Star Trek

by John Jackson Miller

  * * *

  The sun had risen outside, but the storms had not stopped. Georgiou could see the sky now, outside the abandoned northern entrance of the tunnel. And before her, across a wet black floor, sat the cargo ship she had seen in images taken by Archimedes, twenty-five years before.

  “Jadama Rohn,” she said.

  It was an old Orion freighter, like the one in her universe, and it had the external-vent modifications that Captain Georgiou and Burnham had noted in the surveillance video recorded in the Casmarran impound station. The ramp was down; apparently it was still working. Dax lingered outside, staring up inside it.

  “Where’s Finnegan?” Georgiou asked.

  “He went inside,” Dax mumbled. The Trill’s eyes were fixed. “I don’t—”

  Georgiou snorted. “You mean you’ve come all this way, gone through everything to find this ship—and now you’re afraid to set foot in it?”

  “The Cloud,” Dax said, snapping out of it. “If the Cloud that struck Farragut came from it—”

  “Then it’s no longer here. There was no relapse aboard Farragut after it left, was there?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re being silly.” Georgiou marched up the ramp. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Dax had not moved. She turned. “Fine. Go tell Agamalon you’ll accept his flight out of here. Tell Leland everything you’ve seen. I’m sure he will consider that a successful mission.”

  Dax looked up—and reluctantly turned.

  Good enough, Georgiou thought. One down.

  She walked halls filled with musty, stale air. It was clearly a death ship, but someone had hauled off the bodies. Black markings from some kind of indelible ink could be seen on the deck, noting where crewmembers had fallen. They were everywhere, in every pose. If a blood devil visited here, it had stricken quickly, and without mercy.

  Even more markings awaited her on the bridge—as did Finnegan. He looked back to her. “Where’s Daxie?”

  “Nature called.”

  He seemed to accept that. “At least Agamalon’s guest quarters for ‘two-legs’ had plumbing. This cave, not so much.”

  She advanced to the control stations. “What’s the status?”

  “Ship seems nominal—someone flew it here, after all. But the controls are locked under an external encryption program. I had to cycle the landing ramp by hand—and hot-wire the consoles here just to get a prompt.”

  “You sound like you’ve had to steal an Orion ship before.”

  “I don’t put everything on my résumé.”

  Georgiou studied a screen. “Someone tried to erase the logs, as well. It didn’t work—so they locked up the whole ship.”

  Finnegan pointed to another screen. “There’s a Starfleet log-in program that’s been added on top of the system.”

  “Starfleet?”

  “Surprised me, too. It wants a captain or higher.”

  “Verbal command interlock?”

  “Aye.”

  The emperor moved to that station. “I was given Georgiou’s codes when they gave me control of Discovery. I’m sure they changed them the instant I got off the ship—but they wouldn’t have been changed here.” She said Captain Georgiou’s name and rank and cited a numeric code.

  Within seconds, the log-in attempt worked—and all systems aboard Jadama Rohn hummed to life. The emperor found it amusing. “No wonder Section 31 needs a computer to imagine security threats. These people never plan for anything.”

  Finnegan pointed to the screen he was standing before. “There’s a message with the Starfleet program.”

  “Open it.”

  On the large forward viewscreen, Georgiou saw a familiar face—five years younger than the one belonging to the woman responsible for her exile:

  My name is Michael Burnham. I serve with Starfleet aboard Shenzhou, with Captain Georgiou. She’s outside now, dealing with one of the Dromax tribal leaders. We beamed in from our shuttle once we figured out where this freighter was, but we’re not supposed to be in this place, and we’re going to have to leave.

  This recording is to inform whichever Starfleet officer finds it that the Jadama Rohn’s fate was not drug-related. Rather, it may have been something more sinister.

  Since the captain first saw the ship, she believed there was something unusual about it; earlier this week at Casmarra, we began to believe the vents on the hull might have related to a collection device, targeting an interstellar antigen. We believe this antigen was not secured properly, killing the crew.

