Into the splendid, knowing eyes of the Orion slave girl.
Chapter Fifteen
THE GOLDEN-HUED SHACKLES on the slave girl’s arms and legs gleamed luxuriantly against the rich green of her flesh. Stunned by the sight of her, Crusher couldn’t think of anything to say.
Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to pull the Orion inside the room. Her skin felt warm and supple to the touch—unnervingly so.
“So,” she said in a husky and not unpleasant voice. She took in the sight of the fallen Thallonian and his friend. “It seems you are Federation spies after all. They thought you might be.”
“You…” said the commander, finding his voice again. “You tried to warn us, didn’t you? When you were dancing?”
She tossed her black mane of hair and smiled, pursing her dark, full lips. Crusher was uncomfortably aware of the fact that the girl’s outfit didn’t cover very much.
“Yes,” she said in answer to his question. “But you were too absorbed in your charade to notice.”
The human’s first inclination was to object, but he didn’t think he would get very far. “Yes,” he conceded, “I was.”
“Commander…” said Tuvok.
Crusher held up a hand. His gut was telling him that this girl might be useful. She’d already tried to help them once….
“That was risky,” he said, trying to sound her out. “What you did on the stage, I mean.”
She laughed softly. “Not that risky. No one would suspect me of being intelligent enough to betray my master. I know what we are called, after all…Orion animal women. I also know that in Federation space, the kind of slavery our masters practice is illegal.”
The intensity of her stare was doing something to Crusher’s stomach—and regions slightly lower. The slave girl moved closer to him on her bare feet and gracefully raised her chains to the level of his face.
“I can help you escape,” she said invitingly, whether she had intended that kind of effect or not. “Take me with you. Free me.”
Her eyes, he thought, were pools of obsidian, the kind a man could get lost in forever. And that mouth….
“Commander,” Tuvok repeated, this time in a slightly more forceful tone of voice. “We only have so much time at our disposal.”
“I know,” said Crusher. He regarded the girl. “What’s your name?”
She looked surprised. “I—I don’t have one,” she replied. “The Master simply calls me…” and she uttered a word that was a local epithet regarding certain female body parts.
The commander winced. That did it.
“From now on…” he said, recalling how beautifully she had moved, how strong and graceful she had been, “from now on, you’re Grace. That is, until you choose a name for yourself.”
The slave girl seemed delighted. Her eyes shone gratefully. “Grace,” she repeated as if it were a toy.
Crusher couldn’t help smiling a bit as well. “So what kind of plan did you have in mind…Grace?”
She told him.
As the door to his guest quarters on Debennius II hissed shut behind him, Gerrid Thul smiled to himself.
After all, the foolish human captain had told him everything he needed to know. The Federation was a toothless beast unless asked to fight, and right now, both the Cordracites and the Melacron were hot for each other’s blood. They would not ask anyone to help them stop it.
Everything was going splendidly, the Thallonian told himself. There was only one more thing that needed to be done before the Cordracites and the Melacron went hurtling over the edge into a full-blown war.
Thul removed his oval-shaped communicator from his tunic and spoke into it. “This is the governor,” he said.
“Kaavin here,” his second-in-command replied crisply.
“I wish to return,” he told her.
A moment later, the air around him with filled with swirls of golden light. The next thing the Thallonian knew, he was standing on a raised pentagon in his vessel’s transporter facility.
The transporter technician inclined his large, hairless head. “My lord,” he said dutifully.
Thul didn’t say a thing. But then, he didn’t have to. On his ship, as in the colony he governed, he could do anything he liked.
As he descended from the pentagon, the doors to the room whisked open and Kaavin entered. Tall, slender and elegant, she stopped and inclined her head as well.
“Accompany me,” said Thul.
He walked out into the corridor, Kaavin at his side. Like any good Thallonian second-in-command, she would remain silent until he demanded something of her.
“Report,” the governor told her.
Kaavin glanced at him, all polish and efficiency. “Everything proceeds according to plan, my lord. No one appears to suspect our role in the massacre of the Melacronai colony.”
He nodded. “Good.”
Naturally, he thought, the Melacron had only seen what Thul wanted them to see—a Cordracite warship bearing down on a defenseless research outpost. That was what their sensors had picked up, what their now-deceased master scientist had screamed into her communications system before she was obliterated by the vessel’s energy fire.
Of course, if the Melacron hadn’t been so ill-disposed toward the Cordracites to begin with, they might have been more skeptical of the circumstances surrounding the attack. They might have looked beyond their loathing, beyond their species-hatred, and analyzed the colony’s sensor data with more sophisticated instruments.
If the Melacron had done that, they would surely have been in for a surprise—for they would have discovered that the aggressor vessel’s ion trail was different from the kind left by Cordracite warships. They would have seen, then, that it wasn’t a Cordracite vessel that attacked and destroyed Lir Kirnis and her esteemed colleagues after all, but another kind of ship entirely, its appearance altered to make it seem like a Cordracite vessel.
