“I won’t lose to you!” It lunged, arms reaching for his throat.
So be it, Chekov thought, and stabbed the tip of the sword right into the large blue crystal on its belt.
The stone cracked, and a blast of energy knocked both combatants backward. The Naazh screamed in pain.
Chekov sat up to see the blue Naazh sprawled flat on its back, its belt crystal flaring and sparking. Nizhoni and Sanzio moved in around him to help him to his feet, and they watched in disbelief as the armor glowed, lost its color, turned translucent, and then vanished … leaving its very human-looking wearer helpless on the ground, his face exposed at last.
It was Haru Yamasaki.
As Sanzio dragged the Terebellan security director to his feet, Chekov stared at him in disbelief and betrayal. “You are one of the Naazh?”
That drew a quizzical look. “Is that what you call us?”
“How? Why? To murder your own people …”
“They are not my kind. Nor are they yours.”
“Look!” Chekov dragged him over to behold the fallen bodies of his own security officers and the Terebellan farmers who had fought alongside them. “This is your doing! Why? What did they offer you to join them?”
Yamasaki smirked. “Only the power to protect pure humanity against corruption.” He looked over the shocked New Humans in contempt. “Your scourge will not be allowed to continue evolving. The hunters will see to that. If not today, then soon enough.”
U.S.S. Reliant
Captain Terrell stared at Governor Kisak’s mottled green visage on the bridge viewscreen. “Yamasaki disappeared?”
“Right out of his hospital bed,” the matronly Suliban confirmed. “And the captured Naazh sidearm vanished at the same time. My scientists report detecting spikes of extradimensional energy at both sites.”
Terrell and Chekov traded a look of deep concern. “And the New Humans?” Chekov asked from where he stood at the right flank of Terrell’s command chair.
“Safe for the moment. They’re aware of the risk, but after today, they believe they can defend themselves. We stand with them now, and the techniques you showed us should help if it becomes necessary. Thank you.”
“Starfleet will always be at your disposal,” Terrell told her.
She lowered her head in dismay. “I can’t believe Haru was capable of such violence. Such cruelty and hate. I know he could be difficult, competitive, but he never would have been entrusted with keeping our peace if there had been any signs of such … savagery in his psych profile. Do you think … did these Naazh do something to him?”
“Unfortunately, without getting to question him, we can’t answer that.”
“We know one thing, though,” Commander Azem-Os fluted, ruffling her wings as she stepped down from the aft upper deck to stand by Terrell’s left. “The Naazh, at least some of them, are not invaders from outside … but members of our own communities. If Yamasaki is any example, possibly people whose mistrust or hostility toward telepaths has been radicalized.”
The governor frowned sadly. “I did not want to think it was connected, but the farmer Girsu has been missing since before the battle. He has gone off on his own before, but … he was probably the most vocal opponent of the New Humans. If the Naazh have recruited from within us, then perhaps he was one of them as well.”
Beach looked back from the helm station. “But why target telepaths? Or I should say, why just these telepaths? Just Aenar and New Humans, not Vulcans or Deltans?”
“Only the minorities,” Azem-Os replied. “The exceptions to the species norm.”
“But when the Naazh attacked the Enterprise,” Chekov said, “they showed no hostility toward the Argelian empath in our crew. Only the Aenar.” He sighed. “And maybe the New Humans among us. We thought they were just caught in the explosion because they chose to stay and fight. Maybe they were targets all along.”
Terrell crossed his arms and spoke grimly. “Something tells me we’ll get more answers soon enough. Unfortunately, we won’t get them until the next Naazh attack. And now we know that it could come from anywhere—and from anyone in the Federation. One of our neighbors, our friends. Someone whose fear and animosity toward certain kinds of people are stronger than any of us knew.”
He shook his head. “How the hell can we hope to see that coming?”
