by Diane Duane
Veilt nodded, and looked at Kirk. “Ael has told me that you are attempting to devise some technique that may be used to keep the Sunseed technology from being implemented in a given star system.”
“That’s right,” Jim said, and threw a glance at Ael.
“I’m relieved to hear it,” Veilt said. “Even the possibility will give some hope to the many millions who could not make their way onto a ship such as this. In the meantime, such work may prevent the Sunseed technique being used as a weapon of war, as opposed to a mere tool of oppression. If you will share your research with us, we will give you whatever help we can. Meanwhile, we must choose our next destination quickly. Though what has happened here will throw the Klingons briefly into disarray, we cannot count on that state of mind lasting long. They will come after us in fury, and seek to strike where they can do the most harm—not just to us. To you as well.”
The hair stood up on the back of Jim’s neck. “A two-front war,” he said softly.
“It is always a harrowing prospect,” Veilt said. “And I must ask—does your front have more than one ship in it?”
It was the question for which Jim had been waiting, and the one he could not be sure that he would be answering correctly. “At the moment, no.” He paused for a long moment. “Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be here. Strictly speaking, if Starfleet manages to get in touch with me again…”
Veilt shot a look at Ael. “I take it that you have been having some persistent communication difficulties.”
“Well,” Jim said, and smiled just slightly, “there has been all this jamming…”
Veilt smiled. “I have a feeling it may continue. Meanwhile, let me put to you a question of strategy. We have yet to gather to us all the resources that the Ship-Clans can bring to the conflict to come. Two other ships like Tyrava exist, one of which is willing to meet us and lend its assistance to the next major engagement. Now we must decide where that is to be.”
He touched the table, and a large holographic map of Romulan space appeared in the air above it, rotating slowly. Jim looked at it.
He stood up. “There,” he said, and reached out a hand to point at a spot inside the display.
Veilt looked at him in silence for several long moments, then glanced at Ael as he stood up as well. “Not here,” he said, indicating another star, “or here?”
Jim shook his head. “Too far away. Those targets—Le-lent, and Biriha, I think?—would be too easy for the Senate to write off while they concentrated on other things. And they’re too far away from our final goal. Wasting time attacking them would merely give Grand Fleet more leisure to reinforce the Eisn system, and in strength, after this defeat at Artaleirh. Right now my estimate is that the Senate has their ‘force-projecting’ assets scattered across half the Empire, trying to put down, or keep down, the rebellions that are starting to spring up all over. Why give them so much time to call the assets back? Let’s concentrate their minds by attacking them much closer to home, so that they feel they have to divert most of Grand Fleet there to stop us, and ideally to break us. Let’s make them draw the line in the sand where we want it, not where they choose to.” He looked at the little blue-white star. “Augo.”
“The system is resource-rich, strategically placed, and a home to several large Grand Fleet refueling and resupply bases,” Spock said. “Additionally, it is a system that would need to be secured first by any force intending to make a major incursion into Hearthworld space, both to make Augo’s resources available to the invading forces, and to deny them to the defenders.”
“You would not merely go straight in to ch’Rihan?” Veilt said.
Jim laughed. “I may be the captain of the Enterprise, but even my one ship doesn’t make a fleet, any more than yours does, sir, with all respect to you and Tyrava’s size. What we’ve got now isn’t anything like enough force to take ch’Rihan and ch’Havran, especially with the intelligence I’ve got at the moment. If I were the admiral in charge of this operation—”
“You are,” Ael said.
Jim had to work to keep himself from showing any outward reaction. “—then I would use Augo, once the system was secured, as a staging point for the attack on ch’Rihan and ch’Havran. I would use the system as a place where reinforcements and previously unaligned forces could gather from the colony worlds. I would use its location, the timing of the system’s acquisition, and the events themselves as tools to gather the most recent possible intelligence from the Eisn system before I went in. I would use it as a base for initial strikes on the outer planets in the Eisn system, the domed bases, and defensive satellite arrays. And then I’d attack the Hearthworlds themselves. Time’s on our side at the moment, but not for long. The more we waste, the more Grand Fleet and the present Rihannsu government will benefit.”
Veilt nodded. “Captain, you have the true tactician’s eye for where to start work. So far, at least, we are in agreement.”
“So far, but no further?” Jim said.
“There is the issue of what happens when we reach ch’Rihan,” Veilt said. “Strategy for that has yet to be devised.”
“Sir,” Jim said, “we have a saying: it’s hard to describe the multiverse while standing on one foot. I’ve been giving that matter some passing thought. I have more thought to give it yet, since no planet is reduced merely from space. At least, no planet that hominids hope later to inhabit. I expect to have a master close-planetary and ground-assault plan ironed out…oh, within a few hours?”
Veilt smiled very slowly. “I am reprimanded. A few days, certainly, will do. Even a tenday or so. For one thing, I have as yet given neither you nor the Commander-General any realistic assessment of non-Ship assets that will be available to us. That information would only become concrete when the engagement at Augo is done. And after that, you are quite right, there would be a need to move swiftly.”
