“What was the nature of your conflict with the Lords?” Spock asked. “Or can it be expressed in our terms?”
“It was not so unlike the conflicts you have in your reality,” the Spectre said sadly. “We sought to seek out and encourage different ways of being, of thinking (enrich us). We believed they would enrich us, enlarge our existence. The Lords saw difference as a threat, new ideas as a pollution of (existence. They) their purity.
“We found a way, with only a simple adjustment of our psionic matrices, to transcend our domain and cross to others. We discovered life made of matter, of fermionic particles rather than psionic field resonances. It astounded us with its diversity (transcend our), with the vastness of the universes it occupied. It pleased us greatly to discover that matter could organize into patterns with intelligence like our own (despite)—minds we could connect with and learn from, despite being so extraordinarily alien (connect) (pleased).
“But to the Lords, corporeal life was an unconscionable horror, a mockery of true life. They discredited our exploration with lies, claimed that we had been corrupted by corporeal entities to be their agents, invaders (lies) set on destroying our domain. They played on the fears of our people to solidify their power, to restrict freedom of thought and choice.
“At first, they merely contained us—segregated us from the community. The means they used to isolate us were harsh, damaging. This was presented as a necessary evil for the good of the majority. When we began to die from it, the Lords rationalized it as accident (harsh), then as our own fault for resisting. In time, the masses were inured enough to our deaths that the Lords were free to inflict them with intent.
“But we had allies on the outside—a resistance that still believed in us and planned in secret. Once the purge was underway, they took action to free us, sacrificing many of their own in the process. But they broke containment and allowed us to flee.”
The Spectre lowered her simulated head. The image was steady now; her chronological stutter seemed to have faded with practice. “At first, we sought to live among the people we had contacted in your universe. But there were those among them who feared us, much as the Lords had feared corporeal life. The Lords hated us enough to swallow their own bile and recruit those fearful humanoids as their instruments. They were the first of the hunters you call Naazh, and they slaughtered our protectors in their community in their effort to eradicate us. The Lords heightened their rage and cruelty, encouraged them to kill us using the primal weapons of corporeal species. This served their purposes, for it let them blame the Naazh’s sadistic methods on the intrinsic savagery of corporeal life, distancing themselves from responsibility. But it also sent a message to our allies in our home domain and in yours—a warning of the terrors that would befall them if they attempted to help us.
“We tried to settle on primitive worlds with no sentiences to endanger, bonding with simpler forms of life. Their individual brains were too small to house us, but we could translocate across many in a distributed network. But the amount of psionic communication needed to maintain that connection was too easy for the Naazh to detect, and they found us there and killed more of our number.
“So our only choice was to use corporeal brains for concealment—and to conceal ourselves from those hosts, for their own safety. The rest you know.”
“I’m sorry.”
It was the same voice, but Kirk heard it through his ears rather than in his mind. Kirk turned to see Meihua Wu up and about, listening to her former sleeper’s account. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be a more welcoming host to you, after all you’ve been through. But I still feel … violated.”
The moonlight face turned toward its living mirror. “You owe me nothing, Meihua. I have taken far too much from you—your privacy, your certainty, your safety.”
Wu shook her head. “The Lords took that—from both of us. I don’t blame you for doing what you had to do.” She turned to Kirk and the others. “I’m just glad it’s over. I’m not sure quite who I am now. I’m different … but it’s like I’m finally who I always thought I was. Just a normal person.” She breathed a faint laugh. “Having psychic powers was fun at first, but now that I know where they really came from …” A shudder ran through her dainty frame. “Maybe if I’d had the choice, I would’ve been okay with it. But it’s just too much.”
She stepped closer to Kirk and Spock. “Now that I’m just me again—no Spectre, no powers, just a girl who loves to sing—can I go back home to Aldebaran?”
Kirk put a hand on her shoulder. “Soon, I hope. Once we can be sure there’s no more danger.” It was possible that the Naazh would not be able to determine, or would not believe, that a former New Human was now free of Spectre possession. Perhaps they would kill a former host as punishment for having harbored a sleeper. He didn’t want to frighten Wu by saying as much, though, so he simply said, “For the moment, you’re safest here on Ceto.”
