His first officer grunted. “I know how long it’s going to take us.” He looked at the viewscreen less than optimistically. “Of the two of us, sir, I would put my money on the Thallonians.”
It wasn’t what the captain had wanted to hear.
Chapter Eighteen
THUL SAT BACK IN HIS CHAIR and tried to control his anger. “You’re certain?” he asked his sensor officer.
“Quite certain, my lord,” said the Thallonian. “They are just as helpless as we are.”
The governor eyed the Stargazer, which was hanging in the void like a crippled bird. Without shields, she was utterly defenseless. One good energy barrage would destroy her.
But the Thallonian vessel couldn’t muster an energy barrage. With its weapons systems offline, it couldn’t muster a single shot.
“Make the weapons systems operational!” he demanded of Ubbard.
“Yes, my lord,” said the weapons officer, placating him as best he could. “As soon as possible, my lord.”
The governor scowled. He didn’t want obeisance. For the love of the Twelve, he wanted results.
“Governor,” said his sensor officer, “another ship has entered the vicinity of the fleetyard.”
Thul looked at him, trying to absorb the unexpected information. “A…Cordracite ship?” he wondered.
That could prove disastrous, the governor reflected. To think he had had the entire fleetyard at his mercy not so long ago…and now he was worrying about a single vessel!
“No, my lord,” said the sensor officer, scrutinizing his monitors. “It appears to be a Durikkan vessel. But its commander identifies himself as Mendan Abbis…a Thallonian.”
Thul’s brow creased. Mendan…?
What was the boy doing there? Certainly, he had known of the governor’s plan to attack the fleetyard, since Thul had held nothing back from him. However, they had made no plans to rendezvous here.
The governor stroked his chin. “Answer the vessel’s hail, Nakso. And establish a visual link.”
“Yes, my lord,” came the woman’s response.
Abruptly, the image on the viewscreen changed. Thul found he was no longer looking at the crippled Stargazer, but rather the familiar visage of his bastard son.
“Why are you here?” the governor asked, intensely aware of the questions Mendan’s presence would raise among his command staff.
“Why?” the boy echoed, smiling a thin smile. “I’ve been informed that you lied to me.” His voice was strangely cold, strangely distant.
“What?” Thul couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Lied…?” He glanced at the faces of his bridge officers, who looked stunned. After all, they had never seen their lord receive such an affront.
Mendan’s eyes narrowed. “I encountered some Starfleet officers on Debennius Six,” he said. “They knew everything…and I mean everything…though I still have no idea how.”
The governor felt the scrutiny of Kaavin, Ubbard, and the others. His face flushed. “This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion,” he told his son.
“I beg to differ,” Mendan replied. “These Starfleet people…they said you had no intention of making me heir to your new empire, Father.” He leaned forward in his seat. “They told me that once you had gotten what you wanted, you were going to kill me—that you wanted a son of noble lineage, not some poor, stupid bastard.”
The boy fairly spat out the word, making Thul feel as though a knife had been twisted into his gut. And now his officers were exchanging wide-eyed glances, putting the pieces together for themselves.
But then, they would have found out his intentions eventually, the governor told himself. If it came a little sooner, what difference did it make? None at all, Thul reflected.
More importantly, Mendan’s vessel was well-armed for its size, and the governor’s ship was an easy target at the moment. If the boy acted out of anger and resentment, without thinking…
Thul shook his head. “No, Mendan,” he said, hoping his sincerity would come through in his voice, “it’s not true. I don’t know what these Starfleeters told you, but they are the liars—not I.”
He searched his son’s face, to see if his protest had had any effect. But the hardness in Mendan didn’t seem to have gone away.
The governor swallowed away a dryness in his throat. “I swear on my life,” he said. “I could never betray my own offspring.”
Still the boy remained silent, inscrutable.
“You have earned your place at my side,” Thul assured him. “More than earned it. You know I will not live forever. Who better to guide my empire after I am gone than the only son of my flesh?”
Mendan continued to stare at him—and for the space of a heartbeat, the governor was certain that his bastard would destroy him after all. Then, finally, the boy nodded.
“I believe you,” he told his father in a more animated voice. “In fact, I never doubted you for a moment.”
Thul’s eyes narrowed. “Then why…?”
“Why did I tell you all this?” asked Mendan. He smiled, and for just a moment, the governor thought he saw the child he had shunned and neglected shining through the eyes of the adult. “Because I wanted to hear the truth from your own mouth, Father.”
The governor was relieved, to say the least. “And now you’ve heard it,” he told his son. “The truth entire.”
“I thank you,” said Mendan. “But there’s another reason I wanted to tell you about the Starfleet officers, Father. You see, I need to make amends—and I wanted you to understand why.”
Thul tilted his head. “Amends…?”
The bastard frowned. “These Starfleet people—they were able to surprise me, to get themselves free and…” He paused. “And kill my friend Wyl. Then they escaped and warned this starship.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Stargazer.
The governor grunted. He was beginning to understand why Picard had tracked him there.
