by Peter David
They would give him the funds, of course, or even better, he would never pay them and use the money for that brush. Which he would then keep locked up—and he would wear the key around his neck. He didn’t want to risk cross-contamination again.
No matter what that female doctor and Kellec Ton had said. They believed that someone, or something, had actually brought the virus to the bar. They believed that the Ferengi had been infected first. Quark had begged them and even tried to bribe them to prevent them from sharing that insight with Narat, and in the end they had agreed. Kellec Ton, to Quark’s surprise, negotiated the bribe: He wanted Quark to help with the Bajoran resistance on the station. In small ways. Funneling in messages or supplies, or helping someone escape Odo’s eye. Quark refused, until Kellec Ton reminded him that they could easily reinfect the Ferengi—and make certain the virus didn’t spread beyond Quark, Rom, and Nog.
Quark didn’t believe the threat. He didn’t think Kellec Ton was that sort of man (and the hu-man female’s attempt to hide her laughter reinforced that) but, on the off-chance that the threat was real, Quark agreed to those terms, for a time of limited duration. He suggested a week. Kellec suggested a month. They had compromised on two weeks.
Which was good enough for Quark. It protected his bar, his livelihood, and, much as he hated to admit it, his family. For it looked like Rom and Nog weren’t going anywhere soon. And that meant that Quark had to teach them to be at least mildly competent.
“Brother,” Rom said. “Gul Dukat would like a vodtini twisted.”
“A what?” Quark asked, turning toward his brother.
“A vodtini twisted.”
“And what is that?” Quark asked.
“A hu-man drink, suggested by the good doctor. Apparently she said that generations of hu-mans drank it after their workday was over to relax.”
“A vodka martini with a twist?” Quark asked.
“That’s it!” Rom said.
Quark looked over his brother’s head at Gul Dukat. He was sitting at a center table, looking exhausted, but he was managing to laugh with a few of the guards. “Does he know what vodka does to Cardassians?” Quark asked.
“How should I know?” Rom asked.
“Tell him that if he wants to drink it, he has to take it outside. Tell him that the fumes are too much for my other patrons.” Quark shook his head. “Who’d have figured the hu-man was a practical jokester.”
Rom frowned. “Jokes, brother?”
Quark nodded. “Vodka and Cardassians,” he said. “If they’ve never had it before, it turns them green.”
“That doesn’t seem very funny to me,” Rom said, and went back to Gul Dukat’s table.
Quark watched him. What he didn’t want to explain to his idiot brother was that sometimes the point of practical jokes wasn’t humor. Sometimes the point was to teach someone a lesson.
Apparently the lady doctor believed Gul Dukat had some lessons to learn.
How many times would she have to say good-bye to the Enterprise? Pulaski leaned back in her chair in the captain’s ready room. The fish were swimming in their aquarium, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard had a clear glass on his desk filled with perfectly brewed Earl Grey tea. The faintly flowery smell of the liquid permeated the room.
Picard was standing behind his desk, looking out the portholes to the stars. The ship was heading back to Deep Space Five at full warp. Apparently someone there had a new assignment for Pulaski and wanted her to arrive on the double.
Just what she needed. More work.
Beverly Crusher sat beside her, nursing an old-fashioned cup of coffee. Pulaski was having one as well. It wasn’t Cardassian or Bajoran. It was an Earth beverage, with a taste of home.
She couldn’t believe she was leaving. Even when she, Ogawa, Governo, and Marvig had boarded a Cardassian transport ship she hadn’t believed she was going home. The trip to the Enterprise had been very different from the trip bringing them to Terok Nor. They were being treated like royalty, each with large cabins even though they weren’t staying long enough to sleep in them, and the captain was treating them to a lengthy meal filled with things Pulaski had never seen before.
It all made her feel vaguely guilty about her parting recommendation to Gul Dukat. Even Kellec had given her a funny look when she gave it.
And it all sounded so innocent: a vodka martini with a twist. But she had done so because Dukat had annoyed—no, perhaps the correct term was angered—her, with his insistence on quotas and returning the station to normal. She had overheard him ordering double shifts and punishment for any Bajoran who still claimed weakness from the illness. He had also ordered harsh measures for the prisoners who had instigated the fighting.
