Starfleet Intelligence Command
San Francisco, Earth
United Federation of Planets
Outside, the predawn light was turning the sky a shade of pale orange, but in the eternal artificial day of the evaluation center’s bullpen, there was nothing to mark the passage of time. Lieutenant Junior Grade Elias Vaughn made his way back to his desk with two cups of raktajino and settled into his chair. The virtual workspace in front of him was cluttered with a dozen padds and displays, even a few scraps of actual replicated paper lined with notes. He reached for the comm earpiece slaved to his console, turning it over in his fingers. A few hours of listening to the raw feed from Starfleet’s Fire-watch monitor stations had turned up nothing but some low-priority chatter from smugglers in the Hromi Cluster; he’d tagged the data and forwarded it to the appropriate analyst, but aside from that, Vaughn had not had a productive night.
“Is one of those for me?” He looked up to see Lieutenant Tracey Dale in the middle of shrugging off her coat. She didn’t look happy to be called in so early.
Vaughn shook his head. “Actually they’re both mine. I didn’t want to make two trips to the replicator.”
Dale made a face, her olive skin wrinkling, and took her desk across from his. “You got in early, then?”
He shook his head. “Never went home.”
She tutted. “You should try having a life outside Starfleet, Elias. Y’know? A social life? You’ve heard of those?”
“I’m familiar with the concept,” he deadpanned. For a moment he considered the small, sparse apartment where he stored his personal effects. He thought of it that way because it wasn’t really a home for him, just a place where he stowed things he couldn’t carry on him, and occasionally parked his body. He’d been there a couple of years now and most of his stuff was still in the shipping crates that had followed him from Berengaria VII. Somehow, he’d never had the impetus to unpack it all. There were always other things to be done, other work.
Dale paged through the alerts at the top of her data queue, talking as she read. “Everyone got a wake-up call,” said the lieutenant. “Commander Egan is bringing in the whole team because of this Da’Kel thing.”
She nodded toward Per Egan’s glass-walled office, at the far end of the room. The stocky, grey-haired officer was working, grim-faced, at his desk monitor. For all Vaughn’s dedication to the job, it seemed as if Egan really did live every day of his life inside the evaluation center, tirelessly stalking between the desks of his staff. Dale had once, half-jokingly, suggested that Egan was actually some kind of android and not a human being at all; nothing Vaughn had seen from the commander since he had been assigned to this division had convinced him otherwise. The man was humorless and acerbic, and seemed to consider the operation of any other division but his own to be an impediment. He’d taken a dislike to Vaughn early on, and their relationship showed no signs of thawing.
“You saw the President’s press conference?” she went on.
“Yeah.” Vaughn had watched Ra-ghoratreii’s live broadcast from the Palais on the main screen, and the politician had barely finished speaking before Egan was handing out new assignments. “Do you know who they’ve picked for the investigation team?”
“It’s not a team, it’s one man. Miller, from field ops. He’s one of their top guns, apparently.”
“You think he needs someone to carry his bags?”
Dale smirked. “What, you don’t like it here?”
The team that Vaughn was part of was just one of several units working in the Office of Intelligence Evaluation, each dedicated to sifting through the gigaquads of data that flooded into Starfleet Intelligence every day, looking for nuggets of information about threats to the Federation or the galaxy at large. Even with suites of dedicated artificial intelligences working in tandem with them, it was a monumental task—and it never stopped. The agents in field operations had a nickname for the OIE division: they called it the “jigsaw department,” for two reasons. First, because the staff who worked there spent all their time evaluating and assembling fragments of a colossal picture that could never be fully completed; and second, because to want to do that kind of job meant you had to have a few pieces missing yourself.
Vaughn had taken a posting to OIE because he believed his analytical skills would be of use there, and also that it would stand him in good stead for eventual advancement to a field deployment. It hadn’t quite worked out that way, though, and the steady, grinding pace of the assignment was wearing him down little by little with each passing day.
He sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “What do you think about this, Lieutenant?” He indicated his screen, where notes on the Klingon investigation at Da’Kel were displayed. “Isolationist hard-liners, coming out of the woodwork after nearly a decade of silence? I don’t buy it.”
Dale glanced at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be scanning the Firewatch feeds?”
Vaughn didn’t answer that. “I took a look at the files we have. The people Ambassador Kasiel was talking about, they were connected to a fallen noble clan out of Ty’Gokor, the House of Q’unat. Very old-school Klingons—strict traditionalists. That catchphrase of theirs? Comes from a myth from Klingon prehistory,” he noted. “There’s this story that tells of how their great leader Kahless knew there was a turncoat in his camp, so he made them all stand with their backs to a huge fire. When the light from the fire fell on them, one warrior, who was a spy for Kahless’s brother Molor, had no shadow. Kahless declared that because the man was a traitor, his shadow itself had fled because he was such a disgrace. Then he executed him.” Vaughn made a throat-cutting gesture.
“While the lesson in Klingon mythology is fascinating, what does that have to do with the bombing at Da’Kel?” Dale asked.
He pointed at his screen. “We’ve got unconfirmed reports here from a few years back saying the Q’unat clan were wiped out by some internal feud. And then there’s the methodology. Isolytic weapons hidden on a Tellarite transport? That’s not how they did things. They were open about their opposition: they didn’t hide their faces. They wanted people to see them coming.”
“You said it yourself, ten years have passed,” Dale pointed out. “Things change.”
He shook his head and shot her a look. “Am I the only one who doesn’t think this smells right?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she told him. “But the fact is, that’s not your assignment, Elias. Egan wants you going through comm traffic, that’s what you have to do.”
For a long moment Vaughn was silent; then his hand strayed to the old scar that ran along his neck as a thought occurred to him. “You’re right, Lieutenant. Comm traffic. That’s exactly what I should be looking at.”
He drained the first cup of raktajino to the dregs and then started on the next, bringing up a cascade of new data panes across his screen.
The second cup turned cold and sour as the hours passed by; Vaughn forgot it as he lost himself in a maze of new discoveries.
Commander Egan looked up from his screen as he heard a tap on the glass of his door. He frowned to see Lieutenant Vaughn waiting outside, holding a padd in his hand. Egan beckoned him into his office without breaking the stride of his conversation.
“I appreciate your concern, Commander Gravenor,” he told the woman on the monitor, “but you have to understand that we’re not miracle workers. I can’t simply pull the data you need from thin air. This is an ongoing process.”
He directed Vaughn to stand and wait, and the younger officer glanced down, catching sight of the petite woman on the screen.
“We’re moving very swiftly on this,” said Gravenor. “Expedience would be appreciated. Frankly, we have no idea how long the Klingons are going to tolerate our presence at the site. The local military commander has already filed a formal complaint with the High Council. If we can show them we have something to offer in this investigation—”
“I understand,” he sniffed. “I promise your people will
be the first to get any viable intelligence we have. Egan out.” He tapped the console and cut the channel. “What is it?” he asked without sparing Vaughn a look.
“Sir, I think I have something you should see.” Vaughn launched into a quick replay of his discussion with Dale out in the bullpen, barely pausing for breath. He explained the disconnect between the House of Q’unat and the line of attack used against Da’Kel, along with the fragmentary report stating that the clan was no longer active.
Egan took the padd he offered and gave it a cursory once-over. “This is what you interrupted me for? A couple of suspicions and a six-year-old piece of intelligence from an unreliable, unconfirmed source?”
“Commander, I think it’s more than that.”
Egan gave him a level look. “Lieutenant Vaughn, do you think I am unaware of the transfer applications you have made to the field operations division? Do you believe I haven’t noticed that you consider the work we do here in OIE to be . . . I think ‘deskbound’ is the word you used?” He sniffed. “You believe you’re capable of undertaking field missions?”
