And missed.
The guard twisted to the side at the last second and, instead of the retrieval device he desperately desired, the confused Trill found himself holding the deck of cards. The Romulan’s response was instantaneous and, Tobin thought, pretty reasonable: He raised his weapon and aimed it at Tobin’s head.
“Cards! They’re only cards!” Tobin shouted, holding the deck in front of him. Desperate to prove they were harmless, Tobin fanned the deck and extended it toward the Romulan and exclaimed, “Here! Pick a card! Any card!”
The Romulan hesitated. The weapon didn’t waiver, nor did it fire. Tobin pointed at the cards and tugged at one to demonstrate. Cautiously, without moving his weapon, the Romulan put the retrieval device under his arm, then pulled out the card Tobin had indicated. Holding it close to his silvery visor, the Romulan appeared to study the symbols on the pasteboard. Stunned that he was still alive and wanting to prolong that condition for as long as possible, Tobin launched into his Wild Bill Hickok patter and extended the fan again. The Romulan took a second card, then a third. Tobin continued with his patter, but his mind was focused on other thoughts: This should not be working. Why hasn’t he killed me? Then he seized upon the only answer that made sense: He’s an alien. He’s never seen a deck of cards and he doesn’t know my language. For all he knows, I could be offering him useful information, maybe even military secrets!
And then, just as the Romulan was selecting his fourth card, Tobin heard the first notes of the now-familiar chiming. Tiny silver pinpoints of light glimmered in the air around the retrieval device. Tobin wondered if the Romulan would be able to keep his wits about him long enough to fire off a couple shots before the dematerialization process was complete. He decided that the answer was yes, probably he would and once again lunged at the retrieval device.
He managed to grab the device in one hand this time, but the guard was quicker and managed to clamp down on it with his elbow, twisting to the side and throwing Tobin against the bulkhead. Tobin heard a crackling noise and felt the air above his left ear suddenly grow very hot. And, then, his head was gone.
The air was gone, too, and a silver curtain blocked his sight.
When the curtain dissipated, he was still disoriented, his vision occluded by a flurry of red, black, and white rectangles. His cards had slipped from his grasp when he rematerialized, and were now slowly floating across the room. Tobin reached out automatically and plucked the three of hearts, then the six of spades, and then the king of clubs, from midair. The queen of diamonds pirouetted gracefully before him until Tobin reached out and stilled her dance. This, as it turned out, was a bad idea. The queen had brought along an armed escort and one of them was aiming a disrupter at his head.
Skon waited for the flash, the shock, the heat of dissolution. But the Romulan didn’t fire—did not, in fact, move at all for several seconds, during which Skon had noted the humans within the cargo hold, huddled together behind the metal grillwork of a storage cage. As ever, Skon did the most logical thing he could think of: He surrendered his procured weapons.
Suddenly the commander was on him, the metallic tips of his cold, unyielding gauntlets digging into Skon’s throat, shoving him roughly against a bulkhead. He expected to die then, his larynx and windpipe crushed in the mailed fist.
But once again, he didn’t.
Instead, the Romulan twisted Skon’s head slowly from side to side, the helmet moving in close, seeming to examine every contour of his prisoner’s face. Skon stared back at the Romulan’s visor, trying to understand what was going on, but saw only his own distorted reflection. Am I truly so alien to him, Skon wondered, or has he seen my kind before?
The question would follow Skon to the end of his days. For at that moment, a low, eerie chiming sound began to build in the air, like raindrops dripping onto a crystal chandelier. Both turned toward the noise, and though Skon had a strong suspicion about its source, he found himself as transfixed by the spectacle as the Romulan.
It was Tobin, materializing out of thin air, a Romulan disrupter clenched in his shaking fist.
Unfortunately, he was floating upside down and facing in the wrong direction, but the Romulan leader was so stunned by the sight that Skon was able to relieve him of all three disrupters before he could react.
