The woman on the viewscreen has greyish skin and a sort of shield-shaped protrusion on her forehead. She eyes me with some distaste. "I am Srianka Lasnabola," she says, "and when I say my name, men gasp with desire and women grind their teeth in envy."
Thexemians. Gotta love 'em. Or, in this case at least, gotta talk to 'em. "Can we skip that bit?" I say. "I was wanting to hear about some previous business acquaintances of yours -"
"I talk to no one who does not say their name."
Respect for alien cultures, I remind myself silently. Got to respect their little foibles, like a good Starfleet officer, which I still am, dammit. "I'm Pexlini," I say. "Now, usually, when I say my name, people say 'huh?', but lately they've taken to saying 'hey, aren't you wanted by the Federation for high crimes and misdemeanours?' instead, and I reckon a former associate of your pal Seralok Masgrabolus is responsible for that."
"Seralok Masgrabolus." Her look of distaste deepens. "When that name is spoken, men spit and women turn aside in scorn."
"OK, so maybe he's been demoted since I last saw him. Doesn't matter to me. You used to know him, do you have a line on him? Current whereabouts, that kinda thing?" I don't think she will have. When Starfleet finally traced the warp contrail left by Thrang's super-fast ship, after me and Heizis put a spanner in its works, all they found at the end was a debris field. My guess is that Thrang liquidated the ship and its crew once he'd decided to cut his losses. It's the way the guy works.
"If you knew Masgrabolus," Lasnabola says, "you know who he worked for. That man does not leave loose ends." So I called it right. Never mind.
"OK," I say, "but that business arrangement didn't come out of a vacuum, did it? How'd Masgrabolus meet Thrang in the first place? And can I meet him the same way?"
Lasnabola stares at me, her eyes wide. "You want to deal with Thrang? You must be insane."
"Nah, just eccentric. Thing is, I figure Thrang wants to meet me. And I want to meet him. So all we need is someone who can fix up an appointment. Like, say, an associate of a former business partner of Thrang's." I fold my hands together in my lap and try to fix her with a serious stare. I don't actually know what to do with my hands - the command chair is configured for a Hirogen Alpha, if I tried to put my arms on the armrests, my hands would be level with my ears. Life is full of complications.
"What you suggest... may be possible," says Lasnabola. She sounds grudging.
"I guess we can run to some sort of fee. Like, say, you were a dating agency, and you fixed me and Thrang up on a date? Sound fair to you?"
"A date," she says. "A date with Kalevar Thrang. Very well. I will transmit my requirements, and how much this date will cost you. One hour from now." And she cuts the connection.
"That went well." I twist around in the oversized chair so I can look at Rozilai. The Trill's done most of the donkey work, sifting databases to come up with possible contacts. Thrang's Orion crew weren't accessible - I can't buy or force my way into the Syndicate's data nets - but Thexemian security turned out much easier to crack. "So, what are the chances this won't ring alarm bells with Thrang's network?"
Roz shrugs. "I've tried to be as discreet as I can. But Thrang has a distributed information-gathering network. I don't think we can assume I haven't hit some data tripwire, somewhere along the way."
"Figures," I say. "Well, it doesn't matter. Thrang must have known I'd come looking for him. If he knows where I'm looking, it'll just make it easier to set up a meet." I look pensively at the viewscreen, now displaying the cloudy globe of Thexemia. Miserable looking sort of planet, that.
"You're assuming a lot of things about this Thrang," Nurnos says. "Assuming he's behind your problems, and he's got some use for you, in some master plan -"
"Thrang always has a master plan," I say. "And he has a use for me, somewhere, too. It's the way he works. That genetically-engineered superior intelligence... he's not happy unless he's keeping more plates spinning than anyone else could handle."
"Superior intelligence." Nurnos snorts. "A superior intelligence doesn't go around making extra work for itself." I think I like this guy.
"Well, anyway," I say, "let's work out how we're going to handle the double-cross, then."
"Suppose they don't double-cross us?" says Rozilai.
"Thexemians? Working for Thrang? I wouldn't worry about that," I say. "If they don't double-cross us, the shock'll probably kill me."
---
Prime City, capital of the independent world of Thexemia. I don't know what happens when you say its name. It's a grim sort of place, lots of tall rectangular concrete buildings in a brutalist style - plenty of exposed vertical ribbing, not much in the way of windows.
Not that I'm getting much chance to take in the sights. The beam-down coordinates are on an exposed concrete plaza, empty apart from three goons, who just happen to be pointing two guns and a scanner at me when I sparkle into view.
"Hi, there," I say. The two goons with guns watch me warily.
The third one squints at his scanner, and finally says, "Checks out. No weapons signatures. The bag -" he indicates the kitbag that dangles from my right hand "- has crystals and refined metals." He folds the scanner away and takes out a gun of his own. Elderly-looking Orion commercial disruptors, but adequate.
"You will come with us." Another goon speaks up. He steps forward and grabs the kitbag out of my hand. "This way." He points with the gun. And he's standing in his colleagues' line of fire - I'm tempted to thump him, just on general principles, but there's no point, really. "Your transporters and communications are blocked. There is no help for you."
"He's right about the transporter inhibitors." Rozilai's voice sounds a bit scratchy and distorted over the bone-conduction speaker taped behind my ear. "Assault shuttles are inbound, with you in five."
"Terrific," I say. "OK. Let's get moving, then." And I stroll off in the direction indicated. Technically, I should probably make a fuss, get the attention of local law enforcement, and demand to see the Federation Consul. Technically. There doesn't seem any point to that, either. These guys probably are local law enforcement.
It's a short walk to a narrow door in a big blank concrete wall. We go down a staircase, so narrow we have to go single file. At the bottom is a room with two more goons, a desk, and Lasnabola sitting behind it. She sneers at me.
The goon with the kitbag dumps it on her desk. "Payment," he says.
"Uh-huh," I say. "We agreed an up-front sum, yeah? The warm welcome wasn't included, though."
"If you think that we are here to cater to the whims of a Federation renegade," says Lasnabola, "think again."
I have to stall these idiots long enough for the assault shuttles to land. I sigh. "You know what happens when Thexemians say their names?" I ask. "Like, any Thexemians?"
"It varies," says Lasnabola, "according to the skill and prestige of the person concerned."
"Nah," I say, "not really. See, the first thing that happens whenever one of you guys even opens your traps is, I think to myself, I can't trust this guy. You people have managed to get yourselves a really bad rep, y'know?"
"You can trust us," says Lasnabola. "We will hold you for Thrang, if he is interested in talking to you. If he is not, you will die. If he is... you will live for as long as he finds you interesting."
"See, this is why you have a bad rep," I say. "I know you're gonna try and pull some stupid stroke, every time. It's annoying, as well as predictable."
"Predictable," says Lasnabola. "You expected betrayal. And yet, you came."
"Yeah." I fold my arms across my chest, feeling a reassuring bulky presence inside my miner's vest. "So what does that tell you, huh?"
Lasnabola is fumbling with the catches of the kitbag. "That you are foolish," she says.
"Foolish? Nah," I say. I shut my eyes. "Just prepared."
The kitbag pops open. I can see the flash even through my closed eyelids. I wait a heartbeat for everything to go dark. Lasnabola screams, and I move. The flash grenade will only dazzle her for a few minutes, but the tetryon capacitance charge will take out every power source around for a couple of minutes... except for the ones covered by the shielding in my vest.
My right hand goes to my waist, and the staticky feeling of my personal shield envelops me. Then I pull the shotgun out from under my armpit, rack the action, and fire a round into the ceiling. It gets attention. Even Lasnabola stops wailing.
"Yeah," I say, pumping another shell into the breach. "Prepared. Now, what's gonna happen is, we'll wait for the lights to come back on, and then we'll talk about getting in touch with Thrang, OK?"
The ceiling lights are already flickering weakly back to life as the tetryon charge disperses. I back up. I'm still outnumbered six to one, and at times like this I like to have a nice solid wall behind me.
"She was unarmed," one of the goons says, in aggrieved tones. Probably the one with the scanner. Weapons scans are all very well, they'd have picked up the power packs and focus crystals of a phaser or a disruptor. But the only power source for the reproduction shotgun is in the micro-replicator inside its magazine - and that's too low-intensity to register as a weapon. It churns out buckshot shells just fine, though.
"You will suffer for this!" I don't know if Lasnabola is talking to me or the goon. She is blinking through tear-filled eyes. One of the goons is aiming his disruptor at me; I swing the shotgun towards him, and quirk my eyebrow in my best Vulcan manner.
The barrel of the disruptor wavers for a moment... then steadies. "You cannot kill all of us with that thing," he says.
"Probably not," I answer as cheerily as I can, "but I can sure kill some of you, so who's first?"
The disruptor wavers again. Then there is a loud crash from the doorway, as of the door being kicked in. Nyesenia is first through, smoky orange eyes glaring at the Thexemians over the business end of one of those Kobali polaron rifles. I don't know if the Thexemians are familiar with Kobali firearms, but it doesn't matter, because Nurnos is next through the door, and that Nausicaan gizmo of his is actually designed to say to them, you are on the wrong end of this weapon.
I walk forward, taking care to keep my gun pointed at the enemy and stay out of my peeps' line of fire. I take the kitbag off the desk. "The cool thing is," I say to Lasnabola, "besides the little surprises, this thing actually does have the money in it. Jewels and gold-pressed latinum, which you are not, now, going to get."
And then I jump, because there is a sound of clapping hands, and an odiously familiar voice says, "And quite right too."
---
I whirl around. Thrang is grinning at me. I resist the urge to fire the shotgun, because he's obviously a projection, on the blank back wall. Around him, I can see - familiar shapes, the outline of a Hirogen bridge -
"Aw, yibbly squeeps," I moan, "don't say you've gone and stolen my ship while I'm down here."
A brief shadow of puzzlement passes over Thrang's face, and then clears. "Ah, you've acquired a Hirogen ship yourself, then? Good choice. They're very useful. Probably the best you can get, given your current embarrassment with Starfleet."
"For which you're to blame." I glance around. Nurnos and Nyesenia are watching the projection, too, but only out of one eye, as they and the rest of the assault teams carry on disarming and restraining the Thexemians. Professionalism, gotta love it.
"I hope you appreciate all the trouble and expense I went to," says Thrang smugly. He's looking human now - last time I saw him, he was green and bald. But he still has, basically, the same face. Why does he have the same face? He can change his appearance, and that face is known.
"Half a billion energy credits? That's just chump change to you, I'll bet."
"Locating the Mask of Dhalselapur, though, took noticeable effort. You should be flattered that I think you're worth it."
"Is this leading up to another job offer?" I ask. "'Cause, yanno, I'm gonna be hard pushed to get proper references from my last employer."
"So sad, to be so unappreciated," says Thrang. "I appreciate you, you know. You actually upset some of my plans." He's still smiling, but there is something very ugly in his eyes. "Not many people can do that. I'd far rather have you working for me than against me."
"Yeah, well," I say, "that's not gonna happen, is it? For a start, there's the question of retirement benefits."
"Retirement benefits?" Thrang raises an eyebrow.
He's on a Hirogen bridge. I can't see anyone else in the projection, but it's just possible he hasn't bothered to clear his crew out. In which case, it's always worth sowing a little fear, doubt and uncertainty. "I know how you retire people, Thrang. Dissolved into goo. Or blown to vapour by antimatter scuttling charges. Working for you would be bad for my health, Thrang."
He seems unfazed. "It might beat the alternative, though. I have plans in hand."
"Don't you always?"
"Oh, most assuredly." Thrang's smile is horrible. "Soon enough, Admiral Pexlini, everyone is going to be working for me." And the projection winks out.
Even united, you would stand no chance against us. Disunited, your defences are useless. We pass through them with ease. We strike where we will, when we will, how we will.
Your intelligence agencies already know us. They have watched, helpless, as we have named our targets and struck them down. Our aim is to destroy. Our aim is to show the futility of all governments by bringing destruction down in the face of all that they can do. We are destruction. We are entropy. We are death.
Your intelligence agencies already know us, and fear us. They can do nothing against us. They have tried to hide our successes, but our next attack will not be hidden, cannot be hidden. We are destruction. We are entropy. We are death.
We are Action Black.
Fear us.
---
"That damn broadcast's been haunting subspace radio," Thomas Harriman said, wheezing as he subsided into a chair. "Every time we shut down one transmission site, it pops up at another one. It's like... Whack-a-Mole."
"The shadow OS that Starfleet Intelligence reported," said Aennik Okeg. "A distributed command network, living in the cloud. I'm sure our data warfare people will shut it down... eventually."
"But not before everybody's heard it," said Harriman.
Okeg nodded. "I have already received a number of communiques," he said. "A stern diplomatic note from the Breen Confederacy, who protest the infringement on their subspace channels for the purpose of broadcasting threats. I've drafted a reply, promising that those responsible will be punished to the maximum extent of Federation law." He shook his head. "I've refrained from making any commitments as to timescales, when it comes to catching them."
"We can handle the Breen," said Harriman. "Sir, it's opinion at home that I'm worried about."
"As am I, Tom." The President closed his lambent eyes and remained perfectly still for a moment, then opened them again. "Lyle Anson has been in touch. He's dissociated himself and the various Actionist groups entirely from this 'Action Black'... but he's also presented several proposals for coordinating efforts to fight them."
Harriman frowned. "We know the Actionists all talk to each other - that's a given, considering the nature of the movement. Do they have any special advantages, there?"
"I hope not," said Okeg, "because I'm stone-walling them on this issue. I don't want us beholden to the Actionists, Tom. I can sympathize with their aims, but they're too... too slick. Perhaps it's my wicked reptilian instincts at work, Tom, but I don't trust Lyle Anson."
"Neither do I, sir," said Harriman, "and I'm a mammal."
"I'm glad we're on the same page, Tom. But we do need a coordinated response, and I've taken steps. Alliance Joint Command is having its facilities greatly expanded - it's the biggest single point where our resources are pooled. And I've talked with both J'mpok and D'Tan already about reopening the communications channels we used during the Iconian War."
Harriman's eyes widened. "Are we actually moving to a war footing, sir?"
"Not if I can avoid it, Tom. But we need to have our options open. And we need to keep our irregular resources in mind, too. Which brings me to you, Tom. I'm afraid we might need to get in touch with... some acquaintances of yours."
---
The room was small and featureless, except for a single comms terminal and a single small chair. Tharval's face was lit only by the glow from the screen. His lips twitched in a rudimentary smile.
"I'm glad you agreed to this communication," he said to the man on the screen. "I know you'll be trying to track this call - with all the resources of your organization, and I know how formidable those are. So I hope you'll be suitably impressed when you fail."
"If we fail," said the other.
"Oh, our resources are as formidable as yours," said Tharval. "We can stymie each other pretty effectively. Or, of course, we could accomplish a great deal by working together."
"You're representing a terrorist group."
"There are those who would say the same about you. In any case, what you call terrorism, I call... practical politics."
The man on the screen made no reply. His yellowish eyes glittered.
"Action Black is already a thorn in the side of the Federation, the Empire, and the Republic," said Tharval. "Our next demonstration will be... hard to miss. It will make it imperative that we're dealt with. As it were." He leaned forward. "So this is your chance to make a deal. Action Black's terrorist operations will cease... once we're sure we'll get what we want."
"I know what you want. And I know who wants it."
Tharval looked hard at the man. "Really?"
"Tharval. Former assistant director for Lethean Intelligence. You smoothed the path for a Lethean alliance with the Klingon Empire," said the man. "Some people might say that you sold out Lethean Intelligence's secrets in order to get your negotiators a place at the table. It worked out well enough - for a while. But Imperial Intelligence had to take you in - your position with your own people wasn't tenable, any longer. And then there was that deal with the Orion Syndicate, the one that violated K'men's ethical standards." The scarred face smiled. "Now, that took some doing."
"And since then," the man continued, "you've changed allegiances again. You were seen, Tharval. Imperial Intelligence's forensics teams positively identified you - taking delivery of the corpse of Dahar Master Khreg. We know why he died, we know who wanted the body, and why. You're working for Kalevar Thrang."
"You're very well informed," said Tharval. "Which is only to be expected. And which means you know Thrang's capabilities - possibly better than anyone. I know humans have a cultural prejudice against augments, but I'm quite sure you don't worry about such things. So, yes, I'm working for Thrang. If he gets his way, we will all be working for Thrang. And he is very good at getting his way. Think about that."
"I'm thinking."
"Think about a few other things, as well. Thrang's aim is a unified quadrant-wide, possibly galaxy-wide, government. What model can he use for that? The Klingon Empire is too parochial, the Romulan Republic too ramshackle. The unified government can only be an expanded Federation. Probably with the same charter - certainly, with one particular section of that charter carefully preserved. He'll need a covert intelligence agency, like he'll need every other branch of government. We are looking, my friend, at a united galaxy under the Federation flag."
"And under Kalevar Thrang."
"He is highly capable. And also, mortal. Some might consider a few years, or even a few decades, of benevolent dictatorship... not too high a price to pay. At the end of it, there would be an expanded Federation. A secure, all-encompassing galactic power. Is Thrang's price too high, for that?" Tharval fixed the man's gaze with his. "Consider it. Things would go so much smoother, with your people on side."
The yellow eyes shifted uneasily. "I'll think about it," said Franklin Drake, and broke the connection.
"It does not feel right," Kunroth said. "It does not feel honourable."
His voice was growing louder and louder, audible all the way across the mess hall. People's heads were turning in his direction. Angelica darted some sideways glances at him, though, increasingly, she was trying not to be noticed, now.
"We're fighting a war, my friend." Kalevar Thrang never seemed to raise his voice, but he was always audible, too. "In wartime, stratagems are necessary. Any soldier knows that."
"But what you have said...." The big Klingon shook his head. "I do not see the need for this. You have made us nothing more than terrorists."
"The powers that be might think that," said Thrang, "but we know differently. We're fighting for the good of Federation and Empire and Republic alike. We're pretending to be terrorists, for the sake of the fight."
He never said anything particularly clever, Angelica thought. Oh, he could be plausible, up to a point... but his arguments often rang hollow, when she considered them. What won people over, she thought, was his air of absolute confidence. He acted, always, as if he knew he was right. And that conviction turned out to be contagious.
Usually. But Kunroth was speaking again. "But this makes us - it makes us seem terrorists, and in that way... it brings us dishonour."
"Let me put it to you this way," said Thrang. "Who knows you're in Action Black?"
Kunroth frowned. "I was told to tell no one. Only those here, on this ship, know that I -"
"Precisely," said Thrang, smiling. "The only people who know about Action Black are us. The people in it. And we know our motives are pure and honourable. The outsiders, who think - for the moment - that Action Black is a terror group... well, they don't know you're a part of it. And they never will." His smile broadened. "So, my friend, where's the dishonour?"
Kunroth shook his head again, slowly. "I do not know," he said. "What you say - is reasonable. But somewhere -" he raised his fist to his chest "- somewhere in here, I feel...."
Thrang sighed. He clapped one hand on the Klingon's shoulder. "Let's talk privately, my friend. Let me explain in a little more detail. And, if you still can't reconcile our aims with your sense of honour... well, we'll find other work for you. Something that will satisfy you. I don't want to lose you, you know. I value all my people."
He moved towards the doorway. On the threshold, he stopped, turned, beckoned to Kunroth. The Klingon hesitated for a second, then followed Thrang out of the mess hall.
Angelica seriously doubted she'd be seeing him again.
She glanced around. The ship had taken on more people: Klingons like Kunroth, a cliqueish group of Romulans, a number of Ferengi, one of whom had taken Tom Tallidge for all he was worth at dom-jot... and a pair of scowling, silent Remans, who were in one corner of the mess hall now. Angelica had reviewed her basic Starfleet psi-block training, had played repetitive pop-music songs over and over again, until the earworms ran constantly through her head; she went to sleep with earphones in and the music playing. It wouldn't be enough if the Remans, or Tharval, really set to work on her mind... it might be enough to block a casual mind-contact.
She had to hope so.
She finished her meal, dropped the dinnerware into the recycler slot, and headed out of the hall. She didn't think she'd attracted any attention. And Thrang would be busy doing... whatever he was doing... with Kunroth. And Tharval was away, somewhere.
There might not be a better time.
She went to the crew deck, but walked past the door to her quarters, on to the end of the corridor, where an opening in one wall led to the Hirogen equivalent of a Jeffries tube. She took a deep breath. No one else was in sight. She was going to have to take a chance - if she was spotted, she'd have no reasonable excuse for being where she was -
So, she told herself, better not get spotted, then.
She swung herself into the tube, descending quickly from rung to rung. She knew the layout of the Hirogen ship, now. They'd all been standing watches, getting to know the ship's functions... rather as if Thrang wanted trained people to replace the original Hirogen crew. It made sense. Thrang would want to replace the Hirogen.
She'd been assigned to Engineering. It was her speciality, originally, after all. She'd been at the engineering station on the bridge when Thrang had talked with the Talaxian, Pexlini. She'd heard what Pexlini had to say.
She reached the bottom of the tube - and she twisted sideways, and took an awkward step to her left, and kept going down. The narrow void between the main plasma induction relays and the warp core wasn't marked as an accessway on the ship's plans; it was a tight squeeze even for a smallish human, no Hirogen could ever have passed this way. But Angelica had studied the plans, had spotted the possible route, and now she was using it. It had one certain advantage; there were no surveillance cameras.
She wormed her way through gaps, ducked under pipes and conduits, and finally found herself where she wanted to be: standing on the ejection panel, below the pulsating column of the warp core itself. She grasped a projecting stanchion, and began to clamber upwards. She tried to make as little noise as she could. The throbbing sound of the core should drown out her movements, but Hirogen senses were acute, if some of the big hunters were on duty in Main Engineering -
But her luck held. She found what she was looking for, ten metres up from the base of the warp core.
It was a squat cylinder, painted matte black, attached to the core with what looked like heavy-duty magnetic clamps. Angelica didn't dare touch it. She had a tricorder in her belt pouch, though, and she risked a scan. It confirmed what she already knew. An antimatter charge, small in itself, but quite enough to breach the core's containment and set off a much bigger explosion.
A scuttling charge. Pexlini had been right.
Slowly, carefully, Angelica began to climb back down the core. She had to get out of here, back through the narrow space and the Jeffries tube, back to her own quarters, without being spotted. And, once she got back... she would have to think.
The alarm shrills two hours into my sleep period, because of course it does. I roll out of bed and seize the communicator. "Heizis."
"Sir. This is Centurion Jeroth. We have a sighting in the Vault. Maximum priority, for your immediate attention." I am dressing as this Romulan nuisance speaks. His next words chill me. "Kalevar Thrang is here. Section 771 East."
"What?" Thrang? Here?
"Positive ID from facial recognition systems. We have implemented full security lockdown -"
"Not enough," I snarl, as I pull on my uniform trousers. "Seal that section. Close all doors, all access panels, jam transporters - open the surrounding sections to vacuum if you have to. Scramble internal Scorpion flights."
"Which squadrons -?"
"All of them. My authority." I shrug on my jacket. "Put the Vault on war footing. From this moment onwards, nothing exits our controlled space. And I mean nothing. Anyone who permits any tricks with satellites or nearby asteroids will answer to me for it." I seize my tricorder in one hand, my plasma pistol in the other. "Get me all the details we have on that sighting. Transmit along data subchannels, I will review it as I move."
And move is what I do, hurrying along the echoing corridors of the Vault as I review the situation in my mind. I do not know section 771 - the ancient space station is vast, as big as a small moon, and it has many, many component sections. I am worried. Security has improved since the early days, when enemy shuttlecraft could sneak aboard by whatever routes they pleased... but the Vault has not decreased in size, and it has many nooks and crannies which a canny enemy might exploit.
"Commence full systems sweep and virus scans." I snap out more orders as I run. "Upload Thrang's genetic profile to all active Scorpions, and make sure it is Thrang's profile. We must be constantly alert for data warfare attacks."
"Yes, sir. General Xerek is within the affected section -" Jeroth's voice breaks off for a moment. "He requests a secure link-up, sir, urgently."
I am at a T-junction in the corridor, and to one side of me is a door. I duck through it, find myself in an unused office. "I have a data terminal." I sit down and slam the activation and override codes into the console, awakening it from its slumber. How long since this thing was last used? Perhaps years.... We are thinly spread, throughout the Vault, and we have not used a hundredth of its full capacity. Perhaps we are too thinly spread to contain Thrang. I connect my tricorder to the console. An image forms on the screen; another room, another anonymous workspace, somewhere in the station - except the man sitting at a console there is human, and even in quarter-profile from behind I can see who he is. He is dressed in a leather coat, in Reman style, but the head is not concealed, and it is Thrang, without doubt.
Then the image is wiped away, replaced by an aged and glowering face. "Sir."
"I am here," says Xerek. "Perhaps within metres of Thrang, who knows? I am coordinating search efforts inside the section. Tell me what you have done."
"Full lockdown, all Vault crew at war alert status -" Breathlessly, I run through the measures I have taken so far.
Xerek's mouth twists into an ugly shape - disapproval, or merely deep thought? I do not know. "You are devoting much of our resources," he says.
"Thrang must be caught. He is too dangerous to be permitted escape."
"True," says Xerek. "Still, technically, you are exceeding your authority -"
"But not mine," says a deep and resonant voice from behind me.
I turn my head - and then rise to my feet and stand stiffly at attention. The voice is instantly recognizable, as is the face, lantern-jawed, horribly scarred across the right cheek - no Reman alive does not recognize those scars, or that voice, or the brooding blue eyes that now focus on Xerek's image. Obisek. The man who succeeded where Shinzon failed, the one who raised the first alarm of Iconian incursion... the man who led the Reman people to a hard-won freedom. No, here in the Vault, nothing is beyond Obisek's authority.
"In this matter," the leader of our people says, "her voice is as mine." I keep my stance and my face rigidly disciplined, concealing the swell of pride I feel at that. "Kalevar Thrang is too important, and too dangerous, for us to take any chances. We will do all that we can to take him."
"Of course." Xerek, too, has come to full attention. "I have security troops within the sealed section. I will commence a search with those."
"Yes," says Obisek. "And the Scorpions will sweep the adjacent area with their sensors, and the rest of the Vault's troops will guard every exit." He glances at me. "You have done well," he says, and my heart swells further. "Normally, I like light no more than the rest of us - but in this case, we will shine lights into every dark corner of the Vault, until we find Kalevar Thrang."
---
But we do not.
Thrang tripped a facial recognition package in the security monitors... but that is all. Xerek's teams sweep every millimetre of section 771 East; I have a list of the microbes they find, but they do not find Thrang. The Scorpion fighters howl along the passageways of the Vault, sensors at maximum, but Thrang's biometrics and genetic profile fail to register. The security force fields glow across each access point, and troops stand taut and ready before each one, waiting for Thrang to emerge, waiting in vain.
I do not know how many hours have passed. "The terminal is at an interior location," I mutter to myself. "Deep inside the section. Less than two minutes elapsed between the initial alarm and Centurion Jeroth imposing the first lockdown. My additional measures were in place no more than five minutes after that. Even an augment cannot have moved that quickly."
I was muttering to myself, but Obisek heard. If he is feeling fatigued, it does not show on his face. "Transporter logs and sensor records show nothing in that interval. He was not beamed out. But Xerek's teams have found nothing. Nothing...."
I nerve myself to address him directly. "What do you think happened, sir?"
"I wish I knew," says Obisek. "There is something at work here, some deception we have not seen through." He sighs, closes his eyes, rubs his brow with his hand. For that one moment, even the mighty Obisek looks mortal. "There is not even genetic residue from Thrang at the site in question," he says. "Xerek's forensic team could probably name every person who has sat in that chair, but Thrang was not among them. Even though we saw him." He shakes his head. "We must face facts, unpleasant though they are. Thrang has eluded us. Stand down from general alert. We cannot maintain this security level much longer - there is too much else to do at the Vault."
"Yes, sir." I take a deep breath. "Sir, I -"
"You have not failed me," says Obisek. "You were fast, and effective. You did everything, took every necessary measure. It is not your fault that Thrang has done the impossible." His tone softens a little. "Get some rest. You need it. And we need our best people in their best condition."
I salute him. "Yes, sir."
And I turn and make my weary way back to my quarters, because one does not disobey Obisek.
But before I crawl back into my bed, I replay the brief footage from the security camera, the one which shows Kalevar Thrang. The viewing angle does not permit me to see what he is working on. The records should be preserved in the terminal, but that was blanked. And there is only one visual record of Thrang - no footage of him arriving, or departing. All I see is the man working at the terminal for a brief time - seconds, no more - and then he stands, stoops to pick up something from the floor - a long, thin object - and then he walks out of the camera's field of view, and he is gone.
