Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice (38 page)

Throk must have heard the gunshot, too, because he hesitated at the edge of one of the
Snipe
's landing skids, turning to look back. A blink of light off a telescopic sight caught Nog's eye. He saw a figure taking aim with a long rifle.

The second shot went through Onar Throk's chest, perfectly aligned to fatally puncture his heart. He dropped without a sound, sagging against the landing skid.

In the wake of the shot's echo, all firing ceased. After a long moment, Nog dared to hazard a look through one of the blast holes in the cargo container, the molten edges of the impact point still sizzling as it cooled. There were a lot of Klingons out there, and among them stood the Elloran, toying with a heavy photon grenade launcher. Kincade approached from behind, her TR-116 rifle cradled in her arms.

“Show yourselves,” she shouted, “or Sahde here will turn you into a smoking hole in the ground.”

“Now what?” asked Tom.

“Every second we are alive, there is a possibility another option may present itself,” Tuvok replied after a moment. He got to his feet, and Nog slowly did the same.

“I hope you're right.” The human was bitter. “Because the reason we were out here is now lying dead over there, and we don't have any more cards to play.”

The Vulcan said nothing and moved out from behind cover, still grasping his stolen weapon. Nog and Tom followed a step behind, looking out at the force of mercenaries who outnumbered them three to one.

“You shouldn't be disappointed, Commander Tuvok.” Kincade watched them draw near. “This was always how it was going to be.
No loose ends
.”

*  *  *

Christine Vale looked up as Deanna Troi approached. The lights in the
Lionheart
's corridors were low; it was delta shift, so-called “ship's night,” and at this moment Vale wanted more than anything to be back in her cabin on the slow curve down into sleep. But her wish was unlikely to be granted. The tension that had been pulling at her since they left Earth was no longer holding back, and she could feel the pressure gathering in a knot at the base of her neck.

Troi gave her a sympathetic smile that told Vale the other woman knew exactly how she felt without the need for her to admit it openly.
One of the benefits of being friends with an empath,
she thought. “Thanks for coming, Deanna. I could use your insight here.”

“I'm glad to help,” said Troi. “Doctor Rssuu told me that Doctor Bashir will be fully recovered by the time we reach Andoria. He didn't get anywhere near a full dose of the theragen concentrate, but he still suffered some minor nerve damage.” She sighed. “He's lucky this is a hospital ship. On another vessel, with less experienced staff, he could have permanently lost his eyesight.”

“How is Bashir holding up? Maybe now he'll be more willing to talk to us.”

The Betazoid frowned. “Don't hold your breath, Chris. Whatever is keeping him silent, it's because he's afraid for someone close to him.”

“The Douglas woman?”

“It's possible. He'll talk when he feels safe and not before.”

Vale nodded. “Okay. We'll go interrogate someone else, then.” She turned toward the nearby security doors and they hissed open.

The
Lionheart
's brig was small, with only three cells, and just one of those was active. Vale gave the Tellarite security officer on duty a stiff jerk of the head to dismiss him, and he retreated to the monitor station on the far side of the compartment.

On the other side of the active cell's force-field barrier, science officer Lieutenant Seth Maslan was lying on a sleeping pallet. His uniform tunic had been taken from him, and as Vale watched, he picked at the cuffs of his blue undershirt. “Captain on deck,” he said, with a smirk. “Tell me, Commander. How are you liking the job now?”

“You know, we've got a lot of questions for you,” Vale began, studying him. “But I'm going to start with the one I had from the moment I first met you: Does that ‘charming genius' act you put up ever actually work?”

“A lot,” Maslan said, nodding thoughtfully. “People are usually quite impressed with me.”

“
He
certainly believes that is true,” noted Troi.

“Ah, Betazoids. Always a tougher prospect.” Maslan made a tutting noise and looked away.

“And now he's thinking of a song, concentrating on the music because he assumes it will prevent me from reading him.”

Vale went on. “How about an easy one, then? After I came on board, were you actually hitting on me in the turbolift?”

