The Dark Veil Page 6

  And it found a way through.

  * * *

  In the dimness of the darkened bridge, the only illumination came from the starscape outside and the glowing displays of the command consoles. Riker felt light in the reduced gravity, and his breath emerged in puffs of white vapor as the deep cold of space leached through the hull and into the ship.

  He gripped the edge of his chair and his hand found Deanna’s there, the two of them drawing strength from each other. “Status,” he called. “Someone talk to me!”

  “No…” muttered Livnah, but the refusal wasn’t directed toward her captain. He heard it in her voice, the defiance and denial of what she was seeing on her panel. “No!”

  “Captain, the warp shell…” McCreedy spoke as if she were uttering a death sentence. “It’s collapsed.”

  Riker looked back to the viewscreen in time to see the energy beams projected from Titan’s nacelles fade to nothing. The searing light at the heart of the wrecked spacedock bloomed with new force, leaving purple afterimages burned into his retinas.

  “We don’t have the power,” said Livnah. “I’m so sorry, Captain, I thought we could do it. Titan is just not enough. We can’t contain the fracture.”

  “Can we launch the rest of the shuttles, the captain’s skiff, use them as well?” Keru threw out the demands. “Is there a Jazari ship close by that could help? Something!”

  “No.” McCreedy shook her head.

  “Then we have to withdraw,” said Vale. “There’s nothing else we can do.”

  Riker stiffened, knowing that the failure was already a reality, hating the truth of it. He opened his mouth to give the command to disengage, but he couldn’t form the words. He did not want to admit defeat.

  A strident tone cut through his thoughts. “I have an incoming hail,” said Troi. “From another ship…” She tapped a control, and a new voice issued out of the air.

  “Attention platform Zero Four, we have received your emergency message and are approaching your coordinates, stand by.”

  “Who is that?” said Cantua. “A Starfleet vessel?”

  “There are no other Starfleet vessels in this sector,” said Vale, but her words were drowned out by a keening proximity alert.

  “Captain!” At his station, Westerguard bolted upright in shock. “Off the starboard bow, got a ship dropping out of warp!”

  Ahead of the Titan, the stars seemed to writhe and shimmer as a glassy shape appeared and took on solid form. It became a starship, a metallic-green raptor with sickle-like wings and bared talons, all sharp angles and danger.

  “Attention,” said the voice over the comm channel. “This is Commander Medaka of the warbird Othrys. My crew and I are here to assist.”

  FOUR

  “You are making a grave error in judgment.” Major Helek’s tone was mordant, the words of the Tal Shiar officer carrying forward from her seat at the rear of the warbird’s cramped bridge. “Crossing the Neutral Zone can only be perceived as a provocative act.”

  “She saw the same scanner readings as the rest of us, yes?” Commander Medaka deliberately did not address Helek’s comment directly, and instead turned in his chair toward Decurion Benem at the sensors and shroud console. Medaka’s dark, wolfish face and his searching gaze locked with that of his junior officer, and Benem gave an affirming nod.

  “The major has been fully informed of the developing emergency at all stages.” Benem’s species was Garidian, an offshoot of the Romulan race with longer chins and larger skulls, which made them seem like a distorted mirror of Medaka’s people. When she scowled, it had the effect of greatly exaggerating her displeasure, and Benem did so now, making little attempt to hide her dislike of the Tal Shiar operative.

  “So unless she has not been paying attention,” said the commander, “the major will be well aware that the spatial fracture you detected could represent a serious danger to the Empire.”

  “Indeed.”

  That made clear, Medaka finally looked Helek in the eye. “This ship will not stand by and do nothing when lives are at stake.”

  “Not Romulan lives,” Helek noted, the expression on her pale face stone hard and uncompromising.

  “But lives nonetheless,” said Medaka, “and if this danger is not contained, we will have allowed a lethal radiation source to propagate at the Empire’s very border.” He paused. “If you wish, I will summon scientician Vadrel up from his laboratory and have him reaffirm the severity of this hazard.”