  We expected the logs of this vessel would lead to the source of the antigen, and they have. But we urge you not to go, for the same reasons we were reluctant to inform Starfleet about this trip. We think Captain Vercer may have been seeking to weaponize the antigen—and Captain Georgiou and I share grave concerns that someone else could do the same, should this information leak. In fact, it was concern about that very eventuality that prompted us—

  —never mind. I won’t get into that now. My captain believes the thing which struck Jadama Rohn is so dangerous, so hostile to life, that the only responsible course is to prevent others from searching for more. Whether this decision is right or wrong, she is prepared to accept the consequences, and so am I. We cannot live with what may happen should we fail. Burnham out.

  Georgiou stared at the screen, now blank. So that was it, she thought. Little Captain Georgiou was so frightened of opportunity that she’d not only broken Starfleet regulations to lock away the secrets of the blood devils, but she’d dragged Michael into it as a willing accomplice.

  “I’ve got the logs going,” Finnegan said. “There they be.” He read. “ ‘Twenty-five years ago, immediately before the Archimedes encounter’—huh.”

  “What?”

  “It came from Oast.” He looked back—

  —and into the heel of Georgiou’s boot. Finnegan slammed backward against the console, giving her an open shot to deliver a knockout blow with the back of her hand. His body collapsed across the markings on the floor where others had fallen, so many years ago.

  She took a long breath as she looked down at his fallen form. “You would get useful only here at the end.” She grabbed his wrists and began dragging.

  She was in the corridor outside the bridge when his unconscious form rolled across something. She paused and knelt, fishing for the thing lodged beneath Finnegan’s body. It was a black marker, probably the one that had been used on the decks. The markings of manufacture were Orion. She was not surprised by that, nor by the fact that when she shook it, its ink was still liquid. Nobody could beat the Orions for making quality implements that few people really used anymore.

  Thinking again, she realized it might have a use after all.

  Having resumed her exertions a couple of minutes later, she finally got Finnegan out onto the landing ramp. Agamalon and several armed Dromax were outside, waiting at its base. “Take him,” she said, gesturing. “Do you have Dax?”

  “She was on her way down the tunnel,” Agamalon said. “When she saw us, she turned and ran. We’ll find her.”

  She didn’t pass me, Georgiou thought. It didn’t matter. “I’m leaving. I don’t want any trouble from either of them.”

  Agamalon snorted. “I guess two-leg leaders have to put down insurrections the same way I do.”

  “They do in my world.”

  “Should we vaporize them?”

  The question jarred Georgiou. After a pause, she said, “No. Just make sure they never leave—and that they don’t call anyone.” She thumbed back at Jadama Rohn. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get this plague ship out of your way.”

  “There really is no end to your good deeds. Farewell.”

  Stage Five VENGEANCE

  Terrans wallow in their past. It’s their great weakness. They say our Alliance would never have defeated them had, say, Emperor Georgiou survived. Rank nonsense. When one human more or less barely makes a difference to the mining quotas, I think the fate of the universe
is safe!

  —SUPREME LEGATE DUKAT

  Speech at Cardassian Central Command, 2377

  41

  Freighter Jadama Rohn

  TROIKA SPACE

  Fear, Lela Dax had once said before other Trill legislators, was a thing of variable utility. In proper quantities, it prevented people from making the wrong decisions; when overactive, it stopped them from making the right ones. Those effects scaled, impacting individuals and entire states alike. Good government, she’d said, required telling the difference between the two.

  Fear had prevented Emony Dax from setting foot on Jadama Rohn. It was, as Georgiou had said, irrational—but as soon as she’d approached the freighter in the tunnel, she’d felt as if she were with Eagan and her other colleagues, walking the halls of Farragut while the cloud creature was still active. No matter that she had faced risks since then from Casmarrans, Dromax, her own piloting skills, and the odd ex-emperor. The Cascade wasn’t the only time machine behind the falls.

