The Rehanissen Archive really doesn't look much, lying on the desk of Heizis's ready room. I take a look at the box, then turn my eyes to the square crystal in my hand. I drop the crystal into the depression on top of the box. There is a click, like something unlocking.
"At least it seems to be authentic," growls Heizis, "so far."
Authentic. Yeah, right. I lift up the box lid. Inside, what I was expecting to see - squat black cuboids with slowly winking indicator lights: old fashioned Valtothi data stores. I pick up my tricorder. "Running downloads for comparison now," I say firmly. Heizis shoots me a sour look. I guess, ideally, she'd want to keep the Archive for herself and her Imperial allies. Well, tough, the Federation is getting a copy too.
Even though, for all we know, the most sensitive info in it is Grandma Rehanissen's recipe for prune bumblepuppy.
The important thing was never the actual content of the archives. The important thing was that Thrang could release any information - or, more likely, disinformation - he liked, and back it up with a source nobody could cross-check. I'm not liking the fact that he's let us have it. Now we do, we can trace his lies back and expose them - eventually. I'm guessing, though, that we don't have time for any "eventually" before the next step in Thrang's plan kicks off.
"OK," I say. "What's the fastest way we can get this to whoever needs to see it?"
Heizis started out looking unhappy, as always - now, she looks really miserable. "With my secure comms inactive," she grates, "the quickest way would be for you to contact Starfleet Intelligence -"
"Umm, yeah, how about no," I say. "As far as Starfleet goes, I'm one of Thrang's agents, remember? Or I will be, as soon as I tell them the full story, which I kinda have to if I'm reporting in."
"Then what do you suggest?" Heizis spits at me.
I think. "Cut out the middle men," I say. "Go direct to the top dogs. Quinn, or J'mpok?"
"If Thrang's plan is already in process," says Heizis, "J'mpok will make decisions faster than Starfleet can deal with the Federation Council. J'mpok."
"Right. So, maximum warp to Qo'noS, and put up all the diplomatic and other priority ID we can, right?"
Heizis nods. "I will instruct my crew." She stomps out of the ready room, looking cross. I go back to fiddling with the tricorder. I want to be quite sure we've got all this data, whatever it turns out to be. It could be dynamite... like the PADD lying next to the archive. The one with Kalevar Thrang's genetic profile on it.
Now, the implications of that are really scary.
I'm still feeling scared when Heizis stomps back in. "We have a problem," she says. "Qo'noS space is under priority one lockdown. Only registered shipping permitted within the outer defence perimeter - two million kellicams from the planet's surface."
"But you're registered shipping, right?"
"I would be," says Heizis, "if my secure comms units were working, which they are not. We must find another approach. Quinn -"
"Wait." I put my hand to my head. "Priority one lockdown? That's a military-level precaution. Why's the Empire putting its capital under wartime restrictions?"
"The obvious inference," says Heizis, "is that they are, or expect to be, at war -"
Her eyes go wide, and lock with mine, which might be wider, although hers look pretty darn wide with all the black eyelids around them, and whose eyes are wider really doesn't matter right now. "King among the ruins," I say. "So that's the set-up."
"Thrang is inciting a war?" says Heizis. "Who with? And how?"
"My guess, the Federation, and some plausible line of bunkum backed by that." I jab my finger at the archive. "OK, we have gotta get this thing to J'mpok, like, yesterday. If we can get the Klinks not to start shooting, the Federation should keep its finger off the trigger. I hope."
"But how?" demands Heizis. "If we cannot access Qo'noS space -"
"Officially," I say. My brain is racing. Whether or not it's racing in a good direction, time will tell. "I got some contacts with a neutral Orion trade consortium. We can use their transwarp gates to get fairly close to Qo'noS. After that -" I grin at her. "You guys are supposed to be all sneaky, yeah?"
---
"This is not a wise move," says Heizis, some time later. I ignore her. I maybe know more about Republic-issue commander's gigs than I technically should, but this is the first time I've actually flown one in anger, and I'm trying to concentrate on the controls.
