Orion's Hounds

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “And we’ve encountered living ships before,” Deanna said.

  “Except these people don’t seem to need them alive,” Riker said coldly. “Dakal, keep hailing. Ensign Lavena—put Titan between the attackers and the star-jellies. Mr. Keru, shields at maximum.” Vale threw him a look, but kept her counsel for the moment.

  There were too many ships for Titan to block standing still. But she was light, fast, and maneuverable, and her pilot had grown up slaloming through Pacifican coral forests and dodging serpent-rays. Lavena flitted the ship around almost playfully before the attackers’ sights, keeping them from getting a clean shot and probably making them dizzy to boot.

  “We’re receiving a hail,” Dakal finally reported. That was a good sign. “Hailing frequencies” were a standard first-contact handshake protocol, allowing two ships’ computers to begin with universal physical and mathematical constants and build a translation matrix in seconds, if their databases didn’t already have any languages in common. Any warp-capable species with any interest in talking to strangers eventually developed such protocols. The return hail meant that the attackers had at least the willingness to communicate, and that was a good start.

  “On screen,” said Riker, turning to confront the attackers. When the screen came on, his eyes widened. He hadn’t expected them to be beautiful. The screen showed a number of delicate-looking bipeds, slim-boned and decked with downy, green-gold feathers. Hawklike eyes stared from above sharp-toothed, beak-tipped muzzles, and vivid-hued, feathery crests topped many of their heads. Their feathered coats gave them no need for clothing, but they wore protective gear on their joints and vital areas, plus various equipment belts or harnesses and assorted insignia or sigils. Behind them was a passageway of familiar design, triangular and round-cornered, its ribbed, cardboard-brown walls embossed with intricate patterns that seemed neither wholly organic nor wholly artificial.

  “Flit off, for your own sake,” the one nearest the camera said curtly. He (the translator gave the being a gruff, nasal baritone) was far from the largest of the group, his headcrest was threadbare and faded, and there seemed to be considerable scarring beneath his feathery coat; but he carried himself with a casual yet undeniable authority. “Our quarry won’t linger if they have time to gather their warp fields!”

  “I’m Captain William T. Riker of the starship Titan, representing the United Federation of Planets. I don’t know the nature of your conflict, but my people aren’t inclined to sit idly by when we see sentient beings dying. We don’t intend to take sides, but we’d be glad to offer our services as a neutral mediator in your dispute.” His voice carried more steel than his words; he only hoped their translators were good enough to render it.

  “You talk against the wind,” said the avian, his matter-of-fact tone clashing with his poetic phrasing. “Toy with cosmic fire, and the Spirit’s not to blame for your burns. The Hunt must be!” His image faded, leaving stars.

  “Captain, they’re firing on the jellies,” Keru reported.

  “Block it, Lavena! All crew, brace for impact!”

  Magenta fire filled the viewer. The blow badly rattled the ship and dimmed the lights. “Shields are holding,” Keru reported. “But power systems are being disrupted. I don’t know how it’s getting through.”

  Another bolt hit, even harder this time. Riker had to clutch the arms of his chair to stay in it. “The discharges…” Tuvok said with difficulty. “Organic rather than technological…our shields may not be adequately calibrated.” A third hit rammed home the point. Console screens flickered as ship’s power systems compensated for an overload somewhere.

  “Can we compensate?”

  “We may not have to,” Jaza said. “The star-jellies have just gone to warp.”

  “Attackers breaking off,” Keru said a moment later.

  “Are they in pursuit?”

  “Negative, sir. My guess is, they can’t track them at warp. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been so concerned about them getting away.”

  Riker could barely imagine how organic beings could enter warp in the first place, though he’d seen it more than once. But there were other priorities. “Damage report!”

  Vale was already coordinating the reports on her side console. “Minor casualty reports, nothing serious. We’ve had EPS blowouts on four decks. Synchronization failure in dorsal shield emitters. Several impulse injectors are fused. Warp is fine, but the navigational deflector’s offline. We won’t be moving anywhere for a while.”

