Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice (39 page)

It was a Starfleet Type-11 shuttlecraft; more specifically, it was the
Marsalis,
an auxiliary vessel from the complement aboard the
Titan
. Deep in the core of Tuvok's own carefully controlled emotions, there was a momentary flare of relief before he shuttered it away and returned to the matter of staying alive.

The Klingon mercenaries were in disarray, some of them firing wildly at the intruder ship, others shooting in Tuvok's direction. He heard Thomas Riker call out and saw beam fire ripping past him. The air was filled with dust and fire smoke as the
Marsalis
made second and third swooping passes, blasting divots from the landing pad and blowing apart the frames of stalled cargo lifters.

The Vulcan struggled as he tried to get to his feet, but he had landed badly and his ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle. The pain signals from his leg told him he had broken bones there, and with a thought he shut off the signals. “I feel . . . nothing. . . .” he said aloud, righting himself.

“But that's a lie.” Kincade emerged from the haze, bloody from cuts on her face where rock chips had
scarred her like shrapnel. “I'm disappointed,” she told him, coming at his throat with the knife. The shuttle darkened the sky again as she lunged, and Tuvok parried, taking a glancing cut across his forearm to his cost. Dark emerald-hued blood stained Kincade's blade, and she gave it a quizzical look. “Ah. It is true, then.”

Then the shot came and she jerked, all animation suddenly fleeing from her body. The woman's face did not change—there was no final moment of agony, no shock or fury. Kincade collapsed to her knees, and then went facedown against the ground.

A few meters distant, Lieutenant Nog stood holding the TR-116 rifle at his hip, the spindly extent of the firearm almost as long as the Ferengi was tall. “Found it,” he managed. “Sahde must have dropped it.” Shouldering the ungainly weapon, he came forward and took Tuvok's weight. “I have you, Commander.”

“Your assistance is greatly appreciated, Mister Nog.”

Both of them recoiled as the
Marsalis
completed another low-level attack run, marching streaks of phaser energy down the length of the open landing pad. The mercenaries had scattered, retreating back toward the safety of the mining complex, and the shuttle's pilot dogged them all the way, strafing the ground with pulse-fire.

Tuvok caught sight of movement and pointed. “There, Lieutenant.” Sahde was racing across the landing pad toward the
Snipe
's drop-ramp.

Tuvok's weapon had been lost in the first explosion, and Nog fumbled with the unfamiliar rifle. The Elloran saw them and shouted something that was lost in the noise of the shuttlecraft's engines. She pointed
the grenade launcher in their direction, and it fired with a hollow, concussive thud. A glowing blue orb leapt from the mouth of the launcher, describing an arc toward the two Starfleet officers.

“Get down!” Thomas Riker called out to them from behind a crumpled cargo container, and they were within arm's reach of him when the photon grenade detonated somewhere behind them. The shockwave shoved both of them into the side of the module with pitiless force.

His senses briefly deadened by the power of the explosion's overpressure, Tuvok felt—rather than heard—the throaty snarl of the
Snipe
's engines as the ersatz transport ship took off, the drop ramp closing as it rose away into the clouds.

As the whistling note in his ears began to fade, a gust of thruster gas plucked at Tuvok, and he limped toward the
Marsalis
as the long, low shuttle settled to the ground before them.

Hatches snapped open behind the cockpit and at the stern, disgorging Starfleet security officers equipped with phaser rifles and hazard team gear. A pale but familiar face found his, and he saw a smile of relief. “Commander Tuvok? Are you all right, sir?”

“Crewman N'keytar,” he replied, recognizing the Vok'sha woman from
Titan
's security detail. “Your timing was impeccable.”

“I'd have liked it more if it wasn't a nick-of-time rescue,” said Nog. “A five-minutes-earlier or even a day-or-so-before rescue would have been much better.”

“Ferengi,” rumbled a voice with a deeper register, “are never grateful.” Lieutenant Commander Ranul Keru dropped down from the shuttle and offered Tuvok his hand. “Good to see you in one piece, sir.”
The Trill officer turned to his team. “Fan out; hold the perimeter! We're not stopping here!”