I cannot make out what the object is. I cannot imagine where Thrang has gone. Eventually, the scene starts to blur before my tired eyes, and I shut off the projection and go back to bed.
"Nope," I say cheerfully, "but we're gonna do it anyway. And I don't think we're gonna get a better chance."
I look around the bridge. Roz has a sceptical look, but she's standing by the scan console and looks poised for action. Nyesenia is on helm and Nurnos on tactical, so we're as ready as we're going to be. I think.
"OK. Power up drives, disconnect all umbilicals, and let's look like we've got a hot date somewhere."
The ship quivers, and distant thunks announce the falling away of the docking tube, power lines, air supply and re-mass feeds... there's a lot of stuff you get hooked up to when you're in dock for a while. On the main viewscreen, the interior of the Vault starts to swing slowly about us, as the ship rotates.
"Thrusters to max. Head us for the exit."
And there is a prompt ping from comms, because the Remans aren't slouches in this department. I hit the master panel beside my command chair. "Yo," I say.
"Privateer vessel Anita." I dunno who came up with the name, but what the heck, we have to call the ship something. "This is Vault Traffic Control. You appear to be making an unauthorized departure. Stand down. File your flight plans, and be aware that the Vault is still in security lockdown, so there may be a delay before they can be approved." There's no visual. The Reman's voice sounds brusque, businesslike, and maybe a touch cross.
He's going to get a lot crosser. "That's a negative, Traffic Control," I tell him. "Don't have time to do the paperwork. Just tell everything else in the sky to get out of our way, 'cause we're gonna burn."
"Anita, you are warned to stand down." Yep, he sounds cross all right. "You are under Vault Traffic Control regulations and -" I cut the channel.
"OK, peeps," I say, "this is where things are gonna get hectic. Roz, sing out when their targeting lights us up. Nye, polarize the hull and get ready to dodge."
"Consider me singing," says Roz. "Multiple targeting pings already. And I don't think they're all from tractor mounts, either."
"Sheesh. Nye. Punch it, and punch it hard."
And the dimness of the Vault's interior is suddenly pierced by shafts of blue light - tractor beams, mounted on the docking bay's walls, capable of dragging around ships a lot bigger than mine. But the hull polarization makes us temporarily immune, and Nyesenia is already hammering at the helm controls. Anita rolls, sideslips, twists and dodges, her thrusters firing at max. We slalom between two docking pylons, squeeze around a lumbering freighter and a squat Ferengi ship, and there is a jolt and a lurch as Nyesenia cuts in the impulse drive for a second and we shoot out of the main docking bay and into an empty corridor.
My heart is in my mouth. This route should lead to an open space in the Vault's walls, one that's too big for the Remans to close off - they can throw up an emergency force field, but I have the codes for those, I can shut one down. I think. I hope.
"We got bogeys," Nurnos grunts.
"Aw, yeeps. How many?"
"They're slipping in and out of cloak. Reckon at least six, though. Scorpions."
I pull a face. "Weapons hot. Try and target engines, aim to disable."
Nurnos heaves a sigh. "Don't ask much, do you? Those things are tiny. Shoot to disable." He snorts. "Yeah, right. Well, I'll try."
He'd better try hard. Killing a bunch of fighter pilots will really scupper things with the Remans, especially with Heizis. My first clue that the little ghoul was really one of the good guys came when I noticed she was protective of her people.
"Incoming," says Roz. "Wait. Aimed away from us. Warning shots."
Firing plasma weapons indoors is normally a bad thing, but the Vault is huge, tough and ancient, it can take a few stray plasma bolts. So far, the Remans are being, well, reasonably polite. I have to try and return the courtesy by not killing them.
Doesn't mean I can't hurt their ships, mind. "Nurnos. Think of it as a challenge. Shoot to disable."
The Nausicaan grunts. A moment or two later, so does the ship's EPS grid as the aft turrets come online and start spitting tetryon bolts. My heart is pounding. Cherenkov-blue light flashes, and one Scorpion loses its shields and veers off, frantically racing for cover. A replacement pops out of cloak, just in time to stop another one of my bolts; it yaws violently and then drifts gracelessly towards the wall. Engines down. Good for Nurnos, I hope he can keep it up -
He can't. The next Scorpion he hits spirals away leaving a trail of flaming debris and escaping air, before it bursts in a fireball. "Transporter signature detected," Roz says in comforting tones. The flight deck operators might have snatched the pilot to safety before the craft blew, then. The remaining fighters are hanging back -
Because they think they can. Because there is a bluish shimmer at the end of the corridor, a curtain of light that hangs between us and the stars. Force field. Obvious move, really.
Nyesenia cuts in the impulse drive again. I hammer the codes into the control console. If this doesn't work, we are going to hit that force field at some speed, enough to leave us severely embarrassed. And flat. And dead. But worst of all, embarrassed.
But the console flashes green, accepting, confirming. And the force shield winks out a half second or so before our nose would have slammed into it.
"Full impulse! Launch the jammers!"
Electronic warfare drones shoot out of Anita's launch tubes, broadcasting gibberish on every scan frequency the Remans use. Hopefully, it will confuse the Vault's targeting long enough for us to get clear - because if that station hits us with even a fraction of its main firepower, we don't stand a chance.
Anita corkscrews away from the Vault in a high-speed evasion pattern. No plasma fire from the station - they're not shooting while they're not sure of their target. Sensible. I can't see the Scorpions on my tactical repeater; maybe they've given up the chase. The vast station is dwindling behind us. We might be home free -
"Sensor contacts," says Roz. "Two of them." She rattles off the relative vectors, quickly.
"What are they?" I ask.
"Looks like... standard T'Varo class warbirds."
Nurnos hmphs at me. "No challenge. Nacelles are out on nice long pylons. I can take them out, neat as you like."
"Do it." Cripple the immediate pursuit, go to warp - and, once we're at warp, I know plenty of tricks to hide our subspace contrail, and plenty of bolt-holes I can hide in, while the hue and cry dies down. So long as Nurnos doesn't get too enthusiastic with the tetryon cannons -
The pursuing warbirds are coming within weapons range. Nyesenia wheels our ship sharply around, and for the first time the forward cannons blast at full strength. The first warbird's shields shatter, and flames shoot from its starboard nacelle. The second one's had time to charge its singularity core - it does a quick subspace jump to dodge our first volley, and unloads a burst of plasma fire at our midsection. The shields hold, just. Reaction mass jets from our RCS thrusters as Nyesenia brings her round again, and Nurnos's next burst shears through one pylon and sends the warbird spinning away.
"No more ships on short range scan," says Roz.
"OK, let's make like a tree and leave. Warp speed."
The stars stretch out into streaks of fire, and we're away.
---
It's the first step. There is a lot of jinking and weaving and doubling back to do before I'm sure we're safe, and then there's the rest of the set-up to go through - sending discreet coded bursts along particular subspace channels. The information we got from the Thexemians was probably out of date, but it's all I've got, and with luck it will attract someone's attention, at any rate.
When I finally call it a day and head to my quarters, though, I can see I've already got someone's attention. The portable subspace rig on my desk is flashing for attention. I sigh, sit down, and answer the call.
"What in the name of the Elements do you think you are doing?" Heizis's face, on the tiny screen, doesn't look happy. Not that she's ever exactly cheerful, but right now, she is not in a good mood, that's for sure.
"Had to make it look good, didn't I? Is everyone OK your end?" I think they must be. I don't reckon she'd be talking to me if they weren't.
"Two Scorpions heavily damaged, one destroyed - but the pilot and co-pilot were beamed off in time," Heizis snarls. "The Lasant and the Vecenius have been towed to the Vault for repairs - no casualties were reported. Now, explain."
"How secure are you?"
"I am in a storage unit with no terminals, no datapads, no other communications besides this. I assume you have sanitized your ship's data network. We may speak freely. So speak."
The subspace rig is a coach-built design, using quantum entanglement to talk with just one other counterpart - the matching unit at Heizis's end of the line. It's the most secure comms link we could come up with. "I had to make it look good," I repeat. "I need to get a line on Thrang, right? And he wants me to throw in with him, yeah? He said as much. But he's no idiot, he's gotta know I won't do that... not unless, or until, I've got no alternatives left. That makes sense, yeah? So I decided shooting my way out of the Vault would make it look like I'm off your friends list."
"You are already at odds with the Federation," says Heizis. "And you are right, today's performance certainly looks as though you have lost the friendship of my people. The Republic would follow our lead -"
"And everyone knows I don't have any love for the Ferengi, and I'm not gonna be welcomed with open arms in Klingon or Cardassian space, and I'm too hot for the Breen and too cool for the Tholians, so where does that leave me? On my way back to the Delta Quadrant, maybe, except I'd have to go through two Alliance-controlled gateways to get there, so that's no good. It should really look like I'm running low on options, now."
"Thrang might still not believe it."
"Thrang probably won't believe it. He'll think I'm looking for some way to double-cross him. Only he'll also think I won't find one, on account of he's so darn brilliant. Whatever. However it works, we get a tiny bit closer to Thrang."
"Possibly." Heizis glares. "You could have warned me."
"Nuh-uh," I say. "I needed the Vault's authentic reaction. You'd probably have told them not to shoot at me, or something."
"Do not depend on that," says Heizis. "I will use this thing when I can. Keep me informed." And she closes the channel.
"Yes, Mother," I say to the blank screen.
I stand up and stretch. My bunk is starting to look very inviting. I take off my mining vest. I unbuckle one of the big boots and ease it off. I'm half way through unbuckling the other one when the intercom yips at me.
I thumb the button. "This better be good," I say.
Roz's face is on the display. "We have a response," she says.
"Already?"
"Routed through the Thexemian beacon net. I think someone's been listening out. I can patch them through -"
"Yeah. Do it."
Roz's face vanishes. There's a brief blur of static, and then someone else's face comes into view. Disappointing. Not Thrang's face. A human female's face, a young one, with light brown skin, dark brown hair, and big brown scared-looking eyes.
"You said 'This is Pex, I'm willing to talk'," she says.
Well, that was the phrasing on one of those subspace signals, fair enough. "I'm Pex. Pexlini, if you wanna get all formal. Who are you?."
"I'm Angelica Moreno. I got your signal. And I erased the comms log. I don't think Thrang knows I'm talking to you." She swallows, audibly. "And I think we need to talk."
Captain Kuthis strode around and around the bridge of the IKS Chisaro, watching the displays, watching the immense clockwork of the Dolsulca system ticking around him.
The home system of the Siohonin was busy. Even after the war, when the temporal entity known as Sebreac Tharr had led the Siohonin on an ill-advised campaign of conquest, the population of the Dolsulca system numbered in the hundreds of billions. On the displays, Kuthis could see the myriad dots of space freighters and passenger liners travelling between the inhabited worlds and the many, many spaceborne arcologies. The Empire had taken over the government, was instituting reforms to the Siohonin social system - but it was taking time, and there was an immense amount of work still to do. And, in the meantime, KDF vessels like Kuthis's Vor'cha cruiser were tasked with patrolling the system, keeping the traffic in some sort of order, and watching for outbreaks of trouble. The Siohonin had made no friends in the galaxy with their brutal invasion... but there were always troublemakers, somewhere....
Today, though, everything seemed to be normal enough. Kuthis scowled at the main screen. He was Klingon, he felt the need for action - any kind of action. System patrols were necessary, he knew, but they were dull -
"Sensor contact, grid sixteen." The Orion science officer, Sesvedba, spoke in her musical voice. Kuthis turned towards her.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Unknown. Whatever it is...." Her perfect jade brow wrinkled in a frown. "That can't be right. Closed to grid twelve already... it must be moving at high transwarp speed. Very high."
"Bring the ship to alert," Kuthis ordered. "Come about. Is this - whatever it is - coming out of warp?"
"Warp signature shows deceleration. But these readings - I've never seen anything like it." Sesvedba bit her lip. "Triangulating now -"
The display on the main screen flickered, broke up into static for a moment, then reformed. "What was that?" Kuthis snapped.
"Energy surge. Whatever it was, it came out of subspace at high speed. Equivalent of - that can't be right." Sesvedba shook her head. "It says, at least warp fifty."
"Get me a long-range scan. What is it?"
"Working." Sesvedba tapped busily at her console. "Well, it's a ship... configuration not registered... small, maybe around corvette sized...."
Kuthis strode back to his command chair. "Feed me the details. I have heard of something like this -" He sat down heavily, and engaged his command console. He was trying to think. Something about a renegade with a very fast ship - an intelligence briefing -
"It's powering up drives. We are still well outside effective combat range," said Sesvedba. "Warp field established - the parameters look very strange. Engaging -" She shook her head. "It's away. Same super-fast speed. We can't possibly pursue it, and the warp contrail will diffuse to nothing in a few minutes -"
"Got it." Kuthis snapped his fingers. "Combination subtranswarp and asynchronous warp field. Used by the renegade Kalevar Thrang - I have the intel files here. But why -?"
"What would Thrang want here?" Sesvedba asked. "And he was here less than a minute -"
"We do not know it was Thrang. He might have sold on that technology to others." Kuthis was thinking hard. "Here less than a minute. Time to make a pickup, perhaps, if there was a vessel close by - but there was not. Or time to launch something - Scan. Tachyon detection for cloaks, and check all exotic frequency ranges. He might have dropped a package for some passing freighter to pick up. Or a guided delivery drone -"
"Engaging full scan mode. Tachyon detection online." The displays shifted and changed, showing the input from the Chisaro's sensor suite. Kuthis was glaring at his console, watching as it flashed up further intelligence briefings.
"I have something," Sesvedba reported. "Cloaked - travelling at high velocity - no life signs." She turned towards the captain. "I don't understand. It's moving directly towards the sun. Exotic energy signature - on the screen now -"
Kuthis's eyes widened. "Plot an intercept!" he roared.
"Sir, there's no way - it's outstripping our best impulse speed -"
"Get me within weapons range!" Kuthis jumped to his feet and ran to the comms console, brushing the communications officer out of the way. His hand slammed down on the controls. "All vessels! All vessels in the Dolsulca system! This is the Chisaro! Emergency evacuation! There is a trilithium warhead inbound towards the sun! Warp out! Warp out now!"
---
Trilithium began as an academic curiosity.
The development of dilithium crystal technology led, inevitably, to further research, into how the crystals manipulated and focused energy, and how they might be developed to do it better. Trilithium, a variant compound with a triple enfolding of the crystalline structure, seemed to show promise - except that, in practice, it seemed to negate the generation of energy completely, at least for brief moments of time. And it was horrifically difficult to produce, hellishly unstable, prone to explode at the slightest provocation. For a while, its only practical application was as an explosive -
Then Dr. Tolian Soran worked out how to apply it, and trilithium stopped being a curiosity, and became a weapon of mass destruction.
The complex enfolding of trilithium's crystals did not negate energy, but transported it, moving it outside normal space-time, into subspace - for a few moments. When that energy returned to normal space, it was as a momentary, and often explosive, flash. Soran's contribution was to stabilize and extend the trilithium reaction, so that a small quantity of the material could transform all energy in a globe several light-seconds across -
The trilithium warhead that struck the star Dolsulca sucked the energy out of the entire star. A chromospheric research station, heavily shielded in the star's corona, was caught in the radius, and everyone aboard died instantly, their temperature reduced to absolute zero. They were the first.
A star is a complex balancing act, between the force of gravity dragging everything inwards, and the pressure of heat and radiation forcing everything outwards. When Dolsulca was robbed of its radiation output, gravity won the battle: the star began to collapse. Almost immediately, though, compression and friction in the core of the sun began to re-ignite it. Under the immense force of gravity, atoms crashed together and fused: hydrogen to helium, helium to beryllium, helium and beryllium to carbon, higher and higher up the periodic table... and the star began to glow again.
Then the stolen energy came back out of subspace and flooded into the star once more. Randomized, the radiation pressure worked as much inwards as outwards, further squeezing and compressing the core, promoting yet more fusion into yet more exotic elements, unstable heavy nuclei that disintegrated almost at once, yielding yet more energy... and the seesaw swung back, with a vengeance.
To observers in the system, the star appeared to go completely dark for a second or so - and then glowed again, glowed with an ever-increasing light, flaring with a blinding intensity, reaching a peak of more than fifty thousand times its normal luminosity... unleashing a hail of hard radiation, x-rays and gamma rays and cosmic rays, that no material object within several AUs could hope to withstand.
The massive Siohonin space colonies vanished like snowflakes in the mouth of a blast furnace. The inner planets boiled.
Some of the gas giants in the outer system survived the radiation flare - and some space habitats, orbiting on the night sides of those planets, were shielded from the flare and lived. It made no difference. The immense energy liberated at the star's core threw its outer layers into space, blasting outwards as a globe of ionized plasma, expanding at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. Nothing in the system could stand before that blast wave.
The Klingon governor's residence was on the day side of the Siohonin homeworld when the star flared. It, and the people in it, and the continent it stood on, simply boiled away in the killing glare. And somewhere, in a computer memory - in a stack of messages long since disregarded as mere crank calls and empty threats - a counter reached 00:00:00:00.
.... well. Thrang's sort of graduated from artisanal murder to mass-market genocide. As he's certainly at least complicit. I really hope he's out of bolt holes.
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!
Sweat glittered on Captain Kuthis's brow ridges; his face was grey and haggard. "Once we had broadcast the general alert," he said, "we plotted an intercept course for the trilithium warhead. It was useless. We had no chance of reaching weapons range on full impulse, and no time to calculate a precision micro-warp jump -"
"I know the difficulties," said J'mpok. He sat behind his desk, looking up at Kuthis. Behind him and to one side, Ambassador S'taass of the Gorn was a hulking silent presence. "Go on."
Kuthis nodded. "We understood the consequences of a trilithium detonation... we knew the system was doomed. We.... It seemed to us that we should try to save someone. Something...."
"Your logs show you performed a short warp jump to the outer system," said J'mpok.
"We had to make a choice." Genuine anguish showed on Kuthis's face. "Dolsulca VII... furthest from the blast... it offered the best chance, we thought. We identified six space colony cylinders that would be eclipsed by the gas giant during the initial radiation flash. Two were too large... we chose...."
"Arcology Theyava-Lan 1326." S'taass spoke for the first time, delivering the information in a flat tone.
"Yes," said Kuthis. "We knew it would survive the radiation flare, but when the rest followed, the plasma storm... even at that range, it would overwhelm their shields. Unless we supplemented them with ours.... We had to make a choice! We had to choose some few who might live, and leave the rest to die!"
"You extended your ship's shields and synchronized them with the colony cylinder's own," said J'mpok. "The additional shielding protected the colony, allowed them to survive until the plasma flux dropped to tolerable levels. Disaster relief vessels evacuated the cylinder shortly thereafter. Even for a small Siohonin colony, it took many, many ships... but they lived, Captain. They lived." His heavy-lidded eyes studied the other's sweating face. "A Vor'cha class cruiser such as your vessel does not possess shields enough to be extended in this manner - in normal circumstances."
"The circumstances were not normal, Chancellor. I ordered storm shelters rigged in the cargo bays, sent all but the most essential personnel to those. Those of us who remained at our posts... were all volunteers."
"The shielding, and the sheer bulk of the colony cylinder, protected its inhabitants," said J'mpok, in a soft voice, "and the radiological storm shelters protected your crew. With the exception of yourself and your... volunteers. I have read the medical reports."
"I, also." Kuthis was starting to sway from side to side. "If I have any regrets, Chancellor.... It is only that... I wish we could have done more...."
J'mpok rose to his feet. "You have done all that any true Klingon could, Captain. Qapla'." He raised his fist in a grave salute. "You are dismissed, Captain Kuthis. Rest now. Sto'vo'kor awaits."
Captain Kuthis returned the salute, turned, and stumbled out of the room.
J'mpok looked down at his desk console. "He did all that he could. But... perhaps a million Siohonin rescued, by his action, and by other ships as they fled the system. A drop in the ocean. And the homeworld, destroyed.... The Siohonin are extinct as a civilization."
"Our adversaries chose well," S'taass said. "If any genocide could ever be made acceptable.... The Siohonin had no friends in the galaxy."
A growl started in J'mpok's throat. He rose to his feet. "They fought a war against us all, true enough. They were defeated. And their leadership died for their temerity, and they were dupes of Sebreac Tharr in any case. Besides -" His fists came down on the desktop, hard enough to crack the console screen. "They were the Empire's subjects!" he roared. "They were our responsibility! This - this thing - affronts the Empire's honour!"
"I do not deny it," said S'taass. "What is to be done?"
"What must be done. Find those responsible, and punish them." J'mpok's eyes narrowed. "We must have help. The Federation is constitutionally opposed to genocide, and they know we are already at war with these - creatures. This so-called Action Black. We must pool our knowledge, pool our resources, seek out these criminals and extirpate them."
"I agree," said S'taass. "I worry, only -"
J'mpok rounded on him. "Worry what?"
"That this pooling of resources is precisely what the Actionists demand," said S'taass. "They claim that Action Black has no links to them - that it is a dark parody, only, of their own organization. Still. It seems that this crime brings benefits to the Actionists. And that concerns me."
Office of the President, Palais de la Concorde, Paris, Earth
"Mr President, this is an outrage. It's a violation of everything the Federation stand for. You have to act."
Lyle Anson paced up and down before the desk. Behind it, Aennik Okeg sat perfectly still, his huge eyes watchful.
"Outright genocide, sir. We cannot stand by and watch -"
"The Dolsulca system is... was... a part of the Klingon Empire," Okeg said. "The settlement treaty at the end of the Siohonin crisis stipulated that the Empire would take full responsibility for the control and... rehabilitation... of the Siohonin."
"Sir, are you saying that this is not our problem?"
"Of course not. We will give the Empire all the help they ask for. And I am sure they will ask. But we will not interfere in another nation's affairs until they permit it. It's a fundamental principle of the Federation, Mr Anson."
Anson stopped pacing. He turned sharply on his heel to face Okeg directly.
"Mr President, sometimes principles have to change. There is a bunch of madmen on the loose with genocide weapons, and whoever they are, they need to be stopped. We cannot allow issues of abstract principle to interfere with that!"
"I'm aware of your views, Mr Anson. You already know I don't share them. We will do everything we can, under Federation law. You must know that I want those criminals brought to justice as much as anyone."
"Not as much as us, sir. Action Black! They're laughing at us, sir, at us, the Actionist movement. You can't tell me that's not deliberate. These people, whoever they are -"
"We have a tentative identification, at least," said Okeg. "The ship which fired the warhead - it was using a specialist warp drive developed by an augmented renegade named -"
"Kalevar Thrang. I know. We don't know if it's him, though, or if he just sold the technology to some other group of lunatics. In any case, sir, just knowing a name isn't enough. We need full, open access between ourselves and the Klingons. And the Republic, too. We already know the Remans have been looking for trilithium for some time - they were concerned about exactly this sort of threat. We -"
"You're very well informed, Mr Anson," Okeg observed.
"We need to be. All the Actionist movements communicate, Mr President. We share information, of course we do. And that's why we recognize the value of that. Mr President, a specialist forensic team could scout the Dolsulca system for the remains of that warp contrail. We could track Action Black's ship back to its starting point. Klingon technology isn't up to a task like that, they don't have proper science ships like ours. Are you going to wait for them to ask before you send those ships in?"
"Of course." Okeg's voice remained calm and mild. "We do not interfere, Mr Anson. As soon as the Chancellor requests that help, he'll have it. Until then, though - Well. The Empire is currently in a state of high alert. Sending an unannounced Starfleet task force over the border - well, it's an action that could be dangerously misinterpreted."
"We're talking about genocide, Mr President! Hundreds of billions of people, an entire culture, wiped out! You can't sit there and quote me Federation legalisms!" Anson slammed his hands down on the President's desk. "Sir, I'm giving you a warning. We have resources. And if you won't take action, then I promise you, we will."
Bodega Bay, California, Earth
The planks of the jetty creaked beneath Thomas Harriman's feet. Before him, the sun shone out of a clear sky onto the flawless blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. Harriman proceeded, slowly, to the end of the jetty, where the other man was waiting for him.
"Tom. Good to see you." The man with the close-cropped sandy hair and the scar on his face smiled. "It's been a while."
"Franklin. Yes. Yes, I guess it has." Harriman leaned heavily on the handrail, his lips twitching as he tried to force a smile of his own.
"I gather this is business," said Franklin Drake. "Somehow, I never seem to get social calls."
"Well," said Harriman, "your number isn't in the book."
Drake laughed. He turned back to look out over the ocean. Harriman came to stand beside him. They were both silent for some time.
Eventually, Harriman said, "Someone just blew up an entire star system. That's not something we can ignore. There's circumstantial evidence linking it to Action Black, and to Kalevar Thrang -"
"Oh, it's Thrang," said Drake. "You can have that for nothing. His agent has already been in touch."
"What?"
"It's only normal, Tom. Agencies like ours... feel each other out. Test the waters."
"Franklin," said Harriman, "if you already have a lead on these people -"
"Actually," said Drake, "we don't. Thrang's distributed computer subversion is good. We weren't able to track that call - and, believe me, we should have been. You couldn't make a call I couldn't trace, Tom. So, if Tharval could...."
"Tharval?"
"A Lethean rogue agent working for Thrang. We knew that from the 54 Eridani business. Imperial Intelligence shared its data. Sometimes even willingly." Drake smiled.
"All right. So you know two of the people responsible. Franklin, those people have to be neutralized. Brought to trial, if we can manage it, but stopped from doing further damage. I'm -" Harriman drew in a deep breath. "I'm formally invoking Section 31 of the Federation Charter. Officially. Franklin, help us."
Drake nodded. His expression was pensive. "If I can," he said.
"What do you mean, if you can?"
"We're as vulnerable as anyone else to Thrang's computer virus. Section 31 has its own secure, sanitized networks, but we can't run those over interstellar distances without risking infection. So we don't. That's why I'm here, face to face, today."
"You're telling me even Section 31 is helpless?"
"No, not helpless. But unless someone can crack Thrang's subversion process, we're at a disadvantage." Drake's fingers drummed briefly on the handrail. "There's something else." He turned to face Harriman directly. "It's something I probably shouldn't tell you, Tom, but -" He shrugged. "I guess I have loyalties."
"What? What is it?" Harriman demanded.
"Thrang's agent made us an offer, Tom. Thrang's goal is a unified government throughout what's currently Federation, Imperial and Republic space. Tharval made a point, that the only way to run that government... is as an expanded version of the Federation. My organization's purpose is to defend the Federation by any means necessary. Subsuming our two biggest rivals -" He shrugged. "That'd count as defending Federation interests, right?"
Harriman stared at him. The blood drained out of the fat man's face. "You can't be serious."
"Tharval made it sound practical. A short reign for Thrang, followed by a vastly extended Federation. I wonder if I should ask Temporal Operations and find out if that's what's meant to happen? After all, we're pretty sure the Klingons will be Federation members by the twenty-ninth century."
"You can't be serious," Harriman repeated.
"Thrang made the offer. It's... under discussion. I'm not a one-man band, Tom, I have my own command structure to answer to. That structure is... deliberating." Drake started to walk away, down the jetty, while Harriman continued to stare, mute and helpless. After a couple of steps, Drake turned back for a moment. "I'll let you know when they've reached a decision. If I can."
I've never seen Admiral Stroffa look furious. The head of Stellar Survey is a matronly Denobulan woman, usually kindly and approachable; now, she is obviously seething with rage. Of her two assistants, one is obviously perturbed too; the Caitian M'eioi's black fur is bristling, her tail switching rapidly from side to side. Only T'Pia - being a Vulcan, and trained in the Kolinahr, and being, well, T'Pia - remains totally calm and inexpressive.
"All survey groups have now been redeployed within Federation borders," the small red-haired Vulcan is saying. "Agreements are in place with the KDF and the Republic to cover boundary areas such as the former Neutral Zones. Survey groups 201 through 220 are in position in the Eta Eridani sector, coordinating with Klingon and Gorn task forces on similar missions. I have the complete deployment schedule on my PADD now."
"Good," says Stroffa. "Finally." She turns to me, her face actually pulsating - the Denobulan threat reaction, just barely being kept in check. "What can Engineering Division give us?"
I hold out my own PADD. "We've supplied parameters, coordinated with Starfleet Intelligence, and identified every facility in the Federation with the technology needed to build a trilithium weapon. All listed here. There are only four hundred and thirty-eight of them, so we will have full monitoring systems in place, within forty-eight hours."
"Some of those facilities, while inside Federation territory, may not fall within Federation jurisdiction," T'Pia says.
"We will have full monitoring systems in place within forty-eight hours," I assure her. "If this involves placing scanning satellites around an independent world, well, they will just have to live with that."
