“This is where all the ships they have to disinfect wind up. But I don’t know what the freighter looks like.”
The emperor did—but only vaguely. The logs from Archimedes had included scans and images taken from a great distance. Seeing no Casmarrans on the floor of the impound area, she stepped out into it.
She and her companions were immediately lost within a maze of parked plunder. Some vehicles looked like recent arrivals; others were older. Quite a few escape pods sat about, representing many different cultures. The floor was a lesson in how the Alien Region had been populated.
They were only a third of the way across the floor when Georgiou saw a towering Casmarran up ahead, tending to a crystal column that rose to an even higher ceiling. She quickly held back the other two, whispering, “Get down!”
Dax resisted being held. “Don’t worry.” She stepped forward and approached the Casmarran, who paid no notice.
Worried, Finnegan hustled out to her side, and Georgiou hurried to flank her. “He’s a big beastie,” Finnegan said. “Stinks even worse than the rest. Can we take him?”
Georgiou tried to imagine what martial artistry might work on a three-meter-tall being with no head and thirty arms. “Find a weapon,” she said.
“I’ll just use this,” Dax said, showing her universal translator.
“I’m supposed to throw it?” Georgiou looked disdainfully at it. “This isn’t going to work. In any way.”
The translator parroted, “Object, Federation-type, speculative-ineffective.”
Georgiou looked at her. “Okay, I am impressed.”
“You get full marks for this,” Finnegan said.
“Glad you approve.” Dax stepped before the others and faced the Casmarran, preparing to introduce herself.
But the titan spoke first, its voice box booming. “Greeting-statement, Authorized-Visitor, Caitian-type.”
Finnegan whispered, “It thinks you’re Caitian?”
“It thinks I work for S’satah. Identify,” she said to the Casmarran.
“Archivist Ellgon.”
“Greeting-statement, Archivist Ellgon.” Dax then relied upon the translator to pose a more complicated interrogative, asking about the location of Jadama Rohn.
For a time, there was no response. The pillar before the Casmarran shimmered—and the giant moved around it to allow the visitors to see the image that had somehow taken shape on its surface. “Jadama Rohn,” Ellgon said.
“That’s our freighter,” Georgiou said. “But where in the room is it?”
“Misinterpretation. Query.”
“We want to know which part of the room it’s in,” Georgiou said, gesturing to the wide mass of vehicles. “We could be looking all day. Tell us!”
“Response declined.”
Dax frowned and identified herself again as a representative of S’satah. It elicited the same answer from Ellgon as before.
Georgiou felt her anger building. She wasn’t going to be stopped by a walking stack of starfishes, but neither did she think she could operate whatever data system the pillar represented. “You will answer,” she said.
“Response declined.”
“You’ll answer. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” She gritted her teeth. “I killed every member of your species.”
“Georgie!” Finnegan said. Dax looked at her, shocked.
Ellgon’s response: “Misinterpretation. Query.”
“I killed all your people save one,” Georgiou said. “I found out it was in league with my enemy. It had kept me from something I was searching for, allowed my enemy to destroy it.” That information had been a consequence of her invasion; a Casmarran had tipped Lorca to S’satah’s intent to deliver Whipsaw. “I didn’t kill that one.”
“Misinterpretation. Query.”
“For thwarting me, I let it live, alone, forever. But I killed everyone else. You will help—or I will see you suffer.”
Dax gasped with horror. “Why are you saying this?”
“Not for my health.” She glared at the Trill. “What did you think would happen on this trip—that we’d never get information without threatening? I don’t know what we can do to this thing, but damn it, I’ll find a way—if it doesn’t tell me where to find the ship on the pillar!”
“Response given,” Ellgon said. “Vehicle Orion-type designate Jadama Rohn column-visualized. Impound presence negative.” The Casmarran’s limbs twirled and rose, almost as if making a point. “Visitor-type Georgiou understood, minus two thousand six hundred seventy-four Casmarcycles.”
