Part I
The storage locker in the mountains was supposed to be a dead drop. That was the arrangement: both parties avoided direct contact to minimize risk of exposure. It was safer for everyone that way. Even so, Sivath took the precaution of scanning the area from the air. The shuttle Oben’s sensors detected no Echometan life signs for hundreds of miles, although of course this was no guarantee. This region was rocky and riddled with caves perfect for hiding all manner of secrets. That was, after all, the entire reason they were here.
Under cover of darkness, the cloaked shuttle set down in a secluded canyon between two high peaks. Sivath and the pilot, Hakail, quickly and silently loaded the cargo onto a hover cart. While Hakail kept watch at the landing zone, Sivath pushed the cart along the snaking, downward-sloping canyon floor toward the storage locker, a few hundred meters to the southwest. The locker itself was nestled under a rocky outcropping and covered with a snow camouflage tarp. It was a crude solution, suited to fool only the most incurious eye, but it contributed nothing to the locker’s electromagnetic sensor profile, and that was the most crucial thing. Sometimes the old tricks were still the best tricks, Sivath was coming to accept.
Hauling the tarp off the locker, Sivath keyed in the security code—which ultimately provided little security, but it had been a standard feature for the unit—and hauled the heavy door open. Inside he found neatly folded stacks of blankets, rugs, and textiles; stacks of carved wood figurines and woven baskets. A quick inventory of the locker’s contents confirmed the quantities and condition he had come to expect over the past year of this arrangement. Satisfied, Sivath unloaded the crates from his hover cart onto the canyon floor, taking care to balance the supplies so they would not topple down the slope. The mountain air was crisp and the wind whipped through the canyon, chilling him through his jacket, but the work warmed him. Soon all the goods from the locker were on the cart, and Sivath was in the process of stocking the locker with the crates from his shuttle when he heard the sound of an antigrav drive. Straightening up from his work, Sivath looked for the source but initially could see nothing. The sound was echoing up the canyon from below, running far ahead of whatever was making such a racket.
Sivath’s hand moved reflexively to his chest, but he noted with familiar chagrin that there was no badge affixed there. Touching the communicator on his wrist instead, he said, “Hakail, someone is coming.”
“I hear them,” came the immediate reply. ”Got ‘em on scope too. Small convoy headed your way. ETA: two minutes.”
“Weapons?” Sivath asked.
”The only energy signatures big enough to register are the engines. If they’re packing heat, it’s strictly small arms; nothing that would threaten the shuttle. Still, better not take any chances, right?”
Sivath caught a glimpse of something in the distance, a glint of light from the shelf below. “It may be our client,” he speculated.
”May well be, but drops are supposed to be no-contact. Those are the rules. The boss doesn’t like when we come back with funny stories.”
Hakail was correct, of course. The SS Kihai ran close to the margins nearly all the time, and its commanding officer did not welcome deviations from the flight plan. Unscheduled meetings with client representatives were not on the flight plan today. Entanglements with local law enforcement over proximity to contraband goods were certainly not on the plan. The standard operating procedure in such a situation as this, undocumented but universally understood, was that Sivath ought to get his cart-load of crafts back to the shuttle and get the hell off this planet, post haste.
Sivath understood the wisdom of that policy. Risk aversion was a rational survival strategy for those who lived just one mistake away from disaster, as was so often the case for the crew of the Kihai. But Sivath hadn’t chosen this life just to settle for survival. He touched the controls on his wrist communicator again. “I am leaving this channel open. Maintain a transporter lock in case of emergency. Stand by.”
As Sivath had expected, the transports which soon arrived were not law enforcement—at least, not enforcers of any laws Sivath or his friends had broken. The design stenciled on the sides of the vehicles was that of the Nation of Irreo, a separatist group seeking political self-determination and -defense following several years of escalating tensions with the planet’s dominant authority, the Echomet World Union. The Union was unconvinced by the Nation’s arguments thus far.
“Be advised,” Hakail reported over the comms, ”I’m seeing high-altitude contacts in the area. The mountains are making it hard to keep track, but it’s more traffic than I’d expect to see out here.”
Sivath’s attention was on the armed guerrillas piling out of the transports. There were at least a dozen of them, many of them carrying weapons. Torches were pointed at Sivath, blinding him momentarily, but when his eyes adjusted to the glare, he noted that the weapons remained holstered or pointed at the ground for now. Beyond the light sources, he could make out the movements of a figure, bent with age, slowly moving to join the welcome party. Sivath raised his hands to chest height, palms out. “I mean you no harm,” he announced, calmly and clearly.
