2272

15

Creatures of the Chase

It had taken two failed attempts and several months to arrange, but Will Decker was certain he had at last hit upon a foolproof plan to insinuate a mistress into the life of the otherwise unimpeachable Admiral Spock.

Unfortunate fates had befallen his first trio of would-be Jezebels.

Janice Rand and Carolyn Palamas—a pair of buxom blondes who had insisted on offering themselves to Spock as a duo, thinking it would double their seductive appeal—had vanished without a trace shortly after their carefully arranged clandestine rendezvous with the Vulcan.

Marla McGivers, a sultry and intellectual redhead, had fared slightly better, finding herself transferred without explanation to the I.S.S. Hornet the morning after her failed bid at seduction.

Decker felt no remorse for what had happened to the three women, but he blamed himself for not thinking through the matter before taking action. It was stupid of me to think that just because he has a human wife, he must be partial to human women, he chastised himself. A married man never wants more of what he already has—he wants something different. Something new.

With that in mind, deciding who to send next had been easy. All he had to do now was relax and wait for word of his new operative’s success.

He stretched out on the bed in his quarters and watched a vid of a soccer match recorded the previous day on Deneva. Earth’s all-star team led Deneva’s team at the half, two goals to one. Just as Decker had expected, the colony team still hadn’t learned how to avoid the offside penalty while playing offense.

Idiots, he mused, grateful the Denevans’ ineptitude would likely net him a tidy sum when Earth’s team covered the point spread on his bet.

The buzz of his door signal tore his attention from the game. Perfect timing, as always, he thought with irritation as he got up. Barefoot and in his nightclothes, he padded out of his sleeping alcove and across his quarters to the locked door. He activated the intercom. “Who is it?”

A woman with an exotic accent replied over the comm, “Ilia.”

He unlocked the door. It sighed open, revealing his lover, a lithe Deltan woman. Like most members of her species, she was completely bald—and gifted with intensely powerful pheromones that made her nigh irresistible.

She all but fell through his door, collapsing into his arms.

“Ilia!” Decker said, pulling her inside his quarters. “Did he hurt you?”

“Only my feelings,” she said. Looking up at Decker, she cracked a salacious smile. “But you’d never do that, would you, my love?”

Decker held her at arm’s length, but he felt his resolve crumbling before the assault of her pheromones. “Ilia, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Admiral Spock on the rec deck.”

“He sent me away,” she said, affecting an exaggerated pout.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Decker said. He let her go and walked to his sleeping nook. She followed him with a lovesick devotion. Turning to face her, he pointed and said, “Tell me everything that happened. Everything.”

Ilia’s breaths were quick and heavy, as if she had been exerting herself. “I met him where you told me to,” she said, tracing the curves of her bosom with her fingertips as she continued. “He came alone, like we’d hoped. I set the exercise pod to private mode …” She pulled off her tunic and prowled forward, cornering Decker. “I showed him how delightfully charming I can be.” Unfastening her slacks, she added, “He put his hand on my cheek, and then he complimented my beauty and said my pheromones were very potent, even for a Deltan in her sexual prime.” She let her pants fall to the floor around her ankles. “Then he said good night and left me alone in the pod.”

Beholding the breathtaking siren standing before him in her undergarments, Decker marveled at Spock’s willpower. “He just walked away? From you?”

“Yes, my love,” Ilia said, wrapping her arms around his neck and draping herself on him like a fashion accessory. “I failed you. Please forgive me.”

He wanted to be furious with Ilia, but his mind was a morass of primal hungers. His breaths were short and heavy, and he felt hyperaware of Ilia’s body heat. Even her breath was alluring, as if it were scented with a hint of cinnamon. He ran his hands down the sides of her torso and admired the smoothness of her skin, the perfection of her muscle tone, the elegant curves of her hips.

She pressed herself against him, a force of desire unstoppable once set in motion, her unfettered lust stoking the banked fires of his own passion. Her lips brushed his with the tender touch of a pickpocket as she took his hand and guided it through her thighs.

All notions of restraint fled from his thoughts. He seized Ilia by her shoulders and threw her onto the bed. Then he was on top of her, ripping away her bra and underwear, taking his perfect concubine in exactly the way he knew she wanted—roughly, without apology or hesitation.

But even as Decker luxuriated in the glories of Ilia’s flesh, one question lingered on the fringe of his thoughts and troubled him deeply.

What kind of man must Spock be that he can resist this?

Marlena did not consider herself a voyeur, but as she watched Decker and Ilia on the monitor of the Tantalus field device, she could not help but admire the athleticism and imagination of their fevered copulation.

She heard the door of her and Spock’s quarters open and close. Footfalls drew near with a rhythm she recognized as Spock’s. “The tramp went straight to Decker,” she reported.

He joined her at the device and regarded Decker and Ilia’s wild fornication with a dispassionate stare. “As we suspected,” Spock said.

“I can’t fault him for a lack of commitment,” Marlena said. “The first three sluts he sent were just pawns. At least this time he cared enough to send his own whore.” Casting a sidelong glance at Spock, she added, “But you already knew about Decker and Ilia, didn’t you?”

“Indeed,” Spock said. “T’Prynn learned of their relationship before she returned to Vulcan, while researching Decker’s dossier for my files.”

On the Tantalus field device’s screen, a moment of precarious sexual acrobatics by the limber Deltan woman raised Marlena’s brow in surprise. Feeling a bit intimidated by Ilia’s erotic prowess, she asked her husband, “And how, exactly, were you able to resist her seduction pheromones?”

“The pheromones of Deltans and Orions have little effect on most Vulcans,” Spock said, as if it were common knowledge.

She wasn’t sure whether Spock was telling her the truth, but in the interest of quelling her own jealousy Marlena chose to believe his explanation. “Good to know,” she said. She nodded at the screen. “I guess Mister Decker’s not so lucky.”

“Apparently not,” Spock said.

“It’s curious—she went straight to him after meeting with you,” Marlena said. “Rand, Palamas, and McGivers were all smart enough to avoid him after botching their missions. Did Ilia just get herself so hot and bothered trying to woo you that she had to use him as a pressure valve?”

Spock replied, “In part, yes. Also, when she let me touch her face, I planted a telepathic suggestion that she should seek out her master.”

“If you had contact, why didn’t you just read her mind?”

“Deltans have a limited empathic ability. It is not strong enough to warrant their extermination by the Empire, but it makes them receptive to some forms of psionic contact. However, had I invaded her psyche deeply enough to read her thoughts, she would have been as privy to my mind as I was to hers.”

Looking at the monitor again, Marlena winced at Decker’s and Ilia’s latest activity. “I’ve seen enough,” she said, reaching toward the device’s trigger.

Spock reached out and stayed her hand. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“What are we waiting for?” asked Marlena. “We have proof he sent Ilia, which means he’s spying on you—probably on behalf of his father.”

Arching a single eyebrow, Spock said, “True. But we already suspected that to be the case. By permitting him to act, we have lured him into exposing his allies on the ship, enabling us to eliminate them—and to isolate him.”

“Is it your will that he should live?”

“For now,” Spock said. “We can use this device to observe him and learn what secret reports he makes, and to whom. As long as he does not suspect he is being observed, there is no reason for us to tip our hand.”

Marlena fixed her icy glare on Ilia’s image. “And her?”

“I trust you to act with discretion,” Spock said, stepping away and leaving the Deltan woman’s life in his wife’s hands.

Decker stirred from a troubled slumber shortly after 0500. He rolled over and reached for Ilia. She wasn’t there. He opened his eyes. The other side of his bed was empty.

It wasn’t like Ilia not to stay the night. He wondered if perhaps she harbored some seed of resentment toward him for foisting her on Spock, and in retaliation had slipped away while he slept.

You’re being paranoid, he told himself. She’s probably in the main room on the other side of the partition.

Pushing back the bedsheets, he called out, “Ilia?”

There was no response.

Treading lightly in bare feet, he moved through his quarters looking for Ilia. She wasn’t in the main room, dining nook, or lavatory.

I guess she really did leave, he concluded with disappointment.

He stood at his comm panel and opened a channel to Ilia’s quarters. “Ilia, it’s Will. Are you there?” Several seconds passed with no reply. He initiated a direct transmission to Ilia’s communicator. “Commander Decker to Lieutenant Ilia. Please respond.” His hail was met with dead silence. He signaled the bridge. “Decker to Lieutenant Commander Riley.”

“Riley here,” said Enterprise’s recently promoted second officer, who had the conn during the night watch.

“I need a fix on Lieutenant Ilia’s communicator, on the double.”

“Aye, sir. Hang on while we find her.”

The wait was brief, but it still took a toll on Decker’s nerves. Over the open channel, he heard muffled voices while the bridge crew worked. Then Riley was back on the comm, sounding apologetic. “Sorry, sir. We’ve come up empty. Maybe her communicator malfunctioned …”

Decker closed the channel.

A malfunction? He didn’t believe that. He knew Enterprise’s history and Spock’s reputation too well to accept such a transparent excuse.

It took him less than a minute to get dressed.

Fighting to suppress his rising feelings of dread, Decker sprinted from his quarters to Ilia’s, pausing only for the handful of seconds he spent in a turbolift.

When he arrived at the door to Ilia’s quarters, it was unlocked. He charged inside without signaling.

All of Ilia’s possessions were exactly as she had left them. Her quarters were tidy, comfortably furnished, and tastefully decorated. Her closets were crowded with her civilian clothes. A carved wooden box containing her favorite jewelry sat in its place on a table beside her made bed.

Decker didn’t know what he had expected to find. Evidence of foul play? Signs of a struggle? Ilia’s broken body? Instead, nothing appeared to be amiss—and that was what sent a chill down his spine. Just like so many of Spock’s enemies before her, Ilia had simply vanished.

For the first time since he had set foot on the Enterprise, Willard Decker felt very much alone—and for the first time since moving out of his father’s house to attend Starfleet Academy, he was afraid.

2273

16

Body and Soul

Saavik willed herself not to blink as a Starfleet Academy drill instructor yelled into her face, “Identify yourself, plebe!”

“Saavik,” she said, holding out the data card containing her orders to report for summer indoctrination.

“Wrong!” barked the DI. “When you address a superior, you will phrase your answers in the form of ‘sir sandwiches’! Sir, yes, sir! Is that clear?”

“I—”

“Give me twenty push-ups!”

Confused but obedient, Saavik put her data card in her pocket, dropped to the floor in the main concourse of Archer Hall, and executed twenty regulation-style push-ups. As she did so, she heard other incoming cadets answering questions from other DIs with the phrase, “Sir, yes, sir!”

When she had finished her punitive exercise, she stood at attention and remained silent until her DI demanded, “Identify yourself, plebe!”

She held out her data card. “Sir, Saavik, sir!”

“Correct,” the DI said, accepting her card. He placed it into a handheld reader, checked its information, pressed a button, and then ejected the card. “Your Alpha Number is three-nine-seven-seven Delta. This will be your identifying serial number for the duration of your Academy career. Is that clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

He handed back the card and pointed left. “Get in line!”

Saavik pocketed her card and jogged to the end of a single file of inductees. The DI stayed behind and waited for his next arriving plebe.

The line crept forward past several noncommissioned officers seated at long tables. The first of them handed Saavik a stack of uniforms. The second one issued her a pair of black boots. The third noncom added a pair of running shoes to the top of Saavik’s armload of gear. The fourth petty officer issued her a small handbook whose cover bore the title Star Points. The last of the seated noncoms injected Saavik with two hyposprays and then handed her an agonizer.

Another DI pointed to the right and snapped, “Report to the barber, plebe!”

Jogging to catch up to the inductees ahead of her, Saavik was directed by more shouting men and women into a three-walled cubicle with a table, a chair, and a middle-aged male Tellarite holding a powered hair trimmer.

“Put your gear on the table and sit,” the barber said.

Saavik did as he said. Directly ahead of her she saw other plebes being tended to by other barbers. Male inductees’ heads were shaved, while the female plebes had their hair trimmed to a length Starfleet apparently had deemed appropriate. As the Tellarite grabbed up a handful of Saavik’s long tresses for trimming, she declared simply, “Sir, please shave it off, sir.”

“All of it?”

“Sir, all of it, sir!”

“My pleasure,” the Tellarite said. With a few deft passes of the buzzing trimmer, he removed all of Saavik’s hair, rendering her pale head faintly stubbled. “You’re done, plebe. Go get your physical.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Saavik grabbed her mountain of gear and followed the other shorn plebes to a series of rooms where Starfleet physicians examined them, corpsmen gave them vaccinations, and nurses collected DNA samples for their service records.

The doctors ushered the processed plebes to the back door of Archer Hall, where a squad of detailers—upperclassmen tasked with assisting in the training of plebes during their seven-week-long summer indoctrination period—taught the inductees how to perform a proper imperial salute: Bring the side of the closed right fist to the left pectoral, then extend the right arm and hand at shoulder height, palm slightly raised. Each plebe was made to repeat the gesture until his or her detailer was satisfied, and then they were ordered to exit the hall and board a ground transport that would take them to their barracks.

The ride across the Starfleet Academy campus was brief. The plebes rode with their gear stacked on their laps. Most appreciated the few minutes of relative tranquility. A few, including Saavik, used the time to steal glances at the contents of the Star Points handbook, which was filled with a variety of information, ranging from the command structure of Starfleet to a glossary of midshipmen’s jargon to quotes from literature or historical figures.

As plebes surged out of the transports onto the parade green outside the barracks, roving detailers and drill instructors divided the Fourth Class Regiment into fifteen companies of eighty personnel. The first eight companies were designated the Starboard Battalion. The regiment’s Port Battalion comprised the latter seven companies.

The entire process seemed arbitrary to Saavik, who remained silent and listened for her name. When it was called, she joined the other members of Delta Company. After all eighty members of the company had assembled in formation, they were led at a quick march inside their residence hall.

Indoors, the company was subdivided into two platoons of forty plebes; each platoon was further broken down into four squads of ten personnel.

At 1745 hours, they were assigned racks and lockers and given fifteen minutes to stow their gear, change into dress uniforms, return to the parade green, and muster in company formation.

There was no time to think or ask questions; there was barely enough time to follow orders. Scrambling to keep up with the other plebes, Saavik donned her dress-white uniform and raced back outside with Delta Company and the rest of the Class of ’77 to stand in formation under a clear, late-June sky.

Minutes later, the commandant of Starfleet Academy arrived, followed by a clutch of flag officers, adjutants, aides-de-camp, and other imperial dignitaries.

The plebes were directed to salute and led in a recitation of their oaths of service as officers of the Terran Empire Starfleet. Saavik’s was only one of twelve hundred voices reciting the oath, but she enunciated with perfect clarity, as if Admiral Spock were standing beside her, auditing her every word.

When the oath was complete, the master drill instructor bellowed, “Regiment, fall out!” The detailers and drill instructors herded the plebes off the parade green at a quick step and led them back to their barracks.

After a day of enervating drudgery, Saavik expected dinner and a night’s rest to be the next orders of business. She was mistaken.

There was no dinner that night. For three hours and fifteen minutes, she and the other plebes were made to run laps around the barracks, and they endured a nonstop harangue of criticism and deliberately contradictory orders intended to confuse them and make them subject to more verbal abuse. Making mistakes resulted in plebes being yelled at. Questioning orders, even if merely to request clarification, earned plebes long jolts from their agonizers.

Her company’s detailer ordered them into their racks at 2145 and turned out the lights. Saavik felt relieved; her first day at the Academy was finally over. She told herself induction day would likely be the worst part of the whole experience.

As before, she was mistaken.

The next seven weeks followed a simple if relentless pattern.

Reveille blared each morning at 0530. Attired in exercise clothes, the plebes assembled on the parade green for morning calisthenics, regardless of the weather. Some mornings they did jumping jacks and squat-thrusts in the soft glow of dawn; sometimes they did crunches or leg-lifts in fog so thick the rear ranks of plebes could barely see the detailers. On other days they did push-ups on muddy ground and braved torrential downpours during formation runs, which progressively increased in distance as the summer wore on.

After morning physical training, the plebes assembled—as always, in formation—for accountability (the detailers’ term for attendance) and uniform inspection before they marched to the mess hall for morning chow. The mess hall’s menu varied, but its fare was consistent—bland but nourishing.

During morning chow the plebes were apprised of the “plan of the day,” a list of mandatory classes and activities they would follow until lights-out. A typical morning involved classroom instruction on any of a number of topics, including warfare and tactics, military regulations, Starfleet’s rank structure and chain of command, and leadership.

After morning classes the plebes returned to their barracks to don their dress uniforms for noon formation. At 1200 each day, the plebes stood in company ranks for accountability and uniform inspection before being permitted to march inside the mess hall for noon chow.

Saavik noted that tourists often observed the noon formation, and almost all of them seemed to mistake it for something special.