The words were understandable—but the translator could not provide their meaning. “What—what is it saying?”
Dax’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure—but I think it’s saying it already told you.” She looked up to the archivist. “Request record.”
As before, Ellgon moved to a different side of the great column—and as before, nothing happened for several moments. Dax shrugged. “I thought it was worth a—”
Georgiou interrupted her. Or rather, her image, appearing near the base of the pillar where the image of Jadama Rohn had been.
“—think I understand why we haven’t been able to find the ship,” the image said. This Georgiou appeared to be inside the pillar, looking out as if through a frosty window.
“That’s you,” Finnegan said, looking at the display.
“No,” Georgiou said, her breath catching. “It’s her. The captain.”
31
Vertex 22 Impound Station
CASMARRA
“Twenty-six hundred cycles,” Dax said. “That’s what, five years? This is when you—I mean, when she—was here before!”
“Who was here before?” Finnegan asked, alternately pointing between the Georgious. “Her? Or her?”
“Hush,” Dax and the emperor said in unison. They strained to listen.
“If I understand this, Michael, the Casmarrans seem to have traded the Jadama Rohn away to get rid of it.”
A young woman she knew well appeared beside the captain. “That’s what I’m getting from these translations,” Michael Burnham said, working at what appeared to be a data slate. “They believed the freighter could not be disinfected—that it was permanently unclean because of what had happened upon it.”
“Cursed,” the captain responded. “That’s about right.”
Georgiou blinked twice. She had seen imagery of her other self before, but it was a peculiar sensation seeing her counterpart in the same exact spot she was. “Dax, record this.”
“Already on it.” The Trill had her tricorder out.
The captain looked upward toward something out of sight. “This data system is amazing. It’s been well worth the time to decipher. Bring up the scans the Casmarrans made of the ship again.”
Burnham appeared to trace her fingers across the inside of the column. “What’s she looking at?” Dax asked.
Georgiou looked up. “This column. The same thing we’re looking at.”
“So we can’t see it,” Finnegan said. “It’s like they’re trapped inside—or we are.”
“Look at that,” Burnham said, pointing. “What’s the function of that assembly in the cargo hold?”
“I don’t know,” the captain responded. After a moment, “Oh, good eye, Michael. That shouldn’t be there at all.”
“What?” the emperor spouted. It was so frustrating, not seeing the same thing.
“It looks like a large cargo unit,” Burnham said. “Only it’s wired up to vents. A refrigeration system?”
“No,” the captain replied, pointing at something. “Those vents lead outside the ship, to the exhaust baffles.”
“But look where the vents are on the hull. They face forward.”
“You’re right. Whatever Jadama Rohn was carrying in that container, it was scooping from space. Either that or—”
Or what? the emperor wondered. But for whatever reason, the captain did not finish her sentence.
“I’ve ad
ded it to the list of things to check out when we get to the ship,” Burnham said, turning her data slate toward the captain. “I can see why the people in question wanted to look into it again.”
“That’s too nice a term for them.”
“Well, we’re here first. It looks like we’re headed—”
The recording abruptly ended. “What happened?” the emperor asked. She faced Ellgon. “What people? Bring it back!”
The Casmarran moved in front of the display. “Authorization revoked, Visitor Georgiou-type.”
“Who says so?”
“Manager Xornatta.” As the lighting in the impound area went from warmly luminescent to an angry red-orange, Ellgon declared, “Planetary expulsion order expanded. Enforcement imminent.”
Dax looked to her companions. “Planetary expulsion?”
“Actually, they’d already ordered it,” Finnegan said. “I was on the way to tell you that. You and I have to leave Casmarra.”
Georgiou’s focus was still back on the message. “Casmarran, what was Burnham going to say? Where did your people send the Jadama Rohn?”
Ellgon said nothing. Instead, the archivist drew its limbs back, narrowing its diameter as it stepped behind the giant pillar. The peculiar data device went dark.