Tobin flailed around and righted himself. He took aim at the door of the storage cage. “Move back,” he told the humans, and fired, shattering the lock. “We’re almost out of time. Head for the habitat section. Now!”
Captain Monsees emerged from the cage and accepted the disruptor that Skon handed to her. “What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s the plan?”
“We must abandon the engineering section as quickly as possible,” Skon said. “There will be a warp core breach in less than seven minutes.”
The captain’s face fell, but before she could say a word, Skon explained Tobin’s plan. After listening, Monsees closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger. “You couldn’t come up with anything else?” she asked Tobin.
“Uh ... not really, no,” he replied uncomfortably. Finally, Monsees ordered her crew to help those less experienced with zero-g toward the exits. Then, when the last man was safely away, she turned to look at the Romulan commander. “What about him and his men?” she asked Skon.
“Two are trapped in the airlock. One is unaccounted for.”
“No he isn’t,” Tobin said quietly.
Monsees looked at him, then at the disrupter in his hand, and nodded. “I assume you intend to let them go?”
“We are ill-equipped to handle prisoners, Captain,” Skon reminded her, “I see no alternative.”
“I do,” Monsees said with barely contained rage as she glared at the Romulan. “After what they did to our people, to Williams—”
“Captain,” Skon said gently. “You are not a Romulan.”
Monsees continued staring at her warped reflection in the Romulan’s faceplate. “No, I’m not,” she said finally, and turned toward the exit. “Get them the hell off my ship.”
Tobin’s mouth tightened, then he gestured with his weapon, urging the Romulan toward the airlock. When they opened the inner hatch, they found the two other Romulans were conscious, both already wearing their EVA packs. Their commander floated into the chamber but almost as soon as the door slid shut, Tobin saw his helmet up against the viewport. Tobin could see from the way he was shaking his head that the commander was screaming into his helmet, possibly cursing them as Williams had cursed him. Then, his hand was pressed up against the window, two fingers raised. Tobin understood. Only two! he was saying. Only two! Where is my third man?
Tobin thought about Williams. Then he shrugged apologetically, waved goodbye, and hit the emergency release on the outer door. It blew open and the Romulans rode the wave of decompression out into space, dwindling to pinpoints within seconds as they fell away from the Heisenberg.
“We have four minutes, Tobin,” Skon said. From somewhere deep in the engine room there came a dull thud and a blast of warm air. “Perhaps less.”
Tobin’s plan to separate the ship was successful. The power cells detonated on command, and the blast doors held as the ship broke apart. Skon fired the thrusters at full burn from the Jefferies tube, and the habitat section moved off, accelerating as it went.
The core explosion, when it came, was quite spectacular. The external sensors were knocked off-line by the blast, so the survival of the Romulan ship was never confirmed or refuted. The shockwave badly buffeted the remaining half of the Heisenberg, but it also helped push it away from the worst of the lingering radiation. Later, Captain Monsees confirmed that their distress beacon was functional. They would be found.
All hands had a great deal of work to do to restore gravity and secure the Heisenberg from any other mishaps, so it was several hours before Tobin and Skon had time to speak. Tobin found him sitting in the only lounge that had not been exposed to space, asking questions of an e
ngineering officer and recording responses on his padd. Tobin glanced at the display and saw that they, once again, were schematics of the Heisenberg. “What are you working on?” he asked.
Skon tapped the SAVE key. “A paper I intend to deliver to the Cochrane Institute when we arrive at Alpha Centauri,” Skon replied. “A proposal to create modular, detachable hulls for spacecraft. Our experience has convinced me such a feature would be most advantageous.”
Tobin smiled wanly and said, “I want a co-author credit.”
“Of course,” Skon said. “And how are you, Tobin?”
