Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (13 page)

BOOK: Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages
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That
man she could open to, as she might open to Tafv or Aidoann or tr’Keirianh. And she did, feeling suddenly for the terrible suppressed passions in him, and for one of them more than any of the others—for homesickness. She showed him Airissuin, and the barren red mountains of her home, so like his own; she showed him the farmstead, and the place where the
hlai
got out, and her father, so very like his; the small dry flowers on the hillside, and the way the sunlight fell across her couch the day after her son was born, and she held him in her arms for the first time without the distraction of pain, wishing his father had lived to see—oh, Liha, lost to the Klingons in that ridiculous “misunderstanding” off Nh’rainnsele! Could there never be an end to such misunderstandings—worlds to walk safely, an end to wars, other ways to avoid boredom and find adventure? Must the innocent die, and must she keep on killing them?
An end to it, an end!

Her second self was in distress; but so was Ael, and for the moment she had no pity on either of them. This was after all the most important matter, the only one that ranked with truth and hearts and names. Life must go on, and with the implementation of the project at Levaeri, there would be an end to it. Truth would become deadly, hearts would become public places, and names—Better that small wars should flare up and take their inevitable toll, better that she and Tafv and all the crew of
Bloodwing,
yes, and that of
Enterprise
too, should die before such a thing happened. For these were honorable people, as she had always suspected and now found that she had not known half the truth of it. Just the image of the captain that her otherself held was enough to convince her; his image of the doctor, very different but held in no less loyalty, was more data toward the same conclusion. Such people, whatever her hatreds, hinted at the existence of many more on the other side of the Zone. They must not be allowed to become obsolete, or dead, as honorable people everywhere would should this technique be carried to its logical conclusion; they must not,
they must not—

—and her mind abruptly came undone. Not a painful sensation, but a sad one, as if she had been born twins and was bidding the twin good-bye.

Ael opened her eyes. The Vulcan she could still feel behind her—some thread of the link apparently remained; she could feel the stone-steady foundations of his mind shaken somewhat. But of more interest to her was the look the captain was giving her, both compassionate and bleak. The doctor was turned toward the wall and rubbing his eyes, as if something ailed them. She realized abruptly that her face was wet.

Spock came around from behind her, his hands behind his back, physically standing at ease; but Ael knew better. “Commander,” he said quietly. “I apologize profoundly for the intrusion.”

“I thank you,” she said, “but the apology is unnecessary. I am quite well.”

Glancing up at him, she saw that Spock, also, knew better. The captain was looking from one to the other of them. “I also apologize, Commander,” he said. “If it will do any good…”

“It will do none to the exiled or the dead,” Ael said, as levelly as she could, wondering how much she and the Vulcan might have spoken aloud in this meld, and fearing the worst. “But for myself, I thank you.”

“If you would excuse us a moment,” the captain said, “I must discuss this business with Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy.”

She bowed her head to him; they went out into the corridor together, all three moving as separate parts of one mind.
We are more alike than I imagined,
she said to herself, rubbing briefly at her face and thinking of those times in battle and out of it when she and Tafv and Aidoann functioned as one whole creature in three different places.
If I am not careful, I will forget to hate these people for what they did to my sister-daughter…and what will become of me then?

“Captain,”
she distinctly heard Spock saying,
“every word she has told us is the truth. She is under no compulsion save that of her conscience—which is of considerable power; her resolve and fear of lost time was what broke the link—I did not.”

“Any sign of tampering with her mind at all?”
the captain said.

“None. There were areas I could not touch, as there might be in any mind. And one piece of data with unusually powerful privacy blocks around it—an area somewhat contaminated with emotions that I consider similar to human types of shame and regret. But my sense was that this was a private matter, not concerning us.”

“I don’t like it,”
the doctor said.
“Did you get a ‘sense’ of any associational linkages to that block that might reach into the areas that
do
concern us?”

“Some, Doctor. But this blocked material had linkages to almost every other part of the commander’s mind as well. I do not think it is of importance to us.”

“Well,”
said the captain, and let out a long breath. “
Spock, I hate to say this, but Fleet is not going to buy what the commander’s proposing. It’s too farfetched, too dangerous, and even though the commander is an honorable woman, I can’t possibly trust all those other Romulans. She tells us herself that the Romulans as a whole are becoming more opportunistic, less attached to their old code of honor. What do we do if some one of them, while aboard the
Enterprise,
gets the idea to try a takeover? Granted that we outnumber them incredibly—if so much as one of my crew should die in such an incident, Starfleet would have my hide. And rightly. I agree with her that we have a moral responsibility to the three great powers—but if we tried to carry off the operation she suggests, and then botched it somehow so that word of what’s going on at Levaeri leaked out without our managing to destroy the place—No. I’m sorry. Strategically it’s a lovely idea, but tactically, with our present force and numbers, it’s a wash. I am going to send for more ships—quietly—and then act.”

