Star Trek: Typhon Pact 06: Plagues of Night

by David R. George III

  The remains of Eletrix looked worse than that.

  Whatever had attacked or afflicted the Romulan vessel and its crew had done so with devastating effect. The ship appeared to have hurtled at tremendous velocity into the planet, virtually disintegrating on impact. Not like the corpse of an individual who has fallen to his death from a great height, Picard thought, but like the remnant ashes of somebody who has strapped a jetpack to his back and flown himself into the ground.

  The moon on which Eletrix had crashed possessed no atmosphere, complicating the direct study of the wreckage by requiring away teams to don environmental suits. Worf had spent the last couple of days leading medical personnel, engineers, and scientists down to the surface in an attempt to make sense of what had taken place. Picard wanted to be able to provide a full report, for review not only by Starfleet Command and the Federation Council, but by the Romulan Imperial Fleet and the Romulan Senate.

  Initially, a search for survivors had been the top priority, but the severity of the crash had quickly dashed even the most hopeful thoughts. The Enterprise crew did not locate a single body, and very few body parts. That could have been cause for suspicion, but if the hull of a Romulan warbird had been reduced to dust, what chance had there been for mere flesh? Sensors did indicate a massive amount of genetic material, though—enough to account for the loss of a crew numbering more than a thousand.

  The image on the bridge’s main screen showed a view of Eletrix’s ruins from above, from one of Enterprise’s shuttles. The huge, dark mass of vaporized metal looked almost like something out of an inkblot test. What do you see here? Picard thought, and a phrase rose in his mind: The shroud of Eletrix.

  “Captain,” somebody said, snapping Picard back from his thoughts. He had to replay the word in his head to determine who had spoken.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” he said, peering over to Jasminder Choudhury at the tactical station.

  “It’s seventeen hundred ten hours, sir,” she said.

  For a few seconds, the significance of Choudhury’s statement eluded Picard, so focused had he been on the fate of Eletrix and its crew. Then he recalled that the Enterprise crew should have received their regular comm packet from Starfleet by seventeen hundred hours—if not new orders even sooner than that, given the circumstances. Immediately after discovering the crash of Eletrix, Picard had sent a coded message to Starfleet Command, informing them of what had taken place. The transmission had been marked priority one, and so should have been acknowledged upon routing through Deep Space 9. The Enterprise had received no such acknowledgment. Of even greater concern, no response had arrived from Starfleet—not in a single message, not in the regular comm packet the day before, and as he’d just been informed by Choudhury, not in the regular comm packet that day.

  “And sensors show no local interference?” Picard asked. He stood up and walked over to face Choudhury from across the tactical station.

  “I see nothing on local or long-range scans,” Choudhury said. “I’ve also run multiple diagnostics on our communications equipment, and I’ve found nothing wrong.”

  Picard nodded, deeply concerned by the lack of contact with Starfleet. The Enterprise crew hadn’t traveled for that long or across that great a distance since entering the Gamma Quadrant. Along the way, they hadn’t encountered any phenomena that might have forecast future communications problems. “But something is definitely wrong,” he said.

  “I think so, sir, yes,” Choudhury said. “It’s a feeling, maybe colored by what’s happened, but yes, I think something’s wrong.”

  At the main engineering station at the rear of the bridge, Commander La Forge turned in his chair to face Picard. “I’m in agreement, Captain,” he said.

  “And is this a feeling for you too, Mister La Forge?” Picard asked.

  The chief engineer rose and stepped forward. “It is, sir,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking about this since it happened, and the circumstances just seem suspect to me.” He paused, then added, “It’s a feeling, but I’d say that it’s a well-founded feeling.”

  “Well-founded how?” Picard asked.

  La Forge shook his head. “I’ve had plenty of dealings with the Romulans over the years,” he said. “I know we all have, but … I don’t know. Their distress call … it just sounded … too desperate for a Romulan.”

  “Surely if the Eletrix crew were in genuine and immediate danger,” Picard said, “their captain would be anxious to call for help.”

  “Yes, of course,” La Forge agreed. “But add to that the fact that the wreckage of the Eletrix is so catastrophic that there are virtually no intact pieces of the ship left, and almost no remains of the crew recognizable as such.”

  “You’re suggesting that Commander T’Jul and her crew have perpetrated a ruse,” Picard said.

