Then, with an abruptness that drew most of the air from his lungs, the combined Federation-Gorn transporter effect released him. He found himself standing on a bare metal stage, facing the glowing walls of a semicircular chamber that bore only a vague resemblance to Titan’s transporter room.
Something seized his shoulder roughly, spinning him one hundred and eighty degrees about.
Gog’resssh, flanked by a pair of armed and apparently hair-trigger-ready Gorn warriors, stood on the transporter stage facing him. Riker could see now that the stage was set inside a larger chamber, which included a freestanding control console. Gripping him by both shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, Gog’resssh presented Riker with a grin that was as foul-smelling as it was terrifying.
Whatever condition was afflicting Gog’resssh, from the gray coloration and wrinkled texture of his facial scales to the peculiar glow of his insectlike eyes, Riker decided that Titan’s main viewer hadn’t done it justice. The rogue Gorn warrior was clearly unwell, perhaps even dying.
It came to Riker in a rush that Gog’resssh might be too desperate to behave rationally—and that in any such “nothing left to lose” scenario, Riker’s assessment of the risks of beaming aboard the S’alath would almost certainly be way off the mark.
“You understand our traditions well, Rry’kurr,” Gog’resssh’s said. “Appearing in our midst with your back to us does us honor.”
Thanks to his prior experiences with Gog’resssh’s people, Riker understood that members of the Gorn warrior and political castes regarded any face-to-face transporter materialization as gravely offensive, a sign of unwarranted aggression.
“Just trying to be polite, First Myrmidon,” Riker said, trying not to show any discomfiture at the rough handling—at least by human standards—that he was receiving in the first myrmidon’s grasp. “Permission to come aboard the S’alath?”
“I would have you nowhere else, Rry’kurr,” Gog’resssh said in sepulchral tones. The Gorn’s thicket of razor-sharp teeth suddenly drew closer, as though he had summarily decided to bite Riker’s head off. Then the transporter stage seemed to shift beneath Riker’s feet, going abruptly perpendicular as it catapulted him into the air.
Riker landed on his back on the deck, beside the transporter console, his head intact; though disoriented, he realized he had come to rest precisely where Gog’resssh had thrown him.
Gog’resssh’s armed toadies lumbered toward him, vicious-looking disruptor pistols gripped in scaly, clawed fingers that looked as strong as steel cables. Like their leader, these troopers also appeared unwell; they vaguely reminded Riker of the decomposing, flesh-eating ghouls that had been one of the mainstays of flatvid horror movies about four centuries ago.
“Rry’kurr!” Gog’resssh said. “You are now a prisoner of the new warrior caste of the Gorn Hegemony.”
Before Riker had left Titan, he had heard protests not only from Lieutenant Commander Gibruch, but also from Dr. Ree. The latter had gone so far as to threaten to use his authority as CMO to relieve him of command. Only the sheer brute force of a command browbeating had caused Ree to back off, however reluctantly.
Now, as one of the troopers hauled him roughly to his feet and placed his weapon at his temple, Riker wished that his chief surgeon had been more persistent.
The other trooper searched him cursorily for weapons, but found nothing.
“ ‘New warrior caste’?” Riker asked, focusing on Gog’resssh and ignoring his underlings as much as possible.
“Those of us who were charged with the protection of the crècheworld of Sazssgrerrn when the Egg Bringer S’Yahazah withdrew her protection from it,” Gog’resssh said.
Things were beginning to make sense. “You and your people were on Sazssgrerrn when the . . . disaster struck.”
Gog’ressh growled with barely contained anger. “We are the only survivors, Rry’kurr. Survivors that my own caste-brethren tried to euthanize. We take our continued survival as a sign from S’Yahazah that we are destined to supplant those brethren and build a new warrior caste of our own—a warrior caste with a mandate to rule all the other castes, and a destiny that will never again leave us vulnerable to the whims of fate.”
