Another young war-caster wasted no time taking Sk’salissk’s place, stepping over his predecessor’s still and supine body on the way.
After a seeming eternity, the harrowing deceleration maneuver was complete. The thick Hranrarii atmosphere had somehow managed to trade much of the S’alath’s excess velocity for heat without immolating everyone on board in the process. The warship’s badly strained braking thrusters had done the rest.
Z’shezhira experienced no small amount of relief as she studied the readout confirming that the ship was presently keeping station over the planet’s northern polar zone, from which Hranrar’s intricate system of rings were visible just above the horizon only as a long series of distended, nested loops. Though she had finally released the death grip she had maintained on her console ever since the braking sequence had begun, she didn’t resume her normal breathing pattern until after the inertial damping system had restored some stability to her relationship with gravity and inertia—with an emphasis on the basic directions of “up” and “down,” between which the contents of her anterior stomach-chamber had lately developed some trouble distinguishing.
Across the entirety of the dim, cramped command deck’s forward viewer, the vast nightside bulk of Hranrar loomed, rendered by the main computer in high-contrast, false-color imagery. The planet and its delicate adornment of rings looked nearly close enough to reach out and touch. Per Gog’resssh’s plan, the S’alath had approached Hranrar at high impulse. The vessel’s lack of a perceptible warp signature, combined with its arriving on a heading that used Hranrar itself for concealment, had given the hijacked warship better-than-even odds of reaching the planet undetected—assuming that nothing untoward occurred during the brief-but-tense inbound voyage. Once the S’alath reached Hranrar’s northern polar region—the auroral zone where the planet’s potent magnetic field was perpetually challenged by the nearly equally powerful particle flux from the Hranrarii sun—the vessel would have all the camouflage necessary to keep its presence obscured.
“Was our approach observed?” bellowed Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh, his single multifaceted eye seeming to bore right through her hide and into her soul.
Does he know? Z’shezhira thought, struggling to maintain the outward appearance of complete and utter smooth-scaled equanimity. Can he tell that some of Gog’resssh’s hostages are finally prepared to move against him when the time is right?
Once a good portion of the first myrmidon’s troopers were off the ship, raiding the recon vessels for their supplies, the time would indeed be right.
“Well?” Zegrroz’rh demanded.
Z’shezhira focused her attention back to the console readouts for the passive-action sensors. So far, none of the vessels in the Gorn flotilla had altered their standard orbital paths, and the Federrazsh’n ship appeared to be on an outbound trajectory, as it had been during the S’alath’s stealthy approach to Hranrar.
“I can see no sign that we’ve been detected, Second Myrmidon,” she said. “So far as I can tell, no one else knows we are here, except perhaps for some of the natives.”
“I can believe we have caught our own vessels unawares,” Gog’resssh said. “But I want to maintain a special degree of vigilance against the Federrazsh’n mammals.”
“They seem to be leaving the system, First Myrmidon,” Z’shezhira said.
Gog’resssh shook his huge, burn-scarred head. “They appeared to have done that once already. But then they returned unexpectedly, after hiding at the edges of the great swamp, like the egg-thieving parasites they are.”
Z’shezhira shuddered involuntarily. Gog’resssh had used imagery straight from the sleepchamber tales she’d heard as a hatchling. Youngling-devouring predators with parasite-infested hair and salamander skin. Autotrophs who feed their own young with glands that they replenished with Gorn blood and ovifluids.
Had Gog’resssh become so unhinged from the injuries he had sustained at Sazssgrerrn that he could no longer distinguish between mythological demons and real creatures that were merely the product of an alien biology?
Z’shezhira feared she already knew the answer to that question.
“The Federrazsh’n mammals covet those things that might bring them power,” Gog’resssh said. “Things such as the ecosculpting artifact.”
“It is the artifact that worries me most of all, First Myrmidon,” Zegrroz’rh said. “We are deep inside Hranrar’s atmosphere. If the artifact should become active unexpectedly and begin transforming this world, we would be defenseless.”