"Good," says Stroffa, her face deflating. "So. With our sensor network looking out for trilithium, and a constant watch kept on places that can produce trilithium... maybe we can actually prevent a repetition of this - this atrocity."
It's a formidable job - the Federation is big, space is bigger, and there is plenty of room for someone to develop an illicit weapons factory if they want to. But with the whole of Starfleet on alert, with all of Stroffa's science vessels combing the void for trilithium signatures... maybe we can catch the next attack, stop it in time. If there is a next attack.
My combadge chirps at me. "Shohl." This had better be an emergency.
"Sir." Cordul's voice. "We have a crash priority request from Intelligence. They need the King Estmere again, urgently."
I glance at Stroffa. "We have your data," she says. "You'd better go. Thank you, Admiral Shohl."
---
"Six independent merchant ships, all reporting sensor contacts with a Hirogen escort." Anthi marks out the positions on the holographic display. "So far, no hostile activity. What's bothering Intelligence is the distances involved."
I look at the display, and at the stardates for the contacts, and my antennae twitch. "That ship is moving at one hell of a speed. Assuming it's the same ship. Can we make that assumption?"
"Data from the freighters is consistent," Three of Eight rumbles. "Transponder idents and warp signatures match. For the ship to be present in each of those locations, at the designated times, it would have to be moving at speeds in excess of warp forty."
"Analysis suggests it's going in and out from some central location." Bulpli Yulan takes over the discussion. "We've plotted a locus in the centre of the region marked by the contacts." She puts another marker on the display. "Somewhere around here. There's nothing listed at that location, but there might be an asteroid fragment nearby - or, of course, someone might have built something there. A transwarp hub, maybe, or a trajector gateway. That might account for the ship's speed."
"OK. So we have a Hirogen escort probing around, moving very fast, mission unknown. And Intelligence wants it intercepted, by something fast enough to catch it, and big enough to beat it. Which means us. We ready to move?"
"All systems go," Dyssa D'jeph assures me.
"So let's move," I say.
---
Surprisingly few hours later, Three of Eight says, "I have a sensor contact."
I turn the command chair to face him. "The Hirogen?"
"Negative. An asteroid, but in the approximate locus we have identified - and with a temperature significantly higher than cosmic background level." There is something approaching a smile on Three's grey, machinery-infested face. "I think we have found our bogey's base of operations."
At any rate, we've found an unregistered space outpost, and even if it's not involved in the mysterious Hirogen's activities, whoever's there must surely have seen that ship passing.... "OK. Lay in an approach course, scan on all frequencies -" I think for a moment. "Deploy the Mesh Weavers. We might as well be ready for anything. Yellow alert."
King Estmere comes about, aims her sharp prow at a new point in space. The frigates thunder out of the launch bays.
"Substantial sensor jamming," says Three. "I have albedo readings confirming a metallic structure on the surface of the asteroid -"
"Got something for you," Klerupiru interrupts. "Sensor jamming, yeah, and plenty of it, but there's a data transmission subchannel running." She grins. "And I recognize the encryption pattern. I think I can crack it."
"Data transmission." My antennae twitch. "Transmitting what, to where?"
"I think it's internal monitoring," says Klerupiru. "Whoever this place belongs to, they want to keep an eye on it while they're away." Her fingers are working busily at her console. "Isolating a facility map... single transporter pad.... Looks like it's a pretty standard commercial modular lash-up - oh, hey. I can get a visual."
"Visual on what?"
"Looks like a security camera monitoring the largest internal space. Might be a laboratory or something."
"Well, let's see it, then. On screen."
And the image appears on the main viewscreen. I think Klerupiru's right, this is a laboratory - there are workbenches, and PADDs scattered about, and what might be equipment for high-energy particle generation. There's something in the middle of the lab, a big upright cylinder -
I sit bolt upright. "Klerupiru. Can you zoom in on this image?"
"Sure. No problem. What do you want to look at?"
"That cylinder in the middle. There's something square on the side of it. It looks like a plaque -"
"Oh, I see it. OK. Isolating and enlarging."
The image jerks, shudders, starts to expand. The plaque on the side of the cylinder gets larger and larger, and I can see writing on it, a few short words, engraved on the metal.
"Ex uno plures," I whisper, and a chill runs down my spine.
"What?" says Anthi. "Sir, that was -"
"The motto on Dr. Tamik's machine. Yes." Disjointed thoughts are passing through my head. Surely no one would be stupid enough to build a copy of Dr. Tamik's reality-fracturing device? An exact copy, down to the Latin tag on the outside?
I stand up. "This has got to be some kind of trick," I say. "I don't know if it's a trap, or an invitation, or what, but I'm pretty sure it's aimed right at me."
"Makes sense, sir," says Anthi. "What are you going to do?"
"Take the bait and see what happens. Klerupiru, can you get a signal through to that transporter pad?"
"I don't - Uh-oh." Klerupiru frowns. "Between the security settings and all the jamming, I shouldn't be able to, sir. But I can."
"An invitation. Well," I say, "I guess I'd better take it."
---
The transport seems to take longer than usual. Maybe that's just my nerves.
I beam into a room that's little more than a cubicle. The environment is standard Federation - warm, by my standards, but perfectly liveable. My antennae are tingling, though, with the background electromagnetic radiation from the jamming systems.
My combadge chirps. "We just lost the visual feed," Klerupiru's voice says. She sounds tinny, as the signal fights its way through the interference. I check the transporter console.
"Someone doesn't want to be seen," I muse, as much to myself as Klerupiru, "but as far as I can see, this console's fine - I can still beam out." I draw my phaser pistol. "OK, I'm going to the lab."
"Sir, interference is -" Klerupiru's voice vanishes in a strangled squawk. Someone wants this meeting to be private.
I step towards the door, and it hisses open. Beyond, a short corridor, and another door. That one, too, opens as I approach. I step through, into the laboratory. The cylinder looks very massive, very ominous.
"So all right," I say. "I'm here."
A familiar, but slightly hollow, voice says, "Took you long enough. Just a minute, let me get out of this thing."
I raise the phaser. The outer casing of the cylinder starts to rise up, and a pair of feet become visible inside it - feet covered by massive dilithium-miner's boots. Pexlini shuffles and squirms awkwardly out of the cylinder, stands up, and pulls a sour face at the sight of the gun. "Aw, yeebles, are you planning on arresting me or something?"
I keep the gun on her. "Shouldn't I?"
"No. Absolutely not. Why'd you think I went to all this trouble to get you here? I got news, and you need to hear it." She brushes a hand over her unruly topknot, goes over to a workbench, sits down on it.
I sigh, and holster the phaser. "What's with the super-speed ship?" I ask.
"What? - oh, yeah, right. Haven't got one. I just asked some friends to, yanno, do me a solid. Transmitted some fake sensor logs. I do have a Hirogen ship, but it's just a bog-standard one." Pexlini shrugs. "Got you here, didn't it?"
"You seem very determined to talk in private," I say.
"I know nothing here's contaminated with Thrang's computer virus," says Pexlini, "and the jamming field means he can't pick anything up from your gear. Yeah, I know your data-warfare guy will be trying to keep your systems clean, but, well, that stuff's insidious. Gets everywhere."
"Thrang's computer virus."
"Yeah. Kalevar Thrang's at the back of all this. I spoke to the guy. More importantly, I got a line into his organization."
"Why are you talking to me instead of Intelligence?"
"I couldn't work out a way to get to the right people in Intelligence. You, I could make an invitation for. But the only guy in Intelligence I could have done the same for... was Paul Hengest." She looks away for a moment, her lips pursed. "He was OK, was Paul. I owe Thrang for that, too."
I pull up a lab stool and take a seat. "All right. Tell me what I need to know."
"I don't know everything yet. My contact is an ex-Starfleet cadet on Thrang's ship. She got disillusioned with the Federation, and joined the Actionist movement. Then she met Thrang, and she got a whole lot more disillusioned. But Thrang doesn't tell his people any more than they need to know, and my girl's taking a hell of a chance with everything she does. Thrang's got at least one Lethean working for him, among other things."
"Can she get a handle on how he's working the computer virus? Or on how he's managing to be in so many different places? He got onto Earth Spacedock -"
"Working on it. The virus, the shadow OS, has some control device for it. My contact's heard some stuff about a 'mask', and I'm hoping it's not the damn Mask of Dhalselapur, that thing's caused me enough trouble already."
"A mask." Something clicks. "Klerupiru found something it'll respond to - a set of quaternions. It could be a way of defining a three-dimensional object. The Mask of Dhalselapur would be as good as any other -"
"Why that thing, though? Besides, Thrang's been spreading this computer stuff around for ages, probably since way before my misadventures in the Delta Quadrant." Pexlini sighs. "Still think I'm missing something. We're trying to rough out a way I can get in contact with Thrang, anyway."
"He's still interested in you?"
"Guy doesn't like to take no for an answer. But I'm not gonna be his number one priority, anyway. I'm just on his list." Pexlini shoots me a sidelong glance. "So are you."
"Me?"
"My contact's name is Angelica Moreno. You can maybe check up on her. She was on the engineering track -"
I snap my fingers. "She was on an optional materials-engineering course on Magamba." Pexlini gapes at me. "Oh, come on. I was one of the first-contact team on Magamba, I've been leading the field in integrating Jolciot materials and methods, of course] I know who else might be taking an intelligent interest."
"Right. Well, Thrang worked that one out too. Pretty much the first thing he had Angelica do was work out some gimmick for making your ship fall to bits. You're on his list, and it's the naughty list, not the nice list. I don't think he's forgiven you for not starting his war for him." Pexlini runs her hand over her topknot again. "You should maybe go over your personal routines, all your habits - see if there's anything you can change. Any chance you can take to pitch Thrang a curve ball, you take it."
"You're lucky a baseball fan explained that one to me, back in 1948," I mutter. Pexlini stares at me. "Never mind, it'd take too long to explain. You realize, of course, there's nothing here I can take back to Starfleet? Just a tall tale from a rogue Intelligence agent."
"Ain't that the truth. I'll get what I can, when I can. Angelica reckons Thrang is planning another spectacular, to keep everyone off balance. Won't be trilithium this time, though. He did have a second trilithium weapon, but Heizis got to it before he could use it." She sighs. "Angelica also hasn't heard of any countdowns currently running. But that doesn't mean there aren't any. Thrang never tells anyone everything."
"All right. Consider yourself not arrested. I'll... do whatever I can." My antennae twitch. "I might have a curve ball I can throw, at that. Will you be all right if I leave you here?"
"Oh, sure. My ship'll be here in a few hours, now you've tripped the transporter pad. Um, if you could take yours away, just so's I can be sure there'll be no shooting -"
"Right." I stand up.
"The main thing is, Action Black is run by Kalevar Thrang," says Pexlini, "and it joins up with all the other Actionist groups, whether the individual Actionists know it or not. Pretty standard stuff. Like that guy on Earth, twentieth century? Got a bunch of thugs to cause trouble, got elected to power on the basis that he was the guy to stop 'em? There ain't anything new under the sun." She shakes her head. "Problem is gonna be getting any sort of proof of this."
---
I step off the transporter pad, under the watchful gaze of most of my senior staff. "OK," I say. "Bulpli, get scans done for Changeling cell structure, isomorphic injections, psionic or chemical hypnotic agents - basically, everything we need to prove I'm still me. While we're doing that - Klerupiru. Set up a sanitized meeting room, and I mean sanitized - clean out every data terminal, every PADD, everything more sophisticated than a lever, if you have to. I need to give you all a briefing, and it needs to be secure."
"There remains the question of my personal fee." Assessor Prant's tiny eyes glitter in the dim light. "I suggest... two hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum."
"Agreed," I say. It is an outrageous sum, and he evidently expects me to haggle - but we have the latinum, and by this point, I would pay more than that simply to be rid of him.
He bares his disgusting Ferengi teeth in what is possibly a smile. "That will be satisfactory, then," he croaks. "I am pleased that you have refrained from making difficulties. Usually, Ree-maan self-righteousness is worse even than the hew-mons...."
I have no idea why General Xerek assigned me to this task. I am no diplomat - true, I am not nearly as bad a diplomat as Assessor Prant, but to say that is to say nothing. But, he is a senior officer of the Ferengi Commerce Authority's External Auditing division. External Auditing keeps track of assets belonging to organizations outside the FCA - military assets, generally. It is the Ferengi's military intelligence agency, and it is effective.
"As agreed, then. Immediate subspace transfer of your data files concerning trilithium and trilithium-precursor manufacturing sites in non-aligned space adjoining the Ferengi Alliance." I force a thin smile. "This will plug important holes in our and the Federation's coverage of these installations."
"Subject to verification of payment - agreed, then. Beam the latinum directly to my ship. I want to look at it," says Prant, in alarmingly lubricious tones. I pull out my datapad, begin to authorize the transfers of currency. Prant tinkers with his communicator. Eventually, we are finished.
"I cannot interest you in a supply of beetle snuff? Or a holiday retreat on Segmura Alpha? No? Then we are done." Prant rises to his feet. "And I will return to my ship. I find this dark and dreary station of yours extremely depressing, Ree-maan."
"I will escort you to the transporter room." I resist the urge to turn him upside down and shake him, to see what valuables might fall out of his pockets.
"Much simpler just to let me beam out," Prant grumbles as we walk down the gloomy corridors to the transporter room. "You Ree-maans take your security too seriously."
"We have had to. I suppose a direct transport could be arranged, though it would violate a great many security protocols." I cannot resist needling him. "Quite a number of people would have to be adequately recompensed." Prant says something under his breath that the universal translator cannot, or will not, process.
"Set coordinates for the transporter room of Nandi-class warship Prelgar, in docking bay 5207-Uruz," I tell the transporter chief. Prant stamps his way onto the pad. "Goodbye, Assessor Prant. It has been a pleasure to do business with you," I lie. And I turn away and stalk out of the room before he can answer -
And the world turns very bright and shatteringly loud, and something enormous shoves me from behind, and I spin through the air and raise my arms to fend off the wall that is coming at me, and I feel the bone in my arm snap, and then there is a tremendous blow to my head and everything is blessedly dark.
---
General Xerek glowers down at me as I lie on the bio-bed. "A pyrexite demolitions charge, apparently beamed onto the pad as it energized to transport Assessor Prant. Source unknown. Another transporter beam, heterodyned on the Ferengi ship's signal. The forensic trail, in the computer and sensor logs, is fogged and partially obliterated."
"The computer virus at work," I mutter. My head hurts. Actually, all of me hurts.
"Quite. It was mere luck that you survived." Xerek's expression suggests he does not consider it good luck.
"What of the others?"
"The transporter chief caught the full force of the blast in his head and upper torso. He did not survive. As for Assessor Prant...." Xerek grunts. "We have found enough DNA to make a positive identification. We will probably be cleaning bits of him out of the transporter room for some time." He pauses, then adds, "He had a countdown running."
I frown. It hurts. Dermal regeneration has taken care of the flash burns, but the deep-tissue muscle injuries - and the compound fracture of my left arm - will take longer to heal. "And he still chose that moment to step into a transporter?"
"It is possible he was disregarding it. Many do, it seems."
"No," I say, thinking, "no.... Prant was an intelligence officer, aware of the situation, aware of the risks. If he had a countdown, he would have taken precautions, surely...."
"He might not have known of it. We found it in his ship's files; an officious underling - or an ambitious one, eager for promotion - might have hidden it from him. Or, of course -" Xerek's expression darkens "- he might have believed that here, at the Vault, he was safe from harm. This is the second time that Thrang has penetrated our security with ease. I cannot but believe that it is a deliberate affront. An insult, aimed at us."
"Quite possibly. Reman Intelligence has a well-deserved good reputation. If Thrang can damage our image, our standing...." I am thinking. I let my head fall back onto the pillow. "I must rest."
Xerek makes a disapproving noise. "Very well, you must rest. Resume your duties as soon as you are able." And he turns and goes, his stick making sharp clicking sounds on the deck.
I am resting. I am also thinking. Someone killed Prant - well, the Ferengi was a viable enough target. And they breached the Vault's security to do it - and the propaganda value of that is obvious. But whoever it was, they would have know that someone else would be in that transporter room - a Reman agent, come out of simple politeness to speed Prant on his way. I have to acknowledge the possibility that the bomb was aimed at Prant, and at Reman credibility... and at me.
Roz has been busy. Identifying potential targets in the Tzenkethi sectors meant digging into a whole raft of Starfleet comms stuff that I'm not technically allowed to look at, just now - ferreting stuff out has become Roz's job, and fair play to her, she's good at it.
So now my ship's lurking on the margins of a destroyed system in Tzenkethi space, waiting for the scavengers to come by.
I don't know what's going through the Tzenkethi's leathery heads, these days. They're devoting some serious military resources towards scouring the local systems, seeking out and destroying some weird crystal formations that hatch out into bugs they call Drantzuli. These Drantzuli may or may not be a serious threat in themselves - jury's still out on that one - but the Tzenkethi's animosity towards them means they're tossing around protomatter weapons like there's no tomorrow, destroying not just the Drantzuli but also any innocent civilians who happen to be standing on the same planet. And, since the Tzenkethi offered no explanation of why they were doing this, their popularity in the quadrant has fallen roughly to "shoot on sight" levels. Which is a crazy way to do things, if you ask me. If they want to wipe out the Drantzuli, wouldn't that be easier without everyone else shooting at them? I suppose I'm lucky it's not really my problem just now.
"Still nothing," Nurnos grunts at me. The Nausicaan is eager for action, sitting around waiting isn't his idea of fun.
"Well, it might take a while," I say. "Try to noodge us in a bit closer to that hunk of wreckage, can you?" The Hirogen ship doesn't have a proper battle cloak, we need to hide behind things if we're going to do a proper job of lurking. Keeping us in the sensor shadow of a chunk of ex-Tzenkethi warship is the sort of technical challenge that might keep Nurnos busy a little bit longer.
The RCS arrays fire, and Anita cosies up to a half-melted slab of metal that used to be the front end of a Tzenkethi cruiser. I check the emissions filters. We are shut down as tightly as we dare, given we may need to be combat ready at any time - even if Thrang's people don't show up, wandering Tzenkethi could happen by at any minute. It's all getting very bad for my digestion, this.
"Sensor contact at extreme range," says Nyesenia. "I'm not sure what it is -" Her orange eyes widen, and she whistles through her teeth. "But it's coming in fast. I think this might be it."
"Terrific," I say. "OK, run the program on the weapons systems, and let's just hope I'm right. If not, it's gonna get kinda embarrassing, not to mention fatal."
"Warp deceleration shockwave," grunts Nurnos. "Big one. Equivalent of - hey, that can't be right."
"Oh, yes it can," I say. "Gimme everything we've got on passive sensors, and get ready to rumble."
Something just crashed out of subspace, very, very fast. "Low mass reading, big emissions profile," says Roz. "Comparable to an Orion corvette, but with a really complicated warp signature... reading some active sensor pings from it, but nothing coming specifically in our direction... no transponder code, no weapons targeting signatures, but that means nothing."
"Means their guns ain't hot right now," I say, "so let's show 'em ours are. Take us in, target all forward cannons, fire as they bear."
And Anita comes out of the shadow of the wreckage in a screaming tight turn, engines flaring with power, tetryon cannons spitting a dazzling barrage of blue bolts at our new target.
I clamp down on a sigh of relief when I actually get a good look at the thing. This isn't an actual copy of Thrang's super-fast ship, the Farah; it's something smaller and cheaper to build, a light courier, a very basic hull thrown together around the massive nacelles holding the complex super-fast drive. I'm still not sighing, though, because there's still room aboard that thing for some other nasties - I well remember Thrang's autonomous combat drones, that did such a good job of kicking my and Heizis's ships around the sky at our last encounter.
But we've caught this thing completely on the hop, and it's not launching anything. Beautiful coloured lights flame across space as its shields go down, and our next shower of tetryon bolts slams straight into its unprotected hull. With a salvo like that, you'd normally expect the ship to come to pieces at once, but in this case....
"OK. Recalibrate the cannons for normal firing, and open some hailing frequencies. We got some 'splainin' to do." I watch the lovely lightning crawling along those oversized nacelles, while Roz gets on comms.
The face that finally appears on the viewscreen is Lethean. "Aw, shoot," I say. "I had a traditional Thexemian greeting prepared, as well. I am Pexlini, and when I say my name men cross their legs and women go woobly-woobly-woot, sort of thing. Hi, there, anyway."
"I know who you are," says the Lethean. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you. And making sure you're not going anywhere soon. Take a look at your drive - you should see your two warp systems are totally out of sync, now. Be lucky to make warp two, and that with a following wind." I settle myself down in the command chair and try to look confident. "See, I remembered how to do that trick, from the last time I beat Thrang. And I knew where to come looking, too, didn't I? After that little spectacular, everybody and his pet goat Simon is going to be locking down trilithium technology, so I figured Thrang would be switching over to a different weapon of mass destruction, and where better to scavenge some weaponized protomatter, huh?"
"No doubt you are congratulating yourself on how clever you are," says the Lethean.
"Well, nobody else is gonna do it, right?" No point mentioning the additional help we've been getting from Angelica Moreno. Something clicks in my head, about the intelligence digests Heizis shouldn't really have shown me. "You're not Tharval, by any chance, are you?"
"That is my name." His expression gets uglier, which is a pretty good trick from a Lethean.
"Ace. Super. So you're way up there in Thrang's hierarchy. How is the boss man just now, anyway?"
"Confident. And justifiably so. He remains convinced he will attain his aims." Tharval's nasty little Lethean eyes get narrower. "I am not so certain, especially with some of his minor ambitions."
"Like getting me to work for him, right?"
"Correct. He seems to think you are a pragmatist, that you will ultimately realize the folly of fighting on the losing side, and switch to the winning team. I am not so sure that you have that much intelligence."
"Well, now," I say. "Let's see if I can convince you, a bit. Because, well, I'm not exactly flavour of the month with Starfleet Intelligence, yeah? But if I go back to ESD with you in custody, well, I'd be seeing lots more smiley faces there, wouldn't I?"
"Assuming you could take me alive."
"Oh, that's a safe enough assumption. You're a pragmatist, I don't see you dying for the cause any time soon. Besides which, the news that Thrang's collecting protomatter, well, that's another datum point Intelligence could use, isn't it?"
"None of this is enough to buy your way back into favour with your masters."
"Maybe, maybe not. I can look pretty winsome when I try, you know. But maybe you're right. In any case, we ain't gonna find out today. I'm letting you go. OK, fairly slowly, till you get your drive fixed, but I'm letting you go. Because things ain't exactly going my way, and maybe I do want to talk to Thrang."
"Oh, I am sure you want to talk to Thrang," says Tharval. "With a phaser in your hand and a division of Starfleet Security to back you up."
"That'd be ideal, yeah, but I don't think it's gonna happen. So, let's talk ways it can happen. We both know he wants it to, yeah?"
"He might want it. Others might advise against it. Thrang knows me. He will take my advice."
"Will he now? Well, you better give him my message, anyway. Tell him I wanna talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey." Hey, the guy doesn't like me anyway, no point being polite.
"Oh, I will pass on the message. Thrang will want to know what minor inconvenience disrupted my schedule, after all." There's a definite sneer on that ugly Lethean mug. "And if you want to join us, be aware - I conduct many of the initial interviews, face to face. I will meet you, and when I see deceit in your mind, I will destroy you."
"OK, fine. See you then, then." And I cut the channel.
Tharval's ship is limping away on impulse drive. "They'll have to take one of their warp drives completely out of the circuit, until Thrang can do his engineering-genius bit and rebalance it," I say. "Guy's gonna be annoyed."
"We could destroy them at will," says Nurnos.
"Yeah, the point is sorta to get the message to Thrang, so we kinda won't do that right now, OK?"
"Thrang will take that Lethean's advice," says Roz. "Almost certainly."
"Yeah. Well, that kinda works in our favour, too." Tharval's ship vanishes into warp, in a flare of lightnings from its unstable drives. I gaze pensively into the screen. "Fact is, I'm gonna have to fast-talk my way through the next bit, and that's actually gonna be easier if I'm not talking to Thrang. I don't have to worry about pulling the wool over Thrang's eyes. I just have to out-fox a mind-reading super-spy and psychic assassin, instead." I smile. "Easy-peasy."
"You can't possibly be considering this," Tharval said. Thrang just smiled. "There is no possible way you can trust her."
"There's no way I can trust you, either," said Thrang, "and yet, here we are." They were alone in the ready room of Thrang's ship. It showed, Tharval thought, that Thrang did trust him... to some extent.
"You know my... personal ambitions," he said. "And I believe they can be satisfied, through you - or at least that you offer me the best possible chance. The Talaxian, though -"
"It's just a question of stringing her along, until she doesn't know how deeply she's involved," said Thrang. "She will play us along, hoping to find an opening... and we won't give her one... and eventually she will realize she has spent so much time playing along, she's already switched sides without knowing it. I imagine that moment will be... rather delicious." His voice sharpened. "However, before that happens, we've got to get her, at least nominally, on the team. Someone will have to make contact, directly and in person."
"I will do it. She will expect you, of course, but I will do it."
"Life is full of little surprises." Thrang frowned. "Including her disabling the courier ship. I really can't spare the time to fiddle with its drive systems just now.... So, we improvise and adapt."
"How?"
"Bring forward the transmission. Let's see, we have Vel Tarsus, we have Planet T... let's pick some other systems that are still rebuilding. Cirini Prime is still having difficulties, I think...." Thrang closed his eyes for a moment. "Pellia Minor, Arcasura, and Xi Arae for the Federation, Soteth and Kragsar for the Klingons, Aecor, Solemari Beta and Colessos for the Romulans. There we are. A nice little list of humanitarian crises where Action Black can promise to take a hand. But I think we will attend to Vel Tarsus ourselves. It will dovetail neatly with another little demonstration."
He tapped out a series of commands on his desk console, finished with a flourish, and leaned back.
"Vel Tarsus will get that one's attention. And I will be glad to see the back of her. She disappointed me, that one."
---
The blast echoed among the half-ruined buildings of the Tarsian city. The few Tarsians around - basically humanoid, apart from odd geometric patterns of skin pigmentation on their faces - scattered and fled. Osrin and Koneph exchanged startled glances. Osrin pulled out his pocket communicator. "Corodrev to ISRA 2. We have an explosion on the surface. Scan for source."
"Data is already available," said the crisp voice of a Vulcan science officer. "A detonation at the hydrocarbon processing plant, presumed the action of a Svanakh hostile. That facility is located three hundred metres due east of your present position. Please ascertain the extent of the damage and any other relevant details."
"Got it. On our way." Osrin turned off the communicator. "Looks like another bombing, this time at the gas plant."
"Oh, great," said Koneph.
The two Andorians set off at a fast, loping run. The city streets were deserted, now. Even with the planet in its current disastrous state, the tensions between its indigenous cultures kept erupting into violence. The Svanakhs still included a depressing proportion of irreconcilable fanatics, and the refugee transports couldn't screen everyone -
Smoke was billowing from the giant industrial plant as they approached it. Osrin winced. Security guards were milling around, trying to impose some sort of order on the panicking workers. It was one time being Andorian actually helped; the security troopers knew they were off-worlders, knew they were there to help, stood out of their way and let them pass.
They got as far as the main administrative building before a wall of choking smoke blocked them. They ducked inside, clattered up the metal stairs towards the main control room A Tarsian came towards them, waving his hands urgently. "Get back!"
"We're with IDRA," Osrin called out. "What happened?"
The Tarsian coughed. "There." He pointed. "Setting up in the auxiliary pump control - main control's compromised, we're going to do what we can -" He coughed again, with a nasty tearing sound.
The two Andorians followed him to a small room mostly filled with machinery; other Tarsians were there already, opening up cabinets and checking circuit diagrams. "Need to shut it down," the Tarsian said, with another cough.
"What happened?" Osrin repeated.
"Svanakh terrorists. Detonated an explosive in the central pumping chamber. Broke it open, it's venting gases... and they put something else in the main control room, some kind of toxin."
Koneph had his tricorder out, was scanning the area. "Damnation," said Osrin. "How can we help?"
"You don't know our setup," the Tarsian said. "The blast sent a pressure surge down the pipelines, must have blown out sections all through the city - the pipes were on the verge of failure anyway -"
The pipelines ran through the city, carrying hydrocarbon gas for use as fuel - an obsolete system by Federation standards, but the Tarsians had been relying on it. Osrin thought about the sections of the city that would now lose heat and light, thought about the hundreds of kilometres of pipes now leaking flammable gas into the atmosphere, and winced again. "So you're going to short out the pumps and cut the supply?"
"That's the idea."
