Getting that data to Leland had required quick thinking. The spymaster would almost certainly have wanted to recover Finnegan, dead or alive, once Georgiou went missing, if for no other reason than to recover the second VIDSS appliance. The emperor had then picked a method sure to convey her message, so long as the Dromax didn’t incinerate Finnegan’s body. The method of sending that message was unpleasant, to be sure, though she did note that the young brawler had kept in shape.
It was a true trick up her sleeve, deactivated and waiting, until she desired to be found. On seeing the blood devils, she’d decided that might be necessary. Quintilian’s mad plan had cinched it, even before she’d heard it all. As soon as she’d learned Finnegan had been transported from prison, she’d activated the unit while pretending to adjust her cuffs, adding voice transmissions to its viridium homing system. Section 31 would find her—and receive tactical information.
All due to her code words, spoken right in front of Quintilian’s face: “Hot night, darling.”
There would be time to tell Dax later, perhaps, when they were not huddling for safety amidst a firefight. “You’ll just have to take my word. That’s Leland up there shooting. I called him.”
“You called—?” Dax looked away. “You and Quintilian are both deranged. You’re a great couple.”
“Maybe we are.” Motion to the left caught her eye. One by one, Phylla and the other freighter pilots dashed into the grain fields to the north, devil traps clutched in their hands. No longer having Pyramis and Thisbe to guide them, the battle—or perhaps orders from Quintilian—had convinced them to make their own way.
Georgiou spoke emphatically. “Dax, there’s no time. I need you to do something—the most important thing you’ve ever done in your life. In any of your lives.”
“What—what do you want?”
She stood and stepped over to recover her disruptor. “Listen closely. And then—I need you to run!”
* * *
“Come on, cadets! To the obstacle course!”
The black-clad Section 31 security forces weren’t cadets, Finnegan knew, but he didn’t have a better war cry. And the landing zone was certainly an obstacle course. Quintilian’s Veneti were afoot, taking tactical positions and firing back with the aptitude of a group that knew something about fending off pirates—or competitors. Whirling Casmarrans were on the move, mostly trying to get back to their vessels and take to the air. And copper-armored Dromax were everywhere, firing randomly either into the fields or up in the air.
He’d almost not gotten to join the party. Leland had objected that Finnegan had only been out of sickbay a short while. That didn’t wash. Finnegan had finally realized the truth. The spymaster had no faith in his abilities, using him instead as a bulwark against meddling by the Federation Council, and then, literally, as a listening device planted in Georgiou’s party.
But on reaching Oast, Leland understood the sheer size of the task ahead. Every able-bodied crewmember was on the ground, fighting, while NCIA-93 contributed what it could from the air.
Finnegan finally found a firefight he was happy to take part in.
“Over there,” Finnegan called out as his squad gathered at a point of relative safety. “Those tall shadows. The Dromax are raising their portable artillery pieces.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“Seen them? Boyo, I’ve fired them.” He switched the setting on his phaser to something more devastating. “Let’s give it a lash. Go!”
* * *
Georgiou ran back through the encampment. Quintilian had transported to his flagship, she knew, but the freighters looked alike even in broad daylight, and she couldn’t remember which one she’d seen Gnaeus emerge from earlier. Some parked vehicles were aflame, while others were serving as fortresses on the ground, firing their disruptor turrets upward as impromptu antiaircraft batteries.
One of them struck pay dirt, winging the marauder overhead. It dipped and slowed for a moment, allowing her to confirm what she’d already suspected: it was either NCIA-93 or another of the same class of Section 31 vehicles. It hadn’t appeared to her to be particularly well suited for strafing runs; she suspected it would now be even less effective, putting more burden on the commandos.
She saw a group of them dash past, fleeing something. She found cover behind a cargo container—and then opened up on the pursuers. Four Dromax warriors vanished in swift succession.
“Halt!” A shot burned past her, nearly singeing her elbow. “Drop it!”
Georgiou considered spinning to fire—but couldn’t tell how close her assailant was. She let the weapon fall from her hand, figuring an enemy intent on killing her would already have done so.
She turned to see a single Dromax, alone in a makeshift alleyway between freighters. She recognized its ornate armor from earlier. “Hello again, General.”
“You!” Agamalon said, stunned. “I thought you were with Quintilian. Why are you shooting my people?”
“That’s… a complicated question,” she said, fervently thinking on a better response. None came.
“I should never have messed with two-legs. If I didn’t owe the trader for the Cascade, I’d leave in an instant.”
“You owed me for that.”
“He said you were working for him. It doesn’t matter. He provided the bomb for the Cascade; I’m sure he could activate it himself if I didn’t obey.”
“Some ally.”
“Dromax don’t like alliances, even with each other. But I’ve made my bargain. Good-bye.”
On seeing Agamalon’s weapon in motion again, Georgiou had considered a last-ditch pounce—but it proved unnecessary, when a metal bar struck the general from behind. The Dromax tumbled forward, revealing his attacker.
“How’s that for Blackjack, Georgie?” Finnegan said.
