Stiles glanced at Travis and shrugged. Kids.

 

 

He stepped a little closer to the helm, just to intimidate at the right level. ff only he could remember the kid's name.

 

 

"Okay, junior" he decided, "this is your first battle rafting.

 

 

Let's do it fight." The midshipman gfiued his teeill. "Aye, sir." "Adjust to starboard on the transverse axis... watch your amplitude of pitch... not bad. Don't let the roll go... quarter reverse on the port lateral. More thrust to port... less under- thrust... never mind the bumpers, don't try to be graceful...." On the starboard deck, Travis clamped his lips to keep from laughing at the helmsman's obvious annoyance with help he clearly needed. St:des saw the effort, but any possibility of amusement for himseft was lost in the sheer danger of what they were about to do. An action rafting was never routine, no matter how well-drilled the crew could possibly become.

 

 

When the CST and the destroyer were snugged up beam-to- beam and in line, and the CST had been raised to near- touching level with the Lafayette's starboard nacelte, Stiles called, "Pass line two." "Pass two!" the response came from amidships.

 

 

On one of the small monitors, umbilical number two snaked out and grappled the attraction bracket on the high side of the destroyer.

 

 

"Capture two!" the line handler called.

 

 

Suddenly the destroyer heaved up on its port nacelle as a Romulan fighter veered in too close and opened fire. Bright light washed Stiles and everyone around him from all the star- board screens, a fierce shining glitter of destruction and raw heat.

 

 

"Whoa," Stiles murmured, shielding his eyes. "Close one." Travis flinched at the proximity of death. "Lafayette. steady your position, can you?" "We're attempting to hold as steady as possible, Saska- toon," the other commanding officer responded. "That current came up under us just as that Romulan fired on us. Double whammy." "I know you're taking firel' Stiles interrupted, "but we only need thirty seconds to finish this. Hold still that long." "Understood." "Spring in closer now" he said to the helm trainee. "Keep us trim. Work a little faster. Don't overcompensate. Let the gravi- tational umbilicals do the heavy lifting." "Closing," the kid said. "Twenty meters... fifteen meters..." "Pass one" "Passing one!" "Hold two" "Two holding" "Capture one!" "Forward starboard thruster one quarter and shift down port bow 10 degrees." "Forward one quarter, port bow down ten, aye." "Pass four, hold one." "Passing four!" "Hold one, aye." "lkvo and four, haul away." "Haul away two{" "Haul away four!" Music, music. the church chimes of efficient rafting. Thirty seconds to spare. Snuggling his CST up to a big, powerful, scarred, smoldering battleship in the middle of a flashing fire- fight--ahl The chunky hull of the CST didn't fit well against the streamlined multihulled destroyer, so he had to pick and choose which umbilicals would line up best, then cast one and pivot in on it. What a gorgeous process.

 

 

"I love skirmishes" he effused happily. "That's good! Cut thrust. Engine crew, stand by. Mr. Blake! Scan for stress" "Scanning, sir." As disruptor fire flashed on some of the smaller monitors, showing the ongoing space battle between another destroyer and those Romulan buzzsaws, Stiles nodded in satisfaction, even though Blake couldn't see him. Greg Blake had known him since they were both fifteen years old. The "sW' was almost silly in that regard, but he knew his long-time crew threw it in for effect at moments like this. There were always impressionable midshipmen and junior officers serving on the CST, most of whom would move on 'after the grueling training they would receive here.

 

 

On the screen to his left, the streamlined body of the Destroyer Lafayette drew close to the lurebering CST, in fact close enough to touch if that viewport had been a window they could open. He saw the gleaming hull plates and the button- head rivets as clearly as his own fingernails.

 

 

"What a great way to live," he muttered. "She gets all the glory and the headaches, she has to guess what the enemy's doing--and on top of that she has to protect us in the middle of a battle. This is the best damn duty around." "You could ask for a date," Travis suggested. "I bet she'd go, the way she sounds when she talks to you. Maybe if you grow your beard back---" "I'm not dating anybody who outranks me," Stiles com- mented, aware of the glances from Midshipman Zelasko at the corem station and the two little ensigns over at the engineering board. "Bad enough having a cocky Canadian first officer around. And the beard itched." Outside, close enough to smell the gunpowder, seven other ships were engaged in a spark battle, a border skirmish with hotheaded Romulans. These eruptions had been going on for months now, sparks of aggression that seemed like temper tantrums from isolated Romulan units~ The empire kept claim- ing nothing was wrong, that these were just dissatisfied com- manders venting their frustration, but Stiles didn't believe it.

 

 

Something was going on in the Romulan Empire that was causing rogue attacks. The Federation wanted to be prudent.

 

 

Ignore acts of war. Avoid any one of these bursts turning into a lit fuse that couldn't be put out by anything other than full-out conflict.

 

 

"Okay, Travis," Stiles said when he was satisfied that the ships were as close as possible and the umbilicals were taut.

 

 

"Go do that voodoo that you do so well." "Ten seconds and counting," Travis responded, and hit a comm button. "Rivet team, hit open space. Signal when you're on the davit boom." "Acknowledged," one of the Bolt brothers responded.

 

 

"Ready." "Launching." Travis hit his controls.

 

 

The hiss of the airlock shot through the whole ship. There was no place on the CST to get away from that big sound as the lock depressurized and the repair crew sprayed out from the tender on a spider web of cables from the swinging davit, two men to a cable, a total of twelve men in spaceworthy snits, each fully armed with a trapeze harness and a tool vest. Their job wasn't to fight the enemy--it was to fight the enemy's results.

 

 

The interior of the CST fell oddly silent, giving way to the bleeps and whirs of shipboard mechanical redundancy, and a symphony of eyes swept the wall-wide grid of screens.

 

 

Dozens of angles, each fixed on some aspect of the repair job---only a few were dedicated to the fight that was still going on within phaser-striking distance of this oddly protec- tionless refuge.

 

 

Stiles settled back on his heels and listened to the critical exchange between Jeremy White, back in the engineering con- trol room, and Travis here on the bridge, whose job it was to manage the rivet squad. In less than a minute, the two men had the rivet squad swung over on the external davits to the nacetle of the Lafayette, crawling all over it with their magnetic boots like a tidy infestation.

 

 

The open comm lines brought in the work as if it were happening right at his feet, bits of dialogue overlapping oth- ers as the squad split up to do a half dozen jobs in a matter of minutes.

 

 

"Got some burnoff plating infecting this binding strake." 'Tll help you." "Stand clear." "Two more centimeters." Travis talking at the same time: "Don't crowd him, Zack.

 

 

You're too close to the welding stream." "I'm Jason." "Clone." "1 need the spreader over here." "--swing that caisson under me, will you?" "---and engage the thrusters so you're got balance--" Then Jeremy's voice from two sections back: "Mr. Evans, countersink those outer rivets before you caulk them in." "You sure, sir?" "We always countersink. Maintains a flush surface." "What difference--" "A big one at hypefiight. Morton, what are you doing?

 

 

Move your ann so I can see." "Crocking the vertical bracket stringers?" Stiles touched his comm button and interrupted. "Chock 'era in under the shell plating, Mr. Morton. Then caulk it with foam." "Won't hold more than a week." "It only has to hold a day. Just double-secure the center of effort and wrap it up. You got nine minutes left." "Thank you." "Welcome." "Mr. Lightcudder?" Startled by a completely unfamiliar voice only inches from his shoulder, Stiles cranked around and found himself face to face with a total stranger. Total! Never seen the guy before.

 

 

Right here on the working deck!

 

 

Civilian. No uniform, no identifying patches or badges.

 

 

Work clothes.

 

 

How could this happen?

 

 

It couldn't, but here he was, grinning like a Halloween pumpkin. No escort, no nothing.

 

 

Oh--actually there was a nervous ensign standing at the bridge hatchway, evidently having just brought the man in.

 

 

Why hadn't the ensign done the officer approach? The ensign shrugged as Stiles raked him with a glare.

 

 

The civilian was stocky, wearing a bulky tan jacket with big round buttons and a heavy neck scarf, which gave the man an illusion of being short. Actually Stiles looked him nearly in the eye, so he was at least five feet nine. He had a round face with flush-dots on the puffy cheeks, a halo of metal-shaving hair mounted behind his balding forehead, round brown eyes, round shoulders--the guy was round.

 

 

"Are you Mr. Lightcudder?" the round guy asked.

 

 

"What?" Stiles stepped back and got a better look. "Who are you? How'd you get on my bridge?" The odd newcomer kept his eyes fixed on Stiles. "They just put me on board from the Lafayette. I was told to report to Mr.

 

 

Lightcudder. My name's Artsue Hashley and I'm so grateful for--" "A civilian is transferred to my CST and this is the first I hear of it?" Greg Blake strode by and handed him a padd on the way past. "Nobody likes to talk to you:' "We avoid it" Matt Girvan said from the engineering sup- port station.

 

 

"Any of you know about this?" Stiles asked, swiveling a glance around the bridge.

 

 

Nobody did.

 

 

"Well, Mister--" "HashIcy. Ansue HashIcy. I'm " "You'll have to stand by a few minutes. We're in the middle of an operation. Just park fight there and don't do anything and don't touch anything" "I will, Mr. Lightcudder, I mean I won't, and I'll stand fight here." Hashley planted both feet and pointed a sausage finger at his boots.

 

 

Stiles glanced at Travis, who frowned and muttered, "Lightcudder..." "Stiles, Jason. There's some kind of Charlie Noble sticking up here and it's actually hot." Turning back to his job, Stiles twitched at the proximity of the stranger. "Hot? Electrically?" "No, it's actually radiating heat. ln fact, it's glowing." "That can't be fight.... " "No kidding. I don't want to touch it." "No, don't touch it. Jeremy!" "Copy that," Jeremy called from two hatches back. "Pretty weird, Eric. You want me to suit up?" "Talk to the destroyer's CE first. Have him tell you what that thing is and turn it offif he can. I don't want a hole burned in somebody's EVS." "Closing the breach now... two more centimeters... one more... hold.t" "Hold the crane.t" "Holding." "What's all that they're talking about?" Hashley asked.

 

 

Annoyed, Stiles quickly said, "Just shortcuts we take, Mr.

 

 

Hashley. We have to get the Lafayette back into action so they can press the Romulans back." "Are they going to kill the Romulans?" "Not if they can avoid it." "Isn't this a battle?" "No, it's just a commercial blockade. Some hothead venting off at us." "But the Romulans attacked your patrols, didn't they? Isn't that an act of war?" "It's more complicated than that." "I thought we were having a war and that's why they wanted me." "No war yet." With his demeanor Stiles did his best to com- municate that he was preoccupied.

 

 

"Rig a gantline over here. We'll just horse the strut with brute force and tribolt it." "I love brute force. Gives me a sense of superiority." "--the magnetic coupling ?" "No, the spreader. l'll hand it--" "--the only way you'll ever get any respect." "What kind of a ship is this?" Ansue Hashley looked all around. "It's not a starship--" Stiles watched the screens, told himself that he should ignore the man, then decided he would enjoy showing off a lit- tle. "No, not a starship." "Cruiser?" "No." "Battleship." "Hardly. Jason, Stiles. Pull that spreader all the way out of the bridle and discard it. Don't be tidy. Six minutes." "Six, aye." "What kind of ship are you, then?" Hashley asked again.

 

 

"We're a combat support tender. Some people call us a 'floating starbase.' We're a heavy-laden, multipurpose vessel made to support more specialized Starfleet vessels. We carry structural and weapons-repair specialists, materiel, fuel, ammunition and dry stores. We can resupply a ship on the fly or right in the lpJddle of active engagement, like we're doing now. One of our jobs is to quickly make operational any ready-reserve ships on standby. We did that to Lafayette last week." "And now she needs you again!" Hashley's eyes flew wide.

 

 

"Right in the middle of a fight! How do you do something like that!" "With step-by-step processes. Being fast is a matter of sur- vival, not just success." "You must've been busy lately, with all the trouble that's been erupting." "We've been nonstop for months," Stiles agreed. "Wish we knew why all these skirmishes were erupting--" "I know why! Do you want me to tell you? I know all about it !" Stiles leered briefly at the man, sure he didn't actually know more than Starfleet frontliners, but disturbed by Hashley's con- fident claim.

 

 

"Crossfire! Incoming!" Ensign Ashikaga shouted from the tactical sensors.

 

 

"Detonate!" Stiles authorized, and the shots lanced out before the sound his words had died.

 

 

At the weapons console, Matt Girvan fell on his controls instantly, obviously expecting the authorization to fire while there were extravehicular crew out there. He'd been ready to defend the CST, despite the attempts by Lafayette and Majestic to protect the wounded destroyer and her rafted repair ship.

 

 

Phaser fire blew from the Saskatoon, cutting across the paths of two streams of disruptor fire that actually were meant to hit the Majestic but had missed. The shots detonated in mid- space--good work, though the power wash and the stress of opening fire rocked the CST and caused the umbilicals to sing through their hull mounts. The inside of the ship whined freak- ishly, buffeted by the power wash.

 

 

"Oh, what happened?" Ansue Hashley's arms flew wide as the deck rocked. "Did we get shot?" Not a direct hit, but the wash did enough damage to fritz several of the monitors. Two went completely dark, and a half dozen flashed and became garbled, losing the view of the rivet team on the destroyer's nacelle strut.

 

 

His ears aching, Stiles crossed to the portside monitors and called over the whine. "Check the men!" Horrified by the shouts and calls rattling over the comm from the repair team, he fixed on the nearest monitor, which showed a closeup flurry of elbows and parts of suits, but didn't give a clear view of any one person.

 

 

Frantic for a wide view, Stiles muttered, "I'd really like a look." "I'm getting ~een on all the life-support signals," Travis said with undisguised relief. "The body of the ship deflected the wash." "Lucky angle. I hate to fire when I've got men out." No one paid any attention except Ansue Hashley, whose eyes some- how got even wider at the declaration. Stiles punched the near- est comm link. "Rivet squad, running out of time. Minute and thirty left." "Shouldn't you be out there, Mr. Lightcudder?" HashIcy asked. "If you're in command?" "No, they don't need me out there." "Maybe there's something I can do...." "Not fight now, thanks." "Stiles, Bolt. Strut cradle's secure, riveted, and caulked.

 

 

Main injector's flowing and the sliding bulkhead is jury-rigged over the cofferdam and--Monks, is it glazed? Yes, it's glazed and chemical-bonded. Ready to retract the caissons and the davit." "A whole minute early!" Stiles whooped. "You guys are singing! Back inside before we get another visitation." He stood back to listen to the tumble of orders as the rivet team handled their own reshipping. This was when all the hours of brain-frying drills paid off.

 

 

"Mr. Stiles, this is Sattier. We saw the crossfire. Do you need assistance ?" "Don't worry about us, Captain. Your ship's the important one here, not ours. Soon as I get my men aboard, we'll shove off and you can do your job with those Romulans. Con~atula- tions on your first combat rafting." "You're a piece of work, Mr. Stiles. Now I know where you get your reputation." "All lies. Stand by, please." Travis met his questioning gaze as if cued in psychically.

 

 

"The caissons are boarded, davits coming back in, and all hands will be aboard in another few seconds." "Ready on the umbilicals. Prepare to shove off;' he called through the ship, not bothering with the comm.

 

 

"Ready one!" "Ready on two!" "Ready four!" "Release four." "Release four, aye!" "Slack one. Helm, swing out on number two." Yikes, he sure had to find out that kid's name soon. Always happened when they got a new batch of trainees. "Hey, I said slack one!" "Slacking one]" "Haul away, four." "Hold it!" Jeremy suddenly called from three compartments back. "Four's fouled." "Hold all lines!" Stiles poked his head through the hatch, but didn't actually leave the bridge. "What's the story?" "Looks like the retractor's jammed. Must've taken a hit we didn't notice." "Disengage the line." "Cut and run from our end?" "Right, let it float. We'll pick it up later if we can. It's not fouled onto Lafayette, is it? Because we'll have to go out again if it is. They can't trail a line into baffle." "No, line's free. It's our retractor housing." "Cut it?

