Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven (3 page)

The footsteps were close now, snapping crisply on the gleaming duranium floor, which reeked of pine and ammonia, thanks to a recent pass by a crewman with a mop, a bucket, and punishment-detail work orders. Nogura’s visitor cleared the bend in the corridor, and he noted with a sidelong glance that it was Lieutenant T’Prynn, the station’s acting liaison to Starfleet Intelligence. The tall, athletically trim Vulcan woman wore a red minidress uniform and knee-high black boots, and her insignia bore the emblem for the security division. Her straight sable hair reached to the middle of her back and was cinched in a simple ponytail above her shoulders. She carried a data slate tucked close at her side, and walked with her chin up, her bearing proud.

Nogura turned his attention back to the
Sagittarius
until T’Prynn stepped up beside him. She waited until he acknowledged her arrival by making eye contact with her reflection in the transparent aluminum window, and then she said simply, “Admiral.”

The diminutive, square-jawed flag officer’s voice was as deep as the sea and had a rasping growl like a power saw. “What’s the excuse this time?”

His brusque query seemed to surprise T’Prynn, and for a brief moment she appeared to be formulating a response steeped in classic Vulcan dry sarcasm. Then she answered him plainly. “The Romulans and the Klingons have both increased their patrols in the sectors surrounding Vanguard, and they appear to be coordinating their activities.”

“In other words, the same excuse as last time.” He shook his head, frustrated by the prospect of another indefinite delay. “We can’t just sit and wait for the Klingons and the Romulans to let their guard down. That escaped Shedai could come back at any time—and if it brings friends, we’ll be in real trouble.”

T’Prynn relaxed her pose. “I agree. If Eremar is the source of the Mirdonyae Artifacts, it’s imperative we investigate it before anyone else finds it.”

“Exactly,” Nogura said. “But it won’t do us any good if the Klingons or the Romulans follow the
Sagittarius
to that pulsar.
Best-case scenario, they’d swoop in and steal the artifacts out from under us. Worst-case scenario, they’d destroy the
Sagittarius
in the process. It’s not enough to get Nassir and his ship there. We also need to bring them home with the prize.”

She proffered the data slate to Nogura. “I have a plan that may accomplish the first part of our mission objective.”

He took the slate and skimmed its contents. “Just the high points, if you please.”

“An act of subterfuge. First, we disguise a small craft as a replica of the
Sagittarius,
one capable of high-warp speed. Then we launch it as a decoy on a heading away from Eremar.”

Nogura scowled at the Vulcan. “And where, exactly, will we find the spare duranium, fuel, and warp nacelles to make this drone?”

“We already have them. They’re in Repair Bay One, awaiting assembly.”

Getting the sense that he was being read into a plan already set in motion, he harrumphed and resumed perusing the slate’s contents. “Go on.”

“We conceal the
Sagittarius
’s deployment by hiding it inside the main cargo bay of a larger vessel, which will carry it to the Iremal Cluster, a stellar phenomenon known for scrambling short- and long-range sensors. Once the ship reaches the cluster, the
Sagittarius
deploys on a new course while its transport continues on its original heading. There is a high probability the
Sagittarius
will reach Eremar undetected if it can reach Iremal without incident.”

Nogura exhaled slowly; it was not so much a sigh as a prolonged huff of irritation. “I see several things wrong with your plan, Lieutenant.”

T’Prynn cocked her head, and her face betrayed a hint of curiosity. “Could you be more specific, Admiral?”

“For starters, whatever ship you dress up as your decoy will have a dozen Klingon and Romulan warships hunting it from the moment it leaves our patrol zone.”

She pointed at the slate in his hand. “I’ve accounted for that,
sir. The decoy will, in fact, be an unmanned drone, equipped with sensor feedback systems to create the illusion of a living crew. As noted on page six of my proposal.”

He paged forward in her briefing and saw that she was telling the truth. “Very well. Now maybe you can tell me how you plan to fit the
Sagittarius
inside another ship’s cargo hold. Don’t most ships usually leave here packed stem to stern?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes. We would need to take the extraordinary measure of commandeering a civilian vessel of sufficient capacity to execute the ruse. As a result, whatever ship we select would be deprived of its cargo and civilian passengers.”