Gog’resssh made a dismissive, air-clawing gesture. “The S’alath has more than enough speed to save us. Provided we remain vigilant.”
The commander’s claw came down on Z’shezhira’s shoulder with an impact that made her wince. “Now direct some of that vigilance toward the mammals. See that they do not seek to fool us again by doubling back here a second time.”
“Yes, First Myrmidon,” she said as she directed the passive scanners outward, along the Federrazsh’n vessel’s last known trajectory. Obviously lacking the patience to continue observing her, Gog’resssh stomped away, leaving the command deck alongside Zegrroz’rh, no doubt in order to plan the fine details of the raid they were about to conduct against the ecosculpting fleet.
The ship she sought was easy enough to locate, since it remained relatively close, at least in interplanetary terms. Although it was unquestionably still on an outbound course, she found it odd that it had not yet gone to warp.
And why is it raising and lowering sections of its energy-shielding?
It was only then that she detected the telltale signature of a matter-transmission beam, being operated in intermittent bursts. It was difficult to determine whether the Federrazsh’n ship was taking something aboard or leaving something behind. But the gaps in the vessel’s shielding, necessarily synchronized with the operation of the beams, gave her one brief opportunity after another to peek inside the vessel in search of clues.
Because of her grounding in the life sciences, she dedicated her scans—still in passive mode to prevent an accidental giveaway of the S’alath’s location for which Gog’resssh would surely blame her—to biosigns.
The glimpses those intermittent scans gave her were nothing short of astounding. Of the over three hundred biosigns she detected, perhaps a third were nonmammalian. The crew appeared to be drawn from a vast galactic bestiary of sentient races. It bespoke a civilization that either placed a high value on diversity, or else was fond of displaying its conquests to its adversaries.
The mammals-as-conquerors idea immediately struck her as specious. Why would the oppressive, egg-stealing predators that populated Gog’resssh’s nightmares allow the sullen, angry ranks of the conquered to make up such a large proportion of their starship crews?
By the fifth scan, Z’shezhira confirmed that some of the biosigns were, in fact, as far from mammalian as it was possible to be. A few of these biosigns were, like those of all Gorn castes, endothermic or poikilothermic—dependent upon external factors for the regulation of body temperature.
The seventh scan revealed that at least one of these bio-signs belonged to a member of the last species she would have expected to find aboard a Federrazsh’n vessel.
The reading was unmistakably Gorn. And just as unmistakably alive.
Z’shezhira could feel the delicate claws of hope reaching toward her, but she quietly evaded them. After having spent more than a Gornar suncircuit as the slave to a cadre of rogue war-casters, she had learned to keep hope at a safe distance.
But if this biosign does not belong to S’syrixx, then whose could it be?
And how much longer could he hope to survive in the clawless, deceptively soft manus of the Federrazsh’n?
GORN HEGEMONY RECONNAISSANCE VESSEL SSEVARRH
As he made a quick, scrolling survey of the latest batch of infuriating excuses and equivocations from the tech-casters who were charged with repairing the damage that S’syrixx had dealt to the
ecosculptor, Captain Krassrr caught a tentative movement out of the most peripheral of his right eye’s compound lenses.
“What do you want?” he bellowed at the cowering young sensor technician who had approached his seat at the command deck’s center.
“I have observed something . . . unusual, Captain,” the tech said haltingly.
“What is it?” Krassrr rumbled, in no mood to have more of his time wasted with trivia.
“Evidence of unusual atmospheric ionization, near the polar region at the terminator.”
Krassrr pushed his document reader back into its slot in the broad arm of his chair. “What of it?”
The tech answered with a slightly quavering voice. “It might be evidence of an enemy ship approaching the planet by stealth. Perhaps you should consider sending one of our ships to investigate it up close.”
“It could just as easily be evidence of a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. Do you have any definitive proof that you’ve seen anything more worrisome than that?”
“I suppose not, Captain,” the tech said, his shoulders slumping, the scales on his crests drooping slightly.
