“The Casmarrans are impounding it,” S’satah said, “like they do all vessels that stray into Troika space. They don’t want you here.”
“Taking our ride is a damn funny way to get us to leave.”
“Your companion talks too much,” P’rou declared. He stepped over to Finnegan and got into the human’s face, using his more massive frame to intimidate. “Talk some more now. I dare you.”
“I had a cute little cat once,” Finnegan said. “She had breath about like yours too.”
P’rou punched Finnegan in the gut.
“No!” Dax said. She looked urgently to Georgiou, who responded with the slightest shake of her head. It was important to see what these people were about before retaliating.
Doubling over, Finnegan coughed for several seconds before looking up at Georgiou. “They… did ask me… to talk more…”
“That was their first mistake,” the emperor replied. She looked over to S’satah. “Your second mistake is interfering with me, and my business.”
S’satah looked surprised for a moment to hear such stern words. “Since when do Starfleet captains talk tough?”
“A year in a Klingon prison camp will have that effect.” That was the cover story they’d come up with on Discovery.
“Tragic. The fact remains you have no business here. You’re violating a treaty—”
“Which is barely a treaty, as I read it. It was a unilateral declaration of borders. The Federation and Starfleet respected them—but that doesn’t mean they accepted them, then or for all time.”
At that, several of the box-wearing Casmarrans grew more animated—and those without the implements responded, drumming their limbs on the surface of the platform and creating a low rumble. Eyes wide, S’satah gestured to them. “You’re lucky they don’t fully understand our words,” she said. “They’re aware of how badly your damned war with the Klingons went. If the Federation thinks to make a puppet out of Casmarra—”
“That’s not what the Federation does,” Dax said.
“Oh, really?”
“Planets join of their own accord.”
“Because they’re terrified of the Klingons,” S’satah said. “Or the Gorn, or someone else. Your ‘members’ are just fodder, buffers for your enemies to trounce. Well, the Casmarrans want no part of you, the Klingons, or anyone else. They’re not going to be a front in your next war!”
“Look,” Finnegan said, holding his midsection, “this is all a mistake. We had an invitation.”
S’satah stopped—and turned her eyes back on Georgiou. “You had an invite?” She smoldered. “Yes. Yes, of course he’d do that. I should have thought he’d know better.”
P’rou snarled. “I’d be happy to go tell him he made a mistake.”
“Yes, where is he?” Georgiou asked. “Quintilian. That’s who we’re discussing. Isn’t it, S’satah?”
The Caitian sneered. “I should be honored that the high-and-mighty Captain Georgiou knows my name.”
“I’ve been a lot higher than this.” Georgiou kept her eyes focused on S’satah. “My question. Where is he?”
“He can’t help you, if that’s what you mean. Quintilian is a guest here—and his franchise is only in space. There’s only one offworlder with a license to manufacture on this planet, and that’s me.” Then a grin came across her face. “And that’s not all.”
S’satah turned and again addressed the Casmarran she’d spoken with before. “Amendment, Manager Xornatta. Remand bipedal intruders, Federation-type, to S’satah, authorized factor.”
The Casmarran repeated her statement in full.
P’rou stepped back over and jabbed Georgiou’s phaser under her nose. “She’s just gotten authorization for us to kill you. Right here, right now.”
Still holding his gut, Finnegan blanched with pain. “Why do you get to do it? Don’t they get their stalks dirty?”
“They’d rather not,” S’satah said. “That’s why the traders are the first line to keep you people out—that’s a duty that comes with the franchise. Alien security planetside here is licensed to us. And managed by P’rou.”
Dax’s eyes went wide. “You can’t just kill us!”
“Says who?” S’satah stalked past her. “This is Troika space! There’s no Federation consulate here for you to run crying to.” She looked back to Georgiou. “And your death was sealed as soon as I saw you.”
Again with the particular hatred, Georgiou thought. “How, again, did I earn this venom?”