  “Bridge to engineering,” Riker called. “Estimated repair time for engines and main deflector?”

  “At least six hours, depending on whether you want shields back too,” came Ra-Havreii’s voice. “Longer if you want me to spend time computing a better estimate.”

  “Just do the best you can, Doctor.”

  As he spoke, a bleep came from Ops. “We’re being hailed, sir,” Dakal told him. “Same ship as before.”

  “On screen.”

  The grizzled avian commander appeared once more. “I am Qui’hibra, leader of the fleet-clan Qui’Tir’Ieq. We see that you have suffered significant damage. I offer my regret for our part in causing it, but you were warned and chose not to heed. I pray that your misguided actions ended none of your people’s lives.”

  Riker was taken by surprise; he’d been expecting something more bellicose. “No, thank you, Captain Qui’hibra. But I appreciate your concern.”

  The avian seemed genuinely relieved, in a stern sort of way. “That is providential. The Hunt is risky enough for those who seek it willingly, let alone those whose lack of understanding places them in its path. Others have not been so fortunate in the past. You would be wise to keep that in mind in the future.”

  “Captain Qui’hibra—”

  “For the present, though, your ship needs repair. We will remain in the area for some time while we process our kills. If needed, we can spare the crew and resources of one skymount to assist in your repairs while we do so. But only one.”

  Riker exchanged a look with Deanna, communing wordlessly for a moment. “I…thank you for the offer, Captain. I’ll have my engineering staff coordinate with yours once we determine our needs. In the meantime, I think we should meet and get better acquainted. We’re explorers, new to the region and eager to learn about its inhabitants.”

  “And you have much to learn, it is clear. Very well,” Qui’hibra agreed, although he seemed mildly annoyed about it. “You may send a small party to observe our processing operations if you wish. Just so long as you do not interfere. The Hunt calls still, and makes few allowances. Do you require us to teleport you aboard?”

  “We have our own transporters, thank you. If you’ll just provide coordinates…”

  “Very well. You will stand by. There are rites we must first perform. You will be contacted after, and you will teleport promptly at that time to the coordinates we provide.” Qui’hibra cut the transmission without further ceremony.

  “All right, then. We’d best get ready,” Riker said after a nonplussed moment, and took a few steps in the direction of the turbolift.

  Only to find Deanna in his path. “May I ask where the captain thinks he’s going? Surely this is a job for the diplomatic officer.”

  Of course she was right. For two decades he’d been reminding Robert DeSoto or Jean-Luc Picard that the captain’s place was on the bridge, while his officers went out and took the risks. But those captains had never hesitated to exercise their prerogative to ignore him, and even though he continued to press, he had admired their reluctance to stand by while others stepped into harm’s way. When he’d taken command of Titan, he’d jokingly promised Picard to ignore his officers’ efforts to restrain his wanderlust, and had acted on that promise once already.

  But this was Deanna’s job, after all. She was an expert in interspecies psychology and sociology, an experienced diplomat and first-contact specialist, and a trained command officer and combat veteran to boot. Who better to take the
lead in contact and negotiation with new civilizations? Riker knew all this perfectly well, and assigning her to the post of diplomatic officer had been as much his idea as hers.

  In this case, though, he was more reluctant to send her. These hunters had ruthlessly killed a defenseless sentient being before their eyes—who knew how dangerous they were? And he didn’t relish the thought of sending Deanna inside one of the corpses they used as ships. He remembered the deep emotional connection she’d made with the star-jellies back at Deneb. To be immersed in their remains, to make diplomatic overtures toward their killers—it wasn’t something he wanted her to have to do.

  But that was a husband talking, not a captain. They’d both accepted that having Deanna under his command could only work if he kept the two separate. Throwing her a sheepish look, he said, “You’re right, of course. I recommend taking Mr. Keru along, though.”

  “I had him in mind. Mr. Jaza, you as well, please.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  “And have Dr. Ree meet us in transporter room one. His perspective could be useful. Both as a life scientist and a predator,” she added as an aside to Riker. He nodded, approving her choices.