* * *
When she finally made contact, T’Nalae suppressed a laugh. She didn’t want to alert the brig guard that anything was amiss; it might spoil the surprise.
Once the Medusans had forced her Lord from her body and banished it, they had believed she would no longer be able to serve as a beacon—that it would be safe for them to bring her to the renegade Spectres’ haven without risk of discovery. But they had forgotten one thing: that Vulcans, unlike humans and Andorians, were innately telepathic. And that a Vulcan’s telepathic bond with another being could be permanent and nonlocal, an entanglement surpassing time and distance.
They had broken her Lord’s grip on her … but she retained her own latent link to it, too passive and faint for them to detect until she reactivated it. It could not reach into this space to find her—but she could still reach out.
Eighteen
U.S.S. Enterprise
The auditory ambience of the Enterprise’s bridge had evolved over the decades that Spock had served within its various iterations, as equipment function had advanced and aesthetic tastes in auditory status indicators had evolved. However, one component of that ambience that had remained irritatingly consistent over the majority of the past fourteen years had been the grumblings of Doctor Leonard McCoy. The doctor rarely entered the bridge without promptly making his presence known through distracting and generally uninformative banter.
This time, at least, McCoy had come to the bridge to report something useful, albeit with his wonted lack of clarity. “Well, that’s the last of ’em. So we can all stop watching what we think now.”
Spock signed the data slate he had been reviewing, handed it back to the yeoman, and glanced over at the doctor. “Have the New Humans settled in adequately on Ceto?”
“Settling in will probably take a while, but they all made the trip in one piece, at least. Enough that Jim ordered me back to the Enterprise to get some rest.” The surgeon put his hands on his back and stretched theatrically. “I’ve rarely been so happy to follow an order. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”
“Yet your predilection for stating the tautological remains evergreen, Doctor.”
McCoy glowered at him. “It may be mathematically obvious, Spock, but it’s a fact we humans tend to let ourselves forget until it sneaks up and surprises us.” He sighed. “My problem is, I’m getting to the point where the reminders start coming closer and closer together.”
“I take it the admiral has remained on the surface, then?”
“It’ll be a while before age starts to catch up with that man,” the doctor said with envy. “Yeah, Jim wanted to stick around and help the New Humans get settled. This relocation is his show, after all, and you know how he gets when he feels responsible for something.”
“Indeed.”
“Christine’s still down there too, finishing up at the clinic. She’ll be coming up with Jim when he’s done, joining us for that postponed dinner. You’re welcome to come, if you like.”
The thought of renewing acquaintance with Doctor Chapel, no
w that they had both taken steps to move beyond the career stasis she had remarked on the year before, was agreeable to Spock. “I shall attend if my duties permit.”
McCoy frowned at the sparse array of stars on the main viewscreen. “Well, I hope Jim can keep the speechifying to a minimum for once and get back here soon. It feels wrong, not being in our proper universe.”
Spock quirked a brow. “The physical constants of this universe are essentially identical to our own, or else we could not exist within it. There is no difference that the human sensorium is capable of detecting.”
McCoy rose to the bait with satisfying predictability. “It’s not about sensing, Spock, it’s about knowing! Just the idea of being outside our native universe feels unnatural. Nothing familiar out there, no way to find our way back home. It’s a frightening thought.”
“This is hardly your first time occupying a continuum other than our own, Doctor. Unlike our time in Elysia, for example, or yours in the quantum timelines of the Terran Empire and the Vulcan Consortium, in this instance we are fully aware that we shall be able to return home, as soon as the Medusans escort us back.”
“And that’s just why I’m so eager to get on with it, Spock!” He grimaced. “Whereas I suppose you’d like to stick around and explore the place. Not that it looks like there’s a whole lot to explore,” he added, waving at the screen.
