"We're being hailed," says Rissmo. "Priority one heave-to and prepare to be boarded. Starfleet encoding."
"Starfleet?" In one way it makes sense - an Orion task force would announce itself with guns, not messages. In another way - what have I done to offend Starfleet? "Put them through. Audio only, let's not give them any more data than we have to." A thought strikes me. "Alert our passenger. He might have answers for them... ones we don't know about."
Rissmo touches a switch, and a harsh female voice sounds over the speakers. "Starship Beauregard. This is Captain Surella aboard the USS Amphicyon. Power down your drives and weapons, and prepare to be boarded."
"What's the problem, Amphicyon?" I ask. "We're a registered private vessel operating in neutral space. The Federation doesn't have jurisdiction -"
"I have questions." Surella, whoever she is, doesn't sound like she's much of a diplomat. Odd. Starfleet captains are supposed to be trained in that sort of thing. "Your vessel has been involved in several incidents that demand explanation. I am authorized to get that explanation, and I will have it."
"You want to talk to our client, I think." I shoot a questioning glance at Rissmo, who responds with a helpless shrug. I fire up the tactical console, trace out the course I want, send it to Morak at the helm console. "Uh, he'll be here presently. We're just trying to locate him now -"
"I repeat, power down your drives and weapons, and prepare to be boarded. I am sure my security teams can locate your client."
"I need to get instructions. Stand by." I close the channel, and turn to Rissmo. "Where the hell is Premaratne, anyway?"
"He's not responding." Rissmo runs her hand through her hair. "Computer says he's not even aboard the ship."
"What?" Did he get out and walk? I don't know what's going on, and I don't like that feeling. "What do we have on the Starfleet ship?" I demand.
"USS Amphicyon," says Morak. "It could be worse news. Atlas-class battleship. Big and powerful, yes, but obsolete. Slow, clumsy."
"We're none of those things." I look over the evasion course again. "Come about on thrusters only, then we'll go to full impulse and cut right under her secondary hull. And then we run. I do not want trouble with Starfleet on top of everything else." Morak bridles at first - running away offends his Klingon propriety - but then, reluctantly, nods assent.
"They're hailing again," says Rissmo.
"Ignore it. Let's go." Morak's hand comes down on the helm control -
The jolt nearly throws me out of my chair. Alarms warble, and sparks shoot from a conduit at the rear of the bridge. "They've locked on a tractor beam," Morak gasps.
"What the hell -?" That is not standard Starfleet doctrine for dealing with a suspicious neutral. Either they already think we're hostile, or this Captain Surella is very aggressive and very quick to react. Either case is bad for us. "Barrel roll! Break that tractor hold!"
Beauregard's hull groans as she spins in the gripping glare of the tractor, and the structural integrity readout drops alarmingly. "We can't get to full impulse while they're -" Morak begins.
"I know. Damn it." I thump my fist on the armrest. "No choice. Come about, get behind them, target their engines only. Cripple them, then get away."
If we can. Amphicyon is moving, coming about as fast as that ungainly antique can manage, bringing her energy weapons broadside to bear on us. But Beauregard is faster than any obsolete battleship. Disruptor beams spear out from our forward arrays, stabbing at the Amphicyon's shields -
The Starfleet ship is haloed in a pulsating glare, but the shields hold. Amphicyon is armoured and shielded to somewhere way above the Aegis standard used for line-of-battle ships. So, of course, are we - but it doesn't help, as the battleship returns fire and the screen fills with blazing orange light.
Beauregard's shields shatter. I hang on to the command chair as the ship rocks and shudders, the lights go out, the gravity wavers sickeningly, the bridge is filled with sparks and flames from exploding consoles. It takes only seconds, but it seems to last forever.
The ship steadies. I cough as the smoke tears at my throat, try to work out my situation from the half-wrecked tactical board. Amphicyon was returning the favour, it seems, targeting our engines. It has worked - the starboard nacelle is down, it will take hours to fix it. Shields are offline, weapon power is drained, structural integrity is down to seven per cent.
"Signal her," I tell Rissmo. "Tell her we surrender."
Rissmo already had the channel open. "Very wise," Surella's voice says. "I will beam over with my command staff and boarding parties. Do not attempt further resistance."
---
Starfleet is not a military organization. It inherits a command structure and a certain amount of culture from the old United Earth military of the same name, but it's primarily concerned with exploration and diplomacy. Armed force is a last resort. Starfleet talks first, shoots later if it shoots at all.
So they tell me. Nobody seems to have told the hard-eyed Klingon woman who comes striding onto my bridge, an antique phaser on one hip and a mek'leth on the other. A Klingon in command of a Starfleet ship. Well, it explains a lot.
"Uh, hi." I try to project uncertainty, nervousness, harmlessness. "I'm, uh, Carayl -"
"Captain Quon." Surella's eyes narrow at me. "If you want to pretend to be a normal Trill, you should wear less revealing clothing. Your bared midriff may be fashionable, but it also clearly shows the implant scar for your symbiote. Besides, I know who you are." She gestures with one hand, the other resting on her phaser. Behind her, her team fans out across the bridge. A slender human female, two Bolians, a squat purple creature with bow legs and long anthropoid arms. All of them are armed, and look depressingly competent.
I straighten up, stand tall to face her. "If you know who I am," I say, "you know I've got friends."
"Oh, yes," says Surella in a bored tone, "your connections through the Symbiosis Commission. I think you will find that a lot of those have come unplugged. They will not be anxious to assist a failed pirate."
"Failed?" I can't keep the indignation from my voice.
