A sly smile appeared on Keru’s face. “Fortunately for us, he couldn’t fake his way out of not knowing the captain’s authorization code.”
Vale scowled. “S’syrixx faked the captain’s voice, right down to the voiceprint metrics? Isn’t that supposed to be impossible?”
“Evidently not for the Gorn,” Troi said.
Vale hated it—hated it—when an adversary surprised her like this. “Sounds like I need to bone up on Gorn tactical studies.”
“That’s what I started doing last night,” Troi said. “I started by reviewing the Federation’s first encounter with the Gorn.”
“The Cestus III Massacre,” Keru said. “But what does that have to do with voiceprint matches?”
“Actually, more than you might think,” Troi said. “In the immediate aftermath of the Massacre, Gorn forces impersonated a Starfleet officer they’d just killed—specifically one Commodore Grant Travers. Someone posing as Travers lured Captain James Kirk and a landing party to Cestus III with a dinner invitation that turned out to be bait for a Gorn ambush.”
“It’s hard to imagine that monster who fought Kirk doing a convincing impression of a Starfleet officer,” Vale said. For a fleeting instant, she had an absurd mental image of a toothy Gorn performing at a child’s birthday party, carefully twisting balloons into alien animal-shapes while doing dead-on impersonations of household-name celebrities and politicians.
“You’re talking about Captain S’alath,” Troi said. “Don’t forget, he was a member of the Gorn warrior caste. Each caste’s talents seem to be determined biologically at least as much as culturally. So now we know it’s highly probable that S’syrixx belongs to the same caste as whoever mimicked Commodore Travers at Cestus III.”
“And we also know that S’syrixx has an agenda other than political asylum,” Vale said. “It’s strange that you didn’t pick up on it earlier, Counselor.”
“I’m not yet convinced that S’syrixx really does have a hidden agenda,” Troi said. “Otherwise I believe I would have discovered it long before now.”
Vale could appreciate optimism, but not after it turned the corner into full-blown delusion. “Come on, Counselor. It should be pretty obvious by now that S’syrixx was never sincere about wanting asylum. He’s a spy who got caught red-handed—er, red-clawed—trying to steal some of our technology.”
Troi folded her arms across her chest. “What’s obvious to me is that S’syrixx is terrified of being put off this ship. He’s assuming that that’s what’s going to happen to him, his asylum request notwithstanding.”
“Because the captain hasn’t answered his petition yet,” Vale said, beginning to understand.
And just where the hell is the captain, anyway? the exec thought as she glanced quickly down the corridor in either direction, seeing no sign of Riker.
Vale turned back toward Troi in time to see the counselor’s affirmative nod. “S’syrixx appears to have concluded,” Troi said, “that his best and only option is to get off this ship on his own terms, rather than on ours.”
Vale decided not to waste any more precious time debating the Gorn’s motivations; Dr. Onnta’s life was still in grave danger, and the clock was ticking. “We need to get somebody in there, ASAP. A negotiator.”
“Counselor Huilan was in sickbay before the doors were sealed,” Troi said. “He’s already working with me on a plan.”
“A plan,” Vale said, grateful for anything that might turn the tables before the clock ticked down to zero. “Plans are good. Feel like sharing?”
Troi began spelling out the plan. A grin spread slowly across Vale’s face. The grin halted and receded, however, after she began to consider the consequences of failure. If S’syrixx were to catch wind of what the captain was really up to, then Dr. Onnta was already as good as dead.
Glancing again at the chronometer on the wall, S’syrixx could see that the ten minutes he had allowed was very nearly up.
Does Rry’ kurr have gizzard enough to test my resolve? he thought. Or maybe these warmbloods simply don’t have the same regard for the lives of their underlings as we Gorn do.
S’syrixx heard a quick exchange of murmurs coming from the part of the room where the armed Tie-tan personnel continued to stand vigil. The murmurs ceased and the reptiloid crewmember took a single confident step toward the corner of the infirmary chamber where S’syrixx stood with the furry blue dwarf-thing.