The captain let out another unhappy breath.
“Come on, gentlemen. Let’s tell her the bad news as gently—”

The small viewer on Spock’s desk whistled.
“Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Ael reached out to flick the small switch beside it. “If you will hold one moment, I will get him.”
Mr. Spock,
she said through the rapidly fading mindlink,
would you please tell the captain he has a call?

A flash of acquiescence reached her. The door hissed open, and in the three came again. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Commander,” the captain said. “Let me handle this first. Kirk here,” he said to the viewer.

“Captain,”
said the communications officer, a gray-skinned hominid who had apparently replaced the lovely dark woman Ael recalled from Tafv’s earlier call to
Enterprise, “we have another squirt from
Intrepid.
They were passing by NZR 4486 when they were apparently attacked.”

“By what?” the captain said, glancing sharply at Ael.

“That’s the problem, sir. They didn’t know. The ion storm suddenly escalated to nearly force-ten—enough to leave them sensor-blind. It was just after that that they were fired upon. But the odd thing is that they didn’t fall out of communication with the relay station until almost a minute and a half after the storm escalated. Then they just cut off communication in the middle of transmission—not a storm-fade, or a catastrophic loss of signal, as if they’d been—as if something had happened to the ship. Just a stop.”

“Keep trying to raise them, Mr. Mahasë. And call red alert. All hands to battle stations. Alert
Inaieu
and
Constellation;
they’re to go to red alert as well.”

“Aye aye, sir. Any further orders?”

“None at present. Kirk out.”

Outside Ael could hear the ship’s odd red-alert siren whooping, and people hurrying past the room “Commander,” the captain said, “what do you know of this?”

“That the attacking ship is almost certainly Rihannsu,” she said, “and the ion storm almost certainly our doing. I wish you had told me of this earlier; I have had no news of it from my ship. Unfortunately your sensors seem to be rather better than ours—”

“What do you mean the ion storm’s ‘of your doing’?” the doctor said.

“I am sorry, gentlemen,” she said, “but it is hard to tell you everything presently happening in Rihannsu space while standing on one foot. Mr. Spock, if you look into your memories of our meld, you will find this information accurate. One research that has been complete for some time now is a method for producing ion storms by selective high-energy ‘seeding’ of stellar coronae. The High Command has been using it for some time as a clandestine weapon to keep the Klingons from raiding our frontier worlds. Their economic situation has been very bad recently, as you may know, and their treaty with us has been honored more in its breach than in its keeping. However, the technique has also been used on this side of the Zone—to cover the tracks of those who have been stealing Vulcans. How better to spirit away small ships, without anyone noticing, then to have them vanish in ion storms? Everybody knows how dangerous those are—”

“Then the change in the stellar weather hereabouts,” Spock said, “has not been natural, but engineered.”

“To some extent. There was some concern that changing it in one place would also cause changes elsewhere; so the climatic alterations of which you speak may be secondary rather than primary. However, things now look even worse than they did, gentlemen. The research at Levaeri must be even further along than I thought, for the researchers to take such a large group of Vulcans—and right out from under the noses of a Federation task force. They must be about to start production of the shifted genetic material in bulk, to need so wide a spectrum of live tissue.” Ael looked grave. “Captain, if you do not do something, shortly half the Imperial Senate will be reading one another’s alleged minds, courtesy of the brain tissue of the crew of the
Intrepid….”

Spock stood still, appearing unmoved—but again Ael knew better; and the other two stared at her in open horror. “Commander,” McCoy said at last, “this is ridiculous! If the Romulan ship tries to capture the Vulcans, they’ll die sooner than let that happen—”

“They will not be
allowed
to die, Doctor,” Ael said, becoming impatient. “Don’t you understand yet that this technique not only reproduces in its users the mental abilities of trained Vulcans, but raises those abilities to a much higher level than normal? What use would it be making touch-telepaths out of the Senate? Who among them would allow anyone to touch him? The technique was designed to enable mindreading and control at a distance for short periods—even control over the resistant minds of Vulcans already knowledgeable in the disciplines! Three or four people aboard a Romulan ship could easily hold the bridge crew of
Intrepid
under complete control for the short time it would take to make them stop firing, lower their shields and be boarded. Or there are other methods equally effective. Then the Rihannsu would simply take ship, Vulcans and all across the Zone, under cover of the ion storm, and do their pleasure with them.”