P’rou threatened her with the phaser. “You ruined my life! Both of ours, with your accursed advice!”
S’satah bared her teeth. “Do you know how long it’s taken us to recover? To get some semblance of success in our lives? And now here you come—”
“I’ll kill them all,” P’rou snarled. “But her first!”
Georgiou had heard enough. She started to say something—only to release a gasp. Her eyes rolling back into her head, she slumped downward in a faint, startling P’rou.
“Philippa!” Dax called out. She looked to S’satah. “Help her.”
“We’re about to kill her,” the Caitian said. “Why should we do anything—”
She never finished her statement. Crumpled on the tarmac at P’rou’s feet, Georgiou took the opportunity to reach for a weapon the Caitian had not found, a long silver knife secreted in her right boot. It found a home in P’rou’s massive left shin, causing him to drop his phaser and howl with pain.
As he reached for the gushing wound, she grabbed his collar and yanked downward. He pitched forward, much as the guard who had accosted her back on Thionoga had—only this time, she tumbled willingly with him, reaching, in the process, for the knife lodged in his leg. When the two were upright again, she was fully behind P’rou, with the scruff of his neck in one hand and the blood-soaked blade held to his carotid artery.
“Shoot her!” P’rou yelled.
“Then we both die,” Georgiou said.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” S’satah called out to the Orions.
It became clear in a moment who the guards took orders from. Pressing the knife to P’rou’s neck, Georgiou looked about, unsure of her next play. The Casmarrans whirled about, clearly agitated by the action. Georgiou shouted her demand. “Tell them to return our shuttle!”
“They won’t do it,” S’satah said. “You’re disturbing their order. They’d kill all of us before they let you leave!”
P’rou raged. “Mother, shoot this thing!”
“P’rou, shut up!” S’satah stepped toward Dax, still under gunpoint by the Orions. She took one of their disruptors and waved it between Dax and Finnegan. “Let my son go! Or should I kill one of these?”
“I don’t care,” Georgiou said, tugging at P’rou’s head. “Do it. Pick whichever. They’re nothing to me.”
“What?” Dax shouted. “Are you really going to let her do this?”
Finnegan raised a finger in a point of order. “You know, they did say they were going to kill us anyway.”
She looked daggers at him. “Sean, shut up.”
“Sorry.”
All around, the Casmarrans swayed and stomped, their unease brought to a crescendo. Only Georgiou realized it might not be anxiety affecting them when she caught a glimmer from the sky.
“Look behind you,” Georgiou said.
S’satah’s eyes filled with anger. “What kind of fool do you think I am?”
“I’d love to take time to answer that,” she said. “But we’re about to have company.”
The Casmarran sun glinted off a cargo vessel, descending from the sky in the north. And not just one. A whole series of freighters, approaching the city and setting the natives into paroxysms of movement. Several Casmarrans quivered festively in place; others quickly cleared the landing area where Boyington had been parked to make room.
“Recognize those?” Georgiou asked P’rou. She certainly knew them. She’d destroyed what she suspected was the same f
leet back in her own realm. “The Veneti.”
“Damn it,” he said, massive shoulders sagging.
The Casmarran that S’satah had conferred with, Xornatta, approached her. “Authorized Factor S’satah, belay.”
S’satah looked up at the being, alarmed. “Question belay!”
“Convoy observed. Authorized Trader Quintilian.”
She slapped her hand on her chest. “Security franchise authorized, S’satah! Federation-bipeds remanded!”
“Quintilian-communication,” Xornatta said, a pair of limbs curling to indicate the Casmarran’s blue box. “Oast import arrived.” The next line carried added emphasis. “Food import arrived!”
“Is that box a receiver?” Finnegan asked.
“I think it is,” Georgiou said. “And unless I miss my guess, I think the Casmarrans have just gotten a better offer.”
S’satah looked angrily at the descending lead vehicle—and at Georgiou. Finally, she called out to her guards. “Belay.”
