A strange encounter: you meet a character claiming to be your child. Is he or she a product of a brief liaison many years ago, or could they be something far stranger: a time traveler, or perhaps a trick of the enemy or one of Q's little pranks.
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
I'm sure I've mentioned before that red alert isn't my favourite way to wake up. I'm on my feet and out of the ready room at a dead run, though, without stopping to complain.
As I sprint onto the bridge, the lights flicker and the deck lurches beneath my feet. Not good. But the status lights on the shields are rock-steady, and there's no drop in structural integrity - uh-oh. Somebody is shooting at us with something exotic. And, judging by the way Commander Saval is very carefully maintaining the lack of expression on his bewhiskered Vulcan face, they're hitting us. Somehow.
"What've we got?" I snap at the bridge crew in general.
"It looks like a small commercial scout craft," my Andorian exec Tallasa reports. "It was passing us at low impulse speeds, and then it swung around and came after us, hard." The deck shudders again. "Still hitting us -"
"I can't get a targeting lock," Tallasa's sister Jhemyl chimes in. "And I can't shake it - I've tried every evasion trick I know, but -" Another wham cuts her off. Bad one, this time.
"Hailing on all frequencies," Leo Madena adds from the comms console. He would be. Leo's a good boy really. "No response."
"Saval." I turn to look at my science officer. "You're looking worried. What are you worried about?"
He does the Vulcan eyebrow thing. "I believe we are being targeted with an adaptive polymorphic virus program. It is infiltrating our systems, and it is highly effective. I am attempting to determine the parameters of its carrier wave - if we can block that channel, I should be able to purge the systems in due course. However -"
He doesn't get to finish that "however", because at that point the lights go out, and a terrific thump knocks all of us sprawling on the floor. Well, that's just dandy. No need for our attacker to faff around firing torpedoes and such, when he can monkey with the settings on the inertial dampeners and rattle us like a set of maracas.
Emergency lights come on. Saval's awful muttonchop whiskers don't really look any better when they're lit up in red from underneath.
"Helm control is down," Jhemyl says. Tallasa adds some commentary in Andorian which the universal translator avoids translating.
"Signal coming through, sir," says Leo.
"Oh, now they want to talk, do they?" I rise to my feet with as much dignity as I can muster. "On screen."
The main viewscreen flickers, and an image forms. For a moment, I don't know what it is - and then it sort of gells in my head. It's a human face, but surrounded by machinery, cradled in it. A transparent tube crawls up one nostril, there are what look like medical monitors plastered across the forehead... and the face is old, wrinkled and withered and fallen in, aged beyond almost anything I've ever seen before. Rheumy eyes regard me. They look as though they might have been brown, once.
I decide to break the silence. "Admiral Veronika Grau, commanding the USS Falcon, here. What the heck, call me Ronnie, everyone does. Well, you got us. What are you going to do with us?"
The eyes gleam. The wizened mouth curls into what might be a smile... and then the lips part, and a thin, rasping voice speaks.
"Hello, Mother."
---
I don't actually remember folding at the knees, but somehow I seem to be sitting down in the command chair anyway. The ancient face on the screen is still looking at me and smiling. I think everyone else is looking at me, too, only not smiling. More gaping, in most cases.
I find my voice. "Oh, this has got to be a joke."
"No joke," says the thin voice. "I've been looking for you, Mother. For quite a while, now."
There are a number of questions revolving around in my brain, now, and I decide to let the most urgent one out. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm exactly who I say I am. Don't play games, Mother."
I stare at the ancient face grasped by machinery, and I think hard. "No. I've never had a child. Never had time, when I was younger... never had the chance, after I was older." After the Rift. After I was first displaced in time, and came back with an obsession about it, wanting to know what had happened to me... an obsession which displaced everything else, and which might not have been all mine, to start with.
"You disappoint me, Mother. Perhaps I should try cutting off your life support, to see if it jogs your memory."
Tallasa is looking at me hard, now. Andorians... Andorians are big on family. But Tallasa knows me, she knows I've never had a child... doesn't she?
Don't I?
"There are nearly a thousand people on this ship." I decide to play for time. "You'd put their lives at risk just to make a point? I don't know who you are. Nothing you can say will change that. Something weird is going on, here, so why not work with me and find out what it is?"
The rheumy eyes narrow at me. "More games, Mother? I'll give you an hour. Think things over. Then we'll talk again."
"Wait. One thing." I stare at the face, trying to find some connection, some spark of recognition... and failing. "What's your name, dammit? At least tell me your name!"
The eyes blink. "Simon," the rasping voice says, and then the screen goes blank.
---
My ready room doesn't look at its best in emergency lighting. My bridge officers are dark silhouettes against the dim red glow - they look almost sinister, somehow. Tallasa's antennae are twitching.
"Leaving the family reunion to one side, for the moment," I say, "what the hell is our situation, anyway? Saval?"
"Computer operations are completely subverted," Saval reports with his typical Vulcan urbanity. "We are locked out of all command functions; weapons, shields and drives are offline. Thus far, all my attempts to circumvent the software intrusion have been unsuccessful. It would be helpful to have more data regarding the nature of the intrusion."
"Yeah, right. And there's one person, and one only, who can tell us about it. Our friend Simon."
"Do you have any idea who he is, sir?" Tallasa asks.
"Not a clue." I can't meet her gaze in this light. "I've never had a child. Look, you know damn well I'm erratic, but my memory is good enough, and I'd certainly remember something like that! No, this is some sort of set-up. But I don't know what sort."
"We are able to run read-only queries on the ship's database," says Saval. "Perhaps, sir, we could check your service record, to confirm this?"
"What's the point? Baby boy out there has complete control over our computers. By now, he's probably rewritten my service record and family history all the way back to a protoplasmic primordial atomic globule. You'll get whatever answers he chooses to give you."
"Still," says Saval, "it might be useful to know what those answers are."
"Go ahead, if it'll make you feel any better."
"A possibility, sir." Jhemyl speaks up. She's no happier than Tallasa, I bet, at even the possibility that I might have abandoned a child. "Suppose this is some kind of temporal event? An alternate timeline, bleeding over into this reality? Suppose this Simon is a child you might have had, in some other possibility framework?"
"Well, if that sort of finagling is going on, hell, anything's possible. How could we possibly check?"
"Subquantum scan for anomalous chroniton signatures," Tallasa replies promptly.
"Yeah, right. Fancy spotting those by eye? Because we use the computer for identifying things like that, and guess what, we don't have control of the computer. We are only going to get the answers this guy wants us to have."
"Simon Grau," says Saval. "Mother, Veronika Grau; father, Simon Kriegmayer. Born 22nd September 2164 by Earth reckoning. Not Starfleet personnel, so I have no other details." I can't really see his eyebrow quirking, but I know it does. "No date of death recorded, but... one would expect there to be one."
"That's the year before you took command of the USS Goshawk, isn't it, sir?" says Tallasa.
"And vanished into the Stygmalian Rift the first time, yes," I say. "But I've never even met a Simon Kriegmayer, much less - Besides, if any of that were true, I'd still have been on maternity leave instead of taking over the Goshawk."
"Unless you took extreme steps to conceal the birth," says Saval. "Which, of course, might account for feelings of abandonment, and thus resentment, in your offspring."
"Who is, according to that piece of fiction, getting on for two hundred and fifty years old. Human beings don't last that long, Saval! Hell, Vulcans don't last that long!"
"Experimental advances in geriatric medicine, perhaps," says Saval. "We can see that he is functioning only with the aid of extensive mechanical life support."
"So where's he been in the meantime? Why didn't he pop out of the woodwork back in the 23rd century, while I was there? Then. Whatever. And what does he want? Back child support? Two centuries' worth of birthday presents?"
"The only way to find out," Tallasa says, "might be to ask him."
"Um, sir." Leo Madena. Well, Leo's a nice lad, maybe he will have something nice to say. "I'm, um, puzzled about the computer attack. You'd need - well, you'd need very sophisticated systems to hack our main computer, for a start -"
"Evidently," murmurs Saval.
"But - well, I can't shake the feeling, um, you'd need more," Leo continues. "You'd need to, well, really know our systems, from the inside out, kind of thing."
"Perhaps he worked on the initial software design teams," Tallasa says. "He's had time, the Infinite knows."
"Time. Right." I stand up. I hope it looks decisive. "Time's something we ain't got. Leo, Saval, put your tricorders together and see if you can hack some way through his hack. The rest of us -" I shrug, helplessly. "Deadline's coming up. Let's get back to the bridge and see what his next move is."
---
The ancient face doesn't look any more familiar. "So," he says, "you've had time to consider. What are your conclusions?"
"What are your demands?" I snap back. "I'm assuming you've got demands."
"Is a mother's love too much to expect?" The withered lips twitch into a ghastly parody of a smile. "But, yes, I suppose there are other things I want."
"So name them, and we'll go from there."
"You'll just give in? Like that? You disappoint me, Mother."
"I said I'll listen. Never said I'd agree. And if I'm your mother, Simon, where's your filial respect, anyway?"
"It died. A long time ago. Very well, Mother. I want something, yes. I want what you have."
And what's that? A wonky left eye, a lot of aches and pains where my Borg implants used to be, a stash of Saurian brandy that I hope Tallasa doesn't know about? "Specifics," I snap at him.
"I want your ship, Admiral."
"You've got my ship, already."
"No. I've got control of your main computer, yes, but that's a long way from having the ship. I need... intelligent cooperation. I need a crew, a competent crew, to work the ship. I can't do it all by software subversion, no matter how good I am." Horrible smile again. "And I am, though I say so myself, very good."
"You know I can't just turn over my command. And why my ship, anyway?"
"Because you owe me, Mother." I don't think he's smiling now. More of a snarl. "I'm restoring basic ops power to your ship. No drives, shields or weapons. And then I'm transporting over to you, and we will get my systems installed on your bridge. Make no mistake, Mother, I am taking over."
---
The transporter pad whines and glows, and a column of lights in the air resolves itself into a solid form.
In the flesh - in person, rather - Simon is something like two and a half metres tall, and massively bulky. Most of it is mechanical exoskeleton. He lumbers off the pad in a hissing of hydraulics and a clanging of metal on metal, his withered face looking like an afterthought, perched on top of that terrifying mechanical carcase. He reminds me a lot of... things I'd rather not be reminded of.
Zodiri, my grouchy Trill medical officer, steps forward with a scanner. Simon raises one huge mechanized arm and pushes her aside.
"Look," Zodiri says, "if you're coming aboard, I need to do some baseline scans, okay? I'm the CMO here, which means if you suddenly drop dead, I'm the one who gets stuck with the paperwork. So don't make my job any harder, okay?"
Simon spares her a quick sneer, then turns to me. "No welcome aboard, Mother?"
"You're here. Not much I can do about it." I give the exoskeleton a quick once-over with my mark one eyeball. Plenty of mechanical power in those massive augmented limbs, but I'm not spotting any built-in weapons systems. Of course, there's a lot of machinery and stuff that I don't recognize at all, but I'm guessing most of it's medical stuff. At his age, he must need all the medical machinery you could imagine. Ignoring Zodiri fussing around him, he lumbers off towards the turbolift.
"So," I say. "Where have you been all my life, anyway?"
"Let's just say busy," he replies.
"Look. I know I've been kind of an absent parent, what with time warps and all that, but how come I never heard from you when I wasn't stuck inside the Stygmalian Rift? You've had years, decades, when you could have made contact -"
"I was busy," he repeats. The turbolift doors hiss open, and he steps into the capsule. I follow him in. Just hope the damn thing will take his weight. Zodiri stays behind. I hope she's got a plan. It'd make one of us.
"Busy doing what? If I'm your mother, I'm allowed to nag."
"For most of my childhood, trying to survive neglect and abuse in an Earth orphanage," he says with evident bitterness. "And then - well, I had a career, and it led in an interesting direction. Eventually, it led to a biological research station on Eta Palinuri IV." The withered face twists. "I was one of their successes. You wouldn't want to see the failures. No, you wouldn't like that at all. Bridge." The turbolift responds to his voice. I feel a bit aggrieved about that.