Nogura regarded her with naked suspicion. “I presume the ship of ‘sufficient capacity’ you have in mind is the freighter
Ephialtes
?”

“In fact it is.”

“I trust you know Captain Alodae won’t go along without a fight.” He waited for T’Prynn to reply, but she said nothing. Despite all her claims of having rededicated herself to logic devoid of emotion during her long recovery from a mental breakdown, he suspected that on some level she was enjoying this at his expense. “All we need is for him to go crying to the JAG Office.”

She lowered her chin, lending her mien a conspiratorial air. “I don’t claim to be a legal expert, but I sincerely doubt Captain Alodae would prevail in such a dispute.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“I strive to be prepared, sir.”

Unable to shake off his skepticism, he pored over a few more paragraphs of T’Prynn’s mission plan. “Let’s say we proceed with this scheme of yours, whether Captain Alodae likes it or not. Sending one of our ships out of here as luggage on a superfreighter, straight into a sensor blind spot that has ‘ambush’ written all over it, might be just as dangerous as letting the
Sagittarius
leave here undisguised. And even if this absurd ruse works, I don’t see anything in your plan for how to bring our people home safely from Eremar.”

A grudging half nod. “I admit, I’m still working to resolve a few details.”

His thick, graying brows knit together as he glowered up at the statuesque Vulcan. “This is one of the most reckless, dangerous mission plans I’ve ever seen, in all my years in Starfleet.”

She met his hard, scathing gaze with one eyebrow arched in elegant mockery. “Is that a ‘yes,’ Admiral?”

He handed back the data slate. “Make it happen.”

There were few luxuries that were as sorely underappreciated as that of a good meal, in the opinion of Captain Kutal. He sat alone at the officers’ table in the mess hall of the
I.K.S. Zin’za,
savoring a mouthful of succulent
gagh
. The tiny worms were young and fresh, having just been stocked into the ship’s larder a few days earlier, during a brief port call at Tythor, just over the border inside the Empire. He always made a point of enjoying such delicacies while they lasted. Before long, the
gagh
would grow large and tough, until not even the hardiest Klingon warrior could chew them, and then they would be useless, just more raw mass consigned to the ship’s waste-processing system.

We must take our pleasures where we can,
he reminded himself as he downed a long draught from his stein of
warnog,
a potent alcohol with a bracing kick and a sharp aftertaste.

A knot of enlisted crewmen sat on the other side of the compartment, hunched over their trays slopped with second-rate blood pies, saying little but filling the air with wet smacks of mastication. Kutal could tell they were behaving self-consciously because he was there, refraining from whatever conversation would normally fill the spaces in their midday meal. The reason for their discomfort was of no interest to Kutal. He simply enjoyed the silence.

He plucked a generous pinch of
gagh
from his dull gray bowl and stuffed the wriggling delicacy into his sharp-toothed maw. Biting down, he was rewarded with their frantic dying squirms and a delectable squirt of warm blood rich with salt and minerals. The delight it brought him verged on the religious, and he shut his eyes to drink in the moment free of distraction. Then he heard the heavy footfalls of his first officer, BelHoQ, and Kutal knew even
before the man spoke that his perfect lunch was about to be ruined.

“We have new orders from the High Command, Captain.”

The captain shot a murderous look over his shoulder at his black-bearded, wild-maned brute of a first officer. “I’m
eating,
damn you!”

BelHoQ stepped around the table and sat across from Kutal. “
Priority
orders.”

Kutal shoved aside his tray. “If you knew good
gagh
from
kesh,
you’d have waited for me to come to the bridge.” He reached out and demanded with twitching fingers, “Give it to me.” The second-in-command reached under a fold in his tunic and pulled out a data tablet, then shoved it into Kutal’s waiting hand. Just as the captain had expected, it contained nothing but bad news. “When did this come in?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“It could have waited.” He stood, tossed the tablet back to BelHoQ, then abandoned his tray and strode toward the door. BelHoQ followed him out to the corridor and forward, toward the bridge. The two warriors walked side by side through the dim, musky passageways of the
Zin’za,
whose deck plates thrummed with the steady pulse of its warp engines.

