Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (11 page)

Jim nodded slowly, now fully understanding those deaths by “natural causes.”

Ael sat silent for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. “Gentlemen,” Ael said, “I will be open with you. I am a warrior, and I find peace very dull. But honor I cherish; and I see, with the completion and release of this technique, the rise of a new Romulan Empire that will have lost the last vestiges of the glory and honor of the old one. I have sworn oaths to that Empire, to serve it loyally. To stand by and do nothing about the destruction of the ancient and noble tradition on which that Empire is based, is to put the knife into it oneself. I will not. The research station at Levaeri V must be destroyed before the information and materials stored there can be disseminated throughout the Empire.”

Jim and Spock and McCoy looked at one another. It was now very plain what Starfleet’s problem had been—for there was no hinting at this situation in the open. If the Klingons heard so much as a word about it, they would be at war with the Romulans instantly, trying to get their hands on the same technology. It might not work as well for them, but that would hardly matter; once they had subordinated Romulan space, which was the buffer between them and the Federation, the next step would be to cross the former Neutral Zone and attack the only remaining enemy.
And
—the thought sent a cold chill down Jim’s back—
how many officials in the Federation, on any one of a thousand planets, would be willing to pay any price for such an advantage over their opponents? Even benevolent motives couldn’t be trusted. They might start out that way, but they wouldn’t stay there. Any power of this magnitude corrupts absolutely….

“Commander,” Jim said slowly, “this is information we’ve come a long way to hear. And we thank you very much for warning us of this danger. But there’s something I don’t understand. Why are you telling us this? I can’t be said to know you well; we’ve only just met. But I’ve fought you often enough to know that you never do anything without a good reason.”

Ael looked at him tranquilly for a moment, and again, very briefly, Jim had a flash of combined admiration and envy of her composure. She then tipped her head back to look around the room. “Captain,” she said, “do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamt of blowing this ship up?”

It seemed a moment for honesty. “Probably about as many times as I’ve dreamed about blowing up yours.” That sounded a little bald, and Jim added, “Of course, it would have been a great pity….”

“Yes,” she said absently, “it would have been a shame to blow up
Enterprise,
too. The workmanship appears excellent.” She flashed a smile at him: Jim became aware that he was being teased. “Captain, I come to you because I see my world in danger—and incidentally yours—and there’s no more help to be found among my friends. At such a time, with millions and billions of lives riding on what is done, pride dies, and one has recourse to one’s enemies. Of all my enemies I esteem you highest; you are a fierce combatant, but you’ve never been less than courteous with me—valorous in the best sense of the word, a warrior who deals in hard knocks or careful courtesy, nothing in between. Excluding, for the moment, various small subterfuges and thefts in the past.” Now she did not smile; this was not teasing. “I too have been ordered in the past to do things I found hateful, so I understand the necessity of what you once did to my sister’s-daughter—”

“The other Romulan commander—she’s your
niece
?” McCoy said.

“Was,” said Ael. “I agree that sooner or later we shall have to deal with that old business, Captain. But right now there is new business far more pressing. Levaeri V must be destroyed!”

“I agree,” Jim said. “But if preventing war is one of your aims, Commander, then we have a problem. While I am willing to overlook the presence of your ship on this side of the Zone, your High Command would never overlook that of
Enterprise
in Romulan space. I suspect you want
Enterprise
to come in and assist you in the destruction of this base, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But our crossing the Zone would be a breach of the Federation-Romulan Treaty, and an act of war.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Ael,” McCoy said, “we’re unmistakably a Federation craft. There’s no disguising the
Enterprise
as a Romulan warbird, no matter what you suggest we do to our ID! How do you propose to get us into Romulan space without getting us discovered and shot at?”

She leaned back in her chair and favored them, one after another, with a look that Jim could only call mischievous. “I was thinking of capturing the
Enterprise,
” she said to Jim. “Would you mind?…”

Jim looked quietly at Ael. “If that was a joke,” he said, “it was a poor one. And if this is a trap of some kind, good workmanship or not, I am going to reduce
Bloodwing
to its component atoms—or die trying.”

Ael smiled at Jim, as if seeing a response she had expected, and enjoyed. “It was no joke,” she said. “And it is no trap. I may be desperate, but am I mad, to threaten you under a destroyer’s guns? Do you think I don’t know
Inaieu
is hanging five kilometers off your starboard side, and
Constellation
is closing in fast as per your orders? Give me credit for intelligence if nothing else, Captain.”

“That,” he said, “if nothing else, Commander. What exactly are you proposing?”