"I've never heard of Eta Palinuri IV," I say.
"You were never meant to. It's on the fringes of Federation space, and it is a very private and very illegal research station." The turbolift doors open. Simon strides through them, out onto the bridge.
"Your attention." The exoskeleton comes with amplifiers; Simon's voice blares across the bridge. "I am taking command of this vessel. We will proceed at cruise speed to the Eta Palinuri system." The deck plates groan as he marches over to the command chair. There is a hiss, and spear-tipped cables slide out of his forearms, to sink into my command and tactical consoles. He is taking over, and he's making it clear. "There is an extra-legal research facility on the fourth planet of that system. This ship's mission, now, is to locate, expose, and reduce that facility, with maximum force." He seats himself in the command chair.
---
"Out of his tiny mind," I grumble.
I'm standing in a corridor on deck six, talking to Saval and Tallasa, because I suspect he's monitoring the ready room and probably my quarters as well. Heck, he could be monitoring anywhere on the ship - but I'm guessing he can't keep his attention everywhere, and an anonymous stretch of corridor might be something he'll overlook.
"If he's right about the biological research at this lab -" Tallasa begins.
"Oh, you think he's telling the truth about that? I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you."
"His biological and biomechanical augmentations must have been done somewhere," Saval points out.
"And somewhere that doesn't worry much about ethics," Tallasa adds.
"Even so," I say firmly, "I am not about to blast some research station into slag on the say-so of some nutcase who claims he's my long-lost son. So we need some options, and we need them before we get into phaser range of Eta Palinuri. Tactical options don't look good, am I right, Tallasa?"
"That exoskeleton is well-protected," says Tallasa. "A group of us could probably jump him, but we'd take casualties, and we would not be able to take him down before he compromised the ship's systems with his computer controls. Phaser fire would take him out, if we could get an armed team within range without him noticing -"
"Which is not likely," I finish for her. "So, that leaves the technical side of things. Saval, ball's in your court."
"We are still locked out of the main computer and all its distributed networks and subnets," says Saval. He would definitely be sounding gloomy, if that was allowed. "We have prepared simulations of back-door intrusion methods which would allow us to regain control - but our tricorders and non-networked portable computers do not have sufficient capacity to enable us to be certain of success. And failure would definitely alert our captor, and provoke immediate retribution."
Damn and blast. I scratch irritably at the skin by my eyepatch, where my optical implant used to be. Then I have a thought, and it's not one I like. "What's the actual bottleneck?" I ask Saval.
"Essentially, it is a factor of speed and coordination. We would need to override the main computer's input processing at certain precisely coordinated points in its cycles -"
Damn and blast. Again. "Thought as much." I heave a deep sigh. "Listen. You know where you can still get some additional processing power? That's set up for peer-to-peer coordination and sneaky systems infiltration? OK, so a lot of it got burned out, and most of the rest is decidedly second-hand, but still -"
---
So now I'm dangling over the main computer core with a bunch of tricorders strapped to my waist, and wondering why in hell I forgot the first rule of the damn military, never volunteer.
"Need to be closer," I subvocalize into the throat mike, and Saval and Tallasa pay out another metre or so of line, and I drop down that much nearer the top of the core. I could have just gone through the door like a normal person, but we figured Simon would spot that. So. Jeffries tube and ventilation duct time. Why is it always ducts?
I reach out with my still-Borged-up left hand. A normal human shouldn't be able to feel the computer core's processes, but I can... a sort of indescribable tingle along my nerves and my shoddy neural cabling, a whispering in my ears like a rapid conversation half-heard in the next room. I shut my eye and try to concentrate, try to feel my way into the system.
"Launching nanoprobes," I whisper. No, we're not using our standard networked combadges for this stunt. The throat mike works just fine. Has done so far.
Invisible motes stream from their launch sites on my fingers. The tingling and the whispering both intensify as the induction field picks up more of the core's activity. I concentrate. I am in a black, black void, hanging upside down, listening to the data as the core sings to itself, and the data is rushing over me, and I can hear it and feel it, and I want to be a part of it -
Somewhere, faint, on the edge of hearing, there is a voice saying */*reconnect--- priority--- reconnect--- reconnect--- reconnect--- */* Two of Twelve. My former Borg identity. I thought I was free of her, damn it.
"Synchronizing," I gasp, feeling how slow and squishy and imprecise my organic voice is. "Preparing payload." The programmed routines in those tricorders are at my command, now, and I need only watch and wait, wait for the right moment in that rushing data stream, the right moment to -
"Activating."
Something clicks. Not a physical sound, just a sudden sensation of change - change and rightness. Like when you throw a dart at a dartboard, and the movements of your hand and arm, the weight of the dart in your hand, the sudden lightness as it leaves your fingers, they all come right, and you know it's a good one, and the thump of the dart into the treble twenty is just a confirmation of what you knew already. We're in, and it's worked. Good for Saval.
"Disconnecting." If I can, because a part of me still wants to be submerged in all that data... but I tell it no, I doggedly go through the routine of turning off the nanoprobe stream and pulling my hand back from the datacore and saying, no, I am not part of this, I am just me, Ronnie Grau, shut safely away inside my own skull and not connected to anything. Two of Twelve's whimpering dies away and she is silent, once again. I wish I could believe it will be forever.
"Get me out of this," I mumble, and I am suddenly rising. There are a few bumps and bashes as I'm dragged back through the ducts, and I am painfully reminded just how many sharp edges there are in these things. Not that I mind the pain, so much. Pain is personal, pain is private, pain is human.
I'm out of the tube. Tallasa and Jhemyl are helping me to my feet. I am bruised and shaking and slick with cold sweat. Saval is studying a tricorder readout. "It worked," I tell him.
"I believe so, sir."
"I know so. Come on. Let's get to the bridge and get my darling boy disconnected, before he notices what we've done and starts figuring a way round it." There's another figure in the corridor, now, though, and I have to blink and focus before I realize who it is.
"Yeah, well." Zodiri is holding a PADD towards me. "I think I've worked out what he is."
---
The turbolift doors hiss open and I stride onto the bridge with a confidence that I don't entirely feel. Lieutenant Haloy is at the helm. "Course change," I tell him. "Away from Eta Palinuri, back to our scheduled patrol pattern. You'd better make it warp seven, we've got time to make up."
"Ignore her," says Simon's rasping voice. "I am in charge here, Mother."
"Oh, you are so wrong about both those things." I nod to Haloy, who taps at the helm console. On the screen, the streaking stars wheel and settle into a new configuration as the ship turns. I march across the bridge, to turn and glare at the half-human thing squatting in my command chair.
"Mother, Veronika Grau. Father, Simon Kriegmayer. Absolutely right. Only my CMO, well, she may have a worse bedside manner than Jack Kevorkian, but she's got a brain and she knows how to use it. And once we got the computer back, we even bothered to make some checks. Simon Kriegmayer, born 2368. So how could I have had a kid with him, back in 2164? I mean, I'm good, but I'm not that good."
Ancient eyes stare at me; the withered mouth twists.
"Zodiri found genetic markers when she did her scan. Epigenetic degradation, codon fragments, all indicative of something. Synthetic biogenesis techiques. You weren't born in 2164, Simon. You were never born at all. You were made, in a test tube somewhere, using tissue samples, de-differentiated and then reverse-engineered into gametes. No problem getting hold of the samples, I guess. Dunno about this Kriegmayer, but with all the samples the medics have had off me over the years, there must be enough to build a spare." I fix him with a glare. "You were made. Somehow, they aged you, super-aged you into that. Somehow, they put two centuries plus of false memories into your head. I'd rather not even think about how they did it. But that's what they did. You're somebody's weapon, aimed at - what? Eta Palinuri? What is there at Eta Palinuri, anyway?"
He rises to his feet, looming, his face contorted. His metal arms make abortive clutching motions towards me - then his knees buckle, and he falls to the deck with a crash. For one moment he kneels there in front of me, then he slumps face-forward along the deck.
"Medical to the bridge," someone says urgently into the communicator.
"No point." I nudge the inert shape with my foot. Now he's gone, I can feel sorry for him. "He really was two hundred plus years old - physiologically, at any rate. He was hanging on to life by his fingernails. Being told he wasn't really alive at all... just the shock of that was enough to kill him."
---
I make my way back to my quarters. It's been one hell of a day.
I start to unfasten my uniform tunic, and then I notice the tabletop console flashing. Incoming message. No origin code. What a surprise.
I turn the screen on. "Hello, Frankie."
The scarred face with the yellowish eyes looks at me, not in a remotely friendly way. "You were expecting me?" asks Franklin Drake.
I shrug. "It makes all kinds of sense, doesn't it? A completely unethical experiment, that's right up your street. And Leo Madena was right, the computer attack was made by someone who knew all my ship's systems - prefix codes, security gateways, the works. So either Starfleet's security is hopelessly compromised, or, well, it was an inside job. Besides, we read Simon Kriegmayer's record - it's so perfectly consistent, it just has to be phony. One of yours."
The spokesman for Section 31 nods, slowly. His expression is still unfriendly.
"So what is at Eta Palinuri?" I ask.
"Nothing significant. We'd have stopped the test if it had come to your ship actually firing on the planet."
"It was just a test." A funny feeling is coming over me - a mixture of weariness and disgust. "And you picked me - why, exactly? Still sore over that Sheliak affair?"
"Not in the least. You should take it as a compliment, Ronnie. You and your crew are efficient, capable, highly adaptable. So we picked you to test a - scenario. If we could rattle you and yours, break your effectiveness, we would know that our psychological approach could work."
"Yeah, well. Sorry to disappoint you."
Drake shakes his head and chuckles. "It's still a useful data point."
"Data point?" That feeling isn't going away. "Whatever else he was, once you'd made him, Simon Grau was alive. A real person, Frankie. Maybe with a phony past and a head full of fake memories, but he was a living being, not just some - some unit of Section 31's resources, something you could use up -" My voice is shaking.
"And how many living beings have you killed, in the course of your career?" Drake asks.
"I didn't make them just for that!"
"Perhaps you should. It might be preferable, ethically speaking. Like the Founders and their Jem'Hadar."
I glare at him. "Don't talk to me about ethics. You don't have the right."
"I have my duty. And I don't need your approval, Ronnie."
"You're not getting it. And I promise you this, Drake. If I ever run into you in the flesh again, I'll throw something a damn sight heavier than a chess set at your head."
"I'll bear it in mind, Ronnie. I'll add that one to all the other threats I've heard." He smiles. He actually smiles. "Goodbye for now, Ronnie. I'll be in touch."
And the screen goes blank.
Showing posts with label litchallenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label litchallenge. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 September 2016
Friday, 6 May 2016
Lit Challenge 29: Battle Scars
[After being severely wounded on an away mission you will never be the same, you lost use of your right arm, a deep gash in your forehead stares at you in the mirror everyday. You are grateful to be alive, through the nightmares and horrors of your memories you contemplate "is it all worth it?" Sometime afterword on a First Contact mission you encounter a race with remarkable healing abilities which could heal your wounds fully. However you thinking back you weigh the pros and cons of asking for help, Do the scars define you or are you above them? Does this solve your trauma or only mask it?]
Personal log: Tylha Shohl, officer commanding USS King Estmere NCC-92984
The face on the viewscreen is humanoid, hairless, golden-skinned and impossibly beautiful. "Welcome, King Estmere." The voice is a liquid, fluting contralto, as beautiful as the face itself. "Welcome, Ambassador Starel."
"Thank you, Minister Ajaris." Starel steps out in front of the viewer, raises his hand in the traditional Vulcan salute. "Live long, and prosper."
