The Three-Handed Game 6

The Chancellor was in a foul mood. The Yan-Isleth guards stood rigid and perfect at attention, all around the big audience chamber; the political and military aides moved, if not fearfully, at least quietly and cautiously, around the burly figure.

J'mpok scowled up at the tall figure in bladed armour who stood before him. The Nausicaan envoy was good; he stood his ground, without trembling.

"I have received," he said, "a diplomatic protest. An attack, by a Nausicaan commando squad, on Starfleet Academy, aimed apparently at one Vice Admiral Shohl.... Shohl," he repeated. "I know that name. Where have I heard that name?"

"I have Shohl's record," said an aide, hastily. "She cooperated with your agent in the investigation of the Bercera IV matter."

"Ah." J'mpok grunted. "I knew I had heard the name. So. A reasonably competent officer. Our allies, Starfleet, need competent officers." He skewered the Nausicaan with a glare. "We have declared an armistice with the Federation. We fight with them together, now, against the qameH' Quv and their demon puppet masters. We have declared peace with the Federation, and the Klingon Empire keeps its word."

"Chancellor, we -" The Nausicaan took a deep breath. "We are at fault," he ground out, as if each word were being forced from him with painstiks.

"Not good enough," J'mpok snarled.

The Nausicaan replied, slowly and reluctantly, "What does the Empire require?"

The scowl deepened on J'mpok's scarred face. "I must go in to negotiate with the Federation over questions of boundaries," he said. "There are many such questions, and the Empire's interests must be defended - even in time of peace. Every incident like this hands the Federation negotiators another weapon with which to fight me. They are diplomats, the negotiation table is their preferred battleground. They have advantages already, they do not need more. I do not need additional handicaps." He raised his voice. "If the Federation demands the extradition of this fool Gvochkorr, will your government acquiesce? Or will they hand the Federation another rod for my back, instead?"

"Sir." Light glinted on the Nausicaan's armour as he squared his shoulders. "I have reviewed the - the background."

"And?"

"Former Governor Gvochkorr acted on his own initiative in hiring a mercenary assault team. He did not have the permission or support of our government. We will not protect him. Sir -"

"What?"

"We are a warrior people," said the Nausicaan. "We know how to fight - and how to accept the fortunes of battle. Sir... this Shohl and our people fought, and Shohl won. That is all there is to know. There is no claim of - of honour, of clan-rights - to make against her. Gvochkorr had no just cause for his action." The Nausicaan's eyes gleamed. "Sir, you may tell the Federation that if they do not want his extradition, we will deal with him."

There was a moment's silence. "Acceptable," said J'mpok. "Barely acceptable. I want no more such incidents, no more such complications. The situation is complicated enough."

"Yes, Chancellor," said the Nausicaan. He inclined his head, the nearest his own pride would let him come to a bow. "I will so inform my government."

"See that you do." J'mpok rose. "I have a meeting with the Federation's representatives," he said. "It will last a long time. They always do. Before I go, are there any other matters requiring my attention?"

"Chancellor." An aide in general's uniform stepped forwards, a datapad in his hand. "An incident in a frontier system - Dolsulca, home to the Siohonin species."

"Yes?"

"The IKS raD Hol, despatched on a tribute collection mission, has failed to return from that system. We should investigate -"

J'mpok waved aside the proffered datapad. "Deal with it," he growled, and stalked out of the room.

The Three-Handed Game 5

The night was warm and balmy, so after supper Daniella Quar climbed out through the skylight, onto the flat roof, to sit for a while beneath the stars.

"Hi, Dani." Daniella smiled. Maury Lansing had had the same idea. He was lying full-length on the roof, visible in the starlight. She sat down cross-legged beside him. Maury was, like her, a third-generation descendent of the original colonists of Farnon's World. The slightly lower gravity of the planet had made its children tall, lithe and willowy; the brilliant F8 sun had given them skin of a dark coffee-colour; she and Maury were much of a type, physically, though he lacked her trained dancer's grace. Daniella had always been fond of Maury, so much so that she had felt a pang - though only a brief one - of jealousy when he had begun dating her twin brother instead of her.

Now, there was a sound from the skylight, and Daniella's brother Thom put his head through. "Thought you guys would be up her," he said. He clambered awkwardly through the skylight, awkward because of the burden in his left hand. "Brought a bottle of the good stuff." And a stack of beakers, too; Thom was the practical one, Daniella thought.

She accepted a glass of the firewine, and the three of them sat, sipping, in companionable silence. Below them, the lights of Einsteingrad, the planetary capital, a planned community in the best Federation tradition; above them, the stars. At this time of year, the night sky was dominated by the huge nearby star cluster that the first colonists, for reasons of their own, had called the Dandelion. Daniella knew that this was some old Earth plant, but the star cluster never looked like a plant to her; it was more like a fireworks display, a starshell burst frozen in time at the moment of its explosion. It was beautiful.

"So, guys," said Thom, after a while, "you got any thoughts yet?"

Careers. Farnon's World was a Federation colony, a fully developed planet; there was no need for the hard labour that had tamed and terraformed the world in its early years. Everyone's basic needs could be met, by replicated food and materials... but who wanted to be a drone, living off a basic dole, when you could accomplish something with your life? For Daniella, at least, her choice was clear. "Cygni Dance Academy took my application already," she said. "If they like my holo-tapes for the audition, I'm in. Then, maybe, I get a shot at a scholarship on Andoria. OK, it'll be cold, but it'd be worth it. Maury? Still interspecies law?"

"Yeah," said Maury. "Got my applications out to the big ones, Harvard, ShiKahr, Xellan-Kaur. I'm gonna get in, I just know it. So that leaves you, big guy. What are your plans?" He reached up to ruffle Thom's hair.

Thom was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I was thinking, maybe, of trying for Starfleet Academy."

"Starfleet?" Maury raised himself up on one elbow, and Daniella could see his eyes widen in the starlight. "Seriously? Facing down the Klingons with a phaser in your fist? Seriously?"

"I know what you're thinking," said Thom, "but hear me out, will you? The war with the Klingons is over, guys, it was a stupid mistake, it should never have started in the first place, now it's stopped."

"And it's been replaced by a worse one," said Daniella soberly.

"I don't know about that," said Thom. "Yeah, the Undine are scary, and there's something worse behind them... but, c'mon, guys, we've got the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Republic, now, all on the same team. You can't tell me the Undine, or the Borg, or anybody will stand up to that for long. They'll find a way, you just watch. The war will end, and Starfleet will go back to being what it was always meant to be. Scientists, explorers... going into the galaxy for the sake of peace." His eyes were on the stars now, utterly entranced. "That's what I'd like to be part of."

"It's a beautiful dream, brother," said Daniella. Thom was the practical one... if anyone could make it happen, she thought, he could.

"I'll drink to that," said Maury.

And the three of them laughed, and drank, together, in the warm night, beneath the peaceful stars.

The Three-Handed Game 4

Personal log: Tylha Shohl, officer commanding USS King Estmere, NCC-92984

Q. Q is never good news. She stands there in the hot sultry Earth dusk, beaming at us.

It's the... apparently... female Q, the one I've met before, the one who spoke to Ronnie at Tiaza Zephora. She looks like a female human, blonde and bubbly. Right now, she is wearing a short dress, splashed with many bright colours, and there are paper streamers in her hair, and a near-empty cocktail glass in her hand.

"Right, now," she says. "Firs' thing is, this lecture of yours? Y'need t'be very careful... very, very careful... very, very, very, very -" She hiccups. "Sorry. Nausicaans. Nausicaans disguised as cadets. Y'need to, y'know, watch out for 'em. Very, very careful."

Ronnie and I exchange glances, while T'Pia just stares. "That was hours ago," says Ronnie.

"Rubbish!" cries Q. "You mortals've got no idea 'bout time... I mean, OK, I'm a bit later than I was gonna be. Was at a party." She waves the glass at us. "Di'n't wanna be rude an' leave early, did I? Jus' stayed on for 'nother Mojave or so." She peers into the glass. "Not Mojave. Movember? Mojito, thass th'one. Jus' another mojito. Or two. Or three." She looks up at the dim evening sky. "Wow, it gets dark early, this time o'year."

"If you have anything useful to say," says Ronnie, "say it. Otherwise, just get out of our hair."

"Temper!" says Q. "You're not th'one to talk, Miss Stygmalian Rift. 'S still going on, y'know. Still all about you."

"You said that before," says Ronnie. "And you were wrong, weren't you? It all came down to Tylha and her cat buddy. Not me. And besides, the Stygmalian Rift is closed. Gone."

There is another flash. Q is still there, but her clothes have changed; she is wearing a loose vest with floral patterns, a number of bead necklaces, denim trousers which flare out enormously to hide her feet, and spectacles with heart-shaped pink lenses. Her hair, too, has changed, to a lank waist-length fall. The cocktail glass is gone. She wags a finger at Ronnie.

"The thing you squares gotta get your heads round," she says, "is that the Rift is, like, an extra-temporal phenomenon, so, being, like, outside time, it is always there, and always gone, at the same, like, time, being eternal and acausal. Like, cosmic, man. Far out. Whoa." She tosses back her head, apparently to look up at the stars, and falls backwards onto the grass.

"I am trying very hard to bear in mind," says T'Pia, "that this is a super-being of almost limitless abilities."

"Better believe it, baby," says Q from the ground. "I'm amazing."

I walk over to her, and look down. "You have some reason for being here," I say. "You don't do things without a reason."

"Everyone's gotta be somewhere, babe." Q smiles beatifically up at me. "'Cept you, maybe. Maybe you need to be somewhere where you can be and not be at the same time."

"What the hell's wrong with her?" Ronnie asks. "She's making less sense than I do, and I don't need the competition."

Something clicks in the back of my mind. "Wait. That might actually make sense."

"It might?" Ronnie sounds incredulous. "How? Without smoking whatever she's been smoking."

"T'Pia, do you remember the business at Delta Gracilis?" I ask.

"Naturally," says T'Pia. "I concur. That might well be the situation to which Q refers."

"Delta where?" Ronnie demands.

"Research facility. A scientist there built a device that superimposed multiple quantum states. Jumbled realities."

"Sounds alarming," says Ronnie. "How did it work?"

"Badly. There were casualties - lots of them."

"To the best of my recollection," T'Pia says, "the facility was shut down after its evacuation. It was impossible to tell how much of its structural integrity was compromised."

Q says nothing. She just lies there, her eyes closed, smiling broadly. I resist the impulse to kick her. "Is that it?" I demand. "Delta Gracilis? Is that where we need to be?"

"We all got needs, baby," murmurs Q, without opening her eyes. Then there is a flash, and she is gone.