“I have before, sir.”
Egan almost rolled his eyes. “Escorting some alien relic is a far cry from SI’s standard remit.” The previous year Vaughn had been given an atypical off-world assignment to ensure the recovery of a stolen Linellian fluid effigy, and since his return, he had become . . . unsettled. “You were sent on that mission because no experienced agents were available. Don’t make too much of it. It doesn’t mean you’re better than the rest of us.”
Vaughn stiffened. “I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and this department, sir.”
Egan’s face grew a thin line of scorn. “I don’t think you do. I think you’re so eager to get into the field that you’re ignoring your assignments to bring me things like this.” He waved the padd in the air. “There are people working on all nuances of the Da’Kel incident as we speak. Let them do their jobs, and you do yours.”
“Again, with respect,” Vaughn replied, “no one seems to have made the Q’unat connection yet. And as Commander Gravenor just noted, time is of the essence.”
Mentioning Egan’s opposite number in field ops was the wrong thing to do, and Vaughn knew it the moment the words had left his lips; but it was too late to take it back.
Egan leaned in. “I need team players in this division, Vaughn. Analysts who can think and compose data, not officers who entertain fantasies of undercover missions on exotic worlds.”
Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “Sir, may I have permission to speak freely?”
“Absolutely not,” Egan replied. “Now, unless you have something of import to say to me—”
“I do,” he insisted. Before Egan could stop him, he launched into another explanation. “First, the merchantman that carried the isolytic weapon, I recognized the design. That type of vessel is not Tellarite, even though it was registered to a Tellarite shipping concern. They rarely use alien hardware if they can help it. Second, based on the ship’s entry vector into the Da’Kel System, I did some quick-and-dirty calculations and extrapolated a likely course. It looks like it came from inside the Klingon Empire.”
“Which lends credence to the isolationists as the culprits.”
“Possibly,” Vaughn admitted, “but it also means the merchantman passed through sectors of space being monitored by our covert Firewatch monitors. So, using the subspace fingerprint from the warning message, I set the filters on the communications tracking subroutines to look for something similar.” He paused to take a breath. “I got some hits.”
Egan looked at the data. It showed evidence of several short-duration signals, each one plucked from the raging noise of the stellar medium by Starfleet’s patient, careful scanners. “This is vague at best. A lot of this data is corrupted.”
“Actually, sir, I think it might be encrypted.”
“How can you be sure it’s from the same ship?”
Vaughn pointed at something on the padd. “This, sir. Each transmission is prefixed with a single word, broadcast in the clear.”
Egan read it aloud. “Kallisti. Another Klingon phrase. . .”
The lieutenant was almost eager. “I thought so at first. But it’s something else, Commander. A code word.”
The officer tapped a control and entered the term into his console. Immediately, it returned a sealed file notation. Only a series of tags were present, the actual file itself apparently redacted out of existence. What was there gave Egan a moment’s pause. “This . . . this is data connected to the Gorkon assassination in ‘93.”
“That’s right. And it references one of the conspirators. The Vulcan woman, Valeris,” said Vaughn, a hard edge of antipathy in his voice. “But there’s nothing else there.”
Egan stared at the screen for a long moment, silently considering what he saw. Then he looked up and met the lieutenant’s gaze. “You’re correct, there is nothing there.”
“Sir?”
The commander shook his head. “The forest for the trees, Lieutenant. You’re confusing the presence of vague data with the presence of what you’re looking for.” He pushed the padd back across his desk. “This is nothing more than a collection of random elements that hang together to resemble a pattern, when in fact it is nothing of the sort. This is exactly the reason that the Office of Intelligence Evaluation exists! To evaluate, consider, and, if needed, discard information.” Egan’s lips thinned. “I suggest you return to your assignment and carry on, instead of stitching together haphazard pieces of data.”
“Commander, I honestly believe there could be something to this.” Vaughn stood his ground. “I have a. . .”