Ajaris raises one perfect hand in response. "Peace and long life. You have, of course, permission to approach the docking port. Our traffic control is sending the requisite information to your data channel now." I glance at Dgy-Coosh, the Rigelian who's at the helm station today. He nods to confirm. "An appropriate reception has been arranged at 1900 hours - we will be gratified to make your acquaintance, Ambassador." Ajaris smiles. "And, please, bring your fascinating military advisor with you. We should like to make you all feel welcome."
"Thank you, Minister," says Starel. "We shall begin our final approach now, and will join you as you request."
"Until that time, then, Ambassador. I shall go, now, to ensure all is in readiness." Ajaris's eyes are brilliant green, like jewels; their gaze rests on me for a second. Then the screen goes blank.
Starel does the Vulcan eyebrow-quirk thing. "Interesting," he says.
"I'm not sure why I'm so fascinating," I say. "The Antosians are pacifists, mostly, aren't they?"
"Indeed. I do not envisage any particular difficulties in the coming negotiations, but it would be appropriate to accede to requests of this nature. Would your duties prohibit you from accepting this invitation?"
"No, sir. My orders are to facilitate your mission as much as I'm able. I'll be happy to help out." I consider for a moment. "Military advisor, she said. I'd better wear dress whites, then."
---
Antos IV. It's one of those worlds on the fringes of the Federation mainstream; a nominal Federation member, these days, but with deliberately restricted contact. Starel's trade and cultural exchange mission represents a chance to open things up, to see more of the Antosians' science and art, maybe to get more Antosians into the galaxy as a whole in exchange. I doubt I'll see Antosians serving in Starfleet any time soon, though.... Well. The Federation is not a conquering empire, cultures get to join it on their own terms. And the Infinite knows, the Antosians have reason enough to be wary.
Though there is no sign of wariness at the diplomatic reception. Starel is in full Ambassadorial uniform; he is tall and saturnine and rather handsome by Vulcan standards. He looks quite dowdy, though, by comparison with the Antosians. They are graceful people, almost ethereal; they are all flawlessly beautiful, but in different ways; their hairless skins gleam with metallic or pearlescent lustres, and their eyes are jewels.
"Admiral Shohl. Welcome."
Minister Ajaris is wearing a floor-length golden gown that seems almost a continuation of her golden skin. She smiles at me; her teeth gleam, perfect as the rest of her. "Minister Ajaris. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here."
"We are delighted to see you," she says. "You are Andorian, yes? We have had little contact with your people. I hope you will forgive any errors of etiquette or protocol I might make in addressing you."
"We're guests in your system, Minister - we should be the ones to watch our steps! Though it's hard to imagine that being a problem. Everyone here seems so friendly... I'm sure no one will let any trivial misunderstandings spoil that."
"That is my hope, certainly. It is the feeling of many that we should have more outreach into the wider Federation. Your people were among the original founders of the Federation, yes? It may surprise you, how exotic you seem to us."
"Well, Andorians are a little outside the normal humanoid biological spectrum, it's fair to say."
"You have four genders, I understand? That must be... complex."
"It makes family life, umm, a matter of negotiation, certainly. But I think that's true of a lot of species!"
She gives a little tinkling laugh. "And the antennae - sense organs, yes?"
"Sensitive to variations in air pressure and electromagnetic fields. It's - well, it's something I've known all my life. It's hard for me to imagine living without that sense."
"Intriguing," says Ajaris. "I could wish to know how to see the world as you do. It has advantages, yes? Your people are famous as artists, as well as warriors. You must live your lives with a great... intensity, yes?"
It's my turn to give a little laugh. "I don't normally think of it that way. But when I think back, over all the things I've done recently - well, I guess it's fair to say I keep myself busy!"
"No doubt. I hesitate to raise the matter...." She seems almost shy, all of a sudden. "But curiosity compels me. Is this intensity... the reason behind your fascinating asymmetry?"
For a moment, I don't understand what she means, and then it hits me. I raise a self-conscious hand to the looping scars on my right cheek. The Antosians... they're all beautiful, with smooth, gleaming skins, unscarred and flawless. Symmetrical. Quite. "This? It's the... relic of an old injury."
"A trophy of some desperate struggle?"
"I wouldn't call it a trophy, exactly." I take a deep breath. "The Nausicaans invaded the colony planet where I was borne. I took a stray disruptor shot to the head, was spacelifted off." I grimace, acutely aware, now, of the stiffness of the right side of my face. "Disruptors make a mess. By the time the medics had rebuilt my head, well, this was the best they could do."
"Surely not?" Minister Ajaris looks genuinely troubled, now. "We know mainstream Federation medical technology is less advanced than our own, but even so, their techniques must be adequate to restore you wholly."
"Eventually, maybe. The whole of my cheekbone was destroyed - it's a ceramic replacement, now, with a titanium core. The nerve damage and the residual scarring from the deep-tissue disruptor burns left - well, this." I brush my fingertips over the scar tissue again. "It'd take a vat-grown cloned-tissue replacement to fix it, and then integrating it into my neural body picture would take months. If it worked at all - a friend of mine had to have a similar procedure done, and she's still having trouble with it."
"So sad," Minister Ajaris breathes. She looks into my eyes.
Then her face, her whole body, blurs.
It happens instantly. One second, I'm looking at a bald, gold-skinned humanoid - then her skin is blue, and she has long white hair, and antennae rising from a ridged forehead. It takes me a moment to realize I'm looking at an exact copy of my own face. Exact - except for the scars.
"Cosmetic only," she says, in my voice. "These -" she flicks one antenna with her finger, and I can't help but wince "- are just decoration, they do not show me the world as you might see it. That would take a somewhat more involved procedure. But even the cosmetic change - well, it is both rapid and complete."
I find my voice. "I've heard of your cellular metamorphosis technique, obviously. But this is the first time I've actually seen it...."
"A demonstration, only." She blurs again, and resumes her original form. "My point is this. The cellular metamorphosis process includes all the necessary modifications to what you call the neural body picture. Instantly. The process would be of little value if it did not - we could not stumble like infants, taking days or months to adapt to each new form." Her emerald eyes are very sober, now, as they gaze into mine. "Our medical techniques could replace your damaged tissues, heal your wounds, remove your scars... in mere seconds, Admiral Shohl. If you wished it."
---
"So," I say later, "do I wish it?"
We're in my ready room, holding the post-mortem on the reception - me, and Starel, and one other.
"It would be tactful to accept, certainly," Starel says. "The offer is clearly meant in good part, and acceptance might make a contribution towards the general warming of relations between ourselves and the Antosians. I understand, of course, that this may not be the only factor in your decision, and I certainly cannot oblige you to undergo a medical procedure. I merely suggest that your acceptance would not be unwelcome."
"My feelings aren't the only point at issue, though." I turn to the other person in the ready room, a dark-haired human female wearing a data monocle. "Doctor Beresford?"
"We have precisely one previous case of someone being taught the Antosian cellular metamorphosis technique," Samantha Beresford says crisply. "That wasn't an Andorian, of course - but it didn't exactly turn out well. Opinion is still divided on the question of how much the Antosian technique contributed to Garth of Izar's mental breakdown -"
"The cases are surely dissimilar in all important aspects," Starel protests politely.
"Garth might have had a pre-existing brain injury, which Tylha doesn't have," says Samantha. "And the Antosians have made progress with their techniques - I gather they're suggesting just a one-off session, guided by an expert in the metamorphosis technique. Even so, there is a risk."
"It is hard to see how the removal of facial scarring might turn Admiral Shohl into a megalomaniac," Starel says.
"You'd think," I say. "But I met my mirror universe duplicate, once."
Starel does the eyebrow-quirk thing. "Is that a factor?"
"Apart from quantum signatures, she was different from me in two ways. She had no facial scars - and she was a megalomaniac." I can still see that smooth-skinned face looking at me from the viewscreen; proud, arrogant, exultant.
"That is a function, surely, of the cultural influences of the mirror universe, not any innate character flaw," says Starel.
"You'd think that. I'd like to think that. But how can I be sure?"
---
How can I be sure? I pace up and down my living quarters, considering.
Probably, though - thinking realistically - the Antosians will get it right. They probably know better than we do what went wrong with Garth of Izar. And they've had a couple of centuries to improve their techniques. If they say they can do this, they probably can.
In which case, the question comes down to... do I want this?
Why should that be a hard question to answer? Who would want to be scarred, when they could be... whole?
I leave off pacing, and stop to look at my face in the wall mirror. It's not a bad face... I suppose. A bit too stern and severe to be attractive, even without the scars. I cover my right cheek with my hand, then take it away again. Pointless. I know what it would look like, I don't have to imagine.
I sigh, and go to sit down at my desk. I drum my fingers on the desktop, five-four time, the rhythm for "Mars".
"Computer. Music. Holst, 'At the Boar's Head', Interworld Academy of Music recording dated 2275."
The first chords sound from the speakers. It's an interesting production, this one. Something tells me that the role of Falstaff was just made for a Tellarite. At any rate, it should take my mind off things -
There is a discreet chime from the door, so discreet I almost don't hear it through Falstaff's blustering. "Computer, pause recording. Come in."
The door slides open, and Anthi Vihl comes in. "Flag Captain. Good to see you." I like to remind Anthi of her new rank. The Infinite knows she's earned it, ten times over. And it's made surprisingly little difference to our working relationship - she is, still, my right arm, as she has been for... so long, now.
"Sir. Sorry to interrupt you. I just need you to sign off on some passes for the station - Ambassador Starel wants the crew on best behaviour, I thought I'd better run this past you."
"Right, fine. Though I'm not expecting any problems. The Antosians seem like a pretty friendly bunch." I take the proffered PADD, scan the list of names, try to remember if any of them's likely to cause a diplomatic incident. "Thirethequ and Jeroequene? Well, if you reckon the Antosians can cope with Jolciot language...." We both smile. I am acutely aware of how lopsided my smile is. "Anthi, have you heard about my, um, offer? From the Antosians?"
"I have, sir."
"So what do you think?" Anthi, among her many virtues, is a clear thinker. I hate to think how many times over I'd be dead, if I hadn't listened to her advice.
Now, though, it seems she has none to give. Her mouth opens for a moment, then shuts tight, and her antennae writhe, as if she's in the grip of some strong emotion. Finally, "I think it has to be your choice, sir. It's your face, after all," she says, in dead-level, neutral tones.
I stare at her. "Well, I know that. But you don't have a suggestion?"
"It wouldn't - it wouldn't be proper, sir."
Anthi is descended from generations of pure Imperial Guard military. It looks like I've hit on some part of Andorian military etiquette even I didn't know about. "All right," I say mildly. I hand her back the PADD. She salutes formally, and positively marches out. Her antennae are still twitching violently. I stare at the door as it closes behind her. Now what was that about?
---
The Antosian space station is as beautiful as its occupants: a work of art, hanging above the blue-green gem that is Antos IV itself. The planet is half-full, visible through the windows of the arboretum where I find Ambassador Starel and Minister Ajaris.
"I've given a lot of thought to your suggestion, Minister," I say, once the initial pleasantries are over.
She gives me another of those dazzling smiles. "And you have reached a decision, yes?"
"I have. And I hope I won't offend you if I decline your kind offer."
Starel says absolutely nothing, doesn't move a muscle, doesn't change his expression one iota. I have never before seen anyone signal absolute disapproval that way. Ajaris merely inclines her head a little. "May I know your reasoning?"
"I'm not sure it's well-organized enough to qualify as reasoning, Minister. But this -" I raise my hand to my scars "- is too much a part of me, now. We are the sum of everything that happens to us, and everything we do, in this life, Minister. This... is something that happened to me. I find I can't just - erase it."
"I see." Her face and body blur again. Now, she is human, with short dark hair and deep brown skin. "We make something of a virtue of our plasticity, Admiral." Another blur, and she is some reptilian creature, slit-pupilled yellow eyes and shining blue-grey scales. "We can be almost anything we want to be. It is interesting that you think otherwise. That you make a virtue of constancy, of stability." And she blurs back to her golden-skinned Antosian form. Is this her real shape? Does she even have a real shape? She turns to Starel. "Your people, I think, have a philosophy, yes? The IDIC?"
