by David Mack
Tuvok nodded. “I believe so.”
“Good.” She closed her eyes. “I have to be on Deck One in two minutes. Let’s do this.” Discipline alone enabled her not to flinch as Tuvok’s warm fingertips pressed with gentle precision upon either side of her face.
“My mind to your mind,” he intoned. “My thoughts to your thoughts. Our thoughts are merging. Our minds are becoming one. We… are one.”
Keiko opened her thoughts to his—and hoped his telepathic gifts would be enough to hide her secrets from whatever entity he had sensed aboard the Excalibur. She felt like a spectator to her own psyche as Tuvok erected defenses from her childhood memories and coached her in how to create walls of psychic white noise. It seemed to take hours, but she knew that one’s perception of time became malleable inside the mindscape of a Vulcan meld.
When he at last declared her ready and ended their telepathic union, she checked the chrono and saw that only one minute had elapsed. “Nicely done,” she said. She reached into her pocket and took out her quantum transceiver, which was disguised as an ordinary utility tool. “Know what this is?”
“Of course.”
“After I beam to the Excalibur, use this to contact Selar. She’s our person inside Calhoun’s group. You need to make her understand how important this meeting is—and then you need to get her to contact Saavik with you, so that the two of you can make a joint appeal for help.”
He held up the tiny device in his hand and studied it with cold eyes. “What, precisely, do you wish me to ask of Director Saavik?”
“Whatever it’s going to take for us to reveal ourselves to both sides of the rebellion and get them to work together. I’ve been through too much to watch all this go down in flames—and so have you, Tuvok.”
“On that much, we agree.” He pocketed the transceiver. “What if Saavik refuses to accede to our requests for intervention?”
Keiko sighed. “If it comes to that, we’d better hope Calhoun is a better diplomat than O’Brien.”
O’Brien sat in the Excalibur’s sleek but austere conference room, flanked by Eddington and Keiko and facing Calhoun, Hiren, and Soleta. As best he could tell, the two groups of rebel leaders were separated by three feet of table, six untouched platters of food, and the unbridgeable gulf of Calhoun’s ego.
“Of course it makes sense for me to take command of the united fleet,” Calhoun said. “Most of it would be mine to begin with.”
That got a chuckle from O’Brien. “Yeah? From what I hear, most of your fleet”—he gestured at Hiren—“is on loan from him.”
“Then you heard wrong,” Soleta said. “Hiren and his people are pledged to Captain Calhoun. No one loaned us anything.” She lifted her goblet and drank deeply of her wine, but kept her baleful glare fixed on O’Brien as she did.
He pushed his plate away and leaned forward with his arms on the table. “Look, no offense to you, Captain, but I’ve been on the bleeding edge of the rebellion since the day it started. I fought with Ben Sisko until he died, and then I took over where he left off. That was seven years ago. So excuse me if I don’t just step aside because some hotshot with a fancy ship tells me to.”
“It’s not as if we just joined the fight yesterday,” Calhoun said. “We’ve been at this for five years. And I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but I think we’ve gotten a hell of a lot more done in that time than you have.”
Hardly able to believe his ears, O’Brien traded looks of shocked offense with Eddington and Keiko before returning his focus to Calhoun. “Oh, really? Just how do you figure that, then?”
The Xenexian shrugged. “I think our records speak for themselves. Mine is a string of brilliant victories, yours a litany of heartbreaking defeats.”
O’Brien was seething. “What a load of—”
“We’ve had our share of victories,” Eddington cut in.
A gruff snort from Hiren. “Such as Bajor? You just lost your primary base.”
Keiko shot back, “And you lost all of Romulus.”
Calhoun kept his piercing purple stare fixed upon O’Brien, who refused to give him any satisfaction by looking away. “What was your last victory, O’Brien?”
“What was yours?”
“I destroyed ninety-five percent of the Klingon Empire’s Fifth Fleet just over two weeks ago, in the Joch’chal Nebula.” He smirked. “Your turn.”
