One of Gog’resssh’s troopers must be with him, Z’shezhira realized. Maybe interrogating him, or perhaps doing something worse.
The need for haste and stealth having left her with little alternative, she broadened the confinement beam and keyed in the ENERGIZE command.
The hissing, growling reptiloid advanced again, but this time his body began to glow and distort, as though Riker was watching the creature’s image being projected onto an ancient funhouse mirror.
When Riker raised his fists into a defensive posture, he saw that this strange effect wasn’t limited to the Gorn.
Here we go again, he thought as the matter stream enveloped him.
Unlike his initial beam-over to the S’alath, however, this transit seemed to span only a few seconds. Within the space of several heartbeats, the cheerless metal walls of a Gorn brig seemed to have curved and constricted, giving him a momentary sensation of claustrophobia.
Unfortunately, the Gorn soldier was still charging him, either unaware of or apathetic toward the sudden unexplained change of scenery.
Riker let the Gorn charge, feinted right, then spun to the left at the last possible instant. He kicked the reptiloid solidly in the head as it lunged past, but to little apparent effect.
He turned as quickly as the little chamber’s tight confines allowed, and heard a scream coming from his assailant’s direction.
Now Riker could see that there was a second Gorn in this new chamber. The Gorn soldier had evidently forgotten about Riker as soon as he’d seen the other Gorn. This was a smaller, slighter creature, and the soldier was raising it from the deck using the single set of claws he had wrapped around the other reptiloid’s throat.
“You!” the Gorn soldier said. “You are responsible for this!”
The creature in the soldier’s iron grasp made incoherent sounds of distress as it strangled. Looking past the rapidly asphyxiating creature, Riker spied a window through which the white curvature of Hranrar’s north polar region was clearly visible. At least Gog’resssh isn’t under way yet for Brahma-Shiva, Riker noted with some relief, hoping that he’d rematerialized in an escape pod of some sort.
“Why did you bring me and this mammal here?” the soldier demanded. Riker could see on the smaller Gorn’s facial scales evidence of more than one recent, only partially-healed beating. Evidently someone had used this smaller, weaker being as a punching bag.
Riker now understood that he probably owed an enormous debt of thanks to the underdog in this Gorn-on-Gorn encounter. And there’s only one way to repay that debt, he thought as he crept up behind the angry soldier.
Spots swam before Z’shezhira’s eyes. The universe had begun to contract around her as consciousness became increasingly problematic for her. Her feet kicked ineffectually at the air as the angry war-caster shouted questions whose answers he seemed unwilling to hear.
She wasn’t surprised by this turn of events; the odds had always been very much against any attempt at mutiny or escape. She merely felt an intense sorrow at the prospect of dying with this killing machine’s image burned upon her retinas and into her brain. She had always hoped to die in some far-flung future, her final vision filled with grandchildren, children, and her intended, S’syrixx. Now, all she could see, ringed as it was in darkness, was the face of her killer.
It was a face that suddenly displayed an emotion she had never associated with members of the warrior caste: intense surprise.
The manus at her throat squeezed her once, hard, nearly shattering her neck bones, then abruptly slackened. Then, like a burned-out eldertree in Gornar’s southern forests, her tormentor swayed briefly before beginning an unceremonious terminal descent through a cloud of ozone-scented smoke. Z’shezhira would have fallen with him had she not managed to steady herself along the edge of one of the viewing ports.
Catching her breath, she saw that the mammal she had targeted was standing directly behind the insensate war-caster. In its pink claws it clutched an unwieldy war-caster matter-disruption pistol.
“He left his holster unfastened,” the mammal said, nodding toward the fallen war-caster. “Gog’resssh’s discipline must be getting sloppy.”
“Rry’kurr,” Z’shezhira croaked, rubbing her injured throat with both manus.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” the mammal said, still holding the weapon in a manner that made Z’shezhira wonder if he might be contemplating using it again.
“You saved my life,” she said.
Rry’kurr displayed his tiny white teeth, which emerged from a small jungle of mammal-fur. “I suppose we’re even, then. Now unless I miss my guess, we’re aboard one of the S’alath’s escape pods.”
