by David Mack
It should be easy to pass them off as Silwaan like me, Nar figured. That would enable them to purchase food or beverages appropriate to their biology without triggering any alerts in the network. Though they had come prepared with a fair amount of hard currency, Nar knew they would raise fewer suspicions if they conducted their transactions with credit lines linked to their ID profiles. To that end, she created a pair of well-funded accounts for their new aliases. It still amazed her that a culture as paranoid as the Breen’s had allowed its commercial infrastructure to become so vulnerable to virtual fraud. We have spent so much effort on hiding our identities from one another that money must have come to seem like a trivial concern, she reasoned as the two credit accounts were confirmed as active.
As a test of her work, she ran an offline analysis of the new profiles, to see if either one would appear suspect during normal contact with the automated network. Neither generated any alerts during her isolated trial run, and she was satisfied that they would more than pass inspection if needed. She uploaded the files to the public servers and then deleted the copies from her local drive. Next she initiated a secure-erasure protocol to make certain the deleted documents would be unrecoverable. While her machine labored on that operation, she accessed the logs of multiple servers and routers in the Breen surveillance network and either deleted or altered the file-transmission records to conceal the origin and creation dates of the new identichip profiles. Working backward from her first actions to her last, she wiped out the evidence of her cover-up, including the cover-up itself.
Her final act of sabotage was to upload a self-erasing program into the secure backup servers at the BID, to ensure that her peers and superiors could not use them to reconstruct the data expunged from the public system.
That will do, she decided. She opened an encrypted channel and keyed in the code for the remote comm deck at the hideout in the warren. The call signal buzzed a few times before Nar’s message was received. A small image popped into the lower left corner of her holomatrix. Looking back at her over the connection was a Breen mask whose altered markings she recognized as Bashir’s.
“Yes?” he said, his true voice rendered into machine noise by his vocoder.
“This is Nar. The work we spoke of is done.”
Bashir nodded. “Thank you. What should we do now?”
“Do you still need access to the BID for your research?”
“Yes, as long as it doesn’t put you in danger.”
His sentiment almost made her laugh. “We are quite past that.”
“We also need access to that comm center,” Bashir said.
Nar wondered if perhaps Min had been right when he’d warned her not to trust the humans. “Why do you need that? I already told you that the BID controls the surveillance of the civilian population.”
“I know, but we have reason to suspect the BID is sharingits data with the military, and vice versa. We need to be sure. It’s a mission imperative.”
Though his request made her uneasy, she was not ready to lose her faith in him. “If you really need to go inside the comm center, you can,” she said. “I gave you both high-level government clearances. Your chips will identify you as senior officials in the Confederate Information Bureau. Unless someone sees you commit a crime, no one on Salavat should have the authority to hold you.”
“Excellent,” Bashir said. “Thank you again.”
“There’s more,” Nar said. “Your ID chips are linked to credit accounts. You should use those to pay for things. It will leave traces, but it will also seem more normal. Certain purchases are flagged for investigation when paid for in cash.”
Bashir cocked his head at an angle that expressed wariness. “What kind of purchases, exactly?”
“Intercity and interstellar transport. Weapons. Controlled pharmaceuticals. Private vehicles. Large quantities of industrial chemicals.”
“Understood. We don’t plan on buying any of those—at least, not as far as I know. But I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”
“Good. Your new alias is Hesh Gron. Sarina’s is Hesh Rin.”
“Noted. Anything else?”
“Your new ID chips alone will not be enough to get you inside government and military buildings. You will need special credentials. I have prepared them for you. Can you and Sarina meet me here on Level Forty-five to get them?”
“Yes. How soon do you want to meet?”
“Be here in one hour. Wait by the kiosk between Erkot and Arawn sectors, in the third crossroads from city center.”
“We’ll see you there,” Bashir said. “And Nar—thank you.”