  And when I get back, he “heard” in his mind as she strode toward the lift, you and I will have a little talk about overprotective husbands.

  Chapter Three

  The aliens did not seem to be in any hurry to meet with Deanna’s away team. She and the others had a long wait in the transporter room while the hunters went about the grisly business of securing their two kills—an operation which the away team observed on a wall monitor. The ships assigned to salvage the kills rotated to approach them ventral side forward—meaning the side opposite the weapon port, bearing a recessed dome in the center. (She recalled that this had been the “top” of the star-jelly ship that had first approached them at Deneb, but only so that its weapon port would be pointed down at the planet. A spacegoing organism would have no absolute sense of up and down.) Deanna watched in grim fascination as each ship’s ventral surface shimmered and flowed with cloud-like patterns of energy, dissolving away to reveal the familiar eight tentacles, which slowly uncoiled, reaching outward. Yet at the same time the tentacles were unfamiliar, for they lacked the lambent aura which surrounded the live jellies. Instead they were pasty and fishbelly white, and their movements as they reached out to grapple the dead jellies were stiff and mechanical, with none of the feathery grace of the live tendrils. The partial dematerialization of the armor was also unfamiliar; the star-jelly at Deneb had dissolved its armor completely, or transformed it back into its normal translucent carapace, before extending its tentacles. Indeed, given the creatures’ shapechanging abilities, she wasn’t sure whether the tentacles were stored beneath the armor or actually transformed into part of the armor itself.

  The hunters were thorough in retrieving their spoils; a third ship even retrieved the two tentacles severed in the attack, and the bridge reported that it also beamed aboard as much as it could of the frozen oxygen and fluids that had spilled from the mortally struck jellies.

  After the retrieval operation, nothing visibly happened for a time, and Deanna wondered just how involved their rites would be—as much out of impatience as anthropological curiosity. It was nearly ten minutes before they finally received the beaming coordinates. “Umm, you might want to see this, Commander,” Ensign Radowski said. Deanna looked over his shoulder at the display. The coordinates were for a chamber at the tip of one of the salvaging ship’s tendrils, which had penetrated and sealed the breach in the dead jelly, snaking inward to connect with its internal passageways. Apparently when Qui’hibra had said they could observe the “processing” of their kill, he had meant they would do so in person. She and the others would be beaming inside the body of the magnificent creature whose death she had witnessed—had experienced—mere minutes before.

  Deanna steeled herself as best she could, recalling all her training in diplomacy and tolerance, before she gave the order to energize. Still, she felt a palpable weight descend on her when she and the others materialized—a coldness, an emptiness echoing with the absence of life.

  She caught herself, realizing the sensation was probably her own imagination. Or maybe she was picking up the reactions of the others. She glanced around at them, using her various senses to gauge their reactions. Ranul Keru seemed ill at ease and disapproving; his life experiences had instilled in him a strong, aggressive sympathy for the victims of violence. Jaza Najem was solemn and reverent, like a man at a funeral, yet those feelings warred with an intense scientific curiosity. Only Dr. Ree seemed to take their surroundings entirely in stride.

  The chamber was larger than Deanna had expected from the transporter console graphic; she had to remind herself that the star-jellies were over a kilometer across. Its dimly lit walls bore a similar texture to the ones she recalled from Farpoint, but were more rounded and translucent. The whole chamber was slightly askew relative to the local gravity vector, leading Deanna to wonder if the gravity they were feeling came from the corpse around them rather than from the hunters’ ship.

  A party of avians was approaching the away team, with the alien commander, Qui’hibra, at its head, giving the others instructions about what sounded like routine ship’s business. Only Qui’hibra and two others bore colorful headcrests, while the rest had what appeared to be marsupial pouches in their abdomens; presumably the latter group were females. Qui’hibra afforded the new arrivals a disinterested glance. “Welcome to the newest prize of Clan Qui’Tir’Ieq,” he said in a not particularly welcoming tone. “I am Qui’hibra, elder of the clan.” He indicated a tall, younger female standing next to him. “This is Matriarch Qui’chiri.” Deanna sensed strong fatherly affection as he introduced her, but he gave no outward sign of it. “If you will come with us, you may observe our operations.”