“You want to control your destiny,” Riker said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But what does that have to do with trying to blow up the terraforming device—the eco-sculptor, as you call it? And what does it have to do with capturing me?”
“The ecosculptor is merely a symbol of the old warrior caste. It must be destroyed.”
“Gog’resssh, I’m all for destroying the thing if that means saving the Hranrarii. But what I don’t understand is why you’d destroy something that could create a hatchery world for your new caste.”
“Our new caste will be strong enough to prosper anywhere, and without such tricks as an ecosculptor. We may even use this very world, Hranrar, for our hatchery.”
“Putting the ecosculptor to one side, it’s still just you and a few of your subordinates against the entire social order of the Gorn Hegemony,” Riker said. “And not only that—you’ll be going up against the entire Typhon Pact: the Breen, the Tzenkethi, the Kinshaya, the Tholians, and the Romulans.”
“That is why you are invaluable to me, Rry’kurr,” Gog’resssh said, now almost purring as he reveled in his vision. “Once the entirety of the Typhon Pact learns that we have struck a decisive blow against the old warrior caste, it will discover that we have also taken the commander of Tie-tan, along with his ship.”
“Aren’t you getting a little bit ahead of yourself, Gog’resssh? You not only don’t have control of Titan, you have no way to stop her crew from following their orders.”
“What orders?” Gog’resssh growled.
“Orders to destroy the S’alath in the event of my capture.”
Gog’resssh loped toward him again, quickly closing to within kissing distance. Riker could feel his most recent meal trying to flee his body. “Why should your crew believe any such thing has occurred, Rry’kurr? Once I have your command codes, one of my tech-casters will see to their reassurance that all is well—using your voice, of course.”
Riker shook his head and released a nervous chuckle that he hoped Gog’resssh would interpret as confident. “Go climb your thumb,” he said.
“I have seen this mammal before, First Myrmidon,” the trooper to Riker’s left said, stepping on whatever response Gog’resssh might have been about to make. “He came to Gornar aboard the Ent’rr’priszz, to put down the rebellion of the Black Crest warriors against the political caste.”
“Yessss,” Gog’resssh said. “A battle he waged on behalf of an old order that would just as soon extinguish us all.”
At a gesture from Gog’resssh, the troopers seized him, each taking an arm. The rogue commander grabbed Riker’s combadge and pulled it from his chest, along with shreds of black and gray fabric from his uniform tunic. Riker watched with as much impassivity as he could muster as Gog’resssh crushed the combadge as though it were an insect. Then the troopers half-carried, half-dragged him out of the chamber and down a length of grim, gray corridor before depositing him ungently into a cold, bare holding cell.
22
As seen from the forward section of the shuttlecraft Gillespie, Brahma-Shiva presented the aspect of a small but swiftly expanding disc, alone in the cosmic darkness but for the handful of smaller, nearby lights that surrounded it. Those lesser lights were all that could be seen of the five vessels that presently constituted Captain Krassrr’s terraforming fleet. Like a coterie of solicitous servants, they appeared to be tending Brahma-Shiva.
Or perhaps, Xin Ra-Havreii thought, they were cajoling and scolding it like officious slave masters.
“Any indication that Krassrr’s fleet has seen us yet?” the chief engineer asked as he leaned into the darkened cockpit to get a better view of the approaching artifact’s ventral-most section.
“So far, so good,” Ranul Keru said from the left chair, the
pilot’s seat. “We know that Gog’resssh used the same kind of ‘bottom-up’ approach vector to sneak up on these guys and exit before they figured out he was even there.”
Seated in the right chair, Tuvok checked a sensor reading on the copilot’s console. “We should not become complacent, Commander. Krassrr may have reassessed his security protocols since Gog’resssh’s act of theft. The so-called blind spots that Gog’resssh exploited may no longer exist.”
“I suppose there’s only one way to make an empirical determination,” Ra-Havreii said. Though battle tactics and strategy had never been his strong suit, he recalled something some military luminary or other had said about contingency planning—words to the effect that generals always plan for the next war using the already-outdated theories of the previous conflict.