The Orions let us buy passage to a starbase deep in Klingon territory, and Palatine managed to slink into the Oort cloud of the Klingon home system without tripping any alarm bells. Something as big as the Aelahl warbird, though, ain't gonna get close to Qo'noS itself without lighting up every tachyon detection grid the Klinks have got, so we are using something much smaller and - hopefully - more discreet to make the final approach.
Heizis is crouched, muttering, over the cloaking controls. Since the Roms are always a bit jealous of their cloaking technology, she wanted to manage that, which leaves me for flying the ship. Since, if we get into a fight, one shuttlecraft isn't really going to stand much chance against the Klingon homeworld, we haven't bothered bringing any gunners or people like that along for the trip. It's just me and the gargoyle. I really wish she was better company.
Qo'noS is a greenish point of light on the forward viewer, nothing more. The outer perimeter defences, though, are closer. Much closer.
"Cloak balanced for standard KDF sensor arrays," mutters Heizis. "I have the parameters for the most recent tachyon net, but they may have changed it.... Well. Transferring coordinates to your flight board now." A green ring starts blinking on the visual display, and I aim the gig towards it.
"Try and tuck us in behind that Bortasqu'," Heizis adds, so I twitch the heading a hair or two to the right and a whisker up, and we settle in behind the huge grimy mass of a Klingon war cruiser. Should be good for us, assuming the cruiser itself doesn't start scanning closely behind it - or abruptly slamming on the brakes. "Lots of ships around," I comment.
"One might almost think this was the capital of an interstellar empire," Heizis snarks back at me.
"Yeah, but, y'know, travel restrictions?"
"Lots of Klingon ships, if you look." She's right, of course. Klingon commerce and fleet movements aren't restricted, it's just dodgy foreign types - Aelahl warbirds and Hazari destroyers, for example - that are being turned away. There is still enough firepower around Qo'noS to evaporate us a million times over, and that's not counting the planetary defences or the orbital stations.
Something blinks on the status board. I look. A wing of Birds of Prey has suddenly decloaked, not too close by, but near enough to trip a warning on the sensors. I get to work suppressing the urge to panic. Routine patrol? Or are they looking for something, like, say, a small anomalous cloaking signature? The ships wheel around, head away at high impulse on some errand of their own.
"Cloak is stable," Heizis reports. Me, I always thought the cloaking device was a turn-it-on-and-walk-away kinda thing, but apparently it needs a skilled operator, adjusting it continually -
"You are qualified on that thing, yes?" I ask.
"At least as qualified as you are to fly a Romulan shuttle."
"Hey," I say, "I'm good with shuttlecraft, ask anyone." Though maybe I won't tell her what happened to the old Ostankino's shuttlepod, or not till we're down on the ground, anyway.
The planet is close enough, now, that it shows a disc. I can cover it with my thumbnail, but it's still a disc. The war cruiser is turning. I bring us about, heading straight in, now, passing so close to the cruiser I could lean out of the window and write PEX WAS HERE in the meteor dust on its hull.
"Passing the first median defence perimeter," says Heizis.
"How many perimeters do they have?"
"Each one represents a line in space which Klingons can fight and die to hold."
OK, so, plenty, then. I shut up, and concentrate on keeping the gig on course - while also taking advantage of whatever cover comes our way. A big Lissepian freighter drifts across our path, its drive obviously in need of an overhaul, its cargo holds full of radioactives. The sensor noise from that thing could hide us without the cloak. I pull into its shadow, and watch the range display to the planet count down.
"Approaching the shipyard's detector range," says Heizis. "This could be the difficult part. The shipyard is a priority target for industrial espionage... it is heavily guarded against infiltrators."
It's also, though, pretty close to the planet itself. The smoggy atmosphere of Qo'noS isn't giving me a good look at any surface features, but it's close enough now that I could pick them out with the naked eye. I'm almost beginning to think this might work.
"Steer three niner seven mark one!" Heizis snaps.
