A Time to Kill

by David Mack

  Chapter 14

  U.S.S. Enterprise-E

  PICARD WAS SURPRISED by how smoothly the conversation with his superiors was going. He had expected to bear the brunt of all manner of recriminations, to be held up to the flames for not preventing the unfolding catastrophe on Tezwa. Instead, he was simply being burdened with the impossible task of fixing it.

  “We’ve already reassigned the Amargosa, the Musashi and the Republic to join you as soon as possible,” Ross said. “But it’s up to the Enterprise to hold the line.”

  “We’ll do our best, Admiral—”

  “I’m sure,” Ross interjected.

  “—but the Enterprise is no match for an entire Klingon invasion fleet,” Picard finished.

  “We’re not asking you to fight the Klingons, Jean-Luc,” Nechayev said. Picard found her tone patronizing. “Just talk some sense into them.”

  “Buy us time to find a diplomatic solution,” Janeway said.

  “I can’t guarantee they’ll listen,” Picard said. The admirals’ reactions implied they had hoped for a different answer. “Do we have any idea how large a force they’re sending?”

  Nechayev shook her head. “Not a clue. Long-range sensors picked up twenty ships leaving Qo’noS, but there’s no telling how many cloaked vessels regrouped at the Zurav Nebula. You could be facing two dozen—or two hundred.”

  “How far do you want to take this?” Picard said. “What, precisely, should we do if either side refuses to stand down?” He didn’t want to be seen as difficult or uncooperative, but the orders he was receiving were disturbingly vague. He was unsure whether that indicated Ross and the others lacked a coherent plan of action, or if they simply intended to deploy him and the Enterprise as rogue operators, ones whose actions could easily be later disavowed in the face of controversy.

  A moment of uneasy silence followed Picard’s question. President Zife cleared his throat, then spoke. “Captain, I want you to neutralize the artillery on Tezwa and prevent the Klingon attack force from landing on its surface. Do whatever is necessary to accomplish those objectives. Use any means, any tactics, any force of arms required. Do I make myself clear?”

  Picard was taken aback by the president’s order. In all his years in Starfleet, he had heard few executive directives that were so brazen in calling for results at any price. Even more distressing—assuming he had heard the president’s order correctly—his crippled ship and beleaguered crew were being tasked with the tactical equivalent of seppuku.

  It was an all but impossible mission—and exactly the sort of thing for which the Enterprise was known across the galaxy.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Picard said, after a brief hesitation. But doubts still nagged at him. “Admiral Ross, one other matter concerns me.”

  “Go on,” Ross said.

  “Two of my senior officers have analyzed the artillery on the planet surface,” Picard said. “We believe the guns may be of Starfleet design.”

  “The Tezwans are using Starfleet technology?” Janeway said. She seemed duly alarmed by the prospect. The president, on the other hand, remained silent but attentive to the conversation. Picard stayed focused on his conversation with Ross.

  “As I said, Admiral, we believe the weapons may be based on Starfleet designs, but without a closer inspection we can’t be sure who manufactured them.” Picard was reluctant to press forward with this inquiry, but he felt it was his duty. “Admiral, was Starfleet Intelligence aware of the guns’ presence on Tezwa before the Enterprise was ordered into orbit?”

  Ross became indignant. “Absolutely not,” he said.

  Nechayev jumped in to add her assurances. “We vetted the intel on Tezwa ten ways to Sunday before we sent it to you,” she said. “If we’d known about those guns, you would’ve known about those guns.”

  “Yes, of course,” Picard said. “I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

  “Captain,” Janeway said, “I’ll have my people look over your scans of the guns. We’ll let you know the moment we find anything.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  “You have less than four hours until the Klingons attack,” Ross said. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast…. And good luck.” Ross reached forward to terminate the transmission, but stopped as the president added a final comment.

