“How much time do you estimate we have before the unknowns move against us?”
T’Vrel didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
The caverns of Soltoth echoed with a sudden explosion.
The emerald facets failed as their broadcast power source was interrupted, bringing on impenetrable darkness.
Time had run out.
4
RISA, STARDATE 57473.1
What the hell? Picard thought. It’s not as if she can fire me. So he gave his honest opinion. “With all due consideration, Admiral, I decline your invitation.”
But the response Kathryn Janeway gave was not any of the ones Picard had expected. No expression of disappointment or determination, just a flash of a smile through the mesh of her face screen.
Rather than argue or accept his last statement, the admiral simply slashed her epee to the side in salute, said, “On guard,” and took up the classic position.
It’s going to be like that? Picard thought. So be it, then.
Returning her salute and her smile, he matched her pose, right arm extended with his epee raised to parry her expected thrust. And in that same moment, all the details of their surroundings left him.
The rush and crash of surf on the beachside of their arena faded from his awareness, taking with it the cacophony of the Risan parrots’ odes to dawn.
The early heat of morning vanished, as did the cool shade of the jungleside’s lush foliage, which artfully shielded their exertions from the sprawling resort complex.
Picard even erased the idea that he, merely a Starfleet captain, was about to attempt to inflict grievous bodily harm—or, at least, a simulated version of it—on a Starfleet admiral.
All that mattered was that two fencers faced each other on a long and narrow piste, and that in five points, there would only be one.
Picard’s honor demanded only one outcome, all considerations of rank and career advancement be damned.
“I thought Spock was a friend of yours,” Janeway said, serious, as if intending to continue their conversation instead of commencing their match. But then, as if her words had been a deliberate attempt to distract, she sprang forward with a lunge to her opponent’s chest, forcing Picard to retreat as he parried in the tierce position.
“I know the ambassador,” Picard responded, countering with an expert riposte that defeated Janeway’s quinte parry and found her left shoulder. Unfortunately, the instant the hit registered on the scorecard projected on his helmet screen, a matching tone and sharp pressure registered her hit on his own left shoulder.
The match had begun. Picard kept mental score: Tied one all.
“Or should I say, I knew him,” he added as he and the admiral returned to the en garde lines glowing on the two-meter-wide and fourteen-meter-long mat that was their battlefield. “And I mourn his death.” He took up the first position, his epee held in presentation. “En garde.”
“Don’t you want to see his murderers brought to justice?”
The tips of their weapons circled each other as each sought an opening.
In epee competition—a favored form of fencing at Starfleet Academy—the formal attack/counterattack order of combat by foil was dispensed with. Both fencers could go on the offensive and score at any time. Thus initiative was rewarded.
“To obtain justice on Romulus under current conditions—” Picard moved forward with a firm patinado, let Janeway parry, then thrust again, and again, to complete the phrase of action with a lunge, scoring a decisive hit in her solar plexus. He caught his breath, stepped back. “—would require a better man than I.” Two-one for the captain.
Janeway smiled sweetly as they returned to their starting positions. “Is that how you regard Jim Kirk? A better man? I always thought there was a bit of a competition between the two of you.”
Picard declined to take the proffered bait. “Since you said this will be a civilian operation, it makes sense for Jim to go to Romulus. He’s retired, and he and Spock were like brothers. So—”
“On guard!” Janeway said, and again sprang forward in a lunge that became a surprisingly powerful parry to Picard’s offensive coupe.
Her epee scraped his from foible to forte, at last reaching the bell-shaped coquille that protected his hand, at which she added an expert twist that forced Picard’s weapon from his glove.
She smiled again and went to retrieve it. There was no honor in scoring a point against a defenseless opponent.
Picard raised his mask to let the dawn breeze dry his sweat-covered face.
It was early, and given that Risa was known for its nightlife, the resort’s fresh-air gym was almost deserted. The few beings who either had risen early, had not yet slept, or came from worlds with a completely different circadian rhythm were paying more attention to a banth match now under way in the low-gravity boxing ring closer to the beach.