“But Vulcans with command training—” the captain said,

“Command training will make no difference to this artificially augmented ability, Captain,” Ael said. “We are dealing here with an ability that if developed much further will be able to take on even races as telepathically advanced as the Organians and Melkot.”

The captain’s face went very fierce. “We’ve got to go after them—”

“You cannot. If you do, you and your whole crew will suffer the same fate as
Intrepid
—one not so kind, actually. Your minds will fall under control far more swiftly than those of
Intrepid
’s Vulcans did—and after the Rihannsu move in and arrest you and Spock and the doctor, they will kill your crew and take the
Enterprise
home to study. The same thing will happen if
Inaieu
or
Constellation
follow you in. No, Captain, if you want the
Intrepid
and its crew back, my plan is the only way. And we will have to be swift about it. They will not wait around, at Levaeri, now that they have the genetic material they need. Processing of the Vulcans will begin at once.”

Ael sat still, then, and watched the captain think. A long time she had wanted to see this—her old opponent in the process of decision, ideas and options flickering behind his eyes. And it was very quickly, as she had suspected it would be, that he looked up again.

“Commander,” he said, “I think, for the moment, you’ve got an ally. Spock, have Lieutenant Mahasë call Rihaul and Walsh. I want a meeting of all ships’ department heads in
Inaieu
in an hour. Bones, bring Lieutenant Kerasus with you.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Right, Jim.”

And out they went. Ael found herself alone and looking at an angry man—one who was going to have to do something he didn’t want to, and was very aware of it.

“Commander,” he said to her, “am I going to regret this?”

“‘Going to’? Captain, you regret it already.”

He frowned at her—and at the same time began to smile.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Chapter Ten

It turned into the noisiest staff meeting Jim could remember in many years of them. The number of people in attendance was part of the reason—all eighteen of
Enterprise
’s department heads, along with Janíce Kerasus from linguistics, Jim’s Romulan culture expert, and Colin Matlock, the security chief; and the captains and department heads of both
Constellation
and
Inaieu.
There they were, crammed into
Inaieu
’s main briefing…hominids and tentacled people and people with extra legs, all three kinds of Denebians and very assorted members of other species, in as much or as little Fleet uniform as they usually wore.

In the middle of all the blue and orange and command gold and green was a patch of color both somberer and more splendid; Ael and her son Tafv, both in the scarlet and gold-shot black of Romulan officers. They did not bear themselves like two aliens alone among suspicious people. Ael sat as unshaken among them as she had in the officers’ lounge; and Jim, looking across at the calm young Tafv leaning back in his chair, decided that he had inherited more from his mother than his nose.

He had beamed across from
Bloodwing
at Ael’s request, and had looked around
Enterprise
’s transporter room with the hard, seeing eyes of someone checking an area for weaknesses, assessing its strengths. Jim had looked curiously at him, wondering how old he really might be; for Romulans, like Vulcans, showed little indication of aging until they were in their sixties. The man looked to be in his mid-twenties, but might have been in his forties for all Jim knew. Then he found himself being examined closely by those eyes, so pale a brown they were almost gold; an intrusive, disconcerting stare. “Subcommander,” he had said, and courteously enough the young man had bowed to him; but Jim went away disquieted, he didn’t know why.

The department heads of the three ships had been making noise about the Romulans’ presence at their council; politely, but they had been making it all the same. Jim was letting them run down. It seemed the wisest course; that way there would be slightly less noise when he told them what he and Ael were planning.

He glanced down past McCoy and Sulu and Matlock toward Lieutenant Kerasus, raising an inquiring eyebrow at her.

She glanced back, shaking her head ever so slightly at some response of one of the Eyrene Denebians to something Spock was telling them about the Levaeri V researches. Janíce Kerasus was chief of linguistics, the person primarily responsible for programming of the translation computer and translation of alien documents received by the ship. She was a tall, big-boned, strikingly handsome woman with dark curling hair and calm brown eyes that slanted up at the corners, making her look like a lazy cat most of the time—excepting when she was very interested, as she was now; then she got the look of a cat waiting patiently by a mousehole, eyes a bit wide and a faintly pleased look on her face.

