“You are harboring a traitor to the Romulan Empire,” the commander of the Romulan vessel continued. “Return the ship before we board you and you will be treated with more leniency.”
“I have no intention of returning the Talvath or of letting your crew board Voyager,” Janeway snapped. “We have no desire to continue this conflict. If you will stand down, we have information about weaknesses in your dark-matter cloaks which—”
“Federation lies,” snarled the Romulan. “Federation tricks.”
Romulan lies, Romulan tricks. Klingon lies, Klingon tricks. Janeway wondered how long racial fears would be a part of relations between species. Probably forever, she thought sadly.
“Kim, get me a visual. Commander, please show your face. See mine.”
After a long moment, a Romulan visage appeared on the screen. The man was thickly built, with a large, jowly face and sunken, suspicious eyes.
“Surrender,” he said, “or—” His eyes widened as his gaze fell on Telek R’Mor. “It is a good day for me,” he said. “I have captured the traitors Telek R’Mor and Jekri Kaleh. I have recovered the Talvath and Voyager as well.”
“Don’t rest on your laurels yet,” Janeway said. “Haven’t you wondered why your mighty warbirds were destroyed so easily the last time the Romulans came after us? And this time as well?”
“You have some sort of technological advantage over us, Captain,” the Romulan answered haughtily. “But soon, you shall have it no more. Our sensors indicate that your ship is badly damaged. Surrender, and there will be no more loss of life.” He straightened in his chair. “I give you my word.”
“Do you know, Commander, I am inclined to believe you,” said Janeway, “but I’m not surrendering my ship. Let Dr. R’Mor transmit the information we have gleaned. It’s the dark matter that the Shepherd Lhiau has given you. It’s damaging your ships, and your crew. Please. Let us have a cease-fire while you examine this material. I’m sure you have capable crewmen aboard who can verify its authenticity.”
She expected the standard rebuttal, but the Romulan captain hesitated. He seemed to be seriously considering her offer. Hope rose inside Janeway. There had been no question in her mind that if she could just get someone to see Telek’s data, they would believe it. It was getting the other Romulans to trust that was the hard part.
Finally, the Romulan commander seemed to make a decision. He opened his mouth to speak.
At that precise moment, flames erupted on his bridge. The connection was severed. Janeway stared, appalled, at an enormous fireball where the Romulan warbird had been. The Para’tar had taken this moment, when the other commander was distracted, to fire and destroy the other ship. But its attack on the other warbird proved to be its death blow. No sooner had it fired than it itself exploded. Janeway stared for a brief moment at two blinding, roiling blasts of multicolored light. Seconds later, there was nothing but turning debris where two mighty vessels had been.
“No,” whispered Janeway, tears of compassion and horror springing to her blue eyes. They had almost had open communication. She had seen it in the commander’s eyes. He was on the verge of believing her. And he had probably died thinking she had lulled him into carelessness.
Federation lies. Federation tricks.
Janeway slammed a fist impotently on the conn, then summoned control. She blinked the tears back angrily. She had enough trouble seeing already.
“We are being hailed,” said Kim in a subdued voice.
“On screen.” She was relieved her voice didn’t crack.
The visage of Jekri Kaleh appeared. The younger woman was smiling, even though green blood trickled from a nasty-looking cut on her head.
“You are a brilliant tactician, Captain Janeway. Your conversation with Commander Shurvik distracted him sufficiently for Idran to get in the decisive blow.”
“We were serious about our discussion,” said Janeway. Cold fury roiled in her gut, but she ignored it. “Your enemies are dead, Jekri Kaleh. What do you want from us?”
The young Romulan, her features gaunt and almost skeletal, leaned forward. Her silver eyes snapped with intensity. Blood dripped onto the console.
“I want to save my people,” she said, “and I believe you can show me how.”
Then the compelling silver eyes rolled back into her skull and Jekri Kaleh collapsed.
CHAPTER
15
“WE’VE GOT TO GO BACK!” PARIS CRIED. “I GAVE TRIMA my combadge. If she’s using it, she’s in terrible danger! She wouldn’t risk giving herself away otherwise!”