“How did you know where to find us?” asked Nog. “We're in the Klingon outlands, light-years from anywhere . . .”

“We cashed in a favor with the chancellor,” Keru told him. “That, and some code-breaking.”

“The ship . . . the freighter . . .” Thomas Riker came forward. “We have to get after it. . . .” There was a moment of shocked silence as every member of the squad from the
Titan
halted at what appeared to be the sight of a bloodied and beaten version of their captain.
“I'm not him!”
he snapped angrily. “Tuvok, tell them. We have to go, right now! With Kincade dead, we need what's on the
Snipe
. It's our only proof!”

“Correct,” said the commander. He turned to Keru. “These two gentlemen are with me. We must withdraw to the
Titan
immediately.”

“Aye, sir.” To his credit, Keru didn't query the order even though Tuvok sensed he was brimming with questions. “Everyone on board! We're pulling out!” he called, before shooting the Vulcan a sideways look. “You can explain on the way.”

*  *  *

If he was pushed, William Riker might have described the situation on the bridge as
fluid
or
dynamic
or
a damned mess
.

It seemed like he had been suspended here in this same moment ever since they left the Sol system at maximum warp, barely even pausing as they raced over the borderline of the Klingon Empire where the
Titan
gained two new wingmen in the form of ships from Martok's elite brigade. Time had become a blur, shifts merging into nothing but a seemingly endless
series of duty watches, one after the other. Without his wife and daughter on board, he had taken to eating in his ready room and catching sleep where he could on the couch in there. The headlong flight of the
Titan
had been broken only by regular complaints from Xin Ra-Havreii that running the vessel fast and hot would damage his precious engines; those, and the increasingly strident subspace messages from Starfleet Command calling them home.

The latter he had turned over to Lieutenant Ssura to deal with, and the Caitian was proving adept at running interference for his admiral. Riker guessed that there were ships out there looking to rein
Titan
back in, but the
Luna
-class vessel was one of the fastest in the fleet; the only cruisers that had a chance of catching them were the
Vesta
-class ships with their slipstream drives, and he had won the gamble that they wouldn't be pulled off their duties for the sake of one errant admiral.

But all those concerns had been burned away in a single moment. Riker wasn't sure what he had expected to find in the Nydak system, but it wasn't open battle.

How wrong I was,
he thought.

Approaching Nydak II, a pair of K-22s had decloaked, but the ships sent by Martok didn't even allow them the opportunity for the normal declaration of bluster and threats. The void lit up with disruptor barrages; first one Bird of Prey and then the other fell to the guns of their fellow Klingons.

Riker's demand for an explanation was barely acknowledged.
There will be no traces of this dishonor;
those were the Klingon captain's words. As the two ships systematically obliterated all communications relays in orbit, Riker gave Keru the order to take the
Marsalis
and scour the complex below for any traces of Active Four.

Now a ship was coming back up from the surface, but it wasn't the
Titan
's shuttle. “It's a modified Type-8 freighter,” reported Melora from her console. “Transponder identifies it as the
Snipe,
registered out of the Triangle.”

“That's a flag of convenience if ever there was one,” said Lieutenant Rager, at ops. “What is it doing here?”

Riker sank back in the command chair, and something about the action settled him. Ever since Akaar had pinned that rank sigil to Will's collar, he couldn't escape the fear that the center seat was going to be put beyond his reach. But being here, now, felt right again. All the frustrations of the past days could be put aside, because on the bridge of his ship, he could still do something to influence the moment.

“Let's find out.” He nodded toward Ensign Dakal at one of the secondary consoles. “Zurin, throw a deep scan over that craft. Tell me what you see.”

“Aye, sir, working . . .” The young Cardassian leaned forward over his panel, his deep-set eyes narrowing. “Getting something. Admiral, there are conflicting readings. Very unusual power curves here. I detect higher-than-normal engine output, what may be military-grade weapons and defense systems . . .”

“Life signs?”

“Several, but difficult to isolate. Humanoid and . . .” He broke off as a new reading scrolled across his display. “Admiral, someone aboard that craft appears to be tagged with a Starfleet personal transponder.”