Z’shezhira could feel her disorientation beginning to fade. “Exactly,” she said. Noting that feeling was returning to her limbs, she moved toward the main control panel and began inputting the launch-command sequence. “We must get under way before Gog’resssh discovers what I have done.”
“You’ll get no objection from me,” Rry’kurr said, bracing himself against the pod’s sudden burst of acceleration during the launch. The acceleration quickly leveled out, stabilized by the internal grav system. The silence of space ruled the pod’s interior as Z’shezhira checked the instruments for signs of scanning beams from the S’alath, all the while taking pains to avoid looking at the war-caster corpse that lay near the forward viewing port.
“What should I call you?” the mammal said.
“I am called Z’shezhira,” she said.
The display of fur-bracketed teeth returned, making her shudder involuntarily. “I believe we have a mutual friend back aboard my ship,” he said. “A fellow named S’syrixx.”
“S’syrixx is aboard your vessel presently?”
“Actually, no,” Rry’kurr said.
Z’shezhira hissed in bitter disappointment. “You are saying he has died.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Z’shezhira. At the moment, he’s assisting some of my people on a mission away from my vessel.”
She reached toward him reflexively, and she startled when he recoiled from her, apparently just as reflexively.
“Watch those claws, lady,” Rry’kurr said.
Lowering her claws, she took a deep breath in an effort to smooth her ruffled, vasodilated scales. “My apologies, Rry’kurr. Where have you sent S’syrixx?”
“To the terraforming platform,” he said as he glanced at what appeared to be a chronometer, which he kept wrapped around the narrow stalk that connected one pink manus to the rest of his arm. “The ecosculptor. The team should be boarding it any minute now, if they’re not inside it already.”
“Why go inside it?”
“To access its internal computers. To learn everything we can about it.”
Her heart sank as she realized what a fool’s errand her beloved had undertaken. “The Gorn fleet from which the S’alath has hidden will find your team and kill them. And S’syrixx along with them.”
“If I believed that, I never would have authorized the mission,” Rry’kurr said.
Before she could reply, the escape pod shook as though from a sharp impact. “Gog’resssh has found us,” she said as she steadied herself against the pod’s rudimentary flight console.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Rry’kurr said. He gestured with one scaleless, pink paw toward the viewing port.
Turning, Z’shezhira saw the bloated face of Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh pressed up against the viewing aperture. Despite the oxygen deficiencies of Hranrar’s upper atmosphere, his one functioning eye focused upon her, radiating a hostility that was still very much alive.
“Friend of yours?” Rry’kurr asked.
“An impediment, and a slaver,” she said, involuntarily allowing her own teeth to emerge in a long-suppressed expression of hostility as she used the maneuvering thrusters to dislodge the hated second myrmidon. With the viewing port now clear, the belly of the Federrazsh’n ship, Tie-tan, was swiftly growi
ng nearer in the rarefied reaches of the upper atmosphere. “He was Gog’resssh’s second in command.”
Though she feared offending the sensibilities of Great S’Yahazah, she rejoiced in the prospect of Zegrroz’rh’s impending final agonies. She hoped he would meet death while still conscious of its jaws enclosing him, horrifically aware of its venomous fangs as they pierced his hard-scaled, radiation-seared flesh.
Rry’kurr seemed to recoil slightly at her change in mood, and Z’shezhira couldn’t say that she blamed him. She had caused several deaths today, directly or indirectly; was she not now as brutal as any war-caster?
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Rry’kurr said.
“Zegrroz’rh!” Gog’resssh bellowed as he stomped onto the command deck.
Empty. No one so much as minding any of the instruments, let alone making preparations for the assault upon Krassrr’s precious ecosculptor.
He stalked over to the abandoned communications console and literally punched a channel open, bending the panel’s thick metal in the process. “Z’shezhira! Why have you left your post?” When he received no response he resumed calling for Zegrroz’rh, but achieved the same result as before.
Moving to another console that had not yet been the recipient of his rage, Gog’resssh checked the ship’s internal sensors.
