Rogue Read online

  The captain turned toward Lieutenant Glebuk, the Antedean helmsman. In the year since Glebuk had come aboard, Blaylock had assiduously avoided asking the galley replicators to create sushi, one of her favorite foods. Glebuk, who was essentially a two-meter-tall humanoid fish, was notably edgy about such things.

  Like most of her kind, Glebuk would have found the rigors of interstellar travel intolerable but for the effects of the cortical stimulator she wore on her neck. Its constant output of vertigo-nullifying neural impulses kept her from lapsing into a self-protective catatonic state during long space voyages. Despite this handicap—or perhaps because of it—Glebuk was one of the best helm officers Blaylock had ever worked with.

  “What’s our present ETA at the Chiaros system?” Blaylock asked Glebuk.

  The helmsman fixed an unblinking, monocular gaze on the captain and whispered into the tiny universal translator mounted in the collar of her hydration suit. “The Slayton will reach the precise center of the Gulf in approximately fifty-three minutes. We will arrive at the fringes of the Chiaros system some six minutes later.”

  Blaylock nodded. Almost the precise center of the Geminus Gulf, she thought with a tinge of awe. Three wide, nearly empty sectors. Sixty light-years across, all together. Nearly two weeks travel time at maximum warp. Even after a decade of starship command, she found it hard to wrap her mind around such enormous distances.

  During the long voyage into the Gulf, Blaylock had had plenty of time to familiarize herself with the region. More than enough time, actually, since so little was actually known about it, other than its size, location, and strategic significance—or rather its lack thereof. It was well-known, however, that most of its sparse stellar population were not of the spectral types associated with habitable worlds. In the Geminus Gulf, young supergiant “O” type stars predominated—the sort of suns whose huge mass blows them apart only a few hundred million years into their lifespans—rather than the cooler, more stable variety, such as the “G” type star that sired Earth and its immediate planetary neighbors.

  But the Geminus Gulf was important in at least one respect; it lay just outside the boundaries of both the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, and it had yet to come formally into the sphere of influence of either power. Nearly smack in the center of the Gulf’s unexplored vastness lay one inhabited world, the fourth planet of the politically nonaligned Chiaros system. Under recently negotiated agreements, neither the Federation nor the Romulans could establish a permanent presence in the Gulf until invited to do so by a spacefaring civilization native to the Gulf. Blaylock was only too aware that her job was to do everything the Prime Directive would allow to obtain that invitation from the Chiarosans, who comprised the only warp-capable culture yet known in the Gulf, and thus were the key to the entire region, and to whatever awaited discovery within its confines.

  Never mind that there isn’t any there there, Blaylock thought, absurdly reminded of the 20th-century human writer Gertrude Stein’s often-mischaracterized description of an empty region on Earth.

  Settling back into her chair, Blaylock smiled to herself. She had already reviewed the Chiarosan government’s preliminary application for Federation membership. Less than two weeks from now, the planet’s general population would formally vote on whether to invite in the Romulans or the Federation. Fortunately, since the pro-Federation position was being staunchly backed by the planet’s extremely popular ruling regime, it seemed to Blaylock that her mission was already all but accomplished.

  Blaylock therefore felt amply justified in allowing her thoughts to return to the matter of the mysterious subspace distortions—and their possible causes. Now that they had piqued her curiosity, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the bridge for a diplomatic conference whose results were already foreordained.

  “Just how important is the captain’s presence at this conference?” Blaylock said, turning toward Roget.

  Seated in the chair beside Blaylock’s, Roget leaned forward, his mahogany-colored brow wrinkled in evident confusion. “It’s crucial, Captain. The natives of Chiaros IV are a warrior people. If you’re not there, they’re likely to take offense.”

  Her exec’s discomfiture brought a small smile to her lips. “Don’t panic, Ernie. I’m not planning on going AWOL. What I mean is, how important is it that the captain be present with the first away team?”

  Roget appeared to relax at that. Stroking his jaw, he said, “It’s not critical, I suppose. You have to remember, though, that the Chiarosans are very hierarchical and protocol-conscious.”

