The transporter room on Titan had reported that a transport inhibitor was preventing their beaming to that location. A new piece of technology for Garadius IV, Riker had thought. But he hadn’t minded walking, figuring they’d find out quite a bit along the way.
They hadn’t learned much. The most Modan and Troi had been able to pry out of an old Baladonian woman they’d encountered was that the Ekorr had “left,” but he already knew that wasn’t true. Titan’s scans had confirmed that the colony ships the Ekorr arrived in nearly a century earlier were still mothballed, unused. The Baladonians had not blocked his personal examination of the hangar at all.
“Peace has come here at last,” Troi said. “Relief. That’s all I sense. Relief and hope.”
“A hell of a way to get it,” Riker said, his righteous indignation rising. He tapped his combadge. “Riker to Xin. Instruct your teams to hold position at the filtration plant worksites and do nothing.”
“Nothing? Is there a problem, Admiral?” the Efrosian engineer responded. “The maintenance work here looks straightforward.”
“There might have been a genocide here. We’re not doing anything for the Baladonians until we learn more. Riker out.”
He looked at Tuvok, who had been surreptitiously using his tricorder to scan the city as they passed through. “The Enterprise reported there were forty thousand, six hundred and thirty one Ekorr here,” the Vulcan said. “I am finding remnant DNA on some of these former housing units. Dead skin cells, as one loses every day.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“Cellular degradation suggests weeks, not years. No more than a month. But the margin of error is high. A more detailed analysis—”
“Will need to wait. If I don’t get some answers from Jakoh, I’ll bring enough personnel down here to turn this place upside down.” The Ekorr were far from his favorite people, but the prospect of their total eradication turned Riker’s stomach. “I’m not seeing any mass graves. I wonder how long it takes for that ocean to consume a body.”
“Admiral, may I remind you that both cultures have advanced technology, even if they do not choose to use it to leave this world. They have transporters that could beam corpses anywhere.”
“Why corpses? They could have targeted the Ekorr for beaming into space.” That was a particularly dirty way to fight, Riker felt. If the Baladonians had indeed acquired transport-inhibitor technology before the Ekorr, that might explain everything.
They won’t get away with it, Riker thought. The Baladonians, with their uncontested claim to the planet, would continue to expect their little service trips from the Federation. They might even seek broader trade, or membership. It wouldn’t happen if William Riker had anything to say about it. Despite the cartoonish diplomatic pantomime he had endured years earlier, he could tell the battle between the Ekorr and the Baladonians had been bloody and costly. He’d seen it in the eyes of the children of both races he’d met during that mission.
Whatever had happened here was, more than likely, something else. Enemies don’t just vanish!
The Titan away team turned a corner into a long plaza. The Lyceum Garadius stood at the far end—a vast building dedicated to the spiritual advancement of the Vulcan workers who once called Garadius home. A large ivory-colored dome towered twenty meters above the rest of the building, its pinnacle statue of peace replaced by a discordant-looking Ekorr communications mast. A newly hung Baladonian flag flew from it in a display of dominance.
The Lyceum Garadius had been, for three generations, the cultural and political headquarters of the Ekorr—home to all their most important relics. It was a place they had put all their industry into repairing, despite repeated bombings by the Baladonians. And now it was a flurry of construction work again as Baladonians chucked out Ekorr artifacts in order to move their new furnishings in.
Riker paused outside long enough to call Titan. “We’re going in.”
Vale was concerned. “Be careful, Will,” she said, “you’ve caught them red-handed.”
“It depends on how stupid they are—and how stupid they’ve been. I’m hoping standing down our repair crews will give us some leverage.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” she said, referring to the Titan. “Good luck. Titan out.”
If you’re prepared, you don’t need luck, Riker thought. But we’ll take it if it’s offered. The admiral led the others up the steps.
* * *
It was an anvil.