She was waiting for something now, that was plain. The room had settled down somewhat from the restrained uproar that had occurred when Jim had first introduced Ael and Tafv. Mike Walsh has stared at Jim as if he’d gone nuts, and Rihaul had slitted her eye at him in a later-for-you gesture he knew too well from the old days, after some particularly painful tutoring session. But now the other officers were beginning to get the idea that these Romulans might actually have come to do them a service. It was taking a while to sink in, unfortunately, and Jim grudged the lost time.

It was time to kick things in the side. Spock had done the “dirty” work, filling the meeting in on the news Ael had brought them and his confirmation of it. Now Jim stopped Spock from taking another question from one of Rihaul’s people. “Gentlebeings,” he said, “we’ve got to get moving here. You’ve heard what the commander proposes—”

“It would break almost every reg in the book,” Mike Walsh said. “Allowing hostiles into classified areas. Entering into private alliances with foreign powers. Espionage again. Destruction of private property…”

“I have those powers, Mike,” Jim said quietly. “That’s what ‘unusual breadth of discretion’ is for, after all.”

Mike grimaced at him, knowing as well as Jim the pitfalls that awaited him should this operation somehow get botched. “I know. But we’re quite literally in an untenable position. We can’t stay here; the Romulans monitoring the Zone will get suspicious. We can’t leave—certainly not without determining the fate of the
Intrepid.
We can’t send for help, communication isn’t secure; and we can’t send ships to carry a secure message—we need all our strength here. We have to act, and we have to do it now, and much as I hate to admit it, Ael’s idea is the best we’ve got.”

Ael threw Jim a glance that reminded him a great deal of one of Spock’s appreciative-but-don’t-tell-anyone expressions. “Gentlefolk,” Tafv said from beside her in his light tenor, “I assure you that the commander is as little sanguine about offering you this plan as you are at the thought of accepting it. If it succeeds, the commander and I have nothing to gain but disgrace, irrevocable exile for both of us and for the rest of her crew, and the permanent possibility of being hunted down and killed by Romulan agents for revenge’s sake.” He looked grave. “We are all willing to risk that for her sake. It’s a matter of
mnhei’sahe.
” There were curious looks around the table at the word the translator had failed to render, but Tafv didn’t stop. “However, we face far, far worse if the attempt fails. If caught in Romulan territory, we and
Bloodwing
’s crew will assuredly die. You and your ships could conceivably fight your way out again—and whatever difficulties you may have with Starfleet Command afterward, you will still be alive to have them.”

“Noted, Subcommander,” Jim said. “One moment. Lieutenant Kerasus—‘mneh’-
what?”

“‘Mnhei’sahe,’”
she said promptly. “Captain, I’m sorry, but you would ask me to render one of the most difficult words in the language. It’s not quite honor—and not quite loyalty—and not quite anger, or hatred, or about fifty other things. It can be a form of hatred that requires you to give your last drop of water to a thirsty enemy—or an act of love that requires you to kill a friend. The meaning changes constantly with context, and even in one given context, it’s slippery at best.”

“In this one?”

Kerasus glanced across at Tafv. “If I understand the subcommander correctly, they are returning the favor that Commander t’Rllaillieu has done them by commanding them, by being in turn willing to be commanded. That sounds a little odd, I know, but their forms of what we call ‘loyalty’ do not always involve compliance. These people will follow her to death…and beyond, if they can…because they acknowledge that what she’s doing is right, no matter what High Command says.”

There was a little silence around the table at that. “Commander,” Captain Rihaul said quietly, “I hope you will excuse us both our ignorance and our caution. But none of us have ever seen Romulans do anything but make war, and that savagely. That you would also wage peace…if forcefully…comes as something of a surprise.”

Ael smiled at the Deirr captain, a rueful look. “Oh, I assure you, Captain, we know more arts than those of war. But our position between you and the Klingons has left us little leisure to practice them. So we tend to leave their development to others. Our allies…or our subjects.”

Lieutenant Kerasus lifted her head at that, though she said nothing. Jim caught the look, though. “Comment, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.” She looked down the table toward Ael and began to speak, and her quiet voice suddenly had steel in it. “‘Other peoples may yet/ more skillfully teach bronze to breathe,

“‘leading outward and loosing

the life lying hidden in marble;

some may plead causes better,

or using the tools of science

better predict heaven’s moods

and chart the stars’ changing courses.

But Roman, remember you well

that your own arts are these others:

to govern the nations in power;

to dictate their rule in peace;

to raise up the peoples you’ve conquered,

and throw down the proud who resist….’”

