Gattin settled herself at the flight yoke dangling from the helm console, and Rein gave the order to take the target. The Daughter dropped in at high velocity and swung around in front of the Axanarri ship, presenting the medical transport with the slimmest head-on profile. The cutter made a fast, jousting pass that veered lethally close to the cargo vessel, the forward particle beam emitters spitting out lances of crackling energy that swept over the defense shields.
The attack pattern had the desired effect, forcing the Axanarri ship to plummet back into normal space, bleeding off its faster-than-light velocity.
Rein perched on the edge of the command saddle behind Gattin, and peered into the drop-down periscope monitor feeding ranging data and sensor readings from the targeting grid. The Daughter cut back to impulse velocity and came about in a hard turn, standing on one blade-like wing to bring itself dagger-forward. Tulo called out an order to one of the other men, and a blanket of subspace jamming, ending all hopes of sending a distress call.
The transport was wallowing, moving slowly, but it seemed to have sustained very little damage in the initial attack. Rein refreshed the sensor sweep and noted the same effect Tulo had reported. The returns from the Axanarii ship were distorted and ill defined. At warp, that might have been expected, but now both ships were in normal space, and Rein expected a crisp detection.
Gattin was thinking the same thing: she wondered aloud if the medical transport was using a dispersal field, a passive transmitter designed to defeat attempts to gain a lock-on for weapons or matter transporters. But that technology was military in nature, and beyond the purview of all but the richest of freighter captains.
Rein gave the order to fire again, and this time demanded a full spread on the target from the four cannons mounted in the Daughter’s wing-roots. New spears of coherent energy crossed the distance between the two craft, and the medical ship tried to bank away.
And then, on the scanner screen, Rein saw very distinctly the passage of a beam right through the bow of the Axanarri vessel; where the shot touched, there was a momentary flicker, like oil moving over water.
“Something’s wrong . . .” he muttered, then repeated his words in a shout. “Something’s wrong!”
Gattin didn’t ask him to explain himself; she knew better than to question him. Instead, the woman put the Daughter into another hard turn and veered off, pulling the arrow-shaped bow away from the target.
A power surge exploded on the sensors like a solar flare, and radiant beams of color shot from the Axanarri ship, emerging from the hull in places where no weapon emitters could be seen. But Rein recognized the hue and shimmer of Klingon disruptor batteries.
The medical ship glittered as if it were made of spun glass, and then it vanished. In its place, a B’rel-class bird-of-prey sat like a malignant raptor, wings folding downward as it fell into attack posture.
“It’s a trap!” Gattin snarled. “Some kind of cloaking device?”
“How did they know?” Tulo was saying.
Gattin’s hands gripped the control yoke and dragged it backward. “It doesn’t matter. We need to get away.”
“Do it!” Rein barked. He went to his feet, frustration boiling over. “We can’t let them interfere now . . . We’re too close . . .” He glared at Gattin. “All power to the drives. Now!”
She obeyed, but even as the Daughter’s warp engines throttled up, a cry of warning sounded out from one of the other men. Rein looked up and saw the bird-of-prey thundering toward them, fire bracketing the cutter as it turned to flee.
The deck shook under the impacts of multiple hits, and Rein staggered to one side, gripping the command saddle to stay on his feet.
“Deflectors are down,” Tulo gasped. “Hits on the intercoolers . . . We’re venting plasma . . .”
“Get us to warp!” he demanded.
“We can’t!” Gattin shot back. “The engines will overload the moment we break the light barrier.”
The blood drained from Rein’s face and he felt sick inside. They had come so far, done so much for the struggle, only for it all to end here in the middle of the void, under the guns of some opportunistic Klingon corsair. “No . . . ” he muttered, grabbing at his command console. “Not here, not like this. I will not let them have a victory . . .”
“What are you doing?” Tulo’s voice was full of fear.