The Melacron didn’t have the wherewithal to disguise a spacegoing vehicle. Neither did the Cordracites or any other species in the sector. The Thallonians, on the other hand, had perfected magnetic-pulse imaging technology years earlier.
Granted, it was seldom used. But people only saw things where they thought to look for them. And what would the Thallonian Empire have to gain by exacerbating hostilities in the Kellasian sector?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
So instead of insisting on the truth, the Melacron shouted and screamed and raged at the top of their lungs, accusing the hated Cordracites of destroying a colony full of innocents. And the Cordracites, who of course knew they hadn’t done anything wrong, believed that the Melacron had simulated a massacre to set off a war.
And in both cases, Thul’s purposes were served.
The governor had always prided himself on his poise, his equilibrium. But as he and Kaavin approached a lift, he had to fight the urge to whoop with glee. It was going to work, he reflected, and work perfectly. The fools were going to destroy each other.
All it would take was one more outrageous, intolerable affront to tip the scales in favor of war, and Thul was about to see to it that that one final affront would take place.
“Bridge,” he said, as he and his second-in-command entered the lift compartment. A moment later, the doors whispered closed behind them and the compartment began its journey through the ship.
“When this is over,” the governor told Kaavin with a surge of generosity, “you will be amply rewarded.”
She looked at him, no doubt wondering in what shape the reward would come. After all, Thul’s second knew nothing about his ambitions—only that he wanted to spur a war in this sector. And being a loyal subject, she hadn’t questioned that ambition.
“I am honored,” Kaavin told him.
You don’t know how honored, the governor thought.
Then the lift doors opened and his ship’s bridge was revealed to him. At the sight of their lord, his officers leaned back in their seats and thrust their chins out.
br /> Thul smiled at them as he emerged from the lift compartment. They were Thallonians all. There was no mixture of inferior aliens here, such as could be seen on Picard’s Federation vessel. They were warriors, professionals. And whether they admitted it to themselves or not, they hungered as he did for something more than what their blood-rights had granted them.
Soon, the governor reflected, these steadfast souls would become the lords of his new empire. They would serve him as he presently served Tae Cwan and they would reap the benefits accorded such service.
Thul eased himself into his center seat and turned to his helmsman, a stocky fellow with a dueling scar down the side of his face. “Set course for the fleetyard on Cordra Three.”
He recited the coordinates from memory. He had been looking forward to this for a long time.
“Aye, lord,” replied the helmsman, and entered the course. The governor settled back to mull over the final stage of his plan.
His own vessel was now equipped with the same magnetic-pulse technology as the one that had destroyed the Melacronai outpost. Like the scientists at the outpost, the Cordracites at the fleetyard would never know it was a Thallonian ship that had attacked them.
As he watched the stars streak by at impulse speed on his forward monitor, Thul tried to picture the destruction of the fleetyard in all its brutal, explosive glory. It was difficult for him to do it justice.
But the results…those were easier for him to imagine. The war would get under way instantly, of course. And the first victory—thanks to his crippling of the Cordracites’ shipbuilding capabilities—would be claimed by the slightly weaker Melacron.
What’s more, he told himself, there would be several hundred fewer Cordracites for the Melacron to kill. And it would no doubt spur the victims’ kinsmen to violence unmatched in the history of the sector.
The governor smiled and thought of his son…his loyal, efficient, infinitely clever son. What Thallonian in his right mind would have imagined that Mendan Abbis could prove so useful to Thul’s cause? Who, indeed, but the governor himself?
Once he understood his father’s scheme, once he embraced it, the boy had risen to the challenge. He had executed each and every step of the plan flawlessly, knowing whom to contact for a particular assignment and how to make the most of their talents.
That alone would have been enough, Thul reflected. No—it would have been more than enough. But in addition, Mendan Abbis had demonstrated a flair for the dramatic.
The assassination of the Melacronai G’aha, the bomb that slew the Cordracite commuters, the poisoning of the reservoir on Cordia III…all these things were accomplished with a sense of theater and spectacle that would have been a credit to the most skillful Thallonian courtier.
Thul sighed. He had not done right by the boy as a child; he knew that. He recalled showing up for a visit at his humble home every so often, handing Mendan’s mother a small pouch full of latinum and regarding the fruit of their reckless union with patrician distaste.
Whose fault had it been, then, that Abbis had grown up with a chip on his shoulder—with a sense of inferiority and a need to prove himself at every opportunity? Whose fault but that of his father?
But that was over, the governor promised himself. He’d given the boy a chance and Mendan Abbis, bastard, had seized it better than any privileged Thallonian whelp ever could have.
Thul himself had been snubbed by his Emperor because he wasn’t high-born enough to marry Mella Cwan. The governor would never make that mistake when he sat on a throne. His Empire would be based on merit, on skill and talent, not on accidents of birth.
As for Mendan Abbis…he would get what his father had promised him: a seat on Thul’s right hand, the time-honored place of the Emperor’s rightful heir. And why not?
The boy had earned it.
The commander and his Vulcan companion stumbled into the heart of the dance hall, clad in the filthy, smelly garb of their guards, which they had liberally sprinkled with alcoholic beverages.
