The Bajoran is tall, with a dark-skinned, squarish sort of face. She wears informal clothing, like all of Pexlini's crew - in this case, a short yellow dress. Her name is Umaro Ajbit, and, like so many Bajorans, she is angry. I have the distinct impression she would be kicking at the transporter console, were that not a breach of protocol.
"We need to get a line on the Admiral," she says. "We need to know what Thrang's done with her -"
"Reasonably," I point out, "we must assume the worst." She glares at me. It is true, but it is clearly the wrong thing to say.
She holds up a datapad. "I have all the data here that the Dechenchholing was able to gather on Thrang's warp signature." We are both assuming, only, that the ship was Thrang's, but never mind. Assume the worst. "I was thinking - your ship might have superior sensors, if we can maybe triangulate on the contrail -"
I shake my head. "A sound thought, but a futile one. Thrang's warp signature is unique and distinctive, true, but it is also... fleeting. His ship travels at such speed, the energy contrail from his drive is stretched, spread over a wide area. It will dissipate rapidly in the normal random eddies of subspace energy." No wonder, now, that Thrang's warp signature has proved so maddeningly elusive. Or that he has travelled so quickly to so many different places.
"We have to do something," Commander Umaro spits at me.
"No doubt. But what? Our last clue of any other kind was the invitation to Nali Caerodi -"
"Perhaps we should head there, then. All right, so it's a trap, but at least we know it's a trap -"
The intercom on the transporter console bleeps for attention. "Heizis," I say.
"Sir." E'Maon's voice. "We are receiving a subspace transmission - you should see it -"
I switch on the console's repeater screen. "Put it through."
The screen flashes, shows a holding pattern, then flashes again and a face is there. My eyes widen. "Yo!" says Pexlini. It is her - at least, the face is undoubtedly hers -
"Pexlini," I say. Commander Umaro shoulders me aside so that she, too, can stare at the screen. I would have words with her about that, but now is not the time.
"Heizis. Oh, hey, yeah, Ajbit, that'll make things easier," says Pexlini. Or whoever is using the Talaxian's face... though it certainly sounds like her, too. "Listen, I couldn't get you guys on secure comms, right?"
"Our secure comms units were compromised during the virus attack," I say. And, since our agreements included information sharing between the Republic and the KDF... the loss of our secure links with Imperial Intelligence also cuts us off from Republic Intelligence. A nuisance.
"'kay, so I can't go into, like, details or anything. Maybe just as well. Anyway, listen. I'm at Nali Caerodi, so, y'know, can you come and pick me up?"
"Nali Caerodi?" I am nonplussed. "That was... our first thought of where to go next -"
"Terrific, so I'm not interfering with your plans. Yay. Now how quick can you get here?"
Commander Umaro speaks up. "At maximum warp, perhaps a little over three days. But, sir, there's Starfleet liaison at the shipyards, you can get help from them, surely?" Her tone is suspicious.
"Yeah," says Pexlini. "Three days, yeebles. 'kay, I can hold still for three days, assuming some Hupyrians don't get a whiff of me or something. But, listen. I'm kinda-sorta dealing with a Starfleet contact, but I wanna hold off making any sort of official connection, just for a bit. Well, for the next three days, I guess. Can you do that? I mean, yeah, I know I gotta check in eventually, but, well, it'd be good if I could do it a bit late. I'll explain when you get here, honest I will."
"There is going," I say, "to be a great deal to explain."
"Oh, yeeps, don't I know it. But you know I can't explain on an open channel, yeah?"
This, at least, is true. "I can make no reports to my superiors in any event," I say. "Not before our secure comms are reinstalled. Commander Umaro -"
"I'll hold off," says the Bajoran. She glares at the screen. "You better be Pex, and you better be right, and you better have one hell of a good explanation."
"Yeah, well, I'll work on that, 'kay?" She glances at something off the screen. "Better go. I got stuff cooking, here, and anyway this call is burning my available credit at a rate of knots. Speak to DaiMon Prago when you get here, all right? See you soon. I hope." The screen goes blank.
I look hard at the Bajoran. She returns my gaze levelly. "It may very well be a trap," I say.
"If it's bait," she replies, "we have to take it."
"Will you do as she says? Not inform your superiors?"
"I shouldn't." Her gaze moves to the darkened screen. "But - if that really is Pex, she must have her reasons."
She is looking for some reason to comply. I am curious, myself - I will give her an excuse. "This is supposed to be a joint operation. Starfleet should not be informed of developments ahead of the Republic and the KDF. I should require you to wait, until I have re-established my own secure communications."
She darts a sharp glance at me. "I... see," she says slowly. She accepts the pretext for what it is. "Very well, sir."
---
The trip to Nali Caerodi is - not eventful. It gives me time to brood, but my brooding brings me to no meaningful conclusions.
I am not in the best of humours when our ships crash out of subspace and into the chaos of the Ferengi orbital shipyards. Hundreds of orbital modules competing for space and attention, a dozen incompatible traffic-control systems vying for authority, ships and work bees zipping in all directions... typically Ferengi. The Dechenchholing and the Palatine cruise through the confusion with sleek menace and authority.
In all the shouting on the comms channels, one signal draws us to a particular module. We dock the Palatine, while the Dechenchholing stands off the station a little way - weapons banks ready to charge.
Umaro and I meet Pexlini in the docking tube. Her coveralls are torn at some of the seams, and there is a medical monitor pasted beside a half-healed gash on her head, and she looks bizarrely cheerful. "Hey, guys," she says. She waves a datapad at us.
Umaro is scanning with a tricorder. "Biometrics check out," she says guardedly.
"Yeah, well, they kinda would, seeing as how I'm, yanno, me," says Pexlini. "Now listen -"
"How did you escape from Thrang?" The Bajoran's voice is iron.
"I didn't. He let me go. Now listen -"
"He let you go." Umaro reaches for the weapon at her hip.
"Yeah, he let me go. Because he figured you'd be thinking exactly what you are thinking, that he's brainwashed me or replaced me with a doppelganger or whatever. Now listen. I had plenty of time to think about all this. OK, that asynchronous-subassimilated hybrid drive of his is fast, but he had me in a cell, I had nothing to do but think."
Umaro and I exchange glances. "Keep talking," the Bajoran says.
"I was gonna. OK, so, what's the only way I can prove Thrang hasn't turned me? The only way I can see, is if I take him down."
"And just how," I ask, "do you propose to do that?"
"I got ideas," says Pexlini. "And I got friends." She indicates the torn seams of her coverall. "Intelligence issue, it comes with little reserves, enough to buy me some Ferengi friends. And before Thrang sent me here, I scratched his face."
"And what did that accomplish?" I ask.
"Tissue samples," says Pexlini, and holds up the datapad. "Under my fingernails. I got to thinking, and I figured, Thrang can't just be an Orion smuggler. He's too good and he thinks too big. We salvaged enough cells to put together a coding-molecule profile, it looks like DNA, but DaiMon Prago ain't got the computing power for a full genetic workup. We're pretty sure he's not a Changeling or an Undine, but we don't know what he is, yet."
"That... might make sense," I say. "KDF security starts by looking for Orion biometric signatures, and if Thrang is not actually Orion -"
"Right," says Pexlini. "So I figure your ship, or even mine, has enough computer power to parse his DNA and tell us what he is. Because I figure that's important. The other thing is, whatever he is, we gotta catch him."
Umaro draws her phaser, and rams the emitter grid into Pexlini's face. "All right," she says. "I'll admit, you're making sense, and you sound like Pex. But if you're playing us, I swear, I will kill you myself."
Pexlini appears completely unfazed. "Fair 'nough," she says. "You wanna hear the rest of it?"
"Keep talking," Umaro says.
"'kay. We got one big problem - Thrang's ship is fast. But there's gotta be some reason we don't combine the two transwarp systems, yeah? That drive of his has gotta be finicky. Delicate. We figure out some way to knock it out, we can catch Thrang."
"We would have to find him first," I point out.
"I got a plan there, too," says Pexlini. "I figured a way we can make him come to us. Put him in a situation where he has to come looking in his souped-up ship." She positively grins at me, past the end of the Bajoran's phaser. "You and me, buddy, we're gonna be pirates."
"Emitter grid" made me laugh. Just doesn't have the same effect as "barrel."
Well it seems that Thrang didn't count on Pex telling everyone exactly what he was planning, and for some reason, forgot that his face probably yields DNA if scratched. I say "probably" because I have a nasty suspicion that he planned for that too. Hopefully I'm wrong, I'd prefer that Pex survives relatively unharmed.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Well it seems that Thrang didn't count on Pex telling everyone exactly what he was planning...
Oh, no, he counted on that exactly. He also counted on nobody believing her, because obviously he wasn't going to let her go unless he'd suborned her, right? He fails to account for the personal loyalty Starfleet captains tend to engender in their crews, possibly because he's so very used to dealing with mercenaries and corrupt government officials.
Well it seems that Thrang didn't count on Pex telling everyone exactly what he was planning...
Oh, no, he counted on that exactly. He also counted on nobody believing her, because obviously he wasn't going to let her go unless he'd suborned her, right? He fails to account for the personal loyalty Starfleet captains tend to engender in their crews, possibly because he's so very used to dealing with mercenaries and corrupt government officials.
Yeah, that's more accurate than what I wrote.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Quinn's face looks like it's been carved from stone. Or maybe not even carved; eroded, perhaps, by the terrible forces that have been at work in this galaxy for so many years now. He sits brooding behind his desk, and gazes down at the PADD, and says nothing for a long, long time.
At last, he speaks. "How sure are you about this, Tylha?"
"The intelligence is sound, sir," I reply. "You can see the sources I've used -"
Quinn sighs, a rasping sound in the air. It's a quiet day on Spacedock. I can hear a few bleeps and whistles from distant consoles, the occasional far-off sound of voices... but Quinn's sigh is very loud. He looks away from the PADD, away from me. I can't tell what he is looking at. Whatever it is, he doesn't like it much.
"There is a question," he says, in slow, reluctant tones, "over your own personal involvement -"
I let some frost leak into my own voice. "Whatever my personal involvement, sir, the people of Gimel Vessaris are Federation citizens. They have a right to Starfleet protection. Just because they know me, and they've gone through me to ask for it, doesn't make their claim any less valid. Sir."
Quinn picks the PADD off the desk, glances at it, lets it fall back with a clatter. "You're convinced the threat is credible, then."
"Nausicaan force movements in the vicinity indicate they're gathering for something. And the Nausicaans, and this Gorn ally of theirs, Commissioner Hrissaak, are presenting their case to the Klingon High Council for support. And - maybe most telling of all - former governor Gvochkorr is missing from Rura Penthe."
Quinn nods slowly. "It all seems suggestive, certainly."
I want to slam my hand down on his desk and yell at him. I resist the urge. "Sir, the Nausicaans' evidence - as regards the treaty status of the Gimel Vessaris system, when it was first colonized - sir, it's faked. We know this, we can prove this. We've examined the data cores of the Nausicaan vessel, the Yasan T'o - the one this Hrissaak was trying to capture. Their records don't match the data the Nausicaans are presenting now. Sir, the Nausicaans have no legitimate claim to that system, and they never have."
Demarcation lines, boundary lines - they're hard to draw, in space. There are no geographical features, at any scale that's worth talking about, and everything is in motion, as planets whirl about suns and every star system does its stately billion-year dance around the galactic core. Gimel Vessaris is a class M world lying close to trade routes between several major Nausicaan colony worlds; it's a strategic location, and one which made it desirable for the Nausicaans - and made it important for us to take it back, during the war. But the treaties with the Klingons and the Nausicaans specify boundaries, in the best terms we can manage - current stellar relationships, isographic contour lines mapped out in subspace, things like that.
Marking the boundary lines is complicated... but it's not ambiguous, for all that. Gimel Vessaris lies in Federation territory. It always has. The Nausicaans are presenting data to the High Council, data which they say contradicts that. But I have records - most importantly, the records from the Yasan T'o. Those records prove that the initial Nausicaan conquest of Gimel Vessaris - the raid that killed my fathers and made me an exile - was a straightforward raid, an act of conquest by force majeure, nothing more.
"Commissioner Hrissaak has replaced Ambassador S'taass on Qo'noS," says Quinn. "Whatever his arrangement with the Nausicaans, he's close to the Chancellor, now. He can make himself heard in the High Council."
My nostrils flare. I keep my voice under control with difficulty. "The High Council will change its mind once he's been caught in a lie, sir." One thing I have to concede about the Klingons: they don't like liars.
"Klingons are Klingons," says Quinn. "If the High Council is persuaded to back a show of force... it will be very difficult to talk them into backing down from it."
"The High Council are realists, sir. The KDF took appalling losses during the Iconian War, just as we did. They can't afford another large-scale conflict just now, however much the warrior ethic might demand it. We can prove the Nausicaans are lying, and the Klingons won't throw their lives away for someone else's lie."
"We can't afford large-scale conflict any more than the Klingons can," says Quinn. "We're still rebuilding - you know we're still rebuilding. Oh, I grant you, our internal economy is more resilient, we are probably gaining ground faster than the Klingons... but we still have a very long way to go."
"We have to hope it won't come to an open conflict, sir. We can send in the Diplomatic Corps, present our side of things to the High Council, catch Hrissaak in his lies, and defuse this whole situation. But, sir, we have to consider the possibility - the likelihood, in fact - that the Nausicaans will try to jump the gun. Pre-empt the High Council's decision by presenting them with a fait accompli. It's going to be a lot harder to persuade the Klingons to give the system back once it's already been taken. Besides -" and anger breaks through my self-control to edge my voice "- I've seen what a Nausicaan invasion is like! First hand, up close and very personal! Sir, we cannot subject the colonists to that!"
"So what do you suggest?" Quinn asks.
I bring myself back under control. "As you say, sir, we're not in a good position, militarily. I think it's important, in this situation, not to show any weakness. We should send in a task force with the objective of defending the Gimel Vessaris system. That is my considered opinion, sir. Faced with the prospect of a substantial battle, the Nausicaans will back off, and give us time to pursue the diplomatic options."
"What if the KDF commits its full support to the Nausicaans?" says Quinn.
"It's a risk, sir. That's why the task force has to be substantial. We need to show the KDF we're prepared to make a stand, too. They're as well aware of their current weakness as we are, they won't want an all-out war for the sake of some very questionable Nausicaan demands. If we show them the system is strongly held... we can, at least, hold off war until the diplomats can get to work on the High Council."
"I don't like it, Tylha," says Quinn. "The KDF will be thinking along the same lines as you. They know they're weak, so they will want to look strong. This situation has the potential to blow up in our faces."
"I know, sir. But the alternative... isn't acceptable. We cannot abandon Federation citizens to Nausicaan aggression. We just can't do that, sir. Part of Starfleet's mandate is to defend our citizens."
Quinn's face looks a thousand years old.
"Yes," he says. "Unfortunately, you're right." He picks up the PADD. "Coordinate with Logistics Command on the resources you'll require. Tenth and Twelfth Reserve Fleets are within your operational radius already, you can take their full resources to Gimel Vessaris. Talk to Tactical Command about crew requirements... and, God help us all, contingency battle plans."
"Yes, sir." I salute. "Experimental Engineering has combat-ready ships on hand. I'll supplement the reserve fleets with those."
"I hope I don't need to impress on you," says Quinn, "the importance of... not actually using those resources."
"No, sir. All ships will have strict instructions. Fire only if fired upon, or if necessary to defend Federation citizens."
"Yes," says Quinn. "I suppose that will have to do."
---
I'm going through the long, long lists of logistics requirements, later, when the call comes through. "On screen."
The face on my desk console is Pexlini's. "Hey," she says, "how's it going?"
"I'm busy." I frown. "I haven't had any status updates from you in a while -"
"Oh, yeah, well, paperwork, yanno? It'll get filed, trust me. Anyway. Needed your specialist knowledge."
"My what?"
"Engineering, kinda thing. You know about experimental warp drives, right? Tell me why we don't use combination asynchronous warp and Borg-style subtranswarp."
"What?" My antennae twitch. "Pexlini. Where are you, and what is all this about?"
"Deep space, and catching Kalevar Thrang. Why don't we combine those two super-fast drive systems for one that's super-duper-fast?"
"Because it would be hellishly complicated and finicky. Either one of those systems requires constant in-use adjustment by highly trained specialist engineers. That's why we don't use them as standard - we simply don't have enough personnel available to fit those drives and run them in every ship of the fleet."
"OK, but we don't use any ships with both drive systems, am I right?"
"Sure. The warp coil geometries aren't compatible. You would actually have to build two separate drive systems into the ship, and then the warp fields they generate aren't compatible either, outside a very narrow range of frequencies - frequencies at the lower end of the subspace harmonic scale. You could only build a small ship with both drives, and most of it would be the drives. Besides, actually coordinating the two systems so that they synergised - that's a whole different level of finicky. It'd take an engineering genius to do it, and constant maintenance to keep it going."
"So we add engineering genius to Thrang's list of talents. OK, gotcha. So, if you had a small, very fast ship like this, and you did enough damage to its warp nacelles -?"
"Pretty much anything that causes a power spike would knock the synchronization out. You would only get the benefits of one of the drive systems, until you repaired and re-tuned the engines. For that matter, there's a whole range of subspace harmonics where the fields actually interfere with each other - knock either drive into that range, and you'd be lucky to make better than warp two."
"Oh, that sounds good. Can you send me some tech specs on that, kinda thing?"
I sigh. "I'm a little busy here."
"It's important." Pexlini's voice goes hard and flat. "I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't important."
"OK. Let me see what I've got. You're using those corrosive-plasma weapons, which will help a bit...." I turn to the main computer console, pull up records, discussions, theoretical papers. It's a complex issue, but it's one that's been argued about several times in Experimental Engineering. Several of the blue-sky thinkers are huge fans of over-complicated drive systems, and I've heard all the arguments for... and against.
"Right," I say, eventually. "Transmitting the theoretical studies over your data channel now. Your engineering staff will be able to work out the re-tuning for your weapons systems - don't forget, you will lose some overall weapons power while you're generating the specialist effect."
"That don't worry me. Much," says Pexlini. "Thrang's ship isn't big, if it can't run, it can't put up too much of a fight. I hope. Thanks, Tylha."
"Are you planning on giving me a full progress report any time soon?"
"Technically, I sorta can't, right now, on account of my KDF contact can't turn her reports in, and we can't have Starfleet knowing what the KDF doesn't. In a combined operation. Technically."
I glare at her. If things go wrong, we could be at war with the KDF soon. But I can't say that out loud. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I think so. OK, talk to you soon. Pex out."
I continue to glare at the blank screen. I may not have much experience in Starfleet Intelligence, but I think I know when an operative is up to something. I hope it's something useful.
Then I turn back to the logistics sheets. Never mind Pexlini. I hope I know what I'm doing.
Well, talk about a brief breath before everything goes crazy - glad Pex's armory against Thrang is improving. I'll be happy when he gets knocked off his smug pedestal.
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
"Everything ready down there?" I call down to Unity. The android flashes me a thumbs-up sign from the piloting seat. Sometimes, the design of this Hazari bridge drives me crazy. I mean I can't get down into the pilot's compartment without banging my head, most of the time, and I'm way smaller than your average Hazari. Then again, it could have sound pragmatic reasons - like, maybe, better not disturb the guy who's driving unless it's really worth banging your head over it, kind of thing.
Anyway. I guess that's not really all that important.
"Contact in five minutes," Ajbit mutters at me. I sit back on the command chair and try to look cool and composed and in charge.
"OK, then," I say. "Everyone all set?"
"You had better be right about this, Pex," Ajbit hisses at me. "What we're doing now is technically illegal - no, never mind that, actually illegal."
"So, OK, well, that's why we're a deniable asset, yeah? Push comes to shove, the only person who gets to go to jail is me." Ajbit shakes her head. She knows darn well I'm wrong about that.
"Convoy ID confirmed," Hal Welti calls out, and adds, "Alea iacta est."
We are seriously gonna do this. OK. I try to fight back the nerves. Wouldn't do to panic before the shooting starts.
"Unity, steer three five seven mark three eight two, maximum combat speed. Hal, Voesyy, get ready to jam subspace transmissions on my mark. Veb, you know what to aim for, right?"
"I make lots of holes, but not where people live," says Vebanillo. She flexes her fingers over the weapons console. If I was one of our targets, I really wouldn't like the way she did that.
"Moving to intercept." Unity's voice, at least, is nerveless.
Seconds race by. Dechenchholing's engines thrum with power. The civilian ships on the screen look like toys... toys I'm just about to break.
"Weapons range in ten," Ajbit reports.
"OK. Comms, put me on their screens." I take a deep breath and try to look all butch and piratical and stuff.
"Great. Hi, there," I say. "Merchant convoy, comprising vessels - oh, I ain't got time to read all the names, yanno? This is what they call a hold-up. Hand over your valuables."
A face appears on the viewscreen. Green with black hair, good-looking... Orion. "This is Captain Dyessana aboard the SS Makrug," she says. "Raider vessel, be advised we hold a protection contract with K-T MMA. You don't want the sort of trouble hitting us will cause you."
"I don't? I got a battery of plasma cannons here says different, sister." Dyessana's eyes go round at that. Thrang's had time to spread rumours, rumours about just how effective a K-T MMA contract is. Right now, my job is to kick the bricks out from under those rumours. "Any chance I can see some surrendering going on, like, in the next five seconds or so? 'Cause otherwise, it's gonna get kinda noisy around here."