 

 

"Aye aye..." They all waited until a loud chunk boomed through the ship's body. Then Jeremy spoke again. "Line's detached. We're clear, Eric." "Ship to ship? He watched while the communications kid tapped in, then looked at the screen displaying the nearby plates of the destroyer. "We're clear of rafting, Lafayette. Bear off laterally. When you've cleaned up the mess out there, we'll reprovision you and the Majestic." "EocceUent job, Saskatoon. Bearing off. Shields up. And thanks again, double trouble." "No problem. Good work, Mr. Perraton, Mr. White, every- body." He turned to the main screen as, with nothing less than heart-stirring dynamism, the great shining gray form of the destroyer peeled off at quarter impulse and drove into the swarm of Romulans.

 

 

"This is wondrous !" Ansue Hashley hopped on his toes and spread his hands wide. "You should be in the headlines!" "Nab, no headlines. This is nuts-and-bolts duty." "But you should get recognition for this kind of wonderful thing!" "Do without food and bandages for a while. Helm, hard over. Come full about and give them room to fight. I don't want the destroyers to have to protect us." "Hard over, sir." "I could write an article!" Artsue Hashley insisted. "I know some people where I could send it! You do such a vital, glori- ous thing !

 

 

Stiles watched the screens, deliberately not looking at him.

 

 

"It's vital, not glorious. Headlines are for the Lafayette and the Majestic." Shuddering as its great engines vibrated, the muscular com- bat tender turned on an axis and hununed away from the center of the dispute, leaving the cloud of Romulans and the two Fed- eration ships behind in a sparkle of weapons fire.

 

 

"Secure the ship, Travis," he said casually, knowing that the actual activities were hardly casual. Punching the comm, he added, "Clones, Stiles." "Bolt and Bolt, Ship Riveters-at-Large. Would you like an appointment, sir?" "Great work, rivet squad, excellent. You get an 'A' for speed and an extra minute to sleep tonight." "Wow." "Bailiff, shoot that man." As the laughter of relief and satisfaction rippled through the CST, Stiles turned like an old-time gunfighter and hooked his thumbs in an imaginary holster belt.

 

 

"Okay, Mr. Hashley... what's your story?" "Oh! Me--yes!" Artsue Hashley stuck out a computer car- tridge. "I watched while they composed this. It says right on here to report to Mr. Lightcudder and give this to you. Is it all right to?" Shies pushed the card into the nearest terminal, which clicked, and flipped, but nothing came up on the monitor above it.

 

 

"Where is it?" he wondered.

 

 

From the tool alley, Greg Blake called, "It's back here, Mr.

 

 

Lightcudder." "Uh... yeah, would you pass it back up here, please?" "Certainly, Mr. Lightcudder." The screen flickered once, then a message came up on it-- printed, not vocal. Obviously somebody didn't want this read aloud by anybody, including the ship's systems.

 

 

"Mmm... explains... almost nothing." Stiles looked at the printed message, sensing Travis and the bridge guys looking from behind him. "You don't deal much with Starfleet, do you, Mr. Hashley?"

 

 

ATTENTION MR. LTCDR EYES ONLY DO NOT BROADCAST HOLD ITEM TOP SECURITY

 

 

"Not even the name of the ship in the message," Travis said as he came up behind Stiles. "what item?" Stiles cocked a hip and glared at him until Travis uttered, "Oh... right." They both turned to Hashley, who looked back and forth between them again and again. "Smuggling?" Stiles asked.

 

 

"Oh, transporting. I'm an agricultural broker. Usually, any- way. Well, I used to be. Sometimes I take other cargo. Well, most of the time. Well--" "what other cargo?" "Anything anybody wants. Mostly stuff the Romulans want.

 

 

Most of the time I don't even know what's in the crates and casks. I don't ask much. I've been running the same twenty- light-year relay for the past seven years. The Romulans had laws that said I shouldn't be doing it, but they were liking what I did. They coutd've stopped me any time, but they bought what I had and paid me to move more. If the patrols stopped me, they usually settled for a quarter of my cargo." Ansue Hashley smiled, and suddenly looked like a carved pumpkin.

 

 

"I give very generous bribes." How could you hate a jack-o-lantern?

 

 

"First of all, 'Lightcudder' isn't anybody's name. Those let- ters mean 'Lieutenant Commander.'" Hashley blinked as if he'd been slapped. "But aren't you. the captain? Oh, no, did I make a terrible mistake?" "No, you didn't make a mistake. Combat support tenders are piloted by lieutenant commanders, officered by lieutenants, and crewed by chief, ensigns, midshipmen, and able crewmen.

 

 

Most of these young people are here for experience and train- ing. CST duty is considered good experience because of the active labor, tactical judgment, and hands-on ship handling.

 

 

You also get a taste of battle situations without actually having to fight. Not usually, anyway. So I'm not 'Captain Lightcud- der.' I'm Lieutenant Commander Stiles." "Oh... oh, goodness, oh, my goodness, I made such a big mistake....Stiles, Stiles, I won't forget again. Oh, I'm so sorry...." "No, no." "But I feel just awful, horrible--" "It's not important. What is important is how you got trans- ferred here without my knowing about it, and why the Lafayette would do that." "Oh, I'm top secret! At least, my location is." "Why?" "Because the Romulans are trying to kidnap me." As Travis finished his mediate duties and came down to the center of the squatty bridge to stand behind him, Stiles folded his arms and insisted again, "Why?" "Because I know too much. I'm the one who knows why the Romulans have been skirmishing with the Federation on all the border fronts. You said you didn't know, remember? But I do." Stiles glanced at Travis, who made a subtle shrug with just his eyes.

 

 

"The Lafayette slipped you on board here to sort of shuffle the cards so the Romulans wouldn't know which ship you're on?" "Yes! Also to get me out of the line of fire. The Federation doesn't want me to be a scraping goat." "Well, how do you feel about telling me this big secret that suddenly makes my ship a target?" "Oh, I feel fine about it! I know everything. I know why the Romulans are panicking." Hashley stepped closer and poked Stiles in the folded fore- arm, and his eyes got big as golf balls.

 

 

"Poison! The whole Romulan royal family! Every single member of the emperor's bloodline, no matter where they are, all over the empire. They're all dying?

 

 

"What?" Astonished, Eric Stiles sank back on the edge of the helm.

 

 

His feet felt molded to the deck. His arms wouldn't unfold.

 

 

"We haven't heard anything about that}" Travis blurted, glancing custodially at Stiles, then back at the funny agricul- tural broker who had been dropped on them.

 

 

"It's a big, huge secret," Hashley went on. "The Romulan royal family is trying to keep it secret. They don't want any- body to know their empire's leadership could all be dying, one by one. It'll be just a mess if such a big weakness gets discov- ered, even if only by people inside the empke." Behind Stfies' shoulder, Travis asked, "And they think the Federation's behind the... the whatever's killing them?" "Poisoning," Hashley said. "Or maybe an engineered virus---anyway, it's something definitely artificially con- structed. A hundred and ten members of the royal family have died already, and all the others are infected. I'm the only Federation citizen running the Neutral Zone, so they know I'm smart and I know why they're attacking Federation ships," Stiles swallowed a hard lump and registered that his feet were suddenly blocks of ice. That didn't sound right. Nobody cared that much about one Federation guy running cargo, and Hashley sure wasn't the only one.

 

 

"What's this thing they've got?" he asked. "How does it manifest itself?." "They've got a blood disease. First they get real weak, real suddenly. Then their arms and legs start hurting. Pretty soon they can hardly walk and breathe. It's infected every single member of the emperor's bloodline. It's specialized to the blood of the royal family, so they know this is a mass- assassination attempt. It's supposed to be a secret, but I found out about it, so they tried to kidnap me." "The Romulans?" "That's right. And the Majestic came in and rescued me, and they were trying to get back to Federation space with me when the Romulans attacked them. They beamed me to the Lafayette to confuse the Romulans, and now the Lafayette beamed me to you, to keep confusing them. Now they don't know where I anl." The bridge fell to an uneasy silence.

 

 

"Aren't you kind of... blabbing a lot, Mr. Hashley?" "Oh, yes! That way I'm never the only one to know any- th'mg!" "Pretty cavalier about it, aren't you?" Travis commented.

 

 

Hashley shrugged his round shoulders and showed the pallns of his hands, then abruptly clapped them together and drew a sharp breath. "Stiles! Are you Eric John Stiles?" "Well---" "I remember you! You're Eric John Stiles the Hero! You got the Medal of Valor eight years ago!" "Ten," Stiles mumbled.

 

 

"Eleven;' Travis corrected, and he took Hashley by the arm in a stem manner. "We don't talk about that around here very much, Mr. Hashley. He's just our lightcudder and that's how we keep it." "Oh, I'm so happy to be here and meet him, though!" "Mr. Hashley" Stiles interrupted, "is there anything you're not telling us?" "Me? No! I'd tell you anything I knew. I don't want to know any secrets, not ever. Secrets can get you killed. I never want to be the only one--" "Okay, okay" Stiles pushed himself off the helm and uncracked his tingling arms from around his fibs. 'TI1 keep you in protective custody until I can communicate with some- body about you... if you'll just... quiet down a little. We'll assign you a bunk... Travis, uh... get some crew up here to clean up all this broken plastic and chips." "Oh, I'll do it!" Hashley dropped to his knees fight where he was standing and began swiftly plucking the residue of dam- age off the deck and stuffing it into his pockets. "I love to help.

 

 

Sitting in quarters while everybody else is working, that's just not for me. I'm an action kind of man." "Yeah... Travis, take us back over the Neutral Zone border and... hold position in case they need us again. I'll be in my quaffers."

 

 

With icy hands clenched, Stiles paused in the dimness of his quarters and closed his eyes. The computer had clicked and whirred, but it had provided only poor answers. A thousand memories shot back as if rocketing from yesterday instead of--what was it, now, fourteen, almost fifteen years ago? Did- n't seem so long.

 

 

The door chime sounded.

 

 

For a moment, he thought of not answering.

 

 

"Yeah." The panel opened and Travis looked in. "Hey, Lightcudder.

 

 

Can I interrupt?" "Sure." Travis came all the way in, carrying a steaming cup of hot chocolate and a particularly concerned expression he was try- ing to disguise as something else. He stood at the door for a moment as it closed behind him.

 

 

"You all fight, Eric?" he asked.

 

 

Warmed by the solicitous effort, Stiles tried to appear relaxed by brushing the remains of his breakfast toast off his desk chair. "Eh, I guess so. Sit down, Travis. And I, in my infi- nite wisdom, shall sit also." He slumped into the chair, and put one boot up on the edge of a drawer that wasn't quite closed and his elbow up on the desk.

 

 

Depositing the hot chocolate on the desk near Stiles' resting hand, Travis sat down on the bunk. The quarters were too small for two chairs, so the bunk was almost constantly rum- pied, being used more often as a couch than a place to sleep.

 

 

"Ship's secure. Jeremy's handling the damage we took--it should be repaired in about twenty minutes. And Artsue Hash- ley's crawling around the chambers sucking up damage with the shoulderheld vac." "You guys are getting the process down fast with these new kids." "That's what we do. The fight's still going on, but the destroyers seem to have it locked up. The Romulan fighters are trickling away one by one. I think they'll leave us alone." "Good;' Stiles muttered. "1 need to be left alone." As Travis planted both feet and leaned forward, Stiles quickly amended, "No, no, I don't mean you." The door chimed and Greg Blake poked in when the panel opened. "Eric, okay if we shut down the warp injection system so we can flush the lines?" "How many of the Romulan fighters are still in the vicinity?" "Only about four now." "'About' four?" "Guess I better check." "Guess you better. But listen, hail Captain Sattier and make sure we're not pressuring her by staying in the vicinity. If she needs us to bear off, we'll move out before we shut anything down. Be nice about it." "Will do. Sorry to interrupt." The door panel slid shut again.

 

 

"You never try to push, do you?" Travis observed. "That's why all the captains appreciate you so much." "It's just that I'm sweet and polite and I know my place." "Know your place... ?" "Sure, think about it. CST's are usually commanded by the guys who couldn't qualify to run the glory machines, so they get out among the starshippers and try throwing their weight around. They're impolite. They take it out on the captains, who they think surpassed them. I'm just not like that. I try to be accommodating and patient and helpful without being ub-- ob--what's that word you used last week?" "Obsequious?" "That's it. I'm satisfied with what I'm doing. Remember when we got assigned the CST duty? The team was depressed and down because they thought we'd get some- thing fancier, but they all adjusted, and it's turned out to be great work." "They adjusted because you packed 'em off to special train- ing for combat-ready missions. You made sure we all had skills in hands-on operations management, not just Academy certificates in theories and simulators. Then you juggled us around until you found our strengths. You even pushed Brad and Bill back out to the private sector." "I had to push them. We had a good relationship going among all of us, and nobody wanted to be the first to leave.

 

 

They were ready to go. Starfleet couldn't make as much use of them as free enterprise could. Not everybody flourishes in uni- form. CST duty didn't make good use of their natural abilities.

 

 

For others, this is the best they'll do, or this is where they're most useful. Better this than have them go out and try to be hotshots and wash out. Maybe cost some lives." Travis grinned coquettishly. "What about me?" "You? You're a bum. I just keep you here as my first officer out of charity. And me... this is perfect for me." "Eric?" One of the evil twins knocked on the door, not both- ering with the chime. "You asleep?" "No, come on in." One of the Bolts appeared and stuck his tousled blond head around the doorframe. "Permission to put a team outside and patch the PGV meter?" "As long as Jeremy says it's safe to go out." "Right. And do either of you know where the cylinder punch went? As my mother used to say, 'You had it last.'" Travis spoke up before Stiles could bother saying he didn't know. "It's in the aft locker in the tool alley, Zack, on the inboard side, underneath the conduction paper." "Thanks. Sorry to interrupt." When they were alone again, Stiles regarded Travis with quizzical respect. "How do you tell those two apart so fast?

 

 

Fifteen years, and it still takes me half a conversation." "Just doing what any good exo does. So... what do you think of Hashley?" "I think he's into something a lot more complicated than he believes," Stiles said. "I checked the Bureau of Shipping records just before you came in. Ansue Cabela Hashley, human, Federa- tion citizenship, most of the right licenses, skirts the law now and then but not much, originally from Rigel system, nothing much worth putting on record. He's been running the same patch of space back and forth for years like a bug, shuffling minor contraband into Romulan space. The Romulans have pretty much encouraged him by not enforcing their own laws in his case. He probably brings in things they can't get, and they like it. He hasn't been hurting anybody and more people like him than not, so he's been considered small potatoes." "T'fll now." Stiles nodded. "He's a cosmic worker-insect. Now he's stepped in goo and he's stuck. Probably he doesn't even realize that the reason he's been safe is that things haven't been too tense with the Romulans over the past twenty years. Now that they're tensing up, well, he has been breaking Romulan law right along. I'm guessing the Federation doesn't have good cause to protest. Then he stumbled on this poison thing and suddenly the small potato is a hot potato." "What do you think the connection is between the blood thing and Hashley?" "No idea." "It's got to be more than he thinks," Travis surmised. "More than just his 'knowing' about the poisoning, or whatever it is.

 

 

Nobody would try to kidnap him just because he knew about it." "He said it could be an engineered virus. Some kind of assassination plot. If a hundred or so imperial relatives have died, I can't believe Starfieet's not working on it already. We're a day late and a dollar short to make it our problem." Stiles sank deeper into his chair, rocked back some, and rested his head on the worn neckrest. As the chair protested with a squawk, the hot chocolate finally drew him with its rich scent, and he scooped up the cup and blew across the milky warmth.

 

 

Watching the stemn rise, Travis smiled. "You're a contented man, Eric." "Oh, Travis... I lived for four years at the mercy of whim.

 

 

Would they decide to beat me up? Would they feed us today?