“That you join with me in a bit of subterfuge that will be, as my son has told you, as much to your advantage as to mine. Working together, we will set it up so that it will appear, to any Romulan observer, that the
Enterprise
has been bested in an engagement—disabled, boarded, manned by Romulans from my crew. We will so advertise the situation to Romulan High Command, and prepare to tow your ‘conquered’ ship in to the Romulus-Remus system. Even if Command should send us an escort—which possibility is difficult to predict, ships for Neutral Zone patrol being grudged right now, due to our problem with the Klingons—there would still be no real difficulty in maintaining the ruse. There is no way to sort the types of life-readings, Romulan from hominid or alien, using our ships’ sensors; only numbers can be counted. Your crew would remain aboard your ship, running it possibly from the auxiliary bridge, where control would reside…and the bridge would be full of Romulans, who would handle all communications with other Romulan ships and otherwise maintain the illusion.”

“Now,
wait
a moment!” McCoy said.

“Bones, hold your thought. Ael, assuming I should agree to this outrageousness—what would be our justification for passing by Levaeri V on our way in to Romulus-Remus? Such a high-security establishment as you’re describing would surely have traffic routed away from it normally—”

“Normally,” she said, “of course it does. But what would be normal about capturing the
Enterprise?
Questions of revenge aside—and there are various people at Command who would be only too delighted to tear you apart limb from limb—there are also the legates, who have multiple warrants out for the arrest of you and Mr. Spock on those old espionage charges. Don’t look so left out, Doctor; there are writs out on you too, as I understand it, for aiding and abetting an act of espionage, complicity in the impersonation of a Romulan officer, various other things…. But in any case Command would want the
Enterprise
brought in by the swiftest and most straightforward route, to reduce your chance of having time to improvise an escape. From this part of space, our course in to Romulus-Remus lies right past Levaeri V. I planned it so. We drove the destroyer Romulan ship
Cuirass
to this location before engaging it, for that very purpose. Now we have an excuse to be here—and radiation trails that conform to the story we will be telling.”

Jim leaned forward a bit, grinning. It was a treat to hear this wicked mind working out loud. The only problem was that there was no way to tell whether what Ael was proposing was on the level. Unless…

“Commander,” he said, “I make you no promises, but you’re beginning to interest me. Tell me ‘our story.’”

“Why, only this,” she said, smiling back at him, “that
Cuirass,
which I command—at least it will seem to be
Cuirass,
for I have a copy of that ship’s ID solid aboard
Bloodwing,
ready to be installed—that
Cuirass
detected
Enterprise
violating our space, and followed her out into the Zone, where she attempted to bring us to battle, but suffered mechanical difficulties—which I suspect your chief engineer, whom we also know well, can fake without too much difficulty. That, unable to run, and with damage to your warp engines, we had only to draw you into exhausting your firepower, and then wear your shields down with fire of our own, to reduce you to a position where you (with your well-known compassion for your crew) were left helpless enough to be unable to repel a boarding action. With your bridge taken and your crew under the threat of having your own intruder-control systems used on them—a swift killer, that gas—you surrendered the ship to buy their lives. My crew manned control positions on your ship, placed her in tow, and headed for home.”

It was plausible. It was even doable. “There have been other ships in the area, though,” Jim said. “Anyone tracing your iontrail and ours would also note the passage of first
Intrepid,
then
Constellation
and
Inaieu
—”

“True. But it’s difficult to accurately place such residues in time, is it not? Their decay is not regular, especially in the space hereabouts, where you have noticed the weather has been bad lately.” Ael tipped her head to one side, regarding Jim. “And by the time anyone follows our trails out this far and returns within subspace radio range of Levaeri V, it will be too late. We will already have done what we came for.
Enterprise
and
Bloodwing
will break away from the escort, if any—”

“You mean take them all on and blow them up?” McCoy said incredulously. “How many ships come in an escort, anyway?”

“For
Enterprise,
they would hardly send fewer than two. Four, at the most, would be my guess.”

Bones looked incredulously from Spock to Jim and back again. “We’re just going to ‘break away’ from four fully-armed Romulan cruisers, probably those Klingon-model cruisers—”

“You gentlemen will not fail me,” Ael said, perfectly calm. “This
is
the
Enterprise,
after all…. Once we have scrapped the escort, destroying Levaeri V should not be too much of a problem.”

“I imagine not,” Jim said. “But, Commander, what about the loss of life?”

“The Romulans doing the research have not been too concerned about that,” Ael said coolly, “especially where the Vulcans have been concerned. I did not think that would be so much of an issue for you. Perhaps I miscalculated.”

“Perhaps.” Jim thought of about seventy things he wanted to shout at her, none of which would have done him or her any good; this woman might look almost Earth-human, but he had to keep reminding himself that their respective branches of humanity had very different mores indeed. “Mr. Spock,” he said after a little while, “opinions?”

Spock looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Commander,” he said, turning to her for a moment, “I would ask you not to take anything I say as a slight against your honor.”

She bowed her head to him, the gracious gesture of nobility to one almost a peer. Jim started to get very annoyed.

