Serpents Among the Ruins

by David R. George III

  Kage smiled coldly, then turned and walked dramatically across the room, his performance worthy, he thought, of the best Klingon opera. He turned back toward the table. “But it is all right for your people to threaten mine. Worse, to plot for their demise.” Kage saw that Ditagh and his other aide, Gorreg, seemed to be enjoying the confrontation, and that even one of the Romulans, Vreenak, appeared pleased by the developments.

  “Ambassador,” Endara said, “whatever information you think you have—”

  “Look at it,” Kage yelled, pointing at the recorder.

  For a moment, the Federation ambassador did not move, and Kage considered what other tack he might have to take in order to accomplish his aims. But then Endara reached forward and picked up the recorder. He studied the device for a few seconds, then touched a button and watched the readout. When he finally looked up again, he wore an expression of shock and disbelief.

  “Where did you get these readings?” Endara wanted to know.

  “From our Romulan friends,” Kage said, emphasizing the last word. Of course, before this, the Romulan and Klingon governments had shared nothing but antipathy and distrust for decades, since a series of technological trade agreements. But Kage needed to put the Federation ambassador—and the Federation itself—on the defensive.

  Endara sat down heavily, dropping his hands—one holding the recorder—onto the table. “These sensor readings appear to have been made in Federation space,” he said, still visibly stunned.

  “A violation minor compared to the Federation’s treachery,” Vreenak hissed. Ambassador Kamemor said nothing, but continued to observe the proceedings.

  Endara peered over at the Romulan delegation. He breathed in heavily and seemed to try to regroup, then addressed Kage once more. “If these readings are accurate,” he said, “they present no breach of established treaty. Just the other day, Ambassador, you balked at the possibility of Qo’noS agreeing not to build metaweapons.”

  “I took issue with signing a treaty that would, in extremecases, enfeeble my people,” Kage said. “But I also clearly indicated our opposition to the use and even the construction of such weapons.” He attempted to goad Endara into making the accusation he must make, and that would ultimately serve the goals of the Empire. “I mentioned wanting the opportunity to develop them only if threatened by another power, such as the Gorn or the Tholians. But you promised to sign a treaty banning metaweapons, and the Federation president has also pledged to Chancellor Azetbur, on several occasions, that your people did not and would not make such armaments.”

  “We were all told that,” Vreenak spoke up again, addressing Endara, “and yet there is the proof of your deceit.” He pointed at the recorder. Again, Kamemor said nothing, but simply sat by and watched.

  “You presume that these readings are accurate,” Endara said to Vreenak, a note of defiance entering his tone. “I am not convinced that they are.” He looked over at Kage. “You have personally dealt with the Romulans for decades, Ambassador,” he said. “Do you always take them at their word?”

  “The Federation lies,” Vreenak charged, rising to his feet, “and you dare to hurl aspersions at us?” He pushed his chair back. “Ambassador Kamemor, we should end these talks right now. If we cannot trust the Federation to bargain in good faith—”

  “Sit down, Vreenak,” Kamemor said without looking up at him. “Ambassador Endara, I do not wish to believe this information either,” she said, and Kage knew that he had not misjudged her; her commitment to peace was as strong as his own. “Nor do I want to end these talks. But I’m afraid that on behalf of my government, I must demand a satisfactory explanation. If these readings indicate what they appear to indicate—”

  “Gell,” Endara said, using Kamemor’s first name almost as a plea, “I truly mean no disrespect to you or your people, but readings can be manufactured.”

  “Our scientists have reviewed the sensor logs,” Kamemor said, “and they’ve ascertained them to be authentic.”

  “I see,” Endara said, and then he turned back toward Kage. The Federation representative looked as though he’d just been slapped. “And you, Ambassador? Are you as convinced?”

