Thanien’s antennae curled inward in displeasure. He looked at Cutler. “Is there any chance of punching a transporter beam through their jamming?”
The lieutenant shook her head. “Even without the jamming field, the minerals in the area could scatter the beams.”
The first officer contemplated for a moment. “Very well. Continue monitoring the area. Look for options.”
“Aye, sir.” Cutler returned to her station.
Taking a deep breath, Thanien turned to Sato. “Commander, with me.”
He led her into the captain’s ready room. Rather than offer her a seat, he simply faced her. He felt he should do this on his feet. “Commander Sato . . . I find I must apologize to you.”
The human woman frowned. “Sir? For what?”
“My . . . judgment has been compromised by an unfair assumption. I should have heeded your advice, pursued other options before sending the shuttlepod down. But I was . . . biased against your suggestions.”
Sato still looked puzzled, merely confirming the conclusion he’d finally reached about her. “Why, Commander?” she asked very softly.
“Because I believed . . . that you were competing with me. You have been Captain T’Pol’s colleague and confidante for many years. I am a far more recent arrival. In my insecurity, I felt that you were presuming a more central place in this vessel’s decision-making process than my own. When you offered suggestions and advice, I interpreted it as a challenge to my authority.”
Her eyes were wide. “Honestly, Commander, I had no idea you felt that way. Why haven’t you talked to me about this before?”
He smirked. “Because I thought I was being the bigger man. That it would be petty for me to succumb to such feelings of rivalry and that I should simply do my duty. The implication I did not admit was that I assumed you were the smaller one. I did not dispel my belief that you were deliberately competing with me; I simply persuaded myself that I was not lowering myself to the same level.”
The Andorian shook his head, letting out a sharp breath. “And that arrogance has led to this. As long as I hold the conn, you are one of my most senior advisors. My obligation is to heed your counsel. To rely on you as I wish the captain to rely on me. And I have not done so, and for petty reasons I have endangered my officers—and your partner. For that, I must apologize, both to you and to myself.”
Sato took in a shuddering breath as she absorbed his words. “Commander . . . I swear I had no idea. If I’ve been intruding on your authority in any way, if I’ve been taking advantage of my friendship with the captain . . . I’m truly sorry.”
Thanien smiled. “And there is the surest proof I was wrong about you, Hoshi. You have every right to be angry at me for placing your lover at unnecessary risk due to my foolish pride. And yet your concern is for my hurt feelings. I am shamed by your good nature.”
She reached out to him, clasping his arm. “No. I understand. I just . . . you should’ve just talked to me. And I should’ve listened more to you.”
He clasped her forearm in return, a soldierly gesture of solidarity. “Now,” Thanien said, “let us work together and find a way to bring our people home.”
Vinaula Mountains, Rigel VII
If the promontory where Ortega had set down hadn’t been the only survivable landing site in the area, Takashi Kimura would have called it the worst position he and his crewmates could be in. While they had used their phase pistols to blast craters and cut fissures into the promontory’s climbable slopes, the damage they had been able to inflict without draining the weapons’ power packs had been limited. It had slowed the Kalar soldiers somewhat, but the burly, hirsute humanoids had shown surprising sure-footedness in clambering around or through the roughened terrain, not appreciably slowed by their heavy animal-skin vests, high-crowned helmets, bladed weapons, and shields. Kimura had tried calling to them, attempting to persuade them that the shuttlepod’s occupants wished nothing more than to leave the planet and trouble the Kalar no more; but whatever language they spoke didn’t seem to be in the translator’s database of Rigelian tongues. Then again, they didn’t seem particularly verbal, mainly just grunting and hurling spears at him. He had returned fire but had managed to stun only two of the twenty warriors before needing to retreat. Tactically, it might have been wiser to shoot to kill, for the stun effect would likely wear off in minutes. But Kimura couldn’t forget that his people were the trespassers here. He’d escalate his response if he had to, but only if he were backed against a wall.