Afternoons were a time for physical education and practical instruction. Some days were devoted to small-arms proficiency and martial arts. At least two days each week, the plebes ran obstacle courses. Strength and endurance training included team sports as well as swimming, weight training, and rock-climbing. Two more days each week were spent on such basic skills as squad-combat tactics, shipboard damage control, firefighting, vacuum survival, and free-fall training. However, the plebes’ most hated exercise by far was close-quarter drill, which involved marching in tight formation while performing regimentally synchronized precision choreography with heavy antique rifles.

Each dusk brought a third formation on the parade green, followed by an inspection and a march inside the mess hall for evening chow. When chow was over the plebes endured more classes, more physical trials, and the cleaning of their barracks, uniforms, or selves. They found no relief until the final thirty minutes of each day, when they each were allowed to write one letter home.

Because Saavik saw little point in recounting the tedium of her days to Ambassador Sarek or Admiral Spock, she utilized the last half hour of each day—and nearly every other free moment she could steal—reading and memorizing the contents of her Star Points handbook. Its articles encompassed a wide range of information Starfleet had decided was important for its officers to know: the classes and specifications of its active starships, small spacecraft, and combat equipment; its principal bases of operation; a summary of the Starfleet phonetic alphabet, which was based on Earth’s old international standard; and a wide range of inspirational quotes her detailers said were intended to help shape plebes’ philosophical outlook as officers and encourage esprit de corps.

That body of knowledge was known at the Academy as “the rates.” Plebes were expected to memorize the rates and be able to recite any part of them by rote at any time during their training. The detailers enforced this requirement constantly and mercilessly, drilling the plebes while they were running in the mornings, eating, crawling under sharp-edged protrusions on the obstacle courses, and even while they were showering or using the head.

Answering incorrectly or failing to answer would draw swift punishment. Depending on the detailer’s personality and mood, the plebe might find himself tasked with a hundred push-ups—or writhing in excruciating pain from a prolonged jolt by his agonizer.

“The purpose of this is to teach you to concentrate in times of stress,” the detailers explained, but Saavik was certain some of them inflicted harsher punishments simply because they enjoyed doing so.

Despite her Vulcan mental conditioning, Saavik felt overwhelmed at times. Constant physical exertion, coupled with the overload of classroom work and the steady stream of verbal abuse, made each day bleed into the next. Weeks slipped away, and she felt lost in time’s unyielding current.

Then the seventh and final week of Plebe Summer came to an end, and Saavik anticipated the formal start of her first year as a Starfleet Academy cadet. With the grueling indoctrination period over, she believed the worst of her days as a plebe were finally behind her.

Once again, she was wrong.

Plebe Summer concluded with the “reform of the brigade,” which was Academy jargon for the return of upper-classmen cadets from their midshipman cruises and specialized summer training courses at other facilities.

Overnight, the plebes went from outnumbering their detailers and drill instructors twenty-to-one to being outnumbered more than three-to-one by upperclassmen, each of whom wielded the authority of a detailer over any plebe.

The loss of majority brought with it a loss of anonymity. During the summer, a plebe who avoided attention might go most of a day without drawing the notice of a detailer. Now the campus teemed with sharp-eyed young men and women looking for any opportunity to visit their wrath on subordinates.

Everywhere the plebes went, upperclassmen were waiting to “flame” them for even the most trivial error or misstep. A hair out of place, a boot not shined to perfection, a wrinkle in the blanket on a plebe’s made rack—any of these minor infractions could draw a vicious harangue. Such moments of ruthless, unsupervised abuse were known as “assisting the plebes.”

Most galling to Saavik, even a second-year cadet could demand control of her agonizer. She didn’t need to have committed an offense; if she dared to question her “correction,” that alone was sufficient cause to increase her punishment. The sheer illogic of it all was maddening to her.

Determined to master her rates and responsibilities, Saavik strove for virtual invisibility on the campus. Despite her best efforts, it eluded her.

One slate-gray morning in early October, she crossed the parade green toward her barracks, in a hurry to change before reporting to noon formation.

A man shouted at her from behind, “Stop right there, plebe!”

She hated being addressed in that manner, but upperclassmen did not consider their first-year peers worthy of the appellation “cadet.”

She halted at attention. Two upperclassmen caught up to her. Both were human men with lean physiques and eyes hardened by the hunger of ambition. Their insignia identified them as third-year cadets. The one with dark hair smiled at his fair-haired companion, and then he asked Saavik, “Whose quotation about leadership is found on page seventy-one of the rates?”

“Sir, the quotation on page seventy-one of the rates is by Noah Porter, a nineteenth-century president of Yale College, sir!”

The upperclassman smiled. “And what is that quotation, plebe?”

Reciting from memory, Saavik replied, “Sir, the quotation is, ‘Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith—’ ”

“Wrong!” the second-class cadet interrupted, even though Saavik had made no error. He held out his open palm. “Your agonizer, plebe.”

Her hesitation was so brief, she doubted he even noticed it.

She felt her pulse racing and her blood burning with rage. Being punished for an actual error was one thing; being abused when she had committed no infraction made her muscles tense with the urge to strike and her hands ache to close into fists and pummel the smug upperclassman.

I will not succumb to my passions, she told herself, surrendering her agonizer. I am no longer that outcast child on Vulcan. I am in control.

The first jolt of the agonizer turned her thoughts white with pain.

Saavik calmed her fury by remembering Spock’s teachings.

I cannot control the actions of others, so I must master how I react to their actions. Discipline is strength, and strength is power.

A second zap from the agonizer made her feel as if she had been lit on fire. She bit down on her cries of anger and her howls of suffering.

I will not embarrass Spock or Sarek, she promised herself. They have trusted me to see this through. I will not fail them.

The upperclassman waved the agonizer in Saavik’s face. “You look like you want to say something, plebe. Do you want to curse at me?” He grinned at his friend, then looked back at Saavik. “Or maybe you want to beg for mercy?”

There was no right answer. If she asked for mercy, he would punish her for insubordination. If she declined mercy, he would say she asked him to continue “assisting” her. Summoning her defiance, she erred on the side of honor.

Through clenched teeth, she replied, “Sir, no, sir.”

He triggered the agonizer again, unaware he was tilting the balance of Saavik’s inner struggle between discipline and instinct, or that if he tilted it far enough for instinct to prevail, Saavik would snap his neck like a brittle twig—and most important … she would enjoy it.

2274

17

A Secret Called Freedom

Carol Marcus leaned through the doorway of her thirteen-year-old son’s bedroom as she announced, “David! Time for dinner.”

She caught only the end of a snap-quick movement as David hid something behind him while answering, “Okay, Mom. Be there in a second.”

Knowing the proclivities of boys David’s age, Marcus’s gut reaction was suspicion. She stepped farther inside his room and nodded at him. “What are you hiding, young man?”

He held up a data slate and answered in a nonchalant tone, “Nothing, just homework.” His attempt at casual diversion was betrayed by his furtive glances in every direction except toward his mother.

Stepping beside his bed, she planted one hand on her hip and extended the other. “Let me see it.” He froze, locked in a fearful yet defiant stare. Hardening her tone, Marcus added, “David Samuel Marcus, hand me that data slate this instant!”

David’s face twisted into a frown as he grudgingly surrendered the electronic tablet. Marcus plucked it from her son’s hand, scowled at him, and braced herself to see what grotesque entertainment the boy had found.

Perusing the hyperlinked contents loaded on the device, she was both relieved and terrified. David had acquired a substantial collection of unabridged texts by censored anti-authoritarian philosophers. It included tracts by Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill; essays by Thomas Paine; stories by Ayn Rand and George Orwell; poetic reflections on individualism by N. E. Peart; meditations on revolution by Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha; and transcripts of suppressed speeches by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi. Mere possession of such materials might be sufficient grounds for her precious son to be tortured to death or publicly executed as an example to others.

Slack-jawed, Marcus stared at her son. “What are you doing with this?”

Affecting a sheepish cringe, David said, “Reading.”

“Where did you get it?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “It’s not hard to find. You just have to look.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be looking for things like this,” she said, masking her fear with anger. “This is a Starfleet starbase; they monitor transmissions on and off the station. If they detect you downloading something like this—”

“They won’t,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I know how to use the ’crypter.”

“Don’t think you’re so clever,” she admonished him. “Commodore Reyes is no fool, and neither are the people who serve him.” Lifting the slate, she asked, “How many times have you downloaded this sort of thing?”

“Just the once,” David said. “It was compressed and encrypted to look like something else. I was careful.”

“I’ll bet,” Marcus said. “When did you get this file?”

“About a week ago.”

Marcus considered the facts. If the incoming file had been recognized by the station’s comm filters, it likely would have been blocked automatically. Since no one had come to question David about it, it was possible he had evaded a terrible fate thanks to the virtual camouflage provided by Vanguard’s sheer volume of data traffic. Still, there was no point taking chances. She began keying in her security code on the data slate.

David asked, “What are you doing?”

“Deleting this before anyone comes looking for it.”

“Stop! Don’t!” His voice was pitched with such desperation it stayed Marcus’s hand. When she met his pleading gaze, he continued. “You always say information has to be protected. Well, what about this information? Isn’t it valuable? Aren’t you always telling me we need to find ways to question authority? Well, what’s the point if we let them tell us what questions we can ask?”

She was stunned into silence by her son’s tirade. He had always been a very bright student, years ahead of his peers. A few months earlier he had exhausted the station’s secondary education resources, forcing Marcus to enroll him in a long-distance learning program from the Mars Institute of Science, augmented by an independent-study curriculum she administered. Now, barely a teenager, he was already presuming to teach his mother to respect her own lessons.

Looking again at the tablet’s contents, she was struck by what a tragedy it would be to expunge a copy of such hard-to-find knowledge. She could only imagine how many people had risked incarceration, injury, or death to preserve copies of these forbidden texts down through the centuries. Did she, or anyone else, really have the right to erase such a hard-won record of history?

Tapping on the slate’s interface with its stylus, she said, “I’m not deleting it, but I am improving its encryption with one we use in the Vault. From now on, the only people on the station who will be able to unlock this tablet are me and Commodore Reyes—and if we’re lucky, he’ll never know this exists.”

Still wearing a hangdog expression, David asked, “Are you taking it away?”

“That depends what you mean,” she said.

“Are you going to let me keep reading it?”

She arched one eyebrow at the boy as she finished locking the file. “You’ll see it again,” she said. She pointed the stylus into the corners of the ceiling. “But only after I’ve had a chance to add a few more safety precautions in here, to make sure no one’s eavesdropping on us. After that … I think we’ll call this ‘supplemental reading’ for the independent-study portion of your education.”

Her decision drew a smile from the brilliant teen, but Marcus quelled her son’s jubilation with a stern admonition. “Don’t say a word about this outside these quarters,” she said. “No matter how exciting you think this stuff is, you can’t go around talking about it. Not to anyone, no matter how much you think they might agree with it. People aren’t always what they seem, David—remember that.”

“I will,” he said, mirroring her serious manner. “I promise.”

“Good,” she said, hoping he really understood and wasn’t just humoring her. “Because not everyone will be as sympathetic as I am.”

2275

18

Half the Battle

Captain Zhao Sheng stands in his quarters aboard the I.S.S. Endeavour, regards the agonizer in his hand, and questions everything he has ever believed.

How many times have I let someone else use this to hurt me? What did I ever learn from it except to fear the lash, like every sailor since antiquity?

He has paid close attention to news of Admiral Spock’s accomplishments and reforms. From brokering peace between Elas and Troyius to abolishing the use of agonizers on the Enterprise, the Vulcan iconoclast has challenged Starfleet time and again, and each time has emerged stronger for it.

Zhao wonders how his crew will function without agonizers, without an agony booth, without a constant pall of terror.

He decides to try it and see the results for himself.

Midshipman Second Class Par chim Grum stands at the edge of San Francisco Bay, his back to Starfleet Academy. He takes a small booklet from his uniform pocket, intending to rip it up and hurl its shreds into the moonlit water.

The Tellarite cadet hesitates. For some reason, the book intrigues him.

He reflects on the moment, hours earlier, when he confiscated the small tome from a female Vulcan plebe, whom he caught reading the unsanctioned text while seated on a circular bench beneath an old elm tree near the parade green.

Grum asked accusatorily, “Are those your rates, plebe?”

“Sir, no, sir,” the young woman replied.

“Give them to me.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” the woman said, handing the book to Grum.

He perused the book quickly. It was a compilation of nonsense bordering on sedition. Grum was about to put the plebe on report until he noted the name of the book’s author: Admiral Spock. Stuffing it into his pocket, he barked, “Give me twenty push-ups, plebe!”

The woman performed her penance, and then Grum ordered her to proceed to the next item on her plan of the day.

Now he stands facing the bay with the book in his hands. Something in its words calls out to him. He opens it to a random page and reads what it says.

Each page compels him to read the next one.

When he reaches the end, he hungers for more, so he flips back to the beginning and reads it from its first word. It offers him a vision of a nobler culture for Starfleet, a great society, and a cause worthy of the name of honor.

Grum returns to his barracks and hides the book in his locker.

Lieutenant John Harriman sags like an abandoned marionette as the agonizer booth is powered down. His tormentors open the cylindrical chamber’s front panel, and he collapses to the deck at their feet.

The Andorian and the Tellarite laugh at him as he coughs up blood.

“That should teach you to mind your manners,” says the Tellarite.

The Andorian kicks Harriman in the ribs. “Don’t talk to a captain’s woman unless she talks to you first.” Reaching down, he grabs Harriman’s hair. “Get it?” He pushes Harriman’s face back onto the deck. The Tellarite grunts in disgust.

Harriman can’t even see straight as the two security-division thugs drag him by his feet through the corridors of the I.S.S. Hornet. Despite being dazed and sick from what felt like hours inside the high-tech torture device, he can discern clearly the malicious chortles of his shipmates as he is hauled like garbage through the Paladin-class frigate’s busy corridors.

By the time he hears the door of his quarters swish open, he is ready to vomit. His handlers drop his feet and lift him by his arms. They hurl him inside his quarters. Thrashed and limp, he lands in an awkward position, half on and half off his rack. Finally his guts heave, and he splutters stomach acid and bloody spittle across his bedsheets.

He hears the Andorian and the Tellarite laugh again as they leave his quarters. The Andorian calls out from the doorway, “If you can’t take punishment like a man, maybe you should go serve on Admiral Spock’s ship.” Their cruel guffaws echo from the corridor even after the door hisses shut.

Harriman drifts in and out of consciousness that night. Nightmares plague his sleep. Lingering nausea, stinging wounds, and aching bruises dominate his moments of wakefulness.

Morning comes. Reveille sounds.

A voice on the intraship comm squawks, “All bunks, turn to!”

The wounded lieutenant masters his pain. Stands. Walks to his quarters’ private head. Faces his swollen, damaged face in the mirror. Cracks a mirthless grin and inspects his bloodied, broken teeth.

He fills a glass with water. Rinses his mouth and spits.

Showers. Towels dry. Puts on a clean uniform.

And submits his formal request for transfer to the I.S.S. Enterprise.

Captain Stephen Kornfeld of the I.S.S. Bismarck has a choice to make: open fire, or open hailing frequencies.

Starfleet regulations regarding first contacts in deep space are clear: capture the alien vessel; subdue its crew; remand prisoners to the chief medical officer for vivisection and analysis; and file a full after-action report to Starfleet Command.

But Kornfeld has read Admiral Spock’s treatise on benign first contact. The Vulcan’s ideas make sense to him. They fly in the face of general orders and more than a century of military protocol, but Kornfeld thinks Spock might be on to something. If it works, it might change Starfleet’s rules of engagement forever.

His bridge crew waits for his order. Hands are poised above consoles, waiting to sound Red Alert, raise shields, and lock phasers.

The peculiar-looking vessel on the main viewer drifts closer.

“They’re in firing range, Captain,” says the helmsman.

Kornfeld narrows his eyes and thinks. He swivels his chair and asks his science officer, “Has the alien vessel raised shields or charged weapons?”

“Negative, sir,” replies the young woman at the sensor display.

The captain makes his choice. “Ensign Thiel, open hailing frequencies.”

Commander Hiromi Takeshewada of the I.S.S. Constellation hides in a corner of the ship’s gymnasium, hoping the pounding rhythm of her furious heavy-bag boxing workout will muffle her uncontrollable sobs of rage.

She is a line officer. A combat veteran. Executive officer of Starfleet’s flagship, the second-in-command to Grand Admiral Matthew Decker.

I deserve better than this, she tells herself.

Decker is a martinet, the kind of commanding officer who equates volume with leadership and abuse with discipline. Every day he verbally flays her in the presence of her subordinates and undermines her ability to function as the ship’s executive officer. Some days he hits her. Those are the good days.

On bad days he entertains himself by randomly shocking Takeshewada with her agonizer. The worst days are when he combines his sadistic tendencies with his sexual perversions, forcing her to submit to his sick whims and gross violations while he clutches her agonizer and uses it to inflict jolts of varying severity.

Today was one of those days.