“Good enough,” she said, swiftly gathering her disruptor, as well as Agamalon’s. “You were expected.”
“I should be mad at you for the note you left—and for leaving me—but I didn’t mind giving this one a smack. I’ve always wanted to belt a general.”
Georgiou went over Agamalon’s body, searching. The general stirred—and looked back on Finnegan. “Oh.”
“That’s how I usually react,” Georgiou said.
Finnegan stepped past her and peered around a cargo container. “Have you got this? I’d better get back to my squad.”
She gave a thumbs-up. Then, seeing him about to leave, she called out, “Hey, Finnegan.”
He looked back. “Yes?”
She tossed him one of the disruptors.
“Thanks,” he said. “My phaser was spent.”
“And lose the crowbar. Not much use in a firefight.”
Finnegan smiled—and then laughed. He chucked the implement on the ground and dashed into action.
She turned back to see Agamalon, reeling but trying to get upright. “Well, get on with it,” the general said, noticing her. “Kill me.”
The emperor had other ideas. “You’d leave if you didn’t owe Quintilian.”
“I said that. What of it?”
“Just making sure.” She revealed the item in her hand, retrieved from Agamalon’s body: the remote control she’d been provided days earlier on Moon One. “There,” she said, pushing a button.
Agamalon struggled to get upright. “What did you just do?”
She pointed upward. “It depends on whether the Veneti’s transmitter relay on that silo is still powered and networked to their ships in your region. If it isn’t, then nothing happened.” A light blinked on the control. “Then again, I could get a message back telling me the deed is done, like this one.” She showed it to Agamalon. “The Cascade is no more.”
The Dromax general shook for several moments, with only unintelligible sounds coming from its voice box. The first recognizable words were of fury. “Oh, you insipid fool. You stupid, stupid alien. You have no idea what you’ve done!”
“I think I do.”
“Y
ou’ve killed my race! Do you have any idea what will happen to us now?”
“Actually, I do,” she said, recalling her experience in her own post-Cascade universe. “Your species will be limited to reproducing the normal way—and if you battle, your numbers will dwindle.” She threw away the remote. “Whether you fight for Quintilian or with one another, you’ll speed the end. Frankly, I don’t care what happens to any of you. But if you have any intelligence at all…”
The Dromax stared at her. “We’re leaving.”
“That’s sensible.” As she heard the firefight continuing to rage, her lip curled upward. “Unless you’d like to speed up extinction just a little more for some retribution.”
“What? You’re the one who pushed the button!”
“It wasn’t my bomb—and I never blackmailed you. I just suggested you blackmail others. Quintilian’s your manipulator.”
Agamalon ruminated. “I don’t know—”
“Come on, General. We always saw eye to… well, whatever you have.” She gestured in the direction of the battle. “Really, does it matter which two-legs you kill?”
49
The Fields
OAST
It didn’t matter what ships were burning, what ordnance was exploding, what hell was breaking loose in the staging area. Out in the fields, the night seemed as deep as before, as if the Oastlings themselves had the ability to shut out the universe beyond.
Maybe they have, Georgiou thought as she materialized in the clearing outside the House of the Lost Traveler. There was a reason she thought so.
With her recruitment of Agamalon, the Dromax started to turn the tide against the remaining Veneti employees. She’d boarded Quintilian’s flagship, the general in tow. Gnaeus, it turned out, owed more fealty to his former general than to the master on whose estate he’d served for years. It served Quintilian right for setting his voice box to speak so politely.
Gnaeus reported that, on learning that none of his pilots had reached the blood devils’ lair, Quintilian had attempted to beam there. The attempt had failed. So, too, did his attempt to transport outside the shrine—until he took the step of abandoning his disruptor. No weapons had been allowed in the fields when she’d approached earlier; somehow, the Oastlings had enforced that prohibition.
The emperor, too, was unarmed when she walked into the clearing—lit, as it was before, by the glow globes ringing the area. Quintilian stood quarreling with an Oastling outside the shrine.
Its door was closed.
Quintilian noticed her approach. “You’re here.”
“I’m glad I found you.” She approached with care, wondering how much, if anything, he knew about her recent activities.
“Maybe you can talk sense into Umyda. The house is sealed again.”
“Your people couldn’t get in?”
“None of them even found the place. I don’t know what happened to Pyramis and Thisbe.” He lifted his hands—and showed that he was gripping the chains for two devil traps. “I couldn’t bring a weapon. But with these, I won’t need one.” He beckoned for Georgiou to approach. “You opened the house the last time. Maybe it’ll open again for you.”
Georgiou stepped closer, concerned that might actually happen. But nothing did. She suspected she knew why.
“Tell us, Umyda,” she said. “Am I the guardian?”
“No,” came the psychic response.
“Is Captain Georgiou the guardian?”
“No longer.”
“Is there a guardian at all?”
“Yes.”
“Show us.”
The light inside Umyda’s mental membrane flickered. Georgiou stared deeply at the hypnotic light—
—until she was back in darkness again, able only to see Quintilian beside her.
