by David Mack
Bowers looked to his right and caught the attention of Ensign Rhys at tactical. “I want a detailed threat assessment as soon as possible.”
“Aye, sir,” Rhys replied.
Captain Dax stood in the middle of the bridge and watched blackened wreckage tumble on the main viewer. Her gaze was focused, and Bowers could see by the expression on Dax’s face that she was troubled by the image on the screen. “Sam,” she said as he stepped beside her, “do you notice anything unusual about all the wreckage in that cluster?”
He looked at it with as much intensity of focus as he could muster, but if there was some insight to be found, it eluded him. “No,” he admitted. “It all looks the same to me.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “The color, the composition, the forms—it’s obviously a starship graveyard, but I’ve never seen one this uniform, have you?”
Inspecting the spaceborne flotsam and jetsam, he realized that Dax was right. There was no variation in the debris field’s contents. He asked Gredenko, “Are there more pockets like this?”
“They’re all like this, sir,” the operations manager replied. Her red eyes widened as she added, “Exactly like this.”
He turned to Dax. “Could it all be from the same ship?”
“My guess is that it came from thousands of identical ships,” she said. The anxious peaking of her eyebrows conveyed her meaning to him with perfect clarity.
“Gredenko,” Bowers said. “Run an icospectrogram on the debris and tell us if it came from the Borg.”
“Aye, sir,” Gredenko answered as she started the scan.
From tactical, Rhys interjected, “Sixty seconds until the alien vessel enters optimal sensor distance.”
Dax folded her arms and confided to Bowers, “I’m beginning to think this might’ve been a bad idea.”
“Do I get to say ‘I told you so’?”
“Only if you want to get court-martialed.”
Gredenko swiveled halfway around from the ops console and said to Bowers and Dax, “All of the debris shows subatomic decay consistent with exposure to tetryons and high-energy chroniton exposure—just like the hulls of Borg ships.”
“Good work,” Bowers said to the ensign. To his captain he added, “Looks like we’re definitely in Borg territory.”
“Maybe,” Dax said. “Maybe not. The Borg may have made it here, but judging by the number of ships they must’ve lost, I don’t think they’ve set foot in that star system.”
Bowers was cobbling together a response when he saw Mavroidis stand up slowly from her post at the conn. The Ullian woman made an awkward turn to face the rest of the bridge crew. She regarded them with a blank, wide stare. Her voice sounded deeper and oddly resonant as she declared, “You are not Borg.”
Everything about the young conn officer’s body language and enunciation gave Bowers the impression that the woman was being used as a puppet. Probably by something that tapped into her native telepathic abilities, he reasoned.
“To whom am I speaking?” inquired Dax.
“The children of the storm,” something said via Mavroidis.
Rhys beckoned subtly to Bowers, who slipped away to the tactical station as Dax continued to converse with the entity that was using their flight controller as a medium.
“I’m Captain Ezri Dax of the—”
“You are trespassers,” the voice said. “But you are not Borg, so you may live—if you depart now.”
On the tactical console, Bowers saw the deep-resolution scan of the entity that had intercepted them. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t any kind of vessel, nor was it a creature native to the vacuum of space. What the sensors revealed was an energy shell without any apparent power source or means of being projected. Inside that spherical force field was an atmosphere of incredibly dense, superhot, semifluid liquid-metal hydrogen laced with trace metals. Suspended within that volatile, hostile soup of radioactive atmosphere were hundreds of individual energy signatures that had the cohesion of life signs.
He whispered to Rhys, “Patch in an exobiologist, now.”
While Rhys covertly signaled the ship’s sciences division for an expert consultation, Dax said to the entity that was speaking through Mavroidis, “We only wish to establish peaceful contact and communication, on behalf—”
“Contact is not desired,” the entity insisted. “It has taken many centuries to purge these systems of Borg. We will not permit them to be defiled again. Reverse your course, and make no attempt to violate our possessions.”
