by David Mack
They skulked forward to the suite’s semitransparent double doors. Sarina checked them and said, “Locked, with multiple alarms. I can bypass them, but it’ll take me a few minutes. Watch our backs in case this place has roaming guards.”
Bashir returned to the corner and cast occasional peeks back the way they had come, vigilant for any sign of patrolling security. Minutes later, Sarina said, “We’re in. Let’s go.” He rejoined her and slipped inside the executive suite.
The office was spacious and as luxurious as any Bashir had ever seen in the Federation. Whoever worked in it seemed to have a taste for well-crafted furniture, flowering plants, and abstract art that was half painting, half sculpture. Sarina and Bashir walked behind the desk, and she activated the computer terminal. Right away its holographic display came alive with a wild flurry of data. “Don’t worry,” Sarina said. “That’s just me using my suit’s HUD to hack this terminal.” The crazy hash of symbols in the holomatrix slowed and stabilized, and then it showed a collection of simple icons and Breen ideograms. “There we go,” Sarina said.
Leaning closer, Bashir asked, “What are we looking at?”
“Classified shipping manifests. This tower houses a factory for precision computer parts. Looks like they’re making components for a chroniton integrator.”
“One of the key elements in a slipstream drive,” Bashir said. “Where do the parts go after they leave here?”
Sarina called up a new screen of data. She recoiled slightly from the display. “This doesn’t look right.” She pointed out a specific line of information. “According to this, everything this factory makes gets sent to another facility here in Utyrak.” Looking up at Bashir, she added, “It all goes right to the waste-processing and recycling plant.”
“That has to be a mistake,” Bashir said. “Who would go to all the trouble and expense of creating precision parts just to send them for recycling?” As Bashir put together pieces of the puzzle in his imagination, a notion occurred to him. “The skiff pilot said this whole city is like one big government project, right? Is it possible they share a common information network?”
Sarina considered the question and then began keying commands into the computer. “I get it—you want me to hack the recycling plant from here.”
“Exactly. At the very least it’ll save us some walking.”
“Good thinking. Let me see if I can find— Hang on, I’ve got something. Daily shipping reports from each division are compiled for all the executives. Here’s yesterday’s report from the recycling plant.” She looked back at Bashir. “Does anything about that look odd to you?”
Bashir had to concentrate to translate the Breen written symbols. Once he did, however, he understood what Sarina was implying. “They’re shipping a lot of toxic waste for remote disposal.”
“Millions of metric tons in the past month,” Sarina said. “I don’t see many industries in this directory whose operations would generate toxic waste, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But I do see a lot of production plants sending massive amounts of material for recycling—and almost the exact same amount of total material leaving the recycling plant for a disposal protocol.”
“Wherever that ship is dumping its payload is the hidden shipyard,” Sarina said. “The scow doesn’t have warp drive, so it has to be somewhere local.”
“Do the manifests specify where the disposal site is?”
“No,” Sarina said. “I’d bet that info’s kept on a need-to-know basis.”
“Well, I can tell you one person who’d definitely need to know,” Bashir said. “The pilot of the garbage scow leaving the recycling plant in forty minutes.”
Sarina logged off the network, shut down the terminal, and stood up. “Let’s go hitch a ride to the shipyard.”
“And how are we supposed to get inside the recycling plant?”
“Easy,” she said. “We’ll just walk in.”
Half an hour later, Bashir and Sarina entered the recycling plant on the other side of Utyrak. Just as she had said, they were walking in. What she had neglected to mention was that they were doing so underwater.
Most of the so-called waste delivered to the facility arrived via the city’s waterways in long, flat-bottomed barges that cruised inside the recycling tower through a wide passage cut into one side of its broad base. The barges’ contents were unloaded by massive machines whose powerful vibrations kept the water between the plant’s internal quays agitated and murky—providing much-needed cover for Bashir and Sarina as they strolled along the sludge-covered bottom.