Crusher hoped no one noticed how poorly Tuvok’s clothes fit—an unfortunate but unavoidable problem given the differences between the ensign’s spare physique and that of Old Scowly’s lookalike. With luck, any potential observer would be more interested in Grace, who walked between the Starfleet officers with her arms linked through theirs.
There was a Pandrilite on the stage and the loud music that accompanied her gyrations thundered in the commander’s bones, more primal than the subtle, sultry sound of the flute to which Grace had danced. The place was significantly more crowded as well, though Crusher wouldn’t have believed such a thing was possible.
He laughed and pretended to fall in his drunkenness, then called something to one of the other dancing girls. But that was only what would have been expected of him. And Grace held her head high, saying without words that she had two customers who wanted her favors tonight, and wasn’t she just glorious enough to deserve it.
Thus they walked unnoticed and unchallenged to the private quarters where more intimate business was transacted, and Grace closed the door. Inside were a few beds covered with rank-smelling linens, and a couple of candles that represented a pathetic attempt at ambiance.
Grace’s feral face shone in the yellow light. “No one suspected anything,” she told the commander.
He nodded. “Excellent.”
“Indeed,” Tuvok added.
Grace went to the room’s only window and opened it with an effort. The soft sounds and hard, pungent smells of the night wafted to them on cool, moist drafts of air.
“If you have access to this room and this window,” asked Crusher, “why haven’t you run away before now?” He found he was a little suspicious at how easy their progress had been to this point.
The slave girl gestured to her shackles. “I have these on all the time, except when I dance. And this,” she said, pointing to a tiny box that flashed red and blue and was suspended from the shackles, “will not permit me to leave the building.”
The commander decided that he believed her. Wordlessly, he drew the energy weapon formerly owned by Mendan Abbis. Understanding his intent, Grace held out her hands and stood still.
Crusher’s objective was to destroy the control box without hurting Grace—not as easy as it sounded with an unfamiliar weapon in his hand. His eyes met hers and she nodded trustingly, clenching her jaw.
The human took a breath to steady himself. Then he placed the weapon’s nose within six centimeters of the box and pressed the trigger. The weapon spit out a dark blue stream of energy.
Grace gritted her teeth against the heat. Sparks flew haphazardly. But after a few seconds, there was a satisfying crack and the box clattered to the floor in two pieces. Grace laughed wildly from her belly.
“Free!” she whispered, and savagely kicked at the box, sending it scuttling along the floor.
“We will only remain that way if we make haste,” Tuvok warned them, and this time Crusher wasn’t inclined to argue with him.
They helped Grace out the window first—though with her catlike agility, she didn’t need much assistance. The Vulcan went next and the commander brought up the rear.
As Crusher poked his head out, he saw that his companions were standing in a narrow alleyway alongside the dance hall. Clambering through the window opening and swinging down, he landed in something that squished and smelled awful. Fortunately, the darkness prevented him from analyzing the substance too carefully.
“We must return to our ship,” Tuvok told Grace.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“In the foothills west of town,” said the commander. “Don’t worry, we know the way.”
The Orion snarled softly beneath her breath. It was a sound Crusher had never heard before.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We are on the easternmost side of the city,” she pointed out. “By the time we reach your vessel, they will have found Mendan Abbis and his friend and realized that I am gone
.”
“And they will overtake us,” the Vulcan concluded.
Grace nodded—and even that small gesture was alluring. “Can you not purchase passage on a—?”
“No,” Tuvok said emphatically.
Crusher shrugged, apologizing for his friend and agreeing with him in the same gesture. “I’m afraid it’s not an option.”
“Very well,” the Orion told them. “Follow me.” And she started off down the length of the alley.
“We came from the other direction,” the commander told her, plodding through the muck to catch up.
“I am aware of that,” Grace replied. “However, if you take the direct way back, we will almost certainly be caught. I know a more winding route that may get us there safely.”
Crusher looked back at Tuvok. The ensign looked concerned about the change in plans, but he came along.
Grace turned out to know the streets rather well for someone who had to that point in her life been prevented from leaving the dance hall. What’s more, she seemed to have an instinct for when to duck into the shadows and when to slip boldly out into the moonlight.
The commander asked her about it.
“I have many hours,” she whispered back. “I talk with the men who come to me. They tell me much, not thinking that I am truly listening to them. They even show me maps—pointing out their businesses, their homes, where they like to eat.” Her voice dripped contempt.
And Crusher didn’t blame her one iota. It couldn’t have been an easy life she had led.
Later, when they were sitting in the lee of a building waiting for a band of drunken revelers to make their way across the street, he asked her another question. “How long have you been on Debennius Six, Grace?”
The slave girl turned to look up at him. Her face was cloaked in deep shadow, but her bright green eyes caught the light of a streetlamp and glittered like distant stars.
Crusher had heard all the rumors about Orion “animal women,” how no man could resist them, how they were all heat and allure and violent sexuality. He knew now that the rumors were true. Like a witch out of Terran folklore, Grace had already cast a spell on him.