Precipice

by David Mack

  Pennington found himself imagining worst-case scenarios. “If we go and start following Ganz’s ship, don’t you think he might notice? And maybe take offense?”

  “We will maintain a moderate distance from his vessel,” T’Prynn said. “Thanks to the improvements you and I have made to this ship, we might be able to shadow the Omari-Ekon without coming within range of its sensors.”

  “Do you think that’s likely? That they might not see us?”

  “No, I do not. Orion vessels often are better equipped than Federation civilian starships. We must expect their sensors are at least as accurate as our own and act accordingly.” She entered more commands into the helm. “I have programmed the autopilot to maintain a constant bearing and range from Ganz’s ship. After I adjust our warp signature to match that of the OmariEkon, we should appear to its sensors as a subspace echo.”

  “Will that really work?”

  “As I lack powers of precognition, I cannot answer your question with absolute certainty. However, I believe this tactic has a greater chance of concealing our presence than would doing nothing.”

  Pennington smiled at her. “Which is a lot of fancy words for, ‘I’m not a fortune teller, but it’s worth a try.’ You also could have just said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

  “I could have, but I did not.” Though her face betrayed no hint of emotion, Pennington was certain he had detected an undercurrent of sarcasm in her voice. She ignored his probing stare and turned her chair to work at a different console. “Now that we have a lock on the vessel’s position, our next priority will be to access its internal and external communications.”

  “Intercepting external communications ought to be a snap,” Pennington said. “At least, for someone like you, I mean. But how do you plan on listening to their internal comms?”

  Engrossed in her work, she answered without turning around. “I will attempt to remotely activate and enable a number of taps that were covertly installed aboard the Omari-Ekon during my tenure as Vanguard’s liaison to Starfleet Intelligence.”

  Leaning forward to make sure he’d heard her correctly, he asked, “Did you say taps? As in electronic eavesdropping?”

  “Correct,” T’Prynn said. “Once I bring them online, I should be able to access a number of linked and isolated databanks aboard that ship, as well as monitor its real-time internal transmissions.”

  Pennington slowly dragged his palm across his stubbled face and ruminated on that new bit of information. “Aren’t all Orion vessels legally recognized as foreign soil by the Federation?”

  “Yes, they are.” The screen in front of her filled with a cascade of raw information. Schematics, strings of alien text, static images, and vid-clips flashed by. “The taps are still in place and fully functional. All checksums are valid, indicating they have not been tampered with.”

  After a moment of grappling with his conflicting emotions, Pennington asked, “Isn’t what you’re doing illegal? Or against diplomacy or something? What if you started a war?”

  “It is highly unlikely my act of private espionage would constitute an act of war,” T’Prynn replied. “Even if the Orion government wished to take such an exaggerated level of umbrage at my violation of the privacy of one of their ships, its forces would not pose a significant military threat.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure that’s the benchmark by which we should—”

  “In any event, it is irrelevant unless the commander of the Omari-Ekon wishes to publicly admit its security was breached. Based on my previous observations of Neera, I would speculate she is far too pragmatic to risk diminishing her public image by admitting to such a failure on her ship.”

  Now thoroughly confused, Pennington said, “Hang on. I thought the Omari-Ekon was Ganz’s ship. Who’s Neera?”

  “She pretends to be Ganz’s harem madam and personal mistress. In fact, like many Orion women who wield influence through powerful men, she lets Ganz serve as the public face of her criminal organization while she rules from the shadows.”

  Pennington nodded. “I suppose you learned that by using these taps?”

  “Yes,” T’Prynn said.

  “Did any of the information you obtained ever lead to an arrest or a conviction of any of Ganz’s men?”

  She partially turned her head in his direction. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “As you have duly noted, our placement of the taps was a violation of sovereign Orion territory. Because they were illegally installed, none of the intelligence they provided could ever be legally admissible in a Federation court of law or Starfleet court-martial.”

  He waved a hand at the screen full of data and snapped, “If you knew none of this could be used for prosecutions, then what the hell was it for?”