Rhys handed Bowers an in-ear subaural transceiver, and then placed one in his own ear. Bowers did likewise, and Rhys opened a muted channel to one of the science labs as Dax continued her futile back-and-forth with the entity.
“Could we return at a specified future time and—”
“We do not wish you to return. Ever.”
Lieutenant Lucy D’Odorico, one of the Aventine’s exobiology researchers, appeared on a small inset screen on the tactical console. Bowers and Rhys heard her through their transceivers. “Based on the composition and pressure inside their enclosure, I’d posit this species evolved in the middle atmospheric region of a gas giant,” she said. “Also, their brainwave patterns are consistent with species that demonstrate high-level telekinesis and other psionic talents—and it looks like you’ve detected the same frequencies in their energy field. I think this species might have mastered space travel and warp flight through the power of thought alone.”
Dax sighed in resignation, apparently having lost hope of making any meaningful contact with this potent but xenophobic entity. “Very well,” she said. “We’ll reverse course and leave—as soon as you release your hold on our conn officer.”
“It is done,” said the child of the storm. Mavroidis’s eyes closed and fluttered for a moment. She swayed, as if afflicted with vertigo. Dax lunged forward and caught the young Ullian, who had begun to lose her balance. Mavroidis shook off the side effects of having been manipulated like a marionette and nodded to Dax. “I’m all right, Captain.”
“Resume your post, Lieutenant,” Dax said. “Then reverse course, back to the subspace aperture, maximum warp.”
Mavroidis sat down and entered the commands into the conn. On the main viewer, the starfield swept past in a blur as she pivoted the ship 180 degrees from its previous heading. “Course laid in, sir,” she confirmed.
“Engage,” Dax said, and the ship jumped to warp speed.
At the tactical station, Rhys examined the sensor logs of the aliens’ force-sphere, and he looked perplexed. “I don’t see anything that looks like a weapon,” he said. “And according to my readings, one good shot from a phaser should have been enough to burst their bubble. So how did they ever fight off that many Borg ships?”
“Rhys,” said Bowers, “I think this is one of those times we should just be glad we didn’t find out the hard way.”
11
“According to the Breen domo,” said Esperanza Piñiero, “our compulsory summit is an insult to his people’s sovereignty, and the Tholian Ruling Conclave is calling it a war crime.”
President Bacco faced away from her chief of staff, reclined her chair, and regarded the dreary, gray morning outside her office window. Thick fog and a misting rain had settled upon Paris. “What did the Gorn Imperator say?”
“Only part of it translated,” Piñiero said. “The gist was that Zogozin might try to eat you, or a member of the cabinet.”
“Let’s hope I get to choose,” Bacco replied, turning her chair away from the urban vista of spray and sprawl.
The door to her office opened. An aide entered to collect from a side table the tray on which Bacco’s breakfast of French toast, strawberries, and coffee had been served. As he gathered the linens and cutlery and glasses, under the watchful eye of protection agent Alan Kistler, Bacco continued her conversation with Piñiero. “Zogozin makes a fuss in front of the others, but I think I made some progress with him last night. If we can get
him to talk in private, we might sway him.”
“Sounds like a long shot,” Piñiero said.
“So is a counteroffensive against the Borg.”
Tray in hand, the aide exited Bacco’s office through the north door. Agent Kistler secured the portal behind the man.
Piñiero checked her data padd. “If you’ve got such a warm-fuzzy for Zogozin, why is your first one-to-one with Garak?”
“Because he’s the one I least want to talk to,” Bacco confessed. “Plus, if I can win over the Cardassians, we’ll have a better chance with the Gorn—and it’ll cow the Tholians and the Breen, so we won’t have to watch our backs so much.”
A doubtful expression sent Piñiero’s eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. “On the other hand, if Garak leaves us high and dry, there’s a good chance the Breen and the Tholians will be annexing our border systems by dinnertime.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Bacco said with a dour grimace. “I knew I could count on you to bolster my confidence.” She pressed the intercom switch to her executive assistant. “Sivak, we’re ready for Ambassador Garak.”