Starel is wearing a small gold IDIC pin on the breast of his tunic; now he raises his hand to touch it. "That is correct," he says.
"So, today, we have a demonstration, yes? My values, and Admiral Shohl's. Neither is better than the other, I think - but, though they are different, they need not be in conflict. There is room in the Federation for Antosian plasticity and Andorian constancy, yes?"
Starel blinks, once. "Indeed. An admirable demonstration of the principles of IDIC, and of the Federation," he says. I have a feeling he'd talk about Andorian obstinacy, rather than constancy. But he is far too much of a diplomat to say so. And so, I find, am I.
---
I run into Anthi at the docking tube to King Estmere. She looks at me, a little apprehensively. "I made my decision," I tell her. She says nothing. "I'm not taking the Antosians' treatment. You'll have to live with me the way I am, I'm afraid."
The stiff line of her shoulders relaxes slightly. "I'm - actually, I'm glad, sir."
I look at her curiously. "Glad?"
"I've... always thought your face looked - distinguished, sir. Like a warrior. In the Guard's tradition... warriors wear their scars proudly. Sir."
"I see. Makes sense, I guess." I frown. "Why couldn't you just say that, though? It wouldn't have... offended me, or anything."
"Not my place, sir," says Anthi firmly. "I had no right to influence your decision. One way or the other."
"I see." Well, I don't see at all, actually. Some things, you can't perceive, even with Andorian antennae. And Anthi's are twitching like anything, again. I decide to give up and leave it. "Well, in any case, the decision's made now. Come on, Flag Captain Vihl. Let's get back to work."
Personal log: Tylha Shohl, officer commanding USS King Estmere NCC-92984
The face on the viewscreen is humanoid, hairless, golden-skinned and impossibly beautiful. "Welcome, King Estmere." The voice is a liquid, fluting contralto, as beautiful as the face itself. "Welcome, Ambassador Starel."
"Thank you, Minister Ajaris." Starel steps out in front of the viewer, raises his hand in the traditional Vulcan salute. "Live long, and prosper."
Ajaris raises one perfect hand in response. "Peace and long life. You have, of course, permission to approach the docking port. Our traffic control is sending the requisite information to your data channel now." I glance at Dgy-Coosh, the Rigelian who's at the helm station today. He nods to confirm. "An appropriate reception has been arranged at 1900 hours - we will be gratified to make your acquaintance, Ambassador." Ajaris smiles. "And, please, bring your fascinating military advisor with you. We should like to make you all feel welcome."
"Thank you, Minister," says Starel. "We shall begin our final approach now, and will join you as you request."
"Until that time, then, Ambassador. I shall go, now, to ensure all is in readiness." Ajaris's eyes are brilliant green, like jewels; their gaze rests on me for a second. Then the screen goes blank.
Starel does the Vulcan eyebrow-quirk thing. "Interesting," he says.
"I'm not sure why I'm so fascinating," I say. "The Antosians are pacifists, mostly, aren't they?"
"Indeed. I do not envisage any particular difficulties in the coming negotiations, but it would be appropriate to accede to requests of this nature. Would your duties prohibit you from accepting this invitation?"
"No, sir. My orders are to facilitate your mission as much as I'm able. I'll be happy to help out." I consider for a moment. "Military advisor, she said. I'd better wear dress whites, then."
---
Antos IV. It's one of those worlds on the fringes of the Federation mainstream; a nominal Federation member, these days, but with deliberately restricted contact. Starel's trade and cultural exchange mission represents a chance to open things up, to see more of the Antosians' science and art, maybe to get more Antosians into the galaxy as a whole in exchange. I doubt I'll see Antosians serving in Starfleet any time soon, though.... Well. The Federation is not a conquering empire, cultures get to join it on their own terms. And the Infinite knows, the Antosians have reason enough to be wary.
Though there is no sign of wariness at the diplomatic reception. Starel is in full Ambassadorial uniform; he is tall and saturnine and rather handsome by Vulcan standards. He looks quite dowdy, though, by comparison with the Antosians. They are graceful people, almost ethereal; they are all flawlessly beautiful, but in different ways; their hairless skins gleam with metallic or pearlescent lustres, and their eyes are jewels.
"Admiral Shohl. Welcome."
Minister Ajaris is wearing a floor-length golden gown that seems almost a continuation of her golden skin. She smiles at me; her teeth gleam, perfect as the rest of her. "Minister Ajaris. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here."
"We are delighted to see you," she says. "You are Andorian, yes? We have had little contact with your people. I hope you will forgive any errors of etiquette or protocol I might make in addressing you."
"We're guests in your system, Minister - we should be the ones to watch our steps! Though it's hard to imagine that being a problem. Everyone here seems so friendly... I'm sure no one will let any trivial misunderstandings spoil that."
"That is my hope, certainly. It is the feeling of many that we should have more outreach into the wider Federation. Your people were among the original founders of the Federation, yes? It may surprise you, how exotic you seem to us."
"Well, Andorians are a little outside the normal humanoid biological spectrum, it's fair to say."
"You have four genders, I understand? That must be... complex."
"It makes family life, umm, a matter of negotiation, certainly. But I think that's true of a lot of species!"
She gives a little tinkling laugh. "And the antennae - sense organs, yes?"
"Sensitive to variations in air pressure and electromagnetic fields. It's - well, it's something I've known all my life. It's hard for me to imagine living without that sense."
"Intriguing," says Ajaris. "I could wish to know how to see the world as you do. It has advantages, yes? Your people are famous as artists, as well as warriors. You must live your lives with a great... intensity, yes?"
It's my turn to give a little laugh. "I don't normally think of it that way. But when I think back, over all the things I've done recently - well, I guess it's fair to say I keep myself busy!"
"No doubt. I hesitate to raise the matter...." She seems almost shy, all of a sudden. "But curiosity compels me. Is this intensity... the reason behind your fascinating asymmetry?"
For a moment, I don't understand what she means, and then it hits me. I raise a self-conscious hand to the looping scars on my right cheek. The Antosians... they're all beautiful, with smooth, gleaming skins, unscarred and flawless. Symmetrical. Quite. "This? It's the... relic of an old injury."
"A trophy of some desperate struggle?"
"I wouldn't call it a trophy, exactly." I take a deep breath. "The Nausicaans invaded the colony planet where I was borne. I took a stray disruptor shot to the head, was spacelifted off." I grimace, acutely aware, now, of the stiffness of the right side of my face. "Disruptors make a mess. By the time the medics had rebuilt my head, well, this was the best they could do."
"Surely not?" Minister Ajaris looks genuinely troubled, now. "We know mainstream Federation medical technology is less advanced than our own, but even so, their techniques must be adequate to restore you wholly."
"Eventually, maybe. The whole of my cheekbone was destroyed - it's a ceramic replacement, now, with a titanium core. The nerve damage and the residual scarring from the deep-tissue disruptor burns left - well, this." I brush my fingertips over the scar tissue again. "It'd take a vat-grown cloned-tissue replacement to fix it, and then integrating it into my neural body picture would take months. If it worked at all - a friend of mine had to have a similar procedure done, and she's still having trouble with it."
"So sad," Minister Ajaris breathes. She looks into my eyes.
Then her face, her whole body, blurs.
It happens instantly. One second, I'm looking at a bald, gold-skinned humanoid - then her skin is blue, and she has long white hair, and antennae rising from a ridged forehead. It takes me a moment to realize I'm looking at an exact copy of my own face. Exact - except for the scars.
"Cosmetic only," she says, in my voice. "These -" she flicks one antenna with her finger, and I can't help but wince "- are just decoration, they do not show me the world as you might see it. That would take a somewhat more involved procedure. But even the cosmetic change - well, it is both rapid and complete."
I find my voice. "I've heard of your cellular metamorphosis technique, obviously. But this is the first time I've actually seen it...."
"A demonstration, only." She blurs again, and resumes her original form. "My point is this. The cellular metamorphosis process includes all the necessary modifications to what you call the neural body picture. Instantly. The process would be of little value if it did not - we could not stumble like infants, taking days or months to adapt to each new form." Her emerald eyes are very sober, now, as they gaze into mine. "Our medical techniques could replace your damaged tissues, heal your wounds, remove your scars... in mere seconds, Admiral Shohl. If you wished it."
---
"So," I say later, "do I wish it?"
We're in my ready room, holding the post-mortem on the reception - me, and Starel, and one other.
"It would be tactful to accept, certainly," Starel says. "The offer is clearly meant in good part, and acceptance might make a contribution towards the general warming of relations between ourselves and the Antosians. I understand, of course, that this may not be the only factor in your decision, and I certainly cannot oblige you to undergo a medical procedure. I merely suggest that your acceptance would not be unwelcome."
"My feelings aren't the only point at issue, though." I turn to the other person in the ready room, a dark-haired human female wearing a data monocle. "Doctor Beresford?"
"We have precisely one previous case of someone being taught the Antosian cellular metamorphosis technique," Samantha Beresford says crisply. "That wasn't an Andorian, of course - but it didn't exactly turn out well. Opinion is still divided on the question of how much the Antosian technique contributed to Garth of Izar's mental breakdown -"
"The cases are surely dissimilar in all important aspects," Starel protests politely.
"Garth might have had a pre-existing brain injury, which Tylha doesn't have," says Samantha. "And the Antosians have made progress with their techniques - I gather they're suggesting just a one-off session, guided by an expert in the metamorphosis technique. Even so, there is a risk."
"It is hard to see how the removal of facial scarring might turn Admiral Shohl into a megalomaniac," Starel says.
"You'd think," I say. "But I met my mirror universe duplicate, once."
Starel does the eyebrow-quirk thing. "Is that a factor?"
"Apart from quantum signatures, she was different from me in two ways. She had no facial scars - and she was a megalomaniac." I can still see that smooth-skinned face looking at me from the viewscreen; proud, arrogant, exultant.
"That is a function, surely, of the cultural influences of the mirror universe, not any innate character flaw," says Starel.
"You'd think that. I'd like to think that. But how can I be sure?"
---
How can I be sure? I pace up and down my living quarters, considering.
Probably, though - thinking realistically - the Antosians will get it right. They probably know better than we do what went wrong with Garth of Izar. And they've had a couple of centuries to improve their techniques. If they say they can do this, they probably can.
In which case, the question comes down to... do I want this?
Why should that be a hard question to answer? Who would want to be scarred, when they could be... whole?
I leave off pacing, and stop to look at my face in the wall mirror. It's not a bad face... I suppose. A bit too stern and severe to be attractive, even without the scars. I cover my right cheek with my hand, then take it away again. Pointless. I know what it would look like, I don't have to imagine.
I sigh, and go to sit down at my desk. I drum my fingers on the desktop, five-four time, the rhythm for "Mars".
"Computer. Music. Holst, 'At the Boar's Head', Interworld Academy of Music recording dated 2275."
The first chords sound from the speakers. It's an interesting production, this one. Something tells me that the role of Falstaff was just made for a Tellarite. At any rate, it should take my mind off things -
There is a discreet chime from the door, so discreet I almost don't hear it through Falstaff's blustering. "Computer, pause recording. Come in."
The door slides open, and Anthi Vihl comes in. "Flag Captain. Good to see you." I like to remind Anthi of her new rank. The Infinite knows she's earned it, ten times over. And it's made surprisingly little difference to our working relationship - she is, still, my right arm, as she has been for... so long, now.
"Sir. Sorry to interrupt you. I just need you to sign off on some passes for the station - Ambassador Starel wants the crew on best behaviour, I thought I'd better run this past you."
"Right, fine. Though I'm not expecting any problems. The Antosians seem like a pretty friendly bunch." I take the proffered PADD, scan the list of names, try to remember if any of them's likely to cause a diplomatic incident. "Thirethequ and Jeroequene? Well, if you reckon the Antosians can cope with Jolciot language...." We both smile. I am acutely aware of how lopsided my smile is. "Anthi, have you heard about my, um, offer? From the Antosians?"