Tobin pondered the question. “I’m ...” he started. “I feel ...” but found he could not easily complete the sentence, so he settled himself slowly into an empty chair. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cards, and, running through sleights, told Skon everything that happened after they had separated. “When I rematerialized in the lab and saw that disruptor in front of me,” he admitted, “I almost, well, I was ready to surrender.”
“But you did not,” Skon said.
Tobin shook his head, though whether in agreement or in denial he couldn’t say. “No,” he said. “I didn’t. But only because it finally registered that the only thing in front of me was the hand and the disruptor. The rest of the guard was ... he was beamed inside the bulkhead.” He ran through another sleight, very skillfully burying the ace of hearts, then cutting the cards and pulling it out again.
The engineering officer smiled as he watched Tobin work the deck. “I told the others that we have to build in more safeguards to make sure that never happens again,” Tobin said quietly.
Skon only nodded.
The engineer, trying to lighten the mood, said, “But at least we have a deck of cards to pass the time until we get home.”
Tobin fanned the deck, then flipped it so that he could look at the faces. “No,” he said. “Not this deck. I’m four cards short: two aces and two eights. The Romulan was still holding them when he transported.” Tobin folded the fan, and said, “I finally got the trick right.” Then, he slipped the deck back into his pocket, knowing it would be a while before he took it out again.
EMONY
“She’s got a worm in her belly? That’s disgusting.”
—Darlene Kursky
“Far Beyond the Stars”
Michael Jan Friedman
Michael Jan Friedman, The New York Times bestselling author, has written or co-written more than fifty science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels, a great many of them in the Star Trek universe. More than five million of his books are in print in the United States alone. Friedman became a freelance writer in 1985, following the publication of his first novel, The Hammer and The Horn. Since then, he has written for television, radio, magazines, and comic books. His television credits include “Resistance,” a first-season episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
A native New Yorker, he lives with his wife and two sons on Long Island, where he spends his free time (what little there is of it) sailing, jogging, and playing rotisserie baseball.
Old Souls
Michael Jan Friedman
I’LL NEVER FORGET this summer, Leonard McCoy mused, as he lengthened his stride to keep up with his companion. Not if I live to be a thousand.
After all, McCoy was a small-town boy a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday. The venerable old campus of Ole Miss, with its magnolia-shaded walks and its ancient brick buildings, was like a dream to him. And some of the students who populated it ... they were even more of a dream.
It wasn’t as if McCoy had never heard of aliens, or never seen them on newsnets. They had maintained a continuous presence on Earth since the founding of the Federation nearly eighty-five years earlier.
However, they tended to stick to places like San Francisco and Paris, Tokyo and New York. As a result, McCoy had never met an alien face-to-face ... much less imagined that he would someday share a dorm room with one.
“You know,” he told his companion, “you could slow down. The competition’s not supposed to start for another half hour.”
Sinnit Arvid turned to peer at McCoy with red eyes that seemed to burn under the bronze ridge of his brow. Sinnit, a Tessma from Tessmata IV, was half a head taller than the human. With his chiseled musculature, he looked as if he had been carved from a generous hunk of rock.
“As I told you before,” said Sinnit, his voice deep and resonant with resolve, “I must arrive early. I intend to emerge victorious in this gymnastics competition, just as I have emerged victorious in every other competition I have entered ... just as I will emerge victorious in every future competition I enter.”
McCoy chuckled at his roommate’s typically Tessman lack of humility. “How could I forget? You’ve only told me the same thing twelve or thirteen times in the last two weeks.”
“It is important,” the Tessma insisted, his tone waxing grim. “Only by demonstrating mastery of every aspect of my education can I ensure myself an officer’s berth on a Tessman cruiser.”
It was the gymnastics meet that had initially attracted Sinnit to Ole Miss. However, his desire to become proficient at quantum mechanics and theoretical physics had led to his signing up for a summer course here.
McCoy was taking a summer course, too. But that, the human mused, was where the resemblance between them ended.
