by Diane Carey
“Whoever it is,” Rotherot said, “they’ve got mass murder to answer for. We can’t have this in the galaxy.”
“No, sir,” I agreed. “We can’t.”
“Congratulations, Cadets,” Sulu said, with that quizzical you’re-in-trouble-now gleam in his eyes. “Now you get to do the really hard work.”
Chapter 16
“Sturek, you’re overworking yourself.”
“Vulcans have excellent stamina.”
“You’re neglecting your training too. It’s not your fault that the proof was lost. If anything, it was my fault. I should’ve gone into that fire and pulled your data out.”
“You’d have been killed, David.”
“And thousands of innocent people are being killed in these random attacks. If I’d taken action in the lab, we might’ve stopped these massacres by now.”
“You’d have been killed.”
For days our lives had been a pattern of work and training overlaid by more work. I hadn’t had more than four hours’ sleep a night for nearly a week. We still had our simulator obligations, our physical training, our drilling, enough to keep up the appearance of being ordinary cadets who weren’t working on anything special for Starfleet. Of course, our crew noticed, and that meant word got around that something was going on.
If I was overworking myself, Sturek was virtually committing suicide. He didn’t sleep at all. He just kept digging and analyzing and recalibrating the scraps of data he’d stored in his mind after the explosion. For every ten feet we climbed, we’d slip back eight.
But as much as we were suffering, there were others who were suffering more. M’Giia, who had lost her entire family. The thousands of victims in the border colonies and outposts who had been killed or injured, who had lost loved ones, and who were scrambling to defend themselves against the expected unknown.
I found it dazzling that Sturek and I might be the only things standing between those people and more destruction. We felt so isolated here….
And the real torture was that we really weren’t getting anywhere. Days of work with very little to show for it. We were climbing an ice ladder.
Around noon on the fifth day, I gave up.
“Sturek, we’re stumped. We’ve got to admit to Captain Sulu that we just don’t have enough to work with here.”
He turned to me, and I could see that he wanted to argue, to tell me that this was Starfleet, duty, honor, “give up” wasn’t in our vocabulary, but the frustration was in his eyes too. His face was grooved by exhaustion.
“I’m forced to agree,” he said with terrible reluctance. “Is there nothing we can do?”
I started to say no, but I couldn’t make it come out. I was his commanding officer. He expected more from me. I expected more from me. There had to be something—
“I’ll resign from the command school,” I said abruptly. “I’ll volunteer for a recon mission to Bicea or one of the other attack sites and gather more fragments.”
“That could take months,” Sturek pointed out.
I started to respond, but another voice cut through the room. “It won’t take months.”
We both turned as Captain Kirk strode briskly toward us, carrying two handfuls of scorched metal.
“Captain!” I gasped. “I thought you’d shipped out, sir!”
“I did. But there was another attack along the Klingon Neutral Zone three days ago.” He tossed the metallic shards onto the table where Sturek and I were working. “Fragments of the attacking vessel, sheared off by planetary defense. They’ve got the same etchings that Sturek discovered before. Since you did the initial analysis, I persuaded Starfleet to turn the fragments over to you. We’re back in business.”
So he was one step ahead of me all the way. What a surprise.
“I know we’re asking you to jeopardize your training,” Kirk went on, “and I’m not here to tell you how to spend your time. I’m here to extend an opportunity. You two are being given command responsibility. Whether you take it or not, it’s up to you.”
Feeling the pressure of innocent lives on our hands, I looked at Sturek. He nodded.
I picked up one of the fragments and looked at Captain Kirk. “We’ll figure it out, sir.”
His eyes got that dangerous twinkle. “Yes, I think you will.”
He turned on a heel and strode out, and was met at the door panels by M’Giia, who stepped aside for Captain Kirk to pass. The captain nodded a greeting at her, but made no other comment or indication that he knew anything about her—and he did, of course.
I got a very clear message from that subtle lack of attention—he was leaving her to me.
“David…” M’Giia began as she came into the lab, “you wanted to see me?”
Sturek picked up one of the fragments and politely turned his back, heading over to the spectral analysis chamber and leaving the two of us alone.
“Yes,” I said to her. “M’Giia, are you a member of the Vanguard?”
She looked startled, then embarrassed.
“I know you’ve been to their meetings,” I added.
Then she nodded. “It was for your own protection, David.”
“My protection? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“After the attack on Bicea, I did go to their meetings. I was angry and Frank Malan had answers I wanted to hear. But then Faith tried to frame Robin. I couldn’t stand for that. And since the Klingons have been moving more toward peace with the Federation, the Vanguard’s starting to talk about violent action.”
“What’s that got to do with protecting me?”
“Some of the Vanguard want you to join them. They were impressed when you beat the Kobayashi Maru, and they think you’re ‘their type’ whatever that is. They know James Kirk likes you, and they think Kirk’s on their side.”
“Because of his attitude about Klingons … I get it.”
“He hates them and everybody knows it. And the Klingons hate him right back. I stayed in the Vanguard because I wanted to hear what they were saying about you.”
I lowered myself onto a stool and tried to clear my head. “Do you have any proof that the Vanguard is going to get violent? Have you mentioned this to Captain Sulu?”
