He rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Okay. Do you have a recommendation?”
“Well, it might sound crazy, but . . . maybe we should put in a self-destruct system.”
Xiong chuckled. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all. The Vault already has one.” He admired the grim practicality of Starfleet’s engineers. “It was the first system we installed.”
There was no harmony in the Lattice. Alarm and discord flared and spread like an infection through the SubLinks of the armada under the command of Tarskene [The Sallow], and despite the best efforts of Subcommander Kezthene [The Gray], discipline was slow in returning.
All had heard the Song of the Enemy. Its hated tones had filled local space for only a moment, trumpeting distress and hostility to all who had the ability to hear. Then the Voice, so long despised and feared, had been silenced, and its blazing colors, which had flooded the Lattice, vanished like a snuffed flame. No one knew what it meant—Tarskene least of all.
Moving past his subordinates, he activated the subspace thoughtwave transmitter. Projecting his thought-colors via the Warrior Castemoot SubLink, he accessed the InterLink and petitioned the Ruling Conclave of the Political Castemoot for an immediate audience. Seconds passed while he awaited a response, and he labored to cleanse his mind-line of fretful hues. It would not do for him to present ideas clouded by fear or insecurity.
Velrene [The Azure] acknowledged Tarskene’s salutation with muddled colors, which Tarskene took to suggest that she and the Ruling Conclave had also heard the Song of the Enemy. Her inter-voice wavered with disquiet. What news, Commander?
He projected memory facets shared among his armada’s personnel. From thousands of different mind-lines, the Song of the Enemy echoed and stopped. You have heard it.
All have heard it. Velrene sent back fragments of countless memory-lines, from worlds throughout the Assembly. The Voice was heard on every world.
Tarskene appended his memory-line to the others. And then it was silenced.
Is the Enemy gone? Her inquiry was tinted with hope.
Resentment, fury, and fear darkened Tarskene’s thought-colors. Not gone. Snared. By the Federation, aboard its space station.
Velrene’s mind-line fragmented with disbelief, then surged crimson with rage. It is not possible to contain the Old Ones! They must be destroyed!
He tried to share soothing hues and calming tones via the InterLink, but Velrene’s anger blazed like a wall of lava. We do not yet know the Federation’s intentions. They may yet choose to destroy the Old Ones, for their own safety if nothing else.
She met his suggestion with sickly hues. Doubtful. The Conclave must confer.
A dull gray hum informed Tarskene that his mindwave on the InterLink had been muted. All he could do was wait while Velrene and the other members of Tholia’s ruling elite weighed the matter and sought to harmonize their thought-colors.
A mellisonant chiming summoned him back to attention.
Velrene’s mind-line radiated resolve. For now, Commander, hold the armada where it stands, and observe the space station. If the Federation’s soldiers destroy the Old Ones and take our vengeance for us, so be it. Then her inter-voice shimmered with violent intent. But if they try to steal the power of the Enemy for themselves, that we cannot abide. In such an event, we will have no choice but to act for the good of Tholia—and the galaxy—no matter the cost.
Tarskene mirrored the colors of Velrene’s mind-line with fidelity.
So shall it be done.
25
It had been obvious for a couple of days that something big was happening on the station. Because Fisher was no longer on active duty, no one could tell him anything, but he hadn’t needed to hear the news firsthand. He could tell by the way conversations between Starfleet personnel spontaneously halted or sank into whispers as he passed by in his civilian clothes, and by the heightened level of excitement that seemed to be spreading through the crew like a contagion.
There was no point in angling for information; no one would talk. He guessed the chatter was probably related to Operation Vanguard, in which case he was happier not knowing.
At the same time, he saw no reason to sequester himself in his quarters, which were almost bare now that most of his personal effects had been loaded aboard the transport Lisbon for the journey home—whenever the hell that ended up happening. Delays of incoming cargo had postponed the ship’s departure by at least another week, leaving Fisher with nothing to do but sleep, eat, read, and wander the public areas of the station. He passed most of his afternoons on Fontana Meadow, watching the ad hoc games of competitive sports that tended to spring up on the sprawling greensward that ringed the station’s core, enjoying the fragrance of fresh-cut grass, or reading beside one of the pools, surrounded by the astringent odor of chlorine.
He had taken to spending his evenings enjoying the cuisine, wine, and hospitality of Manуn’s cabaret. In the years he had served aboard Vanguard, he had been there only a handful of times. In the weeks since his retirement, he had been there nearly every night until the house band played its final encore and the bartender enforced the last call. Manуn, the club’s ravishing alien patroness, an expatriate from a race known as the Silgov, had started calling him a regular. Roy, her bartender, had gotten into the habit of comping every third drink for Fisher—not that he ever finished a third drink. To one degree or another, every member of her staff had gone out of his or her way to make Fisher feel welcome and well cared for within their establishment.
He stepped through the front door that evening expecting to be met by Manуn’s radiant smile and the cool but funky rhythms of the cabaret’s jazz quartet. Instead, the club was silent except for a sad, andante melody from the piano. Every guest and employee faced the stage, their jaws slack, eyes unblinking and glistening with emotion, and all of them utterly silent. Turning toward the stage, Fisher understood why.
T’Prynn sat at the piano, spotlit in the inky darkness, her eyes closed and her features sedate as she evoked from the instrument a somber, mournful tune that Fisher found deeply moving—and also more than a bit haunting in its tragic undertones. It was nothing like the crowd-pleasing music that T’Prynn had played in the past. To the best of Fisher’s knowledge, this was the first time she had performed publicly since her return to Vanguard. It fascinated him to see her style so radically transformed.
No one noticed him—or, if they did, they paid him no mind—as he glided through the dining room to an unoccupied table near the stage. Every step of the way he was captivated by T’Prynn’s solo showcase. Soft and gentle, the music seemed to spring from her with the simplicity of breath, yet it sounded as if it were in two places at once, bivalent in its nature, harrowing and yet beautiful, touching but also heartbreaking. Though he could not put into words why, he felt certain the song was a work of profound loneliness, an ode to love and mortality, a musical distillation of longing, pain, and shattering loss.
Her song dwindled to a close that felt as natural and elegiac as it was inevitable, and when it ended, the cabaret was heavy with awed silence.
Strong applause came several seconds later, but there was no cheering; the audience responded with reverence and respect, despite seeming more than a bit shell-shocked. T’Prynn left the stage as the clapping tapered off. Fisher’s table was along her path, and he beckoned her to join him. She detoured gracefully toward him and settled into the chair opposite his. He flashed a genial smile. “That was quite a performance.” When she didn’t respond, he realized his remark had been a bit vague. “It was a beautiful piece. What’s it called?”
“It was an improvisation. I did not think to title it.”