by David Mack
“And that would be?”
“The next time we have the magnetic field of Centaurus’s moon for cover, move the ship out of orbit. If we can get behind the moon, we can drop the cloak and expedite repairs.”
Before Creelok could voice his approval, Sadira appeared out of the dark recesses of the command deck, as if she were a ghost haunting his every decision. “Absolutely not,” the human Tal Shiar agent said. “Our mission profile is simple and precise. We remain in orbit, cloaked, until all operational objectives have been achieved.”
Her veto left the command crew in demoralized silence. Ranimir’s cool demeanor became desperate as he pleaded with Creelok, “Commander, if we stay in orbit, I can’t guarantee we’ll finish repairs before the cloak drains our reserves.”
“I understand.” Creelok stared daggers at Sadira. “But do you? How do you think your secret mission will end if our invisibility fails while our weapons, shields, propulsion, and navigation remain offline? Does that sound to you like a recipe for success?”
A haughty lift of her pale chin. “That’s not going to happen.”
“And what makes you so certain?”
“Because I have forbidden it. Your men will repair the ship, and we will continue the mission. As planned. As ordered, Commander.”
His temper blazed behind his eyes, its fury threatening to burn away the core of his being and leave nothing behind but righteous anger and his need for order and respect. No one speaks to me this way on my own ship. Not some Tal Shiar whelp. Not even the praetor himself.
He seized Sadira by one arm and all but dragged her off the command deck into the aft corridor. “Why will you not listen to reason?”
“Why can you not just obey?”
It was a struggle not to lock his hands around her throat. “Can’t you see we’re trying to serve the mission? None of us opposes the objective. Not me, not any member of my crew.”
“Then prove it: do as I command.”
“Your commands will lead us to failure. I’m trying to salvage your mission.” At the edge of his vision, he noticed the centurion’s silhouette in the command deck’s hatchway. “Taking the ship out of orbit for a few hours will speed repairs and enable—”
“No.” Her face was like that of a funerary statue in the Rikolet on Romulus: pale, cold, and utterly unmoved by the plights of the living. “I forbid you to take the ship out of orbit.”
That was it, then. The gauntlet was thrown, and now the choice was Creelok’s.
“Centurion,” he called out. “Take Major Sadira into custody—”
Sadira drew her dagger and stabbed at Creelok’s gut in a flash, but he caught her wrist and twisted it until she dropped the blade. It clanged across the deck between their feet. Creelok kicked the weapon aside, out of her reach.
Centurion Mirat arrived and seized Sadira’s wrists.
Confident his friend had the Tal Shiar brat under control, Creelok let go of her. “Confine her to quarters.” As Mirat led the woman away, the commander strode back onto the command deck. “Subcommander Bedisa, on our next orbit, plot a course into the magnetic field of the planet’s moon, and put us on the other side of that body. Engineer Ranimir, once we’re out of sight, drop the cloak and expedite repairs.”
Everyone snapped to, saluted with fists to their chests, and turned his words into action.
This was how his ship was meant to function.
And he had no doubt the Tal Shiar woman would try to murder him for it.
* * *
All he had to do was lock her on the other side of a door before she started talking. He failed.
“You know this order is illegal—don’t you, Centurion?”
Mirat didn’t want to hear it. “Keep walking.”
They drew inquisitive looks, the two of them. Walking single file through the dim, smoke-hazed corridors, him with his disruptor drawn, her deprived of weapons and being marched aft like a common prisoner.
Curious faces looked out from the compartments they passed on their way to her private quarters. Such accommodations were a rare privilege on a ship where livable space was at such a premium. In Sadira’s case, only her status as a Tal Shiar operative and her de facto role as the Velibor’s political officer afforded her such consideration.
A coy glance over her shoulder. “I can cite chapter and verse detailing his—”
“Quiet.” Mirat suspected he knew what Sadira was trying to say. If he was right, his only defense against a tribunal—or being forced into an unforgivable betrayal—was not to hear it. The only way to ensure that was to prevent her from saying it. He poked his weapon into her lower back. “Keep your mouth shut and your feet moving.”
“Or what, Centurion? You’ll shoot me?” Now her backward glance had a condescending quality. “Even as a prisoner, I remain a commissioned officer of the Tal Shiar. Fire on me without just cause and you’ll be put to death on Romulus.”
They were only two sections from her quarters, from his release. He said nothing, hoping his silence would discourage further exchanges with Sadira, but she was incorrigible.
“Creelok has no authority to remove me from the command deck in this manner. My orders carry the authority of the Tal Shiar and the Senate itself. You know this, Centurion.”
“What I know is that your stubborn refusal to hear reason would get us all killed.” He followed her around a corner into the outermost corridor in the bird-of-prey’s primary hull. “I don’t care if your orders come bearing the signature of the praetor himself. On this ship, I recognize only one authority: the commander’s.”
The door to Sadira’s quarters slid open as she approached it. She halted over its threshold and pivoted back toward Mirat. “This doesn’t have to be the end of your career, Centurion.”
“It won’t be.” He ushered her forward with a wave of his disruptor. “Inside.”
She held her ground, obstinate as ever. “Why throw your life away?”
