At Kirk’s nod, Uhura patched the signal to the main viewscreen, where they could see the tight quarters of the Torye bridge, and a Payav with unusually elaborate tattoos sitting comfortably in his seat. Raya was the only one who recognized him, and she gasped so loudly that Kirk whirled in her direction, thinking she’d been hurt. As she stood up unsteadily, her face betrayed her mix of emotions: shock, confusion, and anger. “Vykul?” she whispered.

  “Raya. Commanders, I am Vykul, of the Torye. We will be the new rulers of Mestiko.”

  “Vykul,” Raya repeated. “You’re behind this?”

  “Just me? Hardly. Thousands have joined the Torye. Have we had our fill of your government’s complacency? Oh, yes. The weapon is now ours, and we plan to use it to make sure our world gets the respect it deserves from those who would conquer us like the Klingons, or subjugate us with ‘kindness’ like the Federation.”

  Raya closed her eyes, as if trying to blink away this nightmare. “Theena elMadej… you kidnapped her. If you’re forcing her to help you…”

  Then Raya got her next big shock, when Theena stepped into view alongside Vykul.

  “Nobody’s forced me, Raya.”

  For an instant, Raya brightened at the sight of her friend… until the reality of Theena’s words registered. “What… what do you mean?”

  “I’m not a captive. I’ve belonged to the Torye for some time. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

  “You- you helped them? They killed nineteen people at the Discovery Center! You killed…” Raya shook her head, stunned by a truth more staggering than anything she could have imagined. Kirk wanted to go to her and put a supportive hand on her slumped shoulders, but instead he circled around to the engineering console.

  “Scotty, report,” he whispered.

  “Assumin’ the shielded scanners are operatin’ without distortion, the Klingon ship’s warp core is disabled. And the Torye ship shows no signs of energizing standard weapons.”

  “Maybe they don’t need to… or maybe they can’t do both at once.” Kirk turned his attention back to the wrenching conversation between Raya and Theena.

  “Raya, no one was supposed to die. That’s Vykul’s fault.”

  “But they did die… and if you helped these monsters, it’s your fault.”

  “So many of our people have died for nothing. At least the people at the center died so our world can become proud and free,” Theena said, with a catch in her voice. “Someday… someday, I hope you’ll understand why we had to do this.”

  Raya shook her head. “I’ll never understand.”

  “Both your ships have been disabled by a weapon which makes us more than your equals,” said Vykul in an easy tone, as if discussing a rain shower and not a sea change in galactic power. “Could we destroy you? Yes, but that’s not our goal. This was a demonstration. Will we meet again? Yes, and the next time, we’ll have the force to dictate the terms by which Mestiko will take its rightful place as a dominant power in this quadrant.”

  The comm signal winked out. The Torye ship disengaged its super-weapon, moved off at a stately pace, then jumped to warp speed, leaving the drifting Enterprise and K’tanco behind.

  Kirk stood with Raya, who looked more shattered than he’d ever seen her before. “James, I can’t believe Theena would do this. I’ve known her since she was a child. It’s not who she is.” She kept shaking her head.

  “What about this Torye group? Did you see this coming?”

  “No. And that’s my fault. Maybe I should have.”

  “We don’t know that. And sometimes, even if you see something coming, there’s not much you can do,” he said, referring as much to the past as to the present. But here and now, they needed to make a rapid assessment of their situation, before the Klingons could attack again, and before the Torye could do… what?

  Chapter Eleven

  While McCoy took Raya to sickbay to patch up her head wound, Kirk huddled down in engineering with Scott, Saavik, and Hovda for an analysis of the Torye attack. To Scotty’s great relief, the modified deflectors succeeded in protecting warp-drive systems against all but minor degradation from the subspace weapon, beyond the battle damage inflicted by the Klingons.

