Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

  echoes that defended himself as well as Perren. The

  flare faded then, quite abruptly, and humility returned.

  He was troubled; it was easy to see.

  "You're saying he believes Rittenhouse was basi-

  cally right," I said. "That moral unity has to be

  established, even by force. Right?"

  "All Vuicans have the same basic beliefs," he went

  on, making it suffice as his answer. "But the right to

  individualism includes the right to disagree. Unfortu-

  nately, that also means there is disagreement on how

  to achieve the goals of peace. Perren's talents as an

  applied scientist have given him comfort all his life,

  and he feels an acute awareness of those who have no

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  such opportunities because of their governmental sys-

  tems. He feels a responsibility for the oppressed peo-

  ples of the galaxy and wants to bring down the govern-

  ments that oppress them. He . . . thinks it will be

  simple."

  I saw Sarda's embarrassment for Perren as he

  spoke, once again staring into the tabletop, unable to

  meet my eyes. This, however, was no time for delica-

  cies. If Sarda had come here and was staying here out

  of loyalty to Perren, I would have to rupture that bond

  enough to get Sarda back. Our friendship, and the

  success of our missionwthat peace he spoke of so

  reverently--depended on it. Time would come later

  for kindness.

  "He's wrong, Sarda," I said, slicing across the lines

  of tolerance. "His mistake is assuming the Klingons

  and others will automatically give in when they're told

  the Federation will use the power of transwarp against

  them. He doesn't think they'll fight back against im-

  possible odds. He doesn't understand irrationality.

  Am I right?"

  Reluctantly, he admitted, "You... are correct."

  "And Mornay. She wants power as much as Perren

  wants peace." "Yes."

  "And he doesn't see through Mornay any better

  than he sees through irrationality. He doesn't under-

  stand why anyone would simply want power, because

  it's an emotional goal." "Yes..."

  "And where do you stand?"

  He stiffened. His shame deepened. I had succeeded

  in putting him on the spot. My appearance here, and

  my dedication to my own mission, nailed him down.

  Would he come with me, or stay with Perren?

  "Where he stands doesn't matter anymore," came a

  harsh voice from a corner behind Scanner.

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  Sarda and I turned abruptly. Scanner slid off the

  table and whirled around. Several guards stood there,

  sighting down their phaser rifles at us. They flanked a

  stout woman with sharp, flashing eyes framed by a

  bowl of dark gray hair. Her mouth was curled into a

  forbidding grin, a sign of victory, as she took a few

  steps toward us. Comfortably flanked by her guards,

  Ursula Mornay had us at a stunning disadvantage.

  She had aged considerably since the photo we'd

  seen aboard Rex. Now her hair was peppery with the

  years, her features harder, her small blue eyes creased

  with lines and time. Her shoulders were slightly

  stooped, but her youth had not been entirely sacri-

  ficed. She still appeared strong and steady as she held

  a phaser on us, evidently not satisfied to put her trust

  completely in her hired guards.

  "You've done good work, Sarda," she said, still

  grinning. "Plenty well enough that we can t/ke over.

  Now it's only a matter of time before I have all I

  need."

  "What is it you need?" I asked.

  Her quick eyes flashed at me. "You'd love to know,

  certainly. So you're Sarda's bold rescuers. Well

  enough. I don't need him anymore."

  Sarda's brow creased and he stepped forward, put-

  ting himself between Mornay and us. "You dare not

  activate the flux device without my safety systems,"

  he said with a startling emphasis.

  "I have your systems, don't I? I don't need you."

  "Professor, you cannot--"

  "I'm putting you away for safekeeping. If I need

  you again, I'll have you. But under control." "And my friends?"

  "Your friends' lives will guarantee your coopera-

  tion. The logic of it is simple enough even for a Vulcan,

  isn't it?"

  I thought of what Spock had told us about her, about

  153

  her tunnelbound view of politics and her hunger for

  power. Spock had postulated that Professor Mornay

  didn't understand the true consequences of her

  actions. With a little luck, I could manipulate that.

  Deep breath... and dive.

  "Professor," I began, "you're in great danger here.

  You're too far out and too close to contested space for

  the Federation to protect you. If you throw the

  transwarp technology up for bid way out here, there's

  going to be--"

  "I know what there's going to be," she said. The

  grin widened.

  "And you don't care?"

  "I have everything under control, don't I?" she

  said. Quite plainly, she agreed with herself, and that

  was the only person she cared to consult.

  I took a step. "And where does Perren fit in? Does

  he understand the repercussions of your plan?"

  She shrugged, her little mouth twisting. "Perren's

  ideas are quaint. He has no real perception of the

  scope of possibilities within my grasp, now does he?

  Why should he? He only cares about his work, and I

  let him do his work. I'm the only one who lets him. I

  do the thinking and he does the building. He doesn't

  argue with me. It's a good working relationship."

