And he did. Specifically, he spotted Travis Mayweather’s hand jerking up to grab at his neck, where a slender dart protruded. Just as the first officer started to wobble and lose balance, Sangupta saw the Jelna escort struck as well, then felt a sharp sting in his own neck. He fell to the ground just after his superior officer, and as his vision started to blur, he finally saw the illusion of emptiness give way, revealing a fair number of well-armed Chelons with hypnoids at their heels.
As Rey’s consciousness faded, he prayed that those darts had not been coated in the Chelons’ own, quite lethal venom.
Shuttlepod one, over Rigel VII
“Incoming!”
Ensign Pedro Ortega veered the shuttlepod to port, evading the exploding shell that left a smoky black smudge against the purple and magenta hues of Rigel VII’s sky. “Damn,” Takashi Kimura said. “Their planetary defenses are more comprehensive than we thought. Can you still get us down?”
“Watch me!” the cocky young pilot replied.
With warning from the shuttlepod’s sensors, Ortega was able to evade the incoming fire while still maintaining course toward the mountains. The next few minutes were a harrowing ride through a sky made hazy by a mix of volcanic dust and artillery smoke, and even the highly disciplined members of Kimura’s security team—Crewmen Ian Legatt, Sascha Money, and Marie Chiang—were looking a bit airsick by the time they finally closed in on their target.
The tricky part was holding position long enough to gather useful sensor data from the target vessel’s landing site without getting blown out of the sky. Ortega brought the shuttlepod in low through the craggy peaks, navigating them like an obstacle course, taking advantage of their refractory minerals to obscure the shuttlepod from the Kalar’s sensors. The barrage continued, but fewer of the explosions came near enough to rattle the shuttlepod. The philosopher in Kimura appreciated seeing a disadvantage thus turned to their advantage.
Finally, they closed in on the cleft where the Rigelian skiff was ensconced. “Scan for biosigns,” Kimura ordered.
In the seat behind Ortega’s right shoulder, Crewman Legatt worked the sensor controls on the swing-out console before him. But Ortega had to veer to starboard to evade another artillery shell; with the pod holding station, the Kalar were starting to find their range again. “I need you to hold it steady, sir,” Legatt said.
“Tell them that!” Ortega told the grayshirt.
Kimura had years of experience and discipline, first as a MACO and now as Starfleet Security, and was well accustomed to facing danger calmly and accepting the reality that there were some risks he could do nothing to prevent. Still, deliberately sitting still in the middle of a shooting gallery was not particularly conducive to his peace of mind.
“Sir,” Legatt reported, “confirming the ship is not intact. Underside’s caved in, multiple hull breaches, debris. No way this was a controlled landing.” The red-haired Scot looked up at him. “Best guess, they were aiming for the cleft to give them cover, but their luck ran out a few moments too soon.”
Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself, Kimura thought. “Any biosigns?”
Legatt shook his head. “None, sir, either in the ship or nearby. But I’m reading organic decay markers from within, and penetrating radar gives a density profile consistent—”
Ortega veered to avoid another shell. “High points, please?”
“Two bodies. Vulcanoid biochemistry.”
“That means Zami,” Kimura said. Another explosion rattled the hull. “Our people aren’t here.”
“But they could’ve been before,” Legatt said. “We should try to recover their data banks.”
“If we try landing,” Money countered, “I doubt the Kalar would let us take off again.”
“She’s right,” Kimura said. “And this planet’s too far off the beaten track—they wouldn’t have had a chance to transfer them off. This was a decoy.” He turned to Ortega. “So get us out of here, best speed.”
Ortega was pulling back on the joystick before Kimura finished the sentence. “Just what I’ve been waiting to—”
Just then, an alarm sounded. “What is it?” Kimura asked.
“We’ve lost sensors!” said Ortega.
Legatt worked his controls. “Some kind of jamming field, sir! Must be from the Kalar.”
Kimura’s eyes lifted to the pod’s domed windshield, beyond which the artillery barrage continued unabated. “That means . . .”
