Star Trek

by John Jackson Miller

  “I don’t care.”

  She ran a scan—and then, seconds later, addressed the Dromax’s Cascade-spawned duplicate. “Do you mind if I scan you?”

  “It can’t talk without a voice box,” Garph said. “Or with one.”

  Georgiou watched Dax as she activated her device and ran it over the new Dromax. At last, the emperor understood why the species’ numbers had plummeted so much after she had invaded in her universe; the Dromax had either been cut off from the Cascade, or the crystalline structure had been destroyed under bombardment. But this one existed—and the potential for it was limitless.

  It might even get her back to her own universe.

  Dax deactivated her tricorder and beckoned for Georgiou and Finnegan to join her. She looked back up the passage they’d entered through. “This is something, but it’s not what we were looking for.”

  “It’s not what you were looking for. Quiet.” Georgiou thought, desperately trying to figure out some other way that the column could be weaponized. “The Dromax have the power to duplicate anything with this—including a living being—and they choose to use it to create reinforcements. And only that. What a lack of imagination.”

  “No kidding,” Finnegan said. “A fellow could run latinum through and be set for life.”

  Georgiou turned to face the column. Forget blood devils, and the damn freighter. Forget Whipsaw. This was the true secret weapon hidden within Troika space. She smiled. “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s not,” Dax said.

  Georgiou glowered. “What do you mean?”

  “Look at these measurements.” She showed the tricorder readings to the emperor. “This is something I was doing during my research project—comparing individuals versus their past baselines.”

  Georgiou studied—and frowned. She turned back to the edge of the pool, where Dax had placed the duplicate of Finnegan’s disruptor pistol. She ran a scan on it with her own tricorder.

  No.

  In a quick motion, she snatched the weapon from the surface and pointed it at the column.

  This time, it was Agamalon who said “No!” The general’s voice resonated throughout the chamber—but as Georgiou pulled the trigger, that sound was all she heard.

  The disruptor didn’t work.

  She looked back at her tricorder and reported the disappointing results. “The matter’s fine,” Georgiou added, “but there’s something wrong with the energy. The phase variance is slightly out of kilter—unsurprising, if this thing is a natural phenomenon. It means that the second version is just a little bit off. In the case of the disruptor, it’s off enough not to work.”

  “In the case of Dromax, it means the creation of a stupid, sterile fool,” Agamalon said. “One who can only follow, and who must be scarred so as not to be mistaken for a Dromax by birth—or accidentally sent through the Cascade, creating an abomination.”

  “You sound like others have tried.”

  “They have. It wasn’t pretty.”

  Dax’s eyes were wide with wonder. “The Dromax are like all of us—bioelectric beings. The more complex the energy, the more out of whack it seems to get.”

  “Out of whack being a technical term,” Finnegan said.

  “That explains why the quality of the troops is so low,” Georgiou said. “It’s not that they’re clones—it’s that anything that walks out of the portal is going to be lesser. Officers are born. The soldiers are reflections, echoes in space and time.” She looked keenly at the column. “Maybe it can be adjusted.”

  “You won’t mess with it,” Agamalon said. “Our whole civilization has been based on this place since the beginning times, when Dromax first rose on this moon. We’ve been battling for control of it ever since. But so many want it that nobody can hold it for long.” The general passed Georgiou on the way back to the ramp. “Get out of my way. I have a lot more dives to do!”

  Georgiou looked to Dax. “These errors in the duplicated Dromax. They are fatal?”

  “Eventually, I’m sure.”

  “Everything is born dying. How long do they live?”

  “It’s a tricorder, not a crystal ball. Why don’t you ask someone?”

  “They don’t have to live very long,” Garph said, having overheard. “They never get to, anyway.” The sergeant handed off the knife to another Dromax officer and made for the ramp. “My turn!”

  Alone by the far wall, Finnegan looked unusually thoughtful. “Come to think of it, this thing could be abused. Imagine the Klingons getting it.”

