Star Trek®: Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game

by David Mack

  Her confidant glared at the humans and then whispered to Nar, “Listen to me. They say they are civilians, but those chips of theirs have been modified with isolinear processors—a Starfleet technology.” He picked up his helmet and barked over his shoulder at the humans, “Get dressed. I am taking you someplace else.” While the humans put their disguises back on, Min narrowed his eyes at Nar. “This had best not be a mistake, Nar. Because if it is, we are all going to die.”

  Bashir and Sarina followed Min down a steep, long staircase that vanished into darkness. The paranoid part of Bashir’s mind wondered if Min was taking them somewhere remote to execute them. He hoped his vocoder concealed his anxiety as he asked, “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

  “Yes,” Min said. “I am taking you to a haven off the grid. A place untouched by the urban surveillance network. Only a handful of us know of this sanctuary.”

  Their plodding descent took several minutes and entailed half a dozen switchback turns at short landings. At the bottom of the stairs was a large, barricaded door. Beside it was a shattered light fixture mounted on the wall. Min rotated the fixture aside, revealing a button in a recess. He pressed it. Seconds later, a synthetic voice said over a hidden intercom, “Valley.”

  Min replied, “Harbor.” Next came the sound of heavy bolts being retracted and the low thrum of a magnetic seal being neutralized. The door that had seemed so impregnable swung open. Leading Bashir and Sarina inside the enclosure, Min declared to the two armed Breen standing guard, “I bring new friends. Welcome them.” Apparently satisfied by Min’s assurance, the guards lowered their weapons and waved the trio past them.

  Once the trio was clear of the entryway, the guards closed and locked the portal. Min led Bashir and Sarina around a high privacy barrier and said over his shoulder, “Welcome to the warren.” As Bashir turned the corner behind Min, he was rewarded by a remarkable sight.

  A multilevel complex stretched out ahead of him and Sarina. Unmasked Breen citizens of many species mingled in the wide thoroughfare. They traded goods and haggled over prices while standing in front of shops, and they socialized over drinks and plates of food while sitting together at tables along the street. Music filled the air, and the sound of many languages being spoken all at once reminded Bashir of a busy day on Deep Space 9’s bustling Promenade.

  “We will draw a few stares by remaining masked,” Min said, “but it will be much worse if anyone sees who you are. These people risk their lives when they come here. It would be best not to frighten them any further.”

  “We understand,” Sarina said. “We don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “Stay close,” Min said, guiding Bashir and Sarina onto an open lift platform. “I know of an open unit on an upper level where you can stay until Nar calls for you.” He closed the lift’s safety gate and pulled a manual-control lever to initiate its lethargic ascent. “If you need food, I can arrange to have some delivered.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Bashir said. “We’d appreciate that.”

  “Then it will be done,” Min said.

  The lift car climbed slowly inside its four-point metal frame, turning each level of the complex into an ephemeral tableau of Breen society’s best-kept secrets. Tiny nooks run like speakeasies were packed with polyglot crowds, pungent with the fumes of alcohol-laden drinks and spicy cuisines, and aglow with warm but dim lights sheltered by sconces. Interspecies romantic assignations transpired in the slivers between structures and behind half-shaded windows. On the other sides of flimsy walls and ramshackle doors, tight clusters of aliens danced in bobbing packs beneath multicolored strobe lights, to bass-heavy dance beats that thumped like the muffled pulse of a culture.

  A few levels higher, revelry gave way to somber ritual. Hundreds of Breen citizens hailing from a dozen different species gathered in a circle, each holding a lit candle and chanting softly together over a shrouded body on a bier.

  The next several tiers of the complex were relatively quiet. Through one half-open window, Bashir heard a child weeping. A door ajar gave him a glimpse of an artist dabbing paint on a canvas. A lone male figure paced outside a door, ostensibly racked with indecision.