  Swiveling her chair to face him directly, T’Prynn said in a cool and measured tone, “Security.”

  23

  Shocks of impact traveled through Quinn’s gloved fists and up his arms into his shoulders with every punch he landed on the heavy bag. The leather-covered piece of boxing equipment was suspended loosely by a six-strand chain secured in the overhead and anchored by a single chain to the cargo bay’s deck.

  Feels good just to hit something, he thought as he bobbed and danced around the bag, throwing jabs and crosses as he went.

  He’d always thought the hardest part of boxing—aside from not losing his marbles after getting hit—was the footwork. All that back and forth, the sidling dodges, the stutter steps. It was vital for balance and tempo, for power and follow-through, but it just didn’t come naturally to Quinn.

  A fast combination: two jabs, two body blows, a knee aimed at where a groin should be, a hard right cross.

  Backing off a step, he felt off-balance. Keep the hands up, he reminded himself. Keep ’em tight, one in front of the other.

  Stepping in, he launched a roundhouse kick. It hit the bag just below his shoulder height. Gotta work on my flexibility. He threw a few body blows and rounded out the combination with a jab as he bobbed and sidestepped left.

  Hit after hit, the bag’s ball-and-socket joints creaked as the chains twisted and turned.

  Sweat dripped from Quinn’s forehead and his arms. His T-shirt was soaked with perspiration, and an hour of this wild exertion had left the cargo bay of the Rocinante smelling like the inside of an old shoe. His feet ached, and his back hurt. It would have been easy to call it quits.

  His rage simmered as he thought of what the Klingons had been doing to the Denn since they’d arrived on Golmira two days earlier, and he pictured one of the lobster-headed barbarians standing in the heavy bag’s place.

  A right cross to the head, a left jab to the body, a knee in the ribs, an elbow thrown in for good measure.

  The exertion felt good. But not good enough.

  Quinn continued his weaving dance around the heavy bag as he heard Bridy descend the ladder from the main deck. He threw a few more solid punches into the bag, then let himself slump against it as she walked over to him. “If you’re lookin’ to spar, you’re about an hour late. I’m wiped.”

  “We just got new orders from Vanguard,” Bridy said.

  Between labored breaths he gasped, “And … ?”

  “They want us to lay low and sabotage the Klingons’ equipment until they can send some in some backup.”

  “When’s that gonna be?” He started untying the laces of his right glove with his teeth.

  She folded her arms. “In about three months.”

  He shouted, “Three months? Are they kiddin’ me?” His right glove came loose, and he shook it off. “The Klingons might wipe out this whole planet in three months!”

  “Look, we knew it was risky when we came out here,” Bridy said as she watched him untie his other glove. “Even the Sagittarius hasn’t gone this deep into the Taurus Reach before.”

  Yanking off the second glove, Quinn snapped, “Are you sure that’s all our orders said? Lay low and break stuff?” Bridy rolled
her eyes and looked away, but her lips folded in, showing the dimple in her chin, which told Quinn he’d struck a nerve. “There was something else, wasn’t there?”

  After an angry huff, she said, “Admiral Nogura also wants us to incite the Denn to launch a guerilla warfare campaign.”

  Quinn tossed aside the glove in his hand and pointed at Bridy as he exclaimed, “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

  “Hang on,” Bridy Mac said, holding out a palm in Quinn’s direction. “My tactical training is starship-based. I’m not qualified to teach these people how to fight Klingons.”

  He grabbed his towel off the top of a cargo container and started wiping the sweat from his face. “Who said you’d be the one training ’em?”

  “You think you’re qualified? What do you know about waging a ground war against Klingon troops?”

  “More than you think,” Quinn said. He toweled the top of his buzz-cut head dry and draped the towel around his neck. He started walking aft. “Follow me. I want to tell you a story.”

  Bridy Mac fell in behind Quinn, who found himself dredging up memories he thought he’d put to rest decades earlier. “Once upon a time, I was just a kid like anybody else. Even went to college, if you can believe that.”

  “Not really,” Bridy said, “but go on.”