  “Captain, I just want to say that we all know what a terrible risk you’re about to take,” Zife said. “I wish I didn’t have to put you and your crew in the middle of all this, but…” Zife’s voice tapered off, apparently taking his last few thoughts with it. Picard wondered what the man had been about to say. Was he going to explain why the Federation had chosen to meddle in the Klingons’ political affairs? Was he going to reveal that Tezwa had some critical long-term value to Federation security? Zife regained his composure, straightened his posture, and looked up with a blank stare. “Do whatever it takes,” he said. “Good fortune, Captain.” And with that, Zife ended his transmission, and the admirals did likewise.

  Picard’s monitor switched off, and his ready room was dark except for the distant, cold flicker of a small and icy planet that orbited on the farthest edge of Tezwa’s star system, which was officially catalogued as Tezel-Oroko, for its primary star and failed-protostar gas-giant partner. He took a sip of his Earl Grey tea, and grimaced as he realized it had become tepid while he had been speaking with the Starfleet brass.

  He set down the cold ceramic mug on his desktop and recalled the words of Earth’s nineteenth-century Greenland explorer Fridtjof Nansen: “The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.” As Picard grappled with the enormity of the task that lay ahead of him, however, he wasn’t certain he had enough time even to attempt the difficult, never mind the impossible. Which, naturally, he took as an indication that he’d best get started.

  He keyed the master com switch on his desk. “Picard to all senior personnel: Assemble in the observation lounge.”

  Chapter 15

  An Undisclosed Location

  DIETZ STOOD ALONE in the darkened room. His tall, stringy frame concealed his toughness. He shook his head and ran a hand over his spiky brush-cut hair while he watched the playback of President Zife’s conference with Captain Picard and Admirals Ross, Nechayev, and Janeway.

  Zife’s order to Picard was naked in its desperation and glaring in its lack of detail. “Do whatever is necessary to accomplish those objectives,” Zife said again as Dietz replayed the recording.

  The door hissed softly open behind him. His black uniform jacket made a stiff, synthetic creak as he turned and looked over his shoulder to see his supervisor L’Haan walk in. Even though the Vulcan woman appeared to be younger than he, he knew that she was at least a hundred years his senior. Her raven black hair was straight and shoulder-length, and the lines of her own all-black uniform flattered her lithe body. Except for her faintly greenish complexion and sharply pointed ears, Dietz had long been of the opinion that she reminded him of artists’ depictions of the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

  “What is their status?” she said, skipping any salutations or preamble. She stood beside him as he replayed the recording of Zife’s order, then paused the playback.

  “They’re bungling it,” Dietz said. “If we don’t step in, we’ll be at war with the Klingons by tomorrow.”

  “What is Azernal doing?” she said.

  “Trading code phrases with his Tezwan braccio destro.” Dietz called up a recording of Azernal’s conversation with Bilok. He cued up a reference from the end of the conversation and played it. “Time’s up,” the recorded Azernal said. “The path of least resistance has been closed.”

  “The great strategic mind at work,” L’Haan dead-panned. “A child could parse his code phrases.” It was an open secret among their peers that L’Haan considered the Zakdorn chief of staff to be overrated as a strategist. “How long until he and Bilok can set up a com channel that Kinchawn hasn’t compromised?”

  “Four hours,
at least.”

  “Most unfortunate,” L’Haan said. She leaned forward and switched Dietz’s screen to a status report on the progress of the Klingon attack fleet. The perfectly coiffed ends of her silken hair grazed his arm, and imparted to the air a fleeting fragrance of lilac as she straightened her posture. Dietz knew she wasn’t oblivious of his attraction to her; she simply was too disciplined to let it faze her. “If the Klingons conquer the planet, there will be no chance of rectifying Zife and Azernal’s mistakes,” she said. “If Picard and his crew fail, we’ll have to embrace a permanent solution to the Tezwa problem.”