There was a little silence at the table. “Captain,” Veilt said, “there is one thing I must say to you. There will be many of our people who will distrust your motives in assisting us. There will be those who would distrust them no matter how spectacular a victory we might achieve at Augo, indeed, no matter if you offered them ch’Rihan and ch’Havran on a salver. Betrayal will be constantly on such people’s minds, and however well-intentioned you prove, they will be looking to see how the Federation might be exploiting you for its own purposes. Your leadership will be constantly scrutinized and second-guessed at every level, examined for ulterior motives. But you’re not to feel as if you are being singled out in that regard, for there are Rihannsu who feel passionately about this uprising, this chance for freedom, but still fear and distrust my kinswoman, your colleague.” He looked at Ael.
She raised her eyebrows in a weary way. “We will liberate them whether they like it or not,” Ael said, her voice edged with humor. “Certainly they will like it better when they become sanguine enough to take part in the endeavor. For the meantime, I will go on as I have begun; I too am conscious of being used to a purpose, in some quarters at least, but I do not intend to let it stop me.” The look she gave Veilt was difficult to read.
“Sir,” Jim said, “the question does need to be answered. If we attack Augo, and fail—”
“Then Tyrava will make her way to other spaces,” Veilt said. “This ship was not built and populated with the desperate children of ten worlds to be destroyed in a fruitless conflict. We will try to make the Empire a place where we may remain. We all love our homeworlds; the decision to part from them was not casual. But most of us are past desiring to die for them. We are well armed, yes. The Clans who have near-beggared themselves to secretly build these ships have always understood that we would have to fight our way free of the Empire. But none of us ever planned for sustained campaigns inside Eisn space itself. Our weaponry was designed for flight into other spaces—not for taking on all of Grand Fleet in repeated battles. You have a chance to prove yourself at Augo. After that, if worse comes to worst, we go our own way.”
“’Twould be wise,” Scotty said. “I’d prefer to stay here a day or so at least, for we’ve still a lot of replacement components to install as a result of that long run at high warp, before the battle. Our new dilithium crystal looks to be settling in nicely—aye, and this would be a fine place to lay in some spares; I’d guess the mining and processing facility will be glad to accommodate us. But I want to run some more tests on the main crystal to make sure she’s bedded in for more high-warp running. I have a feeling we’ll be needing it.”
He didn’t say anything about what Jim felt sure Scotty was thinking—that more time spent in Tyrava’s neighborhood would possibly give him a chance to investigate its warp technology more closely.
Veilt, for his own part, rose as well, and merely smiled that slight, somber smile again, nodding. “We too had thought to stay for a short time. Planetside provisioning has been something of a problem for us in recent months; we have had to take unusual care not to be seen by any force, Rihannsu or otherwise. But our secret may safely now be assumed to be out, so we will use our time here to our best advantage. And as you say, extra dilithium is always welcome; and we will be in a position to be of assistance, if only as backup, while the Artaleirhin put their newly captured ships fully into commission, and make contact with other systems that are as active in rebellion.”
Everyone got up and headed for the door. “Sir,” Jim said, “perhaps we might invite you over to Enterprise in the next day or so? Purely socially.”
Veilt’s smile abruptly lost its somber quality. “I had been hoping you might ask,” he said. “Believe me, Captain, while our ship may seem impressive to you, Enterprise is impressive to us for entirely different reasons. Big ships are nothing special by themselves. Some vessels act bigger than they are, and produce bigger results.”
“I know,” Jim said. “The real trouble comes when they’re routinely expected to.”
As they made their way back to the transporter hall, that thought kept coming back to haunt Jim. It could sometimes be useful for your enemies to think that you were more of a danger than was really possible. But when your friends and allies thought so too…
Jim began thinking in earnest about Augo.
SIX
In a tapestry-hung room on the Klingon homeworld, a man was swearing.
“Where are my ships?” he said. “Where are my ships?!”
Four other Klingons were in the room with K’hemren, the Chancellor’s chief counselor. Two of them wore the all-black uniforms of Imperial Intelligence, and stood before him in varying attitudes of disdain or annoyance. Another was a servitor, standing in the rear, awaiting orders. The fourth was on his knees, stripped of his armor, his hands bound behind him. His head was down, and though he was not trembling, it was plain that he shortly expected that head to be severed from his shoulders.
“It is as I told you,” he said. His voice had gone dull; he seemed to have passed beyond desperation. “The great ship came—”
“From where?” K’hemren roared at him. “You got no weapons or engine telemetry from it, not even a scan of the direction from which it came.”
“Lord,” said the kneeling man, “it was cloaked. The cloak was of a kind we’d never seen before. It leaked no signal, no waveform whatsoever until the ship was fully revealed. And by the time it was—”
“You would have me believe,” said K’hemren, “that they destroyed at least five heavy cruisers—the whole rest of your complement! Yet you alone managed to fight your way out of this situation?”
“Sir,” the kneeling man said. “It was not fair. It was not fair! We had them! And we would have had Enterprise!” Some hints of outrage began to illumine the deadness of his voice.