 

 

Would the Constrictor come? We had no control. After that, even a little control seems terrific to me. I love the day-to-day activities of being alive. Walking freely to and from my cabin, my friends around me, going all over space, meeting alien races, a new batch of trainees every few months... I meet all 'kinds of people and I talk to and like most of them. I kind of enjoy getting through things. People are a lot less prickly when you don't return it." "You sure don't talk like a man who did the heroic deed and got awarded the Medal of Valor" Travis observed. "What a dismal example for all those punks out there who're shooting for the braids and brass, know that? They want glory" "Not all it's cracked up to be." Stiles sipped his hot choco- late again and breathed into the steam. "I didn't get the MV for any deeds. I got it for sitting on my bruised ass for four years and not dying quite fast enough." Leaning sideways, Travis lounged on an elbow and huffed disapprovingly. "What's Romulan for 'crappola'?" "I think it's 'enushi.' 'Enushmi.'" "Figures you'd know." Allowing himself a little smile, Stiles drew a deep breath and sighed also. "I washed my hands of Red Sector nine years ago, Travvy, when I was finally sure the message about Zevon had gotten all the way back to his fanfily. It took me a year to get the message through, and another year to make sure there hadn't been any snags and that his immediate family and the empress definitely knew he was there. He was sure they'd come get him. I made sure he got back home, and now I find out it might have been his death sentence." "You acted above and beyond the call," Travis tried to confirm, obviously relieved they'd broken through to the real reason he'd come in here. "It's not even in the widest perimeter of imagination your fault, and you flipping well know it." Stiles nodded. "In my three rational brain cells, I know it.

 

 

But in the rest of them... he's dying because I made sure he got home." "That's nutty." Taking a long draw on the hot chocolate, Stiles gazed with growing sentiment into the thick warm drink and saw in there all the wonders of freedom. The foam turned like ebb tide, the swirling dark cream like clouds and wind. "You ever been a prisoner of war?" His question moved softly between them as if made of music. Travis had no reason to supply an answer.

 

 

Stiles watched the foam bubbles pop in his mug.

 

 

"You live together in a way that no two other people ever do. You mop the other guy's blood and bind his wounds, listen to his dreams and watch his hopes decay... you can't get away from the smells, the sweat, the fears crawling on you like cancer... after a while you run out of words to hold each other's brains inside, so you just stop talking. You start com- municating without words. Just a look, or a touch... or you just sit there together. The intimacy can't be described. You see each other so raw, so demolished... more than you ever want- ed anybody to see you. Weak, sick, scared, sobbing. crushed by loneliness like a plague, till you finally turn to each other and pray the other guy's lonely too." He raised his eyes. Deeply moving to the point of sorrow was the expression on Travis's face, a shivering guilt that threaded its way from the distant past and prevented forgetting.

 

 

"I survived because of two forces moving in my life" Stiles continued softly. "One was the ghost of Ambassador Spock in my mind, telling me I could survive, I could rise above all this, that he'd be proud of me if I did... I heard his voice every night for the whole four years, narrating the plan for how I would behave and what he expected of me. I don't have any idea if it was all in my mind and I was making it up in some kind of hero-worship fantasy, but Travis, I swear to eternity it kept me alive. Just knowing what he expected of me and hear- ing his voice from the other side of the snow... calling me by my first name... he kept me alive by making me believe it was my duty and that I could prevail. The other force," he added softly, "was Zevon. Whenever the ambassador's image faded and that leash started to fray, Zevon would be there in the haze, some kind of echo of Spock, holding himself above the trouble we were in, always reminding me without even saying it that something bigger was expected of me. I needed him and he needed me, and together we worked for a common purpose. He gave me a reason to struggle out of my cot morn- ing after morning. If I didn't come, he came to get me and made me get up. If he's out there somewhere, sick, maybe dying... I can't let him face it without me." Travis looked at him and a moment later sat bolt upright.

 

 

"You mean--you don't mean try to make another contact! The last one took you a year!" "Zevon might not have a year this time, Travis." "Oh, my God! This is a little sudden--" Breathing in gulps, Travis glanced around the quarters as if looking for the writing on the wall. "My God... I'll contact Starbase Fourteen... get another CST out here to cover the precinct... I'll have to give them some kind of excuse," The fact that Travis Perraton so quickly absorbed and didn't question the moral imperative came to Stiles as a compliment, a vote of loyalty, and it bolted into place his flickering plan.

 

 

'TI1 come up with something," he said.

 

 

Travis pressed his hands to his face, shook his head, then let his hands fall to his lap and sighed. "You and your causes. Just when I think you're settling down, you come up with some lofty goal." "I don't have any lofty goals," Stiles told him. "I've got my goal. Save Zevon if I can, and if I can't, be with him when he dies. That's my goal." "What about averting an interstellar conflict? If we can make a solid contact in the royal family, somebody inclined to trust us the way Zevon and you trust each other, maybe Starfleet can help the Romulans with this poison thing they've got going." "That's not my problem. If it's in the cards, great. We're one ship with limited influence and we're better off keeping a leash on our aspirations. If there's a conflict, somebody else'll han- dle it. If we're there, we'll help. We can only do so much in life. Things change. Then they change again. I've been a hero.

 

 

Got what I thought I wanted, and it was nice, but how long can you keep that up? Once the handshaking and the medals are done with, the heroness just fades. You can't strut around for the rest of your life being heroic. I can't, relyway. I'm not James Kirk. The good thing is that I don't want to be. I'm gonna do my part, not his part." Travis leered at him with narrowed eyes. "That's the most depressing nobility I've ever heard." "Works, though. You prepared for the hard part?" "I'm always prepared, Eric." "That's it then. Ready about." "Ready about, aye."

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

 

NOW WHAT?

 

 

The last living Romulan royal family member, the last chance at uncontaminated blood, was no longer living.

 

 

Riker's profound words tolled through the silence on the bridge.

 

 

Spock was particularly aware of Dr. McCoy's expression and longed to have a few private moments, but that would not come today. Decades ago, Leonard McCoy had lost his abili- ty--or even desire--to hide his feelings. Now his bent shoul- ders further sagged, his wrinkled eyes crimped, his dry lips pursed, and he seemed to weaken. This news portended a gru- eling struggle for the physicians, with no possible short cuts.

 

 

Spock knew McCoy had seen many failures in his long life, and together they had fielded many fears and changes, and yet somehow McCoy had never lost his hope to alter one more arrow of fate before the years finally caught up to him. Failure this time might mean failure in his last attempt to make the galaxy better.

 

 

"Captain," Mr. Worf interrupted, "another ship on long- range, siC' Picard looked up at him. "The Tdal returning for some rea- son?" "No, sir. Starfleet encryption." "Identify her as soon as you can, Mr. Woff." "Sensors are reading the vessel now, sir" the Klingon obliged. "Heavy keel... double hull. ~. multipurpose config- uration... It's a tender, sir, combat support. The... Saska- toon." Picard turned to the forward screen, but nothing was visible yet. "Signal recognition and render salute pennants as we pass." "Aye, sir" Instantly shedding despair of Riker's news, McCoy came to life and found the nimbleness in his ancient fingers to poke Spock in the ann. "A CST! Give you any ideas, Spock, ol' man?" "I beg your pardon?" "Double-hulled, industrial, strong enough to defend herself, but doesn't attract much attention? Get it?" "Ah "Spock felt his brows flare. Decades ago he may have been embarrassed, but such social pressures were long withered from disuse. "Yes... conveniently unprovoking, yet combat-ready... possibly, Doctor!" McCoy turned gingerly to Picard. "See if you can get 'era to stop! Pull 'em over on a traffic violation or something!" "I don't think that'll be necessary, Doctor" the captain said as he watched the helm console from where he stood.

 

 

"The CST is on an approach vector. They're reducing speed." "Captain" Data reported, "Saskawon is hailing us." "Mr. Data, go ahead and give us ship to ship," Picard ordered.

 

 

"Aye, sir. Frequencies open." "This is Captain Picard, Saskatoon. Do you have a prob- lem?" "What a relief that we found you before you moved on! I've got to speak to Ambassador Spock." Spock wondered if he had heard incorrectly, though he knew that was unlikely. He had been cautious to keep his whereabouts private. Who was this CST commander that he could pierce top security?

 

 

Glancing at Spock, obviously surprised that anyone else knew, Picard sedately required, "Identify yourself, please." "This is Lieutenant Commander Eric Stiles. Is Ambassador Spock there? It's an emergency."

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

 

 

COMMANDER STmES AP}'~'~D in the turbolift within ten min- utes of the first message, instantly flooding Spock with nostal- gia for the young man he had once counseled, for today there appeared on the upper bridge another kind of young man alto- gether. His blond hair slightly darkened to an ashy shade, and the beard he had grown while in captivity was missing. His face had lengthened to a manful form, lacking the baby-fat of the twenty-one-year-old, and his hairline had changed. He looked like a wizened echo of the boy who had stormed the embassy.

 

 

Hesitating only an instant, as if unsure whether to come down the starboard ramp or the port ramp, Eric Stiles virtually ran to the command deck.

 

 

"Commander Stiles," Captain Picard greeted. "It's a pleas- ure." Stiles said. "Sorry, Captain. I'm sorry to barge in.... " Riker reached for Stiles' hand and shook it. "I remember your return from captivity, Mr. Stiles. I was in the audience on board the Lexington. It's a privilege to have a Medal of Valor winner visit us--" "Thanks." Stiles turned instantly to Spock, and it was as if they had spoken only yesterday. "I've got a problem. And I think I can help you with yours. Can we talk alone?" How odd.

 

 

Stiles's eyes were filled with complexity. The years sheared away between them and once again Spock was speaking candidly with the frightened boy who so needed the lifeline of an experienced voice sounding around him. Yet there was more.

 

 

Captain Picard gestured to the port side. "My ready room, Ambassador. Help yourselves."

 

 

"Manna from heaven," McCoy uttered, stating. "Spock! A Romulan royal nowhere near any other Romulans! And you don't believe in luck!" "Yes, I do," Spock fluidly contradicted. '`This is most star- tling. You remain certain that your cellmate was a member of the Romulan royal family?" "Absolutely, And if he's still alive and you help me go get him, you'll have an uncontawfinated member of the royal fam- ily." "How the devil do you know about that?" McCoy raved.

 

 

Stiles blinked. "Well... you've had your contacts searching all over the Romulan Empire for an isolated member of the family... I've got a few contacts too... y'know, Medal of Valor and all... you get some connections, even if you don't want them.... " McCoy blew a breath out his nostrils. "What's it take to keep a secret in this galaxy?

 

 

Spock turned to him. "This is troubling. It means the news is leaking out." '`This is the part that hasn't leaked out!" Stiles quickly told them. "I haven't told anybody about Zevon. The only people who know are me and my first officer and a couple members of my original evac squad who stayed with me. And now the two of you." "How is it possible that nobody else knew?" McCoy asked~ "Ten years ago when I pulled you out of there, Starfleet debriefed you thoroughly--" "Eleven years." "Ten, eleven, twenty, what's the difference?" "I was debriefed for weeks," Stiles agreed. "I told them I had a Romulan cellmate and they notified the Romulans. At the time there weren't any formal relations, no exchange of ambassadors.... I made sure the message got through to the precinct governor, who would have to report directly to the Senate, and they'd have to report to the---well, back then it was the emperor. So I thought the royal family would take it from there.

 

 

Spock had listened to these words with growing trepida- tion, but certainly also with a rising sensation of possibility.

 

 

"This is a profound blessing in disguise, both for Zevon and for the Romulan Empire. If he is indeed still in Red Sec- tor, isolated, still alive, then he presents a distinct ray of hope." McCoy pointed a crooked finger. 'Tll send Dr. Crusher to the Romulan royal family to treat them and try to keep them alive. In the meantime, I need to get to this Zevon and synthe- size a vaccine from his blood, before anybody else gets to him." "Who else could get to him?" Stiles asked. "Why would anybody want to?" "Whoever's inflicted this biological attack, that's who. You don't think this is accidental, do you?" "I thought it was just a plague! Something natural!" "Nope." His face a pattern of fears and troubles, Stiles frowned with consternation. "That's just what Hashley tried to tell us... ail his talk about viral terrorism and mass-assassination... I thought he was exaggerating." At that name, Spock felt his back muscles tighten. He glanced at McCoy, who, if possible, was more pale than usual at the casual mention of a key figure. Stiles clearly did not understand the full ramifications of how the puzzle pieces fit into place.

 

 

"Hashley again," McCoy complained. "He's as bad as the infection." Stiles squinted. "Huh? What's that mean?" "Ansue Hashley" Spock said, "is important to maintaining stable relations between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, Commander. How recently did you speak to him?" Stiles's eyes widened, and he swiveled his gaze between them. "You mean the same Hashley I'm talking about? An ag broker? That guy?" "Yes, that guy." "You've got to be kidding! He didn't seem capable of being part of a mass-assassination scheme. Starfleet captains had been tossing him from ship to ship like a hot potato to keep the Romulans from knowing where he was. I couldn't figure why he'd be so important. I thought they just didn't want to bother with him!" McCoy explained, "The Romulans tracked the royal infec- tion back to his cargo. That's why they think the Federation started it. The Romulans wanted him so they could have a scapegoat and tell their people they'd caught the culprit, that the Federation was definitely to blame for the deaths of their royal family." "Where is Hasbley now?" Spock asked. "Aboard Saska- tOOn ?" Stiles shrugged hopelessly. "No, I don't have him. I didn't want him. He's safe, though. We remanded him to the custody of the first Starfleet law-enforcement ship we found." "Which ship?" "The Ranger." Spock immediately turned and depressed the keypad of the bridge comm unit. "Captain Picard, do you know the name of the passenger who was kidnapped from the Ranger this morn- ing?" 'Tll pull the report, ambassador. One moment." "I'll put Dr. Crusher on it," McCoy said. "They want her help. They'll treat Hashley well." "It's my fault," Stiles said. He had left the conversation they were having and was having one with himself. "I never checked... never confn'med that Zevon had been rescued. He was so sure his family would get him out--he made me sure too. Until five days ago I was completely convinced that he was back home. Now I find out he never... they just didn't bother to go get him. All these years he's been trapped in Poj- jana space, by himself, without me... because of me. When I found out they'd left him, the only filing I could think to do was try to get your help." In all his years Spock had witnessed many examples of human fidelity and found he appreciated them all. At first he had looked down his nose at such demonstrations. Later he had learned to accept them with some curiosity, and even to accept that part of himself.

 

 

Spock moved to stand near Stiles, to make sure he had all the attention he needed.

 

 

"You and Zevon were friends," he began. "I deeply appreci- ate that. You depended upon each other in the worst of times.

 

 

Today you still understand what happened to you, the forces that worked upon your lives. Time has not dulled your decen- cy. Today, as I watch you in your effort and your torments, I cross yet another barrier to fondness. I enjoy the humanity I see in you, this childlike sense of justice that defies all forces.

 

 

Like a whirlpool you draw us all into your devotion. We will go to save the Romulans, yes. But because of you will we go also to save Zevon." McCoy watched them both with a charming softness. Spock noticed the doctor's gaze, but did not meet it.

 

 

Stiles clearly battled the pressure of tears behind his eyes.

 

 

Solemnly he murmured, "Every time I see you... you rescue me in some way." A swelling sensation of completeness satisfied Spock deeply. While before this there had been only a duty, a mis- sion, now there was a quieter and more profound purpose.

 

 

Crossing the quadrant to save a nation had its appeal. Crossing to save a friend had even more.

 

 

"Well, Spock" McCoy interrupted, "you and I seem to have a mission in Po'jjan space." Stiles came abruptly to life as a balloon suddenly fills with air, apparently afraid that they would make some other choice for some reason he failed to see. "Let me take you! We've got a thick hull, nonaggressive configuration, support registry-- completely unprovoking in nature, just a big industrial muscle.

 

 

We've got full regulation defensive weapons, and we all know what that really means. Let me take you through Romulan space in the CST. It's perfect! It's a good option. And I know the way!" McCoy raised his frosty brows. "Imagine never thinking of that. Silly us." Stiles took that as a threat. "If you don't clear me to go with you, I'll go anyway." McCoy looked at Spock. "Remind you of anybody?"

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

 

" O RSOVA. " "What do you want now? Why do you bring me to space this time? You always call at bad times for me! I was busy!" "The Pojjana lion of science. Genius savior of the planet.

