"There was a news flash," says Rozilai. "The results of the vote are in."
"And?" I suppose, technically, it shouldn't bother me, since I can't currently show my face in the Federation, but I'm interested.
"The Actionists' motion of no confidence in the President was defeated in the Council," says Roz.
"Good."
"By three votes."
"Ouch." That's gotta be a lot closer than Okeg would like. But Lyle Anson and his Actionists have been gaining sympathy, gaining momentum, gaining credibility... among people who don't know better. People who don't know what we know.
Anyway, it's not my problem right now. Right now, I can see my problem on Anita's main screen, or at least where my problem's going to be. Thexemia, again. This is not a planet that improves on revisiting.
"He's late," I mutter.
"Playing head games," says Nyesenia. "Making you wait, raising your stress. Don't let it get to you." Easy for her to say, she's already dead, you can't get more laid-back than that.
Thexemia rolls on, imperturbable, on the main screen. I check the tactical display. Nothing but routine traffic in sight. And I wait. And wait.
"We're being hailed," says Roz, at last. "Agreed frequency."
"Great. Super. On screen."
Thexemia vanishes, to be replaced by the face of Kalevar Thrang. "Anyone ever tell you punctuality is the politeness of kings?" I ask.
"I am not a king." Interesting. He's always had regal ambitions... hell, he was, briefly, an emperor, although not of much of an empire. "You want to talk. Very well, we will talk. I am transmitting beam-down coordinates for you. They will work. Once. For one person."
"Cool, I'm only one person. So, we gonna do lunch, or what?"
"We will meet, in five minutes' time. Or we will not meet at all." And the screen goes blank.
"Charming," I say.
"Planetary data net is doing... something." Roz's face looks very serious. She's worried about something. I can guess what. "There's random comms traffic... and transporter interdiction warnings. Something's taking out transporter transmission over most of the capital city."
So that's where I'm going. I stand up. "OK. Let's do this." Roz shoots me a troubled look. "Relax," I tell her, with no confidence at all. "It's all going like we expected, right? Now gimme the pill."
---
I beam down in what looks like the vehicle park for a construction site. The skeleton of one of those Thexemian skyscrapers is rising into the air, over to my left. Over to my right, more complete skyscrapers. In front of me... is a familiar figure.
"You really need to work on your Thrang impression," I tell Tharval.
His hand goes to his throat, where he's wearing something that looks like a metal collar. "The holo-emitter and voice synthesizer are perfect -"
"Yeah, but your lines are rubbish. Thrang doesn't talk like that. He's got a sense of humour." There is a thin rain falling. It's not doing wonders for my sense of humour.
"No doubt. He still thinks he can use you, after all. But to get to Thrang, you must convince me of your good intentions. And I am not easily convinced."
"So, OK, lemme try, right? I mean, Thrang is kinda not my favourite person, but I'm low on options here, yeah? He's already stitched me up with Starfleet -"
"True." His demonic Lethean eyes are burning into me. I try to concentrate on the psi-blocking techniques they teach you in Intelligence. Problem is, they don't actually work all that well, not against a determined, trained telepath.
"So being Starfleet Intelligence, I've not made many friends over in the Empire, yeah? Sure, they'd love to pick my brains, but once they'd finished picking, I'd be through, there's no career for me there. The Cardies, well, they still depend too much on Federation goodwill, they won't find any space for me in the Obsidian Order. Still true, yeah?"
"Speculative. But still true."
"So, OK, the only other serious player is the Republic. I mean, can you see me in a Breen coldsuit? Or working with the Ferengi? You know my family history with the Ferengi, yeah?"
"I see some truth, still, in your mind."
"So, anyway, that leaves the Republic, and yeah, I had contacts at the Vault, but when that went south on me -"
"False." His voice is exultant; he raises his head and there is something like a smile on his face. "False. You arranged that fracas at the Vault. A deliberate ploy, to make it look as though you had fallen out with the Remans. But it is a lie." His voice drips gloating. "You have tried to lie to Thrang. I can tell you, he does not appreciate liars."