BelHoQ grumbled, “
Fek’lhr
take those
petaQpu’
at the High Command. I’d rather be whipped naked against the gate of Gre’thor than trust a Romulan to watch my back.”

“Not that we have much choice, now, do we?” They sidestepped past a pair of mechanics effecting repairs at an open bulkhead, then Kutal continued. “I get the feeling someone very high up is in league with the Romulans, and not just for the sake of spiting the Federation.”

A low grunt presaged BelHoQ’s reply. “I think the Romulans traded their cloaking secrets for safe passage through the Empire so they could gather intelligence for an invasion.”

“Maybe. But if so, that’s a long way off. Right now, I think their agenda leans more toward corruption than conquest.” The port hatch to the bridge slid open ahead of them. Kutal marched
to his command chair and shouldered aside Lieutenant Krom, the ship’s second officer, along the way. “Krom, report!”

Krom had almost regained his footing when BelHoQ shoved past him and left the shorter soldier off balance and half-sitting on a deactivated gunner’s console. Straightening, the young lieutenant tried to act as if neither slight had just happened. “We’re continuing on course for the Gonmog Sector, Captain. Standing by to execute course change based on our new orders.”

Kutal turned a sour scowl on BelHoQ, silently reproaching him for failing to keep word of the ship’s new mission profile from being prematurely leaked to the rank and file. “Helm, set course for our rendezvous with the Romulan cruiser
Kenestra,
in the Hujok system.”

Qlar, the helm officer, keyed commands into his console. “Plotted and ready.”

“Engage.” Kutal swiveled his elevated chair toward the weapons officer. “Tonar! Make sure you read the report on Romulan tactical protocols. We’ve been ordered to conduct joint operations with our new allies, harassing Federation shipping, until further notice.” A curt nod signaled Tonar’s understanding, and he set himself to his task without speaking—a habit Kutal wished more of his crew would emulate. Turning forward, Kutal punched his left palm a few times while he pondered the shifting currents of power coursing through the Empire. Then he glanced left, toward BelHoQ, who stood, waiting on the captain’s next words. “No good will come of speaking our minds to the High Command. They won’t hear ill words spoken against the providers of the great and mighty cloaking device.”

“A cowardly invention,” BelHoQ sneered.

Waving away the criticism, Kutal replied, “A weapon is neither cowardly nor brave. What matters is how it’s used. And I think the Romulans are using it to seduce our leaders—the generals inside the High Command, the heads of the Great Houses, and who knows who else. The point is, we need to choose our friends very carefully.”

“With all respect,” BelHoQ protested, “we know who our friends are.”

“Do we? Just because we’ve trusted someone in the past doesn’t mean we should trust them now. Do some digging. See what secrets our good friends on Qo’noS have buried, and make sure they really are still our friends before we start making new enemies.”

A low growl of frustration rumbled deep inside BelHoQ’s barrel chest. “Why must we waste time while
novpu’
move freely through our space? Why not take action now?”

“Because we’re not preparing for a duel, we’re preparing for a war. Which means our first action must be to prepare the battlefield. Remember the lessons of Kahless: the victorious warrior wins first and then goes to war, while the defeated warrior goes to war and only then seeks to win.” He met the first officer’s sullen gaze with a stare that brooked no dissent. “I will fight this war when I’m ready to win it, my friend—and not a moment sooner.”

The rank perfume of coitus assaulted Duras’s sensitive nose as he traversed the brothel hallway, passing one curtained partition after another on his way to a clandestine rendezvous.

It struck him as particularly ironic that, of all the possible locations for a meeting in the First City, his contact should choose this one. Normally, as a scion of a Great House, Duras would never come within a hundred
qelIqam
s of such an establishment; if he desired companionship, it would be his for the asking, in the privacy of his own home. Only offworlders and those without honor frequented these places.

As he noted the way in which everyone he passed made a point of avoiding eye contact with him or one another, however, he realized there was a certain perverse logic to this plan. The single most important element of the social contract in a brothel was discretion, making it the one place where people actively avoided remembering, or being remembered by, those around
them. It was the most anonymous place in the capital, making it a far more discreet meeting place than his office within the Great Hall, or his estate, which was always under surveillance by operatives employed by his rivals.