“You would have arrived here unopposed if it weren’t for me,” said Mendan. “You would have been watching this shipyard burn by now. As it is, the Starfleet beasts were able to stop you.” His mouth twisted with what was clearly a thirst for revenge. “But now they’re helpless, unable to defend themselves. This is my chance to even the score.”
“Abbis’s ship is coming about,” Kaavin announced. “It is approaching the Federation vessel.” She looked at the governor, clearly uneasy with this turn of events.
He’s going to attack it, Thul realized numbly.
“My lord,” said Kaavin, “it is inadvisable for our…ally to fire on the enemy ship, even in its crippled state. He will need to let his shields lapse in order to power an effective disruptor burst, and the Federation vessel may still have some tactical capability of which we are unaware.”
They hadn’t severed contact with Mendan, so he had heard Kaavin’s warning. But it didn’t seem to faze him—far from it. The reckless grin that was so sickeningly familiar to the governor spread across the youth’s face.
“I’ll take my chances,” he chuckled.
“No!” Thul was out of his seat and striding in the direction of the screen, as if his son were standing there on the bridge and could be stopped by physical means. “Please,” he counseled, “there is no need for haste, Mendan. At least take some time to probe the enemy before you fire on her.”
The younger man turned his attention to his control panel. “I’m targeting her now,” he announced.
“Mendan!” Thul barked, a drop of cold sweat making its way down the length of his spine. “I know your worth. I know your courage. You do not have to demonstrate it anymore…not to me.”
His son’s laughter had an unnerving strain of bitterness in it. “Perhaps not to you, Father. But I allowed those Starfleet officers to slip through my fingers and Wyl is dead as a result. That leaves me with a need to prove something to myself.”
“Damn your stubbornness!” the governor roared. He had a bad feeling about thi
s. “Listen to me, Mendan! You have time!”
But his son wasn’t heeding his warning. He was working feverishly at his control console, determined to gather all the power his tiny vessel could bring to bear.
Suddenly, Mendan looked up, his eyes alight with anticipation. “I hope you enjoy this, Father. I know I will.”
Picard eyed the Durikkan vessel that had appeared scant minutes earlier and established contact with the Thallonian. “Anything yet?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Cadwallader said. “However they’ve protected their communication, I can’t seem to break through.”
The captain scowled, wary of the newcomer. “And the Durikkan still won’t answer our hails?”
“That’s correct,” the communications officer responded.
Picard swore beneath his breath. “Keep trying,” he told Cadwallader. Angrily, he thumbed a control. “Engineering, this is the captain. We may need those shields in a matter of moments.”
“I wish I could give them to you,” the Gnalish answered, his voice drenched with frustration. “Unfortunately, sir, we’re not even close.”
“Then what about weapons?” asked the captain. “Would a single port be too much to ask?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Simenon promised dryly.
“Sir,” said Ben Zoma, who was sitting at one of the peripheral stations, “the Durikkan is coming about.”
Picard regarded the viewscreen again. As his first officer had warned him, the newcomer was indeed turning away from the Thallonian vessel…and pointing its bow at the Stargazer.
“Open a channel,” the captain told Cadwallader, not knowing what other option to exercise.
“Aye, sir,” she answered. “Channel open.”
“Durikkan vessel,” Picard snapped, “this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Stargazer.”
The smaller vessel began to close in.
“State your purpose here,” the captain demanded.
Cadwallader shook her head. “Still no response, sir.”
“Captain,” said Gerda Asmund, duranium in her voice, “the Durikkan is dropping her shields and directing all power to her weapons.”
Picard bit his lip. The Stargazer had no protection. One good barrage would split her end to end like a walnut in a nutcracker.
“Mr. Simenon,” he said in a chill voice, “if I don’t get a functional weapons port very, very soon, all of this will be academic.”
“We can’t work any faster, Captain,” the engineer replied, his voice high and strained.
“You’ll have to,” Picard told him.
But even as he uttered the words, he already suspected that it was too late. Modestly equipped, the Durikkan would have been no threat under normal conditions. Given the situation, however, the Stargazer was little more than the proverbial sitting duck.
Inexorably, the enemy approached.
Picard realized that his hands were clenched into fists and relaxed them by force of will. This was a hell of a way to go down, he told himself, a hell of a way to perish. It was one thing to succumb in the heat of battle against a superior adversary, defending a fleet of innocents from destruction. But to bow to this little ship, a vessel a fraction the size and sophistication of the Stargazer…?
He didn’t even know who was at the controls. An ally of Thul? A rogue? A mercenary? He would never find out, would he?
And it irritated him.
“Captain!” Gerda Asmund’s athletic body was taut as she turned suddenly in her seat, her eyes ablaze with excitement.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s a vessel approaching!” she told him. “A Benniari vessel!”
Picard knew instantly what it meant. “Jack,” he breathed. “And Tuvok.” They had followed the ion trail, albeit more slowly than the Stargazer—but the important thing was that they were there.
“Sir,” said Ben Zoma, “the Benniari vessel is powering up her weapons!” The first officer paused. “She’s firing, Captain!”