  “Three metrics to de-warp.” Lieutenant Maian reported the time to target from his station at the helm. Maian was taciturn and utterly unflappable, a craggy older legionary from the subdecks who had risen to officer status by what Medaka understood was sheer doggedness.

  “What ship posture, Commander?” Sharing the console on the right of the bridge with Benem, Sublieutenant Kort was acting combat officer on this shift, and his young, reedy voice held notes of both eagerness and dread. Kort was one of the breed of Romulan who had never fired a weapon in anger, a graduate from the wave of recruits who had joined up during the grim days of the Dominion War, but not soon enough to see action in it.

  “Condition Dagger,” Medaka informed him. That would keep the warbird’s weapons in quiescent mode and their shields at standby.

  “You would take us into enemy territory naked?” Helek gave a snort.

  “I can forgive the sublieutenant’s nervousness but not yours,” said Medaka. “Are the Tal Shiar always so anxious?”

  “The Tal Shiar are vigilant,” Helek retorted. “We are careful. What you are doing now, Commander, is the very antithesis of those things. It is reckless!”

  “Tell me, Major, how many times have Federation starships crossed the border to render assistance to vessels in the Neutral Zone?” Medaka didn’t wait for her to answer. “It is fair for us to return the favor, just this once.”

  “Turn back now and I will consider this a brief moment of eccentricity on your part,” said Helek. “If you proceed, I will be forced to make a report.”

  Her words made Medaka rise from his chair, turning to meet the major’s scrutiny strength for strength. “And is that not why you are on my bridge and on my ship, to make reports? To observe and record everything my crew does? As if we do not have enough to occupy us with the urgency of our survey missions.”

  “We all have our work, for the glory of the Empire,” replied Helek.

  When the news of the coming star-death had broken across the Romulan Empire, there had been panic, outrage, and then—because of the nature of the Romulan character—there had been an equal amount of resignation to the inevitable and suspicion toward the cause of it.

  In the Romulan fleet, veteran warriors blooded in wars with the Federation and the Klingons were forced to turn from their endless patrols and saber rattling, to vital exploratory assignments. There were billions of Romulans who would be displaced when the nova came, and they all needed somewhere new to live.

  But the fleet had not been built to handle a colossal mission of colonization, or a mass evacuation on such a scale. Romulan ships were largely lean, spare vessels, agile and deadly, even the most commonplace of them designed for stealth and war. Their commanders were soldiers first and explorers a distant second, and it had ever been thus.

  Medaka remembered the fiery conclaves of senior admiralty and captains, convened after the reality of the star-death became clear. To save the lives of the endangered, the entire mission of the fleet would need to alter, with warbirds diverted away from their watches along the Empire’s borders, in order to chart hitherto ignored sectors where unmapped but livable worlds might be found.

  Many of the admiralty recoiled at such demands from the Senate. What good was an Empire with weak, undefended borders? they argued. Was it worth diverting resources in order to save those displaced by the supernova, if that encouraged their enemies? Others—captains like Medaka—argued that to let their fellow Romulans perish would be tantamount to gouging out the heart o
f the Empire.

  Factions formed and fought in the corridors of power, wasting precious time as the clock ran down toward the nova event. Some even spoke openly of defiance, a few officers threatening to take things into their own hands.

  And so the Tal Shiar made themselves known. For the safety and security of the Romulan Star Empire, one of their officers was placed aboard every ship on “sensitive duties,” to ensure that orders would be followed in this time of great crisis.

  Medaka studied Major Helek. She was not the only Tal Shiar operative on his ship, that was as certain as the rise of the moons; but until recently, the secretive organization had been good enough to at least pretend they were not spying on their own people. Helek’s presence was that lie forced into the light, and it galled the commander. Medaka’s trusted first officer had been transferred so that Helek could take his place, and she was in no way the lost man’s equal.

