16

All was quiet on the bridge of the Sagittarius, and for that small mercy Clark Terrell was thankful; he and his crew had so far evaded detection by the Klingon starships in orbit. There was no telling how long their good fortune might last, so Terrell spent this rare break from his routine thinking. He contemplated responses in case they were found by the Klingons, while at the same time he was trying to imagine a way to warn his landing party of what was happening; neither avenue of reflection was yielding any helpful insights.

The door behind him sighed open, and he looked over his shoulder to see Doctor Babitz walk onto the bridge. Her eyes were fixed upon the data slate in her left hand, and she gnawed lightly on the tip of the stylus in her right hand as she approached Terrell’s command chair. As she drew near, Terrell was sure he heard the blond surgeon muttering to herself.

“Something on your mind, Doctor?”

Babitz stopped and did a startled double take at the captain. “Hm? Oh, the slate. Yes.” She tapped at it with the stylus, then turned it toward Terrell. “I’ve been reviewing the data the landing party sent up—the scans of the Tomol who are starting to experience the Change.”

Terrell waited a few seconds in vain for Babitz to elaborate, and then he realized she would need a measure of verbal coaxing. “And? What have you found?”

“Hm? Oh. Not as much as I’d have liked, to be honest. All of the Tomol exhibit unusually high degrees of cell mutation during their growth cycles.” She pointed out a line of figures on the slate. “I’ve never seen a species whose DNA has this kind of time bomb.”

“You say their cells are mutating? Could there be an environmental factor involved?”

“I don’t think so.” She switched to a different screen of data on the slate. “No unusual radiation on the planet’s surface. No known mutagens in the air, water, soil, flora, or fauna.” She gave the scan analysis another look. “I’d say this is a genetic predisposition. I just wish I could figure out what its trigger is. If it’s something simple, like a protein sequence, or a hormonal shift brought on by the end of adolescence, maybe we can develop a treatment of some kind.”

Her enthusiastic speculation attracted Sorak’s reproach. The old Vulcan stood and moved to join her and Terrell. “That would be inadvisable, Doctor. Deliberate interference in the natural evolution of the Tomol would be a blatant violation of the Prime Directive.”

“You can’t expect me to do nothing and condemn an entire species to die.”

Terrell cut in. “We might not have a choice, Doctor. Sorak’s right. If this is the Tomol’s natural state, we have no right to tamper with it, no matter how tragic that might seem.”

“Not even if they ask for our help?”

Sorak’s voice was as dry as his logic. “How can they? They have no understanding of genomic medicine. That ignorance renders them unable to make an informed request for aid.”

Babitz hardened her countenance. “Oh, really? And if this Change is not a natural part of their evolution? If it’s an externally inflicted mutation? What then?”

The certainty in her voice snared Terrell’s attention. “Are you speaking hypothetically, Doctor? Or did you find something to suggest that might be the case?”

She switched to the last screen of tricorder data sent up by the landing party, called up a detailed scan of the Tomol’s DNA, and isolated several long sections. “I found these anomalous enzymes embedded in their genome. They’re as alien to the Tomol as the Tomol are to Nereus Two. Long story short, Captain, I’ve seen this before. Those are genetic markers used by the Shedai.”

Terrell froze at the mention of the sector’s former interstellar tyrants. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. Starfleet may have erased all the Operation Vanguard–related files from our memory banks, but I remember what the Meta-Genome looks like. And as far as I can tell, these sequences were spliced into the Tomol’s DNA, probably hundreds of generations ago, if not earlier. And I’ll bet you all my dessert-ration cards that those spliced sequences are what trigger the Change.” She handed the data slate and its stylus to Sorak, then crossed her arms as she faced the captain. “So, I’m going to ask you again, sir. If the Change is something that was done to the Tomol, are we still required to stand aside and do nothing while they go extinct?”