“Danger? From what? Give what away?” asked Ezbai, but comprehension spread across Chakotay’s dark face.
“Tom, hurry! They’re here!” said Trima’s voice, issuing from the combadge. A scream, then nothing.
“She’s The Silent One,” Chakotay said, drawing his weapon. “And Ioni and the others went back to kill her.”
“Now, wait, Ioni may be a little harsh, but—” Ezbai began, but Paris and Chakotay ignored him. They set off at a dead run the way they had come, and Ezbai and his crew had no choice but to follow.
Paris felt his body threatening to betray him with every step, every painful, gasping breath he drew. You listen to me, he told his body firmly. Get me to Trima and I’ll feed you, massage you, bathe you, and relax you when we get home. Just stay together long enough to get me to Trima!
They heard the screaming soon afterward. It seemed to take forever, but they finally burst through the underbrush to a scene of absolute chaos.
Nearly all the little huts, some of which Tom and Chakotay had helped build with their own sweat, were on fire. Paris caught glimpses of bodies lying still in the grass. He hoped desperately they were unconscious, not dead, but Matroci had been shown no such mercy. Whoever it was who had killed him, and it was beginning to look as though the murderers were members of Ezbai’s team, had come back for more.
Much more.
The smoke stung his eyes and he blinked, trying desperately to focus. Over the cries of fear and the crackling of the flames came another sound, one he had never expected to hear in this quiet little place: the unmistakable, singing sound of a directed energy weapon being fired.
“Oh, God,” Paris whispered, and forced his protesting body to run toward the sound. His own phaser, set on stun, was already in his hand. Behind him, he heard Chakotay shouting orders.
More weapons fire. Tom tripped over something and went flying. He hit the ground hard, and gasped as he got to his hands and feet.
He had tripped over the prone form of a villager. Every cell in his body was screaming for him to find Trima, but in a way each person here was dear to Tom. He quickly flipped the prone form over, and realized it was Yurula. He felt for a pulse. Relief washed over him. There it was. She was injured, but she would not die.
He clambered to his feet. Not a second later, a figure jumped out of nowhere. A rifle of some sort was pointed right at him. Paris didn’t hesitate. He fired, and the figure tumbled. Paris jumped over it and kept running. He would have to remember to thank his body later for its cooperation.
He was disoriented by the thick, black smoke and the licking orange and red flames of the inferno. Which way was Trima’s hut? Was it even still standing, or had Ioni and her followers burned it, with Trima inside, to the earth?
“I don’t like where that thought’s going,” he muttered to himself. But dammit, where was it?
Screams came from the nearest hut. Children’s screams. Paris’s blood ran cold. He’d always thought that was a cliché, but at the awful sound he felt he had ice water in his veins. The hut was ablaze, its thatch already twisting as if with a life of its own, curling into dark wisps as it burned. At any moment, the whole structure would go.
Covering his face as best he could, Paris charged the burning hut. Three children were inside, two girls about ages twelve and three and an infant. The older girl clutched the baby in her arms.
“Come on!” Paris cried. Alt
hough it was too smoky for them to be able to see him, they would recognize his English and know it was either him or Chakotay: a friend. He grabbed the youngest girl, flung her over his shoulder, and herded the older girl out before him.
“Mother!” cried the older girl. Dammit. The mother was probably unconscious from the smoke. The girl handed the infant to her sister and prepared to charge back in.
“You stay!” yelled Tom. “I’ll get her.”
He didn’t think he would. He thought it very likely that the hut would collapse on both of them and he would die, right here, burned to a crisp like one of Neelix’s failed soufflés. He also knew he had no other choice.
He gulped a breath of air into seared lungs and raced back in. Paris couldn’t see, so he groped frantically. His hands closed on a leg and he reached along the torso, gathering the woman in his arms. He turned and ran for the exit.
Paris had taken two steps before the hut collapsed into an inferno.
“Mama!” the girls shrieked, and rushed to her. Coughing, the woman sat up. She had been so close to the flames that her hair and clothing were singed, but she was alive.