Neither his second myrmidon nor Z’shezhira were anywhere aboard the S’alath. Nor was his Federrazsh’n prisoner, Rry’kurr.
With a roar of inchoate rage, he checked the S’alath’s inventory of escape pods, though he was already certain that he knew what he would find. Once he’d confirmed that one of the pods was missing, he switched on the external sensors.
He grinned when he saw the initial scan results. Even with the fearsome electromagnetic hash from the planet’s dynamic interior cloaking it, it was a simple matter to find the duranium pod as it arced higher in the atmosphere, following an elliptical trajectory toward the mammal vessel—a prize that he still meant to possess. It was a pity he lacked the expertise to attempt to beam back the pod’s occupants, especially Z’shezhira, whose genes were destined to help him build his new master caste. Rry’kurr’s escape would pose a problem as well, since Gog’resssh had had no opportunity as yet to wring from the mammal commander the authorization codes necessary to allow him to seize Titan.
But maybe Rry’kurr’s escape would not matter.
Gog’resssh’s grin broadened as he opened a channel to Tie-tan.
U.S.S. TITAN
Never before in his Starfleet career had Gibruch felt quite so powerless as he did right now, as he stood before the conn facing the main viewscreen.
Before him was a computer-enhanced image of Brahma-Shiva, which not only still lingered like a malignant cloud over the equatorial region of the ringed planet, but had also just taken on a baleful, blue-green glow. Lieutenant Rager’s scans had confirmed Gibruch’s initial impression that the thing’s ominous brilliance was steadily increasing. Obviously, the object was finally powering up, building toward an eventual release of the cataclysmic, world-destroying energies that it had quietly contained for untold eons.
“Incoming bogey!” Rager announced.
Gibruch turned away from the screen so that he faced the senior ops officer. “Another ship?”
Rager paused momentarily to consult her console displays. Shaking her head, she said, “Negative, Commander. It’s a small metal object, originating from the S’alath.”
“Red Alert!” Gibruch said.
“Shields and weapons locks aren’t reliable this deep in Hranrar’s geomagnetic field,” Lieutenant Lavena said.
“Then prepare to initiate evasive maneuvers,” Gibruch said. “And I want to know what’s inside that thing. If there’s any sign of life in there, I want it beamed aboard.”
After a few additional tense moments—during which the object drew inexorably closer to Titan’s unprotected belly—Rager shook her head again. “Internal bio scans are inconclusive, with all the local geomagnetism.”
Gibruch’s cranial tails released a fluted diminished chord that betrayed his tension and frustration. That thing could be delivering a boarding party, a charge of antimatter, or another asylum-seeking refugee, he thought as he craned his neck to get a better look at the sensor profile on Rager’s console. There’s just no way to tell from here.
“I’ve compensated for the interference enough to establish a limited phaser lock,” Rager said.
Something about the object’s sensor profile didn’t look right—it simply didn’t appear “torpedo-like” enough to justify shooting first and asking questions later.
But what if I’m wrong? he thought. Aloud, he said, “What’s the status of the S’alath’s weapons?”
“They read as cold,” Rager said, sounding surprised. “Belay that—they’re beginning to power up now.”
“Hold your fire, Lieutenant. Tractor that thing into hangar bay two and send a security team to greet it.”
“Sir?” Rager said, her forehead wrinkling nearly as much as that of a Klingon.
“You heard me, Lieutenant.” Gibruch did his best to sound confident, even though the only thing he felt completely certain about at the moment was that he would either be commended for his astute reasoning, or else he’d be singled out by future Starfleet Academy tactical studies instructors as the author of one of the worst on-the-fly decisions in Federation history.
“Gog’resssh is hailing us, Captain,” Rager said.
Gibruch didn’t mind the standard practice of being addressed as “captain” when he ran the bridge during Titan’s wee hours. But hearing it now, with Captain Riker, Commander Vale, and Commander Tuvok all off the ship simultaneously, was quite another thing.