"It'll go a lot quicker," said Koneph, "if someone goes back into the main control room and throws the master switches." He flashed a brief grin at them both. "It's just a simple organic toxin. Well within my tolerance range. I won't be more than five minutes." And he almost sauntered out of the room.
The Tarsian gaped after him. "You Andorians... you can do that?"
"Not really." Osrin sighed. "My friend and I were part of an experiment. My father was an unethical genetic engineer. Among other things. Koneph's immune to a wide range of toxins."
"Sounds like it could be useful," said the Tarsian.
"Yes and no. Genetic engineering is tricky stuff, it very rarely works exactly right. But, right now, yeah, Koneph is the chan for the job." He felt a vague pride in his chan-partner... not unmixed with worry as the seconds ticked by.
There was a sound, a sort of sigh, from machinery coming to rest. "Sounds like he's done the job," said Osrin. At least the plant wouldn't be feeding any more inflammable gas into the leaking system....
Koneph reappeared a couple of minutes later. "No problem," he said, and sneezed violently. "All right, not much of a problem... something in the damn smoke triggered my allergies, that's all."
Osrin clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get back to base, get your sniffles seen to, and make a report," he said. He looked around the room at the Tarsian techs. "We'll have to see what we can salvage from this."
"Your Federation types kept on saying we'd be better off with a modern EPS grid." The Tarsian spokesman shook his head sadly. "Looks like we don't have any other choice, now."
---
Back at the outpost dome, Osrin dragged Koneph into the medical unit, and punched in a familiar series of commands for antihistamines and steroid injections. While his partner coughed and dozed on the bio-bed, Osrin sat down at the comms console and started work on the damage assessment. It looked bleak. An EPS grid could be installed, true - but not until the reserves of flammable gas had dissipated or been burned off, and not until the tectonic stabilizers could definitively prevent any more earth tremors. Until then... many Tarsian refugees would be going cold, as well as hungry.
He was uploading the logs from Koneph's tricorder when the screen began to flash an incoming message alert. He sighed. "Corodrev," he said, hitting the receive switch - and then, "Tylha?"
Tylha Shohl's scarred face was drawn and haunted. "Osrin," she said. "I wanted to talk to you - how are things?"
"There's been another message from the Action Black group. They've listed several systems as places where the local authorities are failing, where they're promising to step in and take action. Vel Tarsus is on the list. I wanted you to be on the alert."
"All right." But it wasn't all right, Osrin could see that in her face. "Kon and I will keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.... Tylha. What else is bothering you?"
One corner of her mouth lifted in a humourless smile. "Personal issue, I guess. I've received a message of my own... I'm still getting it." Her mouth turned grim again. "I've got a countdown running."
The atmosphere in King Estmere's conference room is tense, and glum. Maybe I should feel that way, too - after all, I'm the one with the death sentence hanging over me. Mostly, though, what I feel is anger.
"All right," I say. "Let's go over this. We know Thrang wants me dead. And we know he's up to something at Vel Tarsus. If he's been doing any background checks on me - and we have to assume he has, and in some detail - then he must know I have reasons to be concerned about that particular world." I square my shoulders. "So. It seems to me that I've got two alternatives. Go to Vel Tarsus, or try and hide somewhere else."
"Going to Vel Tarsus is playing right into his hands, surely?" says Harley Haught.
"Possibly," says Bulpli Yulan, but her black eyes are thoughtful. "But remember what happened to Admiral Hengest...." She turns to look directly at me. "Thrang is going to figure out some way of getting to you. If we go to Vel Tarsus, we've got some chance, at least, of working out what it is. If we sequester you somewhere safe - like we did Admiral Hengest -"
"Then he could hit me from anywhere," I say.
"Not anywhere," Klerupiru mutters. "His damn shadow OS isn't that good.... But, yeah, I wouldn't like to work out how he'd play it."
"Especially as Thrang is not concerned about the amount of collateral damage he inflicts," rumbles Three of Eight.
"Which brings me to another point." I pause, look sternly at each of my senior officers in turn. "Thrang doesn't worry about who's standing next to his targets. If you're around me, your lives are at risk too. I want to minimize that risk. If I'm going to Vel Tarsus, I want only volunteers with me. And I want you, all of you, to think twice, long and hard, before you volunteer. None of you deserves to die, and I value you, all of you, too much to want to see you dead. Personally, I'd rather go up against Thrang by myself, with no friends within a parsec of me. Bear that in mind."
"Your pardon, noble leader," says Thirethequ. "I could cogitate not twice, but a myriad of times, and the products of my lucubrations would in all cases be identical. This villain Thrang is an affront to civilization, and his career must be emphatically terminated. I have every confidence in your - and, I may say, in our - capacity to accomplish this laudable aim. I, for one, shall not be deterred from assisting you."
"Uh, yeah," says Klerupiru. "What he said."
"I don't think there's anyone here who wouldn't stand with you, sir," says Bulpli. "Or who wouldn't jump at a chance to take Thrang down."
"All right." I don't deserve their loyalty... but it seems I have it. "Well. Thrang has a hundred per cent success rate, as far as we know, so we've got to work out some way to change that. The one lead I've got, so far, is the one Pexlini gave us, about - Klerupiru, is this room still secure?"
"As far as I can make it," says Klerupiru. "Every chip that comes through the shielding gets scanned for traces of the shadow OS... I may not be able to crack it, yet, but I can recognize it, and trash any isolinear chip or device that's contaminated. The EM shielding round this conference room is supposed to be certified uncrackable... and if it is compromised, then I've got backup processes in place which will alert me. So, yeah. As secure as I can make it."
Which, if I know Klerupiru, will be pretty darn secure - certainly safer than, say, Facility 4028 or Starfleet Intelligence HQ. "Right. Well. Pexlini's source says Thrang has some way of compromising the King Estmere, so we won't be going to Vel Tarsus in this ship, anyway. What we will be using -" I manage a lopsided smile. "I'm grateful to you all for your support, believe me. But I won't be taking everyone with me, because there simply isn't room."
---
When I get back to the bridge, I'm surprised to see the Rigelian, Dgy-Coosh, in the centre seat. "Where's Flag Captain Vihl?" I ask him.
"In the ready room, sir." His mask-like face tells me nothing. It's odd that Anthi isn't at her post. I raise an eyebrow at him, and head for the ready room.
Anthi is standing by my desk as I come in. She snaps to attention. "Sir."
"At ease, Flag Captain." I'm still puzzled. "Did you want a word in private?"
"Sir, I -" She stops, shakes her head.
I'm worried, now, but I decide not to press it. "All right. I've roughed out a list of essential personnel for transfer, but we'll need to go through it in detail. And of course, while I'm away, you're going to have to take care of the King Estmere." I grin at her. "I couldn't leave her in safer hands, I know."
Anthi takes a deep breath. "Sir, don't send me away. Not now."
I stare at her. "Anthi, what's wrong?"
She puts a hand to her brow, touching the roots of her twitching antennae. She is visibly trembling, and I've never seen her like that before. "I shouldn't say this," she says, "but I might never get another chance - Sir, do you remember when we first met?"
"Of course," I say. "Vega Colony -"
"The Borg were all over the ship," she says, "and the command staff were dead, and we were huddled in the transporter room, and nobody knew what to do. And then you came. And I know, sir, you were as scared as any of us, but you had an idea, you had a plan, you took charge when nobody else could. And I followed you. Because I knew, right then, from the moment I saw you, that I would follow you anywhere. That I would do anything for you, anything and everything." Her voice is quivering with emotion. "So I'm asking you, sir, and I will beg if I have to - don't send me away. Because I belong at your side, sir."
"Anthi." I'm gaping at her, I know; I can't help it. "Anthi, this situation is dangerous. I could die, the people around me could die -"
"Then I'll die. I'd rather die at your side, sir, than live without you." She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry. I've said too much." And she rushes out of the ready room, leaving me staring after her as the door slides shut.
I slump into my chair, my thoughts whirling. Anthi feels like that about me? All this time... how could I have missed it? How could I -?
And what am I going to do, now?
I sit and think, trying to marshal my thoughts into some kind of order. Anthi has always been there for me, always, whenever I've needed her - my rock, my reliable right arm -
I've heard some humans describe their life-partners as "my better half". More and more, as I think things over, it seems to me that Anthi already is my better half. And just how stupid have I been, not to notice that before now?
I take a deep breath, and touch my combadge. "Commander Dgy-Coosh."
"Dgy-Coosh here," the Rigelian's bland voice replies.
Anthi ran out of this room, but she would never entirely desert her post. She's out on the bridge now, she can hear what I have to say. "Take note, please, Commander. As of this current stardate, you are designated as temporary commanding officer of the USS King Estmere, once my flag is transferred. Record this order in the official log. Congratulations, Commander, and try and keep her safe for me. Shohl out."
I will give Anthi what she wants. If I can. If I live.
I switch on the PADD and start scrolling through the lists of names. Thrang's countdown flashes in the corner of the screen, but I put it out of my mind. I will make my plans, and I will live through this. Because, it seems, I have more to live for than I knew.
"There was a news flash," says Rozilai. "The results of the vote are in."
"And?" I suppose, technically, it shouldn't bother me, since I can't currently show my face in the Federation, but I'm interested.
"The Actionists' motion of no confidence in the President was defeated in the Council," says Roz.
"Good."
"By three votes."
"Ouch." That's gotta be a lot closer than Okeg would like. But Lyle Anson and his Actionists have been gaining sympathy, gaining momentum, gaining credibility... among people who don't know better. People who don't know what we know.
Anyway, it's not my problem right now. Right now, I can see my problem on Anita's main screen, or at least where my problem's going to be. Thexemia, again. This is not a planet that improves on revisiting.
"He's late," I mutter.
"Playing head games," says Nyesenia. "Making you wait, raising your stress. Don't let it get to you." Easy for her to say, she's already dead, you can't get more laid-back than that.
Thexemia rolls on, imperturbable, on the main screen. I check the tactical display. Nothing but routine traffic in sight. And I wait. And wait.
"We're being hailed," says Roz, at last. "Agreed frequency."
"Great. Super. On screen."
Thexemia vanishes, to be replaced by the face of Kalevar Thrang. "Anyone ever tell you punctuality is the politeness of kings?" I ask.
"I am not a king." Interesting. He's always had regal ambitions... hell, he was, briefly, an emperor, although not of much of an empire. "You want to talk. Very well, we will talk. I am transmitting beam-down coordinates for you. They will work. Once. For one person."
"Cool, I'm only one person. So, we gonna do lunch, or what?"
"We will meet, in five minutes' time. Or we will not meet at all." And the screen goes blank.
"Charming," I say.
"Planetary data net is doing... something." Roz's face looks very serious. She's worried about something. I can guess what. "There's random comms traffic... and transporter interdiction warnings. Something's taking out transporter transmission over most of the capital city."
So that's where I'm going. I stand up. "OK. Let's do this." Roz shoots me a troubled look. "Relax," I tell her, with no confidence at all. "It's all going like we expected, right? Now gimme the pill."
---
I beam down in what looks like the vehicle park for a construction site. The skeleton of one of those Thexemian skyscrapers is rising into the air, over to my left. Over to my right, more complete skyscrapers. In front of me... is a familiar figure.
"You really need to work on your Thrang impression," I tell Tharval.
His hand goes to his throat, where he's wearing something that looks like a metal collar. "The holo-emitter and voice synthesizer are perfect -"
"Yeah, but your lines are rubbish. Thrang doesn't talk like that. He's got a sense of humour." There is a thin rain falling. It's not doing wonders for my sense of humour.
"No doubt. He still thinks he can use you, after all. But to get to Thrang, you must convince me of your good intentions. And I am not easily convinced."
"So, OK, lemme try, right? I mean, Thrang is kinda not my favourite person, but I'm low on options here, yeah? He's already stitched me up with Starfleet -"
"True." His demonic Lethean eyes are burning into me. I try to concentrate on the psi-blocking techniques they teach you in Intelligence. Problem is, they don't actually work all that well, not against a determined, trained telepath.
"So being Starfleet Intelligence, I've not made many friends over in the Empire, yeah? Sure, they'd love to pick my brains, but once they'd finished picking, I'd be through, there's no career for me there. The Cardies, well, they still depend too much on Federation goodwill, they won't find any space for me in the Obsidian Order. Still true, yeah?"
"Speculative. But still true."
"So, OK, the only other serious player is the Republic. I mean, can you see me in a Breen coldsuit? Or working with the Ferengi? You know my family history with the Ferengi, yeah?"
"I see some truth, still, in your mind."
"So, anyway, that leaves the Republic, and yeah, I had contacts at the Vault, but when that went south on me -"
"False." His voice is exultant; he raises his head and there is something like a smile on his face. "False. You arranged that fracas at the Vault. A deliberate ploy, to make it look as though you had fallen out with the Remans. But it is a lie." His voice drips gloating. "You have tried to lie to Thrang. I can tell you, he does not appreciate liars."
"Can't stand the competition, huh?" The pill is stashed in my cheek; I tongue it into position.
"I told him you would lie. And he gave me permission to deal with you, if you did." His eyes are blazing, and they seem to swell, to fill the whole of my vision with hellish redness. "You know what we Letheans can do to liars, Talaxian."
The pill shatters between my molars, and a bitter taste floods my mouth. That is the only sensation I have left, apart from Tharval's burning eyes and the terrible power I feel behind them. And then the taste fades, and the eyes turn black, and everything darkens with them, and I die.
---
Fortunately, I don't stay dead long.
The neural suppressant is old hat; I think they used it on Jim Kirk, back when he stole a prototype cloaking device from the Romulans. It does look, though, like the traceless death you get when you're hit with the famous Lethean telepathic zap.
The pill also contained nano-capsules filled with an antidote, and they dissolved in due time and started firing up my nerves again. Firing seems to be the right word, unfortunately - my entire body is hurting, tingling, with a massive all-over case of pins and needles. My vision is blurry and pulsating. Really, you're supposed to have medical supervision when you come out from under neural suppression. I know darn well Jim Kirk got that.
Me, I get to come back to life face down in a wet car park. My head aches worse than the rest of me. I sneak my right hand up to my temple, probe with my fingertips, and wince. The fingertips come back bloody. I think Tharval must have given my supposed corpse a quick kick on his way out.
So far, though, so good. I gather all my strength and haul myself into a crouching position on all fours. I cough and shudder as dry heaves rack me. Tricorder, got to get my tricorder out. I already set it to detect Lethean life signs -
If Tharval used a transporter to beam back to his ship, this has all been a waste of time. But with all the transporter jamming he set up, maybe he doesn't entirely trust the beams. He's got no reason, after all, not to take a leisurely shuttle out. Heck, he can stop off for muffins and a skinny latte in some Thexemian coffee shop, if he feels like - nothing I can do about it, I'm dead, remember?
I fumble the tricorder out of my cargo pocket, drop it, say some naughty words in Talaxian, retrieve it, stare at it. My vision is still not properly focused. Being dead sucks, I'm not going to do it again. I close my eyes tight, open them again. The display swims in and out of focus, but I can read it, sort of.
Lethean life sign, bearing niner five, range one fifty. I stand up. Then I fall over sideways. Then I swear, and stand up again.
The hundred and fifty metres to Tharval seem like the longest walk I've ever taken. I can't even see the wretched Lethean thug, I just pick my way between Thexemian shuttlepods and groundcars, in the rain, weaving and stumbling like a drunk. I just hope his psionic zap needs some down time to recharge, or I'm gonna wind up dead again, permanently this time.
I hear the low whine of engines starting up, as I come towards a waist-high concrete wall.
I look over it, into a bay recessed into the ground. There's what looks like a standard Klingon Kivra-class shuttle in it. I check the tricorder. One life sign, Lethean. And the engines are hotting up nicely. Oh boy.
I grit my teeth. The waves of tingling and nausea seem to be receding, a little. I put my hands on top of the concrete wall, and I vault over it, as gracefully as I can -
Just as the shuttle shivers and starts to rise into the air.
I have about a tenth of a second. I lash out with my feet, and one mining boot hits the shuttle's hull with a clang - and sticks.
The mining boots come with built-in magno-gravitic attractor plates. I don't use them much, but they still work. I get the other boot in place, and there is a terrible wrench to my knees, but I crouch forwards, and suddenly I'm on top of the shuttle, firmly attached by the soles of my feet. Wind and rain whistle around me as the craft gathers speed.
Tharval must have noticed something - heck, alarms must be sounding inside the shuttle right now. My guess is, he'll just ignore me and take the shuttle up. Either the boots will fail and I'll be blown away, or they won't and I get to breathe space. Either one will suit him. Doesn't suit me, though.
So I crouch down further, and I open up an engineering access panel. There are circuits and pipes and chips behind it. I have no idea what they're for, but the shuttle makes interesting noises when I start pulling them out.
Then I shuffle, awkwardly, sideways along the sloping hull, and I disengage my left boot and wait.
I don't have to wait long. The shuttle's hatch slides open, and a disruptor pistol appears, followed by Tharval's face peering after it, aiming. So I lash out with my aching leg and kick the one into the other.
It works better than I'd hoped; Tharval fumbles the pistol and I get a chance to kick it out of his hand completely. It clatters once against the side of the shuttle, and then the wind whips it away. We've slowed down, but we're still moving. I hook my foot around the side of the door frame and drag myself to the hatch. There's a confused moment as the shuttle's internal gravity field wars with the outside world's, and then I pull myself through, and I'm inside, wrestling with an angry-looking Lethean who's reaching for a big knife.
I hit him several times in the mid-section, but either Letheans don't keep anything vital in those spots, or my fists are still too weak to hurt him. He reaches for my throat, and I duck away; there's not much room inside the cockpit, so I roll across the main flight console, hitting a number of switches and triggering several automated complaints from the computer. I think I now know the tlhIngan Hol for "hey, quit horsing around in there". Tharval has his knife out. I don't dare meet his burning gaze.
Letheans have kneecaps. I kick him in one, and he swears and stumbles, and his first stab goes into the console instead of me. There are loud buzzers making urgent noises as I slam the heel of my hand into his face. He tries for a hold with his free hand, and I twist away just in time. He has combat training, I can see that. And he has a knife, and he's in way better shape than I am right now. He feints at me with the knife and slams his other hand into my head, and I see stars.
"You are supposed to be dead," he snarls.
"Tried it," I mumble. "Didn't like it." I try another kick at his knee, but he skips aside, and I overbalance and find myself on the floor. Tharval is standing over me. He raises the knife -
Then there is a tremendous crash and a sudden awful impact, and the shuttle comes to a halt in a scream of protest from overloaded inertial dampeners. I roll forwards, under the console, coming to a painful halt inside the footwell. The lights go out. A few more buzzers start making complaints, and there are a lot of sparks coming from somewhere.
I struggle out from under the console. The interior of the shuttle is not quite dark - it's lit by flickering lights from dying control panels, by sparks pouring out of damaged conduits... and by daylight, pouring in along with the rain, through a massive hole in the front windscreen, where a steel girder has punched right the way in. It's jabbing into the ceiling - I think the shuttle is hanging from it. The engines are dead, anyway. I hope they've failed safe, and aren't about to blow up.
Tharval is lying face down on the floor, very still.
The construction site. The new building wouldn't be in the shuttle's nav database... and my gimmicking around must have disabled some of the proximity sensors. I limp over to check on Tharval.
Ah. He's not lying face down - though he would be, if he hadn't caught the end of an I-beam in the back of his head at a couple of hundred kilometres an hour. There's not really much left of his head, front or back.
I curse, loudly. Capturing Tharval alive would have been good. Creating a vacancy for "trusted lieutenant" in Thrang's organization... I've a feeling that's too little, too late.
I stoop down, disengage the metal collar from around his neck. Messy job, but I've done worse, and there might be something we can salvage from it. I turn it over in my hands. There's a stud at the back, and I touch that.
The air glimmers above the collar, and Thrang's face forms out of nothingness. Holographic disguise. Without a living face underneath it, to give it reference points for mobility, it is stiff and lifeless, like a mask -
Wait, I think. Just wait a minute.
Masks. Masks are important, somehow. And Thrang - Thrang can alter his features, but he doesn't. He may change species, sometimes, from Orion to Klingon to human... but he always keeps the same basic look....
I gaze down at the lifeless image, while a whole lot of things fall into place inside my head.
Oh, I feel I'm a little behind Pex here - clones don't seem right with his casual ego but would explain some of the travel speed; certainly not an android....
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!
Oh, I feel I'm a little behind Pex here - clones don't seem right with his casual ego but would explain some of the travel speed; certainly not an android....
I don't want to post my entire speculation here, because if I'm wrong I'll look like an idiot and if I'm right I'll spoil it, but I think it has to do with masks. And the fact that Kalevar Thrang always has the same look no matter what species he appears to be.
Several data analysts look up from their work as my boots clatter on the walkway. Let them look. I continue to run, run until I am right at the door of Xerek's office, and it hisses open before me.
Xerek stands up as I burst in. "What is it?" he demands.
I glare at him, fury and outrage concentrated in my eyes. "You know."
He reaches for his stick, and I leap. My fist crashes into his skinny stomach, and he grunts and claws at my face with his free hand. But he is bringing the stick around - I grab it, wrestle with him for it. He is strong, for all his years. Fury makes me stronger. I twist the stick around, and the beam from the concealed disruptor spears out of the handle, past me, to scorch a hole in the office wall. His other hand is on my throat. I tear it away, grab him by his coat -
"What is happening here?"
The voice demands an answer. Both of us turn our heads. Obisek is standing there, framed in the open doorway.
"Betrayal and murder," I say, "what else? Let me introduce you to the true head of Action Green - the collaborator with Kalevar Thrang - the author of all our security difficulties. Am I not right, General Xerek?"
Xerek finds his voice. "She is insane," he croaks.
"Betrayal and murder," says Obisek. "You can prove this?"
"Oh, yes," I say softly, because the collar of Xerek's leather coat is open, now, and I can see the proof. I reach up quickly, grab the thing around his neck. My finger finds the control stud -
And suddenly, it is not Xerek standing there. To our eyes, at least.
"Oh, look," I say. "Kalevar Thrang, exactly as he appeared when he infiltrated our station. Exactly as he appeared. Down to the coat -" I pluck at Xerek's lapels "- and the stick." I pick up the stick. "I wondered what that long, thin object was."
Thrang's false face is frozen in Xerek's expression of woe.
"Thrang always wears the same face," I say. "Even though he has shape-shifting abilities, can change his apparent species, he always wears the same face. And with these holo-emitters, his trusted lieutenants can wear it too. Starfleet's data warfare analysts found a trigger, a three-dimensional structure that Thrang's computer virus recognizes... but they did not know where to input it into the system. Well, we know now. It is an abstraction of some of the proportions of Thrang's facial bones. When it is spotted through a compromised biometric scan, it triggers Thrang's shadow OS, to obey his commands - and to delete and confuse security around it. Am I not right, General?"
Xerek says nothing. Obisek steps forward, touches the General's neck. The false face fades away. Underneath it, Xerek is unable to meet Obisek's eyes.
"Why?" Obisek asks in a soft voice.
Xerek swallows loudly. "Because we need a strong leader. Because Thrang promises, above all, strong leadership. He can do it. He can take the factions and the rabble in hand, and - and -" He looks down at the floor. "We need a strong leader."
"There was a time," says Obisek, still very gently, "when you thought me strong enough."
"That was before," says Xerek, and he finally raises his gaze to meet Obisek's. "Before you sold us all to that idealistic Romulan academic!" he screeches.
"Oh, my old friend," says Obisek. "How many years, how many lives, did we spend, fruitlessly trying to seize a mere fraction of the respect and freedom that D'Tan has given us for nothing?" His voice sharpens, grows louder. "And what can Kalevar Thrang offer, to replace that? Do you think I will see the Reman people brought under the heel of a megalomaniac genetic experiment? I would die first, old friend. And this I swear to you - many others would die, before me."
There is a long, ugly silence. Xerek's eyes are frantic, haunted. Obisek's are implacable.
"Starfleet already has some of the protocols for the shadow OS." Someone has to break that silence, it may as well be me. "Now that we have a way in, we can use it. We can override the computer subversion, learn Thrang's secrets, perhaps even turn it against him."
"And we will know all we need to know about Action Green," says Obisek, still staring at Xerek.
Xerek closes his eyes. "Yes," he says, "it is... over. I will tell you all that you need to know."
"Yes," says Obisek, and there is that in his voice which reminds me why our enemies fear him. "Yes. You will."
I had figured the 'same face' simply a limitation that he could alter the soft tissue but not the bone structure, but leave Thrang to turn a limitation into a calling card - and good use of subverting the system to get away with holograms and some careful timing to not appear in too many places at a time.
Oh, the things Thrang could do if he wasn't so aggressively selfish....
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Not quite what I was thinking, but not that far off, either...
Thrang when we saw him 'alone' was doing so much micromanagement I hadn't figured his organization was that big - coupled with the noticeable ego. Though Thrang contacting people is different then him showing up to mess with computers.
I'm curious what your thoughts were, though.
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Lyle Anson blinked, peered around him, raised his head from his pillow. The sound of knocking echoed around his apartment. He stared at his bedside clock. "Four twenty a.m?" he said aloud. The knocking continued.
"I'm coming, dammit!" he shouted. He threw back the bedclothes, swung his legs out of bed, paused for a moment to rub the sleep from his eyes. The knocking on the door continued, steady and peremptory. He shrugged into a dressing gown, muttered "Lights," and blinked as the room gradually lightened. He made his way to the door. The video scan showed several humans in the hallway outside - no one he recognized. He touched the intercom panel. "Who is it?"
"Federation Security, sir. Please open the door."
Anson's eyes grew wide. His hand dropped away from the panel.
"Please open the door, sir, or we will need to use our security override."
Anson licked his lips. His mouth felt suddenly dry. He raised his hand hesitantly, pressed the door control icon. The door slid open.
"Thank you, sir." Four men - large human males. The first one raised his hand. He held a brushed-steel device in it, a thing about the size and shape of a playing card. He pressed a switch on its side, and a pattern of abstract lights danced briefly in the air. Federation Security's famous ID system. And it identified itself, mainly, to the secure systems in his home - they had full access, now.
"What's all this about?" he asked, as the security team came in.
They waited until the door had slid shut to answer him. "You are under arrest, sir," the first man said, as the others fanned out across the room, forensic tricorders in their hands.
"Arrest? Me? What for?"
"Sedition, treason, and conspiracy to commit genocide, sir." The Security man was absolutely calm and humourless. "Please accompany me while this site is secured for analysis."
"I -" Anson found himself at a loss for words. "Can I get dressed first?" he asked, almost plaintively.
"We may need to subject your clothing to analysis, sir. We've arranged secure transport to our holding area, where there's a full featured clothing replicator. We will respect your convenience as much as is compatible with our duties, sir. I'm afraid I have to insist, though."
"This is madness," Anson muttered. "Madness." The man took his elbow in a polite but firm grip, and steered him towards the door. "My neighbours -"
"Haven't been disturbed, sir." The man flashed an insincere smile at him. "Good soundproofing on these apartments, isn't it? Very comfortable. All the amenities."
"Amenities," Anson muttered. The door slid open again. He pulled the dressing gown around himself. Nerves. Just nerves, making him feel cold.
There were more people in the hallway outside. A more diverse mix, men and women and Vulcans and Tellarites and - Anson froze in the doorway, didn't move until the security man tugged at his elbow. One small, dapper, reptilian figure, out there in the hallway, watching him with lambent slit-pupilled eyes.
"Mr. Anson," said Aennik Okeg. "I'm honestly sorry it has come to this."
"Come to what?" A hot rage suddenly blossomed in Lyle Anson's heart. "What do you think you're doing, Mr. President? Do you think you can stop the Actionist movement by -"
"Mr. Anson," said Okeg, "we know."
"What? What do you know? Or what do you think you know?"
"Sir," said the security man, "I'm obliged to remind you of your right to silence -"
"I don't need to be silent!" Anson snarled. He shook off the man's guiding hand, and stepped towards the President. "What do you think you're doing? You can't arrest your political opponents! It's in the damn Charter!"
"Security will have told you the charges," said Okeg. "We've found the link, Mr. Anson. The link between Action Black and the other Actionist sections. And between Action Black and Kalevar Thrang."
That name, in the President's lipless mouth, quenched the fire of Anson's rage like a deluge of ice water. He stepped back. His own mouth twitched.
Then he said, "I deny everything."
"You have that right," Okeg said sadly.