  She had turned back, thinking that, as Georgiou had said, she had done her part for Eagan, Farragut, and Starfleet. But something about the advance of Agamalon and the other Dromax, weapons drawn, seemed less than welcoming. That left Jadama Rohn, which she still had no desire to hide in. She’d crawled beneath the landing ramp then. That was where she was when Georgiou emerged with Finnegan’s body, along with her orders to hold him and Dax indefinitely.

  Dax had no desire to leave Finnegan behind—but also no expectation of being able to evade the Dromax. Where might she go? When Jadama Rohn suddenly lifted off, she decided. Grabbing onto the bottom of the still-closing gangplank, she did her best parallel-bar act to get on top of it and squeeze into the ship.

  The Orion vessel terrorized her with its remembrances of the fallen, marked in black everywhere on the decks. Georgiou frightened her more.

  She’d thought at times she was coming to understand the woman; most recently, when they were aboard Agamalon’s transport. But something inside the emperor kept her veering off the path of decent behavior. Yes, Dax understood that Georgiou saw her and Finnegan as anchors around her neck. But why would she wait until they found Jadama Rohn to run off? There were many better ships to abscond with, for certain.

  There had to be something else.

  She’d waited hours trying to figure out her next steps, all while hiding in a chilly closet. She wasn’t about to seek sanctuary in the cargo hold; that was where Captain Georgiou and Burnham had found that strange container attached to the exterior vents. But there really was no sanctuary anywhere: the freighter shuddered like a ghost, its long-dormant engines setting off creaks and groans that terrified her.

  Then she had reached up to the garments in the closet—and felt the disruptor pistol in the pocket of one of the jackets.

  She searched for a smaller jacket, figuring the one thing she didn’t want to do was carry the weapon openly. She wasn’t even sure why she wanted it. Farragut’s shot, had it come in time, might not have done anything to the cloud. How much damage was a handheld weapon likely to do? And she couldn’t see herself shooting at Georgiou, except maybe to stun. But toting the disruptor about freely would surely result in the emperor trying to disarm her. Better to wait until she needed it.

  After calculating how long Georgiou had already been awake, Dax took a chance and slipped from the closet, jacket on and fastened and pistol hidden in the pocket inside. Her reconnaissance then began—

  —and ended, sooner than she expected, on the bridge. The ship was in interstellar space, she saw, headed somewhere—and Georgiou was nowhere to be seen. Dax approached the control station and thought. She’d been able to get Eagan’s shuttle, Leizu, back to Starbase 23, but that route had been among the preprogrammed ones, and everything she needed to read had been helpfully written in Federation Standard. All she could see in that language on the screens was a message waiting to be played.

  After first turning down the volume—that much she could figure out—she played it, beholding Michael Burnham on the larger screen above. Spellbound, Dax stepped closer to hear it.

  She was still standing there when the message snapped off. It had ended—but that was not the only reason. She turned to see the emperor at the control station. “Hear anything interesting?”

  Dax looked at her, wide-eyed. “You know what I heard.”

  Georgiou pointed to the jacket. “Cold?”

  “Freezing.”

  “Almost certainly a dead man’s jacket,” Georgiou said, stalking around the console. Dax took several steps to the side. “I didn’t think you wanted to be on this ship.”

  “I want to know why you want to be on it. I want to know why you came this far. Why you came at all.”

  Georgiou smiled primly. “You told me your opinion. I came to be pampered by Quintilian—and to play general again with Agamalon.”

  “But that’s not why you want to be on this ship.”

  “No.” Georgiou stared at her for a long moment—and then gestured with her hands. “Boo!”

  Dax jumped a step back—but did not go for the gun.

  Georgiou laughed. “You’re too much fun, Dax.” She stepped back around to the command consoles and checked the vessel’s heading. “If you must know, I’m following the leads, just like I was asked to. Before Jadama Rohn encountered Archimedes, she’d come from Oast.”

  “The third part of the Troika?” Dax looked at the viewport. “That’s where we’re going?”

  “Following the leads. Do try to keep up.”

  Dax stared. “But you’re not doing this for Leland. For Section 31.”

  “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

  “Why would you go if you weren’t?”