He was putting Terok Nor back together the old way, ignoring Kellec’s contribution and refusing to see that Bajorans were people, just like Cardassians.
It had riled her temper. And so she had sweetly told Dukat of a way he could rest at the end of his day.
At least she could be sure he wouldn’t get sleep for one night. Maybe more. And if she ever saw him again, she could claim ignorance of vodka’s effects on Cardassians.
“Are you sure you’ve told us everything?” Crusher was saying, her tone sympathetic. She had been through one of these plagues too and she had said, when Pulaski got off the transporter pad, that she would be there any time Pulaski needed to talk. “You have a strange expression on your face.”
Pulaski smiled just a little. She wouldn’t admit to the vodka remark, not in front of Captain Picard, but she did say, “I guess I am a bit surprised by the level of hatred between the Cardassians and the Bajorans.”
“I think I can understand the Bajorans’ reaction,” Picard said, returning to his chair. “After all, the Cardassians have been occupying their planet for some time now.”
“Yes, but they worked together on Terok Nor for a brief time, and then even that fell apart.” Pulaski sighed. Not even the coffee was helping her bone-deep exhaustion. “And now both sides are blaming the other for the plague. The situation has grown worse instead of better.”
“I can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t the designer’s intent,” Crusher said.
“What do you mean?” Picard asked.
“Well, we can assume that this plague is related to the one we dealt with on Archaria III,” Crusher said. “It almost seems like a second trial of an experiment.”
Pulaski looked at her. She had had the same thoughts.
“After all, it didn’t respond to the same solution, and the stakes were escalated. There were three species involved. There was a new method of delivery. And”—Crusher paused to look first at Pulaski, then Picard “—this one had the added benefit of destabilizing a precarious region. So if this second trial failed, perhaps the designer saw a benefit in worsening the Cardassian-Bajoran situation.”
Picard picked up his glass cup. “Who would do such a thing?”
“A monster,” Pulaski said.
“But why?”
“I don’t know,” Crusher said. “And I’m not sure I want to find out.”
“Surely you want to catch this person or persons,” Picard said.
“I do,” Crusher said, “but on my terms.”
“Terms?” Picard asked.
Crusher nodded. But before she could respond, Pulaski spoke. “I understand what Dr. Crusher is saying. We weren’t able to track the designer from the scant information we received from our sources on Bajor, and I take it, you had no more success on Archaria III.”
“That’s right,” Picard said.
“Which means that the only way we’ll be able to track this monster down…” Crusher said.
“Is if there’s another plague,” Pulaski said tiredly. “Let’s hope that his experiment is over and he leaves us in peace.”
“Unpunished?” Picard asked.
Pulaski nodded. “Unless we can find him before he causes more deaths.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to see any more death.”
She felt a hand on her arm. She opened her eyes to see Crusher looking at her with concern. “You really should rest before you go to your next assignment. If you want, I’ll contact Starfleet Medical and ask them for a leave—”
“No.” Pulaski smiled. “Work is always better for me. But if you both will excuse me, I do think I’ll go to my quarters now. I hope you won’t be offended if I sleep most of the way back to Deep Space Five.”
“Not at all,” Picard said.
“We’ll wake you so that you’ll have enough time to get your notes together before the briefing with Starfleet Command on Deep Space Five,” Crusher said.
“No need.” Pulaski stood. “They’re already together. I like to finish my tasks before going to bed. I sleep better that way. Good night all.”
She heard them say good night as she stepped from the ready room to the bridge. Commander Riker sat in the captain’s chair, and he smiled at her as she walked past. Data said hello and Geordi, who was at the engineering station on the bridge, asked her if she was doing all right.
“I’m fine,” she said, and stepped into the turbolift. What she didn’t tell them was how much she’d miss them, just like she would miss Kellec. It seemed as if her life was about moving away from the people she cared about.
She sighed. If there was one thing she had learned in all her years in Starfleet, it was that every time she left one group behind, she found another—different but just as good—ahead. She knew that. But it seemed as if she would never find a group quite like this one again.
Or perhaps she was just tired. Things always seemed better after she got a little sleep.