"I have, sir."
"So what do you think?" Anthi, among her many virtues, is a clear thinker. I hate to think how many times over I'd be dead, if I hadn't listened to her advice.
Now, though, it seems she has none to give. Her mouth opens for a moment, then shuts tight, and her antennae writhe, as if she's in the grip of some strong emotion. Finally, "I think it has to be your choice, sir. It's your face, after all," she says, in dead-level, neutral tones.
I stare at her. "Well, I know that. But you don't have a suggestion?"
"It wouldn't - it wouldn't be proper, sir."
Anthi is descended from generations of pure Imperial Guard military. It looks like I've hit on some part of Andorian military etiquette even I didn't know about. "All right," I say mildly. I hand her back the PADD. She salutes formally, and positively marches out. Her antennae are still twitching violently. I stare at the door as it closes behind her. Now what was that about?
---
The Antosian space station is as beautiful as its occupants: a work of art, hanging above the blue-green gem that is Antos IV itself. The planet is half-full, visible through the windows of the arboretum where I find Ambassador Starel and Minister Ajaris.
"I've given a lot of thought to your suggestion, Minister," I say, once the initial pleasantries are over.
She gives me another of those dazzling smiles. "And you have reached a decision, yes?"
"I have. And I hope I won't offend you if I decline your kind offer."
Starel says absolutely nothing, doesn't move a muscle, doesn't change his expression one iota. I have never before seen anyone signal absolute disapproval that way. Ajaris merely inclines her head a little. "May I know your reasoning?"
"I'm not sure it's well-organized enough to qualify as reasoning, Minister. But this -" I raise my hand to my scars "- is too much a part of me, now. We are the sum of everything that happens to us, and everything we do, in this life, Minister. This... is something that happened to me. I find I can't just - erase it."
"I see." Her face and body blur again. Now, she is human, with short dark hair and deep brown skin. "We make something of a virtue of our plasticity, Admiral." Another blur, and she is some reptilian creature, slit-pupilled yellow eyes and shining blue-grey scales. "We can be almost anything we want to be. It is interesting that you think otherwise. That you make a virtue of constancy, of stability." And she blurs back to her golden-skinned Antosian form. Is this her real shape? Does she even have a real shape? She turns to Starel. "Your people, I think, have a philosophy, yes? The IDIC?"
Starel is wearing a small gold IDIC pin on the breast of his tunic; now he raises his hand to touch it. "That is correct," he says.
"So, today, we have a demonstration, yes? My values, and Admiral Shohl's. Neither is better than the other, I think - but, though they are different, they need not be in conflict. There is room in the Federation for Antosian plasticity and Andorian constancy, yes?"
Starel blinks, once. "Indeed. An admirable demonstration of the principles of IDIC, and of the Federation," he says. I have a feeling he'd talk about Andorian obstinacy, rather than constancy. But he is far too much of a diplomat to say so. And so, I find, am I.
---
I run into Anthi at the docking tube to King Estmere. She looks at me, a little apprehensively. "I made my decision," I tell her. She says nothing. "I'm not taking the Antosians' treatment. You'll have to live with me the way I am, I'm afraid."
The stiff line of her shoulders relaxes slightly. "I'm - actually, I'm glad, sir."
I look at her curiously. "Glad?"
"I've... always thought your face looked - distinguished, sir. Like a warrior. In the Guard's tradition... warriors wear their scars proudly. Sir."
"I see. Makes sense, I guess." I frown. "Why couldn't you just say that, though? It wouldn't have... offended me, or anything."
"Not my place, sir," says Anthi firmly. "I had no right to influence your decision. One way or the other."
"I see." Well, I don't see at all, actually. Some things, you can't perceive, even with Andorian antennae. And Anthi's are twitching like anything, again. I decide to give up and leave it. "Well, in any case, the decision's made now. Come on, Flag Captain Vihl. Let's get back to work."
Saturday, 6 February 2016
Lit Challenge 28: Put Your Analyst On Danger Money, Baby
[A new officer is assigned to your crew. They may be transferring from another starship, a participant in an officer exchange program, or even a newly commissioned ensign fresh out of the academy. Who are they? What will they be doing? How do they settle in? Do they fit right in, or do they just irritate everyone they speak to? ]
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
"Permission to come aboard." The big Andorian on the transporter pad salutes smartly. Dunno how they do that without banging their antennae, but hey.
"Permission granted. Welcome aboard, Mr Hihl."
"Thank you, sir." He strides off the pad, and picks up a carryall that looks like it must weigh the same as me. I'd guess it's full of case notes and textbooks and stuff. Lieutenant Commander Sran Hihl seems to be a serious sort of a guy.
"So, where do you want to start?" I ask him. "Meet the senior staff? Check in with the CMO? Go down to deck 12 and sample the rocket fuel they cook up in the chem lab that I'm not supposed to know about? Or just head for your quarters and settle in?"
"Perhaps the CMO would be the best place to start," Hihl says. He's got a rather pleasant baritone voice, easy to listen to. Of course, in his line of work, that's an advantage, I guess.
"Righty ho," I say brightly. "Off to medical, then." I peer around. "Turbolift, turbolift, where did they hide the turbolift?... oh, right, here we are."
"There's no need for you to accompany me, Admiral Grau," Hihl says. "I don't want to take up too much of your time."
"Oh, call me Ronnie, everyone does," I tell him, as I insinuate myself into the turbolift. Truth be told, I don't immediately want him plotting behind my back with my chief medical officer. "Sickbay," I tell the lift capsule. Hihl doesn't say anything. Doesn't really have time, the lifts are fast, and I can talk that way too. "No trouble at all, I suppose I ought to check in on Sickbay myself from time to time, y'know, make sure all the wheels are oiled and the gears are still turning and that -"
"Interesting metaphor, sir." He snuck a word in edgewise while I was pausing for breath, dammit. "Considering your medical history, and especially the Borg assimilation."
"Yeah, well," I say as the lift doors hiss open, "that's sort of behind me now, mostly. God, when I think of what it was like when Two of Twelve was living in my head, I wouldn't even have been able to look at you without her saying */*species 4464*/* at me, here we are, by the way." I stride through the sickbay doors with Hihl following me. At my Hihl, you might say. Ha.
The small, mousy Trill woman at the bio-monitor console looks up as we come in. "What the hell are you doing here?" Zodiri asks. "Don't tell me it's for medical advice, this isn't April the first. And who's this?"
"Chief Medical Officer Zodiri," I announce, waving airily at her. "Zodiri, this is Sran Hihl, he's -"
"It's your damn eye again, isn't it?" Zodiri snaps at me. "Do the bloody exercises and stop bugging me about it. I'd give you eye drops, but you'd only drink them."
"Drink them?" says Hihl bemusedly. His antennae are starting to wilt a little.
"If anyone can get smashed on Retinox-5, it'd be her," says Zodiri. "Who did you say you were, again?"
"I -" Hihl begins.
"This is Lieutenant Commander Sran Hihl," I say loudly, "he's joining us as Ship's Counselor, effective today."
Zodiri stares at me. Her face moves in an odd sort of way, one which takes me a moment or two to recognize. It's not something I often see on Zodiri's face... in fact, it's something I've never seen on Zodiri's face. She is smiling. More than that, she is positively grinning at Hihl, who just stands there looking blank and blue.
"Ship's... Counselor?" she says. She hoots with laughter, and makes waving-off movements with her hands. "Run away!" she shouts, in between chortles. "Run away!"
"You get used to her," I assure the increasingly baffled-looking Andorian. "I have, though I couldn't tell you why. Anyway, once she's got over her fit of the giggles, you can have a nice professional chat about things -"
"It'll have to wait," Zodiri says. She seems to have regained some composure. "I've got stuff on, right now."
"Medical problem?" I ask.
"No, I thought I'd try my hand at knitting, instead. Of course it's medical, you superannuated Borg twit. Ahepkur."
"Again?"
"I must apologize, sir," says a new voice. I turn to my left, quickly. Ada has been standing there, in my blind spot, all this time. I didn't see her, because of the eyepatch, and I didn't hear her, because - being an android - she was standing absolutely still and not even breathing. It's hard to read expressions, because of the metal eyes and the electronic panels... but there is something distinctly sheepish about the way she is looking.
"You girls have got to get your relationship under control," I say.
"I'm sorry, sir," says Ada. "But, well, she does insist on, well, testing my limits."
"Relationship issues?" asks Hihl. Oh, of course, this sort of stuff is meat and drink to him.
"It's more a spelling issue," I say. "Ahepkur is a Klingon, and you know all about Klingon relationships, right? They can't tell the difference between marital arts and martial arts. They get rowdy in the bedroom. Trouble is, when your partner's an android...."
"Currently it looks like eight broken ribs, a dislocated patella, and a contused spleen," says Zodiri. "I mean, bloody hell, why not bring her flowers or something instead?"
"I tried that once, sir," says Ada. "She ate them."
"I didn't know that Starfleet androids were programmed for -" Hihl begins.
"I have a wide range of discretionary functions," says Ada. "And Commander Ahepkur and I... hit it off."
"After kind of a rocky start," I comment, "and maybe a bit too literally, sometimes. Tell you what." I take Hihl by the elbow and draw him towards the door. "Let's leave these guys to it for the moment. Zodiri will get Ahepkur on her feet in time for Ada to put her on her back, and while they're doing that, let's go say hello to the rest of the team, how about that?" He doesn't resist. I have a feeling Ada and Ahepkur aren't in any of his textbooks.
I steer Hihl back into the turbolift. "I should consult with Dr. Zodiri as soon as she's available," he says in rather faint tones.
"Yes, I'll bet. Do you have lots of notes about me? I mean, where are you planning to start? The repeated time-warps? The Borg assimilation? The homicidal fire god who hijacked my brain? It's all grist to the mill, I guess. Bridge," I say to the lift capsule.
"You seem to be... adjusting... to the removal of more of your implants," says Hihl. "I understand that you relied heavily on the mnemonic circuitry for some time, surely the loss of that -"
"Oh, right, yeah. Memory, all alone in the moonlight, I can smile at the old days, I was beautiful then - OK, OK, that last line's going back a fair old way, I admit. Never mind. No, I think what I lost in eidetic memory circuits, I gained in not having a ruddy back seat driver inside my head, commenting at me all the time. Makes it a lot easier to focus, these days. Where are we again? - oh, right, the bridge, yeah."
I traipse out onto the bridge. "Hi there, folks," I call out. "This is Sran Hihl, he's joining us as Ship's Counselor, everyone say hello and welcome, now." I turn to Hihl. "Let's start with the sensible people, shall we? This is my first officer, Commander Tallasa -" I wave my hand at Tallasa, but she is already on her feet. Her expression is stony, her antennae are stiff and twitching slightly. Behind her, at the helm console, her sister Jhemyl stands up too.
"Just Tallasa," Tallasa says, clearly daring Hihl to make something of it.
"And I am Jhemyl," her sister adds. "Just Jhemyl."
My Andorian exec and my indispensable top pilot both lost their family name after their parents comprehensively besmirched it. Clan-honour and clan-disgrace are hot-button topics for Andorians. It took some time, but they finally normalized relations with the last Andorian officer to join the team... actually, I sometimes wonder just how cordial Tallasa is getting with Areb Ysrip, not that I have any way of finding out. I suppose I could just ask Tallasa, if I particularly wanted her to break every bone in my body. Anyway. Right now, the two of them are looking coolly at Hihl, and Hihl is looking blankly back, and the social temperature is plummetting to a level that makes Andoria itself look positively sweltering.
I'm rather suspecting my new counselor spent all his spare time reading up on my records, and didn't worry about the rest of the crew. More fool him.
To try and defuse the situation, I turn to the science console. "And this is Saval, my chief science officer, and - ah."
Saval nods politely: his face, framed by those God-awful mutton-chop whiskers, is composed and neutral as ever. "Welcome aboard, Counselor Hihl," he says. He indicates the Vulcan woman in engineering uniform standing beside him. "My daughter, Lieutenant T'Shomep, is visiting from the USS King Estmere."