  La Forge walked around the tactical console and descended the steps to the bridge’s lowest tier. Facing Picard directly, he said, “Think about it, Captain. Since the supposed incident, we’ve had no contact with Starfleet. We have no confirmation that they’ve received any of our messages, and we’ve received none of their regularly scheduled communiqués. If the Romulans have faked all of this—” He pointed toward the forward section of the bridge, in the direction of the main viewscreen. “—then it could well be the crew of the Eletrix who are interfering with our transmissions.”

  Picard understood the inclination of his chief engineer, or any member of the Enterprise crew—or anybody within Starfleet, for that matter—to distrust the Romulans. In agreeing to participate in the joint exploration of the Gamma Quadrant, the captain himself had needed to fight against his own such feelings, to distance himself from the recollections of his many combative experiences with members of the Imperial Fleet—including, specifically, Tomalak. Picard had wanted to believe that the new praetor truly sought peaceful coexistence, and even cooperation, but in his rush to work toward those goals himself, had he been too forgiving?

  Picard turned toward the main viewer and regarded the grim scene on the moon about which Enterprise orbited. “Lieutenant Choudhury,” he said, “how is our study of the Eletrix debris going?”

  “We’re not learning much,” Choudhury said, “but we have collected a considerable set of readings. It may take some time, but eventually we should be able to figure out what happened.”

  “Are you satisfied with the amount and quality of the information we’ve gathered here?” Picard wanted to know.

  “Sir?” she said, apparently sensing that something in particular motivated the captain’s question.

  “If we depart within the next few hours,” Picard elucidated, “would that significantly affect our analysis of the crash?”

  “Not significantly, no,” Choudhury said.

  “Thank you,” Picard said. He looked at La Forge, then returned to the command chair. “Open a channel to the Chawla.”

  “Channel open, Captain,” Choudhury said almost at once.

  “Picard to Shuttlecraft Chawla.”

  “This is Chawla. Worf here,” came the reply of the ship’s first officer.

  “Number One, I want you to recall each of your away teams to the Enterprise,” Picard said. “How long will that take?”

  “I should be able to have all crew and equipment back aboard within ninety minutes, Captain,” Worf said.

  “Very good, Commander,” Picard said. “Make it so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Picard out.” Looking to the conn, he said, “Lieutenant Faur, set course for the Bajoran wormhole. Be prepared to go to warp nine as soon as all of the away teams are back on board.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Faur.

  Picard paused, then said what he thought his entire bridge crew wanted to hear—and what he wanted to hear himself. “We’re going home.”

  La Forge moved to the first officer’s chair beside Picard and sat down. “Captain,” he said, “before we depart, I think there’s something else we might try.”

&nbs
p; “Yes, Mister La Forge?” he asked.

  “There’s another Starfleet vessel in the Gamma Quadrant,” La Forge said. “If I’m not mistaken, its crew should be nearing the completion of their mission, meaning that they should be even closer to the wormhole than we are. If we try to contact them, perhaps our success or failure to do so can tell us whether or not our communications are being blocked, by the Romulans or anybody else.”

  Picard nodded. “Well considered, Geordi,” he said. La Forge continued to impress in his transition to a senior command position aboard Enterprise.

  Picard stood from his chair and looked again to his tactical officer. “Lieutenant Choudhury,” he said, “record a message to Captain Benjamin Sisko aboard the Robinson.”

  32

  “Captain Sisko,” said Lieutenant Commander Uteln from the tactical station, “we’re receiving a transmission. It’s coded priority one, marked captain’s eyes only.”

  Sisko looked up from the command chair on the Robinson bridge. “From Deep Space Nine?” he asked. He felt relieved to finally be in contact with the station again, though the urgency of the message concerned him.

  The Deltan officer worked the controls on his panel. “No, sir,” he reported. “The message originated from within the Gamma Quadrant, but from a different direction than that of the wormhole. It’s from the Enterprise.”

  “The Enterprise?” Sisko said. He knew from Starfleet Command that Captain Picard’s crew had recently embarked on a historic joint exploratory mission with the Romulans, but he’d had no reason to anticipate any communication with them.

  “Why are they contacting us?” asked Commander Rogeiro, echoing Sisko’s own thoughts. The first officer sat to the captain’s right.

  “That’s a good question,” Sisko said, rising from the command chair. Looking toward the tactical station, he asked, “Is it a distress signal?”

  “Negative, sir,” Uteln said.

