Star Trek Mirror Universe - The Sorrows of Empire

by David Mack

  Marlena fixed her icy glare on Ilia’s image. “And her?”

  “I trust you to act with discretion,” Spock said, stepping away and leaving the Deltan woman’s life in his wife’s hands.

  Decker stirred from a troubled slumber shortly after 0500. He rolled over and reached for Ilia. She wasn’t there. He opened his eyes. The other side of his bed was empty.

  It wasn’t like Ilia not to stay the night. He wondered if perhaps she harbored some seed of resentment toward him for foisting her on Spock, and in retaliation had slipped away while he slept.

  You’re being paranoid, he told himself. She’s probably in the main room on the other side of the partition.

  Pushing back the bedsheets, he called out, “Ilia?”

  There was no response.

  Treading lightly in bare feet, he moved through his quarters looking for Ilia. She wasn’t in the main room, dining nook, or lavatory.

  I guess she really did leave, he concluded with disappointment.

  He stood at his comm panel and opened a channel to Ilia’s quarters. “Ilia, it’s Will. Are you there?” Several seconds passed with no reply. He initiated a direct transmission to Ilia’s communicator. “Commander Decker to Lieutenant Ilia. Please respond.” His hail was met with dead silence. He signaled the bridge. “Decker to Lieutenant Commander Riley.”

  “Riley here,” said Enterprise’s recently promoted second officer, who had the conn during the night watch.

  “I need a fix on Lieutenant Ilia’s communicator, on the double.”

  “Aye, sir. Hang on while we find her.”

  The wait was brief, but it still took a toll on Decker’s nerves. Over the open channel, he heard muffled voices while the bridge crew worked. Then Riley was back on the comm, sounding apologetic. “Sorry, sir. We’ve come up empty. Maybe her communicator malfunctioned …”

  Decker closed the channel.

  A malfunction? He didn’t believe that. He knew Enterprise’s history and Spock’s reputation too well to accept such a transparent excuse.

  It took him less than a minute to get dressed.

  Fighting to suppress his rising feelings of dread, Decker sprinted from his quarters to Ilia’s, pausing only for the handful of seconds he spent in a turbolift.

  When he arrived at the door to Ilia’s quarters, it was unlocked. He charged inside without signaling.

  All of Ilia’s possessions were exactly as she had left them. Her quarters were tidy, comfortably furnished, and tastefully decorated. Her closets were crowded with her civilian clothes. A carved wooden box containing her favorite jewelry sat in its place on a table beside her made bed.

  Decker didn’t know what he had expected to find. Evidence of foul play? Signs of a struggle? Ilia’s broken body? Instead, nothing appeared to be amiss—and that was what sent a chill down his spine. Just like so many of Spock’s enemies before her, Ilia had simply vanished.

  For the first time since he had set foot on the Enterprise, Willard Decker felt very much alone—and for the first time since moving out of his father’s house to attend Starfleet Academy, he was afraid.

  2273

  16

  Body and Soul

  Saavik willed herself not to blink as a Starfleet Academy drill instructor yelled into her face, “Identify yourself, plebe!”

  “Saavik,” she said, holding out the data card containing her orders to report for summer indoctrination.

  “Wrong!” barked the DI. “When you address a superior, you will phrase your answers in the form of ‘sir sandwiches’! Sir, yes, sir! Is that clear?”

  “I—”

  “Give me twenty push-ups!”

  Confused but obedient, Saavik put her data card in her pocket, dropped to the floor in the main concourse of Archer Hall, and executed twenty regulation-style push-ups. As she did so, she heard other incoming cadets answering questions from other DIs with the phrase, “Sir, yes, sir!”

  When she had finished her punitive exercise, she stood at attention and remained silent until her DI demanded, “Identify yourself, plebe!”

  She held out her data card. “Sir, Saavik, sir!”

  “Correct,” the DI said, accepting her card. He placed it into a handheld reader, checked its information, pressed a button, and then ejected the card. “Your Alpha Number is three-nine-seven-seven Delta. This will be your identifying serial number for the duration of your Academy career. Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  He handed back the card and pointed left. “Get in line!”

  Saavik pocketed her card and jogged to the end of a single file of inductees. The DI stayed behind and waited for his next arriving plebe.

  The line crept forward past several noncommissioned officers seated at long tables. The first of them handed Saavik a stack of uniforms. The second one issued her a pair of black boots. The third noncom added a pair of running shoes to the top of Saavik’s armload of gear. The fourth petty officer issued her a small handbook whose cover bore the title Star Points. The last of the seated noncoms injected Saavik with two hyposprays and then handed her an agonizer.

  Another DI pointed to the right and snapped, “Report to the barber, plebe!”

  Jogging to catch up to the inductees ahead of her, Saavik was directed by more shouting men and women into a three-walled cubicle with a table, a chair, and a middle-aged male Tellarite holding a powered hair trimmer.

  “Put your gear on the table and sit,” the barber said.