I don't know what she's seen, but I make the course correction. The gig cruises over the freighter's beat-up drive unit, and comes worryingly close to an approaching K'tinga cruiser. At least, it worries me, but Heizis doesn't look bothered.
"Passing third median defence perimeter."
"What happened to the second?"
"We were shielded by that freighter's radiation cloud. Now concentrate on flying instead of talking."
Well, I can do both... and being nervous makes me talkative... and whoo boy, am I nervous right now. The Klingon homeworld is big enough to fill the viewscreen, now. Big, green and mean. The gig is weaving between oblivious flights of KDF warships as I try to keep on course and not hit anything. So many ships. So very many ships.
"Passing upper atmosphere perimeter defence. Slacken speed. If we start to leave an atmospheric contrail, we are doomed."
This high up, the atmosphere is kinda notional at best, but I see her point. Even if the gig is invisible, if it starts leaving a visible hole in the air, we got a problem. Actually, about sixty problems within range just now, ranging from a Toron shuttle right up to one of those big command battlecruisers. Ty'gokor class, I think; big and ugly, anyway.
Heizis mutters something under her breath. "What is it?" I ask.
"Maybe nothing. Random sensor ping. Too many active sensors, I cannot blank everything -"
I check the approach speed. We are into the planetary exosphere, which means "slightly soft vacuum" for most worlds. With this planet, though, it means "constantly monitored by people with a shoot-to-kill policy", so I'm kinda not cheerful about getting sensor pinged.
"We have left the shipyard's detector range," Heizis says. "No obvious alerts. I think we have made it."
"Great. How much more to go?"
"Ionospheric perimeter, then the controlled airspace over Prime Continent, then the security zone over First City. There will be tachyon scans, but I believe I can circumvent them." She doesn't sound wildly confident.
Qo'noS rushes towards us, no longer a dot, or a disc, but a whole world, vast and cloudy. I check our speed, nudge it downwards a bit. If we go into the stratosphere at hypersonic speed, people are gonna notice, cloak or not.
"Past ionospheric perimeter."
So close, now, so close. I patch in the geographic files, level the gig out, aim it at First City. I imagine I can hear the hiss of atmosphere on our hull. Wishful thinking, of course - the air is still too thin, our hull too thick. But I can imagine -
Heizis curses. "Tachyon contact!"
"Where from?"
"Unknown. Maybe a random scan, perhaps someone testing a detection system. But they will report the contact -"
Uh-oh. We are a good thousand kilometres from First City, and if that distance fills up with shooty Klingons, life is gonna get far too interesting, far too quick. "Got any ideas?"
"Proceed on course. I have some sensor decoys, I can use them -" Heizis turns back, muttering, to her console. My mouth is very dry.
Blips show on the extreme edge of the tac display. Of course, there's plenty of blips already, but these are new ones, four of them, in a diamond pattern, and coming our way. To'Duj fighters. "We got company," I say.
"I will do what I can." Heizis's bony fingers are stabbing at the console. Outside the viewport, clouds are sliding past us, rapidly. I give the engine more juice. I figure we need speed, now -
The clouds light up with nightmarish green lightning. Disruptor fire. Not targeted at us, which is the good news. The bad news is, it's coming from heavy weapons batteries on the surface. They're designed to take full-sized ships on, and if one of those blasts hits our little shuttle, we're gone.
"Probing fire only," says Heizis. "They are not sure we are here... they are merely testing, trying to elicit a response."
"Yeah, well, they nearly elicited a response from me all over the seat of this chair," I grumble. "Can you think of any way to calm them down?"
"I have launched all my available decoys. Increase our rate of descent. The anti-ship batteries are angled sharply upwards - we can easily get under the range of those guns."
I turn the gig's nose down. I resist the temptation to step on the gas, because we do not need a hypersonic boom just now, and anyway we are now aimed at the ground and it does not look welcoming. More green light stabs along the viewscreen. "What are they shooting at?"
"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps my decoys - ach! More tachyon contacts. They are alerted, now."