Hihl nods politely back, and then does a double-take. "Your... daughter?" he asks.
"Commander Saval was with me on my last trip into the Stygmalian Rift," I explain. "We all got time-warped twenty-four years into the future, that time. It messes things up."
"Adjustments," says T'Shomep, "were needed in our family life."
"Yes," says Hihl, "I... suppose they must have been." I swear I can see him adding things to a to-do list inside his head. His antennae are limp and drooping.
"And over there on comms," I say, "is Leo Madena." Leo looks up with a visible start. "You'll like Leo, I know I do. Leo's a nice lad, makes himself very useful, doesn't have any weird hangups or unusual living situations, frankly I don't know why he puts up with us. Tell you what, Leo, why don't you see Counselor Hihl to his quarters, get him settled in nicely, maybe tell him some more about the Falcon and the team in general? Leo will see you get sorted all right," I tell Hihl. "He's a very reliable person, is Leo."
"Uh, thank you, sir," says Leo.
"Yes," says Hihl, "yes, I see I have... a lot of data to review. Thank you, sir."
"Well," I say, "no great rush. I'll come and have a chat, once you're ready, in office hours, sometime soon. Ish."
Hihl lets Leo usher him into the turbolift. "Oh, just one thing," I call after them. "Leo? Better not tell him about those Ferengi snuff holograms - what was it, Ferengi Execution 104? Save that for some other time." Through the closing doors, I catch a glimpse of Leo's ears turning bright red, and Hihl looking towards him like a man with many questions.
The doors hiss shut. I saunter over to the command chair, sit down, settle myself in.
"Nice man," I say to the world at large. "Highly qualified, too, according to his personnel file. Energetic, able and dedicated, they said."
"Yes, sir," says Tallasa.
I grin at her. "Anyone want to bet he'll last six weeks?"
"No takers, sir," says Tallasa.
Friday, 5 February 2016
Lit Challenge 27: One of One
("While investigating a strange energy signature in the outskirts of the Delta Quadrant, your ship comes across a derelict spire-like relay station of sorts. Scans reveal it is of Borg origin and it's data banks reveal a planet not far from your current coordinates. On the planet surface is a grounded Borg ziggurat of some kind. The old Borg data suggests this is the burial site of the very first Borg, Designation One of One. The Borg revere this being as a sort of icon to their Collective. Exploring the site could reveal major information on the Borg. But scans of the ship reveal a faint life sign inside it. Could One of One still be alive? Do you dare risk an encounter with such a mythical being? Write a log detailing the expedition. Is it simply an intergalactic ghost story....or can even death itself be adapted to service the Borg?"
I just thought it was time to check up on... someone... with this one.)
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
"The Borg don't do reverence," I protest. "Trust me on this. I know."
Tallasa glances at the image on the screen. "Nonetheless, sir -" she begins.
"Nonetheless, nothing. It's a mothballed Borg facility." I limp towards the viewer, studying the picture. "They do that, often enough."
The picture shows a roughly pyramidal structure of blackened metal and spidery girders, towering up from a rocky, barren plain, under the wan light of an M-class star. It's hard, at first, to get a sense of scale for the thing - until you look close, at a tiny, tiny white dot, and realise that's a Starfleet runabout, and do the math. Then you know that this thing is several kilometres tall, so tall that the tip sticks out of this world's thin troposphere....
"It only looks like a monument," I say in pettish tones. God, I can do pettish these days. Not to mention querulous. I'm beginning to wonder when I'll make it all the way to senile. I turn, and narrowly avoid stumbling as I make my way back to the centre seat. My Andorian exec stands up, starts to reach out a supporting hand, thinks better of it.
"Still reading one faint life sign." Saval's voice comes from my blind side. I still hate having a blind side. I turn my head. The bewhiskered Vulcan's face is completely impassive, as per usual, but I reckon I know what's going through his mind. Same thing as is going through Tallasa's, probably.
"Well, there you are, then," I say. "So much for One of One, Patient Zero for the Borg infection. I mean, they'd be how old, by now? Thousands. They'd be dead. The organic parts of drones, they age, they wear out, and when they've worn out, the Borg dispose of them." I slump in the command chair, feeling aged and worn out myself. The Borg pyramid on Pelsidia II is still on the screen, towering, enigmatic.... Not so long ago, I would have known what it was. I tap irritably at one of the remaining Borg implants in my temple, next to the patch over my left eye. Two of Twelve, the Borg voice that used to be in my head, says nothing.
Do I miss her? Do I honestly miss her?
"Dr. Ricardo's science team report they're about to penetrate the sub-levels," says Leo Madena from the comms station.
"I'll bet they are, the dirty little devils." I heave myself out of the chair again. "It's time for me to do my exercises. Keep me informed." I limp off towards the ready room.
---
I look in the mirror. Pale, gaunt, dark spiky hair, scars and Borg remnants, all present and correct. Unlikely to win Miss Universe this year either, I think. Cautiously, I raise the eyepatch.
My vision blurs immediately, and my new left eye fills with tears. The problem is, using it is the only way to integrate it into my nervous system, to get my visual cortex used to processing the input. But, until it does get integrated, the input is... confusing. To say the least.
I turn away from the mirror, grope across the ready room to my desk, and sit down heavily. I have about half a minute to regroup, before the door hisses open, and a blue and white Cubist nightmare comes into sight. In my exec's voice, it says, "Sir, are you all right?"
"Just dandy," I croak, leaning sideways as the visual scrambling affects my balance. Good thing I'm sitting down. Tallasa comes further into the room, so the door slides shut behind her.
"You shouldn't be here, sir," she says. "You're still... convalescing."
"I'll convalesce here a darn sight better than under Quinn's feet back at Spacedock," I growl. "Besides, I'm fine, damn it." It occurs to me, as I sit here listing fifteen degrees to starboard with tears running down my face, that that last sentence might not sound entirely convincing. Never mind.
"You don't have to prove anything, sir," says Tallasa. "If you're not physically up to things, no one would blame you -"
"Look. OK, I'm not at my best, but I need to be up and doing, right? Besides, I won't get over my current limitations unless I push them a bit. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
I think Tallasa might be nodding, it's hard to tell. "And who said that, sir?"
"Me, just then." I make an irritated gesture and knock something off the desk - don't know what, but it goes thump on the floor and not smash, so that's OK. "Look, I know what you're getting at. Yes, my memory's not what it was when it was... artificially augmented... but that's OK, everything still works, I can cope, dammit." I take a deep breath. "Also, Arthur C. Clarke. See? Still got it."
"I hope you're right, sir," says Tallasa. "For all our sakes."
"Of course I'm right. Arthur C. Clarke. Dead sure." She knows I'm deliberately misunderstanding, and I know she knows, and I don't know what difference it makes. I couldn't read the expression on her face now, I know, even if I could see it properly.
There is a pause in the conversation, broken by the entrance of a distorted blurry thing with Leo Madena's voice. "Trouble, sir," he says. "We've lost contact with the science team - and their life signs are no longer registering."
---
I've put the eyepatch back in place, but the console readout doesn't make a lot more sense that way anyway. "Transponders and remote vital signs monitoring both cut out here," says Saval, pointing to an abstract glowy thing that must mean something to him. "We read small increases in overall EM activity, but nothing definite - no high output energy discharges, no transporter signatures."
"Well, I won't say I told you so," I say, "but I told him so." Dr. Erwin Ricardo, up-and-coming expert on Borg history, now missing, presumed - well, when your life signs vanish inside an old Borg facility, presumptions start at "dead" and work upwards towards the really horrible. "Abandoned Borg whatsit, does not contain mythical progenitor of the Borg, does contain heaps of big trouble, stay the hell away. Why bother to call me in for an opinion if you don't listen to it?"
"I don't think you told him what he wanted to hear, sir," says Leo.
"Yeah, well, too bad," I say. "Something tells me he made a mistake he's not going to learn from.... Have we got any idea what that faint life sign is, down there?"
"Still unknown at this time, sir," says Saval.
"Mmm." I scratch pensively at the side of my eyepatch. "It might help to know what it is and how it's managing to stay alive down there. Because we need to send someone in and see if we can recover the science team, and it'd be a lot of use to know how to stay alive doing it."
"Indeed, sir." All of a sudden, Tallasa has her taking no nonsense from my commanding officer voice on, and her antennae are standing up very stiff and straight indeed. "We need to send in medically fit personnel as soon as we can, to effect a search and rescue if possible. I'm sure your directions and advice to the search team will be invaluable. Sir."
A good executive officer knows what her CO is thinking, and Tallasa is a good executive officer. Damn it. "All right," I say, trying to think a bit faster. "Let's get some assessment of what tools our team's going to need down there, and I'll work out what Borg countermeasures they're liable to run into. Meet in the morning at 0830, that OK with everyone?"
I'm sure Tallasa registers surprise, but it's quickly hidden behind the professional mask. "That sounds like a good move, sir. We'll be ready."
"Good to hear it." I pick up my cane and limp off towards the ready room. "If anyone needs me, I'll be burning the midnight oil in there, trying to figure out the Borg." God, that used to be easier. So did getting past Tallasa.
---
"Computer. Tell me the location of Commander Tallasa."
"Commander Tallasa is in her sleeping quarters."
"Hot diggity. At last." I stand up and stretch. I've been sitting behind that desk for hours, partly digging through files on Borg installation architecture, mostly waiting for this moment. Andorians have irregular sleep patterns, but they have to sleep sometimes, and Tallasa is going to be much less inclined to argue if she's tucked up in bed.
I stride to the ready room door, worry for a moment, then step out onto the bridge. It's quiet out there - lots of watch-standing types whom I don't see often, the reliable second-stringers who actually keep my ship running. The only regular there is Leo Madena, still on comms. So it's him I go up to. "Leo. With me."
"Sir?" He looks worried. And well he might.
"I have an idea or two. Come on, walk with me." He looks even more worried. "Oh, come on, it can't hurt to listen. I'm not a Drongidian screeching death-beetle, after all." I have no idea what one of those is, if it even exists, but it sounds good. "Turbolift, now."
He comes with me. His agitation, already marked, increases when I say "Transporter room three."
"Sir -" he begins.
"I've got an idea, Leo, and to check it out, I need to be down on the ground. And I need some backup, so you're elected."
"Does Commander Tallasa know -?"
"Leo. Who's in charge here?" He looks at me with kicked-puppy eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Leo, this is still a military organization, it's not a multiple-choice question. Me. I'm in charge. Just me."
"Yes, sir." He swallows loudly. "Uh, are you going to tell Commander Tallasa that, sir?"
"Not if I can possibly avoid it." The turbolift doors hiss open. "Now come on. Let's dress for the occasion."
---
The Dyson combat armour feels good. Since half my Borg implants got burned out and pulled out during the final conflict with the Rift entity, I've had to get used to being slower, weaker - more basic human - than I used to be. But the power-assist in the converted Voth battlesuit makes up for the loss of my Borg wiring, lets me move with smooth power and efficiency. I settle the helmet into place. It still has space at the back for an elongated Voth crest; I keep trying to figure some way to fit a hip flask or something in there, but Engineering won't let me.
Leo is armoured up in standard polyalloy weave, hugging a phaser rifle that looks as big as he is. "Coordinates locked," I say, fiddling with the transporter panel. "Ten seconds to energize. Get on the pad, Leo, 'cause I'm taking at least some of you with me no matter what." Leo looks miserable. I don't know why, when he's at the comms station the bridge is usually exploding all around him, you'd think he'd be glad to see some different explosions at least.
The warning light on the console blinks. "Energizing," I say, and blue light sparkles all around us -
- and we're down. It's dim and dark and metallic, a corridor of black metal gridwork, sunlight filtering down through myriads of tiny holes, giving us just enough light to see by. I raise my proton beam rifle to the ready position. "Give me a quick tricorder scan," I say. The air is thin and dry, just about adequate to breathe.