"You wouldn't dare!" She's starting to look panicky. "There are agreements - you're in breach of free trade treaties between the Federation, the Empire, the Ferengi -"
"Hey. Talaxian, sister. Look at the spots. I ain't bothered much about this side of the galaxy. But, if you're not surrendering -" I make a throat-cutting gesture at Hal. The screen goes blank.
"Jamming subspace. And we're in weapons range," says Hal.
"Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum," I say. "Veb. Hole-making time."
Vebanillo hits the tactical console like she's launching into Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. White gold sparks flash from the Dechenchholing's cannons. The lead freighter's shields flare, then waver, then drop. I lean forward. Now's the time I find out if my Pakled tac officer is as good as she's enthusiastic.
The next cannon barrage lets go at point blank range, and stitches blazing ruin across the freighter's hull. Veb is good, she's hitting exactly where I want her to. The cannon bolts aren't burning into the forward command section, or the drives, or the crew quarters. They are, instead, tearing huge holes in the freighter's cargo pods, spilling their contents out and across the sky. Bulk deuterium from one module, refined ores in another.... the corrosive-plasma cannons are meant to punch right through reinforced military-grade hull armour; what they do to a commercial freight pod, I wouldn't do to a dog.
The freighter's crew is safe enough. But the cargo, the stuff they want to make a profit on - that's being sprayed out into space by the kiloton. The idea is not to kill them. The idea is to hurt.
"Remaining convoy ships are scattering," Hal calls out.
"Awright. Had enough of this one, anyway. Get me a line on the next closest, and, oh, yeah, give Heizis a call."
Dechenchholing wheels gracefully away from the lead freighter. A disruptor beam stabs out from its command section, enough to irritate our shields, no more. "Let 'em have their temper tantrum," I tell Veb. "Concentrate on the next one."
"Got it. Targeting locked," says Veb.
We're coming up on the next freighter hard and fast, from the front. My fingers twitch, reflexively, as the targeting reticules light up. Veb is fast, again. The shields go down, and Dechenchholing streaks over the freighter's spine in a textbook-perfect strafing run, leaving every single one of the ship's cargo holds ruptured and venting behind us.
"One more," I say, and we heel over hard as Unity sends us in pursuit of another victim.
"More ships warping out," says Hal. The rest of the freighters are fleeing in all directions as fast as they can.
Not that it works for all of them. One big bulk carrier is aligning itself for the nearest starbase... and space ripples and shimmers beside it, and suddenly the Palatine comes into view, her plasma arrays blazing with green fire. Heizis, too, is using her guns with surgical precision, cutting out the cargo pods without touching the crew or the engines. Very expensive dust sprays out of the carrier's punctured hull.
We have our own next target, now, and our cannons smash straight through its holds and out the other side. Flames blossom and bloom around it. Whatever it was carrying was either naturally volatile, or needed to be kept in an atmosphere. Nervously, I shoot a questioning glance at Voesyy. "No life signs ceasing to register," the Rigelian assures me. "Looks like complex hydrocarbons in the cargo, that's all." I start to relax a bit.
"Four ships with heavy damage," Voesyy continues, "the rest have warped out."
"Awright, looks like we've done all we can right now," I say. "Hal, drop the jamming and get me Captain Dyessana again, willya?"
It takes a couple of minutes. The Orion captain, when she comes up on the screen, does not look like a happy camper.
"Y'know," I say, "I ain't got a particularly big ship, here, right? Filling my cargo hold, that's gotta work out a lot cheaper than letting me empty yours. Might wanna bear that in mind, next time we run into each other - and, sister, depend on it, there's gonna be a next time."
"You," Dyessana spits, "are dead. You are so dead you are going to need three graves, you -"
"Yeah, yeah, K-T MMA. Lemme tell you something, sister, those five letters don't mean squat in today's galaxy. See you around. Me, I got another appointment to keep today." And we close the channel.
---
Space is big. Biggest thing there is. That doesn't stop us hitting another K-T MMA convoy within the next forty-eight hours.
Everybody's got an edge. Thrang's edge is his super-fast hybrid drive. My edge is... a little different. But it's good enough.
Once upon a time, there was a Federation colony world called Bercera IV. It got blasted to ruins by a Klingon renegade, as part of an over-complicated plot by a High Councillor to stop the war. Thing is, the tricobalt weapons used to destroy that world were routed through an illicit Ferengi transwarp gateway network. And that network was owned and run by DaiMon Prago, out of Nali Caerodi, and when he found out what he'd helped to do... well, even Ferengi have consciences.
Prago figures he owes the Federation for what he helped to do. Giving us full access to his transwarp gates, that's his way of paying off some of the debt. And it means Heizis and I can use those gates, can hit Thrang's shipping faster, in more different places, than any conventional force could hope to do.
"I hope you know what you are doing," Heizis says to me over the comms channel, after we leave the next convoy picking up the pieces and yelling for help.
"Sure I do. Dent Thrang's invulnerable image hard enough, he has to come running, yeah?"
"If news gets to him in time, before his plans come to fruition." Heizis's eyes are dark and smouldering. "I do not like these parameters for engagement, either. Safer and simpler just to destroy the convoy vessels -"
"No." There are lines I can't cross, and lines I just won't, and sacrificing innocent civilian lives to lure Thrang out, that one's both. "We need survivors to spread the news, right? As many survivors as we can get. Every drunk in a spaceport bar, telling people he was in one of Thrang's convoys that got hit - that's another blow at Thrang, and we need all of those."
"I see your logic," Heizis spits. Guess Remans don't go much on the taste of logic. "Well. We have intelligence on the next convoy leaving Alliance space." Good old DaiMon Prago again. "Plotting intercept points now. By the way -" Something seems to be preying on her mind.
"What?" I ask.
"An anomalous result in the analysis of Thrang's tissue," she says with a snarl. "We have made substantial progress with the sequencing of his genome. But the current results -"
"Something you don't recognize?" I knew the guy was some kind of a freak.
"We have gene sequences... we could analyse them ourselves, given time. But these specific sequences are - flagged. They are known, they are recognized... and the reference is to Federation Intelligence. Your people's genetic warfare research division."
"What? OK, transmit that data. We've got a whole raft of Intelligence data libraries over here, we should be able to check that out. At the least, it'll save you some time on completing the analysis."
---
It doesn't take long to flip through the transwarp gates, to find ourselves back on the fringes of Ferengi Alliance space, and hunting down the next set of freighters flying the K-T MMA flag.
I just hope not too many other people are getting in on our act. My guess is that Thrang has been priming local governments and free-range pirates to hit everyone else but his freighters... if enough people get my message, that the K-T MMA affiliation isn't a magic shield against adversity, they will start hitting Thrang's freighters too. Which may put a bit of a monkey wrench in Thrang's plans, true, but it won't bring him to me, which is what I need.
The new convoy is passing only a couple of light years from the transwarp gate. If I was a pirate for real, I'd let this one go - it's too predictable a target, hitting it shows Thrang where I am and how I'm getting about. The danger is, of course, that he knows that. The danger is, he might throw this convoy under the bus, and refuse to come out and play, knowing that I'm deliberately baiting him.
I'm gambling that won't work. I'm gambling that, even if he does know I'm goading him, he still can't afford all the dents I'm putting in his invulnerable image, he will have to stop me. Doesn't matter how many moves ahead he can think, if I know the moves he's got to make. I think chess players call it Zugzwang or something.
God, I wish I was playing chess, it'd be so much simpler.
"Convoy on long-range sensors," says Voesyy. "Something else, too." She leans forward, over her console, peering hard at something on the screen. "Extra blips. Low mass reading, high power signatures. Escorts."
"OK." Muscle, hired muscle of some kind - Orion, Thexemian, whatever. Someone in that convoy is kicking for more protection than the K-T MMA name, possibly. "Get as much data on them as you can when we go in. Hal, contact Heizis, make sure she knows the situation. Gonna have to play hardball, if it's armed ships."
"We still only make holes in cargo, of freighters," says Veb. I don't think she's asking me, I think she's telling me. Good for her.
"Darn right. But anyone tries making holes in us, we hole 'em right back."
"Emissions signatures coming through now. Transmitting to the Palatine." Voesyy's voice is level. "Two Orion warships, Dacoit class."
My nostrils flare, because something about this situation smells. Dacoits... two of 'em... good enough to look like security, yeah, to a freighter captain. But can two Dacoits put up enough of a fight to frighten me off? Against my ship and Heizis's, they don't stand too much of a chance.
Unless they get help. "Oh, boy," I say softly. "I think this is it. Look sharp, everyone."
"We're entering their long-range sensor envelope now," says Vo. At least, the Dechenchholing is. Palatine has already faded into the starscape, and won't be showing up on anyone's sensors until Heizis feels like decloaking.
"OK. Battle stations." Somehow I feel better with the alarms sounding.
"On approach to freighters. Escorts are moving... closing at high impulse, looks like maximum combat speed," Vo reports. "And - sheesh!" She actually jumps out of her seat, staring at the sudden riot of lights on her console. "What the hell's that?"
"Filter out deliberate jamming, flares, all that malarkey," I tell her. "I'm guessing you've just seen one heck of a jolt coming out of subspace."
Voesyy's fingers dance across the scan console. "Confirmed," she says. "Subspace transition... coming out of transwarp and quantum slipstream... equivalent of warp fifty at least." She looks round at me, her eyes hard. "And we have one more ship signature. Low mass, massive emissions profile."
Only one guy that could be. Kalevar Thrang just took the bait.
@themetalstickman - Your brother's phone has excellent timing. Few songs better for what's about to go down. Well, I assume what's going to go down - shevet's got a good arsenal of curveballs, usually.
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Palatine swings around, aiming herself towards the nearer of the two Orion cruisers. I am hoping to decloak at point-blank range and catch the Dacoit before it has time to deploy its fighter screen. The Dacoits are not particularly powerful vessels - but they are dangerous enough, with support from the unknown quantity that is Thrang's ship.
"Get me what you can on that vessel," I add, probably superfluously. The blast of sensor noise as Thrang came out of warp was... alarming. It must have yielded some information, though.
"Unfamiliar design," says E'Maon. "Somewhere around a Risian corvette in size, but hull configuration is different... warp nacelles in vertical rather than horizontal configuration... engines are massive...."
"Optimum firing range in fifteen seconds," Kaxath interrupts. So far, things are going to plan. Orion interceptors are shooting from the Dacoits' launch bays, but they are staying close to the ships, protected by the motherships' shields... that will not last long... so, before it changes....
"Decloak and fire, maximum output."
Palatine shimmers into visibility with her plasma arrays blazing. The Dacoit has shields up, but they are not good enough, not against us, at this range. Our beams smash through to ravage the cruiser's hull. Interceptors scatter in random directions. Our torpedo strikes home against the Dacoit's rear hull, and fragments of vaporizing armour plate scatter through space.
"Hard about, one zero two mark zero. Arrays to independent fire."
Blasts of green-hot light stab out in all directions from the Palatine, swatting at fleeing Orion fighters. The Dacoit is shooting back, disruptor light snapping at our shields. The ship is badly damaged, though, its power levels dropping as secondary explosions and plasma fires propagate inside its hull. If this were a conventional action, I would take the time to destroy it.
This is not a conventional action. "Target the other cruiser! Support the Talaxian!"
Dechenchholing is wheeling around, trying to keep a targeting lock on Thrang's fast-moving ship. The white-gold bolts from the Hazari ship's cannons do not look any different, but I know they have been re-tuned to the emission frequencies needed to damage Thrang's exotic drive systems. If Pexlini can land enough shots with those guns, we can cripple the renegade and finish him at leisure. But it means the Dechenchholing's actual damage output is severely restricted. Our job is to keep Thrang's forces off Pexlini's back, long enough for her to finish the job.
Green fire slashes across space. The other Dacoit is at extreme effective range, but its shields still flare and flicker at the touch of our plasma beams. Palatine hurtles across the gap, closing to killing range. There is still disruptor fire coming from the damaged cruiser, from its surviving interceptors... not enough to hurt us, only to irritate our aft screen.
We will have to finish this before that ship makes repairs, though. "Singularity charge," I order. Palatine shudders as the charge fires. An incautious interceptor, blundering into the path of the destabilized singularity, vanishes in a spray of debris - and then the Dacoit is wallowing in a sudden storm of twisted space and random energies, as the charge strikes home. My plasma arrays flail at the cruiser's weakening shields.
"Something's happening," says E'Maon. "Thrang's ship has deployed... some sort of drones, I think."
Even at sublight speeds, Thrang's ship is fast - Pexlini is hunting him doggedly, but most of her cannon barrage is simply missing his ship, as it flits effortlessly between one evasion pattern and another. And now things are flying free from it, separating, turning towards Pexlini -
Disruptor beams scorch through space, and the Dechenchholing's shields flare under the impact. Whatever those drones are, they pack quite a punch.
"Steer three zero eight mark three seven nine. All arrays to independent fire. Clear those auxiliaries!"
The two Dacoits are badly damaged now, slow and hard to handle. If we can shoot down the fighters, we can draw Thrang away from the cruisers' support range, can engage him and finish him. My arrays blaze into life again. The interceptors are fast and nimble, but my gunners are good. Fighters explode in bursts of flame, or streak away towards the safety of the cruisers, trailing debris and leaking air from hull breaches.
Then there is an impact I feel, on my own bridge. The deckplates tremble, and a console spits sparks from a transient overload.
"We're being targeted by one of Thrang's drones," says Kaxath. "It's swinging round - on our tail - can't seem to shake it -"
"Reinforce rear shields! Coordinate aft arrays, finish the damned thing!"
These drones are starting to worry me. They are faster even than the Orion interceptors, and it is hard, very hard, to get a targeting lock. I switch to the tactical analysis screen on my console, but the readings do not make sense. "What are those things?" I snarl.
There is another impact, another flash of brilliant sparks on the bridge. "Trying to get a read now," says E'Maon.
"Aft shield at fifty-six per cent," says N'aina. "Some hull damage - structural integrity at ninety-five per cent, holding. Damage control teams away."
Pexlini has deployed a drone of her own, a Hazari shield drone. She needs it - the Dechenchholing's shields are in tatters. And Thrang's ship is staying obstinately out of her primary arc of fire.
A dot on the tactical screen flashes and dies. "Got it!" says Kaxath, with a note of relief.
"Target Thrang!" I order.
I am not sure this is the right move. The Dacoits are making repairs, regaining their mobility; the remaining interceptors are falling into a battle formation. And Thrang still has one drone, hammering at Pexlini's shields. I am beginning to worry, now.
"I have an analysis," says E'Maon.
"Target in range. Firing," says Kaxath.
"Quickly," I tell E'Maon.
He nods. "They're based on Andorian cannon drones, but heavily modified. Confirm no life signs aboard, but tactical analysis shows intelligent, autonomous direction. They're AI-run weapons platforms."
Another reason to worry. Such things are well within the capabilities of Starfleet, the Klingons, the Republic... but most of us are understandably wary of building homicidal robots capable of independent thought. Thrang, apparently, has no such compunctions. And with no need for organic crews, these drones can skimp on inertial dampeners, do without life support... and use the space and power for extra weapons systems.
My plasma beams are stabbing at Thrang's ship. Close enough to work up a glow from his shields... not close enough to count as an actual hit. The Orion interceptors are closing -
Then the interceptors are caught up and tossed aside in a sudden flare of energy. A Hazari shockwave blast mine, evidently part of the Dechenchholing's weapons systems. It buys us time, time for my plasma beams to sear out again at Thrang's maddeningly elusive ship.
"Thrang is launching more drones!" Kaxath yells.
Two more icons separate from Thrang's ship, turn and dart away at incredible speeds. And he has another still active - and now, that one turns as well. Within a few seconds, it is apparent who the target is. Us.
Disruptors flame green against the Palatine's shields, and those shields are suddenly wavering, failing, energy levels dropping. Damage icons bloom across my console, and the lights on the bridge flicker, and the flash-bangs of overloaded consoles are blending into a solid roar. The drones are closing in, closing fast, on a random-walk pattern that defeats my targeting predictors. At this rate they will kill us in minutes.
I have one chance. "Reinforce shields!" Let them have, not minutes, but more seconds, to get closer. Try to ignore the wounds to my ship, the wailing of alarms, the indicators for damage and casualties. "Beam arrays to independent targeting... and.... Plasma shockwave now!"
Overspill energy from the singularity core, vented as high-energy plasma - vented in all directions, a short-range sphere of destruction that I do not even need to aim. Thrang's battle drones are knocked tumbling and flaming away - and, with their drives temporarily disabled, they are not tumbling randomly enough to evade my targeting, to escape the green beams of destruction that burn them out of space.
It works better than I had hoped. Thrang's ship is caught on the fringe of the blast - he has not been hit hard enough to cause significant damage, but he has been knocked out of his current evasion pattern. And before he can resume his drunkard's walk across the sky, Dechenchholing drops neatly into his rear arc, and unleashes a sustained barrage of white-gold cannon fire. Thrang's shields flare - and his hull. There are fires and flashing energy discharges from those oversized warp nacelles.
"We have him," I whisper.
Thrang's impulse engines glow brightly with a deliberate overload, flinging him clear of the battle zone. I need no instructions to pursue. The lumbering shapes of the battered Dacoits, the freighters quietly fleeing in the background - these do not matter. Only Thrang is important.
Thrang's nacelles flare again. He has gone to warp. "Follow him," I order. I am relieved to discover that is possible. My damage control board makes for sad reading, but my core systems remain operational - Palatine is still in the fight.
"Message from Dechenchholing," reports N'aina.
"On screen."
Pexlini appears on the viewer. "It worked," she said. "He's running at a shade under warp two, and spitting out a warp contrail you could track from here to Andromeda. We're reconfiguring weapons for normal firing mode now."
"Your plans?"
"Pursue at warp, generate a phase harmonic to knock him back out of subspace, then blast him up good and proper before he can deploy any more of those drones. Man, those things packed a wallop. You good for that?"
"We are still operational. The intention remains to take Thrang alive?"
"Thrang will surrender before it looks like he's getting dead. Guy's a pragmatist, he ain't gonna be king among the ruins if he's dead. Whatever that means." Pexlini glances off-screen. "Course projection says, intercept in two minutes. Ready?"
"Ready. Palatine out."
Thrang has a head start - but with his scrambled warp drive, we will overtake him in short order. I bare my teeth. I will pay the renegade back for the harm he has done - to my ship and crew, to the galaxy as a whole.
"I have him on sensors," says Kaxath. "That's interesting. He's heading for the transwarp gate."
"Perhaps he has the command codes for it - it would not surprise me. He will not reach it, though."
"General hail on subspace from Dechenchholing."
Pexlini's voice comes through, slightly raddled by subspace static. "Kalevar Thrang. Remember you made me a proposition? I'm gonna make you one back, now; surrender, and you'll get a fair trial." Oh, that Starfleet idealism.
"In position to generate phase harmonic in ten seconds - wait." E'Maon checks his console. "Thrang is dropping out of warp."
Trying to save any further damage to his drives from the phase harmonic? How can that benefit him? "Drop to sublight. Lock weapons and stand ready," I order.
Even at low warp speed, we have covered much ground - I can see the icon for the transwarp gateway, blinking at extreme range. Thrang's ship is headed for it, at high impulse speed. But Pexlini is good, better in fact than I had thought. She holds her nerve, stays at warp for just the tiniest fraction of a second longer - just long enough to drop out of subspace between Thrang and the gateway.
The renegade is bracketed between our two ships. He has nowhere left to run.
"Incoming hail," says E'Maon.
"Put it through."
It is the first time, I think, that I have actually heard Kalevar Thrang's voice. "Nicely done," he says, and his tone is actually pleasant. "However, I don't think surrendering quite fits in with my plans, so I'll have to decline. But you've played the game so well, I think you're owed a consolation prize, anyway. I don't really need it any more. You still do, though."
Something emerges from the side of Thrang's ship - something small, so small it would not even be detectable, were it not for the beacon attached to it, sending regular pulses on conventional and subspace radio. Whatever it is, it moves away from Thrang's ship, at considerable speed, its course varying occasionally, randomly.
"And there goes the Rehanissen Archive," says Thrang's voice. "That beacon will last about fifteen minutes - and, yes, there's a self-destruct rigged to blow it after that time. You've probably realized by now what I've been doing with the archive, but knowing isn't enough, you need the original in order to prove it. I'll talk to you later." His impulse drive glows; his ship is moving.
"Get me Pexlini," I order. Someone was anticipating me; the Talaxian's face appears at once. "You take Thrang," I tell her. "I will recover the archive."
She nods. "On it."
The beacon is moving fast, but not so fast that my ship cannot catch it. "Bomb squad to transporter room three," I order. We will beam it aboard, defuse the self-destruct, possibly be quick enough to help Pexlini finish off Thrang -
"Oh, oops, I almost forgot." Thrang's voice on the comm again. "You'll need the key, of course."
And another beacon emerges from his ship, on a wildly divergent course. I curse, and open the channel to the Dechenchholing. "Get that one," I tell her.
"He'll make it to the gateway -"
"And the next. But he will not have time to repair his drive, and we have the codes for the network, we can follow him and catch him again. But he is right, we need the archive. Get that key!"