---

The small conference room on Earth Spacedock is crowded with top brass. There are the three of us, of course... and then, there are our bosses.

Admiral Semok, my superior, reads the report with a dubious look on his normally placid face. Admiral Gref of Sixth Fleet, nominally Ronnie's CO, glowers in a traditionally Tellarite way. T'Pia's boss is Admiral Stroffa of Stellar Survey, a matronly Denobulan woman with kindly eyes.

All six of us look worried.

"This is nonsense," Gref mutters. "And probably dangerous nonsense, too."

"I must respectfully disagree," says Semok. Gref snorts and rolls his eyes. My Vulcan boss never could handle Tellarites properly. "The Q entity invariably has some purpose to her - or his - actions. It is rarely apparent, though, what that purpose is, except in hindsight."

"Too right," mutters Ronnie.

"Q seems interested in you," Stroffa says to Ronnie, "but... she has directly intervened in Vice Admiral Shohl's life before. To your benefit." She's looking at me, now. "Is it possible, do you think, that Q has some... affection for you?"

I shake my head, decisively. "I don't think Q has any affection for anybody," I say. "Not on our level of being, anyway. No, if Q saved my life, it was for some reason of her own."

"Nausicaans," Gref grumbles. "We can send a firm protest to J'mpok about the Nausicaans, anyway. For whatever good it might do."

"That is not our primary concern, though," says Semok.

"Might be Shohl's," says Gref.

"No," I say. "I can handle the Nausicaans. But whatever Q is talking about - that has to be our main worry."

"I have conjectured," says T'Pia, "that the Q entity's behaviour might have been artificially impaired, in some way."

"Someone got Q drunk?" Ronnie raises a sceptical eyebrow.

"Or affected Q in an analogous manner." T'Pia is unruffled.

"An interesting possibility," says Stroffa. Gref stands up and stumps around, irritably.

"I don't like any of this," I say, "but can we afford not to pass up a hint from Q? However... oddly delivered?"

Gref stands facing the wall for a moment, then turns around suddenly. "No," he says, "I don't suppose we can. Pity. I could use Grau for our next set of tactical exercises." He glares at Ronnie. "And a touch of military discipline would do you good." Ronnie - thankfully - doesn't reply.

"What resources will you require?" Semok asks.

"Q mentioned the three of us," I say. "So... ourselves, and our ships. I suppose it makes a kind of sense. T'Pia and I are familiar with Delta Gracilis, and we have Q's word that Ronnie - uh, Vice Admiral Grau - is involved, somehow."

"Oh, call her Ronnie," says Gref, "everyone does." He sighs noisily. "The Undine, the Iconians, now Q. Life was simpler when we were just shooting Klingons."

"Noisier, though," says Ronnie. "So, we gonna do this, or what?"

"Go to Delta Gracilis," I muse, "find out what's happened to it since it was shut down... take some scans, see if we can find points of similarity with the Stygmalian Rift... and then, go from there. Wherever it takes us."

"Sounds like a plan," says Ronnie. "Not much of a plan, but hey, better than nothing."

Gref sighs again, hard enough to ruffle his beard. "Go on, then," he says. "Consider yourself on detached duty. As usual."

"Normal conditions will apply," says Semok, "with regard to reporting whatever may occur, and how your vessel might be modified to cope with it." Which is, basically, the arrangement I have with the Experimental Engineering group - they design stuff, I push it to the point where it breaks.

Stroffa says, very simply, "Good luck, all of you."

I have a feeling we're going to need it.

The Three-Handed Game 3

Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
Datarecord: 2/12, 2ndry adjunct unimatrix 07 (pending reassimilation/reclassification)

"Aww, come on," I say in wheedling tones. "I need to be down there already. They're expecting me. Come on, I've got impressionable young minds to mould." I follow that one up with my best manic grin.

The big Andorian */*species 4464*/* transporter chief looks completely unimpressed. "All reception pads at the Academy are fully booked," Chief Ch'Shen says. "We don't have clearance to bump any of the incoming visitors to make space for you. Take a number, sir, and wait your turn."

Every so often, this happens. The transporter rooms at the Academy are always fully booked, what with students bunking off and heading back in a hurry, and doting parents looking in to tuck their offspring up in bed, and visiting dignitaries and whatnot.... And, sometimes, the Chief gets all stickler-for-duty and starts enforcing the rules, so you can't charm him into jumping the queue.

*/*whole system is inefficient---
transferring data by direct neural connection obviates need for learning institutions---
family ties are irrelevant---
collective effort and collective knowledge are superior in all respects*/*

Quiet, you. Actually, it's a relief to hear my residual Borg half sounding so normal, spouting stock collective propaganda instead of developing a worrying personality of her own. I don't know what it was about the Tiaza Zephora business that caused that little development, but by gum I'm glad it's over.

I could try pulling rank, I suppose. Problem is, the Chief knows his job and knows his authority, and he is not going to be impressed by that, and with the redesign of Earth Spacedock, the transporter room is uncomfortably close to the boss's office, and Admiral Quinn could very easily hear me if I start shouting. I don't know about this redesign. Everything is clustered together in one big empty space... trouble is, the station took a lot of pounding, lately. They'd only just finished patching it up after Tylha Shohl blew its doors off and set it on fire during the Hegemony thing, and then the Undine attack did a whole lot more damage, and somewhere along the line, the redesign happened. I still haven't found the new version of Club 47, which is bad news when I want a drink.

But if authority won't work, flattery might. "Yes, but," I say, "you don't need to send me to the reception pads, do you? I mean, c'mon, Chief, you could put me down anywhere."

"All incoming traffic to the Academy has to be routed through the Academy's transporter rooms," the Chief says.

"Oh, right, yeah, reasons of health and safety, I know, you don't want people materializing in the middle of a wall, or a cadet. But, c'mon, Chief, that isn't going to happen with you on the controls, right? You're a professional. You're an expert. You learned your trade on the flight deck of a carrier, right?" I'm just guessing, but I'd be surprised if I wasn't right. "Compared to pulling fighter pilots off exploding ships just in the nick of time, this sort of thing is a doddle. I bet you could beam me right into a cadet's uniform without the cadet even noticing."

A reluctant snort of laughter escapes the Chief's nostrils. "All right," he says. "Just to show you I haven't lost my touch... and just to get you out of my hair... all right. This once."

"You're a prince, Chief," I say, and skip onto the transporter pad before he can change his mind.

He makes a great show of checking everything on his console, then says, "Energizing."

Bright light shimmers around me and takes me away... and then stays; bright light reflecting off the walls of the Academy, off the waters of the Bay. I blink my right eye, and the Borg implant that replaces my left clicks and stops its brightness down a notch or two.

Ch'Shen has put me down by one of the memorial plaques - well, that's safe enough, no cadet ever stops to read them more than once. It's startling, sometimes, to think how many of these memorials are to things I was around for - or, worse, missed, because I was frozen in a time-warp in the middle of the Stygmalian Rift. This is the one about the whales. I'd have liked to have seen that business, but, hey, rift.

I turn around, and catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface on the mess hall. It's not pretty. I have spruced myself up a bit, black dress tunic, shiny boots, combed my hair and polished my implants... but the face that looks back at me is thin and pale and old, scarred and violated by Borg technology. How the hell did I get old? I don't remember getting old.

I shake my head. Forget it, Ronnie. It's just being surrounded by all these fresh-faced young cadets that makes you feel ancient.

*/*inaccurate---
chronological age in excess of 280 Earth years---
physiological age in excess of*/*

I don't want to know. You're as old as you feel. I feel ancient. Never mind.

I walk round to the entrance of the mess hall, and I can see the two of them sitting at a table. Comparing notes, no doubt. One tall lanky scarred Andorian, one small neat red-haired Vulcan */*species 3259*/*, just what the doctor ordered. "Yo!" I yell at them.

"Ronnie," says Tylha. "Hello."

"Vice Admiral Grau." Well, from a Vulcan, that's a warm greeting.

I take a seat at their table. "You guys ready for this shindig, then?" I ask.

"We were in the process of comparing notes," says T'Pia.

"Oh, right," I say, "notes. Knew I was forgetting something. Well, I guess I'll just have to wing it."

T'Pia raises her eyebrow at me. "That is not a procedure to be recommended."

"If I were a cynic," says Tylha, "I would say that Ronnie has already rehearsed what she's going to say, down to the last detail, has it all stored in Two of Twelve's eidetic memory circuits, and can recite it word-perfect at the drop of a hat. If I were a cynic." She's getting to know me too well, that's the problem.

"Then it will not be feasible for us to compare our presentations with yours, Vice Admiral Grau," says T'Pia. "That is unfortunate."

"Oh, call me Ronnie, everyone does. Anyway, I'm not planning any surprises. This is all just, well, a ritual, isn't it? And our names turned up because someone noticed the Tiaza Zephora foul-up. Well, I suppose that's us justly punished."

"I do not see this as a punishment," says T'Pia. "Nor could I characterize the outcome of the Tiaza Zephora incident as a... foul-up."

"We did break the planetary ecosystem a bit," I point out.

"In the process of liberating the Klingon colonists from the Rift entity, and putting an end to whatever threat that entity represented. I do not think that 'foul-up' is an adequate summary." T'Pia picks up her PADD and stands. I think I like her. Not only is she very Vulcan, she's even shorter than I am, and I don't often get to loom over people.

Tylha stands up too. She can loom like anything. "Well," she says, "it's about time... let's do this. Lecture hall two."

"Lead on." Lecture hall two is... since my time. Actually, the whole place is since my time. Starting to feel old again. Stop it, Ronnie.

I troop dutifully off behind Tylha and T'Pia, trying to look businesslike and military and not worried. Tylha is right, of course, I've been rehearsing for ages, and my Borg neural circuitry... doesn't let me forget stuff. Sometimes I wish it did.

The lecture hall is like a lecture hall. Raised dais at one end, facing rows and rows of benches, soon to be filled with eager little faces waiting for our pearls of wisdom. Or hung-over students wishing they, or we, were dead. We're a little bit early - an instructor's supposed to be along soon to introduce us. In the meantime, we take our seats on the dais, and Tylha and T'Pia re-check their PADDs. And I sit back and watch the cadets filter in.

There are quite a few of them already, and they come in all shapes and sizes, to put it mildly. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, indeed. Two of Twelve is eating her assimilatory little heart out, trying to classify and species-number them all...

*/*species 5618--- 5618--- 3259--- 4780--- 5618 correction 5292--- 5618 correction 5292--- */*

waitaminute, what?