Picard studied the viewscreen, where the Durikkan was so close it seemed it would ram itself down their throats at any moment. But before it could send a volley at the Stargazer, the Benniari ship sliced into the picture and unleashed an energy barrage of its own.
Caught by surprise, the Durikkan had no time to put her shields up. She had no time to do anything but take the full impact of the other vessel’s assault. For a moment, the Durikkan heeled under the force of it and glowed with an eerie blue fire.
Then her warp engine tore itself into atomic particles in a savage fit of white-hot splendor.
Thul stood there in front of his center seat, refusing to believe the evidence of his eyes, denying what he had witnessed with every shred of strength in his body. Mendan, he thought. My son…
My son is dead.
Feverish with rage, robbed of his ability to reason, he staggered over to his weapons officer. “Fire!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Destroy the Stargazer! Destroy Picard!”
Ubbard looked up at him helplessly. “My lord, our weapons are still offline. We are incapable of firing.”
“No!” cried Thul, slamming his fist down on the weapons console. “You will fire, do you hear me? You will annihilate Picard and his crew!”
Ubbard held his hands up, palms exposed. “My lord, I—”
Before the governor knew what was happening, a blast of blue energy struck the officer and he went flying backward out of his seat. When he landed, there was a smoking hole where his chest had been.
And Thul’s pistol was in his hand, still hot from use.
He rounded on the officer who sat at the next console. “You!” he thundered, pointing his hand weapon in the Thallonian’s face. “Fire the weapons! Do it now, damn you!”
The officer gaped at the pistol, stricken with fear. He moved his mouth, but nothing came out. Worst of all, he didn’t move a muscle to comply with his governor’s command.
Abruptly, he too was driven out of his seat by a dark blue beam. And like his comrade before him, his chest had become a blackened ruin.
Thul whirled and saw the wide-eyed expressions of the others. They were backing off from their consoles, hands held in front of them, begging for their lives. But not a single one of them offered to blow the Stargazer out of space for him.
What kind of bridge officers were they? he wondered wildly. Why could none of them carry out a simple command?
He would have to punish them as he had punished the first two. He would have to hammer them with one crushing energy beam after another until they remembered who was in command of this vessel.
Maybe then he would get some—
“Thul!” said a voice, taut with urgency.
It wasn’t Thallonian, but there was something familiar about it nonetheless. The governor turned to find out who had had the gall to call his name and saw Picard standing in front of him.
Picard! he seethed.
But before he could aim his disruptor pistol, before he could do anything at all, he felt something smash him in the face. As he stumbled backward, it occurred to him that his weapon had slipped from his fingers.
Then his head struck something and consciousness flickered. When his senses stabilized again, he saw that he was slumped on the deck at the base of a control console, the taste of blood strong in his mouth.
Thul spat it out, grabbed the edge of the console, and pulled himself up. He had to fight back, he told himself. He had to regain his ship and get his revenge on the bloody, interfering human.
Suddenly, the object of his hatred loomed in front of him again, his eyes hard and determined. “Don’t move,” said Picard, the governor’s pistol clenched firmly in his right hand.
He wasn’t alone, either. Four of his security people had beamed over with him and were pointing their weapons at Thul’s surviving officers.
A howl of pain and fury erupted from the Thallonian’s throat. “My son!” he grated at Picard, his fingers opening
and closing as if of their own volition. “You murdered my son!”
“He attacked my ship,” the human told him, his tone flat and expressionless, his eyes colder than Thul had ever seen them. “My people had no choice but to fire back at him.”
“You lie!” the governor shrieked, and flung himself at Picard.
But the human was too quick for him. He sidestepped Thul’s lunge and let him crash to the deck. Once again, the Thallonian found a console to latch onto and dragged himself to his feet.
“You think you’ve won,” he told Picard. “You think you’ve heard the last of me. But you haven’t.”
The human didn’t try to silence Thul. He just frowned and let the governor go on.
“Remember this day,” Thul raged at him, wiping bloody spittle from his mouth as he eyed each Starfleet officer in turn. “Remember my promise, damn you. One day, I will have my revenge on you, Picard—you and your entire Federation!”
He was still shrieking, still cursing the captain and everything he stood for, as the human officers wrestled him away.
Chapter Nineteen
PICARD AND BEN ZOMA were sitting in their customary seats on the podium when Cabrid Culunnh took his place at the lectern.
For days, the captain had been trying to convince the intrasector congress to maintain order, to observe decorum. Yet now, when every delegate and observer in the place made a clamor that shivered the Council Chamber to its foundation, Picard was far from displeased.
In fact, he was quite happy about it. After all, the delegates weren’t bickering or threatening or accusing each other, as they had in the past. They were unanimously cheering the Benniari First Minister, who had cajoled and prodded and warned them into postponing a war.
By making them wait, by keeping the sparks of hatred from becoming a conflagration, he had bought time for his Federation allies. As it turned out, it was all the time they had needed.
The captain would not have wagered on this outcome when he last left the Council Chamber. And yet, here it was—a phoenix peace, risen from the ashes of acrimony and discord and suspicion.