Or a cliff, as it turned out a few minutes later. With Legatt and Money both injured in the crash, that had left only Kimura, Chiang, and the one unbroken arm of Pedro Ortega to defend against twenty bearded berserkers. Their only defense against the Kalar’s spears and crossbows had been to drag the injured back into the shuttlepod (hoping the toxic fumes released in the crash had cleared by now) while the other three stayed between it and the cliff edge, firing at the Kalar from cover. The indigenes bellowed with rage as they charged, using “Kalarrrr!” itself as their battle cry (or maybe the other Rigelians called them that after their battle cry), and a number of them fell stunned, their triangular shields offering only limited protection. But they quickly proved they were no mere savages; they ceased charging into the line of fire and advanced within the shadow of the shuttlepod itself, with several flanking Kalar arraying their shields to maximize resistance to sniping shots from around the pod’s edges.
From his vantage leaning against the rear engine, Kimura couldn’t quite see what they did next, but he heard running feet and clanking metal beneath the roar of “Kalarrrrr!”—and then was almost knocked off his feet when the shuttlepod rocked from a massive impact. The whole pod slid a good half-meter closer to the cliff face. “Uh-oh.”
He jogged over to peer through the pod’s side window and out the other one, and he saw the warriors backing up to prepare for a second charge. Money was dragging herself toward the aft ladder, no doubt hoping to get to the top hatch to lay down suppression fire. But before she could get more than halfway up, the mass of Kalar flesh closed in on the pod and Kimura had to jump back as the compact craft was knocked another thirty-some centimeters edgeward. Their only defense had just become a weapon against them.
He stole a glance through the side port again. Money was down, moaning and semiconscious. Legatt had been knocked to the deck, showing no signs of motion.
Chiang and Ortega looked to Kimura for guidance. “Get ready,” he said. “Our only chance is a full assault, continuous fire.” He made a decision, adjusting the setting on his pistol. “Shoot to kill. Take down as many as you can before—” Another roar warned them to jump back just before the pod was pushed sideways again. This time, it teetered forward, and for an alarming moment it seemed it might tip over onto them. He met the others’ eyes intently. “Our priority is to protect the wounded. Got it?” he asked with meaning.
Chiang nodded gamely, but Ortega gave a weak laugh. “I don’t suppose that includes me?” Kimura just glared. “Got it.”
“All right. On my count. One, two—”
“Wait!” Chiang called. “Look!”
Kimura had not fully registered the rumbling sound over the roaring of the Kalar. But it was rapidly growing louder. He looked up for the source of the sound, the blue-white gibbous face of Rigel VIII dominating his view. Against that cratered expanse, he saw a glint of light that swiftly resolved into a gleaming silver shape: a wide disk trailing two narrow cylinders and a third, lower ellipsoid.
Endeavour!
Kimura laughed as the ship closed in on their position. “The mountain comes to Muhammad!” he cried.
The Kalar air defense forces were doing their best to cope with this latest intrusion, but their artillery shells exploded against the vessel’s shield envelope. Her flight looked a little rocky, but still stable.
As for the living battering rams down here, they had halted their attacks. Peering through the side ports again, he saw them backing away i
n alarm, though their leader gestured for them to hold their ground.
And then the first phase cannon beam hit between the warriors and the shuttlepod. Kimura could feel the heat even from behind the pod, and under the fierce warble of the beam and the crackling of ionized air he could hear rocky shrapnel clattering against the pod’s hull. The Kalar broke into retreat, and the phase cannon fire herded them away down the slope.
Endeavour’s course took it beyond the promontory moments later, but it banked into a circle, continuing to lay down defensive fire. “Nice flying,” Ortega said. He cradled his broken arm. “I wish I could take credit for it.”
On the next pass, Kimura saw the shields drop just long enough for shuttlepod two to emerge from the ship’s port launch bay and descend toward the promontory. The artillery fire continued, but Endeavour’s hull plating was strong enough to weather it until the shuttle was clear. The ship was low enough that the pod reached them in under thirty seconds, hovering along the cliff edge. The door opened . . . and Hoshi Sato beckoned to Kimura, crying, “Come on!”
