Life or death, to be determined by capricious fate as much as by their own brilliant improvisations. As they strapped themselves into their seats in the vessel’s cramped cockpit and worked their way through the pre-launch checklist, Trip hoped the former would take a back seat to the latter.
“Scoutship Drolae,” said a tinny voice from Cheron’s spaceport traffic control facility. “You are clear to depart from launch pad khi’der.”
“Scoutship Drolae acknowledging,” Terix said after toggling open the channel. He entered a brief series of commands into the console before him, and a moment later Cheron’s broken and silent mausoleum cities fell away into the infinite night as the chase resumed.
“Leaving Cheron orbit,” Trip said, casting a sidelong glance at Terix. The centurion acknowledged him with a silent nod before returning his attention to his console and the star-sprinkled blackness that filled the forward window above it.
Trip continued studying his traveling companion surreptitiously, and wondered what would happen in the event their mission succeeded. After all, he still couldn’t allow the Romulan military to obtain the secret of the warp-seven stardrive. And he felt certain that Terix still regarded him merely as a useful enemy—a resource to be exploited, but tolerated only for the duration of the current circumstances.
Am I going to have to kill this guy before he gets a chance to turn on me?
Prepared to remain alert and vigilant throughout the entire voyage to Taugus III, he gazed forward into the boundless void and hoped he was betraying no outward sign of his internal turmoil.
He wondered if Stillwell and Harris would be reassured by his newfound paranoia.
Enterprise NX-01
“Sometimes venting at a computer screen just won’t cut it,” Archer said as he stepped into sickbay. “Phlox, you’re the only other person aboard I can really talk to about this.”
“Captain,” Phlox said in a gently bantering tone. “You know I only sleep six days per year, whether I need it or not. And unless I’m very much mistaken, I won’t need to do it again for another seven or eight of your months.” The doctor busied himself feeding one of the exotic alien animals he kept in his small therapeutic menagerie.
“I need T’Pol and Malcolm here, Phlox,” Archer said. “Captain Hernandez and I need their help sorting out this Draylax business. We still don’t have a clue about the real reasons behind the Klingon attack. Or why the Klingons felt it necessary to destroy their own ships to stop it.”
Phlox adopted a patient expression, as though he were ministering to a particularly challenging patient. “But you said yourself that Commander T’Pol and Lieutenant Reed left Enterprise prior to the Draylax crisis.”
“I did,” Archer said, almost snapping despite his best efforts to remain calm. “But that doesn’t do us any good at the moment.”
Phlox nodded. “You’re angry because they left without official authorization.”
“Of course I’m angry about that!” Again, frustration seemed to be getting the better of him, but he felt too damned tired to fight it off any longer.
“That’s certainly understandable, Captain,” Phlox said, unfazed. “Would you like a mild sedative?”
“Thanks, but no,” Archer said as he rubbed at eyes that felt as gritty as a sandlot baseball diamond. “I should have seen this coming. And kept a closer eye on T’Pol. I can’t believe I missed the warning signs!”
Phlox closed up the container that housed his specimens, then focused his icy blue eyes on Archer’s face. “Captain, when T’Pol makes up her mind, she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer very easily.”
“And Malcolm’s got an independent streak about half an AU wide, too,” Archer said, nodding. “But that’s no excuse.” I’m going to be even more disappointed if they get themselves killed, he thought.
He preferred to reserve that privilege as one of a captain’s most sacred prerogatives.
“If I had suspected that Commander T’Pol would actually abscond with a shuttlepod and head out into Romulan space on her own authority,” Phlox said, “I suppose I could have ordered her confined to sickbay. But I didn’t do that. So it appears that I missed the very same ‘warning signs’ that you did, Captain.”
The Denobulan stepped toward Archer and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“The question you have to answer now,” he said, “is what do you intend to do about it?”
Archer felt a great empty chasm open up in the pit of his stomach as he realized that he had no answer to Phlox’s question.
EIGHTEEN
Saturday, July 19, 2155
San Francisco
“GANNET, SOMETHING’S HAPPENEDat Draylax.”
The intrusive voice in Gannet Brooks’s earpiece carried with it the same unmistakable end-of-the-world quality that she recognized from all the other times the end of the world had seemed imminent—and yet had somehow failed to arrive—since the Xindi sneak attack of ’fifty-three.
Sitting alone at a sidewalk table in front of Madame Chang’s Mandarin Café, Gannet paused in the midst of her current rather urgent search of Earth’s datanets and the Coalition networks to which they were already partially linked via the subspace bands. She smiled to herself. As usual, Nash McEvoy had gotten wind of the story well after she had. That, she told herself, is what separates a good reporter from a merely competent editor.
“I’m way ahead of you, boss,” she said, subvocalizing into her throat mic to guard against the possibility that anybody within earshot—such as the half-dozen or so Starfleet personnel she’d seen entering the eatery since her arrival—might overhear what she was about to say. “I know about the alien ships that opened fire on the Draylaxians.”
“Is it still going on?” McEvoy said, sounding shrill in her ear.
