Precipice

by David Mack

  Light and energy swirled into existence beside Gorkon, and a bright drone of white sound filled the room. A shape formed inside the whorl of charged particles and coalesced into a large, broad-shouldered Klingon man garbed in ornate robes of office and carrying a heavy rod of metal-banded wood capped with carved bone and tipped with steel.

  Reyes’s eyes widened. It was Chancellor Sturka.

  The leader of the Klingon Empire glowered at Reyes.

  Then he glared at Gorkon. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “These are the two I wanted you to meet,” Gorkon said. “This is Ezthene, formerly a member of the Tholian political caste-moot, and this is Diego Reyes, the former—”

  “I know who he is,” Sturka growled, nodding at Reyes. Then he looked at Ezthene. “Though I couldn’t care less about the bug.”

  It was obvious to Reyes that Gorkon was struggling to remain calm in the face of his superior’s rebuke. “They are well-versed in how their people think and act, and both have also shown a willingness to break with orthodox thinking. Their insights could help us chart a path to peace.”

  “You mean help you chart a path to peace,” Sturka said. “I have no need of such an agenda.”

  Ezthene interjected, “With all respect, Chancellor, you most certainly do. As do the other powers in this quadrant.”

  Sturka narrowed his eyes at the Tholian. “Really?” Stalking toward Ezthene, he continued in a low voice. “And why should an empire built on the fortunes of war want to sue for peace? Or care for the needs of its future jeghpu’wI’?”

  “Because your empire has already overextended itself,” Ezthene said. “Why risk a full-scale war with the Federation and the Assembly at the same time? You have neither the ships nor the soldiers to prevail in such a conflict. And diverting more resources to expand your fleet will only starve your people.”

  Pointing angrily, Sturka said, “You have no idea what the Empire can do when it’s called to war!”

  “On the contrary,” Ezthene said. “I am well aware of your empire’s martial prowess and its history of aggressive expansion. But I also know that which you refuse to see.”

  The chancellor asked with hostility masquerading as curiosity, “And that would be … ?”

  “You risk the wrath of a sleeping giant.”

  Dismissing the warning with a wave of his hand, Sturka turned his back on Ezthene as he replied, “We don’t fear the Shedai.”

  Ezthene said, “Chancellor, the giant of which I speak is the Federation.”

  Enraged, Sturka spun and threw a baleful stare at Ezthene. Then he turned his withering gaze on Reyes. “You’ve been quiet, human. What’s your opinion?”

  Reyes crossed his arms. “Ezthene has a point. Your fleet has the edge in ships and troops, but we’re ahead of you in technology. Slavery gives you an economic advantage, but your ban on foreign trade helps us make deals with worlds on your border. When you want to expand, you have to spend blood and treasure; all the Federation has to do is show up and say ‘hi.’ A few more decades of this and we won’t have to fight you; we’ll be able to just sit back and starve you out.”

  Sturka sneered. “The same old propaganda. ‘Research and trade.’ That’s the cowards’ answer to everything, isn’t it? Talk every problem to death instead of taking action. Apologies and excuses. That’s the human way.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Reyes said. “I admit: these days, it’s usually true. But if you think my people aren’t capable of bloodlust, or of collective genocidal psychosis, then you don’t know our history. The human race has come a long way in the last few hundred years, Chancellor, but deep down we’re still savages. If you push us hard enough, we will push back.”

  The chancellor grinned. “I’m counting on it.” He walked back to Gorkon and all but pressed his face to that of his longtime adviser. “This is a waste of time, Gorkon. What in the name of Kahless were you thinking? The Federation and the Assembly both send formal ambassadors to Qo’noS—so why am I speaking to these petaQpu’?”

  “Professional diplomats are little more than parrots for the policies of their leaders,” Gorkon said. “Ezthene and Reyes are iconoclasts. They can help us find a new perspective on the future, perhaps a more viable one.”

