by Peter David
Riker remained tight-lipped, unwilling to admit that altruism had only been one of several reasons, and maybe not the most important. He had already decided to say and do as little as possible, while waiting for a chance to escape.
The Klingon woman scowled. “Do you have a name, Starfleet?”
His lips thinned, because Riker knew he was on shaky ground. Anything he did to help these people could land him in a brig for the rest of his life, but antagonizing them could get him killed. Better to keep my mouth shut.
B’Elanna walked over to the comm panel and hit it with her fist. “Torres to bridge. Tuvok, have you tapped into the shuttle’s computer yet?”
“Yes, I have,” answered the same efficient voice that had answered them before.
“What’s the name of our guest in the brig?”
“The computer identifies him as William T. Riker.”
Chakotay blinked with surprise and stared more closely at his prisoner. “Are you the same William T. Riker who served aboard the Enterprise?”
Riker’s jaw clamped shut, and he took a deep breath. Unfortunately, if he admitted to being that Riker, his chances of escape from this crew would be nil.
“Come on, Starfleet, answer,” said B’Elanna Torres, leveling her phaser rifle at him. “Every prisoner of war is allowed to give his name, rank, and serial number.”
“I’m not the Riker who serves aboard the Enterprise,” he finally answered. “In a transporter accident on Nervala IV, I was duplicated. My double left the planet and went on to serve aboard the Enterprise, while I got stranded there for eight years. I was only rescued two years ago, and now I’m assigned to the Gandhi.”
“You expect us to believe that?” scoffed Torres.
“I don’t really give a damn what you believe!” snapped Riker. “What are you people but a bunch of two-bit space pirates? I find you hard to believe.”
Torres started to swing the butt of her phaser rifle at his head, but Chakotay gripped the rifle and stopped her. “Calm down! We haven’t got time for this. Whether he’s William Riker or Santa Claus, it doesn’t matter—he’s the only link we’ve got to the medical supplies we need.”
Breathing heavily, the woman tried to shake off her anger, but a fire still burned in her dark eyes. Despite his status as her enemy, Riker couldn’t help but feel a kinship with this volatile woman. Like him, she harbored a bitterness and anger that couldn’t be easily assuaged.
“What race are you?” he asked.
“I’m half-Klingon and half-human,” she answered with some resentment. “I guess we’re both freaks.”
Chakotay waved his hand impatiently. “There’s time to get to know each other later. Right now, Lieutenant Riker, I have to show you something.”
“What if I don’t want to see it?”
“I think you’ll want to see it, because after you do, I’ll let you go.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. You can’t do us any good stuck in this cell, but you can save a lot of lives if you’re free. Let’s go.” The captain led the way out the door, and Riker followed, conscious of B’Elanna Torres at his back, aiming her phaser rifle at him.
After walking a few meters down a narrow corridor, Chakotay came to a ladder embedded in the bulkhead, and he climbed upward into a small hatch. With a glance over his shoulder at Torres, Riker followed the captain, and they emerged in a longer and wider corridor. Riker got the impression that the Spartacus was a rather small vessel, no more than a scout ship or an assault craft.
Chakotay strode down the corridor like a man with pressing matters on his conscience and time running out. He carried himself like a Starfleet officer, and Riker wondered whether he had ever served in Starfleet. Perhaps he had previously captained a merchant ship. What made a proud, competent man like this turn into a rebel in a ragtag fleet? These were the first Maquis he had ever met, and Captain Chakotay, at least, didn’t fit his preconceptions.
B’Elanna Torres, on the other hand, was more the kind of person he thought would be attracted to the Maquis. She seemed a bit unstable, low in self-esteem, and angry at life. In short, she was damaged goods. Her Klingon side probably relished the prospect of dying a glorious death battling the imperious and callous Federation.
Riker knew he was damaged goods, too—a freak, as Torres had called them both. But he still had some ambition and loyalty to the Federation. Sure, the Federation was run by fallible beings who could make mistakes, but it was still the greatest hope for peace in the galaxy. He couldn’t imagine what Chakotay could show him that would turn him against everything he believed in.