She pounds her gloved fists against the heavy bag and works up a sweat. I still have his stink on me, she realizes, wincing with revulsion. It only makes her hit the bag harder and faster.

She knows an officer of her rank and experience should be exempt from such depredations, even by a flag officer, but to protest is akin to suicide.

Who would I cry to? she asks herself rhetorically. He’s the grand admiral. Top of the food chain. There’s no one who can help me. I’m all alone out here.

Throwing her hands in a frenzy, she loses control. Her punches cease to land with any rhythm or force. She’s just flailing her arms against the bag, twisting and thrashing and screaming … and then she collapses to the deck, spent and silent.

Takeshewada closes her eyes. Her breathing is loud inside her head. She feels her chest rising and falling, her heart racing, her limbs trembling.

When she opens her eyes, she senses someone standing behind her.

Turning her head, she sees Lieutenant Sontor, a young Vulcan officer from the sciences division. He offers her his hand.

“Let me teach you a better way to cope with your anger,” he says.

Captain Clark Terrell, commanding officer of the I.S.S. Sagittarius, reads a coded subspace communiqué from his old friend and ally, Captain Zhao Sheng.

Zhao voices a lot of faith in the Vulcan admiral. More than Terrell has ever heard Zhao lavish upon anyone. Even harder to believe, Zhao says he has followed Spock’s example, abolishing the use of agonizers on the Endeavour.

Terrell is fascinated and frightened. He sees potential in a man like Spock, but he also sees tremendous danger.

If enough of us rally to his banner, he could make a real difference, Terrell muses. But if we take his side and he fails, we all fall as one.

After ten years of service in the Taurus Reach, Terrell is no stranger to risk. He has never let fear guide his decisions before, and he doesn’t want to start now. But he has only just inherited the captain’s chair of the Sagittarius, following his former CO’s promotion to the Admiralty.

Risk is a lot to ask of him during this time of transition.

Then he thinks of Carol Marcus and her son.

I could do them a lot of good if I had Admiral Spock for a friend, he thought. He seems like a man who can do the impossible. Maybe he can help Carol and David get off that station and away from that monster Reyes.

It seems too much to hope for, too much to believe in. Not that Terrell has ever believed in much of anything, or anyone. But if what Zhao tells him is true, maybe it’s time to start.

Terrell has a report about Operation Vanguard and Commodore Reyes he has been compiling in secret for the past few years. He has never shown it to anyone. In his experience, the truth never sets anyone free—most of the time, it just gets them killed. But the truth isn’t doing anybody any good sitting in my personal log, he decides. It’s time to take a stand.

He calls up the file. Attaches it to a coded subspace message addressed for Admiral Spock’s eyes only. Composes a brief greeting.

His finger hesitates to press the button that will send the message.

Terrell has walked the line for so long that he balks at having to choose one side of it on which to stand. Trying to make an ally of Spock will certainly make an enemy of Reyes, he reminds himself. Once I choose a side, there’s no going back.

He sends the message.

I’ll probably regret this, he tells himself.

His prediction proves correct.

19

The Name of Action

Marlena moved in swift strides down the corridor to her quarters. The Vulcan guards posted outside the door saluted her as she approached. She returned the salute as the door slid open and she passed between them.

The door shut behind her. She searched the compartment for her husband. Spock was seated at a computer terminal in a small space beyond a smoked-glass panel with an arched doorway. The lights were dimmed, and a faint haze of vaguely citrus-scented incense smoke lingered overhead.

She took a few hesitant steps toward him. “You said it was urgent.”

Beckoning her closer, Spock said, “Join me.”

Marlena crossed the room, acclimating easily to its slightly higher gravity and warm, dry air. Neither environmental detail matched the intensity of Vulcan’s natural climate because Spock had tempered them for her benefit. Positioning herself behind his shoulder, she asked, “What’s happened?”

He gestured to the monitor on his desk. “Watch and listen,” he said, initiating the playback of what appeared to be a classified subspace message.

The visage of a human man with dark brown skin, a broad nose, and close-shorn, graying hair appeared on the screen. He wore the uniform of a Starfleet captain. “Admiral Spock, my name is Clark Terrell. I’m the commanding officer of the Sagittarius, currently assigned to recon duty in the Taurus Reach, under the command of Commodore Diego Reyes.

“The file I have sent you contains extensive documentation of the classified mission being directed from Starbase 47, known out here as Vanguard. Whatever the original purpose of Operation Vanguard might have been, I think the evidence I’ve sent will convince you it’s gone off the rails, and that it poses a genuine threat to the security of the Empire, and maybe the safety of the galaxy at large.

“Whatever you choose to do with this intelligence, I’d like to ask for your help in getting a transfer for a civilian scientist named Carol Marcus and her teenage son, David, off that station.

“I’m sure you understand I’m taking a tremendous risk by sharing this information with you. Captain Zhao of the Endeavour assures me you’re a man who can be trusted. For his sake—and mine—I hope he’s right.”

Terrell leaned forward and pressed a button. The image on the screen changed to a slide show of written reports, ships’ logs, sensor data … and a molecular map of the most complex string of genetic data Marlena had ever seen.

Spock looked up at her. “Ten years ago, in the Taurus Reach, then-Commodore Matt Decker and his crew found a complex genome in what appeared to be a simple life-form. That discovery led to the rapid deployment of a Watchtower-class starbase hundreds of light-years from Earth, well outside the normal bounds of the Empire’s territory.”

“What is that genetic string?” Marlena asked.

“Unknown,” Spock said. “However, the logs provided by Captain Terrell suggest the personnel attached to Operation Vanguard have made other discoveries in that contested region of space—and that Commodore Reyes is abusing the station’s resources and remote location to amass personal power.”

Marlena frowned. “Why are Decker and the Empress letting Reyes get away with this?”

“Starfleet is overextended,” Spock said. “Reyes has fortified his position by forging an accord with a foreign power or some other political actor, or perhaps both. And whatever he controls from Starbase 47, it is sufficiently dangerous that neither the Empress nor the grand admiral wish to challenge him directly.”

“Wonderful.” She perused the on-screen data and noticed several gaps. “Didn’t Terrell send any data on Reyes’s allies or resources?”

“He may have,” Spock said. “However, the transmission was jammed before it was completed. Terrell’s message was intact, but the data file was not.”

“Can we ask him to resend it?”

“The Sagittarius was destroyed by a warp core breach ten minutes after he sent his message to me.”

Marlena began to form a more complete mental picture of the situation. “You think Reyes jammed the message and then took out the Sagittarius.”

“That would be consistent with the facts in hand.”

She folded her arms. “Much as I hate to open another front in our war on the status quo, I think we need to move against Reyes.”

“Agreed,” Spock said.

She sat on the edge of Spock’s desk. “Where do we start?”

“We will investigate the situation in the Taurus Reach and assess its threat potential to the Empire and the galaxy at large,” Spock said. “Next we will need to cultivate an ally inside Reyes’s command staff. Preferably someone with access to the inner workings of Operation Vanguard.”

Shooting her husband an incredulous look, Marlena replied, “Tall order. That could take months—or longer, depending on how tight Reyes’s security is.”

“Perhaps,” Spock said. “But men like Reyes inspire treachery. I’m confident that with perseverance, we can turn one of his officers into a spy for our cause.”

She admired Spock’s optimism even though she did not share it. “All right,” she said. “And then what?”

“Then,” he said gravely, “we will send T’Prynn.”

2276

20

A Shell of a Man

Waves broke against jagged rocks and churned into foam. Marlena stood up nude in the gloriously warm pounding surf and waded toward the beach, imagining herself a modern-day Venus, rising from the sea to stride an alien shore.

She and Spock were on their third full day of leave on Risa. Most of Enterprise’s crew was on the planet’s surface, at a resort location on the mainland of the largest continent. She and Spock had the privilege of a private island, complete with a luxury cabana and a pair of antigrav-equipped robots programmed to bring them food or drinks anywhere they went.

A skeleton crew manned the ship in orbit. Also still on board was a cadre of Vulcan operatives recruited by Spock to serve as his personal guard. During the admiral’s absence, his sentinels kept watch over his and Marlena’s quarters, to prevent unwanted intrusions, searches, or insertions of surveillance technology.

Marlena squeezed the excess water from her raven hair as she padded ashore. She savored the moment. The soft crashing of waves, a gentle tropical breeze of salt air, the warmth of the sun, powdery hot sand beneath her feet—it was all she had ever dreamed heaven might be.

Spock, true to form, lingered on dry land, just beyond the touch of the sea. As Marlena walked toward him, he crouched and sifted handfuls of sand through his fingers. The last grains fell away, revealing a pale shape in his palm. It was a seashell shaped like a miniature conch. Spock held it between his thumb and forefinger and studied it with a scientist’s keen gaze.

Standing over her husband, Marlena struck a seductive pose. “See anything you like, my love?”

He brought the shell closer to his eyes. “It is fascinating.”

She reached down, clasped his free hand, and tried to pull him toward the water. “C’mon,” she said. “The ocean’s calling!”

It felt as if she were trying to tug a mountain. Even leaning sharply and throwing her weight into the effort, she couldn’t make Spock budge. He was too strong and too balanced to be moved against his will.

Relenting, Marlena let herself fall to the sand beside him. She waved over one of the antigrav service bots, which was holding her margarita. She liberated her lemony libation from a nook on the floating disk and took a sip. Its tartness made her lips pucker. After she swallowed, she squinted against the tropical sun and saw Spock still eyeing the seashell in his hand.

“What’s so captivating about that shell?” she asked.

He lowered his hand as he lifted his brow in a pensive expression.

“I respect the patience it represents,” he said. “It is a product of a simple intelligence, but able to withstand the inexorable forces of nature.” Turning it slowly, he continued. “Formed by a slow accretion of calcium carbonate into a shape both durable and aesthetically pleasing, it is a triumph of engineering and efficiency, a formidable armor composed of that which it found in abundance.”

Leaning forward against Spock’s arm, Marlena replied, “Not that it did much good.” Recoiling from Spock’s stare, she added, “I mean, whatever made it is dead, and it either rotted away inside its useless shell or got chewed up by scavengers. The shell might be pretty, but what good did it really do?”

A deep, thoughtful silence fell upon Spock. He stared at the shell in his hand, as if he were prying the secrets of the universe from its spiral cavity. When at last he broke his silence, he said only, “Indeed.”

Worried she might have upset him or quashed what little enjoyment he was taking in their holiday, she turned her energies toward seduction. She planted small kisses up the side of his arm to his shoulder, and then into the space between his clavicle and neck—all while tracing the lines of his torso with her wandering fingertips. “Forget the shell,” she whispered. “Let me intrigue you with some other new wonders I’ve learned.”

He caressed the side of her face and stroked his fingers through her hair, but then he pulled away. “This is not a good time,” he said.

Flustered, Marlena made an exaggerated show of pivoting to one side and then the other, to emphasize their isolation. “No ship, no crew, no orders,” she said with a coquettish smile. “It seems like the best time we’ll ever have.”

“Our locale is conducive to romance,” Spock said. “However, I am overdue for my contraceptive injection.”

Rolling her eyes, Marlena replied, “So what? Your last injection can’t have completely worn off yet—and even if it has …” She stroked his face with her palm. “Would that really be such a bad thing?”

“Admittedly, the risk of conception at this time is low, but it would be best not to leave such matters to chance.” He reached for a communicator on the blanket behind him. “Doctor M’Benga is on shore leave, but Nurse Chapel should be able to beam down a hypospray containing the injection I require.”

Marlena reached out and held his arm. “Spock, please. Isn’t it time?”

“Time for what?”

“For us to start a family?” She sighed. “We’ve been married for nine years already, and I’m not getting any younger.”

Wrinkling his brow momentarily, Spock replied, “With hormone therapy, there is no reason you could not safely bear children for at least another—”

“You’re missing the point, Spock. I want us to have children. Not someday. Not in a few years. Now.”

The hint of a frown darkened Spock’s countenance. “That would be a very dangerous choice,” he said. “A starship is no place for children, even under the best of circumstances, and our current situation is far from ideal. Furthermore, a man in my position cannot afford to sire offspring. Our enemies would use them against us.” With surprising tenderness, he cupped his palm against her face. “When our position is more secure, then we can discuss starting a family.”

“Fine,” she said, far from mollified. “We’ll wait. For now.”

As Spock flipped open his communicator and asked Nurse Chapel to beam down a hypospray of male contraceptive, Marlena willed herself to be patient, for the sake of her husband and the task that lay before them.

But as she drank in their paradisiacal seclusion, in her heart she suspected she was being offered a glimpse of their future—bright, barren, and lonely—and that no matter how long she waited, Spock’s answer was never going to change.

2277

21

The Dark of Reason

Spock stood near the back of the instructors’ control room behind a bulkhead of the Academy’s starship-bridge simulator and observed the main viewer in silence. On-screen, his protégée, Saavik, now a midshipman first class, occupied the simulator’s center seat as she endured the infamous “Kobayashi Maru” test.

“Captain,” said a cadet manning the communications post, “we’re receiving a distress signal from inside the Neutral Zone. Audio only.”

Saavik nodded at the other cadet. “Put it through,” she said.

A male voice, faint and distant-sounding, scratched from the overhead speakers. It cut out intermittently, replacing parts of words or sentences with static or silence. “… the Terran freighter Kobayashi Maru. Our nav … puter malfun … drifted into enemy territory, and we need immedi … Please respond. Repeat, this is the Terran freighter Kobayashi Maru …”

“Enough,” Saavik said to her communications officer. “Hail them.”

“We’ve tried, Captain,” said the other cadet. “No response. Their message is automated, running on a loop.”

Swiveling her chair forward, Saavik asked, “Helm, do we have a fix on the Kobayashi Maru’s coordinates?”

“Aye, sir,” replied the Andorian chan at the helm. “Ninety seconds away at maximum warp.”

“Plot an intercept course, but do not cross the Neutral Zone,” Saavik said.

“Course laid in,” answered the Andorian.

“Engage. All decks, Red Alert, battle stations.”

On the simulator’s viewscreen, stars streaked past, and even through the control-room bulkhead Spock heard the imitated hum of warp engines in overdrive and felt the thrumming pulses through the deck. The Red Alert klaxon whooped three times inside the ersatz bridge, and a palpable tension emanated from the cadets gathered inside its claustrophobic confines.

“Dropping out of warp in five seconds,” reported the helmsman. “Three … two … one.” He pressed a button on his console, and the image on the simulator’s viewer reverted to one of stars and darkness.

“Tactical, report,” Saavik commanded.

At the sensor post, a Caitian female peered into a hooded display. “The Kobayashi Maru is directly ahead, Captain—just inside the Neutral Zone.”

A male Tellarite, whose role in the simulation was to serve as Saavik’s first officer, stepped beside her chair and suggested in a low voice, “We could reach the Kobayashi Maru in ten seconds at warp five, lock on a tractor beam in five seconds, and pull her back to our side in fifteen seconds. In and out in thirty seconds flat, Captain.”

Saavik threw a pointed stare at her XO. “And if the Klingons are under cloak beside the Kobayashi Maru, lying in ambush?”

The Tellarite turned toward the Caitian cadet. “Is there any sign of Klingon vessels in the area, Lieutenant?”

Checking her sensor display, the Caitian replied, “No, sir.”

Her answer seemed to puff up the Tellarite with smug satisfaction.

Saavik turned her chair to face the science station. “Lieutenant, scan for unusual tachyon-dispersal patterns in the vicinity of the Kobayashi Maru, and then scan for evidence its inertial drift is being affected by microgravity effects.”

“Aye, Captain,” said the Caitian, turning to her work.

The bridge was quiet for several seconds while the Caitian conducted her laborious scans and analysis. Every passing moment seemed to make the Tellarite XO angrier. “We’re wasting time!” he protested to Saavik. “We should recover that ship before the Klingons do come by to investigate!”

“Patience, Mister Glar,” Saavik said, cool and unhurried.

The Caitian looked up from the sensor hood. “Captain, there are elevated tachyon levels in close proximity to the Kobayashi Maru. Interaction patterns suggest three discrete sources for those particles.”

Saavik nodded. “And do you detect evidence of microgravity effects on the Kobayashi Maru, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. I do. My readings suggest it’s being acted upon by at least three objects, each with a mass of just less than one million gross tons.”

Casting an accusatory stare at her XO, Saavik asked, “Do you still advocate crossing the Neutral Zone, Mister Glar?” The Tellarite had no reply. Saavik faced forward and issued orders with icy detachment. “Arm photon torpedoes, full spread. Lock them onto the Kobayashi Maru.” Her helmsman threw a questioning look over his shoulder, prompting Saavik to add sternly, “That is an order.”

The Andorian turned his focus back toward his console and carried out Saavik’s commands. “Torpedoes armed and locked, Captain.”

“Fire,” Saavik said.

A muffled screech of magnetic launchers reverberated through the deck and bulkheads, and a cluster of blue projectiles raced away on the simulator’s main viewscreen before vanishing into warp speed. A few seconds passed. Then, even as the bridge’s screen showed nothing but a placid vista of stars, the Caitian at the sensor console reported, “The Kobayashi Maru has been destroyed, Captain.”