The numerous enhancements Starfleet Intelligence had made to Bashir’s and Sarina’s helmet visors were the only things that spared Bashir from being blind and lost in the cloudy, polluted water. Passive sensors updated his HUD with such basic data as his current depth, remaining air supply, and direction. Light amplifiers and filters helped him pierce the opaque waters up to a point and provided him with virtual wireframes of objects beyond his visible range. Noting a shape emerging from the gloom, he said, “Ladder at eleven o’clock, in the corner.”
“I see it,” Sarina replied over the transceiver. “Let’s hope it comes up someplace dark and out of the way.” She reached the ladder first and started climbing, and Bashir stayed a few rungs below her. Near the surface, she slowed and looked around. “Clear,” she said and climbed out of the water.
Bashir broke the surface and scrambled onto a concrete ledge beside Sarina. They were at the end of the tower’s outer bay, near a lock separating it from a massive interior harbor. In its center, a cargo ship that had been converted into a garbage scow stood on an open circular elevator platform. “Am I imagining this,” he said to Sarina, “or is the inside of this tower almost entirely hollow?”
“That’s what it looks like,” she said. “At least the lower half, anyway. The upper half might house offices or storage spaces, but I’d guess at least a quarter of its volume is needed to power the lift platform beneath that ship.” She nodded at the scow. “We have less than ten minutes to find a way onto that ship. There’s no telling how long it’ll be until the next one.”
A bell rang, its clanging loud and bright and echoing in the yawning space. Overhead, a spinning light flashed. Looking back the way he and Sarina had come, Bashir saw a barge motoring toward the lock. “Back in the water,” he said, stepping off the ledge and sinking into the murk. Sarina submerged beside him as he activated his transceiver to tell her, “We can slip inside the main bay when they lower the lock for the barge.”
“Good thinking,” Sarina said. She stayed close at his side as they edged toward the lock. As Bashir had predicted, it retracted downward, kicking up more silt and sludge. The barge rumbled overhead. Its motor’s vibrations were so intense that Bashir imagined his internal organs shaking against one another. Pushing forward against the wall of water while his feet slipped over greasy mud, Bashir stumbled over the edge of the lock. Sarina took his hand to steady herself, and then they were over the barrier and inside the tower’s main bay.
“It’ll take too long to walk this underwater,” Bashir said.
Sarina pulled him toward another ladder to their left. “You’re right.”
This time Bashir climbed up first and used his HUD to scope the area for warm bodies, electronic surveillance, or light sources. “No company,” he said as he broke the surface, “but it’s a bit bright up here. We’d better keep moving.”
As soon as he was on the ledge he started walking toward the nearest patch of shadow, which was in a corridor more than a dozen meters away. Sarina remained close behind him, and as they stepped back into the shelter of half-light, she huddled against him. “I see six causeways leading out to the platform,” she said, nodding at the scow. “Four for cargo, two for personnel.”
Weighing their options, Bashir said, “The personnel bridges have security checkpoints, and there aren’t many people using them. Too risky, I think.” He pointed at the nearest crossing. “All the cargo goes over sealed in
side garbage pods. That looks like our best bet. We can move one of those empty pods into the queue over there, then climb in and ride it across.”
“Nice idea—in theory,” Sarina said. “But if the system’s that heavily automated, it probably uses computer-tracked inventory for loading and offloading. Putting an unscheduled pod into the system might send up a red flag. Or worse, get you dumped into a real recycling furnace. Judging from the flame jets on the outside of this place, they must be running at least a few for appearance’s sake.”
“Inserting a pod on this side of the inventory control scanner will at least get us to the platform,” Bashir said. “We have six minutes. If you have a better idea, this would be the time to share it.”
“Okay, let’s go hijack a trash pod.” They jogged in crouching poses to the cargo access portal. Sarina checked its control panel. “It’s not locked.”
“This pod’s empty,” Bashir said, guiding the lightweight metal shell over a track of rolling bars that led to the access portal. He opened the panel on its side and gestured for Sarina to step inside. “Your chariot awaits.”