Pexlini pulls a sour face. The Dechenchholing twists away in a tight spiral, pursuing the beacon. Thrang's drives are burning brilliantly as he bolts for the gateway.
Palatine quests after the beacon. It is slow, but it evidently has evasion routines programmed - it slips away, time after time, from our questing tractor beams. In the distance, I can see Pexlini's ship twisting and turning on a similar hunt. I regret, very much, that I will not have the chance to take my frustration out on Kalevar Thrang's hide.
Thrang's ship reaches the transwarp gate. Energies gather and release, flinging the vessel on a short-cut through subspace across dozens of light years -
Something is wrong. I curse. The energies are not releasing properly - they are continuing to gather -
The kilometres-wide hexagonal frame of the transwarp gate is visibly quivering, flickering with sudden electromagnetic discharges. It is beginning, I realize, to glow. Static flashes across my screen - sensor noise from the massive forces gathering within the gate.
Thrang must have fired some phase harmonic of his own, when he passed through the gate. Of course, he had his exotic drive systems to hand... and we know that he is a consummate expert in warp theory....
The gate is burning brilliantly now, lit from within by millions of kilometres of fusing warp coils. The outer plating is disintegrating in showers of white-hot sparks. Then the structural integrity field goes, and the gateway is suddenly only a roughly hexagonal cloud of white flame... fading through yellow, to red, to the dark of space itself as the wreckage cools.
Pexlini appears on my screen. The universal translator refuses to process the first few phrases she utters. "Out-thought," she says, after a while. "He out-thought us again."
"Never mind," I say. "We have the archive, at least. Let us see what we can make of Thrang's... consolation prize."
But there is little comfort to be gained from that thought, I find. Because I cannot believe Thrang would give that thing up... if he still needed it.
The Rehanissen Archive really doesn't look much, lying on the desk of Heizis's ready room. I take a look at the box, then turn my eyes to the square crystal in my hand. I drop the crystal into the depression on top of the box. There is a click, like something unlocking.
"At least it seems to be authentic," growls Heizis, "so far."
Authentic. Yeah, right. I lift up the box lid. Inside, what I was expecting to see - squat black cuboids with slowly winking indicator lights: old fashioned Valtothi data stores. I pick up my tricorder. "Running downloads for comparison now," I say firmly. Heizis shoots me a sour look. I guess, ideally, she'd want to keep the Archive for herself and her Imperial allies. Well, tough, the Federation is getting a copy too.
Even though, for all we know, the most sensitive info in it is Grandma Rehanissen's recipe for prune bumblepuppy.
The important thing was never the actual content of the archives. The important thing was that Thrang could release any information - or, more likely, disinformation - he liked, and back it up with a source nobody could cross-check. I'm not liking the fact that he's let us have it. Now we do, we can trace his lies back and expose them - eventually. I'm guessing, though, that we don't have time for any "eventually" before the next step in Thrang's plan kicks off.
"OK," I say. "What's the fastest way we can get this to whoever needs to see it?"
Heizis started out looking unhappy, as always - now, she looks really miserable. "With my secure comms inactive," she grates, "the quickest way would be for you to contact Starfleet Intelligence -"
"Umm, yeah, how about no," I say. "As far as Starfleet goes, I'm one of Thrang's agents, remember? Or I will be, as soon as I tell them the full story, which I kinda have to if I'm reporting in."
"Then what do you suggest?" Heizis spits at me.
I think. "Cut out the middle men," I say. "Go direct to the top dogs. Quinn, or J'mpok?"
"If Thrang's plan is already in process," says Heizis, "J'mpok will make decisions faster than Starfleet can deal with the Federation Council. J'mpok."
"Right. So, maximum warp to Qo'noS, and put up all the diplomatic and other priority ID we can, right?"
Heizis nods. "I will instruct my crew." She stomps out of the ready room, looking cross. I go back to fiddling with the tricorder. I want to be quite sure we've got all this data, whatever it turns out to be. It could be dynamite... like the PADD lying next to the archive. The one with Kalevar Thrang's genetic profile on it.
Now, the implications of that are really scary.
I'm still feeling scared when Heizis stomps back in. "We have a problem," she says. "Qo'noS space is under priority one lockdown. Only registered shipping permitted within the outer defence perimeter - two million kellicams from the planet's surface."
"But you're registered shipping, right?"
"I would be," says Heizis, "if my secure comms units were working, which they are not. We must find another approach. Quinn -"
"Wait." I put my hand to my head. "Priority one lockdown? That's a military-level precaution. Why's the Empire putting its capital under wartime restrictions?"
"The obvious inference," says Heizis, "is that they are, or expect to be, at war -"
Her eyes go wide, and lock with mine, which might be wider, although hers look pretty darn wide with all the black eyelids around them, and whose eyes are wider really doesn't matter right now. "King among the ruins," I say. "So that's the set-up."
"Thrang is inciting a war?" says Heizis. "Who with? And how?"
"My guess, the Federation, and some plausible line of bunkum backed by that." I jab my finger at the archive. "OK, we have gotta get this thing to J'mpok, like, yesterday. If we can get the Klinks not to start shooting, the Federation should keep its finger off the trigger. I hope."
"But how?" demands Heizis. "If we cannot access Qo'noS space -"
"Officially," I say. My brain is racing. Whether or not it's racing in a good direction, time will tell. "I got some contacts with a neutral Orion trade consortium. We can use their transwarp gates to get fairly close to Qo'noS. After that -" I grin at her. "You guys are supposed to be all sneaky, yeah?"
---
"This is not a wise move," says Heizis, some time later. I ignore her. I maybe know more about Republic-issue commander's gigs than I technically should, but this is the first time I've actually flown one in anger, and I'm trying to concentrate on the controls.
The Orions let us buy passage to a starbase deep in Klingon territory, and Palatine managed to slink into the Oort cloud of the Klingon home system without tripping any alarm bells. Something as big as the Aelahl warbird, though, ain't gonna get close to Qo'noS itself without lighting up every tachyon detection grid the Klinks have got, so we are using something much smaller and - hopefully - more discreet to make the final approach.
Heizis is crouched, muttering, over the cloaking controls. Since the Roms are always a bit jealous of their cloaking technology, she wanted to manage that, which leaves me for flying the ship. Since, if we get into a fight, one shuttlecraft isn't really going to stand much chance against the Klingon homeworld, we haven't bothered bringing any gunners or people like that along for the trip. It's just me and the gargoyle. I really wish she was better company.
Qo'noS is a greenish point of light on the forward viewer, nothing more. The outer perimeter defences, though, are closer. Much closer.
"Cloak balanced for standard KDF sensor arrays," mutters Heizis. "I have the parameters for the most recent tachyon net, but they may have changed it.... Well. Transferring coordinates to your flight board now." A green ring starts blinking on the visual display, and I aim the gig towards it.
"Try and tuck us in behind that Bortasqu'," Heizis adds, so I twitch the heading a hair or two to the right and a whisker up, and we settle in behind the huge grimy mass of a Klingon war cruiser. Should be good for us, assuming the cruiser itself doesn't start scanning closely behind it - or abruptly slamming on the brakes. "Lots of ships around," I comment.
"One might almost think this was the capital of an interstellar empire," Heizis snarks back at me.
"Yeah, but, y'know, travel restrictions?"
"Lots of Klingon ships, if you look." She's right, of course. Klingon commerce and fleet movements aren't restricted, it's just dodgy foreign types - Aelahl warbirds and Hazari destroyers, for example - that are being turned away. There is still enough firepower around Qo'noS to evaporate us a million times over, and that's not counting the planetary defences or the orbital stations.
Something blinks on the status board. I look. A wing of Birds of Prey has suddenly decloaked, not too close by, but near enough to trip a warning on the sensors. I get to work suppressing the urge to panic. Routine patrol? Or are they looking for something, like, say, a small anomalous cloaking signature? The ships wheel around, head away at high impulse on some errand of their own.
"Cloak is stable," Heizis reports. Me, I always thought the cloaking device was a turn-it-on-and-walk-away kinda thing, but apparently it needs a skilled operator, adjusting it continually -
"You are qualified on that thing, yes?" I ask.
"At least as qualified as you are to fly a Romulan shuttle."
"Hey," I say, "I'm good with shuttlecraft, ask anyone." Though maybe I won't tell her what happened to the old Ostankino's shuttlepod, or not till we're down on the ground, anyway.
The planet is close enough, now, that it shows a disc. I can cover it with my thumbnail, but it's still a disc. The war cruiser is turning. I bring us about, heading straight in, now, passing so close to the cruiser I could lean out of the window and write PEX WAS HERE in the meteor dust on its hull.
"Passing the first median defence perimeter," says Heizis.
"How many perimeters do they have?"
"Each one represents a line in space which Klingons can fight and die to hold."
OK, so, plenty, then. I shut up, and concentrate on keeping the gig on course - while also taking advantage of whatever cover comes our way. A big Lissepian freighter drifts across our path, its drive obviously in need of an overhaul, its cargo holds full of radioactives. The sensor noise from that thing could hide us without the cloak. I pull into its shadow, and watch the range display to the planet count down.
"Approaching the shipyard's detector range," says Heizis. "This could be the difficult part. The shipyard is a priority target for industrial espionage... it is heavily guarded against infiltrators."
It's also, though, pretty close to the planet itself. The smoggy atmosphere of Qo'noS isn't giving me a good look at any surface features, but it's close enough now that I could pick them out with the naked eye. I'm almost beginning to think this might work.
"Steer three niner seven mark one!" Heizis snaps.
I don't know what she's seen, but I make the course correction. The gig cruises over the freighter's beat-up drive unit, and comes worryingly close to an approaching K'tinga cruiser. At least, it worries me, but Heizis doesn't look bothered.
"Passing third median defence perimeter."
"What happened to the second?"
"We were shielded by that freighter's radiation cloud. Now concentrate on flying instead of talking."
Well, I can do both... and being nervous makes me talkative... and whoo boy, am I nervous right now. The Klingon homeworld is big enough to fill the viewscreen, now. Big, green and mean. The gig is weaving between oblivious flights of KDF warships as I try to keep on course and not hit anything. So many ships. So very many ships.
"Passing upper atmosphere perimeter defence. Slacken speed. If we start to leave an atmospheric contrail, we are doomed."
This high up, the atmosphere is kinda notional at best, but I see her point. Even if the gig is invisible, if it starts leaving a visible hole in the air, we got a problem. Actually, about sixty problems within range just now, ranging from a Toron shuttle right up to one of those big command battlecruisers. Ty'gokor class, I think; big and ugly, anyway.
Heizis mutters something under her breath. "What is it?" I ask.
"Maybe nothing. Random sensor ping. Too many active sensors, I cannot blank everything -"
I check the approach speed. We are into the planetary exosphere, which means "slightly soft vacuum" for most worlds. With this planet, though, it means "constantly monitored by people with a shoot-to-kill policy", so I'm kinda not cheerful about getting sensor pinged.
"We have left the shipyard's detector range," Heizis says. "No obvious alerts. I think we have made it."
"Great. How much more to go?"
"Ionospheric perimeter, then the controlled airspace over Prime Continent, then the security zone over First City. There will be tachyon scans, but I believe I can circumvent them." She doesn't sound wildly confident.
Qo'noS rushes towards us, no longer a dot, or a disc, but a whole world, vast and cloudy. I check our speed, nudge it downwards a bit. If we go into the stratosphere at hypersonic speed, people are gonna notice, cloak or not.
"Past ionospheric perimeter."
So close, now, so close. I patch in the geographic files, level the gig out, aim it at First City. I imagine I can hear the hiss of atmosphere on our hull. Wishful thinking, of course - the air is still too thin, our hull too thick. But I can imagine -
Heizis curses. "Tachyon contact!"
"Where from?"
"Unknown. Maybe a random scan, perhaps someone testing a detection system. But they will report the contact -"
Uh-oh. We are a good thousand kilometres from First City, and if that distance fills up with shooty Klingons, life is gonna get far too interesting, far too quick. "Got any ideas?"
"Proceed on course. I have some sensor decoys, I can use them -" Heizis turns back, muttering, to her console. My mouth is very dry.
Blips show on the extreme edge of the tac display. Of course, there's plenty of blips already, but these are new ones, four of them, in a diamond pattern, and coming our way. To'Duj fighters. "We got company," I say.
"I will do what I can." Heizis's bony fingers are stabbing at the console. Outside the viewport, clouds are sliding past us, rapidly. I give the engine more juice. I figure we need speed, now -
The clouds light up with nightmarish green lightning. Disruptor fire. Not targeted at us, which is the good news. The bad news is, it's coming from heavy weapons batteries on the surface. They're designed to take full-sized ships on, and if one of those blasts hits our little shuttle, we're gone.
"Probing fire only," says Heizis. "They are not sure we are here... they are merely testing, trying to elicit a response."
"Yeah, well, they nearly elicited a response from me all over the seat of this chair," I grumble. "Can you think of any way to calm them down?"
"I have launched all my available decoys. Increase our rate of descent. The anti-ship batteries are angled sharply upwards - we can easily get under the range of those guns."
I turn the gig's nose down. I resist the temptation to step on the gas, because we do not need a hypersonic boom just now, and anyway we are now aimed at the ground and it does not look welcoming. More green light stabs along the viewscreen. "What are they shooting at?"
"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps my decoys - ach! More tachyon contacts. They are alerted, now."
Another formation of fighters hoves into view, and their disruptors are already chattering. I take a look at the tactical display, and move the shuttle into a steeper dive. If we can get beneath them - I'm hoping they won't fire randomly at the surface of Qo'noS. That they'll wait until they have us locked up definitely in a firing solution.
Something flashes white at the edge of the viewport. "Lost a decoy," says Heizis.
"How many have you left?"
"Three." Another flash. "One." Oh, great.
I can hear the air, now, for certain, keening over the hull of the shuttle. More lines of disruptor fire stitch themselves across the sky. My hands move automatically on the controls, throwing us into a light random-walk evasion pattern. Maybe it's premature, they can't possibly have a targeting lock on us yet -
Then the shuttle shakes, and a series of damage lights turn red. Oh, damn. Someone got lucky. I check the board. With the cloak up, we have no shields, which means the disruptors just took a chunk out of our hull. Structural integrity reads... lower than I'd like.
"We are past the continental security perimeter, and under the range of the main batteries," says Heizis. "That is the good news. The bad news is, there are plenty of interdiction turrets out there, specifically for picking off incoming troop shuttles, and our cloak is no longer stable."
Too right. We have company. One of the fighters has veered off from its formation, and is coming our way, and fast. I take the shuttle as close to a nose-dive as I dare, trying to lose height, to keep below that fighter so it can't use its guns. I don't know how much of us they can see -
WHAM
Sparks shoot from two of the consoles, and the whole gig shudders. I cough and wave smoke away from the display. Another lucky hit, I think, but this time from someone on the surface with a micro-photon launcher. "We're leaking warp plasma!" I yell at Heizis.
"Dropping cloak." We are leaving a flaming visible trail behind us, now, there is no point even trying to be invisible any more. I hit the controls to raise the shields. I might as well be pushing the button for room service, for all the good it does. Uh-oh.
"Shields offline. Um. Any way we can try surrendering?"
"To Klingons?" Heizis shoots a glance over her shoulder. "Comms console is out, in any case."
Damn and blast. And First City is so close, so very close - I throw the shuttle into a fast evasion pattern. Green lightning is flashing on all sides of us, now, but somehow we take only a couple more glancing hits. I slalom through the green smoggy clouds of Qo'noS, trying to shake the pursuing fighter, but that one is obstinate, and fast, and is getting underneath us, to angle fire upwards into our belly -
Heizis lunges past me to smash her hand down on the flight console.
The viewport flashes into pure white flame, and there is an unearthly shriek in the air, and the shuttle doesn't just shudder, it convulses, as if it's trying to break itself apart. The course display breaks up into random electronic gibberish, then comes back, but it comes back wrong, much closer to First City, almost on top of it. I stare at Heizis. "What did you just do?"
"Short-range singularity jump. Inadvisable, in atmosphere, but we were out of options. Now, get us down!"
The shuttle jolts some more. We must have torn a hole in the air with that jump - anything airborne is fighting some fierce turbulence - but there are people on the ground, and they have disruptors, and they are shooting at us. Bits are falling off the shuttle. The damage control readouts - don't look good. But I can see First City beneath us, I can see the big looming bulk of the Great Hall, even. I hit the dorsal RCS arrays and force the shuttle down towards the city. Disruptor bolts scream past us. I think the fire is slackening. I think they think we're already crashing. Also, I think they might be right.
I hit another control, get no response. "Doesn't this thing have landing gear?"
"It did have, when we started!"
"Oh, joy. OK, I'm gonna go for plan B, emergency lithobraking procedure."
"You're trying a controlled crash landing?"
"Nearly right, 'cept for the controlled part. Hang on."
The shuttle plummets out of the sky, trailing fire and debris as it comes, aiming for the square outside the Great Hall. The big Imperial triskelion is a nice obvious marker to aim for. I turn up the inertial dampers as high as they'll go, and check my line of flight. There are so many different warning klaxons going off, it's hard to think. At the last second, I yank back hard on the stick, and fire every retro I've got left.
The gig pancakes hard into the square, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Too much forward speed to kill, though. We are sliding across the square in a shower of sparks and a squealing, grating sound that I never want to hear again, and the entrance to the Great Hall is looming up like a mouth. Most of the square's denizens have had the sense to scatter for cover. To one side, though, I catch a glimpse of one of the Loresingers, struck apparently speechless. You don't see that very often.
The Great Hall comes towards us. Fast. I hit another emergency control, the last one I've got. This one works.
The shuttle slams into the wall of the building. It's too big to fit through the entryway. As I hit the control, though, explosive bolts blast the cockpit section loose from the main hull, and that just about fits. Just. I have last-ditch retros and RCS thrusters, and I use them. The cockpit slams down on the floor of the Great Hall, skids, slews around in a billowing smoke from reaction mass and burning carpet.
The impact, as we slam into the stairs at the end of the hallway, seems like an anticlimax after all the others. The sudden cessation of noise hits my ears like a blow.
I get to my feet, slightly surprised that I've still got them. I stumble to the back of the cockpit section, and hit the door controls. Instead of sliding open, the door simply falls off, hitting the stairs with a resounding clang.
It's an impressive entrance. I spoil it all by wailing, "Don't shoot! We're friends! Friends! We've got the Rehanissen Archive! Coming out now!"
I turn and grab up the all-important box and PADD. Heizis is getting to her feet, her expression one of utter stunned disbelief. I stumble out into the Great Hall. It's a lot darker and hotter and smellier than usual, which might be down to the smoke in the air, or the wrecked Romulan gig blocking the entrance.
There's a lot of the leadership of the Klingon Empire in front of me, and they don't look exactly pleased to see me.
The first to recover, apparently, is J'mpok. The burly figure of the Chancellor strides towards me, eyes glaring from beneath lowering brows. I hold up the box and the PADD.
"Rehanissen Archive," I gasp at him. "The real thing. I don't know what Kalevar Thrang's been feeding you, but whatever it is, it's a set-up. Designed to stir up war between the Empire and the Federation. We've been played."
"For what motive? What reason?" J'mpok's voice is hard and suspicious.
"King among the ruins." I swallow. My mouth is dry, not just from the smoke in the air. "Thrang is setting us all up for a major galactic war, and the plan is for him to come out on top. His mercantile association may not sound much now, but once the major powers are in pieces, he's planning to be the only game in town."
"Ridiculous!" someone says. "No rational being could seriously nurture such hopes -"
"Thrang could." I hold up the datapad. "Other thing. We got tissue samples, ran a genetic workup."
J'mpok's eyes widen at that. "Qa'meH quv?"
"Oh, you wish," I say. "Worse than that. Thrang is human. Originally. Genetic augment, with all the extras, including cosmetic disguises. Call him Khan Noonien Singh version two point oh, at least. Super-human, super-genius, with a massive Napoleon complex. Maybe he couldn't become master of the galaxy, but he'd sure as hell like to try for it."
J'mpok stares at me. Slowly, very slowly, his hands reach out for the box and the PADD I'm offering to him.
"This - this must be checked," says another voice. A Gorn, it looks like - not the usual one, S'taass, but a smaller, neater-looking one, standing next to a big Nausicaan in shiny armour.
"Indeed," the Nausicaan says. "These - claims - must be tested and verified, in every detail - we cannot change our plans based on the unsupported word of a Federation lackey."
J'mpok's hands close, finally, on the box and the PADD. The eyes under the dark lowering brows lock with mine. "Answer me this," he says. "Is this true? Your word on this, Talaxian."
I meet his gaze. "It's true. On my word."
"Chancellor." Heizis sounds raspy, but then she always does. "I pledge my word with hers."
J'mpok turns his gaze on her. He gives a minimal nod.
"Every part of these records must be examined and checked!" the Gorn says.
J'mpok turns towards him. "Everything will be checked." He pulls the Rehanissen Archive from my grasp. "Checked in as much detail as you require, Commissioner. First -" His burly body swivels, turning to some lackey in ceremonial armour. "Get me a channel to Dahar Master Dhalsell."
It's ridiculous, but after so long on the King Estmere, a standard Starfleet bridge layout seems strange. Or maybe it's just the position I'm sitting in.