Rein ignored him, and drew up a systems menu. The governance controls for the Daughter’s fusion reactor were at hand. A few command strings and he could deactivate them, send the power core running hot and out of control, toward a critical overload. “This is not their victory,” he said. Rein felt oddly dislocated from the moment, as if he were watching himself going through the motions. The deck shuddered again. Outside, the glitter of a tractor beam hazed the display on the viewscreen.
Gattin’s hand came out of nowhere and grabbed Rein’s wrist. “The tyrant ship is signaling us.”
“Why?” he spat. “To gloat?”
She shook her head, her eyes hard. “Just listen.” Gattin held out a wireless headset to him, and he snatched it from her.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“Kallisti,” came the reply.
They materialized in a narrow compartment with a low ceiling, the walls all cut from a dull yellow metal, studded with curved grey hull spars that ran vertically every few meters. The walls fenced them in, and Vaughn glanced forward and back to see that two knots of worn, somber humanoids blocked any other method of escape.
He instinctively drew into a defensive wheel and noted Kaj and Valeris doing the same. Only the big Orion took his time about it.
“What is this?” asked one of the crewmen. He was thin, and like all the rest of them he had lines of pigment spots that ran the length of his neck, up his face to his temples. At last Valeris had led them to the Kriosians.
The Vulcan stepped out of the group and rolled back the hood of the traveling robe she wore, searching the faces of the others. She settled on one man, a whipcord figure with eyes like a wolf. He looked strung-out and furious; come to think of it, both those descriptions could have been hung on any one of the Kriosians. They had an air about them of near-feral desperation, like animals backed into a corner.
At Vaughn’s side, Kaj’s violet-hued face was darkening, and he saw her hand drift toward the disruptor pistol on her belt. Mentally he began to tick off the seconds before the shooting started.
Then Valeris spoke. “Rein. Do you remember me?”
The thin man nodded once. “Your face is one I’ll never forget, Vulcan.”
“I never revealed my identity to you. I am Valeris.” She indicated the rest of them. “These are my associates.”
The Kriosian aimed a finger at her. “I can’t help but wonder if this is some cosmic joke on me. Is it mythic Akadar reaching from the heavens to taunt me?” His voice was tight and the false humor he showed ran thin. “You’re like a sign, Vulcan. A bad omen.”
“We should kill them while we have the chance.” A grim-faced woman at Rein’s shoulder offered a brisk throat-cutting gesture.
“I’m considering it, Gattin.”
“That would be a mistake,” Kaj told him. “The moment one of our bodies hits the floor, the Chon’m will obliterate this scow and everything aboard it.”
“You make threats like a Klingon,” Rein replied. “What are you? Your species isn’t familiar to me.”
Kaj showed him a mouth full of fangs. “I’m not from anywhere you want to visit.”
“Kaj is a mercenary,” explained Valeris. “Engaged by me and my colleague.” She indicated Vaughn. “Her origin is not important.”
“There are Klingons on that ship,” said another of the Kriosians. “We scanned them!”
“Of course,” Kaj said. “It’s a Klingon ship. I needed some to crew it for me. But don’t fret over it . . . They sold any loyalty they might have had for the Empire a long time ago, in exchange for latinum and bloodwine.”
Va
ughn did his best to maintain a stoic demeanor, but he had to admit it was impressive the way that Kaj had slipped effortlessly into the role of an alien privateer. Given the heat of the conversation they’d had on the Chon’m before the ambush, when Valeris first outlined her plan, he had never believed the Imperial Intelligence agent would go along with it. But here she was, playing the part, even as she stood across the room from the people responsible for murdering her sister. It had to be taking every iota of her self-control not to draw her gun and disintegrate Rein and the other Kriosians where they stood.
Elias remembered what Miller had said about the major: he had called her a “professional,” as if that was the highest accolade a spy could earn. Kaj was certainly proving it now.
