by Dave Stern
Of course, he hadn’t said a word of that to Neesa last night. He’d told her he’d be back if they didn’t find Enterprise or its crew. A little bit of a white lie, but he didn’t want a confrontation with her. Saying good-bye had been hard enough. Trip was glad they’d done it last night, rather than waiting until this morning. It let him focus on the task at hand. Royce and Fane had passed on a list of Denari military bases where Enterprise wasn’t, information gathered from Guild patrols over the last few days. Now it was simply a matter of checking out other outposts, though of course Royce couldn’t guarantee that they knew the location of every single—
“Commander?”
Trip blinked.
“Sorry, Hoshi.” He looked up and smiled at her. “Thinking about something else there for a second. What do you need?”
“Nothing I need, sir.” She gestured through the window of the cell-ship to the launch-bay outside.
Victor Brodesser stood there.
He pointed at Trip, motioning for him to come out and talk.
“I understand you’re leaving.”
Trip had barely come through the hatch before Brodesser began speaking. He took a second to gather his thoughts.
Truth was, he’d been avoiding the man all morning, as he’d avoided him last night, ever since reaching the decision to depart. It made their confrontation over the cloaking device yesterday academic, as far as he was concerned. He’d hoped to avoid any further discussion of the issue.
But if the anger evident on the man’s face was any indication, that was a vain hope.
“That’s right.” Trip had brought one of the diagnostic sensors out with him. He ran it along the exterior of the cell-ship, doing a last check for signs of stress and/or minute cracks in the hull as he talked. “We’re not making any progress finding Enterprise through the intercepts, so Hoshi and I—”
“Trip, I know what’s going on.”
He turned to meet the professor’s gaze.
“Kairn told me about the test results—what Doctor Trant found.”
“He did?” Trip hadn’t exactly asked the marshal to keep the news quiet, after he’d told Kairn last night why he and Hoshi had to leave immediately, but still…
“That’s right, he did. What I want to know is, why didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Trip looked into Brodesser’s eyes and saw something else there now besides the anger.
Hurt.
It made him stumble over his words.
“I was going to, but—”
“Before or after you’d left?” Brodesser shook his head. “Were you even going to say good-bye?”
“Of course I was going to say good-bye,” he replied instantly, though in truth there was no “of course” about it. His only desire had been to avoid an argument, and he would have dodged Brodesser entirely if he could have. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t come talk to you yesterday about the cloak, but—”
“Trip.” Brodesser stepped forward and looked him in the eye. “I don’t care about the cloak.”
“What?”
“Well.” The professor managed a thin smile. “I suppose that is a bit of an exaggeration. I do care, of course—I’d like to help the Guild. I’d like to see Sadir’s government—what’s left of it, at least—fall. I have a certain degree of intellectual curiosity about why the device I constructed is now failing. But I care more about what happens to you.”
Trip didn’t know what to say to that.
“I don’t know why we haven’t been able to find common ground these last few days. I do know that since you came back from the Kresh”—he frowned—“you’ve treated me like a total stranger.”
“But…” No sense mincing words here, Trip realized. “We are strangers, sir.”
“Strangers? You and I? No.” Brodesser shook his head. “I know you as well as I know anyone.”
“That’s just not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Brodesser smiled again. “Isn’t it true that you spent more time in high school hanging around the old Cape Canaveral base than the classroom?”
Trip frowned.
“Yes, but—”
“And the year you worked on Daedalus, you were in the middle of a relationship—a long-distance relationship—with a woman named Natalie who—”
“Right,” Trip said quickly, recalling one particularly risqué transmission Natalie had sent him that had somehow gotten broadcast, to his undying embarrassment, everywhere in the Daedalus complex. “But—”
“And this,” Brodesser said, rolling up his sleeve to display a thin, barely visible scar along the inside of his arm. “Do you remember this?”
A chill ran down Trip’s spine. He did indeed remember that scar. How could he not?
Brodesser had gotten it saving Trip’s life.
It happened the first time they’d tested the El Cid—Cascading Ion Drive—prototype—a near-tragedy that the Daedalus disaster had pushed to the back of his mind. It all came rushing back in an instant.
He and Chief Cooney had been in Daedalus’s engine room. Cooney had spent the day working with a team of engineers, connecting the prototype engine to the ship’s systems. It was late by the time they’d finished. Two days behind schedule, with another full day of testing to go.
The delay made Trip anxious. Brodesser was under a lot of pressure from Starfleet to produce results; he knew that. So Trip had pushed Cooney to continue testing through the night. He’d offered his own services to assist. The two men were in the middle of verifying conduit integrity when the professor walked in on them.
He’d been furious. Understandably so, Trip realized in retrospect. Brodesser had yelled at them for ignoring safety protocols, for not having someone at the main control station to monitor their work. He’d been particularly upset with Cooney, who he’d declared “should have known better.” Trip remembered wondering what that said about him.