I look at the strategic display on the flag console. My force - officially, now, Task Group Vitruvius - is on final approach to Gimel Vessaris, individual elements moving into the tactical posture I have planned. It's, in theory, a flexible one, with light forces surrounding three cores of heavy units. I should be able to catch any smaller group of ships between my fleet and the planetary defences, englobe them and destroy them in detail.
King Estmere is at the heart of one of the three detachments. The Tholian carrier is almost dwarfed, though, by a monstrous Breen Sarr Theln, and one of the new Jupiter-class ships. Three carriers, backed up by Guardian- and Odyssey-class cruisers and several flights of tactical escorts. A solid core of firepower, with the ability to project force fast and effectively.
On the other side of me, a different tactical mix, intelligence ships and science vessels clustering round the flattened, angular shape of the intel cruiser Airly Beacon. Two of my best special assets are in that battle group, the temporal-anomaly science vessel the Indra, and her snub-nosed, lethal counterpart from a different timeline, the Ratri. Between them, a Wells-class and a Mobius-class should be able to come up with quite a few surprises for any attackers....
But there should be no surprises from the central core of the fleet, where I am now. This is pure firepower, projected by waves of frigates and heavy cruisers, by Andorian escorts like Spirits of Earth and her sister ships... and centred on the might of the massive command battlecruisers.
I broke one of my own rules for those command ships. Gustav Holst wrote a lot of music, but he's mainly remembered for just one piece, the "Planets" suite, with its individual movements named after the worlds of Earth's home system. I've always, in the past, thought that was too obvious to use. But I had access to three cruisers fresh from the yards, and I was in a hurry -
So, a few kilometres below me and to my left is the USS Neptune, and a short way above and to my right is the USS Saturn, and here I am on the bridge of the USS Mars, and I am trying very hard not to think about the sub-title of that particular piece.
Mars. The Bringer of War.
I hear the turbolift doors hiss open, and Anthi Vihl strides onto the bridge. I don't know what she's been doing - some part of the busy-work that keeps a good exec occupied. She crosses the bridge, and for once her face has a slightly puzzled look about it, as she confronts the empty seats at the centre. She shoots me a look.
I point. "Centre seat, Flag Captain Vihl."
Her eyes flash and her antennae twitch with - some emotion. I don't know what, because she suppresses it faster than a Vulcan would. She takes the command chair, looking as if she was born to it. Which, of course, she was. Anthi, dependable, loyal and brave... a credit to her Imperial Guard ancestors... she should have had ship command long, long ago.
She consults the command console, now. "USS Mars at battle readiness. Your orders, Admiral?"
I take a deep breath. This is it. "Fleet address. Put me live."
And it takes far too few seconds before the CHANNEL OPEN light flashes green.
"All ships, this is Admiral Shohl. We are on final approach to Gimel Vessaris. So far, we have no indication of hostiles in-system, so we will proceed by defence plan Delta, occupying the intermediate orbitals around the planet and securing the asteroid bases." Gimel Vessaris's small moonlets aren't much of an asset, but we have to hold them. "Given time, we'll establish regular patrols around the system boundaries which will alert us to incoming hostiles. Our best guess is, though, that the Nausicaans are moving in quickly, so we have to stand ready to defend the planet at short notice."
Time for another deep breath, which I hope no one notices. "We have sufficient numbers and capability here to fend off anything short of a full-scale invasion, and we will have the planet's own defensive satellite grid to fall back on. In the event of attack, we will bracket enemy forces between our tactical groups and destroy them with crossfire. However, let's remember that force is a last resort. If the Nausicaans arrive, we will try to negotiate their peaceful withdrawal. Let me emphasize that we open fire only in immediate self-defence, or to defend Federation civilians. We're Starfleet. We're going to act like it." I make a final check on the console. "Approaching system boundary now. Prepare to slow to impulse. Fleet to yellow alert."
Streaking stars slow to motionless dots on the viewer, and the planet looms up. Gimel Vessaris. I was born there... I nearly died there. It isn't much - a marginal colony world with a climate only Andorians could love. But it's a Federation world with Federation citizens, and our job is to protect it.
"Connecting with satellite defence grid." Cordul is on the comms station, handling it with stolid competence. "Data telemetry coming through... targeting linked in with our tac net."
"Deploy on plan Delta," I order. "Flagship to coordinates -"
"Incoming contacts," Three of Eight interrupts me. "Inbound vector seven four two. Multiple heavy units, confirmed KDF signatures."
A hard knot contracts in my stomach. Just in time. We got here just in time. The rash of red icons is already filling one outer segment of the strategic display -
There's a lot of them. The computer is already making tentative identifications - Ravager and Balaur dreadnoughts, Vo'quv and Kar'fi carriers, a hulking Klinzhai command cruiser that's at least the equal of my ship. It's not as big a force as some of those we sacrificed in the Iconian War. It is at least the equal of Task Group Vitruvius. And it isn't slowing down.
I hit the general address button. "All ships. Red alert. Battle stations."
The alarms sound, and red lights glare on my bridge. I turn to Cordul. "Open hailing frequencies. We need to talk to them."
"Trying it, sir." He frowns over his console. "I have a hail. From the Nausicaan dreadnought Zlatchko."
I stand up, and tug at my uniform tunic, making sure it's straight. "On screen."
I know the face that appears on the main screen. I've seen it before. Here, when we took Gimel Vessaris back. Gvochkorr. His eyes are glaring, his mouth open, baring his tusks in a grimace. "Starfleet. Shohl," he says. "I was going to offer you the chance to withdraw peacefully -"
"I'll make you that offer," I say. Gvochkorr. He ruled Gimel Vessaris as an Imperial labour camp, and when we finally made peace with the Klingons, he tried to have me assassinated anyway. I have to try to forget that. I have to try. "This is a Federation colony world. Your forces have no business here. You are requested, formally, to withdraw from this star system."
"This star system is Nausicaan territory!" Gvochkorr snarls. "I have proof! And I will not make peace, Shohl, not now I see you - I am here for your hide! And I will smash your paltry little fleet to get it!"
"The Nausicaan government has no claim on this system. I have proof of that, from one of your own ships. Stand down and withdraw your fleet, Gvochkorr. This is a Federation world, and we will defend it."
"I will have your hide! Tacked to my trophy room wall! I will take back what is mine, Shohl, and I will destroy you!" He gestures, and the screen goes blank.
I look down at the strategic display. The KDF force has a lot of ships. The satellites give me an edge... maybe.... But Gvochkorr's force is closing, and closing fast. I have only minutes to get my forces into position -
I frown. Something is wrong, on the display.
"Sir." Anthi's voice. "Klingon and Orion ships are breaking formation."
"Trying to flank us?" It's the sort of tactic I was planning myself. But Anthi shakes her head.
"Confirm," says Three. "The Klingon command vessel is slowing and coming about onto a new heading. The other Klingon ships - and the Orions - are moving with it."
On the display, the cloud of KDF icons is visibly splitting in two. My mind is racing. What are they planning?
"Sir," says Cordul, "I have another incoming hail. From the IKS chIS Hov -"
"On screen." If they want to talk, I want to listen. If they want to explain, all the better.
The screen flashes, and a scarred Klingon face looks out at me. "This is Dahar Master Dhalsell aboard the chIS Hov. Are you Shohl?"
"This is Admiral Shohl aboard the USS Mars."
Dhalsell looks at me through narrowed eyes. His hair and beard are white as snow, as Andorian hair.
"I have received information from the Chancellor," he says. "Apparently, information has come to light which invalidates Gvochkorr's claims regarding this system. The Chancellor orders that we should not support a dishonourable claim based on false information. The Chancellor further orders that we should support our allies in this matter. Accordingly, and at the Chancellor's order, KDF forces in this system will now accept your orders." One corner of his mouth lifts - perhaps in a smile, perhaps in a grimace. "What are your orders, Admiral Shohl?"
Is it a trick? It can't be a trick - the Klingons' movements have shattered Gvochkorr's formation, they've put him at a massive tactical disadvantage. And a Dahar Master - they're not known for lying to their enemies. Or their friends. Whichever one I am, just now.
"Thank you, Dahar Master," I say. "Tie in your tactical command net to mine, using the old Khitomer Accord protocols." I gesture at Cordul, who nods and starts working furiously at the comms console. "Bring your forces to coordinates -" I try to assess the battlefield, try to work out where to put this sudden bounty of allies - if that's what they are "- four seven by two two four. We'll catch Gvochkorr's Nausicaans and Gorn between your ships, my battle groups, and the planetary defence grid."
Dhalsell's eyes flicker rapidly beneath his white brows. "Reasonably sound," he says, rather grudgingly.
"Before we open fire, though," I continue, "let's see if Gvochkorr's got anything to say. Comms."
"Hailing now, sir," says Cordul. "I have.... Got him, sir."
The screen splits. On one side, the glowering impassive shape of the Klingon; on the other, Gvochkorr, his red eyes suddenly wild. "Gvochkorr," I say. I'm damned if I'm giving him any sort of title. "The Imperial government seems to have repudiated this - raid - of yours. Stand down."
"I -" His eyes dart rapidly from side to side. "I will take back what is mine. What is mine. I will not back down from Andorian arrogance and Klingon treason -"
"Treason!" Dhalsell is stung into anger. "You dare accuse a Dahar Master of treachery, you runaway from Rura Penthe?"
"This is my world!" screams Gvochkorr. "My domain! It was promised to me! I will burn you all before I let it go! I will -"
There is a sudden blur of motion on the screen, and Gvochkorr vanishes. Dhalsell and I exchange startled glances. There is nothing on the screen except a blank stretch of wall, nothing on audio but confused scuffling sounds - and then a choked-off scream.
I wait, pulse racing, antennae stiff with expectation.
Another figure appears on the screen in Gvochkorr's place; a large, black-haired Nausicaan in battle armour... with a dripping Tegolar blade in his right fist.
"This is Flag Captain Dr'chelk," he growls. "And this is not a day I choose to die for someone else's ambitions. Former Governor Gvochkorr is no longer a factor. We will depart, now, for Nausicaan territory - with your permission, Admiral, Dahar Master."
Kalevar Thrang stood in the tiny washroom of his quarters, his hands gripping the washbasin. He looked into the mirror, and he frowned.
"That," he said aloud, though no one was with him, "did not quite go according to plan."
His frown deepened, his brows gathered together. "Not quite. There were, evidently, personal factors at work... ones I hadn't calculated. J'mpok moved faster than I planned... Shohl was slower on the trigger than I wanted... the Talaxian took risks." He shook his head. "That one will be an asset, when she's mine. And she will be mine."
Even though he kept frowning, he grinned as well. The furrows on his brow, though, seemed to deepen, becoming more marked with every second that passed. A flush seemed to be spreading over his green Orion skin - it had acquired an almost ruddy undertone. His breathing was growing hoarse and laboured.
"Some of my agents are now compromised," he said, and his voice was deeper now. "I will have to abandon everything that's no longer useful. A pity. I could have got a lot more mileage out of some of them, still... but, what's done is done. And I still have resources. Plenty of resources."
His face was an indeterminate dark colour, now, like well-patinated bronze. The furrows on his brow were deeper still, the skin between them swelling, bulging. His eyebrows bristled.
"Shame about... some things. I will miss my speedy little ship. A price... a price has to be paid, for failure. And I have failed. This time. Next time, though... forewarned is forearmed. Next time... my plans will be like clockwork. Eliminate all the unpredictable elements. That's always best."
His face was turning lighter in colour, now. But it was no longer green. It was paling towards a light brown. His forehead was swollen, furrowed, ridged. His eyebrows had grown thick and shaggy. As his skin lightened, it was possible to see that a thick stubble of beard and moustache had already sprouted on his face.
Kalevar Thrang let go of the washbasin. He examined his hands, peered closely into the mirror. "Quite passably Klingon," he said. "Qapla'."
He turned, and stepped out of the washroom. He stood in the doorway and stretched, feeling his muscles shift into new configurations. The body language of a Klingon warrior, not an Orion smuggler. It was important to settle properly into a new skin.
The door of his quarters hissed open, and Deonsa walked in. She walked in, and froze, and whatever words she had for him died on her lips as she stared.
"Oh, my dear," said Thrang. "I really didn't want you to see me like this." As kindly as possible, he reached out and broke her neck.
---
"This will take days," muttered Shaltri, peering at the readouts on the main engineering console.
"You are supposed to be the chief engineer," said Masgrabolus with a sneer.
"I know what I'm doing," the Troyian protested. "At least I think so. But these experimental systems - they're the boss's own design. He's the one who really knows them. When's he coming to help?" He looked from Masgrabolus to Mokasso. The Thexemian sneered. The Lethean shrugged.
"He said he had work to do, and supplies to gather," Mokasso said.
"Supplies? Gathered how?" Masgrabolus demanded. "The Farah is crippled. Warp two at best, we will take weeks to reach a spaceport -"
"Enough," Mokasso snapped. "Thrang is taking the warpshuttle to rendezvous with one of our convoys near Theta Arimaspiae. He will be back within two days, with all the specialist components we require."
"We require a lot," Shaltri grumbled.
"When was this decided?" Masgrabolus demanded.
"Thrang makes his own decisions," said Mokasso. "But -" He glanced at a status board. "Hangar bay doors opening. He is departing now. Within two days, he will be back. He told me so. All our worries will be over."
"I hope he is right," said Masgrabolus.
"Depend on it. Thrang is very rarely wrong." Mokasso crossed the bridge, sat down before the main science console. "Warpshuttle on scan now. Coming onto its proper heading, and - there. He is on his way."
Masgrabolus grunted. On the science console, Mokasso watched the flare of energies as the shuttle went into warp.
Then, down in main engineering, a small charge detonated, next to the warp core's antimatter containment. The small explosion was swallowed instantly in a much larger one, as the Farah's core breached.
Everyone in the conference room at Earth Spacedock is... subdued. With one exception.
T'Laihhae and the human intelligence officer, Hengest, are sober and thoughtful as they review the data on their screens. They have good reason to be. The real Rehanissen Archive turns out to contain a great deal of disturbing information... and, of course, that is now the least of our worries. I am sobered myself, at the thought.
The Andorian, Shohl, sits in an attitude of dejection, her antennae drooping. She seems to have aged a decade or more.
The one exception, of course, is Pexlini, who is grinning cheerfully, her booted feet propped up on the conference table. I suppose I should be glad to see that someone is happy, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why.
"I'll... pass most of this on to the appropriate intelligence subcommittees and working groups," Admiral Hengest says, eventually. "There's a lot to consider. But our first priority has to be Kalevar Thrang."
"Agreed," says T'Laihhae. "Much of his existing organization is already under investigation - K-T MMA, and his known contacts in the Klingon and allied governments. At least, those contacts who are still... available."
The Chancellor acted promptly - but perhaps not prudently. The Nausicaan government must now send another ambassador, and the unfortunate Sgramash now serves as another reminder that J'mpok has lost none of his skill with a bat'leth. As for Commissioner Hrissaak... Ambassador S'taass had enough standing in the High Council to demand a duel of honour. And S'taass used nothing more than his own claws.
"The mercantile association will be - unravelled," says Hengest. "And between that, and the loss of his original network - the phage victims - Thrang must have received a serious setback." He shakes his head slowly. "I just wish I believed it was enough to stop him. If this genetic analysis is right... the man's a constant danger so long as he's alive."
"How advanced is his genetic augmentation?" I ask.
"Very up to date," says Hengest. "This isn't Eugenics Wars era gene-tweaking - Thrang's genome has been modified using some of the very latest techniques, and I can't even guess who by. We'll pursue every lead we've got, among the augment underground... but it won't be easy."
"We should make sure to share all available information," says T'Laihhae.
Hengest nods. "Absolutely."
"Damn right we should." Tylha Shohl speaks up for the first time. Her voice is flat and hoarse. Everyone turns to look at her. "Information," she spits. "Secrets. Well, we've just had an object lesson in how secrets work, haven't we? Thrang used the damned archive and the secrecy around it to play us all, to play me -" She is shouting, now. "He turned me into a weapon against the Federation and the Empire both! He wound me up like a clockwork toy and set me up to do his dirty work! When I think how close I came -" She stops. She draws in a deep, shuddering breath.
T'Laihhae is nodding, slowly. "Even now," she says, "I am not sure if your interception of the Yasan T'o was deliberately arranged, to make sure you knew you were in the right... or if it was an accident, and the Nausicaan ship was meant to disappear with its evidence... or if Thrang set out on purpose to make sure things worked for him either way. He is capable, I think, of such artistry."
Shohl glares at her. "Artistry," she snarls.
"Well," says Pexlini, "at least we jogged his elbow before he managed his finishing stroke, yeah? Gotta count for something." She pouts for a moment. "I'd be happier myself if Thrang was tucked up safe in Facility 4028, I admit -"
"Augments have broken out of that facility before now," mutters Shohl. She looks utterly dejected. I cannot blame her.
"Even so," Pexlini says, "it'd be a start." She swings her boots off the conference table, and stands up. "Anyway, I gotta leave you guys to do the high-level stuff, yeah? Decide which subcommittees get what, and all that. Me, I gotta get my own records in order. Got a whole bunch of combat logs to send in from the Dechenchholing." She grins at Shohl. "I never knew working for Experimental Engineering was gonna get this exciting."
Shohl just looks disgusted. Hengest sighs noisily. "I suppose I should prepare a report for the Federation Council -"
"And we should return to the Flotilla," says T'Laihhae. She turns her aloof gaze on me for a moment. "I will transmit a preliminary report - obviously, you can do nothing while your secure comms are offline. Probably, your best course of action is to return to Qo'noS at once."
"Yeah," says Pexlini, "though of course me and Heizis both have standing orders, now - if we want to visit the Great Hall, we gotta go to a service entrance, knock, and wait to be let in. Who'da figured J'mpok had a sense of humour, huh?"
---
Afterwards, Pexlini strolls with me, as I head towards the docking bay and my ship. It is not a matter, I think, of keeping an eye on a suspect Reman intelligence officer. Pexlini knows I am not an enemy. Not today, at least. Not with Kalevar Thrang at large in the galaxy.
No, Pexlini just wants to talk. I suspect she always wants to talk.
"So, the way I figure it," she says, "Thrang must have the bulk of his network on the KDF side of things. That's where he's been operating, as an Orion smuggler - and that's where most of the Rehanissen Archive info comes in, too. We gotta figure Thrang's kept copies of all that. Hell, with that hotwired brain of his, he could memorize it at a glance, I reckon. So, well, you gotta keep your ear to the ground over there, Heizis, ol' buddy."
"I will be one part of the intelligence effort, certainly," I say. "But Thrang is a formidable foe."
"Don't I know it. And, even if he's operating solo these days, I wish I knew more about whatever lab they cooked him up in. Federation Council'll feel the same way. You know how humans are, when it comes to genetic engineering. They get way antsy over it."
"Understandable, considering their history. The advantages it gives Thrang are... considerable."
"Yeah," says Pexlini. We are approaching the docking tube to my ship. "But we'll win anyway. See, we're the good guys."
"I admire your facile optimism," I say.
Pexlini stops walking. Her pale blue eyes meet mine, and for once they are serious, not lit by humour. "We are the good guys," she says, "and that is our advantage, and that is why we will beat Thrang."
I stare at her. "I... am not sure that I follow you," I say.
"Think about it. Why didn't Thrang's plan work? Because you and Ajbit trusted me, instead of throwing me straight in the brig like you should have done. Because J'mpok acted immediately when we gave him our word of honour, instead of waiting until the archive data was analysed and cross-checked. And, yeah, because Tylha did her duty as a Starfleet officer and tried to talk to the Nausicaans, instead of opening fire as soon as they came on her screen." Her voice is serious, too. "Trust. Honour. Duty. These things mean something to us, but to Thrang they're just words. They're things he can't plan for, things he can't quantify. They're our edge, and they're why we'll win, in the end."
"That," I say slowly, "and we had a great deal of luck."
Pexlini's habitual grin comes back. "Hey," she says, "you make your own luck in this game."
I think about it. She evidently believes what she's saying. "I... will consider this," I say.
"Yeah, you do that."
"One thing, though." I fix her with a glare. "Call me a good guy again, and I will extract your internal organs and eat them before your eyes."
If it fazes her, she does not show it. "Yeah, well," she says, with a broader grin yet, "OK. I trust you to do that."
And she turns, and swaggers away before I can think of a reply.
I am in a pensive mood as I make my way down the docking tube and into the comfortable dimness of the Palatine. N'aina and Bi'or are both at the airlock to greet me, datapads in their hands. Reports, details - there are always many details to attend to.
"We need those comms modules replaced, as a matter of urgency," says Bi'or. "But, sir -"
"What is it?"
"A transmission came through via Starfleet's system. Encoded in Reman commercial cipher, but I do not have authorization to disclose it to Starfleet. There is a mining colony at Kappa Lacertae, apparently in difficulties. From what I have decrypted so far, their life support systems are failing, and a rival Dopterian concern is making difficulties -"
"I see." I bare my teeth. "Then we will refit our secure comms at Qo'noS, with all possible speed - allowing for a detour to the Kappa Lacertae system."
"Yes, sir." Bi'or looks positively pleased.
The good guys, Pexlini calls us.