At first the Klingons had argued about taking the Kriosians when they fell into the trap, turning them over to Urkoj and the tender mercies of the mind-sifter in the Chon’m’s interrogation bay. But breaking the members of the Thorn would take precious time and perhaps cause the rest of their number to accelerate their attack schedule. Valeris’s approach carried more risk, but it would get them to the heart of the terrorist organization much faster . . . if Rein could be convinced.
He came closer. “I’ve thought about ending you a hundred times,” the Kriosian said to the Vulcan, his eyes glittering. “Do you know what happened to us when your conspiracy to kill that fool Gorkon collapsed? When Chang died we were revealed! We were forced to flee our home space, leave everything we knew. Our families were executed, our homes put to the torch by the tyrants because of our involvement with you . . . You and your cowardly master, Cartwright.”
Vaughn took the cue to speak. “Cartwright is dead. Murdered in prison. Starfleet silenced him because of what he knew.”
Rein gave him a sideways glance. “Is that so?”
He gestured at Valeris. “Federation security arrested her, threw her into the deepest, darkest hole they had. The rest of us . . . we were hunted, just like you.”
“Vaughn was like me, a member of Starfleet, but part of our . . . coalition,” said Valeris. “He helped me escape.”
“And you came to find us?” The woman, Gattin, wasn’t buying any of it. “There are a thousand places you could have gone to ground. But instead you come looking for the Thorn, laying a trap for us, just as we are about to—”
Rein hissed at her and she fell silent. He turned back to Valeris. “She makes a good point, Vulcan. Why come to us? Why now?”
“Because I do not wish to spend my life in hiding. Because I know what you have done.” Valeris cocked her head. “At Da’Kel.”
Rein sniffed, but Vaughn saw the tell on his face. The woman had drawn him out. “That name means nothing to me.”
Valeris’s gaze remained steady, “Do not insult my intelligence. I know you are behind the attacks in the Da’Kel system. Do not forget, I studied your group for some time before we first made contact. I recognized the . . . fingerprints of the Thorn.”
There was some truth in what Valeris was saying, and she wove it into her cover story without pause. There was something else Commander Miller had been right about: Vulcans could be exceptional liars, under the right circumstances.
Gattin went for her weapon, and some of the other Kriosians did the same. “That’s it: they have to die—now!”
“No.” Rein held up his hand. “I decide when—and if—that happens.”
Valeris went on, “You need not be concerned. No one else knows that the Thorn instigated the attacks. For now, your hand in this remains hidden.”
The Kriosian chuckled. “If anything, then, you’ve given us another good reason to kill you. Can you convince me not to let Gattin do as she wishes?”
“We want to assist you,” said Valeris. “And you need our help.”
“You almost destroyed our ship!” snarled one of the crewmen.
“Your crew were not injured, and only noncritical systems were targeted. That damage can be repaired. But the damage to your men cannot.” Rein’s expression hardened as she continued. “We visited Xand Depot, searching for you. The radiation traces there were quite clear.” She let the implication hang.
“The Axanarii ship . . .” Gattin muttered. “Perfect bait.”
Valeris nodded to Kaj, and the major spoke a command into a comm bead on her collar. Five olive-drab containers materialized in front of Rein’s group. “These are Imperial Defense Force–issue emergency packs. The medicines they contain are for Klingons, but they should be compatible with Kriosian physiology. Consider them a gesture of goodwill.”
Gattin opened one of the crates and rifled through it. “She’s telling the truth.”
“I . . .” Valeris paused, and began again. “We were cut adrift and punished, just as you were after Gorkon’s assassination. The plans failed. But together we can finish what was set in motion seven years ago. The sham treaty between the Federation and the Klingons must not endure. The Klingon Empire must be defanged.”
Rein was silent for a long time, conflict warring across his face; then he crossed the rest of the distance to stand directly in front of the Vulcan. He stood a good head taller than she did, and where Valeris was cool and controlled, the Kriosian was a bundle of tension and energy. “If you’re lying to me,” he said in a low voice, “I will teach you regret.”