“No!” P’rou howled. But the Orions stepped back—allowing Dax to quickly reach for the phaser the Caitian had dropped.
“Put it on kill, my dear,” Georgiou said. “I taught you how, back on the shuttle. No more of that warning-shot business from the landing bay.”
Dax’s eyes were wide with panic. “You shut up too.”
Seeing S’satah’s people in abeyance, Georgiou called Finnegan over to where she still had P’rou under her control. “You want a free jab at this one before I let him run back to Mama? You’ll enjoy it.”
“No,” Finnegan replied. “I only like fair fights.”
“I’ve seen you go either way,” she said. “You’re wasting fairness on his kind. Struts and snarls, but if the odds aren’t entirely in his favor, he hides under the furniture.”
“You’ll pay for this!” P’rou shouted.
She cooed in his ear. “Poor impotent little kitty. Go hide under something.” Then she released him and stepped back.
The Caitian scrambled to his feet, favoring the uninjured leg. Returning to his mother’s side, he looked back to his former captives—and the descending freighter. “We should stay to finish this, Mother. I know you don’t want to have to see him, but—”
“If I see His Highness Quintilian now, there will be shooting.”
P’rou snorted. “What would be wrong with that?”
She tugged his arm. “We’re going.” She shot a look back to Georgiou. “You should too. Set foot anywhere else on my planet, and you’ll regret it.”
“Your planet?” Georgiou gestured to the Casmarrans waiting in anticipation of the freighter. “I thought this was their planet.”
S’satah gave her a nasty look any Terran would have been proud of.
22
Alien Region
CASMARRA
Quintilian, it had turned out, was not on the lead freighter that had landed in Boyington’s former resting place. Instead, he’d sent an aerial vehicle with instructions to bring Georgiou and her companions to his estate. That Quintilian’s people possessed transporter technology was something Starfleet had known since Lieutenant Georgiou’s first encounter with the Veneti, back on Jadama Rohn years earlier, but the emperor had a good idea why the trader sent the antigrav flier. He wanted to show off.
The aircar was one common to the Orion colonies, Finnegan had said—but nicer, with a luxurious interior and broad, ceiling-to-floor ports allowing its passengers a panoramic view. Through them, Georgiou saw the pentagonal territory known as the Alien Region unfold beneath her, all described by Quintilian’s chatty personal pilot: Phylla, an Orion woman of advancing years.
S’satah’s factories, abutting the raised plateaus between the Casmarran metropolises. Grimmer locales, homes to the nonnative workers she employed. And, across a lake of lustrous blue, the lush, rolling hills that were home to Quintilian’s estate.
“Tallacoe,” Phylla said with evident pride. “Boss named it for the legendary home of one of my people’s greatest emperors.”
“The Orions have an empire?” Finnegan asked.
“Had,” Dax said. “Many centuries ago.”
“Then I’d say it’s pretty much gone to seed since then.” He glanced to Georgiou. “But then, empires are tough things to stay on top of.”
She ignored him. Her eyes were fixed outside and down below, where they saw the same things over and over again: Money. Wealth. And, unusually, something she never saw much of on Terra, even in the richest estates: Class.
That was because, between the fountains and the vineyards, between the gardens and the marble, there was no attempt to simply knock off the famous statues and architecture of great civilizations. Rather, there appeared to be a restrained effort to draw upon the elements that gave those things beauty, creating a look that recalled the greatness of the past without duplicating it.
And somehow, the trappings of Quintilian’s modern commercial enterprise were able to exist here without seeming out of place. Magnificent round structures sat at several locations, hubs for tree-lined boulevards; only when she saw a freighter descending into one of the building’s open rooftops did she realize she was looking at a warehouse. The facilities were conspicuous, even as their function was not.
Georgiou peered at the pilot. “I see many Orions working below. Why would they be ruled by a human?”
Phylla looked back. “Quintilian’s the best boss we’ve ever had. He runs a tight operation—no drugs, no thievery, no gambling allowed. Veneti employees are housed in Tallacoe rather than S’satah’s slums, as long as they stay out of trouble.”