 

 

Engineer of the Constrictor meter. Conqueror of the Constric- tor. Still amazed to see open space. You know nothing about science." "I know eveLything. I have power now" "You have Zevon now." Picking himself up from the strange carpet where he had fallen after the dizzying effect of a transporter beam, Orsova bristled and tried to appear confident. "Zevon works for me." "Zevon does all the work you take credit for. 1 know the dif- ference. I helped make it happen. Now I want something from you. A Federation ship is coming your way," "Federation? Why! This is Red Sector! How can they come here!" "They have new business here. They have visited Romulan space." "Romulan? Why would they go there? They have no treaty!

 

 

Have they... ?"

 

 

As the Voice summoned him again, Orsova felt the sting of being completely out of touch with the space-active civiliza- tions of the quadrant for so many years. All this time Red Sec- tor had been a huge favor for him, a sanctuary where a prison guard could rise to power if he 'knew how to play on public opinion--and if he had a Voice to tell him each step.

 

 

That had been easy. Play to the hatred. The Pojjana had been ready, eager, to despise and distrust. The Voice was right.

 

 

Orsova had used that. Found it easy. Surrounded himself with those eager to hate most, happy to have theft distrust bring them also to power, and learned how to nurture the distrust even when there was no one around to hate anymore.

 

 

Making them accept Zevon, an alien... that had taken time.

 

 

But it had been the most important part.

 

 

Now this ghost, this Voice, came to him when he no longer needed it. Orsova knew in his gut that this speaking person was an alien.

 

 

"Why would the Federation come again after all these years?" he asked. "What do they want here? We have no Fed- eration people in Red Sector." "They have their reasons. You will have to be prepared to stop them. Crash their ship, destroy it, or drive them off. Kill them if you can." "But why are they coming?" "Can your planetary defense destroy a Starfleet ship? This is not a starship, but a utility vessel--" "You don't know why they're coming, do you?" Suddenly emboldened, Orsova blurted his revelation. "You don't know, do you, Voice?" "Information is diaphanous. It changes." "Means, you don't know why they're coming." "When 1 need you again, I will beam you to me." "In space?" "Wherever I must be." "Means, you have to hide from them." "Go back now. Go now, and get ready to face the Federa- tion. Make them go from here, and there will be even bigger rewards for you."

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

 

The Imperial Palace, Romulan Star Empire

 

 

"MY NAME IS BEVERLY CRUSHER, Commander, Medical Corps, Starfleet. I'm here to treat the empress." "Yes, Dr. Crusher, we have agreed to give you cooperation. I am Sentinel Iavo." "Sentinel? Not Centurion?" "I am a member of the Royal Civil Attach~ to the Imperial Court, not pan of the Imperial Space Fleet. We discovered long ago that military titles for our civil officials only caused dangerous confusion. Where is your ship docked? At the municipal spaceport?" "No. We were dropped off. The ship has left. It's just the two of us now." "The two of you? No guards? No Starfleet security?" "I don't need them, do I? We have an agreement... don't we?" Standing before Beverly Crusher, Sentinel Iavo was a very handsome Romulan with typically dark brown hair but remarkably large and pale green eyes. He wore his Imperial Court uniform with a certain casualness, and his clothing indeed was not like that of the military guards stationed in the hallways they'd passed through. She couldn't guess his age-- that was tricky with Romulans--though he didn't strike her as particularly young. He stood in the expected Vulcanlike pos- ture, straight and contrived, the only clue to any nervousness his constant rubbing of the fingernails of one hand against the palm of the other hand.

 

 

The palace was a four-century-old monolith, its stone walls dressed in tapestries and heavy draperies like any Austrian cas- tle, except the rooms and corridors were lit by modern fix- tures-not a torch in sight. Funny--she'd expected torches.

 

 

And there was music playing. Harp~like music, backed sometimes by the hollow beat of a tenor drum and a hint of something similar to a cello in the background. No musicians visible--nope, it was a sound system.

 

 

She smelled incense, too, faintly. Or dinner.

 

 

The Sentinel gave her a moment to look around, then asked, "What would you like first?" "I want you to close up the palace completely," she began.

 

 

'Total security. Nobody in or out without high clearance, nobody at all. You're the highest advisor?" "Correct, Doctor, I am the empress's senior civil authority. I have held this post since before the emperor died, and my brother before me, and our father before him." "Oh, isn't that nice... then you have the authority to enact my terms. No changes of personnel from now on. Whoever's in the kitchen will stay there and keep working. The same maids, the stone servants, the same everybody. These same guards will stay on duty here. They can sleep here if they have to, but I don't want to see anybody new. When you have your security in place, I'd like everything and everybody cleared through my lovely assistant here." Crusher made what she hoped was a graceful half-turn and held out a hand. At her side and a polite couple of steps behind, Data offered her the medical tricorder. He also held their two duffel bags and Crusher's hospital-ima-bag medical satchel, full of all the instruments, medications, and a comput- er with both an immunological database and a general medical lexicon. The load was a little cumbersome because she'd packed everything she could think of. There was going to be no calling for supplies.

 

 

Data said nothing. The only expression of personality was the poignant lack of it, and perhaps the sheen of soft lightning, reflected off the velvet, casting a glow that turned his metallic complexion herbal.

 

 

"You needn't have brought so many medical supplies, Dr.

 

 

Crasher" Iavo told her as he took one of the duffels from Data.

 

 

"We have eight major hospital complexes in the city, which will bring anything you require to treat the empress." "Mr. Iavo, when I say I want security, I mean absolute secu- rity. I want nothing delivered from anywhere as of right now.

 

 

Nothing comes into the palace. Not medicine, not food, not people, not weapons." "There are no weapons here, madam" the Sentinel assured.

 

 

"The palace is completely energy-secure. Our security office constantly monitors any active energy, and would instantly identify an armed disruptor or phaser--" "Hmm. I wondered why all your guards carried daggers," Crusher recalled. "I thought it was just traditional. Where's the empress?" "This way, please." Another corridor. An obviously private series of chambers, more guards, one more short corridor... finally, Iavo cleared Crusher and Data into the empress's bedchamber.

 

 

And what a place it was. Draped in soft green velvet embossed with ancient symbols, softly lit by unseen fixtures, carpeted with something that seemed like rabbit fur, the room was warm and thick with the scent of burning herbs. In the center of the room was a sitting area with a generous couch and an oblong blackwood table with a single chair.

 

 

There were two female attendants hovering near the bed, and four imperial guards, each in a uniform and helmet, stand- ing near the bed posts. The bed had six posts, each as thick as a full-grown man's body and carved with angular features of hands and faces, each hand holding one of the faces and push- ing it toward the ceiling. Each face grimaced hellishly, and in its teeth held a carved skewer that stuck out from the totem, so that the bedposts bristled like a bottle brush with wooden spikes. Some of the spikes were broken off, yet the blunt ends darkened and showing no wounded wood, hinting that the bed was very old. The wood had never been stained, it had just blackened with sheer age.

 

 

And in the bed, bundled in velvet and fur, was the young empress. Her eyes were closed, but not in rest. Her hair was meticulously combed yet lusterless, almost crispy from her long fight to stay alive, as her body sapped whatever healthy cells it could draw back into itself in its last desperations.

 

 

All over the empire, members of the royal family looked like that, or had, or soon would.

 

 

Crusher approached the bed, aware that Data was right behind her, maintaining a student-like silence. She listened briefly to the empress's respiration, looked at her complexion, noted her skin color, an obscene russet--very wrong--but did not touch her.

 

 

"Communications relays have been set up all over the empire for you. Attending physicians are standing by for your instructions." "Are they willing to cooperate with a Federation physi- cian?" she asked.

 

 

Iavo seemed embarrassed, or perhaps hopeless. 'Taey have tried everything they know." Crusher folded her arms. "Yes... I suppose they have." And she simply stood there, a hip cocked, said nothing more, and did nothing, while the harp nmsic plucked the draperies.

 

 

Data's amber eyes flicked between her and Iavo, but he also said, as she had instructed, nothing.

 

 

Iavo watched as his empress moaned softly, unattended. The two female attendants peered uneasily. The hehneted guards remained at attention, but their eyes shifted.

 

 

"Are you going to treat her?" Iavo finally asked.

 

 

"Yes, but I'll need something from you," Crusher said.

 

 

"What do you want from us?" Iavo asked.

 

 

Now he got it.

 

 

She took one step toward him, then locked her stance. "I want Ansue Hashley. Bring him here, alive."

 

 

"All right, Mr. Hashley, I've heard enough." "But I want to finish telling you about--" "No, that's enough talking. Sit still while I finish sealing this" Crusher stood over Ansue Hashley's ragged bulk and shook her head in disgust. He was bruised, cut, flushed, nicked in a hundred places, and pale from loss of blood, yet somehow that mouth kept running and running.

 

 

"You know, Sentinel Iavo," she began as her seamer's beam sketched closed the last cut on Hashley's face, "you people didn't have to torture this man. If you'd open up your borders and deal with humans more, you'd know after talking to this man for ten minutes that he doesn't have it in him to organize a mass-assassination plot. And we would've told you about the prion-based epidemic we've been fighting. Imperial isolation- ism has hurt you this time." Near the empress's bed, Iavo rubbed his forefingernail against his other hand's thumb knuckle and protested with his expression. "The infection was imported on his vessel. We tracked it back to a low-level medication in his cargo bound for--" "He's a busy little gossip, not a biologicM terrorist" Crusher insisted as Hashley's big sopsy eyes blinked up at her. "That medicine has been coming in here for more than forty years from a pharmaceutical company sympathetic to Romulans. All Mr. Hashley did was bring it in. Somebody else engineered the tainting of the shipment and then the delivery of the tainted stuff to all the royal family members. Hashley here is just a dupe." "Whose dupe?" Crusher shook her head and let herself rattle on, spilling her thoughts. "Nobody clever enough to distribute this infection would run a little trade route for ten years. If you knew more about humans it's kind of obvious this man's not biding his time to take over the universe. Romulans might be that tena- cious, but humans don't have the patience. Or a two-hundred- year lifespan. Why do you think we're always in such a damn hurry? Gotta get things done before we die." Pacing uneasily nearby, Sentinel Iavo switched fingernails and leered doubtfully at Artsue Hashley, who sat like a bruised puppy. "Whose dupe was he?" "We're not sure," Crusher admitted. "Dr. McCoy's right, though. It's got all the earmarks of a series of cross-raciM mul- tiprion plagues. Until recently, nobody put them together. The first clue was just three years ago at Deep Space Nine. Well-- then the station was called Terok Nor." "I remember that!" Hashley offered. "Cardassians, Bajorans and Ferengi all got the same sickness! They were 'all accus- ing--" "Oh, I missed a scratch right next to your lip," Crusher cut off. "Here--let me seal it up. Don't move, now.... The Car- dassians suspected a Bajoran rebel group of manufacturing the disease, and they were partly right. The rebels were happy to make sure the Cardassians caught the disease, until they found out that Bajorans could get it too. And there was no way the Bajorans at that time had the resources or the science infra- structure to develop something as advanced as cross-species vital infection. They can't even do it now, and back then they were subjugated. Not only the Deep Space Nine infection, but we also found out that two years earlier several human-alien hybrids were infected with an unidentified virus, and that's unheard-of in nature. This thing's being systematically mutat- ed, targeted, and delivered." Iavo stopped pacing briefly. "I take it those were not all human and the same alien hybrids." "No, they were all mixed up. People with that kind of genet- ics just can't 'catch' the stone thing naturally. There you go, Mr. Hashley, all patched up. You'll be sore, but you'll live.

 

 

Now, I want you to just stay right here with me and Data va~d help us do what we have to do." She straightened, handed Data the seMer to put back in the reed-pack, then turned to Iavo.

 

 

"All fight, Sentinel, I'm ready to start treating the empress. Are you ready to help?" The tall imperial official glanced at the two femme servants, then met the gaze of one of the four guards. They seemed to be communicating, but not in the way one would expect of a sen- ior government official and a clutch of underlings from way, way under. Iavo clutched his hands before him, flexed them, stretched his fingers, looked at the furry carpet for a moment then raised his eyes again at the nearest guard.

 

 

Such a simple step took a very long time, as choices go.

 

 

Finally, seeming to make a decision or part of one, Iavo turned his back to the guards as if deeply troubled by their presence. "What do you need from us?" Crasher watched the guards for a moment. Were they avert- ing their eyes on purpose? "First of all, I want these women out of here. Data and Mr. Hashley can be my assistants. And I'd like you to cool it off by fifteen degrees in here. Clear that incense or whatever's burning out of the chamber and circulate some fresh air" "But this is how we always--" "If 'always' was working, you wouldn't need me here, would you? Coot, and air, please." Iavo paused, seemed to be deciding between being insulted and some other reaction Crusher couldn't make out.

 

 

Once again the Sentinel met the eyes of the guard nearest to him.

 

 

"We'll do as you instruct, Doctor," he agreed, speaking slowly. Hypnotically he robbed a single fingernail. "Do you think you can save her?"

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

STILES' HANDS SHOOK as he stood beside the Saskatoon's com- mand chair. On the other side of the chair, Ambassador Spock placidly standing, the elderly Leonard McCoy sitting in a con- sole chair--both men watched the approach of a forbidden planet in a forbidden sector. Stiles had offered the doctor the command chair, but McCoy had demurred, saying that only the "golden boy" should sit there. Stiles hadn't been able to sit in their presence, so the chair went empty through the entire voyage. Even when Alan brought tea.

 

 

Every regulation in several civilizations prevented their coming here, yet here they flew. The hoops of outposts, sta- tions, guard ships, patrols, and bureaucratic drumbeating they'd had to jump through had left Stiles with a headache that was still here days and days later. The tension of moving into Romulan space to drop off Dr. Crusher and Data had been enough to peel fruit, and now Saskatoon was deep inside Red Sector, trailing deals and bribes and threats and name-dropping that had gotten them all the way here.

 

 

For Stiles, though, this was the door of purgatory. He couldn't keep his hands warm any more. The self-examination was no fun either. Why was he so nervous? He had these heavy hitters with him, didn't he?

 

 

Why was his stomach twisted up into a spiral? The absence of foolish cockiness should're been reassuring and mature, but the fact was he wished he still had it. That zing of thinking he knew everything had protected him from a whole lot of scared.

 

 

Wishing he could feel his fingers, he wondered if those two men over there had ever preferred to pull their own teeth out than go in someplace they had to go. Duty, cause, purpose, rank, ability--aU those things fell short of the driving force he needed to overcome what he felt. There was only one thing drawing him forward, against all the forces pushing him back.

 

 

Gripping one hand with the other to hide the trembling, he looked briefly to portside, to Travis and Alan. Alan winked reassuringly, and Travis gave him a thumbs-up. They were willing to go.

 

 

Embarrassed, he puckered his shoulders. His friends were reassuring him, supporting him into the unknown. It should be the other way around.

 

 

"Hero," he muttered.

 

 

No one heard. He barely heard himself.

 

 

Spock glanced at him.

 

 

The planet of his dread swelled on the main screen and six of the ancillary monitors.

 

 

"Approach, Eric?" Travis prodded from the port side.

 

 

"Hm? Oh... sorry. Helm--let's see... come to point nine, equatorial approach vector, angle four one. No---four two.

 

 

There's a constant thermal over that big canyon"' "May I ask what you're reading on the planer's surface?" Ambassador Spock asked. "Anything unfamiliar? Any sign of destruction by the Constrictor?" "I'm picking up airstrips;' Jeremy reported, % couple of things that might be missile deployment facilities... heli- ports... some satellites... pretty typical. Maybe mid-or late-twenty-first-century equivalent or so. I could be all wrong, though." At tactical, Zack Bolt commented, "You get to a certain level of atmospheric aeronautics and yours is as good as any- body's:'

 

 

Stiles waved an icy hand toward Spock. "Why don't you have a look for yourself, sir? You were here too, and I'm sure you knew the layout a lot better than I ever did. After all..." If Spock's dark eyes saw through the layers of reasons and excuses, he made no hint of that, except perhaps for the hesita.- tion before accepting.

 

 

"Very well," he said, and took the place at the science sta- tion as Jeremy moved out of his way. He bent over the readout hood, tapped some of the controls, causing monitors to flicker and change, focus or choose new subjects.