*/*species 5618 correction 5292*/*

So I take a little look at that one... and some of his mates sitting by him. To my right eye, they look just like some ordinary male human cadets, maybe slightly less pimply than most. But the Borg implant is telling me a different story...

"Guys," I murmur quietly, "we got trouble."

T'Pia quirks her eyebrow. "What kind?" Tylha asks, equally quietly.

"Three rows back from the front, on the right, group of human cadets... only according to my implants, they're not human. Holographic disguises. Two of Twelve says, species 5292. Nausicaan. Anybody upset any Nausicaans?"

"Plenty." Tylha looks disgusted.

"Whoo boy. OK, so we know they're up to no good, what've we got to stop them with? Security will take time to get here, maybe too much...."

"I have standard ground equipment in my transporter buffer," says T'Pia. She, too, is talking in an undertone. Catches on quick. I like it.

"Me, too," says Tylha.

"OK, great," I say. Transporter buffers are a neat idea; equipment suspended in transit, called up as you need it - they don't hold too much, of course, but they can hold enough. I have a bunch of fun toys in mine -

*/*inaccurate---
experimental proton beam rifle is not a toy---
unsuitable for immature members of any species*/*

Oh, can it, you. It's playtime. I stand up. "If I could have everyone's attention," I shout, "I'm sure the Nausicaan hit squad in the third row would feel much more comfortable if they took their holo-emitters off. Everyone else, take cover!"

Tylha and T'Pia are already moving as the rifle materializes in my hands. The phony cadets are springing into action, too - I can't see their guns, but I'm damn sure they've got them. T'Pia, being a science officer, is fiddling with her tricorder -

There is a piercing whine and a burst of light. T'Pia has rigged the tricorder to release a tachyon harmonic; a cone of dazzling light shoots out towards the Nausicaans, and their holographic disguises flicker, distort, and wink out. The tachyon harmonic, more usefully, rips through their personal shields, exposing them to, well -

The proton rifle makes a noise like an asthmatic wolfhound, and a bolt of blue light snaps out towards one Nausicaan. I have it set on heavy stun, and he drops, poleaxed, to the floor. I move, fast, ducking out of the way of a flash of disruptor fire from his friends. The wall behind me bursts into flames; they haven't set heavy stun. Didn't really expect them to.

There's a pop and a hiss and a sudden cloud of white fog; T'Pia has thrown an anesthezine gas grenade. Useful, but some of the Nausicaans are wearing breath masks, and others have the sense to hold their breath. There is a sudden chatter of phaser fire. Tylha has had time to rig a turret on the dais, and it is spitting more heavy-stun at the standing Nausicaans. Cadets are shouting and running for cover in all directions. I send another proton bolt at a breath-masked Nausicaan, watch him fall.

T'Pia has a gun out, now, a nasty-looking sonic AP rifle. Even on stun, it's not something I'd like to get hit with, and she is fast and accurate with it. As for Tylha, she has popped a support drone from her buffer, and is holding one of those MACO pulsewave guns, very handy in a close-quarters fight. Golden bursts of phaser light, and scarlet lines of sonic AP fire, slam into the Nausicaans. Two more of them drop.

But there's one big one, and he's wearing a breath mask, and the beams are just bouncing off his heavy-duty shield. He has a disruptor rifle in his hands, and is spraying full-auto fire in our general direction, tearing holes in the floor and the walls. He needs taking down, and fast. So I charge him.

He looks taken aback. Let's face it, if you look at me, I look more suited to asking people for spare change on a street corner than to single combat with an armoured Nausicaan pirate. But looks are deceiving, as he finds out when I kick him with my full Borg-augmented strength.

He staggers back, shields flickering, and stumbles over a bench behind him. The disruptor rifle drops from his hands. Fine by me. He screams pure rage through his breath mask, and draws a nasty-looking Tegolar sword. Less fine. He comes at me with murder in his eyes -

"Ronnie!" Tylha's voice. "Down!"

Oh, God. That MACO pulsewave thing comes with a grenade launcher as backup. Never give an Andorian a grenade launcher if you don't want her to use it.

So I dive behind the nearest bench, and the concussion is ear-splitting, but the bench stops it from being actually Ronnie-splitting, and anyway the biggest part of the blast goes straight where it's meant to, into the enemy's body. About six gallons of pureed Nausicaan flies through the air above me. Pureed Nausicaan. Best kind.

I stand up, head still ringing. The rest of the Nausicaans are down... actually, one of them - a game lad, I'll give him that - is trying to stand up. T'Pia walks up to him and pinches his neck, neatly and efficiently, and he goes down and stays down.

"Hope you were paying attention, class," I remark to the world at large, "because there may be a test later. The basic lesson is, Science evaluates and assesses the threat, Engineering deploys resources to counter it, and Tactical kicks seven different kinds of butt. And where the hell were you guys?" A security team is making its way into the lecture hall. "Off on a tea break?"

"Sir." The security lieutenant looks nonplussed, as well he might. "We came as soon as...."

"Take them into custody," Tylha snaps. "But first -" She goes up to one of the Nausicaans, who is groggily regaining consciousness. "The war is over," she snarls.

The Nausicaan glares up at her. "Governor Gvochkorr sends his regards, Shohl," he says.

Tylha's face sags; for a moment, she looks as old as I do. "Yes," she mutters, "I thought it would be something like that." She gestures to the security team. "Take them away."

---

Well, of course it's not that simple, it never is. Long hours of incident reports and depositions follow, and by the time Security actually lets the three of us go, we get to watch a fine Earth sunset over the bay.

"So who's Gvochkorr?" I ask Tylha.

"Military governor of Gimel Vessaris." She kicks moodily at a pebble. "Or was, until we took it back. My home planet," she adds.

"The war, as you say, is over," says T'Pia. "This Nausicaan is behaving irrationally."

"Well," says Tylha, "they do that. Warrior culture... sometimes pride overrides their rationality. I know," she adds, with some feeling.

"A diplomatic protest will no doubt be made," says T'Pia.

"Don't know how much good it'll do," mutters Tylha. She gazes out, over the bay, at the dying light of the day.

Then the light suddenly, briefly, gets much brighter, and there is a sharp hissing noise.

"Whoo!" says Q. "Finally, I get all three of you together."

The Three-Handed Game 2

Personal log: T'Pia, officer commanding USS Tapiola, NCC-93480

Sinak looks at me from the viewer with an air of dispassionate disapproval. "Please be brief," I say. "I have duties to attend to."

"Indeed." My father's long, austere face is almost devoid of expression, but I know him well enough to gauge the emotions he is suppressing. "I wish to know what plans you have for these duties to end."

I sit forward a little in the command chair. From the side of the Orb Weaver's bridge, my exec, Commander Dezin, shoots me a brief glance, her black Betazoid eyes showing concern. "Specify," I say.

"Now that an armistice has been declared," Sinak says, "the logic of your decision to join Starfleet no longer holds. I therefore expect that you will be returning to Vulcan to take up a civilian career. It would be useful to know in advance what your plans are, so that accommodations may be made."

He is revisiting this argument. If he were not a Vulcan, and my father, I would suspect him of irrationality on this subject. "You are in error," I say flatly.

"There is no longer war with the Klingons. Your participation in the conflict must, logically, come to an end."

"I did not join Starfleet because of the war with the Klingons," I say. "I anticipated, true, that some such conflict would eventuate, but that was not my principal concern. In any event, the armistice has only been concluded because a new and graver threat has arisen. The need for competent personnel in Starfleet has not diminished. It is my intention to continue to supply that need."

"I see." If he were given to displays of emotion, he would be showing disappointment. "It is held by many of our acquaintances that your behaviour, in serving as a Starfleet officer, is inappropriate, in that it has brought you into conflict with your own people."

Oh, now, this is worse than I had thought. It was an error to receive this call on the bridge: I should have taken it in a private setting. "If you refer to the victims of the katra of Bresar who constituted the self-described Hegemony, then I consider that conflict to have been a regrettable necessity."

"It is the opinion of many of my acquaintances that there was much of value in the teachings of Bresar," says my father. "The extent of the threat posed by the Hegemony is also, I believe, open to question."

I will not show emotion before my father. I will not. "Having participated in the defence of Andoria, I can speak from direct personal knowledge when I say that the threat was not exaggerated. Your acquaintances do not possess such direct personal knowledge. As to the teachings of Bresar, they are presumably of historical and philosophical interest, but it is demonstrably an error to attempt to put his social and political theories into practice."

"I must take account of your personal involvement."

"That is logical."

"However, since you remain set on your current career, we have nothing more to discuss at present. You may now resume your duties." And the screen goes blank.

Twosani Dezin comes over to stand by the command chair. In the soft golden light of the Tholian-designed bridge, her long dark hair frames her pale face, and turns her eyes into two pools of blackness. "That didn't sound good, sir," she murmurs.

A Tholian commander stands in the centre of the bridge, walled off away from their subordinates by a ring of consoles. We have rigged chairs for the bridge crew, but have otherwise preserved the arrangement. It is possible to talk privately, in low tones.... My father did not moderate his voice. "It is not important," I say.

"Sir." Commander Dezin is my executive officer; also, she wishes to be my friend. "I know your people don't show emotion - I also know that doesn't mean you don't feel it. You're not a simple blank, like Pascale -" she shoots a glance in the direction of the impassive green-haired android at the tactical console "- I could sense the emotional radiation coming off you in waves. Sir -"

"Family matters always inspire emotional reactions. My father disapproves of my choice of career. He takes every opportunity to make this plain. I will be sure to take future communications from him in private."

"I'm not sure that will help you, sir."

"It will. It will remove a possible cause for concern - I need not worry about showing emotion before my crew."

"Only before your father." She senses, I think, what a humiliation that would be. "Sir, if he's really a supporter of the Hegemony of Bresar -"

"I do not think he is. I suspect that was a pose, adopted to cause additional weakening of my resolve. It will not succeed."

"That, I don't doubt. You've always been completely single-minded about your career.... Although, sir, why did you join Starfleet? You've never said -" She recollects herself. "If you... don't mind my asking, sir."

"I do not mind. I joined Starfleet because its function is necessary. It requires personnel, and there was no logical reason why I should not supply that need."

She looks a little taken aback. "Is that... all there was?"

"It was a logical decision."

"I... see." She gives a little smile. "I suppose I can't fault your logic, sir."

"Thank you. Regrettably, my father can." She still looks perplexed. "Do you believe there should have been stronger motivation? Why, for example, did you join Starfleet?"

"Me? I -" She takes a deep breath. "I was only a baby during the Dominion occupation of Betazed, but... I grew up with loss. Too many faces in pictures, faces of family that I'd never know - too many ruined buildings on the streets of my childhood. I knew I had to do something... so I joined Starfleet. To try and make sure it never happened again."