Suppressing the impulse toward sentiment, Nar said, “Do not be late,” and closed the channel. The inset screen vanished from her holomatrix.
An alert on her console snared her attention. Ever mindful of the risk that she might be detected by someone else within the BID as a subversive element, Nar had created a number of applications to monitor her incoming and outgoing data packets for signs of monitoring and interference. Several of those warnings were sounding off at once. She checked the logs and quickly perused the reports. Internal channels at the BID were listening in on her communications and lurking behind her holomatrix interface.
They know, she realized. A sinking sensation left her feeling sick and hollow. Her peers and supervisors had been spying on her for at least the past few minutes—maybe longer. Nar had no way of knowing for certain just how much they had heard and seen or how much they knew. The only thing of which she could be certain was that she had just unwittingly invited Sarina and Bashir into a trap.
23
After a night alone with Sarina, Bashir felt more than a bit overwhelmed by the madding crush of the crowded streets of Rasiuk. They had made their way there from the warren without incident, and Bashir had noticed a few shopkeepers adopting postures more subservient than usual when they saw the kinds of advertisements that his and Sarina’s presence triggered.
Nar wasn’t kidding when she said she’d turned us into VIPs, he thought. Resolving not to abuse the protection and privilege with which he and Sarina had been blessed, Bashir pressed on at her side toward the third crossroads, which was a short distance ahead but obscured by the sheer mass of people filling it. When they were still twenty meters or so from the intersection, it became possible to see the public-information kiosk in its center.
Sarina poked Bashir. “There she is, at the far terminal, facing us.”
“I see her.” Though Nar resembled every other Breen in sight, Sarina had reprogrammed the HUDs of their helmets to recognize Nar and Min by the signals from their identichips, highlighting them in the duo’s visors. Bashir forged ahead, leading with his shoulder so he could blade through the knots of people congesting the streets in every direction.
Sidestepping toward Nar, he was surprised when she turned away from him and started wending her way through the gray sea of pedestrians. Bashir and Sarina walked faster and risked elbowing and bustling a few people to catch up to Nar.
As soon as they were within arm’s reach of her, Nar said without looking back, “Walk behind me and say nothing.” She led them onto a sidewalk where the foot traffic was moving more briskly, and they walked quickly to keep up with her. “The two of you should be free and clear to move, but I have been compromised.” They followed her around a turn onto another equally jam-packed boulevard. “I had your credentials delivered by confidential courier to deposit boxes under your new names, at the Bank of Ferenginar branch on Level Thirty-seven, Padlon Sector, Commerce Row. Good luck.” Nar changed direction without warning and cut across the street. The last thing she said that Bashir heard over the white noise of the crowd was, “Do not try to follow me.”
Bashir and Sarina continued walking in the same direction they had been, and neither risked looking back. They were a block away when they heard sirens and a commotion that quelled the hubbub of the street, but the interlude passed in less than a minute, and then urban clamo
r rushed like water to fill the sonic void.
A dark mood turned Bashir silent and melancholy. Nar had trusted him and Sarina, and it grieved him to think Nar would come to harm because of them, but there was nothing he could do now to help her. Nothing except go forward.
It wasn’t until he and Sarina reached the Bank of Ferenginar that he realized neither of them had really been leading the other; he and Sarina both seemed to have grown accustomed to the layout of Rasiuk and had become adept at reading street signs and building markers in their native markings. They were greeted in the bank’s ludicrously gilt lobby by a husky Ferengi man wearing garish clothes and an assortment of gaudy latinum rings, pendants, and chains. Pressing his wrists together in front of him, he bowed slightly to Bashir and Sarina as he said, “Welcome to the Bank of Ferenginar. My name is Lag, senior accounts supervisor. How may I serve you?”
“Safe-deposit boxes,” Sarina said. “Hesh Rin.”
“Hesh Gron,” Bashir said, figuring the less he said, the better.
