STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2298 - The Sundered

by Michael A. Martin

  “I’m not really sanguine about placing my trust in a Vulcan metaphysical experience,” Burgess said.

  “Then you obviously haven’t spent enough time around Vulcans,” Sulu said dryly.

  Touché, Chapel thought, suppressing a grin.

  Burgess held up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “All [177] right. Assuming for a moment that your science officer is correct, then why would Kasrene want us to know that the Neyel are human while simultaneously trying to hide that fact from her own people?”

  Sulu smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? Tholians are about as peaceful as piranha, Ambassador, their current efforts at détente notwithstanding. If their warrior caste got wind of what we’ve just discovered, they’d likely be swarming across the Federation border in a heartbeat.”

  My God, Chapel thought. She’d been so caught up in the labyrinth of the Neyel’s genengineered DNA that she hadn’t spared a moment to consider the galactic geopolitical chessboard. The Tholians have had thirty years to refine the weapons that once nearly destroyed the Enterprise. Now they might discover they have a legitimate reason to use them in anger against Earth.

  The group exchanged sober looks, and even Burgess was beginning to appear convinced. Turning his back on the inert Neyel so that he could address Chapel, Hopman, and Burgess all at once, Sulu said, “So how do we prevent the Tholian warrior caste from making the same discovery we just did?”

  “We may have a more immediate problem,” Hopman said, pointing.

  Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, Chapel snapped her head toward the table. The Neyel’s heavily shuttered eyes were open now, and he was rising to his rough-skinned, prehensile feet.

  Before anyone could react, the creature charged straight for Chapel, its powerful, clawed fingers seeking her throat.

  Chapter 15

  Sulu bellowed loudly as he leapt toward the Neyel, hoping to distract it.

  The gambit worked, at least well enough to allow Dr. Chapel to dive for cover behind a rack of shelves stacked with instruments. She narrowly evaded the rough-skinned humanoid, who came within centimeters of grabbing her neck, apparently intent on twisting her head off. Using one of the lab tables to brace himself, Sulu launched a brutal two-legged kick straight into the Neyel’s tree-like solar plexus.

  He might as well have attacked one of the bulkheads. Sulu landed hard on his left shoulder, upending the cart that supported Chapel’s portable scanning equipment. As quickly as he could manage, he rolled to his feet, nearly tripping over a tricorder as he did.

  “Clear the lab!” he shouted, trying to focus past the star-burst of pain in his shoulder. “Hopman, call security.”

  Snarling, the creature advanced on Sulu, even as Hopman hustled Burgess out the door, speaking into a handheld communicator as she did so. From the corner of his eye, Sulu noticed that Dr. Chapel hadn’t yet left the lab; instead, she was moving toward the creature’s rear, a hypospray in her hand. Christine, you and I are going to have a talk later.

  Sulu jumped over a table, trying both to evade the Neyel [179] and prevent it from noticing the doctor’s approach. At the same time, Chapel dived at the Neyel, throwing an arm around the middle of its back while trying to administer the hypo with her free hand. The Neyel turned its head quickly, swatting her with its tail. She fell heavily to the deck, where she lay in a dazed heap.

  Taking advantage of Chapel’s momentary diversion, Sulu kicked at the creature again, this time connecting solidly with one of its knees, which gave way with a satisfying crunch. Evidently the Neyel had yet to engineer away every weakness inherent to human anatomy. The Neyel howled in agony, throwing roundhouse punches that Sulu saw coming in plenty of time to evade them.

  But what he failed to see coming was the end of the creature’s prehensile tail, which struck him like a club across the back of the head. Sulu sagged to his knees, his head swimming, darkness threatening to engulf him. Behind him, he heard the hiss of the sickbay doors opening, then closing again.

  Some inestimable interval later he noticed Chapel standing beside him, a shiny purple bruise beginning to blossom across her face. She helped him to his feet.

  “Doctor, was there anything ambiguous about my ‘clear the sickbay’ order?” he said, rubbing his aching shoulder. His head was pounding.

  He saw no contrition in her cool blue eyes. “In my medical judgment you needed help more than you needed blind obedience. Besides, Hikaru, this is my sickbay, not yours.”