"I see." I consider. "In essence, you saw a need, and chose to fill it, just as I did. You were made aware of the need by an emotional process, whereas I reached that same decision by a logical one. The result is the same, merely prompted by different cultural imperatives."

She looks at me strangely. "I never thought of it like that, sir."

"I think my father would prefer it if my decision had been prompted by emotion. He would find it easier to challenge that decision, then. However, it was not. It was a simple rational process. Apparently, that is difficult for some people to accept. They believe that, since the decision was simple, it must also have been frivolous. It was not."

"No, sir. I don't think anyone who knows you would ever think you were frivolous."

"Thank you."

"Still," she adds, "it's not going to make your current job any easier, is it? You're going to be facing people with lots of different motivations -"

"I am not overly concerned. The coming task is not a complex one. That reminds me." I raise my voice, addressing the crop-haired human at the helm. "Mr. Karas. How long now to our destination?"

"We're in Sol System traffic control grid now," Nelson Karas reports. "Estimate one more hour to Spacedock, depending on traffic density."

"Thank you. An hour," I say, and stand up, "will give me ample time to make any final preparations."

Twosani Dezin shakes her head. "I think most people would rather face the Borg than what you're up against."

---

Starfleet Academy is much as I remember it: cool, humid, filled with a clear, clean, white light. I walk down from the air tram terminus, along the corridors, into the main hall, and I see one of the people I am looking for, almost at once.

It is not the blue skin and the antennae that make her stand out; Andorians are common enough here, even though that ice-adapted species must find the environment here trying. But Tylha Shohl is tall, even by the standards of an Andorian shen, and the U-shaped scar on her right cheekbone is distinctive - and, of course, she is not in cadet uniform. She has chosen, as I have, semi-formal black uniform, and the operations pin at her right shoulder gleams as brightly as the science division emblem on mine.

Last time I saw her, her uniform was covered in grime and dust, and she was liberally coated in a foul-smelling tellurium compound. She is much improved, today.

She is standing by the side of the bar, holding a glass of a milky fluid which I believe is the Andorian Dh'syara tunnel wine. She spots me as I approach, and smiles. The smile is a little lopsided, the right side of her face being stiffer and less mobile than the left.

"T'Pia. Good to see you."

"Vice Admiral Shohl," I reply. "Good day."

"I've confirmed all the arrangements," she says. "We have lecture hall two, and - hmm, the time's getting on, isn't it? I suppose we'd better compare notes." She picks a PADD off the bar with her free hand. She looks very composed and unconcerned.

"Everything is well?" I ask, as we make our way to a free table.

"Oh, yes. Thanks. We've all put Tiaza Zephora behind us, at least."

"Indeed. I understand that ecological reconstruction arrangements are under way - a joint Imperial-Federation effort; possibly the first such project since the armistice."

Tylha nods. "I hope we can help those people. I pulled all the strings I could with the disaster relief agencies, but.... Well, I guess it's out of our hands now. What about you?"

"All is going well. Repairs to the USS Kyllikki are nearly completed, but I am considering remaining aboard the Tapiola, nonetheless."

"She's a Tholian Orb Weaver, isn't she? Tholian ships do have some interesting resources." Tylha sips her tunnel wine.

"Indeed. I understand that some of the modifications to the internal systems are based on lessons learned from your King Estmere." Tylha operates from a converted Tholian Recluse carrier.

"I'm glad we can be of some use," she remarks.

I nod. "Besides the engineering details, I suppose I also owe you the name of the ship."

She frowns. "How's that?"

"The naming convention you adopted for your ships. With so many ships under construction, the authorities seized upon any reasonable scheme for naming them."

"I name my ships after compositions by a human musician. Gustav Holst."

"Starfleet's bureaucracy adopted a similar methodology for the vessels under my command. They chose a different musician, though. One Jean Sibelius."

"Ah," says Tylha. "I thought that name was vaguely familiar. He was a contemporary of Holst - heavily influenced by the mythology of his homeland. Tapiola... the land of the forest god."

"As Kyllikki is a spirit of the water - and another composition by Sibelius." I raise one eyebrow at her. "I must confess that I would be interested to learn how an Andorian comes to be so conversant with antique human musicians."

Tylha gives another lopsided smile. "It started, believe it or not, with my linguistics classes at the Academy. I found a reference to Holst, and how he learned an old Earth ancestor language - Sanskrit - just so that he could set its poetry properly to music. You have to respect that sort of dedication."

"Indeed," I say.

"So I started learning more about Holst, and I found that his music... spoke to me, somehow. He's best known for a suite of pieces about the other planets of Sol system. It's all based on their mythology in Earth tradition. The first one, 'Mars, the Bringer of War' illustrates his techniques wonderfully. You know that human martial music is often based on a simple four-beat rhythm?" She drums on the tabletop with her fingers. Her face is more animated; clearly, she is a genuine enthusiast for her subject. "Well, that would have been an obvious choice for a bringer of war, but Holst chose another approach, a five-four beat which still suggests the martial, while being, somehow, more... insistent, more sinister...." Her fingers drum, now, in a more intricate pattern, shifting and sinuous.

"Intriguing," I say.

"Yes. Initially, it seems like a wrong choice, but in fact it's very right. Anyway." She stops drumming. "I listened to a lot of Holst, live performances when I got the chance. It broadened my mind... I think, at the time, my mind needed broadening. I'd never really been exposed to other cultures before."

"This is often the case, at the Academy."

"True.... Anyway, when I took command of the USS Hammersmith during the Vega incursion - well, Holst wrote a 'Hammersmith Suite' among his other pieces. So that started what's become a tradition."

"The USS Hammersmith?" I repeat.

"Yes." Tylha's face turns grim. "Later, attached to your survey group... and destroyed by D'Kalius's isolytic weapon." One of the last casualties of the desperate defence of Andoria against the Hegemony. "She was a good ship... she didn't deserve to go out like that."

A silence falls over the table now. "Returning to the present," I say, deliberately breaking it, "perhaps we should discuss how we intend to proceed." I take a PADD from my tunic and place it next to Tylha's on the table. "I have prepared my presentation, of course, but we should make sure it dovetails with yours, and with the third... when our colleague arrives."

Tylha nods. "I've stuck to, well, pretty much the traditional format," she says. "These presentations are a tradition, really, aren't they? They don't really tell the freshman class anything they don't already know about the three main divisions of Starfleet."

"Still, it is wise to ensure that all basic information is available. As I recall from my own experience, the talks were useful in codifying and presenting this introductory matter. And it is fitting that serving senior officers should present it, rather than Academy staff who may be seen as detached theoreticians."

Tylha grunts. "I suppose I do remember the one I sat through," she says. "Admiral Sterk from Science division, Odil th'Zeph for Tactical, and Wilton T'Shombe for Operations. Th'Zeph did make Tactical sound pretty appealing, actually, but I already knew I was good with my hands - practical engineering, that sort of thing."

"I knew that I had scientific aptitude." And that a career in Science division would be the only one even minimally acceptable to my father... but there is no need to mention this to Tylha Shohl. I compare the texts on the two PADDs, noting down the talk Tylha intends to give. "I am relieved that you are not exhibiting anxiety over this presentation," I tell her.

"Neither are you."

"I see no reason. My executive officer, though, seems to expect it. She is Betazoid, and given to emotion."

"Well," says Tylha, "some people do find standing up in front of an audience... difficult. I suppose there are a lot of ways to look at it. Some people see it as an ordeal, some an honour, some a chore, some an opportunity -"

"I see it as a task which must be performed. I am pleased that you share this practical approach."

"Well." Tylha's lopsided smile is very broad. "I would, normally, be suffering from a bit of performance anxiety, myself... but I know there's no need. You see, no one is even going to notice our bits. It's the section on Tactical division that's going to be... memorable."

The Three-Handed Game 1

The Captain was in a foul mood. It was easy to tell, from the way he flicked the blades of his d'k tahg open, then closed, then open again, scowling at the gleams of red light on the blade. The crew stepped cautiously around him as they went about their tasks.

It was only his Lethean exec who had the forthrightness to ask, "Is all well, Captain?"

"Well enough." The Captain scowled. "These missions! They irk me. Collecting tribute... it is no task for a warrior."

"Warriors must be fed," the Lethean commented. "And tribute from these outlying systems -"

"Yes, it is necessary. Of course it is necessary. But -"

The Lethean's face moved into what might have been a smile. "But it irks you. Sir."

The Captain nodded. "How long to the next one?"

"Entering system space now, sir," the helmsman reported.

The Captain nodded again, more pensively. "What are these ones called?"

"The Siohonin," the Lethean replied. "They were taken under Imperial protection some thirty-seven years ago. Mostly, they supply minerals - dilithium, pergium -"

"I'm not interested," the Captain said shortly. "So long as their cargo fleet is prepared to depart, I don't care what's in it. Science officer?"

"Reading ships on scan, sir." The science officer looked up from her screen. "There is something odd about the formation...."

"On screen." The Captain sat forward in his command chair, studying the image. "Curious. If I did not know better, I would have thought that a combat formation, not a convoy...."

"Scanning." The science officer's eyes widened. "Sir, power levels and mass readings confirm, those are not cargo vessels! Seventeen light warships, frigate-class, and three... I'm not sure of the class, sir. Larger, and with odd power fluctations. But definitely not freighters."

"Threat assessment?"

"Siohonin frigates are lightly armed and flimsy in construction," the science officer said. "They are proscribed by treaty from constructing military-standard ships.... A single frigate is no match for a Kamarag cruiser like ourselves, but in such numbers, they may have a tactical advantage."

"May have." The Captain considered. The science officer was, obviously, reluctant to suggest retreating, in the face of a supposedly inferior enemy - but odds of twenty to one would tell, no matter what the difference in quality. All those light frigates had to do, the Captain thought, was to get lucky once. And then there were the other three ships, the unknown quantity -

"Open a comms channel," he ordered, "and stand ready for warp speed, in case we must withdraw to obtain reinforcements."

"Channel open," the communications officer reported, promptly.

"This is the IKS raD Hol," the Captain announced. There was no visual; the screen was blank. Never mind, the Captain thought, they can see my frown. "We are here to collect the tribute due from your system. Where is your freighter fleet? Explain yourselves!"

For a second, there was no response. Then a voice said, "In the name of Sebreac Tharr... we rebuke you, Klingon."

"Sir!" There was urgency in the science officer's voice. "Massive subspace rupture! Building between those three ships!"

"Evasive maneuvers!"