  Dietz’s eyes widened involuntarily, but only for a moment. Wiping out the planet was an extreme response, but under the circumstances it might be the most prudent course. Logistically, its chief advantage was that all essential tactical assets were already deployed. Two years ago, one of their field operatives had programmed back-door codes into the control systems for Tezwa’s artillery system. With a minimum of effort, Dietz could remotely trigger a catastrophic reaction in the system’s antimatter power cores that would destroy the guns—as well as the surface and entire population of the planet.

  Starfleet had long ago surrendered its authority to order the destruction of planets, and the Federation had signed a treaty with several neighboring powers that officially banned the practice, even in wartime. Seven years ago, however, prior to the official start of the Dominion War, the joint Romulan-Cardassian attempt to vaporize the Founders’ homeworld, though unsuccessful, had proved that neither of those governments had any intention of abiding by such agreements.

  The Federation had openly condemned the attack, but Dietz and his compatriots had grasped the cold, hard truth: Unless the Federation was willing to take such brutal actions to guarantee its own survival, it would eventually become little more than a footnote in the history of a culture that had such icy resolve. That was something which Dietz could not let happen.

  “I’d need about twenty minutes to start the sequence,” Dietz said.

  “Very well,” L’Haan said, folding her hands behind her back. “Monitor the Enterprise’s progress. If the Klingons land troops on the planet, initiate the protocol.”

  “And if Picard contains the situation?”

  L’Haan pondered that contingency. She unfolded her hands. “In that unlikely event, wait for new orders.”

  “Understood,” he said. “What about black ops, or sleepers?”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. He was half-hypnotized watching her hair sway with the side-to-side motion. “Do not activate any field assets until we define our objectives.”

  “Understood,” he said.

  L’Haan turned away and walked toward the door. As it closed behind her, Dietz began making preparations for the top-secret implementation of the protocol once known as General Order 24.

  Chapter 16

  U.S.S. Enterprise-E

  THEY’RE TAKING THIS rather well, Picard mused ironically.

  The captain surveyed the reactions of his senior officers to Starfleet’s latest orders. Looks of incredulous dismay were volleyed from one officer to the next, down the length of the table. In the hush that had fallen like a curtain, Picard could hear the tiny squeak of every slowly pivoted chair, and the grimly resigned sigh of Dr. Crusher, who sat to his left at the far end of the table.

  The rectangular monitor on the observation lounge wall was divided into quadrants. One outlined the Tezwans’ artillery system; another showed the current damage-and-repair status of the Enterprise; the third tracked the position, estimated size, and approximate arrival time of the Klingon attack fleet; the last tracked the status of Tezwa’s newly acquired fleet of two dozen warships, which were even now powering up for rapid deployment into orbit over the planet.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Picard said.

  La Forge leaned forward to look past Data, who sat to Picard’s immediate right. “Well, we still don’t have weapons or shields,” the engineer said. “So I’d suggest not getting ourselves shot at—by the Klingons or the Tezwans.”

  “I’ll second that,” Vale said.

  Picard looked at Troi, who sat at the far end of the table, opposite Crusher. “Counselor? Any advice on diplomatic options?”

  “I’m afraid not, Captain,” she said. “Judging from the level of hostility I sensed between the rival political factions on Tezwa, I’d say they’re on the verge of a coup d’état. Negotiating with them while Kinchawn remains in power seems unlikely, and possibly counterproductive.”

  “What about the Klingons?” Picard said.

  “I have to believe that if anyone could have stopped them from launching the attack, it would’ve been Worf,” Troi said. “Now that they’re en route, I think we should assume the worst.”

  Picard hunched forward, rested his hands on the desktop, and folded his fingers together. “Number One? Thoughts?” Riker looked exhausted. Picard hadn’t picked up on that earlier, in the dim lighting of the bridge. He wondered whether he should have insisted his first officer take a proper leave of absence following the murder of Kyle Riker on Delta Sigma IV.