  "For you," I said.

  "Where else can he go?" She paced to our right,

  keeping the phaser leveled. "He wanted to force the

  Federation to look at our device, to realize the poten-

  tial. I want the same thing. Except that I want the

  whole galaxy to realize the potential. Scope, you see. I

  said that before. Scope." Her tiny eyes narrowed with

  excitement at the idea and for a few moments she was

  seeing her vision of the future instead of us.

  In a bold gamble, I decided to test the vision. I

  moved toward her.

  And stopped shortmher phaser twitched and her

  154

  eyes cleared. Behind her, the guards' phaser rifles

  snapped up. My reflection wavered in a half-dozen

  cross-hair sights.

  So much for that theory.

  "Oh, Piper, you're not that silly, are you?" Mornay

  taunted. "You're too military, aren't you? You think

  dreamers can't be sensible, can't see the whole pic-

  ture. Well, you're wrong!" Her tone became a bark,

  her eyes sharp as fangs. "Scope! Once my device is

  tested, I'll be a major bargaining force in the new

  Federation."

  "You sound like Rittenhouse," I accused.

  "He had his plans. He failed. Now the turn is mine.

  The starship will be here soon, and I willdemand that

  Captain Kirk act as the Federation's emissary. When
/>   we meet, it will be on equal ground." Her tone was

  casual, but her manner had a cruciality about it. Not

  the kind that could be argued with. Even Rittenhouse

  appreciated the capabilities of his ene mies. It seemed

  Mornay didn't. That trait made her wilder, more dan-

  gerous. I closed my mouth and stiflened my jaw,

  determined not to argue with her. It was plainly a

  waste of time. Kirk was right to save her for himself to

  deal with. She didn't take me seriously. Not yet.

  She turned slightly when Perren walked in behind

  her, threading his way through as the guards parted for

  him, but her attention stayed with us.

  Immediately I changed my course and raised a hand

  to him. My own impotence struck me when I saw my

  hand trembling. I had to force myself to speak. "Per-

  ren, are you sure you understand what you've gotten

  yourself into? Do you know that Professor Mornay

  intends to ransom transwarp to the highest bidder?

  Have you thought about the lives that would be lost in

  a cosmic scramble?"

  Mornay laughed out loud at my prattle of questions.

  155

  Perren merely inclined his head. "I have thought it

  out," he said simply. "The resulting advantages are

  worth the risks."

  "But there is a moral imperative even more impor-

  tant," I told him. "Would you have transwarp and the

  trilithium technology fall into Tholian hands? Or Ro-

  mulan hands? Or Klingon hands?"

  His angular eyes swept toward Mornay, though he

  didn't turn.

  "Give it up," I implored, "before it gets too big to

  control. Transwarp can do great good under the right

  control. Don't make it a volleyball. She can't do

  anything without you and she knows it. Don't cooper-

  ate with her."

  For an instant, a fleeting and definite doubt crossed

  Perren's emotionless face. His brows came together

  just that fraction of an inch, enough to tell me my

  words struck a disharmonic chord he recognized and

  feared. His chin lowered a fraction, cementing the

  flicker of uncertainty in our minds. Even Mornay saw

  it.

  "I have... had to wrestle with my motivations,"

  Perren admitted. "There is not always a right and

  wrong to choose between. Some circumstances re-

  quire a choice between a wrong and a wrong. I have

  struggled with myself, but a commitment requires

  decision, which I made long ago."

  "Then decide again," I prodded. "Isn't there honor

  in altering logic when the patterns of facts change?"

  Mornay laughed at me again, a sound that could

  have been pleasant in other circumstances. She nod-

  ded at Perren.

  "You'll cooperate," she told him. "You've put fif-

  teen years of your life into this project. The risks

  aren't so great that you'll abandon it and give up the

  chance to bring total peace to the galaxy, are they?"

  She turned to us again and deflated Perren's impor-

  tance by talking about him as though he wasn't here.

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  "How would he go back to Vulcan and explain to his

  family and his sponsors that he sacrificed galactic

  unity to a theoretical risk? The humiliation would be

  too great3'

  Affected by the stalled logic and the danger of losing

  Perren to Mornay's cooing, Sarda stepped forward to

  address his mentor directly. "You must reconsider,

  Perren," he said. "There are acceptable moral rea-

  sons_?,

  Mornay opened fire on him. Phaser-stun hit him full

  in the chest, catapulting him backward over a table.

  His arms and legs convulsed as he struck a wall.

  Scanner plunged in to catch him, barely keeping him

  from slamming to the floor. When I flinched toward

  them Mornay moved between into my path. I could do

  nothing but look on, quaking in the realization that the

  Vulcan friend I'd come here to rescue was now a

  tangled, tingling, !imp symbol of Mornay's violent

  nature.