"I deny everything. I have no connection to Kalevar Thrang or to the terrorists in Action Black. But I'll tell you something, Mr. President. I've heard of Kalevar Thrang, and I know how he works. He's good. Better than you. Maybe you've breached his security - but you won't have everything, far from it. There will be things only Thrang knows, data stores and systems only he can unlock. And without those, you won't have enough to prove anything, Mr. President. Sure, you can have me arrested, maybe you can even fake up a prima facie case against me - but you can't win it. I'm going to walk away from this, Mr. President, and you're going to be just another failed politician who tried a last-ditch smear campaign to bring down a rival. Tried and failed." There was an ugly smile on his lips, now. "Because if you want to take me down, you're going to need to take down Kalevar Thrang, in person. And you don't have anyone who's good enough to do that."
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
The woman on the viewscreen has greyish skin and a sort of shield-shaped protrusion on her forehead. She eyes me with some distaste. "I am Srianka Lasnabola," she says, "and when I say my name, men gasp with desire and women grind their teeth in envy."
Thexemians. Gotta love 'em. Or, in this case at least, gotta talk to 'em. "Can we skip that bit?" I say. "I was wanting to hear about some previous business acquaintances of yours -"
"I talk to no one who does not say their name."
Respect for alien cultures, I remind myself silently. Got to respect their little foibles, like a good Starfleet officer, which I still am, dammit. "I'm Pexlini," I say. "Now, usually, when I say my name, people say 'huh?', but lately they've taken to saying 'hey, aren't you wanted by the Federation for high crimes and misdemeanours?' instead, and I reckon a former associate of your pal Seralok Masgrabolus is responsible for that."
"Seralok Masgrabolus." Her look of distaste deepens. "When that name is spoken, men spit and women turn aside in scorn."
"OK, so maybe he's been demoted since I last saw him. Doesn't matter to me. You used to know him, do you have a line on him? Current whereabouts, that kinda thing?" I don't think she will have. When Starfleet finally traced the warp contrail left by Thrang's super-fast ship, after me and Heizis put a spanner in its works, all they found at the end was a debris field. My guess is that Thrang liquidated the ship and its crew once he'd decided to cut his losses. It's the way the guy works.
"If you knew Masgrabolus," Lasnabola says, "you know who he worked for. That man does not leave loose ends." So I called it right. Never mind.
"OK," I say, "but that business arrangement didn't come out of a vacuum, did it? How'd Masgrabolus meet Thrang in the first place? And can I meet him the same way?"
Lasnabola stares at me, her eyes wide. "You want to deal with Thrang? You must be insane."
"Nah, just eccentric. Thing is, I figure Thrang wants to meet me. And I want to meet him. So all we need is someone who can fix up an appointment. Like, say, an associate of a former business partner of Thrang's." I fold my hands together in my lap and try to fix her with a serious stare. I don't actually know what to do with my hands - the command chair is configured for a Hirogen Alpha, if I tried to put my arms on the armrests, my hands would be level with my ears. Life is full of complications.
"What you suggest... may be possible," says Lasnabola. She sounds grudging.
"I guess we can run to some sort of fee. Like, say, you were a dating agency, and you fixed me and Thrang up on a date? Sound fair to you?"
"A date," she says. "A date with Kalevar Thrang. Very well. I will transmit my requirements, and how much this date will cost you. One hour from now." And she cuts the connection.
"That went well." I twist around in the oversized chair so I can look at Rozilai. The Trill's done most of the donkey work, sifting databases to come up with possible contacts. Thrang's Orion crew weren't accessible - I can't buy or force my way into the Syndicate's data nets - but Thexemian security turned out much easier to crack. "So, what are the chances this won't ring alarm bells with Thrang's network?"
Roz shrugs. "I've tried to be as discreet as I can. But Thrang has a distributed information-gathering network. I don't think we can assume I haven't hit some data tripwire, somewhere along the way."
"Figures," I say. "Well, it doesn't matter. Thrang must have known I'd come looking for him. If he knows where I'm looking, it'll just make it easier to set up a meet." I look pensively at the viewscreen, now displaying the cloudy globe of Thexemia. Miserable looking sort of planet, that.
"You're assuming a lot of things about this Thrang," Nurnos says. "Assuming he's behind your problems, and he's got some use for you, in some master plan -"
"Thrang always has a master plan," I say. "And he has a use for me, somewhere, too. It's the way he works. That genetically-engineered superior intelligence... he's not happy unless he's keeping more plates spinning than anyone else could handle."
"Superior intelligence." Nurnos snorts. "A superior intelligence doesn't go around making extra work for itself." I think I like this guy.
"Well, anyway," I say, "let's work out how we're going to handle the double-cross, then."
"Suppose they don't double-cross us?" says Rozilai.
"Thexemians? Working for Thrang? I wouldn't worry about that," I say. "If they don't double-cross us, the shock'll probably kill me."
---
Prime City, capital of the independent world of Thexemia. I don't know what happens when you say its name. It's a grim sort of place, lots of tall rectangular concrete buildings in a brutalist style - plenty of exposed vertical ribbing, not much in the way of windows.
Not that I'm getting much chance to take in the sights. The beam-down coordinates are on an exposed concrete plaza, empty apart from three goons, who just happen to be pointing two guns and a scanner at me when I sparkle into view.
"Hi, there," I say. The two goons with guns watch me warily.
The third one squints at his scanner, and finally says, "Checks out. No weapons signatures. The bag -" he indicates the kitbag that dangles from my right hand "- has crystals and refined metals." He folds the scanner away and takes out a gun of his own. Elderly-looking Orion commercial disruptors, but adequate.
"You will come with us." Another goon speaks up. He steps forward and grabs the kitbag out of my hand. "This way." He points with the gun. And he's standing in his colleagues' line of fire - I'm tempted to thump him, just on general principles, but there's no point, really. "Your transporters and communications are blocked. There is no help for you."
"He's right about the transporter inhibitors." Rozilai's voice sounds a bit scratchy and distorted over the bone-conduction speaker taped behind my ear. "Assault shuttles are inbound, with you in five."
"Terrific," I say. "OK. Let's get moving, then." And I stroll off in the direction indicated. Technically, I should probably make a fuss, get the attention of local law enforcement, and demand to see the Federation Consul. Technically. There doesn't seem any point to that, either. These guys probably are local law enforcement.
It's a short walk to a narrow door in a big blank concrete wall. We go down a staircase, so narrow we have to go single file. At the bottom is a room with two more goons, a desk, and Lasnabola sitting behind it. She sneers at me.
The goon with the kitbag dumps it on her desk. "Payment," he says.
"Uh-huh," I say. "We agreed an up-front sum, yeah? The warm welcome wasn't included, though."
"If you think that we are here to cater to the whims of a Federation renegade," says Lasnabola, "think again."
I have to stall these idiots long enough for the assault shuttles to land. I sigh. "You know what happens when Thexemians say their names?" I ask. "Like, any Thexemians?"
"It varies," says Lasnabola, "according to the skill and prestige of the person concerned."
"Nah," I say, "not really. See, the first thing that happens whenever one of you guys even opens your traps is, I think to myself, I can't trust this guy. You people have managed to get yourselves a really bad rep, y'know?"
"You can trust us," says Lasnabola. "We will hold you for Thrang, if he is interested in talking to you. If he is not, you will die. If he is... you will live for as long as he finds you interesting."
"See, this is why you have a bad rep," I say. "I know you're gonna try and pull some stupid stroke, every time. It's annoying, as well as predictable."
"Predictable," says Lasnabola. "You expected betrayal. And yet, you came."
"Yeah." I fold my arms across my chest, feeling a reassuring bulky presence inside my miner's vest. "So what does that tell you, huh?"
Lasnabola is fumbling with the catches of the kitbag. "That you are foolish," she says.
"Foolish? Nah," I say. I shut my eyes. "Just prepared."
The kitbag pops open. I can see the flash even through my closed eyelids. I wait a heartbeat for everything to go dark. Lasnabola screams, and I move. The flash grenade will only dazzle her for a few minutes, but the tetryon capacitance charge will take out every power source around for a couple of minutes... except for the ones covered by the shielding in my vest.
My right hand goes to my waist, and the staticky feeling of my personal shield envelops me. Then I pull the shotgun out from under my armpit, rack the action, and fire a round into the ceiling. It gets attention. Even Lasnabola stops wailing.
"Yeah," I say, pumping another shell into the breach. "Prepared. Now, what's gonna happen is, we'll wait for the lights to come back on, and then we'll talk about getting in touch with Thrang, OK?"
The ceiling lights are already flickering weakly back to life as the tetryon charge disperses. I back up. I'm still outnumbered six to one, and at times like this I like to have a nice solid wall behind me.
"She was unarmed," one of the goons says, in aggrieved tones. Probably the one with the scanner. Weapons scans are all very well, they'd have picked up the power packs and focus crystals of a phaser or a disruptor. But the only power source for the reproduction shotgun is in the micro-replicator inside its magazine - and that's too low-intensity to register as a weapon. It churns out buckshot shells just fine, though.
"You will suffer for this!" I don't know if Lasnabola is talking to me or the goon. She is blinking through tear-filled eyes. One of the goons is aiming his disruptor at me; I swing the shotgun towards him, and quirk my eyebrow in my best Vulcan manner.
The barrel of the disruptor wavers for a moment... then steadies. "You cannot kill all of us with that thing," he says.
"Probably not," I answer as cheerily as I can, "but I can sure kill some of you, so who's first?"
The disruptor wavers again. Then there is a loud crash from the doorway, as of the door being kicked in. Nyesenia is first through, smoky orange eyes glaring at the Thexemians over the business end of one of those Kobali polaron rifles. I don't know if the Thexemians are familiar with Kobali firearms, but it doesn't matter, because Nurnos is next through the door, and that Nausicaan gizmo of his is actually designed to say to them, you are on the wrong end of this weapon.
I walk forward, taking care to keep my gun pointed at the enemy and stay out of my peeps' line of fire. I take the kitbag off the desk. "The cool thing is," I say to Lasnabola, "besides the little surprises, this thing actually does have the money in it. Jewels and gold-pressed latinum, which you are not, now, going to get."
And then I jump, because there is a sound of clapping hands, and an odiously familiar voice says, "And quite right too."
---
I whirl around. Thrang is grinning at me. I resist the urge to fire the shotgun, because he's obviously a projection, on the blank back wall. Around him, I can see - familiar shapes, the outline of a Hirogen bridge -
"Aw, yibbly squeeps," I moan, "don't say you've gone and stolen my ship while I'm down here."
A brief shadow of puzzlement passes over Thrang's face, and then clears. "Ah, you've acquired a Hirogen ship yourself, then? Good choice. They're very useful. Probably the best you can get, given your current embarrassment with Starfleet."
"For which you're to blame." I glance around. Nurnos and Nyesenia are watching the projection, too, but only out of one eye, as they and the rest of the assault teams carry on disarming and restraining the Thexemians. Professionalism, gotta love it.
"I hope you appreciate all the trouble and expense I went to," says Thrang smugly. He's looking human now - last time I saw him, he was green and bald. But he still has, basically, the same face. Why does he have the same face? He can change his appearance, and that face is known.
"Half a billion energy credits? That's just chump change to you, I'll bet."
"Locating the Mask of Dhalselapur, though, took noticeable effort. You should be flattered that I think you're worth it."
"Is this leading up to another job offer?" I ask. "'Cause, yanno, I'm gonna be hard pushed to get proper references from my last employer."
"So sad, to be so unappreciated," says Thrang. "I appreciate you, you know. You actually upset some of my plans." He's still smiling, but there is something very ugly in his eyes. "Not many people can do that. I'd far rather have you working for me than against me."
"Yeah, well," I say, "that's not gonna happen, is it? For a start, there's the question of retirement benefits."
"Retirement benefits?" Thrang raises an eyebrow.
He's on a Hirogen bridge. I can't see anyone else in the projection, but it's just possible he hasn't bothered to clear his crew out. In which case, it's always worth sowing a little fear, doubt and uncertainty. "I know how you retire people, Thrang. Dissolved into goo. Or blown to vapour by antimatter scuttling charges. Working for you would be bad for my health, Thrang."
He seems unfazed. "It might beat the alternative, though. I have plans in hand."
"Don't you always?"
"Oh, most assuredly." Thrang's smile is horrible. "Soon enough, Admiral Pexlini, everyone is going to be working for me." And the projection winks out.
We are your enemy.
Even united, you would stand no chance against us. Disunited, your defences are useless. We pass through them with ease. We strike where we will, when we will, how we will.
Your intelligence agencies already know us. They have watched, helpless, as we have named our targets and struck them down. Our aim is to destroy. Our aim is to show the futility of all governments by bringing destruction down in the face of all that they can do. We are destruction. We are entropy. We are death.
Your intelligence agencies already know us, and fear us. They can do nothing against us. They have tried to hide our successes, but our next attack will not be hidden, cannot be hidden. We are destruction. We are entropy. We are death.
We are Action Black.
Fear us.
---
"That damn broadcast's been haunting subspace radio," Thomas Harriman said, wheezing as he subsided into a chair. "Every time we shut down one transmission site, it pops up at another one. It's like... Whack-a-Mole."
"The shadow OS that Starfleet Intelligence reported," said Aennik Okeg. "A distributed command network, living in the cloud. I'm sure our data warfare people will shut it down... eventually."
"But not before everybody's heard it," said Harriman.
Okeg nodded. "I have already received a number of communiques," he said. "A stern diplomatic note from the Breen Confederacy, who protest the infringement on their subspace channels for the purpose of broadcasting threats. I've drafted a reply, promising that those responsible will be punished to the maximum extent of Federation law." He shook his head. "I've refrained from making any commitments as to timescales, when it comes to catching them."
"We can handle the Breen," said Harriman. "Sir, it's opinion at home that I'm worried about."
"As am I, Tom." The President closed his lambent eyes and remained perfectly still for a moment, then opened them again. "Lyle Anson has been in touch. He's dissociated himself and the various Actionist groups entirely from this 'Action Black'... but he's also presented several proposals for coordinating efforts to fight them."
Harriman frowned. "We know the Actionists all talk to each other - that's a given, considering the nature of the movement. Do they have any special advantages, there?"
"I hope not," said Okeg, "because I'm stone-walling them on this issue. I don't want us beholden to the Actionists, Tom. I can sympathize with their aims, but they're too... too slick. Perhaps it's my wicked reptilian instincts at work, Tom, but I don't trust Lyle Anson."
"Neither do I, sir," said Harriman, "and I'm a mammal."
"I'm glad we're on the same page, Tom. But we do need a coordinated response, and I've taken steps. Alliance Joint Command is having its facilities greatly expanded - it's the biggest single point where our resources are pooled. And I've talked with both J'mpok and D'Tan already about reopening the communications channels we used during the Iconian War."
Harriman's eyes widened. "Are we actually moving to a war footing, sir?"
"Not if I can avoid it, Tom. But we need to have our options open. And we need to keep our irregular resources in mind, too. Which brings me to you, Tom. I'm afraid we might need to get in touch with... some acquaintances of yours."
---
The room was small and featureless, except for a single comms terminal and a single small chair. Tharval's face was lit only by the glow from the screen. His lips twitched in a rudimentary smile.
"I'm glad you agreed to this communication," he said to the man on the screen. "I know you'll be trying to track this call - with all the resources of your organization, and I know how formidable those are. So I hope you'll be suitably impressed when you fail."
"If we fail," said the other.
"Oh, our resources are as formidable as yours," said Tharval. "We can stymie each other pretty effectively. Or, of course, we could accomplish a great deal by working together."
"You're representing a terrorist group."
"There are those who would say the same about you. In any case, what you call terrorism, I call... practical politics."
The man on the screen made no reply. His yellowish eyes glittered.
"Action Black is already a thorn in the side of the Federation, the Empire, and the Republic," said Tharval. "Our next demonstration will be... hard to miss. It will make it imperative that we're dealt with. As it were." He leaned forward. "So this is your chance to make a deal. Action Black's terrorist operations will cease... once we're sure we'll get what we want."
"I know what you want. And I know who wants it."
Tharval looked hard at the man. "Really?"
"Tharval. Former assistant director for Lethean Intelligence. You smoothed the path for a Lethean alliance with the Klingon Empire," said the man. "Some people might say that you sold out Lethean Intelligence's secrets in order to get your negotiators a place at the table. It worked out well enough - for a while. But Imperial Intelligence had to take you in - your position with your own people wasn't tenable, any longer. And then there was that deal with the Orion Syndicate, the one that violated K'men's ethical standards." The scarred face smiled. "Now, that took some doing."
Despite himself, Tharval muttered, "That sanctimonious one-eyed dwarf -" He stopped.
"And since then," the man continued, "you've changed allegiances again. You were seen, Tharval. Imperial Intelligence's forensics teams positively identified you - taking delivery of the corpse of Dahar Master Khreg. We know why he died, we know who wanted the body, and why. You're working for Kalevar Thrang."
"You're very well informed," said Tharval. "Which is only to be expected. And which means you know Thrang's capabilities - possibly better than anyone. I know humans have a cultural prejudice against augments, but I'm quite sure you don't worry about such things. So, yes, I'm working for Thrang. If he gets his way, we will all be working for Thrang. And he is very good at getting his way. Think about that."
"I'm thinking."
"Think about a few other things, as well. Thrang's aim is a unified quadrant-wide, possibly galaxy-wide, government. What model can he use for that? The Klingon Empire is too parochial, the Romulan Republic too ramshackle. The unified government can only be an expanded Federation. Probably with the same charter - certainly, with one particular section of that charter carefully preserved. He'll need a covert intelligence agency, like he'll need every other branch of government. We are looking, my friend, at a united galaxy under the Federation flag."
"And under Kalevar Thrang."
"He is highly capable. And also, mortal. Some might consider a few years, or even a few decades, of benevolent dictatorship... not too high a price to pay. At the end of it, there would be an expanded Federation. A secure, all-encompassing galactic power. Is Thrang's price too high, for that?" Tharval fixed the man's gaze with his. "Consider it. Things would go so much smoother, with your people on side."
The yellow eyes shifted uneasily. "I'll think about it," said Franklin Drake, and broke the connection.
His voice was growing louder and louder, audible all the way across the mess hall. People's heads were turning in his direction. Angelica darted some sideways glances at him, though, increasingly, she was trying not to be noticed, now.
"We're fighting a war, my friend." Kalevar Thrang never seemed to raise his voice, but he was always audible, too. "In wartime, stratagems are necessary. Any soldier knows that."
"But what you have said...." The big Klingon shook his head. "I do not see the need for this. You have made us nothing more than terrorists."
"The powers that be might think that," said Thrang, "but we know differently. We're fighting for the good of Federation and Empire and Republic alike. We're pretending to be terrorists, for the sake of the fight."
He never said anything particularly clever, Angelica thought. Oh, he could be plausible, up to a point... but his arguments often rang hollow, when she considered them. What won people over, she thought, was his air of absolute confidence. He acted, always, as if he knew he was right. And that conviction turned out to be contagious.
Usually. But Kunroth was speaking again. "But this makes us - it makes us seem terrorists, and in that way... it brings us dishonour."
"Let me put it to you this way," said Thrang. "Who knows you're in Action Black?"
Kunroth frowned. "I was told to tell no one. Only those here, on this ship, know that I -"
"Precisely," said Thrang, smiling. "The only people who know about Action Black are us. The people in it. And we know our motives are pure and honourable. The outsiders, who think - for the moment - that Action Black is a terror group... well, they don't know you're a part of it. And they never will." His smile broadened. "So, my friend, where's the dishonour?"
Kunroth shook his head again, slowly. "I do not know," he said. "What you say - is reasonable. But somewhere -" he raised his fist to his chest "- somewhere in here, I feel...."
Thrang sighed. He clapped one hand on the Klingon's shoulder. "Let's talk privately, my friend. Let me explain in a little more detail. And, if you still can't reconcile our aims with your sense of honour... well, we'll find other work for you. Something that will satisfy you. I don't want to lose you, you know. I value all my people."
He moved towards the doorway. On the threshold, he stopped, turned, beckoned to Kunroth. The Klingon hesitated for a second, then followed Thrang out of the mess hall.
Angelica seriously doubted she'd be seeing him again.
She glanced around. The ship had taken on more people: Klingons like Kunroth, a cliqueish group of Romulans, a number of Ferengi, one of whom had taken Tom Tallidge for all he was worth at dom-jot... and a pair of scowling, silent Remans, who were in one corner of the mess hall now. Angelica had reviewed her basic Starfleet psi-block training, had played repetitive pop-music songs over and over again, until the earworms ran constantly through her head; she went to sleep with earphones in and the music playing. It wouldn't be enough if the Remans, or Tharval, really set to work on her mind... it might be enough to block a casual mind-contact.
She had to hope so.
She finished her meal, dropped the dinnerware into the recycler slot, and headed out of the hall. She didn't think she'd attracted any attention. And Thrang would be busy doing... whatever he was doing... with Kunroth. And Tharval was away, somewhere.
There might not be a better time.
She went to the crew deck, but walked past the door to her quarters, on to the end of the corridor, where an opening in one wall led to the Hirogen equivalent of a Jeffries tube. She took a deep breath. No one else was in sight. She was going to have to take a chance - if she was spotted, she'd have no reasonable excuse for being where she was -
So, she told herself, better not get spotted, then.
She swung herself into the tube, descending quickly from rung to rung. She knew the layout of the Hirogen ship, now. They'd all been standing watches, getting to know the ship's functions... rather as if Thrang wanted trained people to replace the original Hirogen crew. It made sense. Thrang would want to replace the Hirogen.
She'd been assigned to Engineering. It was her speciality, originally, after all. She'd been at the engineering station on the bridge when Thrang had talked with the Talaxian, Pexlini. She'd heard what Pexlini had to say.
She reached the bottom of the tube - and she twisted sideways, and took an awkward step to her left, and kept going down. The narrow void between the main plasma induction relays and the warp core wasn't marked as an accessway on the ship's plans; it was a tight squeeze even for a smallish human, no Hirogen could ever have passed this way. But Angelica had studied the plans, had spotted the possible route, and now she was using it. It had one certain advantage; there were no surveillance cameras.
She wormed her way through gaps, ducked under pipes and conduits, and finally found herself where she wanted to be: standing on the ejection panel, below the pulsating column of the warp core itself. She grasped a projecting stanchion, and began to clamber upwards. She tried to make as little noise as she could. The throbbing sound of the core should drown out her movements, but Hirogen senses were acute, if some of the big hunters were on duty in Main Engineering -
But her luck held. She found what she was looking for, ten metres up from the base of the warp core.
It was a squat cylinder, painted matte black, attached to the core with what looked like heavy-duty magnetic clamps. Angelica didn't dare touch it. She had a tricorder in her belt pouch, though, and she risked a scan. It confirmed what she already knew. An antimatter charge, small in itself, but quite enough to breach the core's containment and set off a much bigger explosion.
A scuttling charge. Pexlini had been right.
Slowly, carefully, Angelica began to climb back down the core. She had to get out of here, back through the narrow space and the Jeffries tube, back to her own quarters, without being spotted. And, once she got back... she would have to think.
The alarm shrills two hours into my sleep period, because of course it does. I roll out of bed and seize the communicator. "Heizis."
"Sir. This is Centurion Jeroth. We have a sighting in the Vault. Maximum priority, for your immediate attention." I am dressing as this Romulan nuisance speaks. His next words chill me. "Kalevar Thrang is here. Section 771 East."
"What?" Thrang? Here?
"Positive ID from facial recognition systems. We have implemented full security lockdown -"
"Not enough," I snarl, as I pull on my uniform trousers. "Seal that section. Close all doors, all access panels, jam transporters - open the surrounding sections to vacuum if you have to. Scramble internal Scorpion flights."
"Which squadrons -?"
"All of them. My authority." I shrug on my jacket. "Put the Vault on war footing. From this moment onwards, nothing exits our controlled space. And I mean nothing. Anyone who permits any tricks with satellites or nearby asteroids will answer to me for it." I seize my tricorder in one hand, my plasma pistol in the other. "Get me all the details we have on that sighting. Transmit along data subchannels, I will review it as I move."
And move is what I do, hurrying along the echoing corridors of the Vault as I review the situation in my mind. I do not know section 771 - the ancient space station is vast, as big as a small moon, and it has many, many component sections. I am worried. Security has improved since the early days, when enemy shuttlecraft could sneak aboard by whatever routes they pleased... but the Vault has not decreased in size, and it has many nooks and crannies which a canny enemy might exploit.
"Commence full systems sweep and virus scans." I snap out more orders as I run. "Upload Thrang's genetic profile to all active Scorpions, and make sure it is Thrang's profile. We must be constantly alert for data warfare attacks."
"Yes, sir. General Xerek is within the affected section -" Jeroth's voice breaks off for a moment. "He requests a secure link-up, sir, urgently."
I am at a T-junction in the corridor, and to one side of me is a door. I duck through it, find myself in an unused office. "I have a data terminal." I sit down and slam the activation and override codes into the console, awakening it from its slumber. How long since this thing was last used? Perhaps years.... We are thinly spread, throughout the Vault, and we have not used a hundredth of its full capacity. Perhaps we are too thinly spread to contain Thrang. I connect my tricorder to the console. An image forms on the screen; another room, another anonymous workspace, somewhere in the station - except the man sitting at a console there is human, and even in quarter-profile from behind I can see who he is. He is dressed in a leather coat, in Reman style, but the head is not concealed, and it is Thrang, without doubt.
Then the image is wiped away, replaced by an aged and glowering face. "Sir."
"I am here," says Xerek. "Perhaps within metres of Thrang, who knows? I am coordinating search efforts inside the section. Tell me what you have done."
"Full lockdown, all Vault crew at war alert status -" Breathlessly, I run through the measures I have taken so far.
Xerek's mouth twists into an ugly shape - disapproval, or merely deep thought? I do not know. "You are devoting much of our resources," he says.
"Thrang must be caught. He is too dangerous to be permitted escape."
"True," says Xerek. "Still, technically, you are exceeding your authority -"
"But not mine," says a deep and resonant voice from behind me.
I turn my head - and then rise to my feet and stand stiffly at attention. The voice is instantly recognizable, as is the face, lantern-jawed, horribly scarred across the right cheek - no Reman alive does not recognize those scars, or that voice, or the brooding blue eyes that now focus on Xerek's image. Obisek. The man who succeeded where Shinzon failed, the one who raised the first alarm of Iconian incursion... the man who led the Reman people to a hard-won freedom. No, here in the Vault, nothing is beyond Obisek's authority.
"In this matter," the leader of our people says, "her voice is as mine." I keep my stance and my face rigidly disciplined, concealing the swell of pride I feel at that. "Kalevar Thrang is too important, and too dangerous, for us to take any chances. We will do all that we can to take him."
"Of course." Xerek, too, has come to full attention. "I have security troops within the sealed section. I will commence a search with those."
"Yes," says Obisek. "And the Scorpions will sweep the adjacent area with their sensors, and the rest of the Vault's troops will guard every exit." He glances at me. "You have done well," he says, and my heart swells further. "Normally, I like light no more than the rest of us - but in this case, we will shine lights into every dark corner of the Vault, until we find Kalevar Thrang."
---
But we do not.
Thrang tripped a facial recognition package in the security monitors... but that is all. Xerek's teams sweep every millimetre of section 771 East; I have a list of the microbes they find, but they do not find Thrang. The Scorpion fighters howl along the passageways of the Vault, sensors at maximum, but Thrang's biometrics and genetic profile fail to register. The security force fields glow across each access point, and troops stand taut and ready before each one, waiting for Thrang to emerge, waiting in vain.
I do not know how many hours have passed. "The terminal is at an interior location," I mutter to myself. "Deep inside the section. Less than two minutes elapsed between the initial alarm and Centurion Jeroth imposing the first lockdown. My additional measures were in place no more than five minutes after that. Even an augment cannot have moved that quickly."
I was muttering to myself, but Obisek heard. If he is feeling fatigued, it does not show on his face. "Transporter logs and sensor records show nothing in that interval. He was not beamed out. But Xerek's teams have found nothing. Nothing...."
I nerve myself to address him directly. "What do you think happened, sir?"
"I wish I knew," says Obisek. "There is something at work here, some deception we have not seen through." He sighs, closes his eyes, rubs his brow with his hand. For that one moment, even the mighty Obisek looks mortal. "There is not even genetic residue from Thrang at the site in question," he says. "Xerek's forensic team could probably name every person who has sat in that chair, but Thrang was not among them. Even though we saw him." He shakes his head. "We must face facts, unpleasant though they are. Thrang has eluded us. Stand down from general alert. We cannot maintain this security level much longer - there is too much else to do at the Vault."
"Yes, sir." I take a deep breath. "Sir, I -"
"You have not failed me," says Obisek. "You were fast, and effective. You did everything, took every necessary measure. It is not your fault that Thrang has done the impossible." His tone softens a little. "Get some rest. You need it. And we need our best people in their best condition."