I have a horrible feeling that she might be right.
That's one of Thrang's failings, certainly. The other is that he thinks he can eliminate unpredictable elements - but every sapient being in the galaxy is an unpredictable element. That's the problem with free will.
That's one of Thrang's failings, certainly. The other is that he thinks he can eliminate unpredictable elements - but every sapient being in the galaxy is an unpredictable element. That's the problem with free will.
"Logic requires that your unstable element be eliminated!"
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
Comments
The Bajoran is tall, with a dark-skinned, squarish sort of face. She wears informal clothing, like all of Pexlini's crew - in this case, a short yellow dress. Her name is Umaro Ajbit, and, like so many Bajorans, she is angry. I have the distinct impression she would be kicking at the transporter console, were that not a breach of protocol.
"We need to get a line on the Admiral," she says. "We need to know what Thrang's done with her -"
"Reasonably," I point out, "we must assume the worst." She glares at me. It is true, but it is clearly the wrong thing to say.
She holds up a datapad. "I have all the data here that the Dechenchholing was able to gather on Thrang's warp signature." We are both assuming, only, that the ship was Thrang's, but never mind. Assume the worst. "I was thinking - your ship might have superior sensors, if we can maybe triangulate on the contrail -"
I shake my head. "A sound thought, but a futile one. Thrang's warp signature is unique and distinctive, true, but it is also... fleeting. His ship travels at such speed, the energy contrail from his drive is stretched, spread over a wide area. It will dissipate rapidly in the normal random eddies of subspace energy." No wonder, now, that Thrang's warp signature has proved so maddeningly elusive. Or that he has travelled so quickly to so many different places.
"We have to do something," Commander Umaro spits at me.
"No doubt. But what? Our last clue of any other kind was the invitation to Nali Caerodi -"
"Perhaps we should head there, then. All right, so it's a trap, but at least we know it's a trap -"
The intercom on the transporter console bleeps for attention. "Heizis," I say.
"Sir." E'Maon's voice. "We are receiving a subspace transmission - you should see it -"
I switch on the console's repeater screen. "Put it through."
The screen flashes, shows a holding pattern, then flashes again and a face is there. My eyes widen. "Yo!" says Pexlini. It is her - at least, the face is undoubtedly hers -
"Pexlini," I say. Commander Umaro shoulders me aside so that she, too, can stare at the screen. I would have words with her about that, but now is not the time.
"Heizis. Oh, hey, yeah, Ajbit, that'll make things easier," says Pexlini. Or whoever is using the Talaxian's face... though it certainly sounds like her, too. "Listen, I couldn't get you guys on secure comms, right?"
"Our secure comms units were compromised during the virus attack," I say. And, since our agreements included information sharing between the Republic and the KDF... the loss of our secure links with Imperial Intelligence also cuts us off from Republic Intelligence. A nuisance.
"'kay, so I can't go into, like, details or anything. Maybe just as well. Anyway, listen. I'm at Nali Caerodi, so, y'know, can you come and pick me up?"
"Nali Caerodi?" I am nonplussed. "That was... our first thought of where to go next -"
"Terrific, so I'm not interfering with your plans. Yay. Now how quick can you get here?"
Commander Umaro speaks up. "At maximum warp, perhaps a little over three days. But, sir, there's Starfleet liaison at the shipyards, you can get help from them, surely?" Her tone is suspicious.
"Yeah," says Pexlini. "Three days, yeebles. 'kay, I can hold still for three days, assuming some Hupyrians don't get a whiff of me or something. But, listen. I'm kinda-sorta dealing with a Starfleet contact, but I wanna hold off making any sort of official connection, just for a bit. Well, for the next three days, I guess. Can you do that? I mean, yeah, I know I gotta check in eventually, but, well, it'd be good if I could do it a bit late. I'll explain when you get here, honest I will."
"There is going," I say, "to be a great deal to explain."
"Oh, yeeps, don't I know it. But you know I can't explain on an open channel, yeah?"
This, at least, is true. "I can make no reports to my superiors in any event," I say. "Not before our secure comms are reinstalled. Commander Umaro -"
"I'll hold off," says the Bajoran. She glares at the screen. "You better be Pex, and you better be right, and you better have one hell of a good explanation."
"Yeah, well, I'll work on that, 'kay?" She glances at something off the screen. "Better go. I got stuff cooking, here, and anyway this call is burning my available credit at a rate of knots. Speak to DaiMon Prago when you get here, all right? See you soon. I hope." The screen goes blank.
I look hard at the Bajoran. She returns my gaze levelly. "It may very well be a trap," I say.
"If it's bait," she replies, "we have to take it."
"Will you do as she says? Not inform your superiors?"
"I shouldn't." Her gaze moves to the darkened screen. "But - if that really is Pex, she must have her reasons."
She is looking for some reason to comply. I am curious, myself - I will give her an excuse. "This is supposed to be a joint operation. Starfleet should not be informed of developments ahead of the Republic and the KDF. I should require you to wait, until I have re-established my own secure communications."
She darts a sharp glance at me. "I... see," she says slowly. She accepts the pretext for what it is. "Very well, sir."
---
The trip to Nali Caerodi is - not eventful. It gives me time to brood, but my brooding brings me to no meaningful conclusions.
I am not in the best of humours when our ships crash out of subspace and into the chaos of the Ferengi orbital shipyards. Hundreds of orbital modules competing for space and attention, a dozen incompatible traffic-control systems vying for authority, ships and work bees zipping in all directions... typically Ferengi. The Dechenchholing and the Palatine cruise through the confusion with sleek menace and authority.
In all the shouting on the comms channels, one signal draws us to a particular module. We dock the Palatine, while the Dechenchholing stands off the station a little way - weapons banks ready to charge.
Umaro and I meet Pexlini in the docking tube. Her coveralls are torn at some of the seams, and there is a medical monitor pasted beside a half-healed gash on her head, and she looks bizarrely cheerful. "Hey, guys," she says. She waves a datapad at us.
Umaro is scanning with a tricorder. "Biometrics check out," she says guardedly.
"Yeah, well, they kinda would, seeing as how I'm, yanno, me," says Pexlini. "Now listen -"
"How did you escape from Thrang?" The Bajoran's voice is iron.
"I didn't. He let me go. Now listen -"
"He let you go." Umaro reaches for the weapon at her hip.
"Yeah, he let me go. Because he figured you'd be thinking exactly what you are thinking, that he's brainwashed me or replaced me with a doppelganger or whatever. Now listen. I had plenty of time to think about all this. OK, that asynchronous-subassimilated hybrid drive of his is fast, but he had me in a cell, I had nothing to do but think."
Umaro and I exchange glances. "Keep talking," the Bajoran says.
"I was gonna. OK, so, what's the only way I can prove Thrang hasn't turned me? The only way I can see, is if I take him down."
"And just how," I ask, "do you propose to do that?"
"I got ideas," says Pexlini. "And I got friends." She indicates the torn seams of her coverall. "Intelligence issue, it comes with little reserves, enough to buy me some Ferengi friends. And before Thrang sent me here, I scratched his face."
"And what did that accomplish?" I ask.
"Tissue samples," says Pexlini, and holds up the datapad. "Under my fingernails. I got to thinking, and I figured, Thrang can't just be an Orion smuggler. He's too good and he thinks too big. We salvaged enough cells to put together a coding-molecule profile, it looks like DNA, but DaiMon Prago ain't got the computing power for a full genetic workup. We're pretty sure he's not a Changeling or an Undine, but we don't know what he is, yet."
"That... might make sense," I say. "KDF security starts by looking for Orion biometric signatures, and if Thrang is not actually Orion -"
"Right," says Pexlini. "So I figure your ship, or even mine, has enough computer power to parse his DNA and tell us what he is. Because I figure that's important. The other thing is, whatever he is, we gotta catch him."
Umaro draws her phaser, and rams the emitter grid into Pexlini's face. "All right," she says. "I'll admit, you're making sense, and you sound like Pex. But if you're playing us, I swear, I will kill you myself."
Pexlini appears completely unfazed. "Fair 'nough," she says. "You wanna hear the rest of it?"
"Keep talking," Umaro says.
"'kay. We got one big problem - Thrang's ship is fast. But there's gotta be some reason we don't combine the two transwarp systems, yeah? That drive of his has gotta be finicky. Delicate. We figure out some way to knock it out, we can catch Thrang."
"We would have to find him first," I point out.
"I got a plan there, too," says Pexlini. "I figured a way we can make him come to us. Put him in a situation where he has to come looking in his souped-up ship." She positively grins at me, past the end of the Bajoran's phaser. "You and me, buddy, we're gonna be pirates."
Well it seems that Thrang didn't count on Pex telling everyone exactly what he was planning, and for some reason, forgot that his face probably yields DNA if scratched. I say "probably" because I have a nasty suspicion that he planned for that too. Hopefully I'm wrong, I'd prefer that Pex survives relatively unharmed.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Yeah, that's more accurate than what I wrote.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Quinn's face looks like it's been carved from stone. Or maybe not even carved; eroded, perhaps, by the terrible forces that have been at work in this galaxy for so many years now. He sits brooding behind his desk, and gazes down at the PADD, and says nothing for a long, long time.
At last, he speaks. "How sure are you about this, Tylha?"
"The intelligence is sound, sir," I reply. "You can see the sources I've used -"
Quinn sighs, a rasping sound in the air. It's a quiet day on Spacedock. I can hear a few bleeps and whistles from distant consoles, the occasional far-off sound of voices... but Quinn's sigh is very loud. He looks away from the PADD, away from me. I can't tell what he is looking at. Whatever it is, he doesn't like it much.
"There is a question," he says, in slow, reluctant tones, "over your own personal involvement -"
I let some frost leak into my own voice. "Whatever my personal involvement, sir, the people of Gimel Vessaris are Federation citizens. They have a right to Starfleet protection. Just because they know me, and they've gone through me to ask for it, doesn't make their claim any less valid. Sir."
Quinn picks the PADD off the desk, glances at it, lets it fall back with a clatter. "You're convinced the threat is credible, then."
"Nausicaan force movements in the vicinity indicate they're gathering for something. And the Nausicaans, and this Gorn ally of theirs, Commissioner Hrissaak, are presenting their case to the Klingon High Council for support. And - maybe most telling of all - former governor Gvochkorr is missing from Rura Penthe."
Quinn nods slowly. "It all seems suggestive, certainly."
I want to slam my hand down on his desk and yell at him. I resist the urge. "Sir, the Nausicaans' evidence - as regards the treaty status of the Gimel Vessaris system, when it was first colonized - sir, it's faked. We know this, we can prove this. We've examined the data cores of the Nausicaan vessel, the Yasan T'o - the one this Hrissaak was trying to capture. Their records don't match the data the Nausicaans are presenting now. Sir, the Nausicaans have no legitimate claim to that system, and they never have."
Demarcation lines, boundary lines - they're hard to draw, in space. There are no geographical features, at any scale that's worth talking about, and everything is in motion, as planets whirl about suns and every star system does its stately billion-year dance around the galactic core. Gimel Vessaris is a class M world lying close to trade routes between several major Nausicaan colony worlds; it's a strategic location, and one which made it desirable for the Nausicaans - and made it important for us to take it back, during the war. But the treaties with the Klingons and the Nausicaans specify boundaries, in the best terms we can manage - current stellar relationships, isographic contour lines mapped out in subspace, things like that.
Marking the boundary lines is complicated... but it's not ambiguous, for all that. Gimel Vessaris lies in Federation territory. It always has. The Nausicaans are presenting data to the High Council, data which they say contradicts that. But I have records - most importantly, the records from the Yasan T'o. Those records prove that the initial Nausicaan conquest of Gimel Vessaris - the raid that killed my fathers and made me an exile - was a straightforward raid, an act of conquest by force majeure, nothing more.
"Commissioner Hrissaak has replaced Ambassador S'taass on Qo'noS," says Quinn. "Whatever his arrangement with the Nausicaans, he's close to the Chancellor, now. He can make himself heard in the High Council."
My nostrils flare. I keep my voice under control with difficulty. "The High Council will change its mind once he's been caught in a lie, sir." One thing I have to concede about the Klingons: they don't like liars.
"Klingons are Klingons," says Quinn. "If the High Council is persuaded to back a show of force... it will be very difficult to talk them into backing down from it."
"The High Council are realists, sir. The KDF took appalling losses during the Iconian War, just as we did. They can't afford another large-scale conflict just now, however much the warrior ethic might demand it. We can prove the Nausicaans are lying, and the Klingons won't throw their lives away for someone else's lie."
"We can't afford large-scale conflict any more than the Klingons can," says Quinn. "We're still rebuilding - you know we're still rebuilding. Oh, I grant you, our internal economy is more resilient, we are probably gaining ground faster than the Klingons... but we still have a very long way to go."
"We have to hope it won't come to an open conflict, sir. We can send in the Diplomatic Corps, present our side of things to the High Council, catch Hrissaak in his lies, and defuse this whole situation. But, sir, we have to consider the possibility - the likelihood, in fact - that the Nausicaans will try to jump the gun. Pre-empt the High Council's decision by presenting them with a fait accompli. It's going to be a lot harder to persuade the Klingons to give the system back once it's already been taken. Besides -" and anger breaks through my self-control to edge my voice "- I've seen what a Nausicaan invasion is like! First hand, up close and very personal! Sir, we cannot subject the colonists to that!"
"So what do you suggest?" Quinn asks.
I bring myself back under control. "As you say, sir, we're not in a good position, militarily. I think it's important, in this situation, not to show any weakness. We should send in a task force with the objective of defending the Gimel Vessaris system. That is my considered opinion, sir. Faced with the prospect of a substantial battle, the Nausicaans will back off, and give us time to pursue the diplomatic options."
"What if the KDF commits its full support to the Nausicaans?" says Quinn.
"It's a risk, sir. That's why the task force has to be substantial. We need to show the KDF we're prepared to make a stand, too. They're as well aware of their current weakness as we are, they won't want an all-out war for the sake of some very questionable Nausicaan demands. If we show them the system is strongly held... we can, at least, hold off war until the diplomats can get to work on the High Council."
"I don't like it, Tylha," says Quinn. "The KDF will be thinking along the same lines as you. They know they're weak, so they will want to look strong. This situation has the potential to blow up in our faces."
"I know, sir. But the alternative... isn't acceptable. We cannot abandon Federation citizens to Nausicaan aggression. We just can't do that, sir. Part of Starfleet's mandate is to defend our citizens."
Quinn's face looks a thousand years old.
"Yes," he says. "Unfortunately, you're right." He picks up the PADD. "Coordinate with Logistics Command on the resources you'll require. Tenth and Twelfth Reserve Fleets are within your operational radius already, you can take their full resources to Gimel Vessaris. Talk to Tactical Command about crew requirements... and, God help us all, contingency battle plans."
"Yes, sir." I salute. "Experimental Engineering has combat-ready ships on hand. I'll supplement the reserve fleets with those."
"I hope I don't need to impress on you," says Quinn, "the importance of... not actually using those resources."
"No, sir. All ships will have strict instructions. Fire only if fired upon, or if necessary to defend Federation citizens."
"Yes," says Quinn. "I suppose that will have to do."
---
I'm going through the long, long lists of logistics requirements, later, when the call comes through. "On screen."
The face on my desk console is Pexlini's. "Hey," she says, "how's it going?"
"I'm busy." I frown. "I haven't had any status updates from you in a while -"
"Oh, yeah, well, paperwork, yanno? It'll get filed, trust me. Anyway. Needed your specialist knowledge."
"My what?"
"Engineering, kinda thing. You know about experimental warp drives, right? Tell me why we don't use combination asynchronous warp and Borg-style subtranswarp."
"What?" My antennae twitch. "Pexlini. Where are you, and what is all this about?"
"Deep space, and catching Kalevar Thrang. Why don't we combine those two super-fast drive systems for one that's super-duper-fast?"
"Because it would be hellishly complicated and finicky. Either one of those systems requires constant in-use adjustment by highly trained specialist engineers. That's why we don't use them as standard - we simply don't have enough personnel available to fit those drives and run them in every ship of the fleet."
"OK, but we don't use any ships with both drive systems, am I right?"
"Sure. The warp coil geometries aren't compatible. You would actually have to build two separate drive systems into the ship, and then the warp fields they generate aren't compatible either, outside a very narrow range of frequencies - frequencies at the lower end of the subspace harmonic scale. You could only build a small ship with both drives, and most of it would be the drives. Besides, actually coordinating the two systems so that they synergised - that's a whole different level of finicky. It'd take an engineering genius to do it, and constant maintenance to keep it going."
"So we add engineering genius to Thrang's list of talents. OK, gotcha. So, if you had a small, very fast ship like this, and you did enough damage to its warp nacelles -?"
"Pretty much anything that causes a power spike would knock the synchronization out. You would only get the benefits of one of the drive systems, until you repaired and re-tuned the engines. For that matter, there's a whole range of subspace harmonics where the fields actually interfere with each other - knock either drive into that range, and you'd be lucky to make better than warp two."
"Oh, that sounds good. Can you send me some tech specs on that, kinda thing?"
I sigh. "I'm a little busy here."
"It's important." Pexlini's voice goes hard and flat. "I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't important."
"OK. Let me see what I've got. You're using those corrosive-plasma weapons, which will help a bit...." I turn to the main computer console, pull up records, discussions, theoretical papers. It's a complex issue, but it's one that's been argued about several times in Experimental Engineering. Several of the blue-sky thinkers are huge fans of over-complicated drive systems, and I've heard all the arguments for... and against.
"Right," I say, eventually. "Transmitting the theoretical studies over your data channel now. Your engineering staff will be able to work out the re-tuning for your weapons systems - don't forget, you will lose some overall weapons power while you're generating the specialist effect."
"That don't worry me. Much," says Pexlini. "Thrang's ship isn't big, if it can't run, it can't put up too much of a fight. I hope. Thanks, Tylha."
"Are you planning on giving me a full progress report any time soon?"
"Technically, I sorta can't, right now, on account of my KDF contact can't turn her reports in, and we can't have Starfleet knowing what the KDF doesn't. In a combined operation. Technically."
I glare at her. If things go wrong, we could be at war with the KDF soon. But I can't say that out loud. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I think so. OK, talk to you soon. Pex out."
I continue to glare at the blank screen. I may not have much experience in Starfleet Intelligence, but I think I know when an operative is up to something. I hope it's something useful.
Then I turn back to the logistics sheets. Never mind Pexlini. I hope I know what I'm doing.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
"Everything ready down there?" I call down to Unity. The android flashes me a thumbs-up sign from the piloting seat. Sometimes, the design of this Hazari bridge drives me crazy. I mean I can't get down into the pilot's compartment without banging my head, most of the time, and I'm way smaller than your average Hazari. Then again, it could have sound pragmatic reasons - like, maybe, better not disturb the guy who's driving unless it's really worth banging your head over it, kind of thing.
Anyway. I guess that's not really all that important.
"Contact in five minutes," Ajbit mutters at me. I sit back on the command chair and try to look cool and composed and in charge.
"OK, then," I say. "Everyone all set?"
"You had better be right about this, Pex," Ajbit hisses at me. "What we're doing now is technically illegal - no, never mind that, actually illegal."
"So, OK, well, that's why we're a deniable asset, yeah? Push comes to shove, the only person who gets to go to jail is me." Ajbit shakes her head. She knows darn well I'm wrong about that.
"Convoy ID confirmed," Hal Welti calls out, and adds, "Alea iacta est."
We are seriously gonna do this. OK. I try to fight back the nerves. Wouldn't do to panic before the shooting starts.
"Unity, steer three five seven mark three eight two, maximum combat speed. Hal, Voesyy, get ready to jam subspace transmissions on my mark. Veb, you know what to aim for, right?"
"I make lots of holes, but not where people live," says Vebanillo. She flexes her fingers over the weapons console. If I was one of our targets, I really wouldn't like the way she did that.
"Moving to intercept." Unity's voice, at least, is nerveless.
Seconds race by. Dechenchholing's engines thrum with power. The civilian ships on the screen look like toys... toys I'm just about to break.
"Weapons range in ten," Ajbit reports.
"OK. Comms, put me on their screens." I take a deep breath and try to look all butch and piratical and stuff.
"Hailing frequencies open," says Hal. "Response packets coming back.... You're on."
"Great. Hi, there," I say. "Merchant convoy, comprising vessels - oh, I ain't got time to read all the names, yanno? This is what they call a hold-up. Hand over your valuables."
A face appears on the viewscreen. Green with black hair, good-looking... Orion. "This is Captain Dyessana aboard the SS Makrug," she says. "Raider vessel, be advised we hold a protection contract with K-T MMA. You don't want the sort of trouble hitting us will cause you."
"I don't? I got a battery of plasma cannons here says different, sister." Dyessana's eyes go round at that. Thrang's had time to spread rumours, rumours about just how effective a K-T MMA contract is. Right now, my job is to kick the bricks out from under those rumours. "Any chance I can see some surrendering going on, like, in the next five seconds or so? 'Cause otherwise, it's gonna get kinda noisy around here."
"You wouldn't dare!" She's starting to look panicky. "There are agreements - you're in breach of free trade treaties between the Federation, the Empire, the Ferengi -"
"Hey. Talaxian, sister. Look at the spots. I ain't bothered much about this side of the galaxy. But, if you're not surrendering -" I make a throat-cutting gesture at Hal. The screen goes blank.