  Georgiou looked up from the console—and exhaled deeply. “Okay,” she said, pacing. “Say the dikironium cloud creature existed in my universe.”

  Dax had always wondered about that. “Did it?”

  “This is a thought experiment, darling. I don’t think your poor heart could take anything else.” Georgiou knelt by the black markings on the deck. “Say there was a Jadama Rohn in my universe, delivering me what I expected would be a cloud creature. Oh, let’s just use the name I knew them by—a blood devil.”

  Dax seemed to remember hearing it from her before. It fit, she thought. “Why would you want something like that?”

  “For the reason Burnham there didn’t want anyone to know about it. Power. You just saw it back there with the Cascade. Something unique, something special, has great value to the possessor. It’s worth killing for, even here.”

  “So it can kill for you.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes so I can prevent others from killing me with it.” She stood and crossed her arms. “That’s how I lost it. Jadama Rohn was destroyed by a traitor who didn’t want me using it. A little pissant named Eagan.”

  Dax did a double take. “Not Rodolfo Eagan!”

  “I have no idea. He was Dead Eagan by the time Finnegan—er, Blackjack got done with him.”

  “He’s dead here too. He was Lieutenant Georgiou’s captain when she first encountered the ship—and who I was working under at the Farragut. He’s the one who sent me to warn Section 31 about the cloud.”

  Georgiou looked genuinely surprised. “The name was redacted in Section 31’s briefing. But then Leland hadn’t intended to tell me anything about why we were going.”

  “Until I opened my mouth.” Feeling sick, Dax shrank back against the bulkhead. “Now I guess you want a blood devil for yourself, here in my universe. Is that it?”

  “I haven’t decided. Quintilian keeps his romantic options open; I do the same, but with everything.”

  “But how could you even think of using something so—so wretched? The thing kills randomly.” Dax waved about the bridge. “It killed the very people who were carrying it!”

  “Because they didn’t know how to handle it. Did you know the first people in my universe to deploy a sodium bomb killed everyone within thirty kilomete
rs of the test site, including themselves? But that doesn’t mean you stop trying.”

  “It does if there’s no safe use for something. It’s a damned cloud!”

  “You haven’t convinced me.”

  The console chimed. Outside, the hurtling stars vanished and slowed—revealing an inky spot of blackness ahead.

  Georgiou stepped back to the navigation station, seemingly unsurprised. “Oast is in an absorption nebula. One little star in there in a tiny pocket—only traders like Quintilian knew the best route in. And Vercer was one of them.” She moved to the helm and activated the impulse drive. “Course is set. We’re heading in.”

  Dax looked at the comm station. It had been her other option, besides rerouting the freighter. Georgiou caught her expression. “Don’t be tiresome, Dax. You’re unlikely to reach Leland even if you tried—and I’d rather not have to hurt you.”

  The Trill looked up. “Why not?”

  Georgiou had no answer. “I don’t really know. But I think you are as curious as I am to see what’s ahead.”

  Dax had to admit that she was. She fixed her eyes on the viewscreen—and watched as blackness replaced everything else.

  42

  Moon One

  DROMAX SYSTEM

  Finnegan had awakened in prisons before, but seldom a cage. Yet that was all the Dromax had handy: a latticed metal container, evidently for restraining one of their own kind.

  After the first time he woke up in it—sitting against the bars cross-legged with an angry welt on his forehead and no idea what had happened—he’d overheard that his captors had gone to great difficulty to bring the cage up the hill and into the tunnel. It now sat, Finnegan inside it, exactly where Jadama Rohn had rested for years. Apparently whatever superstitions the Dromax had about the freighter departed when it did—though Finnegan had no recollection of the vessel leaving, or what had happened to his friends.

  He just knew he felt miserable. Beyond the knock to the head, he’d suffered from being in the wet draft from the waterfall that curtained one wall of the tunnel. Spray ran freely across the cave floor, meaning he was often sitting in a puddle; he had a raging rash. And sneezing hurt his lungs awfully.