Chapter One
“ATTENTION! THIS IS A STARFLEET SPECIAL SECURITY FORCES EVACUATION SQUAD! WE ARE ABOUT TO LAND A DIPLOMATIC COACH AND FIVE FIGHTER ESCORTS. ALL CIVILIANS MUST CLEAR THE COURTYARD IMMEDIATELY! ANYONE REMAINING WILL BE STUNNED AND REMOVED TO A SECURITY BRIG! ALL PERSONS…ATTENTION!…THEY’RE NOT CLEARING OUT. CAN THEY EVEN HEAR ME? PERRATON, IS THE TRANSLATOR ON? PECAN, GET YOUR WING BACK INTO FORMATION! WHERE’S THE BROADCAST GREENLIGHT? WHAT KIND OF DUNSELS INSTALLED THIS SYSTEM?”
“AH, PERRATON HERE…STILES, BE AWARE THE BROADCAST SYSTEM IS GREEN AND TRANSLATING. YOU JUST CALLED THE WHOLE PLANET A BUNCH OF DUNSELS.”
“SHUT IT DOWN!”
“OAK ONE, THIS IS BRAZIL. FORMATION’S SHIFTING STARBOARD. THE EMBASSY’S GOT A BIG GARGOYLE ON IT AND I’M ABOUT TO CLEAN ITS TEETH.”
“LATERAL THRUST. ABORT LANDING PATTERN—PERRATON, WOULD YOU RED THE P.A. BEFORE I COUGH UP A LUNG?”
“Copy that. Public address speakers are shut down. Fighter formation’s still too cramped for diamond grid, Stiles. Acorn just bumped a water tower.”
“All wings, pull up! We’ll modify formation and try our approach again. Did the whole city hear us arguing?”
“They heard you arguing.”
“Ahhh, I should’ve become a medic…Nuts, Oak One. Go to Ruby formation. Pecan, move two degrees port. Brazil, get off his tail. Acorn, keep your wings trim. Why can’t you people hold a hover grid?”
“Oak One, Acorn. It’s not us. Stiles, it’s you. You have to put the coach down and vertical your stabilizers to give us enough room to land in that courtyard.”
“Stabilizers…I hate stabilizers…I was supposed to go in for multi-vehicular flight school this week, but nooo, I had to grab a mission. Listen up! I’ll land the coach first, then all wings settle around me five seconds later. Keep it sharp!”
“What’s the matter with you, Stiles?” Pilot Andrea Hipp’s German accent seemed crisp over the comm. “This isn’t synchronized swimming, you know.”
“I said no chatter! The ambassador’s watching!”
A prattle of aye-ayes settled the issue for the moment, but did nothing for Eric Stiles’s stomach, or his icy fingers, or his tingling feet. This command stuff left a lot to be wished for. And his hair was in his eyes…he was looking through a blond curtain. Didn’t help.
On the screens of his fully carpeted cockpit, Stiles saw the platinum glitter of the Federation Embassy at PojjanPiraKot seem to rise up to meet him. Actually, he and the coach he piloted were descending into the brick city courtyard, but the illusion of a floating building disoriented him briefly. On the secondary side monitors, the five fighter escorts regrouped into Ruby formation and found the space to wiggle into the brick court, settling around the main coach vessel like baby ducks crowding a drake.
“Doesn’t look like I expected it to,” he commented. “What are those metal bands on all the buildings?”
“The city’s all reinforced.” Ensign Travis Perraton’s blue eyes peered with fresh curiosity at a smaller monitor as he adjusted the coach’s shields to let them land, irritating Stiles with his eternal good mood. “They’ve got some kind of gravitational problem on this planet. All the buildings have had to be structurally rebuilt over the past few years since it started.”
“What kind of gravitational trouble?”
“Something like high tides or earthquakes, I guess. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
Stiles wanted to comment, but was busy settling the coach onto its extender pads. The fantasy of brilliant artisanship in moving spaceborne vessels into an atmosphere and landing them in a surefooted, graceful manner had shriveled in his hands. At least that part was over. He trembled with irritation as the system’s check barberpoled. Perraton had managed to clear the belly shields. Otherwise, the coach would’ve sat in the air like a beachball on the water—and probably rolled over.
