by Dayton Ward
“Something I can help you with, Doctor?”
The question made Fisher blink, and he sheepishly realized Gannon had caught him staring. She’d stopped pacing directly in front of him, her piercing green eyes daring him to say something unrelated to ship’s business. “Martial arts,” he ventured to say.
Gannon frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Your extracurricular fitness training. I’m guessing it was some form of martial arts. Am I right?”
Her eyes narrowed. “This is that thing the captain warned me about, isn’t it?”
“Oh, he warned you about me, did he?”
Gannon smirked. “Well, not you per se . . . just your odd little preoccupation.”
“Is that what he called it? My, my. I never realized the practice of guessing a crewperson’s Academy sport was something anyone would find particularly odd.”
“It is when you consider you could find out easily enough by checking my personnel file,” Gannon said. “Or, I dunno, just asking me.”
Fisher smiled. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Before Gannon could offer a rejoinder, the room’s starboard doors parted to admit the last member of the crisis response team. Everyone not already on their feet, including Fisher, rose as Chief Engineer Shey made a beeline for the XO. The Andorian held out a data slate.
“It’s about time,” Gannon said as she accepted the slate and started to scroll through it. “The ARA certainly cut it close.”
Shey’s antennae dipped toward Gannon in agreement. “At least they came through, though I’m not sure how much the new data will help.”
“We’ll take what we can get,” Gannon answered. She raised her voice to be heard by the rest of the team. “All right, people, listen up. We still don’t know what exactly we’re beaming into, but Commander Shey has our update from the Arkenite Resources Administration, so pay close attention. Commander?”
Shey’s antennae were taut as she addressed the room. “By now, the ARA’s most current schematics of the Azha-R7a asteroid mining complex have been uploaded to your tricorders.” She gave the team a moment to call up the files, but Fisher opted to peer over the shoulder of Soledad Valdez, one of the other doctors, who already had her tricorder open. “Please note they show that the mine has sixteen levels, not the twelve indicated in our library computer database,” Shey continued. “Also, the tunnels are spread over a much wider area than we were led to believe. You have a question, Mister Okano?”
Kunimitsu Okano, a structural engineering specialist, lowered his upraised hand. “How recent are these files?”
“The update is eighteen months old,” Shey answered.
“The schematics in our library computer were four years old,” Okano said over the murmurs rising among the other engineers. “If the complex expanded this much in thirty months, the actual number of levels and the area they cover must be even greater by now.”
“Correct,” said Gannon. “But as we’ve still had no success in contacting the colony directly since the initial distress call, this is the best we have to work with.”
Shey said, “We do know that in addition to mining topaline, copper, and zinc, the Arkenites have begun tapping deposits of uridium. These sections are marked in orange on your maps. If it becomes necessary to enter these areas, you’ll be required to rely on hand tools. Medical team, this means absolutely no use of laser scalpels or defibrillators.”
“Why not?” asked Doctor Valdez.
“Raw uridium is unstable,” Okano offered. “It reacts explosively if exposed to an electrical charge or a particle beam.”
“That’s right,” said Shey. “Injured personnel requiring treatment with powered equipment will have to be moved out of those areas before the procedures may be carried out. No exceptions.”
“The mission hasn’t changed,” Gannon said. “We still don’t know what precipitated the distress call, the exact nature of the emergency, which areas of the settlement may be affected by it, or even what the Arkenites’ needs may be. Supplemental crisis response teams are standing by in Emergency Transporter Rooms 2, 3, and 4, and will await deployment as needed. If it becomes necessary to transfer colonists to Dauntless, we’ll be following Evacuation Protocol Alpha, unless otherwise dictated by conditions within the mining complex. Hopefully we’ll get a clearer picture once Dauntless is able to scan the asteroid.”
Gannon didn’t bother stating the obvious. The distress call from Azha-R7a had reached Dauntless thirty-two hours ago. Because it had broken up in mid-transmission and all attempts to reestablish contact with the colony had failed, there was a very real possibility they would arrive too late to do any—
The alarm Klaxon wailed, derailing Fisher’s train of thought. “Red alert,” came the announcement over the comm system. “All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill.”