  He considered a biting retort, but held his tongue. Chain-of-command discipline was not a hill he wanted either of them to die on at the moment. “Granted. But what the hell happened? I thought you said your ‘patient’ was dead.”

  “So did I. Evidently he got better. So much so that he just checked himself out.”

  “But he was dead, Chris. You scanned him down to the cellular level.”

  [180] “I scanned him all the way down to the molecular level.”

  “And you didn’t happen to notice that he was still alive?”

  Her blue eyes flashed with an irritation she didn’t bother to conceal. Sulu knew they’d known one another too long to have to hold such things back. “I didn’t expect to find a humanoid capable of surviving prolonged anoxia and vacuum exposure. As far as I know, it’s unprecedented.”

  “All right, Chris,” Sulu said, raising a placating hand. “I didn’t mean to second guess your medical judgment.”

  Her expression softened immediately. “I did notice some residual metabolic activity in his cells, but you always expect to see some of that immediately after the body’s major systems suffer a fatal crash. The cells don’t suddenly commit mass suicide the moment the heart and lungs stop functioning. Looks like our Neyel friends have more in common with the Nasats than any of us thought.”

  Sulu nodded, shuddering inwardly. The idea of humans being genetically engineered to survive even a limited exposure to hard vacuum—the way a naturally armored, insectile Nasat could—was hard to accept. If the Neyel really are of human stock, then they must never have learned the lessons of the Eugenics Wars. Or is it possible they simply chose to ignore them?

  “Our guest is damned lucky I hadn’t got around to laser-cutting into that thick hide of his yet,” Chapel said. “He just missed the messy part of his autopsy.”

  Sulu followed the trail of wrecked and upset shelves, tables, and instrument carts that stood between him and the lab’s exit. A moment before he reached it, the doors opened again, admitting Lieutenant Akaar and six armed security officers.

  “Put Excelsior on full security alert, Lieutenant,” Sulu told Akaar. “A member of the Neyel ship’s crew is loose aboardship. He’s extremely dangerous, but he’s to be taken alive. We need to communicate with him.”

  [181] “Understood, sir,” Akaar said. Turning smartly on his huge heel, he led his people back out into the corridor.

  There has to be a reason that our ... cousins would attack an apparently harmless Tholian colony world.

  Sulu crossed to the bulkhead, where he thumbed the companel. “Bridge, this is the captain.”

  “Bridge. Chekov here.”

  “Pavel, we have a huge problem.”

  Lojur was in his quarters trying to relax enough to take a restorative nap when he heard the intruder alert. The initial report said that a Neyel had escaped from sickbay. Shocked to discover that one of the aliens had been taken aboard—alive—he sprang from his bunk and ran into the corridor. When the turbolift deposited him near sickbay, he collided with a bulkhead, then fell unceremoniously onto his posterior.

  The bulkhead turned out to be Akaar.

  The security chief scarcely broke his stride as he ran past Lojur, at the head of an armed security team. The group was moving away from sickbay, fanning out through the corridors in various directions.

  “You should not get involved in this, Commander,” Akaar rumbled, phaser pistol in hand. Then he moved down the corridor with an alacrity that belied his great size.
<
br />   Rubbing his backside and feeling humiliated, Lojur picked himself up off the deck, unable to think of anything other than the horrid presence that had invaded Excelsior. Would the Neyel bastards who killed Shandra resemble the bile-green Orions who had razed Kotha Village? He had to find out.

  Don’t get involved, L.J.? Just try to stop me.

  Chekov looked at the chronometer on the arm of the command chair. His body was tense as he considered how little time remained until the Tholian ships were due to arrive. Turning toward the center seat from the bridge’s main [182] science station, Lieutenant Tuvok—who had insisted on returning to active duty the moment Dr. Chapel had pronounced him fit—looked as composed as if he were about to recite the mess hall menu. “Commander Chekov, the four Tholian vessels are entering the system, on a direct heading for the colony.”

  Chekov fixed his gaze on the main viewer, which stubbornly displayed only the crippled Neyel ship, the limb of the planet, and the stars beyond. “Have they detected us yet?”