 

 

Stiles knew what Speck expected a devastated planet, a civilization crushed nearly out of existence, the people who'd managed to survive suffering in the few remaining caves and wreckage that hadn't been smashed, hardly any old people, hardly any kids.

 

 

But that's not what came up.

 

 

Maps of the planet's cities, boundaries in some places marked off by electronic border markers readable from space.

 

 

Stiles recognized some of what he saw from that first approach all those years ago, and he was stirred by new apprehensions.

 

 

He recognized the mountains showing up on geographical long-range, and flinched. The idea of returning in triumph, healthy, alive, in command of a ship, dissolved and crumbled away. Suddenly he was twenty-one and out of control.

 

 

The hum of the ship around him as thrusters moved them toward orbit pounded like blood in his head. He was grateful when Travis quietly took over the approach orders, doing so smoothly enough that nobody seemed to notice. Or at least they pretended they didn't.

 

 

Stiles wasn't much for puffing on airs, but he'd have liked to give them a little command puff-up right about now, just for Christmas. Couldn't find it, though. Just couldn't find it.

 

 

"Cities seem intact. No signs of catastrophic damage;' Speck commented as he clicked his way through the scanner's offerings. "I recognize several of the buildings at the main city complexes on the primary continent...." Now he leaned clos- er and seemed almost to frown. "Although... the architectural style has changed significantly. Many of the old constructions are missing, replaced by complexes with only one or two sto- ties" He turned his head, without straightening up, to look at Stiles. "During your incarceration, did you hear any word of so broad a cultural change?" "Me? Zevon and I used to talk about what could be done to help buildings survive the Constrictor... elastic brackets and joints, different construction materials---either much heavier so they could withstand the pressure, or much lighter so they wouldn't be crushed... but nobody ever paid attention to us.

 

 

That was just us, just talking." "They seem to have implemented many changes" Spock commented, looked at what he saw on the screens. "Even the colors of the cities are different now. I believe they may have changed materials significantly. They seem to be primarily using quarried granite rather than timber and brick. And I'm reading quintotitantium and dutronium reenforcement mem- bers rather than conventional steel and iron. When I evacuated, they were incapable of such a development at their industrial level." "Granite.. ,' Stiles sifted his memory. "Dutronium.

 

 

Zevon and I used to design--we used to think up all kinds of things. Maybe the Pojjana just figured out some of them on their own. It doesn't take that much to figure out how to build a spandex house, y'know... most of our ideas just made basic sense. It's not like we had much to work with or anything.... " McCoy watched the continent slowly turn on the large for- ward screen. "Do you think he's still alive and influencing their development?" "I hope so, I sure hope so" Stiles said with his heart squeezing fearfully. "Zevon doesn't have a prime directire.

 

 

But I don't know how he could get anybody to listen to him.

 

 

We could never get past the assistant warden. And I don't know if... they turned on him after I got pulled out or. maybe they just..." No one said anything to comfort or refute his tortured sup- positions or stem the racing of his imagination.

 

 

'qlaere's only so much he could do" Stiles grumbled, his thoughts taking on a life of their own. "After all, the sector's been red for years. Nobody's been in or out, right?" "We watch the sector constantly," Spock undergirded.

 

 

"There has been extremely little breaching, give or take the odd delinquent shaman." Dr. McCoy's white brows danced. "Or the occasional sublime wise-ass. Other than that, a skinny bird couldn't slip in and out of Red Sector without somebody's noticing. Mr. Stiles, you think your friend could be somewhere other than the capital city? Run- ning some process that engineers those new buildings?" "Even Zevon couldn't make industries all by himself, even if he were in charge of the whole planet, never nfind a prison- er. Besides, he wasn't an architect. Is eleven years long enough to make sweeping changes on a whole planet? Nah... proba- bly not. He'd have to get all the way up to somebody trusting him first, and, believe me, on a planet of people who really don't like aliens, that could take... well, more doing than either of us could manage from a prison cell or our lab. Travis, adjust the trim, will you?" "Trim, aye. Give it another three degrees level, Stinson?' "Aye aye, sir, three degrees starboard." "We must not assume;' Spock mentioned, "that anything is the same after eleven years" Stiles strode around to the other side of the bridge, where Spock was still scanning the readouts of the planet below. "Are you saying you think he's dead?" Spock glanced at him. "You spare yourself by accepting the likelihood. You nearly died yourself." "I was sick." "And ill-treated, poorly fed, ignored, imprisoned--" "Zevon's Romulan. He's stronger than--" "Not stronger enough" the ambassador cautioned, now stand- ing straight and looking right at him. 'q'he odds... are troubling." McCoy was watching him. Stiles could sense it.

 

 

He could sense--and see the fretful averted attention of everybody around him. They all knew his past. He was too close to this. Maybe it was a mistake not sending somebody completely impassive. There was more at stake than just Zevon. Was he thinking clearly enough?

 

 

"What do we do?" Stiles wondered. "Just... approach?" "Almost to the atmosphere, Eric" Travis reported. "What do you want to do?" "I don't know yet." "We've got to have an order either to enter or veer off. At this point we can't hover." "No doubt the planetary monitoring system has already noticed us;' Spock told him. "Although they had no space- borne fleet, they were perfectly able to effect short-range scans of the immediate area, for defensive purpose~ I'm sure they have identified your ship as a Starfleet unit. If you don't mind my suggesting we broadcast a " A shriek cut him off as the CST bellowed around them and the whole ship was jaw-kicked. The deck canted to an instant 30-degree list, as if they'd struck something out in the middle of space. Were they too low? Had they hit a mountain?

 

 

Pinned to the side of the helm for a terrible few seconds, Stiles gritted his teeth and fought against the thrust. He heard the cries of his crew as they were thrown violently against the side of the tender, crammed into bulkheads and equipment and each other in a tangle of pressure and shock.

 

 

"What is it!" he called. "Did we hit a satellite?" Jeremy clung to the console one chair down from where Spock was pressed to the science ledge. "Energy funnel! It's pulling us down?' Dr. McCoy clasped his chaff and grimaced. "I hate this kind of thing--" "Is it coming from the planet?" Twisting, Stiles jabbed at the helm over the shoulder of the flabbergasted trainee pilot. "Oh, no, I know they shouldn't have this! They didn't have anything like this! Not that could pull in a CST! We can tow a starship!" Travis scrambled for the engineering mainframe to see if there was an answer there, but when he turned again his face was a mask of baffiement.

 

 

"It's as if the planet itself has grabbed us!"

 

 

The Imperial Palace

 

 

Cool aft, finally, moved through the ancient hails of the crown family's traditional home. The soft harp music played eternally over the sound system, just sweet enough to drive anybody crazy after the first twenty hours. The tape had looped a few times, and by now Ansue Hashtey had taken to humming harmony to the tunes he recognized.

 

 

This, in bitter contrast to the suffering empress, who was roused now and then by Crusher's ministrations and wakened to relentless agony because from time to time medical tests required her cooperation. Even when the young woman was allowed to sink back into unconsciousness, her struggle just to breathe provided a pathetic percussion to the damned harp music. It had been a difficult two days.

 

 

"Mr. Hashley, please take these two instruments and clean them thoroughly, the way I showed you yesterday, and then bring them back;' Crusher instructed. She'd only caught a few catnaps and was feeling the stress of fatigue. This was like being a resident again.

 

 

"I just love helping you," Hashley said. "Maybe when we get out of this, I can join Starfleet and come to the Enterprise and be your assistant." "You could certainly do something like that;' she said. "No reason you couldn't take a few paramedical courses and start a new career. I'm thinking of switching to professional wrestler, myself. Whew... could you bring me that pillow and put it behind my back? I can't let go of this IV pump right now. I've almost got a result... stand by, Data" In her periphery, Crusher saw Data look up from his com- munications center, formerly the empress's dressing-room van- ity. "Standing by, Doctor." The imperial communications relays were tied in to over six hundred stations throughout the empire. Data had taken nearly three hours to confirm, through codes, geological information, and star-mapping devices, that the relays were actually work- ing and in contact with a spiderweb of stations on several plan- ets. After all, what good would it be if they were just talking to a con artist next door?

 

 

Her head swam as she took a moment to relax her brain, while her hands worked under the blue light of the portable sterile field she'd set up. She even indulged in closing her eyes for a few moments, until the feld readings bleeped. Sounded like a cannon going off.

 

 

Crusher forced her eyes open and blinked a couple of times, focusing on the readings rushing across the miniature monitor screen. "Good, very good... I was right. Data, confirm that the physicians should stop fighting the fever. Let it run its course--it stresses the attacking prions." "Relaying that, doctor. Your progress is remarkable for only two days." "That's me--Remarkable Bey. Look at that! I knew it was there... add that they shouldn't inject supplements of kelassi- urn, no matter how low the levels get." Data stopped working the console and looked at her. "Doc- tor, is it not true that Vulcanolds can suffer irreparable intesti- nal scarring from lack of kelassium?" "Absolutely, but this test is hinting to me that the kelassi- um's not leaving the body at all. Look... see these protovili- um levels? Those only show up when there's a repository of kelassium. They shouldn't be reading this way ff she is really K-deficient." Hashley looked up from organizing the medical instruments.

 

 

"I've heard of that kind of thing! When I was delivering indus- trial incendiaries to Carolus, one of the company medics told me about how the body defends itself with some really weird stuff" Crusher only half-registered what he said. She had learned over the past hours to pick on a word or two without really committing herself to listening. "Mmm, this is weird, all fight... if these chemical bonds are leading me down the right track, the kelassium's being stored in the second liver.

 

 

That tells me the attacking prions feed on kelassium. At least partially--Data, are you getting this?" "Yes, Doctor." "Storing kelassium deprives the infection of an energy source. I think low kelassium's part of the body's natural forti- fication. Let's take a chance." "Is that wise?" the android asked. "Some of these patients are dangerously ill already." Crusher leaned closer to her patient and checked the moan- ing young woman's temperature in a particularly unscientific yet somehow instinctive way--with the back of her hand.

 

 

"Mmm... brink of death's a prickly place, Data. Sometimes you gotta dance to keep standing there." Even though she wasn't looking at him, she could still somehow see, perhaps only in her mind, the android's per- plexed expression. He didn't counter her comment, though, or question the risk she was taking. Instead he turned back to the portable corem console and relayed the latest thread of hope.

 

 

She wished she could speak more freely, venture some opinions about the crassness of hereditary rulership, mutter a few truths about how it always compromised freedom some- where down the line--and not usually that far down either-- but the four guards were always there, and one of the two women. The guards took turns standing watch every six hours, never leaving the immediate chambers or sitting rooms.

 

 

And Sentinel Iavo floated in and out... at the moment he was floating back in.

 

 

"Any success, Doctor?" Crusher looked up and took the moment to stretch her back and shoulders. "A little. Nominal. Enough to give us an idea that we might eventually beat some of this." Iavo went to the fireplace, which until now had been stone cold, and turned the head of an unrecognizable carved creature on the mantel; a hissing sound was heard, as flames jumped up in the fake logs, rose to a certain height, adjusted themselves, and settled as if they'd been burning all night. The royal cham- ber was instantly haunted, medieval.

 

 

'Whe empress may live because of your ministrations," Iavo gauged. All across the empire, the royal family members are beginning to slowly outlive their symptoms." "So," Crusher said, "you've been listening in on our relays, Sentinel?" He paused. After a moment, he admitted, "Yes, of course." Still he did not turn from the fire. Turning in her chair, Crusher surveyed his tall form, narrow and dark against the flickering golden glow from beyond it, and marveledmnot for the first time--that no matter where she traveled in the stars, no matter what strange forces she witnessed or what bizarre life forms she encountered, what twisted trees grew or weeds crawled, all over the galaxy fire was always the same color.

 

 

And also the same was the smell from the cauldron of ambi- tion.

 

 

Sentinel Iavo held his hands toward the fire. Crusher saw them spread before him and slightly to the side, framed in paint-by-number fireglow.

 

 

Stretching one arm out, Crusher snapped her fingers once, quietly, toward Data. Flinching as if awakened, the android swiveled away from his console and sat watching. With her other hand, she waved Ansue Hashley into the comer behind her, then put a finger to her lips and gave him the evil eye. The man paled, his eyes widened, and with some wisdom garnered from years running an illegal route, he measured the sense of not arguing or even speaking.

 

 

Crusher leaned over the empress and touched the pallid cheek whose changes of color and heat had been the cusp of the doctor's life for many hours. The empress moaned softly. A tear appeared in the comer of the quiet girl's eye. Perhaps she knew.

 

 

The two standing guards moved away from the end of the bed. The two who had been resting now stood up.

 

 

"I suppose," Crusher began quietly, "you've never had a problem like this come your way, Sentinel." Iavo gazed into the fire. "Nothing like this." "How does temptation taste to someone who has been loyal all his life?" For a moment he was silent. He sighed. "It has a certain bit- ter spice." "Are you enjoying the chance?" she asked him. "Or are you comered by other pressures?" This time Iavo did not answer. The guards stood now in a line, three on one side of him, one on the other, all four facing Crusher, Data, Ansue Hashley, and the dying empress in her bed.

 

 

"It must be frustrating" Crusher said, "always to be on the periphery of glory, nearly able to touch it, always condemned to taste but never swallow... and now to see yourself within a step of supreme power... and your followers to see them- selves jumping all the obstacles in one leap---advisors, at- tendants... Sentinels... they all see an opportunity that otherwise would never have occurred. The murder of the empress would be hard for the people to accept, I'm sure, but no one here will care if a Federation doctor and her party sud- denly turn up missing. Enterprise officers aren't exactly on the empire's favorite-people list, are we? Therefore, the empress and her family will die without continued treatment." Despite the fact that there was no real wood, the fire was engineered to crackle and snap---even to put forth the scent of burning autumn leaves. Still with his back to her, Sentinel Iavo lowered his head as if watching her words spin inside some kind of crystal bail in his mind.

 

 

Barely above a whisper, he told her, "You came here with no guards, madam." Crusher turned fully in her seat and robbed her hands on her knees. "Now that you know I might save her, you have to go through with it, don't you?" The guard at Iavo's right drew his ceremonial dagger. A sec- ond guard did the same while the others watched and gripped the handles of their own weapons. Crusher stood up.

 

 

Sensing the change, Iavo now turned around to face her.

 

 

Now the line of Romulans and the threat they posed clicked gracefully into place. For a brief moment Beverly Crusher stood in awe of this elegant race, so Vulcan in their stature, so human in their passion.

 

 

The last two guards pulled their knives. Firelight played upon the blades. And Iavo himself touched the still-sheathed ceremonial dirk that was the symbol of the highest nonroyal office in the Romulan Star Empire.

 

 

Data came to her side. Ansue Hashley stood behind them.

 

 

Crusher pressed back her shoulder-length hair, steadied her- self, lowered her weaponless hands to her sides, and looked directly at Iavo.

 

 

"How are we going to do this?"

 

 

.Chapter Eighteen

 

 

"WHAT'VE WE GOT?" Jeremy White responded with typically terse calm. "We've got thirteen minutes before we crash." "Yellow alert, everybody;' Stiles ordered.

 

 

"Yellow, aye!" The CST shifted its manner substantially, as certain lights and meters went dark and others popped on, systems deciding which were important and which could wait. The din was mad- dening--the ship screamed and strained, engines howling right through the bulkheads, setting up harmonic vibrations in every member.

 

 

On the main screen and all the other exterior visual moni- tors, black space and a planet gave way to the filtering gauze of clouds. They were entering the atmosphere!

 

 

While he tried to keep control over his voice, to keep from shouting or sounding excited, it was necessary to speak up over the tin bray of the engines fighting to keep them in space.

 

 

"Veer out!" he ordered. "Get us some kilometers." Both hating and loving the fact that Ambassador Spock and the irascible Leonard McCoy were watching him through a dangerous moment, he forced himself to concentrate on any- thing but the two of them. For a second he thought Spock might stay at the science-readout station, where he so obvious- ly and eternally belonged, where he fit so well on a starship or any ship, but the famous officer subtly stepped aside for Jere- my White to take that position.

 

 

Stiles hesitated an instant, soon accepting the appropriate- ness and grandeur of the sacrifice. Spock was letting them handle their own destiny without interference. How did he know to do that? How could he hold himself in check like this?

