Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Read Free Book Online Page A

waiting turbolift.
    Tuvok glanced around; he was now alone in the corridor. He tapped the reader and spoke quietly. “Authorization: Tuvok-Pi-Alpha. Decrypt.”
    The padd chimed, and the lines of the message spooled out across the screen, dense strings of nonsense text re-forming into readable words. The Vulcan was no stranger to such coded messages; in earlier years, he had received communications in such a fashion during his missions while undercover in the Maquis. But those days were long behind him.
    He was looking at new orders from the highest levels of Starfleet Command, a covert mandate that required his immediate acceptance, no questions asked. He was to depart the U.S.S. Titan in less than two hours, then to report to Starbase One in civilian attire to board a transport heading out of the Sol system. The orders concluded with a set of rendezvous coordinates in the Alpha Centauri system and a warning to reveal nothing of the message’s contents to anyone.
    Tuvok read the text a second time, committing it to memory, and then activated the padd’s erase function.
    It was a long moment before he turned away and set off.
    *  *  *
    Velk was only aware that the airtram had lifted off by the motion of the shaft of sunlight through the portal in the hull. The flyer’s inertial compensators kept everything within it perfectly stable; he refused to travel any other way.
    The Tellarite didn’t like matter transporters. The concept of being discorporated and shot through the ether to be rebuilt somewhere else sat poorly with him. Galif jav Velk was reluctant to give up that degree of control over himself, to rely on someone else to take brief ownership of his molecules. Unless it was absolutely unavoidable, Velk traveled by shuttle or flyer, and he cared little for those he might inconvenience because of it.
    San Francisco was already falling away, the aircraft moving into a priority suborbital sky lane that would take it up over North America and down over the Atlantic Ocean in a steep, swift arc. He would be back in Paris in less than fifty minutes, and the journey time could be put to better use than dealing with the minutiae that would await him at the council chambers.
    Velk was the airtram’s only passenger; the rear compartment was empty. The only crew were the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit; Velk rejected the need for any support staff or assistants. A secretary program was all he required, a semi-intelligent software engine networked from his actual office in Europe.
    He spoke to the cabin, his voice picked up by a communicator button on his jacket. “Computer.”
    â€œWorking.” The reply was bland and genderless.
    â€œSecurity sweep.”
    After a moment’s pause, the voice returned. “Airtram security remains uncompromised.”
    Velk nodded to himself, reaching for an attaché case at his side. “Screen all my calls until further notice.”
    â€œDo you wish me to dismiss any presidential override of that order?”
    â€œI said all, ” Velk repeated irritably. “That includes Ishan.” He opened the case and removed a metallic, ovoid-shaped device. “Cross-link subspace communications relay to me. Maximum signal encryption.”
    â€œWorking. Link established, proceed when ready.”
    A train of cold blue indicator lights around the equator of the capsule glowed, and Velk sat it on the table in front of him. An ephemeral wave of light expanded out of the device, scanning the dimensions of the room, the objects within it, and washing over Velk himself. He allowed it to happen, waiting.
    After a moment, planes of ghostly holographic light sketched in around him. Suddenly the walls of the cabin were lost, and he appeared to be sitting in a natural cavern of some kind. It was difficult to be certain; the holofield was deliberately vague, so as not to give too much away about the location of the transceiver at the other