He was still wondering, he supposed, as he began to disconnect the testing equipment. And whether it was because of that wondering, the lateness of the hour, some combination of the two or just plain carelessness, he could never be entirely sure.
What happened was that he accidentally brushed the testing leads against charged conduit.
In an instant, blue fire arced up from the conduit surface and sparked through the air to touch the testing probe in Trip’s hand.
He didn’t know how many volts he took, but it was more than enough to freeze him where he stood, for his muscles to lock in place, including his hand around the probe.
The ions within the conduit began to swirl about, flowing toward the probe as well. The energy flow grew in intensity. Trip knew it was all happening in milliseconds, and yet it seemed to be taking place in slow motion.
I’m going to die, he realized in that instant.
And in that instant, Brodesser, moving with a speed that belied his years, thrust his own arm into the middle of that blue fire coming off the conduit, breaking the connection.
Two things happened: the professor screamed in agony, and Trip flew backwards as though shot out of a cannon.
He slammed against the nearest wall and slumped to the ground. He remembered being vaguely aware of Cooney moving as well then, remembered the engineer reaching and punching the emergency cutoff switch.
They’d been unreasonably lucky. The engine prototype, the testing equipment, even Trip himself—all had been entirely undamaged. The only physical evidence that anything untoward had happened was the scar on Brodesser’s arm.
The same scar that this universe’s Brodesser was now showing to him.
Trip sighed.
The man was right. They weren’t strangers, and yet he wouldn’t—couldn’t—treat this universe’s Brodesser the same way he’d treated the professor who’d died aboard Daedalus.
Maybe that’s part of the problem, he thought.
Maybe he was angry at this man for having lived when his Br
odesser had died.
And thinking that, he realized something else as well.
Maybe he was angry at himself. For not stopping the Daedalus launch when he could have, the night before that first flight, when Brodesser had called him into his quarters and they’d talked about damping down the cascade reaction.
Maybe every time he’d been looking at and listening to this man, he’d been unconsciously feeling his own guilt.
That’s a lot of maybes, Trip thought. He didn’t have time to sort them all out right now. But one thing was for certain.
No matter their relationship, he could treat this man now standing in front of him with a little more courtesy.
“I do owe you an apology,” he said.
The professor smiled. “Accepted.”
“And I do wish I could stick around even a little longer—let you take a closer look at the cloaking device. But Hoshi and I…”
“You have to go. I understand.” He nodded. “There is something you could do to help us, though. With regard to the cloak. When you launch, can you engage it immediately? We’ve set up a sensor grid to measure those initial energy states and look at how they interact with an engaged warp field.”
Trip nodded. That sounded easy enough to do. He opened his mouth to tell the professor as much—
And saw, all at once, that Brodesser was no longer looking at him. Rather, the professor’s gaze was focused at a point somewhere over his right shoulder.
Trip turned and saw why.
Across the launch bay, in the makeshift command center the Guild had set up, a crowd was gathering.
“Something’s happening,” Brodesser said.
Trip nodded.
“Let’s go find out what.”
They crossed the bay at a clip somewhere between a walk and a jog, heading toward Lieutenant Fane’s com station, where fully half a dozen of Eclipse’s top-ranking personnel—including Marshall Kairn and Lieutenant Royce—had gathered.
Royce acknowledged them with a nod, raising a finger to his lips just as Trip was about to ask him what was going on.
“Got him again, sir,” Fane said just then, turning to Kairn. “Channel is open.”
The marshal nodded grimly, reached over her, and pressed a button.
“This is Eclipse. Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
At the far end of the bay, the viewscreen—filled with a map of the Denari star system that showed the position of the Guild ships and their opponents—went dark for a second, then came to life again. The map was gone, though. In its place was the image of a young man, a Guild soldier barely out of his teens, who looked scared and quite out of his depth. The soldier stood in front of a scene of utter devastation.
“Thermonuclear explosions,” he said. “Two of them, at least. Centered around the base near Charest. Hit the power plants as well—half the continent is without electricity.”
“Deaths?”
The young man shook his head. “No word yet, sir. Depending on the bombs’ yield, we could be looking at a million casualties.”
Kairn sighed heavily and closed his eyes.
Trip could only imagine what he was feeling now. The plot to kidnap Sadir—and prod the Guild to assume all the risks that went along with it—had been undertaken at his urging. The plot had failed, and now it seemed their worst fears had come true.
War had broken out on Denari, and Trip had no doubt Kairn felt entirely responsible for it.
The viewscreen split. The young lieutenant’s image shrank to fit one side. The other filled with the image of Guildsman Lind, an older man who was the longtime leader of the Guild. Though as Trip had gotten closely involved with the organization, he recognized that real power was split between Lind and its military commanders, of whom Kairn seemed the most powerful.
“I would lay odds they used clean bombs, Marshal,” Lind said. “We can be grateful for that much, at least.”
“I think you’re right, sir,” Kairn said. “General Elson has no desire to rule a wasteland.”
“We have proof it was Elson?” Lind asked.
“Lieutenant?” Kairn asked.