Georgiou took a last angry look at it—and remembered the device at her hip. She activated her comm unit, only to hear a familiar voice. “Quintilian to Captain Georgiou. Come in, Captain. Philippa, if you’re out there—”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Are you where I think you are?” he asked. “Never mind. I already know. We traced the aircar to Vertex 22—and the Casmarrans said someone there was impersonating a member of S’satah’s team. They’re on the warpath.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you’re in one of their sanctums without permission, they might use those limbs of theirs to tear off yours. They can get them going pretty fast.”
“Use the cargo transport to beam me back,” she said. “Target this communicator!”
“I can’t do that. The Casmarran structures throw off interference—you probably found that out going in. But even if it worked, I still can’t help. Two of you were already under an expulsion order. All three of you are now—and if I help, I may be too.”
“I thought you cared.”
“Of course I do—and I will help. But first, you’re going to have to get out on your—”
Static replaced his voice—that, and thunder. Within seconds, the whole structure around them began to quake, with a distant rumbling sound coming from all directions but one.
Finnegan took several steps back, a sick look on his face. “Oh, I know what that is. It’s the starfish on the march.”
“And on the roll,” Dax said, putting away her tricorder.
With so many vehicles parked in the facility, it was impossible to see far in any one direction. But the rumbling seemed to indicate Casmarrans advancing, both by rolling and their end-over-end walking. And after her interactions with S’satah, she didn’t expect they would simply take her prisoner.
Georgiou gave a last angry look at the darkened pillar and made a command decision. She pointed up ahead. “That way!”
“Why there?” Finnegan asked.
“It’s where we haven’t been—and there’s not as much noise coming from there.” She had a hunch, but the only way to check it out was on the run.
They had passed another hundred meters’ worth of parked derelicts when the first Casmarran came into view from the left, its limbs whirling too fast to be seen. Weaponless, Georgiou entered a defensive stance—only to realize as it approached that no martial artistry practiced by bipeds could deflect the attack of such a being.
“Dax!” she heard Finnegan call out.
She spun and saw the Trill gymnast scrambling nimbly up the slanted wing of one of the closely packed vehicles ahead of them. Georgiou got the idea and followed, shouting back to Finnegan, “Climb or die, fool!”
The three had reached the top of an alien shuttle when the wave hit. Charging Casmarrans, reeking of sulfur, slammed against the base of the vehicle, with other skittering specimens scuffling with one another to climb after the fugitives. The impact reverberated through the vessel, but Dax and Georgiou were no longer atop it, having leapt the narrow gap to the rooftop of the next vehicle over. Dax looked back to Finnegan and shouted, “Sean, come on!”
“Oh, I knew I’d regret all those meals,” he said, bounding from one ship to the next. He didn’t land nearly as gracefully, Georgiou saw, but she didn’t care. The obstacle course had slowed down the Casmarran rampage just long enough for her to confirm her theory. Up ahead, over several more vehicles, was blackness.
The night.
Georgiou leapt to the next conveyance ahead. Of course, an indoor impound area would have an entrance—and the Casmarrans were so confident no one would trespass that they’d failed to include a door. And while she had not thought of the corollary earlier, it came to her as they worked their way ahead, clambering over a sea of alien guards: Where else would the most recently impounded shuttle be?
“Boyington!”
Georgiou didn’t need to say the name; she had already bounded ahead. A backflip landed her on the floor outside its closed accessway. The hatch groaned open; the Casmarrans evidently hadn’t drained the ship’s power yet. She entered and prepared to shut the door.
“Wait!” Dax yelled. Georgiou saw that she had stopped to help Finnegan, who had evidently taken a spill; he was a jumper but no acrobat. The location of the Casmarran horde could be seen by the quaking vehicles in the distance.
Georgiou’s impulse was to leave them. But there was no going back to Tallacoe for her now—and it had become apparent that, as flawed as her companions were, she’d gotten farther with them than without them.