Ra-Havreii heard a deep hissing sound coming from behind the cockpit section; it made him start with a star-ship engineer’s ingrained vigilance against sudden decompression—until he realized it was merely the sound of Titan’s latest guest speaking.
“Krassrr is very exacting in his duties, but he does not excel at generalizing,” said S’syrixx, who sat on the floor between the Gillespie’s seats while Lieutenant Qontallium and SecondGen White-Blue hovered nearby, the former figuratively, the latter literally.
“Meaning what, exactly?” Ra-Havreii asked, raising a snow-white eyebrow.
“Meaning that because Gog’resssh stole from the fleet’s food stores, that will be the focus of any of Krassrr’s tactical upgrades,” S’syrixx said. “Not necessarily the security of the ecosculptor. Gog’resssh doesn’t seem to have tried to disable it, or even approach it.”
“Perhaps,” Ra-Havreii said, turning to face the Gorn technician. “But if anyone focused Krassrr’s attention on enhancing the artifact’s security, it would have been you, Mister S’syrixx—the first time you messed with it.”
“I cannot dispute that,” S’syrixx said. “Nor can you dispute that I now share with you whatever risk might flow from that decision.”
“I recommend that everyone focus on the mission at hand,” Tuvok said.
A few seconds later the frantic beeping of an alarm began a duet with the urgent flashing of a light on Tuvok’s console. For a few moments Ra-Havreii thought his heart had stopped.
“Krassrr must have seen us,” he said.
“Calm yourself, Commander,” Tuvok said. “The alarm merely indicates that we have reached optimal transporter range.”
“All stop,” Keru said. “Keeping station. There’s still no sign that Krassrr knows we’re here.”
As the away team began to mount the Gillespie’s small transporter stage, Ra-Havreii found himself standing uncomfortably close to S’syrixx. “I hope the transporter coordinates you gave us were accurate,” he told the Gorn. “As well as your assessment of the life-support conditions inside the artifact.” Not to mention, he added silently, the optimal transporter frequencies and confinement-beam settings necessary to get us inside that thing without merging our molecules permanently with it.
“I share your hopes,” S’syrixx said, speaking around a display of teeth that might have frightened fear itself. “But be comforted. If I have miscalculated, whatever may happen to you because of my carelessness will also happen to me.”
Ra-Havreii felt reassured not in the least as the transporter’s curtain of light took him.
GORN HEGEMONY WARSHIP S’ALATH
A snorting grunt of surprise from the forward section of the command deck drew Z’shezhira’s attention to the central viewer, which continued to display the planet’s frigid northern curvature.
Along with something new. A light, which one of Gog’resssh’s junior troopers was watching with intent curiosity and no small amount of confusion. Within a few moments, Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh began to show an interest, his one good compound eye widening either with wonder or fear or both.
No, she realized after a moment’s study. It’s not new at all.
It was the ecosculptor, visible, if only barely, through the distortion of Hranrar’s relentless northern auroral effects. It hung in its usual spot, just above the horizon line.
But its formerly passive, reflected-sunlight glow had escalated at least tenfold, making it more brilliant than any of Hranrar’s natural satellites. It was as though the object had suddenly become charged with enormous internal energies, as one might expect were it about to release sufficient energy to remake an entire world.
Forbid this, Great S’Yahazah, she thought, imagining the millions of Hranrarii lives that would probably be extinguished very soon, perhaps right before her eyes.
The worst was finally happening. There was no longer any time to stall or temporize. Her limited slate of options suddenly narrowed to a single fateful choice. Taking advantage of the rapt attention the war-casters were paying to the beautiful and terrible image on the main screen, Z’shezhira began working quickly and quietly, entering a string of well-rehearsed commands into her station’s console.
A moment before she could bring her task to completion, a voice behind her froze the blood in her veins.
“What are you doing?” bellowed Zegrroz’rh.