“Yes, I did. But his official policy is hands off the Vanguard to avoid making them into martyrs. He’s going to wait for them to do something really illegal before moving in. I don’t have any proof to back up what I think. They let me in, but they’re very guarded. They only trust humans.”
We fell silent for a few moments, hearing only the click and scrape of Sturek as he plunged into analysis of the new fragments in the other room. The problem with waiting for the Vanguard to do something illegal was that somebody could get killed. Having come so close to losing Sturek, I couldn’t summon up that much patience.
“Well … if they think I should join them … maybe I should.”
M’Giia frowned. “You mean … infiltrate? David, you can’t fool them. They’ve got a telepath who clears everybody at the door. You’d have to think like them. And I know you don’t.”
“Is this telepath human?”
“Yes, she is. She trained someplace other than Earth, though.”
“Human telepaths aren’t that reliable,” I said. “But Vulcans are.”
Her eyes widened. “Sturek! Of course! He could use a mind meld to mask your thoughts! You could pretend you found a cover-up that turned you against the Federation!”
“You have an evil mind, M’Giia,” I said. “I like it. But mind meld have to wait until Sturek and I get a handle on this cybership project. Lives are at stake.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“You … keep going to the Vanguard meetings. Keep your ears open. Report to me if you hear anything other than hot propaganda.”
“I understand,” she said. “There’s a meeting in half an hour. I wasn’t going to go … but I will now.”
“I’ll be in navigation class with the rest of the crew
if you need me. M’Giia, be careful. Frank Malan and his kind aren’t the trusting types.”
“You’ll be required to memorize combinations of long-range visual signals that signify hundreds of ship’s conditions. Under power, not under power, adrift, in distress, under tow, embarking, personnel in spacewalk, keep your distance, vessel damaged, stop immediately, warning, require assistance, veering starboard or port, in reverse, wish to communicate … and many others. You must be able to recognize these visuals instantly in half-second flashes. Any questions?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the helm candidates asked. “Why are visual signals necessary? With available communication technology, we’ll know the condition of any ship before we ever come within visual range in open space.”
“Good question.” Commander Chekov looked up from the mass of laminated charts Captain Kirk had left behind on the big table in the navigation seminar hall. “Any answers?”
“Comm link failure,” Robin Brady automatically said as he stood just behind my left shoulder.
“Subspace interference,” someone else suggested.
Another cadet added, “Spatial distortion.”
“Anything else?” Chekov eyed us, implying that there were plenty of others and he wasn’t satisfied, and he wasn’t going to help.
“The crew could be sick or unconscious,” I suggested.
“Ah!” He held up a hand. “Never forget there could be a non-technical answer. Very good, Mr. Forester.”
From behind Corin clasped my shoulders and gave me a congratulatory shake. As exhausted as I was, I found myself particularly grateful and burdened by their pride. My crew had been enjoying the reputation of competitive spirit since we beat the No-Win, and the reputation was getting harder and harder for me to live up to. And the salty jealousy of the other cadets was something I hadn’t anticipated.
“Get out! Get out of the room!”
The desperate call came from the main entrance. Like a flock of lemmings we all turned and gawked.
It was M’Giia!
She came charging into the room, between the rows of seats toward the lecture area and the display table where we were all clustered.
“Do what she says!” I shouted spontaneously. I spun around and shoved Corin and another cadet away from the table.
The other cadets, naturally, turned to Commander Chekov, but he was no fool. He grabbed two cadets near him and veered them into movement.
“Do it!” he shouted, and began herding the cadets toward the nearest lecture-level exit.
M’Giia came down the center isle, calling, “Hurry! Get out! Everyone—”
I glanced over my shoulder at the cadets who were still too stunned to move, and angled back to shove some of them along. Skidding along the rim of the table, I grabbed Robin Brady, who was completely dumbfounded.
“Robin, move!”
I hauled on his arm like a tug-of-rope, but in a fit of panic he resisted for a crucial instant before letting me move him.
Overhead there was a ghastly crack—and the ceiling caved in!
Chapter 17
Structural members as big around as my shoulders came crashing onto the table, and the table buckled. Ceiling material, bricks, and insulation rained onto Robin and me as we took a desperate dive and were caught in the edge of the fallout, driven down by our own momentum.
A second later, another crash came as the main lintels from the ceiling supporting structure came booming downward and drove what was left of the table all the way to the floor in a cloud of white chalky dust. If we’d been standing around the table two seconds longer, we’d have been killed.
Out of a wash of dusty wreckage, I pushed to my knees.
“Robin? You all right?” I pawed at the wreckage and pulled him from under a slab of ceiling board.
His face was pasty and caked with dust. “Okay … wow! What happened!”
Corin came crashing through the debris and lifted M’Giia out of a pile of cracked boards and support rods. “Oh, man! Are you guys all right?”
“M’Giia?” I turned to them and almost tripped. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said with a wince as Corin set her on her feet. “No, I’m fine.” Commander Chekov stumbled back toward us from the clutch of stunned cadets, all of whom now looked like ghosts of themselves, with their uniforms coated with dust. “Fine enough to explain this?”