The reptiloid came to a halt after S’syrixx raised his hostage in a warding-off gesture. The Onnta creature had gone limp in his grasp; S’syrixx judged his hostage to have fallen into a faint, since he felt none of the terminal muscle-loosening and smelled none of the stench that usually accompanied sudden death.
“What do you want?” S’syrixx snapped. He found it difficult to speak civilly to this reptiloid. The sight of a kindred species in Sst’rfleet livery now seemed like an affront.
“Captain Riker is out in the corridor,” the reptiloid said. “He wants to come inside sickbay to speak with you.”
Though S’syrixx was relieved to hear that, he tried to keep his affect as flat as possible. “Good. You must be aware that your Doctor Onnta’s time is very nearly up.”
“May I send the captain in?” the reptiloid asked.
“Only if he comes in alone and unarmed,” S’syrixx said. “And only if you and the rest of your security force leaves.”
“That would leave the captain as a second hostage,” said the reptiloid.
“Those are my terms. Consult with your captain if you must, but know that I will kill this hostage if my instructions are not followed without delay.”
The reptiloid withdrew with a curt nod and exchanged more murmurs with the communications device attached to its uniform tunic.
Moments later, everyone began filing out of the chamber. Another form entered—a lone mammal, bearing no obvious weapons.
“Captain Rry’kurr,” S’syrixx said, the manus he had wrapped around Onnta’s neck beginning to tremble once again.
“Let him go,” the mammal said, spreading its two soft, pink manus before it in a gesture of supplication. “Take me as your hostage instead.”
S’syrixx was taken aback momentarily by the captain’s apparent courage and selflessness. He sniffed the air deeply, just as he would have done among his Gorn conspecifics, hoping to assess the mammal’s true interior emotional state via the room’s ambient chemistry. Unfortunately, the residual stench of Dr. Onnta’s fear, liberally mixed with his own, made an accurate read impossible.
He carried Onnta to a chair in the corner and allowed the doctor’s insensate form to slump into it. Then he turned back to face Rry’kurr, who did not resist when he wrapped his manus around the captain’s throat.
“Order your people to clear a path between this chamber and shuttlebay one,” S’syrixx said, using his meager talents in the Voice to copy the pitch, timbre, and meter of Rry’kurr’s speech, almost without realizing he was doing it.
Astonishingly, the Earther still appeared unfazed by his dire circumstances. Exposing his alarmingly small and ineffectual-looking teeth, he said, “Not bad. No wonder you nearly managed to talk your way aboard the shuttlecraft Armstrong. I think I’m a bit more of a baritone, though—”
This was maddening. “Enough!” S’syrixx growled, his default Gorn gutturality returning to the fore as he choked Rry’kurr’s taunting words off at their source. “Give the appropriate orders. Now.” S’syrixx released his hold, then gave the human a hard shove toward the door.
“Riker to Commander Keru,” the mammal said as his breath returned. “I’ve agreed to let Mister S’syrixx take me down to shuttlebay one. Make sure the Armstrong is prepped and ready for launch. And send Ree back inside sickbay as soon as we’re out. Doctor Onnta needs medical assistance.”
“Understood, Captain,” replied a deep voice from the communications device that adhered to Rry’kurr’s tunic.
Within moments, the captain had led S’syrixx out in
to an empty corridor. Although he allowed Rry’kurr to lead the way during the tense march from corridor to turbolift to the hangar bay’s heavy duranium bulkheads, S’syrixx never once removed his manus from the soft pink creature’s throat—despite his disgust at the bristling of Rry’kurr’s beard-fur against his scales.
A seeming eternity after their departure from sickbay, S’syrixx and Rry’kurr approached a shuttlecraft whose hatch yawned open, like a Gorn warrior preparing to swallow a small meatbeast whole.
Rry’kurr hesitated on the threshold, which probably represented the human’s last opportunity to mount a survivable escape attempt. S’syrixx clutched the creature’s throat more tightly and brandished the claws of his free manus before Rry’kurr’s incongruously placid blue eyes.
“No deceptions, mammal,” he said as he preceded the human through the hatch, then dragged him inside.