“A what?” Egan demanded. “Were you actually going to tell me you had a gut feeling, Mister Vaughn?” He glared at the junior officer. “We do not operate on instincts and raw intuition in my department. We operate on proven facts.” The commander folded his arms. “I will pass on what you have here, get another set of eyes to evaluate it. But frankly, this looks like little more than static to me.”
“Which means it’ll get buried under a pile of other low-priority intel,” Vaughn retorted. “Let me ask you this, sir. If it was any other officer that presented this to you, would you have heard them out?”
The temperature in the room seemed to fall ten degrees when Egan spoke again. “I did hear you out, mister. And I resent the implication that I would dismiss any viable source of intelligence because of personal bias.” He pointed at the door. “Now, get out of my office before I write you up for insubordination.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the lieutenant, and after a long moment, turned on his heel.
Starfleet Penal Stockade
Jaros II
United Federation of Planets
The veranda looked out over the open quad, which was empty except for a pair of mutterbirds jostling with each other for an insect at the edge of the grasses. The sunlight was hard, casting sharp-edged shadows around the rim of the fabric portico. Tancreda removed her polarized glasses as she stepped into the shade.
Valeris sat cross-legged on the ground, staring out at the ring of foothills that marked the perimeter of the facility grounds. “I chose not to return for another session,” she said without looking up. “I assume I will be penalized for that transgression. A loss of privileges.”
Tancreda found a chair and sat. “We don’t have to talk in the meeting room.”
“I would prefer it if we did not talk at all.”
The Betazoid thought about the conversation with Spock the day before in the corridor. How would Valeris react if she told her he had been here? Would it shock her into opening up? Or would it close her down even tighter than before? Tancreda decided not to mention it for the moment. “You and I have to do this, Valeris. The interviews are a part of the psychoanalytical regimen that forms a key element of your prison sentence. If you ever hope to have the parole evaluation board—”
“Grant me release?” She let out a faint sigh. “We both k
now that will never happen. I am a convict. I have shown no remorse for the crimes I committed. I will remain in this prison until my life ends.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“You advocate an alternative where none exists. Nothing I say or do will convince anyone that I should be given my freedom. You labor under the mistaken assumption that I am somehow morally ‘broken’ and therefore can be ‘repaired’ by your diligent efforts.” At last, Valeris spared her a look. “I reject the implication that I am an experiment, or some puzzle for you to solve.”
“I have never suggested that!” Tancreda replied. “I’m just trying to . . . understand you. I don’t know why you did what you did, but there had to be reasons that you believed in. You’re a logical being. You must have thought you had a logical reason.”
Valeris looked away again, out at the sun-bleached rocks. “One would think so,” she said quietly.
Tancreda saw an opening and took it. “Until the Enterprise made its rendezvous with Kronos One, your role in the conspiracy had been relatively minor . . . What changed? Did you regret what you did? Did you feel . . . remorse?”
“Remorse is an emotional reaction.” The reply was rote.
“Something Vulcans feel just like any other being, they’re just better at hiding it.”
When she spoke again, Valeris’s tone was cool and conversational, and it lent her words a chilling air. “You would like me to tell you how I felt as I killed two men. Their names were Harlan Burke and Thomas Samno. Both noncommissioned officers, placed aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise by Admiral Cartwright. We knew each other. We knew we had roles to play. But, unfortunately for them, circumstances did not follow the expected pattern.”
According to the data on the Gorkon assassination, hidden inside EVA suits, Burke and Samno had beamed aboard the chancellor’s personal cruiser and killed several members of the crew after a cloaked Klingon bird-of-prey had fired on the vessel and disabled it. The two of them had fired the phaser shots that were ultimately responsible for Gorkon’s death, and in the aftermath those actions pushed Enterprise and Kronos One into a battle stance. It was only the refusal of Captain James T. Kirk to let the situation devolve into open conflict that prevented the ignition of a shooting war then and there.
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