by Dave Stern
“Captain.”
Archer looked up to find Sen glaring at him.
“Eat.” The governor gestured with the remote. “You will need your strength.”
Archer ate. And when he was done, he worked.
It was a gruesome, horrific, mind-numbing task. He tried not to see the bodies he lifted and dragged and threw about as people, but simply as things. He tried to keep his thoughts occupied elsewhere. On Sen—how had the governor managed to kill an entire shipful of Klingon warriors? Obviously, he’d had some kind of plan in place, a contingency worked out if things went wrong, which they somehow had. A hidden weapon—the evidence suggested a biological agent—or a booby trap of some kind. Maybe a traitor on board the ship. Definitely a traitor somewhere, whether here or within the Empire itself, though the captain was hard-pressed to think what circumstances would drive a Klingon to betray their people like this, to condemn them to this manner of death, so contrary to the code of the warrior they lived and hoped to perish by.
Though a few of them, now that he looked more closely, seemed to have died in a fight of some sort. The captain was inside what looked to him like a captain’s mess, or a formal reception area. Death here had been messy, and not just in the way it had elsewhere on the ship, either; there was evidence of weapons fire, knife wounds…
He almost tripped then, on a young Klingon female who wore a look of (strangely enough) surprise on her face—well, half her face anyway, as the other half was blasted away.
The captain couldn’t quite reconstruct the sequence of events in his mind. Not that it mattered greatly. What was done was done. What lay ahead, for him specifically…
Sen’s initial plan, obviously, involved selling him to the Klingons. Now…
The governor said that was still his intention—that he would just have to complete that sale now through a third party. The glint in his eye when he spoke, though…
Archer wondered if Sen didn’t just intend to kill him outright, once tasks numbers one and two were complete.
“Captain.”
Archer started, and looked around.
“Speed, please, We still have much to do.”
The voice—Sen’s voice—came from everywhere, and from nowhere, all at once. A hidden speaker/speakers.
Sen hadn’t been lying about those video monitors, obviously.
“Sorry,” Archer said out loud. “It’s just…a little hard to take in.”
“Such sensitivity.” The captain could hear the scorn in Sen’s voice. “Admirable. But we have no time for it now. Work.”
Archer was about to make another comment when he felt a slight tingle around his neck, from the collar. A few volts, courtesy of the governor. Just to get his point across.
The captain worked.
Three corpses to a gurney. Two gurneys at a time. Ten trips down to the shuttlebay. Sixty-three bodies in all, which if memory served was the entire crew complement of this ship, which he’d tentatively pegged as one of the new D-3s, judging by deck layout. (The captain wished he could read Klingon; there was writing everywhere, more than enough, he was certain, to positively ID the ship.) Which meant that he and Sen were all alone aboard the vessel: either the governor had killed whoever had helped him take over, or he’d gotten help before he boarded the vessel. Either way, that made Archer’s job—overpowering the man, gaining control of the ship—easier. Theoretically. As a practical matter…
He had no earthly idea what he was going to do.
Sen had said two tasks, though, which gave him a little more time to puzzle things out, Archer thought, pushing the last of the gurneys in the direction of the shuttlebay. This one was lighter than usual, carrying not heavily armored warriors but three Klingon females. In addition to the younger one he’d found earlier, there had been two others in the stateroom, huddled together in a corner, as if for comfort. Wearing much less than Klingon females usually wore. Consorts, he guessed, for the dead officer in the stateroom. They wore expressions of equal parts puzzlement and horror. As if they couldn’t believe what was happening to them. The captain had never particularly thought of Klingon females as sympathetic figures, but looking at these two, sprawled across the gurney…
Archer stopped dead in his tracks.
Coming from around the corner, he heard voices.
No. Not voices. Just a voice. Sen. But the governor was in the middle of a conversation, in the middle of talking to someone. Probably a contact back on Procyron, or elsewhere in the sector. Arranging a rendezvous, no doubt, a way off this ship, because two people could not run a vessel this size for very long.
