Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (39 page)

“If Scotty didn’t think you could handle the stress, he wouldn’t have appointed you captain.”

“Yeah.”

“And if Starfleet didn’t think you could handle it, they wouldn’t have approved the appointment.”

“Yeah.”

“And I know you’ve been in worse situations than having a ship full of rescued Romulans.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to say anything except ‘yeah’?”

“Y-Yes. It’s not just that they’re Romulans, it’s . . . her.”

“Sela.” La Forge nodded. Leah wasn’t crass enough to jokingly suggest that Sela was an ex from hell, but the thought crossed her mind. She knew better. “She looks a lot like your friend, Tasha.”

“It’s not just that.”

“Tell me.” He still hesitated. “Geordi . . . We had secrets from each other when we first met”—a generous way of putting it—“but not since. Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”

“I know you will, it’s just . . . It’s something that I can’t really understand. Or remember.”

“Remember?”

“You know about my being a prisoner of the Romulans, and being programmed like a remote to assassinate a Klingon governor?”

“Yes.”

“She’s the one who did it.”

Leah was too stunned to think of a suitable response. Going to visit Sela with a plasma welder didn’t sound particularly suitable, thought it was a very attractive idea. “I’m so sorry . . .”

“She was in command of the mission, and gave the orders. She didn’t perform the surgery.” He ran a hand across the top of his head.

“You know what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.”

“So I’ve heard, thanks for reminding me.”

Leah’s expression softened, and she took him by the arms. “Geordi.”

“I know.”

“I just can’t really say it to her the way I’d mean it, without causing a diplomatic incident that the Federation Council wouldn’t really thank me for.”

“Female of the species, huh?”

“On this occasion, yes.”

“It’s not just who she is that’s bothering me—it’s
what
she is now. Chairman of the Tal Shiar.”

“That’s a big-picture player.”

“It’s one they’re not going to let stay with us for long,” Geordi said. He fell silent, wondering just how much trouble the disappearance of such a high government figure would cause.

C
hallenger
circled Pulsar Alpha Six-Four at one-quarter impulse power. Both governments had agreed that this was a suitable location for a Romulan delegation to come and recover their people.

“There’s not a lot of the Romulan ship left,” Nog reported from his tactical console. “The wing that was severed in their crash is the only piece larger than a slip of latinum.”

“Thanks Nog.” La Forge turned to Sela, who was waiting with a pair of the
Challenger
’s security guards just outside the turbolift. La Forge shivered, thinking that she looked like she belonged on the bridge. Whether because
of Romulan arrogance, or because she looked so like her mother, who had once held the
Enterprise
’s tactical position, he wasn’t sure. “Do you want us to tractor the wreckage we’ve located? We can bring it in for you if you—”

“No.” It sounded like an order rather than a response, and he actually felt the tiniest glimpse of an urge to follow it. Maybe it was a remnant of what she had once done to him. Maybe she was testing to see how much of the conditioning remained.

“It’s your choice,” Geordi said with a shrug, “but the offer’s there.”

“Thank you.” She glanced at the main viewer, where the pulsar turned rapidly. “I think I’d best see the warbird’s crew now. I’m sure they’re being treated well.”

“They are.” La Forge bit off the urge to make a point about Starfleet treating its captives civilly. He didn’t want her to see that kind of reaction from him. “The injured are in sickbay, and we’ve turned cargo bays two and three into makeshift accommodations. These officers will take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Anywhere? That’s very generous.”

“Anywhere within reason.” He nodded to the security guards, who escorted Sela into the lift. He was relieved to see her go, and surprised to find that he had dug his nails into his palms without even noticing.

Leah, in what had been the counselor’s seat on the
Enterprise,
leaned in toward him as he took his seat. “Captain,” she whispered for his ears alone. “Maybe whatever hit them might still be in the vicinity. Considering the state of the Romulan ship, any such mystery vessel might also be damaged.”

“Or destroyed.”

Leah shook her head. “I think if it was destroyed we’d
have found wreckage from it as well as the Romulan ship.”

“Unless all the wreckage went into subspace.”

“There’s a subspace element to whatever these things are, but they can’t exist just in subspace, or the Romulan ship could never have sustained that kind of physical damage.”