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “You're an attractive woman. I'd have done it even if I hadn't been told to.”

She seized on his reply. “Who told you, Seth?”

He froze, and for a second his insouciant grin slipped; then in the next moment he was smiling again. “I don't think I'm going to say anything else until we reach a starbase and I get to speak to my duly
appointed lawyer from the Judge Advocate General's office.” Maslan folded his arms and took an interest in the panels on the ceiling above his head.

“What makes you think we're going to a starbase?” asked Vale. “Our next stop is the Andor system. We'll be there in a day.” She leaned closer to the field barrier. “And it won't be just Bashir that I'll be dropping off. You see, Envoy ch'Nuillen has been made aware that you tried to kill the good doctor, and he's not happy about it.”

“That's something of an understatement,” offered Troi. “I would have said
furious
.”

“You may be right,” Vale allowed. “Let's not forget, Bashir is technically ch'Nuillen's nephew now, as Andorian law sees it. Not to mention a hero to that entire planet. So naturally, when the envoy asked me if the Imperial Guard could
interview
the suspect in Bashir's attempted murder, I didn't refuse.” She mirrored Maslan's earlier smile. “I didn't want to get on his bad side.”

The science officer sniffed. “You can't turn me over to the Andorians. They're not part of the Federation. They have no legal claim on me.”

“That's probably true. But I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm sure, sooner or later, I'll get in trouble for that. But not as much trouble as you.” She glanced at Troi. “They don't still have the death penalty on Andor, do they?”

“Federation member-worlds are legally bound not to endorse capital punishment,” said Troi. “But then, Andor hasn't officially rejoined the UFP yet. So who knows what could happen?”

Maslan rose to his feet and glared at the two women. “Don't try to play me. I'm not falling for it.”

Vale met his gaze. “Whoever briefed you clearly didn't do a very good job, Seth, because if they had, you'd know an important fact about me.
I don't play games
.”

“You're just as stupid as he is.” Maslan's voice turned cold with contempt. “Bashir thought he was a law unto himself, and you think the same. But this isn't like the old days, when captains were kings who could do what they wanted and damn the consequences! Your friend the doctor is a traitor, and you're a reckless fool who doesn't deserve command of this ship, or any other!”

From the corner of her eye, Vale saw Troi give an imperceptible nod. Together they had pushed him far enough, and now all Maslan needed was the room to incriminate himself. “And yet, here I am, and there you are,” she said.

“You people don't understand. Don't you get it? Haven't you asked why it is we keep getting kicked to pieces by every aggressor species in the galaxy? I lost family in the Dominion War, I signed up to make sure that didn't happen again. But it did; the same mistakes, the same weakness, and the Borg came in and almost wiped us out. Now the Typhon Pact are going to do the same, and still no one raises a hand to put them down. All because we're the Federation.
The good guys
. The ones who never, ever start a fight.”

Vale hesitated. As much as she hated to admit it, there was something in Maslan's words that rang true to her; but that didn't make him right, and she told him so. “We don't make war. That's not what we are.”

“You're living in the past, Vale!” he snapped. “And people like you are why we keep taking hits, time and time again. What if the next attack is the one that finishes
us? What will your ideals be worth then?” He shook his head. “We need strength and order. There have to be
consequences
.” Maslan took a breath and stopped dead, glancing at Troi as he caught up to himself. “Yeah. Like I said before, I'm not talking to you anymore. Do your worst.”

Vale watched him return to the pallet and lie down once again, and after a moment she strolled away.

When the security doors had shut behind them, Troi gave her a look. “You're not really going to give him to the Andorians, are you?”

“Of course not; that would be illegal,” she replied. “And I'm pretty sure I'm already going to be up to my eyes with multiple charges as it is when this is all over. Why add more to the pile?” Vale shook her head. “No, I'll just let Maslan stew. I think we all know who was calling the shots for him. I had Basoos pull the communications logs for me. It seems Mister Maslan got an unusually dense data packet sent to him right after we left Jaros II. A holomatrix messenger program.”