I salute him. "Yes, sir."
And I turn and make my weary way back to my quarters, because one does not disobey Obisek.
But before I crawl back into my bed, I replay the brief footage from the security camera, the one which shows Kalevar Thrang. The viewing angle does not permit me to see what he is working on. The records should be preserved in the terminal, but that was blanked. And there is only one visual record of Thrang - no footage of him arriving, or departing. All I see is the man working at the terminal for a brief time - seconds, no more - and then he stands, stoops to pick up something from the floor - a long, thin object - and then he walks out of the camera's field of view, and he is gone.
I cannot make out what the object is. I cannot imagine where Thrang has gone. Eventually, the scene starts to blur before my tired eyes, and I shut off the projection and go back to bed.
"Are you sure about this?" Rozilai demands.
"Nope," I say cheerfully, "but we're gonna do it anyway. And I don't think we're gonna get a better chance."
I look around the bridge. Roz has a sceptical look, but she's standing by the scan console and looks poised for action. Nyesenia is on helm and Nurnos on tactical, so we're as ready as we're going to be. I think.
"OK. Power up drives, disconnect all umbilicals, and let's look like we've got a hot date somewhere."
The ship quivers, and distant thunks announce the falling away of the docking tube, power lines, air supply and re-mass feeds... there's a lot of stuff you get hooked up to when you're in dock for a while. On the main viewscreen, the interior of the Vault starts to swing slowly about us, as the ship rotates.
"Thrusters to max. Head us for the exit."
And there is a prompt ping from comms, because the Remans aren't slouches in this department. I hit the master panel beside my command chair. "Yo," I say.
"Privateer vessel Anita." I dunno who came up with the name, but what the heck, we have to call the ship something. "This is Vault Traffic Control. You appear to be making an unauthorized departure. Stand down. File your flight plans, and be aware that the Vault is still in security lockdown, so there may be a delay before they can be approved." There's no visual. The Reman's voice sounds brusque, businesslike, and maybe a touch cross.
He's going to get a lot crosser. "That's a negative, Traffic Control," I tell him. "Don't have time to do the paperwork. Just tell everything else in the sky to get out of our way, 'cause we're gonna burn."
"Anita, you are warned to stand down." Yep, he sounds cross all right. "You are under Vault Traffic Control regulations and -" I cut the channel.
"OK, peeps," I say, "this is where things are gonna get hectic. Roz, sing out when their targeting lights us up. Nye, polarize the hull and get ready to dodge."
"Consider me singing," says Roz. "Multiple targeting pings already. And I don't think they're all from tractor mounts, either."
"Sheesh. Nye. Punch it, and punch it hard."
And the dimness of the Vault's interior is suddenly pierced by shafts of blue light - tractor beams, mounted on the docking bay's walls, capable of dragging around ships a lot bigger than mine. But the hull polarization makes us temporarily immune, and Nyesenia is already hammering at the helm controls. Anita rolls, sideslips, twists and dodges, her thrusters firing at max. We slalom between two docking pylons, squeeze around a lumbering freighter and a squat Ferengi ship, and there is a jolt and a lurch as Nyesenia cuts in the impulse drive for a second and we shoot out of the main docking bay and into an empty corridor.
My heart is in my mouth. This route should lead to an open space in the Vault's walls, one that's too big for the Remans to close off - they can throw up an emergency force field, but I have the codes for those, I can shut one down. I think. I hope.
"We got bogeys," Nurnos grunts.
"Aw, yeeps. How many?"
"They're slipping in and out of cloak. Reckon at least six, though. Scorpions."
I pull a face. "Weapons hot. Try and target engines, aim to disable."
Nurnos heaves a sigh. "Don't ask much, do you? Those things are tiny. Shoot to disable." He snorts. "Yeah, right. Well, I'll try."
He'd better try hard. Killing a bunch of fighter pilots will really scupper things with the Remans, especially with Heizis. My first clue that the little ghoul was really one of the good guys came when I noticed she was protective of her people.
"Incoming," says Roz. "Wait. Aimed away from us. Warning shots."
Firing plasma weapons indoors is normally a bad thing, but the Vault is huge, tough and ancient, it can take a few stray plasma bolts. So far, the Remans are being, well, reasonably polite. I have to try and return the courtesy by not killing them.
Doesn't mean I can't hurt their ships, mind. "Nurnos. Think of it as a challenge. Shoot to disable."
The Nausicaan grunts. A moment or two later, so does the ship's EPS grid as the aft turrets come online and start spitting tetryon bolts. My heart is pounding. Cherenkov-blue light flashes, and one Scorpion loses its shields and veers off, frantically racing for cover. A replacement pops out of cloak, just in time to stop another one of my bolts; it yaws violently and then drifts gracelessly towards the wall. Engines down. Good for Nurnos, I hope he can keep it up -
He can't. The next Scorpion he hits spirals away leaving a trail of flaming debris and escaping air, before it bursts in a fireball. "Transporter signature detected," Roz says in comforting tones. The flight deck operators might have snatched the pilot to safety before the craft blew, then. The remaining fighters are hanging back -
Because they think they can. Because there is a bluish shimmer at the end of the corridor, a curtain of light that hangs between us and the stars. Force field. Obvious move, really.
Nyesenia cuts in the impulse drive again. I hammer the codes into the control console. If this doesn't work, we are going to hit that force field at some speed, enough to leave us severely embarrassed. And flat. And dead. But worst of all, embarrassed.
But the console flashes green, accepting, confirming. And the force shield winks out a half second or so before our nose would have slammed into it.
"Full impulse! Launch the jammers!"
Electronic warfare drones shoot out of Anita's launch tubes, broadcasting gibberish on every scan frequency the Remans use. Hopefully, it will confuse the Vault's targeting long enough for us to get clear - because if that station hits us with even a fraction of its main firepower, we don't stand a chance.
Anita corkscrews away from the Vault in a high-speed evasion pattern. No plasma fire from the station - they're not shooting while they're not sure of their target. Sensible. I can't see the Scorpions on my tactical repeater; maybe they've given up the chase. The vast station is dwindling behind us. We might be home free -
"Sensor contacts," says Roz. "Two of them." She rattles off the relative vectors, quickly.
"What are they?" I ask.
"Looks like... standard T'Varo class warbirds."
Nurnos hmphs at me. "No challenge. Nacelles are out on nice long pylons. I can take them out, neat as you like."
"Do it." Cripple the immediate pursuit, go to warp - and, once we're at warp, I know plenty of tricks to hide our subspace contrail, and plenty of bolt-holes I can hide in, while the hue and cry dies down. So long as Nurnos doesn't get too enthusiastic with the tetryon cannons -
The pursuing warbirds are coming within weapons range. Nyesenia wheels our ship sharply around, and for the first time the forward cannons blast at full strength. The first warbird's shields shatter, and flames shoot from its starboard nacelle. The second one's had time to charge its singularity core - it does a quick subspace jump to dodge our first volley, and unloads a burst of plasma fire at our midsection. The shields hold, just. Reaction mass jets from our RCS thrusters as Nyesenia brings her round again, and Nurnos's next burst shears through one pylon and sends the warbird spinning away.
"No more ships on short range scan," says Roz.
"OK, let's make like a tree and leave. Warp speed."
The stars stretch out into streaks of fire, and we're away.
---
It's the first step. There is a lot of jinking and weaving and doubling back to do before I'm sure we're safe, and then there's the rest of the set-up to go through - sending discreet coded bursts along particular subspace channels. The information we got from the Thexemians was probably out of date, but it's all I've got, and with luck it will attract someone's attention, at any rate.
When I finally call it a day and head to my quarters, though, I can see I've already got someone's attention. The portable subspace rig on my desk is flashing for attention. I sigh, sit down, and answer the call.
"What in the name of the Elements do you think you are doing?" Heizis's face, on the tiny screen, doesn't look happy. Not that she's ever exactly cheerful, but right now, she is not in a good mood, that's for sure.
"Had to make it look good, didn't I? Is everyone OK your end?" I think they must be. I don't reckon she'd be talking to me if they weren't.
"Two Scorpions heavily damaged, one destroyed - but the pilot and co-pilot were beamed off in time," Heizis snarls. "The Lasant and the Vecenius have been towed to the Vault for repairs - no casualties were reported. Now, explain."
"How secure are you?"
"I am in a storage unit with no terminals, no datapads, no other communications besides this. I assume you have sanitized your ship's data network. We may speak freely. So speak."
The subspace rig is a coach-built design, using quantum entanglement to talk with just one other counterpart - the matching unit at Heizis's end of the line. It's the most secure comms link we could come up with. "I had to make it look good," I repeat. "I need to get a line on Thrang, right? And he wants me to throw in with him, yeah? He said as much. But he's no idiot, he's gotta know I won't do that... not unless, or until, I've got no alternatives left. That makes sense, yeah? So I decided shooting my way out of the Vault would make it look like I'm off your friends list."
"You are already at odds with the Federation," says Heizis. "And you are right, today's performance certainly looks as though you have lost the friendship of my people. The Republic would follow our lead -"
"And everyone knows I don't have any love for the Ferengi, and I'm not gonna be welcomed with open arms in Klingon or Cardassian space, and I'm too hot for the Breen and too cool for the Tholians, so where does that leave me? On my way back to the Delta Quadrant, maybe, except I'd have to go through two Alliance-controlled gateways to get there, so that's no good. It should really look like I'm running low on options, now."
"Thrang might still not believe it."
"Thrang probably won't believe it. He'll think I'm looking for some way to double-cross him. Only he'll also think I won't find one, on account of he's so darn brilliant. Whatever. However it works, we get a tiny bit closer to Thrang."
"Possibly." Heizis glares. "You could have warned me."
"Nuh-uh," I say. "I needed the Vault's authentic reaction. You'd probably have told them not to shoot at me, or something."
"Do not depend on that," says Heizis. "I will use this thing when I can. Keep me informed." And she closes the channel.
"Yes, Mother," I say to the blank screen.
I stand up and stretch. My bunk is starting to look very inviting. I take off my mining vest. I unbuckle one of the big boots and ease it off. I'm half way through unbuckling the other one when the intercom yips at me.
I thumb the button. "This better be good," I say.
Roz's face is on the display. "We have a response," she says.
"Already?"
"Routed through the Thexemian beacon net. I think someone's been listening out. I can patch them through -"
"Yeah. Do it."
Roz's face vanishes. There's a brief blur of static, and then someone else's face comes into view. Disappointing. Not Thrang's face. A human female's face, a young one, with light brown skin, dark brown hair, and big brown scared-looking eyes.
"You said 'This is Pex, I'm willing to talk'," she says.
Well, that was the phrasing on one of those subspace signals, fair enough. "I'm Pex. Pexlini, if you wanna get all formal. Who are you?."
"I'm Angelica Moreno. I got your signal. And I erased the comms log. I don't think Thrang knows I'm talking to you." She swallows, audibly. "And I think we need to talk."
The home system of the Siohonin was busy. Even after the war, when the temporal entity known as Sebreac Tharr had led the Siohonin on an ill-advised campaign of conquest, the population of the Dolsulca system numbered in the hundreds of billions. On the displays, Kuthis could see the myriad dots of space freighters and passenger liners travelling between the inhabited worlds and the many, many spaceborne arcologies. The Empire had taken over the government, was instituting reforms to the Siohonin social system - but it was taking time, and there was an immense amount of work still to do. And, in the meantime, KDF vessels like Kuthis's Vor'cha cruiser were tasked with patrolling the system, keeping the traffic in some sort of order, and watching for outbreaks of trouble. The Siohonin had made no friends in the galaxy with their brutal invasion... but there were always troublemakers, somewhere....
Today, though, everything seemed to be normal enough. Kuthis scowled at the main screen. He was Klingon, he felt the need for action - any kind of action. System patrols were necessary, he knew, but they were dull -
"Sensor contact, grid sixteen." The Orion science officer, Sesvedba, spoke in her musical voice. Kuthis turned towards her.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Unknown. Whatever it is...." Her perfect jade brow wrinkled in a frown. "That can't be right. Closed to grid twelve already... it must be moving at high transwarp speed. Very high."
"Bring the ship to alert," Kuthis ordered. "Come about. Is this - whatever it is - coming out of warp?"
"Warp signature shows deceleration. But these readings - I've never seen anything like it." Sesvedba bit her lip. "Triangulating now -"
The display on the main screen flickered, broke up into static for a moment, then reformed. "What was that?" Kuthis snapped.
"Energy surge. Whatever it was, it came out of subspace at high speed. Equivalent of - that can't be right." Sesvedba shook her head. "It says, at least warp fifty."
"Get me a long-range scan. What is it?"
"Working." Sesvedba tapped busily at her console. "Well, it's a ship... configuration not registered... small, maybe around corvette sized...."
Kuthis strode back to his command chair. "Feed me the details. I have heard of something like this -" He sat down heavily, and engaged his command console. He was trying to think. Something about a renegade with a very fast ship - an intelligence briefing -
"It's powering up drives. We are still well outside effective combat range," said Sesvedba. "Warp field established - the parameters look very strange. Engaging -" She shook her head. "It's away. Same super-fast speed. We can't possibly pursue it, and the warp contrail will diffuse to nothing in a few minutes -"
"Got it." Kuthis snapped his fingers. "Combination subtranswarp and asynchronous warp field. Used by the renegade Kalevar Thrang - I have the intel files here. But why -?"
"What would Thrang want here?" Sesvedba asked. "And he was here less than a minute -"
"We do not know it was Thrang. He might have sold on that technology to others." Kuthis was thinking hard. "Here less than a minute. Time to make a pickup, perhaps, if there was a vessel close by - but there was not. Or time to launch something - Scan. Tachyon detection for cloaks, and check all exotic frequency ranges. He might have dropped a package for some passing freighter to pick up. Or a guided delivery drone -"
"Engaging full scan mode. Tachyon detection online." The displays shifted and changed, showing the input from the Chisaro's sensor suite. Kuthis was glaring at his console, watching as it flashed up further intelligence briefings.
"I have something," Sesvedba reported. "Cloaked - travelling at high velocity - no life signs." She turned towards the captain. "I don't understand. It's moving directly towards the sun. Exotic energy signature - on the screen now -"
Kuthis's eyes widened. "Plot an intercept!" he roared.
"Sir, there's no way - it's outstripping our best impulse speed -"
"Get me within weapons range!" Kuthis jumped to his feet and ran to the comms console, brushing the communications officer out of the way. His hand slammed down on the controls. "All vessels! All vessels in the Dolsulca system! This is the Chisaro! Emergency evacuation! There is a trilithium warhead inbound towards the sun! Warp out! Warp out now!"
---
Trilithium began as an academic curiosity.
The development of dilithium crystal technology led, inevitably, to further research, into how the crystals manipulated and focused energy, and how they might be developed to do it better. Trilithium, a variant compound with a triple enfolding of the crystalline structure, seemed to show promise - except that, in practice, it seemed to negate the generation of energy completely, at least for brief moments of time. And it was horrifically difficult to produce, hellishly unstable, prone to explode at the slightest provocation. For a while, its only practical application was as an explosive -
Then Dr. Tolian Soran worked out how to apply it, and trilithium stopped being a curiosity, and became a weapon of mass destruction.
The complex enfolding of trilithium's crystals did not negate energy, but transported it, moving it outside normal space-time, into subspace - for a few moments. When that energy returned to normal space, it was as a momentary, and often explosive, flash. Soran's contribution was to stabilize and extend the trilithium reaction, so that a small quantity of the material could transform all energy in a globe several light-seconds across -
The trilithium warhead that struck the star Dolsulca sucked the energy out of the entire star. A chromospheric research station, heavily shielded in the star's corona, was caught in the radius, and everyone aboard died instantly, their temperature reduced to absolute zero. They were the first.
A star is a complex balancing act, between the force of gravity dragging everything inwards, and the pressure of heat and radiation forcing everything outwards. When Dolsulca was robbed of its radiation output, gravity won the battle: the star began to collapse. Almost immediately, though, compression and friction in the core of the sun began to re-ignite it. Under the immense force of gravity, atoms crashed together and fused: hydrogen to helium, helium to beryllium, helium and beryllium to carbon, higher and higher up the periodic table... and the star began to glow again.
Then the stolen energy came back out of subspace and flooded into the star once more. Randomized, the radiation pressure worked as much inwards as outwards, further squeezing and compressing the core, promoting yet more fusion into yet more exotic elements, unstable heavy nuclei that disintegrated almost at once, yielding yet more energy... and the seesaw swung back, with a vengeance.
To observers in the system, the star appeared to go completely dark for a second or so - and then glowed again, glowed with an ever-increasing light, flaring with a blinding intensity, reaching a peak of more than fifty thousand times its normal luminosity... unleashing a hail of hard radiation, x-rays and gamma rays and cosmic rays, that no material object within several AUs could hope to withstand.
The massive Siohonin space colonies vanished like snowflakes in the mouth of a blast furnace. The inner planets boiled.
Some of the gas giants in the outer system survived the radiation flare - and some space habitats, orbiting on the night sides of those planets, were shielded from the flare and lived. It made no difference. The immense energy liberated at the star's core threw its outer layers into space, blasting outwards as a globe of ionized plasma, expanding at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. Nothing in the system could stand before that blast wave.
The Klingon governor's residence was on the day side of the Siohonin homeworld when the star flared. It, and the people in it, and the continent it stood on, simply boiled away in the killing glare. And somewhere, in a computer memory - in a stack of messages long since disregarded as mere crank calls and empty threats - a counter reached 00:00:00:00.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Sweat glittered on Captain Kuthis's brow ridges; his face was grey and haggard. "Once we had broadcast the general alert," he said, "we plotted an intercept course for the trilithium warhead. It was useless. We had no chance of reaching weapons range on full impulse, and no time to calculate a precision micro-warp jump -"
"I know the difficulties," said J'mpok. He sat behind his desk, looking up at Kuthis. Behind him and to one side, Ambassador S'taass of the Gorn was a hulking silent presence. "Go on."
Kuthis nodded. "We understood the consequences of a trilithium detonation... we knew the system was doomed. We.... It seemed to us that we should try to save someone. Something...."
"Your logs show you performed a short warp jump to the outer system," said J'mpok.
"We had to make a choice." Genuine anguish showed on Kuthis's face. "Dolsulca VII... furthest from the blast... it offered the best chance, we thought. We identified six space colony cylinders that would be eclipsed by the gas giant during the initial radiation flash. Two were too large... we chose...."
"Arcology Theyava-Lan 1326." S'taass spoke for the first time, delivering the information in a flat tone.
"Yes," said Kuthis. "We knew it would survive the radiation flare, but when the rest followed, the plasma storm... even at that range, it would overwhelm their shields. Unless we supplemented them with ours.... We had to make a choice! We had to choose some few who might live, and leave the rest to die!"
"You extended your ship's shields and synchronized them with the colony cylinder's own," said J'mpok. "The additional shielding protected the colony, allowed them to survive until the plasma flux dropped to tolerable levels. Disaster relief vessels evacuated the cylinder shortly thereafter. Even for a small Siohonin colony, it took many, many ships... but they lived, Captain. They lived." His heavy-lidded eyes studied the other's sweating face. "A Vor'cha class cruiser such as your vessel does not possess shields enough to be extended in this manner - in normal circumstances."
"The circumstances were not normal, Chancellor. I ordered storm shelters rigged in the cargo bays, sent all but the most essential personnel to those. Those of us who remained at our posts... were all volunteers."
"The shielding, and the sheer bulk of the colony cylinder, protected its inhabitants," said J'mpok, in a soft voice, "and the radiological storm shelters protected your crew. With the exception of yourself and your... volunteers. I have read the medical reports."
"I, also." Kuthis was starting to sway from side to side. "If I have any regrets, Chancellor.... It is only that... I wish we could have done more...."
J'mpok rose to his feet. "You have done all that any true Klingon could, Captain. Qapla'." He raised his fist in a grave salute. "You are dismissed, Captain Kuthis. Rest now. Sto'vo'kor awaits."
Captain Kuthis returned the salute, turned, and stumbled out of the room.
J'mpok looked down at his desk console. "He did all that he could. But... perhaps a million Siohonin rescued, by his action, and by other ships as they fled the system. A drop in the ocean. And the homeworld, destroyed.... The Siohonin are extinct as a civilization."
"Our adversaries chose well," S'taass said. "If any genocide could ever be made acceptable.... The Siohonin had no friends in the galaxy."
A growl started in J'mpok's throat. He rose to his feet. "They fought a war against us all, true enough. They were defeated. And their leadership died for their temerity, and they were dupes of Sebreac Tharr in any case. Besides -" His fists came down on the desktop, hard enough to crack the console screen. "They were the Empire's subjects!" he roared. "They were our responsibility! This - this thing - affronts the Empire's honour!"
"I do not deny it," said S'taass. "What is to be done?"
"What must be done. Find those responsible, and punish them." J'mpok's eyes narrowed. "We must have help. The Federation is constitutionally opposed to genocide, and they know we are already at war with these - creatures. This so-called Action Black. We must pool our knowledge, pool our resources, seek out these criminals and extirpate them."
"I agree," said S'taass. "I worry, only -"
J'mpok rounded on him. "Worry what?"
"That this pooling of resources is precisely what the Actionists demand," said S'taass. "They claim that Action Black has no links to them - that it is a dark parody, only, of their own organization. Still. It seems that this crime brings benefits to the Actionists. And that concerns me."
Office of the President, Palais de la Concorde, Paris, Earth
"Mr President, this is an outrage. It's a violation of everything the Federation stand for. You have to act."
Lyle Anson paced up and down before the desk. Behind it, Aennik Okeg sat perfectly still, his huge eyes watchful.
"Outright genocide, sir. We cannot stand by and watch -"
"The Dolsulca system is... was... a part of the Klingon Empire," Okeg said. "The settlement treaty at the end of the Siohonin crisis stipulated that the Empire would take full responsibility for the control and... rehabilitation... of the Siohonin."
"Sir, are you saying that this is not our problem?"
"Of course not. We will give the Empire all the help they ask for. And I am sure they will ask. But we will not interfere in another nation's affairs until they permit it. It's a fundamental principle of the Federation, Mr Anson."
Anson stopped pacing. He turned sharply on his heel to face Okeg directly.
"Mr President, sometimes principles have to change. There is a bunch of madmen on the loose with genocide weapons, and whoever they are, they need to be stopped. We cannot allow issues of abstract principle to interfere with that!"
"I'm aware of your views, Mr Anson. You already know I don't share them. We will do everything we can, under Federation law. You must know that I want those criminals brought to justice as much as anyone."
"Not as much as us, sir. Action Black! They're laughing at us, sir, at us, the Actionist movement. You can't tell me that's not deliberate. These people, whoever they are -"
"We have a tentative identification, at least," said Okeg. "The ship which fired the warhead - it was using a specialist warp drive developed by an augmented renegade named -"
"Kalevar Thrang. I know. We don't know if it's him, though, or if he just sold the technology to some other group of lunatics. In any case, sir, just knowing a name isn't enough. We need full, open access between ourselves and the Klingons. And the Republic, too. We already know the Remans have been looking for trilithium for some time - they were concerned about exactly this sort of threat. We -"
"You're very well informed, Mr Anson," Okeg observed.
"We need to be. All the Actionist movements communicate, Mr President. We share information, of course we do. And that's why we recognize the value of that. Mr President, a specialist forensic team could scout the Dolsulca system for the remains of that warp contrail. We could track Action Black's ship back to its starting point. Klingon technology isn't up to a task like that, they don't have proper science ships like ours. Are you going to wait for them to ask before you send those ships in?"
"Of course." Okeg's voice remained calm and mild. "We do not interfere, Mr Anson. As soon as the Chancellor requests that help, he'll have it. Until then, though - Well. The Empire is currently in a state of high alert. Sending an unannounced Starfleet task force over the border - well, it's an action that could be dangerously misinterpreted."
"We're talking about genocide, Mr President! Hundreds of billions of people, an entire culture, wiped out! You can't sit there and quote me Federation legalisms!" Anson slammed his hands down on the President's desk. "Sir, I'm giving you a warning. We have resources. And if you won't take action, then I promise you, we will."
Bodega Bay, California, Earth
The planks of the jetty creaked beneath Thomas Harriman's feet. Before him, the sun shone out of a clear sky onto the flawless blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. Harriman proceeded, slowly, to the end of the jetty, where the other man was waiting for him.
"Tom. Good to see you." The man with the close-cropped sandy hair and the scar on his face smiled. "It's been a while."
"Franklin. Yes. Yes, I guess it has." Harriman leaned heavily on the handrail, his lips twitching as he tried to force a smile of his own.
"I gather this is business," said Franklin Drake. "Somehow, I never seem to get social calls."
"Well," said Harriman, "your number isn't in the book."
Drake laughed. He turned back to look out over the ocean. Harriman came to stand beside him. They were both silent for some time.
Eventually, Harriman said, "Someone just blew up an entire star system. That's not something we can ignore. There's circumstantial evidence linking it to Action Black, and to Kalevar Thrang -"
"Oh, it's Thrang," said Drake. "You can have that for nothing. His agent has already been in touch."
"What?"
"It's only normal, Tom. Agencies like ours... feel each other out. Test the waters."
"Franklin," said Harriman, "if you already have a lead on these people -"
"Actually," said Drake, "we don't. Thrang's distributed computer subversion is good. We weren't able to track that call - and, believe me, we should have been. You couldn't make a call I couldn't trace, Tom. So, if Tharval could...."
"Tharval?"
"A Lethean rogue agent working for Thrang. We knew that from the 54 Eridani business. Imperial Intelligence shared its data. Sometimes even willingly." Drake smiled.
"All right. So you know two of the people responsible. Franklin, those people have to be neutralized. Brought to trial, if we can manage it, but stopped from doing further damage. I'm -" Harriman drew in a deep breath. "I'm formally invoking Section 31 of the Federation Charter. Officially. Franklin, help us."
Drake nodded. His expression was pensive. "If I can," he said.
"What do you mean, if you can?"
"We're as vulnerable as anyone else to Thrang's computer virus. Section 31 has its own secure, sanitized networks, but we can't run those over interstellar distances without risking infection. So we don't. That's why I'm here, face to face, today."
"You're telling me even Section 31 is helpless?"
"No, not helpless. But unless someone can crack Thrang's subversion process, we're at a disadvantage." Drake's fingers drummed briefly on the handrail. "There's something else." He turned to face Harriman directly. "It's something I probably shouldn't tell you, Tom, but -" He shrugged. "I guess I have loyalties."
"What? What is it?" Harriman demanded.
"Thrang's agent made us an offer, Tom. Thrang's goal is a unified government throughout what's currently Federation, Imperial and Republic space. Tharval made a point, that the only way to run that government... is as an expanded version of the Federation. My organization's purpose is to defend the Federation by any means necessary. Subsuming our two biggest rivals -" He shrugged. "That'd count as defending Federation interests, right?"
Harriman stared at him. The blood drained out of the fat man's face. "You can't be serious."
"Tharval made it sound practical. A short reign for Thrang, followed by a vastly extended Federation. I wonder if I should ask Temporal Operations and find out if that's what's meant to happen? After all, we're pretty sure the Klingons will be Federation members by the twenty-ninth century."
"You can't be serious," Harriman repeated.
"Thrang made the offer. It's... under discussion. I'm not a one-man band, Tom, I have my own command structure to answer to. That structure is... deliberating." Drake started to walk away, down the jetty, while Harriman continued to stare, mute and helpless. After a couple of steps, Drake turned back for a moment. "I'll let you know when they've reached a decision. If I can."
I've never seen Admiral Stroffa look furious. The head of Stellar Survey is a matronly Denobulan woman, usually kindly and approachable; now, she is obviously seething with rage. Of her two assistants, one is obviously perturbed too; the Caitian M'eioi's black fur is bristling, her tail switching rapidly from side to side. Only T'Pia - being a Vulcan, and trained in the Kolinahr, and being, well, T'Pia - remains totally calm and inexpressive.
"All survey groups have now been redeployed within Federation borders," the small red-haired Vulcan is saying. "Agreements are in place with the KDF and the Republic to cover boundary areas such as the former Neutral Zones. Survey groups 201 through 220 are in position in the Eta Eridani sector, coordinating with Klingon and Gorn task forces on similar missions. I have the complete deployment schedule on my PADD now."
"Good," says Stroffa. "Finally." She turns to me, her face actually pulsating - the Denobulan threat reaction, just barely being kept in check. "What can Engineering Division give us?"
I hold out my own PADD. "We've supplied parameters, coordinated with Starfleet Intelligence, and identified every facility in the Federation with the technology needed to build a trilithium weapon. All listed here. There are only four hundred and thirty-eight of them, so we will have full monitoring systems in place, within forty-eight hours."