The voice that followed was tinny and artificial, a computer simulacrum. “Lower the lights. You can see he is an alien. The Union does not use offworlders to do its dirty work.” As his vision adjusted further, Sivath could see that the old woman signing to her compatriots was wearing electrokinetic interface gloves. The vocalizations emitted from a translation module on her belt. These pieces of technology were of Echometan manufacture, but their design was based on a prototype developed by Starfleet engineers working under Sivath’s oversight, years before and a lifetime ago. The old woman asked, “What is your name, offworlder?”
“Sivath,” he replied, slowly lowering his hands but keeping them away from his sides, palms facing out. “I represent Captain Voh t’Kelani of the SS Kihai. I did not expect to encounter anyone here, however.”
The old woman began to sign, and the artificial voice followed a beat later. “The decision to make direct contact was mine. You bring us supplies—food and medicine, above all—that help to keep us going. And in trade, you take useless things, baubles and trinkets, which we know you have the technology to conjure from thin air, should you so choose. I would know why you do this.”
Sivath considered his answer carefully. He suspected he was being tested, somehow—judged against criteria he did not yet understand. “There is a proverb common to several species in this quadrant which asserts, with minor variations, that what is worthless to one individual may be valued by another. My people,” he said, gesturing briefly toward the night sky, “are very good at taking so-called ‘worthless’ things and finding their value.”
The old woman nodded, seemingly amused. “That is fortunate for me, then. For most of my life, I was considered a worthless thing, myself. Do you know who I am?”
Sivath suspected that he did. One of the first modifications the Echometa made to the design of the translation modules was to add pitch, tone, and rate controls, allowing each user to customize a distinctive personal voice. Starfleet R&D, under Sivath’s direction, had focused on the use case of a single user speaking to audiences of varying size. While sound output modulation was easily achievable through manipulation of variables in the code, the utility of exposing these controls to the user had been overlooked in the rush to mass-production. It seemed obvious, in hindsight, that two or more Irreo employing the device in proximity to one another would want to distinguish themselves, both for the sake of personal expression and to aid listeners in differentiating between the voices. The technology’s users had corrected for the blind spots of the designers.
This Irreo woman was familiar to Sivath. Her simulated voice had been among those speaking out, via unlicensed broadcasts, in favor of mobilization to demand equal protection and treatment under Union law. Her face had been highlighted frequently by mainstream Echometan news feeds covering the demonstrations, the clashes with law enforcement, the arrests, the trials. Her name had been attached to the label of “Irreo radical” in breathless coverage of the detention center breach several months prior. Sivath said, “I recognize you. It is an honor to meet you, Professor Behal.” His recognition of her made some of her comrades visibly nervous.
“Is it?” she asked, unphased. “How peculiar.” Signing quickly, she explained, “I want to leave this planet, my resourceful friend. I am told that you have a spacecraft that can take me far away from this place. I can pay. But you must decide quickly. I have taken a risk in meeting you this way, and I cannot linger for long.”
Sivath was unprepared for this request. He knew that Voh would not be eager to take on a fugitive as a passenger. Smuggling food and medicine was one thing, but people—especially enemies of the state—were another matter entirely. Yet Sivath was tempted, nonetheless, to grant the professor’s request. She was extending her trust to a stranger, so her need must have been urgent. Sivath believed in the righteousness of the Irreo Power movement and felt personal responsibility for the dismal status quo these activists were struggling against. He wanted to help however he could, but it wasn’t his decision to make in isolation. To invite this person into his home was to expose his family aboard Kihai to jeopardy. Sivath did not think it was his right to make this decision alone, and he would have liked to consult his captain first if he did not believe that Professor Behal would forbid it.
Unfortunately, the decision was made for him by the sudden arrival of military aircraft hovering in the sky above the canyon. The drone of antigrav engines filled the air as the predatorial silhouettes swooped down from high altitude, pinning the stunned separatists in place with bright searchlights. “REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE,” a booming voice commanded. “BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORLD UNION, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLEE OR YOU WILL BE SUBDUED BY FORCE.”
The reactions of the separatists to this sudden intrusion were varied; some attempted to scramble for the transports, while others stood their ground or even opened fire on the Union craft. Behal remained standing in the open, even as her people pulled at her arms and pleaded with her to run.
Sivath, for his part, ducked into the lee of the overhanging rock face and took stock of the situation. His pulse was racing and adrenaline was pumping into his system, an animal response to clear and present danger. Soldiers were firing back from the air now, peppering the dirt with energy bursts, so the desire to take cover and hide was strong. One of the guerrillas shooting into the air was caught by return fire and fell to the ground, bleeding out; a moment later, another volley caught a separatist who hadn’t been carrying a weapon at all. Sivath’s position against the canyon wall protected him for the moment, but he knew it would only last until the World Guard descended on the scene. If he was going to flee, it would need to be soon.