  Elevated enough to take in the full scope of this hidden sector of Rasiuk, Bashir estimated that it might house as many as ten thousand persons on twenty densely packed levels. A thick haze hung in the air, a by-product of primitive cooking methods, establishments devoted to groups smoking from water-cooled pipes, and lack of access to the municipal air-purification system. He could only hope that its water supply and waste-removal infrastructure were not so overtaxed as its atmospheric scrubbers.

  Min halted the lift and opened the gate. “Out.” Bashir and Sarina exited the lift car, and Min closed its gate as he followed them. Bashir turned one way and then the other and saw what appeared to be a deserted level of tiny residential boxes pressed together without a hair’s breadth of space between them. Walking along the open terrace, Min said, “This way.”

  He led them to a nondescript unit, pressed buttons marked with alien symbols on a panel beside its door, and stood aside as the portal slid open. “This is it.”

  It was a single room with a bed, a comm unit, a cooking nook, and a partition that Bashir presumed hid the lavatory. There wasn’t a single lick of color or personality—just a drab gray box with the bare essentials. Min moved to the windows and pulled all the curtains fully closed.

  “It’s perfect,” Bashir said. “Thank you.”

  Handing a small data device to Sarina, Min said, “This has the codes for your door and its intercom, and today’s and tomorrow’s challenge-and-response phrases for the main entrance of the warren. Guard this data with your lives.”

  “We will,” Sarina said.

  Min walked back to the door, which opened ahead of him. He paused on its threshold and turned to face Bashir and Sarina. “Remember to wait here until Nar calls for you. Do not move about the warren without your masks. And do not tell anyone who you are.”

  “Understood,” Bashir said.

  “I hope Nar’s trust in you is not misplaced.” Min moved to leave, then turned back to add, “Stay safe.” Before either Bashir or Sarina could reply, Min hurried away, back toward the lift.

  The door of their hideout slid closed and locked. Bashir removed his helmet and smiled at Sarina. “Home, sweet home.”

  21

  Dax knew something was wrong even before Bowers said, “We have a new problem, Captain.” The XO stood at the tactical console, whose readouts had monopolized his and Lieutenant Kedair’s attention for most of the last half hour.

  “Put it on the main screen,” Dax said, expecting the worst.

  “Aye, sir.” Bowers relayed the data to the forward viewer. A map of the sectors surrounding the Aventine’s current position appeared. Dots of many colors and sizes marked the positions of nearby star systems; icons resembling different powers’ national insignias indicated the whereabouts of allied and hostile starships. Dax made an approximate count of the icons massed on the opposite side of the Breen-Federation border and was dismayed to note that they appeared to have multiplied since her crew’s last sensor sweep of the area.

  She turned her chair toward the tactical console. “It looks as if the Typhon Pact is flexing its muscles along the border, doesn’t it, Commander?”

  Bowers nodded. “Yes, sir, it does. We’re looking at a mixed force of Breen and Romulan warships moving in a staggered formation, shadowing our course.”

  Mirren looked back from ops. “Is that their oh-so-subtle way of warning us to stay on our side of the border?”

  “After a fashion,” Kedair said. To Dax she added, “They have more ships on the way from the El-Nahab Sector. I’m reading Gorn and Tholian signals.”

  Lieutenant Commander Helkara said, “Commander Marius must have pitched a fit after the trick we pulled on him and his friends.” He stepped away from his station to study the map on the main screen more closely. �
��Could they be getting ready to come after us in force?”

  “Doubtful,” Dax said. “We’re back within sensor range of Deep Space 3. Unless the Typhon Pact is itching to turn this cold war hot, they won’t attack us out here in plain sight.” She got up and walked forward to stand beside Helkara, facing the enormous map. “Kedair, show me a progression from the last three hours: the positions of the ships in the Breen fleet relative to us and the Alrakis system.”

  As soon as the brief sequence played out on the screen, it became apparent to Dax what was happening. “They’re maneuvering to keep themselves between us and Salavat,” she said. “That’s not an attack fleet—it’s a blockade.”