K’hemren merely snorted in disbelief. “Greater men than you have tried that and failed. It stretches my imagination intolerably to believe that boot-stickings like you could ever even approach such a feat.” He looked over at the two Imperial Intelligence operatives.
One of them, gazing down at the kneeling man, shrugged. “Local space was full of jamming signals. It was affecting local scan and telemetry unusually badly. Yet something did show through in the initial analysis. However unlikely it seems, his ship got a brief glimpse of something very large—very massive. On the order of two hundred eighty million tieks.”
“There are no ships of such a size.” K’hemren made a disgusted face and waved the suggestion away. “Though doubtless there are those who would like us to believe there are. This is some kind of propaganda trick, some ploy or illusion, some alteration of the scans so that they seem to reveal the impossible. Enterprise has been involved with such trickery before.”
K’hemren stared at the man on his knees for a moment longer, then gestured to the servitor, who started silently toward them.
The second Imperial Intelligence officer looked up. “Lord,” he said quietly, “where are the other ten ships? And where are the other five from this task force?”
“The other ten had orders to run under silence, as you know. As for these five…” K’hemren chewed his mustache briefly while looking down at the man who knelt before him; behind the kneeling man, the servitor drew closer, with something in his hands.
“Suppose there were ships of that size?” K’hemren said softly. “It might well suit our enemies to have us disbelieve this report. More: it might well suit them to have us believe that the ship is not a Federation vessel, but Romulan.”
“The Romulans could never afford such a thing!” said the second security officer, with a scornful laugh.
“Indeed,” said K’hemren, “they might like to have us believe that too. Well, I think we need more data. This undertaking has already become more complex than I would like. For the sake of the attack on the Federation that we’re contemplating, we can well afford to throw away a few more ships to discover the truth of this ‘great ship’—who it belongs to, what weaponry it might have. Whether indeed it’s reality, or just some propaganda ploy.”
The servitor now stood directly behind the man who knelt. He lifted one hand, raised his eyes to those of the Chancellor’s counselor. “Truth we must have, and that quickly. No,” K’hemren said to the servitor. “Not right now. You!”
The man who knelt realized that he was being addressed, and looked up for the first time since the start of their meeting, though not with any expression of hope. “Take yourself out of my sight,” said K’hemren. “And stay in whatever wretched bolthole constitutes your quarters here until you’re sent for. I may, if you’re lucky, send you to your death in some more honorable fashion than the skulking, whining exit you made from your most recent battle.”
The kneeling man scrambled to his feet, bowed deeply but hastily, and left with the servitor close behind him. When the chamber door boomed to again, K’hemren looked at the two Intelligence officers. He leaned back a little, stretching his arms along the arms of the chair. “The coward,” one of the two Intelligence men said.
“Even a coward may tell the truth,” said K’hemren. “I give you leave to access all archived sensor data from our fleets for the last half year. Examine all downloaded scan data for any traces or signs of massive vessels such as our frightened friend claims to have seen. Correlate the data, and have it on my desk by tomorrow morning. In particular, look for sudden emergences of signal or losses of signal such as we have heard described. In this case, things not seen, or half seen, may prove as revealing as things seen clearly—assuming that our poor friend here did not lie.”
“And if he did not?” the second Intelligence officer said.
“Then we have a problem,” said K’hemren. “But not so severe a problem as one we did not know about until it was too late.”
“Should this encounter have been genuine, do you anticipat
e that it will affect the second front of the battle?” said the first Intelligence man.
The man in the seat breathed out. “Oh, most likely not. My first guess would be that the poor cowards got a glimpse of some ship of the Lalairu, or one of the other ragtag traveling species, while they passed through the Artaleirh system. They are no threat if they’re left alone; they do not seek out wars or enter alliances. However, if the vessel as described and armed does indeed exist, and is a Federation one, it might to some extent change the thinking of the High Council. Certainly it would change the Chancellor’s.”
The two Intel officers frowned, looking scandalized. But K’hemren only laughed at them. “Death in glorious battle is one thing,” he said. “But death that throws ships away thoughtlessly, decreasing our ability to project power, that’s another. There are those who say that the Chancellor is the highest expression of the Klingon ethos. But in my experience, he values his power, and the power of the Defense Force, too highly to throw them away for merely ethical considerations.” K’hemren’s smile was supremely ironic. “Now go—correlate that data. I expect to hear from you first thing tomorrow morning.”
In an office in Paris, another man, too, sat in a chair, looking out the window at his view of the Eiffel Tower.
It was night, and the top of the hour. The Tower was ablaze with a storm of glittering white lights—the old illuminations that had been put up late in the twentieth century for the Tower’s hundredth birthday, and had become so popular with Parisians that they refused to allow them to be taken down at the end of the centennial year. The old electrics had been replaced with pulsestrobes long ago, but the effect was much the same, and now that same white light raced down the tower like liquid lightning, outlining the graceful curves of the structure, dying away again. The lights in the room were dimmed, as usual, so that the man who watched could better enjoy the effect. But the dimness inside, and the brilliance outside, did nothing to help the President lose any sense of the anger of the man who stood behind him, waiting to regain his attention.
