Star Trek: Vanguard: What Judgments Come

by Dayton Ward

  “You did everything but hold the front door open for them.”

  “It could just be my imagination,” Reyes said, reaching for his coffee, “but this is starting to sound a little like an interrogation.”

  Shaking her head, Moyer replied, “That’s not my intention, sir, but if you helped them to get onto the station and into the Vault, then we need to ascertain what other information you may have given them with respect to the Shedai.”

  “None,” Reyes said. “First, because doing so would’ve increased the risk of harm to Starfleet and civilian personnel. Second, they never bothered to ask.”

  That gave Moyer pause, and her expression was one of skepticism. “Really?”

  “Really. Now, what else do you have?” In truth, Reyes did not mind the line of questioning. It was expected, and Moyer would not be doing her job if she avoided putting forth the pointed queries. He trusted in her ability and willingness to weigh what she was hearing against established facts and find her own way to the objective truth. Rana Desai had always spoken in the highest complimentary terms about the bright young officer and the potential she exuded. If Rana trusted Moyer’s judgment and commitment to carrying out her duties without being waylaid by personal views, that was more than sufficient for Reyes.

  A faint metallic tone chirped from Moyer’s data slate, one Reyes recognized as coming from the device’s internal chronometer. She looked down at the unit, tapping her stylus across the slate’s smooth surface.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Reyes, but that’s all the time I have for this at the moment. Would you mind if I scheduled a follow-up session for tomorrow at this same time?”

  Reyes shrugged. “I’ll check my calendar, but I think I’m free.” As he watched Moyer collect her data slate and return it to the briefcase she lifted from the floor to lay atop the table, he added, “I appreciate you being so polite about all of this, Commander. I mean, it’s not as though I can refuse requests like this, right?”

  “I don’t see a reason to create an air of animosity where none’s required,” Moyer said, closing her briefcase. “I tend to reserve the harsher tactics for those I deem deserving of them.”

  Comprehending the implicit meaning behind her words, Reyes offered a small smile of gratitude. “Thank you, Commander.”

  Nodding, Moyer said, “We’ll likely be having a few of these sessions before I’m finished, during which we’ll be delving into the more unpleasant aspects of your time with the Klingons and the Orions. There are many people in Starfleet who want to charge you with treason, or collusion at the very least.”

  “And what do you think about any of that?” Reyes asked.

  Moyer’s eyes shifted to the table for a moment before she returned her gaze to his. “I think I’d like to be your lawyer, should it become necessary for you to retain counsel.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but let’s see what happens, first,” Reyes said. “Nogura’s main problem will be making sure that even with all that’s happened, the secrecy surrounding the meta-genome can still be protected. For what it’s worth, I think that can be done, but there are a few loose ends that need tying off.”

  “Including you?” Moyer asked.

  Reyes sighed in agreement. Of all the threads dangling from the worn yet still intact quilt of security enveloping Operation Vanguard, he was perhaps the one requiring the most immediate —if not judicious—attention. With all that remained at stake, Nogura’s choices so far as to what to do with the disgraced former commodore might come down to simple expediency, with the aim of defending the most valuable aspects of the project’s clandestine status. Were his and the admiral’s roles reversed, Reyes would view the matter in the same way.

  “Yes,” he said. “Even me.”

  33

  On the bridge of the Defiant, Thomas Blair shifted in his seat in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position. No matter what he did, the ache in the small of his back continued unabated. Indeed, it had begun to radiate outward, across his hips and down into his thighs. His shoulders felt like little more than piles of knots, and hammers seemed to be pounding beneath his temples, driving spikes directly into his brain. For perhaps the sixth or seventh time in an hour—he had lost count—Blair swiveled the command chair to face the engineering station at the back of the bridge. As he had done during each previous iteration of this exercise, he asked the same question.

  “So, how are we doing?”

  Sitting at the console, Kamau Mbugua, who often filled in at the station while the Defiant’s chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Stevok, toiled belowdecks, replied, “Holding steady at warp 8.1.”