  Kedair and Bowers conferred in whispers for a moment. From the helm, Lieutenant Tharp said, “At slipstream velocity we might be able to sneak through.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dax said. “Their fleet is maintaining a steady distance from us. Look at these intervals, here and here. When we moved half a light-year closer to the border, they dropped back by the same distance. They’re giving themselves room—which equals time to react if we try to race through.”

  Mirren held the sides of her console and leaned forward, her forehead creased with the effort of concentration. “There must be options,” she said. “Ways to mask our energy signature, or blind their sensors for a few seconds.”

  Rubbing his goateed chin, Bowers wore a pensive look as he eyed the map and asked rhetorically, “I don’t suppose we have time to go back to Deep Space 9 and ask to borrow the Defiant’s cloaking device?”

  “Wouldn’t matter if we did,” Helkara said. “It’s Romulan-made. Those warbirds would see us coming half a sector away. Plus it’d suck so much power that we couldn’t go to slipstream, which would leave us too slow to get through.”

  “We’re not going back to DS9,” Dax said. “We need to stay on-station in case Bashir and Douglas call for extraction.” She studied the map and frowned. “Not that we could reach them right now without getting ourselves blown up.”

  Kedair enlarged a section of the map with an inset box in the corner of the screen. “There’s another matter to consider, Captain. This map shows only those vessels we’re able to detect. Given the sensor capabilities of the ships in that blockade, their deployment pattern is far from optimal.” She touched her console as she spoke, highlighting portions of the map. “There are multiple gaps in their sensor net. Some of them are relatively minor, but others are substantial.”

  “I know,” Dax said. “They’re daring us to run the blockade there.” She cracked a grim smile. “Which means that’s probably where the cloaked ships are.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Captain,” Kedair said.

  Bowers chimed in, “Fighting cloaks with cloaks worked for us once. Maybe we need to hand off the extraction to the Klingons—send in a bird-of-prey.”

  Dax shook her head. “No, we played that card. The Romulans are watching for it now. I anticipated their ambush site yesterday and had the Klingons move in and run silent till the warbirds showed themselves. But if we try to sneak a Klingon warship into the Alrakis system, odds are it’ll be detected and destroyed.”

  “Once again turning a cold war into a shooting war,” Bowers said. He thought for a moment. “What if we don’t ask the Klingons to break through but just smoke out the cloaked warbirds? They wouldn’t have to uncloak or even cross the border. If they get close enough to force the blockade to shift its deployment, it might open a gap that either we or a Klingon ship could exploit.”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Dax replied. “Force them to pick their battle: the one they can see or the one they can’t—and either way, they lose.” She nodded. “It would take a lot of cloaked ships, but it’s worth a try.” She turned toward the tactical console. “Kedair, where’s the nearest Klingon battle group?”

  “Refueling at Starbase 514,” Kedair said.

  Returning to her chair, Dax said, “It never hurts to ask, but we’ll have to go through channels for this. Hail Starfleet Command. I have major groveling to do.”

  22

  Bashir held the curtains of one window half a centimeter apart and peeked through at unfamiliar aliens of the Breen Confederacy as they passed by on the promenade outside. Foot traffic on this level was sparse, but in just a half hour he had seen individuals from two races he had never before encountered.

  “You should stay away from the windows,” Sarina said. “Someone might see you. I’d rather not lose the one safe haven we’ve managed to find.”

  He let the curtains fall together and walked back to join Sarina, who was sprawled on the low bed at the far end of the room. “Fine. I’d hate to make the natives restless.” Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he continued, “So, we’re ‘cultural observers,’ are we? That’s a clever story. Not that Min was buying it.”

  “Min strikes me as a chronic paranoid,” Sarina said. “Even if we’d prepared that cover story in advance, he wouldn’t have bought it.”

  “You admit you spun that lie out of thin air.”

  Sarina shrugged. “It had to be done, so I did it.” She rolled her head toward him. “Besides, it’s not as if we could risk telling these people the truth about us.”

  “Why not? They’re dissidents. You saw how eager Nar was to help us.”