He was having a hard time making out what Sen was saying; the governor was talking unusually softly, and in what almost sounded like incomplete sentences. Strange. Archer caught a name, Roia, and a few isolated words—”greedy, Verengi, Coreida system”—some of which were familiar to him, some not. He waited a moment longer, hoping to hear more, perhaps even a response from this Roia, whoever s/he was, over the com. But nothing came.
He pushed on, deciding that incomplete information was better than having Sen catch him in the act of eavesdropping.
Rounding the corner, he frowned.
Sen stood in the middle of the corridor, a good ten meters away from the nearest companel. Too far away to speak to someone over the device without shouting. So how—
“Is there a problem?” Sen asked, at which point the captain realized that the mental frowning he’d just done must have shown on his face as well.
“No. No problem. Just wanted to let you know that this was the last of the bodies.”
“Good.” Sen pointed to the shuttlebay. “Put them with the others, and then we’ll take care of this business.”
Archer wheeled the corpses into the shuttlebay, and laid them in a pile just outside the entrance hatch, next to the pile he’d made the trip previously, which itself was next to the pile from the trip before that—and so on, and so on, and so on. A hangar filled with such piles, filled with corpses. He stood and took a step back.
The room was beginning to smell. Sen was right about one thing, at least; getting rid of the bodies was the smart thing to do, because even though he and the governor had been immune to whatever killed the Klingons, there was a good chance they would not be immune to the microorganisms and bacteria about to infest all the corpses.
He turned to leave.
The hatch was closed behind him. Through the porthole, Sen smiled.
Heart suddenly thumping, Captain Archer punched the companel next to the door.
“Governor. What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” Sen said in response, pressing the button on his side of the door. “Can’t you guess?”
He could. He did.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he cursed at himself, should have been paying more attention, should have…
The captain took a deep breath, and forced himself to stay calm.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s happening?” the captain said.
“You’ll recall me mentioning two tasks we had to accomplish?”
“I recall,” Archer said, forcing himself not to turn and look for the shuttle, though he knew that there was one in the bay, he’d stacked bodies right up against it, the only question was whether or not it was open or locked, well not the only question, he had to get to the shuttle first, and whether or not Sen would let him do that or use the remote—
That train of thought crashed to a halt as he saw, through the porthole, Sen’s hand on the emergency bay door hatch. The governor was going to open the bay to space, at which point everything in it—dead, alive, flesh and blood and machine—was going to get sucked out in the vacuum.
Evac suits. Did the Klingons have evac suits? Never mind that, was there a handhold—
“Number one was the corpses, obviously,” Sen said. “Number two…”
He shook his head.
“Well, actually I was wrong about there being two.”
He was
grinning ear-to-ear now, clearly enjoying himself.
“I get that,” Archer said. “You know Starfleet will pay a reward too, for me. I don’t know exactly what the Klingons were promising you, but—”
“There are three.”
The captain stopped in midsentence, mouth open.
“What?”
“There are three tasks we need to accomplish,” Sen said. “Number two is to secure the shuttle, so it remains in the ship when we evacuate the bay.”
The shuttlebay hatch opened, and the governor stepped through, holding the remote before him like a weapon. Archer gave way.
“There is auxiliary cable in the maintenance locker there,” Sen continued, pointing, “which can be used for that purpose, to supplement the bay locking system. You should have no trouble figuring that out.”
The governor smiled at him again.
The captain stood there a moment, and felt his heart, still hammering in his chest.
Sen shrugged, spread his hands.
“Just a little joke, Captain,” Sen said. “You didn’t really think I’d jettison you along with the bodies, did you? After all…even if I can’t arrange sale to the Klingons through a third party—as you said, Starfleet is certain to offer a reward. So what is the sense in killing you?”