“One of ours?” Aili Lavena,
Titan
's Pacifican pilot-navigator, asked the question on all of their minds. “It might be Tuvok.”

“No,” said Ssura, seated behind Riker at a standby panel. He had a paw at one side of his head, holding an earpiece there. “Incoming hail from shuttlecraft
Marsalis
. Lieutenant Commander Keru reports Commander Tuvok and two other individuals were safely recovered from the surface. He also relays a message from the commander. . . . Escape of
Snipe
must be prevented.”

“Then who is over there?” Melora pointed at the viewscreen.

“Only one way to be sure,” said Riker. He tapped the intercom panel in the arm of his chair. “Bridge to transporter room three. Mister Radowski, you're needed.”

“Transporter three here, sir.”

“Be ready, Bowen. We may require a snatch-and-grab.” Riker turned back to Pazlar. “Melora, can we—”

“Captain!”
The cry came from Lieutenant Pava sh'Aqabaa, currently standing Tuvok's post at the tactical station. “I mean
Admiral
! Aspect change on Martok's ships; they're locking onto the
Snipe,
going weapons hot!”

“Confirmed,” said Dakal. “The freighter is responding in kind.”

Riker didn't stop to consider if that was a foolish or brave thing, and he looked to Ssura. “Lieutenant, warn them off. That's a civilian ship.”

The Caitian's whiskers twitched in agitation. “I hear the same reply as before, sir. ‘There will be no traces of this dishonor.' ”

Riker went to his feet, his jaw hardening. He imagined that the chancellor had given standing orders to eradicate anything that could connect the Klingons to the assassination. He would not risk damaging the
Empire's alliance with the Federation, and he could discredit General Shaniq at the same time. It would be win-win for him.

He turned to Ssura's console and jabbed the transmit key. “Attention, Klingon vessels: This is Admiral William Riker. We need that ship in one piece! Stand down!”

A snarling voice filled the bridge.
“You have no authority here, Riker. Rescue your people and go. This is a Klingon matter now.”

Bright lances of fire stabbed out across the space beyond the viewscreen, connecting the
Snipe
with the warships. “They're engaging,” called Rager. “Sir, what do we do? Those are
Qang
-class vessels; we can't go toe-to-toe with a pair of them.”

“Take us in closer,” Riker ordered. “We'll crowd them.”

The
Titan
rocked as a stray disruptor bolt creased the shields, sending a shiver through the vessel's hull.

“Let's not pretend that was an accident,” said Pava.

“Do
not
return fire,” Riker told her. “We're in enough trouble as it is.”

“The
Snipe
is shooting back,” said Rager. “They're scoring hits, but that's only going to make the Klingons madder. . . .”

On the screen, Riker saw the slab-shaped transport ship move too fast for a barge of its type and design. Pop-up phaser turrets were lighting up the shields of the Klingon ships, but in return the freighter was taking a beating. A salvo of quantum torpedoes detonated in a chain-fire blast, and the
Snipe
veered away, trailing plasma and pieces of hull.

“
Snipe
's shields are down, their hull integrity is at sixty percent,” said Melora.

“Klingons are coming around,” reported Dakal. “Sir, the next pass will finish off the freighter.”

Riker tapped his combadge. “Radowski? Now's the time.”

*  *  *

“No pressure, then,” muttered the lieutenant, peering at his console. “Admiral, those quantum detonations have thrown up a lot of interference. I'll only be able to pull them out one by one. . . .”

“Do your best, mister,”
came Riker's reply.

“My best, yeah . . .” Bowen's hands danced across the transporter controls, falling onto the main activation switches. “I'm locking onto the Starfleet transponder first, that's the strongest signal . . . And
energizing
.”

He had barely said the words before the deck beneath him rolled, and Radowski almost lost his footing. He snatched at the edge of the console and held on for the half-second before the
Titan
's inertial dampers could right themselves and resume stability. With his other hand, the transporter chief forced the sliders back up the line, and on the pad, a column of blue-white light started to form.