“Secure from Red Alert,” Saavik said. “Resume original heading. And, Mister ch’Lerras?” The Andorian helmsman looked back at Saavik as she added, “The next time you hesitate to carry out one of my orders, you will be disciplined. Is that clear?”

“Aye, Captain,” said the Andorian.

“Good. Carry on.”

In the control room with Spock, Captain Johan Spreter, the senior instructor, entered the test’s results into the computer and declared, “All right, open it up.” His staff of technicians, programmers, and engineers shut down the simulator. Inside the model bridge, bright overhead lights snapped on, and the bulkhead separating it from the control room began to retract. The cadets got up from their posts and started moving toward an exit to an amphitheater-style lecture hall.

Spreter, a wiry middle-aged man with white hair and green eyes, gestured at Saavik and asked Spock, “Want to talk to her before the debriefing?”

Not yet ready to put his disappointment into words, Spock replied, “No.”

He turned and left the control room, wondering whether his trust in Saavik might have been misplaced, after all.

Less than a day after her graduation from Starfleet Academy, Saavik stepped off a transporter pad aboard the I.S.S. Enterprise. Admiral Spock stood before her, hands folded behind his back. “Welcome aboard, Ensign,” he said.

“Thank you, Admiral.” She reached back toward the pad for her duffel.

“Leave it,” Spock said. “A yeoman will bring it to your quarters directly.” He stepped toward the door, which hissed open ahead of him, and paused at its threshold. Looking back, he said, “Walk with me, Ensign.”

“Yes, sir,” Saavik said, falling in behind him.

She followed Spock through the bustling corridors of his flagship. The crew was occupied with the tasks that preceded a departure after a port call. A steady undercurrent of comm chatter filtered out of open doorways and mingled with the crackle and sizzle of engineers working with plasma cutters and ion welders, which tainted the ship’s normally scent-free atmosphere with a hint of ozone.

Saavik was careful to linger just a fraction of a step behind Spock’s left shoulder, rather than presume to stride beside him as if she were his equal.

In a low voice, Spock said, “Speaking as your mentor, I find myself troubled by your solution to the Kobayashi Maru.”

Perplexed, Saavik asked, “With what part of my performance do you find fault, Admiral?”

Spock withheld his answer as a group of enlisted personnel passed them. He led her inside a waiting turbolift. “Deck Fifteen, Section Bravo,” he said to the computer as the doors shut. Then he turned to face Saavik. “I question your decision to resolve the scenario by destroying the Kobayashi Maru.”

His criticism surprised her. “I do not understand,” she said. “My solution to the test was entirely logical.”

“By what line of reasoning?”

She mentally composed her answer as the turbolift car raced vertically and then laterally through the Enterprise’s primary hull. “The freighter was outside Terran space but not yet inside Klingon space. However, it was in an area where travel is prohibited by interstellar treaty.

“If its crew navigated into the Neutral Zone on purpose, then they were guilty of a criminal violation of interstellar law that risked the security of the Terran Empire as a whole, and as such were subject to summary execution.”

The turbolift stopped, and its doors opened. She continued her answer as she and Spock exited the lift and walked through a gently curving corridor.

“If the vessel’s distress call had been forged by the Klingons to lure us into a trap and provide them a rationale for breaking the treaty—which I believe was the case—then its crew was engaged in an act of war for the Klingon Defense Forces while operating under false colors. Under the terms of interstellar law, they were therefore subject to preemptive attack.”

Spock nodded, as if he were giving serious consideration to the merits of her argument. Then he asked, “Did you at any time consider the possibility that the crew of the Kobayashi Maru might themselves have been lured off course by the Klingons? Or that perhaps their ship did suffer a navigational malfunction that led them off course before rendering them unable to maneuver at warp?”

“I deemed such considerations irrelevant,” Saavik replied.

There was a note of suspicion in Spock’s voice as he asked, “Why?”

They arrived at the door of Saavik’s quarters. She stopped and turned to face her mentor. “In either of the situations you propose, the Kobayashi Maru would have been co-opted by the Klingons as a tactical asset. By destroying it, we deprive them of that asset without risking an escalation of hostilities, because the Klingons have no claim to jurisdiction over Terran vessels or citizens. Furthermore, because the incident transpired inside the Neutral Zone, the Klingons would be unable to protest any collateral damage that might have been inflicted on their cloaked ships, since the Treaty of Organia expressly bans them from operating there.”

“Essentially true,” Spock said. “But what of the crew of the Kobayashi Maru? Were they still alive, would they have deserved to be rescued?”

“Irrelevant,” Saavik said. She unlocked the door of her quarters. It slid open. She stepped into the doorway to hold it open while she finished her conversation with Spock. “The rescue of civilians is not a declared function of Starfleet.”

“What if it was?” Spock asked. “Let me pose a new tactical scenario: What if you not only were required by Starfleet regulations to try to defend the lives of the Kobayashi Maru’s civilian crew but in fact had been expressly ordered by a superior officer to mount a rescue operation of the vessel and its personnel?”

It was an outrageous proposition. “Given the same tactical parameters?”

“Yes.”

Saavik pondered the tactical disaster that would unfold if she were to lead a lone starship into hostile action against three Klingon heavy cruisers. She shook her head. “I am sorry, Admiral,” she said. “Such a scenario would have no viable strategy for victory.”

“Correct,” Spock said. “That is the circumstance upon which I want you to reflect as you contemplate your future as a Starfleet officer.”

22

Falls the Shadow

Carol Marcus awoke to a hand clamping over her mouth and nose.

“Not a word,” a male voice commanded her. “Shut up and don’t fight.”

She was pulled from her bed dressed only in her nightclothes. Two men in Starfleet security uniforms dragged her kicking and flailing through the main room of her quarters. Another pair of security officers had gagged her son, who struggled futilely in their grasp as they carried him out behind his mother.

They were hauled quickly through Vanguard’s corridors, which were strangely deserted. Can’t have anyone see our last moments, Marcus thought bitterly. No point disappearing us if anyone sees what really happened.

The turbolift ride seemed longer than usual. Must be the adrenaline, Marcus reasoned, trying to calm her thoughts. Every little moment was being stretched by her fear.

Finally, they arrived at what seemed to be a terminal destination: an airlock on one of the station’s lowest levels. Marcus and her son were pushed inside the airlock chamber, where the rest of her staff from the Vault was already corralled. Two of her colleagues helped her and David stand up.

Standing in the doorway of the airlock’s open inner hatch was one of Reyes’s top command officers, Lieutenant Ming Xiong. Though he called himself a scientist, his true role aboard Vanguard had been to serve as Reyes’s watchdog in the Vault. For most of the last decade, he had haunted Marcus’s every movement in the lab, and he had documented the team’s every discovery in painstaking detail for the commodore.

Hulking security-division goons stood on either side of Xiong, their phasers leveled at the civilian researchers they had herded into the airlock.

Xiong smirked. “Doctor Marcus, I’d like to thank you and your team for coming on such short notice.”

“Go to hell,” Marcus replied, determined to die with some pride.

Addressing the group, Xiong continued. “You’ve all done remarkable work, and Commodore Reyes wants you to know how grateful he is for your efforts. However, now that he has what he needs from you—the greatest weapon in the history of the Terran Empire—he no longer requires your services. You are, as the expression goes, ‘loose ends,’ and the commodore wants you tied off.”

Marcus had always known this day would come. She just hadn’t expected it to arrive so soon. She grabbed her son and pulled him to her side.

Xiong pressed a button on a control pad beside the airlock. The inner door closed with a heavy thud. Then came a soft crackle as he activated the intercom between the airlock and the corridor. Turning to the security guards, Xiong said, “Gentlemen, for the sake of plausible deniability, it would be best if none of you sees what happens next.” When none of the guards took the hint, he added in a more forceful tone, “Dismissed.”

The security squad walked away. Xiong watched them leave. Then he began entering commands into the airlock’s control pad. Looking through the door’s hexagonal window of transparent aluminum, he said, “Doctor Marcus, I need you and your team to listen to me carefully. We don’t have much time.”

“Excuse me?”

“Pay attention,” he snapped. “In a few moments, I’m going to open the outer door, but I’m not ejecting you folks into space. You won’t be able to see it, but there’s going to be a ship docked on the other side.”

Confused looks passed between Marcus and the other scientists. “What are you talking about, Xiong? What’s going on?”

“You’re being extracted,” he said. “Rescued by Starfleet Intelligence, on orders from Admiral Spock. I need to bypass the sensors on this airlock so it’ll look to the ops center like I’ve spaced you.”

Putting on a display of bravado, David asked accusatorily, “How can a ship dock here without the station’s crew knowing it?”

“It’ll be cloaked,” Xiong said.

As if on cue, there was a gentle thump against the airlock’s exterior bulkhead. Next came the sound of magnetic clamps being secured, and a hiss of atmosphere flooding into a hard-seal passageway.

The light above the outer door changed from red to green, but Marcus still saw nothing but space and stars through its viewport.

“Remember to lay low,” Xiong said. Checking his chrono, he added, “Because as of oh-three nineteen, you’re all officially dead.” He smiled. “Good luck.” Then, with the press of a button, he opened the outer door.

Instead of the cold pull of vacuum, Marcus felt a gust of warm, dry air. Out of the darkness, rippling into view like a mirage, was a narrow passageway to another airlock, one with a decidedly non-Starfleet design. Standing in the far airlock was a young male Edoan in a Starfleet uniform, waving Marcus and the others forward. “Come on,” he said. “Hurry! We can’t stay more than a minute!”

Pushing her son ahead of her, Marcus led her research team onto the cloaked vessel, where more Starfleet personnel met them and shepherded them down dim corridors whose surfaces had a green cast. As soon as the last of her people was aboard the cloaked ship, she heard the airlock doors thud closed, followed by the clang of the magnetic clamps releasing. Then she felt the low vibration of impulse engines kicking in, and she realized in utter surprise that she was finally free of Commodore Reyes and his station of horrors.

Her son squeezed her hand and asked, “Mom? Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” she said, seeing no point in lying. “But wherever we end up, we’re going to owe Admiral Spock a very large debt of gratitude.”

Six weeks, two days, and eleven hours after its last port call on Vulcan, Enterprise was following an elliptical patrol route that kept it in close proximity to most of the Empire’s core systems.

Despite a number of requests by Spock to have Enterprise assigned to deep-space exploration, Starfleet Command insisted on keeping the vessel near the heart of the Terran Empire. The curtness with which Spock’s entreaties had been rebuffed led him to suspect the hand of Empress Sato III was behind Enterprise’s currently less than glamorous mission profile.

He glanced at the warp-distorted starlight on the bridge’s viewscreen, and then looked around to observe his crew at work. The Enterprise’s bridge had seemed darker to him since its 2271 refit—its curves more pronounced, its shadows deeper. Overall, the more somber ambience suited Spock, who had found its previous incarnations garishly bright. Another definite improvement of the refit was that the chairs had been securely fastened to the deck and equipped with optional safety braces. Though little more than a half measure in a pitched battle, they nonetheless represented progress.

Returning his attention to the day’s reports, he was pleased to note that according to several metrics used for evaluating the performance of his ship and its crew, efficiency had improved across the board by a significant degree in the years since he had abolished the use of agonizers. He had expected the gains to level off over time; instead, his crew continued to excel. Deck officers’ logs also indicated a steadily higher level of crew morale.

“Admiral,” said Lieutenant Palmer, interrupting Spock’s ruminations, “you have an incoming transmission on a coded subspace frequency.”

“I will take it in my quarters,” Spock said, rising from his chair. He nodded at his first officer across the deck. “Mister Decker, you have the conn.”

Spock stepped out of a turbolift near his quarters. He walked quickly, clearing his thoughts. As soon as he was inside his cabin he locked the door behind him and crossed the compartment to his desk. On-screen was the emblem of the Empire.

He keyed in a command to initiate playback of the coded message. A masculine computer voice replied, “State your name, rank, and command code for voiceprint verification.”

“Spock, Admiral, command code four-nine-kilo-seven-one-sierra-blue.”

“Command code and voiceprint verified.”

The imperial emblem was replaced by the face of T’Prynn. “Greetings, Admiral,” she said. “Operation Vanguard has been terminated.”

“Have all mission objectives been fulfilled?”

“Yes, sir. Vanguard is destroyed. Commodore Reyes and his accomplices are dead. Were you able to extract Doctor Marcus and her son?”

Spock nodded. “Yes. They are safe, as planned. Were you able to acquire the sample and data from Xiong?”

“Affirmative.”

“Well done.”

“You might also be interested to know that Captain Zhao, while perhaps a bit more ambitious than we were led to expect, seems amenable to our cause.”

Idly stroking his goateed chin, Spock replied, “Very good.”

T’Prynn stared at Spock for a moment before she added, “I trust you remember the condition under which I accepted this mission, Admiral.”

“I do,” Spock said. “And I will honor it.” He entered the necessary commands on his computer’s interface, and then he returned his attention to T’Prynn. “I have transmitted your notice of honorable discharge from Starfleet to the Admiralty. A copy of that notice will appear on your monitor momentarily.”

He heard a soft feedback tone from T’Prynn’s computer over the subspace channel. She reviewed the document, then bowed her head. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“Give Captain Zhao my regards,” Spock said, “and ask him to contact me as soon as he can do so safely.”

“I will.” She raised her hand in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Spock.”

He mirrored the gesture. “Honor and long life, T’Prynn.”

T’Prynn cut the channel. The screen went dark. Spock turned it off.

He estimated word of Vanguard’s destruction would reach Earth within the hour. Though it was sometimes difficult to predict Empress Sato III’s reactions, he felt fairly confident he knew how she would take this news.

“Who is responsible for this travesty?” screamed Empress Hoshi Sato III.

Her advisers cringed and leaned away from the war room’s conference table as she stood at its head, glaring with murderous anger at the lot of them. Not one of them seemed willing to look in her direction. Leaning forward on her fists, she arbitrarily parceled out abuse.

“Minister Nidas,” she said to her Bolian minister of intelligence, “we’ve lost a Watchtower-class starbase. More than three thousand Starfleet personnel are dead. Why didn’t your people detect this threat before it inflicted such casualties?”

As Nidas hemmed and hawed without producing an answer, the Empress directed her wrath at her Chelon foreign minister. “Minister Phialtes, why weren’t you aware Commodore Reyes was negotiating his own alliance with the Klingon Empire? Are you so underworked that you turned a blind eye to the emergence of a new rival state on our border, raised up using our own weapons, so you would have more to do?” Phialtes evinced his shame by retracting his head a few centimeters deeper inside his carapace.

The Empress slapped her palm on the table. “I want a name! Who did this? And don’t any of you try to lay the blame on Reyes—I can’t visit my revenge on a dead man. I want a living, breathing villain I can crucify for this.”

Silence reigned in the yawning darkness of the underground meeting room.

Somewhere near the middle of the table, a man cleared his throat and leaned forward. He was a middle-aged human who looked to be of Japanese ancestry; his frame was lean, his face was gaunt, and his silvery gray hair was styled in a brush cut. “If I may venture a speculation, Your Majesty?”

“Very well, Admiral … ?”

“Nogura, Majesty,” he replied. “A review of Vanguard’s logs suggest the station’s crew was killed by the escape of an alien entity known as a Shedai, which Reyes had been holding hostage. Long-range scans show the station was already damaged from within when it was destroyed by the Tholians.” He nodded at Minister Nidas. “The intelligence ministry can confirm the Tholians and Klingons are engaged in several skirmishes throughout the Taurus Reach. The party that seems to have had the most to gain in this crisis was the Tholian Assembly.”

Grand Admiral Matthew Decker heaved a disgusted sigh. “Can we knock off this kid-gloves bullshit, please?” He shot a scornful stare at Nogura before turning to the Empress and continuing. “Those long-range scans were provided by the Endeavour, which also happens to have led the attack on Vanguard. Captain Zhao”—he rolled his eyes—“forgive me, Commodore Zhao is the one who made a public spectacle of Reyes’s power-grab-in-the-making. If not for Zhao’s mutiny, we could have replaced Reyes quietly and retained control over the Taurus Reach. Now the entire sector’s in chaos because Zhao absconded with the Sixth Fleet.”

A cold fire of anger swelled in the Empress’s breast as she asked Decker, “Is Zhao the one I want to destroy?”

“Eventually,” Decker said. “But Zhao is only the symptom. I think it’s time we addressed the cause.”

Decker inserted a data card into a slot on the table and accessed its contents, which were rendered as holograms at intervals along the table. “These comm logs show a pattern of transmissions between Zhao’s ship and the Tholian Assembly—which would be damning by itself—but more important is who made them.”