Another formation of fighters hoves into view, and their disruptors are already chattering. I take a look at the tactical display, and move the shuttle into a steeper dive. If we can get beneath them - I'm hoping they won't fire randomly at the surface of Qo'noS. That they'll wait until they have us locked up definitely in a firing solution.
Something flashes white at the edge of the viewport. "Lost a decoy," says Heizis.
"How many have you left?"
"Three." Another flash. "One." Oh, great.
I can hear the air, now, for certain, keening over the hull of the shuttle. More lines of disruptor fire stitch themselves across the sky. My hands move automatically on the controls, throwing us into a light random-walk evasion pattern. Maybe it's premature, they can't possibly have a targeting lock on us yet -
Then the shuttle shakes, and a series of damage lights turn red. Oh, damn. Someone got lucky. I check the board. With the cloak up, we have no shields, which means the disruptors just took a chunk out of our hull. Structural integrity reads... lower than I'd like.
"We are past the continental security perimeter, and under the range of the main batteries," says Heizis. "That is the good news. The bad news is, there are plenty of interdiction turrets out there, specifically for picking off incoming troop shuttles, and our cloak is no longer stable."
Too right. We have company. One of the fighters has veered off from its formation, and is coming our way, and fast. I take the shuttle as close to a nose-dive as I dare, trying to lose height, to keep below that fighter so it can't use its guns. I don't know how much of us they can see -
WHAM
Sparks shoot from two of the consoles, and the whole gig shudders. I cough and wave smoke away from the display. Another lucky hit, I think, but this time from someone on the surface with a micro-photon launcher. "We're leaking warp plasma!" I yell at Heizis.
"Dropping cloak." We are leaving a flaming visible trail behind us, now, there is no point even trying to be invisible any more. I hit the controls to raise the shields. I might as well be pushing the button for room service, for all the good it does. Uh-oh.
"Shields offline. Um. Any way we can try surrendering?"
"To Klingons?" Heizis shoots a glance over her shoulder. "Comms console is out, in any case."
Damn and blast. And First City is so close, so very close - I throw the shuttle into a fast evasion pattern. Green lightning is flashing on all sides of us, now, but somehow we take only a couple more glancing hits. I slalom through the green smoggy clouds of Qo'noS, trying to shake the pursuing fighter, but that one is obstinate, and fast, and is getting underneath us, to angle fire upwards into our belly -
Heizis lunges past me to smash her hand down on the flight console.
The viewport flashes into pure white flame, and there is an unearthly shriek in the air, and the shuttle doesn't just shudder, it convulses, as if it's trying to break itself apart. The course display breaks up into random electronic gibberish, then comes back, but it comes back wrong, much closer to First City, almost on top of it. I stare at Heizis. "What did you just do?"
"Short-range singularity jump. Inadvisable, in atmosphere, but we were out of options. Now, get us down!"
The shuttle jolts some more. We must have torn a hole in the air with that jump - anything airborne is fighting some fierce turbulence - but there are people on the ground, and they have disruptors, and they are shooting at us. Bits are falling off the shuttle. The damage control readouts - don't look good. But I can see First City beneath us, I can see the big looming bulk of the Great Hall, even. I hit the dorsal RCS arrays and force the shuttle down towards the city. Disruptor bolts scream past us. I think the fire is slackening. I think they think we're already crashing. Also, I think they might be right.
I hit another control, get no response. "Doesn't this thing have landing gear?"
"It did have, when we started!"
"Oh, joy. OK, I'm gonna go for plan B, emergency lithobraking procedure."
"You're trying a controlled crash landing?"
"Nearly right, 'cept for the controlled part. Hang on."
The shuttle plummets out of the sky, trailing fire and debris as it comes, aiming for the square outside the Great Hall. The big Imperial triskelion is a nice obvious marker to aim for. I turn up the inertial dampers as high as they'll go, and check my line of flight. There are so many different warning klaxons going off, it's hard to think. At the last second, I yank back hard on the stick, and fire every retro I've got left.