“Fair point.”

“If it’s damaged, it might be leaking energy, or radiation, or plasma, that we can search for or track. And that’ll be the best way to look, because it’s probably either cloaked or otherwise not immediately recognizable.”

“The Romulans obviously didn’t see it coming,” La Forge agreed.

“It probably traveled on further, and maybe it didn’t stop at all, but any energy leakage will be more discernible as we move away from the site of this explosion.”

“I agree, Qat’qa. Plot a search pattern. A spherical expanding spiral search.”

“Apple peel, sir?”

La Forge was momentarily surprised at Qat’qa’s comment, then laughed. “Exactly. Engage search pattern apple peel, on one-quarter impulse.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I’ll adjust the sensors to scan for subspace kinetodynamic energy signatures,” Leah said, rising from her seat. “That’s the most likely wake this thing will have left.”

“Make it—” Geordi caught himself. What Picard would do was one thing, but what Picard would say was another. “Go right ahead.”

“Chairman Sela, almost lost?” Gell Kamemor still couldn’t believe what had happened. If the Tal Shiar chairman was one thing and one thing only, she was secure. She had had to
be, as her position was vital to the Empire. “What happened?”

“We’re not certain yet, Praetor,” Proconsul Tomalak replied. “We know that the vessel she was aboard was sabotaged, and sent out of control. The intent seems to have been to crash the ship into a pulsar, with the chairman aboard. An overthought assassination plan, in my opinion. Not efficient.”

Kamemor frowned and said, “Could there have been Federation involvement in the sabotage?”

“We know the saboteur was Director Jano Vellil of the Tal Shiar’s technical directorate. He claims to have acted to avenge the late chairman Rehaek, but if he colluded with Federation agents to do so, our interrogators will soon find out,” Tomalak promised.

Saldis had never actually left Romulus, nor even seen the world from orbit, until the trip to Glintara. As soon as he had materialized on the warbird
Tomalak’s Fist
, he had rushed to find a viewport and looked down at the planet below. He knew that words such as “down” and “below” meant nothing other than that he was surface-centric and thought the same way that most Romulans did.

It was quite beautiful, he thought. Pale green and blue, wreathed in white. The grimy sodium and mustard ball of Remus was off to the left, far behind the homeworld. Both planets suddenly looked so small and fragile. It was hard to believe that even the most loyal servant of the Empire, such as himself, could keep such a fragile jewel secure and safe. The tiniest quirk of infinity—a comet here, a meteor there—and all the Tal Shiar and military combined wouldn’t make a difference.

None of which made his duty any less worthwhile.

“Subcommander Saldis, I presume?” A crisp voice drew
his attention. It was a man in the uniform and insignia of a commander in the fleet. He was older than Saldis, as evidenced by lines around his deep-set eyes, and taller than Saldis by half a head. He looked lean and fighting fit. “When they told me you were one of the people who keeps an eye on our homeworlds, I didn’t think they meant it so literally.”

That had been four days ago, and so much had changed since then. Now he felt like a loose end, while his superior, Chairman Sela, was in the hands of Starfleet. He didn’t blame Starfleet, not yet; they just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or did they? Perhaps they were backing Jano Vellil in his assassination attempt. Perhaps it never was an assassination, but all a plot for the Federation to kidnap the head of the Tal Shiar and drain her knowledge.

Either way, Saldis wished he could get his hands around Vellil’s throat right now. Then he felt a sudden calm, and decided he was wrong. He was glad that he didn’t have the traitor in his grasp. Throttling him would be too much of a mercy. The techs in the Information Recovery Directorate were the right people to have him. He hoped they were having fun.

“I found it!” Barclay leapt from his seat at ops, then sat back down with a hint of embarrassment.

“You found . . . whatever hit the Romulan ship?”

“Captain, I’m reading subspace kinetodynamic energy patterns. They’re fading already, which is making it difficult to tell which direction they’re coming from and which way they went.”

“There’s no difference in the strength?” La Forge asked.