Suppressing the urge to answer with a string of curses, O’Brien said, “We blew up Vareth Dar, in the Cuellar system.”
Soleta belted out a cruel laugh. “Two years ago!”
Calhoun added, “What have you done lately?”
Before O’Brien could unleash a tide of vulgar suggestions for Calhoun and his minions, Eddington answered, “Look, this isn’t some kind of contest. It’s supposed to be a parley. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re here at your request. You invited us. You asked to join our rebellion. If you want to be part of our war, you can do it on our terms.”
The ultimatum left Calhoun brooding for a few seconds. Then he nodded. “Yes, I admit we contacted you. And we did present ourselves as wanting to become part of your rebellion. But I have to be perfectly honest with you, Mister Eddington: That was before we realized you were leading your people to their inevitable, certain doom.”
“Go to hell,” Keiko said, catching O’Brien off guard. “You have no idea what we’ve done, the risks we’ve taken, the sacrifices we’ve made. We’ve liberated millions of slaves throughout Alliance space.”
“Yes,” Soleta replied, “but you’ve recruited only the tiniest fraction of them into your movement. The rest have fled into deep space. That’s not exactly a show of confidence in your rebellion, is it?”
“And even if they had stayed,” Hiren added, “you don’t have ships to put them on, or bases for them to defend. As a result, your numbers succumb steadily to attrition. In essence, you’re bleeding to death, one soldier at a time.”
Calhoun stood. “We believe in what you fight for,” he said, circling the table, “but not in the way that you fight. Your tactics have been timid, your long-term strategies deficient and unambitious—and now those weaknesses have cost you.” O’Brien stood as Calhoun neared him, prompting everyone else to stand as well. Towering over him, Calhoun added, “Face it, O’Brien: Without us, you and your people will be dead in a matter of months. Your rebellion is drowning, and we’re trying to throw you a line. Do the smart thing for once.”
Looking up at the Xenexian’s leathery features and hard eyes, O’Brien knew without question that he was no match for Calhoun, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from speaking his mind. “You smug bastard,” he said. “It’s always easy to find fault from a distance, isn’t it? You insult my tactics, my strategy—as if you’d have done any better in my place. I know your history. You started out in some backwater sector, out past the Romulan Empire. Captured this pretty little ship of yours. Recruited the entire population of Xenex into your service, even though you didn’t have any ships to put them on.
“Me and my people? We’ve been caught between the Klingons and the Cardies from day one, taking fire from all sides with no safe place to go to ground. Nowhere to fall back, no idea where our next meal was coming from or when. We’ve had to risk capture and death to steal damn near every ship we have. But you? You inherited a Romulan war fleet. Not a bad reward for letting a whole world die. And then the rest of the Romulan Empire gave you safe ports, supplies, munitions, personnel. You’ve been blessed with a force ten times the size of mine, and what have you done with it? Nipped at the Klingons’ heels.
“While you’ve been playing soldier, we’ve been waging a bloody two-front war with one hand tied behind our back. We’ve suffered seven years of living hell, Calhoun, so if you think I’m just going to step aside and let you take command of my people, you’re out of your goddamned mind.”
Calhoun snarled, “And if you think I’m going to take orders from someone whose entire career is a series of defeats, setbacks,
and tragic errors, so are you.”
Eddington stepped in and forced them apart. “This seems like a good time to take a break.”
“Yes,” Calhoun said, “sound the retreat, O’Brien. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?”
O’Brien smiled. “Actually, Captain, my specialty is fixing things.” Leading Keiko and Eddington out of the room, he lobbed a parting verbal grenade over his shoulder. “Call me if you want some help extracting your head from your ass.”
22
The Name of Action
The situation is devolving rapidly,” Tuvok said. “Yesterday’s first meeting between O’Brien and Calhoun was contentious, to say the least. There is little reason to hope today’s discussion will be any better.”
“Unfortunately, I must agree,” Selar said. The transceiver projected her holographic avatar life-size inside Tuvok’s private stateroom on the Defiant. “What is transpiring now aboard the Excalibur is not a meeting of minds but a clash of egos. I fear that before it ends, the two rebel factions might end up at war with each other rather than united against the Alliance.”