  Saavik did as he said. Directly ahead of her she saw other plebes being tended to by other barbers. Male inductees’ heads were shaved, while the female plebes had their hair trimmed to a length Starfleet apparently had deemed appropriate. As the Tellarite grabbed up a handful of Saavik’s long tresses for trimming, she declared simply, “Sir, please shave it off, sir.”

  “All of it?”

  “Sir, all of it, sir!”

  “My pleasure,” the Tellarite said. With a few deft passes of the buzzing trimmer, he removed all of Saavik’s hair, rendering her pale head faintly stubbled. “You’re done, plebe. Go get your physical.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Saavik grabbed her mountain of gear and followed the other shorn plebes to a series of rooms where Starfleet physicians examined them, corpsmen gave them vaccinations, and nurses collected DNA samples for their service records.

  The doctors ushered the processed plebes to the back door of Archer Hall, where a squad of detailers—upperclassmen tasked with assisting in the training of plebes during their seven-week-long summer indoctrination period—taught the inductees how to perform a proper imperial salute: Bring the side of the closed right fist to the left pectoral, then extend the right arm and hand at shoulder height, palm slightly raised. Each plebe was made to repeat the gesture until his or her detailer was satisfied, and then they were ordered to exit the hall and board a ground transport that would take them to their barracks.

  The ride across the Starfleet Academy campus was brief. The plebes rode with their gear stacked on their laps. Most appreciated the few minutes of relative tranquility. A few, including Saavik, used the time to steal glances at the contents of the Star Points handbook, which was filled with a variety of information, ranging from the command structure of Starfleet to a glossary of midshipmen’s jargon to quotes from literature or historical figures.

  As plebes surged out of the transports onto the parade green outside the barracks, roving detailers and drill instructors divided the Fourth Class Regiment into fifteen companies of eighty personnel. The first eight companies were designated the Starboard Battalion. The regiment’s Port Battalion comprised the latter seven companies.

  The entire process seemed arbitrary to Saavik, who remained silent and listened for her name. When it was called, she joined the other members of Delta Company. After all eighty members of the company had assembled in formation, they were led at a quick march inside their residence hall.

  Indoors, the company was subdivided into two platoons
of forty plebes; each platoon was further broken down into four squads of ten personnel.

  At 1745 hours, they were assigned racks and lockers and given fifteen minutes to stow their gear, change into dress uniforms, return to the parade green, and muster in company formation.

  There was no time to think or ask questions; there was barely enough time to follow orders. Scrambling to keep up with the other plebes, Saavik donned her dress-white uniform and raced back outside with Delta Company and the rest of the Class of ’77 to stand in formation under a clear, late-June sky.

  Minutes later, the commandant of Starfleet Academy arrived, followed by a clutch of flag officers, adjutants, aides-de-camp, and other imperial dignitaries.

  The plebes were directed to salute and led in a recitation of their oaths of service as officers of the Terran Empire Starfleet. Saavik’s was only one of twelve hundred voices reciting the oath, but she enunciated with perfect clarity, as if Admiral Spock were standing beside her, auditing her every word.

  When the oath was complete, the master drill instructor bellowed, “Regiment, fall out!” The detailers and drill instructors herded the plebes off the parade green at a quick step and led them back to their barracks.

  After a day of enervating drudgery, Saavik expected dinner and a night’s rest to be the next orders of business. She was mistaken.

  There was no dinner that night. For three hours and fifteen minutes, she and the other plebes were made to run laps around the barracks, and they endured a nonstop harangue of criticism and deliberately contradictory orders intended to confuse them and make them subject to more verbal abuse. Making mistakes resulted in plebes being yelled at. Questioning orders, even if merely to request clarification, earned plebes long jolts from their agonizers.

  Her company’s detailer ordered them into their racks at 2145 and turned out the lights. Saavik felt relieved; her first day at the Academy was finally over. She told herself induction day would likely be the worst part of the whole experience.

  As before, she was mistaken.

  The next seven weeks followed a simple if relentless pattern.

  Reveille blared each morning at 0530. Attired in exercise clothes, the plebes assembled on the parade green for morning calisthenics, regardless of the weather. Some mornings they did jumping jacks and squat-thrusts in the soft glow of dawn; sometimes they did crunches or leg-lifts in fog so thick the rear ranks of plebes could barely see the detailers. On other days they did push-ups on muddy ground and braved torrential downpours during formation runs, which progressively increased in distance as the summer wore on.

  After morning physical training, the plebes assembled—as always, in formation—for accountability (the detailers’ term for attendance) and uniform inspection before they marched to the mess hall for morning chow. The mess hall’s menu varied, but its fare was consistent—bland but nourishing.

  During morning chow the plebes were apprised of the “plan of the day,” a list of mandatory classes and activities they would follow until lights-out. A typical morning involved classroom instruction on any of a number of topics, including warfare and tactics, military regulations, Starfleet’s rank structure and chain of command, and leadership.