“Not that I can tell. It is definitely aligned with a trans-slipstream wake. I thought I’d check for a wake between the implosion site and a vector that would have caused the Romulan ship’s wing to attain its current position, and”—Barclay
cut himself off, seeing the impatient expression on the captain’s face—“whatever caused the wake caused the energy pattern.”

“So, definitely a ship . . .”

“And definitely a form of drive technology totally unknown to us,” Leah added, sounding impressed, and Geordi knew exactly how rare that was. “This could be an ideal next step after quantum slipstream. I wonder how they’re generating the—”

La Forge’s next words were knocked from him, along with every air molecule in his lungs, as he was suddenly pitched sideways over Leah. Mercifully, everything went dark and silent before he could have heard the dull thud of his own head slamming into the wall.

“It’s beautiful,” Captain James T. Kirk commented. “Quite deadly, but beautiful all the same.”

“Indeed, Captain,” Spock agreed.

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott was at the bridge engineering station to Kirk’s left flank, and he was as entranced as they were by the shimmering golden and purple curtain that was stretched across their path. It was made of immense levels of some energy that even Spock’s sensors couldn’t identify. It was so dense and bright that it looked like several layers of translucent rubber bands, ready to spring anything back the way it had come.

“It may be beautiful,” Scotty grumbled, “but it’s between us and home.”

“Rojan was sure that his engine modifications will work to get us through,” Kirk said.

Scotty doubted it. The barrier was too damn good a repelling field. He wondered if the Kelvan machine was actually carrying them through at all, or whether it had somehow carried them around. Maybe in subspace . . .

“Subspace?” Kirk echoed, and Scotty realized he had spoken aloud.

“Aye . . . I’m just wondering if that machine of Rojan’s somehow takes us between normal space and subspace.”

“You are suggesting,” Spock said, “that the device has a partial phasing effect, to let us through the barrier.” He raised one eyebrow in thought. “Logical, Mister Scott. It is clear that the barrier is impenetrable in normal space.” He peered into his viewer. “However, I am not detecting any sign of the
Enterprise
being phased in any way.”

“Just because ye canna detect it, that doesn’t mean it’s not there, Mister Spock.”

“It is impossible to prove a negative,” Spock agreed. “But if it is beyond our capability to detect, then it is beyond our capability to replicate, or to exploit.”

Scotty nodded sadly. “Aye.”

Challenger
wasn’t there. Empty space stared back out of the main viewer, mocking Varaan and Saldis. A few scraps of wreckage from the
Stormcrow
were the only artificial objects near this part of the Neutral Zone border, and there was no sign of the
Challenger.

Varaan sat in his seat on the bridge, his features an unreadable mask, but Saldis couldn’t keep his outrage in check. “Where are they? The Federation has lied to us!”

Varaan nodded slowly. “And they’ll pay for that. But we must report back what has happened. Cooler heads must plan our strategy.” He rose. “Scan the system thoroughly. I want to know everything that has happened here. Weapons fire, engine trails, everything.”

Still orbiting Glintara, the conference room aboard the praetor’s personal flagship was a hive of angry chatter.
“What is happening?” Gell Kamemor demanded of the admirals and generals in the room.

“We’re not certain yet, Praetor,” Proconsul Tomalak replied. “We know that the Starfleet vessel
Challenger
took her and a warbird’s crew aboard and promised to return them, but now the
Challenger
has herself disappeared. Either the Starfleet ship has abducted our people—including the chairman, who must be a priceless prize for their interrogators, or has been destroyed herself. Commander Varaan reports finding no wreckage near the coordinates, other than that of the
Stormcrow.”

“Why would they let us know they had the chairman, if they intended to keep her?” Kamemor wondered aloud. “It makes no sense.”

“Humans rarely do, in my experience,” Tomalak said. “But it is clear that they had her, and must still have her. Their reasoning is largely irrelevant in the face of that simple fact.”

Kamemor nodded. “Has Starfleet issued a statement?”

“They claim to have lost contact with the
Challenger
and that they do not know what has happened to her. Which could simply be a play for time.”

“The simplest explanation is usually the correct one,” one of the generals agreed.

“We should prepare to take action,” an admiral said. “This happening on the anniversary of your accession can’t be a coincidence. It’s a test of our resolve.”