simpler implementation, we can leave the ‘creative physics’ of my people out of this solution; the less elegant but perhaps more robust ‘hard physics’ of realspace and subspace will suffice us, since the forces we’re dealing with are fairly straightforward.”
Jim had to put his eyebrows up at that. He suspected that someone in Fleet might have had a word with K’s’t’lk regarding the effects of creative physics on species less able to deal with the idea of rewriting the basic laws of the universe on demand. Something to ask her later…
“Sc’tty has described the basic induction routines to me,” K’s’t’lk said, “and they really are rather simple. For an ion storm sufficiently violent to propagate into subspace and disrupt the warp fields of passing traffic—not even as violent as the one we just saw—you need a star of type K or better, at least one starship of a minimum ‘significant’ mass, doing at least warp eleven, phasers adequately pumped to very specific energy levels, and between five and ten photon torpedoes. All these requirements fortunately put the effect out of the reach of most users except for planetary powers and large fleet-running organizations such as Starfleet and the various interplanetary empires.”
“So what we need,” Scotty said, “is, first of all, a mobile form of protection, for ships. But then we’ll also need a way for a planetary installation, or even something ship-based, to stop the effect once it gets started.”
“And from a distance,” K’s’t’lk said, “without having to go chasing after the ships initiating the effect, and without too time-consuming a setup, either.” Her chiming died away to a faint glassy tinkling for a few moments as she thought. “Well, it might be moderately easy to protect individual ships by very carefully tuning their shields to match the average wave generation frequency of the ion storm in question. Mr. Spock?”
Spock looked thoughtful. “That would require very swift and complete initial and ongoing analysis of the oncoming wavefronts of the storm. Specialist routines would have to be written for the scanning hardware, to maximize data input and minimize processing time.”
Scotty was rubbing his chin. “Aye. But you want to make sure there’s no degradation of shield function. Our shields are useful, but they’re not meant to do too many things at once….”
“I agree,” K’s’t’lk said. “As for the ‘heavy,’ nonmobile implementation of a defense…” She chimed softly to herself for a few moments, then trailed off. “It will be a good trick if we can do that,” she said finally, “since what you’re essentially doing with the high-energy ‘seeding’ of the star’s upper atmosphere is turning its corona temporarily into something resembling a quadrillion-terawatt cyclotron. All that energy has to go somewhere once it builds up; and out, in the form of one or two big bursts of ionized radiation, is the easiest place….”
“Well,” Jim said, “I think we can safely leave the problem with you three for the moment. Please get to work on it. Meanwhile, we have the matter of the incoming diplomatic mission to deal with. Another five Starfleet vessels will be meeting us at the preliminary rendezvous point, which is 15 Trianguli. We will then proceed to a spot not far from the borders of the Neutral Zone, and meet the diplomatic mission there. And then…”
“Then no one has the slightest idea what’ll happen,” McCoy said.
“Our only consolation,” Jim said, “is that matters will take a while to unfold, and we’ll have time to anticipate them. The negotiating team assembling on the Federation side apparently has instructions to attempt to solve some other outstanding issues as well.”
“And
will the Rihannsu embassy be empowered to deal with these as well?” K’s’t’lk said.
“We’re not sure,” Jim said. “This may prolong the proceedings somewhat….”
“Possibly,” Spock said, “that is a goal of the Federation negotiators…though one they doubtless would be unwilling to advertise more openly.”
“I’d agree with you there, Mr. Spock,” Jim said. “We’ll depart Hamal this time tomorrow, to meet the other Starfleet vessels at 15 Tri in five days’ time. Spock, will this give you enough time to have a look at Bloodwing’s computer installation?”
“More than ample time, Captain. I will start as soon as we are finished here, with the commander’s permission.”
“Granted, Mr. Spock, most willingly.” She bowed to him where she sat, then straightened and looked down the table at Jim. “Meanwhile, Captain, who is this who wishes to greet us?”