“The Vanguard, sir,” she managed. “It was the Vanguard. They decided to take action.” She looked at me. “I knew that meant action against David. I’m sorry, David … their telepath figured out that I’d been talking to you. I guess she sensed that I was losing interest in their cause.”
Chekov eyed me for a moment, then swung around to the other cadets. “All of you, clear this hall in case anything else falls. Someone contact the maintenance team and the security division. Dismissed.”
He waited as they cleared the area and filed out, but he motioned for me, M’Giia, Robin and Corin to stay where we were.
When all the other cadets were gone, he turned to me.
“Well, Cadet,” he said, “it looks like the next move will be yours.”
“Ow … oh … mmmm … what a headache…”
I pressed my hands to my head. This might’ve been a whopper of a hangover, but it wasn’t.
Sturek sat in a chair directly in front of me and lowered his hands from my temples. “Fascinating,” he murmured.
I moaned and rubbed my eyes. I’d heard of the Vulcan mind meld, but it was a lot weirder than anybody had ever wanted to admit. Felt like bugs crawling around the inside of my skull.
Seeming a little confused, Sturek sat back and relaxed, but he was looking at me funny.
“What’s fascinating?” I asked.
“Your thoughts,” he told me slowly. “Warp speed equations, dilithium ratios, navigational symbols, photon variables, women with red hair … and cheeseburgers.”
I pushed out of my chair. “All right, just tell me if you think it worked.”
He folded his arms. “There is no way to be certain until you actually infiltrate the Vanguard and their telepath scans you. The conditions will have an effect. Your level of agitation, the temperature in the room, the quality of her telepathic abilities, the depth of her training … all these may compromise you. How well you control your thoughts will also be a factor, as well as how long she scans you.”
“But you planted a fake story?”
“I planted emotion reactions to the story you contrived. You should be able to call them up as you rethink the story. If you can do this at the right moment,” he said with a warning tone, “you may deceive her.”
“It’s got to work, Sturek,” I said. “We’re both feeling the pressure of innocent lives out in space, and now I’m feeling the same thing right here at the Academy. If M’Giia hadn’t warned us, two dozen people could’ve been hurt or killed. Our actions have made the Vanguard up the ante. They want war with the Klingons and they’ll concoct a reason on their own, if we let them.”
He stood up. “Take care of yourself, David. These are dangerously obsessed people.”
“I will. You keep working on the cybership. We’ve had more dumped in our laps than most cadets see in their first five years of active service. We have to get answers, Sturek. We’ve got to give Captain Kirk a reason to keep the Federation from going to war.”
The Vanguard met off the campus in a former airdrome where decades ago fixed-wing buffs used to hold shows of antique aircraft. Now the place was used as a public meeting hall, and the Vanguard enjoyed particular privacy here, situated in the hills outside of the city of San Francisco. They confiscated our communications before anyone was allowed to approach the building. So I was cut off from help.
And it was weird, weird, weird to be among them. They were actually wearing robes and dark hoods. Hoods!
M’Giia came with me to the meeting, feeling the Vanguard still hoped to win her loyalty as a victim of a “Klingon” attack. They might
not entirely trust her, but to have an Andorian ambassador’s daughter on their side was apparently worth a risk to them. They wanted to keep working on her.
“Ow! She’s giving me a headache!”
I shoved away from the Vanguard telepath as she reached out, sifting through my mind.
Frank Malan stood before M’Giia and me, armed with a phaser at his belt, and his expression said he just didn’t believe that I wanted to be part of the Vanguard. I had a job on my hands.
The telepath turned to Malan. “I don’t find much. I’m picking up a memory from eight years ago. His uncle, Lieutenant Allan Forester, was killed by a Klingon Bird of Prey while defending a colony. The colony was later—”
“It was handed over to the Klingons, just like Bicea,” I said. “They attack and kill our people, and they get a colony for a reward. No matter what you think of me, Frank, I don’t have to like what’s happening any more than you do.”
Malan glowered at me. “Yeah, sure! M’Giia might buy your story, Forester, but I don’t. Why do you really want to join the Vanguard?”
“I wanted to join all along,” I said. “I just play Starfleet’s game better than you do, Frank. Captain Kirk convinced me. Once we discovered it was a new Klingon heavy cruiser behind the attacks at Bicea, he was ready to go public. But Starfleet squashed him. How can I support the Federation after that?”
“Then why did you frame Faith Gage?”
I stepped closer to him and faced him down. “That was personal and you know it. She used a member of my crew for her own purposes and she almost ruined him. She almost got Sturek killed too. What kind of a tactic is that? We can do better.”
Malan’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but I could tell he liked what he heard. Obsession was a funny thing … it wanted company.
Pressing another step closer, I skewered him with my most sinister glare. “The Federation wouldn’t even bring up charges against the Klingons when they killed my uncle. He was just trying to defend Federation citizens, and they let him die without backup. Then they handed over the colony he’d died to defend. I’m just as sick of Federation timidity as you are. It’s why I joined Starfleet in the first place—to turn back the tide before it’s too late. You want to help or not?”
