"There's no way I can trust you, either," said Thrang, "and yet, here we are." They were alone in the ready room of Thrang's ship. It showed, Tharval thought, that Thrang did trust him... to some extent.
"You know my... personal ambitions," he said. "And I believe they can be satisfied, through you - or at least that you offer me the best possible chance. The Talaxian, though -"
"It's just a question of stringing her along, until she doesn't know how deeply she's involved," said Thrang. "She will play us along, hoping to find an opening... and we won't give her one... and eventually she will realize she has spent so much time playing along, she's already switched sides without knowing it. I imagine that moment will be... rather delicious." His voice sharpened. "However, before that happens, we've got to get her, at least nominally, on the team. Someone will have to make contact, directly and in person."
"I will do it. She will expect you, of course, but I will do it."
"Life is full of little surprises." Thrang frowned. "Including her disabling the courier ship. I really can't spare the time to fiddle with its drive systems just now.... So, we improvise and adapt."
"How?"
"Bring forward the transmission. Let's see, we have Vel Tarsus, we have Planet T... let's pick some other systems that are still rebuilding. Cirini Prime is still having difficulties, I think...." Thrang closed his eyes for a moment. "Pellia Minor, Arcasura, and Xi Arae for the Federation, Soteth and Kragsar for the Klingons, Aecor, Solemari Beta and Colessos for the Romulans. There we are. A nice little list of humanitarian crises where Action Black can promise to take a hand. But I think we will attend to Vel Tarsus ourselves. It will dovetail neatly with another little demonstration."
He tapped out a series of commands on his desk console, finished with a flourish, and leaned back.
"Vel Tarsus will get that one's attention. And I will be glad to see the back of her. She disappointed me, that one."
---
The blast echoed among the half-ruined buildings of the Tarsian city. The few Tarsians around - basically humanoid, apart from odd geometric patterns of skin pigmentation on their faces - scattered and fled. Osrin and Koneph exchanged startled glances. Osrin pulled out his pocket communicator. "Corodrev to ISRA 2. We have an explosion on the surface. Scan for source."
"Data is already available," said the crisp voice of a Vulcan science officer. "A detonation at the hydrocarbon processing plant, presumed the action of a Svanakh hostile. That facility is located three hundred metres due east of your present position. Please ascertain the extent of the damage and any other relevant details."
"Got it. On our way." Osrin turned off the communicator. "Looks like another bombing, this time at the gas plant."
"Oh, great," said Koneph.
The two Andorians set off at a fast, loping run. The city streets were deserted, now. Even with the planet in its current disastrous state, the tensions between its indigenous cultures kept erupting into violence. The Svanakhs still included a depressing proportion of irreconcilable fanatics, and the refugee transports couldn't screen everyone -
Smoke was billowing from the giant industrial plant as they approached it. Osrin winced. Security guards were milling around, trying to impose some sort of order on the panicking workers. It was one time being Andorian actually helped; the security troopers knew they were off-worlders, knew they were there to help, stood out of their way and let them pass.
They got as far as the main administrative building before a wall of choking smoke blocked them. They ducked inside, clattered up the metal stairs towards the main control room A Tarsian came towards them, waving his hands urgently. "Get back!"
"We're with IDRA," Osrin called out. "What happened?"
The Tarsian coughed. "There." He pointed. "Setting up in the auxiliary pump control - main control's compromised, we're going to do what we can -" He coughed again, with a nasty tearing sound.
The two Andorians followed him to a small room mostly filled with machinery; other Tarsians were there already, opening up cabinets and checking circuit diagrams. "Need to shut it down," the Tarsian said, with another cough.
"What happened?" Osrin repeated.
"Svanakh terrorists. Detonated an explosive in the central pumping chamber. Broke it open, it's venting gases... and they put something else in the main control room, some kind of toxin."
Koneph had his tricorder out, was scanning the area. "Damnation," said Osrin. "How can we help?"
"You don't know our setup," the Tarsian said. "The blast sent a pressure surge down the pipelines, must have blown out sections all through the city - the pipes were on the verge of failure anyway -"
The pipelines ran through the city, carrying hydrocarbon gas for use as fuel - an obsolete system by Federation standards, but the Tarsians had been relying on it. Osrin thought about the sections of the city that would now lose heat and light, thought about the hundreds of kilometres of pipes now leaking flammable gas into the atmosphere, and winced again. "So you're going to short out the pumps and cut the supply?"
"That's the idea."
"It'll go a lot quicker," said Koneph, "if someone goes back into the main control room and throws the master switches." He flashed a brief grin at them both. "It's just a simple organic toxin. Well within my tolerance range. I won't be more than five minutes." And he almost sauntered out of the room.
The Tarsian gaped after him. "You Andorians... you can do that?"
"Not really." Osrin sighed. "My friend and I were part of an experiment. My father was an unethical genetic engineer. Among other things. Koneph's immune to a wide range of toxins."
"Sounds like it could be useful," said the Tarsian.
"Yes and no. Genetic engineering is tricky stuff, it very rarely works exactly right. But, right now, yeah, Koneph is the chan for the job." He felt a vague pride in his chan-partner... not unmixed with worry as the seconds ticked by.
There was a sound, a sort of sigh, from machinery coming to rest. "Sounds like he's done the job," said Osrin. At least the plant wouldn't be feeding any more inflammable gas into the leaking system....
Koneph reappeared a couple of minutes later. "No problem," he said, and sneezed violently. "All right, not much of a problem... something in the damn smoke triggered my allergies, that's all."
Osrin clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get back to base, get your sniffles seen to, and make a report," he said. He looked around the room at the Tarsian techs. "We'll have to see what we can salvage from this."
"Your Federation types kept on saying we'd be better off with a modern EPS grid." The Tarsian spokesman shook his head sadly. "Looks like we don't have any other choice, now."
---
Back at the outpost dome, Osrin dragged Koneph into the medical unit, and punched in a familiar series of commands for antihistamines and steroid injections. While his partner coughed and dozed on the bio-bed, Osrin sat down at the comms console and started work on the damage assessment. It looked bleak. An EPS grid could be installed, true - but not until the reserves of flammable gas had dissipated or been burned off, and not until the tectonic stabilizers could definitively prevent any more earth tremors. Until then... many Tarsian refugees would be going cold, as well as hungry.
He was uploading the logs from Koneph's tricorder when the screen began to flash an incoming message alert. He sighed. "Corodrev," he said, hitting the receive switch - and then, "Tylha?"
Tylha Shohl's scarred face was drawn and haunted. "Osrin," she said. "I wanted to talk to you - how are things?"
Osrin shrugged. "Busy."
"Any unusual activity?"
"Planet-wide nuclear winter, electromagnetic storms, terrorists bombing vital installations... no, nothing unusual. What's wrong?"
"There's been another message from the Action Black group. They've listed several systems as places where the local authorities are failing, where they're promising to step in and take action. Vel Tarsus is on the list. I wanted you to be on the alert."
"All right." But it wasn't all right, Osrin could see that in her face. "Kon and I will keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.... Tylha. What else is bothering you?"
One corner of her mouth lifted in a humourless smile. "Personal issue, I guess. I've received a message of my own... I'm still getting it." Her mouth turned grim again. "I've got a countdown running."
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