  “Our mission is to complete the planetary survey of grid section nine-zero-six,” said the major. “It is not to come to the aid of aliens.” She paused, affecting a wounded tone. “Surely you do not prioritize the safety of aliens over your own kind?”

  Decurion Benem’s head jerked up at her words, the Garidian’s eyes narrowing. Across the bridge, at the warbird’s navigation panel, Sublieutenant Hade-Tah gave a low, rumbling growl of annoyance in the middle of its throat. The muscular, rangy navigator was a sentient from the Taurhai Unity, an alien power that had become a client state to the Romulan Empire in the past few decades.

  Many Romulan commanders kept their ships crewed only by members of their species, but Medaka saw that as shortsighted, as a waste of valuable talent. As well as the Garidian and the Taurhai on the bridge, the warbird Othrys had a Reman as senior engineer and Norkanians among its support force. Using their diverse skills to best advantage was a lesson Medaka had learned from observing the Federation Starfleet in action. The benefits carried more weight than the sneers of dismissal from Major Helek and the more traditionalist commanders in the fleet.

  “If that singularity is not prevented from consuming the Jazari vessel, it will stabilize and grow in potency.” Medaka kept his tone even, so that the record would show his argument was built on logical choice. “The toxicity that results will eventually penetrate the nearby Neutral Zone, even reaching the planets in grid section nine-zero-six. We are seeking to forestall a disaster that will affect the Empire. Do you understand?” He gestured at the air. “I can have Hade-Tah project a holographic star map for illustrative purposes, if you wish.”

  “Two metrics to de-warp,” said Maian.

  Medaka glanced at Benem. “Status of the Jazari space platform?”

  “Deteriorating rapidly,” she replied. “Sensor returns are garbled by radiation output from the fracture.”

  “Best estimation,” said the commander.

  “If they are not all dead,” she told him, “then they soon will be.”

  He nodded grimly, reviewing what he knew of the stoic reptilian beings. Because of the nearness of their home system to the far side of the Neutral Zone border, the Jazari species were one of many whose worlds were under constant long-range surveillance by the Romulan Star Empire. Their secretive activities over the last few cycles had been carefully observed by the Empire’s automated scanner outposts.

  Outwardly, the Romulans gave lip service to the Jazari’s requests for privacy, but they were fooling themselves if they believed the Empire would not watch them. Perhaps the Federation would ignore them, but not Romulus. Medaka’s mission briefing had mentioned intelligence reports that the Jazari were engaged in some large-scale orbital construction project, but little more beyond that. The Jazari were deemed to be of minor concern, and for the moment, beneath the Empire’s notice.

  But the energy signature from the poisonous spatial fracture changed all that in a heartbeat. Like Romulan ships, the Jazari craft used captive singularities as a power source, so the telltale signs of such a lethal malfunction were well known to Medaka’s officers.

  This was not something that could be simply ignored. Medaka had lost friends in the monstrous implosion shocks caused by such containment failures, and he had no desire to see it happen again, to aliens, to anyone.

  Helek was silent for a moment, measuring her response. “You will bear full responsibility for whatever transpires from this point forward, Commander.”

  Medaka gave a humorless snort. “You say that as if it is somehow uncommon, Major. Othrys is my ship, this is my crew, of course I am responsible.”

  “One metric to de-warp,” intoned Maian.

  Helek indicated a display on Sublieutenant Kort’s console. “There is a Federation starship waiting for us at those coordinates. Have you considered this may be a deliberate attempt to draw us across the border?”

  “The Titan.” Medaka sounded out the human name of the Starfleet vessel. “I am aware of it. It has been assigned to this sector for some time. I believe its captain is noted as being quite… resourceful.” He paused. “As to your question… If you believe this is some kind of ploy, what value would they gain from it?”

  “Who can know how humans think?” she replied.

  “They want nothing to do with us,” muttered Kort, almost unaware he was speaking aloud. “Their actions have made that truth clear.”