Valeris never blinked. “I have never lied to you,” she replied.
Something drew Vaughn’s gaze away, and for a brief moment he found himself looking into Major Kaj’s dark eyes.
A shared, unspoken thought passed between them. For better or worse, our lives are now in the hands of a convicted traitor.
13
Object JDEK-3246553-AKV
Ikalian Asteroid Belt
Ty’Gokor Sector, Klingon Empire
The return of the Daughter under tow by a Klingon ship created something akin to panic when it appeared on the base’s sensors, but a swift communication from Rein stopped those they had left behind from unveiling the hidden phaser batteries on the surface of the massive asteroid blind, and opening fire.
Gattin wouldn’t go as far to concede that Rein had allayed their fears. Indeed, when the two ships hove into the landing bay, there were a handful of men waiting there with proton launchers and armor, ready to repulse a boarding operation; for the moment no one was aiming a weapon at anyone else.
For safety’s sake, Kaj’s mercenaries remained on board the bird-of-prey. She, the pet Orion, and the two ex-Starfleeters were granted permission to enter the Thorn base. But even that was almost too much for Gattin to tolerate.
The moment the medical supplies had been beamed over to the Daughter, she knew how the rest of the conversation would go. Rein was the best leader the Thorn had ever had, but his brother’s illness was cutting into him and he could not stand by and let him die slowly. Gattin had no wish to see Colen suffer, either, but if it meant making pacts with the very same people who had cut them loose seven years ago . . . That would never sit well with her.
Valeris said the right things. Perhaps she was being truthful. Perhaps she had been as much a victim of the catastrophic failure of General Chang’s grand plan as the Kriosians. Or perhaps she was there to stop them from achieving the victory that had been denied them for decades.
A lifetime of hating the tyrants, years of alternately running from or striking at them, had made Gattin a pragmatic woman. Some people thought she was coldhearted, but those people were idiots. She had simply grown to understand that the universe was an unfeeling place that bore no regard for the life that dwelled in it. Once you understood that, things became a lot clearer. Things like justice and fairness were not natural forces in the universe, they were the artificial constructs of sentient beings—and they needed to be applied with ruthless intent, or else they meant nothing.
Trust was something else that didn’t occur naturally in Gattin’s universe. It was rarer than iridium, and she had little to share with the new arrivals. At the first opportunity she slipped away f
rom Rein’s sight and headed up through the tunnels to the small cavern where they kept the subspace communications gear. Gattin ordered the man on monitor duty to take an unscheduled rest break, and when she was alone, she activated the system.
There were a number of protocols that had to be adhered to, but she’d learned them by rote, and within a few minutes the hyperchannel line connected. There was no voice transmission, no visual component; the data needed to provide them could have been detected by tyrant monitors. Instead, the conversation proceeded through a text-voice interface. Gattin spoke aloud and the computer rendered her words as a data string, encrypting them and parceling them out in bursts of signal that lasted less than a picosecond. The replies were formatted the same way, and the computer read them out to her in a flat, bland monotone.
“Are you ready to proceed?”
“That’s not why I’m signaling you,” she told them. “Something else has come up.”
There was an appreciable interval before the reply came, doubtless some artifact of the distance and level of encoding in action at either end of the conversation. “Gattin you need to make Rein understand time is of the essence.” The words flowed into one another. “The longer he delays the greater the chance of discovery we have been very patient certain promises were made.”
She glared at the lines of green Kriosi pictographs on the display monitor, and wondered about who was on the far side of them. Gattin had never met the aliens, the ones that Rein liked to call “the patrons,” and she trusted them about as much as she did the Vulcan woman and her mercenaries. But the patrons had at least proved their worth, giving the Thorn weapons and the means to use them against the tyrants. They had also shown they had a long reach, and at this moment that was all she was interested in. “It is vital that you pay attention at this time,” she said into the pickup. “The future of our endeavors may depend on it.”
Star Trek® Cast no Shadow Page 21