“This cannot be allowed to happen,” Tuvok insisted. “Both these men and the forces they represent are essential to fulfilling Spock’s plan for Memory Omega, but neither Calhoun nor O’Brien will yield his authority to the other.”
“There is only one way to end their conflict. Memory Omega must intercede and present both sides with a leader they can accept.”
“The time for influencing the rebellion from behind the scenes is past. If the rebellion is to have any chance of success, and if Spock’s plan is to come to fruition, Memory Omega must take an active role in leading the rebellion.”
Silence fell as Tuvok and Selar finished presenting their case, and the holographic avatar of Saavik nodded as she weighed their arguments. “You make a compelling case,” the director said. “I did not realize the two rebel factions were so bitterly at odds.”
“The factions themselves bear each other no ill will,” Tuvok said. “Their leaders, however, seem to despise each other.”
A thoughtful frown hardened Saavik’s mien. “Sadly, this outcome has long been expected. Ever since the interference from the alternate universe seven years ago, the tempo of events has accelerated, and we have not always kept pace.” She briefly touched her index finger to her lips. “Though I am reluctant to use the same methods of manipulation on our allies as against our enemies, is there any way the two of you could get close enough to O’Brien and Calhoun to influence their thinking and resolve their dispute?”
Tuvok tried to mask his chagrin but felt his brow knit, telegraphing his deep frustration with the situation. “Although General O’Brien treats me as a valued adviser, he has never seen fit to permit me, or any other Vulcan, into his inner circle. In many ways, he sees the rebellion as an inherently Terran undertaking.”
“Interesting, since so many of his followers are non-Terrans,” Saavik said. “Selar? Can you reach Calhoun?”
The younger Vulcan woman shook her head. “Unlikely. He knows of my telepathic abilities, and he keeps me at a safe distance. Furthermore, he is protected by Soleta, whose gifts are substantial, though less honed than my own, and he maintains a telepathic connection with the entity known as McHenry. It has been difficult protecting my thoughts from McHenry, whose abilities steadily grow stronger and more nuanced. Any attempt to manipulate Calhoun psionically would be detected by McHenry, and I believe the consequences would be severe.”
“In any event, such a tactic misses the fundamental problem,” Tuvok said. “In our estimation, neither man is actually fit to lead the united rebellion.”
Concern lined Saavik’s forehead with deep creases. “Why not?”
“Calhoun is a fine tactician and strategist,” Selar said. “However, he has on many occasions displayed a level of ruthlessness and brutality that is incompatible with our philosophy. While it is possible that he might, with our support, be able to lead a successful war effort and defeat the Alliance, I would fear for the regime he might raise in its stead.”
“At the other end of the spectrum is O’Brien. As much as I admire his idealism and compassion for those under his command, he has been less than effectual as a military commander. Despite his philosophical compatibility with Memory Omega’s long-term goals, I fear he lacks the nerve to prosecute the war with sufficient zeal to secure victory.” Tuvok and Selar traded reassuring glances, and then he added, “The only logical solution, Director, is for Memory Omega to anoint a leader that both rebel factions will follow.”
Saavik nodded. “We have been making an effort to recruit just such a person. Unfortunately, he does not seem to want the job.”
“One can hardly blame him.”
“Indeed.”
The mild cynicism did not appear to sit well with the director. “Regardless, it represents a serious setback—one that could cost millions of lives unless we rectify it. I will continue in my efforts to persuade him. In the meantime, the two of you must do all that you can to keep O’Brien and Calhoun talking to one another.”
“Given their animosity, that might prove counterproductive.”
“I assure you,” Saavik said gravely, “the alternative will be far worse.”
Picard stood in the sleek, antiseptic hangar where Memory Omega had berthed the Calypso and watched a pair of human workers guide antigrav lifters loaded with supplies and provisions into his ship. Troi stood beside him, paying no attention to their preparations for departure; her wistful gaze told Picard that her melancholy thoughts were light-years away.