  “We know diplomacy’s out,” Riker said. “And even at our best, going into battle against these odds would be suicide…. The way I see it, we have exactly two options left: subterfuge, and sabotage.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Picard said.

  “Our first step has to be neutralizing Tezwa’s artillery,” Riker said. “Can we hit them with long-range photon torpedoes?”

  “No,” Vale said, turning slightly to address her remarks as much to the captain as to the first officer. “Tezwa’s defense system would shred them before they reach the atmosphere.”

  “And if any did reach their targets, they wouldn’t penetrate the guns’ shields,” La Forge said. “Any attack powerful enough to knock out the shields would cause collateral damage on a global scale.”

  Riker picked up his padd and checked an item in Data and La Forge’s analysis of the Tezwan guns. “Your report says the guns are controlled by six firebases located around the planet.”

  “That is correct,” Data said. “Those facilities also supply the power for the planet’s defensive systems.”

  “Can we disable just those six firebases?” Riker said.

  “Their shields are even tougher,” Vale said.

  “True,” Data said. “However, unlike the guns, they are configured to repel only orbital and aerial attacks.”

  La Forge half-swiveled his chair toward Data. “That’s right,” the chief engineer said. Picard was convinced he could see a gleam in the man’s synthetic, silvery eyes. “The shields don’t extend low enough to stop ground assaults,” La Forge continued. “We can’t beam through them, but we could free-fall through the shields, and approach the bases on the ground.”

  Vale looked concerned as she posed a question to Data. “How many people would be in one of those firebases?”

  The android thought for a moment. “Given the unusual degree of similarity between the Tezwans’ artillery and the prototypes designed by Starfleet, I would estimate each firebase is run by approximately forty-five personnel. The guns themselves would have only a handful of technicians, to perform routine and emergency maintenance.”

  “So we’re looking at two hundred seventy hostile personnel in the firebases,” Vale said. She shook her head. “I don’t know. Even if we had enough people to launch an attack like that, the Tezwans would blow us outta the sky before we reached the ground.”

  “A large-scale attack might not be necessary,” Data said. “After all, our goal is to engage in sabotage—not a war of attrition.”

  “Absolutely,” Riker said. “We have to think in terms of a covert operation, small-unit tactics.” He looked to La Forge and Data. “If we’re going to sabotage Tezwa’s defenses, where do we hit them? What’s the system’s most vulnerable point?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” La Forge said. He picked up his padd, punched in a shor
t string of commands, and aimed it at the wall monitor. The schematic of the Tezwan artillery system enlarged to fill the entire screen. “The guns were made for power, and they’ve got it in spades.” He highlighted an isolated component of the guns. “What they don’t have are good backups for their prefire-chamber capacitors.”

  Crusher half-raised her hand. “Could we pretend for a moment that I have no idea what you just said?”

  Vale jumped in to field the question. “The prefire chamber is a key component in a directed-energy weapon,” she said. “Before the weapon fires, it builds up a specific amount of charge in the prefire chamber. When it has enough power stored, it collapses a restraining field and releases the energy in a single, massive burst to the emitter array, which focuses the pulse and modulates its frequency.”

  Crusher nodded. “And what happens if this prefire chamber doesn’t have a good backup?”

  “The weapon has no ability to compensate for an overload,” Vale said. “If enough energy floods the chamber too quickly—”

  “Boom,” La Forge said, mimicking an explosion by spreading apart his hands and fingers.

  Picard feared the consequences of such an attack. “What risk would that pose to the civilian population?” he said.

  “None,” La Forge said. “The results would be implosive, not explosive. And once the guns implode, the feedback pulses would destroy the firebases the same way. We can take out the entire system without risking collateral damage to the environment.”

  “But the maintenance personnel inside the guns?” Picard said, weighing all the costs against his conscience.

  “Once we control the firebases, we can override the gun crews’ access codes and lock them out of the system,” Data said. “When we are ready to initiate the system collapse, they can be given enough warning to evacuate before the guns implode.”