The projection changed to show the face of a Vulcan woman. “Her name is T’Prynn,” Decker said. “She’s an agent of Starfleet Intelligence. Until six years ago, she was posted on Vulcan, where she had frequent contact with Ambassador Sarek.” Calling up more data, Decker continued. “Eight hours ago, she received an honorable discharge from Starfleet service authorized by Admiral Spock—who, it should be noted, two years ago received a packet of classified data regarding Operation Vanguard from Captain Terrell of the Sagittarius.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Hoshi said. “For years Admiral Spock has sowed dissension in Starfleet and been a magnet for insurrectionists throughout the Empire. Now he dares to order the premature termination of an imperially mandated military operation. He has gone too far.” Adopting as regal a bearing as her slender physique allowed, the Empress lifted her chin and said with icy hauteur, “Grand Admiral Decker: terminate Admiral Spock immediately.”

23

Fortunes of the Bold

Will Decker greeted Admiral Spock as the Vulcan C.O. entered the transporter room. “Your landing party is ready, Admiral.”

Spock nodded his acknowledgment as he strode past Decker and stepped onto the platform. Awaiting the admiral were four young Vulcan officers, three male and one female, all personally selected by Spock to accompany him to the Starfleet Admiralty’s strategic conference on Deneva. Lieutenant Xon, the Enterprise’s new science officer, was a boyish-looking young man with long unruly hair. Ensign Saavik, the woman, served as its alpha-shift flight controller. The other two, Solok and Stang, were lieutenants in the security division.

Like the admiral, the other Vulcans all wore full dress uniforms—which, thanks to their dark gray, minimalist styling, looked almost identical to regular duty uniforms, right down to their ceremonial daggers and mandatory sidearms.

Lieutenant Commander Winston Kyle stood at the transporter control station. “Coordinates locked in, Admiral,” he said.

“Stand by, Mister Kyle,” Spock said. In a sepulchral tone of voice, he added, “Mister Decker, please join the landing party.”

The request caught Decker by surprise. He concealed his alarm. “Me, sir? But I’m not dressed for a formal conference.”

“A technicality,” Spock said. “Overriding protocol is one of the privileges of rank.”

Decker realized he had become the center of attention in the transporter room. Debating a direct order from Admiral Spock aboard his flagship would only exacerbate the situation. Refusing it was not an option. Decker wondered if Spock knew what had been arranged on the planet’s surface—or what Decker’s role in it had been. “Aye, sir,” he said, stepping up to join the landing party. Moving past the Vulcans, Decker found an available transporter pad at the rear of the platform.

In the six years since Decker had been demoted by his father to serve as Spock’s executive officer aboard the Enterprise, the notorious Vulcan flag officer had made a point of keeping Decker at a distance. Except for the most perfunctory communications, Spock rarely conversed with him and generally declined to include him in tactical planning or diplomatic efforts. Spock simply did not trust him.

And why should he? I wouldn’t, if I was him. I’d assume my first loyalty would be to my father. It’s a wonder he hasn’t “disappeared” me like so many others. He still might.

Decker’s musings were disrupted by Spock’s level baritone. “Mister Kyle … energize.”

Wrapped in the transporter beam, Decker saw the room swirl with light and color. He unfastened the loop on his phaser before the annular confinement beam ensnared him and restrained his movements. The same irrational fear always raced through his thoughts as the dematerialization sequence began: What if being disassembled is actually fatal? What if the person who comes out on the other side is just a copy of me, perfect in every detail, but completely unaware I’m dead and he’s a copy? A wash of whiteness brought him up short, then the swirl of light and euphonic noise ushered him back to himself, now in a corridor of the imperial administration building in Deneva’s capital city. Though he knew he could never prove his idea or disprove it, he still wondered, What if I’m a copy now? What if the person who stepped onto the transporter pad on the Enterprise is dead?

The landing party was in a dim hallway with bare, dark gray walls of a smooth, prefabricated material. Open panels on the wall revealed complex networks of wires and optronic cables. A musty odor permeated the cool air, suggesting to Decker they were underground, in some kind of subbasement.

Recalling the pre-mission briefing, he realized something was wrong. “This isn’t where we were supposed to beam in,” he said.

“Quite correct, Commander,” Spock said. “Follow me.” Without hesitation, Spock led the group at a quick step down the corridor, then right at a T-shaped intersection. Within a few minutes, he had reached a locked portal marked “Auxiliary Security Control.” Next to the door was an alphanumeric keypad. Spock stood aside while the four Vulcans gathered at the door and stared at it, as if concentrating on something beyond it. They and Spock all were perfectly still and quiet, and Decker followed their example.

Then Saavik blinked, stepped forward, and tapped in a long string of characters and digits on the security keypad. The door swished open, and the four young Vulcan officers rushed in, swift and silent. Sharp cracking noises were followed by heavy thuds. Spock walked inside the security control center, and Decker followed him.

Four human Starfleet officers lay unconscious on the floor, and Spock’s team now occupied the fallen officers’ posts. Banks of video screens lined three walls, packed with images from the building’s internal security network. Spock and Decker watched as the four Vulcans worked. Finally, Stang turned his chair to face Spock. “There are no other members of the Admiralty in the conference hall, sir.”

“As I suspected,” Spock said. He looked at the science officer. “Lieutenant Xon, scan the conference hall for any life signs.” To Saavik he said, “Scan the corridor outside the conference hall for evidence of concealed explosives or other antipersonnel devices.” Both officers nodded in acknowledgment and set to work.

Decker stood and watched, dumbfounded. It was all falling apart. Spock noted Decker’s dismayed expression. “You appear troubled, Commander.”

Still trying to make sense of what was happening, Decker said, “You came down here expecting a trap?”

“Naturally,” Spock said.

“But why?”

Folding his hands behind his back, Spock replied, “Mister Decker, in the ten years I have commanded the Enterprise, I have been forced to suppress six mutinies, two of them instigated by senior officers.”

“None on my watch, Admiral,” Decker said proudly.

“True,” Spock said. “Discipline has improved markedly under your supervision. Regardless, I have been forced on many occasions to defend my command from persons and factions who oppose my methods. Precaution becomes a necessity.” Decker couldn’t fault Spock’s reasoning. From the alleged “malfunction” of the experimental M-5 computer to Grand Admiral Garth’s failed ambush of Spock at Elba II, the Empire had given the Vulcan more than sufficient cause to treat any invitation it proffered as being instantly suspect.

Ensign Saavik turned from her screen to report. “Explosives have been installed at one-meter intervals beneath the floor in the main corridor outside the conference hall.”

“Fascinating,” Spock said. He looked at Xon.

Xon, sensing the admiral’s attention, turned to face him. “Two life signs inside the conference hall, Admiral. Close together, in a concealed position opposite the main entrance. Both armed with phased plasma rifles.”

“Snipers,” Spock said. “Lieutenant, can you deactivate the building’s transport scrambler from here?”

“Negative, sir,” Xon replied. “Doing so would alert the personnel in the primary security control center.”

Spock raised his voice. “Solok, Stang, use the emergency exit stairway to reach the conference hall undetected. Eliminate the two snipers. Saavik, Xon, initiate a command override and then execute an intruder protocol inside the primary security control room. Trigger their anesthezine gas module. As soon as they are incapacitated, we will return to the Enterprise.”

“Aye, sir,” Xon and Saavik answered in near unison, while Stang and Solok swiftly exited the auxiliary security control center on their way up to the conference hall.

Standing near the door, Decker listened to their retreating footfalls. Inside the room, Spock conferred with Xon and Saavik at the main console. All three had their backs to him.

Slowly, carefully, and as quietly as he was able, Decker drew his phaser from his belt, extended his arm, and leveled his aim. Three against one, but I have the element of surprise, he assured himself. This is the best chance I’ll get.

He squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. He released the trigger and looked at his weapon as if it were a friend who had betrayed him.

Spock, still facing away from Decker, said, “It would seem, Commander, that you are the only member of the landing party who is not aware of the phaser-dampening field inside this room.” The admiral turned to face him. Saavik and Xon swiveled their chairs to do likewise.

The door swished closed behind Decker.

Oh, no. Panic swelled in his gut as he lowered his sidearm.

“Thank you, Mister Decker, for all your assistance,” Spock continued. “Without your unwitting complicity, I would have been hard-pressed to ascertain the specific time and place of this assassination attempt arranged by your father.”

Decker smiled sadly. “You know I had no choice, right?”

“One always has a choice,” said Spock. “Even refusing to decide is still a choice. And choices have consequences.”

Saavik stood and walked slowly toward Decker. Xon followed a step behind her. Both unsheathed their daggers.

Not content to let himself be murdered without a fight, Decker drew his own dagger and squared himself for combat.

They were so fast, and he felt so slow.

He met a lunge with a block, dodged a thrust, slashed at an opponent who had already slipped away—

—then cruel agony, sharp and cold. Steel plunged into his body below his ribs. Gouging upward, ripping him apart from the inside out. The serrated Vulcan blades tore free. He dropped to his knees and clutched his gut. Blood, warm and coppery-smelling, coated his fingers.

Xon and Saavik stood above him, the blood-slicked blades still in their hands. Spock remained at the far console. All the Vulcans wore the same dispassionate expression as they watched Decker die. For people from a scorching-hot planet, they were the most cold-blooded killers he had ever seen.

Decker tried to swallow, but his mouth was dust-dry and his throat constricted. “My father will kill you all,” he rasped.

“It is very likely he will try,” Spock said, then he nodded once to Saavik.

Another flash of steel landed a stinging cut across Decker’s throat. He felt himself slipping away and going dark, and his last thought was that it felt not all that different from vanishing into a transporter beam.

“That rotten, scheming, Vulcan sonofabitch!” Grand Admiral Matthew Decker hurled an expensive bottle of Romulan ale against the wall of his quarters, showering Commander Hiromi Takeshewada with broken glass and pale blue liquor.

A few seconds later, she felt reasonably certain none of the glass had penetrated her eye. A light sweep of her hand wiped the splatter of liquid from her sleeve. The grand admiral, meanwhile, was almost literally tearing at his gray hair while thumping his forehead heavily against the bulkhead.

For all the times that being the first officer to the Grand Admiral of Starfleet had been a boon to Takeshewada, moments such as these made the job a horror. Being the one to inform him that his son, Will, had been slain—cut down by Admiral Spock’s loyal Vulcan operatives—marked a low point in her military career. Now she had the unpleasant task of delivering a second piece of news to the grand admiral.

“There’s one more thing, sir.”

His face was scrunched from his efforts to muzzle his grief and fury. Through clenched teeth he replied, “What is it?”

She cast her eyes downward. “The Empress commands you to make contact with her at once.”

An angry, bitter chuckle rumbled inside Decker’s throat. “Of course she does.”

Takeshewada pointed toward the door. “Should I … ?”

“No,” Decker said. “Stay. I want you to hear this. So you can be glad you’ll never have to deal with it.”

Intensive training over the past few years had enabled Takeshewada to suppress any reaction to Decker’s almost-reflexive insults. At first, his mocking reminders that her career would never advance beyond its current position had grated sorely on her nerves. It was well known that the monarchs of the Sato dynasty had refused for more than a century to grant female officers the rank of admiral. A lucky few made captain, but such an honor was rare and usually restricted to noncombat vessels—in other words, to ships of little value to the Empire. Takeshewada’s own aspirations had never been a secret, and as a result she had endured continual mockery by her peers and shipmates for more than two decades.

With the help of Sontor, she had learned how to suppress her emotional reactions to Decker’s taunts. No longer did a snarl twist her lip or a grimace crease the corner of her mouth. Her eyes didn’t narrow, nor did her face flush with anger when he hurled another of his unthinking japes in her direction.

He powered up the private viewscreen on his desk. “Computer,” he said. “Establish a secure, real-time communication channel to Empress Sato on Earth.”

“Working,” said the computer’s masculine, synthetic voice.

Decker took a few deep breaths while he waited for the channel to open on his screen. He had just composed himself into a semblance of his normally grim, imposing visage when the face of Empress Hoshi Sato III appeared on the viewscreen.

“Grand Admiral Decker.” She sounded almost amused. “It’s my understanding that the trap you set on Deneva was unsuccessful.”

He bowed his head like a common supplicant to the throne. “Yes, Your Majesty. Admiral Spock anticipated the ambush.”

“I warned you not to underestimate him,” Sato said. “His promotion of compromise and nonviolence might seem irrational, but I am beginning to comprehend a method to his madness.”

Vengeful wrath usurped Decker’s demeanor. “He’s just a man, Your Majesty. And I’m going to kill him.”

Her voice was hard and unyielding. “You will kill him, Admiral, but you will do so because I order it, not for your personal satisfaction.” She waited until he bowed his head before she continued. “And he’s more than just a man. For dissidents and malcontents throughout the Empire, he has become a symbol. The longer he remains free to promote his agenda, the more allies he attracts. He enjoys an unprecedented level of popularity among civilians, and my sources warn me that more than half of Starfleet is prepared to follow his banner.”

“Any who follow him are traitors,” Decker declared. “Any crew that mutinies will be put to death.”

“Really?” The Empress tilted her head, again with an intimation of mockery. “You were incapable of killing one man, but you’re prepared to declare war on half your own fleet?”

“Ambushing Spock is extremely difficult, Your Majesty,” Decker said. “After today, he’ll be even more cautious. It’ll take time to prepare another trap.”

Her tone became one of dark menace. “We’re long past the time for clever ploys, Admiral. Spock is poised to launch a coup for control of Starfleet. He must be put down immediately. Assemble a fleet and destroy the Enterprise. Act with extreme prejudice; kill Admiral Spock. Is that understood?”

“Explicitly,” Decker said.

As she closed the channel, she said simply, “Good hunting.”

Decker deactivated the viewscreen and turned his chair to face Takeshewada. He was so alive with purpose that he looked reborn. “Commander, send on a secure channel to all confirmed-loyal ships, ‘Rendezvous at Terra Nova, await further orders.’ And start running battle drills.” He stood and straightened his posture into one of defiant pride. “When we catch up to Enterprise, I want to be ready to blast her to kingdom come.”

A soft hum coursed through the deck of Enterprise’s bridge. The ship was cruising at warp six toward Xyrillia, having made an unharried departure from Deneva. By now, word had certainly reached Starfleet Command regarding the outcome of Grand Admiral Decker’s trap and the fate of his son. Though it was possible Matt Decker and the Empress might choose to regroup following such a setback, Spock doubted they would afford him or his crew such a reprieve.

Spock leaned forward in the center seat while reviewing a short list of candidates to succeed the late Will Decker as first officer. He had narrowed the roster to three names since his last cup of tea, and much careful consideration now reduced it to two: either Lieutenant Commander Winston Kyle or Lieutenant Commander Kevin Riley.

He looked up from the data slate in his hand and focused his eyes on points at different distances around the bridge, as a relaxing exercise for his fatigued ocular muscles.

As his gaze passed the communications station, Lieutenant Elizabeth Palmer turned toward him. “Admiral,” she said. “I’m picking up encrypted signal traffic on multiple Starfleet channels. None of the regular decryption protocols are working.” She thought for half a second, then added, “It appears the message is intended for all Starfleet ships except us, sir.”

Turning toward the opposite side of the bridge, Spock looked to his science officer. “Lieutenant Xon, tie in to Lieutenant Palmer’s station and help her decrypt the signal from Starfleet.”

“Aye, sir,” Xon replied.

Tense minutes passed while Xon and Palmer worked to decipher the fleet’s urgent communiqués. Finally, Xon moved away from his station and stepped down from the upper level to stand beside Spock’s chair. He spoke softly. “Admiral, we have decrypted the signals. The message is audio only, and is available for your review at my station.”

In a normal speaking voice, Spock said, “Put it on the speaker, Lieutenant.”

Xon remained calm, replied simply, “Aye, sir,” and returned to his post. From there, he relayed the message to the bridge’s main overhead speaker. A recorded male voice spoke calmly and plainly. “Attention all Starfleet ships, this is a direct order from Grand Admiral Matt Decker, commanding the fleet from aboard the Starship Constellation. All vessels in sectors one through seven are to rendezvous at once in the Terra Nova system. Under no circumstances is any vessel to exchange communications with the Starship Enterprise. This is an imperial directive issued by Empress Sato III. Further orders will be forthcoming at the rendezvous. Constellation out.”

Spock arched one eyebrow with curiosity at this turn of events. Glancing to his right, he saw his expression mirrored on Xon’s young, clean-shaven face. Nervous looks were volleyed between the non-Vulcans on the bridge. Before idle speculation could take root, Spock seized the initiative. “Helm. Increase speed to warp nine, and set course for Terra Nova.”

Ensign Saavik began punching in the coordinates for the course change. Then she paused and turned to face Spock. “Admiral, please confirm: You wish to rendezvous with Grand Admiral Decker’s attack fleet?”

“Affirmative, Ensign,” Spock said.

Even Xon seemed perplexed by Spock’s order. “Sir, the fact that Grand Admiral Decker excluded us from the initial transmission, and barred the rest of the fleet from communicating with us, would seem to suggest—”

“I am well aware of what it suggests, Lieutenant. Grand Admiral Decker has been ordered to destroy this ship. First, however, he hopes to intimidate us into retreat, so that he may frame the conflict as one of loyal soldiers versus deserters.” Folding his hands against his chest, Spock finished, “I will force him to accept a different narrative—one of my choosing.”

