“What are you doing?” Lugok shouted, rising once more from his chair.
“ Working,”the monotone, female voice of the station’s computer said. “ Voice command verified. Security protocol is now in effect.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Jetanien turned back to Lugok, who by now was all but apoplectic. “This is an outrage,” the Klingon said, his hands tightening into fists, though he remained where he stood.
“ Unacceptable,”added Sesrene, his leg tapping against the floor once again as though offering a visible demonstration of his disapproval.
Jetanien nodded. “It is indeed an outrage, and it may well be unacceptable. You are free to lodge a formal complaint to the Federation Council once our business here is complete.”
“You’re kidnappingus?” Lugok asked, his expression one of disbelief.
“ ‘Kidnapping’is such an ugly word, Ambassador,” the Chelon replied as he made his way back to his seat at the head of the table. “I prefer to think of this as a unilateral yet temporary rearrangement of your calendar. I’ve always felt that it’s best to pursue a single goal at any one time, lest one’s focus and attention be diluted to the point where effort is wasted. The more imperative the objective—such as the one confronting all of us here and now—the more important it is to observe such deliberation.”
“What are you blathering about, Chelon?” Lugok asked, making no effort to hide or soften his evident disgust at the turn the meeting had taken.
Moving his shrouded body about in agitation, Sesrene added, “ What exactly are you proposing, Ambassador Jetanien?”
As he lowered himself into his glenget, Jetanien eased into the curved cushion designed to support his barrel chest and clasped his hands together on the edge of the conference table, effecting what he hoped conveyed the relaxed posture of one who was in total control of the situation. “My proposal is simple: We cannot afford to part company without first reaching a consensus on how to address our respective issues regarding the Taurus Reach, preferably without dissolving into full-scale war. To that end, none of us will leave this room until such an accord is forged.”
He delivered the words with practiced conviction, having rehearsed the oratory a dozen times prior to arriving at the meeting chamber. Looking back and forth across the table to his fellow diplomats, Jetanien could tell that his words had invoked their intended effect. His fellow ambassadors glowered at him, but they remained at the table.
It was a start.
Even as he regarded his colleagues, Jetanien could not help considering the promise this room now held. In centuries to come, history might well cast a favorable eye on the events of this day, to say nothing of their architect.
Or, it may well damn me.
33
If hell ever does freeze over, it’ll look a lot like this,Xiong decided, watching his breath fog before his face as he entered the subterranean control room that until a week ago had been the focal point of his research on the planet Erilon—the subterranean chamber ensconced within the alien structure which he hoped would at last begin to provide answers to his many questions.
Thankfully, a landing party from the Endeavourhad been sent in ahead of him, tasked with removing from the scene the remains of his former comrades, all of whom obviously had been killed by the nightmarish creature which had attacked them—and which also had been responsible for the deaths of Captain Zhao and members of his security detail. With that grisly duty completed, the control room was on its way toward being as he remembered it, though of course there were many new elements.
Instead of his research team, a contingent of engineering specialists from the U.S.S. Lovellnow moved about the chamber, though their attention was not focused on studying and appreciating the structure’s design and potential, or attempting to discern the motivations of those who had built it. Instead, they simply were concentrating on functionality alone. The air of discovery and delight which once had permeated this place was gone, wiped away and replaced with one of efficiency and purpose.
Other repair crews, both from the Endeavourand the Lovell,were at this moment working overtime to bring the research outpost back to full operational capability so that Xiong and a new team might continue the work he had been forced to leave behind. Given the earlier incident here, to say nothing of the mind-numbing events that had transpired in the Palgrenax system, the artifacts and structures discovered on Erilon remained Starfleet’s first and best hope of gaining some measure of understanding about the mysteries that seemed to define the Taurus Reach.
That included Xiong’s current mission: acquiring some means of accessing the ancient technology buried beneath Erilon’s surface—primarily in order to ensure that whatever destroyed Palgrenax did not happen here. The engineering team from the Lovellwas also bringing their exceptional range of talents to the table, working from the premise that the creature that had attacked the research team had to have been in some form of contact with the ancient weapons technology brought to bear against the Endeavour. With that in mind, the engineers were attempting to develop a means of counteracting or at least interfering with that link.
It was an assignment Xiong had accepted with no small measure of uncertainty, given the need to return to the scene of so much wanton violence and death. Shouted orders and cries for help, phaser fire, and the strange tingling that irritated his exposed skin every time he looked up in muted horror to see the approach of the…
“Ming?” A calm voice intruded on his tortured thoughts. “Ming? Anybody home in there?”
Blinking rapidly as his mind returned to the present and the matter at hand, Xiong looked up from his tabletop scanner to see Lieutenant Mahmud al-Khaled, wearing a Starfleet-issue dark blue parka with the hood pushed back and regarding him with an expression of confusion and concern.
“Yes, of course,” Xiong replied, offering what he hoped would appear as a nod of reassurance to the other man.
An engineer and leader of the Corps of Engineers team assigned to the Lovell,al-Khaled already had proven himself months ago, when he and his crew of engineers had visited Vanguard with the task of resolving the rash of unexplained technical issues plaguing Starbase 47’s onboard systems in the weeks leading up to its coming into service. Indeed, it was al-Khaled who led the effort to identify the source of the problems, and now the young engineer was assisting here in the control chamber, where his skill and talents hopefully would aid Xiong in carrying out their latest demanding assignment.
“This place is incredible,” al-Khaled said, running a hand through his dark, unkempt hair, which Xiong noted appeared to be slightly longer than Starfleet regulations typically allowed. With a wave of his right hand the engineer indicated one wall with its banks of consoles that according to Xiong’s tests had lain idle for millennia. “No metal or plastic composites, just polycrystalline lattices fused together in specific configurations. What did you make of this during your initial investigations?”
Xiong said, “My first theory is that it must be organic. I’ve found no other means of explaining the construction method used here.”
Unzipping his parka, al-Khaled shrugged. “I’m no geologist, but it seems to me that the only way this sort of crystalline configuration could route power is in a manner similar to the way light is channeled through a prism; refracting across the various interior surfaces from its origin point until it reaches its destination.”
“Or perhaps something akin to electrical impulses moving through our brains,” Xiong offered.