"You have been caught," Surella points out. Her combadge chirps at her. "Surella," she says, slapping it.
"Sir," a voice says. "We have a perimeter alert. Orion task group on an intercept course. They're hailing us."
"Patch it through to me here. On screen." Surella sniffs. "If the screen still works."
The screen still works: a green-skinned, cold-eyed, imperiously beautiful face appears on it. "This is Matron Chirielle of the House of Anaat. I am here to deal with the persons responsible for the destruction of the Rikilsa Array."
"Surella, daughter of Magar, of the House of Tragh, officer commanding USS Amphicyon," Surella answers back. "I have taken Captain Quon and her vessel into Starfleet custody. If she has committed offences against Orion interests, apply for her extradition through legal channels."
The Matron's cold eyes flash. "What jurisdiction has the Federation in this matter?"
"Captain Quon is in Starfleet custody. As I have said."
Chirielle frowns. "Check your sensors, Captain. You will find you are outnumbered and outgunned."
"Merely outnumbered." Surella bares her teeth in something no one could mistake for a smile. "And that could change, very quickly. Go through the proper channels, Matron Chirielle. I have no desire to make Sto'vo'kor overcrowded, not today."
Chirielle's luscious lips purse into an ugly shape. "Very well, Captain. I suppose conflict with Starfleet is to be avoided. I will pursue the proper channels." And the screen goes blank.
"I'm not sure she can," I say. "I think Premaratne paid them off, somehow."
Surella turns to me. "Premaratne?"
"My - client."
"Ah. Yes. You wanted to consult with them. Did they have anything of interest to say?" Without waiting for an answer, she strides over to where the human woman and one of the Bolians are working on my computer console. "Do you have any results?" she asks.
The Bolian, a pudgy male, wipes his forehead. "Yeah, and they're kind of interesting, boss. According to the log, there's no passengers listed."
"What?" I can't help myself - I yell at them.
"But, also according to the logs," the Bolian continues with a smile, "no other ship's been within a parsec of the Beauregard before us."
"Ah, I see." This time, the expression on Surella's mouth is a smile, and not one I'm happy to see. "The passenger, this - Premaratne? - filleted the ship's log, blinded the sensors, and departed on the Arcturus Sunfire during its brief rendezvous."
"He did what?" I demand.
"Leaving Captain Quon none the wiser," Surella adds. I really, really do not like the way she is smiling.
"Fits the working hypothesis, boss," says the Bolian. "The Beauregard was too hot to be used after the Rikilsa business, so her client skipped out to another ship."
"He did what?" I repeat.
"Your client abandoned you," says Surella, "to the tender mercies of the Orions. And did so without you even noticing they had left. Perhaps you should consider a different line of work."
"Perhaps you should consider -" I bite back what I was going to say. I take a deep breath. "All right. Premaratne ducked out and left me neck-deep in - well. All right. This is where I tell you everything I know about Premaratne -" I stop.
"Let me guess," says Surella. "You can describe your client's physical appearance, you can give me some notes about their personal habits aboard ship, but all the actual details of your contract with this Premaratne were stored in here." She lays her hand on the computer. "And now all that is gone."
"Maybe not everything, boss," says the Bolian.
"Explain," says Surella.
"Main logs, sensor records and so on, they're all neatly edited. But the medical logs are on a partitioned section. I think I can get some details from the ship's sickbay log."
"Ahh," says Surella. "Properly speaking, of course, medical records are personal and private, and should not be examined by unauthorized persons."
"Properly speaking, boss, yes." The Bolian is smiling.
"Very well. I am giving you a direct order, Mr. Thala. Tell me everything. There is your authorization."
"On it, boss."
"I don't think that'll stand up in court," I mutter.
"Neither will you," says Surella shortly. "Is there anything worth looking at?" she demands of Thala.
"Checking now, boss. Huh. There's someone here who doesn't match the current complement, that's for sure. Human male, age forty-six, height one metre sixty-two, weight three hundred and eighty kilos."
"What?" They both look at me. "That can't be right. Yes, he was fat, but not that fat."
"Let me check some more." He frowns over the data scrolling up the screen. Surella says nothing. She can wait in patience when she has to, it seems.
"This is interesting...." Thala's voice trails off. His fingers move swiftly on the interface, checking and cross-referencing. After several minutes, he raises his head.
"OK, it's not much, boss, but it's suggestive. The guy requested some very specific things from sickbay, and I think I've seen them before. They fit a pattern."
"Suggesting what?" asks Surella.
"Supplements for various minerals and compounds for blood cell development, consistent with substantial bone marrow loss. Like you'd need if you had a good chunk of your skeleton replaced with heavy synthetics. Which would account for that weight."
"It would immobilize him, surely," says Surella. "Unless -"
"Implanted servo augmentation. Gotta be," says Thala. "And he requested a couple of other things - one I know, it's a synthetic lubricant for a cybernetic eye implant. The other came along with a light protoplaser treatment, just enough to fix a scratch - it's a solvent for ballistic polycyclene gel." Surella raises a shaggy eyebrow at him. "I think he's got impact gel protection, probably on his hands. So he can punch, hard, without taking damage himself, except maybe a scratch or two."
I remember how one of Premaratne's eyes was brighter than the other. I remember, too, clear fluid leaking from the broken skin on his knuckles.
"Your client," says Surella, "would seem to be a heavily enhanced combat cyborg. Interesting. No doubt you would have spotted it, eventually." I really do not like that smile at all.
"I think," I say, slowly and heavily, "I'd better tell you everything I know."
"Will we need to sit down?" asks Surella.
I think I actively loathe that smile.
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