"Some of those facilities, while inside Federation territory, may not fall within Federation jurisdiction," T'Pia says.
"We will have full monitoring systems in place within forty-eight hours," I assure her. "If this involves placing scanning satellites around an independent world, well, they will just have to live with that."
"Good," says Stroffa, her face deflating. "So. With our sensor network looking out for trilithium, and a constant watch kept on places that can produce trilithium... maybe we can actually prevent a repetition of this - this atrocity."
It's a formidable job - the Federation is big, space is bigger, and there is plenty of room for someone to develop an illicit weapons factory if they want to. But with the whole of Starfleet on alert, with all of Stroffa's science vessels combing the void for trilithium signatures... maybe we can catch the next attack, stop it in time. If there is a next attack.
My combadge chirps at me. "Shohl." This had better be an emergency.
"Sir." Cordul's voice. "We have a crash priority request from Intelligence. They need the King Estmere again, urgently."
I glance at Stroffa. "We have your data," she says. "You'd better go. Thank you, Admiral Shohl."
---
"Six independent merchant ships, all reporting sensor contacts with a Hirogen escort." Anthi marks out the positions on the holographic display. "So far, no hostile activity. What's bothering Intelligence is the distances involved."
I look at the display, and at the stardates for the contacts, and my antennae twitch. "That ship is moving at one hell of a speed. Assuming it's the same ship. Can we make that assumption?"
"Data from the freighters is consistent," Three of Eight rumbles. "Transponder idents and warp signatures match. For the ship to be present in each of those locations, at the designated times, it would have to be moving at speeds in excess of warp forty."
"Analysis suggests it's going in and out from some central location." Bulpli Yulan takes over the discussion. "We've plotted a locus in the centre of the region marked by the contacts." She puts another marker on the display. "Somewhere around here. There's nothing listed at that location, but there might be an asteroid fragment nearby - or, of course, someone might have built something there. A transwarp hub, maybe, or a trajector gateway. That might account for the ship's speed."
"OK. So we have a Hirogen escort probing around, moving very fast, mission unknown. And Intelligence wants it intercepted, by something fast enough to catch it, and big enough to beat it. Which means us. We ready to move?"
"All systems go," Dyssa D'jeph assures me.
"So let's move," I say.
---
Surprisingly few hours later, Three of Eight says, "I have a sensor contact."
I turn the command chair to face him. "The Hirogen?"
"Negative. An asteroid, but in the approximate locus we have identified - and with a temperature significantly higher than cosmic background level." There is something approaching a smile on Three's grey, machinery-infested face. "I think we have found our bogey's base of operations."
At any rate, we've found an unregistered space outpost, and even if it's not involved in the mysterious Hirogen's activities, whoever's there must surely have seen that ship passing.... "OK. Lay in an approach course, scan on all frequencies -" I think for a moment. "Deploy the Mesh Weavers. We might as well be ready for anything. Yellow alert."
King Estmere comes about, aims her sharp prow at a new point in space. The frigates thunder out of the launch bays.
"Substantial sensor jamming," says Three. "I have albedo readings confirming a metallic structure on the surface of the asteroid -"
"Got something for you," Klerupiru interrupts. "Sensor jamming, yeah, and plenty of it, but there's a data transmission subchannel running." She grins. "And I recognize the encryption pattern. I think I can crack it."
"Data transmission." My antennae twitch. "Transmitting what, to where?"
"I think it's internal monitoring," says Klerupiru. "Whoever this place belongs to, they want to keep an eye on it while they're away." Her fingers are working busily at her console. "Isolating a facility map... single transporter pad.... Looks like it's a pretty standard commercial modular lash-up - oh, hey. I can get a visual."
"Visual on what?"
"Looks like a security camera monitoring the largest internal space. Might be a laboratory or something."
"Well, let's see it, then. On screen."
And the image appears on the main viewscreen. I think Klerupiru's right, this is a laboratory - there are workbenches, and PADDs scattered about, and what might be equipment for high-energy particle generation. There's something in the middle of the lab, a big upright cylinder -
I sit bolt upright. "Klerupiru. Can you zoom in on this image?"
"Sure. No problem. What do you want to look at?"
"That cylinder in the middle. There's something square on the side of it. It looks like a plaque -"
"Oh, I see it. OK. Isolating and enlarging."
The image jerks, shudders, starts to expand. The plaque on the side of the cylinder gets larger and larger, and I can see writing on it, a few short words, engraved on the metal.
"Ex uno plures," I whisper, and a chill runs down my spine.
"What?" says Anthi. "Sir, that was -"
"The motto on Dr. Tamik's machine. Yes." Disjointed thoughts are passing through my head. Surely no one would be stupid enough to build a copy of Dr. Tamik's reality-fracturing device? An exact copy, down to the Latin tag on the outside?
I stand up. "This has got to be some kind of trick," I say. "I don't know if it's a trap, or an invitation, or what, but I'm pretty sure it's aimed right at me."
"Makes sense, sir," says Anthi. "What are you going to do?"
"Take the bait and see what happens. Klerupiru, can you get a signal through to that transporter pad?"
"I don't - Uh-oh." Klerupiru frowns. "Between the security settings and all the jamming, I shouldn't be able to, sir. But I can."
"An invitation. Well," I say, "I guess I'd better take it."
---
The transport seems to take longer than usual. Maybe that's just my nerves.
I beam into a room that's little more than a cubicle. The environment is standard Federation - warm, by my standards, but perfectly liveable. My antennae are tingling, though, with the background electromagnetic radiation from the jamming systems.
My combadge chirps. "We just lost the visual feed," Klerupiru's voice says. She sounds tinny, as the signal fights its way through the interference. I check the transporter console.
"Someone doesn't want to be seen," I muse, as much to myself as Klerupiru, "but as far as I can see, this console's fine - I can still beam out." I draw my phaser pistol. "OK, I'm going to the lab."
"Sir, interference is -" Klerupiru's voice vanishes in a strangled squawk. Someone wants this meeting to be private.
I step towards the door, and it hisses open. Beyond, a short corridor, and another door. That one, too, opens as I approach. I step through, into the laboratory. The cylinder looks very massive, very ominous.
"So all right," I say. "I'm here."
A familiar, but slightly hollow, voice says, "Took you long enough. Just a minute, let me get out of this thing."
I raise the phaser. The outer casing of the cylinder starts to rise up, and a pair of feet become visible inside it - feet covered by massive dilithium-miner's boots. Pexlini shuffles and squirms awkwardly out of the cylinder, stands up, and pulls a sour face at the sight of the gun. "Aw, yeebles, are you planning on arresting me or something?"
I keep the gun on her. "Shouldn't I?"
"No. Absolutely not. Why'd you think I went to all this trouble to get you here? I got news, and you need to hear it." She brushes a hand over her unruly topknot, goes over to a workbench, sits down on it.
I sigh, and holster the phaser. "What's with the super-speed ship?" I ask.
"What? - oh, yeah, right. Haven't got one. I just asked some friends to, yanno, do me a solid. Transmitted some fake sensor logs. I do have a Hirogen ship, but it's just a bog-standard one." Pexlini shrugs. "Got you here, didn't it?"
"You seem very determined to talk in private," I say.
"I know nothing here's contaminated with Thrang's computer virus," says Pexlini, "and the jamming field means he can't pick anything up from your gear. Yeah, I know your data-warfare guy will be trying to keep your systems clean, but, well, that stuff's insidious. Gets everywhere."
"Thrang's computer virus."
"Yeah. Kalevar Thrang's at the back of all this. I spoke to the guy. More importantly, I got a line into his organization."
"Why are you talking to me instead of Intelligence?"
"I couldn't work out a way to get to the right people in Intelligence. You, I could make an invitation for. But the only guy in Intelligence I could have done the same for... was Paul Hengest." She looks away for a moment, her lips pursed. "He was OK, was Paul. I owe Thrang for that, too."
I pull up a lab stool and take a seat. "All right. Tell me what I need to know."
"I don't know everything yet. My contact is an ex-Starfleet cadet on Thrang's ship. She got disillusioned with the Federation, and joined the Actionist movement. Then she met Thrang, and she got a whole lot more disillusioned. But Thrang doesn't tell his people any more than they need to know, and my girl's taking a hell of a chance with everything she does. Thrang's got at least one Lethean working for him, among other things."
"Can she get a handle on how he's working the computer virus? Or on how he's managing to be in so many different places? He got onto Earth Spacedock -"
"Working on it. The virus, the shadow OS, has some control device for it. My contact's heard some stuff about a 'mask', and I'm hoping it's not the damn Mask of Dhalselapur, that thing's caused me enough trouble already."
"A mask." Something clicks. "Klerupiru found something it'll respond to - a set of quaternions. It could be a way of defining a three-dimensional object. The Mask of Dhalselapur would be as good as any other -"
"Why that thing, though? Besides, Thrang's been spreading this computer stuff around for ages, probably since way before my misadventures in the Delta Quadrant." Pexlini sighs. "Still think I'm missing something. We're trying to rough out a way I can get in contact with Thrang, anyway."
"He's still interested in you?"
"Guy doesn't like to take no for an answer. But I'm not gonna be his number one priority, anyway. I'm just on his list." Pexlini shoots me a sidelong glance. "So are you."
"Me?"
"My contact's name is Angelica Moreno. You can maybe check up on her. She was on the engineering track -"
I snap my fingers. "She was on an optional materials-engineering course on Magamba." Pexlini gapes at me. "Oh, come on. I was one of the first-contact team on Magamba, I've been leading the field in integrating Jolciot materials and methods, of course] I know who else might be taking an intelligent interest."
"Right. Well, Thrang worked that one out too. Pretty much the first thing he had Angelica do was work out some gimmick for making your ship fall to bits. You're on his list, and it's the naughty list, not the nice list. I don't think he's forgiven you for not starting his war for him." Pexlini runs her hand over her topknot again. "You should maybe go over your personal routines, all your habits - see if there's anything you can change. Any chance you can take to pitch Thrang a curve ball, you take it."
"You're lucky a baseball fan explained that one to me, back in 1948," I mutter. Pexlini stares at me. "Never mind, it'd take too long to explain. You realize, of course, there's nothing here I can take back to Starfleet? Just a tall tale from a rogue Intelligence agent."
"Ain't that the truth. I'll get what I can, when I can. Angelica reckons Thrang is planning another spectacular, to keep everyone off balance. Won't be trilithium this time, though. He did have a second trilithium weapon, but Heizis got to it before he could use it." She sighs. "Angelica also hasn't heard of any countdowns currently running. But that doesn't mean there aren't any. Thrang never tells anyone everything."
"All right. Consider yourself not arrested. I'll... do whatever I can." My antennae twitch. "I might have a curve ball I can throw, at that. Will you be all right if I leave you here?"
"Oh, sure. My ship'll be here in a few hours, now you've tripped the transporter pad. Um, if you could take yours away, just so's I can be sure there'll be no shooting -"
"Right." I stand up.
"The main thing is, Action Black is run by Kalevar Thrang," says Pexlini, "and it joins up with all the other Actionist groups, whether the individual Actionists know it or not. Pretty standard stuff. Like that guy on Earth, twentieth century? Got a bunch of thugs to cause trouble, got elected to power on the basis that he was the guy to stop 'em? There ain't anything new under the sun." She shakes her head. "Problem is gonna be getting any sort of proof of this."
---
I step off the transporter pad, under the watchful gaze of most of my senior staff. "OK," I say. "Bulpli, get scans done for Changeling cell structure, isomorphic injections, psionic or chemical hypnotic agents - basically, everything we need to prove I'm still me. While we're doing that - Klerupiru. Set up a sanitized meeting room, and I mean sanitized - clean out every data terminal, every PADD, everything more sophisticated than a lever, if you have to. I need to give you all a briefing, and it needs to be secure."
"There remains the question of my personal fee." Assessor Prant's tiny eyes glitter in the dim light. "I suggest... two hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum."
"Agreed," I say. It is an outrageous sum, and he evidently expects me to haggle - but we have the latinum, and by this point, I would pay more than that simply to be rid of him.
He bares his disgusting Ferengi teeth in what is possibly a smile. "That will be satisfactory, then," he croaks. "I am pleased that you have refrained from making difficulties. Usually, Ree-maan self-righteousness is worse even than the hew-mons...."
I have no idea why General Xerek assigned me to this task. I am no diplomat - true, I am not nearly as bad a diplomat as Assessor Prant, but to say that is to say nothing. But, he is a senior officer of the Ferengi Commerce Authority's External Auditing division. External Auditing keeps track of assets belonging to organizations outside the FCA - military assets, generally. It is the Ferengi's military intelligence agency, and it is effective.
"As agreed, then. Immediate subspace transfer of your data files concerning trilithium and trilithium-precursor manufacturing sites in non-aligned space adjoining the Ferengi Alliance." I force a thin smile. "This will plug important holes in our and the Federation's coverage of these installations."
"Subject to verification of payment - agreed, then. Beam the latinum directly to my ship. I want to look at it," says Prant, in alarmingly lubricious tones. I pull out my datapad, begin to authorize the transfers of currency. Prant tinkers with his communicator. Eventually, we are finished.
"I cannot interest you in a supply of beetle snuff? Or a holiday retreat on Segmura Alpha? No? Then we are done." Prant rises to his feet. "And I will return to my ship. I find this dark and dreary station of yours extremely depressing, Ree-maan."
"I will escort you to the transporter room." I resist the urge to turn him upside down and shake him, to see what valuables might fall out of his pockets.
"Much simpler just to let me beam out," Prant grumbles as we walk down the gloomy corridors to the transporter room. "You Ree-maans take your security too seriously."
"We have had to. I suppose a direct transport could be arranged, though it would violate a great many security protocols." I cannot resist needling him. "Quite a number of people would have to be adequately recompensed." Prant says something under his breath that the universal translator cannot, or will not, process.
"Set coordinates for the transporter room of Nandi-class warship Prelgar, in docking bay 5207-Uruz," I tell the transporter chief. Prant stamps his way onto the pad. "Goodbye, Assessor Prant. It has been a pleasure to do business with you," I lie. And I turn away and stalk out of the room before he can answer -
And the world turns very bright and shatteringly loud, and something enormous shoves me from behind, and I spin through the air and raise my arms to fend off the wall that is coming at me, and I feel the bone in my arm snap, and then there is a tremendous blow to my head and everything is blessedly dark.
---
General Xerek glowers down at me as I lie on the bio-bed. "A pyrexite demolitions charge, apparently beamed onto the pad as it energized to transport Assessor Prant. Source unknown. Another transporter beam, heterodyned on the Ferengi ship's signal. The forensic trail, in the computer and sensor logs, is fogged and partially obliterated."
"The computer virus at work," I mutter. My head hurts. Actually, all of me hurts.
"Quite. It was mere luck that you survived." Xerek's expression suggests he does not consider it good luck.
"What of the others?"
"The transporter chief caught the full force of the blast in his head and upper torso. He did not survive. As for Assessor Prant...." Xerek grunts. "We have found enough DNA to make a positive identification. We will probably be cleaning bits of him out of the transporter room for some time." He pauses, then adds, "He had a countdown running."
I frown. It hurts. Dermal regeneration has taken care of the flash burns, but the deep-tissue muscle injuries - and the compound fracture of my left arm - will take longer to heal. "And he still chose that moment to step into a transporter?"
"It is possible he was disregarding it. Many do, it seems."
"No," I say, thinking, "no.... Prant was an intelligence officer, aware of the situation, aware of the risks. If he had a countdown, he would have taken precautions, surely...."
"He might not have known of it. We found it in his ship's files; an officious underling - or an ambitious one, eager for promotion - might have hidden it from him. Or, of course -" Xerek's expression darkens "- he might have believed that here, at the Vault, he was safe from harm. This is the second time that Thrang has penetrated our security with ease. I cannot but believe that it is a deliberate affront. An insult, aimed at us."
"Quite possibly. Reman Intelligence has a well-deserved good reputation. If Thrang can damage our image, our standing...." I am thinking. I let my head fall back onto the pillow. "I must rest."
Xerek makes a disapproving noise. "Very well, you must rest. Resume your duties as soon as you are able." And he turns and goes, his stick making sharp clicking sounds on the deck.
I am resting. I am also thinking. Someone killed Prant - well, the Ferengi was a viable enough target. And they breached the Vault's security to do it - and the propaganda value of that is obvious. But whoever it was, they would have know that someone else would be in that transporter room - a Reman agent, come out of simple politeness to speed Prant on his way. I have to acknowledge the possibility that the bomb was aimed at Prant, and at Reman credibility... and at me.
Roz has been busy. Identifying potential targets in the Tzenkethi sectors meant digging into a whole raft of Starfleet comms stuff that I'm not technically allowed to look at, just now - ferreting stuff out has become Roz's job, and fair play to her, she's good at it.
So now my ship's lurking on the margins of a destroyed system in Tzenkethi space, waiting for the scavengers to come by.
I don't know what's going through the Tzenkethi's leathery heads, these days. They're devoting some serious military resources towards scouring the local systems, seeking out and destroying some weird crystal formations that hatch out into bugs they call Drantzuli. These Drantzuli may or may not be a serious threat in themselves - jury's still out on that one - but the Tzenkethi's animosity towards them means they're tossing around protomatter weapons like there's no tomorrow, destroying not just the Drantzuli but also any innocent civilians who happen to be standing on the same planet. And, since the Tzenkethi offered no explanation of why they were doing this, their popularity in the quadrant has fallen roughly to "shoot on sight" levels. Which is a crazy way to do things, if you ask me. If they want to wipe out the Drantzuli, wouldn't that be easier without everyone else shooting at them? I suppose I'm lucky it's not really my problem just now.
"Still nothing," Nurnos grunts at me. The Nausicaan is eager for action, sitting around waiting isn't his idea of fun.
"Well, it might take a while," I say. "Try to noodge us in a bit closer to that hunk of wreckage, can you?" The Hirogen ship doesn't have a proper battle cloak, we need to hide behind things if we're going to do a proper job of lurking. Keeping us in the sensor shadow of a chunk of ex-Tzenkethi warship is the sort of technical challenge that might keep Nurnos busy a little bit longer.
The RCS arrays fire, and Anita cosies up to a half-melted slab of metal that used to be the front end of a Tzenkethi cruiser. I check the emissions filters. We are shut down as tightly as we dare, given we may need to be combat ready at any time - even if Thrang's people don't show up, wandering Tzenkethi could happen by at any minute. It's all getting very bad for my digestion, this.
"Sensor contact at extreme range," says Nyesenia. "I'm not sure what it is -" Her orange eyes widen, and she whistles through her teeth. "But it's coming in fast. I think this might be it."
"Terrific," I say. "OK, run the program on the weapons systems, and let's just hope I'm right. If not, it's gonna get kinda embarrassing, not to mention fatal."
"Warp deceleration shockwave," grunts Nurnos. "Big one. Equivalent of - hey, that can't be right."
"Oh, yes it can," I say. "Gimme everything we've got on passive sensors, and get ready to rumble."
Something just crashed out of subspace, very, very fast. "Low mass reading, big emissions profile," says Roz. "Comparable to an Orion corvette, but with a really complicated warp signature... reading some active sensor pings from it, but nothing coming specifically in our direction... no transponder code, no weapons targeting signatures, but that means nothing."
"Means their guns ain't hot right now," I say, "so let's show 'em ours are. Take us in, target all forward cannons, fire as they bear."
And Anita comes out of the shadow of the wreckage in a screaming tight turn, engines flaring with power, tetryon cannons spitting a dazzling barrage of blue bolts at our new target.
I clamp down on a sigh of relief when I actually get a good look at the thing. This isn't an actual copy of Thrang's super-fast ship, the Farah; it's something smaller and cheaper to build, a light courier, a very basic hull thrown together around the massive nacelles holding the complex super-fast drive. I'm still not sighing, though, because there's still room aboard that thing for some other nasties - I well remember Thrang's autonomous combat drones, that did such a good job of kicking my and Heizis's ships around the sky at our last encounter.
But we've caught this thing completely on the hop, and it's not launching anything. Beautiful coloured lights flame across space as its shields go down, and our next shower of tetryon bolts slams straight into its unprotected hull. With a salvo like that, you'd normally expect the ship to come to pieces at once, but in this case....
"OK. Recalibrate the cannons for normal firing, and open some hailing frequencies. We got some 'splainin' to do." I watch the lovely lightning crawling along those oversized nacelles, while Roz gets on comms.
The face that finally appears on the viewscreen is Lethean. "Aw, shoot," I say. "I had a traditional Thexemian greeting prepared, as well. I am Pexlini, and when I say my name men cross their legs and women go woobly-woobly-woot, sort of thing. Hi, there, anyway."
"I know who you are," says the Lethean. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you. And making sure you're not going anywhere soon. Take a look at your drive - you should see your two warp systems are totally out of sync, now. Be lucky to make warp two, and that with a following wind." I settle myself down in the command chair and try to look confident. "See, I remembered how to do that trick, from the last time I beat Thrang. And I knew where to come looking, too, didn't I? After that little spectacular, everybody and his pet goat Simon is going to be locking down trilithium technology, so I figured Thrang would be switching over to a different weapon of mass destruction, and where better to scavenge some weaponized protomatter, huh?"
"No doubt you are congratulating yourself on how clever you are," says the Lethean.
"Well, nobody else is gonna do it, right?" No point mentioning the additional help we've been getting from Angelica Moreno. Something clicks in my head, about the intelligence digests Heizis shouldn't really have shown me. "You're not Tharval, by any chance, are you?"
"That is my name." His expression gets uglier, which is a pretty good trick from a Lethean.
"Ace. Super. So you're way up there in Thrang's hierarchy. How is the boss man just now, anyway?"
"Confident. And justifiably so. He remains convinced he will attain his aims." Tharval's nasty little Lethean eyes get narrower. "I am not so certain, especially with some of his minor ambitions."
"Like getting me to work for him, right?"
"Correct. He seems to think you are a pragmatist, that you will ultimately realize the folly of fighting on the losing side, and switch to the winning team. I am not so sure that you have that much intelligence."
"Well, now," I say. "Let's see if I can convince you, a bit. Because, well, I'm not exactly flavour of the month with Starfleet Intelligence, yeah? But if I go back to ESD with you in custody, well, I'd be seeing lots more smiley faces there, wouldn't I?"
"Assuming you could take me alive."
"Oh, that's a safe enough assumption. You're a pragmatist, I don't see you dying for the cause any time soon. Besides which, the news that Thrang's collecting protomatter, well, that's another datum point Intelligence could use, isn't it?"
"None of this is enough to buy your way back into favour with your masters."
"Maybe, maybe not. I can look pretty winsome when I try, you know. But maybe you're right. In any case, we ain't gonna find out today. I'm letting you go. OK, fairly slowly, till you get your drive fixed, but I'm letting you go. Because things ain't exactly going my way, and maybe I do want to talk to Thrang."
"Oh, I am sure you want to talk to Thrang," says Tharval. "With a phaser in your hand and a division of Starfleet Security to back you up."
"That'd be ideal, yeah, but I don't think it's gonna happen. So, let's talk ways it can happen. We both know he wants it to, yeah?"
"He might want it. Others might advise against it. Thrang knows me. He will take my advice."
"Will he now? Well, you better give him my message, anyway. Tell him I wanna talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey." Hey, the guy doesn't like me anyway, no point being polite.
"Oh, I will pass on the message. Thrang will want to know what minor inconvenience disrupted my schedule, after all." There's a definite sneer on that ugly Lethean mug. "And if you want to join us, be aware - I conduct many of the initial interviews, face to face. I will meet you, and when I see deceit in your mind, I will destroy you."
"OK, fine. See you then, then." And I cut the channel.
Tharval's ship is limping away on impulse drive. "They'll have to take one of their warp drives completely out of the circuit, until Thrang can do his engineering-genius bit and rebalance it," I say. "Guy's gonna be annoyed."
"We could destroy them at will," says Nurnos.
"Yeah, the point is sorta to get the message to Thrang, so we kinda won't do that right now, OK?"
"Thrang will take that Lethean's advice," says Roz. "Almost certainly."
"Yeah. Well, that kinda works in our favour, too." Tharval's ship vanishes into warp, in a flare of lightnings from its unstable drives. I gaze pensively into the screen. "Fact is, I'm gonna have to fast-talk my way through the next bit, and that's actually gonna be easier if I'm not talking to Thrang. I don't have to worry about pulling the wool over Thrang's eyes. I just have to out-fox a mind-reading super-spy and psychic assassin, instead." I smile. "Easy-peasy."
"There's no way I can trust you, either," said Thrang, "and yet, here we are." They were alone in the ready room of Thrang's ship. It showed, Tharval thought, that Thrang did trust him... to some extent.
"You know my... personal ambitions," he said. "And I believe they can be satisfied, through you - or at least that you offer me the best possible chance. The Talaxian, though -"
"It's just a question of stringing her along, until she doesn't know how deeply she's involved," said Thrang. "She will play us along, hoping to find an opening... and we won't give her one... and eventually she will realize she has spent so much time playing along, she's already switched sides without knowing it. I imagine that moment will be... rather delicious." His voice sharpened. "However, before that happens, we've got to get her, at least nominally, on the team. Someone will have to make contact, directly and in person."
"I will do it. She will expect you, of course, but I will do it."
"Life is full of little surprises." Thrang frowned. "Including her disabling the courier ship. I really can't spare the time to fiddle with its drive systems just now.... So, we improvise and adapt."
"How?"
"Bring forward the transmission. Let's see, we have Vel Tarsus, we have Planet T... let's pick some other systems that are still rebuilding. Cirini Prime is still having difficulties, I think...." Thrang closed his eyes for a moment. "Pellia Minor, Arcasura, and Xi Arae for the Federation, Soteth and Kragsar for the Klingons, Aecor, Solemari Beta and Colessos for the Romulans. There we are. A nice little list of humanitarian crises where Action Black can promise to take a hand. But I think we will attend to Vel Tarsus ourselves. It will dovetail neatly with another little demonstration."
He tapped out a series of commands on his desk console, finished with a flourish, and leaned back.
"Vel Tarsus will get that one's attention. And I will be glad to see the back of her. She disappointed me, that one."
---
The blast echoed among the half-ruined buildings of the Tarsian city. The few Tarsians around - basically humanoid, apart from odd geometric patterns of skin pigmentation on their faces - scattered and fled. Osrin and Koneph exchanged startled glances. Osrin pulled out his pocket communicator. "Corodrev to ISRA 2. We have an explosion on the surface. Scan for source."
"Data is already available," said the crisp voice of a Vulcan science officer. "A detonation at the hydrocarbon processing plant, presumed the action of a Svanakh hostile. That facility is located three hundred metres due east of your present position. Please ascertain the extent of the damage and any other relevant details."
"Got it. On our way." Osrin turned off the communicator. "Looks like another bombing, this time at the gas plant."
"Oh, great," said Koneph.
The two Andorians set off at a fast, loping run. The city streets were deserted, now. Even with the planet in its current disastrous state, the tensions between its indigenous cultures kept erupting into violence. The Svanakhs still included a depressing proportion of irreconcilable fanatics, and the refugee transports couldn't screen everyone -
Smoke was billowing from the giant industrial plant as they approached it. Osrin winced. Security guards were milling around, trying to impose some sort of order on the panicking workers. It was one time being Andorian actually helped; the security troopers knew they were off-worlders, knew they were there to help, stood out of their way and let them pass.
They got as far as the main administrative building before a wall of choking smoke blocked them. They ducked inside, clattered up the metal stairs towards the main control room A Tarsian came towards them, waving his hands urgently. "Get back!"
"We're with IDRA," Osrin called out. "What happened?"
The Tarsian coughed. "There." He pointed. "Setting up in the auxiliary pump control - main control's compromised, we're going to do what we can -" He coughed again, with a nasty tearing sound.
The two Andorians followed him to a small room mostly filled with machinery; other Tarsians were there already, opening up cabinets and checking circuit diagrams. "Need to shut it down," the Tarsian said, with another cough.
"What happened?" Osrin repeated.
"Svanakh terrorists. Detonated an explosive in the central pumping chamber. Broke it open, it's venting gases... and they put something else in the main control room, some kind of toxin."
Koneph had his tricorder out, was scanning the area. "Damnation," said Osrin. "How can we help?"
"You don't know our setup," the Tarsian said. "The blast sent a pressure surge down the pipelines, must have blown out sections all through the city - the pipes were on the verge of failure anyway -"
The pipelines ran through the city, carrying hydrocarbon gas for use as fuel - an obsolete system by Federation standards, but the Tarsians had been relying on it. Osrin thought about the sections of the city that would now lose heat and light, thought about the hundreds of kilometres of pipes now leaking flammable gas into the atmosphere, and winced again. "So you're going to short out the pumps and cut the supply?"