They entered a compact, clam-shaped bridge, and a Vulcan swiveled in his chair to glance at Riker before turning back to his instruments. A Vulcan Maquis? Of course, Vulcans could go mad—he had heard of it happening. Maybe everyone on the Spartacus was mad, even the dignified Chakotay.
Through the narrow cockpit window, he saw a Bajoran assault vessel off the bow, as well as his own star-crossed shuttlecraft. What could the Maquis hope to accomplish with these three little ships out here in the middle of nowhere, a stone’s throw from the DMZ? Like the attack on his shuttlecraft, this whole thing was surreal.
“Before you show me anything,” said Riker, “I want to make sure that my co-pilot, Ensign Shelzane, is all right.”
“Tuvok, hail the Singha,” ordered Chakotay, “and have them put Ensign Shelzane on screen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“While he does that,” said the captain, “let me ask you if you’ve ever heard of a planet named Helena.”
Riker nodded. “I know it was on a list of planets in the DMZ that were turned over to the Cardassians.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t evacuated like most of the Federation colonies. The Helenites chose to stay and live under Cardassian rule, but something terrible has happened there.”
“I have located Ensign Shelzane,” interjected the Vulcan.
“On screen.”
Riker turned with interest to the small viewscreen spanning the front of the bridge. The blank image switched to a view of a bustling sickbay, and Ensign Shelzane was lying on an examination table with a fresh bandage around her head. Upon seeing Riker, the blue-skinned humanoid sat up weakly.
“At ease, Ensign,” he told her. “Have you been treated well?”
“As well as can be expected, I suppose. What happened to the shuttlecraft?”
“The passengers attacked us, stopped the shuttle, and then we were intercepted by these two Maquis vessels. Cooperate, but remember that you’re a prisoner of war.”
“Yes, sir. Are we going to be held long? Or exchanged?”
“I don’t know.” Riker glanced at Chakotay, who stepped in front of the screen.
“You and Lieutenant Riker will be released soon, along with your shuttlecraft,” promised the captain. “Please try to rest. I’m sorry that our methods were violent, but Starfleet won’t negotiate with us, only Cardassians.” He motioned to the Vulcan, who ended the transmission.
“Satisfied, Lieutenant?” asked B’Elanna Torres.
Riker shrugged. He wasn’t going to argue with someone who was aiming a phaser rifle at him.
“Tuvok,” said the captain, “put on the vid log and explain matters to the lieutenant.”
The Vulcan tapped his console. On the viewscreen appeared a beautiful, aquamarine planet, sparkling in the vivid light from a distant red sun. The surface of the planet had to be ninety percent ocean, with small green continents scattered across its vast waters. Riker had seen many Class-M planets, but none more lovely than this one.
“Helena,” said Tuvok matter-of-factly. “It was a thriving world, inhabited by over four million people, mostly of mixed-species ancestry. The only thing that has protected them so far is the relative isolation of population centers on the various islands and continents.”
The image shifted to a modern city street, which appeared to be deserted, despite sunny blues skies and balmy wea
ther. Some kind of dead animal lay in the gutter, and there appeared to be a hunanoid corpse sprawled in an open doorway. Trash and leaves skittered across the empty thoroughfare, borne by a gentle breeze. It was an eerie scene, reminiscent of a planet ravaged by warfare, only without the full-scale destruction.
“This is the city of Padulla,” explained Tuvok, “as we observed it four days ago. The streets are deserted, because a devastating plague has struck this continent. The disease is similar to anthrax, only several times more deadly and contagious. It is caused by an unusual combination of three prions, which are transmitted by air, water, saliva, and other bodily fluids.”
Now the view changed to the interior of some cavernous hall, where sick people lay in haphazard rows stretching the length of the room. It wasn’t a hospital, so Riker had to assume the hospitals were all full. Coughs and groans filled the disturbing scene. Two visitors in white environmental suits moved among the sick like ghosts, or angels. When the video log showed close-up views of dying people with distended stomachs, blackened faces, and open sores, Riker had to look away.