The droll old Vulcan replied, “So soon, Madam President? His Excellency has been waiting less than an hour.”
Bacco’s fists curled shut. “Now, Sivak.”
“The ambassador is on his way in, Madam President.”
In the anticipation-filled moment before one of the doors opened again, Bacco straightened her posture and pulled her chair up closer to her desk. She folded her hands in front of her as loosely as she could, in an effort to appear calm and statesmanlike. Images and impressions were critical in politics, and she expected to call upon all her years of experience in order not to be outmaneuvered by the wiles of Elim Garak.
The south door opened, and Garak was ushered in by another of Bacco’s protection agents, a tall Andorian chan whose face looked as if it had been chiseled by wind from a slab of blue ice. As the lean, smiling Cardassian diplomat crossed the room, he was closely shadowed by Agent Kistler.
“Good morning, Madam President,” Garak said.
Bacco got up and stepped out from behind her desk to meet him. “Good morning, Your Excellency. Thank you for coming.”
“The pleasure is entirely mine.”
She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk. “Please, Mister Ambassador. Have a seat.”
He eased himself with grace and impeccable balance into the closest chair, while Bacco returned to her high-backed, padded pseudo-throne behind her desk.
Once they were both settled, she forced herself to establish and maintain eye contact with Garak. The intensity of his stare made Bacco want to avert her eyes. She cheated by staring at the intersection of cranial ridges above his nose. “Would you mind if we dispensed with the usual obfuscations and denials and skip ahead to the real reason I asked you here?”
Garak leaned forward and smirked mischievously. “I’d be delighted,” he said.
“After all the strides we’ve made since the end of the Dominion War, why did you vote against joining our counterstrike against the Borg? And spare me the flimflam about politics, because we both know you aren’t earning any favors from the Tholians or the Breen just for turning your back on us. So what’s the real reason, Garak?”
He seemed to be highly amused by her question. “My,” he said. “You’re every bit as direct as I’d been told. It’s an unexpected quality in a political leader, I must say—and a refreshing one, at that.”
“You won’t distract me with compliments, Ambassador,” said Bacco. “So drop the flattery and answer my question.”
The glimmer in his eye lost its humor and became one of cold, ruthless calculation. “You say you want the truth?” At her nod, he continued, “It’s simply this, Madam President. We aren’t joining your war because we can’t afford to.”
“If your castellan is worried about reprisals by the Breen or the Tholians, we—”
“I wasn’t speaking figuratively, Madam President,” Garak cut in. “My meaning was quite literal. Even now, Cardassia has yet to recover from the Dominion War. As dire as your conflict with the Borg certainly is, my people face more imminent crises. Housing, for one; starvation, for another. Without foreign aid, we can’t even secure our borders or enforce the law inside them. The Romulans withdrew their forces months ago when their empire fractured, and now your forces and those of the Klingon Empire have deserted us in order to prosecute your war with the Borg.”
Bacco leaned forward. “I think you might be exaggerating a bit, Mister Ambassador,” she said. “Cardassia is more than capable of maintaining order in its core systems, and allied security patrols were always limited to your border sectors. I also happen to know you have a full battle group deployed on a training exercise to the Betreka Nebula. They could reach the Azure Nebula and join the expeditionary force in sixty hours.”
Garak conceded the point with a slow, single nod. “I can suggest that to the castellan,” he said. “You might find the crews of those ships woefully inexperienced, however. They are on a training exercise for a reason, after all.”
“True,” Bacco said. “But we all have to learn sometime.”
He weaved his fingers together in front of him and relaxed back into his chair. “It seems prudent to caution you, Madam President, that the castellan will likely refuse your request. Unlike her predecessor, she has little interest in foreign affairs unless they translate into immediate gains for the well-being and survival of the Cardassian people.”
Nodding, Bacco replied, “And you say that, right now, the Cardassian people are most in need of …?”