  “I am not certain, sir,” Tuvok said.

  Chekov watched as Tuvok stared into the scanner built into the science-station console. “One of the four approaching vessels is Admiral Yilskene’s flagship, the Jeb’v Tholis. They have just dropped out of warp approximately thirty thousand kilometers off our port stern. They appear to be conducting intensive sensor sweeps of the Neyel vessel. Judging from energy-signature readings, Yilskene’s ship also appears to be using a transporter beam to collect debris samples from the vicinity of the ship.”

  Damn, Chekov thought. Yilskene’s going to be absolutely delighted if he finds us here, in the middle of a Neyel attack on a Tholian outpost.

  As Chekov was preparing to alert Sulu, the companel on the command chair beeped, heralding a familiar bass voice. “Bridge, this is the captain.”

  Chekov stabbed a button with his thumb. “Bridge. Chekov here.”

  “Pavel, we have a huge problem. The dead Neyel in sickbay isn’t dead. He’s loose somewhere on the ship, and he’s violent. Akaar’s trying to capture him.”

  “Understood, Captain,” Chekov said, looking toward Commander Rand, who was seated at the tactical station, starboard aft. She was apparently intent on information coming through her earpiece, and her hands moved quickly across her console; Chekov suspected that Security Chief [183] Akaar had called in moments ahead of the captain. The intruder alert klaxon immediately began to sound, and Chekov gestured to Rand to mute the volume.

  Turning his attention back to the main viewer, Chekov could now clearly see the image of the four approaching Tholian warships. Addressing Sulu, he said, “We have another problem, sir. Yilskene’s flagship has arrived, with three escorts.”

  “Has he detected us yet?” Sulu wanted to know.

  “The Tholians are scanning Excelsior now,” Tuvok said.

  Rand turned toward Chekov. “Yilskene is hailing us, Commander. He doesn’t sound happy.”

  Chekov sighed. “Make that an affirmative, Captain.”

  “I’m on my way. Sulu out.”

  Sulu entered the bridge almost at a full run.

  Yilskene was already glowering down from the main viewer, his crystal-plane face an unfathomable mask.

  “Greetings, Admiral,” Sulu said, taking the command chair as Chekov vacated it to stand at attention beside him.

  From the jangling dissonances in the Tholian’s chorus of voices, Yilskene was clearly not in the mood to exchange pleasantries. “Captain Sulu, why have you entered Tholian space without my government’s authorization?”

  That is an excellent question, Admiral. But it’s one I can’t afford to answer with complete candor.

  “We received a distress call from the outpost on this planet, Admiral. We came to assist as quickly as we could.”

  “The Tholian vessels are closing,” Tuvok reported. “They appear to be taking up equidistant positions around Excelsior.”

  Chekov leaned toward the command chair. “I could do without getting caught in another Tholian web,” the exec said, sotto voce.

  “We’re not caught in anything yet,” Sulu whispered, rising from his chair.

  [184] “My people are not fond of alien incursions, Captain Sulu. Even well-intentioned ones,” Yilskene said, then turned his polygonal head to the side to bark a series of unintelligible orders before facing Sulu again. “Nor can we allow you to leave as yet. We see evidence of a savage attack upon our outpost.”

  “An attack carried out by the other vessel,” Sulu said evenly. “Your own scans ought to bear that out.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Regardless, your vessel is to remain where it is until we can fully determine the truth behind your presence here. When we are satisfied that you intended no aggression against us, we will escort you directly back to the Federation border.”

  “Very well,” Sulu said, hopeful that Yilskene would give Excelsior the benefit of the doubt.

  “As you have no doubt observed, Captain,” Yilskene continued, “the outpost planet you now orbit is extremely vulnerable.”

  Sulu nodded. “We noticed that as well, Admiral. Our intervention in the other vessejs attack saved many Tholian lives.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Yilskene repeated.

  “Surely you can’t believe we had anything to do with this attack,” Sulu said. “The Federation Council has a great deal invested in normalizing diplomatic relations with the Tholian Assembly. Talks initiated by your people.”