  “It shouldn’t even exist,” Dax said.

  “Just let me think,” Georgiou said. “I need a minute.”

  It was one she was not to get. A low boom could be heard outside the chamber. Eyes wide, Georgiou and the others ran from the grotto into the main tunnel.

  A battered Dromax lieutenant stopped them before they reached the end. “We’re under assault from the other tribes. They just started arriving.”

  “Which ones?” Georgiou asked.

  “The ones we struck over the last days.”

  Dax’s eyes went wide. “But that’s all of them.”

  “Yes. We’re under siege.”

  39

  Moon One

  DROMAX SYSTEM

  “The news just gets better and better,” Finnegan said, returning inside.

  “Now what?” After a night and day of siege, Georgiou had repaired back into the tunnel for a rest—and the few hours of sleep she’d caught hadn’t made her feel any better. She rolled over on the rocks and squinted at him. “Why are you wet?”

  “It’s pouring out there again. Pretty bad.”

  She was relieved. She’d been afraid the lunkhead had gone through the Cascade, as he’d earlier wanted to. “Are we still holding?”

  “Barely. Everybody’s buckled down in the tanks and trying to keep moving.”

  “And the troops?”

  “Agamalon’s people are going through the Cascade as fast as they can and sending grunts outside.” He scratched his growth of beard. “They’re dying in under an hour sometimes.”

  Georgiou rose and worked the shoulder she’d slept on. She and Finnegan stepped to the entrance and surveyed the situation. Storms raged beyond. Below the precipice, the sloping trail to the southern approach remained intact—but much of that approach was pocked by craters from shells delivered aerially.

  “When I last saw Garph, he was shriveled like a raisin,” Finnegan said. “There’s no way they can generate new troops fast enough. All they can use are the good weapons the dead have dropped.”

  She gestured. “The craters stop about a kilometer out.”

  “That’s as close as the other tribes will bomb to the waterfall. I think they’re afraid of damaging the Cascade.”

  Georgiou nodded. In countless years of fighting, nobody had ever dropped a meteor anywhere near the place. She remembered Agamalon saying the northern entrance wasn’t an option; she wondered how it would have been blocked, if so many feared to bomb close by.

  “Those are Skove’s forces,” Georgiou said, pointing to the vanguard engaging the Double Crescent’s outer perimeter in the muck.

  “Yeah, the Spikes let the other tribes send flanking assault waves, then they head up the middle.” He looked to her. “I don’t think we can hold out much longer. You think they’ll care that we’re not Dromax?”

  “They know we’ve been helping Agamalon, so I doubt it.” She eyed him. “We are in, sink or swim.”

  “I’m about ready to go make a bunch of copies of myself and have us all make a run for it. Maybe one of me will sneak through.”

  “You have an unusual and horrifying fixation on that concept,” she said. “But I guess a bunch of dim-witted Finnegans wouldn’t differ much from the original.”

  He looked back at her with tired eyes. “Oh, Georgie, I know you love me.” He turned. “I’m going to find Dax.”

  Georgiou knelt in the opening. Night was falling, but the near-constant lightning
kept the ground eerily lit. Even in the storm breaks, the night before, the spaces between the dark clouds had remained an eerie orange. The many moons saw to that, as did their proximity to the gas giant. Even with the bulk of the entire moon between their location and the planet, it made its presence known.

  The emperor had wondered if the Cascade’s position relative to the huge planet had contributed to its creation; doubtless, all the tugs from other moons had led to the feature’s instability. She’d been unable to think of any use for it in the current situation. All she knew was that the Dromax were still willing to kill for it—and she was stuck inside.

  A bolt of lightning struck nearby, sending booming thunder into the tunnel past her. She didn’t move. Pelted with sheets of windswept rain, she considered that the entire enterprise had been a misadventure. Agamalon had been too busy to speak again of Jadama Rohn, and if it was anywhere on the moon, she had no hope of reaching it.