Saavik continued to press the debate. “Admiral, would it not be prudent to seek reinforcements before confronting an entire fleet of hostile ships? As the ancient Terrans might have said, ‘Discretion is the better part of valor.’ ”

“True enough, Ensign. But the ancient Terrans were also fond of a different maxim: ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ … Set course for Terra Nova and increase speed to warp factor nine.”

Enterprise was still more than a light-year from the outer boundary of the Terra Nova system when Grand Admiral Decker’s attack fleet intercepted it. Ten minutes after Spock’s ship had registered on the Constellation’s sensors, it was met and surrounded, all without a shot being fired. Enterprise didn’t attempt a single evasive maneuver. Every scan Decker’s crew performed showed Enterprise’s shields were down, and its weapons were not charged. The only thing postponing Decker’s order for its immediate destruction was the signal of surrender transmitted by Admiral Spock himself, along with a formal request for parley.

Decker didn’t like this at all. It smelled like a trap.

Lieutenant Ponor, the communications officer, looked up to report, “I have Admiral Spock on channel one, sir.”

“On-screen,” Decker snapped. The main viewer wavered and rippled for a moment, then the visage of Admiral Spock appeared, larger than life. Decker scowled at the Vulcan. “Admiral Spock, by the authority of Empress Sato III, I order you to surrender your command and relinquish control of your vessel.”

“I have already surrendered,” Spock replied. “Forcing you to destroy the Enterprise would serve no purpose when it can still be of service to the Empire.”

If Spock had a strategy here, Decker wasn’t seeing it. “Very well,” Decker said. “Prepare to be boarded.”

“Hardly necessary,” Spock said. “I am prepared to allow myself to be transported to your ship.”

It took a moment for Decker to formulate his response. “Who said any of this is up to you? You’re in no position to—”

“I merely suggest,” Spock interrupted, “the most logical and least time-consuming alternative.”

Decker was on the edge of his chair, tensed to spring to his feet at the slightest provocation. “You’re not dictating the terms here, you Vulcan sonofabitch.”

“My apologies, Grand Admiral,” Spock said, lowering his head slightly. “Do you wish to accept my surrender in person?”

“What?” He didn’t know why Spock even had to ask. The protocol for a formal surrender demanded Decker receive it face-to-face. “Yes, of course.”

“Shall I arrange to have myself transported into custody aboard your vessel?”

Only then did Decker realize what Spock was doing. Though Spock had framed his statements as interrogatives, he still was directing the process of the surrender, usurping Decker’s authority. “A security detail from my ship will beam aboard your vessel immediately,” he said, then continued quickly to keep Spock quiet. “If they meet with any resistance, Admiral Spock—any resistance whatsoever—I will not hesitate to destroy your ship and its crew. My guards will escort you back here, to my bridge, where I will accept your surrender and pass sentence for your treason against Empress Sato III. Decker out.” He made a slashing motion in Ponor’s direction, and the communications officer closed the channel before Spock could sneak in another word.

Commander Takeshewada stepped down from one of the aft consoles and stood beside Decker’s chair. “The boarding party has just beamed over, sir,” she said. “They’ll notify us the moment they have Admiral Spock in custody.”

“Good,” Decker said. “Have extra security guards meet them in the transporter room when they get back. Don’t take any chances with Spock.” He heaved a tired sigh. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

As Spock had pledged, no member of his crew interfered with Constellation’s boarding party, and he gave no resistance when the six-man team placed him under arrest and ushered him at phaser point off the bridge of the Enterprise.

Now they were aboard the Constellation, Grand Admiral Decker’s flagship, crowded together in the turbolift. Deck after deck blurred past as they ascended toward the bridge.

The doors opened with a gasp and swish, and the soft chirps and hums of the bridge, all but identical to those aboard Enterprise, washed over Spock as he was prodded forward out of the turbolift. Constellation was a refit Constitution-class vessel just like the Enterprise, and only a handful of tiny differences in console layout distinguished the two ships’ command centers.

On the main viewer was the image of Empress Sato III. A string of symbols along the bottom edge of the screen informed Spock this was a two-way transmission being broadcast in real time on an open subspace frequency.

Decker stood beside his chair, facing the turbolift, as Spock and the security detail filed out. The bridge officers also stood, each next to his or her station, observing Spock as he was led in and guided to within a meter of Decker. When the procession came to a stop, boot heels clapped together as the guards snapped to attention and thrust out their arms in salute to the grand admiral. Spock saluted him, more out of respect for the rank than for the man. While keeping eye contact with Spock, Decker returned the salute to one and all.

Hands pressed down roughly on Spock’s shoulders. “Kneel,” said one of his guards. He was forced to his knees in front of Decker, who glared fiercely down at him.

“You killed my son,” Decker said.

Raising one eyebrow, Spock replied, “No, sir. My operatives slew your son. I merely sanctioned it.”

“Spare me your Vulcan semantics,” Decker said. “You ordered it. You’re responsible. Hand me your agonizer, Admiral.”

Spock calmly answered, “I no longer carry it. Nor does any member of my crew.”

“That’s a court-martial offense,” Decker said.

Unfazed, Spock said, “If you wish to convene a court-martial, I am more than willing to defend my decision.”

Decker practically quaked with rage. “I’ve heard enough,” he said, his disgust evident. “Admiral Spock, I order you, as a Starfleet officer and subject of the Terran Empire, to profess your loyalty to Empress Sato III before you are put to death, so that you may die with some measure of honor.”

Speaking boldly for the benefit of those watching via the subspace channel, Spock answered, “I pledge my loyalty and my life to the Empire.” He noticed, at the edge of his vision, the Empress on the viewscreen casting a poisonous glare at Decker. He waited for Decker’s reaction. It took only a moment.

“I ordered you to pledge your loyalty to the Empress Sato III,” Decker snapped.

“The Empress and the Empire are one,” Spock said. “Fealty to one is fealty to both. It is a founding principle of the Empire.”

Decker sneered. “Do you really think this grandstanding will delay your execution, Spock?”

“I think,” Spock said, “this will all be over in a few moments.”

A screech of phasers, flashes of light, and agonized cries filled the bridge of the Constellation. The security detail surrounding Spock dropped to the deck, shot dead. Spock, already aware of what was happening, stayed where he was. Decker cringed, looked around in a sudden panic—and watched his bridge officers act in concert to ambush the security team.

It was a mutiny.

Decker backed away from Spock. The voice of his first officer stopped him. “That’s far enough, Decker.”

The grand admiral turned and faced Commander Takeshewada, whom Spock had cultivated as an ally through his operative Sontor. Her resentment at the suppression of her potential had made her a prime candidate for a revolt against the status quo, and her access to information as Decker’s first officer had provided Spock’s people with critical intelligence—such as the means to break the Constellation’s latest encryption codes.

Trapped between Takeshewada and Spock, Decker started to lose his stature. He was cowering. “What are you doing, Hiromi?”

“Something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

The grand admiral turned away from his first officer to find Spock standing tall, surrounded by the charred corpses of the fallen and gazing down upon him. Mustering the timbre of authority in his rich baritone, Spock declared, “You are relieved, sir.”

All at once Decker understood what was transpiring, and he straightened himself to a pose of dignity and defiance. Looking Spock in the eye, he answered, “The hell I—”

Takeshewada fired and burned a hole halfway through Decker’s back. He convulsed and twitched grotesquely as he fell facedown at Spock’s feet.

On the main viewer, Empress Sato III watched with wide-eyed attention but said nothing. The bridge crew of the Constellation looked to Spock for direction. “Stations,” he ordered, and everyone leaped into motion. “Commander Takeshewada, secure from general quarters. Lieutenant Ponor, request status updates from the ships of the fleet.”

While the officers around him scrambled to collect data and remove the dead bodies from the bridge, Spock settled easily into the center seat and waited, patient and stoic, for word of whether his plan—triggered prematurely by Decker and the Empress’s blatant move against him—was unfolding as intended. He passed the minutes looking at the Empress on the screen. For her part, she seemed equally willing to reciprocate his stare.

Finally, Takeshewada concluded her conference with Ponor and stepped down into the middle of the bridge, next to Spock. “We have reports from all sectors, sir,” she said. “Officers loyal to you have successfully taken control of sixty-one-point-three percent of the ships in Starfleet. The remaining vessels are under the control of officers who have expressed a desire to remain neutral.”

“What is the disposition of the other ships in Admiral Decker’s attack fleet?”

She handed him a condensed report on a data slate. “All are with you except for Yorktown and Repulse, but their captains have ordered their crews to stand down.”

“Very well,” Spock said. He stood and took two steps toward the main viewer. He put his closed fist to his chest, then extended his arm in salute to the Empress. “Your Majesty,” he said, lowering his arm. “In accordance with the imperial rules of war, and Starfleet regulations regarding the criteria for advancement, I hereby assume the rank of Grand Admiral of Starfleet, and designate Enterprise as my flagship.”

It was done. He had thrown the gauntlet and appointed himself the supreme military commander of the Terran Empire. Now all he could do was await the Empress’s response. She could refuse to grant him the title, but to challenge him would spark a civil war—and with the majority of Starfleet supporting his bid for control, and the bulk of the remainder choosing to sit out the confrontation rather than risk becoming caught in a crossfire, the odds favored Spock’s triumph. Alternatively, she could implicitly endorse his coup, thereby cementing his hold on power and legitimizing his control of the Empire’s vast military arsenal. If she was as shrewd as his observations had led him to suspect she was, she would not elect to plunge her Empire into a disastrous internecine conflict.

The monarch’s neutral expression never changed as she spoke. “Grand Admiral Spock, redeploy your fleet to fortify our defenses on the Klingon border near Ajilon,” she said.

“As you command, Your Majesty,” Spock replied.

“Then,” Empress Sato III added, “set your flagship’s course for Earth. It’s customary for a promotion of this magnitude to be honored with a formal imperial reception. I look forward to welcoming you to my palace on Earth in seven days’ time.”

Spock bowed his head slightly, then returned to attention. “Understood, Your Majesty. My crew and I are honored by your invitation.”

Without any valediction, the Empress cut the channel, terminating the discussion. The collective anxiety on the bridge diminished palpably the moment the viewscreen reverted to the placid vista of a motionless starscape. Spock turned away from the screen. “Captain Takeshewada,” he said, granting an instant promotion to his chief ally aboard the Constellation, “take this attack fleet and proceed at best speed to the Ajilon system. From there, redeploy to secure the border. The Kling-ons will see this change in our military leadership as an invitation to test our discipline and organization. Encourage them not to try more than once.”

“Aye, sir,” Takeshewada said.

“I return now to the Enterprise,” Spock said. He raised his right hand and spread the fingers in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Captain Takeshewada.”

“And the same to you, Grand Admiral Spock,” she said. Then she took her place in the center seat and beamed with pride.

He took his communicator from his belt and flipped it open. “Spock to Enterprise.”

It was Lieutenant Xon who answered. “Go ahead, sir.”

“One to beam over, Lieutenant,” Spock said. “Energize.”

24

The End and Object of Conquest

“Enter,” said Grand Admiral Spock from the other side of the door to his quarters. It opened and Saavik stepped inside.

As soon as she crossed the threshold she felt more comfortable. Inside, the light was dimmer and tinted red; the heat was dry and comforting; even the gravity was slightly greater. It was as accurate a facsimile of Vulcan’s climate as the ship’s environmental controls could create. She stepped farther inside, and the door shut behind her.

Saavik turned and saw Spock. His back was to her. He was wearing his full dress uniform, complete with regalia and medals, and standing in front of a mantel on which stood a smoking cone of incense. Without turning to look in her direction, he said, “Join me, Ensign.”

Hands folded together behind her back, she walked slowly to his side. Several seconds passed while she stood beside him. “We have received your transport coordinates from the imperial palace,” she said, breaking the silence. “They are standing by for your arrival.”

“I am well aware of our itinerary,” Spock said.

Duly chastised, Saavik lowered her chin. “Aye, sir.”

This time she respected the silence until he spoke.

His eyes remained fixed on the twists of pale smoke rising from the ashen cone of mildly jasmine-scented incense. “Do you know why I asked you here?”

She followed his example and stared at the serpentine coils of dense smoke. “No, sir.”

“Do you know why the Empress ordered us to Earth?”

Electing to eliminate obvious answers, Saavik replied, “To honor your promotion to Grand Admiral of Starfleet.”

A soft, low harrumph was Spock’s first reaction. “That was her stated purpose for the invitation.”

Saavik cast a furtive, sidelong glance at her Academy sponsor and mentor. Phrasing her supposition as a statement rather than as a question, she said, “You believe the Empress’s invitation is a prelude to an assassination attempt.”

He gave a brief nod. “I do.”

“If you are correct,” Saavik said, “do you concede her decision is logical? You have, after all, orchestrated a coup of Starfleet and usurped a rank traditionally appointed by the throne.”

Turning to face her, he replied, “I concede her decision to eliminate me is consistent with her objectives. But as I consider her long-term goal to be untenable, I am forced to conclude the entirety of her agenda and the actions she takes to support it are illogical.”

“Then the rumors are true,” Saavik said. “You intend to challenge her for control of the Empire.”

His expression betrayed nothing as he stepped away from her to a nearby table, on which sat a tray that held a ceramic teapot and two low, broad cups of a matching style. He poured a cup of tea, then lifted it and held it out toward Saavik. She walked over, accepted the tea, and then returned the gesture by filling the other cup and offering it to him. He took it from her with a solemn bow of his head. They sipped the herbal libation together. Finally, he said, “Share your thoughts.”

Challenging him felt improper; she was a lowly ensign, and he was the supreme military commander of the Empire—at least, he was for the next hour, until his audience with the Empress. His invitation had sounded genuine, however, so she collected her thoughts and began cautiously. “I am familiar with the predicted future collapse of the Empire,” she said. “And I agree it is not logical to continue expending time, resources, and lives on an entity we know to be doomed.” Growing bolder, she continued. “But I have grave misgivings about your proposed solution, Admiral. Many of your ideas seem laudable for their nobility, but I think they will ultimately prove impractical.”

“Should we instead do nothing?” Spock asked.

She put down her tea. “Perhaps your domestic adjustments could be accommodated with a more graduated time frame. But your platform of diplomacy and exclusively defensive power as the basis for a new foreign policy strikes me as politically naïve at best, and possibly suicidal at worst.”

“And yet, by employing those very tactics within Starfleet, I have amassed more direct support than any officer ever to precede me in this role.”

“Enacting reforms within Starfleet is hardly analogous to effecting a total reversal of the Empire’s foreign policy.”

Setting aside his own tea, he asked, “On what do you base your assumption that our adversaries will reject diplomacy? Or that renouncing wars of choice would provoke them?”

“I have based my arguments on my observations and studies of the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans as large-scale political actors,” Saavik said. “Each is ambitious and highly aggressive. Historically, none of them has been receptive to diplomatic efforts. As for your civil reforms, the regional governors would certainly revolt, and you might lose much of your current support within Starfleet.”

He paced slowly away from her and stopped beside a wall in the middle of the cabin. “Put aside what you know, Saavik,” he said, “and consider this hypothetical question: If there existed a means by which my power could be assured, and my enemies kept at bay, would you support a more logical approach to the governance of the Empire?”

“Hypothetically?” Arching one eyebrow, she replied, “Yes.”

“And if I were to place the fate of the Empire into your hands,” he said, “which path would you choose?”

“The one that was most logical,” Saavik said, almost as if by instinct.

With one hand, he beckoned her. As she stepped over to join him, he reached up toward an empty trapezoidal frame on his wall. He touched its lower right corner, then its upper right corner. The main panel of the frame slid upward, revealing a small device: just a screen, a few knobs, a keypad, and a single button set apart in a pale, sea-green teardrop of crystal. “This,” he said, “is the control apparatus for an alien weapon known as the Tantalus field. With it, the user can track the movements of any person, even from orbit.” He activated the device and called up an image of Empress Sato III, in her throne room on Earth. “It can strike even within such protected domains as the imperial palace.” He pointed at the various controls. “These are used to switch targets, these are for tracking. And this one”—he pointed at the button inside the teardrop crystal—“fires the weapon. It can eliminate a single target as small as an insect … or everyone in a desired zone of effect. To the best of my knowledge, there is no defense.”

Saavik stared at the device, transfixed by the macabre genius of it. Undoubtedly, this had been the secret of Spock’s swift ascent to power, and the source of the legends about his terrifying psionic gifts. Then she realized knowing about the Tantalus field might make her a liability to him. “Admiral,” she asked carefully, “why are you showing me this?”

