Star Trek: Discovery: Fear Itself Page 6

Saru looked away. Burnham sensed the Kelpien was struggling to find the right words. “There was a very real fear among them, Captain. But I cannot be certain if I was the source of that, or if there is more going on here we are unaware of.” He went on, talking about the gathering he had witnessed and the apparent presence of some kind of venerated figure among the Gorlans. “I believe there was an avenue of communication to be opened there . . . but because of the Peliar intervention, we may have missed our opportunity.”

  “I want more than that,” said Georgiou.

  Johar looked away, at something out of the hologram’s visual field. “You may get it, Captain. Commander Nathal and her XO are here.”

  Burnham saw the unmistakable stiffening of Saru’s body as the Peliars arrived.

  • • •

  “This way, if you please.” Ensign Weeton gestured up through the hexagonal hatch toward the interior of the docked shuttle, and Nathal’s expression soured.

  At her side, the Peliar officer called Hekan waited patiently for her commander to climb up into the Starfleet craft, and Saru watched them closely as they surveyed the interior of the Yang. Hekan’s obvious interest in the technology was tempered only by the formality of her role as Nathal’s second, and he imagined that if she had been alone, the Peliar woman would have been looking at everything. Nathal, however, glanced around with a haughty and dismissive glare, finding the holographic images of the officers in the Shenzhou’s ready room.

  “Which of you is in command?” she demanded, wasting no time with preamble.

  Georgiou leaned forward slightly. “I’m Captain Philippa Georgiou of the Starship Shenzhou, and—”

  “Do you make a habit of illegally boarding other people’s vessels, Captain?” Nathal didn’t wait for her to reply. “You acted without authority or permission!”

  “I regret that was necessary.” The captain inclined her head, letting the comment roll off her. “I am pleased to hear that your ship and your crew are now safe.” She didn’t need to add that that state of affairs only existed because of the Shenzhou’s intervention.

  Nathal’s hands clasped each other and held rigid. “I have a recovery operation to attend to, Georgiou. This conversation is cutting into my time, so can we be quick about it?”

  “Of course.” Saru heard the captain’s tone harden. “I really only have one point that requires clarification. I would like to understand why there is a large population of Gorlans on board your ship. As our sensors return to full capacity, we’re detecting quite a lot of them.”

  “How is that relevant?” Nathal looked to Hekan for support, but the other Peliar offered nothing.

  “Starfleet’s mission includes safeguarding the welfare of all life-forms we encounter,” added Commander ch’Theloh. “We’re simply inquiring after their well-being.”

  “The Gorlans are not in any distress,” Hekan said quickly. “They’re not prisoners.” She seemed affronted by the possibility.

  “They are refugees,” Nathal corrected, with a frown.

  “From where?” Saru couldn’t stop himself from asking the question. “The coordinates of their homeworld are clear across the quadrant.”

  “From a colony planet, of course.” The Peliar commander shot him a sideways look. “They were settlers, or some such. Their outpost was attacked by a Tholian patrol. . . . They obviously didn’t realize how territorial the Assembly is.”

  “The displaced Gorlans were forced to flee into space,” said Hekan. “But their vessels barely made it to the nearest habitable worlds.”

  “Our worlds,” Nathal broke in, her tone clipped and accusatory. “They limped into orbit around Peliar Zel, begging us to help them. And now we are doing so, taking them to a safe place.”

  “Our government has found the Gorlans a new planet to colonize,” added the other woman.

  “I see.” Captain Georgiou seemed to consider this. “And where is this planet?”

  “A few light-years distant,” said Hekan. “Most of them are already there. We are the last of the transports.”

  Saru became aware of Nathal watching him intently. “I can see why your officer might have come to some erroneous conclusions about the Gorlans. Their ritualistic ways are strange to outsiders. It would be easy to observe them and make the wrong assumptions. But as my second stated, we’re not depriving them of anything.”

  “Then why are they afraid?” Saru bristled at the Peliar commander’s dismissive tone, blurting out the questions. “Why are their living conditions so basic?”

