Sleep, the great voice said, and this time her body obeyed.
18
Despite being transmitted over a subspace channel across several light-years, Klingon Ambassador Lugok’s rage was evident to Federation Envoy Akeylah Karumé. “The Klingon Empire will not let such a brazen act of aggression go unavenged!” Lugok bellowed, his fury verging on apoplexy. He was in as high a state of dudgeon as Karumé had ever seen.
For all of Lugok’s raw volume, Ambassador Jetanien seemed entirely unimpressed. “Ambassador,” the Chelon said with an air of disdainful hauteur, “has it escaped your notice that within hours of your team being attacked, a Starfleet survey team was slaughtered less than a hundred kilometers away? Or that more than three dozen civilian colonists fell victim to an almost identical mass homicide less than fifty kilometers from your people’s own encampment on Gamma Tauri IV?”
“So you claim,” Lugok said. “They could be the victims of an accident. Our people were cut down like beasts!”
Ignoring the instructions she had received from Jetanien before entering his office for the unofficial, “back-channel” meeting with Lugok, Karumé entered the verbal fray. “Quit your posturing,” she berated the Klingon. “There’s no one on this channel but us. What do you really want?”
“We want your people off that planet!”
Jetanien made some low clucking noises inside his beak. “I’m sure that you do.”
Unfazed, Lugok continued, “We want justice for our dead!”
“What, in your estimation,” Jetanien asked, “would constitute justice under these circumstances, Mr. Ambassador? No, wait. Don’t tell me. Public beheadings? Perhaps something more old-fashioned, like a communal stoning?”
Lugok’s face became a twisted grimace of disgust. “You mock me,” he said. “You mock our dead. Have you no honor?”
Karumé shot back, “Have you no common sense? All the evidence points to one attacker for all three incidents.”
“The Federation would not be the first to make a false-flag attack on its own to hide a strike against another,” Lugok said.
Puffed up with indignation, Jetanien boomed in reply, “Preposterous! Your ship in orbit has monitored every being in a Starfleet uniform on the planet since it arrived. How could we have perpetrated such an atrocity without being detected?”
The portly Klingon shook his index finger angrily at them. “Absence of evidence is hardly proof of innocence. Who else had a motive to attack our troops? If it wasn’t your people, it was the colonists!”
“With what weapons?” asked Karumé. “They have barely enough small arms to outfit a handful of peace officers.”
A bitter smile brought no levity to Lugok’s manner. “So you’ll do nothing to punish your colonists?”
“Technically, it’s not our colony,” Karumé said. “It refused the protectorate treaty, so we have no jurisdiction.”
Lugok harrumphed. “The presence of your Starfleet vessel robs that claim of credibility.”
Beside her, Jetanien made some dry scraping sounds with his beak. It was an affectation that she had learned was used to express annoyance. Whether he was irked at her, at Lugok, or at both of them, she had no idea.
“Ambassador,” said Jetanien, “I propose we end this charade. We both know what attacked our survey teams and the colonists.”
“What I know,” retorted Lugok, “is that the battle cruiser veS’Hov is on its way to discourage any further acts of aggression by Starfleet—or its pathetic civilian proxies.”
Adopting an equally combative tone, Jetanien replied, “Then it’s only fair to warn you that the Starship Endeavour will be arriving at Gamma Tauri in less than twenty hours—to discourage your people from taking any rash actions.”
“Splendid, more guns,” Karumé interjected, shaming both ambassadors to silence. “That’ll solve everything.”
Captain Kutal marched onto his bridge with long strides and a short fuse. “Enough excuses,” he snapped at his first officer. “Ohq’s had six hours to make repairs. Are we ready or not?”
Commander BelHoQ left an auxiliary tactical station to fall in beside the captain. “We have the backup sensor array func—”
“Yes or no?” Kutal glowered at BelHoQ. “Are we ready?”
BelHoQ struggled to suppress the snarl that was tugging at his mouth. “We can navigate,” he said.
“That’s a yes,” Kutal said, dropping into his chair. “Helm, contact spaceport control. Tell them we’re leaving.”
As the helm officer began the departure protocol, BelHoQ stepped closer to the captain and advised him in a low voice, “Our main sensor array is still down, sir. We’ll be at a disadvantage if we go into battle without it.”
Regarding him with narrowed eyes, Kutal asked, “How long to get it working?”
“At least fifteen hours,” BelHoQ said.
Kutal growled and faced forward. “We have to go now. Fix it on the way.” At the forward console, the helmsman turned his chair to face the captain, who barked, “What is it?”
“The dockmaster reports a malfunction clearing moorings,” the young pilot said. “Docking clamps have lost power on the station’s side, and the supply umbilicals won’t release.”
The captain ignored his first officer’s accusatory stare and issued orders quickly. “Tell them to release the clamps manually. Have Ohq send teams EVA to clear the umbilicals.”
Lieutenant Krom, the second officer, turned from the ship’s status console to report, “Pressure spike in umbilicals three, four, nine, and eleven, Captain. Power surge in life support.”
Immediately, the overhead lights flickered, then paled. The gentle hum of the ship dropped to a low moan and then went silent. Kutal’s jaw clenched as he waited for someone—anyone—to speak. “In the name of Fek’lhr,” he shouted, “someone report!”
The first officer joined Krom and watched the console light up with warning signals. “Multiple pump malfunctions,” he said. “Reflow valves jamming open…” Both sets of doors at the aft end of the bridge slid open. “Portals opening ship-wide—”
“Seal off the cargo deck,” Kutal ordered, to prevent the lower decks of the ship from being vented into space.
BelHoQ answered, “Only interior hatches are opening, sir. Outer doors secure.”
Kutal decided he’d had enough. He slapped the button on the arm of his chair and opened a channel. “Bridge to engineering!”
Ohq’s reply squawked from the speaker. “Engineering here!”
“What’s going on down there?”
The chief engineer sounded terrified and irritated. “Power spikes, probably a computer virus or—” He stopped. Over the comm Kutal heard Ohq talking in angry whispers to someone else before he finished, “Overpressure in the main recycling tank!”
The bridge crew traded confused looks. Kutal directed a questioning glance at BelHoQ. “Overpressure in the what?”
He got his answer in the form of a deep boom followed by a low whoosh—and a gag-inducing stench. In the stuttering light he saw a cascade of dark sludge rush out of the lavatory in the port corridor. From the starboard head came a putrid spray of liquid-chemical waste and fluid excrement. It was a steady eruption: twin geysers of fetid slime coating the deck ankle deep and pouring down the passageways into every compartment, including the bridge.
Overpowered by the grotesque odor, Kreq and Krom doubled over and added their emesis to the deepening mess that defiled the bridge of the Zin’za. Tonar turned his back on his comrades and vomited across his tactical console.
BelHoQ looked down at the ship’s status monitor, then back at the captain. “Every lavatory on every deck, sir.” He coughed and struggled to breathe. “Apparently, the spaceport’s waste system is backing up into ours.”