  He led her toward the tool locker. “Six months after I got my degree, I married my college sweetheart. Our families said we were too young. We didn’t care. Got married on New Year’s Eve.” He stopped in front of the locker, put his hand on the latch, and let out a grim chortle. “That was thirty years ago.”

  She watched him open the gray locker door, revealing a host of heavy tools. He tucked a sonic screwdriver in his pants pocket, grabbed a crowbar, and slammed the locker door. He turned and faced Bridy. “Less than five months after we got married, my wife … my first wife, Denise, passed away. Xenopolycythemia. By the time we knew she was sick, it was too late to do anything. They diagnosed her in March. She died in May.” His eyes misted with tears, and his throat constricted. Talking about it made it hurt as if it had only just happened, and his grief deepened his native Tennessee drawl. “I remember every detail of that day. The color of the sky. The number of vehicles in the hospital parking lot. The sound of her last breath at two-fourteen PM. Everything.”

  Crowbar in hand, he walked toward the bow of the ship, and Bridy followed him. “I was lost. My whole life was turned to shit. One day I woke up and knew I couldn’t draw one more breath on Earth. I didn’t want to look at anything familiar ever again.” He stopped beside a cargo container and put the crowbar on top of it. “I’d heard about a mercenary company that was recruiting for jobs outside Federation space. It was good money, and it sounded like a good way to escape. Soon as Denise was in the ground, I signed up and shipped out.”

  He put his shoulder to the container and with a furious growl pushed it across the deck. For a moment it seemed like Bridy was going to try to help him, but she recoiled before her hands reached the container. It didn’t matter. Quinn didn’t need the help. He liked moving something he shouldn’t, overcoming its resistance. The effort was its own reward.

  After the huge heavy box had been pushed against the port bulkhead, he kneeled beside the exposed deck plate and took out the sonic screwdriver. As he began removing bolts, he looked up at Bridy. “You ever dealt with mercenaries?” She shook her head. He shrugged. “Count your blessings. At first I thought it was the greatest thing in the galaxy. It was all rah-rah macho brotherhood. I was learnin’ small-unit tactics, how to blow stuff up, fly small starships, the works. For a young man who just wanted to forget his old life, it was an adventure.”

  Quinn pulled out the last of the bolts from the deck plate, stood, and stepped over to the moved crate. “Fightin’ Klingons out in the middle of nowhere felt heroic, even if we were doin’ it for a mining company instead of the Federation.” He set the bolts on top of the crate and grabbed the crowbar. “But it wasn’t always so black and white.”

  He walked back to the deck plate and pushed the crowbar into the groove along its edge. Straining with the effort of prying it free, he continued. “Sometimes civilians got caught in the cross fire. Other times they were the targets—innocent colonists who made the mistake of pitching tents on a planet that somebody with more money wanted badly enough to kill for.”

  The deck plate lifted with a scrape. Quinn wedged the crowbar under the plate, grabbed it, and pushed it over. It clanged onto the deck with a bright clamor, like the pealing of a church bell. Droplets of sweat fell from Quinn’s brow.

  In the scan-shielded space under the deck plate was a rectangular steel foot locker. “Give me a hand,” Quinn said. “Grab a handle.”

  Bridy and Quinn lifted the weighty box from its hiding place and set it on the deck. Quinn’s fingers hovered over the digital keypad as he tried to remember the code to unlock it. “The guys I served with … I watched ’em kill women and kids. And I saw ’em do worse things than that. When I tried to report ’em, I got told to mind my own business. The commanders either didn’t care or were the ones who gave the orders in the first place.”

  Staring at the lock, he remembered Denise’s birthday and tapped in the eight-digit code: 03262217. The case’s magnetic clamps released with loud thunks.

  “They wouldn’t let me quit. Said I had to finish my hitch. I couldn’t just hide in my rack, so I spent my time gettin’ drunk, mouthin’ off at the brass, and playin’ cards.” He looked around at his ship. “By the time I got out, I’d won enough to buy ol’ Rosie here. But I couldn’t forget what I’d seen. The things I’d done. So I spent the rest of my cash on booze, and then I spent twenty-five years tryin’ to drown my memories.”