As if a switch had been thrown, the assembled CR team started streaming toward the exits. Fisher hesitated, watching as Gannon moved behind the transporter console and toggled its gooseneck intercom. “Gannon to bridge. What’s going on?”
“Ensign Kendrick here, Commander. We’ve come out of warp two thousand klicks from the asteroid, and there’s a Klingon battle cruiser keeping station directly above the settlement. It’s the Chech’Iw.”
Fisher winced. Gorkon’s ship. Of all the Klingons, why him?
“Do we know the status of the Arkenites?”
“Is that Gannon?” came another voice over the comm. “What the hell is she waiting for, an engraved invitation? Tell her to get her ass up here, pronto.”
“Commander, the captain—”
“I heard him, Lloyd. I’m on my way. Gannon out.”
Fisher followed Gannon out the door. “Mind if I tag along?”
She spared him a glance without slowing her brisk march to the turbolift. “Don’t you need to prep sickbay?”
“My people know the drill,” Fisher said as they entered the lift. He held up his hand to block Doctor Valdez, who ran to catch up before the doors closed. “Nonstop to the bridge, Soledad. Take the next one.” As the doors hissed shut, Gannon called out their destination to the lift’s voice interface. Fisher felt the elevator car rotate on its vertical axis and then glide forward. “Besides,” the doctor continued, “sickbay was already on high alert for the rescue mission. There’s little else to do unless we start getting wounded.”
Gannon let out a long breath. “Let’s hope your department has a slow day.”
“Amen to that, Commander,” Fisher said. The lift’s forward motion slowed to a stop, then it started to ascend.
“This’ll be the first time the captain’s faced Gorkon since Xarant,” Gannon said.
Fisher kept his eyes facing the doors. “That’s true,” he said neutrally, uncomfortably certain he knew where Gannon was headed with this. The engagement at Xarant five months ago had torn up Dauntless pretty badly, and cost the lives of eighteen members of the crew, including Gannon’s predecessor, Commander Rajiv Mehta. For all the survivors, memories of Xarant were still raw, but especially so for Dauntless’s captain.
“Is he past it, do you think?” Gannon asked.
Fisher didn’t offer an answer, and to his relief, the commander didn’t wait for one when the lift stopped again and opened onto the bridge. Gannon stepped out ahead of him and headed straight for the command well. Fisher hung back, stopping at the portside aft railing. At starboard aft stood Lieutenant Terence Sadler, ship’s chief of security, whose intense blue-gray eyes regarded the doctor’s presence on the bridge with only slight disapproval before he turned his attention back to the situation at hand.
Privileges of seniority, Terry, Fisher thought. That, and being the captain’s close personal friend for close to fifteen years.
In the center of the bridge, Captain Diego Reyes leaned forward in the command chair, his gaze fixed on the viewscreen where the dark, vaguely liver-shaped rock of Azha-R7a was partially eclipsed by the distinctive droop-winged silhouette of a
Klingon warship. “Any change in their energy readings?” Reyes asked.
At sciences, Anya Brzezinski stared into the hooded viewer that fed her sensor telemetry. “No spikes. Weapons remain cold. Shields are still down.” She turned to face the captain. “Sir, they may not know we’re here.”
“They know,” Reyes said with certainty. “We came in too hard and fast for them to miss our entrance.” He looked up at Gannon, who stood just to the right of the center seat. “Nice of you to join us, Commander.”
“Sorry for the delay, sir,” Gannon said. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” Reyes advised her. “When I call for battle stations, I expect my XO’s first response to be to head for the bridge, not second-guess the alert. Are we clear?”
Ouch. That bad already, Diego?
“Aye, sir,” Gannon answered, her pale cheeks flushing against the public rebuke. “Readings from the colony?” she called out to Brzezinski.
“Evidence of a recent explosion in one of the subsurface sectors,” the science officer said. “A number of the aboveground structures have been compromised.”