"Jamming subspace. And we're in weapons range," says Hal.
"Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum," I say. "Veb. Hole-making time."
Vebanillo hits the tactical console like she's launching into Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. White gold sparks flash from the Dechenchholing's cannons. The lead freighter's shields flare, then waver, then drop. I lean forward. Now's the time I find out if my Pakled tac officer is as good as she's enthusiastic.
The next cannon barrage lets go at point blank range, and stitches blazing ruin across the freighter's hull. Veb is good, she's hitting exactly where I want her to. The cannon bolts aren't burning into the forward command section, or the drives, or the crew quarters. They are, instead, tearing huge holes in the freighter's cargo pods, spilling their contents out and across the sky. Bulk deuterium from one module, refined ores in another.... the corrosive-plasma cannons are meant to punch right through reinforced military-grade hull armour; what they do to a commercial freight pod, I wouldn't do to a dog.
The freighter's crew is safe enough. But the cargo, the stuff they want to make a profit on - that's being sprayed out into space by the kiloton. The idea is not to kill them. The idea is to hurt.
"Remaining convoy ships are scattering," Hal calls out.
"Awright. Had enough of this one, anyway. Get me a line on the next closest, and, oh, yeah, give Heizis a call."
Dechenchholing wheels gracefully away from the lead freighter. A disruptor beam stabs out from its command section, enough to irritate our shields, no more. "Let 'em have their temper tantrum," I tell Veb. "Concentrate on the next one."
"Got it. Targeting locked," says Veb.
We're coming up on the next freighter hard and fast, from the front. My fingers twitch, reflexively, as the targeting reticules light up. Veb is fast, again. The shields go down, and Dechenchholing streaks over the freighter's spine in a textbook-perfect strafing run, leaving every single one of the ship's cargo holds ruptured and venting behind us.
"One more," I say, and we heel over hard as Unity sends us in pursuit of another victim.
"More ships warping out," says Hal. The rest of the freighters are fleeing in all directions as fast as they can.
Not that it works for all of them. One big bulk carrier is aligning itself for the nearest starbase... and space ripples and shimmers beside it, and suddenly the Palatine comes into view, her plasma arrays blazing with green fire. Heizis, too, is using her guns with surgical precision, cutting out the cargo pods without touching the crew or the engines. Very expensive dust sprays out of the carrier's punctured hull.
We have our own next target, now, and our cannons smash straight through its holds and out the other side. Flames blossom and bloom around it. Whatever it was carrying was either naturally volatile, or needed to be kept in an atmosphere. Nervously, I shoot a questioning glance at Voesyy. "No life signs ceasing to register," the Rigelian assures me. "Looks like complex hydrocarbons in the cargo, that's all." I start to relax a bit.
"Four ships with heavy damage," Voesyy continues, "the rest have warped out."
"Awright, looks like we've done all we can right now," I say. "Hal, drop the jamming and get me Captain Dyessana again, willya?"
It takes a couple of minutes. The Orion captain, when she comes up on the screen, does not look like a happy camper.
"Y'know," I say, "I ain't got a particularly big ship, here, right? Filling my cargo hold, that's gotta work out a lot cheaper than letting me empty yours. Might wanna bear that in mind, next time we run into each other - and, sister, depend on it, there's gonna be a next time."
"You," Dyessana spits, "are dead. You are so dead you are going to need three graves, you -"
"Yeah, yeah, K-T MMA. Lemme tell you something, sister, those five letters don't mean squat in today's galaxy. See you around. Me, I got another appointment to keep today." And we close the channel.
---
Space is big. Biggest thing there is. That doesn't stop us hitting another K-T MMA convoy within the next forty-eight hours.
Everybody's got an edge. Thrang's edge is his super-fast hybrid drive. My edge is... a little different. But it's good enough.
Once upon a time, there was a Federation colony world called Bercera IV. It got blasted to ruins by a Klingon renegade, as part of an over-complicated plot by a High Councillor to stop the war. Thing is, the tricobalt weapons used to destroy that world were routed through an illicit Ferengi transwarp gateway network. And that network was owned and run by DaiMon Prago, out of Nali Caerodi, and when he found out what he'd helped to do... well, even Ferengi have consciences.
Prago figures he owes the Federation for what he helped to do. Giving us full access to his transwarp gates, that's his way of paying off some of the debt. And it means Heizis and I can use those gates, can hit Thrang's shipping faster, in more different places, than any conventional force could hope to do.
"I hope you know what you are doing," Heizis says to me over the comms channel, after we leave the next convoy picking up the pieces and yelling for help.
"Sure I do. Dent Thrang's invulnerable image hard enough, he has to come running, yeah?"
"If news gets to him in time, before his plans come to fruition." Heizis's eyes are dark and smouldering. "I do not like these parameters for engagement, either. Safer and simpler just to destroy the convoy vessels -"
"No." There are lines I can't cross, and lines I just won't, and sacrificing innocent civilian lives to lure Thrang out, that one's both. "We need survivors to spread the news, right? As many survivors as we can get. Every drunk in a spaceport bar, telling people he was in one of Thrang's convoys that got hit - that's another blow at Thrang, and we need all of those."
"I see your logic," Heizis spits. Guess Remans don't go much on the taste of logic. "Well. We have intelligence on the next convoy leaving Alliance space." Good old DaiMon Prago again. "Plotting intercept points now. By the way -" Something seems to be preying on her mind.
"What?" I ask.
"An anomalous result in the analysis of Thrang's tissue," she says with a snarl. "We have made substantial progress with the sequencing of his genome. But the current results -"
"Something you don't recognize?" I knew the guy was some kind of a freak.
"We have gene sequences... we could analyse them ourselves, given time. But these specific sequences are - flagged. They are known, they are recognized... and the reference is to Federation Intelligence. Your people's genetic warfare research division."
"What? OK, transmit that data. We've got a whole raft of Intelligence data libraries over here, we should be able to check that out. At the least, it'll save you some time on completing the analysis."
---
It doesn't take long to flip through the transwarp gates, to find ourselves back on the fringes of Ferengi Alliance space, and hunting down the next set of freighters flying the K-T MMA flag.
I just hope not too many other people are getting in on our act. My guess is that Thrang has been priming local governments and free-range pirates to hit everyone else but his freighters... if enough people get my message, that the K-T MMA affiliation isn't a magic shield against adversity, they will start hitting Thrang's freighters too. Which may put a bit of a monkey wrench in Thrang's plans, true, but it won't bring him to me, which is what I need.
The new convoy is passing only a couple of light years from the transwarp gate. If I was a pirate for real, I'd let this one go - it's too predictable a target, hitting it shows Thrang where I am and how I'm getting about. The danger is, of course, that he knows that. The danger is, he might throw this convoy under the bus, and refuse to come out and play, knowing that I'm deliberately baiting him.
I'm gambling that won't work. I'm gambling that, even if he does know I'm goading him, he still can't afford all the dents I'm putting in his invulnerable image, he will have to stop me. Doesn't matter how many moves ahead he can think, if I know the moves he's got to make. I think chess players call it Zugzwang or something.
God, I wish I was playing chess, it'd be so much simpler.
"Convoy on long-range sensors," says Voesyy. "Something else, too." She leans forward, over her console, peering hard at something on the screen. "Extra blips. Low mass reading, high power signatures. Escorts."
"OK." Muscle, hired muscle of some kind - Orion, Thexemian, whatever. Someone in that convoy is kicking for more protection than the K-T MMA name, possibly. "Get as much data on them as you can when we go in. Hal, contact Heizis, make sure she knows the situation. Gonna have to play hardball, if it's armed ships."
"We still only make holes in cargo, of freighters," says Veb. I don't think she's asking me, I think she's telling me. Good for her.
"Darn right. But anyone tries making holes in us, we hole 'em right back."
"Emissions signatures coming through now. Transmitting to the Palatine." Voesyy's voice is level. "Two Orion warships, Dacoit class."
My nostrils flare, because something about this situation smells. Dacoits... two of 'em... good enough to look like security, yeah, to a freighter captain. But can two Dacoits put up enough of a fight to frighten me off? Against my ship and Heizis's, they don't stand too much of a chance.
Unless they get help. "Oh, boy," I say softly. "I think this is it. Look sharp, everyone."
"We're entering their long-range sensor envelope now," says Vo. At least, the Dechenchholing is. Palatine has already faded into the starscape, and won't be showing up on anyone's sensors until Heizis feels like decloaking.
"OK. Battle stations." Somehow I feel better with the alarms sounding.
"On approach to freighters. Escorts are moving... closing at high impulse, looks like maximum combat speed," Vo reports. "And - sheesh!" She actually jumps out of her seat, staring at the sudden riot of lights on her console. "What the hell's that?"
"Filter out deliberate jamming, flares, all that malarkey," I tell her. "I'm guessing you've just seen one heck of a jolt coming out of subspace."
Voesyy's fingers dance across the scan console. "Confirmed," she says. "Subspace transition... coming out of transwarp and quantum slipstream... equivalent of warp fifty at least." She looks round at me, her eyes hard. "And we have one more ship signature. Low mass, massive emissions profile."
Only one guy that could be. Kalevar Thrang just took the bait.
"Awright," I say. "Game on."
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
"Maintain cloak. Steer seven five mark two."
Palatine swings around, aiming herself towards the nearer of the two Orion cruisers. I am hoping to decloak at point-blank range and catch the Dacoit before it has time to deploy its fighter screen. The Dacoits are not particularly powerful vessels - but they are dangerous enough, with support from the unknown quantity that is Thrang's ship.
"Get me what you can on that vessel," I add, probably superfluously. The blast of sensor noise as Thrang came out of warp was... alarming. It must have yielded some information, though.
"Unfamiliar design," says E'Maon. "Somewhere around a Risian corvette in size, but hull configuration is different... warp nacelles in vertical rather than horizontal configuration... engines are massive...."
"Optimum firing range in fifteen seconds," Kaxath interrupts. So far, things are going to plan. Orion interceptors are shooting from the Dacoits' launch bays, but they are staying close to the ships, protected by the motherships' shields... that will not last long... so, before it changes....
"Decloak and fire, maximum output."
Palatine shimmers into visibility with her plasma arrays blazing. The Dacoit has shields up, but they are not good enough, not against us, at this range. Our beams smash through to ravage the cruiser's hull. Interceptors scatter in random directions. Our torpedo strikes home against the Dacoit's rear hull, and fragments of vaporizing armour plate scatter through space.
"Hard about, one zero two mark zero. Arrays to independent fire."
Blasts of green-hot light stab out in all directions from the Palatine, swatting at fleeing Orion fighters. The Dacoit is shooting back, disruptor light snapping at our shields. The ship is badly damaged, though, its power levels dropping as secondary explosions and plasma fires propagate inside its hull. If this were a conventional action, I would take the time to destroy it.
This is not a conventional action. "Target the other cruiser! Support the Talaxian!"
Dechenchholing is wheeling around, trying to keep a targeting lock on Thrang's fast-moving ship. The white-gold bolts from the Hazari ship's cannons do not look any different, but I know they have been re-tuned to the emission frequencies needed to damage Thrang's exotic drive systems. If Pexlini can land enough shots with those guns, we can cripple the renegade and finish him at leisure. But it means the Dechenchholing's actual damage output is severely restricted. Our job is to keep Thrang's forces off Pexlini's back, long enough for her to finish the job.
Green fire slashes across space. The other Dacoit is at extreme effective range, but its shields still flare and flicker at the touch of our plasma beams. Palatine hurtles across the gap, closing to killing range. There is still disruptor fire coming from the damaged cruiser, from its surviving interceptors... not enough to hurt us, only to irritate our aft screen.
We will have to finish this before that ship makes repairs, though. "Singularity charge," I order. Palatine shudders as the charge fires. An incautious interceptor, blundering into the path of the destabilized singularity, vanishes in a spray of debris - and then the Dacoit is wallowing in a sudden storm of twisted space and random energies, as the charge strikes home. My plasma arrays flail at the cruiser's weakening shields.
"Something's happening," says E'Maon. "Thrang's ship has deployed... some sort of drones, I think."
Even at sublight speeds, Thrang's ship is fast - Pexlini is hunting him doggedly, but most of her cannon barrage is simply missing his ship, as it flits effortlessly between one evasion pattern and another. And now things are flying free from it, separating, turning towards Pexlini -
Disruptor beams scorch through space, and the Dechenchholing's shields flare under the impact. Whatever those drones are, they pack quite a punch.
"Steer three zero eight mark three seven nine. All arrays to independent fire. Clear those auxiliaries!"
The two Dacoits are badly damaged now, slow and hard to handle. If we can shoot down the fighters, we can draw Thrang away from the cruisers' support range, can engage him and finish him. My arrays blaze into life again. The interceptors are fast and nimble, but my gunners are good. Fighters explode in bursts of flame, or streak away towards the safety of the cruisers, trailing debris and leaking air from hull breaches.
Then there is an impact I feel, on my own bridge. The deckplates tremble, and a console spits sparks from a transient overload.
"We're being targeted by one of Thrang's drones," says Kaxath. "It's swinging round - on our tail - can't seem to shake it -"
"Reinforce rear shields! Coordinate aft arrays, finish the damned thing!"
These drones are starting to worry me. They are faster even than the Orion interceptors, and it is hard, very hard, to get a targeting lock. I switch to the tactical analysis screen on my console, but the readings do not make sense. "What are those things?" I snarl.
There is another impact, another flash of brilliant sparks on the bridge. "Trying to get a read now," says E'Maon.
"Aft shield at fifty-six per cent," says N'aina. "Some hull damage - structural integrity at ninety-five per cent, holding. Damage control teams away."
Pexlini has deployed a drone of her own, a Hazari shield drone. She needs it - the Dechenchholing's shields are in tatters. And Thrang's ship is staying obstinately out of her primary arc of fire.
A dot on the tactical screen flashes and dies. "Got it!" says Kaxath, with a note of relief.
"Target Thrang!" I order.
I am not sure this is the right move. The Dacoits are making repairs, regaining their mobility; the remaining interceptors are falling into a battle formation. And Thrang still has one drone, hammering at Pexlini's shields. I am beginning to worry, now.
"I have an analysis," says E'Maon.
"Target in range. Firing," says Kaxath.
"Quickly," I tell E'Maon.
He nods. "They're based on Andorian cannon drones, but heavily modified. Confirm no life signs aboard, but tactical analysis shows intelligent, autonomous direction. They're AI-run weapons platforms."
Another reason to worry. Such things are well within the capabilities of Starfleet, the Klingons, the Republic... but most of us are understandably wary of building homicidal robots capable of independent thought. Thrang, apparently, has no such compunctions. And with no need for organic crews, these drones can skimp on inertial dampeners, do without life support... and use the space and power for extra weapons systems.
My plasma beams are stabbing at Thrang's ship. Close enough to work up a glow from his shields... not close enough to count as an actual hit. The Orion interceptors are closing -
Then the interceptors are caught up and tossed aside in a sudden flare of energy. A Hazari shockwave blast mine, evidently part of the Dechenchholing's weapons systems. It buys us time, time for my plasma beams to sear out again at Thrang's maddeningly elusive ship.
"Thrang is launching more drones!" Kaxath yells.
Two more icons separate from Thrang's ship, turn and dart away at incredible speeds. And he has another still active - and now, that one turns as well. Within a few seconds, it is apparent who the target is. Us.
Disruptors flame green against the Palatine's shields, and those shields are suddenly wavering, failing, energy levels dropping. Damage icons bloom across my console, and the lights on the bridge flicker, and the flash-bangs of overloaded consoles are blending into a solid roar. The drones are closing in, closing fast, on a random-walk pattern that defeats my targeting predictors. At this rate they will kill us in minutes.
I have one chance. "Reinforce shields!" Let them have, not minutes, but more seconds, to get closer. Try to ignore the wounds to my ship, the wailing of alarms, the indicators for damage and casualties. "Beam arrays to independent targeting... and.... Plasma shockwave now!"
Overspill energy from the singularity core, vented as high-energy plasma - vented in all directions, a short-range sphere of destruction that I do not even need to aim. Thrang's battle drones are knocked tumbling and flaming away - and, with their drives temporarily disabled, they are not tumbling randomly enough to evade my targeting, to escape the green beams of destruction that burn them out of space.
It works better than I had hoped. Thrang's ship is caught on the fringe of the blast - he has not been hit hard enough to cause significant damage, but he has been knocked out of his current evasion pattern. And before he can resume his drunkard's walk across the sky, Dechenchholing drops neatly into his rear arc, and unleashes a sustained barrage of white-gold cannon fire. Thrang's shields flare - and his hull. There are fires and flashing energy discharges from those oversized warp nacelles.
"We have him," I whisper.
Thrang's impulse engines glow brightly with a deliberate overload, flinging him clear of the battle zone. I need no instructions to pursue. The lumbering shapes of the battered Dacoits, the freighters quietly fleeing in the background - these do not matter. Only Thrang is important.
Thrang's nacelles flare again. He has gone to warp. "Follow him," I order. I am relieved to discover that is possible. My damage control board makes for sad reading, but my core systems remain operational - Palatine is still in the fight.
"Message from Dechenchholing," reports N'aina.
"On screen."
Pexlini appears on the viewer. "It worked," she said. "He's running at a shade under warp two, and spitting out a warp contrail you could track from here to Andromeda. We're reconfiguring weapons for normal firing mode now."
"Your plans?"
"Pursue at warp, generate a phase harmonic to knock him back out of subspace, then blast him up good and proper before he can deploy any more of those drones. Man, those things packed a wallop. You good for that?"
"We are still operational. The intention remains to take Thrang alive?"
"Thrang will surrender before it looks like he's getting dead. Guy's a pragmatist, he ain't gonna be king among the ruins if he's dead. Whatever that means." Pexlini glances off-screen. "Course projection says, intercept in two minutes. Ready?"
"Ready. Palatine out."
Thrang has a head start - but with his scrambled warp drive, we will overtake him in short order. I bare my teeth. I will pay the renegade back for the harm he has done - to my ship and crew, to the galaxy as a whole.
"I have him on sensors," says Kaxath. "That's interesting. He's heading for the transwarp gate."
"Perhaps he has the command codes for it - it would not surprise me. He will not reach it, though."
"General hail on subspace from Dechenchholing."
Pexlini's voice comes through, slightly raddled by subspace static. "Kalevar Thrang. Remember you made me a proposition? I'm gonna make you one back, now; surrender, and you'll get a fair trial." Oh, that Starfleet idealism.
"In position to generate phase harmonic in ten seconds - wait." E'Maon checks his console. "Thrang is dropping out of warp."
Trying to save any further damage to his drives from the phase harmonic? How can that benefit him? "Drop to sublight. Lock weapons and stand ready," I order.
Even at low warp speed, we have covered much ground - I can see the icon for the transwarp gateway, blinking at extreme range. Thrang's ship is headed for it, at high impulse speed. But Pexlini is good, better in fact than I had thought. She holds her nerve, stays at warp for just the tiniest fraction of a second longer - just long enough to drop out of subspace between Thrang and the gateway.
The renegade is bracketed between our two ships. He has nowhere left to run.
"Incoming hail," says E'Maon.
"Put it through."
It is the first time, I think, that I have actually heard Kalevar Thrang's voice. "Nicely done," he says, and his tone is actually pleasant. "However, I don't think surrendering quite fits in with my plans, so I'll have to decline. But you've played the game so well, I think you're owed a consolation prize, anyway. I don't really need it any more. You still do, though."
Something emerges from the side of Thrang's ship - something small, so small it would not even be detectable, were it not for the beacon attached to it, sending regular pulses on conventional and subspace radio. Whatever it is, it moves away from Thrang's ship, at considerable speed, its course varying occasionally, randomly.
"And there goes the Rehanissen Archive," says Thrang's voice. "That beacon will last about fifteen minutes - and, yes, there's a self-destruct rigged to blow it after that time. You've probably realized by now what I've been doing with the archive, but knowing isn't enough, you need the original in order to prove it. I'll talk to you later." His impulse drive glows; his ship is moving.
"Get me Pexlini," I order. Someone was anticipating me; the Talaxian's face appears at once. "You take Thrang," I tell her. "I will recover the archive."
She nods. "On it."
The beacon is moving fast, but not so fast that my ship cannot catch it. "Bomb squad to transporter room three," I order. We will beam it aboard, defuse the self-destruct, possibly be quick enough to help Pexlini finish off Thrang -
"Oh, oops, I almost forgot." Thrang's voice on the comm again. "You'll need the key, of course."
And another beacon emerges from his ship, on a wildly divergent course. I curse, and open the channel to the Dechenchholing. "Get that one," I tell her.
"He'll make it to the gateway -"
"And the next. But he will not have time to repair his drive, and we have the codes for the network, we can follow him and catch him again. But he is right, we need the archive. Get that key!"
Pexlini pulls a sour face. The Dechenchholing twists away in a tight spiral, pursuing the beacon. Thrang's drives are burning brilliantly as he bolts for the gateway.
Palatine quests after the beacon. It is slow, but it evidently has evasion routines programmed - it slips away, time after time, from our questing tractor beams. In the distance, I can see Pexlini's ship twisting and turning on a similar hunt. I regret, very much, that I will not have the chance to take my frustration out on Kalevar Thrang's hide.