“I get the picture,” he muttered. “But the Cardassians must have the technology to deal with this. As you said, it’s now a Cardassian planet.”
“The Cardassians have abandoned them,” answered Tuvok, “except to station ships in orbit to stop any attempt by the inhabitants to leave the planet. Cardassian troops on the ground have destroyed ships and spaceports and shut off all communication with the outside. A quarantine is in effect, and the entire populace has been left to die.”
“Maybe the Cardassians did this,” suggested Riker. “They’re not above using biological warfare.”
B’Elanna Torres shoved him in the back with her weapon. “You’re a cold fish, aren’t you? It is biological warfare, only the Cardassians didn’t do it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it’s the same plague that nearly wiped them out on Terok Nor four years ago.” When Riker gave her a questioning look, she added, “It’s now called Deep Space Nine.”
Chakotay shook his head. “We don’t know that for sure, B’Elanna.”
“Oh, don’t we? When we’ve conquered almost every disease known to science, how could an illness with the exact same symptoms pop up again? And look at the way the Cardassians have reacted. They don’t want any part of that planet, except to bury it.”
“She’s right,” said another feminine voice.
Riker turned to see a tall, attractive Bajoran standing in the corridor. She stepped onto the crowded bridge, her nose ridges furrowed with concern. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Captain, but I couldn’t help but to listen. B’Elanna is right—this is the same plague that struck Terok Nor and the work camps on Bajor, I’m sure of it. I recognized the symptoms the moment I saw them. Only this version seems to spread even faster.”
“Thanks, Seska,” said B’Elanna with relief. “There’s too much at stake here to ignore the past. Going over Starfleet records has made me think that this plague has appeared several times before—in widely separated areas of the quadrant. There was a similar plague on Archaria III, and it affected people who are half-human and mixed-blood. Then came Bajor, and a virus linked to it hit the Romulan royal family just two years ago. What are the chances of that?”
She peered into Riker’s eyes. “Ask yourself, why this planet? Why now? Helena is as advanced as any planet in the Federation, but it’s been cut off, abandoned. Nobody cares what happens there. You couldn’t pick a more helpless place. But we still have time to help them, because of the distances across those huge oceans.”
Riker sighed and held out his hands. “I’m one medical courier with a shuttlecraft. What do you expect me to do?”
“The Maquis are warriors, not healers,” said Chakotay. “We’re rounding up all the doctors and nurses we’ve got, but we only have a handful of them. Plus we don’t have enough drugs or research equipment to do the job. You have access to everything we need.”
Riker felt trapped on the cramped bridge, torn between doing his duty and doing what was right. His preconceptions about the Maquis had crumbled even further, and he felt as if he understood them. They were not wild-eyed pirates and opportunists; they were people trying to help other people. The Federation had abandoned the colonists in the DMZ, but the Maquis hadn’t—it was as simple as that.
“Is there a drug that’s proven effective against this disease?” he asked.
“To a degree,” answered Tuvok. “According to Starfleet records, Tricillin PDF can prolong life, but it is not a cure. When the prions combine into a multiprion in the host’s body, death can result in as quickly as forty-eight hours. The multiprion can be removed via a transporter biofilter, but that is extremely time consuming. The best way to stop the spread of the disease is to find the transmission vectors and shut them off. That is precisely what the Cardassians are doing with their quarantine.”
“What about the Cardassians?” asked Riker. “If they’ve decided to let everyone die on that planet, won’t they fight you?”
“Leave the Cardassians to us,” said Chakotay. “They can sneak one or two ships into the DMZ, but they can’t send a fleet without alerting Starfleet and violating the treaty.”
“At least the treaty is good for something,” grumbled Torres. “So will you help us?”
Riker paused before answering, although he knew he would say yes. His first duty was to reclaim his shuttlecraft and his co-pilot and get away from these people. After that, when he had time to think about it logically, he would decide how far to go in helping them.
“All right,” he murmured. “Do you have those records you’ve been talking about?”
