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  To the memory of my mother and father, who let me stay up and see what that Star Trek show was about

  “You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown, only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.”

  —James T. Kirk

  Historian’s Note

  The events of this story take place in mid-2269, some time after the rescue mission to Camus II (“Turnabout Intruder”).

  Prologue

  “Get those shields back up!”

  James T. Kirk clung to the arms of his command chair as weapons fire battered the U.S.S. Enterprise. On the bridge’s main viewscreen, bursts of energetic plasma spat from the prow of a small but powerful warship as it strafed the unshielded dorsal surface of the primary hull. “Evasive, Mister Sulu! Keep our belly to them!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Hikaru Sulu said from his seat in front of Kirk, but the helmsman’s hands were already plying his console with virtuoso skill. To Sulu’s right, though, Ensign Chekov was visibly sweating as he scanned for potential evasive routes through the diffuse cometary belt the Enterprise had been traversing when the mysterious attacker had struck from out of nowhere. Meanwhile, at the engineering station on Kirk’s left, Lieutenant Gabler tried to redirect deflector power to restore protection to the dorsal portion of the saucer section. Frank Gabler was the newest member of Montgomery Scott’s engineering staff, but the dark-featured young lieutenant managed to keep the strain from reaching his voice as he called out orders to the engineering department down below.

  Kirk rotated his command chair clockwise until he faced the science station. “Spock, any luck identifying the attacker?”

  “Still searching for a profile match, Captain,” the lanky Vulcan responded, his angular face illuminated by the blue glow from his hooded viewer. “It does not conform to any standardized design in our memory banks.”

  The viewscreen switched to a ventral sensor image of the attacking battle frigate, now below and behind the Enterprise as Sulu flew the ship at a sharp diagonal. At the moment, the starship’s underbelly was its least vulnerable portion—and it didn’t bother Kirk that Sulu was more or less shoving the ship’s fantail in the attacker’s faces.

  Still, whoever was flying the frigate had some impressive moves of their own. Somehow the foe managed to keep closing the gap, retaliating for Sulu’s rude gesture by kicking the starship in the rear.

  Once the noise and shaking from the impact had passed, Kirk went on: “Not everyone uses standardized ships, Mister Spock. Can you identify any of its components? Engines, weapons, sensor arrays?”

  “I am attempting to do just that,” the first officer replied without impatience, long fingers playing a toccata on the multicolored controls of his station. “However, with so many variables to process, it may take some time to arrive at a result.”

  “Sir,” Sulu said, “I have an idea who they are. I wasn’t sure at first, but what you said—”

  Kirk turned to the helmsman. “Go on, Lieutenant.”

  “I think they’re Betelgeusian, sir. They’re a nomadic people. No home planet, no central state. So there’s no uniformity to their designs.” He paused to enter a rapid series of commands, veering the Enterprise out of the path of their latest plasma volley. “Pardon me, sir. But the way they maneuver, and the type of weapons they use . . . I’ve seen them before, when I was an ensign on the Arjuna. It was my first deep-space assignment after the Academy.”

  “Betelgeusians,” Kirk repeated. “I thought we were on friendly terms with them.”

  The attacking ship begged to differ by unleashing another salvo. The deck shuddered and the viewscreen flashed even more interesting shades of red at him. They’re getting a feel for it now, Kirk thought.

  But the impact was milder than Kirk feared. Gabler gave a heavy sigh of relief. “I was just about to say: dorsal shields restored, sir.”

  “Good timing, Lieutenant.”

  “As Mister Sulu said,” Spock pointed out as if the interruption had not occurred, “the Betelgeusians lack any single central authority. The designation is a misnomer; they actually hail from a main-sequence star system neighboring the supergiant Betelgeuse. They migrated off their world centuries ago, aware that it would be destroyed when Betelgeuse goes supernova sometime in the next million years.”

  “How proactive of them,” Kirk observed. He liked these people already. What kind of wanderlust did it take to use such a remote threat as an excuse to pack up your whole civilization and move it off-planet at the earliest opportunity—even to swear off planets altogether?

  “Indeed—a most logical response. However, they are also a highly aggressive, competitive people, pack hunters by nature. Thus, they tend to operate in small, highly territorial bands with no political unity among them. Relations and agreements with each band must be negotiated separately. Thus, being on friendly terms with some Betelgeusian argosies does not guarantee amiable relations with others.”

  “But the ’Geusians aren’t warlike,” Sulu protested. “They’re predators, sure, but they normally channel their aggression into sports, competitions, hunting game animals, that sort of thing. They generally don’t attack unless provoked. The ship we encountered on the Arjuna was fighting off Nausicaan pirates. We helped them with repairs afterward.” His bright grin made one of its frequent appearances. “I liked them, sir.”

  Another plasma bolt slipped through, striking dangerously close to the port nacelle. “Something seems to have provoked them,” Kirk said. “Uhura, any luck hailing them?”

  “I’m trying all known Betelgeusian comm protocols and languages, sir,” came the elegant East African’s voice over his shoulder. “They’ve got to be hearing it, but they aren’t answering.”

