“Alright. See you in a few days.”
“Sure. And don’t let the Creatress hear what you’re thinking about the extremists. She’ll kill you.”
Ak Bahail couldn’t help but smiling. Their Creatress was radical in her own way—she firmly rejected the Harmony of Spheres. She dreamed of the Renao joining the Federation. Fortunately, she belonged to a very small minority.
“I’ll be sure to be careful,” he typed. “After all, I want to live long enough to watch the sphere defilers crawl back to their Home Spheres.”
“Ha, good luck.” His brother cut the link, and ak Bahail also switched off his communicator.
Still smiling, he leaned back in his pilot’s chair. He had decided to continue to do what the strangers told him to. But he would neither hurry nor make an effort. He wanted fate to decide whether they encountered members of the Purifying Flame or not.
Suddenly, the cockpit door next to him swung open. Confused, ak Bahail looked left. All he could see was a dark figure wearing a mask. Wanting to open his mouth to utter a surprised sound, his hand reached for the shock pistol at his hip. He wasn’t able to complete either action.
A shimmering blue beam fired at point blank range hit him.
Darkness enfolded ak Bahail.
* * *
When Kirk’s away team left the chemical plant an hour later it was dark outside. Nights this close to the equator fell quickly, and their pilot had warned them about that. However, the darkness was not why Lenissa’s hand reached for her phaser as they walked out to the landing area, but rather what she didn’t see in it.
“Where’s Keeper ak Bahail with our Kranaal?” asked Jenna Kirk, speaking Lenissa’s thoughts. “They were right over there on that landing pad.”
They walked over to the pad and had a good look around. They didn’t see their aircraft anywhere, nor did they find any traces of where it or the pilot might have gone.
“He abandoned us,” Mokbar snarled, baring his sharp teeth. “He probably thought that we should make our own way home after the argument with Commander zh’Thiin.”
“That wasn’t an argument,” Lenissa said dismissively. “I didn’t hit him once.”
“I don’t think he left us on a whim either,” Kirk said. She pulled out the planet-wide communicator device that had been given to her to establish contact with her Sphere Keeper partners on Onferin without having to involve the Prometheus. “I’ll call his superiors to…”
What she wanted to say remained a mystery because a shimmering blue beam cut through the warm evening air and hit Kirk straight in the chest. She gasped and collapsed.
Lenissa had her phaser in her hand before her brain even registered the fact. She ducked, firing into the direction where the shot had come from. Grakk, beside her, was hit as well. The giant Klingon staggered but he didn’t fall. He shook like a dog, reaching for his disruptor that—unlike Lenissa’s weapon—was not set for stun. He fired quickly, hitting a parked hovercraft, sending its fragile roof flying in a shower of sparks.
Another two blue beams hit the Klingon. This time, Grakk fell to his knees. He cried out something in Klingon, rolled his eyes, and fell forward, hitting the landing pad’s stony ground with a loud thud.
Lenissa’s hand slapped her combadge. “Lenissa to…” she began, trying to establish a link, but something hit her in the back.
A wave of liquid fire shot through her body. Twitching uncontrollably, she tried desperately to hang onto her weapon. She felt as if she was falling, and a bright flash of pain shot through the back of her head when she hit the ground. Stunned, she looked up. A dark, faceless figure towered over her, pointing something at Lenissa’s chest. The figure uttered several words that Lenissa didn’t understand.
A trap, she thought. The Purifying Flame…
Blue light engulfed her, and she lost consciousness.
29
NOVEMBER 14, 2385
Achernar II
The city of Heliopolis was large, and yet it seemed parochial. The Ferengi named Glomp laughed derisively as he traversed a street corner in one of the more dubious sections of the spacious urban center. It had been more than two centuries since human colonists had settled down on this rock in the Beta Quadrant, naming it after a famous place in Ancient Greece. In the meantime, representatives from other nations had joined them, taken root, and started families. But these days, not much was left of the idealism and the hope that the founders of this settlement once felt.