Tuvok nodded and pulled an isolinear chip from his console. “This also contains the video log you saw.”
Riker took the chip, but as he withdrew his hand, B’Elanna Torres caught his wrist in a tight grip. “Can we trust you, William T. Riker?”
He didn’t pull his hand away, because her touch was warm and charged with life. As he gently pried her fingers from his wrist, he gave her a charming smile. “Call me Tom.”
“Okay, Tom.” She smiled back, but it wasn’t a friendly look.
“We’ll meet you right here, at these coordinates,” said Chakotay. “How soon do you think you can get back?”
He shrugged. “I would guess two or three days. I’ll have to fake a requisition or divert supplies going somewhere else.”
“If we see anything but a shuttlecraft coming toward us, we’ll head into the DMZ,” warned Chakotay. “And the deaths of millions of people will be on your conscience.”
“I’ve already got a lot on my conscience,” said Riker. “Can I go now?”
Chakotay nodded. “Seska, will you escort him to the transporter room?”
“Yes, sir.” The Bajoran motioned to Riker, then led the way into the corridor.
When they were gone, Chakotay remarked to Torres, “Do you know how much help he can be to us?”
“You mean, with medical supplies?” she asked.
“Not just that. If he can impersonate the first officer of the Enterprise, he can gain admittance anywhere. The possibilities are endless. We have to try to recruit him.”
“I thought we just did.”
“I hope so,” said Chakotay, his eyes narrowing.
• • •
In the briefing room of the Gandhi, Captain Azon Lexen and Commander Emma Crandall sat in stunned silence after viewing the video log and hearing Riker’s story. In addition to the three of them, two other people were present: Ensign Shelzane and Lieutenant Patrick Kelly, an expert on the Maquis. Captain Lexen was a Trill joined with a symbiont who had lived six lifetimes, and even he appeared at a loss for words.
Finally Emma Crandall scowled and turned to Shelzane. “Do you corroborate Lieutenant Riker’s story?”
The Benzite gingerly touched the small scar on her head. “I can’t corroborate all the details, but I know we were attacked by th
e passengers. Looking back now, I can see that the distress of the pregnant woman was a diversion. When Lieutenant Riker went to attend to her, one of the other passengers must have hit me on the head. I only know that I woke up in sickbay on a Maquis ship with this head wound.
“But I believe Lieutenant Riker must have acquitted himself fairly well, because the passengers who revolted were also receiving medical attention.” Shelzane glanced at Riker, and he gave her an appreciative nod.
“I actually regained control of the shuttle,” he explained. “But before we could leave, the Maquis ships arrived and transported me directly to their brig.”
“And then they showed you this video log and told you about the plague on Helena?” asked Crandall, sounding suspicious.
“After they found out we weren’t carrying any medical supplies,” Riker added. “That’s all they were looking for.”
“Did you hear the names of any of these Maquis officers?” asked the captain.
“No,” lied Riker immediately. He didn’t know why he lied about that, except that he felt oddly guilty about betraying the Maquis’ confidence. Perhaps Chakotay, B’Elanna Torres, and the others were known Maquis, but if they weren’t, he wouldn’t be the one to identify them.
“What can you tell us about their ship?” asked Captain Lexen.
Riker shook his head. “It was small, older, nothing special. They weren’t about to show me around. I’ve told you the truth, sir. I can’t imagine that sending a med team and supplies to Helena will give the Maquis any strategic advantage, and it could save millions of lives.”
“So you want to collaborate with the enemy?” Crandall asked snidely.
“I want to save lives,” answered Riker, appealing to the captain. “If we don’t cooperate, they’ll just keep attacking our ships until they get what they want. And if any sick Helenites escape from the planet and reach Federation space…I don’t need to tell you what might happen.”
The Trill pursed his lips and rubbed the dark spots on his right temple. “I’m inclined to agree with you, Lieutenant, but I can’t order anyone to go on a mission like this. You would have to depend upon the Maquis for protection, not us. We’ll brief the medical teams, and if anyone wants to volunteer, you can take them. That is, if you wish to volunteer.”