Lag bowed. “Of course.” He straightened to reveal a scanning device in his hand. “If I might be permitted to scan your ID chips to verify your identities …”
Sarina said, “Proceed.” She and Bashir stood still while Lag scanned them.
“Excellent,” Lag said. “Please follow me to the deposit room.”
The stout Ferengi led Bashir and Sarina past the bank’s offices to a private room with a table and some chairs. “Please wait here while we retrieve—” He paused as two young Ferengi clerks in far simpler garb rushed in holding deposit boxes, which they set on the table. “Here they are,” Lag said. Backing toward the door, he continued, “Your boxes are coded to open on contact with your ID chip. Take as long as you like. Press the bell when you’re ready to leave.”
The Ferengi backpedaled out the door, which slid closed behind him and locked with a resonant magnetic hum.
As promised, the lids of the two lockboxes sprang open as soon as Bashir and Sarina touched them. Inside each box was a security card marked with Breen symbols for the Confederate Information Bureau. They tucked their cards into hidden pockets of their disguises.
“There’s no way of knowing how long it’ll take the Breen to make Nar talk,” Sarina said. “But if we hurry, we should be able to get in and out of that military comm center before they know we were there.”
A pang of guilt gnawed at Bashir. “Hang on. We need to warn the people of the warren. If the interrogators break Nar, all those people are in danger.”
“That’s not our mission, Julian. We came here to find the hidden shipyard, destroy the slipstream prototype, and sabotage any copies of the plans—not get mixed up in the Breen’s internal politics.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t be so blasé about it. Those people sheltered us, and I think we owe them at least a fair warning that their lives are in peril.”
“Not to be a bitch about this, but—no, we don’t.”
“How can you say that? After the risks Nar and Min took for us, how can you just turn your back on them? Is this some kind of latent elitism of the genetically enhanced rearing its ugly head?”
“No, Julian, it’s common sense. Nar’s not a field agent. She isn’t trained to resist interrogation, and we have no way of knowing how resilient her species is under stress. Now that they have her, it’s only a matter of time before they make her talk. Maybe she’ll betray us first, maybe the warren. If I had to bet, I’d say she’ll sell us out long before she betrays them. Which means we have a hell of a lot less time to finish our mission and get out of here than we did before.”
Bashir shook his head in angry refusal of Sarina’s argument. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You really think we have no obligation to the dissidents?”
“An obligation? No. But if we find what we need at the comm center and have a chance to warn the dissidents before we move on, I’d be fine with that.”
After a grim chortle, Bashir replied, “How noble of you.”
“No one ever said intelligence work was noble. Just necessary.” She slammed shut the lid of her deposit box. “Time’s wasting. Let’s go.” As Sarina marched to the door, Bashir closed his own deposit box and followed her.
Sarina pressed the door signal, and Lag opened the door a moment afterward. He shadowed Bashir and Sarina to the bank’s front entrance, pestering them with obsequious expressions of gratitude every step of the way. It took all of Bashir’s willpower not to swat the bothersome Ferengi. As he and Sarina left the bank and melted back into the crowd, Bashir could only hope they would be swift enough to spare ten thousand freethinkers from a bitter fate.
24
Nanietta Bacco stood back from the table as a troop of chefs and servers swarmed around it, setting out the last of the items to leave the kitchen and making certain that every possible detail was as close as possible to perfect. Her chief of staff, Esperanza Piñiero, stood a few meters away, one hand pressed to her ear while she listened for an updated report from the Palais de la Concorde’s event scheduler.
“He’s on his way, Madam President,” Piñiero said. She turned to the white-suited staff of the Roth Dining Room and shooed them away. “Clear out, people! On the double, let’s go!” As the workers scurried back into the kitchen, Piñiero looked over the assortment of Klingon delicacies that adorned the only table in the cavernous room. It was like an oasis of gagh and pipius claws in the midst of a granite-tiled ocean of gray. “A lot of effort for one man.”