Kimura and Chiang pulled open shuttlepod one’s side hatch to retrieve their injured, and Crewmen Abnett and Zircher climbed out of the second pod to help them make the transfer with due haste. Within a minute, the rescue was done, and Kimura was the last man into the crowded shuttlepod. He gave Hoshi an efficient but heartfelt hug and kiss. “Nice rescue.”
“You looked like you needed it. Seriously, the edge of a cliff? You’re so melodramatic.”
“Hey, I like to keep our relationship exciting.”
As the pod drew near to Endeavour’s drop bay, he saw that the tractor beam was already drawing the damaged pod up toward the other bay. “I see we’re not leaving any nasty high technology behind.”
“Least we could do to make up for the intrusion.” Sato looked around at the rescued personnel. “I take it the ship was empty?”
“Two dead, both Zami.” Her face fell. “At least we’re narrowing it down.”
“But we’re still playing by their rules. The odds favor the house.”
He stroked her chin. “That’s when you find a way to change the game.”
12
Hainali Basin, Rigel III
ONCE TRAVIS MAYWEATHER’S SENSES fully returned (along with a splitting headache that made him regret a couple of said senses), he found himself, Rey Sangupta, Sajithen, and her escorts in a wooden boat with their hands bound behind them. Their captors, burly Chelons in homespun loincloths and burnoose-like hooded cloaks, paddled the boat upstream through an unfamiliar tributary. When Mayweather asked where they were being taken, Sajithen advised him that they would be at their destination soon. Although the Hainalians treated her the same as the other prisoners, she retained the confident bearing of one who belonged exactly where she was.
Eventually they reached a massive earthwork deep in the forest, made of a dark, tightly packed soil like the kind the Hainalian villages were built upon. “Terra preta,” Sangupta said. “Incredibly rich soil, mixed with charcoal, pottery shards, food waste, and, um, organic residue from the villages. It’s the secret to sustainable rainforest agriculture, fertile as hell and resistant to nutrient leaching. Slash-and-burn agriculture almost destroyed the Amazon rainforest until twenty-first-century humans relearned how the native Amazonians used to make the stuff.”
This earthwork was agricultural, topped by a dense grove of plants with bulbous, pear-shaped trunks and wide canopies of fern-like leaves spread out in an umbrella formation that Mayweather realized would make good camouflage from overhead.
Soon they reached a region where the trees were spaced marginally wider and had narrower trunks, leaving room for a number of large huts, more than one of which had antenna arrays on their roofs. One of their captors called out, and moments later the largest hut’s door was pushed aside from within. There emerged a wide-bodied Chelon in an ornate toque worn over a loose, colorful keffiyeh, with similarly bright fabric draped around the body. This Chelon was somewhat shorter than the rest, though significantly taller than Mayweather. He, or she, was accompanied by a pair of attendants who stayed two paces behind at all times.
“Ganaiar,” exclaimed Sajithen. “Why do you breach the etiquette of parley by taking us captive? I came to you in good faith!”
“So you claim,” the rebel chieftain intoned. “As you have claimed to aid us in the past, while holding us back from pursuing our real goals. But we have new allies now, and they have warned us about these new outsiders your great Trade Commission has sold out to.”
“What allies? The First Families?” A scornful rattle emerged from her beak. “They have sought to exploit our homeland as much as any others, or even more. And they stand outside the Commission, refusing any checks on their exploitation.”
“Not that the Commission imposes many such checks of its own.”
“We maintain the balance with a subtle hand. You know how the game is played.”
“Yes,” Ganaiar grated. “You give us license, and give the same license to those who would harm us—acting only to ensure neither goes far enough for any real change to occur. Or so it was. Now you let this Federation come in to subjugate us all.”
“Excuse me.” Mayweather thought it was about time he got in on the conversation. “Hi. I’m Commander Travis Mayweather of the Federation vessel Pioneer. This is my science officer, Lieutenant Sangupta.”
“We know who you are.”
“With all due respect, sir, it doesn’t sound like you do.” The “sir” was pure guesswork.