Terrell suspected that if one asked that question of a Starfleet JAG officer, in the context of requesting authority to intervene, one would be advised to stand down and avoid the risk of aggravating an already bad situation. Consequently, he decided not to ask their permission. He ignored Sorak’s gloomy frown of disapproval and looked at Babitz with a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Tell me, Doctor: Can you unravel the Shedai Meta-Genome from the Tomol’s DNA? Or maybe suppress it? And if you did, could you stop or reverse the Change?”

“I’m not sure. But I’d damned well like to give it a try. Sir.”

“Take your best shot. But do it fast—the Klingons won’t waste time, so neither can we.”

“All right, I’m on it.” Babitz hurried off the bridge. Sorak remained beside the command chair. Terrell looked at the image of Nereus II on the viewscreen and rubbed his chin; then, noticing his anxiety-driven affectation, he forced his hand back to his side. “If the Shedai had any part in creating this situation, that would explain why the Klingons are here.”

Sorak nodded. “It would also mean the landing party is in greater danger than expected.”

Terrell cast a curious look at the Vulcan. “Do you think Hesh or Theriault would have noticed the Shedai Meta-Genome in their scans of the Tomol?”

“Doubtful,” the Vulcan said. “With the pattern expunged from our computers and all our devices, they would have no means of automatically detecting it. If not for the doctor’s exceptional memory, we ourselves might still be unaware of the Meta-Genome’s presence.”

Vexed by the two Klingon warships orbiting the planet between him and his landing party, Terrell thumped the side of his fist on his chair’s armrest. “We need to warn them.”

“That would be tactically unwise, Captain.”

“They deserve to know.”

“It might be beneficial for them to know, but it might also prove irrelevant. It’s also my duty to remind you that any attempt to hail the landing party runs the risk of revealing our presence—and theirs—to the Klingons.”

Ensign Taryl turned her chair from her console to interrupt Terrell and Sorak. “Sirs? I was reviewing our last contacts with the landing party before we went radio-­silent. I think you’ll want to see what files they were accessing before we closed the channel.”

Terrell stood and walked over to Taryl. Sorak followed him, and they hovered over the Orion woman’s shoulders to peruse the data on her screen. It was an image of a metallic sculpture whose base was covered with glyphs. The captain squinted at it. “What is that?”

“An artifact of a culture known as the Preservers,” Taryl said. “These images were recorded last year by the crew of the Enterprise.” She switched the image to show a larger but very similar structure. Standing off to one side of the towering obelisk was Lieutenant Dastin. “Ensign Hesh recorded this shortly before we lost contact, in a cavern deep below the largest hill on the big island.”

“Taryl, I want a full report about that object, and the one that Kirk and his crew found, and at least some kind of working hypothesis as to what in the hell is going on here.”

“Aye, sir.” She returned to work on her console.

Terrell returned to his chair and sat down. Sorak followed him and stood awaiting new orders. He didn’t wait long. “Work with Ensigns Taryl and Nizsk, and find a way to reach the landing party without painting a target on our back for the Klingons.”

“Yes, sir.” Sorak lowered his voice. “But I wish to note for the log that I still object.”

“Noted. But we’re making a stand, Sorak—so find a way to make it work.”

• • •

Orbs of green lightning hovered above Nimur’s open, outstretched hands. As the orbs’ brightness intensified, so did the panic that spread through the crowd in the square. The villagers were running for cover, for the jungle, anywhere they thought they could hide.

The Wardens who surrounded her advanced in slow steps, their lances level and pointed at her, and there was nothing Kerlo could do to stop them. He grabbed hold of the nearest Warden’s arm. “Senjin! Stop! There’s been too much killing already!”

Senjin elbowed Kerlo in the jaw and knocked him to the ground. “Get back!”

Kerlo turned his desperate gaze toward Nimur. “Don’t do this.”

She sneered. “I pity you. Poised at the threshold of greatness, staring at the face of true power, you still don’t understand. What I’ve set in motion can never be stopped.”

Her words wounded Kerlo more deeply than he had ever thought possible.