  And that was the final question Kage had needed to be asked. He now had what he required to reestablish the might of the Empire. “No,” he said. “I am not.” For Kage, the reality of what the Romulan sensor logs purported to show was irrelevant. He walked back across the room to the table so that he could face all of his adversaries at close range. “But something did happen. As a human once wrote, ‘There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.’ Either the sensor readings are genuine, or they are not. If they are, then it demonstrates two things to me: that the Federation has lied and is girding for war, and that the Romulans violated the Neutral Zone, itself an act of war. And if the readings are not genuine, then the Romulans are attempting to instigate hostilities. Whichever the case, the Klingon Empire will not stand idly by and allow our region of space to be destabilized.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Kamemor asked.

  “It means that the Klingons will fight for peace,” Kage avowed. At last, Chancellor Azetbur would be able to appease both those in the Empire who desired peace, and those who desired the restoration of Klingon might; in this case, that might would come in the form of political power. “If either the Federation or the Romulan Empire take one more provocative action,” he further declared, “Qo’noS will immediately side against the aggressor.”

  “The United Federation of Planets seeks only to avoid war,” Endara maintained.

  “As does the Romulan Star Empire,” Kamemor asserted.

  “That is good,” Kage said. “Then there will be nothing but peace.” Except that Kage knew that would not be the case. Either the Romulans or the Federation—or both—were moving steadily against the other, and he believed that nothing would stop them from the eventual inception of battle.

  There would be war. But he and Chancellor Azetbur had just made certain that, in the end, it would be the Klingons who decided everybody’s fate.

  When the transport Andoria had arrived at Space Station KR-3, Lieutenant Elias Vaughn had made sure to be in an observation lounge on the ship. Although he seldom these days reflected on the wanderlust of his youth, he still took enjoyment from looking at the great vessels of exploration. And few of those ships, if any, possessed a more storied past than those that had borne the name Enterprise.

  Vaughn had stood at a viewing port as Andoria had approached the space station. They’d passed Enterprise to port, where the illustrious starship sat docked at the end of one of KR-3’s three honeycombed arms. Vaughn had followed the beautiful contours of the Excelsior-class ship from aft to bow with his gaze: the long, narrow warp nacelles; the unusually configured secondary hull, with its shallow aft half expanding to the bulging “belly” of its forward section; and the relatively small, almost flat circle of its primary hull.

  Now Vaughn stood in another observation lounge, this one aboard Enterprise itself. From the viewing port here, on the starboard flank of the ship, he could see only stars. Behind him, he heard the footsteps of his commanding officer as she paced about the room.

  As an academic exercise, Vaughn attempted to identify some of the stars he saw as he peered out into space. From this unfamiliar vantage—he had never before traveled to this region of the Federation—he encountered some initial trouble. But after a few minutes of concentration, his decade of deskbound analysis with Starfleet special operations—his apprenticeship, as he thought of it—allowed him to begin naming the brilliant specks in his view.

  Belak, Algorab, Achernar, Unroth, Devoras…

  Vaughn shifted as he studied the sky, not entirely comfortable in the charcoal gray suit he wore. For years with special ops, while he’d studied and interpreted intelligence reports and learned a vast array of disparate skills, he had looked forward to the days when he would finally throw off the shackles of his office and take his t
urn in the field. Vaughn had known back then that he would meet continual challenges once he left his desk behind, that he would face difficult, sometimes impossible obstacles, that he would likely have to endure great hardship in the performance of his duties, but he’d never anticipated how much he would despise the clothing. He felt comfortable in his crimson Starfleet uniform, the single gold bar on his right shoulder and his left sleeve, but during his five years in the field, he’d discovered that when he’d been required to outfit himself differently for his various missions, he frequently had trouble finding something comfortable to wear.

  …Chaltok, Gasko, D’Deridex, Tranome Sar, Nequencia…

  He had only covered a handful of the “major” stars when the doors leading into the observation lounge hissed open. Vaughn turned from the viewing port to see John Harriman, the Enterprise captain, stride into the room. Vaughn was familiar with Captain Harriman—and just about every other Starfleet officer, as well as numerous enlisted personnel—from his work with special ops; when a mission had to be undertaken, it paid to know whose abilities best fit the requirements of the task. Vaughn did not yet make final decisions regarding personnel assignments, but he had helped cull the names of candidates for several missions now. In this case, though, as far as he knew, he had himself been selected by his commanding officer for whatever lay ahead.