Krassrr displayed his entire armory of razor-edged teeth. “Then don’t expect me to deploy any vessels for the purpose of chasing phantoms—especially not when I need every manus bent to the task of getting that ecosculptor up and running.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Continue scanning,” Krassrr said, cuffing the technician hard across his earpit to signal his dismissal. “But don’t bother me with the results unless you actually find something.”
U.S.S. TITAN
Carried aloft on his integrated directional antigravs, SecondGen White-Blue extended one of his cybernetic servomechanical limbs to the keypad that allowed him to open the materials science lab’s doors. He resisted the urge to rush across the threshold the instant the aperture opened; he already knew, thanks to a number of near-collisions, that unexpected eye-level encounters with free-floating artificial life-forms had an unfortunate tendency to unnerve most humanoids.
After a slow count to three, White-Blue floated deliberately into a brightly lit space in which several crewmembers stood around a large rectangular table, using their tricorders to scan what appeared at first glance to be several dozen random pieces of metallic and rocky debris, the largest piece being approximately twice the size of a humanoid fist. White-Blue noted that Ensign Torvig Bu-Kar-Nguv was present—each of his segmented bionic appendages wielding a scanning device—as were relief science officer Peya Fell, the Ferengi geologist Bralik, the Selenean cryptolinguist Y’lira Modan and the human engineers Mordecai Crandall and Tasanee Panyarachun. Everyone present wore regular Starfleet duty uniforms, with the exception of White-Blue and Torvig, the latter being adorned with markings denoting affiliation with and rank in the organization.
“Persuading the captain to beam this stuff aboard while the Gorn were distracted by our sensor drones was a stroke of genius,” Ensign Crandall said.
“If you do say so yourself,” retorted Ensign Panyarachun.
Crandall paused in his tricorder scans to make an incongruously long appraisal of his neatly trimmed fingernails. “I do indeed.”
“I hope there’s no emergency EVA drill in your immediate future, Mordecai,” Ensign Modan said. “I’m not sure you could squeeze that big head of yours through the neck-ring, much less pull a helmet over it.”
Crandall muttered something whose meaning eluded White-Blue’s flexible linguistic systems, as well as every translation matrix he knew.
“Maybe we ought to save the real praise for Torvig,” Panyarachun said to Modan. “Mordecai wouldn’t have any reason to boast if our Choblik friend hadn’t discovered a belt of interplanetary debris so rich in this stuff in the first place. Besides, if we find anything among these relics that resembles language, that’s when we’ll all get to see real genius at work.”
The golden tones of Modan’s epidermis modulated in apparent response to Panyarachun’s praise, taking on a vaguely coppery hue.
Bralik, who stood a short distance from Modan, directed what White-Blue could only interpret as a sour expression at the objects of everyone else’s apparent fascination. “Looks to me like a pile of rocks and metal on a table. A truly stunning achievement.” Crandall regarded her in silence, his eyes narrowing to slits, though Bralik appeared not to have noticed.
“That’s a pretty strange reaction coming from a geologist, Bralik,” Modan said. “I thought that rocks and metal were your stock in trade. Especially exotic ones like these.”
Adjusting the sash of her colorfully printed work coverall, Bralik said, “You’re right, Goldie. These particular rocks and metals don’t match anything in any of the existing mineralogical and metallurgical databases. They even appear to have some curious energy-absorption and -storage capabilities. Who knows, they might even end up giving some clever Starfleet engineer the key to perpetual motion someday.”
“I find that highly doubtful,” Modan said. “But I find it even more curious now that you’d be so dismissive of this discovery while still acknowledging its unrealized potential.”
“That’s easy enough to explain,” the Ferengi said, scratching one of her earlobes. Although those lobes were the biggest in the room, White-Blue recalled having read that the ears of male Ferengi were considerably larger. “I think the Thirteenth Rule says it best: ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.’ “
Modan shrugged. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“All right, I’ll pretend for a moment that you’re just another garden-variety, economics-challenged Starfleet hew-mon and explain this in simple terms.”
