With revulsion, Lwaxana pictured the tubes puncturing the green-gray skin and carrying the enzyme that kept the soldiers alive. “Your plan would be a good one, but for one other fact. Our operatives have witnessed ketracel-white being unloaded from freighters arriving from Sentok Nor, so there must be another distillery there. If so, the Jem’Hadar would continue to receive their sustenance, and the retaliation against our people for the destruction of the distillery would be savage.”
Enaren shook his head sadly. “Matters cannot become more savage than they already are. The lists of dead and missing are growing by the hour. And our operatives on the outside have noted a disturbing trend.”
“What kind of trend?” Lwaxana asked and felt the assembly hold their collective breath, bracing themselves for bad news.
“When the Dominion forces first arrived,” Enaren said, “they took away thousands of our healthy and strong young people—”
“Slave labor for their damned space station,” Okalan said with a scowl. “None of them returned. We must assume most were worked to death. And those who survived are still slaves on the station.”
Enaren nodded. “For the past few weeks, however, the list of missing reveals that the Jem’Hadar are abducting the most talented of our telepaths.”
Lwaxana stiffened at the news. “Why take only those with the greatest ability?”
Enaren shrugged. “Either the Jem’Hadar are killing talented telepaths in hopes of crippling our ability to communicate with one another—”
“Or,” Lwaxana suggested, “the Dominion has become interested in their talents for some other reason.”
Enaren set his lips in a grim line. He glanced first to the council and then across the hundreds gathered in the chamber. “We have many of the most talented telepaths of Betazed here in this room. The Jem’Hadar will be looking for them. We must be even more vigilant than before.”
“If we’re lucky,” Okalan said, “the enemy will assume we managed to escape the planet and call off the search.”
“I don’t think we can hope for that,” Lwaxana said. “If the Jem’Hadar really are somehow targeting our strongest telepaths, they’ll scour every village and burn every forest to find us.”
“We can’t just sit here and wait for them to come for us,” the cavat farmer yelled. “We have to fight.”
“We’re doing all we can,” Lwaxana snapped.
“Which hasn’t been nearly enough,” Enaren replied. “Our hope now is that our message got through, and that Tevren will be brought to us.”
Uneasiness rippled through the room like a foul wind. None, Lwaxana knew, liked the idea. “If anyone has an alternate plan,” she challenged, “the council is open to hear it.”
The room was quiet until the silence was broken by Okalan, who was shaking his head as if in grief. “All our hopes in a madman,” he muttered. “By the First House . . . what have we come to?”
Chapter Five
“VAUGHN TO TROI.” Deanna sighed and stopped in midstride down the corridor leading to the counselor’s office, knowing Vaughn’s call meant the next phase of unpleasantness was about to begin. She steeled herself and tapped her combadge. “Troi here.”
“Please meet me in holodeck two in half an hour for combat drills.” Vaughn phrased his words as a request, but the underlying hardness in his deep voice made it seem more like an order.
“Commander, is this necessary?” Troi asked. “I have a great deal of paperwork—”
“Table it,” Vaughn said. “We have little time until the mission, and a great deal of ground to cover beforehand. I want you ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For anything.”
Deanna hesitated. She had continued to sharpen her combat skills when she had the chance, but she suspected Vaughn wouldn’t consider her abilities up to the needs of the mission. On the other hand, a physical workout would probably do her some good. No doubt Vaughn knew that.
She couldn’t help recalling, however, that her least favorite courses at Starfleet Academy had been those in hand-to-hand combat, where close contact made tuning out her opponent’s emotions impossible. In her subsequent Starfleet assignments, she’d had to kill on occasion, both in self-defense and to protect the lives of others, but those deaths haunted her. With her empathic abilities, she had felt her enemies’ pain, had sensed their fear, and their spirits draining away until only soulless voids remained. Each time she’d been compelled to take a life, something of her had died with the victim.
