Margeret Bonanno - Probe

"Enough," Jenyu said, turning and stalking toward the door. "Place Ambassador Tiam with Commander Hiran."

And he was gone, Feric trailing in his wake.

In a heartbeat, the two subcenturions stepped forward, and barely a minute later, Tiam found himself being shoved unceremoniously into Hiran's quarters. An instant later, he heard the click of the newly installed manual lock he had glimpsed on the outside of the door.

Hiran looked up from his desk, his eyes widening slightly as Tiam lurched to a stop.

"Inquisitor?" Hiran asked. "Or fellow prisoner?"

"What happened, Hiran?"

"May I take that to mean `fellow prisoner,' Ambassador?"

"Take it as you like! Just tell me what has happened here."

"I would have thought that obvious to a man of your acuity, Ambassador. It seems I was as naive as I accused you of being! We were both pawns in the game, and your `aide' turned out to be, in truth, the only player on board." Hiran laughed bitterly. "Not that he will be a player for long. Tell me, Ambassador, are you aware of what your former aide is planning?"

Tiam shook his head angrily. "I thought I did, but obviously I don't. All I know is, he is throwing away a chance to accomplish what the Praetor originally set out to do: utilize the power of that thing that brought us here! He refuses to let me return to the Enterprise and-"

"You have no idea, no idea at all, do you? He's determined to destroy that `thing,' as you call it! And the Galtizh in the process!"

Tiam gaped. Destroy it? No one could be that mad! "How in the gods' names? He knows as well as I what it did to the Henzu, to Wlaariivi!"

"He thinks he has a way around that little difficulty," Hiran said, beginning to recount Jenyu's tale of the ships on the training mission. "He thinks we might be inside its `defensive perimeter,' as he called it, and he also thinks he may have found a vulnerable spot. But he doesn't really care. He is willing to be destroyed in the retaliation as long as he feels there is a good chance the retaliation will take out the Enterprise as well as the Galtizh. All he cares about-"

"Officers and crew of the Galtizh, Romulan citizens." Jenyu's voice crackled from the intercom, drowning out Hiran's words.

Subcommander Feric listened with growing consternation to Commander Jenyu's announcement to the officers and crew. With each word that came over the speakers, it became clearer that he was outlining their coming deaths, and worse, the end of any hope for peace between the Empire and the Federation. Following his course of action might even mean the destruction of the Empire itself.

They were to attack this behemoth that had brought them here. There was a small chance, Jenyu said, they would succeed in disabling it, in which case the Enterprise would in all likelihood turn its own firepower on the far more lightly armed Galtizh. There was a much greater chance, the commander admitted, that the attack would do little or no damage to the monster but would provoke a response that would vaporize the Galtizh-and, Jenyu fervently hoped, the Enterprise.

And all, according to Jenyu, solely to prevent the Federation from gaining control of the thing.

It was insane.

It was sheer paranoia-typical of those of Jenyu's and Tiam's warlike stripe-to think that the Federation had already influenced the thing to attack Wlaariivi. There was nothing to indicate that anyone could gain control of it, ever, and everything to indicate such control was impossible. According to Hiran, the Empire had been trying to communicate with it or take it over for months, ever since the first time the object passed through Romulan space, and the Empire had failed miserably.

The best either the Empire or the Federation could hope was to learn how to communicate with it. It would no more do the Federation's bidding than it would the Empire's. As its actions had proven, both in the Federation and the Empire, it was not the derelict the Praetor had first assumed. It was fully operational and had an agenda of its own, an agenda that saw the Empire and the Federation-if it saw them at all-as distractions at best, insects to be swatted if they proved too troublesome. To attack it now could accomplish only one thing, aside from their own instant deaths. This would be at least the second attack by a Romulan vessel, and that might be enough to elevate the Empire from the status of distraction to the status of enemy. It might well prompt it to do on its own what Jenyu irrationally feared the Federation might order it to do.

Jenyu finally paused in his announcement, which had now gone on for a good five minutes.

"It was my duty to inform you of the situation," he resumed quietly. "I have done so. Now, except for those whose duties lie with me, on the bridge, you may do as you see fit these next few minutes."

Make your preparations to die, you mean, Feric thought, suddenly angry, wondering how many others were echoing his thoughts. But what could they do, after all?

Now, more than ever, Jenyu had the power.

Finally, the intercom in Hiran's quarters fell silent. A moment later, through the viewport, he and Tiam saw that the Galtizh had begun to move.

"He is mad!" Tiam said, shaking his head.

Hiran shrugged. "He is also in control. And the ones he has manning the bridge are as mad as he is. But I

would have thought your own philosophy of war rather than negotiation would have placed you firmly in their camp. And yet you now say they are mad?"

"War is a contest, not pointless suicide!"

"Jenyu knows it is suicide, but he obviously disagrees about its being pointless."

Tiam pulled in a ragged breath. "Is there nothing you can do? You are the commander of the Galtizh, after all!"

"You did not seem to hold that opinion a few short hours ago, Ambassador!" Hiran flared, then calmed himself. "In any event, when Jenyu revealed his true identity-through an announcement just like this onehe accused me of treason against the Empire, of `conspiring' with the enemy, in the person of the Federation captain. He invoked the Master Dominion Pandect for Martial Crisis. I do not know how many believed him, but there were enough who did not rise to my defense that it was easy for him and his six men to assume control of my ship! Most are still loyal to me, but-"

"The civilians, the scientists and musicians! Certainly they cannot wish to die."

"I would assume not, but they were all assembled and locked away-in your quarters, no less. They are as helpless as we."

"But surely-"

The click of the manual lock brought a sudden silence. Both men turned to the door as it slid open, revealing a grim-faced Subcommander Feric.

"Feric! What-"

"Commander," Feric said. Hiran felt himself grinning — and a split-second later, Feric followed suit.

It was the first time Hiran could recall seeing his first officer smile.

TWENTY-FOUR

The glittering blackness of the Probe filled the Enterprise viewscreen. At the center, the speck that was the Galtizh had dropped to minimum impulse and was barely moving.

"What the hell are they up to?" Kirk muttered, not for the first time.

"Still no response to our hail, Captain," Uhura volunteered.

"It looks like they're heading for that appendage," Sulu said from the helm, "the one we decided might or might not be what it uses to transmit and receive whatever it is it transmits and receives. Sir."

"So they can whisper in its ear in hopes we won't hear what they say?" Kirk shook his head. "It doesn't make sense."

McCoy, who had escaped Commander Chapel's ministrations and made his way to the bridge, snorted. "I'd

start worrying if they did something that did make sense."

"Response from the Galtizh, Captain," Uhura announced abruptly.

"On-screen."

The Probe and the minuscule Galtizh vanished, replaced a moment later by an image of the Romulan bridge. But a badly out-of-focus image. A grim-faced and equally out-of-focus Hiran stood at the rear of the bridge, looking over the shoulder of a subcommander at the Romulan equivalent of a science station.