The raD Hol slewed and jinked, as space nearby boiled and twisted, blue Cherenkov emissions mixing with the mangled light of nearby stars. The Klingon cruiser was fast, but not quite fast enough.

Damage control lights flashed across the bridge, and the ship shuddered. "Report!" snapped the Captain.

"It went right through the shields!" the engineering officer shouted. "Whatever it was - it went through the shields, and hit the starboard nacelle!"

"The frigates are moving," the exec reported. "Approaching on intercept vectors."

The Captain bared his teeth. "What is our status?"

The engineer's face was pale. "Sir... the starboard nacelle is breached. Non-functional."

Silence fell across the bridge, to be broken by the Captain. "Well," he said, in almost conversational tones, "we cannot establish a warp field with one nacelle down. And it seems our friends outside are unlikely to allow us time to make repairs." He actually smiled. "So, tonight we dine in Sto'vo'kor. All power to forward weapons! Let us see how many we can send on ahead to announce us."

The Three-Handed Game: Introduction

So this is it.  The climax.  What would be the grand finale, if I'd, y'know, stopped writing at the end of it.

However, it is the conclusion of Ronnie Grau's big character arc, when we finally get a complete explanation of what happened to her in the course of her multiple time-warps... and I drew on a number of other things, like Q saving Tylha way back in my second Literary Challenge entry, so it all looks as though it's been carefully planned in advance and I am dead clever.

Since I was building this up as a narrative climax, it needed to be suitably, well, climactic... so I needed an adversary that started small and built up to galaxy-shaking proportions.  I indulged myself shamelessly in making the Siohonin leaders thoroughly nasty... I have to confess, I enjoy writing villains.  That probably says something about me.

Also, I enjoy making my main characters suffer.  I don't believe the heroes of a story should ever have things too easy; there's no satisfaction in seeing someone win a victory that's a foregone conclusion from the start.  So, I think, in this one, my characters get fairly comprehensively stitched up, beaten down, and knocked sideways, and that's all good in my book.  (One example: ever wondered what actually happens when you get blown up in space combat and have to press the "Respawn" button?  Basically, it's chapter 37....)

So.  What actually happened to Ronnie Grau in the Stygmalian Rift?  How, exactly, was she liberated from the Borg Collective?  And what is the awesome cosmic significance of Tylha Shohl's thing about Holst?  Read on to find out.

Lit Challenge 26: A Matter of Presentation

[You and your ship have been selected by the hottest film director in 2414 Hollywood to be the muse of his latest movie. He and his film crew have decided to shoot their entire film aboard your vessel and then premiere it on Earth. Is it a documentary? An action film? Romance? Does the entire shoot go smoothly or are there "unexpected cameos" by enemy Klingons or Borg? Write about the experience having someone film you and your crew or write a log about how the premiere went and if your Captain enjoyed the portrayal of themselves or the ship.]

Personal record: Shalo of the house of Sinoom, commanding officer, IKS Garaka

"I live to serve, Chancellor," I say. "But your command is... unexpected."

J'mpok regards me inscrutably with his heavy-lidded eyes. "It is my judgment that you are the best choice. A Klingon crew, of course, was the first thought that came to my mind... but then, I thought again."

"One's first thought," I say, "would have been the flagship, and Captain Koren."

"Very true." J'mpok chuckles. "Captain Koren has many virtues. But she lacks some qualities... she is neither diplomatic, nor photogenic. This assignment calls for both those things. And it will do the Federation good to see that the KDF is not wholly Klingon - that Orions, for example, such as yourself, command respect and obedience."

He settles himself behind his desk. He is in a talkative mood, it seems. I remain in an attitude of respectful attention and let him talk.

"The Federation has finally seen the error of its ways, with regard to our mutual enemies. So far as it goes, this is good. But this armistice, this new cooperation, is a fragile thing. We must fight to preserve it, with weapons other than guns...."

"I believe I understand, Chancellor," I venture to say. "The battle for hearts and minds must be waged with... more subtle weapons."

"Quite so. Captain Koren finds it difficult to be subtle." His eyes are still inscrutable. "You do not. So, when this Federation purveyor of entertainments came to us, wishing to present a picture of the KDF at work... I thought of you."

"I am gratified, Chancellor." Actually, "gratified" is not... an entirely accurate... description of my feelings.

J'mpok nods, slowly and thoughtfully. "Go, then. Help this image-maker present his picture. It is my wish that you should show the KDF as a friend to be trusted... and an enemy to be feared."

I give a formal salute. "I will not fail you, Chancellor."

---

"Of final approach, confirmation there is," Commander Foojoy reports. "To shuttlebay four, the shuttlecraft of Federation is assigned."

"Excellent," I say. "Have an honour guard detachment there to escort this Director Marklance to the bridge. So, then. Time to make a final decision on which assignment we will take. The planetary survey in the T'Ong Nebula? Or the patrol in Khedaris Sector? I will entertain suggestions."

Suggestions are not forthcoming. I have never seen so many unhappy faces on the bridge, not even when we were facing an Undine planet-killer. I heave an exasperated sigh. "I know you were hoping for the tribute enforcement mission at Sarkan Minor. It is not practical, not with a Federation film crew aboard. Not if we wish to give a positive impression of the KDF at work. There will be other chances for booty, I assure you. But this time, we must put on a good show."

"Sir," Sano speaks up from the science console, her eyes wary in her dark green face. "I do not question your orders, but you should be aware of something. When I investigated the mission parameters for Sarkan Minor, a name came up. A name on your personal interest list."

They will not give up on this. "What name?" I demand.

"Satyusin Muhrl," Sano replies.

My whole body tenses. There is a long pause. I find I cannot speak... and no one else dares to.

"Muhrl," I whisper, finally. "In what context?"

"He is one of the approved brokerage agents in that sector," Sano replies. "Based on Presaucus III."

"Satyusin Muhrl," I say aloud. "Well."

K'Gan, my first officer, frowns in puzzlement. "Does that... change things?"

"It... might," I say, slowly. Ideas are forming in my mind. "Yes. It might well. This will be difficult, it will require careful management. But these things are always a matter of presentation. Raas." The Gorn at the comms console looks up. "Signal Command that we accept the Sarkan Minor assignment."

---

"Director Marklance," I say. "Welcome to my quarters."

"Oh," he says, "I don't have a title. Just plain Mr Marklance." He smiles. He is a tall, heavy-built, dark-skinned human, with a ready smile. Affable, that is the word for him. Affable. "Or Ryall, even better, that's my first name."

"Ryall." I smile back. "And I am Shalo, as no doubt you know. Please, be seated. Do you desire refreshment?"

He sinks, gingerly, down onto a pile of cushions. I sit cross-legged opposite him. My quarters are decorated in opulent Orion style - for the moment. Usually, I prefer plainer surroundings. But I think it is important to show that I have other than Klingon cultural values, for the present. "I guess I'd better keep a clear head," he says.

"Some Kryla flower nectar, perhaps? It has no intoxicating effects." He does not demur as I pour out two glasses of the sweet-scented golden liquid, but he sips it cautiously. "Nice," he says. "Very Orion." He gestures at the silk wall hangings. "Like this... but you're not dressed in the Orion style, are you, General?"

"I am a KDF officer, first and foremost." I am wearing my usual cold-weather version of KDF standard uniform, white leather and furs. "If I wish to be reminded of my Orion heritage... it is a taste I indulge in private."

"Well," Marklance says, "I guess the KDF would have picked one of their most... strait-laced... officers for this job, right? So let's talk about why I'm here."

"You are here to make a... documentary holo... about the modern KDF," I say.

"Right. Right. I mean, I'm saying this myself, but I'm one of the best-known - not to mention the best - documentary film makers in the Federation. You've probably seen my film about the behind-the-scenes secrets of the Deltan tantric therapy workshops?"

"Federation cultural material has not been common in the Empire, during the war. I know the Deltans believe themselves to be skilled in such things... it lies somewhat outside the military sphere, though."

"Yeah, I suppose not. Anyway. What I want to do now is give the Federation a real view of the workings of the KDF. You've been the enemy so long - demonized in our propaganda - so now we need a good, clear, unbiased look at how you guys work. That's what I'm here for. And I'm here because I'm the best."

No false modesty, I see. "The Chancellor's orders are... to present the KDF in a positive light. But it is essential, I think, that your documentary should be realistic. A tawdry recruiting film for the KDF would convince no one."

"Quite." He laughs. "So I'm going to make sure that's not what we get! I'm going to warn you now, I get involved on both sides of the camera when I make a film." And how the Deltans must have enjoyed that, I carefully refrain from saying. "So I'm going to be right there when you do your stuff, and I'm going to be adversarial."

I smile a tight little thin-lipped smile. "The KDF," I say, "has always welcomed a valiant adversary."

---

"Coming out of warp," K'Gan announces. The air of anticipation on the bridge is electric.

"Before we go on," Ryall Marklance says, "can you give me a run down on what exactly we're doing here?"

"Steer three eight zero mark two. Launch frigates as we reach range two thousand. All warriors to battle stations." I turn to Marklance. "We are here on a tribute enforcement mission. The government of Sarkan Minor has reneged on its commitments to the Empire... we are here to remind them that such behaviour is not acceptable."

"What's the difference between this, though, and a smash-and-grab pirate raid?"

"Official approval," I say with a smile. "Besides, does the Federation not enforce its treaty stipulations, from time to time?"

"Not with warships," Marklance says. "Well, not often...."

"Situations like this rarely occur in Klingon space," I say. "But, when they do, the Empire acts with appropriate severity."

"But you get to keep some of the - the loot, don't you?"

"Naturally. As an incentive for us to perform our duties well. And the additional expense is an added disincentive for the Sarkans to neglect their obligations in future."

Marklance shakes his head. "You people and your outmoded economic system," he murmurs.

"Of movement, around the trading post, I report," Foojoy breaks in. Marklance jumps. Foojoy, with his high pointed head, the warrior markings on his grey skin, and his extravagant facial hair, always seems to startle Marklance. "Ships, foregathering at mark three niner by four seven, six in number, there are."

"Classification?"

"Birds of Prey." The Sarkan asteroid trading post has deployed a picket force. That is to be expected - and that will change, as soon as their sensors get a positive lock on us. At present, they are merely wary. Soon, they will be terrified.

"Frigates one and two away," Sano reports. "Three and four prepping for launch."

"Those are... Fer'jai frigates?" asks Marklance.

I nod. "Originally, we carried S'kul fighters, but I consider those too fragile for most applications. The Fek'lhri waste lives needlessly... we spend them only as we need."

He glances around the cavernous bridge. "I keep forgetting this is a Fek designed ship," he says.