  “So I noticed,” Blaylock said. “They’ve planned just about every minute of our itinerary while we’re on their planet. And we won’t even meet First Protector Ruardh until our third day on the planet. It’s all just lower-level functionaries until then.”

  “ ‘When in Rome,’ Captain,” Roget said.

  “I agree. Therefore I’ve decided I’m staying aboard the Slayton until you finish up the preliminary business with the first away team. That’ll give me at least another full day here on the bridge before I have to join you down on the planet.”

  Roget smiled knowingly. “You want to keep looking for those subspace distortions yourself.”

  Blaylock didn’t smile back. Roget needed to know that she was deadly serious. “There’s more at stake here than my scientific curiosity. We already know that the Romulans will have a delegation on Chiaros.”

  “That’s unavoidable, unfortunately, under the treaties.” Roget, too, was no longer smiling.

  “Wherever you find Romulan diplomats, you’ll probably also find a cloaked Romulan ship nearby— certainly up to no good.”

  Roget regarded her with a silent scowl. He was giving her the look again. She knew that he had to be thinking, a cloaked Romulan ship that causes intermittent subspace distortions that can be picked up five sectors away? Fortunately, Roget was not one to question her orders in front of the crew.

  Until I find out the answer, she told herself, I’ll be damned if I’m off this ship one second longer than I absolutely have to be.

  At that moment, Zweller rose from his station and faced Blaylock, an eager expression on his face. Though he was in his sixties, his unbridled enthusiasm made him appear much younger.

  “Captain?”

  “Yes, Mr. Zweller?”

  “If it’s all right with you and Commander Roget, I’d like to be part of the first away team. From what I’ve read about Chiaros IV, the place could keep a dozen science officers busy for years.”

  Blaylock looked toward her exec, who nodded his approval. She turned the matter over in her mind for a moment, then rose from her chair and regarded Zweller approvingly. She liked officers who weren’t afraid to show a little initiative.

  “All right, Mr. Zweller. Assemble a few of the department heads in the shuttlebay at 0800 tomorrow. You and Commander Roget will oversee the opening diplomatic ceremonies.”

  Zweller thanked Blaylock, then returned to his station to contact his key subordinates. She had no doubt that Chiaros IV would more than justify his scientific curiosity. For a moment, she regretted her decision not to lead the first away team.

  But she had a mystery to solve, and a ship to worry about. Needs must, Blaylock thought, when the devil drives.

  Or the Romulans.

  Sitting beside Roget in the cockpit of the shuttlecraft Archimedes, Zweller finished his portion of the preflight systems checks in less than five minutes. The eightperson craft was ready for takeoff even as the heads of the biomedical science, planetary studies, xenoanthropology, and engineering departments took their seats.

  At Roget’s command, the triple-layered duranium hangar doors opened, accentuating the faint blue glow of the shuttlebay’s atmospheric forcefield. The shuttle rose on its antigravs, moved gently forward, and accelerated into the frigid vastness of space.

  The perpetually sunward side of Chiaros IV suddenly loomed above the Archimedes, presenting a dazzling vista of ocher
s and browns. Gray, vaguely menacing clouds surged over the equatorial mountain ranges. High above the terminator separating eternal night from unending day, Zweller could see the glint of sunlight on metal—Chiaros IV’s off-planet communications relay, tethered to the planet’s narrow habitable zone by a network of impossibly slender-looking cables. Zweller noticed that the portion of the tether that plunged into the roiling atmosphere was surrounded by transitory flashes of light.

  Lightning? he wondered, then looked more closely. No, it’s thruster fire. If the Chiarosans didn’t compensate somehow for the motions of their turbulent atmosphere, that orbital tether wouldn’t last ten minutes.

  Zweller took in this vista—the untamable planet as well as the tenacious efforts of the Chiarosans to subdue it—with unfeigned delight.

  “Hail the Chiarosans, Mr. Zweller,” Roget said, interrupting his reverie. Zweller complied, immediately all business once again. His hail was answered by a voice as deep as a canyon, which cleared the shuttlecraft to begin its descent into the churning atmosphere. The computer received the landing coordinates and projected a neat, elliptical course onto the central navigational display.