Twelve
New Human enclave
Western Mediterranean
Admiral Kirk found the New Humans’ small island a much less idyllic place than Spock had described several months ago. Starfleet and Earth Security forces roved across the island and patrolled its perimeter. Emergency medical shuttles rested near the central villa, and one took off and flew toward the nearby North African coast as Kirk neared the building. The villa and its surrounding grounds were in a sorry state, with sizable portions of both apparently torn apart by energy blasts or more exotic forces.
Miranda Jones came out of the villa as he approached, striding straight toward him, even though she was without her sensor web for the first time in his experience. She looked sadder and wearier than Kirk had ever seen her. Although he still found her beautiful, especially in the sheer, flowing green tunic she wore, he could actually tell for the first time that she wasn’t as young as she had been a decade ago.
“Admiral Kirk,” she said as she drew near, a smile briefly forcing its way through her pall of solemn grief. “It’s gracious of you to check in on us.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Kirk said as he clasped her hands in greeting and commiseration. “My duties at the Academy and on the Enterprise have kept me very busy.”
“It’s all right, Admiral. I can’t blame you for not wanting to be reminded of last year’s tragedy. Unfortunately, none of us have that luxury any longer.”
She led him over to a surviving bench beneath a pair of mostly undamaged trees. “You can still call me Jim,” he told her.
“I know,” she replied with a smile. “I’m just getting a feel for your new title.”
“You and me both.” They laughed.
Taking a seat alongside her on the bench, Kirk said, “I’ve been briefed on the attack, but I’d like to hear it from you, Miranda. If you don’t mind.”
She grimaced. “I don’t mind telling you, Jim. I mind very much that it happened.
“There were six of them this time,” she said in a cold, level voice. “Six genocidal killers, right in the heart of the safest planet in the Federation. They included three we’ve seen before—the gold one and the antennaed white one from the Enterprise, and the black one from the Terebellum colony.” Kirk didn’t ask how she knew their colors. She had either been briefed by the sighted New Humans or had seen it directly through their eyes.
“So they escaped the explosion on the Enterprise after all,” Kirk said.
She furrowed her brow. “You don’t buy the theory that they’re duplicate armors?”
He shook his head. “We’ve only ever seen one of each at a time. And that armor could resist point-blank fire from multiple phaser rifles with barely a scratch. The force of the explosion wouldn’t have been enough by itself to kill them. We assumed they were sucked out and disintegrated in the collapsing warp field, but now it seems they were able to teleport out first.”
She clenched her fists. “They’re like monsters from a horror story—impossible to kill, impossible to beat because they always adapt. They didn’t mess around with knives and swords this time, not after their defeat last week. They came in with disruptors blazing.
“Four of us died before we could mount enough of a telekinetic defense to fight back. And when we did, they were able to counter it with that … belt-stone flash of theirs. We had to improvise new defenses the best we could. We lost three more before Starfleet Security arrived with their anti-Naazh devices.”
“How did they get past the shields?” Kirk asked. As soon as the Reliant had reported the attack on Omega Sagittarii a week before, Starfleet had equipped the
island with deflectors and subspace disruptor beacons.
“They had a mole,” Jones replied, seething with anger. “A woman named Francesca Vassallo, who flew in from Rome once a week to bring us fresh food and wine. We knew her, trusted her.” Her fists clenched in her lap. “Now they tell us a search of her computer logs revealed that she was affiliated with anti–New Human groups, people who equated our emergence with the rise of Augments and saw us as a threat to the peace. She’d been spying on us for months, gaining our friendship, our complacency. It let her gain access to sabotage the disruptor beacons.”
Jones shook her head. “Normally, we would have sensed something. We don’t actively intrude on others’ thoughts, but there are unconscious emotional cues that leak out when someone is planning violence.”
Kirk nodded. “I remember—ten years ago on the Enterprise, you sensed Marvick’s homicidal feelings toward Kollos.”
“But not clearly enough to realize in time that he was the source,” she said ruefully. “This time, we were all on our guard after Terebellum. And all our minds are open to each other. So if Vassallo had given off any such violent urges, we should have been able to recognize them.”
