“But subsume Maluria’s destiny within that of the Federation?” He shook his head. “Let Rigel fall into that trap. Oh, I will gladly exploit the Federation’s aid when it works in my world’s favor. But if your agendas get in the way of Maluria’s again, I will just as gladly tear you apart.”
He smiled again. “From a safe distance, of course—and in a way you’ll never see coming.”
13
Undisclosed location
SAMUEL KIRK TRIED not to enjoy the sight of Rehlen Vons’s death.
He certainly had reason to feel hatred toward the Malurian who had ordered his torture and then watched it like a spectator at a sporting event. But if he gave in to that malice, it would mean that they had won—that they had contaminated him with their own cruelty. So he resisted the sense of satisfaction that welled up in him.
What helped quell any pleasure, certainly, was that the executioner was none other than Damreg, the Zami who’d actually carried out the torture, and thus the one person he hated more than Vons. The Malurian, still in his Jelna disguise, had just gotten a rather harried emergency communication from his superior Garos. But it had come just too late, for Damreg had surely gotten a parallel warning just moments earlier. Vons had barely been able to draw his sidearm before Damreg’s beloved knife buried itself in his spine.
Now Grev, who had been slaving over the decryption equipment under Vons’s eye, jumped away in shock and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Kirk, watching Damreg intently. The assassin smirked at the ensign’s reaction as he pulled out the knife and wiped its blade on Vons’s jacket. “Don’t worry, pig, we still need you alive until you break the rest of the code. But you know I don’t have Vons’s patience, and he’s not here to hold me back now.” His eyes met Kirk’s, and the historian had to force himself not to look away. “You get my meaning?”
Grev moved in front of Kirk protectively. “We understand.”
“Good,” the assassin said, not embellishing it with a smile as Vons would have. Instead, he drew his plasma pistol. “Now let’s go. We’re moving out before Vons’s people get here. Or anyone else.”
Kirk hoped that meant Pioneer’s crew was drawing closer to finding them. But with the falling-out between the co-conspirators, the situation had become more volatile. He didn’t know what that meant for their chances of being found—or of lasting long enough to be found alive.
June 25, 2164
U.S.S. Pioneer
Malcolm Reed was delighted to have his armory officer back, so soon after his executive and science officers had returned safe and sound from Rigel III. But the way it had occurred was hard to credit. “So Garos just let you go?” he asked once the rest of the bridge crew had welcomed her back.
Valeria Williams shrugged. “Once he found out the First Families’ plans would hurt Maluria, he wanted to stop them as much as we do. But he was in no mood to answer to Starfleet for his actions. So he used me to pass along what he knew and let Starfleet fix things while he went slinking back home.”
“And he told you where the hostages and the archives are?” Reed turned to the main viewscreen, which was split between feeds of Captain T’Pol aboard Endeavour and Admiral Archer at Babel. It was the latter who had spoken.
“According to him, sir, they were being held in one of the asteroid mines around Rigel I’s L5 point.” Williams frowned. “But with his man getting killed, it’s a safe bet they’ve moved them.”
“But at least we can narrow it down to the inner asteroids,” Archer said.
“There are thousands of individual mines in the Trojan clusters,” T’Pol countered. “And they would surely be taken to a location of which the Malurians were unaware, so Commander Williams could offer no insight. How can we narrow it down?”
“There may be a way,” Archer said. “Director Hemnask has been very cooperative. She’s shared her knowledge of some of the First Families’ secret contact frequencies and encryption protocols.”
“And now that we know where to look,” Hoshi Sato added from T’Pol’s side, “we can intercept their communications and scan for keywords.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Reed asked.
T’Pol looked uncertain. “We should keep in mind that Dular Garos is a master of deception and manipulation. It is not inconceivable that he has falsified this sequence of events in order to misdirect us.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past Garos,” Archer agreed. “He’s completely ruthless. He wouldn’t have let Val go if he didn’t have some angle.”