  As Captain Harriman entered the room, Commander Gravenor approached him, her hand extended. She wore a stylish, tailored dress of navy blue. “Captain, I’m Drysi Gravenor,” she said, avoiding the use of her Starfleet title, no doubt because this mission called for her—and for Vaughn—to assume roles other than as Starfleet officers. Still, Harriman surely knew their identities and actual positions in special ops.

  The captain and the commander shook hands, hers swallowed up in his grasp. Commander Gravenor was petite, barely a meter and a half tall, and probably not even forty-five kilos. She had dark, straight hair that hung down to the middle of her back, a sharp intellect, and a fiery determination. She had served with special ops, Vaughn knew, for almost twice as long as he had, and he considered her a mentor to him.

  “Ms. Gravenor,” the captain said. “John Harriman.”

  The commander turned toward Vaughn, who started around the conference table over to where she stood with Harriman. “This is my colleague, Elias Vaughn,” she said. Her voice held the hint of a lyrical accent, a relic of her up-bringing in Wales. Vaughn shook hands with the captain.

  The introductions made, they all sat down, Harriman at the head of the table, Vaughn and Gravenor to either side of him. “I’ve been told that you both have gray-level security clearance,” the captain said. “Is that correct?”

  “It is,” Gravenor said. “Mr. Vaughn has silver clearance, I have slate.”

  “Good,” Harriman said. “Then you know about the Starfleet vessel lost five days ago in the Bonneville Flats.”

  Commander Gravenor peered across the table at Vaughn and nodded her head. “Only that it was an accident,” she said. “The C in C informed us before we boarded Andoria that this assignment would involve the lost ship, and that Mr. Vaughn and I—” She waved a finger over the table to include the two of them. “—would be operating as special Federation envoys.” Starfleet’s commander in chief, Admiral Margaret Sinclair-Alexander, had personally assigned Gravenor to this mission, Vaughn knew. “But we have heard rumors about the lost ship,” the commander finished.

  “Yes,” Harriman said, “I’ve been told that word is spreading throughout Starfleet, and even into the civilian population.” He lifted his elbows onto the table and folded his hands together in front of him. “Admiral Sinclair-Alexander has now reported to the Federation Council, and the Council will soon release the following details about the incident. That an experimental starship, U.S.S. Universe, was conducting classified tests of an advanced propulsion system dubbed ‘hyperwarp.’ That a Romulan vessel conducting covert surveillance detected the tests, and that the Romulan government has misinterpreted the long-range sensor scans taken by that vessel. That the praetor believes Starfleet to be developing a metaweapon that will provide us with a first-strike capability. And finally, that because of this, the Klingon Empire is on the verge of joining the Romulans in a military alliance against the Federation.”

  Vaughn managed to keep his mouth from dropping open, but only with a conscious effort. Beyond the obvious tragedy of what had happened to the crew of Universe, he saw now that the Federation faced an even greater loss. Starfleet could not stand against a combined Romulan-Klingon force. He also understood why Captain Harriman had been selected to lead whatever action special ops would now take. Considered an expert on the Romulan space fleet in general, and on some of its highest-ranking officers in particular, the captain had a great deal of experience with the Romulans.

  “How far out from armed conflict are we?” Commander Gravenor asked.

  “Not far,” Harriman said. “The Romulans have begun mobilizing their fleet, shifting massive amounts of matériel toward their borders with Federation space. The Klingons have also begun redeploying their vessels, and Starfleet has had little choice but to match them.”

  “No, that probably doesn’t leave us much time,” the commander said. “What’s our role going to be in this?”