“That means no more warnings,” Ortega said. “Everybody, eyes out the windows! Call out any incoming you spot!”
Money and Chiang promptly directed their gaze out the side ports. But Kimura said, “You just point this thing up and floor it. The sooner we get out of here—” He broke off before he jinxed it.
Too late; it seemed cosmic perversity was in abundant supply on Rigel VII as much as anywhere else in the universe. No sooner had the words left Kimura’s mouth than the shuttlepod rocked from an impact. The pod swerved downward, rocky crags filling the viewport. Ortega struggled with the controls. “They hit our wing!”
“Try to aim for someplace flat.”
“Do you have a suggestion?” Ortega replied. “Because I’m not seeing a lot of options, sir.”
“Legatt, hail Endeavour. Try to punch through the jamming, get that data to them.” At least then the mission would be a success, technically. If they didn’t survive the crash, at least it would mean something.
The crewman tried, but shook his head. “The jamming’s too strong!”
So much for that idea. Even if Ortega could bring them down in one piece, Kimura knew it wouldn’t be long before a band of hulking, murderously xenophobic Kalar came hunting for them.
This is what I get for not listening to Hoshi was Kimura’s final thought before the shuttlepod went down.
11
U.S.S. Pioneer, Rigel IV translunar Lagrange point
MALCOLM REED PACED in the tight confines of his ready room, intermittently pausing to stare at the data on his desk monitor, data transmitted by the Kanyors just minutes ago. “Another decoy ship,” he said to Endeavour’s captain, who stood by the door, calm and motionless. “Another dead end. And another member of my crew gets captured.” Mayweather and Sangupta were hours overdue for contact, and the Rigel III satellite grid was unable to detect the navigational beacon from their skiff. Reed feared the worst. “They’re picking us off, T’Pol! They sent us off on this, this interplanetary scavenger hunt to split us up, to divide and conquer. And I let them. I played right into their hands.”
T’Pol replied with reassuring calm. “Given the situation, it was a reasonable allocation of resources.”
“Superficially, yes. But that’s what they wanted us to decide. I should’ve seen it. Should’ve . . .” He trailed off, studying the reflection of his bearded, gray-fringed visage in the ready room’s small viewport. His mind contrasted it with an image of the crisp, clean-shaven face that had stared back from the mirror in his prime. “Back when I was an armory officer, I would’ve questioned it. That was my job: to be suspicious of everything. Now . . . all I could think about was protecting my crew, getting justice for Mishima.”
“You thought like a captain.”
“I believed I did. But . . .” He couldn’t voice it. What if he wasn’t ready for this responsibility? Was that why Archer had sent T’Pol to backstop him when things had grown tense? At first Reed had felt a twinge of resentment about his former captain being assigned to look over his shoulder. Now, though, he was grateful for her check on his judgment. “What would you have done, T’Pol?”
The Vulcan contemplated the question. “I cannot judge what my state of mind would have been in that hypothetical situation, for I now have information I would not have had then, and thus my perception of the situation differs. As does yours.”
T’Pol stepped closer. “Malcolm . . . the important thing is not to reconsider our past decisions, but to focus on the decisions we must make now. And to make
them with a clear mind and a focus on our goals.”
Reed met her dark eyes gratefully, imploringly. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Her reply was gentle, pointed, and understanding. “Trust your officers.”
Babel Station
“. . . All I have been saying is that there is no need for haste.” Avaranthi sh’Rothress’s gaze moved to meet the eyes of the other ambassadors at the conference table. “How can we legitimately and fairly decide what standards we should use to judge a world’s readiness for Federation membership when we haven’t even reached a full consensus on what we want the Federation to be? Is it fair to ask Rigel, or even Vega, to join us when we offer them mixed messages about what we expect?”