Picard had long been an admirer of banth, but given that it required four hands to keep the spinning pins in motion, no human need apply. That restriction apparently didn’t deter two Vulcans near a group of boisterous Bolians from following the contest, raptly. A lone human in a glaringly bright shirt with oversize tropical flowers printed in harsh, clashing colors seemed equally engaged, though he stood apart from the others. The pale legs revealed by the man’s baggy shorts suggested he had not been on Risa long. His floppy sunhat was that of a typical tourist from Sector Zero-Zero-One.
Janeway returned Picard’s weapon to him and again they took up their positions.
And again the admiral led her charge with verbal needling.
“Even with you aboard, Jim would still do the legwork. On guard.”
This time, Picard was ready for Janeway’s sudden lunge.
So of course the admiral feinted and drew him into a septime parry, driving his weapon down so she could tap his facemask with the button of her weapon, unopposed.
Picard frowned, annoyed both by the unexpected shock of the impact and the buzz from his helmet speaker. Not to mention the fact that the bout was now tied: two-two.
“Are you all right?” Janeway asked.
Picard tugged on the padded bib of his fencing helmet to settle it securely around his neck and upper chest. “Fine,” he said.
Janeway did not dispute his assessment. Her interest was elsewhere. “I do feel I’m owed an explanation for your refusal.”
Picard paused for a moment, stood at ease with his weapon to the side. “Admiral, have I misunderstood your request?” In Starfleet, tradition held that an admiral’s request was an order by any other name.
But Janeway understood that tradition as well as he did. “My invitation wasn’t an order, Jean-Luc. Merely…a suggestion.”
“To be blunt, then,” Picard said, “I am within my rights to decline.”
Janeway shifted into the ready position. “Explain your decision, then I’ll give you mine.”
Picard raised his own epee.
“I am a starship captain. Should I and my crew suddenly appear on Romulus—”
“With Kirk,” Janeway interrupted.
“With any civilian,” Picard agreed, “then clearly the Romulans would have no reason to believe we were there for civilian reasons. En garde.”
Other than a slight circling movement of his epee, Picard held position.
Janeway merely circled her own epee in response, as if refusing to be drawn into an attack.
“Correction, Jean-Luc. For the moment, you’re a starship captain without a starship.”
“The Enterprise refit is proceeding on schedule,” Picard said. He feinted but the admiral did not react. “She’ll be ready for her shakedown cruise in less than a month.”
He feinted again, and this time Janeway responded with a lunge, forcing him back, though she didn’t press her advantage with pursuit.
Picard wondered if they had both decided on the same strategy. If so, each of them was waiting for the other to make a mistake.
Janeway confirm
ed his suspicions as she stepped back to her en garde line, clearly trying to entice him to follow with a thrust, as if they were dancing, not fencing.
“If we’re going to get into what the Romulans might believe,” she said with a playful edge, “then believe me. No Romulan will understand that Starfleet is leaving you in command of the Enterprise, let alone any other ship.”
Picard’s annoyance was flowering into something greater. He gave a halfhearted lunge, which the admiral efficiently parried, but didn’t counter. “I beg your pardon,” he said.
Janeway’s irritating grin flashed through her mesh again. “The Stargazer. The EnterpriseD. Two ships lost.”
Picard felt a flash of temper but controlled it. He still didn’t know if Janeway was truly trying to further their debate or merely provoke him into making an error. They were fencing on several levels, it seemed.
“Is there a point, Admiral?”
Janeway began a mechanical sequence of lunge, thrust, lunge, which Picard parried with equal efficiency and lack of style. This round would belong to whichever fencer had the best supply of patience.
“An important point, Captain,” Janeway said. “Since no Romulan commander would ever be given a second command after the loss of a ship—even if the loss were not her fault—no Romulan would be curious about your presence as a civilian. In fact, most Romulans would be puzzled by the fact that Starfleet hadn’t executed you for carelessness.”