Servos whirred as the hatch sealed itself and Rry’kurr strapped himself into the pilot’s seat. The human claimed to need to go through an elaborate preflight checklist, but S’syrixx suspected this was a mere ploy to buy time and demanded an immediate launch. With a sigh, the human captain complied.
S’syrixx had to crouch on the floor to get a decent view through the forward windows. In front of the shuttlecraft, massive pressure doors parted slowly, revealing the glow of a permeable forcefield that framed a wide view of the limitless dark that lay beyond. In response to Rry’kurr’s ministrations at his pilot’s console, the little vessel vibrated slightly. The open aperture leading to space suddenly rushed toward the vessel’s nose, and an instant later the craft was flying free and clear in the void.
I actually did it, S’syrixx thought. I’ve beaten the humans!
Rry’kurr turned in his pilot’s seat and looked up at his passenger. “Where were you planning on heading, Mister S’syrixx?”
That seemed like a stupid question. “Back to the ecosculpting fleet. Where else would I go?”
“Just about anywhere, I’d imagine. Or have you forgotten that Krassrr tried to kill you the last time you saw him?”
“The last time I saw Krassrr, I didn’t have any gifts to present him with,” S’syrixx said, baring his teeth in triumph. “But I have two very valuable ones now: this spacecraft, and you.”
“I see,” Rry’kurr said as he turned his seat back toward his console, into which he immediately began entering commands. S’syrixx instantly felt the heading of the shut-tlecraft beginning to change, as well as a split-second surge of forward motion that revealed a large increase in speed before the little ship’s inertial damping system discreetly concealed it.
The mammal’s casual manner piqued S’syrixx’s suspicion—as did his continued utter lack of the stink of fear. In fact, the mammal didn’t seem to have any odor whatsoever now that he was away from Tie-tan’s internal atmosphere, with its highly heterogeneous mix of emoto-chemicals.
“Aren’t you concerned about what Captain Krassrr will do with you?” S’syrixx asked.
The human’s shoulders bobbed up and then down again in a gesture of ambivalence that S’syrixx recognized as a shrug. “Not particularly.”
Astonishing. “Why?”
“Because this shuttlecraft is now filling up with anesthezine gas,” Rry’kurr said, once again baring his underdeveloped dentition. “Probably enough to knock out half a dozen Gorns.”
S’syrixx was feeling a little lightheaded, but he attributed the effect to his surprise at the human’s baseless assertion. “Ridiculous. You would be affected as well, Rry’kurr. Perhaps even killed.”
“That certainly would be true,” Rry’kurr said. His face and his body seemed to be turning transparent before S’syrixx’s eyes.
“Would be?” S’syrixx echoed. He tried to rise from his crouch, but ended up sprawling onto his side across the deck instead. When he craned his neck to take another look at Rry’kurr, he saw that the Federrazsh’n commander had faded away into translucency. Only his useless teeth looked tangible.
Was the crew of Tie-tan using one of their transporters? Or had Rry’kurr managed to engage the transporter system aboard the shuttlecraft? Neither theory seemed to hold up, since neither vessel’s transporters should have been within beaming range of any destinations at this stage in the shuttle’s flight.
Unless Tie-tan is secretly pursuing us, S’syrixx thought as he laboriously got his feet back beneath him. With a growl of rage, he swung his right manus directly at Rry’kurr’s throat.
His claws passed through the grinning mammal just as they would have done through empty air.
“It would be true,” the all but invisible Rry’kurr repeated, “if I were actually in the shuttlecraft with you.”
No wonder he has no scent.
The shuttlecraft’s horizon abruptly changed to vertical. The hard duranium deck grating rushed up to greet S’syrixx. Once again he felt a heavy cloak of darkness enfolding him, and then he felt no more.
Riker watched the Gorn who slumbered on the king-size bed across the room. Rather than following his instincts and assigning Titan’s troublesome passenger to the far more Spartan accommodations of the brig, he had reluctantly acceded to Deanna’s request that S’syrixx awaken instead in less threatening surroundings. She’d suggested using a VIP guest suite, which Riker had thought excessive; why, after all, should a kidnapper and pirate be treated like a visiting dignitary?