One of the Irreo transports roared away, swerving off down the mountain in the direction it had come from. A Union aircraft above peeled off to pursue, its searchlight sweeping the desert floor behind the fleeing vehicle. The other Union craft remained parked above the canyon. Several rappelling cables fell, and dark-clad bodies followed. No sooner had their boots hit the ground, however, than one of the remaining Irreo transports suddenly exploded in a ball of plasma and sparks. Separatists and Guards alike dove for or were thrown to the ground; the rent carcass of the transport flooded the canyon with smoke.
Coughing, Sivath picked himself up from the dirt. One of the guerillas must have fired carelessly at the descending soldiers and hit their own transport. Everyone in the area was dazed, if not seriously injured, and visibility was extremely poor. Sivath knew he wouldn’t get a better chance. He stooped to check Behal’s body and found her breathing. There was no time for analysis beyond that. Shoving the stacks of Echometan crafts off his cart, Sivath struggled to haul Behal’s limp body onto the bed in their place. Vague figures in the smoky haze scrambled to help him. Sivath engaged the antigrav and waved his new comrades onward, up the slope toward the landing zone of the Oben. “Go!” he yelled at them. “Get to the shuttle!” The exertion forced a coughing fit that required tremendous effort to bring under conscious control. Weapons discharged again somewhere behind him. The window of opportunity was closing. Sivath staggered forward through the smoke, running after the party with the cart, raising his wrist communicator to his lips and shouting into it. “Hakail, it was an ambush! Do you co—AARRGH!”
Sivath’s teeth clamped down involuntarily as a sharp pain shot up his right leg. He pitched forward and fell prone, his outstretched hands barely breaking his fall. Rolling to his side with a groan, he tried to focus and assess the damage, but his vision was swimming and he felt light-headed. Blood loss or smoke inhalation? Possibly both. The wound in his leg was some kind of puncture, inconsistent with the energy weapons in use by either side of this fight. He must have been hit by shrapnel when the transport exploded and failed to notice it until his movements aggravated the wound further.
A masked figure charged through the miasma, tactical gear streaked with dust and blood. The World Guard patch on the soldier’s shoulder was still clear enough. The figure trained its weapon on Sivath and barked an order at him, but he couldn’t hear clearly over the battle echoing throughout the canyon. The soldier shouted again, hoarser this time, even harder to understand. Moving slowly and deliberately, Sivath raised his hands and placed them on top of his head, hoping this gesture would appease the soldier and keep himself from being shot for noncompliance.
Before he could find out whether his surrender was accepted, the familiar glow of the transporter embraced him, and when it passed, Sivath collapsed backward onto hard metal plating where snow and rock had been only a moment before. He was in the hold of the Oben, and the soldier was not. Sivath indulged a brief sigh of relief before calling out, “Hakail? I am injured.”
“I’m a little busy up here right now!” was Hakail’s reply from the cockpit. A glancing impact on the shuttle’s shields shook the entire vessel. “Could you show me your boo-boo later?”
Sivath propped himself up again and half-scooted, half-dragged himself to the first aid kit affixed to the wall. His leg was in agony. The medical tricorder identified the metal shards in his leg—three of them, in fact—and gave him coordinates he was able to feed into the transporter. The shards materialized in the air nearby, and before they had clattered to the ground Sivath was ready with the medical sealant, piping sticky gel into the wound which foamed up painfully on contact. Sivath had no idea whether these measures would be sufficient to keep him alive, but he had done everything he could think to do, so he administered a local anesthetic patch and turned his attention to matters where he might still make some difference.
When he stumbled into the cockpit, Sivath found Hakail engaged in evasive maneuvers. “Why are we not cloaked?” he asked as he dropped into the co-pilot’s chair, clenching his teeth against the dull pain. Sensor readouts identified the craft pursuing them as another Union gunship. Sivath engaged the communications jamming program, hoping to prevent their pursuer from reporting the Oben’s identity or description to the planetary authorities for a little longer.
“Funny story!” Hakail replied in a manic tone. “When I engaged the transporter to pull you out of there, power relay six blew its fuse! I guess the cloaking device is wired up through relay six, too? Hope you didn’t forget anything down there, because we can’t go back for it now.”
Sivath felt the weight of cold determination settle on the back of his neck. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I left the hover cart behind.” He hauled himself up from the chair once again and started to hobble back toward the hold. “Bring Oben around for another pass. I will fix relay six.”
Hakail craned his neck to look back at Sivath like the Vulcan had lost his mind. But it seemed that something in Sivath’s demeanor communicated everything he needed to, because after he had gone, Hakail just muttered, “The boss isn’t gonna like this.”