Battle cries split the air. The Wardens fired beams of light from the heads of their lances. Blasts struck Nimur from all sides and cocooned her in cold fire. She became a pale silhouette inside the tiny sun whose heat singed Kerlo’s hair and filled his nose with its bitter, burnt stench. Even as the fireball raged and grew hotter, the Wardens marched inward, until they pressed their attack to within arm’s reach of Nimur, who seemed to have vanished inside the miniature blue sun.

Then the fire dissipated. The glow faded. And Nimur stood unscathed, her eyes blazing. A manic gleam lit her face. “Rejoice, my friends! Only hours ago, I would have crushed you like bugs for no better reason than spite. Now, I’ll reward you instead.”

She raised her arms, and all the Wardens around her rose from the ground and lingered there, suspended in slow motion as if they were floating in the depths of the sea. Their weapons fell from their hands and clattered together on the ground below their dangling feet.

Nimur’s eyes flared with eerie light. “Feel the fire that burns within us all. Fight it, and it will destroy you. Welcome it, and you will become the lords of creation.”

Two of the Wardens convulsed and struggled as if they were choking. One of them arched his back in agony and then burst into green flames that consumed him from within. As his empty headdress crashed to the ground and his ashes fluttered away on a warm breeze, the second struggling Warden suffered the same fate.

The other Wardens twitched for a few seconds, and then they were still. Nimur lowered her arms. The Wardens were returned with gentle care to solid ground. A few at a time, they removed their ceremonial headdresses and cast them aside, next to those of their fallen comrades.

All that Kerlo could do was watch in mute horror as ten former defenders of the people turned slowly toward him. Lying on the ground, looking up at them, he wanted to scream, to weep, to run—but all he could do was cower, half-paralyzed with fear.

All ten had eyes ablaze with the fire of the Change.

Senjin’s voice was flat and merciless as he looked back at Kerlo but spoke to Nimur. “What should we do with this one? Kill him quickly? Or make him suffer?”

Nimur stepped through the Changed Wardens’ ranks and took her place in front of them. “Leave him. There’s nothing he can do to harm us—and soon enough, he’ll take his place at our side.” She led her new myrmidons out of the village square. “They all will.”

• • •

Theriault watched, agape, from behind the corner of a large hut. Several dozen meters away in the village’s square, Nimur manipulated a dozen armed Wardens as if they were cheap puppets. The rest of the landing party huddled beside her, staring in shocked silence, while behind her the priestess Seta stood a seething watch over the bound and still groggy prisoner Tormog. Theriault tilted her head toward Tan Bao. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“I sure hope not. What I’m seeing has me scared shitless.”

“That makes two of us.” Theriault winced as one of the Wardens erupted from within, releasing a brilliant flash of emerald flames that rendered his body into smoke and ashes. She ducked back behind the corner, pulled Hesh with her, and snapped him out of his horrified trance with a harsh whisper. “Hesh! What the hell was that?”

The Arkenite fumbled with his tricorder, which had been running since they had returned to the village. “I . . . I’m sorry, sir. I, um, can’t explain this data. Bioelectric readings from Nimur are far beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Similar readings are emerging in the Wardens.”

Dastin continued his discreet observation of Nimur. “She’s building an army.” He reached toward his belt and rested his hand on his phaser. “We need to stop her. Now.”

Theriault put her hand on top of Dastin’s. “No.”

The scout looked at her. “Sir, Nimur can already kill anything she can see—and probably a fair number of things she can’t see. We can’t let her get any stronger.”

Seta took hold of Theriault’s free arm. “Your friend is right. Nimur must be stopped.”

“We’re not your assassins,” Theriault said to the young priestess. Then she turned her baleful glare on Dastin. “And this isn’t our fight.”

Seta was desperate. “How can you say that? You’ve seen what she can do. Not even the Wardens can stop her now. We need your help!”

Theriault felt sympathy for Seta and the other Tomol, but she had to remember her duty as a Starfleet officer. “I’m sorry,” she told the frightened teen, “but my friends and I all swore an oath a long time ago not to interfere in the lives of others.”