Jim saw Ael looking at Kerasus with an expression that looked like surprise, or hope, or both. “That is very well said. But the language sounds old. Those people are no longer with you, I think.”

“Their descendants only,” Jim said. “Though many of Earth’s major languages were powerfully affected by theirs. For the most part, their way is one we’ve left behind us. But they were a great people.”

“If they became less than great,” Ael said, glancing around the table at the many sorts of listeners, “it is because they forgot those words and handed their rule over to others—perhaps to onetime enemies, whom in their contempt and laziness they tried to absorb, and forgot to fear. Or else to those who paid lip service to the ancient laws without understanding the vision on which they were founded. Am I wrong?”

The stillness of their faces evidently told her she was not. “That is the danger in which my Empire now stands, gentlefolk. And I will not see five thousand years’ civilization fall, as it seems other empires have, due to some paltry cause, to mere sloth, or folly—or the death of honor! I have said to
Enterprise
’s captain that there was no help to be found in my friends, so that I needs must turn to my enemies. Your Federation says it wants peace among the great powers. Now it shall be seen how much it wants that, by the actions of you its representatives. For if you fail to act now on the information I bring you, with the power to hand, peace will fail you forever.”

The room was quiet for a few seconds, and into that quietness came the whistle of the intercom. “Main briefing,” said Captain Rihaul.

“Captain,”
said the foghorn voice of one of Rihaul’s bridge crew,
“we’re now in the area from which
Intrepid
made its last report. The meson residue of her engines comes this far, then stops…as if the matter-antimatter converters had been shut down. There’s a faint meson trail leading away from here, though—shutdown residue, nothing more.”

“Where does it lead?” Mike Walsh said.

“Bearing ninety mark plus-five, sir. Into the Neutral Zone.”

People all around the room looked at one another. “Anything else, Syill?” said Rihaul.

“No, madam.”

“All right. Main briefing out.”

“There it is, gentlebeings,” Jim said. “One of our starships is missing—and we know where it’s gone. If we needed an excuse for crossing the Zone, we’ve got one now. Not even Fleet will be able to argue with what our sensors show us. And the question of committing an act of war is now also moot. What would you call shanghaiing the
Intrepid?

“No argument there, Jim.” Rihaul looked across the table at him with great concern. “Unfortunately. Now it falls to us to keep this war from escalating into a full-scale conflict.”

“And the only way we’re going to manage it is Ael’s plan,” Jim said. “I’m sorry to have to command you to do things you can’t fully support—but I see no alternative.”

“Jim,” Mike Walsh said, “you misunderstand us. We support you to the hilt. But we don’t like this!”

“Bad odds?” Jim said gently.

Mike looked rueful. “They’d be better if you’d take
Inaieu
and
Constellation
along.”

“Sorry, Mike, but that’s out of the question. At the slightest warning the people on Levaeri will dump their computers and escape with the genetic material—and take
Intrepid
along with them, so deep into Romulan space that none of us would ever get out again.”

“We could be taken along in tow, ‘captured’ as you would be,” Rihaul said. But she said it so wistfully that Jim wanted to reach over and pat her tentacles.

Ael, seated not far from Rihaul, laughed very kindly. “Captain,” she said, “you do
Bloodwing
such an honor as she has never been done before. But it would never work. One starship I can barely justify catching, on my own reputation as a commander. But with
Cuirass,
and the idiot crew that Romulan High Command knows is aboard her—
three
starships, and one of those a
Defender
-class destroyer? They would know upon detecting us that something was amiss, and flee Levaeri as
Enterprise’
s captain has said…. And besides all that, if I tried to tow so much tonnage, I would burn out
Bloodwing
’s engines. I fear it will not work. But I am sorry to have to answer such
mnhei’sahe
with cold counsel….”

The people around the table were quiet, looking at Jim. “Well, we’d best get started,” he said. “Mr. Spock has detailed the commander’s plan for you. We will be following it quite closely. I want
Inaieu
and
Constellation
to continue routine patrols—being careful to avoid this area for several hours on the next sweep; we mustn’t have any more muon trails through here than Ael’s story will account for—and the phaser fire of the ‘battle’ we’re going to stage will obliterate the trails left by your presence here and now. Ael will be beaming about forty Romulans aboard to man key posts in case the escorting ships decide they need proof of what’s going on. Subcommander Tafv will be remaining on
Bloodwing,
while Ael supervises her people’s settling in over here. What’s our ETA at Levaeri V?”

BOOK: Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages
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