He looked to her. “What’s going on?”
“You call for the guardian,” she said.
“I don’t have time for this.” He turned his head and shouted. “Show yourself!”
“Hello.”
The two turned. “Dax!” Quintilian said, flabbergasted. He looked to Georgiou. “You said you were going to kill her!”
“It’s not her,” Georgiou said. “That’s her spirit, imprinted onto the Oastling gatekeeper.”
Quintilian reached out to grab Dax. His hand passed straight through her arm.
“Tickles,” Dax said.
“Where are you really?”
“I’m inside the shrine right now, waiting.”
“How—” Quintilian frowned. “Open the door!”
“Let me think about that.” Half a second. “Yeah, that’ll be a no.”
“No?”
“N-O,” she spelled. “You shall not pass. You don’t have a ticket, you don’t get in. We’re all booked up.”
Georgiou marveled. She’d sent Dax here, reasoning that what Captain Georgiou had done, Dax could do too, providing she got there before Quintilian and his minions. Apparently, she had.
“This is ridiculous,” Quintilian said, stalking around her. “I’ve been inside many times before. I beamed inside just tonight!”
“That was then. There’s a new guardian at the gate.”
He shouted. “I want in!”
“Want all you want. Decisions of the judges are final.”
“Umyda!” Quintilian called into the void. “I’m not going to go through this again. My people are lost out there—bring them here. They all need access. I want it now!”
Dax’s body transformed into the visage of an Oastling—but her face remained the same. “You want access, but Dax does not. Her word commands. You could have brought no one here, including Philippa Georgiou, who more wants the House sealed forever.”
“You mean she’s just got to want it?” Quintilian blurted. “That’s ridiculous. Someone else can want it opened more. I can!”
“No. Emony Dax is Emony—but she is also Dax. She is also Lela.”
“Lela? Who’s Lela?”
“She is. I am,” said another Oastling, materializing from the darkness. This one had the face of an older Trill woman. “She is also Tobin.”
An Oastling with the face of an older male arrived from the void opposite. “I am Tobin. And she is us.”
The Emony-faced Oastling stood between the new arrivals, all facing Quintilian. They spoke in unison. “Four minds, four souls, four wills speaking as one. Their/her/his/its desire outweighs yours.”
“Who are these people? What are you talking about?”
“It is right,” the Emony Oastling said, “that the spiritual gatekeeper of the House of the Lost Traveler should be one who is divided, yet seeking to be one. Perhaps our tenders below can, like the Trill Guardians, help the broken aspects of Anowath’s brother heal.”
Baffled by the turn of events, Quintilian looked about—until his eyes landed on Georgiou. “What about her and me? We’re two people.”
“You do not speak with one voice. And if you did—the emperor does not want inside. She does not want the creatures within.”
He looked to Georgiou, eyes wide. “You don’t?”
The emperor was choosing her words when the Emony-faced Oastling declared, “She has acted in support of your enemies. Your force is in tatters, your plans on the precipice.”
The emperor swore. “You have got to stop reading my damn mind!”
Quintilian took several steps away from her, a vain act in a place where physical space had little meaning. He stared at the nothingness. “You did this. You sent Dax here. You’re why Pyramis and Thisbe haven’t arrived.”
“Georgiou-Emperor ended them.”
“Ended—?” Mouth open, he looked on her in horror. “I can’t believe you’d do that!” Then his eyes turned on the Oastlings. “I can’t believe you’d allow her to do that!”
“Pyramis and Thisbe left our people—and our ways—long ago. Like Anowath, their path was theirs alone.”
He focused again on Georgiou. “How?”
“Quickly,”
she replied. “If it matters, they knew fully who I was. You made sure of that.”
“But why did you have to kill them?”
“Your plan required them.” Georgiou stared at him. “I could either contribute to your success—or your failure. In that moment, I had to choose.”
“I thought you had chosen. Before, back on Casmarra!”
“I kept—”
“—your options open,” he said. His tone grew icy. “I should’ve expected it. An emperor, against empires. Like you would ever turn.”
“You did expect it,” the Emony Oastling said. “You chanced to bring her in anyway, because of how you felt about her.”
He frowned—and nodded. “And how did she feel?”
“She found your offer intriguing,” the Emony Oastling said. “But she—”
“I can do this myself!” Georgiou stepped in front of the glowing figure. “I liked your estate. How you look at things. Parts of your world reminded me of mine. And you—” She spoke plainly, knowing that the words would be spoken for her anyway. “I haven’t met anyone like you on this side.”
He stared at her. “But?”
“But I don’t take on lost causes. Your power base here is too small. It will take too much time, even with the blood devils and a waterfall that produces soldiers. If you’d brought me in earlier—a lot earlier—it might have worked. But in my universe, we met too late. And in this universe—you met the wrong me.”
“There would have been time,” he said.
“There wouldn’t. It’s why you’ve sped up your timetable now, isn’t it? You’re not well.”
“I’m fine!”
She looked to the Emony Oastling. “Do I have to ask her?”
Star Trek Page 34