  Blair nodded at the report, offering a small, sardonic smile. “I suppose there’s no point asking if Stevok might coax just a little more juice out of the old girl?”

  “I think we both know what he’d say to that, Skipper,” Mbugua said.

  Unlike many chief engineers with whom he had served over the course of his career, Stevok was never one to offer anything but exact answers for any queries posed to him. He did not inflate repair estimates and then complete his tasks in a time frame well within such forecasts in order to bolster his reputation as someone capable of extraordinary feats. Likewise, he did not underplay or exaggerate the abilities of the vessel in his care. When asked how well the Defiant might perform at a sustained rate of high warp speed, Stevok without embellishment or undue worry had answered that the ship’s engines would be able to withstand such a demand for no less than 9.6 hours.

  According to the chief engineer, those same engines also would be unable to handle the strain for anything more than 9.9 hours.

  Rising from his chair and reaching behind him to rub the small of his back, Blair moved the railing separating him from the science station. “Any change in our pursuers?”

  Clarissa Nyn turned in her seat. “No, sir. The Tholian ships are still gaining on us, if only slowly. According to our long-range sensors, they’re giving chase at warp 8.3.” She did not need to say anything else. Blair could do the math as well as she could, and he knew that even if the Defiant continued its evasive course, the trio of Tholian vessels would overtake his ship long before it could reach help, and perhaps even before any other starships might close the distance themselves and be in a position to render aid. Blair had already ordered a comprehensive report detailing their findings on Traelus II and their current situation to Starbase 47 along with a call for assistance, but the truth of the matter was that the Defiant was a long way from any sort of help. All of this had made him settle on a series of course corrections designed to change direction at irregular intervals when the ship came within proximity of other star systems and other interstellar phenomena. Much of the area they had been traversing during the past day had not previously been visited, at least not by any Starfleet vessels and—so far as the library computer’s record tapes were able to confirm—not by any known civilian ships, either. The Defiant’s current heading was still largely linear, adjusted as needed to remain parallel to the border separating the Taurus Reach from Tholian space.

  Tholian space, Blair mused. That’s funny. One of the first things learned about the Tholian Assembly after the Federation’s first contact with the reclusive, xenophobic race was their habit of taking over systems beyond their defined territorial boundaries. It was not unusual for a Tholian vessel to travel into an unclaimed region, after which the ship’s commander would declare it an annex of the Assembly. Given their penchant for such actions, Blair had at first wondered why the Tholians seemed reluctant to conduct similar expansionist activities in the Taurus Reach. Upon learning of the race’s apparent connection to the Shedai, Blair decided he could not fault the Tholians for wanting to give this region a wide berth.

  Sounds like a pretty damned good idea, right about now.

  Releasing a tired sigh, Blair turned away from the railing and made his way back to his chair. He glanced at the chronometer mounted just above the astrogator between the helm and navig
ator positions, and realized he had been on the bridge for nearly ten hours without any sort of respite save the cups of coffee brought to him by his yeoman at irregular intervals. In fact, it had been the last cup of coffee, brought to him by the young woman who served as his yeoman during gamma shift, that made Blair realize just how long he had remained here. Though most of his alpha shift crew had taken breaks at one point or another, each of them had, through unspoken agreement, elected to remain at their posts rather than surrender their stations to officers from the oncoming duty shift. He knew he could order his crew to their quarters for much needed and deserved rest, but what would be the point? Who could sleep now, with enemy ships chasing after them?

  You need rest, Blair reminded himself. Your people need rest. They need to be sharp if and when the Tholians catch up. He was considering calling his yeoman for another cup of coffee, a thought that in turn elicited his latest lamentation about the notable lack of food slots on the bridge, when Ensign Sabapathy called out from the communications station.

  “Captain, I’m picking up a distress call.”

