by Andrew Beery
The cybernetic Archon looked up from the astrometric station he was working at. He toggled a few controls to shut down whatever simulation he and been running and joined Mike and me at the turbolift. His nose wrinkled a little, but I had learned over time to ignore that particular mannerism. It seemed every time I thought I had figured out what the nose-thingy meant… I learned that I still didn’t have it right. At a certain point, you just chalk things up to aliens being alien and settle for a cup of coffee.
Shelby took my seat as I vacated it.
I tapped my comm-link. “Engineering, this is Riker.”
“Go ahead Admiral,” the chief engineer’s familiar voice responded.
“Whiskers, I need you to turn over whatever you’re working on and meet Mike and me in combat ops. Bring Sa’Mi with you.”
“Understood, Admiral. Can you give me ten minutes? I just took the hood off that experimental quark fusion reactor the boys, and I have been diddling with. I don’t want to leave it exposed if I don’t have to and Sa’Mi and I are the only ones really familiar with it.”
I smiled to myself. Most men who liked to tinker as a hobby worked on cars or motorcycles. For as long as I had known Whiskers, he had been working on his pet enhanced quark fusion reactor. It was always just a month or two from working. The J’ni engineer had recently come into the picture with some typically J’ni insights that had sparked a fresh round of unbridled optimism for Whisker’s pet project.
“Go ahead, Engineer. I still have to contact the Tas to see if they will join us.”
***
Whiskers and Sa’Mi arrived moments after our resident pair of Tas arrived in their mobile environmental unit. The door to Combat Ops was barely big enough to accommodate the Taserite MEU. I made a mental note to speak with the J’ni about making modifications to this and any other area of the ship the Tas might have cause to want to visit.
I looked around the room. It was filled with some of the most advanced tech on the ship… and that was saying something. The idea was that a battle could be completely prosecuted from within the confines of this room. Isolated sensor feeds, dedicated computer resources and holographic displays composed the equipment.
Combat Ops was unique in that it had triple-redundant privacy shielding. The only other part of the ship so equipped was the Captain's Ready Room. I wanted that extra security. I had a bad feeling in my gut about the whole Merab Q’Tar incident. What was motivating her? How did she defeat our combat armor’s lockout? Where did she go? And most importantly, what were her intentions? If there was any chance she was on this ship, then it most certainly meant she add access to Ancestor equipment that made defeating our sensors possible.
I had a plan to ensure we could deal with the Doctor if indeed she or any of her confederates had snuck aboard the Gilboa. I had been thinking about it for days. In order for it to work, I had to wait until after we had left the Stanis system and entered Skip space. Only then could I know definitively that any potential intruders were isolated. Attempting to exit a ship while in Skip space was a guaranteed way to meet the Creator sooner rather than later.
As the team settled into place, I cleared my throat. “We have a potential problem, and I think you all know what it is.”
“Aye, that we do,” Whiskers agreed.
“The probability that we have two or more intruders onboard the Gilboa exceeds 86%,” the Tas collective added.
I looked at the tank that held the bonded pair of Taserites. “86% you say?”
At the same time, Mike interjected his own question, “Two or more?”
“Our estimate is approximate,” the Tas answered. “We are proceeding on unverifiable suppositions that make a more accurate assessment unobtainable.”
I scratched my beard in thought for a moment. “I’d be curious as to the nature of those suppositions.”
The Tas MEU rotated slightly, and a holographic display of the Defiler bridge materialized above the combat analysis table we were seated around.
“Note the placement of bodies,” the Tas responded. “Each station is occupied by a corpse except for the weapons station and what we believe to be the library computer.”
“It's your contention that the operators of those stations somehow survived and facilitated the doctor’s escape,” I said thoughtfully.
“It’s just as likely that the stations were just not occupied,” Whiskers grunted.
“We would disagree,” the Tas responded. “In an armed conflict, we judge it to be highly unlikely that the weapons station would be unstaffed.”
“They make a valid point,” I said to Whiskers with a raised eyebrow.
“OK,” Mike said. “I buy there is a good argument for multiple survivors. The fact that we were unable to detect them despite exhaustive searches of the wreck would indicate they either have a very effective hiding place or access to some top-shelf cloaking technology.”
“Or both,” I added. “Which brings us to the reason I called you all here today.”
I spent the next thirty minutes outlining my plan. As I expected, none of them were thrilled with the bait I planned to use in my trap. In the end, they all agreed it was the best chance we had for dealing with the potential threat. I swore them all to absolute secrecy for two very important reasons.
First, if the Defilers had agents on the Gilboa, they could potentially overhear any conversation. The only reason the Combat Ops was secure was that the security computer could easily calculate the volume of displaced air as each of us had entered the room. If a cloaked individual had entered, we would have known immediately.
The second reason I swore them all to secrecy was a personal expedient. If Lori found out what I was planning, she would kill me herself… and this Dog is not fond of getting kicked.