“Which he has since erased from the system?”

“Naturally. It explains a lot about his record, something I couldn't put my finger on. The reason he'd been bounced from one ship to another. I don't think it's just because he's something of a jerk.”

“He was spying for . . . someone?”

Vale shrugged. “Or maybe recruiting. I can't be sure.” She walked on, and Troi fell in step. “Will was right, Deanna. We're pulling at loose threads here, and I think it may make something big fall apart.”

*  *  *

Kincade's manner had shifted so decidedly that Tuvok wondered if she were a true sociopath in the full sense of the word. Had the behavior patterns she showed to
him and the others on board the
Snipe
been nothing more than a learned camouflage, a cloak that covered her real self? He studied the woman's cold, dead eyes, searching for anything that could be a spark of emotion. He did not find it.

She walked toward him. “I had hoped we could talk,” said Kincade, this newly revealed version of the soldier. “I had questions about your kind. Vulcans and the no-emotions thing.”

“A common misconception,” Tuvok corrected. “Vulcans possess emotions, but we choose to suppress them in order to attain a more logical state of being.”

“So you don't actually know what it is like to feel nothing? Not really?”

He shook his head. “Some of my species seek that state. I do not. To deny or expunge emotion is to deny part of the self. I have learned that through countless years of—”

She waved him to silence. “I didn't ask for a lesson. But let me give you one instead. Feeling nothing? It's very
liberating
.”

“I believe you are psychologically impaired,” he said flatly.

“That's been said,” Kincade replied, handing her sniper rifle to the Elloran. “Time for the next lesson. For the Klingons, this time.” She drew a curved blade from a hidden holster in her belt. “They believe I'm a poor warrior because I'm only able to kill from a distance. I'm going to show them they're wrong.”

“Kincade, don't do this!” Thomas Riker stepped forward, taking care not to raise his weapon. “You kill a Starfleet officer and there's no going back from that.”

“You are right,” she said, pausing to consider his words. “So that gives you a choice, then.” Kincade
nodded at Tuvok and Nog. “Shoot these two, and I'll consider bringing you back into the fold.”

He grimaced. “I won't do that.”

“You don't owe Starfleet anything!” called Sahde. “They abandoned you, remember? Took away your life, made you into a deserter!”

The human shook his head and threw his stolen gun on the ground. “It was never about the uniform. It's about what is right.” He looked up at Kincade. “Something that means nothing to you and the people holding your chain.”

“Who do you really work for?” asked Tuvok.

“Not Starfleet or anything like it,” she admitted, “not for some time. You could say we didn't share compatible goals.” Kincade jutted her chin toward the bodies of the dead Cardassians. “You know we were never going to take them back for trial, right? Too problematic.”

“I assumed so,” Tuvok noted.

She nodded in agreement. “So. Now I've found someone who can better utilize my skills, and it's working out well for me.” Kincade held up the blade. “Speaking of which . . .”

At the back of the group, one of the Klingon mercenaries reacted to a sharp tone from the communicator on his arm, and he muttered into it. The warrior called out urgently to Kincade. “There is a signal—”

“Not now,” she barked, never taking her eyes off Tuvok. “Do your kind really bleed green?”

“Yes.”

And then, for an instant, Tuvok glimpsed the smallest fragment of an actual emotional response in Kincade's icy manner: a chilling need to harm him. “Show me,” she said.

He heard the sound then, and Nog turned as his ears caught it too. From out of nowhere, a heavy, thunderous roar rolled from the ragged clouds above, and an angular shape exploded over the ridgeline, buffeting them with an echoing rumble of downwash and the shriek of phaser bolts.

Tuvok was blown off his feet and he stumbled, landing badly as a black shadow passed over him, leaving chaos in its wake. He rolled, blinking through plumes of disturbed dust to see a wedge-shaped craft perform a hard climbing kick-turn over the roof of the domes and turn back toward them.