“You first,” she said. “I’ll have an easier time working the override on this control panel. Get in and hold the door open for me.”
Bashir stooped and tucked himself inside the pod. He steadied himself with one hand and held open the pod’s hatch with the other. Sarina guided the pod into the pneumatic tube that would propel it across the open expanse of black water to the scow’s launch platform.
She had just started entering commands into the access panel when the deep, angry buzz of an alarm resounded throughout the entire facility, followed by a masculine Breen voice: “Attention, all personnel. This is a security control alert from the Breen Intelligence Directorate. Human spies have infiltrated Salavat. All communication and public-transit systems are locked down. Remain where you are and cease all operations until your identichip credentials have been verified by Confederate security officers. This is not a drill. Attention, all personnel: This is a security control alert …”
As the message repeated, Bashir struggled to mask his growing dread. “That’s not good,” he said.
“No, it’s not.” Sarina punched in a final command on the cargo console, said “Have a nice trip,” and then reached over to shut the pod’s hatch from the outside.
He held the door open. “What’re you doing? Get in!”
“Julian, they’re locking everything down. This pod’ll get you most of the way to the platform. I’ll make a distraction and buy you time to reach the ship.”
“No! We’re not splitting up! I’m not leaving you here!”
She punched him in his mask’s snout and knocked him back inside the pod. “No time to talk,” she said, adding as the hatch closed, “Don’t let me down.” The door closed with a leaden thunk, and Bashir was pinned to the back of the pod by its sudden acceleration. His memory echoed with the sound of the closing airlock door that had riven him from Sarina six years earlier as he hurtled away, once again forced to go on without her … alone.
Julian will be all right, Sarina told herself. He has every advantage, even if he doesn’t seem to realize it yet. Watching his trash pod shoot away inside the pressurized tube mounted under the causeway, she reassured herself one more time that she hadn’t just done something terrible. He’ll be fine.
She made some rapid-fire mental calculations. Based on the pressure inside the tube, her best estimation of Julian’s mass, and the distance to the scow’s platform, she deduced that it would take his pod sixteen point nine seconds to make the crossing. Keeping track of the elapsing seconds in her mind, she walked away from the access portal. When her countdown reached arrival minus four seconds, the hiss of pressurized air inside the tube went silent and she knew that Julian had been halted nearly a dozen meters shy of the platform. She had no idea how he would reach the scow; she knew only that it was her duty to provide a compelling distraction that would buy him the time he needed.
Ducking down a side passage, she saw two armed Breen soldiers walking toward her. One lifted his neural truncheon and pointed it at Sarina. “Stop!” he said in a commanding tone. “We need to verify your credentials.”
There were more footsteps drawing closer behind her. Retreating would not have been an option in any event, because it would only lead her pursuers back toward the access hatch through which she had sent Julian. For his sake, she needed to press on and bring with her as many of the base’s personnel as possible.
Sarina halted and waited for the soldiers to reach her. They were broadly built and stood a head taller than she did. Confronting her at point-blank range, the one with the truncheon waved it in her face. “Identify yourself,” he said.
“Hesh Rin, Confederate Information Bureau,” Sarina said, figuring that if her cover was blown she was as good as discovered, and if it wasn’t, it soon would be, anyway. Striking a defiant pose, she added, “Identify yourselves.”
The two soldiers seemed taken aback, stunned at having their demand parroted back to them. They looked at each other in apparent confusion.
Sarina struck with her left palm and drove the tip of the first soldier’s neural truncheon into his chest. There was a sharp crackle and a flash of light as the Breen guard’s body was racked by spasms. As he began to collapse, she slammed her right palm into the snout of the second soldier’s mask. He staggered backward. Sarina yanked the truncheon from the first soldier’s hands, leaped on top of the second man, and drove the end of the truncheon into his throat. A single jolt was enough to stun the man into unconsciousness.
Behind her, another vocoder voice squawked, “Stop that person!”