"Tractor lock!" says N'aina exultantly. "Transporter lock - active! Got it!"
Thrang's ship reaches the transwarp gate. Energies gather and release, flinging the vessel on a short-cut through subspace across dozens of light years -
Something is wrong. I curse. The energies are not releasing properly - they are continuing to gather -
The kilometres-wide hexagonal frame of the transwarp gate is visibly quivering, flickering with sudden electromagnetic discharges. It is beginning, I realize, to glow. Static flashes across my screen - sensor noise from the massive forces gathering within the gate.
Thrang must have fired some phase harmonic of his own, when he passed through the gate. Of course, he had his exotic drive systems to hand... and we know that he is a consummate expert in warp theory....
The gate is burning brilliantly now, lit from within by millions of kilometres of fusing warp coils. The outer plating is disintegrating in showers of white-hot sparks. Then the structural integrity field goes, and the gateway is suddenly only a roughly hexagonal cloud of white flame... fading through yellow, to red, to the dark of space itself as the wreckage cools.
Pexlini appears on my screen. The universal translator refuses to process the first few phrases she utters. "Out-thought," she says, after a while. "He out-thought us again."
"Never mind," I say. "We have the archive, at least. Let us see what we can make of Thrang's... consolation prize."
But there is little comfort to be gained from that thought, I find. Because I cannot believe Thrang would give that thing up... if he still needed it.
I enjoy some good euphemism.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
The Rehanissen Archive really doesn't look much, lying on the desk of Heizis's ready room. I take a look at the box, then turn my eyes to the square crystal in my hand. I drop the crystal into the depression on top of the box. There is a click, like something unlocking.
"At least it seems to be authentic," growls Heizis, "so far."
Authentic. Yeah, right. I lift up the box lid. Inside, what I was expecting to see - squat black cuboids with slowly winking indicator lights: old fashioned Valtothi data stores. I pick up my tricorder. "Running downloads for comparison now," I say firmly. Heizis shoots me a sour look. I guess, ideally, she'd want to keep the Archive for herself and her Imperial allies. Well, tough, the Federation is getting a copy too.
Even though, for all we know, the most sensitive info in it is Grandma Rehanissen's recipe for prune bumblepuppy.
The important thing was never the actual content of the archives. The important thing was that Thrang could release any information - or, more likely, disinformation - he liked, and back it up with a source nobody could cross-check. I'm not liking the fact that he's let us have it. Now we do, we can trace his lies back and expose them - eventually. I'm guessing, though, that we don't have time for any "eventually" before the next step in Thrang's plan kicks off.
"OK," I say. "What's the fastest way we can get this to whoever needs to see it?"
Heizis started out looking unhappy, as always - now, she looks really miserable. "With my secure comms inactive," she grates, "the quickest way would be for you to contact Starfleet Intelligence -"
"Umm, yeah, how about no," I say. "As far as Starfleet goes, I'm one of Thrang's agents, remember? Or I will be, as soon as I tell them the full story, which I kinda have to if I'm reporting in."
"Then what do you suggest?" Heizis spits at me.
I think. "Cut out the middle men," I say. "Go direct to the top dogs. Quinn, or J'mpok?"
"If Thrang's plan is already in process," says Heizis, "J'mpok will make decisions faster than Starfleet can deal with the Federation Council. J'mpok."
"Right. So, maximum warp to Qo'noS, and put up all the diplomatic and other priority ID we can, right?"
Heizis nods. "I will instruct my crew." She stomps out of the ready room, looking cross. I go back to fiddling with the tricorder. I want to be quite sure we've got all this data, whatever it turns out to be. It could be dynamite... like the PADD lying next to the archive. The one with Kalevar Thrang's genetic profile on it.
Now, the implications of that are really scary.
I'm still feeling scared when Heizis stomps back in. "We have a problem," she says. "Qo'noS space is under priority one lockdown. Only registered shipping permitted within the outer defence perimeter - two million kellicams from the planet's surface."
"But you're registered shipping, right?"
"I would be," says Heizis, "if my secure comms units were working, which they are not. We must find another approach. Quinn -"
"Wait." I put my hand to my head. "Priority one lockdown? That's a military-level precaution. Why's the Empire putting its capital under wartime restrictions?"
"The obvious inference," says Heizis, "is that they are, or expect to be, at war -"
Her eyes go wide, and lock with mine, which might be wider, although hers look pretty darn wide with all the black eyelids around them, and whose eyes are wider really doesn't matter right now. "King among the ruins," I say. "So that's the set-up."
"Thrang is inciting a war?" says Heizis. "Who with? And how?"
"My guess, the Federation, and some plausible line of bunkum backed by that." I jab my finger at the archive. "OK, we have gotta get this thing to J'mpok, like, yesterday. If we can get the Klinks not to start shooting, the Federation should keep its finger off the trigger. I hope."
"But how?" demands Heizis. "If we cannot access Qo'noS space -"
"Officially," I say. My brain is racing. Whether or not it's racing in a good direction, time will tell. "I got some contacts with a neutral Orion trade consortium. We can use their transwarp gates to get fairly close to Qo'noS. After that -" I grin at her. "You guys are supposed to be all sneaky, yeah?"
---
"This is not a wise move," says Heizis, some time later. I ignore her. I maybe know more about Republic-issue commander's gigs than I technically should, but this is the first time I've actually flown one in anger, and I'm trying to concentrate on the controls.
The Orions let us buy passage to a starbase deep in Klingon territory, and Palatine managed to slink into the Oort cloud of the Klingon home system without tripping any alarm bells. Something as big as the Aelahl warbird, though, ain't gonna get close to Qo'noS itself without lighting up every tachyon detection grid the Klinks have got, so we are using something much smaller and - hopefully - more discreet to make the final approach.
Heizis is crouched, muttering, over the cloaking controls. Since the Roms are always a bit jealous of their cloaking technology, she wanted to manage that, which leaves me for flying the ship. Since, if we get into a fight, one shuttlecraft isn't really going to stand much chance against the Klingon homeworld, we haven't bothered bringing any gunners or people like that along for the trip. It's just me and the gargoyle. I really wish she was better company.
Qo'noS is a greenish point of light on the forward viewer, nothing more. The outer perimeter defences, though, are closer. Much closer.
"Cloak balanced for standard KDF sensor arrays," mutters Heizis. "I have the parameters for the most recent tachyon net, but they may have changed it.... Well. Transferring coordinates to your flight board now." A green ring starts blinking on the visual display, and I aim the gig towards it.
"Try and tuck us in behind that Bortasqu'," Heizis adds, so I twitch the heading a hair or two to the right and a whisker up, and we settle in behind the huge grimy mass of a Klingon war cruiser. Should be good for us, assuming the cruiser itself doesn't start scanning closely behind it - or abruptly slamming on the brakes. "Lots of ships around," I comment.
"One might almost think this was the capital of an interstellar empire," Heizis snarks back at me.
"Yeah, but, y'know, travel restrictions?"
"Lots of Klingon ships, if you look." She's right, of course. Klingon commerce and fleet movements aren't restricted, it's just dodgy foreign types - Aelahl warbirds and Hazari destroyers, for example - that are being turned away. There is still enough firepower around Qo'noS to evaporate us a million times over, and that's not counting the planetary defences or the orbital stations.
Something blinks on the status board. I look. A wing of Birds of Prey has suddenly decloaked, not too close by, but near enough to trip a warning on the sensors. I get to work suppressing the urge to panic. Routine patrol? Or are they looking for something, like, say, a small anomalous cloaking signature? The ships wheel around, head away at high impulse on some errand of their own.
"Cloak is stable," Heizis reports. Me, I always thought the cloaking device was a turn-it-on-and-walk-away kinda thing, but apparently it needs a skilled operator, adjusting it continually -
"You are qualified on that thing, yes?" I ask.
"At least as qualified as you are to fly a Romulan shuttle."
"Hey," I say, "I'm good with shuttlecraft, ask anyone." Though maybe I won't tell her what happened to the old Ostankino's shuttlepod, or not till we're down on the ground, anyway.
The planet is close enough, now, that it shows a disc. I can cover it with my thumbnail, but it's still a disc. The war cruiser is turning. I bring us about, heading straight in, now, passing so close to the cruiser I could lean out of the window and write PEX WAS HERE in the meteor dust on its hull.
"Passing the first median defence perimeter," says Heizis.
"How many perimeters do they have?"
"Each one represents a line in space which Klingons can fight and die to hold."
OK, so, plenty, then. I shut up, and concentrate on keeping the gig on course - while also taking advantage of whatever cover comes our way. A big Lissepian freighter drifts across our path, its drive obviously in need of an overhaul, its cargo holds full of radioactives. The sensor noise from that thing could hide us without the cloak. I pull into its shadow, and watch the range display to the planet count down.
"Approaching the shipyard's detector range," says Heizis. "This could be the difficult part. The shipyard is a priority target for industrial espionage... it is heavily guarded against infiltrators."
It's also, though, pretty close to the planet itself. The smoggy atmosphere of Qo'noS isn't giving me a good look at any surface features, but it's close enough now that I could pick them out with the naked eye. I'm almost beginning to think this might work.
"Steer three niner seven mark one!" Heizis snaps.
I don't know what she's seen, but I make the course correction. The gig cruises over the freighter's beat-up drive unit, and comes worryingly close to an approaching K'tinga cruiser. At least, it worries me, but Heizis doesn't look bothered.
"Passing third median defence perimeter."
"What happened to the second?"
"We were shielded by that freighter's radiation cloud. Now concentrate on flying instead of talking."
Well, I can do both... and being nervous makes me talkative... and whoo boy, am I nervous right now. The Klingon homeworld is big enough to fill the viewscreen, now. Big, green and mean. The gig is weaving between oblivious flights of KDF warships as I try to keep on course and not hit anything. So many ships. So very many ships.
"Passing upper atmosphere perimeter defence. Slacken speed. If we start to leave an atmospheric contrail, we are doomed."
This high up, the atmosphere is kinda notional at best, but I see her point. Even if the gig is invisible, if it starts leaving a visible hole in the air, we got a problem. Actually, about sixty problems within range just now, ranging from a Toron shuttle right up to one of those big command battlecruisers. Ty'gokor class, I think; big and ugly, anyway.
Heizis mutters something under her breath. "What is it?" I ask.
"Maybe nothing. Random sensor ping. Too many active sensors, I cannot blank everything -"
I check the approach speed. We are into the planetary exosphere, which means "slightly soft vacuum" for most worlds. With this planet, though, it means "constantly monitored by people with a shoot-to-kill policy", so I'm kinda not cheerful about getting sensor pinged.
"We have left the shipyard's detector range," Heizis says. "No obvious alerts. I think we have made it."
"Great. How much more to go?"
"Ionospheric perimeter, then the controlled airspace over Prime Continent, then the security zone over First City. There will be tachyon scans, but I believe I can circumvent them." She doesn't sound wildly confident.
Qo'noS rushes towards us, no longer a dot, or a disc, but a whole world, vast and cloudy. I check our speed, nudge it downwards a bit. If we go into the stratosphere at hypersonic speed, people are gonna notice, cloak or not.
"Past ionospheric perimeter."
So close, now, so close. I patch in the geographic files, level the gig out, aim it at First City. I imagine I can hear the hiss of atmosphere on our hull. Wishful thinking, of course - the air is still too thin, our hull too thick. But I can imagine -
Heizis curses. "Tachyon contact!"
"Where from?"
"Unknown. Maybe a random scan, perhaps someone testing a detection system. But they will report the contact -"
Uh-oh. We are a good thousand kilometres from First City, and if that distance fills up with shooty Klingons, life is gonna get far too interesting, far too quick. "Got any ideas?"
"Proceed on course. I have some sensor decoys, I can use them -" Heizis turns back, muttering, to her console. My mouth is very dry.
Blips show on the extreme edge of the tac display. Of course, there's plenty of blips already, but these are new ones, four of them, in a diamond pattern, and coming our way. To'Duj fighters. "We got company," I say.
"I will do what I can." Heizis's bony fingers are stabbing at the console. Outside the viewport, clouds are sliding past us, rapidly. I give the engine more juice. I figure we need speed, now -
The clouds light up with nightmarish green lightning. Disruptor fire. Not targeted at us, which is the good news. The bad news is, it's coming from heavy weapons batteries on the surface. They're designed to take full-sized ships on, and if one of those blasts hits our little shuttle, we're gone.
"Probing fire only," says Heizis. "They are not sure we are here... they are merely testing, trying to elicit a response."
"Yeah, well, they nearly elicited a response from me all over the seat of this chair," I grumble. "Can you think of any way to calm them down?"
"I have launched all my available decoys. Increase our rate of descent. The anti-ship batteries are angled sharply upwards - we can easily get under the range of those guns."
I turn the gig's nose down. I resist the temptation to step on the gas, because we do not need a hypersonic boom just now, and anyway we are now aimed at the ground and it does not look welcoming. More green light stabs along the viewscreen. "What are they shooting at?"
"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps my decoys - ach! More tachyon contacts. They are alerted, now."
Another formation of fighters hoves into view, and their disruptors are already chattering. I take a look at the tactical display, and move the shuttle into a steeper dive. If we can get beneath them - I'm hoping they won't fire randomly at the surface of Qo'noS. That they'll wait until they have us locked up definitely in a firing solution.
Something flashes white at the edge of the viewport. "Lost a decoy," says Heizis.
"How many have you left?"
"Three." Another flash. "One." Oh, great.
I can hear the air, now, for certain, keening over the hull of the shuttle. More lines of disruptor fire stitch themselves across the sky. My hands move automatically on the controls, throwing us into a light random-walk evasion pattern. Maybe it's premature, they can't possibly have a targeting lock on us yet -
Then the shuttle shakes, and a series of damage lights turn red. Oh, damn. Someone got lucky. I check the board. With the cloak up, we have no shields, which means the disruptors just took a chunk out of our hull. Structural integrity reads... lower than I'd like.
"We are past the continental security perimeter, and under the range of the main batteries," says Heizis. "That is the good news. The bad news is, there are plenty of interdiction turrets out there, specifically for picking off incoming troop shuttles, and our cloak is no longer stable."
Too right. We have company. One of the fighters has veered off from its formation, and is coming our way, and fast. I take the shuttle as close to a nose-dive as I dare, trying to lose height, to keep below that fighter so it can't use its guns. I don't know how much of us they can see -
WHAM
Sparks shoot from two of the consoles, and the whole gig shudders. I cough and wave smoke away from the display. Another lucky hit, I think, but this time from someone on the surface with a micro-photon launcher. "We're leaking warp plasma!" I yell at Heizis.
"Dropping cloak." We are leaving a flaming visible trail behind us, now, there is no point even trying to be invisible any more. I hit the controls to raise the shields. I might as well be pushing the button for room service, for all the good it does. Uh-oh.
"Shields offline. Um. Any way we can try surrendering?"
"To Klingons?" Heizis shoots a glance over her shoulder. "Comms console is out, in any case."
Damn and blast. And First City is so close, so very close - I throw the shuttle into a fast evasion pattern. Green lightning is flashing on all sides of us, now, but somehow we take only a couple more glancing hits. I slalom through the green smoggy clouds of Qo'noS, trying to shake the pursuing fighter, but that one is obstinate, and fast, and is getting underneath us, to angle fire upwards into our belly -
Heizis lunges past me to smash her hand down on the flight console.
The viewport flashes into pure white flame, and there is an unearthly shriek in the air, and the shuttle doesn't just shudder, it convulses, as if it's trying to break itself apart. The course display breaks up into random electronic gibberish, then comes back, but it comes back wrong, much closer to First City, almost on top of it. I stare at Heizis. "What did you just do?"
"Short-range singularity jump. Inadvisable, in atmosphere, but we were out of options. Now, get us down!"
The shuttle jolts some more. We must have torn a hole in the air with that jump - anything airborne is fighting some fierce turbulence - but there are people on the ground, and they have disruptors, and they are shooting at us. Bits are falling off the shuttle. The damage control readouts - don't look good. But I can see First City beneath us, I can see the big looming bulk of the Great Hall, even. I hit the dorsal RCS arrays and force the shuttle down towards the city. Disruptor bolts scream past us. I think the fire is slackening. I think they think we're already crashing. Also, I think they might be right.
I hit another control, get no response. "Doesn't this thing have landing gear?"
"It did have, when we started!"
"Oh, joy. OK, I'm gonna go for plan B, emergency lithobraking procedure."
"You're trying a controlled crash landing?"
"Nearly right, 'cept for the controlled part. Hang on."
The shuttle plummets out of the sky, trailing fire and debris as it comes, aiming for the square outside the Great Hall. The big Imperial triskelion is a nice obvious marker to aim for. I turn up the inertial dampers as high as they'll go, and check my line of flight. There are so many different warning klaxons going off, it's hard to think. At the last second, I yank back hard on the stick, and fire every retro I've got left.
The gig pancakes hard into the square, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Too much forward speed to kill, though. We are sliding across the square in a shower of sparks and a squealing, grating sound that I never want to hear again, and the entrance to the Great Hall is looming up like a mouth. Most of the square's denizens have had the sense to scatter for cover. To one side, though, I catch a glimpse of one of the Loresingers, struck apparently speechless. You don't see that very often.
The Great Hall comes towards us. Fast. I hit another emergency control, the last one I've got. This one works.
The shuttle slams into the wall of the building. It's too big to fit through the entryway. As I hit the control, though, explosive bolts blast the cockpit section loose from the main hull, and that just about fits. Just. I have last-ditch retros and RCS thrusters, and I use them. The cockpit slams down on the floor of the Great Hall, skids, slews around in a billowing smoke from reaction mass and burning carpet.
The impact, as we slam into the stairs at the end of the hallway, seems like an anticlimax after all the others. The sudden cessation of noise hits my ears like a blow.
I get to my feet, slightly surprised that I've still got them. I stumble to the back of the cockpit section, and hit the door controls. Instead of sliding open, the door simply falls off, hitting the stairs with a resounding clang.
It's an impressive entrance. I spoil it all by wailing, "Don't shoot! We're friends! Friends! We've got the Rehanissen Archive! Coming out now!"
I turn and grab up the all-important box and PADD. Heizis is getting to her feet, her expression one of utter stunned disbelief. I stumble out into the Great Hall. It's a lot darker and hotter and smellier than usual, which might be down to the smoke in the air, or the wrecked Romulan gig blocking the entrance.
There's a lot of the leadership of the Klingon Empire in front of me, and they don't look exactly pleased to see me.
The first to recover, apparently, is J'mpok. The burly figure of the Chancellor strides towards me, eyes glaring from beneath lowering brows. I hold up the box and the PADD.
"Rehanissen Archive," I gasp at him. "The real thing. I don't know what Kalevar Thrang's been feeding you, but whatever it is, it's a set-up. Designed to stir up war between the Empire and the Federation. We've been played."
"For what motive? What reason?" J'mpok's voice is hard and suspicious.
"King among the ruins." I swallow. My mouth is dry, not just from the smoke in the air. "Thrang is setting us all up for a major galactic war, and the plan is for him to come out on top. His mercantile association may not sound much now, but once the major powers are in pieces, he's planning to be the only game in town."
"Ridiculous!" someone says. "No rational being could seriously nurture such hopes -"
"Thrang could." I hold up the datapad. "Other thing. We got tissue samples, ran a genetic workup."
J'mpok's eyes widen at that. "Qa'meH quv?"
"Oh, you wish," I say. "Worse than that. Thrang is human. Originally. Genetic augment, with all the extras, including cosmetic disguises. Call him Khan Noonien Singh version two point oh, at least. Super-human, super-genius, with a massive Napoleon complex. Maybe he couldn't become master of the galaxy, but he'd sure as hell like to try for it."
J'mpok stares at me. Slowly, very slowly, his hands reach out for the box and the PADD I'm offering to him.
"This - this must be checked," says another voice. A Gorn, it looks like - not the usual one, S'taass, but a smaller, neater-looking one, standing next to a big Nausicaan in shiny armour.
"Indeed," the Nausicaan says. "These - claims - must be tested and verified, in every detail - we cannot change our plans based on the unsupported word of a Federation lackey."
J'mpok's hands close, finally, on the box and the PADD. The eyes under the dark lowering brows lock with mine. "Answer me this," he says. "Is this true? Your word on this, Talaxian."
I meet his gaze. "It's true. On my word."
"Chancellor." Heizis sounds raspy, but then she always does. "I pledge my word with hers."
J'mpok turns his gaze on her. He gives a minimal nod.
"Every part of these records must be examined and checked!" the Gorn says.
J'mpok turns towards him. "Everything will be checked." He pulls the Rehanissen Archive from my grasp. "Checked in as much detail as you require, Commissioner. First -" His burly body swivels, turning to some lackey in ceremonial armour. "Get me a channel to Dahar Master Dhalsell."
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Intense chapter - I envy your action scenes, Shevet
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Where oh where have we seen that before?
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Which worries me.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
OTOH, knowing Klingons, if they had disruptors in the Great Hall "killed half the Council" would be a Tuesday.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Disruptors have a wide-angle setting. The Council wouldn't be all in one place if they let disruptors in.
Note to self: write story of 'Glorious Grenade Revolution' in Klingon society as first war after industrialization.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
It's ridiculous, but after so long on the King Estmere, a standard Starfleet bridge layout seems strange. Or maybe it's just the position I'm sitting in.