  “Undisputed. But we are long accustomed to treachery and deceit from humanoid species such as yours.”

  Sulu ruefully considered his covert surveillance mission, as well as the undeniable kinship between the Neyel and humanity. The latter fact, if revealed, would no doubt make matters far worse. You don’t know the half of it, Admiral. And let’s make sure we keep it that way.

  Chekov stepped forward. “You’ve scanned both our vessel and the Neyel ship, Admiral. Surely you can see that their vessel and ours have recently exchanged fire.”

  A second Tholian officer stepped into the viewscreen’s [185] field of vision, apparently to whisper something into whatever Yilskene used as an auditory organ.

  After listening for a few seconds, the Tholian admiral shoved his underling aside, throwing his head back to release a cacophonous noise that Sulu could interpret only as a thunderclap of pure rage. The external view of Yilskene’s vessel returned as the channel was interrupted, no doubt on Yilskene’s end.

  “The Tholian flagship appears to be powering up its weapons systems,” Tuvok said. “And I am detecting similar energy signatures emanating from the other three vessels.”

  “Evasive maneuvers, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Asher. “What if they deploy their energy web?”

  “Steady, Lieutenant,” Sulu said quietly, a practiced calm borne of countless similar crises descending upon him. “I’ve seen the Tholian energy web in operation, and it took hours to deploy. So we’re going to sit tight. If we try to run before Yilskene does anything aggressive, then we’re sure to have a firefight on our hands. But we’ll keep our shields up. Just in case.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Asher, apparently reassured.

  On the viewer, Sulu saw a blinding shaft of golden energy lance out from the Jeb’v Tholis. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, as did everyone else on the bridge, before the computer automatically muted the intensity of the light.

  The bridge shook and jumped, as though Excelsior had collided with something.

  “Tactical!” Sulu shouted, grabbing the arm of his chair to steady himself. Rand tapped in a quick series of commands, and the image of Yilskene’s flagship was replaced by a small wire-frame representation of Excelsior and the damaged Neyel vessel, both of which were surrounded by four orange, wedge-shaped icons that stood in for the Tholian ships. Bright lines linked each of the Tholian craft, trapping Excelsior and the Neyel ship within a large tetrahedral volume of space.

  [186] Not again, Sulu thought, taken aback at how quickly the Tholi
ans had deployed their energy web. Being on the Enterprise when Tholian Commander Loskene had unleashed a similar but much more slowly woven weapon had been a nerve-wracking experience. The Tholians’ energy webs had obviously become far more effective over the past three decades.

  Sulu rose and walked to the railing behind Rand’s station. She was ashen-faced as she watched the tactical display. “Raise Yilskene again,” Sulu said.

  The captain turned back toward the viewer, from which Yilskene radiated hostility. “This attack is not necessary, Admiral,” Sulu said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice, but without complete success. “We have demonstrated no hostile intentions toward you.”

  “Really, Captain Sulu? Need I remind you that your own envoy has already implicated you as a spy? And can you explain the discoveries my knowledge-caste subordinates have just made?”

  Sulu kept his expression impassive. “What discoveries?”

  “My specialists have just examined several human and invader bodies we discovered drifting in the space near your two vessels.”

  “That should help prove to you that we fought the Neyel—the invaders—on behalf of your colonists.”

  “It might, Captain, except for one salient fact: the invader and human genomes, when compared, are identical. My specialists have assured me that this would not be possible unless Terrans and these aliens both belonged to the same species. Can you explain this?” As he spoke, Yilskene’s chorused voices rose steadily in intensity, and his crystalline skin became progressively more red.

  “We’ve noted those same genetic similarities ourselves,” Sulu said, keeping his voice carefully even. “But we haven’t yet been able to explain them. We’re not that familiar with these beings yet.”

  [187] Yilskene did not seem mollified in the least. “And can you account for the presence of a live invader aboard your vessel?”

  Sulu decided he’d best stick to the truth as closely as possible. “Admiral, we’ve never encountered the Neyel—the ones you refer to as ‘invaders’—before today. When we brought this individual aboard, we believed him to be dead. If you’re beaming their bodies aboard, you might want to double-check their condition.”