 

 

His stomach turning, Stiles stepped to the starboard side.

 

 

"Come on, Jeremy, analyze it." Jeremy's usually sedate expression was screwed into annoy~ ance, possibly because of Spock's presence. "It's some kind of hybrid of a tractor beam and a grayitoh ray. I've never seen energy combined this way. If a CST can tow a starship, how can they be holding us?" Travis asked, "Did they have this tech when you were here, Eric?" "No, hell, no! Matt, can we---" Realizing he couldn't be heard five sections back over the scream, of the engines, he struck the nearest comm.

 

 

"Matt, can we effect any kind of a fair-lead landing?" From section five, Girvan called over the mechanical scream, "Not at seven thousand feet per second at this angle we can't.t " "Okay, let's come up with something else. How long before the beam pulls us into the mountain?" "Calculating;' Jeremy said. "Draw is increasing incremen- tally with our thrust ratios. They're pouring the coals to it." "Let's pour our own;' Stiles said. "Let's try impulse point zero five, helm." "Point zero five?' "Don't shout." Stiles shrugged at the kid, a simple gesture that had a visible effect on the young terrified teenagers, who were all watching him to measure how many points they should go on the panic meter. Going into a battle situation, with rules to follow and procedures to rely on, had been something they could handle after Starfleet training. Having the ship tilt and scream under them as a planet sucked at itmthat was something nobody'd ever trained for. Of course, having it smash into a planet's sur- face would be hard to come back from, too.

 

 

Stiles found orders popping from his lips and responses coming from the crew in a step-by-step manner that had saved thousands of spacefarers in the past, a protocol upon which he now relied.

 

 

"Let's have all the rookies to support positions. Primary crew take your emergency stations. Alan, watch the gyro dis- play and tell me personally if it starts jumping. Let's have red alert." "Red alert!" Travis echoed.

 

 

A dozen changes erupted with that order. The lighting all over the CST shifted to muted cherry. The hatches between sections slammed shut and pressure locked--sssschunk.

 

 

"Keep up the thrust." Stiles knew they were doing that already. Just wanted to make sure nobody pushed the wrong button. The ship's sublight engines whined valiantly. "Let's see what we've got to fight with. Give me some numbers and col- ors." Immediately Travis called into the comm. "Engine thrust control, give us numbers and colors." Almost immediately section leaders' voices from all over the ship started bubbling through the corem system to the bridge, because now all the hatches were closed. Travis, Zack Bolt, and CJreg Blake relayed what he needed to know and left out what he didn't. "Six GCG, sir." "Red over yellow on the plasma injectors, Eric." "Green on the pellet initiators." "WeDre nine points overbudget on the MHD. They're trying to equalize." To his shipmates across the bridge Jeremy called, "Just compensate when it spikes!" "Hear that, Jason? Compensate the spike only! Jason?

 

 

The engine noise swelled to a howl, as if a hurricane were transferring itself from section to section right through the sealed hatches. Beneath the engine noise squealed the grind of real physical stress, as the ship twisted and cranked against the planetary force hauling on them. It was as if they were towing some great body that insisted upon moving in the opposite direction. And they were losing.

 

 

"Thrust increasing!" Greg Blake called. "No effect, sir!

 

 

We're slipping down even faster!" "Put more power to it, then." What else could they do?

 

 

Stiles glanced sideways at Leonard McCoy, glad the doctor was sitting down. He didn't want to be responsible for the famous elderly physician being scratched, spindled, or mutilat- ed from falling down in the Saskatoon. Spock, too, seemed stable enough, despite the ravaged tilt of the deck and the slow spin that tore at the artificial gravity.

 

 

Travis punched at the controls with one hand while holding himself in place with the other. "Maybe we can twist out side- ways--use the lateral--" "We'd gulp too much fuel," Jeremy argued. "We're already burning the deuterium at fail-safe rate! It's all we can do to hold position. Ten more minutes and we won't have anything left at all. We've got nothing to twist with:' Pulling himself bodily upward to Jeremy's side, Stiles tried to make sense of what he saw on the maps and visual analyses of the planet below. "What's the source of this beam? Anybody reading the surface?" Greg Blake was the one to answer. "Reading an energetic pulse station at the northern foot of the valley. It's east of the... looks like a swamp. No lifesigns. It must be automated" "Yes, there's a swamp. Zack, target that facility." "Targeted," Zack Bolt responded. "Phasers armed." "Fire phaser one;' Stiles ordered.

 

 

A single phaser beam broke from the ship's weapon array and bolted down toward the planet, but hadn't made it a half second away before suddenly bending sharply and bouncing like a ricocheted bullet off an invisible field between them and the planet.

 

 

Alan Wood covered his head, as hot sparks and bits of melt- ing metal blew into the bridge from section two.

 

 

"Insulate!" Stiles yelled at the same time. From where he stood he could see his experienced shipmates grab the trainees and yank them to the interior areas of the CST Sure enough, the phaser beam lanced around, bending every time it hit the egg-shaped energy field and shooting back past the ship, until finally, inevitably, it struck hull.

 

 

An explosion ripped through the midsection electronics, blowing sparks, hissing--and somebody cried out in pain.

 

 

Shouted orders and desperate measures shot forward, audible even through the closed hatches. "So much for phasers..." "Rupture! Section four, starboard PTC! Automatic sealant nozzle heads are fused--" "Tell 'em to do it manually;' Stiles called. "Is everyone okay?" Jeremy looked at him grimly. "It's a reflector envelope! Our own phaser hit us! We can't fire out!" "Pardon me... would you take a suggestion?" Spock!

 

 

The voice jolted Stiles. He spun around and looked up to the grand figure on the starboard deck. "Are you kidding?" The stately Vulcan kept a grip on the buffer edge of the science console and somehow made his awkward position look graceful on the wickedly tilted deck. "Quicksand. If we struggle, the beam sucks us down at a commensurate rate, drawing upon our own energy to exert more pull than we can exert thrust. If we hold still, all it may do is hold us in place." While the engines howled and the hull peered, Stiles gazed at the ambassador and Spock back at him as if they had all week. Doubt and illogic spun through Stiles's training and experience, then jumped the gully to irrational trust.

 

 

He looked at the readouts, at Jeremy's face skewed with doubt, at Travis desperately trying to make sense of what the ultrascience officer had just suggested... as precious seconds slipped away, Stiles found himself adding up the crazy num- bers.

 

 

His eyes flipped again to Spock, and he shook his head and winced. "I was about to fall for something again, wasn't IT' "Literally." "Sir... I hope you're everything I think you are." Without turning away from Spock's steady eyes, Stiles tossed over his shoulder, "Cut thrust?' "That can't be right!" the panicked trainee at the helm protested, his eyes swiveling wildly. "We'll get pulled into the planet!" Stiles started to explain, then cut himself off and waved.

 

 

"Travis !" Perraton instantly yanked the midshipman from the helm and slid into the seat himself. "Cutting thrust. Sorry, kid. Go sit down till we see how dead we are." His own order eating at his stomach, Stiles leered at Spock as if to share the burden. His mind raced, as he scoured his memory of all those recorded missions on the first Starship Enterprise, when Spock faced the worst mysteries of the cos- mos as Captain Kirk's unswerving sidekick.

 

 

The whine of the engines depleted noticeably, like howling wolves running over a hill and disappearing into the mist.

 

 

"Is it working?" Stiles dared to ask.

 

 

Quiet with victory, Travis half-turned to confirm with a good glance. "We're slowing down...." "We've just bought ourselves about twenty more minutes," Jeremy assessed. "I wouldn't bet on more." "Keep measuring" Irritated with the knowledge that he wouldn't have been able to save his ship if Spock hadn't been here, Stiles bristled with selfconsciousness, fighting to think with a divided mind.

 

 

"Can't fire out... can we beam through the reflector bub- ble?" "I don't know that!" Zack Bolt rebelled at the idea. "I know for sure I could never beam you back up through that thing!" 'What doesn't make any----" "Beam out?" Travis swung around. 'When what? Find the beam housing and kick it down? That thing can take hand phaser fire!" "We'll use the nacelle charges" Stiles told him.

 

 

"Those are only five-minute charges," Travis explained, with sudden fear in his eyes. "They'll take out a mile and a half. You'll never get away in time." "We'll do something," Stiles shabbily assured. "Let's try it.

 

 

Ready the transporter." "Are you nuts?" Jeremy grabbed at Stiles's ann, keeping one hand on his controls. "Give me tune to analyze the reflec- tor envelope! Maybe you can't beam through it." "How long before it pulls us down, did you say?" His face sheeting to white, Jeremy shook his head. "All right, all right." Some inner checklist rang in Stiles's head, and he turned to Spock, prepared to use all the resources he had at his dispos- al-and this was one dynamite resource. "Can we?" Now that he'd been invited, Spock leaned to look at Jere- my's science monitors that gave them the energy analysis of that beam. Even after several seconds of study and two signifi- cant frowns, Spock could only postulate, "Possibly." Stiles's leg muscles knotted. "Let's try beaming through." On his other side, Jeremy protested, "Let me beam some- thing solid out first." "You got thirty seconds. Somebody get me a jacket. I'm going myself." "You are?" McCoy asked. "Damn! Another hotshot!" The comm button was hot under Stites's finger. "Jason, bring me two of the shaped charges we use to blow off nacelles. Meet me in the transporter section." He accepted and yanked on a jacket somebody handed him from the aft bridge locker. "I've got to find Zevon. Nobody else knows--" "Neither do you know the way around the city;' Spock pointed out. He stood squarely before Stiles. "You were a pris- oner. But I do." That's what he needed--a super-shadow.

 

 

But he couldn't think of any reason that didn't make absolute sense. Pushy, pushy Vulcan.

 

 

"What about me?" Dr. McCoy made a rickety effort to stand up.

 

 

Stiles gaped at him, instantly in a bind. His mouth opened, closed again, openedmwhat could he say? McCoy couldn't possibly run or fight, but if he stayed here... and what about the others? Offer to beam a hundred-and-some-year-old man down to save his life and leave the entire young crew behind with their lives dangling?

 

 

McCoy's ice-blue eyes sharpened. "Are you going to refuse one of the greatest explorers and pioneers in Starfleet history?" Choking on what he hoped was damage smoke and not something else, Stiles uttered, "I... I... uh...." "Eric," Jeremy interrupted, "We're slipping. They're not pulling us down with our energy now, but it's still pulling us with whatever energy it can muster itself. We're slipping deeper into the atmosphere. Sixteen minutes till we hit the surface." Travis looked at him. "Can we turn so we don't hit engines- first?" "No chance." Spock stripped out of his ceremonial robe and dumped it on the deck. "We should go, Commander." But Stiles was still gawking at McCoy without 'knowing what to say.

 

 

The aged physician leered back at him with singular deter- mination.

 

 

Spock snapped up the front of his formal jacket--it turned out the big clunky Vulcan molded jewels also had a clasping mechanism--and simply preempted, "Doctor, please." Levering a finger at Stiles, McCoy huffed, "If you don't come out of transport with your arms sticking out of your head and you find that Romulan, you bring me the whole package, not just a sample of his blood. I've got to have a constanL warm, living source for several days to do what I need to do. I need him, got it? Not a sample. Him, himself" "Thank you" Spock said. "We shall do our utmost." "You'd better" And McCoy stepped aside, out of the way of everybody who was working to keep the CST in the atmosphere.

 

 

"Travis, come here." Stiles grasped his friend's arm and held it fiercely. "Backup plan three, got itT' "Really?" "Yes, really. Got it?" "Got it." ''Travis... don't let my ship sink." Somehow Travis found a smile. "W&ll do what we have to, Eric." Stiles started to respond, but his words stuck in his throat.

 

 

Travis assured him by returning the grip, and said nothing more.

 

 

Drawing a tight breath, Stiles jumped to the hatchway and grasped the hatch handle, then looked back for Spock. "Mr.

 

 

Ambassador? Let's fly or fry:' "After you, Mr. Stiles."

 

 

The Imperial Palace

 

 

What had begun as a complex and troubling medical mis- sion had first metamorphosed into the glimmerings of suc- cess--a chance to save a thousand royal family members and shore up the stability of the Federation's closest and most dan- gerous neighbor on this side of the street--and had now once again altered its form and function. Now Crasher, Data, and the hapless merchant named HashIcy were about to fight for their own lives. As abruptly as wind shifts, they had become the targets of an assassination plan that had seemed as distant to them as stars were apart.

 

 

As her stomach muscles spun into spirals, Beverly Crusher thought fast, conjuring up a half-dozen 'alternatives before set- tling on one. She couldn't sedate them all. She couldn't seduce them all... there had to be something better.

 

 

"Allow me to play to your sense of honor" she began, with a bluntness she hoped Romulans would appreciate. "If your men can take my man, Sentinel, I'll pack up my instruments and leave, and let the empress and her family die. You won't even have to kill me." Sentinel Iavo tipped his head as if he hadn't quite heard her right. He nodded once at Data after deciding she couldn't pos- sibly be talking about Hashley. "Him?" "Yes," Crusher said. "Him.'~ "A duel?" "If you have the integrity."

 

 

Iavo glanced at the sergeant of his guards. The sergeant frowned in suspicion, but said nothing.

 

 

"How is it honorable," Iavo parried, "for five men to do bat- tie with one man?" Crusher shrugged. "Well, he works out a lot. You know Starfleet." The five Ronmlan men, warriors all, looked at Data and saw a lanky, wiry human who carried Crusher's medical bags.

 

 

Crusher held her breath. Come on, men, think... how do we spell Romulan chivalry?

 

 

"He has no weapon" one of the other guards protested as he finally drew his own blade.

 

 

"You told us no active phasers or disrupters could get through the palace's security screen" Crusher said, %0 you can either give him a dagger, or fight him like he is." Despite being obviously intrigued by the wager, Iavo's expression hardened. "There is no integrity in sacrificing everything on a game. I refuse, Doctor. I cannot afford to let you leave here now. You will die today." Crusher shrugged. "Have it your way. You still have to fight him." Data stood alone in the middle of the carpet, cahn and waiting, seeming very small. Perfect--lhe Romulans didn't like this at all.

 

 

Whether they won or not, they were petty about fighting and too chicken to bet on themselves. And she'd piqued their sense of fair play. Conscience could be such a burden, couldn't it? She hadn't expected them to take a silly wager, but now they were ashamed to fight Data in what appeared to be a no-win for Starfleet.

 

 

The Romulans glanced at each other in waves of hesitation, doubt, suspicionmand a flash of guilt?

 

 

Over her shoulder, Crusher heard the faint voice of Ansue Hashley. "I... I can fight... a little.... " "Shh" the doctor murmured. "Go ahead, Data." Without verbal acknowledgement, Data moved forward.

 

 

Crusher pressed Hashley back, and the line of battle drew itself across the fur carpet. There before her, like a museum painting on a wall, stood the stirring vision of four distinguished Romu- lan charioteers and their Sentinel in rebellion, and thus they descended to the ranks of hatchet men.

 

 

Between the two factions in the bedchamber stood the couch and the oblong table and its chair. For a moment these three objects seemed as insurmountable as any moat. The recorded harp lyficals continued mindlessly to play, the fire to skitter and glow, the empress to suffer through her next breaths.

 

 

Ultimately the tension in the room became tangible, break- able---or maybe it was just the accursed twangy harp music-- and the standoff was shattered by the battle cry of the sergeant of the guard. He flung off his helmet, dashed it to the hearth stones, and charged.

 

 

Blocked by the table, the sergeant drove forward anyway and leaped into the air, took two steps across the tabletop, spread his arms, dagger down, and dive-bombed Data where he stood.

 

 

Barehanded, Data's arms shot up; he clasped the sergeant's nubby silver uniform with both hands and parried the man over his head. ff Data had simply completed the arch, the ser- geant would've landed on Crusher, but Data's shock-fast com- puter brain measured the pivot--angle, force, velocity, energy--and he twisted exactly right. The sergeant bellowed his shock and surprise, slashed downward with his blade--rak- ing Data across the back of the neck--and then flew into the wall as if shot from a cannon. Though it looked as if he had just struck the velvet drapery, his body made a distinct thok of bone and armor striking against sheer rock. He crashed onto the corner of the vanity and thence to the floor.