Picard suddenly slashed at Janeway’s epee as if they were fencing with sabres. “There is no question of command error in the loss of my ships,” he said through clenched teeth.
Janeway backed off, parrying his unorthodox attack. “Of course not. But Starfleet isn’t the Imperial Fleet. I’m only saying how the Romulans would see your position, not how Starfleet does.”
Janeway abruptly executed a passata sotto, dropping to the mat with one hand to support her, and lunging with such unexpected speed that Picard heard the helmet-buzz of her hit being recorded on his leg before he was even aware that her blade was a threat.
Three-two now, in the admiral’s favor.
“Then answer me this,” Picard grumbled as he tugged down on his thickly padded white plastron jacket. “What would the Romulan reaction be to a contingent of Federation civilians, all supposedly ex-Starfleet, showing up to investigate a political crime on Romulus—as if local Romulan authorities were incapable or untrustworthy of doing the same?”
“Well,” Janeway said, maddeningly unperturbed, “according to the best cultural attaches at headquarters, the Romulans would think it was business as usual. Think about it, Jean-Luc. If the situation were reversed, they wouldn’t trust our local authorities. So to them, it would seem completely reasonable for us not to trust theirs.”
I’m doomed, Picard thought in resignation. “En garde,” he said grimly. But a sudden loud cheer from the banth ring, and an instant’s hesitation in the circular motion of Janeway’s epee, changed everything. Instinct took over and Picard lunged forward, thrust and parried, and thrust again.
Janeway retreated, forced back to the last two meters of the piste, triggering the warning tone. And even as that alarm rang forth, Picard slashed twice, back and forth, then lunged to strike her heart.
The score was now three-three.
“I understand they fence on Romulus,” Janeway said breathlessly as they resumed position in the center of the piste.
Picard was reenergized. He had his focus back. “No doubt with sharpened broadswords and a lack of armor,” he said.
Janeway’s eyes met his directly through the mesh of their masks. “That would be the Klingons. Romulans, it seems, have adopted the human sport, with only a few rule changes.” She presented her blade. “On guard.”
Picard was ready.
“And those changes would be?”
“Minor,” she said as she thrust and he parried. “Sabres in one hand, short daggers in the other.”
“With or without armor?” Picard grinned, relishing the intensity. This round, there was no question of either of them waiting for a mistake—each was going for a full-out offense. The bout would soon be over.
“With, of course!” Janeway completed a powerful parry that almost forced Picard off the piste, making him swing his arms to the side to keep his balance, and leaving him so wide open to Janeway’s inevitable thrust that she merely tapped his chest to score.
Four-three. Picard berated himself for overconfidence. The admiral was one touch away from victory.
“You see, to a Romulan,” Janeway said, “it is much more desirable to let the opponent bear the humiliation of defeat without a scar to point to. That way there is no excuse for defeat—no claims of pain or injury preventing one from doing one’s best. Victory is achieved solely through skill.”
Picard stiffened, sensing insult. “Is that what your intentions are here, Admiral? Inflicting the humiliation of defeat, not the injury?”
Janeway shook her head behind her mask. “Jean-Luc, I’m shocked…shocked that you would think such a thing. On guard, by the way.”
Picard began to lower his epee as if this time he intended to set aside the bout for further conversation. “With respect, Admiral, I believe I’m owed the truth,” he said.
Janeway straightened, began to lower her epee as well.
Then Picard lunged so forcefully that even after he had scored his hit, he overran the admiral, corps a corps, and had to grab her arm to keep from knocking her full over.
“Romulan tactics, Jean-Luc. Well done.” Picard heard the admiral’s chuckle. Amusement, not annoyance. But then, she had been enjoying the upper hand.
The bout was tied four-four.
All that remained was la belle touche. Whoever scored “the beautiful touch” would be the victor.