  “Don’t mistake their lack of sophistication for anything other than what it is,” Nathal replied. “The way the Gorlans choose to live is up to them.”

  “And yet you think less of them for that.” Saru spoke without thinking, and the moment the words had left his mouth he knew he had been wrong to voice them—even if it was what he believed.

  “That’ll be quite enough, Lieutenant,” said ch’Theloh, silencing him with a look.

  Nathal went on without any indication that Saru had uttered a sound. “You must understand that the satellites of Peliar Zel could not accommodate such large numbers of displaced aliens. The ecologies of our Alpha and Beta Moons are delicate, they are strictly organized. Our solution is the best for all parties involved.”

  “I’ll make that clear in my report,” Georgiou said neutrally. Saru waited for her to challenge the Peliar commander, but she didn’t. “As well as detailing the circumstances around your warp-drive malfunction.”

  “We only wish to complete our mission,” said Nathal, and then she straightened her shipsuit, putting on a formal air. “On behalf of my crew and the Peliar Cohort, I would like to thank the crew of the Shenzhou for their altruism.” Her words had the rote diction of something rehearsed, and Saru wondered if Hekan had coached her commander. “But we do not require any further assistance.” Nathal looked around at Johar, Weeton, and Saru, as if she expected them to leave immediately.

  “Respectfully,” added Hekan, “the situation aboard this ship is an internal matter, and Peliar Zel is not yet a member of the United Federation of Planets.”

  “Or bound by its rules.” Nathal had the last word.

  “Quite so,” agreed Georgiou. “I apologize if you feel that I”—she looked at Saru and Johar, and then away—“or any of my officers overstepped our bounds. I assure you we had only the best of intentions.” The captain took a breath, and Saru saw a flicker of steel in her eyes. “But I would remind you that if Peliar Zel does wish to join the Federation, showing cooperation with Starfleet would work in your planet’s favor.” She glanced back.

  Burnham took this as her cue to speak. “For full clarity . . . for our report to Starfleet Command . . . it would be useful to speak to a representative from the Gorlan colonists. To be sure they do not require any specific assistance of their own.”

  Belatedly, Saru realized that Georgiou’s tactic throughout this conversation had been to lead Nathal to this point, so that any refusal from the Peliar commander would make it clear she had something to hide. If she kicked them off her vessel in the next ten seconds, that would give the lie to her assertion that all was well.

  Nathal’s cheeks darkened, and at length she gave a tight reply. “They have a designated speaker to communicate with other species. Hekan will arrange the meeting with him. Then you can leave.” She got up and pushed past Saru, climbing out through the shuttle’s hatch without another word.

  • • •

  Burnham entered the lab and crossed the room in quick steps, approaching the workspace against the far bulkhead where the monitor buoy lay in a line of deconstructed parts. The alert from the ship’s computer had brought her down here, an automated message in her work queue informing her that the first-stage analysis of the unit was complete. In all the excitement of the rescue operations and the discoveries aboard the Peliar transport ship, she had pushed aside working on the buoy.

  “What do you have to tell me?” she asked the air, taking in t
he dismantled device. In working condition, the unit would have resembled an oblate silver cylinder ringed by a curved solar array, with a sensing head at one end and a cluster of comm antennae at the other. But now it was an orderly set of stripped component parts, the outer surfaces bleached by solar radiation in some places, or pitted with micrometeorites in others.

  The sections had been broken down by a set of automated manipulator arms and arranged for examination according to guidelines put in place by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, but Burnham ignored that, instead gravitating straight toward the midsection, where the buoy’s memory banks were situated—and, she hoped, the answers as to why it fell silent. Programming a macroprobe, she retracted the casing and surveyed the interior of the module.

  Dozens of duotronic data cores were arranged in rows within it, each one capable of holding gigaquads of stored information. The memory bank should have contained months of recorded sensor scans and subspace telemetry, but the buoy’s subsystems had refused to transmit any of it back to the Shenzhou. Burnham would need to physically unplug the cores and reset them, one by one, in a reader array that could recover the data.

  She had the first core detached when the lab door hissed open and Commander ch’Theloh strode in. “Lieutenant.”