"Yes, sir." The whine of the tricorder is the only sound. Except my own pulse... and a vague, staticky whispering, somewhere at the edge of hearing, that feels like it might be whatever's left of Two of Twelve. Well, if anything's going to bring her out of retirement, being in a Borg facility will do the job.
"Nothing much registering, sir," says Leo. "The Borg machinery appears to be inactive... I'm not reading that life sign anywhere near... wait." The whine changes in tone. "I think I have something. Might be the automatic distress call from a Federation combadge."
"Ricardo's team. All right. We go in that direction, but carefully." We shuffle off down the corridor. It's at something of an angle... I think the ground must have shifted since this place was put into mothballs.
We're trying to be cautious, but the sound of our booted feet on the metal grating... carries. It's the only sound. There isn't even a wind. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that felt so dead.
Then, as we advance, we see it. Ahead of us, the floor of the corridor ends. A line of blackness cuts across the metal, a chasm that I can't see the far side of. I shuffle forwards cautiously, peer over the rim. Below, a tangle of broken metal, and an irregular hole... going down, far, far down, towards a dim red glow.
"I don't know how far that goes, sir," says Leo. He's come up beside me and is fiddling with his tricorder.
"I do," I mutter. Things are starting to fall into place, half-shredded memories of Borg technology. "All the way down. Through the crust. This is a mantle mine. Hoovering up, I dunno, some rare mineral, topaline, maybe."
"Why's it so tall, sir?"
"In operation, it'll be taller. The thing must open up and the machinery rises up, sticking right out of the planetary atmosphere, blowing the stuff out into space for passing Borg ships to pick up. Then, the stuff ran out, so they closed down the facility. Left it here, in case they needed the planet for anything else."
"The science team -?"
I point. Downwards. "Must've fallen through the floor. They checked for power sources, Borg technology, force fields, transporters, whatever. They didn't check for a simple booby trap."
"I'm reading... one combadge, sir," says Leo quietly. "Down among that debris. It must have... come off. When they fell." He looks at me. "Booby trap?"
I point to one of the support struts. "That's been cut. Not recently, but a hell of a long time after this place was abandoned. I think we need to have words with that one life sign down here." I look around. "No way I'm doing a Tarzan of the apes over that pit. Let's find another way in."
"There's a cross corridor through the machinery over to our right, sir, but I don't know how we'll get to it -"
I get my bearings, cross to the wall, raise a power-assisted Voth boot, and kick. The metal groans and shudders. I kick again. And again. At the third blow, the panel caves in, revealing a narrow maintenance passageway beyond. The staticky whispering in my auditory nerves gets louder. I ignore it.
"After all this time," I say as I heave the panel aside, "smashing up Borg stuff still gives me a kick."
The accessway is narrow, very narrow. The hollow crest on my helmet keeps bumping into things. Never mind. After a while, we reach the cross-corridor, and I kick out another access panel and stick my head out - cautiously - to look around.
"Leo. Scan stuff. Paying particular attention to structural soundness." I'm beginning to wish I'd brought one of the engineers along for this junket.
"Scanning.... Sir, there's a pressure plate and what looks like some sort of deadfall ahead."
"Gotcha." I pick the panel up and throw it. Got to love this battle armour. The panel lands on the floor and clangs, and something clicks and rumbles, and all of a sudden several hundredweight of junk falls out of the ceiling. "That is so not the way the Borg work," I say.
Then something goes whang off the wall behind me, and I duck and dive for cover on general principles. Another whang. "I think we've found our life sign," says Leo, cowering sensibly behind a chunk of machinery. Whang. Solid-shot projectiles, nothing fancy... kinetic damage. Stuff the Borg can't adapt to. Good choice of gun, if you're expecting the Borg. Whang. I squint around, trying to work out where the shooting's coming from. Somewhere above us - can't get the angle to return fire -
"Uh, bad news, sir," says Leo.
"What? There's more than one up there?" I look around. I'm starting to get the hang of this place, and I have an idea -
"No, sir. Really bad news."
"Oh, hell." I cut in the suit's comms. "Tallasa? Can't talk now, being shot at." I draw off one glove.
"Transmit your coordinates for the strike team to beam in," Tallasa's frigid voice says in my ear.
"No way. This place is lousy with booby traps, and anyway, I am on the case." I flex the fingers of my still-Borgified hand. The actuators whine, and below the skin, I can feel the charge building up in the neural capacitors. "Still got some Borg junk in my system, I'm going to use it. Leo. Expect an earthquake."
"What are you going to do?" They both ask it. Hell, they even harmonize.
I spot a likely-looking conduit, and jab my fingers into it. "Wake this place up," I say, and I let the capacitors go.
For a moment, nothing happens, except another slug whanging rather too close to my head. Then -
Green lights glow, and the floor shudders, and for a second or two my Borg circuits light up from the induction. I can feel the whole tower, feel the circuits running through it, the flickers of not-quite-sentience in the ancient computers....
Feel something in me, something buried deep but not quite dead, yearning to be a part of all this, yearning to mesh with it and serve its needs.
The floor bucks beneath my feet; the entire building is starting to change shape. There is a wail from nearby, and it's not Leo. A humanoid figure is descending from the ceiling, fleeing the clashing jaws of Borg machines as they spring to life. The noise of the massive engines is overpowering as they strain against centuries of disuse.
Then the circuits register that there's nothing to mine, and filter out the small power surge I created, and the mine remembers that it's supposed to be dead, and shuts down again. The roar of machinery dwindles to a rumble, a mutter, and finally to silence again.
The humanoid is on the floor, scrabbling for his gun, which he's dropped amid the debris of the deadfall. I raise the proton rifle and fire a single warning shot. The blue beam screeches over his head, and he freezes.
"One of One, I presume," I say. "I'm Admiral Veronika Grau. Call me Ronnie, everyone does."
---
After all that, the conference room of the Falcon seems quite peaceful and homey. Or it would, but for the baleful presence of a fuming Andorian.
"He's a Pelcodian petty criminal," Tallasa says. "Apparently, he explored the structure a number of years ago, and he's been using it as a sort of base. First exporting bootleg Borg salvage, then as a sort of drop-point for a number of smuggling endeavours."
"And he spread the rumours about it being the last resting place of One of One, to make sure people kept the hell away." I nod sagely. "And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog."
Tallasa glares. "He seems to have spent years living there alone - setting up those traps, among other things. Frankly, I think he's more than a little deranged. Perhaps you should handle the interrogation, sir, since you obviously speak his language."
"Oh, hell, a little deranged is a completely different dialect from stark staring bonkers. Never mind." I give her my very best superior smile. "See? It all worked out all right in the end."
"Except for Dr. Ricardo, sir."
"Yes, well. The lesson to be learned from that is, always listen to Auntie Ronnie, she gives good advice."
Tallasa's mouth is compressed into a thin line. "I'll go handle the rest of the interrogation, and coordinate with Delta Command on our next step, sir," she says.
"Great idea. I'll just get on with my exercises, then." I reach for the eyepatch.
Tallasa glares at me again, looks as if she's about to speak, evidently thinks better of it. She stalks out of the conference room. A few seconds later, there comes a loud bang, as of a very angry Andorian boot hitting the wall very hard.
I lean back in my chair, and contemplate the ceiling through teary eyes.
"Yep," I say to the world at large, "still got it."
I just thought it was time to check up on... someone... with this one.)
Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057
"The Borg don't do reverence," I protest. "Trust me on this. I know."
Tallasa glances at the image on the screen. "Nonetheless, sir -" she begins.
"Nonetheless, nothing. It's a mothballed Borg facility." I limp towards the viewer, studying the picture. "They do that, often enough."
The picture shows a roughly pyramidal structure of blackened metal and spidery girders, towering up from a rocky, barren plain, under the wan light of an M-class star. It's hard, at first, to get a sense of scale for the thing - until you look close, at a tiny, tiny white dot, and realise that's a Starfleet runabout, and do the math. Then you know that this thing is several kilometres tall, so tall that the tip sticks out of this world's thin troposphere....
"It only looks like a monument," I say in pettish tones. God, I can do pettish these days. Not to mention querulous. I'm beginning to wonder when I'll make it all the way to senile. I turn, and narrowly avoid stumbling as I make my way back to the centre seat. My Andorian exec stands up, starts to reach out a supporting hand, thinks better of it.
"Still reading one faint life sign." Saval's voice comes from my blind side. I still hate having a blind side. I turn my head. The bewhiskered Vulcan's face is completely impassive, as per usual, but I reckon I know what's going through his mind. Same thing as is going through Tallasa's, probably.
"Well, there you are, then," I say. "So much for One of One, Patient Zero for the Borg infection. I mean, they'd be how old, by now? Thousands. They'd be dead. The organic parts of drones, they age, they wear out, and when they've worn out, the Borg dispose of them." I slump in the command chair, feeling aged and worn out myself. The Borg pyramid on Pelsidia II is still on the screen, towering, enigmatic.... Not so long ago, I would have known what it was. I tap irritably at one of the remaining Borg implants in my temple, next to the patch over my left eye. Two of Twelve, the Borg voice that used to be in my head, says nothing.
Do I miss her? Do I honestly miss her?
"Dr. Ricardo's science team report they're about to penetrate the sub-levels," says Leo Madena from the comms station.
"I'll bet they are, the dirty little devils." I heave myself out of the chair again. "It's time for me to do my exercises. Keep me informed." I limp off towards the ready room.
---
I look in the mirror. Pale, gaunt, dark spiky hair, scars and Borg remnants, all present and correct. Unlikely to win Miss Universe this year either, I think. Cautiously, I raise the eyepatch.
My vision blurs immediately, and my new left eye fills with tears. The problem is, using it is the only way to integrate it into my nervous system, to get my visual cortex used to processing the input. But, until it does get integrated, the input is... confusing. To say the least.
I turn away from the mirror, grope across the ready room to my desk, and sit down heavily. I have about half a minute to regroup, before the door hisses open, and a blue and white Cubist nightmare comes into sight. In my exec's voice, it says, "Sir, are you all right?"
"Just dandy," I croak, leaning sideways as the visual scrambling affects my balance. Good thing I'm sitting down. Tallasa comes further into the room, so the door slides shut behind her.
"You shouldn't be here, sir," she says. "You're still... convalescing."
"I'll convalesce here a darn sight better than under Quinn's feet back at Spacedock," I growl. "Besides, I'm fine, damn it." It occurs to me, as I sit here listing fifteen degrees to starboard with tears running down my face, that that last sentence might not sound entirely convincing. Never mind.
"You don't have to prove anything, sir," says Tallasa. "If you're not physically up to things, no one would blame you -"
"Look. OK, I'm not at my best, but I need to be up and doing, right? Besides, I won't get over my current limitations unless I push them a bit. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
I think Tallasa might be nodding, it's hard to tell. "And who said that, sir?"
"Me, just then." I make an irritated gesture and knock something off the desk - don't know what, but it goes thump on the floor and not smash, so that's OK. "Look, I know what you're getting at. Yes, my memory's not what it was when it was... artificially augmented... but that's OK, everything still works, I can cope, dammit." I take a deep breath. "Also, Arthur C. Clarke. See? Still got it."
"I hope you're right, sir," says Tallasa. "For all our sakes."
"Of course I'm right. Arthur C. Clarke. Dead sure." She knows I'm deliberately misunderstanding, and I know she knows, and I don't know what difference it makes. I couldn't read the expression on her face now, I know, even if I could see it properly.
There is a pause in the conversation, broken by the entrance of a distorted blurry thing with Leo Madena's voice. "Trouble, sir," he says. "We've lost contact with the science team - and their life signs are no longer registering."
---
I've put the eyepatch back in place, but the console readout doesn't make a lot more sense that way anyway. "Transponders and remote vital signs monitoring both cut out here," says Saval, pointing to an abstract glowy thing that must mean something to him. "We read small increases in overall EM activity, but nothing definite - no high output energy discharges, no transporter signatures."