As he and Janeway took their positions for the final time, there was another loud cheer from the low-gravity ring and a round of enthusiastic Bolian warbling. The banth match, it seemed, had concluded.
Janeway and Picard both glanced over at the dispersing audience, both checking that they were far enough away to be spared collision.
“En garde,” Picard said.
Picard parried Janeway’s expected lunge, then thrust with all the energy remaining to him, as in a seamless phrase of movement, Janeway moved from the septime to the octave parry, then countered with a forceful thrust, missing Picard by less than a centimeter.
Then Picard and Janeway backed off, each catching breath after giving their all. But their confrontation still lacked that final touch.
“You’d be back from Romulus in a month,” Janeway gasped. “In time for that shakedown cruise.”
“I understand Starfleet’s concern in this matter,” Picard said gruffly, searching for the right words to end their debate, if not their match. “I understand the Federation’s concern. And any insight or experience I can share with anyone outside the Star Empire, I stand ready to do so in any way I can, at any time. But in light of my involvement in ending Shinzon’s coup, in light of my previous run-ins with Romulan politics, also involving Ambassador Spock, I assure you, Admiral Janeway, I am not the man for the job. Not on Romulus itself.”
“Funny,” Janeway huffed as she somehow found the resources to renew her assault, “those are all the reasons why Starfleet thinks you’re perfect for it.”
That’s it! Picard felt vindicated. It was just as he had suspected from the beginning. Janeway’s “invitation” to go to Romulus to help Jim Kirk investigate Spock’s assassination wasn’t just a favor to the Federation’s diplomatic corps, it was a plan hatched at Starfleet Command.
He abruptly departed from form and slashed the admiral’s epee to the side, leaving her in no position to execute a riposte as he scraped his blade around hers, then brought it back for the final lunge.
That’s when Janeway shouted “Jean-Luc!” and charged off the mat and past Picard to strike at—
A Vulcan!
Picard had only an instant to regis
ter that the Vulcan was attacking him from behind with an upraised dagger before Janeway’s hand dug into his padded shoulder and pulled him down and to the side.
Instinctively, Picard rolled to use the momentum to right himself, and by the time he regained his feet, he knew that his attacker had been one of the two Vulcans watching the banth bout so intently.
Two of them, Picard thought. He threw off his fencing helmet, certain that the Vulcan who had assaulted him would do so only if he thought his companion was targeting the admiral.
But the admiral was having no difficulty with Picard’s attacker, her blazing swordplay successfully preventing his deadly dagger from reaching her. Her skill told Picard all too clearly that Janeway had been toying with him on the piste—she obviously could have bested him five-nothing at any time of her choosing.
Even so, he sprang forward to help her, glancing as he did to the side, to see the second Vulcan five meters away, flat on his back and unmoving, a trickle of green blood running from his swollen split lip. Beside the Vulcan, a pale-legged human in the loud tropical flower shirt and floppy sunhat, now turning from the fallen body, to run toward the admiral.
Before Picard had covered half the distance to Janeway, the human was already behind her attacker. With a perfectly precise movement reminiscent of Data, the man grabbed the Vulcan’s forearm and locked it in place as firmly as if he had the strength of five Vulcans. He then dropped his other hand to the Vulcan’s shoulder and inflicted a nerve pinch.
An instant later, though, the Vulcan wrenched his forearm free, twisted from the pinch, and spun in a deadly arc to drive the dagger directly into the human’s flower-shirted chest.
Before Picard’s horror-struck eyes, the man stood motionless with an almost comical expression of puzzlement, then glanced down with mild curiosity as the Vulcan savagely twisted the dagger deeper into his chest. For a moment, the man frowned, then looked up at the by now equally puzzled Vulcan and employed a deft right hook to send him crashing to the ground.
Picard stared as the human took the dagger smoothly from his chest and examined its bloodless surface. And only then did he recognize the man’s uncanny resemblance to Doctor Lewis Zimmerman and realized what had happened, and who had saved him.
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