The man’s eyes glittered as he spoke, and in that instant, the captain felt certain that reward money or no, Sen was going to find a way to do just that, and probably take a long time doing so.
“Right,” Archer said. “A joke. Don’t know why I didn’t see that.”
“So serious.” The governor made a show of frowning, and shook his head. “I had heard humans possessed quite a sense of humor. Ah well. You can’t always believe what people tell you, can you, Captain?”
Without waiting for a response, Sen turned his back and started walking away.
“I will be on the bridge,” he called over his shoulder. “Where task number three awaits us. Join me there when you’ve finished.”
He secured the shuttle as Sen had directed. He closed the hatch behind him.
He pressed his face to the porthole, said a silent prayer for the Klingons on the other side of the bulkhead, and opened the airlock.
Everything in the bay that wasn’t, literally, nailed down, or secured in some way, shot forward, out into space, as if it had been fired from a cannon.
Sudden cold numbed his cheek. The captain watched as the crew of the c’Hos, their captain, and their companions left the ship for the final time, and in that instant had the sudden thought—really, it was more of a premonition—that if he did indeed manage to survive this ordeal, what had happened here would someday come back to haunt him, not in his dreams, but in a very real-world way.
He hit the companel.
“All set here,” he said.
“I can see that.” Sen sounded angry. “Come to the bridge immediately.”
The governor sat in the command chair when he arrived, a set of tools laid out on the decking nearby.
“We’re doing some rewiring?” the captain asked.
“In a moment.” Sen frowned. “There is a problem with the security system. I am unable to access the operator subroutines.”
Archer stood there a moment, waiting. Sen simply sat, one hand on the armrest of the chair, fingers drumming impatiently. His other hand lay on his leg, the remote held loosely in it.
His attention was elsewhere. The captain judged the distance between them. A little more than three meters. In optimum physical condition, he could jump most of that in a single bound. Certainly with a running start. But he wouldn’t get a running start here, and he wasn’t in optimal condition. Still…
This might be the best chance he’d get.
Archer tensed, and prepared to leap.
Sen’s gaze swiveled, and fastened on him.
“The voltage in the collar is more than sufficient to disable a Klingon warrior, Captain. I don’t doubt that the effects on the human nervous system…”
His voice trailed off.
A light came into his eyes, and he smiled.
“Excellent,” he said, and nodded. “Excellent.”
“Excuse me?” the captain said.
Sen blinked. His smile disappeared for a second, and then returned.
“I have just bypassed—just realized how to bypass—the Klingon security protocols. Which means we can begin our work.”
“Ah.” The captain nodded, and for a brief instant met Sen’s gaze again.
The governor was lying about something, Archer realized. But what? Why?
He had little time to contemplate those questions over the next few minutes, though, because at that point Sen began giving him instructions at a rapid-fire pace. Take this tool, remove that deck plate. Disassemble that conduit, attach the power couplings there. Take that station, access the operator software, enter this password, reroute control from here to there.
Their task, the governor explained as Archer worked, was to modify the bridge’s control systems so they could all be operated from the command chair, a necessary thing, Sen pointed out, given that they no longer had a full complement of crew on board. As he worked, Archer tried to keep track of the original system layout and the modifications he was making—Starfleet, of course, would be interested in all of it—but as the work got more and more complex, he found it impossible to keep all the details in his head.
The governor seemed to have no such problem.
Sen knew an awful lot about the systems on c’Hos, Archer realized. He wondered how. Probably, the captain thought, he’d bought and paid for it before he’d ever set foot on the vessel. Insurance, just in case something went wrong with his plan. As it clearly had. Smart.
Archer paused a moment to wipe his brow.
“Problem?” Sen asked.
“No problem.” The captain was crouched on the floor, up near the helm console, about five meters away from Sen in the command chair, facing toward the governor. “Just need a minute, that’s all.”
“A minute. Of course. I’ll count it out for you.”