 

 

Enraged, the three other guards now charged in unison, vaulting and smashing past the furniture. Data's hands struck out like cobra tongues, skirting the slasldng blades of his attackers with such blinding speed that two of the guards cut each other instead of him and stumbled back. The third received a kick in the gut and was thrown off. The first guard now flew from his position on the floor and jumped onto Data's back, clinging and grimacing viciously while trying to position his knife at Data's throat. Data merely turned under them as freely as a weathervane, his expression completely unfazed.

 

 

Sentinel Iavo, astounded by what he saw, rushed between the table and the couch, his ceremonial dirk's long blade gold- en in the firelight, as he drove it forward into Data's fibcage.

 

 

There the blade lodged.

 

 

Data reached over his head with one hand to clasp the cling- ing sergeant by the hair and down with the other hand, to grip Sentinel Iavo's dirk hilt as it protruded from his chest. Crusher winced as the three men waltzed together.

 

 

Behind her, Ansue Hashley's gasps and gulps narrated every move, and he somehow had the sense to stay back, no matter what he thought he saw.

 

 

"He'll be slaughtered!" HashIcy empathized. "That knife-- it's in him!" Restraining herself from idle boasting, Crusher said, "Don't worry yet. Data's the best concealed weapon around." In a spin of color and firelight, the sergeant slammed to the floor at Crusher's feet, dazed, his face bleeding, lungs heaving, weapon completely missing. Crusher stooped and heaved him up onto his knees. "There you go. Keep fighting:' She stepped back, watching tensely to see if the seed of guilt she'd planted would sprout quickly enough to turn the tide.

 

 

Already she sensed a halfheartedness in the Romulans' effort---or was she imagining it?

 

 

With a prideful roar, the Romulans surged back into the fight just as Sentinel Iavo and one of the other guards crashed into the couch and drove the whole thing fight over backward, dumping them into a stand of shelves, whose contents came shattering down upon them.

 

 

"You're making a mess;' Crusher commented.

 

 

"I shall be happy to tidy everything later, Doctor;' Data responded as he whirled and took a blaze of vicious stabbings to the arms and upper body and blocked hard-driven blows that were meant for his face. In return he drove his fists, knuckles, and the heels of his hands into the soft tissues of his oppo- nents. "By the way, I am expecting a communiqu~ from the empress's first cousin's physician on Usanor Four. Would you mind activating the channel?" "Oh, sure." Completely rattled by the casual conversation going on while they were panting like dogs, the Romulan guards let their anger get the better of them. Data's hand-eye coordina- tion was at computer speed, he had the strength of any ten Romulans all equalized throughout his body, and he wasn't getting tired. When the next one came within grasping range, attempting to body-blow Data to the floor, Data instead grasped the man fully about the chest and heaved him into the air, propelling him up and into the comer.

 

 

"Data, it's getting out of hand. Wrap it up as soon as you can." "Certainly" Sentinel Iavo was poised ten feet from them in an attack stance, staring at the body of his guard. Summoning the com- mitment he had made, he forced himself to swing once again at Dam with his dirk blade slashing. The blade fell on Data's shoulder and glanced off. Iavo stumbled.

 

 

In that instant, Data managed to drive off all three remaining attackers at once, just long enough to grasp the dagger hilt that was still sticking out of him. With a finn yank, he drew it from his body. The blade dripped with colored fluid as he turned it toward the charging guards and the Sentinel. He was armed.

 

 

His eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted, Data's jaw locked, and there was a flush of effort in his complexion. The Sentinel and two of the guards attacked him as a unit with their blades, met with driving force by Data's weapon. The clang and shriek of metal against metal erupted over the harpsong.

 

 

"Uh-oh, he's getting mad," Crasher observed. "And they say he doesn't have those emotions... apparently he's got some- thing like adrenaline on his side." "How can he do this?" Hashiey asked. "How can he throw those big guards around!" "He eats his broccoli. This is what happens to all conspira- tors, Mr. Hashley. Sooner or later they have to show them- selves." Iavo spun around and glared at her while two of his men lunged at Data and were thrown off. "Conspirators?" 'l'he Sentinel did it, didn't he?" Ansue Hashley reckoned, taking the topic and running with it while the other men fought their way around the arena. "He poisoned the royal family! He wanted power all the time. He's been close to it all his life, like the prime minister waiting for the queen to die, but he gets impatient. I've heard of that." Crusher rewarded him with a nod, then accused Iavo with a glare. "I guess he thought he could get away with killing the entire royal family." In the middle of a dagger-swipe, Iavo let his move be par- fled without challenge as he sang out, "I did nothing to make this happen! I have no idea why they turned ill at the same time! I thought it was their blood!" Wondering how good an actor he was, Crusher moved side- ways, keeping behind the periphery of Data's slashing weapon.

 

 

"Who helped you engineer the vital terrorism?" "I did not do it!" Iavo shouted. He actually stopped fighting, backed away from Data, and stood there waving his weapon in a kind of helpless gesture, as one of his guards writhed in pain at his feet and the other braced to charge again. 'q'his was providence working] I had the power to see what could be! I wanted to change the hearts of our people, not this... this-- stop it!" He lashed out at the last guard, driving the charging soldier sideways into the table just before the other man would've plowed back into Data's circle of engagement.

 

 

"Stop, all of you!" Iavo ordered. "Stop... stop. No more.. :' The other guards--the two conscious ones---clasped at their bleeding and broken limbs and obeyed him. Mindful of Data's dangerous abilities, they shrank back, away, and crouched near the fireplace. Somehow Crusher could tell that they weren't obeying because they were beaten. They were obeying because they knew they were wrong.

 

 

Emotionally destroyed, baffled and sickened by the rank- ness of what he had been tempted toward, Iavo stalked the width of the room, then finally sank into the chair at the center table as if some magical pry bar had opened a valve and let the air out of him. He raised his striking jewel-like eyes to Crush- er, and she saw mirrors of anguish.

 

 

"A thousand loyalties," he mourned, "a thousand pres- sures... these days have been torment for me... I have spent my life in the service of the royal family, never once thinking such thoughts, until along came tiffs miracle, this disease that struck every one of them... at first it seemed tragic, soon changing to a glimmer... the allure of opportunity... to cut away the throne's ancient core... change the future of the empire, dilute the power of blood succession that causes these terrible dangers and finally try something new--this might're been the only chance in history to try. But I can't finish it--" Demolished, Iavo sank back on the vanity, his head hanging, his arm draped across the console.

 

 

"I could let them die," he moaned, "but I could never kill them. You must believe me...." "Data, stand down," Crusher ordered.

 

 

The android lowered his weapon, although Crusher was reassured when he did not put it away, and remained poised in the middle of the room, ready to spring in case anybody got any ideas.

 

 

"Good work," she said as she came to the android's side.

 

 

"How badly are you hurt?

 

 

"A little lubricant leakage, Doctor." "I'll fuse you up in a few minutes." Emboldened, Crusher crossed the furry carpet in three strides and got the dazed Sentinel by the collar, her hands knotted like cannonballs at his throat. She leered into the crumple of his face.

 

 

"All right, Iavo. Look at me. I'm willing to have seen noth- ing here today, do you understand me? Data's not only the devil with a handweapon, he's also got what you might call a photographic memory. We've got a record of everything that's gone on here, but I'm willing to keep it between us if you do exactly as I order. You get your buddies out of here and don't show me another armed guard for the duration of my visit.

 

 

You're now the empress's one and only bodyguard. Monar- chies are stupid, but that little girl didn't do anything except get born into the royal family. It's like a curse, y'know? It's not her fault," "You must believe me" he beseeched. "I know nothing of the plot to make them all ill...." "I believe you." She dropped his collar so abruptly that he flinched. "This biological assanlt's been going on all over the quadrant and it's never involved the Romulans till now. As much as I'd like to hate you right now, nothing points to you.

 

 

You're just an opportunist. A clumsy one, at that. You think I can't tell that you've never done anything like this before?" "I never have... please forgive me... 1 never expected you to be so brave. We have always been told that humans whim- per and sneak, stab in the night... I have served loyally all my life, until this opportunity raised it head--" "And you can still have your coup d'etat someday, I'm all for revolutions, but not while the opposition is lying helplessly ill and I'm around to make them betten It' the empire falls this way, this fast, you'll take all the rest of us down the drain with you. You threatened to kill me, so here's the counter often You won't kill me, and Data won't have to kill you. 1 keep treating her and the rest of the royal family, and you and your men pre- tend none of this happened and quit thinking that this is a good way to change things. You can all keep your positions and get another chance some day to do it right. I'll send you a biogra- phy of Benjamin Franklin and you can get some ideas, but until then be patient and do your jobs with some statesman- ship. For now, you'll back off and let me do my job without any more theatrics. Simple enough?" The fire snapped, and the harp chimed.

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

 

"MR. STILES..." The devil's own carnival ride. Hands still tingling. Hate bad dreams... Orsova, loom'mg over him while some creepzilla who'd won an auction rayed the flesh off him with bare fists.

 

 

Arms throbbed. Legs, back... wake the dead with that drum- beat.

 

 

Leave me alone. Can't go back, can't go back there.

 

 

Lips clamped together and teeth gnashed, coming down on gritty shme. Stiles swam back to consciousness. Threads of grit made way between his teeth, file side of his tongue, the back of his throat he gagged himself awake.

 

 

As if something were crawling across his face, he backhand- ed himself in the mouth and wiped moist filth from his face, then heaved up spitting, weed pods netted with slime sheeting off the left side of his uniform as he rolled.

 

 

Someone groaned--he opened his eyes and seemed to see the sound of his own complaint rush into the sky like a bkd.

 

 

Pressing grit from his watering eyes, he forced himself up on both arms and hovered there on hands and 'knees, as his head battled to clear.

 

 

He was kneeling in shoulder-high ferns. The ground was soft, sticky, made of pea-like pods in a great carpet, light green like duckweed on an everglade. And stank like a bilge.

 

 

"What's that awful smell?" he complained.

 

 

A few yards from him, Spock rose to his knees in the ferns, his hands dripping with green stuff. "The great outdoors." As if afflicted, Stiles stood up on a pair of rattling maracas.

 

 

"God, we lived... that was the longest beaming I've ever been through. My head feels like a stone." "The restraint shield they put around us is apparently geared toward weapons energy, fortunately. It allowed us to beam in is your phaser active?" Spock was holding his phaser, looking at it critically.

 

 

Stiles pulled his own phaser. "Drained! These were fully charged !" "The shield sensed the charge" Speck said, "and neutralized them. Useless." Just like that he dismissed their lack of weaponry.

 

 

"Where are the grenades?" Spock slashed at the ferns with his hands, looking for the only thing they'd had time to bring with them--a pouch loaded with heavy-duty shaped grenades normal- ly used by CST crews to blow off an irreconcilably leaking nacelle before the nacelle exploded and took a whole ship with it.

 

 

All around and above them, black trees spindled high and low, wretched branches dipping low into the marshy weeds and snaking up again with newly absorbed nutrients. Hands shaking, Stiles dug at the thickly shadowed overgrowth and wished there were more sunlight. Those clouds up there, blocking the light, those were the ones he'd seen displayed on the Saskatoon's screens as the energy from the planet drew the ship deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. The clouds seemed so passive and blanketing, he had to struggle to recall that they were as deadly as venom, blinding his crew as they were sucked closer to being milled to dust.

 

 

Seemed like the ship was a million miles away, down here with the peace and quiet and ferns... be easy to lie down and take a nap.

 

 

"Twelve minutes" Spock reminded. "At this rate, the CST will crash at six hundred ten miles per hour." "And disintegrate~I know" Stiles pawed furiously through the ferns now. "It's got to be here. It came through, didn't it? What if the envelope let us through and stopped the grenades somehow?" "The pouch would be here empty." "Oh... right. Here it is!" He came up from the ferns with a weed-matted satchel, and half a bush attached to his hair.

 

 

Through the pouch's mock-leather skin, he felt the presence of two charges in their camstem.

 

 

"We must hurry" Spock urged.

 

 

After a moment's clumsy hesitation, clarity struck him that Spock's statement was meant to let Stiles lead the way.

 

 

"Right--this way." The transporter had put them down at the edge of the weed forest. As they broke out of the knotty growth, tripping on hid- den roots and fingers of dipping branches coming up again as independent plants, Stiles immediately saw the center of his universe--a blocky gray beam housing nestled in a meadow, positioned so that it had almost 170-degree firing clearance in every direction, even over the mountain range to his right-- those mountains sent a javelin through him, which seemed to drive him backward... moving his feet to go toward the build- ing caused such physical stress that his legs nearly went numb.

 

 

The blocky beam housing was nothing more than a platform of granite blocks and a spidery dutronium arrangement that acted as legs for a conical device standing about thirty feet above the ground. From that device at this moment a blinding blue beam was being emitted, that bellowed like a concert band trying to tune up.

 

 

Maybe they could're brought it down with hand phasers, but it would have taken a while to melt, Stiles noted with some satisfaction. At least the right choice had been made there.

 

 

They hadn't taken the time to get hand phasers out of the secu- rity lockers and had brought only the canister charges. A dumb mistake. A dumb midshipman's mistake. Why did his mind always turn to taffy when Ambassador Spook was around?

 

 

"Both sides of the base?" Stiles asked as he handed one of the charges to the ambassador. "Yes." "These are shaped charges, sir, so be sure to point the open end down so the force'!l go into the ground and not up to the ship. Saskatoon's not much more than fifteen miles over our heads by now." 'q'welve point two. These are five-minute charges? No more, no less?" 'q'hat's it. When you're blowing off a nacelle, all the alterna- fives have been exhausted. The decision's already been made.

 

 

All you need is a small safety margin. Five's usually enough." "It will not be enough today." Spock glanced around as he positioned the canister between the bolted fingers of a stan- chion. "Other than the trees, there is no cover here." "Most of those 'trees' aren't even trees. They're tendrils of an ancient root system. They just keep going up and down out of the glade like some giant's sewing them all over the coun- tryside. They're hollow with liquid inside. They'll be blown down and act like a big net on us. The bark'11 just crumble and turn into shrapnel." "Perhaps we should head in another direction, in that case." "We'll head over that way, on the open meadow. How far can we run in five minutes?" "Hardly matters, Mr. Stiles. We're unlikely to survive the blast wave. If the ship is freed from this beam, Dr. McCoy can lead a landing party to collect your friend and continue with the medical mission." Stiles peered through the dutronium spiderweb. "Is that why you left him up there? To lead a second landing party if we got killed?" "Yes. Two fronts are better than one." "Hmm... I left him because I figured he couldn't run." With feelings appropriately scornful to that little step down, Stiles pressed the charged canister into place. "Ready... it's set. Now what?" "Four minutes, fifty-five seconds." Ambassador Spock set his own canister, then stepped back from the granite block, his black eyes vibrant with the mo- ment's risk. He was actually enjoying himself.

 

 

"I believe the operative phrase," he said, "is 'run like hell.'"

 

 

"Three minutes." How long can five minutes be?

 

 

As Spock ticked off the time in thirty-second intervals, Stiles's legs pumped in unison with the pounding of his heart.

 

 

The longest Constrictor on record (the last time Stiles had experienced one) was three and a half minutes. The last erup- tion of Mount Vesuvius had lasted nine hours. A two-minute earthquake was really long. A ten-minute tornado. Minutes stretched into drawn-out experiences that seemed never to end, seemed to make the whole universe turn slower and slower, until a heartbeat itself became a sluggish kettledrum with the drummer falling asleep.

 

 

Five minutes of running across a swamp meadow, splashing through rancid fluids, anticipating the platform back there to blow sky-high and sweep him off the face of the planet--that five minutes shot by faster than a snapped finger. What hap- pened to all those stories about minutes becoming hours?

 

 

As the five-minute mark approached, they were only a third of the way across the meadow, running toward a blister of stony hills. At thirty-six years old, Stiles could devour some ground, and he had been holding back somewhat because he didn't want to outpace the ambassador in case Spock needed help. Soon that showed itself to be unnecessary--Spock was tall, long-legged, and Vulcan.