“Land and food,” Garak said. “The Dominion’s retaliation for our rebellion at the war’s end left several of our worlds radioactive and wiped out key agricultural resources. It will take decades to find, colonize, and cultivate new worlds.”
“Unless we give them to you,” Bacco said.
Her apparently offhand comment seemed to catch Garak off guard. “Excuse me, Madam President?”
She nodded to Piñiero, who had been standing a respectful few meters behind Garak. As the chief of staff approached the desk, Bacco said to Garak, “I’m quite serious, Ambassador Garak. We’re well aware of the Cardassian Union’s troubles, and of your new castellan’s political inclinations.” She paused as Piñiero reached over Garak’s shoulder to hand him a padd, which he scrutinized as Bacco continued. “Your people face grave times and have serious needs. The same is true of my people. Events are in motion, Your Excellency, so permit me to be blunt. If your castellan will order Gul Erem’s battle group to join our forces at the Azure Nebula, the Federation will transfer three star systems to Cardassian authority.”
Piñiero chimed in, “Specifically, Argaya, Lyshan, and Solarion—all on the Cardassian-Federation border, with stable Class-M planets and numerous exploitable natural resources.”
Bacco added, “That would go a long way toward easing some of Cardassia’s difficulties, wouldn’t it, Mister Ambassador?”
“Indubitably,” Garak said. “Though considering the role that Cardassia played in destroying your previous colony on Solarion IV, your generosity seems rather difficult to believe.”
“The offer is genuine,” Bacco said. “The question now becomes, do you think it’s good enough to recommend to your castellan? And is risking one battle group of starships an acceptable price to pay for three new worlds?”
Garak’s eyes widened, along with his smile. “Perhaps. Though a commitment to also provide us with new ships for our internal defense would be an even more magnanimous gesture.”
“Yes, it would,” Bacco said. “But I doubt the Federation Security Council would approve.” With a tilt of her head she added, “If security’s your concern, we could petition the Bajoran Militia to step in and patrol your trouble spots.”
That drew a scathing glare from Garak. “Oh, I’m sure the castellan will love that idea.”
“Indubitably,” Bacco said, mimicking his inflection.
“Maybe we’d best stick to the offer of planets for support, then.”
“I have to ask why the Federation is willing to pay so high a price for what seems like a comparatively small boon.”
“We’re not paying you for the service of your ships and their crews,” Bacco said. “You aren’t mercenaries. It’s your public show of support that makes this worthwhile. Emphasis on the word ‘public.’ Do I make myself clear?”
He bowed his head without breaking eye contact with her. “Unmistakably clear, Madam President.” He stood up and handed the padd back to Piñiero. “With your permission, I’ll return to my embassy and relay your offer to the castellan.”
“By all means, Your Excellency.” Bacco stood, stepped around her desk, and offered her hand to Garak, who shook it. “Can you speculate as to when we might have her answer?”
His grip was firm and feverishly warm. “Soon,” he said, releasing her hand. “Good day, Madam President.” Nodding to the chief of staff, he added, “And to you, Ms. Piñiero.” Both women nodded their farewell to him, and he turned and walked to the north door, escorted by Agent Kistler.
As the door closed behind Garak, Piñiero’s shoulders slumped, and her whole body sagged as if she had just been partially deflated. “I don’t trust him,” she said.
“He’s not the problem,” Bacco said. “Ambassador Garak is a lot of things, but foolish isn’t one of them. He knows a good offer when he hears it. The problem is going to be his castellan. If she turns us down, his hands will be tied.”
Piñiero shook her head. “It’s not his hands I’m worried about; it’s our necks.”
* * *
The combat operations center on the uppermost level of Starfleet Command was frantic with activity. Uniformed officers hurried past Seven of Nine and the other high-ranking Federation government visitors, who were gathered around a central strategy table with a handful of senior admirals.
“We’re too damned spread out,” insisted Admiral Nakamura. He gesticulated angrily at the two-dimensional starmap that currently dominated the table’s surface. “If Picard’s right, then we need to start redeploying everything we’ve got toward the Azure Nebula.”