  “The only new perspective I want these two to find is one looking up from a grave on Rura Penthe,” Sturka said. “There is a reason why the political process adheres to certain rules, Gorkon. A reason why some parties are allowed to speak under the color of authority and others are not.” He stepped away from Gorkon, lifted his wrist comm to his face and spoke into it. Lowering his arm, he added, “Our friendship has been long and my debts to you are many, Gorkon, so I will forgive this grievous error in your judgment. But do not conduct any further talks with these yIntaghpu’—and don’t ever summon me again.”

  A transporter beam enfolded Sturka. He vanished in a spinning flurry of light and sound that faded within seconds to empty air and silence.

  Gorkon grimaced and bowed his head. In a weary voice he said to Reyes, “I presume you have some scathing remark with which to deepen my moment of disgrace.”

  Reyes offered the man a sympathetic half smile. “Your boss is kind of a dick.”

  The Klingon chuckled. “Yes,” he said. “He certainly is.”

  “So, Gorkon,” said Ezthene. “What is to become of me and Diego now that we’ve failed to sway your chancellor? Will you condemn us to your aliens’ graveyard as Sturka decreed?”

  The councillor walked to a window and clasped his hands behind his back as he gazed out at the rugged mountains. “No,” he said. “You’ve both earned better fates than that. Imperial Intelligence will be most upset with me, and Captain Kutal will likely be quite irate, but I plan to let you go.”

  “A noble gesture,” Ezthene said.

  Looking over his shoulder, Gorkon replied, “Call it an apology. I honestly thought Sturka would be receptive to a message of change. Now I see that real political progress in the Empire will require nothing less than new leadership.”

  “Well,” Reyes said, “for what it’s worth, Gorkon, you’d have my vote.”

  “Touching,” Gorkon said with a bitter smile, “but the Empire is not a democracy.”

  Reyes rolled his eyes. “No kidding.” Tilting his head toward Ezthene, he asked Gorkon, “What now? It’s not like Ezthene or I can just go home again. He’s an outcast, and I’m supposed to be dead or in jail. If I go back to Starfleet now, they’ll put me on trial for consorting with the enemy.”

  Ezthene asked, “Might I make a suggestion?”

  Gorkon and Reyes traded looks that seemed to say “Why not?”

  The Klingon nodded at Ezthene. “By all means.”

  “Diego cannot go to Vanguard, but I can,” Ezthene said. “If you wish, Diego, I could deliver messages to your friends and family on your behalf.”

  Nodding, Reyes said, “I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “And what of you?” Gorkon asked Reyes. “Where will you go?”

  Reyes cracked a devious smile. “Actually … I have an idea.”

  52

  September 14, 2267

  A ferric odor of fresh paint lingered in the air as Quinn started removing the adhesive strips from the stencil plate on his new ship’s hull. He smiled at his handiwork. Much better.

  Bridy Mac descended the folding staircase from the ship’s center cabin. “Time to go,” she said. “I just filed our report with SI and authenticated our new orders.”

  Picking at a corner of an uncooperative length of tape, Quinn asked, “Where to this time?”

  “Another rock with no name,” Bridy said.

  “Naturally.”

  It was pretty much what Quinn had expected. With the Klingon occupation of Golmira routed, his old ship’s antimatter pods retrieved from the ocean with some help from Starfleet, the planet’s natives united in a request for Federation-protectorate status, and the Endeavour en route to Vanguard with the recover
ed artifact, Quinn and Bridy’s work here was done. Their best bet of moving on without Klingon interference was to leave while the Akhiel and the Defiant were still in orbit, acting as a deterrent.

  He pointed to a spray can of clear-polymer hull sealant on the ground and asked Bridy, “Can you hand me that?”

  “Sure,” she said, passing it to Quinn. Watching him work, Bridy wore a look of mild amusement. “Is this what you’ve been doing all day? Painting the ship?”

  “No way I’m flyin’ through the galaxy in a ship called Icarion,” Quinn said. “That ain’t no name for a ship. Sounds too much like carrion, for one thing.”

  Circling behind him to check out his work, she asked, “So what’s our new ride called? Rocinante II?”

  “Never,” he said, discarding the wad of tape. “For me there’ll only ever be one Rocinante.” He removed the stencil with care to reveal his new ship’s new name: Dulcinea.