“Thanks so much.” He set down the tools he’d been working with. “How much longer you think this is going to take?”
“Not long,” Sen said. “Are you in some sort of rush? You have some place else you need to be?”
“No. Just curious.”
“A few more hours, perhaps.”
Archer nodded. He wondered if there was a task number four.
He wondered if, when he was done here, he’d be joining the Klingons.
He had to do something soon. No, not soon. Now.
He looked down into the exposed access panel, saw the conduit and cabling, and thought: sabotage.
“Thirty seconds, by the way,” Sen said.
The captain looked back up.
“Can I get a drink of water?”
“Not just yet,” Sen said. “We’ll return to the mess shortly. You can drink there. Eat as well, if you like.”
“More gagh. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“Perhaps we’ll find another item on the menu your system can tolerate. In the meantime…” Sen waved the control in his hand. “Back to work.”
Archer nodded, and bent over the access panel once more.
“Beneath the conduit we just disconnected,” Sen said, “there is a sheath of optical cabling. One strand should have a faint blue glow to it. Do you see it?”
Archer nodded.
“I do.”
“Good. That strand joins with the others in a junction box at the far end of the access panel. I want you to disconnect it from the box.”
The captain braced himself on the deck with one hand, and reached down with the other.
“It may take some doing, by the way,” Sen added. “These have a tendency to get stuck.”
Archer frowned.
Now how in the world did Sen know that? Even assuming he’d spent the last few weeks studying up on this ship’s systems, that kind of
practical knowledge…
It just wasn’t possible. What did he have in his head, some kind of computer?
His hand paused in midair.
And he remembered, all at once, what Malcolm had told him down on Procyron. How Sen’s guards were able to react so fast, to move so quickly as a unit. They had implants in their heads, some kind of neural interface. What if—
He felt a brief, sudden tingling around his neck.
“Captain. Work, please.” Sen stood over him glaring.
The captain looked up at him, and their eyes met.
Archer tried very hard not to smile.
Chipped. Sen was chipped. That was how he’d been able to overpower and kill the crew, how he was able to monitor the captain so easily, how he knew so much about the ship’s internal workings…
“Something amuses you?” Sen asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“Then…”
“Sorry.” The captain reached down, and made a show of yanking on the cable again. It came free, right away. Not stuck at all.
“Well look at that,” Archer said.
Sen snorted. “Humans,” he said, and went back to the command chair again.
Archer went back to work as well.
Rewiring.
And planning.
Twenty-Seven
Elder Green did not see the interrogation recording in the same light as Hoshi. She did not read the enunciation in Theera’s voice as imperative, or a plea. She was certain the Andorian had indeed said “Antianna,” not “Ondeanna.”
“Our time and effort,” she said to Hoshi, loud enough so that all within range could hear, “must be focused on configuration and testing of the diode panels. You may continue your research in this regard, Ensign Sato, but as for the rest of us…”
She motioned, and the other Mediators returned to work.
Setting aside her frustration, Hoshi did as Green had suggested, plunging back into the database, searching for further connections between the Antianna and the Barreon. She began by reviewing history. There were conflicting records, conflicting accounts of the Barreon’s early years, up until the time of their encounter of the Allied Worlds. They’d been in the process, apparently, of forming an Alliance of their own, though with whom was unclear; no races were mentioned in any of the accounts Hoshi read. The Barreon (or Barrion, sources had it both ways) had been quite sophisticated, technologically; the basic design of the Type-2 FTL ship was attributed to them by more than one source, and several mentioned as well a sophisticated, semi-intelligent software program that had run a number of their defensive systems toward the end of the war. Where they fell short, though, was in armaments—offensive, and defensive weaponry—and numbers. When war came—conflicting territorial ambitions, according to most sources—the Barreon were no match for the Allied Worlds. There were several smaller conflicts before the epic confrontation that destroyed both empires, a war that, depending on which source you believed, either lasted for close to five years or was over in a month.