“Can’t say,” she said as she scrolled through the text messages recorded on her data padd. She would have paid serious coin for a knowledgeable and talkative Starfleet officer to share her table right now, but none of the carefree ’fleeters nearby seemed likely to fill the bill. “My sources say it’s been taking everything Draylax has to stand up to the assault. Assuming that’s even possible.”
“Did your sources say anything about who the attackers might be?”
“Still working on that, boss.”
“What about that significant other of yours in Starfleet? Do you think he could shed any light on the matter?”
“That’s ex–significant other, remember?” she said aloud, apparently startling a young busboy who had begun clearing a nearby empty table of a spent coffee urn and several other remnants of a previous customer’s meal. Catching herself, she resumed her outwardly inaudible subvocalizing.
“As if it’s any of your business anyway, Nash,” she said as she pushed an errant lock of her otherwise straight brown hair away from her eyes. “Besides, Travis Mayweather and I have barely been on speaking terms all year.”
Although she and Travis had parted company on friendly enough terms after Terra Prime’s poop had finished hitting the ventilator, Gannet hadn’t forgotten Travis’s suspicions that she was in league with Terra Prime in their failed assassination plot against Nathan Samuels, and she suspected that he hadn’t forgotten either; he hadn’t believed her when she’d claimed to be doing spook work on behalf of Starfleet Intelligence, even though her journalistic career made it a professional necessity to forge and maintain close working relationships with certain key intel operatives. Travis’s distrust during that crisis still stung, and it fueled her continued determination to resist any impulse to ask him for favors—even if it seemed as likely as not that he’d grant them.
A new line of text scrolled into view on her padd’s display, as if summoned by her thoughts. She recognized it immediately as a reply from one of the clandestine sources Travis hadn’t believed she sometimes worked with.
She gasped when she read it, once again momentarily startling the busboy.
“What’s wrong, Gannet?” McEvoy
murmured.
“Looks like one of my best sources knows who attacked Draylax,” she said, still subvocalizing.
He sounded impatient, though she could hardly blame him. “And?”
She paused long enough to pick up her sweating water glass and raise it to her lips in the hopes of moistening her dry throat enough to make an intelligible reply. “It’s the Klingons,” she said a moment later.
“The Klingons?” he said, sounding quizzical. “Those motorcycle-gang types with the big knives and the shellfish attached to their foreheads?”
Gannet replied with a sigh and a resigned shake of her head. Nash McEvoy sometimes stood as a talking, breathing object lesson proving the Vulcans right in questioning humanity’s readiness to move out into the galaxy.
“The hostile ships are of Klingon configuration,” she said. “Three heavily armed battle cruisers. And their attack began sometime yesterday.”
“Klingons,” McEvoy repeated, his tone again oscillating back toward the shrill end of the spectrum. “From what little I know about them, it sounds like it’s going to be a slaughter. If it isn’t all over for the Draylaxians already, that is.”
Gannet could only wish that her intelligence source had been able to provide a more up-to-the-minute report on that score.
Another chill thought occurred to her then.
Whatever happens next, Enterprise is sure to be in the middle of it.
With Travis behind the wheel.
NINETEEN
Saturday, July 19, 2155
San Francisco
NATHAN SAMUELS NEARLY jumped out of his chair when his office door flew open and slammed into the wall behind it with a resounding thud.
“Have you looked at the newsnets?” Haroun al-Rashid said, holding up a large sheet of gray e-paper. The black text that dominated the page was so large that it all but screamed at him.
Samuels couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Earth’s interior minister appear so agitated. On the other hand, it wasn’t every day that he saw headlines like this one:
KLINGON EMPIRE ATTACKS DRAYLAX
“Contact the sergeant at arms, Rashid,” he said, swallowing hard. “Tell him to round up every available delegate immediately. And call Ambassador Li on Centauri III.
“The Coalition Security Council is going into emergency session.”
The last time Minister Soval had seen such a grim mood descend upon the Coalition Council’s spacious assembly chamber, half the planet Coridan Prime had been engulfed in flames.
Today, Vulcan’s senior representative couldn’t help but wonder whether the nascent Coalition of Planets might not be about to undergo a similar immolation, succumbing to the fires lit by the all but ungovernable passions of some of its small but extremely variegated membership.
“Never before have the Klingons made such a bold incursion so deep behind the Coalition’s boundaries,” said Andorian Foreign Minister Thoris, who stood behind his world’s designated section of the room’s curved central table between a pair of his aides. The minister’s twin antennae lay flat against his white-maned scalp, pointing forward in a conspicuous display of outrage. “This body has no choice other than to respond in kind, and to do so immediately.”
Minister al-Rashid rose from behind his own section of the table almost directly opposite the Andorian delegation, and spread his hands in a placating manner. “There are always choices other than war, Minister Thoris,” the human said.
“Not when you’re talking about the Klingons,” Gora bim Gral of Tellar growled in a rare display of agreement with his Andorian counterpart. The hirsute diplomat remained seated at a position at right angles to both the human and Andorian parties, where he was flanked by a pair of Tellarite junior functionaries, both of whom were nodding in vociferous agreement with their superior. “You starry-eyed humans simply haven’t been out in the galaxy long enough yet to take such basic realities at face value.”