Riker decided to split the difference between prisoner and VIP when one of the crew offered to lend his quarters to S’syrixx, for reasons that Deanna had been quick to endorse, if not to discuss in detail.
Congenial though these quarters might be, Riker had ordered Keru to keep them under constant surveillance and heavy guard.
Riker heard the main door whisk open. A moment later Lieutenant Qontallium—the generous donor of these quarters—escorted Deanna Troi into the bedroom. A moment later, the reptiloid Gnalish security guard silently retreated back into the corridor.
“How’s our guest?” Deanna asked.
“Sleeping like a baby. How’s Doctor Onnta?”
“Ree says he won’t be singing any Balosneean madrigals for a week or two, but he’s expecting him to make a complete recovery.”
Riker was relieved to hear that. Not only had nobody died because of S’syrixx’s emotional meltdown, no one had been permanently injured. “Do you know what’s ironic about all of this, Deanna?” he said at length.
“I’m not sure I’d classify this as an ironic situation, Will,” she said quietly, as though afraid she might wake the Gorn.
“Really? Let’s see. For starters, we have a sentient lizard who appears to be terrified of mammals.”
“Don’t be parochial, Will. You know as well as I do that every species has its own biologically and culturally determined predilections. Those of the Gorn are no weirder than ours.”
“All right. If that fun fact didn’t tickle your irony bump, then maybe this one will—until Mister S’syrixx went berserk, I was going to say ‘yes’ to his asylum request.”
She looked at him expectantly. “And now?”
“Now?” He paused, sighing. “He ought to count himself lucky that I haven’t given him the same old heave-ho that Krassrr did.”
“You don’t really mean that, Will.”
“Of course not. But he’s dangerous, Deanna. Dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Especially when he suspects he’s being used.”
Though her tone was neutral, the implied accusation was plain. “Are you saying that S’syrixx’s rampage happened because I decided to let him sweat a little?” he asked. “That it was my fault?”
“I’m not saying any such thing, Will. But I am suggesting that you might not understand S’syrixx quite so well as you think you do.”
“I don’t like endangering my ship or my crew.”
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “But you also understand that you need to keep S’syrixx close at hand if we’re to have any hope of helping the Hranr
arii. You need more than his cooperation under duress. You need his goodwill.”
Riker nodded wearily. There was no getting around that unpleasant reality.
“By the way, that was a very clever application of Commander Ra-Havreii’s holographic telepresence system you came up with,” she said. “That, and your decision to run the Armstrong in training simulator mode.”
“Alien contact scenarios are a lot like jazz solos, Deanna. Sometimes you have to just watch the changes, try like hell to keep up, and improvise.”
“I’m curious,” she said. “Why didn’t you just run the entire deception on one of the holodecks, instead of letting S’syrixx actually come aboard the Armstrong?”
“More than anything else, I needed to keep him calm. I wasn’t sure how much knowledge he’d acquired about the ship’s internal layout. If I’d tried to lead him onto a holodeck, he might have known he was being tricked. Besides, there would have been too much chance that he’d have noticed he was in a simulation—too much chance I’d completely lose control of the situation.”
“Too much chance we’d end up having to kill him.”
Riker gave her a solemn nod. “Confronting him with a single holographic element—a simulation of myself—was risky enough. Especially when he had his claws at Onnta’s throat.”
Right before Riker’s eyes, Deanna’s face abruptly went paler by nearly two full shades. “Deanna?”
The combadge on Riker’s chest suddenly began to speak. “Bridge to Captain,” Vale said.
Riker tapped the badge. “Riker here, Chris. Go ahead.”
“It appears we’re going to have visitors, sir. And not the kind you’d want to invite over for dinner.”
When it rains, it pours, he thought. “On my way.”
13
“We haven’t determined exactly how many of them are coming our way yet, Captain,” Vale said as she relinquished the command chair to Riker and took the seat to its immediate right. “But we’ve detected at least two dozen warp signatures so far. They’re all still at extreme range, but they’re all definitely on a general heading for Vela OB2–404.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 02: Seize the Fire Page 19