“Let’s buy some time by putting him on the screen,” Gibruch said, working hard to prevent his postcranial airways from causing his air-column-generated voice from shaking and fluttering.
Though his image was being distorted by the polar region’s ambient geomagnetism, Gog’resssh’s state of mind was clearly evident—the Gorn commander was beside himself with anger.
“Surrender Tie-tan’s command codes, mammal,” Gog’resssh said, “or your captain will become the main course in our galley.”
“Where is Captain Riker?” Gibruch demanded. “Show him to me.”
Gog’resssh merely stared fixedly from the screen, his multifaceted eyes narrowing with fury. Then the image broke up in a flurry of static, and was replaced a moment later by the approaching S’alath, its weapons tubes glowing balefully as the vessel plied Hranrar’s tenuous upper atmosphere.
A smaller, oblong shape tumbled in the foreground, substantially closer to Titan now, but no less enigmatic.
“Get that thing aboard, ASAP,” Gibruch said, hoping he hadn’t just enabled Gog’resssh to sneak a devastating weapon aboard Titan during his watch.
24
HRANRAR
Just after nightfall, Vale ordered the remainder of the team to get some rest. Sitting cross-legged at the base of a Hranrarii tree, she shared the first watch with Lieutenant Sortollo.
Of course, there wasn’t all that much to watch when one was confined in an open-air jail that consisted primarily of a gently sloping rooftop meadow. Two of Hranrar’s five moons, both in crescent phase, cast a wan light from high in the clear sky, doing little to compete with the multitudinous pinpoints of distant starlight. Toward the horizon, the dark lawn’s distant edges were suffused with the faint glow of the Hranrarii city that lay far, far below, giving everyone on the away team a clear incentive not to venture far from the roof’s center.
There, in what Vale’s tricorder had declared the exact geographical center of the team’s prison in the sky, lay Troi, Bolaji, Modan, Evesh, and Dakal. With the exception of Evesh, who was already on her back and snoring loudly, each team member not on watch had laid down to rest, if not to achieve an actual state of sleep.
Vale watched as Dakal lifted his head to cast a disgusted look at Evesh. “How
in the name of Ailam’s ashen arse can anybody sleep through that? The Dominion wasn’t this noisy when they bombed Lakarian City.”
“Consider getting some rest just another challenge, Ensign,” Vale said. “When life hands you rokassas, you learn to make rokassa juice.”
“Commander, I might as well be trying to get to sleep on top of an overloading warp core,” Dakal said. “If I had some rokassas right now, I’d stick them in my ears.”
“And if I had one right now, I’d be sorely tempted to make a ball gag out of it,” Bolaji said blearily, remaining on her back, her eyes closed. “I always thought that Cardassians were supposed to be good at enduring hardship in silence.”
“Settle down, people,” rumbled Lieutenant Sortollo. For an absurd moment Vale wished she still had the option of threatening to turn the shuttlecraft Beiderbecke around and taking her straight back to Titan, addressing the away team in the manner of a parent dealing with unruly children.
All at once she felt the lawn rumble slightly beneath her, as though something just under the surface were causing the immediate area to vibrate. “People, I think we’re about to have company,” she said as a portion of the lawn several meters away distended and opened, just as had occurred only a short while ago.
Moments later, half a dozen armed Hranrarii cops were stepping in orderly ranks from one of their lift mechanisms, which appeared to have come from one of the tower-jail’s lower levels. Emerging behind the cops was Senior Watcher Ereb, the official who had consigned the away team to this place.
Sortollo raised his hands to demonstrate that he was still unarmed. “Let’s keep the local police-folk as calm as possible,” he said. Vale did likewise, nodding to the rest of the team to get them to fall in line as well. Under Dakal’s gentle ministrations, Evesh came awake with a series of sputtering snorts.
While the entire away team rose and fell in, Vale watched as Ereb pointed a handheld electronic device of some sort at the lawn about five meters away from the lift, which was already beginning to disappear back into the turf; soon the rent in the sod would vanish, making the lawn as seamless as it had been before the lift’s arrival.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 02: Seize the Fire Page 33