Enormous. Gigantic. Sized almost beyond any rational need. Six meters from its bottom to its upper face, with a base so wide it could hide an entire family on the other side—in their shuttlepod. At the top, a mind-boggling fifteen meters of titanium ran from its heel to its angry horn, jutting so far into the lyceum rotunda that it nearly pierced the dome.
It was just where Riker had seen it before: a thousand-metric-ton slab sitting right in the middle of the great room. The Vulcan icons had long since been removed from their alcoves, the tapestries pulled down from the walls to establish the Ekorr holy place. Now the Baladonians were junking whatever they could find. But not the “Altar of Bothmune.” It was just too damn big.
Tuvok looked around the rotunda, slightly disconcerted. “It is illogical that the Ekorr would have taken this industrial item to value, while disregarding the Vulcan works of art.”
“People pick their own possessions to prize,” Troi said. “I think perhaps the Ekorr value industry, when they’re not fighting. This would seem to represent that.”
“It’s junk,” said a husky female voice from behind. Riker and his companions turned to see the approach of a tall Baladonian woman—green-skinned, with long brown hair tied off in braids. In contrast to the workers in the room and outside, she still wore military fatigues. She walked up and slapped a big hand on the anvil. “It’s a monster, for sure. Can you imagine those puny Ekorr moving it into here?”
Riker stiffened his shoulders. “I want to see Jakoh.”
“And he wants to see you,” she said. “Or anybody. I’m Shayla, his daughter. Follow me.”
Shayla led the four visitors through a hallway into another large room—a former library for the Vulcan settlers. There, in a Baladonian-size chair that clearly didn’t belong, sat Jakoh, the leader Riker had met once before. His skin was weathered and faded, and he wore a bandage over his eyes. Several beefy Baladonian guards stood to either side of the makeshift throne, while still others carted more furnishings back and forth through the middle of the room.
“Sorry about the mess,” Jakoh said to the air. “I don’t know who triggered the signal calling the Federation for repairs—it wasn’t us. We’re not ready to entertain here.”
“Overlord Jakoh,” Riker said.
“Is that young Mister Riker?” The stocky Baladonian laughed heartily. “Welcome, welcome.” He pawed at his bandage. “I’d get a look at you if I could, but there was an Ekorr concussion grenade a couple years back. Fragments tagged me.”
“Sorry. But—”
“You had a guy with you last time,” Jakoh continued hopefully, “your engineer, who had a visor that helped him see. Got any more of those thingies up there on your ship?” He smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth.
Riker stiffened. “Are you asking for medical help, Jakoh? I’m wondering about the forty thousand Ekorr. Did they ask you for help?”
“Will!” Troi whispered. Riker turned back to her. She spoke in quiet tones as she eyed the guards. “I’m not sensing any duplicity here.”
“There is none,” Shayla said, stalking past the visitors to her father’s side. “Except on the Federation’s part, Overlord. I have reports that their repair teams are refusing to work on the filtration facilities.”
“We want to know what happened to the Ekorr,” Riker said firmly.
Jakoh grinned. “I don’t see any Ekorr.”
&
nbsp; “Not that again,” Riker said, “and not very funny. We don’t see them either. I’d be willing to bet they were the ones who sent the signal triggering our visit now.” His voice boomed through the high-ceilinged room. “Now, where are they?”
“Gone,” Jakoh said, raising his hands innocently before his face. “Vanished. Poof.” His jowls shook with glee. “Good riddance.”
Tuvok stepped forward. “Are you saying they transported somewhere?”
Jakoh’s smile left. “That’s a new voice.”
“Vulcan,” Shayla said.
“Great, then maybe he can tell us how to fix the equipment here ourselves.” Jakoh snorted. “It’s pretty simple, really. We broke through the front lines in one sector of the city a few weeks ago—and there was nobody there. An entire neighborhood had been abandoned.”
“They fled?” Riker asked.
“In what? To where?” Shayla pointed to a map of the island on the far wall. “You know there’s no other landform of any size on this world—and that it's impossible to build undersea. And there are no caves below of any kind.”