"Well, I won't say I told you so," I say, "but I told him so." Dr. Erwin Ricardo, up-and-coming expert on Borg history, now missing, presumed - well, when your life signs vanish inside an old Borg facility, presumptions start at "dead" and work upwards towards the really horrible. "Abandoned Borg whatsit, does not contain mythical progenitor of the Borg, does contain heaps of big trouble, stay the hell away. Why bother to call me in for an opinion if you don't listen to it?"
"I don't think you told him what he wanted to hear, sir," says Leo.
"Yeah, well, too bad," I say. "Something tells me he made a mistake he's not going to learn from.... Have we got any idea what that faint life sign is, down there?"
"Still unknown at this time, sir," says Saval.
"Mmm." I scratch pensively at the side of my eyepatch. "It might help to know what it is and how it's managing to stay alive down there. Because we need to send someone in and see if we can recover the science team, and it'd be a lot of use to know how to stay alive doing it."
"Indeed, sir." All of a sudden, Tallasa has her taking no nonsense from my commanding officer voice on, and her antennae are standing up very stiff and straight indeed. "We need to send in medically fit personnel as soon as we can, to effect a search and rescue if possible. I'm sure your directions and advice to the search team will be invaluable. Sir."
A good executive officer knows what her CO is thinking, and Tallasa is a good executive officer. Damn it. "All right," I say, trying to think a bit faster. "Let's get some assessment of what tools our team's going to need down there, and I'll work out what Borg countermeasures they're liable to run into. Meet in the morning at 0830, that OK with everyone?"
I'm sure Tallasa registers surprise, but it's quickly hidden behind the professional mask. "That sounds like a good move, sir. We'll be ready."
"Good to hear it." I pick up my cane and limp off towards the ready room. "If anyone needs me, I'll be burning the midnight oil in there, trying to figure out the Borg." God, that used to be easier. So did getting past Tallasa.
---
"Computer. Tell me the location of Commander Tallasa."
"Commander Tallasa is in her sleeping quarters."
"Hot diggity. At last." I stand up and stretch. I've been sitting behind that desk for hours, partly digging through files on Borg installation architecture, mostly waiting for this moment. Andorians have irregular sleep patterns, but they have to sleep sometimes, and Tallasa is going to be much less inclined to argue if she's tucked up in bed.
I stride to the ready room door, worry for a moment, then step out onto the bridge. It's quiet out there - lots of watch-standing types whom I don't see often, the reliable second-stringers who actually keep my ship running. The only regular there is Leo Madena, still on comms. So it's him I go up to. "Leo. With me."
"Sir?" He looks worried. And well he might.
"I have an idea or two. Come on, walk with me." He looks even more worried. "Oh, come on, it can't hurt to listen. I'm not a Drongidian screeching death-beetle, after all." I have no idea what one of those is, if it even exists, but it sounds good. "Turbolift, now."
He comes with me. His agitation, already marked, increases when I say "Transporter room three."
"Sir -" he begins.
"I've got an idea, Leo, and to check it out, I need to be down on the ground. And I need some backup, so you're elected."
"Does Commander Tallasa know -?"
"Leo. Who's in charge here?" He looks at me with kicked-puppy eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Leo, this is still a military organization, it's not a multiple-choice question. Me. I'm in charge. Just me."
"Yes, sir." He swallows loudly. "Uh, are you going to tell Commander Tallasa that, sir?"
"Not if I can possibly avoid it." The turbolift doors hiss open. "Now come on. Let's dress for the occasion."
---
The Dyson combat armour feels good. Since half my Borg implants got burned out and pulled out during the final conflict with the Rift entity, I've had to get used to being slower, weaker - more basic human - than I used to be. But the power-assist in the converted Voth battlesuit makes up for the loss of my Borg wiring, lets me move with smooth power and efficiency. I settle the helmet into place. It still has space at the back for an elongated Voth crest; I keep trying to figure some way to fit a hip flask or something in there, but Engineering won't let me.
Leo is armoured up in standard polyalloy weave, hugging a phaser rifle that looks as big as he is. "Coordinates locked," I say, fiddling with the transporter panel. "Ten seconds to energize. Get on the pad, Leo, 'cause I'm taking at least some of you with me no matter what." Leo looks miserable. I don't know why, when he's at the comms station the bridge is usually exploding all around him, you'd think he'd be glad to see some different explosions at least.
The warning light on the console blinks. "Energizing," I say, and blue light sparkles all around us -
- and we're down. It's dim and dark and metallic, a corridor of black metal gridwork, sunlight filtering down through myriads of tiny holes, giving us just enough light to see by. I raise my proton beam rifle to the ready position. "Give me a quick tricorder scan," I say. The air is thin and dry, just about adequate to breathe.
"Yes, sir." The whine of the tricorder is the only sound. Except my own pulse... and a vague, staticky whispering, somewhere at the edge of hearing, that feels like it might be whatever's left of Two of Twelve. Well, if anything's going to bring her out of retirement, being in a Borg facility will do the job.
"Nothing much registering, sir," says Leo. "The Borg machinery appears to be inactive... I'm not reading that life sign anywhere near... wait." The whine changes in tone. "I think I have something. Might be the automatic distress call from a Federation combadge."
"Ricardo's team. All right. We go in that direction, but carefully." We shuffle off down the corridor. It's at something of an angle... I think the ground must have shifted since this place was put into mothballs.
We're trying to be cautious, but the sound of our booted feet on the metal grating... carries. It's the only sound. There isn't even a wind. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that felt so dead.
Then, as we advance, we see it. Ahead of us, the floor of the corridor ends. A line of blackness cuts across the metal, a chasm that I can't see the far side of. I shuffle forwards cautiously, peer over the rim. Below, a tangle of broken metal, and an irregular hole... going down, far, far down, towards a dim red glow.
"I don't know how far that goes, sir," says Leo. He's come up beside me and is fiddling with his tricorder.
"I do," I mutter. Things are starting to fall into place, half-shredded memories of Borg technology. "All the way down. Through the crust. This is a mantle mine. Hoovering up, I dunno, some rare mineral, topaline, maybe."
"Why's it so tall, sir?"
"In operation, it'll be taller. The thing must open up and the machinery rises up, sticking right out of the planetary atmosphere, blowing the stuff out into space for passing Borg ships to pick up. Then, the stuff ran out, so they closed down the facility. Left it here, in case they needed the planet for anything else."
"The science team -?"
I point. Downwards. "Must've fallen through the floor. They checked for power sources, Borg technology, force fields, transporters, whatever. They didn't check for a simple booby trap."
"I'm reading... one combadge, sir," says Leo quietly. "Down among that debris. It must have... come off. When they fell." He looks at me. "Booby trap?"
I point to one of the support struts. "That's been cut. Not recently, but a hell of a long time after this place was abandoned. I think we need to have words with that one life sign down here." I look around. "No way I'm doing a Tarzan of the apes over that pit. Let's find another way in."
"There's a cross corridor through the machinery over to our right, sir, but I don't know how we'll get to it -"
I get my bearings, cross to the wall, raise a power-assisted Voth boot, and kick. The metal groans and shudders. I kick again. And again. At the third blow, the panel caves in, revealing a narrow maintenance passageway beyond. The staticky whispering in my auditory nerves gets louder. I ignore it.
"After all this time," I say as I heave the panel aside, "smashing up Borg stuff still gives me a kick."
The accessway is narrow, very narrow. The hollow crest on my helmet keeps bumping into things. Never mind. After a while, we reach the cross-corridor, and I kick out another access panel and stick my head out - cautiously - to look around.
"Leo. Scan stuff. Paying particular attention to structural soundness." I'm beginning to wish I'd brought one of the engineers along for this junket.
"Scanning.... Sir, there's a pressure plate and what looks like some sort of deadfall ahead."
"Gotcha." I pick the panel up and throw it. Got to love this battle armour. The panel lands on the floor and clangs, and something clicks and rumbles, and all of a sudden several hundredweight of junk falls out of the ceiling. "That is so not the way the Borg work," I say.
Then something goes whang off the wall behind me, and I duck and dive for cover on general principles. Another whang. "I think we've found our life sign," says Leo, cowering sensibly behind a chunk of machinery. Whang. Solid-shot projectiles, nothing fancy... kinetic damage. Stuff the Borg can't adapt to. Good choice of gun, if you're expecting the Borg. Whang. I squint around, trying to work out where the shooting's coming from. Somewhere above us - can't get the angle to return fire -
"Uh, bad news, sir," says Leo.
"What? There's more than one up there?" I look around. I'm starting to get the hang of this place, and I have an idea -
"No, sir. Really bad news."
"Oh, hell." I cut in the suit's comms. "Tallasa? Can't talk now, being shot at." I draw off one glove.
"Transmit your coordinates for the strike team to beam in," Tallasa's frigid voice says in my ear.
"No way. This place is lousy with booby traps, and anyway, I am on the case." I flex the fingers of my still-Borgified hand. The actuators whine, and below the skin, I can feel the charge building up in the neural capacitors. "Still got some Borg junk in my system, I'm going to use it. Leo. Expect an earthquake."
"What are you going to do?" They both ask it. Hell, they even harmonize.
I spot a likely-looking conduit, and jab my fingers into it. "Wake this place up," I say, and I let the capacitors go.
For a moment, nothing happens, except another slug whanging rather too close to my head. Then -
Green lights glow, and the floor shudders, and for a second or two my Borg circuits light up from the induction. I can feel the whole tower, feel the circuits running through it, the flickers of not-quite-sentience in the ancient computers....
Feel something in me, something buried deep but not quite dead, yearning to be a part of all this, yearning to mesh with it and serve its needs.
The floor bucks beneath my feet; the entire building is starting to change shape. There is a wail from nearby, and it's not Leo. A humanoid figure is descending from the ceiling, fleeing the clashing jaws of Borg machines as they spring to life. The noise of the massive engines is overpowering as they strain against centuries of disuse.
Then the circuits register that there's nothing to mine, and filter out the small power surge I created, and the mine remembers that it's supposed to be dead, and shuts down again. The roar of machinery dwindles to a rumble, a mutter, and finally to silence again.
The humanoid is on the floor, scrabbling for his gun, which he's dropped amid the debris of the deadfall. I raise the proton rifle and fire a single warning shot. The blue beam screeches over his head, and he freezes.
"One of One, I presume," I say. "I'm Admiral Veronika Grau. Call me Ronnie, everyone does."
---
After all that, the conference room of the Falcon seems quite peaceful and homey. Or it would, but for the baleful presence of a fuming Andorian.
"He's a Pelcodian petty criminal," Tallasa says. "Apparently, he explored the structure a number of years ago, and he's been using it as a sort of base. First exporting bootleg Borg salvage, then as a sort of drop-point for a number of smuggling endeavours."
"And he spread the rumours about it being the last resting place of One of One, to make sure people kept the hell away." I nod sagely. "And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog."
Tallasa glares. "He seems to have spent years living there alone - setting up those traps, among other things. Frankly, I think he's more than a little deranged. Perhaps you should handle the interrogation, sir, since you obviously speak his language."
"Oh, hell, a little deranged is a completely different dialect from stark staring bonkers. Never mind." I give her my very best superior smile. "See? It all worked out all right in the end."
"Except for Dr. Ricardo, sir."
"Yes, well. The lesson to be learned from that is, always listen to Auntie Ronnie, she gives good advice."
Tallasa's mouth is compressed into a thin line. "I'll go handle the rest of the interrogation, and coordinate with Delta Command on our next step, sir," she says.
"Great idea. I'll just get on with my exercises, then." I reach for the eyepatch.
Tallasa glares at me again, looks as if she's about to speak, evidently thinks better of it. She stalks out of the conference room. A few seconds later, there comes a loud bang, as of a very angry Andorian boot hitting the wall very hard.
I lean back in my chair, and contemplate the ceiling through teary eyes.
"Yep," I say to the world at large, "still got it."
Saturday, 30 January 2016
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.
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.
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