  For a horrid instant as the phaser bolt struck Sarda,

  I thought the weapon was set to kill. I hadn't come

  here to get Sarda killed. The stun setting at least

  proved that Mornay was sincere about using Sarda's

  abilities again if she needed them. She wasn't ready to

  kill him. Or perhaps that was for Perren's benefit. If he

  hadn't been here, might she indeed have killed?

  Her zeal to use that phaser kept the threat alive.

  "You see?" she said. "I do not play." She warned

  me off with a wave of the phaser. She must have seen

  something, some active fury, in my eyes that even I

  wasn't aware of. When she once again had control, she

  eyed Perren. "Our goals will be realized. Things will

  settle our way3'

  Sensing the end of this dubious conversation, I

  opened my mouth to say something, anything, that

  would keep Mornay here and bfiy time for Captain

  Kirk to act. My lips parted, and imagine my surprise

  when I chirped like a communicator.

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  Every muscle in my body locked up.

  Mornay blinked. "Of course!" she said. "Help from

  outside! I should have expected that, shouldn't I?"

  She turned to bark at one of the guards. "Find the

  communicator and bring it to me."

  Easily done. A moment later, Mornay possessed

  both my communicator and Scanher's tricorder. She

  held the communicator and waited, and sure enough it

  chirped again. Kirk's signal! The check-in!

  Scanner, still holding Sarda against his shoulder,

  tried to contain the bugging of his eyes and delib-

  erately bit his lip.

  I pressed my knuckles into my thighs. Now what?

  Mornay came to me and held up the communicator.

  "Answer them. I'm sure you know what not to say."

  There was hunger and victory in her tone. She was

  about to find out who we were working with, how

  powerful we were.

  Sweat trickled down my neck. The captain would

  give himseft away when I answered that signal. I

  pressed my lips tight. My eyes stung.

  Mornay caught the whiff of defiance. Without a

  pause, she made dramatic affair of switching her

  phaser to the "disrupt/kill" setting and turned it on

  Scanner and Sarda. Her expression said the rest. I took the communicator from her.

  Scanner tightened his grip on Sarda. "Piper..."

  His message was clear enough. Find another way,

  and fast.

  There was no other way. Think fast--that's what

  heroes do in these kinds of situations. So why was I

  still clicking along at sublight? With a shallow breath, I

  put my trust in the captain and flipped the antenna

  shield up. "Piper here. Is that you, Merete?"

  The name shot from my lips a little too sharply. I

  could only hope Mornay would attribute it to my

  nerves.

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  A faint shuffle from the receiving end accentuated

  the tension as we waited for response. Then--

  "Yes, this is Merete. Wh
ere are you, Piper?"

  I took a deeper breath, all primed for a sigh of relief,

  then remembered the sigh would tell Mornay some

  thing. I stood there like a balloon, letting my breath

  out so slowly that I started turning red. "We're in one

  of the lab buildings," I said, stalling.

  There was a pause. In my mind, a softly etched face

  stood beside her and told her what to say.

  "Have you isolated Sarda?" she asked carefully.

  "He's... with us."

  Mornay's phaser jerked toward my friends in warn-

  ing. The hints would have to stop, or Scanner and

  Sarda were finished. I'd never learned to lie, to bluff.

  Why didn't the Academy have a class in bluffing?

  "Can you get out?" Merete asked, her tone telling

  me things.

  "Not right away," I said. "The compound is booby-

  trapped." I watched Mornay to see if I'd said too

  much, but she didn't move. "It'll take time."

  Another pause. Kirk's image nodded in my head.

  "I'll contact you again in thirty minutes," Merete

  said. "ff you've found a way out, we'll beam up and

  vacate the system before Enterprise arrives. It's time

  to haul in tight."

  She had difficulty with the nautical phrase. She

  didn't know where the emphasis should go. The words

  were too even, too careful. But the message was real

  he knows.

  My shoulders trembled. I squeezed them tight and

  brought the communicator closer to my lips. "I agree.

  They've already worked our windward."

  Mornay was practically under my chin in an instant.

  Her phaser now hovered between my eyes, conveying

  a message entirely different from Merete's. Sign off or

  die.

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  Why bother talking out loud at all? These subliminal

  messages, coming at me from a dozen different direc-

  tions, were grating enough.

  "Piper out," I said quickly, and closed the commu-

  nicator.

  Mornay snatched the instrument from my grip, her

  fingernails raking the side of my hand. She backed

  away. "Code words," she said bitterly. "And not even

  subtle." Without a single consideration for the privacy

  between the two Vulcans among us, she turned to

  Perten and demanded, "Who is Merete?"

  Perren, however, very much realized the unethical