"The interior fittings are mostly Klingon. Fek quarters lack... certain amenities." I decide to seize an opportunity. "The Fer'jai frigates are closer to the original designs. If you wish a view of their interiors, I can arrange for exercises to be carried out - shall we say, tomorrow?"

"If you have any frigates by tomorrow."

"The Sarkans' Birds of Prey are old war surplus. Antiquated designs. They will present no significant challenge."

"Ships decloaking," Sano interrupts. "Six more Birds of Prey, and... one SuQob raptor."

"How's that for a significant challenge?" Marklance asks.

It is, I think, the full fighting force available to the trading station - that, and its own disruptor emplacements. "Time to effective range?"

"Thirty seconds," Sano answers.

"Can you take this?" Marklance asks. "Can we take this? Your frigates are outnumbered three to one!"

"So they are. Do you believe the Sarkans, now, to be innocent parties in their dispute with the Empire? I have reason to suspect - well, we shall find out, later, what I suspect. Forward batteries, fire as you bear." Marklance is perspiring freely. I suppose the Deltan tantric therapists did not prepare him for a situation like this.

"Incoming torpedoes," K'Gan reports.

I count down, silently, in my head as the torpedo salvo approaches. "And... phase," I order.

The light seems to shift on the bridge, the constant gonging note from the engines changes in pitch... and the Garaka becomes insubstantial for a moment or two, long enough for the photon torpedoes to pass harmlessly through us and waste themselves on empty space. Quietly, I tap out commands on my console.

"In range," snarls K'Gan. "Engaging."

Even here, deep inside the ship, we can hear the scream of the antiproton arrays discharging, feel the thumps as the tricobalt torpedoes launch. The Fer'jais are closing on the Birds of Prey, now, their own antiproton arrays slicing the night with threads of scarlet. Green disruptor light flashes back at us.

"Incoming fire. Forward shields holding at seventy-eight per cent."

The trading station is firing, too, though we are at extreme range for its fixed-mount disruptors. But, of course, these people are desperate - they see the Kar'fi carrier, the frigates, the antiproton beams and tricobalt explosions, they believe themselves under attack by the Fek'lhri. Normally, a glance at the Garaka's transponder ID code would disabuse them of that notion....

"Concentrate fire on lead raider group. Rotate shield frequencies. Ready a torpedo spread, but hold fire until I give the word."

Scarlet light from our forward arrays slashes open the hull of one enemy Bird of Prey, spilling air and warp plasma and burning bodies into the void. My frigates target another, fire as one, obliterating it in a single brilliant flash. But another trio of enemy ships is coming about.

"Incoming fire on starboard flank!"

Garaka rocks. Damage warning lights sparkle on my console, and there is the flash-bang of a transient EPS overload on one of the bridge consoles. Marklance gives a high-pitched yelp. I smile tolerantly at him. "Such things are to be expected," I say sweetly.

"That was an explosion! On the bridge!"

"Incoming enemy fire is absorbed and dissipated in the EPS grid," I say absent-mindedly, as I sketch out the next attack pattern on the tactical console. "Occasionally, there is a transient overload, or some impurities in the grid tubing are burned off by a passing surge... the alternative, though, would be to let the enemy fire take out a chunk of our hull. A minor distraction like this, believe me, is to be preferred." We are ready. "Fire torpedo spread!"

The multiple warheads shriek from our launchers. One Bird of Prey, out of position and already damaged, vanishes in a blast of flame - but the majority of the salvo is aimed at the base, and it strikes home, disabling shields and disruptor emplacements in a series of massive explosions. My beam arrays are swatting down the surviving Birds of Prey....

"Raptor is changing heading," Sano reports. "Coming about - activating a subspace jump -"

The enemy raptor vanishes from the screen. Sadly - for them - this was an obvious ploy on their part, and I have had ample time to take precautions. The raptor emerges from its subspace rift, a little under two kellicams behind us. An ideal spot for me to deploy a pair of tricobalt mines... I wonder if its captain had time to realize his error, before the detonations tore his ship apart.

The last few Birds of Prey are fleeing, in flames, from my frigates. The station itself is defenceless, its firepower wrecked by my torpedoes. Damage to the Garaka barely qualifies as cosmetic. I turn to my communications console, and press two buttons. One of them opens a standard Imperial hailing frequency. The other... turns the Garaka's ID transponder back on.

"Sarkan station," I announce. "This is Lieutenant General Shalo aboard the Imperial carrier Garaka. You are directed to surrender... and to meet your obligations to the Empire."

---

Marklance's voice sounds thin and tinny. "I'm going to take the opportunity. Of course she's up to something, but we haven't had a chance to get inside a Fer'jai frigate before...."

"We'll miss the prisoner transfer." The other voice is that of Marklance's "production associate". I have forgotten his name; I think of him just as the man from Starfleet Intelligence. "That might not matter, of course...."

"Yeah," says Marklance, "yeah. I'll give 'em credit, the Klinks haven't mistreated any prisoners - that I've seen. Hell, the poor guys seemed relieved, even." Well, of course they would - they expected to be eaten by the Fek'lhri, Imperial custody must seem preferable to that. "We can get the second camera unit to record the transfer anyway... if there are any, well, irregularities, they should pick up on them." Dream on, I think to myself. Faint noises sound, and then Marklance says, "Are you sure this room isn't bugged?"

"Swept it for surveillance devices myself," the Intelligence man replies. "It's clean." And he is perfectly right. But if you stand in the right place, two decks above their quarters, and next to the right ventilation shaft, you find that voices can carry. It helps, of course, that I know my ship. Intimately.

"We need an angle," Marklance says. "We need something... I don't care what it is. Something to show the KDF either in a bad light, or a good one. I don't wanna be neutral. Neutral is blah. Neutral is bad."

"Safe bet she'd prefer good," says the other, "but bad ought to be easier to do."

"Yeah," says Marklance, "they're Klinks, after all.... I'll find it. One way or another, I'll get my angle."

I step away from the ventilation shaft. Poor man. He is working so hard, trying to think of his angle. It would positively be an act of charity to find one for him.

---

It is late the next day when I see Marklance again. He strolls into my ready room, all smiles and affability. His camera team is not with him; so, this is to be a private conversation. I smile at him, and wave him to a chair. "You enjoyed your flight, then?"

"I got some good material. Those Fer'jai frigates are... weird. Gothic, maybe. I see what you mean about Fek interior design."

I nod in an abstracted manner. "You missed the transfer of the adult prisoners... an Imperial courier arrives tomorrow, if you need footage of ships docking and undocking. The children - there is a separate protocol, necessarily, for the care and repatriation of minors." The ship arriving tomorrow is an Imperial courier, and not - as today - an Orion slaving vessel. I do not deal in child slaves... the business is lucrative, but it is fraught with uncertainties. People become unreasonable where children are involved.

"It'd be good to show that. I guess." Marklance is trying to read my datapad upside down. He is not subtle about it; I sigh, spin it around, and show it to him. "What's all this about?"

"Choosing a brokerage agency to process the tribute from the station. You will understand that these things must be carefully accounted for... a select list of financial agents is kept by the Imperial authorities. People of impeccable financial probity."

Marklance purses his lips. "Accountancy."

"Dull, perhaps, but essential. The nearest large brokerage houses are on Presaucus III... I am trying to decide which to employ." I am frowning faintly, now, hoping to convey the impression that the choice is difficult.

"What's your thinking?" Marklance asks.

"I need an agency of sufficient size.... And there is one that I will not use."

He perks up at that. "Why not?"

I look at him steadily for a moment or two before I reply. "It is owned by a man... who was a trusted retainer of the House of Sinoom. My House. He betrayed his trust, turned his coat, sold our assets and our secrets to those who supported Melani D'ian and the war...."

"I thought you said these guys had to be of - what was it? Impeccable financial probity?"

"The brokerage was his reward. Your people have a saying, I recall - 'if it prosper, none dare call it treason'. The militarist faction prospered, and Satyusin Muhrl prospered with them. No doubt he deals honestly, now, with the Empire."

Marklance's eyes are gleaming with interest. "So you can't work with him? A matter of - family honour? But you're Orion, not Klingon... I always thought Orions were pragmatists."

"I find I am not sufficiently pragmatic to work with Satyusin Muhrl," I snap, with perfectly genuine anger.

"Really?" says Marklance. "That tells me something, doesn't it? About old grievances, and old memories, and just how deep grudges run in your culture...."

"It is not the same. Federation and Empire now face a common foe. My feelings about a man who violated my House's trust - they have nothing to do with -"

"Can you work with him?" Marklance is agog. He has found his angle, or so he thinks.

"It is irrelevant," I say with decision. "He will never work with me, for the most obvious reasons."

"If he could be persuaded... would you work with him?"

"To prove a point? To you?"

"If you like, yes."

"I am a warrior of the Empire. I will do my duty - however difficult, however unpleasant. Explain to me how this would fall within my duty."

"I'm guessing," Marklance says, "that your orders are to show the KDF in a good light, right? So, how about showing me that the KDF can put aside old animosities, can work with the people it used to despise, for the common good?" He is grinning. "A challenge, General Shalo. From me to you. Are you up to it?"

"It is academic. Muhrl has no duty to the KDF, and he has a high regard for his own skin. You will never persuade him to work with me."

He chuckles. "Want to bet? I can be mighty persuasive, General."

So, indeed, I hope.

---

The face on the holo-display is that of a small, bald man, with pinched features, greyish-green skin and long dangling earlobes. The jewelry he wears - nose studs, earrings, a glittering headband, several necklaces - looks incongruous on him. "Satyusin Murhl," I say to Foojoy and Sano. "An Orion-Gretebian half-breed, with some customs retained from both cultures... the one that interest me is Gretebian. You note the jewels?"

"Gaudy," says Sano.

"Display. Gretebians display their wealth, and they like to wear trophies. This being the case, some ideas sprang to my mind."

"A possibility there is -" Foojoy begins.

"Yes," I say. "That is why I need you to make... the requisite preparations. And you," I turn to Sano, "need to use our contacts on Presaucus III to the fullest. I need someone over whom Muhrl will be glad to triumph."

"We have less than thirty hours before we reach Presaucus orbit," Sano says doubtfully.

"You will need to work fast. But men like Muhrl make enemies as easily as they breathe. And he has one other quality that I think will prove useful to us." I stare intently at the face of my enemy. "Bravado."

---

K'Gan meets me at the transporter room, and his eyes widen at the sight of me. Well, that is good.

"Liberty parties are preparing to beam down, sir," he reports.

"Excellent. Pass the word amongst them, though, that we are still under the eyes of the Federation."

"They have been made aware of this, sir, but I will reiterate the message."