  “Sir.” Burnham didn’t look up, her eyes on the delicate duotronic core held in the macroprobe’s grip. “Forgive me if I don’t rise. This needs steady hands.”

  “Can’t you just use a micro–tractor beam?” said the Andorian, coming over.

  Burnham held her breath as she slowly moved the core to the reader. “These components show signs of particle bombardment. I don’t want to project any other energy at them unless I have to.” The core dropped into the reader with a soft click. “One down, twenty-three more to go.” She exhaled and glanced up. “Can I help you, Commander?”

  “Checking in,” he explained. “This business with the Peliar ship is the captain’s main concern, but we can’t neglect our mission.” He aimed a long blue finger at the dismantled unit. “There’s a one hundred light-day gap in Starfleet’s early-warning net. The other buoys can compensate somewhat, but the loss in acuity is noticeable. We need to solve why this happened.” He frowned and his antennae arched forward. “The last thing we need is someone . . . something sneaking through a hole in the fence.”

  Burnham’s eyes narrowed. “Sir, do you suspect the Tholians?”

  “I never suspect anything, Lieutenant,” he pointed out. “I make predictions and educated tactical evaluations. Have you ever seen one of their ships?”

  She shook her head. “Just simulations.”

  As ch’Theloh spoke, he started to pace. “They’re fast. Agile. Extremely dangerous. We’d have our work cut out for us.” Then he shook off the grim thought and studied her anew. “The quicker this is done, the better it will be. And I imagine you would prefer to have the analysis completed before Lieutenant Saru returns from the rescue mission.”

  “Sir?” Burnham had an uncomfortable feeling about where this conversation was going. The first officer and Saru had never really gotten along, not in all the time that Burnham had been serving on board the Shenzhou. The Kelpien’s stiff manner didn’t mesh well with the Andorian’s own brand of martial discipline, while conversely, Burnham had always felt that ch’Theloh’s cool restraint was admirable. Almost Vulcan in its way, a rare sentiment considering that the people of Andoria and of Burnham’s adoptive homeworld were once bitter enemies, at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.

  “I know you beamed the buoy on board over Saru’s objections,” he went on. “Therefore, you are invested in proving that was the right decision. For the record, I agree with you, Lieutenant. Perhaps this will go some way toward convincing our Kelpien crewmate that his default conservative take on every situation isn’t always the most practical approach.”

  Burnham gave a nod, but still, she felt a little bad for Saru. For all his experience, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in over his head on board the alien ship, and that realization would not be easy for him. Saru had an ego that often expressed itself in an impulse to try too hard, and getting shut down by the Peliars and his senior officers over his conduct would smart.

  “You are wondering how you would have handled things over there, had Captain Georgiou sent you instead of Saru.” Ch’Theloh’s penetrating, ice-cold gaze met hers and Burnham gave nothing away. The first officer had an uncanny knack of seeing right into the thought process of his juniors.

  Would I have dealt with it differently? She considered the question as she examined the reader array. “I would have gone looking too.” As a science officer, Saru was a generalist, but Burnham’s specialty was the study of alien cultures, and the chance to peel back the layers on a little-known society like the Gorlans was an enticing prospect. She said as much to the commander.

  “We can reach out to them. This situation could offer us a greater insight into the Gorlan race, even on a basic level.” The first officer paused. “I’ve heard they have a strong warrior spirit. It would be interesting to know more.” His gaze shifted to the analysis rig. “But one step at a time.” Then ch’Theloh pointed at a dark band of crimson unfolding on the display. “Correct me if I am wrong, Lieutenant, but that does not appear to be a positive result.”

  “Oh, no.” Burnham leaned in to the readout and her heart sank. The reader showed the content of the duotronic core as a mass of corrupted files, millions of fragmented shards of data in complete disarray. “That should not be possible. The memory banks are triple shielded, hardened against solar flares and transient subspace phenomena.”

  “It may only be this single core.”