  And Hovda was quite happy with how well the shielded scanners worked, yielding a wealth of useful information on the weapon and its inaugural performance. That data indicated that the Torye were having trouble mastering the weapon’s full potential. Even running at only half-capacity for a relatively brief period of time, the subspace weapon consumed all of the small ship’s available engine output, with nothing left for conventional weapons. As Hovda phrased it, it was lucky that the Torye vessel was underpowered compared with a starship like the Enterprise. Scotty was convinced the Torye cut their attack short because they were close to overloading their engines. Saavik noted that the subspace distortion field never achieved optimum matrix stability or power utilization- problems, Hovda confirmed, that were predicted by computer models and tests conducted by the development team. Still, the “demonstration” left little doubt they faced a formidable threat.

  “How does Theena’s involvement change the equation?” Kirk asked. “She knows this weapon system as well as anyone. Will she be able to get the bugs worked out?”

  “Not easily,” Hovda said. “We didn’t want any lone wolves working on this. We worked in teams of at least two. Crucial data was segregated into self-contained, encrypted memory units. Each scientist on the project was assigned a secret passcode, and it takes a minimum of two simultaneous passcode entries to gain access to those encrypted data units.”

  “Can Theena solve those problems even without access to blocked information?” Kirk asked.

  “She is brilliant,” Hovda said, with mixed pride and regret. “With enough fiddling time, she’ll fix some of it by sheer determination. But that won’t happen soon. Given the power limitations of their ship, they may not be able to surpass what we’ve already seen.”

  “Aye,” Scott said, “but what if they get their hands on a better power source?”

  Kirk’s brow furrowed. “Vykul said they’d have the force to dictate terms. Idle boast, or real threat?”

  Scott looked grim. “If they capture a ship like this one, or a Klingon battle cruiser, and hook that thing up to bigger engines…” His voice trailed off. No one needed that peril spelled out.

  “Then we have to keep that from happening,” Kirk said, his jaw tightening at the thought. “But we’ve got a more immediate concern.”

  Scott allowed himself a half-smile of satisfaction. “The Klingons? They’re in a wee bit of a mess, sir. Their warp drive’s completely offline, so they’ll not be so eager for battle.”

  “Is their warp core disabled permanently?”

  Dr. elZana shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t have enough real-world data to know for sure. In theory, it could recover. But it’s likely to take at least a few hours for them to regenerate enough capacity for warp speed and weapons capability.”

  “So, for the moment, we’ve got an advantage,” Kirk said. “Let’s use it to fix our battle damage, and then we’ll deal with the Klingons.”

  Aboard the K’tanco, Mara coordinated damage reports from her barely operating bridge station, and repair teams scrambled throughout the ship. Batteries sustained minimal life support, but their warp reactor was stone-cold dead. Though damage inflicted by the Enterprise was mostly superficial, the knowledge that his vessel could neither fight Kirk nor pursue their attackers left Kang seething.

  Under interrogation, Spock, Morrow, and Navok maintained that they knew nothing more about the Torye weapon beyond what they’d all observed. “But I suspect Captain Kirk knows more,” Spock said calmly. “If you destroy the Enterprise, you will lose that knowledge. It is in your own self-interest to deal with Captain Kirk, and expeditiously, I should think. The Torye may strike again at any time, or they may use their weapon against other Klingon ships and installations.”

  That, of course, was the last thing Kang wanted to hear. But Mara took him aside and emphasized that the Vulcan’s logic was inescapable: Kirk might in fact hold the key.

  “They invaded our space,” Kang said. “Kirk must pay for that.”

  “Whatever he may be, Kirk is not foolish enough to undertake a one-man invasion. He told us why they violated the Neutral Zone, and we’ve seen this weapon for ourselves. Which is the bigger threat- one Starfleet ship, or an unknown weapon that left us paralyzed?”

  “Trust Kirk, to defeat a common enemy?”

  “You did it once before,” Mara reminded him.

  “That was a long time ago. We have learned the hard way that humans cannot be trusted. And Kirk will not trust a sworn enemy he holds responsible for the death of his son.”

  Measuring her husband’s stony resistance, Mara modulated her approach. She knew better than anyone how Kang hated forced inaction. When it came to revenge, he had a hard time waiting until that particular dish was sufficiently cold. It was his main flaw as a commander and warrior (and husband, too, for that matter), this inability to accept that stillness was sometimes required in order to make the best decision. Someday, when it mattered most, Mara believed he would master this art. In the meantime, after all their years together, she had evolved various means of diverting Kang’s impulse to act at moments when patience was the better choice. She leaned close to him. “Information is power, is it not?”