 

 

They ran. Hindered by the knee-high meadowgrass and the uneven ground beneath, the exercise became a venture into hopping, tripping, sprinting, and catching on thorns and tan- gles. Another ten feet... another... each step drew him deep- er into misery. His brain shut down, he couldn't think of what to do but keep running. In his periphery he saw the flash of purple and black--the ambassador's clothing moving at his side, the flick of Spock's fists and arms pumping as he force- fully kept up with a much younger man.

 

 

Stretching out his right leg to pass over a depression that opened before him, Stiles gasped suddenly as a cramp tore through the bottom of his thigh, wrecking his stride. His foot connected with the upward slope of the depression, but his leg instantly folded and he crammed into the compacted dirt knee- first, down onto his side, skidding on his right cheekbone into the grass. Not the kindly patch of green at the end of the block, this Pojjana idea of grass had serrated edges and left his hands and face reddened as if he'd just shaved with a sawblade. He was on the ground, and the last seconds were gobbled up.

 

 

"Keep running!" he shouted into the dirt. "I'll catch---" But then the landscape opened up and reached for the sky.

 

 

Black noise concussed between the mountains and the swamp forest, a great stick striking a great drum, and Stiles's skull rang and rang. He tried to rise, to run again, but the flash blinded him and the raw force drove him into the depression, not more than eight inches lower than the level of the ground they'd run across.

 

 

Suddenly tie was lying in a furnace, pressed down by weight he couldn't fight. He turned his head to one side and opened his eyes in time to see the blast wave blow over him in a sin- gle, solid white-hot sheet. The side of his face turned hot mid he buried his head in his arms and waited to die.

 

 

Into the muffling warmth of his sleeve, he murmured, "Go, Sassy, go, go... push.... " The carnivorous shock wave sheeted across his body, raising the hairs on his neck and limbs. He couldn't breathe--he sucked at a vacuum-- And just as the compression was about to crush his chest, Stiles took one more desperate attempt to breathe and got a lungful of warm dusty air. His head cleared almost instantly.

 

 

As he maneuvered his elbows, pinned under his chest, and tried to shove himself upward, a weight across his shoul- derblades pressed him down and held him. A wave of cool air now flooded over him, replacing the rushing scalded air of the blast sheet.

 

 

"Stay down." Spock's voice rang in his ear. "Cover your head." Drowning out Spock's words, a shattering hall of granite bits and shards of metal pulverized them as they lay crushed to the floor of the depression. Stiles shrank into the smallest crushed-up ball he could manage as his back was hammered by his own success. The wreckage of the beam housing had taken a little tour flight and was now coming to visit the two little elves who'd arranged the trip.

 

 

His chest heaving, he finally managed to press up onto his elbows, then to his 'knees.

 

 

Crouched at his side, Spock was slapping him on the back over and over.

 

 

As Stiles was trying to figure out a way to tell the ambassa- dor that he wasn't choking and didn't need to be patted, Spock simply explained, "Your clothes were burning." "Oh... thanks. Was that... one... explosion... or two?" "Two. One concussion wave." Spock spoke as if nothing had happened at all, then coughed. The cough made him seem per- fectly mortal and gave Stiles a bit of comfort that otherwise might've slipped on past him.

 

 

As a shimmering cloud of debris--the last of the pulverized housing---drifted around them as if it were a theatre curtain lowering, he winced his way to a standing position and had to lock both legs to stay up. His whole body trembled and pulsed with aftershock.

 

 

Through the drifting dust, he peered at the mass of wreck- age, completely flattened, in fact depressed into a crater. The steel structure that had held the beam's emitter lay in mangled messes all over the grass, which had itself been seared brown.

 

 

"Think it worked'?" Stiles wondered. "Is the CST okay now?" "If they veered off at the correct tangent, yes." Spock made moves to stand up, but fakered. Instead he looked at his legs, first one, then the other, in a strangely clinical manner.

 

 

Stiles turned to him. "Sir?" Before he could ask the question that came up, he flinched bodily at what he saw--a shard of metal the size of a writing stylus embedded in the side of the ambassador's left thigh, with a good two inches sticking out.

 

 

"Oh, sir..." Stiles knelt beside him. The cloth of Spock's pantleg was stained with his blood, and the Vulcan was plainly stiff with pain, although he pretended this didn't bother him much. "How deep in do you think it is?" "No way to tell," Spock said, and looked around at the sky.

 

 

"The blast was substantial enough to have alerted the author/- ties. Someone should be arriving soon." Shaken by that, Stiles also looked around at the gray sky.

 

 

"And here we are, out on the lone prairie, with no way to defend ourselves--sir, don't!"

 

 

He put out a hand, though he didn't really know what to do when the ambassador abruptly grabbed the protruding two inches of the metal shard and simply slid it out of his leg.

 

 

"You're not supposed to pull out something that's sticking in you like that!" Stiles protested. "What if it hit an artery? You could bleed to death!" "I clot well." Spock tossed the shard into the scorched grass and pressed the heel of his hand tightly to the wound. "I must be able to maneuver, and certainly a metal implement in my leg would be troublesome." Stiles stood up again and looked around. "They'll be here any minute. We can take cover in those hills... I've heard of people digging down a few feet and findiqg the hollows made by ancient root systems that aren't there any'nore." In the blast-flattened grass, tie found a large piece of a support strut with the bolt still attached in one end. "We can dig with this. I think I can hide you for a while in there, mid after nightfall we can make it into the foothills." "Commander... would you consider--" "No, I will not consider leaving you and going off on my own. That's not even in the picture, so don't think about it. If you'll let me help you up.... " Holding his digger in one hand, he slipped the other arm around the ambassador, who allowed himself to be pulled to lfis feet. Smeared with Vulcan blood, their clothing scorched, hair filthy, they hitched their way out of the ahnost invisible depres- sion that had saved both their lives by allowing the blast wave to pass over them instead of deep-frying them into the ~ound. Any minute now a patrol would show up to investigate the blast, which probably showed up on every scanner on this part of the continent. Obviously, too, the Po~jana nmst've known they'd caught something in that gravity-weird contraption.

 

 

"This way, sir." He drew Spock along, dismayed that the Vulcan seemed not to be helping much. "We'll hide until night, then we can make a bivouac in the hills and figure out a way to defend it. There they are! I see a plane! Come on, before they spot us!"

 

 

Chapter Twenty

 

 

STILES PRESSED FORWARD, aiming for the shadowy protection of the rocklands ahead. He could hear the distant murmur of the plane's engine, recognized the type of aircraft, and made his bets.

 

 

"They're still miles away," he gasped, pulling Spock along, "but even if they spot us they can't land on this terrain. They'll have to send a recon hoverscout with a patrol team to flush us out. If we can make it to the hills---" "Commander?" "Don't worry, I can take more of your weight. We can't slow down. If we can make it to---" "Of course, Mr. Stiles, but I do have a question." "What's that, sir?" "From whom are we hiding?" "Watch that rock---don't trip!" "From whom," Spock repeated, "are we about to hide?" "The authorities. They'll be here any time--" "And to whom... did we come here to speak?" Stiles dragged the ambassador along another five or six steps before this sank in.

 

 

As the drone of the aircraft drew closer to the bomb site, he felt his face screw up in a frown of confusion and doubt.

 

 

Something just didn't seem right about this.

 

 

The ambassador tentatively put more weight on his injured leg.

 

 

Stiles shifted back and forth on his own feet and finally met Spock's eyes. "I'm doing it again, aren't IT' Spock bobbed an eyebrow, flattened his lips, and charitably avoided nodding.

 

 

While digesting that little nugget, Stiles lowered the ambas- sador onto the first sitting-sized rock they'd come upon, a har- binger of the fact that they could're made it to cover if logic hadn't gotten in the way.

 

 

They remained still, unresisting, out in the open, as the Poj- jana aircraft buzzed the scene of the explosion and Stiles thought his arms and legs were going to fall off with the urge to mn again, hide, defend-- The plane strafed the flattened beam emitter for several sec- onds before veering abruptly toward them. His spine shriveled.

 

 

They'd been spotted.

 

 

'They've seen us," Spock said with quiet satisfaction.

 

 

"How are we going to explain blowing up their emitter?" Stiles circled behind the ambassador and came around the other side as if stalking the plane on its approach. "We had to do it. I couldn't let it pull my ship down--" "Of course not." The plane soared over them, one wing tilted low, and they could clearly see the pilot in his helmet looking down at them.

 

 

He was contacting the Pojjana security forces.

 

 

They'd never get away now. Stiles battled inwardly, wrestling with the idea that getting away wasn't the best idea, wouldn't get them where they needed to be, wouldn't find Zevon.

 

 

"You needn't call me 'sir,' "Spock told him, as if they were sitting over a dinner table or playing badminton. "I have no Starfleet rank any longer, and you are the commander of the vessel that matters in our lives today." "Yeah, well... well, it'll be long time before I can think of you as anybody other than Science Officer Spock of the Enter- prise."

 

 

The plane circled the area, keeping them inside its survefi- lance area while no doubt calling for backup. Stiles never let his back turn to the plane, moving constantly to stay between the aimraft and the ambassador, a shield of vellum against rockets if they decided to open fire. Each step drove him deep- er into his troubled thoughts.

 

 

"Do you know," he began, "do you realize how many hours on end I rehearsed calling you 'Ambassador' before that evac mission? I just knew I'd get down to that planet and call you 'Mister' or 'Captain' or 'First Officer' or 'Your Honor' or 'Your Highness'--something stupid was waiting to pop out of my mouth and I could just taste it. All the way in Travis and the evil twins kept saying, 'Eric, will you quit mumbling the word ambassador?' I'll bet... 1 just bet Captain Kirk never had that kind of problem." Spock paused a moment. His eyes never flinched nor did his expression change much. He peered solemnly into the past and seemed to enjoy what he saw.

 

 

"No," he said. "He had others. Those were excellent days.

 

 

But they are passed now." Despite the circumstances, Stiles found himself sighing.

 

 

"Maybe for you. Not for the rest of us." Looking up now, Spock said, "Because you feel you must live up to them?" Somehow there was no right answer to that question.

 

 

Damned if he did, damned-- Apparently the ambassador didn't expect an answer, because he kept talking himself. "If James Kirk's mission logs are the barometer against which you measure yourself, you set too high a task for yourselfi You must temper your awe. You can never attain so high a standard." Even though a patrol scout craft now appeared over the mountains and streaked toward them across the meadow flats, Stiles turned to Spock and didn't bother to look at the patroller as he heard its humming engines approaching.

 

 

"Oh, is that right?" he challenged. "I 'always admired you for the things you did and the--I guess 'style' is a good way to say it... I never got the idea you were filled up with yourself. Till now, anyway.... Why are you nodding? I just insulted you." "Rather, you just complimented yourself" Spock corrected.

 

 

"And you must not expect me to argue with the ship's com- mandeL" His tone was somehow cagey, manipulative, carrying palpa- ble ulterior messages. And that eyebrow was up again. Stiles scoured him silently, wondering what to make of the ambas- sador's expression. Was he being teased?

 

 

"Are you feeling ill?" Spock asked him then.

 

 

Stiles flinched. "What?" "You're very pale?' "Well... it... isn't easy getting needled by a... by a..." "A super-eminence?" Spock supplied.

 

 

Stiles peered at him, able for a moment to ignore the approach of the Pojjana security scout. Was Spock smiling?

 

 

Was that a little smile? Was it?

 

 

As the Pojjana scout came to a hover over them with its warning lights flashing, its containment field snapped on to enshroud them in red spotlight--they could no more walk out of it than through a vault wall.

 

 

"Stay quite still," the ambassador warned. "They will assume we're armed." With the flat of his hand Stiles shielded his eyes from the containment field's glare. "We should've been. I botched it." His hands were ice. Erablazoned on the flank of the scout, the Pojjana symbol of a gray lighming bolt crossed by a red arrow seemed alive to him, a swollen symbol of his captivity.

 

 

Those terrors and miseries rushed back at him. His legs trem- bled so violently that he could barely stand. Only Spock's steadying presence kept him from bolting, a spontaneity which would've fried him to a flake at the edge of the containment field. Strange--he knew that if he were the senior "eminence" here and his crewmates were with him, he wouldn't be so shaky. He would never let them bolt. How there could be two men in one suit-- "HOLD POSITION? the scout's broadcaster boomed, so loud it knocked Stiles back a step.

 

 

Spock held up both hands in a surrendering gesture. Stiles couldn't manage that. His hands were frozen at his sides, his chest heaving, his leg muscles bound up.

 

 

"Relax, Mr. Stiles," Spock called over the scout's hum as the craft nestled into the crusty burned stubble, his dark eyes squinted into shafts.

 

 

Without looking at him, Stiles gulped, "Remember what happened last time you told me that?" The Pojjana craft settled completely and gave off a loud hiss as its antigrays equalized. The sight of Pojjana guards lumber- ing down the hatch ramp as it crashed down gave Stiles a cramp in the middle of his gut. All four guards and a sergeant came thundering out and leveled firearms at them.

 

 

"Our sidearms are completely drained," Spock stated in passably fluent Pojjana to the sergeant who came to face them down. "We wish to speak to the planetary authorities." "You are aliens," the sergeant said with malice, and confis- cated their phasers instantly, drained or not. 'q'his is Red Sec- tor. We're supposed to be left alone." Beside Stiles, the ambassador struggled to stand despite the fact that everyone could see his leg was bleeding. Spock faced the sergeant at eye level.

 

 

'Whings change, Officer," he said. "I am Ambassador Spock of the United Federation of Planets, former emissary to the Pojjana Assembly. This is--" "Don't tell them," Stiles whispered.

 

 

Spock instantly revised. "This is the commander of the transport ship you nearly brought down. We destroyed the emitter in self~defense. We have no aggressive intentions. We have a proposal for the provincial exarch." "We have no exarch anymore. That position was eradicated." "Who is in charge?" "The provost of the works." Spock tipped his head. "That is the supreme authority on the planet?" "That's right." "Please take us to this person." The sergeant shook his head. His helmet reflected light from the clearing sky. "You'll be incarcerated in the provincial prison until you come to trial for invasion." "We must be allowed to see the senior authority. This is a matter of interstellar importance."

 

 

"I'll put you where I want to put you" the sergeant said.

 

 

"Then I'll wait to be asked what happened?

 

 

Stiles beat down a shudder. "Nothing really changes." "We cannot wait," Spock told the sergeant. "If you withhold us, you will be blunting advancement of a critical mission. Do you wish your name to be prominent when the provost discov- ers that he was not informed?" The sergeant stood with an unreadable expression for a few silent seconds, then gestured them toward the scout's ramp and the four other guards waiting to funnel them inside.

 

 

"Clear them for energy signals," the sergeant ordered to his men, and one of them came forward.

 

 

The guard lowered his firearm, whipped out some kind of scanner, and ran it over Stiles from ears to toes, then over Spock, front, back, and both sides.

 

 

"No active energy or signals of any kind," the guard con- firmed. "No readings" "He told you we were unarmed" Stiles complained, know- ing that he wouldn't have believed it either.

 

 

The sergeant stepped aside and leveled his own weapon.

 

 

"Go in." Obviously there wasn't much more to be done here. Stiles's jaw ached to speak up, spit who he was and insist on some kind of instant retribution, but a thousand warnings clogged his throat. He was in command of the ship, not the mission. ff they found out who he was, would they take offense or insult?

 

 

Stuff him back in a cell and start auctioning beatings again?

 

 

Stiles sta~ed toward the scout, pausing only when the ambassador took a step on his injured leg and crumpled to one knee. The sergeant stepped forward to assist. Stiles met the uniformed guard with a fierce shoulder butt to the chest.

 

 

"Back off" he snapped, and took the ambassador's arm him- selfi None of the other guards made any attempt to touch them further. Stiles escorted the ambassador into the scout and to the first of only three passenger seats. They were in custody.

 

 

Stiles straightened and maneuvered to take the next seat. As he raised his eyes to scan the interior of the scout while the guards came aboard, he found himself no longer seated but rather standing ramrod straight and stating at a mounted pho- tograph in a gilded frame on the port bulkhead.