  After morning classes the plebes returned to their barracks to don their dress uniforms for noon formation. At 1200 each day, the plebes stood in company ranks for accountability and uniform inspection before being permitted to march inside the mess hall for noon chow.

  Saavik noted that tourists often observed the noon formation, and almost all of them seemed to mistake it for something special.

  Afternoons were a time for physical education and practical instruction. Some days were devoted to small-arms proficiency and martial arts. At least two days each week, the plebes ran obstacle courses. Strength and endurance training included team sports as well as swimming, weight training, and rock-climbing. Two more days each week were spent on such basic skills as squad-combat tactics, shipboard damage control, firefighting, vacuum survival, and free-fall training. However, the plebes’ most hated exercise by far was close-quarter drill, which involved marching in tight formation while performing regimentally synchronized precision choreography with heavy antique rifles.

  Each dusk brought a third formation on the parade green, followed by an inspection and a march inside the mess hall for evening chow. When chow was over the plebes endured more classes, more physical trials, and the cleaning of their barracks, uniforms, or selves. They found no relief until the final thirty minutes of each day, when they each were allowed to write one letter home.

  Because Saavik saw little point in recounting the tedium of her days to Ambassador Sarek or Admiral Spock, she utilized the last half hour of each day—and nearly every other free moment she could steal—reading and memorizing the contents of her Star Points handbook. Its articles encompassed a wide range of information Starfleet had decided was important for its officers to know: the classes and specifications of its active starships, small spacecraft, and combat equipment; its principal bases of operation; a summary of the Starfleet phonetic alphabet, which was based on Earth’s old international standard; and a wide range of inspirational quotes her detailers said were intended to help shape plebes’ philosophical outlook as officers and encourage esprit de corps.

  That body of knowledge was known at the Academy as “the rates.” Plebes were expected to memorize the rates and be able to recite any part of them by rote at any time during their training. The detailers enforced this requirement constantly and mercilessly, drilling the plebes while they were running in the mornings, eating, crawling under sharp-edged protrusions on the obstacle courses, and even while they were showering or using the head.

  Answering incorrectly or failing to answer would draw swift punishment. Depending on the detailer’s personality and mood, the plebe might find himself tasked with a hundred push-ups—or writhing in excruciating pain from a prolonged jolt by his agonizer.

  “The purpose of this is to teach you to concentrate in times of stress,” the detailers explained, but Saavik was certain some of them inflicted harsher punishments simply because they enjoyed doing so.

  Despite her Vulcan mental conditioning, Saavik felt overwhelmed at times. Constant physical exertion, coupled with the overload of classroom work and the steady stream of verbal abuse, made each day bleed into the next. Weeks slipped away, and she felt lost in time’s unyielding current.

  Then the seventh and final week of Plebe Summer came to an end, and Saavik anticipated the formal start of her first year as a Starfleet Academy cadet. With the grueling indoctrination period over, she believed the worst of her days as a plebe were finally behind her.

  Once again, she was wrong.

  Plebe Summer concluded with the “reform of the brigade,” which was Academy jargon for the return of upper-classmen cadets from their midshipman cruises and specialized summer training courses at other facilities.

  Overnight, the plebes went from outnumbering their detailers and drill instructors twenty-to-one to being outnumbered more than three-to-one by upperclassmen, each of whom wielded the authority of a detailer over any plebe.

  The loss of majority brought with it a loss of anonymity. During the summer, a plebe who avoided attention might go most of a day without drawing the notice of a detailer. Now the campus teemed with sharp-eyed young men and women looking for any opportunity to visit their wrath on subordinates.

  Everywhere the plebes went, upperclassmen were waiting to “flame” them for even the most trivial error or misstep. A hair out of place, a boot not shined to perfection, a wrinkle in the blanket on a plebe’s made rack—any of these minor infractions could draw a vicious harangue. Such moments of ruthless, unsupervised abuse were known as “assisting the plebes.”

  Most galling to Saavik, even a second-year cadet could demand control of her agonizer. She didn’t need to have committed an offense; if she dared to question her “correction,” that alone was sufficient cause to incre
ase her punishment. The sheer illogic of it all was maddening to her.

  Determined to master her rates and responsibilities, Saavik strove for virtual invisibility on the campus. Despite her best efforts, it eluded her.

  One slate-gray morning in early October, she crossed the parade green toward her barracks, in a hurry to change before reporting to noon formation.

  A man shouted at her from behind, “Stop right there, plebe!”

  She hated being addressed in that manner, but upperclassmen did not consider their first-year peers worthy of the appellation “cadet.”

  She halted at attention. Two upperclassmen caught up to her. Both were human men with lean physiques and eyes hardened by the hunger of ambition. Their insignia identified them as third-year cadets. The one with dark hair smiled at his fair-haired companion, and then he asked Saavik, “Whose quotation about leadership is found on page seventy-one of the rates?”