Riker glanced at Tuvok, who was in deep thought. “Could there be caves now? Maybe they tunneled—”
“Go ahead, use your widgets and devices,” Jakoh said, indifferent. “You’ll see as we did. They’re not here. Even our prisoners are gone!” He shook his head. “Nothing else has been out of the ordinary. Some drops in the reactor’s power generation, and a few thefts. That’s just Baladonians celebrating.”
“Celebrating?”
“Of course!” He straightened in his chair. “The war on Garadius IV is over, Riker. Isn’t that what you wanted? We’ve gotten what we wanted: They’re gone. They were never here, as far as we’re concerned. We have what my grandfather’s people wanted for us: a home.”
Riker’s eyes narrowed. Something smelled here, and it wasn’t the air. He looked closer at the glowing lamp on the tall stand off to the side. It wasn’t a light fixture, he now saw. “That’s a transport inhibitor,” he said. “You didn’t have those when I was here last.”
“How is old Picard these days? His headache any better? He had a bad one when he left here—”
“Jakoh.”
The Baladonian grumbled. “Age hasn’t suited you, Riker. All right, yes. A while back the Ekorr took to beaming bombs into our camps—that’s how they got me. We did the same to them. So we started using transport inhibitors to defend against that.” He shook his head. “Problem is, they got inhibitors too.”
“From where? And where did you get them?” Standing near the inhibitor’s base, Tuvok eyed the Baladonian leader. “You did not invent this technology on your own, and no Federation member would have provided it without consultation.”
Jakoh rubbed his head above the bandage. “Such long words, this guy. You couldn’t bring the pretty one?”
“I’m here,” Troi spoke up. “And thank you. Could you please answer the question?”
Shayla stepped in front of her father. “I don’t think you need to say anything else, Overlord.”
Riker stared directly at her. “If someone’s started supplying either side in this war, the Federation wants to know. And if they had anything to do with the Ekorr’s fate—”
The Baladonian overlord sighed loudly. “Just like the last time—talk, talk, talk. Are you going to fix my eyes or not?”
Riker scowled. “I’m not sure medical science can fix what’s wrong with you people.”
Jakoh sighed. “Have it your way. Shayla, our other friend has helped us so much. What would he say now to a gift?”
Shayla looked to the right and smirked. “Ask him yourself,” she said. “He’s been here all the time.”
Riker and his comrades spun to see the armored eavesdropper emerging from behind an arras. “I should’ve known,” Riker said. “The Breen!”
“His name is Thot Roje, or so he tells us,” Jakoh said, even as his guards pulled their disruptors on the Titan away team. “He’s our new trading partner. And what we have to trade today, Riker . . . is you!”
Six
* * *
This is outrageous!” Riker said, and he hated himself as soon as he’d said it.
It was what ambassadors said, of course. Ambassadors and Federation commissioners and bureaucrats of all kinds—and Rear Admiral Riker was now one of the tribe. “This is outrageous!” was the stick that had been waved in diplomatic protest at everyone from Kaisers to Klingon chancellors. Riker was sure someone had thrown it at Alexander the Great once, with just as effective results.
Cadet Riker, Commander Riker, even Captain Riker—those men would have wrestled for the disruptor rifles pointed at him. Not in a stupid or foolhardy fashion, but when the opportunity presented itself, around a hallway corner or inside a doorway. They wouldn’t have surrendered their own weapons with nothing but a harmless epithet.
But he wasn’t just Will Riker anymore. Nor was he just Enterprise, or Titan. He was the instrument and embodiment of the United Federation of Planets on this world. And while he might direct—had directed, would direct—Starfleet officers to risk their lives, he had a duty to stay alive, to keep his away team alive and to see Federation policy enacted.