He switched his disruptor to a kill setting. It charged to full capacity with a faint whine. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it on the command deck. If Creelok possessed real nerve, he’d have ordered you to do it.”
He almost pitied the human woman. Sadira could mimic the ways of Romulans, but it was apparent to Mirat she had never truly understood her adopted culture. “The commander does not believe in wasting anything—least of all, lives.”
“Yet he has gambled his and yours—for what?”
“The good of the ship and its crew.”
“Then he doesn’t deserve his command. Any true Romulan knows the good of the mission comes before all else.” A coquettish smirk. “Or have you all forgotten your oaths?”
Her smug manner boiled his blood. “We have forgotten nothing.”
“Prove it. Fulfill your pledge of loyalty now.”
She was waiting for him to make a mistake. He felt it.
He reduced his weapon’s power to stun. “The commander would tell me to shoot you.”
“Go ahead. Pull that trigger. Then imagine seven of your comrades pulling theirs when they execute you in front of the Senate after this ship returns home.” Her arrogance became cold confidence. “But as you hesitate, ask yourself: Are you an oath breaker?”
“No, but I’ve never had any interest in elected office.”
“Clever. But you know what I mean.”
He gave a moment of serious consideration to pistol-whipping her in the face, to knock her inside her quarters so he could lock the door and extricate himself from this quagmire of a conversation. “Sorry, Major. I’m at a loss.”
“Article Seven of the Imperial Code of Military Conduct,” Sadira said. “Section Three, Paragraph Four. ‘When any command-grade officer of a ship of the line, battlefield regiment, or strategic
military installation defies direct, lawful orders from a duly authorized—’ ”
“I know what it says,” Mirat interrupted.
I should have coldcocked her.
Now he was in a terrible bind. Had he escaped before she invoked the relevant section of the regulations, he could have blamed her for failing to assert her command privilege with sufficient authority to override the orders of the commander. Now he was obliged to hear her out.
Brimming with contempt but bereft of options, he crossed his arms and sighed. “What are you trying to say, Major?”
The cruel ghost of a smile played across her thin lips. She knew she had him.
“Centurion Mirat, as this ship’s political officer, I declare Commander Creelok’s decision to relieve me of duty to be improper and his conduct to be in violation of the ICMC. It is your sworn duty to enforce the ICMC aboard this ship.” With an imperious lift of her chin, she added, “Centurion, I order you to relieve Commander Creelok of his command.”
Fifteen
If there was one compartment on the Enterprise that Kirk had to say was his least favorite, it was the morgue. Adjacent to the sickbay, it was just large enough to hold a dozen bodies in a grid of stasis chambers containing retractable tables. Four across and three high, the “meat locker,” as some of the ship’s junior medical personnel called it, was a constant reminder to Kirk that not all of the lives entrusted to his command for this five-year mission were going to return home.
Spock and McCoy stood on either side of one such retractable table. Lying on it was the corpse of the dead Tiburonian whom Chekov had ordered beamed aboard for further analysis. Cleaned and restored to some semblance of order before being sheathed in a synthetic gel that had solidified into a flexible but anaerobic cocoon, the dead man’s body no longer gave off any odor that Kirk could detect—a fact for which he was most grateful.
“Hour’s up, Bones. What do we know so far?”
“His name is Jorncek.” McCoy handed Kirk a data slate whose top sheet displayed the beginning of what looked to be a lengthy biographical profile. “Born on Tiburon Prime, last known to be a permanent resident of the Orion homeworld.”
That aroused Kirk’s attention. “Orion?”
Spock picked up the conversational baton. “Mister Jorncek has long been suspected of having ties to the interstellar criminal organization known as the Orion Syndicate.” He regarded the dead body with cold detachment. “Most of his criminal record consists of implications unsubstantiated by formal charges.”
“Which means he was one slick operator,” McCoy added.
Kirk was unhappy with what these new discoveries suggested. “With what sort of crimes did Mister Jorncek find himself connected?”
“Burglaries,” Spock said. “However, circumstantial evidence linked him to several high-profile armed heists on three resort planets and one formal charge—later withdrawn—that he masterminded the armed robbery of a mining outpost on Rivos Prime.”
“Delightful.” Adjusting his tone out of consideration for McCoy’s personal link to the dead man’s last-known crime, he asked Spock, “Do we know why he broke into the hospital?”
McCoy answered, “I do. He was a drug addict, Jim.”
“You’re sure?”
A grave nod. “I ran his blood tests twice. Based on the damage sustained by most of his major organs, including his brain, I’d say he must have been addicted for years.”
Spock added, “That would explain why he raided the hospital’s pharmaceutical locker for charged hyposprays and a variety of stimulants and depressants.” A dark and knowing look passed between him and McCoy. “However, I do not believe the robbery was Mister Jorncek’s chief reason for being on Centaurus.”
Exasperated by his first officer’s dramatic pauses, Kirk replied, “Out with it, Spock.”
“Inside the apartment he rented in New Athens, local police found plans for guerrilla attacks on the peace conference. Among the methods he planned to employ were bombings, liquid and aerosol poisons . . . and targeted assassinations of key participants.”