Kirk touched her shoulder gently. “It’s just more proof that the Naazh can shield their minds from telepathy. All it means is that they don’t need their armor to do it. It doesn’t mean you let your guard down, Miranda.”
“I appreciate it, Jim.” She placed her hand on his, and though she didn’t cling to it as needily as she had last year on the Enterprise, she let the contact linger, gentle and warm. “The first sign we had of anything wrong was when the shields fell. That’s when we finally sensed what Vassallo had done. At that point, I suppose, she wanted us to know it had been her.
“So some of us confronted her. I perceived it through their eyes. She laughed and placed her hand over her waist, and the Naazh armor materialized around her as they watched.” She winced. “And then she started killing them. And then the others came.”
Kirk clasped her hand in both of his. “Still … it’s remarkable that you were able to fight back so effectively. You drove them off, even took two of them down.” One, clad in orange-and-black armor, had been identified as a human, Stewart Tsai, who had evidently been a fellow member of Francesca Vassallo’s extremist group. The other, the one with antennaed black-and-brown armor, had been Satakeshi th’Kenda, an anti-Aenar agitator from Andoria, whose whereabouts during the massacre in the Aenar compound could not be verified. It was now believed that he was one of the two unaccounted-for members of the five-Naazh group that had committed that atrocity. Unfortunately, Tsai had been teleported away before he could be questioned, and th’Kenda had taken his own life when the New Humans who overpowered him had attempted to probe his mind—a violation of their normal telepathic etiquette, but deemed necessary in the heat of the moment.
Jones nodded. “We’ve found that our powers are amplified when we gather in groups. It’s part of the reason we’ve congregated into these enclaves in the past year. We suspected this might be coming.”
The admiral stared at her. “Did you have reason to believe the Naazh would target you as well as the Aenar?”
She hesitated. “Call it a precaution. An awareness of the risk. The Naazh’s motives for exterminating the Aenar were never understood. Until now. For us, it seemed safest to assume the worst.” She gestured around them. “As you can see, it proved a wise choice. We have the means to fight back now.”
“But at the same time, by gathering into these enclaves, you’re making yourselves clearer targets. Other New Human enclaves have been attacked on Alpha Centauri, on Aldebaran III, on Deneb V. Spock and the Enterprise are at Centauri now, providing relief.”
Jones rose and began to pace around the bench. “Believe me, Jim, we’re very aware of the problem. And steps are being taken to address it.” She turned to him. “As long as there are extremists within the Federation who hate New Humans to this degree—as long as they could be living among us, wearing the faces of friends and neighbors, perhaps even authority figures—we can’t be safe here.
“But we have another option. The Medusans have offered us asylum in their space, and we’ve accepted.”
Kirk rose to his feet and faced her. “The Medusans? Miranda, are you sure?” The thought that she might go back to them was more alarming than he had expected. He still remembered the intensity of the kiss they had shared … and he had not been oblivious to McCoy’s words about trying to find someone.
She smiled. “Don’t forget, I lived with them for nearly a decade. And there are other humanoids living in their space, serving on their ships, sharing minds with them as I … did with Kollos. There are proven protocols in place for keeping them safe from accidental visual exposure.” A pause. “Besides, the Medusans still feel an obligation to try to make amends for their inability to save the Aenar. They want to do what they can for the Naazh’s current targets.”
“It just … seems rather drastic. To leave behind your homes, your lives …”
“Believe me, we’ve already debated that extensively among ourselves. We don’t all think alike—many of us still had strong ties back home and were reluctant to move into the enclaves. But they understood that it was better to leave their loved ones than to risk seeing them hurt or killed in a Naazh attack. What’s drastic is what those monsters are doing to us.”
She tilted her head. “Is this really concern for us, Jim, or does it wound your pride that Starfleet can’t protect us?”