  The only play she could imagine was escape—or perhaps treachery. Would Skove, who seemed the strongest of the rivals, take her on as an ally, as Agamalon had—or would he kill her on sight? And what would happen to Dax and Finnegan if she fled?

  And why am I even thinking of them?

  Battered by rain, she stood and straightened her uniform. Captain Georgiou’s accursed uniform. She was going to have to act on her own, and damn anyone who—

  Light appeared before her feet. A transporter effect, resolving into a large briefcase.

  It tipped over on the uneven surface, nearly tumbling out onto the sloping path. Georgiou snatched it and pulled it inside.

  She looked about. No one was around. There was something wrapped around the handle to the case; a note, on some kind of paper she hadn’t seen before. She squinted in the flickering light from outside and read:

  MOST IMPRESSIVE.

  TIME FOR A CLASSIC.

  SEE YOU AT THE LAST STOP.

  She read it twice—and then gawked as the paper burst into flames. She dropped it. It was gone in an instant, leaving no ash.

  Time for a classic? What can that possibly mean?

  She felt for the latches on the case. It opened easily—and what it revealed inside answered her question as well as any detailed briefing could have.

  She closed it quickly and turned. A Dromax lieutenant was there, guiding a bunch of new soon-to-be-dead grunts out to the battlefield. “Go call Agamalon. I have a plan.”

  “ To survive?”

  “No. To win. Once and for all.”

  * * *

  Georgiou had always suspected that the tribal chiefs of the Dromax had some means for contacting each other. No, the tribes never allied in groups with one another except as part of ad-hoc actions, like the one that had raged outside for a day and a half. But they did have ways to send threats besides simply hurling asteroids around.

  Thanks to her, Agamalon had recently sent such a threat. And it had prompted an immediate cease-fire, with the warlords of eight of the other tribes presenting themselves at the front lines. Some, like Skove, were already on the scene; others had to descend in shuttles. To avert a brawl, Georgiou had ordered the Double Crescent lines re-formed to screen the leaders from one another as they were led, one at a time, up toward their holiest of places.

  Last to arrive in the grotto, General Jorza of the Whorls reacted as all the others had: with revulsion at the sight of Finnegan standing, shoulder deep, in the pool before the crystal column that was the Cascade. “Get out of there, you filthy beast!”

  “I know, I know,” Georgiou said, sauntering past. “You’re afraid he dove in from above. I’d never do that to you. I just wanted him to make a little adjustment.”

  Finnegan moved aside—revealing, on the portion of the Cascade just above the water line, an oblong device adhering to the crystal surface.

  “It’s like Agamalon told you,” she said, stepping to the outside of the pool and facing the device. “A bomb. It’s strong enough not just to annihilate this room, but also to blow the whole front of the cataract out into the ocean. Your lake up there will drain into the sea in a day.” She stopped before the pool. “And it will definitely destroy your precious Cascade.”

  Jorza was horrified. “Agamalon, how could you let her do this?”

  “I didn’t want to,” the general replied. “But then she gave me one of these.” The Dromax displayed a communicator that had also been sent in the case. “I don’t know where she got it from—but everything changes. Now.”

  A classic. Georgiou had understood what it meant as soon as she’d seen the bomb. She’d been given a much more powerful device weeks earlier by Starfleet to end the Klingon War. Intended to devastate Qo’noS, the bomb had gone unused, thanks to the meddling of Burnham. She had given control of it to L’Rell, who had used it to blackmail the other Klingon houses into backing her.

  At the time, it hadn’t seemed to Georgiou to be a practical solution. First, and most obviously, it left the Klingons alive and undamaged. The second problem related to the so-called honor that the Klingons who visited her bar often prattled about. Would a planetful of raging, self-righteous zealots really consider kneeling before any blackmail, even one that threatened to annihilate their world? Many Klingons she’d met would have gladly taken planetary death over that.

  But the Dromax, knowing they’d be limited to reproducing the slow, messy, old-fashioned way?

  They would deal.