“Indeed—it would be an intriguing opportunity. However, I still have responsibilities to Starfleet Academy and its cadets. I, too, will be gratified when we return.”
After a moment, he realized that McCoy was studying him solicitously rather than continuing their banter. “You got quiet all of a sudden. Something bothering you?”
“It merely occurred to me to contemplate what must become of Specialist T’Nalae upon our return. She will have to be prosecuted for the murder of Edward Logan and several Aenar aboard the Enterprise and multiple New Humans on Earth, and as an accomplice in additional homicides committed by the Naazh. Indeed, she may very well be charged with treason and war crimes.”
McCoy frowned, reflecting his seriousness. “Was she really responsible, though? She was possessed by one of those Spectre things, or Lords, or whatever.”
“It is true that the Lord within her heightened her aggression and paranoia. But by her own admission, T’Nalae consented to become a Naazh, evidently with full knowledge of what that would entail.”
“I guess that must’ve been when she passed out in the shower the night before the attack,” the doctor muttered. “I feel like a fool. I saw the heightened psionic charge in her paracortex, but I thought she was just reacting to the Aenar being aboard. I was looking right at the Spectre in her and I didn’t even realize it. If I had …”
“Doctor,” Spock said, the firmness of his tone drawing McCoy’s attention away from his burgeoning guilt. “Were my mother here, she would likely respond by saying, ‘If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.’ My father, on the other hand, would point out the illogic of basing conditional statements on impossible conditions.
“You detected a psionic signature that generations of human, Vulcan, and Andorian scientists before you have universally mistaken for innate telepathic activity. Since your training in psionic medicine was predicated on that conventional wisdom, and since you had no knowledge of the Spectres’ existence at that point, you could not have interpreted T’Nalae’s readings in any other way.”
McCoy’s vivid blue eyes held his. “Spock … I appreciate—”
An alarm interrupted him. “Captain!” Palur called from the science station. “Reading multiple dimensional incursions in low orbit.”
“Deflectors and subspace dampers have autoengaged,” Lieutenant S’trakha added from tactical.
That told Spock that they were not Medusan signatures. McCoy approached the same conclusion more gradually. “Is it the Naazh? How the hell did they find us?”
The Enterprise shook under several powerful blasts. McCoy grabbed the aft railing to stabilize himself. “Confirmed,” Spock said. “Doctor, report to sickbay and prep for casualties.”
McCoy was already on his way to the lift. “Yes, sir, Captain. You just try and make sure my preparations won’t be needed!” The doors closed before Spock could offer a riposte.
But his attention was needed elsewhere anyway, as a second barrage reminded him. He activated the intercom on his armrest. “Enterprise to Admiral Kirk. We are under attack from hostile spacecraft, presumably of Naazh origin. They may attempt to attack the population on the surface.”
“They won’t need to, Spock,” Kirk’s voice came back. “Because more than twenty Naazh just materialized on the surface, armed for bear.”
Ceto
Over the past year, Kirk had seen the arms race between the Naazh and their quarry escalate anew each time they had clashed. Now, with more Spectre hosts gathered in one place than ever before, the Lords had responded with a commensurate increase in numbers. A horde of Naazh had materialized around the village all at once, surrounding it on three sides, with the mountains penning the villagers in on the fourth. They showed more variety in armor design and colors than Kirk had seen before, and in body size and shape as well.
But they were armed consistently this time. Rather than targeting their prey one at a time with daggers, swords, or armored fists, the entire horde of Naazh carried plasma rifles. More than a dozen New Humans and Aenar were struck down before the trained telekinetics could rally a defense.
Kirk rushed to the aid of a group of villagers, but the rapid crescendo of an engine whine drew his gaze upward, barely in time to see another Naazh piloting a small hovercruiser, closing on him swiftly with one hand on the aerial bike’s handlebar and the other firing a plasma weapon, strafing the ground as it closed on Kirk and the villagers with him. He had no time to dodge.