T’Rama observed the Andorian ambassador’s delivery carefully. If she sought to pursue a diplomatic career herself, she could pick a worse role model than this poised, charismatic statesperson. Though sh’Rothress’s views on Rigelian admission put her at odds with Solkar, her reasons struck T’Rama as considerably more rational than Mikhail Kamenev’s thinly veiled xenophobia or Ysanne Fell’s preoccupation with political standing. T’Rama was of the opinion, which her husband’s-father shared, that sh’Rothress was the one opposing ambassador who was likely to be swayed in favor of admission if her concerns could be adequately assuaged through reasoned argument.
Kamenev, however, was as stubborn as ever. “This is ridiculous,” the dark-mustached Martian exclaimed. “Why are we even still here, pretending to have a civil debate with these pawns of the state, when their poster boy Jonathan Archer has tried to assassinate a presidential candidate?”
“Allegedly tried,” T’Rama corrected. As Solkar’s assistant, it was not normally her place to participate in the negotiations without the ambassador’s invitation; but Kamenev’s allegation was not part of the diplomatic debate, and it involved a matter on which she was the one most qualified to comment among those present. “The investigation is still under way.”
“Of course it is. An investigation by Starfleet and a Federalist diplomat! It’s sure to be decided in the Federalists’ favor.”
“Come on, Mikhail, think it over.” That was Selina Rosen, the olive-skinned woman who served as Earth’s ambassador. As she and Kamenev came from neighboring planets, they had a familiar, if contentious, relationship. “How could an attempt like this have done anything other than make the Federalist side—if you accept the premise that there is one—look bad?”
“That’s right,” Ambassador Baur put in, shaking a pudgy finger. “If anything, this attempt was probably staged to do just that!”
“What are you accusing us of?” Kamenev demanded.
The Tellarite ambassador gestured in triumph. “How revealing that you immediately conclude you are the ones to be accused!”
“Baur, stop it,” Rosen said, putting a calming hand on the ambassador’s wrist and casting a glance toward the petitioners—Jahlet and Hemnask of Rigel and Tamara Ann Arouet of Vega Colony—who sat uneasily along one side of the conference table. “Nobody’s accusing anyone of anything. That’s not what we’re here for. Now, Ambassador sh’Rothress has raised an interesting point about the standards for admission, and I’d like to hear the petitioners’ thoughts on—”
Kamenev spoke over her. “Nobody’s being accused? What about Jonathan Archer, whose DNA was on the scene?”
Sh’Rothress emitted a hissing sigh, her antennae pulling back in irritation. “Mikhail. Take a breath. Calm down.” The shen caught the Martian’s gaze and held it firmly, her force of will compelling him to listen. “Consider what you’re proposing. Whatever our disputes with his position, this is Jonathan Archer we’re talking about. The one being who is most responsible for convincing our separate empires and nations to look past our differences and work together in peace. The man who was sent on a mission of war against the Xindi and single-handedly persuaded them to cancel their annihilation of the human race. The man who assured victory over the Romulans at Cheron, not by weapons alone, but through the years he spent building alliances and restoring the frayed trust among Earth and its allies. The man who prevented the Malurians from dragging us into manufactured wars with the Tandarans and the Vertians.”
Ambassador Fell sniffed. “She has a point,” the gaunt, middle-aged Centaurian acknowledged. “Not that I have any great trust toward Starfleet . . . but Archer has managed to rein in some of the military’s excesses. I must admit, it is hard to believe he would attempt crude violence against a political rival.”
Kamenev appeared reluctant to let his accusation drop, but the lack of support from his own faction had robbed him of impetus. “Well . . . then . . . if it wasn’t Archer, then who? Who would benefit from Thoris’s death?”
“Perhaps Thoris was not the target,” T’Rama said. “The type of weapon employed is precise, and the Councilor was not in rapid motion when the shot was fired.”
“That’s right,” Rosen said. “This could’ve been staged to implicate Archer, to turn public opinion toward Thoris. If he were elected—or even if our recriminations caused this conference to fall apart—it would prevent Rigel’s admission.”