  “Once I told her we were civilians,” Sarina said. “I doubt she’d have been as helpful if she knew we were Starfleet Intelligence operatives.”

  Reclining beside her, Bashir replied, “I think she would have.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Just because she and Min are dissidents, that doesn’t make them traitors. Sheltering peaceful observers is one thing. Aiding and abetting a pair of spies on a mission to sabotage a military program is something entirely different. The bottom line is that it’s better for them if they don’t know why we’re really here. If they end up compromised because of us, they can’t divulge what they don’t know.”

  He flashed a teasing smile. “How thoughtful of you. But how do you know they aren’t listening in on us right now?”

  “Because while you were busy peeping out the windows, I was sweeping the room for surveillance devices.” Returning his chiding look with her own disarming grin, she added, “Occupational hazard.”

  He rolled onto his side to face her across the pillows. “Alone at last.”

  “And it took you only six years to get me here.” Putting on a mock frown, Sabrina added, “My mother warned me about fast boys like you.”

  “Did she?”

  “Actually, it was Lauren,” she said, reminding Bashir of her sexually predatory ex-peer in the Jack Pack. “She always said those boys were the most fun and encouraged me to seek them out whenever I could.”

  He rolled his eyes, chortled once, and nodded. “That sounds like Lauren.” Then he looked into Sarina’s eyes, only centimeters away from his, and they fell silent for several seconds. A hundred jumbled thoughts flew through his mind, but he said nothing and thought he might let the moment pass unremarked.

  Sarina said, “You’re thinking something. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “This isn’t the time or place to talk about it.”

  “Sure it is. One or both of us might not make it off this rock alive, Julian. If you have something on your mind, share it. We might not get another chance.”

  Part of him was resisting saying what he wanted to say, what needed to be said. Then Sarina reached out and caressed his cheek, and he touched her flaxen hair, and the words he had held prisoner for so long broke free in a mad rush.

  “I missed you so much after you left. You needed space, so I didn’t call and didn’t write. But I wanted to, more times than I could count. You were the woman I’d waited my whole life to meet, the one I’d spent my life searching for. And then, there you were. At my side. In my arms.” Memories of her bittersweet departure from Deep Space 9 brought tears to his eyes. “I understand why you had to go away, why you had to leave me behind. I let you go because I
thought that’s what was best for you. But watching you go, I felt like my heart was being cut out.”

  A lonely tear escaped from the corner of his eye. As Sarina brushed it away with the back of her hand, Bashir saw that she was crying, too.

  “I didn’t understand then what I meant to you,” she whispered. “Or what you meant to me. I couldn’t. But if I had … I don’t think I could have left.” Her lips grazed his, and her breath was warm and close. She met his teary-eyed gaze with her own. “I don’t want to leave you again. Ever.”

  He pulled her close, and they kissed. At once passionate and tender, hungry yet giving, it was the most natural connection Bashir had ever felt with another being. There was no awkwardness, no hesitation or uncertainty.

  Their hands found each other’s bodies, stripped away layer after layer of clothing, all with easy grace and languid movements. His fingertips traced the elegant line of her jaw, the perfect slope of her nose, the delicate curve of her chin. She kissed the side of his neck and pulled her fingernails down his back, leaving warm scratch trails from his shoulders to the last of his ribs.

  One moment bled into another with the hazy quality of a dream. They rolled together, and then he was on top of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs over his hips. Their rhythm increased in vigor, and Bashir lost himself in her, in the moment, in the riptide of his desires. Perspiration glistened between her breasts, and he was mesmerized by the beauty of her profile as her head lolled to one side and the muscles of her face tensed with exquisite agonies.

  As he surrendered to his own release, he knew that he felt as Sarina did: he never wanted to leave her again. Ever.

  No one had stopped Chot Nar on her way inside the Breen Intelligence Directorate, and that much at least still seemed right with her world. It had been a few hours since she had reached her task pod, and in seclusion she had set herself to work on parallel jobs: routine data analysis ran on one side of her holomatrix while on the other she put the finishing touches on the humans’ new identichip profiles.