This wasn’t the city’s fault. Was it the colonists’ fault that a non-corporeal entity by the name of Redjac paid a visit to Achernar II—or Alpha Eridani II as it was also called in the Federation’s star charts—in 2156 committing ten atrocious murders? Was it the colonists’ fault that the Romulan Commander Donatra renounced the Romulan Star Empire more than two hundred years later, making the base for her Imperial Romulan State in the Achernar system? Did Heliopolis do anything to justify the reputation that clung to it?
Of course not. And Glomp didn’t really care for its political or historical importance. His dislike was based on a much simpler criterion: he found Heliopolis to be just plain ugly. Not just the rundown neighborhood to the south of its center where Glomp had just emerged from a shabby transporter station into the humid summer afternoon air. No, this entire metropolis had disgusted him from the moment he had arrived at the spaceport. It had nauseated him in the high halls of administration, and it certainly didn’t enthrall him now that he finally approached his destination.
The warehouse was located on the edge of the neighborhood. It was a dirty gray complex made of perma-concrete with wide doors that had been welded shut. Weeds grew unchecked all over the yard. Glomp stopped after rounding a corner and seeing the building for the first time with his own eyes. At first, he thought that he had the wrong address. But no, this matched the information he had found in Thokal’s files, as well as the results of his own clandestine investigations.
There was no movement, and the silence was almost deafening. It was hard to believe that the city center was not far away. Dirt and small stones crunched under Glomp’s boots when he entered the yard, walking toward the small door on the warehouse’s back wall. The control pad to the right of the door hung tilted out of the wall and had obviously been broken for many years. The door didn’t respond to motions either. So Glomp raised his hand and knocked.
Nothing happened. A siren wailed in the distance but it died down again soon. He knocked again, this time noticing a hum. Turning his head, Glomp spotted a small camera above the door in one of the façade’s wide cracks. Instinctively he tried to picture his effect on the unknown observer: a lanky Ferengi with ears that were far too small, a gaudily colored jacket, and a forehead where you would need a magnifying glass to find the two bumps that were typical for his species. The image would relay someone who was no kind of threat—more like a bad joke.
Glomp rapped the door for the third time, which prompted a blue light to emit from the lens—a scan that went from head to toe. Soon after he heard footsteps. Someone opened a small wooden hatch on eye-level in the door. Two eyes with an annoyed expression came into view. “Get lost!” a harsh voice snarled.
“Jolan tru,” Glomp used a Romulan salutation, pronouncing it with a very strong accent. Was it obvious how nervous he felt? Were they able to see how long it had been since he had swapped his extremely hapless career as a secret agent for a job in finance, which suited him much better? He was afraid they would, and that fear increased his nervousness even more. “I’m here for the, uhm, replicator.”
The annoyance in the eyes transformed into incredulity. “What?”
Glomp squinted, confused. The person who answered the door should have reacted differently upon hearing the agreed password. Thokal hadn’t mentioned snags like that.
“No, a loan isn’t necessary,” he continued, sticking with his lines he had been given. “I’ll be paying cash.”
The person on the other side of the door stared
for a moment, then closed the hatch. Glomp was at a loss, standing outside the closed door. What now?
He was just about to knock for the fourth time when the door opened to reveal a very large Romulan. He wore dark, loose clothes, had jet-black hair, pointed ears and—much to Glomp’s terror—a disruptor in his left hand.
“You?” he said, eyeing Glomp. “You?”
“My name is…”
The hand with the disruptor twitched. Glomp fell silent.
“Spare us the explanations,” the Romulan said. “Facts speak louder than words.”
He stepped aside and a second well-muscled Romulan appeared in the doorway and grabbed Glomp by the shoulders, turning him around and shoving him against the perma-concrete wall in order to search his jacket and pants pockets. When he was finished he pulled a hand scanner from underneath his clothing, pointing it at the Ferengi.