“Captain,” Spock said, “the plan is an audacious one. Its odds for success in its early stages are very high. However, I advise you most strongly against it. There are too many variables, unknowns, things that can go wrong at the plan’s far end. Even should one of our allies suggest such an operation, having a spare Romulan ship with falsified ID on hand, Starfleet would have no mercy on the plan if it miscarried. And with the suggestion coming from a representative of a power with whom the Federation has long been on the fringes of war—”

“Amen to that, Mr. Spock,” McCoy growled. “Whole thing’s a pack of nonsense.”

“No, Doctor,” Spock said, eyeing him, “that it is not. The commander’s plan is excellently reasoned—but the risks in its later stages become unacceptably high. For a Vulcan, at least. Captain?”

Jim looked at Ael. “You say that you are willing to forgo pride for the time being,” he said. “Then I hope you’ll pardon me, but this has to be said. How do we know you’re not lying? Or worse—how do we know you haven’t been brainwashed into thinking this is the truth you’re telling us, so that you can safely lay your honor on the line?”

Ael breathed out once, leaving Jim to wonder whether a sigh meant the same thing to Romulans as it did to his branch of humanity. “Captain,” she said, “of course you had to say that. But there is a way to find out, one that strikes to the heart of this whole matter. Ask Mr. Spock if he will consent to subject me to a mindmeld.”

Jim looked at Spock. Spock was still as stone. “It’s true,” McCoy said. “There are ways of blocking or tampering with a mind that won’t show up under verifier scan—but will in mindmeld. It would be conclusive, Jim.”

“I had thought of it,” Jim said. “But I didn’t want to suggest it.” And he said nothing more.

A few seconds went silently by. Finally Spock looked at Ael and said, very quietly, “I will do this, Commander.” He glanced over at Jim. “Captain, somewhere more private would be appropriate.”

“Your quarters?”

“Those would do very well. Commander, will you accompany me? The captain and the doctor will join us shortly.”

“Certainly.”

Out they went together, the Vulcan and the Romulan, and Jim had to stare after them. There was something so alike about them—not just the racial likeness, either. “Well, Bones,” he said, “get it off your chest.”

McCoy leaned forward on the couch, elbows on knees, and stared at Jim. “How much I have to get off,” he said, “depends on what you’re going to do.”

“Nothing, until we have Spock’s assessment of what the inside of her mind looks like.”

“And what if she
is
telling the truth, Jim? Are you tellin’ me you’re going to go off on some damn fool chase into interdicted territory, probably get us surrounded by Romulans again like the last time—but this time on purpose? We’re just going to
sit
there and be towed into Romulan space under escort! Why don’t we just tie ourselves up and jump out the airlocks in our underwear? Save us all a lot of—”

“Bones,”
Jim said, not angrily, but loudly; sometimes when McCoy got started on one of these it was hard to stop him. Bones subsided.

“I am
not
seriously considering it,” Jim said. “Even if she
is
telling the truth. What I’m trying to figure out is what to do about what she’s told us. This information is too sensitive to do anything but whisper in a Fleet Admiral’s ear; I wouldn’t dare send it via subspace radio, buoy, or any other means that might be intercepted, decoded, anything. Too much rests on it—as far as that goes, she’s not understating. None of the ships can leave the task force, and I’m sure as Hell not going to send an unarmed shuttlecraft or one of
Inaieu
’s little couriers off with it. Plus I have other problems on my mind.” He reached out to the table and hit one of the ’com switches on it. “Bridge. Mr. Scott.”

“Scott here.”

“Scotty, how’re our Romulan friends?”

“Quiet as mice, Captain. Back on their original course, holding steady at warp five and one light-second.”

“Any communications?”

“None, sir.”

“Very well. Give me Uhura.”

“She’s offshift, sir,”
said another voice.
“Lieutenant Mahasë.”

“Oh. Fine. Mr. Mahasë, call the Romulan ship. My compliments to Subcommander Tafv, and we are still conferring with the commander. No progress to report as yet, should he inquire.”

“
Right, sir. By the way, Captain, we have another message from
Intrepid.”

“Live message, or canned?”

“Canned, sir. They left it recorded in a squirt on the satellite zone-monitoring station we just passed—NZRM 4488. The ion storm was holding steady at force six; they expected it to begin tapering down any time. Sensors still show a lot of lively hydrogen up that way, though. We’ll be running into it ourselves shortly.”

Jim rubbed his eyes.
Damn weather…
“Well, keep trying to reach them in realtime—they ought to be appraised of what’s going on back here. Anything else I should know?”

“Mr. Chekov wants to take just one shot at
Bloodwing,
Captain. Just for practice.”

“Tell him to go take a cold shower when his shift’s over,” Jim said. “Kirk out. Come on, Bones, let’s go see if the truth really
will
out.”