  Medaka drew himself up. “Our actions will make our truth clear, Sublieutenant.” He walked back to his command console in the middle of the bridge, placing one hand upon it. “Discard our cloak upon arrival.”

  Benem affirmed the order as Medaka activated a subroutine on his panel. The subspace communications band he had used a short time ago was reactivated, broadcasting across channels that both the Jazari and the Starfleet ship would be able to hear. It would not do, he told himself, for either of them to think that the Othrys is the vanguard of an invasion force.

  The warbird rumbled as it slowed from faster-than-light velocity, and the stars on the forward holograph normalized. Medaka could almost feel Major Helek’s glare burning into his back as he took a breath to speak; if she could have killed with that look, the woman would have been the Tal Shiar’s greatest assassin.

  A shimmer like rainwater across a window passed over the forward view as Othrys decloaked a few thousand spans off the bow of the Titan and the stricken Jazari platform. In the distance, a huge vessel of unknown design drifted in a haze of wreckage from surface damage.

  “What in the Praetor’s name is that?” hissed Kort.

  “We will find out soon enough,” he told his officers, and opened the comm channel. “Attention. This is Commander Medaka of the Romulan warbird Othrys. My crew and I are here to assist.”

  * * *

  Riker took in the shape of the Othrys, the warbird’s avian form. He knew this class of vessel well, having fought alongside them in battle years ago, against the renegade clone Shinzon. They were formidable, and not entrusted to just any rank-and-file captain.

  “That’s the one that we detected earlier,” said Troi.

  “Undoubtedly,” he agreed.

  At Riker’s side, Vale folded her arms across her chest. “Okay, what do they really want?”

  Troi’s lips thinned. “Chris, they’re offering to help.”

  “And if that doesn’t make you distrustful of their intentions, then nothing will,” Vale retorted. “Romulans: even their agendas have agendas.”

  The captain frowned. This wasn’t the time or the place to have a discussion about the nature of Romulan honesty. “Like it or not, we need all the assistance we can get right now.” He glanced toward Livnah’s station. “You think the output of a Mogai-class warbird will be enough to reinforce the warp shell?”

  “Likely,” said the science officer. Her arm went out to grab her panel for stability as new gravity shocks radiated through the deck. “Time is of the essence, sir.”

  Riker drew himself up to his full height. “All right then. Put me through.”

  The viewscreen blinked and he
was seeing into the metallic gray-green spaces of the Othrys’s command deck. A Romulan officer stood up to match him, a man with a head of ink-black hair and a face that seemed carved from teakwood. “Am I addressing Captain Riker?”

  “You are.”

  Medaka gave a solemn nod. “In the interest of alacrity, I will be brief. My ship intercepted the distress call from the Jazari reclaim platform and my officers have analyzed the inherent danger. Can I assume your people have done the same?”

  Riker returned the gesture. “We’ve detected an expanding subspace fracture inside the platform, leaking toxic particles into this region. If it stabilizes—”

  “The results would be catastrophic,” said the Romulan. “Your reputation precedes you, Captain, so I imagine you have a plan of action?”

  In quick order, Riker outlined their failed attempt to cap the growing anomaly. “We need more power to make it work, Commander. Can I count on you to back us up?”

  “A static warp shell… an intriguing solution.” Medaka turned to one of his subordinates, and shared a few words Riker could not hear. In that brief pause, he caught sight of a pale, stern-faced Romulan woman staring intently back at him from behind the Othrys’s commander. Then Medaka responded. “Yes, we can provide an energy source for this stratagem. But my officer informs me that we will be placing both our ships in harm’s way. Are you prepared for that, Captain Riker?”

  “We are, Commander Medaka.”

  The Romulan showed a faint smile. “Very well. Have your science officer transmit the matrix formulae for the warp shell to my ship. We will synchronize engagement in… one minute, by your reckoning. Do you concur?”

  “That works for us, sir,” Livnah called out from her station.