  “A pity we can’t just beam straight down to the capital,” Roget said as the Slayton receded into the distance.

  Andreas Hearn, the Slayton’s chief engineer, spoke up from directly behind Zweller. “Between the radiation output of the Chiarosan sun, the planet’s intense magnetosphere, and the clash of hot and cold air masses down there, we can’t even get a subspace signal down to the surface—at least not without the orbital tether relay. I wouldn’t recommend trying to transport anyone directly through all that atmospheric hash.”

  “Oh, enough technical talk,” said Gomp, the Tellarite chief medical officer, who was seated in the cabin’s aftmost section. “I want to know what these people are really like. The only things I’ve seen so far are their official reports to the Federation. Medically speaking, all I can really say about them is that they’re supposed to be triple-jointed and faster than Regulan eel-birds.”

  “Then I wouldn’t recommend challenging them on the hoverball court,” Hearn said with a chuckle.

  The Archimedes entered the upper atmosphere. On the cockpit viewer, Zweller watched as an aurora reached across the planet’s south pole with multicolored, phosphorescent fingers. Lightning split the clouds in the higher latitudes. Atmospheric friction increased, and an ionized plasma envelope began forming around the shuttle’s hull.

  “Gomp makes a good point,” said xenoanthropologist Liz Kurlan, as though this didn’t happen very often. “All we know about these people so far is what they want us to know.”

  “So we’ll start filling in those gaps in our knowledge today,” Roget said with a good-natured shrug. “That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

  Sitting in silence, he moved his fingers with deliberate precision over the controls. Then the shuttle hastened its descent toward the rapidly approaching terminator, the demarcation line between the planet’s endless frigid night and its ever-agitated, superheated sunward side.

  On the Slayton’s bridge, Blaylock heard an uncharacteristic urgency enter Glebuk’s voice. “Captain! The anomaly has reappeared!”

  The bridge crew suddenly began moving in doubletime. Blaylock was on her feet in an instant. “Location!”

  “Scanning,” Glebuk said.

  Ensign Burdick, the young man at the forward science station, beat the Antedean to the answer. “A massive subspace distortion wave-front has appeared . . . four-point-eight astronomical units south of the planet’s orbital plane.”

  “Speed?”

  “One-tenth light-speed in all directions. Speed is constant.”

  “Transfer the coordinates to the helm,” Blaylock said.

  “Coordinates received,” acknowledged Glebuk.

  “That’s our heading, helmsman. Engage at warp factor two. Take us half an AU from the wave-front, then full stop. Close, but not too close. On my mark, get the hell away at maximum warp.”

  “Aye,” Glebuk said, altering the ship’s speed and direction. Blaylock could feel the slight telltale vibration in the deckplates.

  “Ensign Burdick, record everything you can about those subspace distortions,” Blaylock barked, then whirled toward the tall, dark-tressed woman who was working the aft communications station. “Lieutenant Harding, try to raise the Archimedes.”

  Precisely sixteen seconds later, the Slayton had come to a full stop at a safe distance from the slowlyexpanding subspace effect. On the forward viewer, the starfield rippled slightly, as though attached to a curtain being blown by a strong wind.

  “No contact with the Archimedes, Captain,” Harding said. “They must have already entered Chiaros IV’s atmosphere.”

  “Captain!” Burdick suddenly cried out from the science station, getting Blaylock’s full attention. “The wavefront’s speed has just increased almost a hundredfold!”

  How can that be? Blaylock thought in the space of a heartbeat. Unless the phenomenon has begun dropping in and out of normal space, gaining velocity from subspace . . .

  She wasted no time. “Raise shields!” she shouted. “Glebuk, get us out of—”

  The wave-front struck at that moment, instantly overwhelming the Slayton’s inertial dampers. The bridge went dark and the deck lurched sideways, throwing Blaylock from her feet. Her body slammed hard into a railing, which she grabbed with both arms. She felt at least one of her ribs give way under the impact. A portside panel exploded in a bright shower of sparks, leaving tracers of light behind her eyelids. She heard a sharp scream cut through the alarm klaxons, then cease.