“Listen, that really isn’t necessary.” Glomp’s knees were getting weak. He was no longer used to this kind of field work, and even back when he was, he’d made a complete mess of things more often than not. But he knew that he had to stay in character. “Our agreed schedule makes it clear that…”
“The meeting has been scheduled with Mak,” the first Romulan interrupted him sharply. His finger tightened around the disruptor’s trigger. “Not with you.”
That was it. The all-important moment. The one he had been practicing for in front of the mirror for hours. The reason why Thokal had turned to him of all the people he could have put on this mission because he was the only Ferengi.
Glomp turned around. “Damnit, I am Mak!”
“You.” The Romulan snorted. “You’re the famous weapon dealer from Ferenginar? The one everyone’s looking for but hardly anyone has ever seen?”
“That’s right,” Glomp lied again. He raised his hand to reach into his inner jacket pocket.
“Slowly!” The Romulan jerked the disruptor menacingly.
The second Romulan waved his hand dismissively. “He’s unarmed. There’s absolutely nothing in his pockets.”
Not in those that you found, Glomp thought. Slowly, he ripped open one of the inner lining’s seams and pulled out a flat, rectangular datapad.
“Absolutely nothing, eh?” the man with the weapon growled. His companion gawked.
“This is a list of all articles that I intend to purchase.” Glomp activated the pad and handed it to the Romulan. “Just like we discussed. So? I’m on time. I’ve got the latinum. If you keep your side of the deal, we will all walk away happy and satisfied with this encounter.”
Silently, the man with the weapon skimmed through the data on the small display. Glomp knew the list by heart, although Thokal had been the one to write it. It consisted of various small military items—from hand weapons to components for the construction of a cloaking device. Hopefully, it would be sufficient as bait.
A few seconds later the Romulan looked up. “You want to buy all that, yes?”
Glomp nodded. This was another moment of truth, and he knew it. If what he and Thokal tried to lure out didn’t happen now it…
It happened.
“Why just that?” the Romulan asked. A hint of a smile played around his lips as the Romulan handed Glomp the pad back. “If you are who you claim you are, and you have sufficient financial resources at your disposal, my partner and I can offer you so much more than just disruptors and shield generators.”
Glomp relaxed a little. He knew this smile. It was much more familiar to him than the intricacies and pitfalls of an agent’s existence. This was the smile of a seller looking at a goldmine; one who might be powerful, but not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. Easy prey.
“I’m listening,” the Ferengi said with fake surprise. He returned the datapad to the not-quite-so-secret-anymore inner pocket. Once again he cursed the day when he hadn’t paid attention and had neglected the Third Rule of Acquisition: Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to. To this day, Glomp still continued to pay off the favor that the cunning Thokal had done him… time and time again.
* * *
Ferengi weren’t born for danger, but for profit. Glomp had learned that much during his short and inglorious career as an agent. They excelled at bank counters, at the stock exchange, at intergalactic markets, and in smoky back rooms—anywhere where deals were signed and gold-pressed latinum changed hands. Although the best among them were barefaced liars, only very few of them were suited to be secret agents.
The two Romulans from Heliopolis’s worst neighborhood had escorted “Mak” to their transport and blindfolded him with a black piece of cloth. They assured him it was for his own safety. He had heard the drive’s humming before the transport had lifted off, heading toward a destination that only the Romulans knew, but which allegedly contained everything that an arms dealer could possibly wish for.
Glomp would never have thought that he would swap his desk at the Ferengi Commerce Authority for a seat on a reeking Romulan transport—and his computer console for a blindfold. But life and the Rules of Acquisition had—again—taught him otherwise. What did the Eighth Rule state? Small print leads to large risk. How true! Especially if it was small print in a contract with an old Tal Shiar agent.
Thokal’s silence had cost Glomp much more dearly than he had originally anticipated. Maybe, he sighed inwardly while trying to peer through the black fabric, it might even cost him his life one day.
“Satisfaction is not guaranteed,” he muttered gloomily.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “What did you say?” Hararis, the second Romulan, asked.