  “We are going to begin by generating a strategic political response to the Romulans,” Harriman said. “The Federation president has already requested permission from the Romulan praetor for Enterprise to travel to the site of the peace negotiations, so that we can meet with their highest-ranking ambassador. The Romulans mistakenly believe that the Federation has been developing a metaweapon so that we could launch a first strike against them. We’re going to prove to them that they’re wrong, that what they took to be a metaweapon was simply a new form of starship propulsion.”

  Vaughn doubted whether even the best-planned political action would make a difference in this situation, but something even more troublesome occurred to him. “Captain,” he said, “wouldn’t the creation of an advanced propulsion system also provide Starfleet with a first-strike capability?”

  Harriman looked at Vaughn. After a silent moment, he said, “It would.”

  “So then convincing the Romulans that Starfleet was developing a new warp drive rather than a new weapon won’t change anything,” Vaughn concluded.

  “No,” the captain agreed.

  “Then what are we going to do?” Vaughn asked.

  And Captain Harriman told them.

  “You’re going to what?” Sulu asked, her voice rising with disbelief. She dropped her hands heavily onto her desk as she peered across her quarters at Captain Harriman.

  “I’m going to deliver the hyperwarp drive specifications to the Romulans and the Klingons,” he repeated. His words made no more sense to her now than when he’d said them the first time.

  “Captain,” Sulu said, standing up, “if either the Romulans or the Klingons are able to perfect hyperwarp drive before we do, then they’ll have what they’ve accused us of trying to develop: a first-strike potential.” She moved out from behind her desk and started across the cabin. “And unlike the Federation,” she said, “both the Romulans and the Klingons would be willing to commit a first strike.”

  “That’s true,” Harriman said haltingly. “But I don’t believe that’s what’s going to happen.”

  Sulu crossed the final distance to the captain and faced him from just a meter or so away. She waited a moment for him to offer up some justification for his last statement, but he said nothing more. Into the silence, Sulu said, bristling, “Begging the captain’s pardon, but…” She hesitated, wanting neither to overstep her bounds nor to address her commanding officer—and her friend—with such stridency.

  “It’s all right, Demora,” Harriman said. “Go ahead. You can tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “All right,” she said. “I think this is insane. We’ve been at the flash point of war for months, desperately trying to prepare
ourselves for a long, hard battle, and now we’re going to provide our enemies with technical specs that could ultimately help them defeat us? It makes no sense.”

  Harriman breathed in slowly, then out slowly, as though evaluating his response before offering it. “I know what you’re saying,” he told her. “But if we don’t do this, then war will come fast—a war we can’t win.”

  Sulu held her arms out to either side in a gesture of frustration. “So we’re going to delay that by improving the offensive capabilities of the Romulans and Klingons even more?” She felt uncomfortable with her loud, incredulous tone, but she’d been unable to express her feelings otherwise. She dropped her hands back to her sides with a slap.

  “I know that’s what it sounds like,” Harriman said. “But it is the opinion of Starfleet’s propulsion-design engineers that the Romulans and Klingons won’t be able to make hyperwarp work.”

  “Those are the same engineers who just cost fifty-one members of Starfleet their lives,” Sulu blurted, regretting her words even before she’d finished speaking. Upset with the situation, and with herself for her volatile reactions, she turned and walked back across her cabin. She knew that nobody had intended for the crew of Universe to die, but still—“Captain,” she said, turning back around to face Harriman from the other side of her quarters, “why did Starfleet Command decide to develop and test hyperwarp now? With the political situation the way it’s been these past couple of years, it seems like such a risky idea.”

  Again, Harriman inhaled and exhaled slowly before answering. Then he said, “It was my recommendation to proceed at this time.”

  “Your—?” Sulu said, thunderstruck. The idea seemed so preposterous that her first thought was that the captain had never even had the time to be a part of such decision-making. But then she recalled all of the meetings he’d been asked to attend on Space Station KR-3 during the past few months.

  She looked away from Harriman, trying to determine what to say, what to feel. Finally, all she could do was look back at him and ask, “Why, John?”