“I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t use a lot of big words or math,” Modan said in oddly flat tones that White-Blue suspected might have been deliberately calculated for ironic effect. Despite all the time he’d spent aboard Titan studying its personnel and their complex interpersonal interactions, it still found such things extraordinarily difficult to read.
“All right,” Bralik said. “It’s just that I find exotic rocks and metal a lot more interesting if I can extract ’em in bulk and then use ’em in the ancient Ferengi art of alchemy.”
Crandall sniffed. “Alchemy is a pseudoscience, Miz Bralik. Superstitious nonsense. Surely you know that.”
“Here’s what I know, kid,” the Ferengi woman said, baring her teeth in what White-Blue thought might be either a grin or a leer. “Even if I can’t change lead into gold without access to a replicator or the heart of a supernova, I suspect it wouldn’t be too difficult to convert a ton of this stuff into an extremely respectable stack of gold-pressed latinum bricks.”
“Ah,” Modan said. “You’re talking about economic alchemy.”
“Of course. It’s the only kind that works,” Bralik said a moment before her grin-that-might-have-been-a-leer fell in on itself and morphed into an expression that White-Blue recognized immediately as sadness. Gesturing toward the samples on the table, she added, “But even if we could find this stuff out here in that kind of quantity, the Gorn aren’t likely to let us extract it.”
Ensign Peya Fell chose that moment to step away from the table, presumably to give her colleagues additional room in which to carry out their studies and analyses. Fell then approached White-Blue, acknowledging his presence with an unsmiling nod. Although White-Blue still found many nuances of humanoid emotion and expression elusive, he had no difficulty divining that the Deltan woman felt uncomfortable around him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in stellar cartography, helping Commander Pazlar keep an eye on what the Gorn are up to, Mister, ah, Blue?” said the smooth-scalped female.
“I have accepted a number of stellar cartographical duties, to be carried out under Commander Pazlar’s authority and supervision,” White-Blue said, hovering in place two meters from Fell. “But the commander and I need not always be physically co-located for me to perform those functions.”
“Oh. Right. So .
. . what brings you to the materials lab?”
White-Blue pondered that question for a moment as he processed Fell’s somewhat imprecise idiom. He finally decided it was safe to assume that she wasn’t inquiring into the technical specs that governed his multidirectional anti-grav units or his pneumatic thrusters.
“Ensign Torvig informed me of the science team’s initial findings,” White-Blue said as he waved two of his cybernetic arms toward the objects that so engrossed everyone else in the room. At that moment, the lab doors hissed open again, and White-Blue used his aft sensory cluster to observe Commander Tuvok entering the chamber, his hands clasped behind his back.
“What exactly did Mister Torvig tell you?” the junior science officer asked White-Blue after pausing to greet Commander Tuvok.
“He wrote an initial report indicating that we have collected some debris near Vela OB2–404 II,” White-Blue said. “Debris that bears the same chemical, radiolytic, and quantum signatures as the large alien artifact that the Gorn have appropriated.”
“Huh,” Fell said. “I suppose I’d better remind him to run those preliminary reports past me first in the future.” She turned to cast what could only have been a reproachful glance at the little Choblik engineer, who appeared far too preoccupied at the moment to show any sign of having noticed.
“I have seen the report in question,” Tuvok said from the lab’s doorway. “It raised the distinct possibility that we have found the pulverized remains of another device like the one the Gorn have captured.”
“I’m impressed, sir,” Fell said. “Materials science isn’t exactly a required area of knowledge for a tactical officer.”
“Before developing my expertise in tactics and strategy, Ensign, I served as a Starfleet science officer,” Tuvok said evenly. Though White-Blue wasn’t certain, he suspected Titan’s chief tactitian and second officer was working to conceal an emotional undercurrent of irritation. “I am as well acquainted with the scientific underpinnings of exotic materials as I am with their tactical applications.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 02: Seize the Fire Page 13