“Tom?” she rasped. He realized that it was Winnif, whose child had recently been abandoned to the care of the Crafters. To the care of the Alilann.
He smiled, turned, and kept going. Trima. He had to find Trima.
Suddenly something hard struck him in the center of his back. Paris stumbled and almost fell. A second hard thing whizzed by his ear.
“Betrayers!” screamed a woman’s raw voice.
“Yurula?” Tom turned around and was barely able to duck in time as she threw something at him. This time, he could figure out what it was. It was a stone.
“You brought them here! You led them to us!” Stumbling on shaky legs, still weak from the attack that had rendered her unconscious, she looked around for more ammunition.
Something twisted in Tom’s gut. She hated him. She thought this whole thing had been planned, that the Alilann wanted to kill them, and that he and Chakotay had been part of a plan to exterminate Sumar-ka.
He turned and kept running. He hoped there would be time for explanations later.
More sound of weapons fire, but when he rounded a flaming pile that had once been Resul’s pottery shed, he skidded to a halt.
Trima stood proudly, alone. Her garb had been torn and burned, but she appeared uninjured. Her hair was loose and hung in a tangle down almost to the ground itself, and her eyes gleamed wildly in the red light of the burning homes. She grasped Chakotay’s phaser, the one Tom had left behind, and stood in a bare area encircled by several fallen bodies.
“Trima!” he cried in relief. She swung around, pointing the weapon at him. Instinctively he raised his hands. He hoped to God the setting hadn’t accidentally been set to kill.
“Tom,” she breathed. As he watched, the anger, fear, and feralness bled from her. “Oh, Tom. It’s over.”
He wondered how she could say that when there were still cries that filled the night, still houses that burned, but then he realized that she wasn’t talking about tonight’s disaster.
Paris walked toward her and held out his hand for the weapon. Wordlessly, she gave it to him. He checked the phaser and relief washed over him. It was still set to stun. Trima hadn’t killed these people. She’d be glad of that. At least he hoped she’d be glad.
Shapes ran at them out of the darkness. They moved in a precise military trot, and beside Tom, Trima tensed.
“Shoot them! Shoot them!” she cried, seizing Paris’s arm and shaking it.
“It’s okay,” said Tom. “These are the good guys.”
It was Chakotay, Ezbai, and the others who had not allied with Ioni. “We found and neutralized three of them,” gasped Ezbai, “but Ioni is still missing.”
Out of the darkness came a rock. It struck Ezbai on the side of the head and he sank down at once.
Paris whirled, targeted, fired. It was instinct. Yurula might be armed only with rocks, but properly thrown, a rock could kill as surely as a phaser. Yurula went down without a sound.
“Ezbai!” cried Chakotay.
Ezbai moaned, but he was conscious. “Find … Ioni,” he gasped. “Have to stop … the killing … our fault. You were right, Chakotay. Fear, and hate … kill us all.”
“It’s not just your fault,” came a voice from the darkness. Soliss stepped forward and knelt to examine his wife. He looked up at Paris, at the weapon the young man held, and then turned to regard Ezbai. “It’s the Culilann’s fault as well.”
“We’ll argue about who’s at fault later,” said Chakotay. “Tom, you’re with me.”
“But Trima’s the target,” Paris protested.
“I was the target,” said Trima, “but now the whole village is. Stop whoever is doing this, Tom. Stop them right now.”
He looked into her eyes, saw the determination there, and nodded. She would be all right. For the moment.
“No rocks at Trima,” Paris told Soliss. The man smiled, sadly.
“No rocks at anyone,” he assured Tom.
Chakotay and Paris moved swiftly in the darkness, in search of a killer. Inwardly, Chakotay grieved. Why did it always seem to have to come down to this? If only he could believe what the Implementer so clearly had chosen to believe, that dark matter was at the heart of the conflict.
But it wasn’t. Hate was.
Instinct told him to move silently, stealthily. But the overwhelming roar of the blazing village would drown out any noise he could possibly make other than a shout, and the false, wild shadows of the flickering flames would do as much to disguise him from another’s eyes as reveal him.