Bacco sighed. “I’d hate history to say we failed for lack of effort.”
Poking at something that might have been bregit lung, Piñiero said, “You’d rather it said we failed because the Klingon ambassador gorged himself to death?”
“Don’t be silly, Esperanza. He won’t touch any of this.”
“Then why put it out?”
“How long have you worked in politics? This is all about the gesture.”
“If you insist. But I get the feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of Klingon dishes on the commissary’s menu for the rest of the week.” Piñiero backed away toward the president’s private entrance, which was hidden behind a ceiling-to-floor tapestry along the dining room’s back wall. “He’s ten seconds out. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
The chief of staff nodded, withdrew at a quick step, and vanished behind the heavy scarlet curtain.
The main doors at the far end of the dining room swung inward, and Ambassador K’mtok strode inside unescorted. “Madam President!” he bellowed, his rich baritone booming and echoing in the emptiness around them. “We really must stop meeting like this.” Bacco put on a taut smile as the hulking diplomat crossed the great hall to join her at its lone table. “Normally, I’d resent being sent for this early in the day”—he picked up a pipius claw—“but I never could resist the charms of a woman who was willing to cook for me.”
“Are you done acting like a jackass, Your Excellency?”
He flashed a sawtooth grin. “Yes, Madam President.”
“Good.” She picked up a decanter of bloodwine and filled the stein beside K’mtok’s place setting. “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”
He sat down, lifted the metal mug, and downed a long draught of the tart alcoholic beverage. Bacco tossed a few pipius claws onto her plate and sat down.
K’mtok sleeved dribbled wine from his chin. “So? Talk.”
“Don’t play dumb,” Bacco said. “You know why you’re here. Has Martok agreed to my request for Klingon military aid in the Alrakis system?”
“No.” To Bacco’s surprise, K’mtok scooped up a fistful of gagh and shoved the wriggling worms into his mouth. He chewed behind a smile of satisfaction.
In a tenor that was firm but still calm, Bacco said, “I need more than a one-word answer, Ambassador. Why has our call for reinforcements been denied?”
Still chewing, K’mtok said, “Are you kidding? The last fleet we sent there never came home.” He held up his hand to stave off Bacco�
��s brewing protest. After he swallowed, he continued. “The truth is that our military is as overstretched as yours—perhaps more, since most of our empire was built and retained by force.”
“I understand that, but you have an entire battle group refueling at Starbase 514, less than a day away from—”
“They’ve been recalled,” K’mtok said. “On the chancellor’s orders.”
She shoved aside her plate. “Recalled? For what purpose?”
“To deal with growing threats to our border colonies. Membership in the Typhon Pact has made the Gorn and the Kinshaya bold enough to dare taking what belongs to the Klingon Empire. I did not think I would ever see such a day … but we live in uncertain times, Madam President.”
“Indeed, we do, Your Excellency. However, some risks need to be taken, even in perilous days such as these. And the matter on which we require your aid is one of the utmost secrecy and importance.”
K’mtok nodded and waved a half-devoured pipius claw. “Yes, yes, your two spies stranded on Salavat. We know all about it.”
Feigning incomprehension, Bacco said, “I’m sorry, Mister Ambassador, but I don’t have any idea what you’re—”
“We know.” K’mtok met Bacco’s stare with a challenging look. “And if we have this intel, it’s almost certain the Typhon Pact has it.”
Bacco leaned forward. “How did you find out about Salavat?”
Matching the president’s pose, K’mtok said, “Can you keep a secret?”
His question drew a pained smile from Bacco. “Yes, I can—and so can you, which is why you won’t tell me.”
“You’re quick, Madam President. I’ve always liked that about you.” He pushed aside his plate, sleeved bits of food from his mouth, and stood. “Please accept Chancellor Martok’s regrets and my apologies, Madam President.” Lowering his chin, he made a respectful half bow. “By your leave.”