“This is a closed society,” Dax said. “How did so many of you come here?”
“Veneti ships make a few trips each year to trade beyond Troika space. The natives won’t trade with the outside, but we still need technology, and the Alien Region likes its imports. The ships always bring back a few folks who want to escape somewhere. Like me,” Phylla said. “I’d have never been a pilot among my people.” She winked at the women.
“Would you look at that?” Finnegan said, gawking at the largest structure in the region.
“The Pinnacle at Tallacoe,” Phylla said. “Just like in the old tapestries. Took twenty years to build—the master just moved in a couple of years ago. It’s a beauty.”
Georgiou had to agree. It was an ancient setting for a modern age, half resembling the engravings she’d seen of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Her cousin Alexander had once tried to duplicate that possibly mythical palace, without much success; his sensibilities were as limited as his good sense.
With the Pinnacle, Quintilian had succeeded.
Tiered gardens climbed to the heavens, framed by waterfalls that seemed not in the least artificial. The airship climbed, too, swooping around marbled columns draped in clinging vines, spiraling upward to the topmost level. In that broad space of sky sat a carpet of green, lined by a wall laden with multicolored flowers and broken only once to create an overlook for an observatory. Within the plaza, she saw a Romanesque fountain feeding a twenty-meter-wide pool—and fronting a modest three-story villa that looked better suited for a Tuscan hilltop than for Troika space.
“Here we are,” Phylla said. “Domus Quintiliana.” The pilot set the airship down in a clearing between the fountain and the building and released her passengers. “If you’d like a closer look at anything while you’re here, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m at your service—when the master of the house doesn’t need me, that is.”
Georgiou and the others had only been outside for a second when she lifted off, quickly removing her discordant bit of technology from the scene.
And then—peace. Peace in the late afternoon sun, broken only by the splashing of the fountain and occasionally by chirps or a caw from a small structure nearby. Movement in a netted window suggested it was an aviary for Earth birds.
“Nice. But weird,” Dax said.
“Well,” Finnegan said, “it beats a punch in the gut.” He strolled o
ver to the fountain, sat, and took off his shoes. A moment later, he was sitting on the rim, soaking his feet. “You think those vineyards are for wine?”
Georgiou nodded. Quintilian’s hobby as a vintner had come up in his messages to her counterpart; he must have even gotten a bottle out to her sometime, because he’d asked her if she’d enjoyed it in one of their last exchanges.
Dax looked at her. “What should we do now?”
The emperor had already decided. She was partway to the door of the villa when she heard a high whine behind her. She turned to see a transporter effect before the fountain. Finnegan tried quickly to stand, lost his footing, and splashed into the pool.
The light subsided, revealing the man she’d met—and killed—a couple of years before. He looked better than he had in her universe. Still the gray fox, tanned and healthy, but with finer clothing, including a burgundy cape that came to his knees. He held an ornate golden walking stick—which he let fall to the ground the instant his brown eyes saw Georgiou. “Philippa!” he declared, stepping toward her. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”
She closed the distance and took his outstretched hands. How huggy are we? she wondered as he brought her toward him for an embrace. She got her answer soon enough. It was long and full, his hands around her hips rather than her shoulders. And when they finally drew apart, he looked directly into her eyes and whispered, “Together at last.”
They kissed, an event that the emperor welcomed, even as she had a thought so amusing it nearly broke the mood: Why, Captain Georgiou, you old dog. You’ve had a secret love all this time.
She drew back. “I thank you for the invitation.”
“As do we,” said Dax, alongside Finnegan.
Quintilian glanced at them—and then Georgiou. “Who have you brought us?”
Georgiou suppressed a chuckle. “This is my aide, Ensign Emony Dax.”
The man looked to the Trill, his eyes swiftly widening with recognition. “Not the Olympian?”
Dax smiled awkwardly. “You can’t tell me you’ve heard of me way out here.”
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