“How long since your last refresher course in hand-to-hand combat?” Vaughn’s voice demanded over her comm link.
“Too long,” Deanna admitted. “And I should warn you, Commander, I’ve never had much of a killing instinct. Most Betazoids don’t.”
“But you have a survival instinct. That’s a start. Thirty minutes, Commander. S.O.B.s only. Vaughn out.”
Deanna sighed again and would have laughed at Vaughn’s little joke if the situation weren’t so deadly serious. In recent years, Starfleet had designed a uniform variant specifically for ground-based combat operations. Characterized by their padded black fabric—unbroken except for the division-specific color stripe that cut across the chest, shoulders, and back—the uniforms were supposed to be referred to as “surface operations blacks.” Of course, it wasn’t long before somebody shortened the name to S.O.B., a designation that was quickly extended to anyone who put on the uniform. Deanna had never expected to be involved in a mission that required her to don the garment, and wondered how much of the nickname was self-fulfilling.
After detouring back to her quarters and quickly replicating the uniform, she put it on and stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes, feeling ridiculous and trying not to think about how dark all of Starfleet’s uniforms had become in the last few years. It was, she believed, symptomatic of a fundamental shift in the Federation’s cultural psychology, a response to the growing number of threats in an increasingly hostile universe. Her days of wearing flowing azure dresses on the bridge were long gone.
Now Vaughn required her to wear this. She thought again about Betazed, about the effect she feared Tevren’s knowledge might have upon it. And part of her wondered if Vaughn was now doing the same thing to her: turning her into a stranger that the Deanna Troi of ten years ago would have reviled.
Vaughn. When she had met him earlier that morning, Deanna had still been coping with the news of the defeat at Starbase 19, and so had spared little thought for the man himself. Now, as she thought back to this morning’s meeting, she reviewed the unconscious impressions she’d been too preoccupied to consider at the time, and compared them to what she recalled of his infrequent visits to the Troi household decades ago.
Deanna’s earliest memories of Vaughn went back to childhood, years before her empathic abilities had developed. He’d been a friend and colleague of her father’s and, she recalled, a source of tension for her mother. Even back then he’d seemed old, and Deanna remembered wondering, in the way children sometimes do, what had carved such deep lines into the man’s face, especially around his eyes. Those lines had cut even deeper in the years since.
To Will and probably to most humans, Deanna realized, Vaughn seemed curt, somewhat harsh, perhaps even a little condescending. But thanks to her empathic sense, she knew this was an incomplete picture. There was a kind of “mist” around Vaughn, indicating he’d had his guard up emotionally—a fairly standard technique for officers involved with advanced tactics and intelligence work, but only partially effective most of the time. The mist meant that she couldn’t read him as clearly as, say, Captain Picard, but it couldn’t keep certain intense emotional states from getting through. Even so, she found she’d only picked up two clear emotions from Vaughn during the morning meeting: a self-directed bitterness and, she now realized, a sincere concern for Deanna’s well-being. Everything else was white noise.
Accustomed to forming a generally accurate profile of someone after only a firs
t encounter, Troi was frustrated by her inability to see clearly past a veneer that Vaughn had obviously spent years fortifying, precisely in order to discourage what she was attempting. She wondered if her father had developed similar skills.
The thought completed a circuit in Deanna’s mind, and she suddenly recalled the last time she’d seen Vaughn, when she was only seven years old. He was there, in their home on Betazed, speaking quietly to her mother just before a grief-stricken Lwaxana had told young Deanna that Ian Andrew Troi was dead.
Deanna walked to her desk and swiveled the computer display so she could see it. “Computer,” she said. “Show me the personnel file of Commander Elias Vaughn.”
The computer screen on her desk showed a standard personnel record, complete with a recent visual. Vaughn had been born on Berengaria VII in 2275. Exactly a century old, she thought. It was an age by which most Starfleet humans were already retired. Academy class of’97. There was no information about his subsequent postings, and no specific current assignment other than the innocuously worded “consultant,” which almost made Deanna laugh aloud.