I nod. "A certain amount of... horseplay... is expected. Bar brawls, honour duels and the like. The Feds will expect it of us, and there is no reason to disappoint them. But we should stop short of significant property damage, or injury to passers-by. Or, especially, non-consensual... encounters. The Feds are very sensitive about such matters. Make our liberty parties aware that there is room in my trophy cabinet for the genitals of anyone who contravenes my orders in this respect."

K'Gan salutes. "It shall be so, sir."

"Good. The advance party?"

"Planetside and ready, sir."

"Good." I step onto the transporter pad. "Energize."

Red light encloses me and takes me away from the ship, into the hustle and bustle of the spaceport below.

The place is crowded, busy; I step off the pad and am swallowed at once in a swarm of aliens of a hundred different species, all hurrying on errands among low, domed buildings beneath a grey stormy sky. In the distance, starships tower along the horizon, freighters and frigates of numerous designs. I look about and spot Sano. She does not recognize me until I am quite close to her - it says something, perhaps, that an Orion costume of silks and jewels now works as a reasonably effective disguise. She smiles, and remembers not to salute.

"We have the one you need," she says. She looks a little careworn, almost hollow-eyed. It appears she has worked hard to achieve this success. I let her lead me down many winding alleys, into one geodesic dome building that looks much like any of the others.

The Gorns, Raas and Thraak, are standing over the wretched figure seated in one corner of the dingy bar. The few remaining customers are elaborately not paying attention to us. I sit down across the table from our captive, and take the datapad Sano offers me.

"Ekkdosin sh'Durn," I read. The captive looks up, trembling. I don't recognize his species - something small, bald and warty, with reddish-brown skin. "A figure, here, for the amount you owe to the Golden Raptor Loans and Brokerage Company... another figure, for your estimated assets. Dear me. There appears to be quite a disparity."

"Did Muhrl send you?" His voice is high-pitched and cracked. "How did you find me?"

"Sh'Durn is notoriously elusive," Sano says. "The Golden Raptor Company is by no means his only creditor."

"But it is the only one that need concern us now," I say. I smile at the cringing alien. "Good fortune attends you today, sh'Durn. Your debt to the Golden Raptor Company is about to be repaid. You will repay it. In full, and with interest."

"I don't have the money," sh'Durn whines. "You know I don't have the money...."

"Then we must make an arrangement," I say, giving him my sweetest smile. "I will buy your debt, sh'Durn. I will cover your bills to this company, and even add a little something to sweeten the pot. You should give thanks to whatever deities you worship, sh'Durn. Your luck has changed."

"It has?" He sounds doubtful.

"Of course," I add, "I am not a charitable institution. I am buying your debt, and I will receive value for money." I let my smile gain a little feral edge. "Let us discuss the arrangements...."

---

Ryall Marklance's smile is broad enough to span a star sector, as he ushers the small grey-green figure into my ready room. "Lieutenant General Shalo," he declaims, "let me introduce you to the president of the Golden Raptor Loans and Brokerage Company - Satyusin Muhrl."

I rise slowly to my feet. "Muhrl." He is smaller than I remember him, and his jewels are more gaudy and more numerous. I have to look hard... and then I have to restrain myself, to keep my face carefully composed, as I see that it worked.

"General." Muhrl looks at me, nervous and defiant. Of course, his innate bravado would tempt him to accept this assignment, to beard me in my lair - with, I suppose, a substantial monetary sweetener from Marklance.

"I hope you two can work together," says Marklance. "Bury those old animosities, hey?"

"I bear the General no ill will," says Muhrl.

"I see it is academic, in any case," I say. Marklance looks baffled; Muhrl looks wary. "You are wearing a Gral Temm assassin jewel, Muhrl. Whoever gave it to you will doubtless engage the trigger soon enough."

Murhl smiles. "This thing?" He points to the red gleaming gem at his throat. "It is a recent trophy, a payment for a debt - I have had it scanned for toxins, it is safe."

A trophy from a "notoriously elusive" debtor - in the form of a deadly weapon - could not fail to excite Muhrl's passion for display. "Are you sure?" I ask, sweetly. "The House of Torg, before its fall, created several interesting new toxins, specifically designed to pass undetected by standard scans. Perhaps you should check it with my science teams. Though I am sure you also obtained the release key for the jewel - even you would not dare to wear it, otherwise."

"Gral Temm assassin jewel?" Marklance asks. It is hard to tell if Muhrl's complexion has become even more unhealthy... but I rather think it has.

"My aide Commander Foojoy is of the Gral Temm people," I say. "You should ask him about the jewels - though he is, of course, of the Gral Temm warrior caste, not the assassin caste." The distinction between a Gral Temm warrior and an assassin is mainly one of spelling, but no need to trouble Marklance with this information. "Anyway. On the assumption that Muhrl will live, let us discuss the matter of the tribute."

---

It does not take long for Marklance to lose interest in the bookkeeping details, and leave. And then Muhrl makes an excuse, and departs for a little while... and, when he returns, there is no doubt about his complexion.

"The key is a fake," he hisses at me.

I hold up a tiny shining sliver of metal, and smile. "I know. Do you need that scan from my science team?" He does not answer. "You should avoid my transporter room," I tell him. "Who knows? The random pattern of bleeps and chirps from the circuitry might, coincidentally, match the pattern for the sonic trigger...."

His expression is half hate, half terror. I savour it.

"What do you want?" he asks, at last.

"What does anyone want? Wealth, power, pleasure... and revenge."

"You cannot afford to harm me in front of the Federation -"

"Can I not? My orders were to show the KDF as a friend to be trusted, or an enemy to be feared. Your death from the gamma-pyroxycene compound in that jewel... that would be fearsome, Muhrl." I hold the tiny key up again, toying with it, watching the light gleam on it....

"You might try removing the jewel, of course. The Gral Temm folk hero, Yeemus the Miraculous, once took off an assassin jewel without the key. That was one reason they called him the Miraculous. Do you feel miraculous, Muhrl?"

"What do you want?"

"I have told you. What you want -" I hold the key out towards him. "Now, let me tell you how you can earn it."

---

"That's... incredible," says Marklance. His gaze is rivetted on the display screen.

"It is not conclusive," I say, "merely... somewhat suggestive."

"The Sarkan traders were in league with the Elachi?"

"We cannot confirm that." Muhrl's voice is high-pitched and strained, and he is sweating profusely. Marklance does not appear to notice. His eyes dance as he reads the data on the screen. Much of it, in fact, is perfectly genuine. I have, with Muhrl's cooperation, added a few details...."

"It would explain a lot," says Marklance. "Like, for instance, why the Sarkans seemed so darn relieved when you took them prisoner. If they were slated for use as Elachi experimental subjects...." He gives vent to a low whistle. "I think anything would be better than that."

"I repeat, we do not have definite proof. But these technology transfers, and these cargoes here -" I point to a section of the data "- would indicate trade with the remnants of the Star Empire, and onwards from there." It is usually possible to make some transactions from any trade hub look suspicious. "It just goes to show, though... our real enemies have a frighteningly long reach."

"Yeah," says Marklance, "yeah.... Look, this stuff ties in with, well, some other details I happen to know about." He lumbers to his feet. "I'm going to go talk to my production associate, maybe get transport to, umm, somewhere else...." He departs, muttering to himself, his eyes aglow with possibilities.

I turn to Muhrl. "You should take some medication to control your perspiration."

"I am wearing death at my throat! You cannot expect me not to be nervous!"

"There are worse things than death, Muhrl. Fail me, and I shall acquaint you with some of them."

---

"Of much wealth, offering, this one is," says Foojoy, "transportation, to the planet, to obtain."

"Muhrl is offering bribes, now?" Foojoy nods, his long face sombre. "Well," I say, "you act honourably in reporting the matter to me."

"My duty, it is."

"But, Commander, you must also think of yourself," I add. "Let me make a suggestion. When next Muhrl makes an offer, this is what you should do...."

---

I am in a twisting tunnel of blackened metal, lined with ridges and ribs, like the entrails of some vast beast. I lean casually against one rib, and wait. I do not wait long. Red light illuminates the place with a hellish glare for a moment, and then the light fades, and Muhrl is there.

"I hope Foojoy made you pay through the nose for this," I remark. He whirls around.

"A trap!" he screams.

"Well," I say, "naturally."

"So what now? You have ruined me, do you now intend to kill me? What is this place?"

"I have hardly ruined you. Do not exaggerate. You may, possibly, have liquidated the assets from Sarkan Minor at a favourable price to me... and, of course, I am glad that your brokerage house has waived its own commission, there... but you have taken a loss, you have not been ruined. As to this place... we are still aboard the Garaka. This section retains the original Fek'lhri design, that is all." I sniff. "I would call it a design aesthetic, but the Feks do not really do aesthetic."

"So is this where you kill me?" He sounds almost resigned to it.

"Kill you? I pay my debts, Muhrl." I reach out and touch a stud. An arched doorway in the side of the corridor begins to glow with ruddy light. "In that alcove, you will find the key to the assassin jewel. Take it, and free yourself."

He scurries to the doorway, then stops at the threshold. "This is... some trick, isn't it?"

I examine the fingernails of my right hand. With my left, I draw out a small, silvery device - Muhrl will know it instantly as the trigger mechanism for the assassin jewel. "You must decide for yourself whether you trust me, Muhrl. But I do not intend to stay here indefinitely, and you would be unwise to test my patience too far."

He scuttles through the doorway, into the alcove, and grovels on the floor, looking for the tiny key. I watch him with an air of detached amusement. It takes a while for him to find the key, and longer still for his shaking hands to insert it into the locking mechanism. I hear him sob with relief as the jewel comes away from his neck. I give him a moment or two to relax and feel safe.

Then I switch on the agony booth.

---

"Of departing, confirmation there is," says Foojoy. On the main viewer, we can see Ryall Marklance's shuttle pulling away.

I relax in my command chair. "All in all," I say, "that was most satisfactory. Qapla', my crew."

"I confirm that the body has been sent to a defective transporter pad," Sano says. "The signal degradation is... quite irrecoverable."

"Excellent. Though the authorities may well suspect some enemy of Satyusin Muhrl's...."

"They will. They will suspect the notoriously elusive Ekkdosin sh'Durn," says Sano with a broad grin. "But sh'Durn will continue to evade the authorities - I have personally attended to the matter. I have made him," she adds, "hard to catch."

"Yes," I say, "I do not see how this could reasonably have gone better. We are enriched, the honour of my House is satisfied... the Feds have their documentary film, and a fresh red herring to chase.... I suppose we might have extracted a few more darseks from Muhrl, or he might have lasted a little longer in the booth." Made slack and flabby from years of soft living, Satyusin Muhrl survived barely four hours in the agony booth. I snap my fingers. "The booth. That reminds me - K'Gan, do we have any defaulters at present?"