“Life signs?”
“I’m reading approximately seven hundred humanoids, mostly Arkenites. Eighty-five of them are Klingons.”
“An occupation force,” Sadler said.
“They damn well aren’t there for the coffee,” Reyes agreed. “Talk to me, Mister Kendrick.”
Seated to Fisher’s right, Lloyd Kendrick swiveled away from his console while making an adjustment to his earpiece. “No response from the colony to our hails, Captain. I’m unable to pick up any internal comm traffic. The Chech’Iw is dark to us as well.”
Reyes pushed out of his chair and crossed his arms as he stood watching the Klingon ship. “Tactical assessment, Lieutenant Sadler?” he said over his shoulder.
“We collected considerable intel on the D7-class battle cruiser during our last encounter with the Chech’Iw, sir,” Sadler said confidently, his Oxford enunciation always making an interesting contrast to the unique lilt of Reyes’s own voice, which was at times tinged with both Castellano and a subtle Texas twang. “Commander Shey and I put that knowledge to good use during the repairs and in subsequent combat drills. There’s no doubt in my mind that we have the advantage.”
“Captain, the Klingons learn from experience too,” Gannon said. “You can be certain General Gorkon and his crew have an equally improved understanding of how to fight a Pyotr Velikiy–class starship. And given Dauntless’s history with the Chech’Iw, provoking a hasty resumption of hostilities may be exactly what Gorkon—”
“You don’t get to lecture me on this ship’s history with Gorkon, Commander,” Reyes said coldly. “This crew has shed blood every time we’ve tangled with him, and I don’t recall you being there on any of those occasions.”
Sadler frowned. Kendrick and Brzezinski looked toward Reyes in surprise. So it isn’t just me, Fisher thought.
“Sir,” Gannon said, “with all due respect, this sort of situation is exactly why Starfleet Command recommended me for this assignment. My specialized training in Klingon culture—”
“—was part of a program specifically designed to produce officers who could advise starship captains during Klingon encounters,” Reyes finished for her. “All right, Gannon. What’s your recommendation?”
“Talk to them.”
Reyes stared at her. “I must have misheard you, Commander. Could you repeat that? For a second it sounded as if you suggested I open a dialogue with the ship that attacked a Federation colony.”
Instead of rising to the bait, Gannon called out, “Lieutenant Commander Brzezinski, is there any evidence to suggest the damage to the settlement was the result of Klingon ordnance?”
Brzezinski consulted her instruments before reporting, “Negative. Scans reveal no Klingon weapons signatures of any kind.”
“Is the Chech’Iw still maintaining a nonaggressive posture?”
“Affirmative.”
Gannon turned back to Reyes. “Like you said, sir, the Klingons know we’re here. And that has to mean they know what we’re picking up on our scanners. They’re counting on this crew’s hostility toward them, especially after our . . . your last engagement, to make us rush to judgment. So, yes, Captain, I’m recommending we challenge the Klingons to explain their presence in Federation territory before we start shooting each other.”
Reyes’s eyes narrowed. He held her gaze while he spoke. “Ensign Jordan, are we maintaining a target lock on the Chech’Iw?”
“Aye, sir,” said the helmsman. “All banks locked on.”
“Arm photon torpedoes and target their command pod.” After Jordan acknowledged the order, Reyes said, “All right, Gannon. We’ll try it your way. But make no mistake. If Gorkon so much as twitches, I’m gonna blow him straight back to Qo’noS.”
“Mister Kendrick,” Gannon said. “Hail the Klingons. Send this message: I.K.S. Chech’Iw, this is the U.S.S. Dauntless. We are responding to a Federation distress call. You are instructed to withdraw all personnel from Azha-R7a and leave the area immediately.”
Kendrick tapped his board for several seconds, then lifted a hand to his earpiece. “Message received. They’re opening a channel.”
Fisher let out a long breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it.
“On screen,” Reyes said as he returned to the center seat.