I look at the strategic display on the flag console. My force - officially, now, Task Group Vitruvius - is on final approach to Gimel Vessaris, individual elements moving into the tactical posture I have planned. It's, in theory, a flexible one, with light forces surrounding three cores of heavy units. I should be able to catch any smaller group of ships between my fleet and the planetary defences, englobe them and destroy them in detail.
King Estmere is at the heart of one of the three detachments. The Tholian carrier is almost dwarfed, though, by a monstrous Breen Sarr Theln, and one of the new Jupiter-class ships. Three carriers, backed up by Guardian- and Odyssey-class cruisers and several flights of tactical escorts. A solid core of firepower, with the ability to project force fast and effectively.
On the other side of me, a different tactical mix, intelligence ships and science vessels clustering round the flattened, angular shape of the intel cruiser Airly Beacon. Two of my best special assets are in that battle group, the temporal-anomaly science vessel the Indra, and her snub-nosed, lethal counterpart from a different timeline, the Ratri. Between them, a Wells-class and a Mobius-class should be able to come up with quite a few surprises for any attackers....
But there should be no surprises from the central core of the fleet, where I am now. This is pure firepower, projected by waves of frigates and heavy cruisers, by Andorian escorts like Spirits of Earth and her sister ships... and centred on the might of the massive command battlecruisers.
I broke one of my own rules for those command ships. Gustav Holst wrote a lot of music, but he's mainly remembered for just one piece, the "Planets" suite, with its individual movements named after the worlds of Earth's home system. I've always, in the past, thought that was too obvious to use. But I had access to three cruisers fresh from the yards, and I was in a hurry -
So, a few kilometres below me and to my left is the USS Neptune, and a short way above and to my right is the USS Saturn, and here I am on the bridge of the USS Mars, and I am trying very hard not to think about the sub-title of that particular piece.
Mars. The Bringer of War.
I hear the turbolift doors hiss open, and Anthi Vihl strides onto the bridge. I don't know what she's been doing - some part of the busy-work that keeps a good exec occupied. She crosses the bridge, and for once her face has a slightly puzzled look about it, as she confronts the empty seats at the centre. She shoots me a look.
I point. "Centre seat, Flag Captain Vihl."
Her eyes flash and her antennae twitch with - some emotion. I don't know what, because she suppresses it faster than a Vulcan would. She takes the command chair, looking as if she was born to it. Which, of course, she was. Anthi, dependable, loyal and brave... a credit to her Imperial Guard ancestors... she should have had ship command long, long ago.
She consults the command console, now. "USS Mars at battle readiness. Your orders, Admiral?"
I take a deep breath. This is it. "Fleet address. Put me live."
And it takes far too few seconds before the CHANNEL OPEN light flashes green.
"All ships, this is Admiral Shohl. We are on final approach to Gimel Vessaris. So far, we have no indication of hostiles in-system, so we will proceed by defence plan Delta, occupying the intermediate orbitals around the planet and securing the asteroid bases." Gimel Vessaris's small moonlets aren't much of an asset, but we have to hold them. "Given time, we'll establish regular patrols around the system boundaries which will alert us to incoming hostiles. Our best guess is, though, that the Nausicaans are moving in quickly, so we have to stand ready to defend the planet at short notice."
Time for another deep breath, which I hope no one notices. "We have sufficient numbers and capability here to fend off anything short of a full-scale invasion, and we will have the planet's own defensive satellite grid to fall back on. In the event of attack, we will bracket enemy forces between our tactical groups and destroy them with crossfire. However, let's remember that force is a last resort. If the Nausicaans arrive, we will try to negotiate their peaceful withdrawal. Let me emphasize that we open fire only in immediate self-defence, or to defend Federation civilians. We're Starfleet. We're going to act like it." I make a final check on the console. "Approaching system boundary now. Prepare to slow to impulse. Fleet to yellow alert."
Streaking stars slow to motionless dots on the viewer, and the planet looms up. Gimel Vessaris. I was born there... I nearly died there. It isn't much - a marginal colony world with a climate only Andorians could love. But it's a Federation world with Federation citizens, and our job is to protect it.
"Connecting with satellite defence grid." Cordul is on the comms station, handling it with stolid competence. "Data telemetry coming through... targeting linked in with our tac net."
"Deploy on plan Delta," I order. "Flagship to coordinates -"
"Incoming contacts," Three of Eight interrupts me. "Inbound vector seven four two. Multiple heavy units, confirmed KDF signatures."
A hard knot contracts in my stomach. Just in time. We got here just in time. The rash of red icons is already filling one outer segment of the strategic display -
There's a lot of them. The computer is already making tentative identifications - Ravager and Balaur dreadnoughts, Vo'quv and Kar'fi carriers, a hulking Klinzhai command cruiser that's at least the equal of my ship. It's not as big a force as some of those we sacrificed in the Iconian War. It is at least the equal of Task Group Vitruvius. And it isn't slowing down.
I hit the general address button. "All ships. Red alert. Battle stations."
The alarms sound, and red lights glare on my bridge. I turn to Cordul. "Open hailing frequencies. We need to talk to them."
"Trying it, sir." He frowns over his console. "I have a hail. From the Nausicaan dreadnought Zlatchko."
I stand up, and tug at my uniform tunic, making sure it's straight. "On screen."
I know the face that appears on the main screen. I've seen it before. Here, when we took Gimel Vessaris back. Gvochkorr. His eyes are glaring, his mouth open, baring his tusks in a grimace. "Starfleet. Shohl," he says. "I was going to offer you the chance to withdraw peacefully -"
"I'll make you that offer," I say. Gvochkorr. He ruled Gimel Vessaris as an Imperial labour camp, and when we finally made peace with the Klingons, he tried to have me assassinated anyway. I have to try to forget that. I have to try. "This is a Federation colony world. Your forces have no business here. You are requested, formally, to withdraw from this star system."
"This star system is Nausicaan territory!" Gvochkorr snarls. "I have proof! And I will not make peace, Shohl, not now I see you - I am here for your hide! And I will smash your paltry little fleet to get it!"
"The Nausicaan government has no claim on this system. I have proof of that, from one of your own ships. Stand down and withdraw your fleet, Gvochkorr. This is a Federation world, and we will defend it."
"I will have your hide! Tacked to my trophy room wall! I will take back what is mine, Shohl, and I will destroy you!" He gestures, and the screen goes blank.
I look down at the strategic display. The KDF force has a lot of ships. The satellites give me an edge... maybe.... But Gvochkorr's force is closing, and closing fast. I have only minutes to get my forces into position -
I frown. Something is wrong, on the display.
"Sir." Anthi's voice. "Klingon and Orion ships are breaking formation."
"Trying to flank us?" It's the sort of tactic I was planning myself. But Anthi shakes her head.
"Confirm," says Three. "The Klingon command vessel is slowing and coming about onto a new heading. The other Klingon ships - and the Orions - are moving with it."
On the display, the cloud of KDF icons is visibly splitting in two. My mind is racing. What are they planning?
"Sir," says Cordul, "I have another incoming hail. From the IKS chIS Hov -"
"On screen." If they want to talk, I want to listen. If they want to explain, all the better.
The screen flashes, and a scarred Klingon face looks out at me. "This is Dahar Master Dhalsell aboard the chIS Hov. Are you Shohl?"
"This is Admiral Shohl aboard the USS Mars."
Dhalsell looks at me through narrowed eyes. His hair and beard are white as snow, as Andorian hair.
"I have received information from the Chancellor," he says. "Apparently, information has come to light which invalidates Gvochkorr's claims regarding this system. The Chancellor orders that we should not support a dishonourable claim based on false information. The Chancellor further orders that we should support our allies in this matter. Accordingly, and at the Chancellor's order, KDF forces in this system will now accept your orders." One corner of his mouth lifts - perhaps in a smile, perhaps in a grimace. "What are your orders, Admiral Shohl?"
Is it a trick? It can't be a trick - the Klingons' movements have shattered Gvochkorr's formation, they've put him at a massive tactical disadvantage. And a Dahar Master - they're not known for lying to their enemies. Or their friends. Whichever one I am, just now.
"Thank you, Dahar Master," I say. "Tie in your tactical command net to mine, using the old Khitomer Accord protocols." I gesture at Cordul, who nods and starts working furiously at the comms console. "Bring your forces to coordinates -" I try to assess the battlefield, try to work out where to put this sudden bounty of allies - if that's what they are "- four seven by two two four. We'll catch Gvochkorr's Nausicaans and Gorn between your ships, my battle groups, and the planetary defence grid."
Dhalsell's eyes flicker rapidly beneath his white brows. "Reasonably sound," he says, rather grudgingly.
"Before we open fire, though," I continue, "let's see if Gvochkorr's got anything to say. Comms."
"Hailing now, sir," says Cordul. "I have.... Got him, sir."
The screen splits. On one side, the glowering impassive shape of the Klingon; on the other, Gvochkorr, his red eyes suddenly wild. "Gvochkorr," I say. I'm damned if I'm giving him any sort of title. "The Imperial government seems to have repudiated this - raid - of yours. Stand down."
"I -" His eyes dart rapidly from side to side. "I will take back what is mine. What is mine. I will not back down from Andorian arrogance and Klingon treason -"
"Treason!" Dhalsell is stung into anger. "You dare accuse a Dahar Master of treachery, you runaway from Rura Penthe?"
"This is my world!" screams Gvochkorr. "My domain! It was promised to me! I will burn you all before I let it go! I will -"
There is a sudden blur of motion on the screen, and Gvochkorr vanishes. Dhalsell and I exchange startled glances. There is nothing on the screen except a blank stretch of wall, nothing on audio but confused scuffling sounds - and then a choked-off scream.
I wait, pulse racing, antennae stiff with expectation.
Another figure appears on the screen in Gvochkorr's place; a large, black-haired Nausicaan in battle armour... with a dripping Tegolar blade in his right fist.
"This is Flag Captain Dr'chelk," he growls. "And this is not a day I choose to die for someone else's ambitions. Former Governor Gvochkorr is no longer a factor. We will depart, now, for Nausicaan territory - with your permission, Admiral, Dahar Master."
And - just like that - it's over.
"That," he said aloud, though no one was with him, "did not quite go according to plan."
His frown deepened, his brows gathered together. "Not quite. There were, evidently, personal factors at work... ones I hadn't calculated. J'mpok moved faster than I planned... Shohl was slower on the trigger than I wanted... the Talaxian took risks." He shook his head. "That one will be an asset, when she's mine. And she will be mine."
Even though he kept frowning, he grinned as well. The furrows on his brow, though, seemed to deepen, becoming more marked with every second that passed. A flush seemed to be spreading over his green Orion skin - it had acquired an almost ruddy undertone. His breathing was growing hoarse and laboured.
"Some of my agents are now compromised," he said, and his voice was deeper now. "I will have to abandon everything that's no longer useful. A pity. I could have got a lot more mileage out of some of them, still... but, what's done is done. And I still have resources. Plenty of resources."
His face was an indeterminate dark colour, now, like well-patinated bronze. The furrows on his brow were deeper still, the skin between them swelling, bulging. His eyebrows bristled.
"Shame about... some things. I will miss my speedy little ship. A price... a price has to be paid, for failure. And I have failed. This time. Next time, though... forewarned is forearmed. Next time... my plans will be like clockwork. Eliminate all the unpredictable elements. That's always best."
His face was turning lighter in colour, now. But it was no longer green. It was paling towards a light brown. His forehead was swollen, furrowed, ridged. His eyebrows had grown thick and shaggy. As his skin lightened, it was possible to see that a thick stubble of beard and moustache had already sprouted on his face.
Kalevar Thrang let go of the washbasin. He examined his hands, peered closely into the mirror. "Quite passably Klingon," he said. "Qapla'."
He turned, and stepped out of the washroom. He stood in the doorway and stretched, feeling his muscles shift into new configurations. The body language of a Klingon warrior, not an Orion smuggler. It was important to settle properly into a new skin.
The door of his quarters hissed open, and Deonsa walked in. She walked in, and froze, and whatever words she had for him died on her lips as she stared.
"Oh, my dear," said Thrang. "I really didn't want you to see me like this." As kindly as possible, he reached out and broke her neck.
---
"This will take days," muttered Shaltri, peering at the readouts on the main engineering console.
"You are supposed to be the chief engineer," said Masgrabolus with a sneer.
"I know what I'm doing," the Troyian protested. "At least I think so. But these experimental systems - they're the boss's own design. He's the one who really knows them. When's he coming to help?" He looked from Masgrabolus to Mokasso. The Thexemian sneered. The Lethean shrugged.
"He said he had work to do, and supplies to gather," Mokasso said.
"Supplies? Gathered how?" Masgrabolus demanded. "The Farah is crippled. Warp two at best, we will take weeks to reach a spaceport -"
"Enough," Mokasso snapped. "Thrang is taking the warpshuttle to rendezvous with one of our convoys near Theta Arimaspiae. He will be back within two days, with all the specialist components we require."
"We require a lot," Shaltri grumbled.
"When was this decided?" Masgrabolus demanded.
"Thrang makes his own decisions," said Mokasso. "But -" He glanced at a status board. "Hangar bay doors opening. He is departing now. Within two days, he will be back. He told me so. All our worries will be over."
"I hope he is right," said Masgrabolus.
"Depend on it. Thrang is very rarely wrong." Mokasso crossed the bridge, sat down before the main science console. "Warpshuttle on scan now. Coming onto its proper heading, and - there. He is on his way."
Masgrabolus grunted. On the science console, Mokasso watched the flare of energies as the shuttle went into warp.
Then, down in main engineering, a small charge detonated, next to the warp core's antimatter containment. The small explosion was swallowed instantly in a much larger one, as the Farah's core breached.
And all their worries were over.
Everyone in the conference room at Earth Spacedock is... subdued. With one exception.
T'Laihhae and the human intelligence officer, Hengest, are sober and thoughtful as they review the data on their screens. They have good reason to be. The real Rehanissen Archive turns out to contain a great deal of disturbing information... and, of course, that is now the least of our worries. I am sobered myself, at the thought.
The Andorian, Shohl, sits in an attitude of dejection, her antennae drooping. She seems to have aged a decade or more.
The one exception, of course, is Pexlini, who is grinning cheerfully, her booted feet propped up on the conference table. I suppose I should be glad to see that someone is happy, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why.
"I'll... pass most of this on to the appropriate intelligence subcommittees and working groups," Admiral Hengest says, eventually. "There's a lot to consider. But our first priority has to be Kalevar Thrang."
"Agreed," says T'Laihhae. "Much of his existing organization is already under investigation - K-T MMA, and his known contacts in the Klingon and allied governments. At least, those contacts who are still... available."
The Chancellor acted promptly - but perhaps not prudently. The Nausicaan government must now send another ambassador, and the unfortunate Sgramash now serves as another reminder that J'mpok has lost none of his skill with a bat'leth. As for Commissioner Hrissaak... Ambassador S'taass had enough standing in the High Council to demand a duel of honour. And S'taass used nothing more than his own claws.
"The mercantile association will be - unravelled," says Hengest. "And between that, and the loss of his original network - the phage victims - Thrang must have received a serious setback." He shakes his head slowly. "I just wish I believed it was enough to stop him. If this genetic analysis is right... the man's a constant danger so long as he's alive."
"How advanced is his genetic augmentation?" I ask.
"Very up to date," says Hengest. "This isn't Eugenics Wars era gene-tweaking - Thrang's genome has been modified using some of the very latest techniques, and I can't even guess who by. We'll pursue every lead we've got, among the augment underground... but it won't be easy."
"We should make sure to share all available information," says T'Laihhae.
Hengest nods. "Absolutely."
"Damn right we should." Tylha Shohl speaks up for the first time. Her voice is flat and hoarse. Everyone turns to look at her. "Information," she spits. "Secrets. Well, we've just had an object lesson in how secrets work, haven't we? Thrang used the damned archive and the secrecy around it to play us all, to play me -" She is shouting, now. "He turned me into a weapon against the Federation and the Empire both! He wound me up like a clockwork toy and set me up to do his dirty work! When I think how close I came -" She stops. She draws in a deep, shuddering breath.
T'Laihhae is nodding, slowly. "Even now," she says, "I am not sure if your interception of the Yasan T'o was deliberately arranged, to make sure you knew you were in the right... or if it was an accident, and the Nausicaan ship was meant to disappear with its evidence... or if Thrang set out on purpose to make sure things worked for him either way. He is capable, I think, of such artistry."
Shohl glares at her. "Artistry," she snarls.
"Well," says Pexlini, "at least we jogged his elbow before he managed his finishing stroke, yeah? Gotta count for something." She pouts for a moment. "I'd be happier myself if Thrang was tucked up safe in Facility 4028, I admit -"
"Augments have broken out of that facility before now," mutters Shohl. She looks utterly dejected. I cannot blame her.
"Even so," Pexlini says, "it'd be a start." She swings her boots off the conference table, and stands up. "Anyway, I gotta leave you guys to do the high-level stuff, yeah? Decide which subcommittees get what, and all that. Me, I gotta get my own records in order. Got a whole bunch of combat logs to send in from the Dechenchholing." She grins at Shohl. "I never knew working for Experimental Engineering was gonna get this exciting."
Shohl just looks disgusted. Hengest sighs noisily. "I suppose I should prepare a report for the Federation Council -"
"And we should return to the Flotilla," says T'Laihhae. She turns her aloof gaze on me for a moment. "I will transmit a preliminary report - obviously, you can do nothing while your secure comms are offline. Probably, your best course of action is to return to Qo'noS at once."
"Yeah," says Pexlini, "though of course me and Heizis both have standing orders, now - if we want to visit the Great Hall, we gotta go to a service entrance, knock, and wait to be let in. Who'da figured J'mpok had a sense of humour, huh?"
---
Afterwards, Pexlini strolls with me, as I head towards the docking bay and my ship. It is not a matter, I think, of keeping an eye on a suspect Reman intelligence officer. Pexlini knows I am not an enemy. Not today, at least. Not with Kalevar Thrang at large in the galaxy.
No, Pexlini just wants to talk. I suspect she always wants to talk.
"So, the way I figure it," she says, "Thrang must have the bulk of his network on the KDF side of things. That's where he's been operating, as an Orion smuggler - and that's where most of the Rehanissen Archive info comes in, too. We gotta figure Thrang's kept copies of all that. Hell, with that hotwired brain of his, he could memorize it at a glance, I reckon. So, well, you gotta keep your ear to the ground over there, Heizis, ol' buddy."
"I will be one part of the intelligence effort, certainly," I say. "But Thrang is a formidable foe."
"Don't I know it. And, even if he's operating solo these days, I wish I knew more about whatever lab they cooked him up in. Federation Council'll feel the same way. You know how humans are, when it comes to genetic engineering. They get way antsy over it."
"Understandable, considering their history. The advantages it gives Thrang are... considerable."
"Yeah," says Pexlini. We are approaching the docking tube to my ship. "But we'll win anyway. See, we're the good guys."
"I admire your facile optimism," I say.
Pexlini stops walking. Her pale blue eyes meet mine, and for once they are serious, not lit by humour. "We are the good guys," she says, "and that is our advantage, and that is why we will beat Thrang."
I stare at her. "I... am not sure that I follow you," I say.
"Think about it. Why didn't Thrang's plan work? Because you and Ajbit trusted me, instead of throwing me straight in the brig like you should have done. Because J'mpok acted immediately when we gave him our word of honour, instead of waiting until the archive data was analysed and cross-checked. And, yeah, because Tylha did her duty as a Starfleet officer and tried to talk to the Nausicaans, instead of opening fire as soon as they came on her screen." Her voice is serious, too. "Trust. Honour. Duty. These things mean something to us, but to Thrang they're just words. They're things he can't plan for, things he can't quantify. They're our edge, and they're why we'll win, in the end."
"That," I say slowly, "and we had a great deal of luck."
Pexlini's habitual grin comes back. "Hey," she says, "you make your own luck in this game."
I think about it. She evidently believes what she's saying. "I... will consider this," I say.
"Yeah, you do that."
"One thing, though." I fix her with a glare. "Call me a good guy again, and I will extract your internal organs and eat them before your eyes."
If it fazes her, she does not show it. "Yeah, well," she says, with a broader grin yet, "OK. I trust you to do that."
And she turns, and swaggers away before I can think of a reply.
I am in a pensive mood as I make my way down the docking tube and into the comfortable dimness of the Palatine. N'aina and Bi'or are both at the airlock to greet me, datapads in their hands. Reports, details - there are always many details to attend to.
"We need those comms modules replaced, as a matter of urgency," says Bi'or. "But, sir -"
"What is it?"
"A transmission came through via Starfleet's system. Encoded in Reman commercial cipher, but I do not have authorization to disclose it to Starfleet. There is a mining colony at Kappa Lacertae, apparently in difficulties. From what I have decrypted so far, their life support systems are failing, and a rival Dopterian concern is making difficulties -"
"I see." I bare my teeth. "Then we will refit our secure comms at Qo'noS, with all possible speed - allowing for a detour to the Kappa Lacertae system."
"Yes, sir." Bi'or looks positively pleased.
The good guys, Pexlini calls us.
I have a horrible feeling that she might be right.
"Logic requires that your unstable element be eliminated!"
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!