“About half the crew,” Jim said, “as if you don’t know.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Ael said, and rose; the others rose with her. She caught the glance Jim threw her, and said, “Aidoann, I will speak with the captain alone for a moment. Do you go with Mr. Spock and the doctor and the others. I will follow shortly.”
“Yes, madam,” said Aidoann, and along with Spock and McCoy and the others, she and the surgeon went out.
The door shut, and Jim looked over at Ael and said nothing for some seconds.
“It is difficult…” she said.
She has a talent for understatement, Jim thought, but she always did…. “Ael,” he said, “first, I wanted to thank you. For McCoy.”
She shook her head. “But you sent me a message saying as much long ago.”
“It could use saying again,” Jim said. “Fleet sometimes sends us into very uncomfortable situations…and that particular one would have gone beyond discomfort and into the ‘terminal’ for Bones, had you not come through.”
Ael raised her eyebrows. “Mnhei’sahe,” she said, “takes forms that surprise us all, sometimes. But McCoy commands loyalties of his own, as you know. It is not an intervention I regret…mostly.”
The smile flashed out just briefly, then. Jim grinned back. “‘Mostly’?”
“I have no regret at all for plucking him out of the middle of the Senate,” she said, pushing her chair back and coming around the table to stand by him, near the window; they looked out at the stars together. “But I brought something else away with me as well. And that action…” She shook her head.
“It’s a little late now for regrets,” Jim said. “And if that hadn’t happened as trigger, something else would have, eventually.”
“I would like to come to believe you,” Ael said. “That may take a while. But no matter. Tell me now why you were so little eager for our ships to meet where Starfleet initially desired them to, at 15 Trianguli.”
He had been afraid she would ask him that. “Mr. Spock,” he said, “has given me some odd looks over that. A hunch?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Ael said, looking bemused.
“Neither,” Jim said. “I simply didn’t care for Bloodwing to be openly advertising her unescorted whereabouts at the moment…even indirectly.”
“And that would also be why you desire to go no further in-system.”
“Yes. It’s a shame, because the starbase here is an extraordinary piece of engineering and you would enjoy seeing it—the Hamalki are tremendous builders. But there are too many beings in-system who notice who goes and comes. Even out here, where there’s a lot less notice taken than you’d get closer in to Hamal.”
Ael nodded. “Starfleet, though, may be confused by the roundabout manner in which you are proceeding.”
“Right now they won’t mind a little confusion,” Jim said. “They gave me some latitude; I’m using it. Later I may not have so much.”
“And what will you do then?” Ael said. “When they order you to fetch me and the Sword back to where the diplomatic mission is waiting, and hand us over to them?”
He looked at her in silence. Then he said, “Maybe it won’t come to that.”
The look she threw him was ironic, and skeptical, in the extreme.
Chapter Three
In the normal course of things it was not unheard of, but it was unusual enough, for a single Senator to be asked to meet privately with one of the Praetorate. When such a thing happened, the Senator in question tended to attract a great deal of attention for days, perhaps months, afterward, as other Senators and various lesser political figures, more on the margins of things, tried to work out which party had what advantage over the other. This being the case, Arrhae i-Khellian t’Llhweiir, the newest and least senior Senator in the Tricameron, could well understand at least one reason why the summons to meet with the Praetor Eveh tr’Anierh might have come to her house so late at night—late enough for almost all the household to have long since sought their couches. What was still a matter of some concern to her was why she should have received such a summons at all…and how it might now affect her other business.
The whole place had immediately gone into a flutter. Those of the servants who were still awake woke half the others, for they understood the unusual nature of such a summons. Now half of them were excited, and half of them were terrified, and once again Arrhae resolved to get the secure comm terminal moved into her bedroom so that the whole place would not be disrupted every time an official call came through. When the terminal had first been installed a month or so ago, she had thought it was unlikely to go off much, and had had the workmen put it on a stand out in the House’s Great Hall. But the wretched thing went off constantly, five or six times a day, and the shriek that the Hall’s bright acoustics made of its alert tone was becoming a trial to her temper.