“You’re down,” Perraton confirmed. “You can unclench now.”
“I’m fine!”
“Yeah, sure you are. You worried about coming in shielded for the whole twenty hours it took us to get here from the starbase.”
Stiles bristled at the suggestion that he wasn’t in control. “Emergency diplomatic evacuations have certain regulations attached. Not getting a second chance is just one of the assumptions. Evac regs assume the situation is hostile and precautions have to be—”
“Don’t quote the book.”
“Give me a view of the whole courtyard.”
Screens around the cockpit flashed views of all six lander pads with irritated civilians scooping dirt out of huge potted plants and dumping it on the ship’s pads. So much for respect.
“Are they throwing rocks?” Stiles asked.
“It’s garbage.” Eying the same screen, Perraton stood up and pulled on his torso armor, buckling the padded vest over his chest. “Some of ’em are throwing balls of mud from those pots.”
Stiles straightened. “Secure the coach and scramble the evac squad. Nuts, Oak One. Remain in your cockpits. Do not get out, understood? Sit tight and let Oak Squad flush the dignitaries. I’ll escort Ambassador Spock personally.”
“They’re pushing on my struts. Our light-stun phasers can—”
“Negative!” Stiles broiled. “Let ’em crowd you. Keep finger shields activated in case they touch the wings. And all of you shut up! I don’t want the ambassador to hear the slightest disrespect.”
“Oh, we respect you. Don’t you respect him, Cashew?”
“I drip respect.”
“As you were!”
“As I was? Did I change? I like me this way. Did you change, Acorn?”
“Animals,” Stiles grumbled. “I’d like to get you disrespectful slugs on starship duty for five minutes, just five minutes….” He buried himself in padded insulation as he pulled his flak vest over his head, then slipped into his gauntlets, adjusted his sidearm, and led Perraton out into the coach’s main seating area.
Here, six other members of Oak Squad were already suited up and looking at him from inside their red-tinted helmet shields. Travis Perraton, Jeremy White, Bill Foster, Dan Moose, Brad Carter, Matt Girvan—their names and faces swam before his eyes like a manifest, and for a moment he thought the blood was rushing out of his head. Midshipmen and ensigns, all in training for what would eventually become specialties, for now
they were assigned to Starbase 10 in the Security Division, under their senior ensign—Stiles. At twenty-one, Eric Stiles was the old man of the outfit. Perraton was next, at twenty years old and forty-two days junior to Stiles’ ensign stripes. Knowing that they had heard the ribbing he took from the wings, Stiles felt his face flush. He had to lead the mission. He’d gotten himself into this on purpose. He had to address them as a commander. Nobody to hide behind. They’d seen the landing. His dream of a crisp textbook military approach and regulation landing had gone up in an ugly puff. Now the squad members were blushing and snickering, burying grins, trying not to look right at him—that was hard to take!
“Heads up.” His voice cracked. “There’s a riot going on outside. Some kind of local political trouble. The embassy is beam-shielded, so we have to go in the security door. As we approach, the guard will drop the door shields. We’ll have to go in and come out in single file. We’re going to put the dignitaries between us, at two or three in a row. There are about twenty of these people, so the seven of us’ll be just about right. I’ll go last, with the ambassador right in front of me. He’s the primary person to guard, and if he gets so much as a hangnail, somebody’s gonna answer to me in a dark alley. After we get—shut up, Foster!”
“I didn’t say anything!” Bill Foster protested.
“Quit snickering! This is…this is—”
“Serious,” Perraton supplied.
“I know, Eric,” Foster muttered.
“You call me ‘Ensign,’ mister!”
“Aye aye, Ensign Mister.”
“I want this mission to go like clockwork! I don’t want a single twitch that isn’t in the rule book! Don’t snicker, don’t slip, don’t do anything that isn’t regulation!”
A hand was pressed to his shoulder and drew him backward a step on the plush carpet.
“Everything’ll go fine, Eric,” Perraton mildly interrupted. “We’re ready when you are.” His short dark hair was buried under a white helmet with Starfleet’s Delta Shield printed on the forehead, now obscured by the raised red visor. The shield glowed and sang at Stiles. Starfleet’s symbol.