  He looked up at Bridy and cracked a bittersweet smile. “Didn’t work. Now all I got left is this ship.”

  And one last spark of my self-respect.

  Bridy had a soft expression of concern. “I won’t lie and say I know what you went through, or how you feel. But nothing we do here can change the past, Quinn. The Denn’s fight isn’t ours. I understand wanting to help them, but the smartest thing we can do is respect the Prime Directive and stay neutral.”

  Quinn opened the foot locker. It was packed with assault weapons, power packs, and explosives.

  “I ain’t in Starfleet.” He picked up a rifle. “So fuck the Prime Directive.”

  June 5, 2267

  “These twenty rifles are all I got,” Quinn told his first platoon of Denn fighters. “Same goes for the power cells. So we’re gonna have to be careful about when we use ’em, and how much. If we play our cards right, we’ll scoop up some of the Klingons’ weapons off a battlefield. Then we can arm more of your people.”

  He walked in front of the lanky, shaved-headed militiamen, who were lined up under the starboard wing of the Rocinante. Much as Quinn had expected, Naya and the landgraves had granted his request to recruit a score of able-bodied males to wage a guerilla war campaign against the Klingon occupation. Apparently, male Denn outnumbered females by a ratio of four to one, which gave the women elevated social status and made the men seem expendable.

  The tallest of the recruits pulled the trigger of his weapon over and over; he frowned when nothing happened. Quinn stopped and placed his hand atop the man’s rifle, pointing its muzzle at the ground. “Okay, Stretch, give it a rest. That’s why I didn’t give you boys the power cells yet.”

  Raising his voice to address the group, Quinn said, “Never put your finger on a trigger till you’re ready to shoot. Never point a weapon at someone you don’t mean to kill. These rifles are not toys. Use ’em right, you can kill a Klingon in one shot.” He patted a hand on Stretch’s chest. “Aim for center of mass. That’s the chest and gut. Don’t bother tryin’ for head shots unless you’re sure you can get a direct hit.” He held up his rifle to illustrate his next point. “When you carry your rifle, keep your trigger finger outside the guard, on the side, like this. That way if you trip or fall, you w
on’t blow a hole in one of your buddies by mistake.”

  He took a few more steps down the line and stopped in front of a heavyset, well-muscled recruit. The man seemed like a natural soldier: his rifle was slung over his shoulder, his posture was straight, and his mien was serious. Quinn gave the man an approving nod. “Lookin’ good, Bubba.”

  At the end of the line, Quinn about-faced and paced back the way he’d come. “I won’t take you men into battle till I think you’re ready. Over the next few months, I’ll teach you the basics of what you need to know to survive in the field: marksmanship, first aid, small-unit tactics, camouflage, demolitions. I’ll teach you how to disassemble those weapons and put ’em back together in your sleep.”

  A reed-thin and awkward-looking Denn raised his hand, but Quinn cut him off. “It’s a figure of speech, Spaz. You won’t actually be asleep.” Spaz put down his hand.

  “For the rest of your training, you’ll be splitting up into four squads. Stretch, Bubba, Spaz, Mudguts: you’re squad leaders.” The four recruits nodded. Quinn continued. “In the field, we will be outnumbered. We will be outgunned. Stealth and preparation can help us overcome those challenges. But the Klingons also have another major advantage: a starship in orbit. It has sensors that can pinpoint our locations on the ground. That means we will have the element of surprise only once, before our first attack. After that, we need to be creative. I have some ideas, but we’ll get to those later. For now, we—”

  He was interrupted by the clattering of metal tumbling across the ground behind him. He turned to see that one of the recruits had already disassembled his rifle. Quinn marched over to confront the youth. “Tater! What the hell’re you doing?”

  “Taking apart my rifle,” Tater said.

  “I can see that,” Quinn snapped, glancing at the dozens of components littering the ground at Tater’s feet. “Do you have a plan for putting it back together?”