"Can't stand the competition, huh?" The pill is stashed in my cheek; I tongue it into position.
"I told him you would lie. And he gave me permission to deal with you, if you did." His eyes are blazing, and they seem to swell, to fill the whole of my vision with hellish redness. "You know what we Letheans can do to liars, Talaxian."
The pill shatters between my molars, and a bitter taste floods my mouth. That is the only sensation I have left, apart from Tharval's burning eyes and the terrible power I feel behind them. And then the taste fades, and the eyes turn black, and everything darkens with them, and I die.
---
Fortunately, I don't stay dead long.
The neural suppressant is old hat; I think they used it on Jim Kirk, back when he stole a prototype cloaking device from the Romulans. It does look, though, like the traceless death you get when you're hit with the famous Lethean telepathic zap.
The pill also contained nano-capsules filled with an antidote, and they dissolved in due time and started firing up my nerves again. Firing seems to be the right word, unfortunately - my entire body is hurting, tingling, with a massive all-over case of pins and needles. My vision is blurry and pulsating. Really, you're supposed to have medical supervision when you come out from under neural suppression. I know darn well Jim Kirk got that.
Me, I get to come back to life face down in a wet car park. My head aches worse than the rest of me. I sneak my right hand up to my temple, probe with my fingertips, and wince. The fingertips come back bloody. I think Tharval must have given my supposed corpse a quick kick on his way out.
So far, though, so good. I gather all my strength and haul myself into a crouching position on all fours. I cough and shudder as dry heaves rack me. Tricorder, got to get my tricorder out. I already set it to detect Lethean life signs -
If Tharval used a transporter to beam back to his ship, this has all been a waste of time. But with all the transporter jamming he set up, maybe he doesn't entirely trust the beams. He's got no reason, after all, not to take a leisurely shuttle out. Heck, he can stop off for muffins and a skinny latte in some Thexemian coffee shop, if he feels like - nothing I can do about it, I'm dead, remember?
I fumble the tricorder out of my cargo pocket, drop it, say some naughty words in Talaxian, retrieve it, stare at it. My vision is still not properly focused. Being dead sucks, I'm not going to do it again. I close my eyes tight, open them again. The display swims in and out of focus, but I can read it, sort of.
Lethean life sign, bearing niner five, range one fifty. I stand up. Then I fall over sideways. Then I swear, and stand up again.
The hundred and fifty metres to Tharval seem like the longest walk I've ever taken. I can't even see the wretched Lethean thug, I just pick my way between Thexemian shuttlepods and groundcars, in the rain, weaving and stumbling like a drunk. I just hope his psionic zap needs some down time to recharge, or I'm gonna wind up dead again, permanently this time.
I hear the low whine of engines starting up, as I come towards a waist-high concrete wall.
I look over it, into a bay recessed into the ground. There's what looks like a standard Klingon Kivra-class shuttle in it. I check the tricorder. One life sign, Lethean. And the engines are hotting up nicely. Oh boy.
I grit my teeth. The waves of tingling and nausea seem to be receding, a little. I put my hands on top of the concrete wall, and I vault over it, as gracefully as I can -
Just as the shuttle shivers and starts to rise into the air.
I have about a tenth of a second. I lash out with my feet, and one mining boot hits the shuttle's hull with a clang - and sticks.
The mining boots come with built-in magno-gravitic attractor plates. I don't use them much, but they still work. I get the other boot in place, and there is a terrible wrench to my knees, but I crouch forwards, and suddenly I'm on top of the shuttle, firmly attached by the soles of my feet. Wind and rain whistle around me as the craft gathers speed.
Tharval must have noticed something - heck, alarms must be sounding inside the shuttle right now. My guess is, he'll just ignore me and take the shuttle up. Either the boots will fail and I'll be blown away, or they won't and I get to breathe space. Either one will suit him. Doesn't suit me, though.