  He and his group resumed walking, leaving the Titan party little choice but to follow. “Elder Qui’hibra,” Deanna said, “thank you for your welcome. I’m Commander Deanna Troi of the Federation vessel Titan. These are Jaza Najem, our science officer; Shenti Yisec Eres Ree, our chief medical officer; and Ranul Keru, our chief of security.” Qui’hibra barely acknowledged the introductions. “May I ask what your people are called? What planet you’re from?”

  “Pardon me, I have my duties.” Qui’hibra gestured to one of the other males in the party, who was younger and taller and bore a fiery red-orange crest. “This is Hunter Se’hraqua. I have assigned him as your liaison; please direct your questions to him.”

  Se’hraqua seemed to have other ideas. “Elder, I still think—” Qui’hibra halted him with a simple stare. Deanna sensed frustration from the younger male, and a resentment divided between Qui’hibra and her own team. The elder remained unaffected by it, his stoic authority unwavering, and soon Se’hraqua bowed to it. “Yes, Elder.” He threw a withering glare at the Titan party. “Come, try to keep up,” he snapped, and strode forward after his commander—or patriarch, perhaps. Se’hraqua reflexively preened his own neck feathers with the small beak at the tip of his muzzle, apparently as a form of composure grooming.

  The elder and the matriarch stopped at an irislike portal. “Progress?” Qui’chiri asked one of the other females next to it, who was manipulating the molded shapes on the wall in a way that looked like a cross between working console controls and giving a deep-tissue massage.

  “The prize is airtight and nearly equalized,” the female reported. “Neural and immune activity confirmed zero.”

  “A good sign,” Qui’hibra murmured.

  “The Spirit smiles on us.”

  “Do not be premature,” the elder snapped. “The Spirit does not reward arrogance. Remember that!”

  She lowered her head. “My remorse, Elder.”

  “Hope it will be adequate, cousin. And open the iris.”

  The female stroked the wall again, and the portal swirled open. A charnel smell poured through, the smell of burned flesh, metal, poly
mer—maybe all of those, maybe something in between. Whatever it was, it made Troi choke, and Jaza and Keru along with her. Ree flared his nostrils curiously, extended his tongue to taste the air, and mulled it over like a wine connoisseur, although he offered no judgment.

  Se’hraqua made a cawing, scoffing sound at the humanoids and spoke to Ree. “Your comrades have no stomach for the kill, it seems.”

  The doctor tilted his long, lacertilian head. “So it would seem. But these humanoids, they often partake in things they have no stomach for.”

  The avian studied him, and then the others. But Qui’chiri was already on the move, giving orders. “We need to purge the death toxins faster! Chi’harthi, check the gravitic nodes, ensure their viability. Tir’chuai, see to the motor cortex first thing; I have concerns about feedback trauma from that hit….”

  As the matriarch went on assigning the others to their duties, Se’hraqua grudgingly attended to his, leading the away team out into the star-jelly’s internal passageways, which were identical to the ones from Farpoint, although without even the dim bioluminescence those had possessed—and without the slow, heartbeat-like sound that had pervaded them. The work teams carried their own lights with them. “To answer your earlier questions,” Se’hraqua said stiffly, looking in Deanna’s general direction, “our people are the Pa’haquel. We are from no planet; the skymounts are our homes, the Hunt our life and soul.”

  “Really?” Jaza asked. “Tell me, how long have you lived this way?”

  “We have always shared our lives with the skymounts, since the dawn of our civilization.”

  “Hm. Are they…if I may ask, have you engineered them in any way? Their abilities are very…unusual for natural creatures. Not to mention their appearance.”

  “They are as Providence sent them to us.”

  “But these corridors, the gravity, the interior lighting…”

  “They are as they are! Do not question their divine perfection!”