  His eyes narrowing in suspicion and confusion, Blair turned back to his communications officer just as Mbugua crossed over from his station. “Distress call? Out here?” Blair noted that the commander’s expression was one of skepticism, which Blair was sure mirrored his own.

  Sabapathy nodded. “Yes, sir. It looks to be a civilian long-haul freighter, but their transponder codes don’t match anything in the data banks.”

  That bit of information only served to heighten Blair’s doubts. Looking to Nyn, he asked, “Is it showing up on sensors?”

  Bent over the hooded viewer at her station, the scanner’s viewfinder bathing her face in its warm, blue glow, the science officer replied, “No, sir, though I’m able to track the distress signal to its point of origin.” Looking up from her viewer, she tapped a series of commands across one of her console’s banks of colored buttons, and one of the large monitors above her workstation shifted from an image of a planet to a star chart. Nyn tapped another control and a red blinking circle appeared, superimposed over a cluster of smaller white dots. “It’s coming from this sector, near the Vintaak system.”

  “Never heard of it,” Blair said.

  “That’s not surprising.” Nyn pressed another control and the star chart began to rotate, offering a three-dimensional readout of the highlighted region. “It’s not within Tholian boundaries. At least, not today. Like a lot of systems in this area, it’s been charted by long-range reconnaissance probes, but we’ve never sent any ships there. Not yet, anyway.”

  “But you can’t detect the ship itself?” Mbugua asked, frowning as he folded his arms across his broad chest.

  Nyn shook her head. “No, sir. It could just be that it’s too small for our sensors to pick up at this range.” She shrugged, tapping another control, which had the effect of magnifying the portion of the star chart within the highlighted circle. “On the other hand, the sensor readings we’re getting are coming back … the best way I can describe it is that they’re scattering, as though running into some kind of energy field or other disruption.”

  Studying the star chart, Blair asked, “Is it a natural phenomenon, or something artificial?”

  “It’s hard to be conclusive, sir,” the science officer said, “but from the readings I’m able to get, I’m leaning toward it being naturally occurring.”

  “What are you thinking, Skipper?” Mbugua asked, and Blair heard the tone of caution in his first officer’s voice.

  Blair gestured toward the screen. “I’m thinking a naturally occurring sensor blind is a good place to hide.”

  “It’s also a nice place for an ambush,” Mbugua countered.

  Conceding the point, Blair sighed. “That, too, but we have to at least get close enough to determine whether the distress call is real.” His gut told him the signal was a ruse, but if it turned out to be legitimate and he did nothing, he could be held responsible for whatever fate befell whichever troubled vessel and crew were out there. That did not matter so much to him as how his own conscience would torture him with the knowledge that he might have been able to do something had he chosen to act. Even without rules and regulations pertaining to the handling of ships in distress, there was no other option so far as he was concerned.

  “The Tholians will know we’re headed there, sir,” Nyn said, the inflection behind her own words matching Mbugua’s. Had she somehow sensed the debate he was having with himself?

  Nodding, Blair replied, “Yeah, but that place is a dead spot for sensors, so that’ll even the odds a bit. We might be able to stall long enough for help to find us before the Tholians do.” Turning from the science station, he moved down the railing and said to Sabapathy, “Ensign, prepare an updated status report for transmission to Vanguard. Full encryption package—the works. Apprise them of our course change and immediate plan, and if they want to hurry the hell up with the cavalry, that’d be nice, too.”

  “Aye, sir,” the ensign replied, then asked, “Should I attempt to hail the ship sending the distress call?”

  Blair shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s see what this is about, first.” He reached up to rub the bridge of his nose. The area behind his eyeballs was beginning to protest his lack of rest. On the bright side, this new discomfort almost made him forget about the stiffness in his back and shoulders.

  Well, not really.

  “Make the course change, Kamau,” he said to Mbugua. “And ask engineering to push the throttle through the wall if they have to, but get me some more speed.”

  Releasing a slight, humorless chuckle, the first officer replied, “You know what Stevok’s going to say.”