  “Then at least they can listen. Open a channel, Lieutenant.”

  “Channel open, Captain. Go ahead.”

  Kirk straightened in his chair. “Attention, Betelgeusian vessel. This is Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, representing the United Federation of Planets. The Federation has no quarrel with the Betelgeusian people. But if you do not cease this unprovoked attack, we will be forced to retaliate. Please respond so we may discuss this peacefully.”

  The only response, which Uhura forwarded to the speakers, was a curt “Earn it!” followed by an intensification of the attack. A plasma blast hit close to the bridge, the thunder of the impact almost deafening Kirk.

  “Gabler, I thought you had those shields fixed!”

  “A temporary patch, sir!” the engineer replied. “It’s straining the whole primary dorsal grid, and sector 47A is completely burned out.”

  But Sulu was dancing the ship around to keep the breach in its defenses away from the Betelgeusians’ line of sight. It gave Kirk time to mull over his options. “ ‘Earn it,’ they said. What do they mean?”

  “It’s a game to them, sir,” Sulu said, though the chase kept him too busy to say more.

  Spock elaborated. “Indeed—by all accounts, the Betelgeusians are intensely competitive. If we wish them to back down, we must prove our dominance.”

  “By outfighting them?”

  “Those are the terms of t
he current competition.”

  Kirk took that in. He had no desire to risk killing the Betelgeusian crew over what had to be a misunderstanding. But he had to do something that would be dramatic enough to win their respect.

  He gazed up at one of the auxiliary screens above Spock’s station, which displayed tactical tracking of the nearby icy bodies in the cometary belt. “If we’ve got a hole in our shields,” he said slowly, “then let’s use the hole in our shields. Sulu, maximum sublight. Chekov, give him the clearest straight path. I want them chasing us as fast as they can go.” Among other things, he hoped to stay out of the Betelgeusians’ transporter range, lest they take advantage of the hole to beam a boarding party or an armed torpedo aboard.

  But he would have to act fast. His fingers on the chair arm opened a new channel. “Kirk to engineering. Scotty, I’m going to need all available power for transporters.”

  “Transporters?!” came Montgomery Scott’s reply, his Aberdonian brogue echoing in the vastness of the Enterprise’s engineering complex. “In the middle of a battle? Where are you plannin’ on beamin’ to, sir?”

  “Not me, Scotty. I need to lock on to one of these comets and pick up as much of its mass as we can.”

  “Comets? Now, why in the world—” What caused him to break off was not discretion toward a superior officer so much as his sudden fascination with the technical challenges involved. “Well, maybe if I reroute power from the AG section and tie in the subspace transceiver array . . . You weren’t needin’ to send a long-range message at the same time, were you, sir?”

  “Only one miracle at a time, Mister Scott. I know you’re a busy man.”

  “Aye, now he notices,” he heard Scotty muttering to himself, so caught up in the challenge that he forgot he was still on an open channel.

  “Captain,” Chekov asked, his Russian accent thickening under stress, “where are we beaming the cometary matter to?”

  Kirk gave the young ensign a cocky grin. “Right in front of their ship.”

  The navigator’s eyes widened, and then he smiled too. “I should have known, sir. Russians invented snowball fights, after all.” As the ensign turned back to complete the calculations, Kirk reflected that of all the innovations Chekov claimed for the Russians, this was one of the more plausible attributions.

  In moments, they were ready to begin. Kirk hit the intercom. “Scotty . . . let it snow.”

  What materialized in the Betelgeusians’ path a few seconds later was not an intact chunk of cometary ice and rock. Like all starships, the frigate swept the space ahead of it with a navigational deflector beam to protect it from the impact of space dust and gas—which, at the speeds Kirk was goading the Betelgeusians into attaining, would possess enough relativistic kinetic energy that even a tiny speck would hit like a tactical nuclear warhead if the beam failed to deflect it. Beaming a dissociated stream of subatomic particles into the middle of a deflector beam working at full strength was like trying to build a sand castle in front of a large fan. The chunk of cometary matter materialized—if that was the word—as a dense cloud of rock dust and water vapor. But that made little difference at these speeds; solid or vapor, its mass was the same and so was the energy of its impact. The frigate’s deflector beam was able to begin scattering the mass of debris, but Chekov and Scott had placed it so close to the vessel’s bow that the beam barely had time to begin dissipating it before it struck their forward shields.

  Without those shields, the frigate would have been reduced to little more than a cloud of vapor and dust itself. As it was, the shields bore the brunt of the impact but were totally overwhelmed. Enough of the barrage got through that the ship appeared to erupt into flames and start tumbling. The forward portions of the ship still glowed from the heat of impact.

  Spock was scanning the damaged ship with his usual efficiency. “All of their forward weapons have been neutralized. Their forward sensors and shield grids are destroyed. Serious damage to engine shield plates, intercoolers, and ram intakes.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Inconclusive. The vessel’s hull shielding makes internal scans difficult. But that same shielding has likely mitigated the crew’s radiation exposure.”