The young man shook his head. “No. Nothing definitive.”
Elson. Trip recognized the name. One of Sadir’s most powerful lieutenants as well as a member of the planet’s ruling council.
“Marshal?” the young man said hesitantly.
“Go on.”
“There’s something else, sir. A short time ago, I heard a rumor—just informal, not from the news services. This rumor has it that the Guild was responsible for the attacks on Charest. If that rumor spreads…”
Next to Trip, Royce tensed.
“Bastards,” he said, loud enough that both the young lieutenant and Lind looked up.
“It’s to be expected, I’m afraid,” the Guildsman said. “Blame this atrocity on us, it will give Elson—give anyone—the excuse to come after us in full force. Finish us off for good.”
“So is Elson operating alone? Or with the other members of the Council?” Kairn asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Try and find out, Lieutenant. Keep us informed.”
“Aye, sir. Guildsman. Out.”
His half of the screen went dark. The Guildsman’s picture expanded to fill it.
“We need to know if Dirsch is still alive,” Lind asked.
“The EMP will make that hard to determine. The lieutenant will be our best source on that.” Kairn frowned. “I’m more concerned about Makandros. His troops will follow him without question.”
“Agreed. If he decides to believe those rumors, and comes after us…”
“We need to be prepared for the worst,” Kairn said.
“Plans need to be made.” Lind sighed heavily. “I’ll need to break this news to my crew first, Marshal. Then we should talk again. Lind out.”
He nodded, and the screen went dark for a second before filling with the map of the Denari system again.
Kairn sighed heavily and straightened. He saw Trip and shook his head.
“As you can see, Commander Tucker. What we most feared appears to have come to pass.”
“I’m sorry, Marshal.”
“So am I. We had been talking to General Dirsch about a ceasefire, a truce between the Guild and his forces. Burkhelt was never as virulently anti-Guild as New Irla. I had hoped that he could convince the Council to bring an end to this war. But now…” He shook his head. “Dirsch appears to be gone.”
“So what’s your next move?”
“As you heard. Prepare for the worst. And wait. Elson has control of the Kresh and now, with this attack, he appears to have control of the entire planet as well.”
“That’s not good,” Royce said.
“No. Elson will never make peace with the Guild.”
“And what about this Makandros?” Brodesser asked. “How do you think he’s likely to react?”
“That’s what we don’t know—yet. He holds a seat on the Council as well. More importantly, he commands half the fleet—the entire Denari Expeditionary Force. The DEF control all space beyond the Belt. And his troops are all personally loyal to him. Makandros has earned that by fighting alongside them for years.”
“As we well know,” Royce said wryly.
“Yes. The general has been responsible for inflicting a great many defeats on the Guild, though we’ve had our share of victories as well. At least we did, once upon a time.” Kairn frowned. “Still, I would rather deal with him than a bootlicker like Elson.”
“Or a corrupt swine like Dirsch,” Royce put in.
Trip looked from one of them to the other. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn’t help but smile.
“I don’t envy your position,” Trip said. “It sounds complicated.”
“It is. I don’t envy you yours either, Commander.” He nodded in the direction of the cell-ship. “I assume you’re ready to go?”
“We are.”
Kairn held out his hand. “Then I
wish you luck. And I thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”
“Thank you, sir. For rescuing Hoshi and me in the first place. For taking such good care of us.”
The two men shook hands.
“You should be thanking Doctor Trant for that.” Kairn frowned and looked around the bay briefly. “I would expect to see her here, to see you off.”
“We’ve already said our good-byes,” Trip replied quickly.
“I see.” Kairn looked at him strangely a moment, and Trip wondered suddenly if the marshal knew about his relationship with Neesa. No, he decided. Impossible. And yet…
In so many ways, Kairn reminded him of Captain Archer. And he couldn’t see the captain letting something like that escape his notice.
“If you do find your starship, remember what we talked about,” the marshal said.
Trip did. If they found Enterprise, Kairn had told him earlier this morning, he would send Eclipse to help recapture it. Trip had agreed to contact them for assistance, if it was at all possible.
But he had no intention of doing so. He was not going to let Eclipse get anywhere near the much more powerful Starfleet vessel. Enterprise would see the Guild ship coming a hundred kilometers away and blow it—and the hundreds of people aboard—out of the sky. Enterprise’s weapons, even in the hands of relatively untrained Denari personnel, were…
He frowned.
“Commander?” Kairn asked. “Everything all right?”
Trip didn’t respond.
A little bell was going off in his head. They’d talked about this before. The weapons were what Sadir—and now, whoever had control of the starship—wanted from his vessel. Weapons to appropriate, to duplicate, just as they’d duplicated Daedalus’s technology ten years ago. A massive undertaking that had required the construction of a huge, highly specialized facility.
He smiled.
“What is it?” Brodesser asked.
“Enterprise,” Trip said. “I think I know where she is.”
Seven
TRIP WENT straight to the decoding station that had been his home for the last week. It was unoccupied, its link to the main power conduit severed.