"Only one on the list, sir. Warrior T'rmek, reported for duty in an unfit condition due to over-use of intoxicants." K'Gan's hawkish face frowns at me. "Sir, the booth is a stern punishment for a minor infraction -"

"It needs cleaning, K'Gan, that is all. Although... you need not mention that to T'rmek, when you tell him to report there."

K'Gan's face clears, and he laughs. He appreciates the jest.

These things are all a matter of presentation.

Claws 33

Tylha

The Tapiola has beamed down science facilities - lab units and prefabricated shelters. A hastily-assembled outpost is taking shape on the hillside above the steadholding. I stand outside it now, with T'Pia, and the Klingon commanders.

It's the first time I've seen T'Pia in person. The red-haired Vulcan is small and neat, almost finicky in her appearance, brisk and businesslike as she goes about her work.

I am content to let her. I am bruised, grimy with dust, and still reeking of the tellurium compound. But, then... so is everything.

"Rrueo supposes it is a deep-seated thing," Rrueo says. The Ferasan looks every bit as beaten-up and bedraggled as I do - perhaps more so. "Sulphur and tellurium both have the same valence as oxygen, so creatures that metabolised oxygen... had to learn, very early in the evolutionary process, to notice and avoid those substances. More than an instinctive aversion... a chemical aversion...."
  
"Quite." T'Pia doesn't wrinkle her nose, but I think if she wasn't Vulcan, she would. "With the disappearance of the - overlord - the tellurium compound has reverted to its normal stereochemical structure, and thus binds normally with our nasal chemoreceptors."

"Or, to put it more simply," says Rrueo, "now, it stinks. And worse than stinks - Rrueo can confirm that the telluric masses beneath the surface are breaking up and decomposing. They will release toxic tellurium compounds into the surrounding soil. Rrueo does not know if the colony will survive this."

"We will render all possible assistance," says T'Pia. "That is a point of which you should be aware. While your ships were out of communication, the Undine launched a surprise attack on Earth and Qo'noS. In the aftermath of that, an armistice has been agreed between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The war, effectively, is over."

R'j turns sharply towards her, silvery eyes flashing. "What?"

"You will, naturally, wish to confirm this with your own command authorities."

R'j's mouth works. "Naturally," she says. "And of course, I will do so. But it is only a formality. S-s-s-s-s. If one more thing were needed to make this whole enterprise an exercise in abject futility -"

She stalks angrily away, muttering Mlkwbrian phrases that the universal translator either can't, or won't, convert. T'Pia quirks one eyebrow.

"She is aggrieved," says Rrueo. "She desired a glorious success for her cunning plans.... She often makes cunning plans. Sometimes, they work, but more often the universe... regrettably fails to cooperate."

"Indeed," says T'Pia.

"If there's an armistice in place," I say, "we can bring in Federation help - I have contacts in the disaster relief agencies, they can assess the ecological damage, maybe work out ways to help -"

"That would be useful," says T'Pia. "My preliminary assessment, though, is that too much of this world's arable land is now compromised. The most probable outcome is that the Tiazan colonists will need to be evacuated."

"At least the Empire will have troop transports free," mutters Rrueo.

"They may well be needed." T'Pia's tricorder beeps. She pulls it from her belt, consults it. "Excuse me. There is a problem with the geophysics probes, and I must attend to it." And she marches off, stiff-backed, neat and highly polished. I feel like a reject as I watch her go.

"Geophysics," says Rrueo. "That reminds Rrueo... how is Harley Haught?"

"Dr. Haught? Oh, he's doing well - we transferred him to King Estmere's sickbay, and he's on the mend. My medical officer did have a few comments, but -" I don't think Samantha Beresford's remarks about "ham-fisted Klingon butchers with duct tape and glue" really bear repeating.

"Medical officers are never satisfied. Rrueo is glad to know Harley Haught is recovering." Rrueo runs one claw over her drooping whiskers. "One cannot carry a man all day and stand guard over him all night without developing a certain proprietary interest."

"Thank you for that, at least," I say.

"Rrueo suspects you would have done the same, in the circumstances. Allied, against the unknown... or the Undine...."

Something catches my eye; a movement, on the hillside below us. I turn my head. A small figure is plodding up the hill - the child, Nejje. Rrueo and I exchange glances. We go down towards her.

The girl's face is wan, tearful. She looks up at us. "Everything smells," she says. Down here, the garlicky reek of the tellurium compound is stronger. In the fields, it must be hardly bearable.

"I know," I say. "I'm sorry."

"Everything smells, and the plants are all brown, and dying.... What happened? Was it the Grau? The book said everything would change -"

"Little one." Rrueo squats down on her haunches, so that her head is on a level with Nejje's; she regards the child with a sort of compassionate gravity. "It was not the Grau, it was all of us. We did not, perhaps, intend to do this thing... but Rrueo is not so sure that she should regret it."

Tears gleam in Nejje's eyes. "I don't understand."

"We have brought you a gift, little one. It is not a gift you wanted, perhaps, but it is a great one. We have overthrown your overlord, and we have brought you freedom. Freedom is a good thing, a great thing, but it is never a comfortable thing. Listen to Rrueo, little one. The overlord no longer controls you, and you can make your own choices from now on."

"But what good is that?" Nejje cries. "What use is it to be free, when the plants are all dying, and the water is foul, and -"

"We can help," I say. "We will help... that's my people's way. To help, but never to control."

"Freedom is never easy," says Rrueo. "You can make your own choices, but those choices may be hard. You must be strong, little one. Rrueo can see things... Rrueo knows you have it in you to be strong."

"Strong enough," I add, "to decide for yourself what's written on the next page in that book."

Nejje looks from one to the other of us, her face woeful. Then, she seems to reach a decision. "I will be strong," she says, and steps forward, wrapping her arms around Rrueo's neck, burying her face in the blue fur. Rrueo submits to the embrace, purring softly.

After a minute, Nejje lets go, and steps back. "Should I thank you for the gift?" she asks.

"Thank us, or curse us," I say. "Or maybe both."

"That is the way, with this particular gift," says Rrueo.

Nejje nods gravely. Her tears seem to have stopped. "I will go back to my parents," she says, "and the Steadholder, and we will - decide what to do." She turns around and marches back down the hill. There is a definite air of determination about her.

Rrueo watches her go. "Rrueo has never borne a child," she says pensively. "The exigencies of military life always seemed to preclude it.... Sometimes, Rrueo regrets - Well. No matter." Her tone brightens. "In any case, R'j is Rrueo's friend, and sometimes that is very like having a difficult child. Rrueo must go to her, and soothe her ruffled feelings." She straightens up, and throws me a sketchy salute. "Until we meet again - ally."

And she lopes away. I watch her go, for a moment. Then I turn, and go off to look for my own problem child.

---

I find Ronnie in the small building we've rigged as a makeshift mortuary. She is gazing down at the stasis tube that contains the withered body of Martin Hudson. She looks up, briefly, as I come in, says, "Oh. Hi," and resumes her contemplation of the corpse.

I stand beside her, silently.

After a while, Ronnie says, "He never liked me, you know. Martin. He thought I was too young, thought he should have got the centre seat himself... oh, he never said it, but I knew. I knew."

"I suppose we can't all be lucky with our execs," I say.

Ronnie turns to me with a funny look on her face. "Mmm, yeah," she says, and falls silent again.

Another long pause. "Have you figured it all out yet?" I ask.

"No. Yes. Sort of." Ronnie shakes her head. "There was something inside the Rift, that much I get. It was an extra-temporal intelligence, something like the Bajoran Prophets, fair enough, it would pretty much have to be, living in a temporal anomaly, right? Dear God," she adds, "don't let the Bajorans know you've killed something like one of their Prophets. You'll never hear the end of it, and your ears will be black and blue."

"They're blue already," I point out.

"Whatever. Why are Bajoran religious rites so like Ferengi oomox? - Don't answer that."

"The Rift entity," I say, "somehow attached itself to a human being."

"It needed a human mind," says Ronnie, "to make sense of linear time. I think. And the whole business with the tellurium compound... it needed some specific deformations of normal spacetime to stay in this reality. That's what I guess, anyway. The warp physicists can have a field day working out all the details. That's what we pay them for." She shakes her head. "And, somehow, it wasn't enough. The creature needed something more, something else, to keep its anchor in the real world."

"Being extra-temporal," I say, "it could already see the point at which the - anchor - would fail. A crisis point in its own timeline."

"Yeah. And it needed someone else who'd been through the Rift. And... I might very well be the last one left. Tallasa and Saval and the others wouldn't count, we broke the darn Rift on our last attempt. That book of prophecy even said as much."

"So that must have been what Q meant -"

"When she said it was all about me, yeah." Ronnie scratches irritably at the skin by her Borg implant. "Except it wasn't all about me, was it? Turns out I was just the side show, distracting the beastie while you and Buxton went in through its back door and threw the ring into Mount Doom. Sneaky little hobbitses."

"Um, what?"

"Oh, look it up later. Point is, Q was - well, I don't know if she was lying, exactly, but she wasn't telling the truth the way I'd understand it."

"Q never does."

"Yeah." Ronnie sighs noisily. "Other stuff I don't understand. How did it affect Two of Twelve? Did the spatial distortions screw up my Borg neural circuits, or what?"

"Is she -?"

"Oh, back to normal. Now. Maybe a bit quieter. It's coming to something, though, when I've got a voice in my head telling me to go and get myself assimilated, and it's a relief to hear it."

I say nothing.

"And another thing," Ronnie goes on. "The bits of stuff out of my past. Why? Was it Martin, influencing the thing, trying to send me a warning? Or the thing itself, trying to bait me, trying to make some sort of mystery it knew I couldn't resist? Or both? Or maybe neither - some sort of communication, in a way we couldn't understand. Wuther-quotle-glug."

"Um, the translator didn't get that last part."

"Wasn't meant to. That's the point. Entities with no point of correlation with our intelligence, so everything they say is just... wuther-quotle-glug. Universal translators are all very well, provided you're all from the same universe to begin with." She shakes her head.

"Martin Hudson wasn't from another universe," I say.

"No. No. Just an ordinary guy, Martin."

"So what did he mean? When he said the other one was cleverer?"

Ronnie stares at the corpse in the stasis tube. Chronologically, I remember, she is two hundred and eighty years old. Just at this moment, she looks it. When she speaks, her voice is quiet and hollow.

"Wish I knew, kiddo. I wish I knew."