  “It can be.”

  “Then it’s time Klaa told us whatever he’s withholding.”

  “He is a Klingon. He will not yield under interrogation, or torture.”

  “We have another option.”

  The unexpected invitation from Mara kicked Admiral Morrow’s guard up a couple of notches. Would he and Spock join her for Klingon tea in the private quarters she shared with Kang? Do we really have a choice? Since gentle persuasion wasn’t a customary Klingon tactic, he was pretty sure something was up- he just didn’t know what. But despite his heightened level of suspicion, he was unprepared for the proposal Mara made to Spock.

  “A mind-meld?” Morrow blurted, almost choking on the sip of bitter brew he had in his mouth. “With Klaa?”

  “We believe Klaa has information of value to us as well as Kirk.”

  Spock’s eyebrow arched. “An intriguing request.”

  “Spock,” Morrow said, bug-eyed at the very notion and stunned that the Vulcan hadn’t already rejected it, “you can’t do it.”

  “There is no physiological obstacle, Admiral.”

  “Why would we want to help the Klingons get information from one of their own?”

  “Admiral,” Mara said, “we are being asked to trust Captain Kirk solely on the basis of his pleasant smile. Are you unwilling to grant reciprocal trust?”

  Morrow chuckled without humor. “You don’t trust us, and we don’t trust you.”

  “I beg to differ. You and General Navok seemed to be getting along quite well.”

  “That was a work in progress.”

  “This is not merely a matter of trust,” Spock said to both of them. “It could be a matter of survival. Based on Klaa’s admission of partnership with the Torye, it is logical to conclude that he intended to use their weapon against a specific, strategically valuable target, which remains unknown. If the Torye have decided to proceed against that same target without Klaa’s participation, any collaborative efforts at contravention would benefit from information on its description and location.”

  Morrow spoke to Spock but glared at Mara. “How do we know it’ll be collaborative?”

  Mara smiled. “Admiral, at the moment, this vessel’s systems are almost totally nonoperational. But I have enough data to suggest that the Enterprise was somehow able to withstand the Torye attack better than we were. If Kang has intelligence Captain Kirk will find useful, Kirk may be more likely to share his defensive countermeasures with us in trade. On the other hand, if the Enterprise doesn’t know where to find the Torye ship, all the countermeasures in the universe will be of little use. And without adequate defenses, we won’t be able to defeat the Torye even if we know where to find them. However, our two ships on a cooperative mission have a much better chance of success.”

  Spock took a pensive sip of his tea. “Inescapably logical.”

  Mara nodded graciously, but Morrow was no less unhappy with the direction in which this conversation seemed headed. “All right, say Spock does a mind-meld and finds out where Klaa planned to use this weapon. How do we know you’ll share that with Captain Kirk?”

  “How do we know Kirk will give us the technical information on his countermeasures? I suppose that will be the moment of truth- are both sides intelligent enough to override our natural hostility toward each other in order to achieve a mutually beneficial goal?”

  “You are correct, Mara,” Spock said. “Without knowing the Torye’s likely target, any effort directed at stopping them will be moot. I will accede to your request.”

  “Spock,” Morrow objected, “are you crazy?”

  “It is a logical choice, Admiral. Indeed, it may be our only choice at this juncture.”

  Morrow shook his head. “I don’t like it. But I can’t stop you.” Then he turned to Mara. “Have you already plied Klaa with tea and blood-crumpets to get him to go along with this?”

  “Klaa will require another means of persuasion.”

  That “persuasion” took the form of four strong officers hauling Spock’s violently unobliging partner to a brig interrogation chair, strapping down his legs and arms, and clamping a cage around his jaw to keep him from biting. Then two guards held Klaa’s head still as Spock approached. As Morrow listened to Klaa’s brutish snorts and bellowed threats of vengeance, he wondered how the hell anyone could pierce that shell of furious resistance. But seconds after Spock’s fingertips pressed against the Klingon’s face and skull, the fire in Klaa’s eyes gave way to a trance of fear and his breath came in short, shallow huffs.