“You should go say good-bye to him,” he told her.
She pointedly avoided looking at him. “I already did.”
It had been obvious to him that she had wanted to stay and throw in her lot with the Memory Omega people, but their proposition had failed to persuade him. It seemed to him like little more than a highly developed death wish. The best thing I can do for Deanna right now is get her as far from here as possible.
Troi muttered with naked bitterness, “Keep telling yourself that.”
He cleared his conscious mind, hoping to avoid stirring up any further discord between himself and Troi before they were on their way.
Crisp footsteps echoed off the pristine metallic floors, walls, and ceiling. Picard turned to see Saavik and K’Ehleyr approaching him. He stepped away from his ship to meet them halfway. “Come to see us off?”
“No,” Saavik said, “to make one last appeal.”
He pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, but my mind is made up.”
K’Ehleyr loomed over him, her arms crossed and her brow sardonically arched. “I’d hear her out, if I were you.”
He lifted his hands to forestall counterargument. “With all respect to you both, I’ve considered your offer most thoroughly. After weighing its risks against its rewards, I’m simply not convinced you can deliver what you promise, and I won’t risk my life—or Deanna’s—on your delusions of grandeur.”
Saavik half-bowed her head and showed her open palms in a gesture of humility. “I understand your reservations, Mister Picard, but I implore you to grant us just one more hour of your time.”
With a cryptic smile, K’Ehleyr added, “We have something to show you.”
“You’ve already shown me a great deal, and I admit, it’s breathtaking. I have no doubt that you possess marvels of science undreamed of by the Alliance. But that’s a far cry from being prepared to wage a war against them.”
“I quite agree,” Saavik said. She gestured toward the nearest turbolift. “Just one more hour is all we ask. Not much longer than it will take us to finish preparing your vessel for departure.”
Picard looked back toward Troi, hoping for some indication of what to do, but she still had her back to him and was bombarding him with waves of resentment. He sighed and looked back at the two women facing him. The half-Klingon beauty narrowed her eyes and beckoned him with a nod toward the lift. “Come on. Indulg
e us. I think you’re gonna like this.”
“Very well. One hour—no more.”
“As you prefer,” Saavik said. “Please follow us.” She and K’Ehleyr led Picard across the hangar and inside the turbolift, which sped away with a pleasing drone of sound and a faintly perceptible vibration in his feet. In no mood for small talk, Picard savored the silence while it lasted.
The lift halted, its doors opened, and the two women led him out to a long corridor. At its end, a door sighed open at their approach, revealing a silolike chamber that stretched up, past the glow of lights on its ground level, into darkness. In the center of the vast space was a circular platform surrounded by a dozen glossy interactive control panels manned by white-coated personnel of various species—humans, Vulcans, a Tellarite, two Andorians, a Bolian, and a Denobulan. One of the Andorians, a very masculine young thaan with chiseled features and white hair, nodded at Saavik. “Welcome, Director.”
“Good morning, Arrithar. Erebus Station, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Arrithar and the other scientists set to work, entering commands into their consoles as Saavik, K’Ehleyr, and Picard stepped onto the platform and moved to its center. Arrithar looked up to say, “Three seconds.”
K’Ehleyr quipped to Picard, “Hope you skipped breakfast.”
The annular confinement field of a transporter beam seized them, and it was more powerful than any Picard had ever experienced. It felt as if it were crushing him to death, and when the first surge of white light from the energizer coils enveloped him, he had only a split second to wonder if there had been some kind of malfunction. Before he could rage at the waste and stupidity of dying in a transporter accident, sensation was stripped from him for the merest flash, and then it flooded back in another blinding pulse of light from above.
He sucked in air as the confinement field released him. For a moment he was doubled over, inhaling greedily while waiting for the vertigo in his skull to abate. When he straightened and looked around, he could have sworn he was in the same room that he had been in moments earlier, except that all the stations were unmanned, and the only people present were himself, Saavik, and K’Ehleyr. The two women had left the platform and were waiting for him.