“Because, Saavik, when I meet with the Empress, you will have three choices.” He stepped close to her, invading her personal space and towering over her. “One: Serve your own agenda—let the imperial guards kill me, then take the Tantalus field device for yourself. Two: Assassinate me yourself, and try to curry favor with the Empress. Or three: Defend me from the Empress, and help me initiate the logical reformation of the Empire. … The choice is yours.”

It took several seconds before Saavik understood the exact nature of the responsibility Spock had just entrusted to her. He was one of the most powerful men in the Empire, and he was about to make himself infinitely vulnerable to her whim. It was one of the most illogical decisions she had ever seen a Vulcan make. “I do not understand, Admiral,” she said. “You would actually trust me to remain here, alone with this unspeakably powerful weapon? You would entrust your life … to my goodwill?”

“No, Saavik,” he replied. “I am entrusting my life to your good judgment. Logic alone should dictate your correct course.” He frowned, then continued. “We live in a universe that tends to reward cruelty and self-interest. But I have seen irrefutable evidence that a better way exists—and if our civilization is to endure beyond the next two centuries, we must learn to change.”

His assertion fueled her swelling curiosity. “You say you have seen ‘irrefutable proof.’ What was that proof, Admiral?”

“A mind-meld,” he said. “With a human from an alternate universe, one much like our own.” He lifted his hand and gently pressed his fingertips against her temple and cheek. “Open your mind to me, and I will share what I have seen.”

He had already volunteered so many secrets that Saavik saw no reason for him to lie now about his intentions. She lowered her psionic defenses one layer at a time and permitted his mind to fuse with her own.

And then she saw it.

Flashes of memory, a third mind, fleetingly touched but now forever imprinted in Spock’s psyche. Another Dr. McCoy. A man of compassion and mercy. From a Starfleet whose officers don’t kill for advancement, but are willing to die to protect each other.

A Federation founded on justice, equality, and peace, and, like the Terran Empire, beset by powerful, dangerous rivals. But unlike the Empire, this Federation amasses its strength by means of consensus and alliances of mutual benefit, and it assuages its wants and its injuries through mutual sacrifice.

Stable. Prosperous. Strong. Free.

Spock withdrew the touch of his mind and his hand, leaving Saavik with lingering images of the alternate universe. It was no psionic illusion; it was genuine. Just as Spock had said, it was irrefutable. And yet … it was not this universe. Its lessons, its ideals—they weren’t of this reality. To think two such divergent universes could belatedly be steered onto the same course struck Saavik as dangerously wishful thinking.

She was still considering her reaction when Spock stepped back from her and said, “The choice is yours.” Then he walked away, out the door, to keep his appointment with the Empress.

With a few simple turns and taps of the device’s controls, Saavik conjured an image of Spock on its viewer. She watched him stride through the corridors of the Enterprise, on his way to the transporter room and not at all resembling a man willingly walking into a trap. I could eliminate him right now, she realized, her fingers lightly brushing the outline of the teardrop crystal. No one would ever know.

Ultimate power lay in Saavik’s hands—and she had less than five minutes to decide what to do with it.

Flanked by a trio of his most trusted Vulcan bodyguards, Spock rematerialized from the transporter beam. He and his men were on the edge of a vast plaza, at the gargantuan arched entryway on the southern side of the imperial palace. The polished titanium of the massive, domed structure reflected the lush green vista of the Okinawa countryside—and the legion of black-and-red-uniformed soldiers standing at attention in formation on the plaza, to Spock’s left. He turned and faced the ranks of imperial shock troops. As one, thousands of men brought their fists to their chests, then extended their arms in formal salute. He returned the salute, then turned and entered the palace proper, his guards close behind.

Like so many edifices dedicated to human vanity, the palace was a conspicuous waste of space and resources. Thoroughfares that receded to distant points were bordered by walls ascending to dizzying heights. From the floors to the lofty arches of the ceiling, the interior of the palace appeared to have been crafted entirely of ornately gilded marble. In contrast to the muggy, hazy summer air outside, the atmosphere inside the palace was crisp and cold and odorless. Heavy doors of carved mahogany lined the cathedral-like passageway, and on either side of every door stood two guards, more imperial shock troops.

A steady flood-crush of pedestrians hurried in crisscrossed paths, all racing from one bastion of bureaucracy to another, bearing urgent missives, relaying orders, coming and going from meetings and appointments.

Then a booming voice announced over a central public address system: “Attention.” The madding throng came to a halt. “Clear the main passage for Grand Admiral Spock.” As if cleaved by an invisible blade, the crowd parted to form a broad channel through the center of the passageway, and an antigrav skiff glided quickly toward Spock.

Its pilot was another member of the Imperial Guard. He guided the skiff to a gliding stop in front of Spock, finishing with a slow turn so that the open passenger-side seat faced the grand admiral. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “I’m here to escort you to Her Majesty, Empress Sato III.”

Spock nodded his assent, climbed aboard the skiff, and sat down. His guards occupied the rear bench seat. The vehicle accelerated smoothly, finished its turn, and sped back the way it had come. The corridor and the faces that filled it blurred past.

Less than a minute later, the skiff arrived at the towering duranium doors of the imperial throne room. Waiting there for Spock was his entourage, whose members the Empress had summoned in the more formal invitation she had extended during Enterprise’s journey to Earth: Lieutenant Commander Kevin Riley, the newly promoted first officer of the I.S.S. Enterprise; Lieutenant Xon; Dr. Jabilo M’Benga; and chief engineer Commander Montgomery Scott.

Spock and his bodyguards debarked from the skiff. After a curt greeting, he directed his men simply, “Places.” He took his place at the head of their procession, with his bodyguards in tight formation behind him. Riley and Scott formed the next rank, followed by Xon and M’Benga. Spock signaled the senior imperial guard that he was ready.

After relaying the message ahead into the throne room, the guard received his orders from his superior, and he turned to face his men. “Open the door and announce the grand admiral.”

Resounding clangs, from the release of magnetic locks inside the enormous metal doors, vibrated the marble floor beneath Spock’s feet. He lifted his chin proudly but kept his expression neutral. The doors parted and swung inward. Golden radiance from the other side spilled out in long, angled shafts. In a blink of his inner eyelid, his sight adjusted to the luminous appointments of the throne room.

A great fanfare sounded, and a herald stepped in front of the door and faced the throne. “Your Majesty: presenting His Martial Eminence, Grand Admiral Spock, supreme commander of your imperial armed forces.” Another fanfare blared as Spock stepped through the doorway, trailed by his retinue.

The imperial court was resplendent with trappings of gold and crimson. Legions of imperial shock troops manned the upper balconies, from which were draped gigantic red-and-gold banners emblazoned with the imperial icon, the Earth impaled on a broadsword, stabbed through the heart by its own martial ambitions.

The expansive lower concourse was crowded with courtiers, pages, personal bodyguards, foreign ambassadors, imperial advisers, and members of the cabinet. Several planetary governors also were present, among them Kodos of Tarsus IV, Oxmyx of Sigma Iotia IV, and Plasus of Ardana. The majority of the guests hovered around the overfilled banquet tables like vultures feasting on a killing field.

Walls covered in damask were lined with portraits of members of the royal family, but none were so commanding in their presence as the ones that were holo-graphically projected behind the throne at the far end of the great hall. Twenty meters high, the trio of high-definition likenesses formed the portrait of a dynasty in the making: Empress Hoshi Sato I, Empress Hoshi Sato II, and Empress Hoshi Sato III—the currently reigning imperial monarch, who presided from her throne high atop a truncated half-pyramid of stairs, surrounded by another company of her elite guards.

Spock and his retinue marched in solemn strides toward the throne. Quickly, the chaotic crowd formed itself into orderly rows, aligned by rank. Thunderous applause swelled and became almost deafening as Spock continued forward. The Empress and her soldiers, however, remained still and silent.

The broad base of the stairs to the Empress’s platform was surrounded by a ten-meter-wide border of obsidian floor panels. Polished to perfection, their glassy black surface reflected Spock’s weathered visage with such clarity that he could see every graying whisker in his goatee. It was there that a quartet of imperial guards blocked him and his retinue. The captain of the guard said gruffly, “Grand Admiral Spock: By order of Her Imperial Majesty, from here you proceed alone.” Then he motioned for Spock to follow him up the stairs, toward the throne.

Spock passed through the invisible energy barrier that protected the Empress’s throne. A galvanic tingle coursed over his skin and bristled the hairs on the back of his hands. Once he was on the other side, he heard a subtle hum, gently rising in tone, as the force field returned to full strength behind him. As he had suspected, a small gap had been opened only long enough to grant him ingress to the Empress’s inner circle. Now that he was separated from his bodyguards, they would be unable to intervene when the Empress gave the order for her troops to execute him. Directed-energy weapons, projectiles, and most other forms of ranged armaments could not penetrate the shield in either direction. And because imperial law forbade him from bearing arms into the presence of the Empress, he would have no means of defending himself.

He climbed the stairs without hesitation.

Ten steps from the top, Empress Sato’s voice commanded him, “Halt.” Spock genuflected before the Empress. “Welcome, Grand Admiral Spock,” she continued. “This court is honored by your august presence.”

Because she did not bid him rise, he remained on one knee. “It is I who am honored, Your Majesty—by your most gracious invitation, and by the opportunity to serve the Empire as its grand admiral.”

Irritation colored her words. “My dear admiral, I believe you have misspoken. You serve me, not the Empire at large. I am your sovereign.”

“I acknowledge you are the sovereign ruler of the Empire,” Spock replied. “But I have not misspoken.”

Her mouth curled into a smirk, but anger flashed in her eyes. “Your reputation is well earned,” she said, her demeanor hostile and mocking. “A ‘rogue,’ that’s what Grand Admiral Decker called you. Before him, Grand Admiral Garth of Izar labeled you a ‘radical,’ a ‘free thinker.’ Now I hear rumors you see yourself as a reformer.”

“I have been, remain, and will continue to be all those things,” Spock admitted.

She abandoned the artifice of sarcasm and spoke directly. “Your penchant for compromise troubles me, Spock. Negotiation and diplomacy are tools of the weak.”

“Quite the contrary,” Spock said. “Only from a position of strength can one afford to offer—”

“Silence!” she snapped. “Having someone of your temperament as grand admiral is a threat to the security of the Empire. It will invite attack by our enemies, both internal and external. How can the Empire be assured of its safety when its supreme military commander is an avowed appeaser of its rivals?”

Looking directly and unabashedly at the Empress, he replied, “Every action I have taken has been grounded in logic. I have never acted to the benefit of our enemies, but only to serve the best interests of the Empire and its people.”

Empress Sato III blinked in disbelief, as if Spock had just committed a grievous faux pas. “The people?” she said, with obvious contempt. She rose from her throne and descended the stairs toward him. Her guards advanced quickly behind her, weapons at the ready. “Since when do the people matter, Spock? The people are fodder, a source of revenue to be taxed, a pool of raw material to be kept ignorant and afraid until I need them to be angry and swell with pride.” With a sneer she added, “The people are pawns. Their ‘best interests’ are irrelevant.” She climbed back to the top of the stairs, then turned and glared at him with all the haughty grandeur she could muster. “As irrelevant as you, my dear half-breed.” Raising her arm, she called out, “Guards!”

Weapons were brought to bear with a heavy clattering sound. Spock kept his attention on the Empress, ignoring the dozens of phaser rifles aimed at him from every direction.

A flare of light and a crackle of blistering heat. Spock gazed into the blinding brilliance, stoic in the face of sudden annihilation. Then a sharp bite of ozone filled his nose, and a warm breath of air passed over him.

He heard the gasps of the crowd beyond the force field.

Empress Sato and her company of elite guards were gone. Not a trace of them remained—not scraps of clothing, not ashes, nothing at all.

Spock stood, turned, and gazed intently at the legions of guards on the upper balconies. Another massive pulse of pure white incandescence erupted on every balcony, leaving only the silhouettes of skeletons to linger for a moment in the afterglow. Blinks of light stutter-stepped through the crowd in the hall, finding every imperial guard in the throne room. Within seconds, it was over.

For a moment, all anyone below could do was look around in horror, dumbstruck with fright at this invincible blitzkrieg. Then, inevitably, all eyes gazed upward, toward Spock.

He turned away from the crowd.

Climbed the stairs.

Seated himself upon the throne.

And he waited.

Then, from far below, outside the protective energy barrier, sounded a man’s solitary voice, one Spock didn’t recognize, repeating a lonely declaration in the echoing vastness of the great hall until his voice was joined by another, then by several more, and finally by the booming roar of a crowd chanting fervently and in unison.

All hail Emperor Spock!

With two gentle touches of Saavik’s hand, the panel slid closed over the Tantalus field device’s control panel. Seemingly unperturbed by the momentous and pivotal role she had just played in the fate of the Empire, she walked calmly out of Spock’s quarters. The door hissed closed and locked behind her.

Concealed behind a false panel in the bulkhead opposite the secret weapon, Marlena Moreau breathed a tired sigh. She was greatly relieved to know Saavik was loyal to Spock. It would make it easier for her to trust the young Vulcan woman from now on. If the targeting cursor of the Tantalus field had fallen for even a moment upon Spock’s image, Marlena had been ready to strike instantly, a phaser set on kill steady in her hand. Though she was now ashamed she had doubted Spock’s judgment about his protégée, she was still frightened by his willingness to trust other people too much. She loved and admired his idealism even as she cursed its inherent risks.

Marlena emerged from behind the panel. Over the years, she had gradually become accustomed to the higher temperatures and gravity inside the quarters she shared with Spock. The aridity, however, continued to vex her, so she tried to limit the time she spent there, preferring to pass her free hours in the ship’s library or its astrometrics laboratory.

She eyed her reflection in the wall mirror and was able to tell herself honestly that, so far, the years had been kind to her. Spock, on the other hand, was already showing signs of the extreme stress inflicted by his rapid campaign to seize control over Starfleet. Now, less than a week after his decade-long effort had come to fruition, he had succeeded in placing himself upon the imperial throne. He was the Emperor.

Everything was changed now. Marlena could only imagine the toll that reigning over an interstellar empire would take on her beloved husband, and she feared for his health … and his life. There were bound to be operatives loyal to the Sato dynasty who would seek retribution. Even with the Tantalus field, how could she and Spock hope to find and eliminate them all? It seemed impossible.

We will find a way, she promised herself. We have to.

A thought occurred to her. She pulled open her closet and surveyed its contents. Dismayed, she realized Spock’s great achievement had caught her totally unprepared. Damn. Fifty outfits to choose from … and not one is even remotely good enough. She shut the closet. I’m not ready to be an empress yet.

In two regal strides, she was at the wall panel. With a push of her thumb she opened a channel to the bridge. Moments later, she was answered by Lieutenant Finney, whose youthful voice shook with a new undercurrent of fear. “Bridge here.”

“This is the Empress Consort,” she said, liking the sound of it as soon as she’d said it. “Have the imperial tailors sent to my quarters immediately.”

“Right away, Your Majesty,” Finney said, sounding like a scolded child. “Bridge out.”

Despite her best efforts at equanimity, a slightly insane smile and wide-eyed mask of glee took over Marlena’s face. Even after catching sight of her Cheshire cat grin in the mirror, she couldn’t suppress it.

Just as she’d always suspected, it was good to be queen.

25

A Taste of Ashes

A week of frantic preparations had infused the imperial court with equal measures of anticipation and dread.

“It takes a thousand details to make a first impression,” Marlena told the servants and taskmasters in charge of the court’s formal trappings, “and every last one of them must be perfect.”

As the Empress Consort, she was not going to accept anything less than perfection from her legion of domestics, not on this auspicious day. She had waited too long and had dreamed of this moment too many times to see it marred by even the slightest error of protocol or omission of courtesy.

The last vestiges of the Sato dynasty had been scoured from the palace. Marlena had replaced the Satos’ towering, autoidolatrous portraits with banners of white Chinese silk bearing the bloodred icon of the Terran Empire.

Several freestanding light fixtures, most of which were merely decorative, had been supplanted by antique Vulcan torchères in honor of the Empire’s new sovereign. Flames danced hypnotically from the lamps’ upturned bowls, casting erratic shadows across the throne room’s damask-covered walls.

To either side of the center aisle before the throne, buffet tables had been laden with every delicacy of the Empire and a few from the worlds of its rivals. Every beverage Marlena could think of was ready to flow upon request, from taps and bottles and decanters. Massive slabs of perfectly transparent ice, preserved inside temperature-controlled fields, had been masterfully carved into a variety of shapes, including a seven-meter-tall likeness of Spock, a pair of giant butterflies entwined in flight, a fairy-tale carriage complete with a one-slippered princess for a passenger, and a flame-feathered phoenix rising from ashes of shaved ice.

An orchestra composed of the Empire’s finest musicians played from the balcony level, accompanied by a choir of its most hauntingly gifted vocalists.

The room was packed with dignitaries, ambassadors, members of the imperial cabinet, and a legion of elite Vulcan guards attired in red and gold armor patterned after the lorica segmentata of Earth’s ancient Roman Empire.