2100.1207.0125 Galactic Normalized Time
The AI known as Ish-Boshet was a replica of its progenitor, Eshbaal, with some significant enhancements. Ish-Boshet had access to the esoteric mental states often referred to as empathy and compassion. These were not prime motivators, but it at least could choose to experience them for the purpose of planning. The AI was given control of the Galactic Order suppression campaign. This would free up the rest of the Eshbaal cabal to seek out the remaining Ancestor technology required to reestablish the Mahanaim.
Chapter 9: Dog Surprise
I had to wonder if I was crazy or just plain nuts. I suppose one was close enough to the other that it just didn’t matter. In addition to my plan, we checked out a few other ideas that had been bandied about during our meeting.
The Gilboa AI calculated the amount of carbon dioxide being generated by the crew’s respiration. The values measured, and the values estimated were within the range of error… which meant they did not provide evidence either way that the Gilboa had stowaways. The good news if there were a few extra warm bodies onboard, it was at best a handful.
The computer also tried to isolate individual heartbeats, but that again proved frustrating. The J’ni, God, bless their little raccoon hearts… had hearts… not heart… hearts. Two to be exact. The problem was their bodies decided when one or both were needed because of their level of activity. Translation, it was impossible to count heartbeats and know at any given time how many you had.
At the end of the day, my plan, such as it was… was the only viable plan left. I suppose viable might be a poor choice of words because there was every possibility that I would not be ‘viable’ when all was said and down if things went south for the winter. As they say, no battle is ever won without paying the price. The key was to make the other guy pay a bigger share. It was time to start collecting the bill.
“Engineering,” I said over ship-wide comms. “Why are the communication channels screwed up? We can’t reach half the ship without using the public comms.”
“Whiskers here Admiral,” I heard a moment later from the bridge’s main speakers. “Something funky is going on with the communications node on deck sixteen. It seems to be routi
ng all comm traffic to the arboretum. We need people in three places at once to isolate and fix it. I was about to send one of Commander Sa’Mi’s J’ni down there to listen and report back, but the comms are playing havoc with their vox units. I can’t understand a bloody thing they say half the time. I’m about to pull Peters off of the primary core alignment to head down there.”
“Leave Peters in place. I haven’t been to the arboretum in months. I could use a walk through the grass. What do you need me to do?”
“Just enjoy the trees Admiral. That and let me know when you stop hearing misrouted comms. My boys and I are going to be bouncing test traffic throughout the ship. Once we get the pattern down, we should know what’s going on.”
“I’m on my way to the arboretum deck now. Any speculation as to what is causing the issue?”
“To be honest with you sir,” Whiskers answered on the ship-wide comms, “the system has been acting up for several weeks, but we had much bigger fish to fry, so I put it on the backburner. That may have been a mistake. I apologize.”
I thought to myself that my friend might be overplaying it a little, but there was nothing to be done.
“I should be there in about five minutes. I’d invite Lori to join me, but I know she’s delivering a J’ni pup right now, so it looks like I’ll have to enjoy our little piece of nature by myself.”
“We all have to make sacrifices Sir. Engineering out.”
I headed to the turbo-lift. My plan, such as it was, was in motion. It was time to see if anybody would take the bait. In the last few minutes, we had received the confirmation we were dreading.
We now had every reason to suspect there were interlopers onboard. Per Mike Morrison’s suggestion, Mitty had isolated each of the compartments on the ship that currently had a J’ni presence. Then the ship’s AI counted the remaining acoustic heart signatures. There were three too many.
My plan was based on the idea that the Defiler infiltrators would see me as a target. The fact that Doctor Merab had deliberately targeted me on the bridge of the Defiler wreck… and the hope that I remained a prime objective… was a pretty thin plan, but hey you work with what the Good Lord gives ya.
Now you might be asking yourself… self… Why would the Dog make himself a target in what even he recognized was a piss-poor plan? Well, the simple answer is… even a bad plan is better than no plan at all… most of the time.
The other little tidbit we had turned up was that every single body on the Defiler bridge shared the exact same identical DNA. In each case, the DNA seemed to be a close but not identical match to the good doctor’s DNA. Genetically, it was as if they were all identical siblings of the Saulite. It was just another mystery to throw into the pool of ever-growing mysteries.
I knew from the bridge security monitors they would see me exiting the turbo-lift and heading into the arboretum proper. If we were lucky, our very public announcement that I was going to be in a wide-open space… all alone and vulnerable, would prompt the intruders to make a move.
Of course, this was contingent on them being more interested in taking me out than whatever else they were planning. I’d like to think the Defilers thought of me as a threat. I had been working hard at becoming a thorn in their sides every opportunity I got. Usually, I could piss people off just being in the same room with them for an extended period of time. A concerted effort to be annoying should have been a slam dunk.
If our visitors were also monitoring my movements, they would see I was now alone. They would see me strolling nonchalantly through the ankle-high grasses and touching the occasional flowering shrub. The arboretum was unquestionably the prettiest location on the ship… even if many of the plants were completely foreign to the humans aboard the Gilboa.