The problem was, the Baladonians knew this—which made him something else: a target, a bargaining chip. The commodity that Jakoh had talked about. Riker wondered now whether the Baladonians had triggered the repair call, hoping to entrap a starship captain. They had gotten a rear admiral. He would be of great value to the Breen. They had lost standing within the Typhon Pact after the demise of their secret slipstream project. Riker would be taken, and interrogated, and eventually traded for something the Typhon Pact really wanted.
That would be their idea, for sure. But it would never come to that, because Riker was not a diplomat. He had weapons beyond outrage at his disposal, resources on the ground and in the sky. Even now, when the away team was being escorted to an underground prison cell.
“Inventory,” he said, after he heard the guard step away from the sealed door.
“They missed this,” Troi said, pulling her combadge from the waistline of her slacks.
“And this.” Riker slipped a tricorder—his—from its position under his sleeve. “We’re not a family to turn your back on.”
Tuvok took the tricorder from the admiral and eyed it. “Unfortunate that you could not conceal a phaser in that manner.”
Riker smirked. “I’ll take that under advisement for next time.”
“There might not logically be a next—” Tuvok stopped, finally recognizing the joke. He looked at Ensign Modan. “Did you have anything?”
“No, sir. I surrendered it all,” the linguist said. “I was afraid getting killed wouldn’t look good on my record.”
Riker took Troi’s combadge. “We’re usually captured by a much better class of jailer. This? This was more about flushing out the truth. For all that Jakoh complains about empty talk, he and his daughter spent enough time jawing to tell me much of what I wanted to know.” He clicked the combadge. “Riker, calling from the lion’s den. Or, more specifically, from the basement . . .”
* * *
Riker didn’t think he really needed to speak quietly into the combadge, but he did so anyway. The comm signal was unaffected by the transport-inhibitor field that kept them from being beamed out, although Titan did report a number of unusual but harmless types of radiation in the vicinity.
Riker resisted Vale’s intention to send down a rescue team immediately. “Jakoh’s daughter seems to be running the show. She let slip that the Breen were sending a vessel.”
“A warship?”
“I don’t know. They’re coming to fetch their representative Roje, and whatever it is they need to finalize the deal they’ve worked out with the Baladonians. I believe the Breen are responsible for whatever happened to the Ekorr.”
Vale agreed. “They don’t care about the niceties. They’d want a victor crowned, so they have someone to deal with. It’s the prelude to an alliance. But don’t the Baladonians know they’d be junior partners?”
“They’re not that smart.” Riker chuckled as he rolled the combadge around in his hand. “The Baladonians never know what they don’t know, and I want it kept that way. Prepare our rescue, but make no moves to execute it until I give the word. Tell Shayla that you will instruct Xin’s engineers to begin working again on the filtration units. But, Chris, have them slow-play it—”
“—while they snoop around to see what might have happened to the Ekorr.”
“You got it,” Riker said, and he was glad. It was good they were thinking alike. As important as getting off Garadius IV before the Breen ship arrived might be—or before the Baladonian dinner service, a potentially worse fate—it was just as important to know what had happened to the Ekorr. If the Breen had the capacity to cleanse entire species from a world without leaving evidence behind, the Federation needed to know about it. “If the Breen ship arrives, pull out the repair teams, then you try to get us out of here. Riker out.”
Tuvok was working with the tricorder. “Titan was correct: There are a number of unexpected particles about, and in this particular region. Fascinating.”
Sitting against the stone wall, Troi seemed less than fascinated. “The place seems right out of a holonovel,” she said. “Dungeon in Early Primitive.”
“I speculate these were living quarters hollowed out of the stone for the Vulcan monks,” Tuvok said without looking up. “They would have required few amenities.”
Modan idly touched etchings former prisoners had made in the wall farthest from the door. “Admiral, I should be doing something besides translating graffiti,” she said.
“Consider it practice,” Riker said, preparing to settle against the wall next to his wife. Then something occurred to him. “Modan, what language is it in?”
Star Trek: Titan: Absent Enemies Page 4