  “I… am… Spock,” said one.

  “I… am… Klaa,” the other answered.

  “Our minds are moving closer… closer…”

  “Nooo,” Klaa grunted.

  “Closer … ” Spock took a deep breath. “Our minds… are one.”

  Morrow glanced away for a moment to find that Mara and Kang and the rest of the Klingons were watching with what could only be called a mixture of fascination and revulsion at the thought of a Vulcan mind invading their own. Spock’s eyes were slits of pure concentration. Klaa’s eyes were pools of terror, his mouth gaping but unable to speak.

  The Vulcan spoke for him in a guttural snarl that sent a chill down Morrow’s spine. “I… am… Klaa. The empire… dying… paralyzed. bIHnuch’yej… a council of cowards. We will act… I will act… Ha’DIbaHpu’! Bljeghbe’chugh vaj blHegh! Bljeghbe’chugh vaj blHegh! Bljeghbe’chugh vaj blHegh!”

  “What does he keep repeating?” Morrow said to no one in particular.

  “A challenge to our enemies,” Kang said. “Surrender, or die.”

  Spock’s fingers dug into Klaa’s face and his voice took on a rising intensity that made Morrow very uneasy. “I… am… Klaa. We will conquer. I am… Klaa!” Then the few words became drawn out and it took greater and greater effort for Spock to form them. Beads of sweat coursed down his face. “I… I… I… aaaamm… K-k-k-klaaaa. I… aaaamm… I… aaaamm…”

  Klaa’s face contorted in silent agony as he attempted to fight off Spock’s mind reaching into his own. Morrow had no idea what was going on but he wanted this to end, now. He lurched forward and grabbed Spock by the shoulders just as he grunted his own name: “Spock!” The Vulcan yanked his hands away from Klaa with such repellent force that he stumbled back against Morrow, who barely kept them both from tumbling to the deck. Klaa lapsed into an unconscious stupor.

  It took several long moments for Spock’s breathing to slow to normal and the glaze to clear from his eyes. Then he squared his shoulders, stepped back from Morrow, and looked around the room, as if reorienting himself. “A fascinating experience,” he murmured. “A mind of cunning determination, and simplistic aggressive certainty as to the rectitude of his own decisions. Klaa’s universe is black and white.”

  “Did you find out what we needed to know?” Morrow asked.

  Spock nodded. “His intended target was to be the mobile Klingon battle base. Presumably, that is where the Torye are now headed.”

  Kang frowned. “Battle base?”

  The reactions from Kang and Mara made it clear they’d had no prior clue about this addition to the empire’s arsenal. “Like it or not,” Morrow said, “you’re going to want to release General Navok. He can tell you all about it. And I can tell you this- if the Torye capture that battle base and use it as a platform for this new subspace weapon, they’re going to pose a grave threat to the Klingon Empire, the Federation, and anybody else who gets in their way.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You wanted to see me, Bones?” Two strides into sickbay, Kirk stopped short when he saw McCoy was not waiting for him alone. Scott and Saavik were there as well. “Am I being ganged up on?”

  “Saavik was willing to do this by herself,” McCoy said, “but Scotty and I thought senior officers should be present… when she questions your sanity.”

  Saavik’s eyebrow rose with a muted Vulcan variant of alarm. “Doctor,” she said sharply, “please.”

  McCoy made a two-handed gesture of surrender, and allowed Saavik to take the lead.

  “Captain,” she said, “cooperating with the Klingons is the logical option.”

  Kirk glanced at all three of them. “And you all agree?”

  “So do Uhura and Chekov,” Scott said.

  “Opinions noted. But this isn’t a democracy. Have the Klingons sent any olive branches I haven’t seen?” Again, he looked at each of them. “I didn’t think so. The Klingons view peaceful overtures as a sign of weakness. I need this crew focused on coming up with ways to fight the Torye alone.”