  “Then tell him he can get out and push,” Blair countered. “In the meantime, let’s keep our ears open for anything new from that ship. Maintain sensor sweeps of that area, anyway. Maybe the readings will clear up, the closer we get. Besides, just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see us coming.” Glancing to Mbugua, he offered a knowing look. “After all, it looks like a good place for an ambush, right?”

  Returning to his command chair, Blair lowered himself into his seat, grunting at the pain in his tired back, wondering if he had not just directed his ship into the middle of a trap.

  I guess we’ll see what we’ll see.

  34

  Something slammed into the wall behind Jetanien’s head, startling the ambassador from sleep and causing him to sit up straight on the stone slab that served as the bed in his private quarters. Rising to his feet, he moved to the window at the rear of his room and pushed aside one of the drapes just enough to peer outside. He was in time for something small and fast to strike the window directly in front of his face.

  The projectile—whatever it was—hit just as Jetanien stumbled back and bumped into his slab, impacting against the window’s reinforced, shatterproof glass before falling to the street three stories below his room. His heart racing from the near miss—despite logic telling him he was never in any real danger—the Chelon reached for the large dressing gown lying atop a table next to his bed and donned it. No sooner had he secured it around his body than there was a knock on his door, followed by the worried voice of Sergio Moreno.

  “Ambassador? Are you all right?”

  Walking to the desk that occupied one corner of his private quarters, Jetanien reached for the control pad embedded into its surface and disengaged the door lock. As the door slid aside to admit Moreno, the ambassador said, “I’m fine, Sergio.” He moved back to the window and pulled open the drapes, no longer content to hide behind the symbolic cover they offered. “They’re back, I see.”

  “Yes, they are,” his assistant replied, his voice betraying a hint of the anxiety he no doubt was feeling. “And they seem more agitated this time.”

  Gazing out the window, Jetanien peered into the predawn near-darkness, which was broken only by the sporadic illumination offered by those few street lamps that were still
working. The streets were littered with the evidence of the previous night’s riots. Chunks of artificial stone, singed and splintered wooden beams, and other debris lay scattered everywhere. Smoke emanated from open or broken windows, and the roofs and walls of at least three buildings Jetanien could see from his vantage point showed fire damage. He could only assume that the other streets and structures were in similar condition, all having fallen prey to the unruly mobs that seemed to be roaming the city at will.

  “How many are there?” he asked, indicating the small assemblage on the street below them.

  “Perhaps a dozen or so,” Moreno said. “I recognize a few of them, Ambassador. I think they’re all Federation colonists.”

  Several members of the group seemed content to lurk in the weakening shadows as sunrise approached. Most of them looked to be human, though Jetanien also discerned a pair of Tellarites and a Gallamite as well. To a person, they appeared dirty and disheveled; some of them even looked to be nursing injuries of one sort or another, and a few seemed barely able to stay on their feet. One of the humans, a woman, stepped out from a doorway leading into a building across the street, wielding something Jetanien did not at first recognize. Then she pulled the object to her shoulder, and the Chelon realized she was aiming some kind of weapon. Before he could react, the woman’s body lurched as the rifle discharged and was followed by another impact against one of the room’s other windows.

  “What is that?” Moreno cried, his voice rising an octave, and when Jetanien looked at him, the assistant’s fear was evident in his features.

  The ambassador said, “Some kind of crude projectile weapon.” He watched the woman run back across the street, her movements affording him a brief unobstructed view of her weapon. It was not like any rifle he had ever seen, looking as though it had been fashioned from a length of metal pipe and featuring what appeared to be a sort of canister or other container strapped to the end opposite its barrel. A length of tubing connected the canister to the pipe, and Jetanien wondered if the weapon might not be gas-operated after some fashion. Were the security forces aware of this development? Though they were armed with phasers, Jetanien was certain the crude projectiles being fired at his window could still inflict significant damage on unprotected flesh.