She held the door.
“Thanks,” Dax said, panting as she and Finnegan climbed inside. “I thought you were going to leave us.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Georgiou said, sealing the hatch. “You’ve still got the tricorder recording.”
“Real sentimental,” Finnegan said, settling into the copilot’s seat. “Every day around Georgie I’m filled with the warmth of love and understanding.”
Georgiou fired the thrusters, an act that, she could see from the external imagers, caused the Casmarrans to stop without coming closer. A pity, as she would have loved to have fried a few.
As Boyington pivoted and pointed outside, Finnegan looked to the skies, where the silhouettes of many flying vessels could be seen. “What’s to stop those ships of theirs from just hauling us back?”
They didn’t have long to wonder. The shuttle hadn’t gone far when Quintilian hailed. “Quintilian to Boyington. Are these my lost sheep?”
“We’re out,” Georgiou said, “no thanks to you.”
“You can thank me for this: I just threatened Xornatta that I’d forget to even pick up next season’s harvest. It worked. You still have to leave, but you won’t be followed.”
Georgiou saw it was true. Boyington cleared the stratosphere and soared skyward, unmolested. “They kept their word,” she said. “They respect you. Fear you.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but—” Quintilian broke off before finishing. “Ah, Philippa, we could have done so many things. Where will you go?”
Behind the emperor, Dax had found something on her tricorder. She thrust it before Georgiou’s eyes. Frozen on the small display was a close-up of the data slate that Burnham had turned in the direction of the Casmarran pillar, just before the interruption. Georgiou read aloud the name Burnham had written there, detailing where Jadama Rohn had been sent after its sale. “The Dromax system?”
“The Dromax system?” Quintilian echoed, having overheard. “Is that where you’re headed?”
Georgiou said the name again. “I suppose so,” she told Quintilian.
“Why do you want to go there?” He quickly followed it
up with, “Never mind. I’ve been trying to get you back here for five years. I’d rather you go next door than across the cosmos again.”
Georgiou tried to remember what she could from her invasion of the place. How much would have changed? But there was a matter to ask about first. “Are we expelled from all Troika space,” she asked, “or just Casmarra?”
“The Dromax can be counted on to make up their own minds,” Quintilian said. “Gnaeus can tell you where to find the leader of his tribe. I’ll send that information along.”
Georgiou looked to her companions as Boyington ascended to orbit. Dax gave a thumbs-up. “I guess we’re on our way,” the emperor said. “Thank you for the hospitality.”
“Bonne chance, Cherie. Au revoir.”
“Wait a second,” Finnegan said. “I have a question for Mister Quintilian.”
“What is it?”
“This Dromax place. How’s the food?”
Stage Four DESTRUCTION
The evil that men do lives after them;
To be immortal, learn that lesson well.
—MARC ANTONY,
at the execution of Brutus
The Revenge of Julius Caesar,
William Shakespeare, 1599
32
Shuttlecraft Boyington
DROMAX SYSTEM
“Incoming!”
Georgiou’s shuttle had just barely dropped out of warp when Finnegan declared it was under attack. It was frightening news to Dax, who’d asked for some flying hours. “I thought Quintilian said they wouldn’t fire on us!”
“It’s not weapons fire,” Georgiou said. She already knew what it was, from her conquests in her universe. “Retro thrusters, now!”
Dax activated them—and gulped as a hunk of rock, not present in her view before, hurtled by on a trajectory crossing Boyington’s path. “That asteroid wasn’t on the scanners—or the star maps!”
“It’s not an asteroid. It’s ammo.”
Dromax was a colossal gas giant, bloodred in a congested stretch of Troika space marked by star-on-star violence. So huge was the ringed world that it had more than a thousand moons: many misshapen heaps snagged as rogue bodies from passing stars, as well as a few dozen orbs that would have been M-Class planets had fusion ever ignited within Dromax.
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