The chieftain growled. Sajithen turned to Mayweather. “Many Hainalian traditionalists do not adopt a permanent gender role. Call Ganaiar by the title Velom.”
“Of course, my apologies,” Mayweather said to the chieftain. “Velom Ganaiar, whatever the First Families have told you about the Federation, it’s not true. We’re not here to subjugate anyone. We want the Rigel worlds to join us as partners.”
“You know how the Families lie, Ganaiar,” Sajithen added. “Why would you follow them now?”
“We do not,” the chieftain growled back. “Our cause aligns with their goals at the moment, that is all. Like them, we have no wish to be ground under by the Federation or any others. Now that your Commission has sold out, we will no longer wait for your peaceful methods to work. It is time that we rise up openly and free ourselves from your control.”
“This is madness, Ganaiar. The Families have used your hypnoids to steal our most sensitive secrets. We believe they will use them to attempt a seizure of Rigel II. Do you really believe they will grant this world its liberty?”
“Their agendas are their own. As are ours. Once we take control of our world, once we capture and nationalize the offworld ships on and around it, we can defend it ourselves.”
“Oh, no,” Mayweather moaned. “Don’t you see? You’re playing right into their hands. They’re using you to get the Commission fighting on two fronts so they won’t have enough strength to hold Rigel II. And that’ll just make the Families stronger and you weaker. Velom, there’s nothing to gain by this.
“But there’s a better way. If Rigel joins the Federation, you’ll all be protected by our laws. The exploitation will have to stop, and your right to live the way you want and control your own lands will be guaranteed.”
“Do not lead me astray with Federation lies.”
“It’s the Families who are lying to you!” Sangupta insisted.
“We do not do this at their request,” Ganaiar shot back. “We heed the truth that has been brought to us—the same truth that has come to the Families. The truth that your Federation has hidden about the secret crimes of its members. The biological warfare Earth waged against the Klingons. The Vulcans’ support of the corrupt rulers of Coridan. Your vaunted Admiral Archer’s abandonment of the Valakian race to extinction.”
“Oh, for the—seriously?” Sangupta asked. “Where are you getting this ‘truth’ from, the Alrond Newsfeed?”
“Rey
,” Mayweather cautioned. He turned back to the chieftain. “So you’re saying you’ve been contacted by some other power? Someone from outside the Rigel system?” He set his jaw. “If they have accusations to make against us, let them do it to our faces.”
“They will not grant the likes of you the privilege of gazing upon them, mammal.”
Sangupta seized on that. “So they’re not mammals? Maybe something more like yourselves, more reptilian?”
Ganaiar hesitated, casting a glance back toward the large hut. Mayweather nodded, a small smile forming. “I’ll take that as a yes. And at least one of them is here right now. Let me guess: shaped like us, but with gray scales and no hair?”
“Of course you know of them,” the chieftain spat. “How else would they know of your abuses?”
“Malurians,” Mayweather and Sangupta said almost simultaneously. The first officer went on. “Velom, we have dealt with them before, and, well, they’re not exactly known for their honesty. At least, not the ones you usually find outside their home system.”
“Of course they try to slander us,” came a new voice. The humanoid who emerged from the tent was just what Mayweather had expected: a Malurian, his gray-scaled head adorned by a series of low, parallel ridges across his cheeks and scalp. “Don’t listen to them, Velom. Now that they know I’m here, we can’t take any chances. You should kill them at once.”
Ganaiar glanced sidelong at the Malurian and replied with controlled patience. “Had I wished to kill them, they would be dead already. Sajithen may have been an impediment to our goals, but her death would backfire. And killing Federation officers could bring down a tukhanthik on all our heads.”
“Then what is it you have planned?” Sajithen asked.
“You must answer for the crimes of the Federation and its Commission puppets. We will put you on trial before all Rigel, and prove that our grievances are just.”
The Malurian came forward. “No, you mustn’t! They’ll give away our presence.”
Star Trek: Enterprise - 016 - Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel Page 20