“Sir!” Something invisible shoved Kirk aside. He rolled with it and came up on his feet, turning to see a familiar figure—a slender woman with silky, waist-length black hair, holding out one hand to shield Kirk and the villagers with a telekinetic barrier and using the other to hurl debris at the Naazh on the hovercruiser, driving it off.
“Crewman Dinh!” he called out once the immediate threat was past.
Jade Dinh turned and smiled at him, her eyes gleaming bright silver. “Capta— Admiral. Good to see you, sir.”
“You too,” he said sincerely. He’d heard she was still alive along with DiFalco and Abioye, but seeing her here was another matter. “The others?”
Dinh stepped toward him, swiftly and efficiently bundling her meter-long hair into an impossibly compact bun at the nape of her neck. He would have thought she was using her Spectre powers to pull it off if he hadn’t seen her do the same a few times back on the Enterprise. “Just me, sir. Abioye’s ship is in orbit, and DiFalco’s still on Reliant.”
The other telekinetics had rallied to shield the villagers, so he took the opportunity to scan the armored hunters arrayed beyond. In addition to the two dozen or so Naazh on the ground, he counted at least six more flitting overhead on hovercruisers. The majority matched the eyewitness accounts and visual records of the attacks throughout the Federation. “Looks like they’ve gathered most of their forces here for a final assault.”
“But how did they find us?” Dinh wondered.
“Good question, Crewman.” Kollos and Miranda had been convinced that the Naazh within T’Nalae had been banished, the connection completely broken. Was there another Naazh spy in their midst? Or had they missed something in T’Nalae?
Explanations would have to wait. The assembled Naazh were using the anti-psionic flares from their belt crystals to break down the telekinetics’ defenses, and several of the defenders fell to plasma fire. “Excuse me, sir,” Dinh said resolutely, her voice echoing as she strode forward to face the enemy. “Please get the others to safety. We’ll handle this.”
As Kirk aided the villagers in their retreat, he saw Miranda, Arsène Xiang, and a few silver-e
yed humans and Aenar advancing confidently to join Dinh. Xiang and Jones had manifested the same transmuted armor they had worn on the ship—Tang infantry for him, a stylized aegis in silver for her—and several others had done the same. Unlike the Naazh, all had chosen armor that showed their faces, in designs that reflected their heritage or aspirations. They looked like mythic champions rather than impersonal predators.
As Kirk watched, the simple jumpsuit Jade Dinh wore glowed and metamorphosed into a brighter, grander version of Starfleet security body armor. He smiled.
The Naazh gathered up and charged at the defenders, firing fiercely. The silver-eyed Spectre hosts spread their hands and lifted solid barriers from the ground, transmuted from its matter.
“They won’t hold long, Jim,” Miranda’s voice sounded in his mind. “Only a few of us have active Spectres; even fewer are trained to fight with them.”
“Can the Enterprise help?” Dinh’s voice asked.
“Negative,” he replied aloud. “The ships in orbit are under Naazh attack too.”
“The caves,” Xiang suggested to them mentally. “The first Aenar settlement. We can shelter there.”
“How far are they?”
“Not far. We should be able to keep us all covered long enough.”
Kirk frowned. “Miranda, you said too much of that would exhaust a Spectre—and its host.”
“Remember, I have Kollos with me too,” Jones replied. “And for those without Medusan bonds, the strong psionic fields here will ease their efforts. Don’t worry about us.”
“Acknowledged,” Kirk said. But he still worried.
U.S.S. Reliant
The Aenar (or the Spectres within them) who had telekinetically repaired the Reliant’s warp drive had also been able to give it an extra boost of speed when they concentrated together, enough to bring it and the repaired Charas to the Medusan border a day earlier than anticipated. The plan—worked out between Terrell and Captain Eren, the Reon-Ka commander of the erstwhile Euryale—had been to transfer the New Human passengers to Medusan transport ships that would then take them to a secret location within the Medusan Complex—and Terrell now knew, thanks to Eren’s explanations, that said location was a planet in some parallel dimensional plane that the Complex intersected with.
The Higher Frontier Page 27