Frowning, she said, “Computer, search for Elias Vaughn in the historical database.”
The number of items listed was surprisingly paltry for a man who’d served in Starfleet for nearly eight decades, but he’d had a tumultuous career, to say the least: the civil war on Beta IV, the genocidal holocaust on Arvada III, the Tomed incident, and one or two others. The database didn’t even list the Betreka Nebula, and Deanna knew that Vaughn and her father had served there together.
She suppressed a sigh of frustration. The facts were so sparse a spy would have a better background cover than the limited information available on the commander.
She really didn’t want facts, however. She wanted more about his character. What made the man tick? Traveling from assignment to assignment with no permanent place to call home had to be the loneliest of lives. Did he need no one but himself? She couldn’t help wondering about his emotional life, his self-control, his impulses and appetites. Who were his friends? His family? His record listed no wife, but a daughter who was a recent Academy graduate serving as an ensign on the U.S.S. Sentinel.
But everything else she sought was conspicuously missing.
So much for the official record, she thought. Well, there’s always the old-fashioned way. She still had a good opportunity to learn something meaningful about the man whose command she’d accepted, and that opportunity awaited her in holodeck two.
“Beverly?” Deanna reached the holodeck entrance just as the doctor staggered out. Normally groomed immaculately, Beverly Crusher sagged against the corridor wall, sweat dripping off her forehead, her hair a ratty tangle. Like Deanna, she wore her surface ops blacks. She patted her face with a towel and fought to draw air into her lungs.
The doctor held up a hand to forestall Deanna’s questions of concern. “I’m all right.”
“When did Commander Vaughn recruit you for the mission?” Deanna asked.
“Right after he recruited Data,” Beverly panted. She took a moment to regain her breath. “I haven’t had a workout like that since running through the Celtris III scenarios with Jean-Luc and Worf.”
Deanna scrutinized her friend with concern. The Federation wounded were pouring into the sector, and every doctor at Starbase 133 had been working round the clock. Not only did Beverly’s face reveal exhaustion from her session with Vaughn, the lines around her eyes had deepened, and the circles beneath them had darkened since yesterday.
Deanna understood more than most that treating the injured brought its own tolls. Beverly would know firsthand the horrors, the sacrifices, the losses of friends and families and homes. And no matter how strong the physician’s psyche, continuously dealing with bad news and dying patients wore down even the most resilient souls. Small wonder Beverly had accepted the assignment to Darona.
“He’s waiting for you,” the doctor said, straightening her shoulders.
“What do you think of him?”
Beverly shrugged. “He’s not the first hundred-year-old I’ve met who could go up against holographic opponents, or even real ones. Most people don’t give it much thought, but there are actually a lot more active centenarian humans in Starfleet than is generally known. One of the benefits of an ever-lengthening life span.” She smiled wryly. “Just the same, I’m glad Vaughn’s on our side.”
“You almost sound optimistic,” Deanna said. “I wish I could be.”
Beverly put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Deanna, Jean-Luc told me a little about the issues you’re struggling with. I can really only try to imagine what you’re going through right now. But let me ask you something. Do you have faith in your friends on the Enterprise to do everything we can to help win back Betazed?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you need to have that same faith in your people back home. Trust them to get through this without forgetting who they are.”
“Easier said than done,” Deanna said. “Tevren—”
“I know,” Beverly said. “But I also know you. And if even half the Betazoids are anything like you or your mother, I think Betazed will endure whatever Tevren brings to it.”
Deanna mustered a grateful smile and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thanks, Beverly.” And with an encouraging nod, the doctor set off for her quarters, leaving Deanna staring at the holodeck doors.