  As Quinn sprayed a protective layer of sealant over the fresh golden-orange paint, Bridy asked, “What does it mean?”

  He stepped back beside his partner. “It’s from an ancient Earth novel called Don Quixote de la Mancha.” He looked at Bridy. “Dulcinea was a very beautiful woman for whom a slightly crazy old man did a lot of really stupid things.”

  She smiled and planted a soft kiss on his cheek. “Sounds about right.” Then she climbed the steps and boarded the ship.

  He followed her aboard. “So, I was thinkin’, the captain’s quarters on this boat has a double bed and—”

  “Just fly the ship.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  53

  November 19, 2267

  Admiral Nogura stood like a rock before the river of bodies pouring from the gangway of Docking Bay Two, where the Endeavour had only minutes earlier made its hard airlock seal.

  Junior officers on leave flooded up the gangway and broke to either side of Nogura as soon as they saw the markings on his uniform and the stern expression on his face.

  Then came a break in the sea of faces, and four figures crossed the suddenly empty gangway in a tight cluster. Three were Vanguard personnel. The fourth was in custody.

  Leading the group were Commander ch’Nayla and Lieutenant Jackson.

  At the rear of the group, Captain Desai escorted the prisoner, Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn. The Vulcan woman was taller than Nogura had expected, even though he’d read her file a dozen times over the past several weeks.

  The group emerged onto the main concourse of Vanguard’s docking level and stopped in front of Nogura. He looked T’Prynn in the eye. “Have you been fully debriefed?”

  “Yes, Admiral,” T’Prynn said.

  “Good. Your court-martial has been expedited. It starts in two weeks. You have that long to prepare a defense.”

  The Vulcan woman nodded. “Understood.”

  Desai said, “Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn has entered a plea of no contest to all charges.” Shifting with what seemed like mild embarrassment, she added, “However, after reading her statements, I think there might be … mitigating factors.”

  At once curious and suspicious, Nogura said, “No doubt.” He aimed his steely gaze at T’Prynn, who remained unfazed. “I’m sure we’ll hear all about it.” He nodded to Jackson. “Take her to the best cell in the brig, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye, sir,” Jackson said. He motioned T’Prynn forward and led the manacled Vulcan woman away. A pair of armed security officers waited for them in an open turbolift.

  As soon as the lift doors closed behind Jackson, T’Prynn, and their escorts, Nogura looked at Desai. “I’ll see you in the morning, Captain.” Then he stepped away and said to ch’Nayla as he passed by, “Walk with me.”

  The middle-aged Andorian chan fell into step beside the diminutive admiral and dropped his voice to a whisper. “The artifact is back aboard the station,” he said. “It was transferred off disguised as routine cargo and routed back to the Vault, which is once again secure.”

  “No,” corrected Nogura, “you mean it’s finally secure.” Chastened, ch’Nayla replied, “If you prefer, yes. That distinction aside, Lieutenant Farber assures me the security flaws have been addressed and that the Vault is now the most impregnable compartment on the station.”

  “Better late than never,” Nogura said. “Tell Doctor Marcus I want real-time updates. The moment anything happens with that thing, I want to know about it.”

  “That makes two of us, sir.”

  Anxious eyes greeted the artifact’s return to the Vault.

  Dr. Carol Marcus stood beside Ming Xiong and watched as a robotic arm lowered the glowing dodecahedron onto a new pedestal that was linked into the lab’s various systems, several of which had been engineered to emulate some aspect of the Shedai’s technology. As before, a palpable aura of fear traveled with the radiant, skull-sized crystal.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Xiong said in a confidential tone to Marcus. “Since I was right about using phased harmonics of the

  Jinoteur Pattern to trigger the device, I thought maybe we could try feeding it the regenerative sequence discovered by the CMO on the Sagittarius. You know, to see if we could replicate the tissue-repair function Doctor Babitz documented.”

  “One thing at a time, Ming,” Marcus cautioned.