"That's the idea."
"It'll go a lot quicker," said Koneph, "if someone goes back into the main control room and throws the master switches." He flashed a brief grin at them both. "It's just a simple organic toxin. Well within my tolerance range. I won't be more than five minutes." And he almost sauntered out of the room.
The Tarsian gaped after him. "You Andorians... you can do that?"
"Not really." Osrin sighed. "My friend and I were part of an experiment. My father was an unethical genetic engineer. Among other things. Koneph's immune to a wide range of toxins."
"Sounds like it could be useful," said the Tarsian.
"Yes and no. Genetic engineering is tricky stuff, it very rarely works exactly right. But, right now, yeah, Koneph is the chan for the job." He felt a vague pride in his chan-partner... not unmixed with worry as the seconds ticked by.
There was a sound, a sort of sigh, from machinery coming to rest. "Sounds like he's done the job," said Osrin. At least the plant wouldn't be feeding any more inflammable gas into the leaking system....
Koneph reappeared a couple of minutes later. "No problem," he said, and sneezed violently. "All right, not much of a problem... something in the damn smoke triggered my allergies, that's all."
Osrin clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get back to base, get your sniffles seen to, and make a report," he said. He looked around the room at the Tarsian techs. "We'll have to see what we can salvage from this."
"Your Federation types kept on saying we'd be better off with a modern EPS grid." The Tarsian spokesman shook his head sadly. "Looks like we don't have any other choice, now."
---
Back at the outpost dome, Osrin dragged Koneph into the medical unit, and punched in a familiar series of commands for antihistamines and steroid injections. While his partner coughed and dozed on the bio-bed, Osrin sat down at the comms console and started work on the damage assessment. It looked bleak. An EPS grid could be installed, true - but not until the reserves of flammable gas had dissipated or been burned off, and not until the tectonic stabilizers could definitively prevent any more earth tremors. Until then... many Tarsian refugees would be going cold, as well as hungry.
He was uploading the logs from Koneph's tricorder when the screen began to flash an incoming message alert. He sighed. "Corodrev," he said, hitting the receive switch - and then, "Tylha?"
Tylha Shohl's scarred face was drawn and haunted. "Osrin," she said. "I wanted to talk to you - how are things?"
Osrin shrugged. "Busy."
"Any unusual activity?"
"Planet-wide nuclear winter, electromagnetic storms, terrorists bombing vital installations... no, nothing unusual. What's wrong?"
"There's been another message from the Action Black group. They've listed several systems as places where the local authorities are failing, where they're promising to step in and take action. Vel Tarsus is on the list. I wanted you to be on the alert."
"All right." But it wasn't all right, Osrin could see that in her face. "Kon and I will keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.... Tylha. What else is bothering you?"
One corner of her mouth lifted in a humourless smile. "Personal issue, I guess. I've received a message of my own... I'm still getting it." Her mouth turned grim again. "I've got a countdown running."
The atmosphere in King Estmere's conference room is tense, and glum. Maybe I should feel that way, too - after all, I'm the one with the death sentence hanging over me. Mostly, though, what I feel is anger.
"All right," I say. "Let's go over this. We know Thrang wants me dead. And we know he's up to something at Vel Tarsus. If he's been doing any background checks on me - and we have to assume he has, and in some detail - then he must know I have reasons to be concerned about that particular world." I square my shoulders. "So. It seems to me that I've got two alternatives. Go to Vel Tarsus, or try and hide somewhere else."
"Going to Vel Tarsus is playing right into his hands, surely?" says Harley Haught.
"Possibly," says Bulpli Yulan, but her black eyes are thoughtful. "But remember what happened to Admiral Hengest...." She turns to look directly at me. "Thrang is going to figure out some way of getting to you. If we go to Vel Tarsus, we've got some chance, at least, of working out what it is. If we sequester you somewhere safe - like we did Admiral Hengest -"
"Then he could hit me from anywhere," I say.
"Not anywhere," Klerupiru mutters. "His damn shadow OS isn't that good.... But, yeah, I wouldn't like to work out how he'd play it."
"Especially as Thrang is not concerned about the amount of collateral damage he inflicts," rumbles Three of Eight.
"Which brings me to another point." I pause, look sternly at each of my senior officers in turn. "Thrang doesn't worry about who's standing next to his targets. If you're around me, your lives are at risk too. I want to minimize that risk. If I'm going to Vel Tarsus, I want only volunteers with me. And I want you, all of you, to think twice, long and hard, before you volunteer. None of you deserves to die, and I value you, all of you, too much to want to see you dead. Personally, I'd rather go up against Thrang by myself, with no friends within a parsec of me. Bear that in mind."
"Your pardon, noble leader," says Thirethequ. "I could cogitate not twice, but a myriad of times, and the products of my lucubrations would in all cases be identical. This villain Thrang is an affront to civilization, and his career must be emphatically terminated. I have every confidence in your - and, I may say, in our - capacity to accomplish this laudable aim. I, for one, shall not be deterred from assisting you."
"Uh, yeah," says Klerupiru. "What he said."
"I don't think there's anyone here who wouldn't stand with you, sir," says Bulpli. "Or who wouldn't jump at a chance to take Thrang down."
"All right." I don't deserve their loyalty... but it seems I have it. "Well. Thrang has a hundred per cent success rate, as far as we know, so we've got to work out some way to change that. The one lead I've got, so far, is the one Pexlini gave us, about - Klerupiru, is this room still secure?"
"As far as I can make it," says Klerupiru. "Every chip that comes through the shielding gets scanned for traces of the shadow OS... I may not be able to crack it, yet, but I can recognize it, and trash any isolinear chip or device that's contaminated. The EM shielding round this conference room is supposed to be certified uncrackable... and if it is compromised, then I've got backup processes in place which will alert me. So, yeah. As secure as I can make it."
Which, if I know Klerupiru, will be pretty darn secure - certainly safer than, say, Facility 4028 or Starfleet Intelligence HQ. "Right. Well. Pexlini's source says Thrang has some way of compromising the King Estmere, so we won't be going to Vel Tarsus in this ship, anyway. What we will be using -" I manage a lopsided smile. "I'm grateful to you all for your support, believe me. But I won't be taking everyone with me, because there simply isn't room."
---
When I get back to the bridge, I'm surprised to see the Rigelian, Dgy-Coosh, in the centre seat. "Where's Flag Captain Vihl?" I ask him.
"In the ready room, sir." His mask-like face tells me nothing. It's odd that Anthi isn't at her post. I raise an eyebrow at him, and head for the ready room.
Anthi is standing by my desk as I come in. She snaps to attention. "Sir."
"At ease, Flag Captain." I'm still puzzled. "Did you want a word in private?"
"Sir, I -" She stops, shakes her head.
I'm worried, now, but I decide not to press it. "All right. I've roughed out a list of essential personnel for transfer, but we'll need to go through it in detail. And of course, while I'm away, you're going to have to take care of the King Estmere." I grin at her. "I couldn't leave her in safer hands, I know."
Anthi takes a deep breath. "Sir, don't send me away. Not now."
I stare at her. "Anthi, what's wrong?"
She puts a hand to her brow, touching the roots of her twitching antennae. She is visibly trembling, and I've never seen her like that before. "I shouldn't say this," she says, "but I might never get another chance - Sir, do you remember when we first met?"
"Of course," I say. "Vega Colony -"
"The Borg were all over the ship," she says, "and the command staff were dead, and we were huddled in the transporter room, and nobody knew what to do. And then you came. And I know, sir, you were as scared as any of us, but you had an idea, you had a plan, you took charge when nobody else could. And I followed you. Because I knew, right then, from the moment I saw you, that I would follow you anywhere. That I would do anything for you, anything and everything." Her voice is quivering with emotion. "So I'm asking you, sir, and I will beg if I have to - don't send me away. Because I belong at your side, sir."
"Anthi." I'm gaping at her, I know; I can't help it. "Anthi, this situation is dangerous. I could die, the people around me could die -"
"Then I'll die. I'd rather die at your side, sir, than live without you." She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry. I've said too much." And she rushes out of the ready room, leaving me staring after her as the door slides shut.
I slump into my chair, my thoughts whirling. Anthi feels like that about me? All this time... how could I have missed it? How could I -?
And what am I going to do, now?
I sit and think, trying to marshal my thoughts into some kind of order. Anthi has always been there for me, always, whenever I've needed her - my rock, my reliable right arm -
I've heard some humans describe their life-partners as "my better half". More and more, as I think things over, it seems to me that Anthi already is my better half. And just how stupid have I been, not to notice that before now?
I take a deep breath, and touch my combadge. "Commander Dgy-Coosh."
"Dgy-Coosh here," the Rigelian's bland voice replies.
Anthi ran out of this room, but she would never entirely desert her post. She's out on the bridge now, she can hear what I have to say. "Take note, please, Commander. As of this current stardate, you are designated as temporary commanding officer of the USS King Estmere, once my flag is transferred. Record this order in the official log. Congratulations, Commander, and try and keep her safe for me. Shohl out."
I will give Anthi what she wants. If I can. If I live.
I switch on the PADD and start scrolling through the lists of names. Thrang's countdown flashes in the corner of the screen, but I put it out of my mind. I will make my plans, and I will live through this. Because, it seems, I have more to live for than I knew.
"There was a news flash," says Rozilai. "The results of the vote are in."
"And?" I suppose, technically, it shouldn't bother me, since I can't currently show my face in the Federation, but I'm interested.
"The Actionists' motion of no confidence in the President was defeated in the Council," says Roz.
"Good."
"By three votes."
"Ouch." That's gotta be a lot closer than Okeg would like. But Lyle Anson and his Actionists have been gaining sympathy, gaining momentum, gaining credibility... among people who don't know better. People who don't know what we know.
Anyway, it's not my problem right now. Right now, I can see my problem on Anita's main screen, or at least where my problem's going to be. Thexemia, again. This is not a planet that improves on revisiting.
"He's late," I mutter.
"Playing head games," says Nyesenia. "Making you wait, raising your stress. Don't let it get to you." Easy for her to say, she's already dead, you can't get more laid-back than that.
Thexemia rolls on, imperturbable, on the main screen. I check the tactical display. Nothing but routine traffic in sight. And I wait. And wait.
"We're being hailed," says Roz, at last. "Agreed frequency."
"Great. Super. On screen."
Thexemia vanishes, to be replaced by the face of Kalevar Thrang. "Anyone ever tell you punctuality is the politeness of kings?" I ask.
"I am not a king." Interesting. He's always had regal ambitions... hell, he was, briefly, an emperor, although not of much of an empire. "You want to talk. Very well, we will talk. I am transmitting beam-down coordinates for you. They will work. Once. For one person."
"Cool, I'm only one person. So, we gonna do lunch, or what?"
"We will meet, in five minutes' time. Or we will not meet at all." And the screen goes blank.
"Charming," I say.
"Planetary data net is doing... something." Roz's face looks very serious. She's worried about something. I can guess what. "There's random comms traffic... and transporter interdiction warnings. Something's taking out transporter transmission over most of the capital city."
So that's where I'm going. I stand up. "OK. Let's do this." Roz shoots me a troubled look. "Relax," I tell her, with no confidence at all. "It's all going like we expected, right? Now gimme the pill."
---
I beam down in what looks like the vehicle park for a construction site. The skeleton of one of those Thexemian skyscrapers is rising into the air, over to my left. Over to my right, more complete skyscrapers. In front of me... is a familiar figure.
"You really need to work on your Thrang impression," I tell Tharval.
His hand goes to his throat, where he's wearing something that looks like a metal collar. "The holo-emitter and voice synthesizer are perfect -"
"Yeah, but your lines are rubbish. Thrang doesn't talk like that. He's got a sense of humour." There is a thin rain falling. It's not doing wonders for my sense of humour.
"No doubt. He still thinks he can use you, after all. But to get to Thrang, you must convince me of your good intentions. And I am not easily convinced."
"So, OK, lemme try, right? I mean, Thrang is kinda not my favourite person, but I'm low on options here, yeah? He's already stitched me up with Starfleet -"
"True." His demonic Lethean eyes are burning into me. I try to concentrate on the psi-blocking techniques they teach you in Intelligence. Problem is, they don't actually work all that well, not against a determined, trained telepath.
"So being Starfleet Intelligence, I've not made many friends over in the Empire, yeah? Sure, they'd love to pick my brains, but once they'd finished picking, I'd be through, there's no career for me there. The Cardies, well, they still depend too much on Federation goodwill, they won't find any space for me in the Obsidian Order. Still true, yeah?"
"Speculative. But still true."
"So, OK, the only other serious player is the Republic. I mean, can you see me in a Breen coldsuit? Or working with the Ferengi? You know my family history with the Ferengi, yeah?"
"I see some truth, still, in your mind."
"So, anyway, that leaves the Republic, and yeah, I had contacts at the Vault, but when that went south on me -"
"False." His voice is exultant; he raises his head and there is something like a smile on his face. "False. You arranged that fracas at the Vault. A deliberate ploy, to make it look as though you had fallen out with the Remans. But it is a lie." His voice drips gloating. "You have tried to lie to Thrang. I can tell you, he does not appreciate liars."
"Can't stand the competition, huh?" The pill is stashed in my cheek; I tongue it into position.
"I told him you would lie. And he gave me permission to deal with you, if you did." His eyes are blazing, and they seem to swell, to fill the whole of my vision with hellish redness. "You know what we Letheans can do to liars, Talaxian."
The pill shatters between my molars, and a bitter taste floods my mouth. That is the only sensation I have left, apart from Tharval's burning eyes and the terrible power I feel behind them. And then the taste fades, and the eyes turn black, and everything darkens with them, and I die.
---
Fortunately, I don't stay dead long.
The neural suppressant is old hat; I think they used it on Jim Kirk, back when he stole a prototype cloaking device from the Romulans. It does look, though, like the traceless death you get when you're hit with the famous Lethean telepathic zap.
The pill also contained nano-capsules filled with an antidote, and they dissolved in due time and started firing up my nerves again. Firing seems to be the right word, unfortunately - my entire body is hurting, tingling, with a massive all-over case of pins and needles. My vision is blurry and pulsating. Really, you're supposed to have medical supervision when you come out from under neural suppression. I know darn well Jim Kirk got that.
Me, I get to come back to life face down in a wet car park. My head aches worse than the rest of me. I sneak my right hand up to my temple, probe with my fingertips, and wince. The fingertips come back bloody. I think Tharval must have given my supposed corpse a quick kick on his way out.
So far, though, so good. I gather all my strength and haul myself into a crouching position on all fours. I cough and shudder as dry heaves rack me. Tricorder, got to get my tricorder out. I already set it to detect Lethean life signs -
If Tharval used a transporter to beam back to his ship, this has all been a waste of time. But with all the transporter jamming he set up, maybe he doesn't entirely trust the beams. He's got no reason, after all, not to take a leisurely shuttle out. Heck, he can stop off for muffins and a skinny latte in some Thexemian coffee shop, if he feels like - nothing I can do about it, I'm dead, remember?
I fumble the tricorder out of my cargo pocket, drop it, say some naughty words in Talaxian, retrieve it, stare at it. My vision is still not properly focused. Being dead sucks, I'm not going to do it again. I close my eyes tight, open them again. The display swims in and out of focus, but I can read it, sort of.
Lethean life sign, bearing niner five, range one fifty. I stand up. Then I fall over sideways. Then I swear, and stand up again.
The hundred and fifty metres to Tharval seem like the longest walk I've ever taken. I can't even see the wretched Lethean thug, I just pick my way between Thexemian shuttlepods and groundcars, in the rain, weaving and stumbling like a drunk. I just hope his psionic zap needs some down time to recharge, or I'm gonna wind up dead again, permanently this time.
I hear the low whine of engines starting up, as I come towards a waist-high concrete wall.
I look over it, into a bay recessed into the ground. There's what looks like a standard Klingon Kivra-class shuttle in it. I check the tricorder. One life sign, Lethean. And the engines are hotting up nicely. Oh boy.
I grit my teeth. The waves of tingling and nausea seem to be receding, a little. I put my hands on top of the concrete wall, and I vault over it, as gracefully as I can -
Just as the shuttle shivers and starts to rise into the air.
I have about a tenth of a second. I lash out with my feet, and one mining boot hits the shuttle's hull with a clang - and sticks.
The mining boots come with built-in magno-gravitic attractor plates. I don't use them much, but they still work. I get the other boot in place, and there is a terrible wrench to my knees, but I crouch forwards, and suddenly I'm on top of the shuttle, firmly attached by the soles of my feet. Wind and rain whistle around me as the craft gathers speed.
Tharval must have noticed something - heck, alarms must be sounding inside the shuttle right now. My guess is, he'll just ignore me and take the shuttle up. Either the boots will fail and I'll be blown away, or they won't and I get to breathe space. Either one will suit him. Doesn't suit me, though.
So I crouch down further, and I open up an engineering access panel. There are circuits and pipes and chips behind it. I have no idea what they're for, but the shuttle makes interesting noises when I start pulling them out.
Then I shuffle, awkwardly, sideways along the sloping hull, and I disengage my left boot and wait.
I don't have to wait long. The shuttle's hatch slides open, and a disruptor pistol appears, followed by Tharval's face peering after it, aiming. So I lash out with my aching leg and kick the one into the other.
It works better than I'd hoped; Tharval fumbles the pistol and I get a chance to kick it out of his hand completely. It clatters once against the side of the shuttle, and then the wind whips it away. We've slowed down, but we're still moving. I hook my foot around the side of the door frame and drag myself to the hatch. There's a confused moment as the shuttle's internal gravity field wars with the outside world's, and then I pull myself through, and I'm inside, wrestling with an angry-looking Lethean who's reaching for a big knife.
I hit him several times in the mid-section, but either Letheans don't keep anything vital in those spots, or my fists are still too weak to hurt him. He reaches for my throat, and I duck away; there's not much room inside the cockpit, so I roll across the main flight console, hitting a number of switches and triggering several automated complaints from the computer. I think I now know the tlhIngan Hol for "hey, quit horsing around in there". Tharval has his knife out. I don't dare meet his burning gaze.
Letheans have kneecaps. I kick him in one, and he swears and stumbles, and his first stab goes into the console instead of me. There are loud buzzers making urgent noises as I slam the heel of my hand into his face. He tries for a hold with his free hand, and I twist away just in time. He has combat training, I can see that. And he has a knife, and he's in way better shape than I am right now. He feints at me with the knife and slams his other hand into my head, and I see stars.
"You are supposed to be dead," he snarls.
"Tried it," I mumble. "Didn't like it." I try another kick at his knee, but he skips aside, and I overbalance and find myself on the floor. Tharval is standing over me. He raises the knife -
Then there is a tremendous crash and a sudden awful impact, and the shuttle comes to a halt in a scream of protest from overloaded inertial dampeners. I roll forwards, under the console, coming to a painful halt inside the footwell. The lights go out. A few more buzzers start making complaints, and there are a lot of sparks coming from somewhere.
I struggle out from under the console. The interior of the shuttle is not quite dark - it's lit by flickering lights from dying control panels, by sparks pouring out of damaged conduits... and by daylight, pouring in along with the rain, through a massive hole in the front windscreen, where a steel girder has punched right the way in. It's jabbing into the ceiling - I think the shuttle is hanging from it. The engines are dead, anyway. I hope they've failed safe, and aren't about to blow up.
Tharval is lying face down on the floor, very still.
The construction site. The new building wouldn't be in the shuttle's nav database... and my gimmicking around must have disabled some of the proximity sensors. I limp over to check on Tharval.
Ah. He's not lying face down - though he would be, if he hadn't caught the end of an I-beam in the back of his head at a couple of hundred kilometres an hour. There's not really much left of his head, front or back.
I curse, loudly. Capturing Tharval alive would have been good. Creating a vacancy for "trusted lieutenant" in Thrang's organization... I've a feeling that's too little, too late.
I stoop down, disengage the metal collar from around his neck. Messy job, but I've done worse, and there might be something we can salvage from it. I turn it over in my hands. There's a stud at the back, and I touch that.
The air glimmers above the collar, and Thrang's face forms out of nothingness. Holographic disguise. Without a living face underneath it, to give it reference points for mobility, it is stiff and lifeless, like a mask -
Wait, I think. Just wait a minute.
Masks. Masks are important, somehow. And Thrang - Thrang can alter his features, but he doesn't. He may change species, sometimes, from Orion to Klingon to human... but he always keeps the same basic look....
I gaze down at the lifeless image, while a whole lot of things fall into place inside my head.
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Several data analysts look up from their work as my boots clatter on the walkway. Let them look. I continue to run, run until I am right at the door of Xerek's office, and it hisses open before me.
Xerek stands up as I burst in. "What is it?" he demands.
I glare at him, fury and outrage concentrated in my eyes. "You know."
He reaches for his stick, and I leap. My fist crashes into his skinny stomach, and he grunts and claws at my face with his free hand. But he is bringing the stick around - I grab it, wrestle with him for it. He is strong, for all his years. Fury makes me stronger. I twist the stick around, and the beam from the concealed disruptor spears out of the handle, past me, to scorch a hole in the office wall. His other hand is on my throat. I tear it away, grab him by his coat -
"What is happening here?"
The voice demands an answer. Both of us turn our heads. Obisek is standing there, framed in the open doorway.
"Betrayal and murder," I say, "what else? Let me introduce you to the true head of Action Green - the collaborator with Kalevar Thrang - the author of all our security difficulties. Am I not right, General Xerek?"
Xerek finds his voice. "She is insane," he croaks.
"Betrayal and murder," says Obisek. "You can prove this?"
"Oh, yes," I say softly, because the collar of Xerek's leather coat is open, now, and I can see the proof. I reach up quickly, grab the thing around his neck. My finger finds the control stud -
And suddenly, it is not Xerek standing there. To our eyes, at least.
"Oh, look," I say. "Kalevar Thrang, exactly as he appeared when he infiltrated our station. Exactly as he appeared. Down to the coat -" I pluck at Xerek's lapels "- and the stick." I pick up the stick. "I wondered what that long, thin object was."
Thrang's false face is frozen in Xerek's expression of woe.
"Thrang always wears the same face," I say. "Even though he has shape-shifting abilities, can change his apparent species, he always wears the same face. And with these holo-emitters, his trusted lieutenants can wear it too. Starfleet's data warfare analysts found a trigger, a three-dimensional structure that Thrang's computer virus recognizes... but they did not know where to input it into the system. Well, we know now. It is an abstraction of some of the proportions of Thrang's facial bones. When it is spotted through a compromised biometric scan, it triggers Thrang's shadow OS, to obey his commands - and to delete and confuse security around it. Am I not right, General?"
Xerek says nothing. Obisek steps forward, touches the General's neck. The false face fades away. Underneath it, Xerek is unable to meet Obisek's eyes.
"Why?" Obisek asks in a soft voice.
Xerek swallows loudly. "Because we need a strong leader. Because Thrang promises, above all, strong leadership. He can do it. He can take the factions and the rabble in hand, and - and -" He looks down at the floor. "We need a strong leader."
"There was a time," says Obisek, still very gently, "when you thought me strong enough."
"That was before," says Xerek, and he finally raises his gaze to meet Obisek's. "Before you sold us all to that idealistic Romulan academic!" he screeches.
"Oh, my old friend," says Obisek. "How many years, how many lives, did we spend, fruitlessly trying to seize a mere fraction of the respect and freedom that D'Tan has given us for nothing?" His voice sharpens, grows louder. "And what can Kalevar Thrang offer, to replace that? Do you think I will see the Reman people brought under the heel of a megalomaniac genetic experiment? I would die first, old friend. And this I swear to you - many others would die, before me."
There is a long, ugly silence. Xerek's eyes are frantic, haunted. Obisek's are implacable.
"Starfleet already has some of the protocols for the shadow OS." Someone has to break that silence, it may as well be me. "Now that we have a way in, we can use it. We can override the computer subversion, learn Thrang's secrets, perhaps even turn it against him."
"And we will know all we need to know about Action Green," says Obisek, still staring at Xerek.
Xerek closes his eyes. "Yes," he says, "it is... over. I will tell you all that you need to know."
"Yes," says Obisek, and there is that in his voice which reminds me why our enemies fear him. "Yes. You will."
Oh, the things Thrang could do if he wasn't so aggressively selfish....
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Thrang when we saw him 'alone' was doing so much micromanagement I hadn't figured his organization was that big - coupled with the noticeable ego. Though Thrang contacting people is different then him showing up to mess with computers.
I'm curious what your thoughts were, though.
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
"I'm coming, dammit!" he shouted. He threw back the bedclothes, swung his legs out of bed, paused for a moment to rub the sleep from his eyes. The knocking on the door continued, steady and peremptory. He shrugged into a dressing gown, muttered "Lights," and blinked as the room gradually lightened. He made his way to the door. The video scan showed several humans in the hallway outside - no one he recognized. He touched the intercom panel. "Who is it?"
"Federation Security, sir. Please open the door."
Anson's eyes grew wide. His hand dropped away from the panel.
"Please open the door, sir, or we will need to use our security override."
Anson licked his lips. His mouth felt suddenly dry. He raised his hand hesitantly, pressed the door control icon. The door slid open.
"Thank you, sir." Four men - large human males. The first one raised his hand. He held a brushed-steel device in it, a thing about the size and shape of a playing card. He pressed a switch on its side, and a pattern of abstract lights danced briefly in the air. Federation Security's famous ID system. And it identified itself, mainly, to the secure systems in his home - they had full access, now.
"What's all this about?" he asked, as the security team came in.
They waited until the door had slid shut to answer him. "You are under arrest, sir," the first man said, as the others fanned out across the room, forensic tricorders in their hands.
"Arrest? Me? What for?"
"Sedition, treason, and conspiracy to commit genocide, sir." The Security man was absolutely calm and humourless. "Please accompany me while this site is secured for analysis."
"I -" Anson found himself at a loss for words. "Can I get dressed first?" he asked, almost plaintively.
"We may need to subject your clothing to analysis, sir. We've arranged secure transport to our holding area, where there's a full featured clothing replicator. We will respect your convenience as much as is compatible with our duties, sir. I'm afraid I have to insist, though."
"This is madness," Anson muttered. "Madness." The man took his elbow in a polite but firm grip, and steered him towards the door. "My neighbours -"
"Haven't been disturbed, sir." The man flashed an insincere smile at him. "Good soundproofing on these apartments, isn't it? Very comfortable. All the amenities."
"Amenities," Anson muttered. The door slid open again. He pulled the dressing gown around himself. Nerves. Just nerves, making him feel cold.
There were more people in the hallway outside. A more diverse mix, men and women and Vulcans and Tellarites and - Anson froze in the doorway, didn't move until the security man tugged at his elbow. One small, dapper, reptilian figure, out there in the hallway, watching him with lambent slit-pupilled eyes.
"Mr. Anson," said Aennik Okeg. "I'm honestly sorry it has come to this."
"Come to what?" A hot rage suddenly blossomed in Lyle Anson's heart. "What do you think you're doing, Mr. President? Do you think you can stop the Actionist movement by -"
"Mr. Anson," said Okeg, "we know."
"What? What do you know? Or what do you think you know?"
"Sir," said the security man, "I'm obliged to remind you of your right to silence -"
"I don't need to be silent!" Anson snarled. He shook off the man's guiding hand, and stepped towards the President. "What do you think you're doing? You can't arrest your political opponents! It's in the damn Charter!"
"Security will have told you the charges," said Okeg. "We've found the link, Mr. Anson. The link between Action Black and the other Actionist sections. And between Action Black and Kalevar Thrang."
That name, in the President's lipless mouth, quenched the fire of Anson's rage like a deluge of ice water. He stepped back. His own mouth twitched.
Then he said, "I deny everything."
"You have that right," Okeg said sadly.
"I deny everything. I have no connection to Kalevar Thrang or to the terrorists in Action Black. But I'll tell you something, Mr. President. I've heard of Kalevar Thrang, and I know how he works. He's good. Better than you. Maybe you've breached his security - but you won't have everything, far from it. There will be things only Thrang knows, data stores and systems only he can unlock. And without those, you won't have enough to prove anything, Mr. President. Sure, you can have me arrested, maybe you can even fake up a prima facie case against me - but you can't win it. I'm going to walk away from this, Mr. President, and you're going to be just another failed politician who tried a last-ditch smear campaign to bring down a rival. Tried and failed." There was an ugly smile on his lips, now. "Because if you want to take me down, you're going to need to take down Kalevar Thrang, in person. And you don't have anyone who's good enough to do that."