Glomp swallowed and forced himself back into the role of the slightly overextended but professional criminal. “Nothing, nothing. I just quoted a Rule of Acquisition. Are we there yet?” He had lost all sense of time. How long had they been in the air? Half an hour? An hour?
“We are,” Hararis said. “You can take off the blindfold, if you wish.”
Glomp removed it immediately. Squinting, he looked around and groaned quietly when the lights of the narrow cockpit hit his eyes. The inside of the transport was tiny and dirty. Two of the three consoles lining the cabin seemed broken. Only the center station below the oblong window made from transparent aluminum seemed to be active. Keval, the one with the disruptor, sat there, navigating the ship toward their destination.
Looking out the window, Glomp saw that their destination was located within a volcano crater underneath a black sky. The Ferengi saw deep holes, dry stones, vastness, and void. When the transport descended into the wide crater, the vacuum above it flickered briefly.
An energy field, Glomp realized. He would have to remember that.
“Is this a moon?” he asked. “The dark side of a moon? It’s dark enough here…”
The only light sources were two spotlights on the transport’s front. Two bright light cones, illuminating the moon’s darkness.
“That is none of your business.” Hararis’s answer was almost friendly. His companion navigated the vessel down and toward an opening in the crater wall.
A cave. In a crater. Underneath an energy field. On a moon.
Glomp sensed that he had hit the jackpot. Thokal’s and his efforts were crowned with success. These were definitely the right people. Now all he had to do was to survive.
Several minutes later the three unlikely traveling companions stood inside the cave. Another energy field at the cave entrance ensured atmosphere, oxygen, and artificial gravity inside the cavern, protecting them from the unforgiving void outside. The transport had been able to pass through this wall without any problems.
When he looked around, Glomp was unable to hide his amazement. The cave was bursting with military equipment: ship components, weapons, canisters containing trilithium and other explosive chemicals, shield generators, and much more.
And this is just one cave. How many of these caves had he spotted during their approach? Five? Seven? Did they all contain these kinds of treasures? That stuff must be worth a f
ortune.
“Did I promise too much?” Keval asked, spreading his arms. “Whatever you need, we can supply you with, Mak. Why aim low when you can reach high? What was on your list again?”
Glomp swallowed hard. He had found what Thokal was looking for, he was sure of it. And yet, this day took a completely different turn than expected.
“Forget the list, Keval,” he said, hoping that the real Mak would say the same thing in this situation. “Let’s go to your office. I’ll write a new one.”
Both Romulans laughed, satisfied, and Glomp joined in, although it sent shivers down his spine.
* * *
The on-board computer of the cloaked Ferengi shuttle beeped angrily. Glomp battered it with his fist until it stopped. Promptly, all displays died.
The Ferengi hissed in frustration, but the power outage did not last long, and the consoles sprang back to life again. This time, they finally showed him what he wanted to see. “There we go.”
It was the middle of the night in Heliopolis, and Glomp had commenced his second journey of this memorable day. He had left to pay the crater another visit—several hours after his first visit. Owing to a small tracking device that he had planted in the cave without Keval or Hararis noticing, he found the place with ease. Now, his cloaked shuttle floated above Achernar II’s moon, only several dozen meters above the same crater he’d visited earlier. Finally, Glomp was where he belonged—behind a console.
He was no longer in the uncomfortable role of agent, but rather an employee of the Ferengi Commerce Authority, who was second to none working on a computer. No matter whether he wanted to calculate interest, monthly installments, or the systems of energy field generators—data columns were data columns. You merely needed to know how to handle them, and they would do anything you wanted; even more so when they had been upgraded to a level that most worlds didn’t permit for privately used devices by a retired Tal Shiar analyst.
On his console’s monitor, Glomp watched a simulation of what he hoped to achieve. In theory, it all looked good. “Computer, calculate probability of this data manipulation’s success.”
Star Trek Prometheus -Fire with Fire Page 24