“Including Spock’s father,” McCoy interjected.
“And Councillor Gorkon,” Spock concluded.
The revelations left Kirk bewildered. “Could the Orion Syndicate be involved in Gorkon’s disappearance?”
“Anything is possible, Captain,” Spock said. “Though the Orion Syndicate has, until now, been merely a criminal operation, it is conceivable that its capabilities might have expanded as its access to resources has increased.”
Kirk’s mind was racing. “And this would be a prime opportunity for them. Push us into war with the Klingons, and the Organians rob us both of the ability to project force—leaving dozens of sectors wide open for the Orions to exploit.” As quickly as he had embraced the idea, he shook it off. “But how would the Orions even know about the Organians? Or their threat?”
McCoy frowned. “Jim, their chief export is pleasure. That kind of business has a way of loosening people’s tongues—even at Starfleet Command.”
“As disquieting as Doctor McCoy’s suggestion is,” Spock said, “I am forced to concur.”
McCoy pulled a metallic red sheet over the dead Tiburonian, then pushed the sled back inside its stasis tube. “There’s one thing about this that still doesn’t sit right with me, Jim.”
“What’s that, Bones?”
“No matter how well equipped or richly financed the Orion Syndicate might be, since when does it have the ability to make someone disappear without a trace from inside a shielded compound the way Gorkon did?” He looked around, as if there might be someone other than the three of them and one dead man inside the tiny, sealed compartment, then lowered his voice. “Am I crazy, or does that sound more like a certain something we recently misplaced?”
“One disaster at a time, Bones.” Kirk turned and headed for the door, and Spock followed the captain closely as he repeated grimly under his breath, “One disaster at a time.”
Sixteen
Discretion demanded that none of the officers be involved. Not that the truth could be hidden for long, not on a ship as small as the Velibor. Recruiting the first accomplice was easy enough for Centurion Mirat. One legionnaire moving through the corridors at his side was hardly worthy of notice. After he enlisted a second man to support him, members of the crew started to whisper that something was amiss. Just as he had expected, the ship susurrated with rumors by the time he and four loyal soldiers reached the weapons locker to equip themselves with small arms.
“Set for stun only,” Mirat said. “We don’t want fatalities or a hole in the ship.”
From his men, overlapping hushed replies: “Yes, Centurion.”
Bearing compact disruptor rifles, the centurion and his squad left the armory single file. Their quick-march steps resounded on the metal deck. There was no more time for subtlety; speed was paramount now. Mirat knew accessing the armory would trigger an alert on the command deck’s main console, telegraphing his action to Commander Creelok and the rest of the ship’s officers. It was imperative he and his men reach the command deck before the commander sealed it off—an outcome that would compel Mirat to resort to greater, potentially lethal force in order to accomplish his task.
Ahead of him opened the door to the medical bay. Doctor Pralar stepped into his path, hands raised, his voice pitched in desperate supplication. “Centurion! Wait, don’t do this. We—”
Mirat slammed the stock of his rifle into Pralar’s chin. The surgeon crumpled and fell backward into the arms of his junior colleagues, who averted their eyes from the centurion and his armed squad as they continued past and climbed the ladderway to the top deck.
At the end of the main corridor, viridescent light spilled through the command deck’s open aft hatchway. There is still time, Mirat told himself. As long as we get there before—
“Hal
t, Centurion!” The order came from behind him, delivered by Subcommander Bedisa and underscored by the high-pitched hum of a disruptor charging to fire.
Mirat lowered his weapon and looked back. Bedisa and Kurat, the tactical officer, had secreted themselves inside a maintenance crawlspace, where they lay supine, her body half on top of his, both of them with their sidearms trained through the opened access panel at Mirat and his men. Then came the clatter of footfalls in the passageway ahead of them, as more officers loyal to Creelok emerged from the command deck, weapons drawn, ready for battle.
The commander’s voice cut through the tense silence of the standoff. “She got to you, did she?” He sounded disappointed rather than upset. “Did she appeal to your patriotism?”
The centurion faced his longtime commanding officer and trusted friend. “She cited the regulations I swore to uphold.” He wondered whether his next words might be his last. “I’ve seen Sadira’s orders from the Tal Shiar. She spoke the truth. And we’re bound by law to obey.”
Creelok absorbed that with a small shake of his head. “You and I . . . we’ve seen war, Mirat. We know the law is not always just.”
“But it is all we have, Commander. Most especially in times of war.”
“You’re wrong, Mirat. In war, all we have is one another and the ship we serve. Everything else is just an abstraction.” Creelok took a moment to survey the centurion’s band of armed men, then regarded his defenders. “We seem to be evenly matched, old friend.”
Mirat responded with a shrug of pure bravado. “Appearances can deceive, sir.”
“Sometimes. But we have you and your men in a crossfire.”
“A poorly staged one, Commander. One team in front of us, another at our back? Every shot they miss risks hitting one of your own.”
“An unfortunate limitation of the environment.”
Fingers hovered above firing studs while a tense and gravid pause unfolded. In the deep silence of the powered-down vessel, the standoff felt interminable to Mirat.