As the view of the Chech’Iw dissolved into a shot of its bridge, it surprised Fisher to see Gorkon was not the man sitting in its command chair. Whereas Gorkon was tall and lean and kept his upper lip shorn above an otherwise full beard, the robust Klingon facing the Dauntless bridge crew sported a long goatee braided with a silver chain. “Captain Reyes. How unexpected. It seems not so long ago we watched your vessel limp away like a wounded Ha’DIbaH.”
“I’m surprised you noticed through all the charged plasma you were bleeding after we perforated your starboard nacelle, Mazhtog,” Reyes said, and Fisher recognized the name as belonging to Gorkon’s executive. “But as nice as it is to reminisce, I don’t have time to waste on pissants. I want to speak to your boss.”
Mazhtog bared his teeth, and Fisher wondered how the translators had handled the insult. “General Gorkon is unavailable, Earther. And you will show proper respect to a soldier of the Empire.”
“Fine,” Reyes said. “The day I meet a Klingon worthy of the title, I’ll be sure to salute him. Until then, you’re trespassing in Federation territory and interfering with a rescue operation. You’ve got fifteen minutes to pull your people out of our colony and back the hell off. Failure to comply will be considered a hostile act and met with force.”
Mazhtog’s rictus widened into a grin. “So like a human. So arrogant.” He leaned forward, his face growing larger on the screen. “You come here prepared to attack, blind to the obvious fact that the crisis on the Arkenites’ asteroid is already under control; that Dauntless’s assistance, so late in coming, is no longer required; and that it is you who are trespassing here. And you dare to threaten us!”
Reyes stood up. “So that’s what this is? A land grab for your territory-hungry chancellor? Is Gorkon really stupid enough to believe I’m just going to sit back while he carries out the illegal seizure of a Federation settlement and the capture of its citizens?”
Mazhtog slowly leaned back into his chair, nodding to someone offscreen before turning his jagged smile back to Reyes. “You still fail to grasp what has happened here, Earther. We have stolen nothing. These Arkenites have given their asteroid and their allegiance to the Klingon Empire of their own free will.”
“Captain,” Brzezinski said, “the Chech’Iw’s tactical systems are coming on line! Shields up, weapons arming—”
“And we are prepared to defend them.”
3
2268
“I don’t know what went wrong,” Captain Hallie Gannon said from her log. “If I did, maybe I could have fixed it. But they aren’t
even interested in talking anymore. They’ve denied permission to let anyone beam down to Kadru, and they’ve declined Commodore Reyes’s invitation to discuss their issues aboard Vanguard. Bottom line: the New Anglese told us to take a hike, and then they turned their backs to us.
“The worst thing is, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Every decision they’ve made is totally within their rights. It’s their planet. They opted to go independent, and if they want as little contact with Starfleet as possible without even explaining why, we just have to live with it.”
“Computer, pause playback,” Desai ordered, making a notation on her data slate. She set down her stylus and rubbed her weary eyes, thinking she really should have allowed herself more than six hours of sleep last night.
She had wasted little time getting to work after she and Fisher boarded the Endeavour. First Officer Katherine Stano, a youthful lieutenant commander, met them as they came through the airlock, just seconds before the shipwide command came down from the bridge to seal all external hatches in final preparation for the vessel’s departure. Stano went through the standard formalities of welcoming them aboard, reviewing the facilities and services available to them during the two-day voyage to the Kadru system, and then proceeded to escort them to their individual quarters on Deck 7 of the Constitution-class starship.
Desai didn’t even bother to unpack. She settled immediately at the cabin’s workstation, accessed the ship’s secure network, and found her mission file waiting in her temporary database. She spent most of the next thirty hours immersed in reports on Kadru, the colony, and its population; Starfleet Command’s recommendation to redraw its patrol routes in the Taurus Reach; a transcript of the Federation Council’s deliberation of the matter as well as the resolution to uproot the colonies named in Command’s recommendation; historical precedents for colonial relocation; recordings of Miller’s communications with Governor Ying; and the relevant logs of the starship that, three years ago, had assisted in establishing the New Anglesey colony: the U.S.S. Bombay.