Marlena had tasked the imperial tailors to fashion her a dress for this occasion. They had presented to her a magnificent creation in crimson silk, adorned in gold with a pattern of Chinese dragons twisting around the ideogram for “double happiness.” Her hair was gathered in an ornate coif, held in place by antique ivory hairpins, and backed by an enormous semicircular headpiece covered in ruby-hued Tholian silk.

Every detail was in place, all the trappings of power.

Taking her place on the imperial throne, Marlena decreed, “Bring him in.”

Her order was volleyed from the sergeant-at-arms to the imperial herald, who passed word to the guards outside the throne room’s door. A moment later the great locks of the massive portals were released, and the doors swung inward. On cue, the members of the trumpet corps lifted their instruments and split the air with a magnificent fanfare.

The herald stepped in front of the open doorway. “Your Majesty: presenting, by your imperial command, the father of the Empress—François Thierry Moreau.”

Another crowing of the fanfare resounded from high overhead as Marlena’s father plodded into the throne room with obvious trepidation.

From a distance, Marlena could not see the details of her father’s appearance or the expression on his face. She held her chin high and looked down her nose at her sire as a pair of Vulcan guards escorted him to the edge of her unseen but lethal defensive force field. Even deprived of details, Marlena found it telling her father had come unescorted, apparently still shunned by her siblings.

Serves him right, she gloated.

He came to a halt at the base of the stairs beneath her throne. His shoulders were hunched, and he looked around fearfully, as if he were on trial for his life. A guard placed a hand on François’s shoulder and made him kneel. François looked up with naked fear and veiled resentment.

“Do you have anything to say to me, Father?”

His head bowed, he answered in a small voice, “No, Majesty.”

Humbled before his daughter, he looked small … shabby … weak.

Marlena felt a swell of pity and remorse. This was to have been her moment of triumph; instead, the moment tasted of ashes. She found no satisfaction in the sight of her estranged father debased; there was no joy to be found in lording over him. Beholding the scorn and terror in his eyes, Marlena realized even though she had risen in life to become the Empress, that still did not make her father love her, and she understood nothing ever would—it simply was not in his nature.

“Your duty is fulfilled,” she said. “Go home to your petty concerns.”

“As you command, Majesty,” her father said, bowing low as he backpedaled the requisite five paces before rising and turning to walk away. He left the throne room with the rushed bearing of a man relieved to have been spared a trip to the gallows. Without a single look back at his now-regal daughter, François Moreau exited the throne room. The guards sealed the door behind him.

A week of preparation had yielded naught but a moment of regret for Empress Marlena. Despite being seated in imposing splendor and surrounded by minions of the imperial court, she couldn’t help but feel terribly, utterly alone.

26

The Designs of Liberty

It had been slightly more than two months since Spock claimed the throne, and the ensuing cavalcade of pomp and pageantry had only just subsided. First had come the official coronation, followed by more than a hundred hastily dispatched state visits by the Empire’s various planetary governors, each of whom had come to deliver gifts and pledges of loyalty, all of which Spock had accepted with politely concealed indifference. His thoughts had been occupied almost constantly by the intricate and politically delicate task of transitioning the imperial government to a new administration, one populated from its highest echelons down with reformers whom Spock had painstakingly cultivated as allies over the past decade.

As Spock had suspected, his wife had adapted easily and enthusiastically to her new role as Empress Marlena. To her care he had entrusted the coordination of the cosmetic overhaul of the government. Other, more radical alterations he had discussed with her would have to wait until the Empire’s political climate was ready.

One element of imperial life remained constant during the abrupt transition to Spock’s reign: the mood of constant, muffled terror suffusing the halls of the palace. Even without the benefit of his spies’ reports, Spock could overhear the whispered rumors, the hushed exchanges of frightened eyewitness accounts describing the manner in which the Empress Hoshi Sato III and her Imperial Guard Corps had been annihilated. A few people had guessed, correctly, that an unknown weapon had been involved, but by far the most persistent and popular explanation was that Spock had used an ancient, formerly secret Vulcan psionic attack to seize power.

Encouraging untruths ran counter to the principles of logic, but in this case Spock permitted the rumors to spread unchallenged as a means of securing his power base during a vulnerable period of transition.

For his own part, Spock found life in the imperial palace quiet, comfortable, and opulently boring. The oversized chambers and furniture offended his simple, austere sensibilities. The illogic of waste had been a primary factor in his decision to seek dominion over the Empire, and now he lived in the most ostentatious expression of wastefulness imaginable. The irony of his circumstances was not lost on him.

Clad in luxurious robes of Tholian silk, he stood on the force field–protected balcony outside his bedchamber and admired the verdant countryside of Okinawa. The dawn air was cool. Despite his half-human heritage, this land, this world, felt alien to him. He was in essence a stranger here.

Inside the bedroom, Marlena slept blissfully behind the gauzy screens of an antique French canopied bed. Earth was her home. She had been born here, the youngest child of a common merchant. But though her family’s origins had been modest, her homecoming had been nothing less than glorious.

A deep chiming signal indicated Spock’s staff wished to announce a visitor. He turned and watched the double doors leading to the parlor. They opened several seconds later, and a herald entered. “Your Majesty,” he said, bowing his head. “Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan is here at your invitation.”

“Show him into the study,” Spock said. “I will join him there momentarily.”

“As you command, Majesty,” the herald said. He withdrew in reverse, closing the bedroom doors as he exited.

Spock shut his eyes and meditated in silence for a few minutes, clearing his thoughts and preparing himself for the meeting with his father. Each breath was a cleansing intake and release, and the tension that attended the rulership of the Empire gradually ebbed from his muscles. At last centered in his own thoughts, he allowed himself a solitary, sentimental glance in Marlena’s direction before he left the bedroom.

He crossed through the parlor and passed the library on the way to his study. The shelves of the library currently were bare; Spock had found the Satos’ collection of references and literature woefully inadequate, not to mention pedestrian and out of date. Thousands of more recent and more worthy tomes had been ordered and were due to be delivered within the week. Marlena had callously suggested burning the Satos’ books, but the idea was anathema to Spock. Destroying books was out of the question. Instead, he had arranged for the Satos’ volumes to be relocated somewhere more appropriate. It was doubtful anyone would randomly stumble across them buried in a crater on Luna, but Spock knew it wasn’t impossible.

The doors of the study were open. Sarek stood opposite the entrance, in front of the antique writing desk. He bowed his head as Spock entered. “Your Majesty,” Sarek said with all sincerity. “I am honored to be received.”

“Welcome, Ambassador,” Spock said. “We are alone. We may dispense with formalities.”

Sarek nodded. “As you wish.” Gesturing to a pair of large chairs on either side of a low, broad table, he added, “Shall we sit down?”

Spock nodded his assent and sat down opposite his father, who took a small holographic projection cell from his robes and set it on the table. The device activated with a small buzzing sound, and a complex document, written in High Vulcan, scrolled in glowing letters on the air, several centimeters above the dark tabletop. “Before we begin,” Sarek said, “I wish to ask: Are you still committed to your plan of reform?”

“Indeed,” Spock said. “My objective remains the same.”

Nodding, Sarek explained, “You would not be the first head of state to amend his agenda after taking office.” He sighed. “No matter. If you are ready, we should proceed.”

“Agreed,” Spock said.

His father leaned forward and manipulated the elements in the holographic projection with his fingertips. “The key to a successful transition will be to effect your reforms by degrees,” he said. “A shrewd first move would be to increase the autonomy and direct control of the regional governors.”

Moving a few items along the timeline, Spock replied, “An excellent idea. The erosion of imperial executive power will be subtle, but the governors will not object because they benefit.”

“Exactly,” Sarek said. “And it will pave the way for your first major reform: the creation of a Common Forum, for popularly elected representatives from each world in the Empire. You should expect the governors to object vehemently to this.”

“Of course,” Spock said. “It will be a direct affront to their authority. I presume I will pretend to appease them by suggesting they appoint their own representatives to the newly reconstituted Imperial Senate.”

“It will mollify them briefly,” Sarek acknowledged. “Granting authority for drafting legislation to both the Forum and the Senate will turn them into rivals for power.”

“And they will vie for my approval by drafting competing bills,” Spock predicted. “I will then censure both for wasting my time with duplicated efforts, and force them to work together by declaring I will only review legislation that they have approved jointly.”

After a moment’s thought, Sarek replied, “A curious tactic.” He adjusted more items in the complex predictive timeline. “You will give them incentive to align against you.”

“Yes,” Spock said. “Fortunately, the conflicts in their interests will make that difficult for them.” He pointed out another item on the timeline. “I should retain plenary executive authority long enough to liberate the imperial judiciary into a separate but equal branch of government.”

Sarek made a few final changes to the timeline, then looked up at Spock. “With your permission, I should like to turn now to matters of foreign policy.” Spock nodded his consent. Sarek touched a control on the holographic emitter and changed the image above the table to another timeline, this one superimposed over a star chart of local space. “Your proposition of détente as an official platform for imperial policy still troubles me.”

He had expected his father’s reservations, and was prepared to address them. “Nonaggression does not equal surrender, Sarek. We will continue to defend our borders from external threats. Only our approach to the growth and maintenance of the Empire will change.” Pointing to the map, he continued. “A diplomatic invitation convinced Coridan to join the Empire of its own accord. Renouncing conquest and annexation as our chief modes of expansion will earn us the trust of more worlds, and enable us to expand by enticement rather than by extortion.”

Spock waited while Sarek mulled that argument. The older man got up from his chair and paced across the room, then behind the desk, where he stood looking out the window for a minute. When he finally turned back toward Spock, his expression was darkened with concern. He spoke with careful diction, as if vetting each word’s nuance before it passed his lips. “Spock, I have supported your call for reforms, because I know they are necessary. However, the subtext of your recent proposals compels me to inquire: Is there more to your long-term plan than you have told me?”

“Yes, Father,” Spock said. “The true scope of my reforms is more drastic than I have said so far.”

Raising one eyebrow to convey both his skepticism and his annoyance, Sarek prompted him, “Go on.”

“Preemptive war will be renounced as an instrument of policy,” Spock said.

Sarek nodded. “I had assumed as much.”

“Before I begin my final reforms, I will issue an imperial edict delineating a broad spectrum of inalienable rights for all sentient beings in the Empire,” Spock said. “These rights will be comprehensive and will serve to greatly empower the individual at the expense of the state.” He pointed at a data slate on the desktop. “A draft of the edict is there.”

His father picked up the data slate and perused the document. With each passing moment, his grimace tightened, and the creases of worry on his forehead deepened. “Freedom of expression,” he mumbled, reading from the device in his hand. “Rights of privacy … security from warrantless search or seizure.” He set down the electronic tablet on the desk. “The governors will not stand for this.”

“Irrelevant,” Spock said, “as I intend to abolish their offices and replace them with elected presidents, their powers curtailed by law. Then, I will abolish the Empire itself. The Forum and the Senate will be given the right to elect one of their own as Consul, and the power to remove such an individual with a simple no-confidence vote when necessary. And at that time, I shall step down as Emperor, and cede my power to a lawfully constituted republic.”

“Madness,” Sarek said, his cherished mask of stoicism faltering. Spock realized that his father’s anger and fear must be overwhelming for them to be so apparent. Stepping from behind the desk, Sarek crossed the room in quick strides to confront Spock. “My son, do you not see this is a recipe for disaster?” Disregarding all dictums of imperial protocol, he grasped Spock by his arms. “A republic without strong leadership from the top will be too slow to survive in this astropolitical arena. While the Forum argues, the Klingons will slaughter us. So will the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Tholians.” His fingers clenched, talonlike, on Spock’s biceps. “You will be writing the Empire’s requiem with the blood of generations to come, Spock. What good will their freedoms be when they are dead?”

A single withering glare from Spock convinced Sarek to remove his hands from the arms of his son, the Emperor.

Spock answered calmly, with the conviction that came from knowing the endgame that so far had eluded even Sarek’s keen foresight. “There is only one antidote to tyranny, Father, and that is freedom. Not the illusion of freedom, not the promise of freedom. Genuine freedom. When too much power concentrates in one person, civilization slips out of balance. Give the people real freedom, and the real power that comes with it, and no force of oppression will ever be equal to them again.”

Sarek folded his hands inside the deep, drooping sleeves of his robe. He paced away from Spock, his expression stern, telegraphing his pessimism. “It will take many decades to complete even your preliminary reforms,” he said. “As for issuing your edict and erecting a republic on the ruins of the Empire … such fundamental changes in the status quo will take generations to enact.”

“They cannot,” Spock said gravely. “We do not have that much time.”

PART II

Exitus Acta Probat

2278

27

No-Man’s-Land

The operations level of the Regula I space station was shrouded in gloom, a cold crypt on the edge of nowhere. A delicate layer of dust blanketed its dormant banks of obsolete computers. Its only illumination was the dim white glow of a chemical flare clutched in Carol Marcus’s hand.

She stood on the lower level of the operations center and listened to the voices and footsteps of her team members. They moved through the corridors of the abandoned facility, inspecting compartments and comparing notes over an open comm channel with their communicators. Every sound echoed inside the station.

Constructed by Starfleet a decade earlier as a jumping-off point for rimward exploration missions, Regula I had been abandoned in 2273 when tensions in the Taurus Reach had forced Starfleet to redeploy its forces to Vanguard. Soon forgotten by the Terran Empire as well as by its rivals, and too distant from any active shipping lanes to be of use to pirates or smugglers, Regula I had languished in the shadow of the Mutara Nebula, empty and neglected, for half a decade.

Marcus heard her people converging on the operations center from multiple directions. Shadows bobbed and wavered on the walls and floor as the group drew near, combining the light from their glow-sticks. She turned toward the main entryway on the lower level to greet them.

Leading the group was her son, David. Now a lanky seventeen-year-old, he sported a head of curly, dirty-blond hair and a strong, dimpled chin. He had just completed his first level of postgraduate study when his education was interrupted by their exile to Regula. Under the tutelage of Marcus’s team of researchers and theorists, however, the youth finally had begun work on his doctoral program.

“It’s a wreck,” David said, gesticulating with his glow-stick.

Marcus tilted her head. “It’s a fixer-upper.”

The other scientists fanned out around her in a semicircle. One of them, a Deltan physicist named Tarcoh, interjected, “The computers are antiquated, Carol.”

“We can upgrade them,” Marcus replied.

A Tellarite geneticist named Gek added, “Starfleet took the fusion core and backup batteries when they left.”

“All right,” Marcus said, thinking as she spoke, “we’ll scavenge the core from our ship’s impulse drive.”

David protested, “Then we’ll be stranded here!”

“We weren’t planning on leaving anytime soon, anyway,” Marcus said.

Dr. Koothrappali, a human astrophysicist, asked nervously, “What if we need to evacuate because of a solar flare or a gamma-ray burst from the nebula?”

“We’re protected from solar flares by the planetoid,” Marcus said. “It’s a Class-D ball of rock, geologically inactive and dense enough to shield us from even the most potent coronal-mass ejections its star gives off. As for the nebula, it’s not an active stellar nursery and exhibits no masses great enough to form black holes, so I’d say you can stop worrying about gamma rays.”

Most of her team seemed to be mollified, but Dr. Tarcoh grumbled, “So this is where we get to spend the rest of our careers? Orbiting some lifeless boulder at the end of space? One might get the impression Emperor Spock exiled us to this no-man’s-land because he wants us to vanish.”

An unfamiliar woman’s voice answered from the operations center’s upper level, “In a sense, Doctor, that is exactly what the Emperor hopes to accomplish.”

Marcus’s colleagues looked up, and she turned to see who had spoken.

A statuesque Vulcan woman descended a spiral staircase to the main level and met their inquisitive stares as she crossed the room to stand in front of Marcus. She held a data card in one hand and something very small in the other.

Marcus asked, “Who are you?”

“A friend, sent by the Emperor,” the Vulcan said. She offered Marcus the data card. “This contains ninety-five percent of your data from Vanguard’s memory banks. It was all that could be salvaged before the starbase was destroyed.” Handing over the vial, which contained a strangely animated substance that transmuted back and forth between a black vapor and a charcoal-colored fluid, the Vulcan said, “I think you will recognize this.”

Fear trembled Marcus’s hands as she accepted the card and vial. “Why are you giving these to me?”

“Consider them a gift from His Majesty. He asks only that you use them wisely, and in peace.” The mysterious visitor turned and walked back the way she had come. As she climbed the spiral stairs, Marcus called after her.

“How do we contact you?”

“You don’t.” The Vulcan woman reached the top of the stairs and disappeared into the shadows of a corridor branching off the upper level.

David, Tarcoh, and Gek regained their wits and ran up the stairs in pursuit. A minute later they returned, looking bewildered. “She’s gone,” David said. “There’s no trace of how she got on or off the station, or where she went.”

The rest of the scientists looked anxiously at Marcus. Koothrappali asked, “What should we do, Doctor Marcus?”

Imagining the possibilities she held in her hands, Marcus replied in a bold voice, “We should get to work.”