Letting out a deep breath, she stepped forward. The doors parted at her approach. Inside, she saw to her surprise that the holodeck walls were bare but for the diode grid. No holographic environment. She’d expected a Darona simulation—a city street, maybe the prison interior, with a squad of holographic Jem’Hadar waiting to ambush her.
Instead, she saw only Vaughn standing in the middle of the room, the red stripe of his S.O.B. standing out against the otherwise black uniform. In contrast to Beverly, he hadn’t broken a sweat. And his breathing appeared to be perfectly even.
“Try to kill me,” he instructed.
“I beg your pardon?”
He beckoned her closer. “Make your best move.”
She didn’t advance but dropped into a widespread stance, left foot forward, left fist up and ready for a jab. Keeping her weight on the balls of her feet, she bounced lightly, slowly circling, sizing up her opponent for weakness.
She couldn’t find any.
She feinted, moving in and out, testing his reaction but keeping her distance. He didn’t so much as blink.
“Come on, Deanna,” he taunted softly. “Come get me. Take me down.”
She ignored his jibe and watched his blue eyes for a hint of movement. Just because Vaughn had asked her to attack didn’t mean he wouldn’t do the same. And while her offensive strikes weren’t particularly powerful, she’d practiced her defensive maneuvers more. She preferred him to attack her, so she could turn his superior strength against him.
Not that she thought she had a chance against a combat veteran like Vaughn, but she didn’t want to embarrass herself completely either. He had more strength, more stamina, and decades more experience. She already knew how this exercise would end. The question was simply how long she lasted.
“I’m only an old man,” he taunted again. “Nothing in comparison to the Jem’Hadar on Betazed.” She circled lightly as Vaughn spoke. “Did you know that before battle the Jem’Hadar perform a ritual ceremony? ‘I am dead,’ they chant. ‘As of this moment we are all dead. We go into battle to reclaim our lives. This we do gladly because we are Jem’Hadar. Victory is life.’”
He stared at her with a penetrating gaze and repeated the chilling incantation. “‘Victory is life.’ Come get me, Deanna.”
“Is that an order, sir?” She kept her guard up, her eyes alert.
“Very good.” He nodded approval. “You can’t be taunted into attacking. But then I never doubted your common sense.” He shifted his stance slightly. Mentally, she sensed his mind quickening to a higher state of vigilance. If she hadn’
t been focused, she would have missed the tiny sign. Still she was barely prepared for the force and swiftness of his attack.
Vaughn lunged with the speed and grace of a Bajoran hara cat. In comparison, she deliberately slowed her reaction and feigned clumsiness, dropping to her buttocks and back on the mat, planting the soles of her feet into his stomach, catapulting him over her head, using the momentum of his attack against him.
In anticipation of a head-first dive, Vaughn lifted his arms over his head. His palms hit the mat, and he rotated smoothly forward. She rolled backward with his momentum and somersaulted until she straddled his chest. Summoning a kiai, a shout from deep within, she simultaneously aimed a knife-hand blow to his neck. He blocked her strike with an ease that suggested he’d envisioned her attack before she’d even thought of it.
“A stiff-wristed palm to the base of the nose should have been your choice of a killing blow,” he said. “You have the strength to crunch the nose bones into the brain. Try again.”
She started to stand, assuming he meant for them to begin on their feet. Instead, he pulled her back down with firm gentleness. At his touch, she sensed a mental weariness that told her he’d taught this exercise more times than he would have liked. “Hit me. Use the base of your palm.”
“I won’t—”
“Do as I say,” he demanded.
Beneath his exterior sternness, she sensed his sympathy for her dislike of fighting. “I can’t just—”
“You can. Hit me.” He tapped his nose. “Here.”
She knew she possessed enough power to drive the tiny bones into his brain. And she knew he would stop her before she succeeded. Still she hesitated.
Intellectually comprehending that her strike wouldn’t succeed was one thing. Using all her force and skill to attempt to kill a Starfleet officer during a training exercise was another matter entirely.
The Battle of Betazed Page 6