It had been worse for H’daen tr’Khellian, the Old Lord of the House. Every time the device went off he had resurrected some new and more awful language from his ancient days in Fleet, until Arrhae found herself half wishing it would go off, on some of those long hot late-summer afternoons, merely for the diversion of hearing him curse it. But finally H’daen had decided that this season in i’Ramnau city was too hot for him; and (since the House’s fortunes had looked up somewhat with Arrhae’s accession to the Senate) he had taken himself off up northward to the Edrunra Mountains, where the House had an old ehto, or summer shieling-cottage. There he was busying himself bossing around the workers who were renovating the place, enjoying the cool weather under the conifers on the mountainside, and reveling in the complete lack of comm calls of any kind whatsoever. “You want me,” the old gray-haired man had said, on the morning a tenday ago when he took himself away, “send a flitter, Senator.”
Arrhae had found no need for that. She was busy enough, and all too many of her afternoons were spent answering the wretched terminal, so that she would have had to leave her other business until late at night even if that were not her preferred time to handle such. Arrhae was not only a new Senator, but was seen by some of her fellow legislators, she now realized, as a potential marriage-match as well. This amused her, for she was determined to remain matchless indefinitely, if not indeed permanently. She was frankly enjoying the experience of being an “independent,” wooed and sought after by every faction in the Senate, and she had no intention of doing anything except hold all her wooers, political and personal, at arm’s length while she spent the foreseeable future assessing the situation into which she had newly fallen. Besides…marriage would interfere with “other business.” No, that would not be something to think at all seriously about.
Meanwhile Arrhae knew that half the people who called her, or called on her, were simply fascinated by the concept of a Senator who, a month and a half before, had been a servant—hru’hfe of House Khellian, yes, the chief steward of the house over its other servants, but hardly anyone to be reckoned with. But one day it had all changed, as an intelligence officer turned up on the House’s doorstep with a Federation Starfleet officer in tow. Within what seemed
no more than a matter of days, Arrhae had been threatened and intimidated by various Rihannsu, utterly terrified by a human, and then run over, under the very dome of the Senate chamber, by a Horta. A scant half tenday later than that, she had been brought under the poor cracked dome again and given her signet. It had been a very full month.
And now everything was shifting again. Arrhae stood outside the front gates of the House, with little old Mahan, the ancient door-opener of the House, standing behind her. “Hru’hfe,” he said, “you be careful now.”
Arrhae smiled, looking up into the dark and turning the senatorial signet around and around on her finger, a habit she hoped she would be able to break eventually. He was ancient, was Mahan, and odds were good that he would never stop calling her that, no matter how other matters changed. For him there was only one lord of the house, the Old Lord, and a Senator more or less under the same roof made no difference. “I will,” Arrhae said, hearing the thin whine of a flitter coming through the darkness. “You lock up when I’m gone, Mahan, and take yourself back to couch. I may not be coming back tonight.”
“When, then?”
The whine of the flitter got louder; she could see its lights, now, as it homed in on the landing patch in front of the house. “Possibly in the morning,” Arrhae said. “Either way, I’ll call and let you know.”
“What if that thing goes off?”
“Ignore it,” Arrhae said, more loudly, as the flitter settled before them, and its underlights came up more brightly to illuminate her way; its hatch popped, and a uniformed figure scrambled out of the seat next to the pilot. “Go on, Mahan! Sleep well.”
But he would not move, and finally Arrhae walked away from him to where the officer stood waiting. He bowed to her, and said, “Deihu, if you would, kindly be pleased to enter the conveyance—”
It was a courtesy, but still Arrhae wondered what he would say or do if she refused. One did not usually refuse a praetorial request, even at one removed; such were assumed (by the prudent) to have the force of an order. Not that Arrhae would have refused this one; her curiosity was aroused. And so will everyone else’s be, she thought as she gave the officer a fraction of a gracious bow and followed him to the flitter, when word gets out. It was half a string of cash to twenty that someone in the house was on the normal comm channel this moment, calling one of the local-world news services to tell them about this midnight meeting. Or one of the Havrannsu ones; they were always slightly hungrier for news, for political reasons with which she was becoming all too familiar.