So I crouch down further, and I open up an engineering access panel. There are circuits and pipes and chips behind it. I have no idea what they're for, but the shuttle makes interesting noises when I start pulling them out.
Then I shuffle, awkwardly, sideways along the sloping hull, and I disengage my left boot and wait.
I don't have to wait long. The shuttle's hatch slides open, and a disruptor pistol appears, followed by Tharval's face peering after it, aiming. So I lash out with my aching leg and kick the one into the other.
It works better than I'd hoped; Tharval fumbles the pistol and I get a chance to kick it out of his hand completely. It clatters once against the side of the shuttle, and then the wind whips it away. We've slowed down, but we're still moving. I hook my foot around the side of the door frame and drag myself to the hatch. There's a confused moment as the shuttle's internal gravity field wars with the outside world's, and then I pull myself through, and I'm inside, wrestling with an angry-looking Lethean who's reaching for a big knife.
I hit him several times in the mid-section, but either Letheans don't keep anything vital in those spots, or my fists are still too weak to hurt him. He reaches for my throat, and I duck away; there's not much room inside the cockpit, so I roll across the main flight console, hitting a number of switches and triggering several automated complaints from the computer. I think I now know the tlhIngan Hol for "hey, quit horsing around in there". Tharval has his knife out. I don't dare meet his burning gaze.
Letheans have kneecaps. I kick him in one, and he swears and stumbles, and his first stab goes into the console instead of me. There are loud buzzers making urgent noises as I slam the heel of my hand into his face. He tries for a hold with his free hand, and I twist away just in time. He has combat training, I can see that. And he has a knife, and he's in way better shape than I am right now. He feints at me with the knife and slams his other hand into my head, and I see stars.
"You are supposed to be dead," he snarls.
"Tried it," I mumble. "Didn't like it." I try another kick at his knee, but he skips aside, and I overbalance and find myself on the floor. Tharval is standing over me. He raises the knife -
Then there is a tremendous crash and a sudden awful impact, and the shuttle comes to a halt in a scream of protest from overloaded inertial dampeners. I roll forwards, under the console, coming to a painful halt inside the footwell. The lights go out. A few more buzzers start making complaints, and there are a lot of sparks coming from somewhere.
I struggle out from under the console. The interior of the shuttle is not quite dark - it's lit by flickering lights from dying control panels, by sparks pouring out of damaged conduits... and by daylight, pouring in along with the rain, through a massive hole in the front windscreen, where a steel girder has punched right the way in. It's jabbing into the ceiling - I think the shuttle is hanging from it. The engines are dead, anyway. I hope they've failed safe, and aren't about to blow up.
Tharval is lying face down on the floor, very still.
The construction site. The new building wouldn't be in the shuttle's nav database... and my gimmicking around must have disabled some of the proximity sensors. I limp over to check on Tharval.
Ah. He's not lying face down - though he would be, if he hadn't caught the end of an I-beam in the back of his head at a couple of hundred kilometres an hour. There's not really much left of his head, front or back.
I curse, loudly. Capturing Tharval alive would have been good. Creating a vacancy for "trusted lieutenant" in Thrang's organization... I've a feeling that's too little, too late.
I stoop down, disengage the metal collar from around his neck. Messy job, but I've done worse, and there might be something we can salvage from it. I turn it over in my hands. There's a stud at the back, and I touch that.
The air glimmers above the collar, and Thrang's face forms out of nothingness. Holographic disguise. Without a living face underneath it, to give it reference points for mobility, it is stiff and lifeless, like a mask -
Wait, I think. Just wait a minute.
Masks. Masks are important, somehow. And Thrang - Thrang can alter his features, but he doesn't. He may change species, sometimes, from Orion to Klingon to human... but he always keeps the same basic look....
I gaze down at the lifeless image, while a whole lot of things fall into place inside my head.
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