  That came as a relief to Kirk. He was trained to fight and didn’t hesitate when it was necessary, but he was happier when it could be avoided. He’d joined Starfleet to seek out new life, not snuff it out. “Sulu, intercept course. Hail them, Uhura.” The communications chief nodded once she’d opened the channel.

  The Betelgeusian commander’s face finally appeared on the main viewer: blue-skinned, heavy-browed, pointed-eared, adorned in an elaborate helmet and a colorfully patterned uniform with an avian theme. The mouth was locked in a permanent snarl, and in place of the nose was what seemed to be a smaller, puckered, beaklike mouth. When it spoke, it was the upper mouth that moved, ­emitting a high, piping speech that the universal translator ­interpreted: “I am Captain Chiir’hit Keer’iuv, defender of the Shining Talon Argosy. You are Captain Kirk of ­Enterprise?”

  Kirk stepped forward. “I am.”

  Keer’iuv let out a piercing crow that sounded more amused than anything, then offered a deep, elegant bow. “You have won my submission, Captain, and my congratulations. That was a spectacular move! Inspired! Brilliant! I am privileged to be bested by such a creative tactic.”

  “I’m . . . glad you enjoyed it,” Kirk said, trading a nonplussed glance with Spock. “I hope we didn’t damage your ship too badly. We stand ready to offer any medical assistance—”

  “Gracious of you, Captain, but we can salve our own bruises. I must say, though, you are far more sporting than the other Federation group that attacked us. Far cleverer in your battle tactics as well.”

  Kirk frowned. “With respect, Captain Keer’iuv, we know of no Federation attack upon any Betelgeusian argosy. Starfleet has no quarrel with your people.”

  “Not Starfleet, no. Their ships were not like yours. Smaller, no nacelles. Like clusters of geometric solids. They attacked in a pack.”

  The captain’s impulse was to deny it, but he hesitated. Keer’iuv seemed too gracious in defeat to have some hidden agenda. And Kirk had to admit that, while the Federation was a more unified civilization than the Betelgeusians, its member worlds were given considerable license to go their own ways. There had been instances of its younger or more remote members pursuing actions that ran counter to Federation law and ethics. The Ardanans’ oppression of their Troglyte miners, and their torture of political prisoners, came to mind as a recent example. So the possibility that some other Federation member had attacked Keer’iuv’s argosy could not be dismissed.

  “Spock, does that description match any class of vessel in use on any Federation member world?”

  Unsurprisingly, the first officer had already begun a search of the computer records. A few moments later, he looked up from the hooded viewer. “Negative. No such vessels with sufficient range and firepower to have attacked the Shining Talon Argosy are known to exist on any member world.”

  Kirk turned back to the screen. “Captain, can you tell us anything more about these attackers? Did they speak to you? Do you have a recording of their language, their appearance?”

  Keer’iuv straightened proudly, eagerly. “Oh, we can do much better than that, Captain Kirk!” He leaned forward and spoke with relish. “We have bodies.”

  * * *

  Commander Spock was gratified to join the boarding party visiting the Shining Talon Argosy, a rare opportunity to observe the culture and technology of a species unrestricted by planetary conditions. It was a fascination he clearly shared with Hikaru Sulu, who had eagerly petitioned Captain Kirk for an opportunity to revisit the raucously competitive nomads. Kirk had not hesitated to include the helmsman along with Spock, Doctor McCoy, and Lieutenant Anne Nored, one of the newest members of the Enterprise’s security contingent.

  In
fact, Spock knew, the Betelgeusians were not averse to visiting planet surfaces for trade, exploration, or other purposes. They had laid claim to several worlds with pre-sentient animal life, using them as hunting preserves to satiate their innate predatory drives. But those drives also needed outlets closer to home, and thus large argosies like Shining Talon included their own hunting preserve ships, such as the one the Enterprise party now occupied. The preserve ship was a massive warp-capable craft, over three times the length of the Enterprise, with a cylindrical core that rotated for gravity like the old orbital habitats of the twenty-first century.

  “I don’t get it,” McCoy said, staring uneasily at the dizzying terrain that curved up and over the group. “Don’t they have artificial gravity?”

  “Indeed we do,” said Thuu’chi Hirr’uth, the mature Betelgeusian female who was the argosy’s senior administrator, as she escorted the Enterprise party through the cylindrical landscape. She was slightly smaller than Captain Keer’iuv, who walked behind and beside her now, but her robes and headdress were even more ornate, in keeping with her status. While the captain’s garb bore an avian theme, the administrator’s robes had an intricate forest-and-stars motif. “But we prefer the centrifuge model for our preserve ships,” the administrator continued, “because it lets us use the entire interior surface of the module as a hunting ground. We need our territory, Doctor. Even with the larger surface area this shape provides, the competition for ground is quite fierce.”

  Sulu marveled at the overhead view of the preserve ship’s terrain. “Impressive terraforming,” he said. “The way the streams, bluffs, and other natural barriers subdivide the landscape. I take it that’s to separate each prey species from the others?”

  “Indeed,” Keer’iuv replied. “After all, we love a challenge. Most of the species here would gladly devour each other if they could get outside their own territories.”