The gig pancakes hard into the square, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Too much forward speed to kill, though. We are sliding across the square in a shower of sparks and a squealing, grating sound that I never want to hear again, and the entrance to the Great Hall is looming up like a mouth. Most of the square's denizens have had the sense to scatter for cover. To one side, though, I catch a glimpse of one of the Loresingers, struck apparently speechless. You don't see that very often.
The Great Hall comes towards us. Fast. I hit another emergency control, the last one I've got. This one works.
The shuttle slams into the wall of the building. It's too big to fit through the entryway. As I hit the control, though, explosive bolts blast the cockpit section loose from the main hull, and that just about fits. Just. I have last-ditch retros and RCS thrusters, and I use them. The cockpit slams down on the floor of the Great Hall, skids, slews around in a billowing smoke from reaction mass and burning carpet.
The impact, as we slam into the stairs at the end of the hallway, seems like an anticlimax after all the others. The sudden cessation of noise hits my ears like a blow.
I get to my feet, slightly surprised that I've still got them. I stumble to the back of the cockpit section, and hit the door controls. Instead of sliding open, the door simply falls off, hitting the stairs with a resounding clang.
It's an impressive entrance. I spoil it all by wailing, "Don't shoot! We're friends! Friends! We've got the Rehanissen Archive! Coming out now!"
I turn and grab up the all-important box and PADD. Heizis is getting to her feet, her expression one of utter stunned disbelief. I stumble out into the Great Hall. It's a lot darker and hotter and smellier than usual, which might be down to the smoke in the air, or the wrecked Romulan gig blocking the entrance.
There's a lot of the leadership of the Klingon Empire in front of me, and they don't look exactly pleased to see me.
The first to recover, apparently, is J'mpok. The burly figure of the Chancellor strides towards me, eyes glaring from beneath lowering brows. I hold up the box and the PADD.
"Rehanissen Archive," I gasp at him. "The real thing. I don't know what Kalevar Thrang's been feeding you, but whatever it is, it's a set-up. Designed to stir up war between the Empire and the Federation. We've been played."
"For what motive? What reason?" J'mpok's voice is hard and suspicious.
"King among the ruins." I swallow. My mouth is dry, not just from the smoke in the air. "Thrang is setting us all up for a major galactic war, and the plan is for him to come out on top. His mercantile association may not sound much now, but once the major powers are in pieces, he's planning to be the only game in town."
"Ridiculous!" someone says. "No rational being could seriously nurture such hopes -"
"Thrang could." I hold up the datapad. "Other thing. We got tissue samples, ran a genetic workup."
J'mpok's eyes widen at that. "Qa'meH quv?"
"Oh, you wish," I say. "Worse than that. Thrang is human. Originally. Genetic augment, with all the extras, including cosmetic disguises. Call him Khan Noonien Singh version two point oh, at least. Super-human, super-genius, with a massive Napoleon complex. Maybe he couldn't become master of the galaxy, but he'd sure as hell like to try for it."
J'mpok stares at me. Slowly, very slowly, his hands reach out for the box and the PADD I'm offering to him.
"This - this must be checked," says another voice. A Gorn, it looks like - not the usual one, S'taass, but a smaller, neater-looking one, standing next to a big Nausicaan in shiny armour.
"Indeed," the Nausicaan says. "These - claims - must be tested and verified, in every detail - we cannot change our plans based on the unsupported word of a Federation lackey."
J'mpok's hands close, finally, on the box and the PADD. The eyes under the dark lowering brows lock with mine. "Answer me this," he says. "Is this true? Your word on this, Talaxian."
I meet his gaze. "It's true. On my word."
"Chancellor." Heizis sounds raspy, but then she always does. "I pledge my word with hers."
J'mpok turns his gaze on her. He gives a minimal nod.
"Every part of these records must be examined and checked!" the Gorn says.
J'mpok turns towards him. "Everything will be checked." He pulls the Rehanissen Archive from my grasp. "Checked in as much detail as you require, Commissioner. First -" His burly body swivels, turning to some lackey in ceremonial armour. "Get me a channel to Dahar Master Dhalsell."
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