  The emergency lighting kicked in, casting an eerie, blood-colored pall across the bridge. The deck leveled itself. Smoke billowed from a burning panel. Bodies lay sprawled everywhere, some moving, some not. The bridge viewer was dead. Blaylock noticed that Glebuk had been hurled forward over the helm console and onto the deck. The Antedean lay still, water seeping from a tear in her hydration suit, her neck bent into an impossible question-mark shape. Fighting down a surge of horror, Blaylock sat behind the helm console.

  The controls resolutely refused to respond. What the hell was she dealing with here?

  Blaylock spun her chair toward Burdick, whom Harding was helping back into his seat. Blood surged into the ensign’s eyes from a gash on his forehead.

  “Status report!” Blaylock snapped.

  Harding, the more experienced officer, began consulting a nearby undamaged instrument panel. “The shields are down. We’ve got hull breaches all over the place and we’re down to battery power.”

  “I need to see what’s out there. Can you get that screen working, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m on it.” Harding tapped a console at a furious pace.

  The bridge lights dimmed. “Try not to lose the mood lighting, Zaena,” Blaylock said. Harding smiled weakly in response.

  The viewer came to life in a brief burst of static. Stars shone whitely, no longer distorted by the subspace phenomenon. And something else was there as well. A shape . . .

  “Can you increase the magnification?” Blaylock said.

  Harding nodded. The lights dimmed further and the half-seen shape resolved itself into lines of hard metal. It was a large, toroid-shaped ship—or perhaps it was a space station—circled by dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of much smaller objects. Buoys? Service modules of some sort?

  “Why didn’t we notice all of this when we entered the system?” Blaylock said, turning toward Burdick and Harding.

  Blaylock saw that Burdick’s eyes were glued to the screen. Pointing a shaking finger, he said, “Maybe because they didn’t want us to?”

  Blaylock was unsurprised to see the ominous, doublebladed shape of a Romulan warbird rippling into existence on the viewer. I hate being right all the time, she thought mirthlessly.

  The Slayton had to be well within the range of the decloaking warship’s weapons. The Romulan vessel was more than twice the
Slayton’s size, and her disruptor ports glowed with menace. And the Slayton was dead in space.

  But Blaylock told herself that the warbird’s captain wouldn’t harbor any hostile intent. With so little really known about the Geminus Gulf, why would the Romulans want to risk starting a war over it?

  Then the warbird fired.

  The Slayton lurched again, and the lights failed once more. Blaylock wondered how long it would take for the warp core to lose antimatter containment. And just what it was the Romulans knew about this place that she didn’t.

  The bridge flared into cerulean brilliance a moment later, followed immediately by more blackness. This time, the dark was absolute and eternal.

  The Archimedes continued its descent through Chiaros IV’s storm-tossed Dayside atmosphere. Zweller ignored the low conversational murmurs passing between the department heads and concentrated on his piloting chores. Though the inertial dampers succeeded in canceling out most of the turbulence, Zweller could still feel the deck shimmying slightly beneath his boots. And the structural integrity field was being taxed far more than usual.

  Adjusting the viewer to compensate for the ball of white-hot plasma that now completely surrounded the shuttle’s hull, Zweller quietly admired the savage beauty of the landscape quickly scrolling by below. It was a place of immiscible contrasts, irresistible forces in perpetual stalemate. It was a place he could understand.

  As the Archimedes entered the nightward terminator, Zweller reduced the craft’s velocity, lowering the hull temperature and making the plasma fires gutter out. He brought the shuttle down toward a range of cheerless brown mountains and arced into a northeasterly heading. In seconds, the craft cleared the peaks, and the relentlessly baked Dayside gave way to a fog-shrouded valley. Auroral flashes arced repeatedly across the sky, leaping the planet’s everlasting twilight belt, momentarily linking day with night. The vapor dispersed as the ground grew nearer and unveiled a quiltwork of hardscrabble farmland and narrow roads. Small settlements and isolated dwellings hove into view and just as quickly passed away. A great cityscape glittered in the haze, barely perceptible on the northern horizon. It appeared to fade toward a tumble of dry hills and barren escarpments that extended into the planet’s dark side as far as Zweller could see. Lights twinkled across the city’s remote nightward periphery.