Several times a communication query would come through, and I would answer it. I had a role to play, and I was playing it. About ten minutes into the little charade the turbolift doors opened and closed. No one exited the lift. It caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I raised an eyebrow.
“I was wondering when you would get here,” I said. A message appeared on the PDA I was holding. The Gilboa was recording three sets of heartbeats.
“All three of you came. I’m touched.”
Suddenly the air near the turbo-lift door shimmered, and three exceptionally beautiful women seemed to materialize out of thin air. Two looked like twins, the third was Merab. They were dressed in some type of spectral cloaking cloth. It was form-fitting… very form-fitting I noted.
Based on the way they shimmered into existence I suspected the cloaking devices shifted the frequency of the light hitting the fabric into something that could easily pass through organic matter and then shifted the light back to the visible spectrum as it exited the far side of the cloaking suit.
“So, you have discovered a way to detect us. How unfortunate,” Merab said. “We had hopes of using the Gilboa’s crew for our greater glory. Sadly, that may no longer be possible. Who else knows of our little visit here?”
I smiled. “Now see… that would be telling, and it would ruin the surprise. You like surprises, don’t you?”
Merab smiled and nodded to the other ladies. They raised their right hands. They seemed to be holding small black objects. I figured they were weapons of some sort. They might not have been, but I’d like to think I have a good eye for this sort of thing… especially when the intent seemed to be to point them at me.
“I have no desire to kill you, Admiral,” Merab said. “We have great plans for you should you be willing to cooperate.”
“And ‘we’ would be who?”
Merab smiled again. “Now see… that would be telling, and it would ruin the surprise. You like surprises, don’t you?”
I hate it when the bad guys parrot back my own words. Once I utter them, there should be some type of copyright or patent that limits their use. I mean the bad guys should have to come up with their own witty retorts. Repeating my words back at me was kind of cheating… I suppose that was why they were bad guys though. I was trying to delay the three ladies so my team could get everything ready.
I was hoping that the security team monitoring the arboretum would act on the movements they were seeing on their screens. If they saw me dodge to the left that would be their signal to spring into action. If they saw me move to the right that would be a signal to wait. It was important to get the timing right because there likely would not be another chance to pull off what we were going to attempt.
I casually moved to the right. The twins moved to follow me. Merab just watched. That was going to be a problem. I needed her to move farther from the turbo-lift door. My team should have already locked it down, but the last time we had relied on a software lock… the Saulite doctor had somehow overridden it. I didn’t want to take that chance again.
“You are giving me no choice Admiral. Are you sure this is the way you want things to go?”
“Are you giving me a choice?”
“Of course not,” she said.
I dodged quickly to the right. A large succulent cactus-like plant provided a brief bit of cover. There was a sizzling sound, and a hole appeared in the cactus. The beam also passed through my arm… but as I was no more than a holographic image it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it could have. OK, I’m being dramatic. It didn’t hurt at all. Given the fidelity of the VR room, I was actually in however, it seemed like it was real enough… until it wasn’t.
My plan had its genesis in memories of the first time I had met Mitty. The Archon had been a hologram. What was most remarkable, and the thing that allowed me to pull off my current ruse was that the Gilboa’s AI was able to actuate micro-force emitters throughout the ship in such a way that Mitty’s hologram (and now mine) could interact with items in the physical world. Things like chairs and in my case, flowers in an arboretum.
That said, the holograms were not perfect. I was worried that my pursuers might have seen their weapon pass through me. I couldn’t have that as I
still needed them to come further into the room.
“Whoa, guys. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to kill me.”
“That is the general idea, Admiral,” the Saulite doctor said as she finally began to move deeper into the room.
“And here I thought we were friends Merab. I was going to name my first goldfish after you.”
“Sadly, for you, Merab no longer controls this body. I’m not sure what a goldfish is, but I’m sure it will mourn your passing.”
I continued to move my holographic self to the right. There were a number of small scrubs that would provide the visual cover I needed.
“What do you gain by killing me?” I asked as I began to work my way around a large artificial rock formation. “My crew will never let you escape.”
The creature wearing Merab’s body laughed. “Why in the world would we want to escape. We are perfectly positioned to aid the Ish-Boshet. Your vessel will serve our needs as these bodies serve our needs.”
Twice more they fired whatever their weapons were at me. Twice more I pretended to dodge. The last time I grunted loudly. I think it was the agonized gasp that really sold the performance. I wonder if there is an Oscar for best holographic death while under alien siege? I was going to have to check that one out.
I finally began to shift to the left. It was time to make the magic happen. I stood and raised my hands. I knew that the air handlers in the arboretum were beginning to reverse their flow direction. I faced the woman I had known as Merab Q’Tar and smiled in what I hoped was a disarming way. A powerful aerosolized paralytic agent was even now beginning to filter down from ceiling vents.
The Defiler interlopers began to converge on me from the front and right. I could have dashed to the left, but there was no need. I could already see the look on Merab’s face as the gas began to do its job. All three of the women fired their weapons at me. The beams passed right through my holographic body.
Merab’s mouth started to open, but she never got anything out before she and the other two collapsed on the ground.