Ioni was the only one at large now. The Recovery team had found and stopped her compatriots. Whatever loyalty they had had toward her had disappeared under Chakotay’s angry interrogations, and they had all been quick to agree that she had been the ringleader. Chakotay privately did not doubt it, but he would let Ezbai and the Implementer reserve judgment until after a fair trial.
Paris moved quietly behind him, his shadow. Soot and sweat were the most notable parts of his features now, and his clothing had been burned. Chakotay knew how weak the ensign was, but also knew that Tom had an inner strength that he was calling upon and that would not fail him until this final task was done.
Carefully, they moved from hut to hut, from pool of shadow to pool of shadow, searching for movement, a flash of pale blue skin showing white in the night. One by one the huts were collapsing, becoming so much tinder. There was a chance, a good one, that Ioni had already fled into the shelter of the surrounding jungle. It would hide her and her trespasses, and she had a weapon to defend herself against the other beasts that dwelt there.
But something told him she wouldn’t. Ioni acted out of arrogance and hate, and such motivations seldom allowed for fleeing into the night. She would be here, and she would kill or be killed.
Glance into the hut, see if there was anyone, murderer or victim, inside, move on. Chakotay’s mouth was parched from the smoke and he knew Tom wasn’t feeling any better.
There were only a few more huts remaining. Chakotay tensed for the confrontation.
* * *
Ioni’s skin was almost blistering before her eyes. How had it gone so wrong? They were several armed Alilann against a slumbering, unarmed village. It ought to have been ease itself to wipe this place off the map.
The huts would catch so quickly the occupants wouldn’t even awaken as they burned to death. The only one who might be a problem was the Culil, who might be awake praying to their false gods, and who would rouse the others. Ioni had killed enough of them to be able to identify their huts by now. She had dispatched the former Culil easily enough; his replacement ought to be no problem at all.
Except the Culil’s replacement had been a problem. An enormous problem, a deadly problem. She had met Ioni at the door with some kind of weapon of her own. Ioni barely had time to dive to the side before the younger woman fired. Wha
t was a Culil doing with so technologically advanced a weapon? Ioni tucked and rolled and came up shooting.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” the Culil was crying. As if Ioni would believe such a thing. The Culilann hated the Alilann as much as the Alilann hated the Culilann. This particular battle lost, and badly too, Ioni had fled into the night to kill what she could, burn what she could, and wonder how things had gone so wrong.
She had still thought they could escape and rejoin the others until Chakotay and Paris had come bursting through the jungle, with that idiot Ezbai hard on their heels. And that was when Ioni realized it was all over, all but the dying. For she would not go back and face trial, face condemnation and punishment, for doing the right thing: killing Culilann barbarians.
It was hard to breathe, now. She felt faint and wondered if she would lose consciousness before the flames claimed her. She set her teeth. She would die like a soldier, awake, conscious, tasting the pain.
Tears filled her eyes and poured down her cheeks. She couldn’t see. Was it just the roiling smoke, or were there figures in the black hole that was the doorway?
“Ioni!” It was Chakotay. “Come out! This hut’s about to go!”
She scuttled backward, ignoring the heat, the pain. She did not reply, but thought, Let it burn.
Her weapon was hot in her hands, but she lifted it and fired. Her aim was off and from their voices she knew she had missed both of them. It was so hard to see, so hard to breathe—
“I’m coming in for you,” called Chakotay.
“No! You’ll die if you do!” she screamed, her voice raw.
“You’ll die if I don’t,” he replied.
Ioni propped her weapon up on her knees, settling it in the valley between them. It was so hot she couldn’t hold it anymore, and it kept slipping.
The shadow in the doorway moved closer.
Ioni fired.
INTERLUDE
WHEN THE PRESENCE APPEARED AGAIN, THE ENTITY WELCOMED it. The benevolent, alien Presence permeated the Entity, told it that it had succeeded in its quest, and that it was time to safely put away the dark matter it had gathered. Soon, the Presence would come to claim it.
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