Determined never to hesitate again in the face of a warcaster’s challenge, she slammed her left manus into the console as she hastened to enter the EXECUTE command.
Zegrroz’rh bellowed, charging toward her with outstretched claws even as the transporter beam began to make his body glow and shimmer. . . .
23
Slumped against one of the bare metal walls of the holding cell, Riker made a glum assessment of his present circumstances.
Gog’resssh must be on his bridge by now, giving orders, Riker thought. Having always had a gift for interpreting the “feel” of a ship, he felt he was a good judge of when a vessel was in motion, be it at warp or at impulse. But that gift didn’t necessarily apply, he realized, to Gorn ships; at the moment he couldn’t tell if the S’alath was still keeping station inside a geomagnetic hotspot over Hranrar’s north pole, or if it was already under way, en route to Brahma-Shiva.
If Gog’resssh goes straight for Brahma-Shiva, then there’s a good chance he’ll destroy it before the crew of the Gillespie can get to safety, he thought, cursing himself for having so badly underestimated Gog’resssh’s craziness quotient.
He gazed through the blue forcefield barrier that prevented him from walking into the corridor to confront the lone guard who was standing sentry, his broad back facing in Riker’s direction. And even if I do get out of here, this fine fellow must be itching for the least little excuse to rip my head clean off my shoulders.
Deciding there was no point in keeping his minder waiting, he reached into the top of his boot and withdrew the palm-size “cricket” phaser he’d secreted there just before disembarking from Titan. He adjusted the beam to a tight focus at an intensity of “disrupt,” and aimed it at what appeared to be a sealed circuit panel on the wall beside the energy screen.
He pressed the fire button, and the small but powerful weapon’s bright red beam immediately began tearing into the wall. The acrid smell of ozone quickly spread through the cell as the blue energy screen across the doorway sparked, sputtered, and finally vanished.
A hulking form turned in the corridor beyond, its reptilian face displaying a mixture of incredulity and rage as a pair of compound eyes focused on Riker. Pausing to click the phaser to a less lethal setting, Riker aimed the weapon and opened fire.
The Gorn guard took the shot full in the chest, but lumbered forward after only a moment’s hesitation.
Riker fired again. The Gorn took a stumbling half-step backward after taking a second direct hit to the center of its body mass, then resumed its advance. Riker swung his thumb onto the setting controls, re-set the weapon, and took aim again—
—but failed to click the “fire” button again before the Gorn had drawn close enough to slap his arm away, sending the weapon clattering to the deck. Though he tried to roll with
the blow, claws raked Riker’s sleeve, shredding it thoroughly enough to make him certain he was already bleeding as he dived to the deck.
Riker rolled to his feet, gathering himself immediately into a battle-ready crouch. Not only was the phaser nowhere in sight, the Gorn soldier was already coming for him again, leaving no time for the recovery of a weapon. Evidently more than aware that it had him overmatched, the creature hadn’t even bothered to draw the wicked-looking sidearm it wore on its hip.
I’m getting too goddamned old for this, Riker thought.
Although Z’shezhira had taken great pains over a considerable interval of time to perfect her escape plan, she remained plagued by two gnawing questions: one, had the ideal time to execute the plan really arrived? And would the plan work when she finally summoned sufficient courage to carry it out?
She began to suspect that she wouldn’t like the answer to either question as she worked in a space far more cramped than the command deck, using a wall-mounted console to resume her remote control of the transporter systems.
Despite her current difficulties, she was grateful for one important initial success; because of it, Zegrroz’rh would no longer pose a problem. But for reasons she could not yet fathom, that same success seemed to elude her in attaining her next objective. The targeting sensors were balking at establishing a transporter lock on what should have been a conspicuous and therefore easy target: the bio-signs of the only higher mammalian life form currently aboard the S’alath.
Something was interfering with the annular confinement beam. It was as though another bio-sign was getting in the way, scrambling her lock.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Seize the Fire Page 32