He flushed, hesitant to admit his more selfish motives. “Starfleet has made a difference. On Omega Sagittarii and here.”
“Not enough of one. And who’s to say there aren’t Naazh in your own ranks?”
It was a moment before he replied. “I can accept—barely—that there could still be some humans intolerant enough to be vulnerable to radicalization by a group like this. But Starfleet screens its recruits carefully. It selects for people who celebrate difference rather than fearing it.”
Even as he spoke, though, he remembered Lieutenant Stiles’s kneejerk bigotry toward Spock after discovering that Romulans were a Vulcan offshoot. Even the best screening could have blind spots.
Jones sensed his hesitation and nodded. “You can’t entirely deny the possibility, can you?”
He sighed. “No.” He clasped her shoulder. “But even so, most of us in Starfleet are on your side. Sworn to protect all Federation citizens, all innocents, from this kind of atrocity.”
Her smile returned. “I know that, Jim.”
“Then at least let me arrange a Starfleet escort to Medusan space. Bring in the Enterprise, and whatever other ships I can convince Starfleet to spare. Being an admiral has its advantages.” When she hesitated, he went on. “There are enclaves of your people on nearly a dozen worlds. Who else but Starfleet has the reach and the speed to gather them all up quickly, and the power to defend them against the ongoing Naazh attacks? You can’t expect us to just sit back and let the Medusans defend our citizens for us. At least not while they’re in Federation territory.”
She sighed, visibly conceding the point. “Very well. I’ll recommend it to the others.”
“Do you think they’ll agree?”
“I’m confident of it. After all,” she finished with mild amusement, “we do tend to be of one mind.”
He nodded and started to turn away. But she smiled, took his hands, and pulled him back down to the bench. “You don’t have to go just yet, Jim.”
“I, ah, I’m sure we both have responsibilities to get back to.”
“Remember what I said about strong emotions leaking out? I can sense the real reason you’re reluctant to see me leave.”
He shook his head. “I can’t think of my own desires in the middle of a crisis like this.”
“Jim—I have desires too. Living among the New Humans has helped me learn to be more frank about them with myself—and with others.”
She kissed him once again, an
d though it was not as desperate as their first kiss, it was just as warm and open, and much more confident. When it was over, he needed a moment to catch his breath, giving her time to continue. “I know you’re ambivalent about this because of your behavior ten years ago. But we’ve both matured since then, in judgment and in empathy. I can trust you now in a way I couldn’t then. So forget about the past.” She kissed him once more, briefly.
“It’s more the future I’m concerned about,” Kirk replied. “If you’re leaving for Medusa …”
“All the more reason to seize the opportunity while we can,” she said. “With the losses I’ve sustained this past year, I’ve come to appreciate the value of making the most of the time we have with someone. The fact that it will end is all the more reason to embrace it in the moment.”
That was a sentiment Kirk understood far too well. For all that he longed for something more lasting, for all the times he’d mourned a love taken too soon, he still cherished the time he had spent with each woman.
He smiled and stroked her hair. “If you’re sure it’s what you want …”
“Have you ever known me to be indecisive, Jim?” She dragged him to his feet. “Come on. There’s a lovely secluded spot on the beach. We can watch the sunset.”
“It’s hours until sunset.”
She gave a mischievous smile. “I know.”
He let her pull him along, but one concern remained. “On an island full of telepaths, is any place really private?”
“Oh, don’t be modest, Jim. Just because they can feel our emotions doesn’t make them voyeurs. Think of it like living in a dorm with thin walls.”
He ran with her hand in his, laughing. It was remarkable to see this side of her. He had assumed before that the more exuberant parts of her erstwhile corporate intelligence had come from Kollos’s side. Maybe she retained some of that joyousness after the ambassador’s death, a legacy he had left her. Or maybe it had been inside her all along, just waiting for her to feel confident and trusting enough to let it out.
Either way, he felt he was finally seeing her true beauty for the first time.
The Higher Frontier Page 18