  “I don’t think I am that lucky,” Burnham said with a sigh. She pointed at the display. “Look at the pattern of corruption, sir. It’s asymmetrical. Like a localized effect, centralized on a point . . . right here.” Estimating the scope of the pattern, she realized that the damage would be spread not just through this core, but across the entire memory bank.

  The commander folded his arms across his chest. “Are you telling me this was done deliberately?”

  “I . . .” Burnham took a breath and hesitated. Suddenly, she wished that Saru were here with her. Just to have the Kelpien looking over her shoulder and double-checking her work would have helped. Then, at length, she nodded. “I will need to run diagnostics on all of the duotronic cores to be certain, but that would be my preliminary conclusion, sir.” She gestured at the screen. “The collimation of the effect is just too regular to be the result of a natural phenomenon.”

  “Theorize,” said ch’Theloh, making it an order. “How could it be done?”

  Her mind raced as she considered and disregarded a handful of possibilities in short order. “A coherent energy beam, sent from long range. Something attuned to the correct frequency could do this. But it would need to penetrate the monitor buoy’s deflectors. If it was . . .” She stopped herself from saying the Tholians. “If it was the influence of a hostile actor, why would they not just destroy the unit and be done with it?”

  “That question is the one you’re going to answer for us,” said the first officer. “If we can’t figure out what happened here, the next thing to go silent could be the Shenzhou.”

  4

  * * *

  “Hatch secured,” Weeton reported from the pilot’s chair. “Ready to disengage.”

  “Understood.” Lieutenant Commander Johar’s voice cut through the air in the cabin, but Saru was only half listening. He was too busy trying not to stare at the Gorlan interpreter sitting across from him. “Tell the captain we’ll be finishing up soon over here, Britch. By the time you come back, we should be almost done.”

  “Affirmative,” replied the ensign. “Shuttle Yang cutting loose . . . now.”

  A dull thud echoed through the hull, and the small auxiliary craft floated away from the hull of the massive Peliar transport. Lines of light cast through the windows shifted as they orient
ed around toward the Shenzhou drifting nearby.

  The Gorlan drew himself up onto the seat to get a better look at the Federation starship as they crossed the distance. He had introduced himself as Vetch, speaking a halting, broken version of a basic Peliar Zel dialect that Saru’s universal translator could parse. At first, he seemed disturbed by the idea of leaving the cargo ship to visit the Shenzhou, but now that he was looking at the Starfleet vessel, he appeared resigned to it. Saru concentrated on the Gorlan, trying to feel the boundaries of the alien’s electrosensitive aura, but it was feeble, deliberately muted.

  Vetch held himself up with three of his hands, the fourth pressed to the transparent aluminum of the viewport. He was muttering something, too quietly to be heard over the hum of the shuttle’s impulse engines.

  Saru considered him. Like many of the other Gorlans he had seen in the cargo module, Vetch was dressed in shabby, handspun clothes in a dusty, red-orange hue. His hair was long and streaked with gray, matching a salt-and-pepper beard coiled into crude braids, and he wore two ribbons of soiled green cloth around the biceps of his upper right arm. Saru noticed that the interpreter—the speaker, as he had been introduced—walked with a slight limp, and he thought of the female in the white robes.

  Saru’s curiosity about her rolled around in his thoughts, but he held off asking any questions. Now was not the time.

  At Vetch’s side, the Peliar woman named Hekan sat quietly, her gaze turned inward. From the skills and status she exhibited, Saru hypothesized that Hekan served in a combination role, equivalent to that of an executive officer and chief engineer, and the deference the other Peliar crewmembers gave her seemed to bear that out.

  She was accompanied by one of them now, a male in an orange shipsuit with a silver vest affair over his chest. Judging by the hawkish manner displayed by the other Peliar, Saru believed that he was a security officer of some kind, although he carried no visible weapons. Still, the crewman’s presence spoke volumes about Commander Nathal’s trust level where the Shenzhou was concerned. She was no longer making herself available to talk to any of the Starfleet team, and it fell to Hekan to explain that away. Saru guessed Nathal’s unwillingness to continue a dialogue was more about personal dislike than it was anything related to her duties, despite claims to the contrary.