“If I may.” It was Director Hemnask. The cinnamon-haired Zami Rigelian leaned forward, taking a moment to choose her words. “I would not put it past the First Families to attempt something like this. We know they have taken Starfleet personnel hostage, along with sensitive state secrets that they could use to undermine the Trade Commission.”
“Indeed,” Ambassador Jahlet affirmed. “As we’ve agreed, applying Federation law throughout the system would cripple their illicit activities.”
“Yes, but there’s more to it than that,” Hemnask went on. T’Rama noted that the Jelna ambassador found her words unexpected, but merely listened curiously. “We have seen the sheer brazenness of the Families’ recent acts. And our intelligence suggests that they may have garnered the support of some extra-Rigelian hostile power seeking to gain a firmer foothold in our system. It is conceivable that the Families are gearing up for war against the member worlds of the Commission. If those worlds became members of the Federation as well, then any attempt to conquer the system would be met by the full force of Starfleet, and their victory would not be as easy as they would wish.”
“Wait, wait,” Kamenev said. “Are you suggesting that if Rigel joins, the Federation could find itself dragged into another war?”
“Oh, I would hope not,” Hemnask replied. “With luck, merely the threat of Starfleet’s wrath would be enough to deter the Families. And I have no doubt that if any other power abetted the Families, then the combined power of Starfleet and the Rigelian Defense Forces would make short work of them.”
Hemnask’s words were poorly received by the Planetarists. Kamenev made his distaste for being drawn into a foreign war clear with his usual verbosity, with Fell chiming in to profess support for each world’s right to fight its own battles. Sh’Rothress said nothing, but her expression was concerned.
But none of this affected their existing stances on membership. What might make a difference, thought T’Rama, was Solkar’s reaction. Though her husband’s-father had excellent emotional control, she was familiar enough with him to deduce his thinking from subtle somatic and facial cues. Moreover, she shared much of his knowledge and views, and took her responsibility for representing the consensus of the Vulcan people as seriously as he did. Thus she could anticipate his reasoning. The recovery of Surak’s true writings and the dissolution of the warmongering High Command a decade ago had led the Vulcans to recognize how far they had strayed from Surak’s founding principles—and to be reminded of the danger if they ever reverted to their ancient savagery. Vulcan needed to commit itself to peace more than ever now, at least until it had purged the remnants of the High Command’s values from its thought and custom. And for Vulcan to be at peace, the Federation must be at peace.
True, at some point, a new enemy would surely emerge or an old one would strike anew. But one could not con
cern oneself unduly with possibilities outside of one’s control. Yet what if one had foreknowledge that admitting a new member risked embroiling the Federation in a conflict already under way? Solkar would have to rethink his position on Rigelian membership in light of this new information.
And that was what puzzled T’Rama. Throughout this conference, Sedra Hemnask had struck her as an intelligent, capable negotiator. The Zami woman had reached her position of authority through her career in business, no doubt gaining much experience at persuading others to take positions or actions that she favored. Thus, it seemed an amateurish mistake for her to put forth an argument that would not only solidify the positions of the faction opposing Rigel’s admission, but potentially flip a pro-admission vote to the other side. T’Rama could find no answer in her diplomatic training for why Hemnask would have made such a move.
But her security training made her very, very interested in investigating further.
U.S.S. Endeavour, orbiting Rigel VII
“We managed to image the impact site,” Lieutenant Cutler said, displaying the overhead shot on the situation table as Thanien and Sato looked on. “Looks like all our people are alive, but at least two are injured. They aren’t mobile, and as you can see, the shuttlepod is even less mobile.” Ortega had somehow managed to bring it to a skidding stop on a reasonably flat peak, coming up just a few meters short of a cliff edge. “There’s a relatively easy slope down from where they are,” Cutler went on, indicating it, “but that means it’s also an easy climb for these guys.” She shifted the image several kilometers to the southwest, where a group of some twenty massive figures marched in close formation. “Kalar warriors,” she said, “and making good time. They’ll reach the shuttlepod in just under two hours at their current pace.”
Star Trek: Enterprise - 016 - Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel Page 19