To his credit, al-Rashid sidestepped the Tellarite’s verbal jab without offering any provocation of his own. “There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Draylax situation, Ambassador Gral,” he said. “And I have to point out that the Coalition’s boundaries are a relatively new addition to the galactic map. Perhaps the Klingons weren’t aware they were violating them.”
“Klingons care little for such niceties,” Gral said. “Indiscriminate expansion through conquest is their way. When the Klingons decide to go after you, your choices usually amount to either surrender or war. Therefore we would do well to teach them some respect for our boundaries, and to do it in the most direct fashion possible.”
Thoris nodded grimly. “Photonic torpedoes can be excellent educators in situations such as these.”
“I grant you that Klingons respect strength,” al-Rashid said. “But—”
Gral interrupted him. “And do you also grant that the security of nearby nonaligned worlds such as Draylax has a direct bearing on the security of the Coalition members?” The Tellarite leaned forward across the table, his hairy knuckles supporting his weight. “Indeed, on the Coalition’s continued existence?”
The human’s eyes narrowed as he appeared to struggle to keep his internal emotional fires carefully banked. “I understand that all too well, Ambassador.”
Seated beside al-Rashid, Prime Minister Samuels nodded in agreement, though he maintained as emotionally neutral an expression as Soval had ever seen on a human face. “Earth’s delegation believes very deeply in maintaining peace and security in the local systems. Indeed, we would hope that the assistance Earth is already providing to the Draylaxians would convince them to finally join the Coalition. We hope it will entice other nearby worlds as well, such as Porrima V.”
Soval couldn’t help but agree, even though he was well aware that additional alien recruitment into the Coalition suited the humans’ own self-interested political purposes; after all, the inclusion of more nonhuman worlds in the Coalition’s roster would go a long way toward blunting the ill feelings that persisted among the rest of the current membership because of Earth’s insistence on granting not only Coalition member status but also full Security Council voting rights to the human-inhabited Alpha Centauri system.
“A stout blade and a fully charged disruptor pistol will get far better results with a ravening Klingon than will any amount of hope,” Thoris said, punctuating his declaration by pounding his cerulean fist upon the tabletop several times. “We must waste no more time mounting a full counterattack!”
“The last thing we should do is allow ourselves to be drawn into an all-out war,” al-Rashid said. “At least not until our fastest frontline starships gather more firsthand information about what really happened at Draylax. We still don’t know, for instance, precisely why the Klingons apparently resolved the situation themselves by destroying their own warship.”
Thoris appeared unmoved. “With respect, Minister, the Klingons have never shown much interest in resolving anything. Were it otherwise, they would not have made the additional brazen move of destroying an Earth freighter in the Gamma Hydra sector.”
“We’ve seen no definitive evidence of that so far,” said Samuels. “But I can see that your intelligence bureaus must be listening to the same rumors as ours do.”
“No one has heard anything from the E.C.S. Horizon for several days,” Thoris said. “That is no mere rumor.”
“True enough, Minister,” Samuels said, crossing his arms before him. “But I’m not prepared to go to war over what might turn out to be only a faulty com system.”
“The Andorian government does not require the permission of Earth, or of this Coalition for that matter, to take whatever action we deem justifiable and prudent in the face of this grave danger,” Thoris said, his antennae flattening backward against his scalp.
“Nor does Tellar,” said Gral. “The provisions of the Coalition Compact notwithstanding.”
Remaining in his seat, Samuels made an admirable display of equanimity in the face of s
uch vehement opposition. “Of course not. We’re a body of equals, meeting as equals. That’s why nobody is addressing anybody else from up there, especially today.” He paused to gesture toward the empty speaker’s podium that stood upon the unoccupied raised dais at the front of the room. “But must I remind you both that your governments’ actions will reflect on all the members of this body?”
Gral huffed. “And must I remind you that Earth and Alpha Centauri are entangled with Draylax in a webwork of mutual defense treaties? You do your entire species a disservice by leaning on diplomacy during a time that demands soldiery instead.”
Gral pushed away from the table, as did Thoris a moment later. Soval watched as his Tellarite and Andorian counterparts stalked angrily out of the room, heading for separate exits, their respective aides following closely on their heels.
Soval was grateful that neither the press nor any members of the general public were present in the gallery that overlooked the formal debating chamber; the participants in today’s meeting had agreed to convene behind closed doors. Presently a tense and uncomfortable silence stretched between the human and Vulcan contingents, the only Coalition representatives who now remained in the room.
Haroun al-Rashid was the first to break that silence. “May nobody do anything stupid over the next few days, inshallah,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” Samuels said, looking crestfallen and small.
Soval recognized al-Rashid’s last utterance as a word from the human language known as Arabic.
Inshallah. If God wills it.
Though Soval himself espoused no specific deity of any sort, he couldn’t help but agree with the minister’s overall sentiment. Just as he concurred with Gral’s and Thoris’s general contention that the Klingon Empire did indeed pose a potentially grave, if not an immediate, danger. While we’ve debated the issue of Romulan aggression, he thought, we have allowed ourselves to become blind to the Klingons.
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