Reap the Whirlwind

“We’re good,” Qui

Nassir replied, “We need a bit of distance between you and the others to make sure we beam up the right person.”

“How much distance?” asked Qui

“A few meters,” Terrell said.

Pe

“Or,” Theriault cut in, “the three of us could just step out of the cockpit for a few seconds. It’d be easier and safer than trying to move him.”

“You had me at easier,” Qui

Alone in the cockpit, Terrell said, “I’m clear for transport, Captain.”

Nassir’s reply over the speaker sounded faint from the remove of the main compartment. “Stand by. Energizing now.”

Seconds later a high-pitched ringing tone resonated inside the cockpit, and Terrell’s body became a speckled gold shimmer. He faded, became translucent, and vanished.

“He’s safely aboard,” Nassir said. “Theriault, get ready to beam back in sixty seconds.”

She faced Pe

Qui

“Thanks for the rescue,” she said, backing away like a bashful child. The moment she stopped, the musical drone of a transporter effect began. She smiled. “See you on Vanguard.”

Then she shimmered and vanished, the warmth of her kiss lingering after her. It had been a simple gesture, almost i

He returned to the cockpit with damp and wrinkled clothing, squishing shoes, tousled hair, and an enormous grin on his face. Flopping into the copilot’s seat, he only half listened while Qui

As Qui

“Du

27

The Lanz’t Tholis had set course for Tholia at its best possible speed after striking a decisive blow upon the Klingon vessel. Nezrene [The Emerald] felt the waves of confusion rippling through the ship’s communal thought-space SubLink. Many of the hundreds of crewmembers had expected to fire upon the Starfleet vessel as well, and dark scarlet pulses of resentment tainted the mind-lines of the ship’s rank and file.

Mutiny was all but unheard of on Tholian ships; the caste system clarified all roles, and every Tholian understood his or her genetic and social destiny almost from the first moment of solidification. But with no members of its leadership caste left alive after the brutal incarceration by the Shedai, there was a vacuum of authority aboard the Lanz’t Tholis—one that it was now Nezrene’s duty to fill.

Only a handful of the ship’s crew had been able to witness what she and the others who were yoked to the Shedai machine’s nodes had overheard. The others had all been trapped in the machine’s infernal core, isolated from the terrible voices that had reigned outside. Held in that excruciating stasis, they had been unable to commune or resist; raw suffering had been the whole of their existence while inside the burning prison.

Pyzstrene [The Sallow], the ranking engineer aboard the ship now that its lead engineer had been atomized by the Shedai, was proving to be the most vocal and pointed of Nezrene’s critics. It was the Federation’s incursion into the Shedai sector that brought this horror upon us.

Kaleidoscopic images, each facet of which represented another crewmember’s unique point of view, replayed the attack on the Klingon ship, followed by Nezrene’s order to hold fire when the gu

Nezrene, sensing the need to quash dissent and reassert control quickly, offered her thoughts to the twenty-three others who had shared her fate inside the horrid machine. Forming a new SubLink they synchronized their memory-lines. We must show them the truth together, she counseled her comrades. All signaled their agreement by adjusting the hues of their mind-lines to a uniform shade of warm amber. With their shared experience coagulated into a single coherent memory-line, Nezrene opened their private SubLink to the rest of the crew.

This is why we did not destroy the Federation ship, Nezrene explained with calming shades of pale green and blue. Her dulcet tones conveyed sincerity and authority. The other voices in the SubLink fell silent. A general tenor of anxious anticipation preceded the revelation by those who had heard the Voices.

Twenty-four facets showed the same moment from differing perspectives but with only one narrative. Two humans, one wearing a uniform of Starfleet, stood beneath the great machine and were confronted by the second greatest of all the Voices.

“We’re begging you for their freedom,” said the male human.

The Voice asked the female human, “Do you also plead for the Kollotaan’s freedom?”

“Yes,” she said. “Can you return them to their ship?”

“I can,” he said after a brief pause. “And I will.”

Nezrene terminated the memory-share and adopted the bright surety of the leadership caste. Perhaps it is the custom of other species to repay justice with treachery, but it is not our way. They spoke in our defense. That is why we defended them.

Her argument galvanized the crew of the Lanz’t Tholis. Their collective mind-line calmed to a muted golden glow. Harmony and balance were restored. Discipline would prevail. All she had left to dread was their homecoming.

As the ship’s acting commander, it would be her task to inform the Ruling Conclave that the Shedai had awakened—and that they had dispersed to countless worlds across the sector.

Tholia’s true enemy had returned.

Only one path had been offered for the Wanderer’s flight from the First World, one cha

She was alone on a desiccated, airless moon. Once geologically active, it was long dead, as was the barren world that held it in gravitational thrall. Two forlorn orbs in the endless darkness, turning and revolving around a fading star, a slow death incarnate.

Behind her a Conduit lay dark and cold, its flawless obsidian surface reflecting glimmers of starlight. Without a power source the Conduit was little more now than sculpture, a mute reminder of powers and glories surrendered to the iniquities of time. Silenced and enfeebled, it would be of no use to the Wanderer. Never again would the Song issue from it; without the infusion of power from the First Conduit, it was naught but a shell, a monument to what might have been.

This star system was one of the most remote of all the Shedai’s possessions. It was quite possibly the most distant node in the Conduit network from the First World, and also from the interstellar nations of Telinaruul that had dared to trespass into the realm of the Shedai. The journey across the desert of space-time, spa