  On the other side of Marcus, Dr. Gek leaned in close. “I couldn’t help but overhear,” said the Tellarite. “If we’re planning new experiments, I think we ought to focus on the waveform’s potential for large-scale molecular rearrangement. Coupled with our existing transporter technology, we could be on the verge of a major breakthrough in patterned replication.”

  “All in good time,” Marcus said.

  She hoped that would be the end of the solicitations, but Gek had spoken loudly enough for several other scientists to overhear, and as a result the floodgates were open.

  “I’d like to propose that we prioritize high-energy communication applications,” said Dr. Koothrappali.

  Then the requests began to overlap, and Marcus no longer knew who was talking.

  “Can we start with a test of the Meta-Genome’s ability to correct gaps in its sequence?”

  “We need to know what that crystal’s made of!”

  “No, we need to communicate with the entity inside it!”

  Marcus held up her hands and shouted, “Enough!” When the hubbub subsided, she added, “Let’s all start by focusing on something simple.” She threw a worried glance at the artifact. “Like not blowing up any more planets by mistake.”

  54

  December 28, 2267

  After nineteen days of witness testimony and forensic evidence examination and six days of deliberations, the court-martial board had reached its decision and summoned T’Prynn and her legal counsel back to the courtroom.

  She gave no thought to the audience in the gallery of seats behind her, or to the prosecutor at the table parallel to hers. All her attention was on the raised bench at the front of the room, where three empty seats awaited their occupants. Red UFP flags adorned with white stars stood at either end of the bench, in front of which was a single chair whose armrest was equipped with a biometric sensor. Next to the judges’ bench was a computer interface that served as the court’s recorder and its link to the station’s library computer.

  T’Prynn dress uniform was stiff and unyielding.

  At her side was her defense counsel, Lieutenant Holly Moyer. The redhead whispered to T’Prynn, “I hate this part.”

  There did not seem to be any need to respond to Moyer’s expression of personal anxiety, so T’Prynn remained silent.

  A boatswain’s whistle announced the arrival of the judges. Admiral Nogura was the first to enter. The trim, gray-haired flag officer was followed by Captain Desai and Captain Atish Khatami of the Endeavour.

  Khatami was a tall woman with olive skin, raven hair, and exquisite features. For T’Prynn, the opportunity to spend the weeks of the trial clandestinely admiring Khatami’s beauty had provided a we
lcome distraction from the proceedings, whose outcome she had assumed from the beginning was foregone.

  The judges stood behind their chairs and waited while a female Rigellian ensign entered the courtroom, walked to the recording computer, and activated it. When the ensign nodded, Nogura pulled back his chair and sat down, and Khatami and Desai did the same. Once they had settled, Nogura picked up a wooden striker and rang an ancient ship’s bell atop the bench to call the proceedings to order.

  “Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn,” Nogura said. “Despite your plea of no contest to the charges brought against you, the number and importance of the mitigating factors you and your counsel have introduced since your arrest on Golmira have made the adjudication of your case somewhat … complicated.

  “First, as I’m sure you’ve been informed by counsel, Star-fleet’s Judge Advocate General has declined to prosecute your civilian companion, Timothy Pennington. While this board might not agree with the JAG’s decision, we have taken its leniency toward Mister Pennington into account during our deliberations.

  “Second, having reviewed your unexpurgated medical file, including its most recent entries by Doctor Jabilo M’Benga, which detail the nature of the unusual mental affliction from which you suffered for more than five decades, this court agrees with your counsel that you were acting in a state of diminished capacity at the time of the events for which you stand accused.

  “Third, because the information you gathered regarding criminal organizations operating in the Taurus Reach has proved to be accurate and strategically useful, and because you risked your safety and your life to aid in the rescue of Starfleet covert operatives on Golmira, this board has given serious consideration to your counsel’s petition for leniency.”

  Nogura frowned, then sighed. “Unfortunately, as heroic and useful as many of your actions over the past year might be, none of them is sufficient to excuse the criminal actions of which you stand accused. It would be a grave threat to discipline if we were simply to expunge your record as a reward for your decision to engage in rogue intelligence activities.”