As a member of a prominent Tessman family, Sinnit was expected to serve in his planet’s defense forces from his twenty-second birthday on. Hence, the curved, razor-sharp honor blade that hung on the wall over his bed, a token of his dedication and commitment to that career path.
Only Sinnit’s rank and posting were still undetermined. They would be handed down in accordance with his academic performance—and to the Tessma, that included one’s athletic accomplishments.
Sinnit desperately wanted to bring honor to his family by securing a high-ranking position. So when he said that it was important for him to win this competition, he was serious. Dead serious.
McCoy, by contrast, had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. His father was a doctor, but the elder McCoy’s work had never held any real appeal for his son. The teenager imagined that he would find his calling someday, but he didn’t expect it to happen anytime soon.
“Here we are,” said Sinnit.
The Menlo T. Hodgkiss Memorial Gymnasium loomed ahead of them. It was a relatively new building with sand-colored walls and large, red-tinted windows that presided over an expansive green lawn—a fitting venue for an interplanetary athletic event.
Three other gymnasts, all of them humans, were approaching the building at the same time. McCoy could tell who they were by the skintight blue outfits they wore. As they caught sight of the Tessma, who had to be one of the favorites in the competition, they nodded to him.
But they didn’t say anything—even though at least some of them must have competed against Sinnit before. It was as if they were too focused to utter pleasantries. McCoy glanced at his roommate’s face and saw that he had taken on a more focused look as well.
Respecting it, the human was silent as he followed Sinnit into the cavernous, echoing gym, which had been specially outfitted for the competition. On one side of the room stood a set of titanium parallel bars. On the other side, there was a synthetic-leather vaulting horse. And in the middle of the place, a shiny set of rings dangled from cables embedded in the ceiling.
Some of the assembled gymnasts were already using the various apparatuses to warm up. One was a Vobilite, judging by his mottled red flesh and his protruding jaw tusks. Another was a bowlegged female whose zebra-like stripes marked her as a Dedderac. There was also an Arkarian, a Mikulak and a huge, blue-skinned Pandrilite.
McCoy couldn’t help smiling. He had never seen so many aliens in one place. It was fascinating, to say the least.
“You see?” said Sinnit. “And you told me I did not need to hurry. You should attend more of these competitions, Leonard.”
The human shrugged. “I stand corrected.�
��
The Tessma scanned the gym calmly and methodically, no doubt taking stock of what he was up against. Suddenly, his crimson eyes went wide.
“Wikhov’na.” he muttered, his mouth twisting disdainfully around the word. “Wikhov’na paritisha.”
McCoy, who had never heard Sinnit use those terms before, looked at his friend. “I didn’t catch that.”
Sinnit used a long, bronze finger to point to the opposite end of the gym. “There,” he said, with what sounded strangely like disgust. “At the judges’ table. It’s a Trill.”
At first, McCoy didn’t know which of the judges his roommate was talking about. He recognized one of the males as a Vulcan and another as an Andorian, but the two women—a petite, lean-muscled blonde and a statuesque brunette—looked perfectly human as they stood with their backs to him.
Then they turned around.
Immediately, McCoy saw which one the Trill was. The spots that framed the sides of her face, inside her cascade of yellow curls, were a dead giveaway.
And it wasn’t just any Trill, he realized with surprise and delight. It was the famous Emony Dax, three-time latinum medalist in the ’24 Olympics on Aldebaran. McCoy hadn’t even been born when she competed in those games, but his mother had been lucky enough to see them in person, and she still treasured the holos of Dax’s upset victory over the favored Argelian athlete. Seeing her now, twenty-one years later, it was clear to McCoy that the holos hadn’t done her justice. She was beautiful.
“Leonard?” someone said in a deep voice.
It took McCoy a moment to realize that Sinnit was speaking to him. “Hmm?” was all the response he could muster.
“What is the matter with you?” his friend asked, a note of impatience in his voice.
STAR TREK: DS9 - The Lives of Dax Page 11