  She made sure of it. “Right now, with you all here, Agamalon will detonate this bomb.” An unsettled stir went through the gathered Dromax. “The general accepts martyrdom now, knowing that you all lost too.” She turned. “Or perhaps the general will use it later, after hearing any of you have gotten out of line. And the Double Crescent will deal, just as you, with never having any more shock troops again.”

  The generals went silent. She’d expected such a change to the status quo would be hard to contemplate. Georgiou began to pace. “But every day that Agamalon doesn’t detonate it, the Double Crescent will be churning out more and more warriors. And the general will do favors, as well, for those tribes that are cooperative.”

  General Skove, who’d been more disagreeable than any since entering, responded predictably. “What you’re saying is inconceivable. You’d make us all Agamalon’s vassals!”

  Georgiou strutted toward Skove and put her hands on her hips. “That is exactly what I’m doing, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m a general, you freakish fool!” Skove shouted.

  “There’s only one general.” She gestured to Agamalon, still holding the remote detonator. “And if you’d like to address your general’s guests more politely, those voice boxes of yours have nicer settings.” She smiled. “I have a feeling we may get the chance to use them.”

  40

  Moon One

  DROMAX SYSTEM

  The haggling went on long into the night, though it was only haggling in the sense that the other tribes were vying with one another to decide what to offer Agamalon. This starship, that moon, total political control. Finnegan, once dry, had suggested something called “pool passes,” which might result in some kind of economy of its own.

  Dax had predictably objected, saying the Cascade-spawned Dromax were essentially slaves, bereft of the right to choose for themselves. Georgiou had countered that they likely couldn’t do that in any event. Regardless, Dax had, also characteristically, remained silent about her objections before the Dromax. She saved her crusading comments for her companions.

  Georgiou still had no idea who her benefactor was. Only a very few people within the Federation knew about the bomb plot on Qo’noS, as did the leaders of the Klingon houses. Her best guess was that Section 31 had sent the device; the burning message was a silly flourish worthy of Leland. She knew he had certain capabilities for knowing where they were, but how he would have known exactly what was going on and what she needed remained a mystery.

  Agamalon finally broke free from his clutch of new admirers and joined Ge
orgiou and her companions in the main tunnel. “This is an amazing thing you’ve done, Two-Legs.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Georgiou said. “Just bringing an end to countless years of stagnation and pointless infighting.” She smirked. “The price for that ought to be a lot higher, but I’m willing to settle for what I asked. Maybe I am a freakish fool.”

  Agamalon laughed. “You’ll feel even more like one when I tell you this. The freighter you want is farther up the tunnel.”

  Dax gawked. “What?”

  “The one time I had control of the Jadama Rohn, I also controlled the Cascade. But the two approaches to the falls had always made it difficult to hold—we had to cover two fronts at once.” Agamalon gestured to the north. “So I hired one of the traders, some idiot willing to fly it, to move the ship to the antechamber inside the northern approach. Nobody dared come in that way again!”

  Georgiou scowled. “You mean just because of superstition, people gave up on the northern entrance entirely?”

  “I changed the strategic map. I thought that’s what you’ve been encouraging me to do these past few days. And as you’ve seen with the Cascade, some unbelievable things are quite true.”

  “Fair enough.” Georgiou turned to see Dax and Finnegan, as flabbergasted as she was. “It’s been right here! We never even looked.”

  Finnegan gestured up the side corridor. “To be fair, there was a magic pool that way.”

  “I don’t know why you want the damned ship,” Agamalon said. “Perhaps its proximity to the Cascade will have sanctified it. In any event, my thanks to you all. If you need anything—a flight out, a meal—just ask.”

  “Go,” she said to Dax and Finnegan. Satchels of supplies slung over their shoulders and portable lights in hand, the two headed up the tunnel, the rumbling of the waterfall covering their jubilant voices.

  Once they were gone, she turned back to Agamalon. “Come to think of it, I may need something after all, General…”