She looked back. A trio of armed guards charged toward her while drawing handheld weapons. Sarina plucked a disruptor from the belt of the second soldier she’d felled, fired at her pursuers to slow them down, and then started running.
Her only objectives were to keep moving away from Julian and to draw as much attention as she could. Ducking through a maze of large machines, she fired at anything that looked like it might explode, vent toxic fumes, or spill something hazardous. Smoke, vapor, and flames erupted in her wake. She led a growing cluster of Breen soldiers on a winding chase through a sublevel crowded with pipes, up a ladder to a series of linked catwalks above a huge smelting furnace, and into a sprawling cargo warehouse, where she sent a load lifter careening into a mountain of stacked shipping containers with one well-placed disruptor blast into its front axle. For a moment she entertained the possibility that she might even be so lucky as to evade the swarming Breen security forces and make a clean escape.
Then she rounded a corner to find a skirmish line of Breen troops waiting for her, weapons leveled and ready, in the main aisle of the warehouse.
A mad clatter of footsteps came to an abrupt halt behind her. She was surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. A silence heavy with anticipation fell between her and the Breen who held her in their sights. Sarina didn’t know whether they planned to kill her or stun her as a prelude to arrest.
Wincing at a flash of weapons fire, she realized she would have her answer only when—or if—she woke up again.
34
The pod lurched to a stop and slammed Bashir against its forward-facing side. He had been counting the seconds since Sarina had launched him across the causeway. I can’t be at the platform yet, he realized. It would’ve taken another four seconds to cross the full distance. Assembling the available facts into a plausible scenario, he concluded that the security lockdown had halted his pod short of the scow.
He opened the pod’s hatch with caution. All he saw was the transparent shell of the transfer tube, the water beneath it, and, overhead, its linkages to the causeway. A brief but deep vibration was followed by a sensation of gradual backward motion. At first Bashir thought the pod was being pulled back the way it had come. Then he realized the tube and the causeway above it were moving. There wasn’t enough clearance between the pod and the tube’s wall
for him to look forward, but in the distance he observed the launch platform’s other bridges retracting.
Bashir drew his disruptor, stood back as far as possible from the pod’s hatchway, and fired a full-power shot at the tube’s wall. The energy pulse flashed against the transparent metal barrier but inflicted no damage beyond a minor discoloration. So much for that idea, Bashir decided.
Then he noticed that the shot had slagged the edges of the pod’s hatchway. He pressed his back against the pod’s rear wall and fired his weapon at the forward bulkhead. The front of the pod disintegrated into slag and fragments that scattered away inside the empty circular tube. Bashir leaped out of the pod and sprinted down the tube toward the slowly receding launch platform. Charging against the motion of the tube felt a bit surreal to Bashir—it was like something out of a dream, taking two steps forward and one step back, running just to stand still.
He stumbled to a halt at the open end of the tube. The platform was more than fifty meters away and growing more distant with each second. Bashir holstered his disruptor and drew his bolt thrower from the other side of his belt. Rather than secure the zip line inside the tube, he left its anchor bolt inside the device as he aimed at the launch pad.
As he settled upon a target, the platform started rising. You’ve got to be kidding, he thought, adjusting his aim. I’m going backward and it’s going up, so now I have to hit a moving target? It’s a far cry from beating Miles at darts …
Knowing he would get only one shot, he calculated the multiple variables of relative motion, increasing range, and shifting trajectory, exhaled to steady his hands, and squeezed the trigger. The bolt shot out and sailed on a high, gentle arc toward the ascending platform. If not for Bashir’s enhanced eyesight, he might have lost track of the tiny metal bolt in flight. Instead, he followed it all the way to its mark, where it sank deep and stuck fast.
Half a second later the monofilament line jerked taut and pulled Bashir out of the tube. He swung through the air as he was pulled simultaneously forward, toward the center of the cavernous space, and up, toward the underside of the launch pad. Gritting his teeth, Bashir gripped the bolt thrower with both hands and hung on. Its tiny motor whirred as it winched him steadily upward.