Her declaration made Seta shake with anger. She pointed at Tormog. “You’ve already interfered! When he and the others helped Nimur escape! Without them, the Wardens could’ve caught her and brought her back to ­finish the Cleansing while there was still time!”

“We’re not responsible for what the Klingons do,” ­Theriault said.

Tan Bao sounded doubtful. “I don’t know, sir. We could have stopped the Klingons from helping Nimur, but we let them get away. I think that makes us at least a little bit responsible.” He shrank back and swallowed as Theriault slowly turned a withering look in his direction.

Hesh’s expression turned from concerned to alarmed as he watched his tricorder’s display. “Actually, it might be too late for us to intervene at this stage. If one considers that four phasers set on heavy stun were not enough to subdue Nimur in the cave, and then extrapolates the escalation of her power from the increased levels in her bioelectric and neuroelectric fields, it would seem that no offensive power we possess at this time will be sufficient to stop her.”

Dastin scrunched his face at the science officer’s report. “Are you kidding? Do you really expect me to believe that a phaser set on full power can’t bring her down?”

“At this stage, I would rate its likelihood of success as ‘minimal.’ Such an assault might prove effective against the Tomol in whom she has only just now triggered the Change, but against Nimur herself, I fear such an effort would be futile at best.”

“A concerted attack, then. All four of us, firing on full power—”

“Would have only a nine percent chance of killing Nimur,” Hesh interrupted.

The Trill wasn’t ready to give up. “All right, so sidearms can’t get the job done. But we could use a tricorder to pinpoint her position, relay her coordinates to the Sagittarius, and they can take her out using the ship’s phasers.”

Theriault couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Overkill much?”

“Sir, this bitch ripped five Klingon warriors limb from limb using only her mind, and she left a cave painted with their guts. Now she has ten friends just as crazy and dangerous as she is. If anything, I’d call a precision strike from orbit a proportional response.”

Tormog slurred, “S’what I’d do.”

Theriault gave Tormog a punitive kick. “No one asked you.” She turned and confronted Dastin. “What if she and her friends are powerful enough to sense the Sagittarius? Right now they don’t know about space travel or starships, so they might not think to look for the ship. But if phaser beams start shooting down from the sky, the Changed might expand their new senses to figure out where those attacks are coming from.”

“All the more reason to dust them now and be done with this,” Dastin said.

Hesh shut off his tricorder and stepped between Theriault and Dastin. “Sir, we are presently out of contact with the ship, so soliciting their aid is a non-issue. Furthermore, we have another option. While four phasers set on kill might not possess sufficient firepower to stop Nimur and her Changed allies, those same phasers set for simultaneous overload and used as a localized demolition charge could release enough energy to destroy the Changed.”

Tan Bao held up a hand in a cautionary gesture. “Whoa. It’s a nice idea—in theory. But to make it work, you’d need Nimur and all her new friends in the same place. I mean, really close together. Even with four phasers bundled into one improvised explosive, the instant-kill radius won’t exceed eighteen meters. Against creatures this powerful, I’d expect the effective radius to be as little as ten meters. If they split up, this plan is toast.”

Dastin stole another look around the corner, then ducked back behind cover. “What if we grabbed a few of those lances the Wardens dropped? We could add those to a phaser barrage.”

Theriault shook her head. “Forget it. They hit Nimur with twelve of those things, and she didn’t bat an eye. Those might be useful against someone who’s still early in the Change, but once a subject starts to exhibit real power, those glorified stun-sticks are basically useless.”

A dejected silence settled upon the landing party. Seta grew visibly agitated watching the Starfleet team contemplating their doomed navels. “So, that’s it? You lie down and die?”

Theriault resisted the urge to slap the brash young teen. After all, the girl’s entire world was teetering on the verge of collapse. Who wouldn’t lapse into hysteria under those conditions? Instead, she decided to do what she thought was best for her team, the ship, and the Tomol.

“Okay, new plan. Step one: Gag the Klingon. Step two: We hide.”