  Sisko peered down at Rogeiro. “Maybe they’ve lost contact with Starfleet as well,” the captain suggested.

  “Maybe,” Rogeiro said. “And at least we know with certainty now that our comm system’s working.”

  Sisko nodded, then looked back up at the tactical officer. “Mister Uteln, route the message to my ready room.” To Rogeiro, he said, “Commander, you have the bridge.”

  The captain crossed past the ops console and entered his ready room. Inside, he walked directly to his desk, reached for the computer interface atop it, and turned the screen to face him. On it, he saw the skewed chevron of the Starfleet emblem, above the words INCOMING TRANSMISSION. He tapped a control, and the image of Jean-Luc Picard appeared. He looked older than when Sisko had last seen him, though perhaps the serious expression on the captain’s face contributed to that impression.

  No, it’s not that, Sisko thought. Picard always looks serious.

  “Captain Sisko, this is Captain Picard of the Enterprise,” he said. “As I’m sure Starfleet Command has detailed for you, my crew have undertaken a mission of exploration into the Gamma Quadrant with the crew of the Romulan vessel Eletrix.” Picard paused and took a deep breath. “Captain, we have had an … incident.”

  Sisko immediately wondered about the nature of the “incident,” as well as why the Enterprise captain clearly chose not to discuss it. It occurred to him that perhaps Picard did not want to risk the message being intercepted and thereby revealed to others.

  “The crew of the Enterprise are fine, and we are in no danger,” Picard continued. “But over the course of the last two or three days, we have lost touch with Deep Space Nine.”

  At the mention of the station, Sisko grew immediately concerned. He could not help but think of Kasidy’s intention to bring Rebecca with her on a freight run aboard Xhosa, which would end at DS9. Nor did his mind ever stray too far from the warning the Prophets had issued all those years ago.

  “It is unclear whether our transmissions are being jammed somewhere along the way, or whether there might simply be an equipment failure aboard the station or on the Gamma Quadrant communications relay,” Picard went on. “If you are receiving this message, then it seems more than likely that the latter is the case, especially if the Robinson crew are experiencing the same sort of difficulties.”

  Of course, thought Sisko, there could be other reasons why the crew of Deep Space Nine haven’t responded to messages from either the Enterprise or the Robinson. He visualized the station under attack, something he had experienced numerous times while he’d commanded DS9. And while Starfleet had posted Canterbury to aid Defiant in defending the station, the wormhole, and Bajor, it could also be the case that, despite their present locations in the Gamma Quadrant, Robinson and Enterprise were the next nearest vessels.

  “Captain Sisko,” Picard concluded, “if you receive this message, please reply at once and let us know the status of the Robinson crew’s communications with Deep Space Nine. I await your reply.” The image of the Enterprise captain vanished, replaced by the Starfleet emblem.

  Sisko walked around his desk and sat down behind it. He considered the situation. Both his crew and Captain Picard’s had received no transmissions from DS9 for more than two days. Add to that the presence in the Gamma Quadrant not only of scores of civilian Typhon Pact vessels, but also a Romulan warbird. And though Sisko had no idea what sort of “incident” the Enterprise crew had experienced, he suspected that it could not be considered something positive.

  With his concerns growing, he reached forward and turned the computer interface on his desk toward him. He touched a control and said, “Computer, record a message to Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Encode it priority one and captain’s eyes only.”

  “Recording,” announced the computer, the word itself appearing on the screen.

  “Captain Picard,” Sisko said, “I have received your message aboard the Robinson. Like your ship, mine has also lost contact with Starfleet and Deep Space Nine. We have received none of our regularly scheduled comm packets in the last two days, nor any other transmissions other than the one you sent. And like you, I am concerned about the sudden subspace silence.” Again, Sisko saw in his mind’s eye some of the vessels that had mounted attacks on DS9 while he’d commanded the station: Cardassian ships, Klingon ships, Breen, Jem’Hadar—

  “Computer, pause recording.” Two quick tones verified the order. “Sisko to bridge.”

  “Rogeiro here, Captain,” replied the first officer. “Go ahead.”

  “Commander, lay in a direct course for the wormhole,” he said. On the last leg of the Robinson crew’s journey through the Gamma Quadrant, they would be doing nothing but recharting a region of space already mapped by Starfleet. And that, Sisko decided, can wait. “Take us to warp nine.”

  “Aye, sir,” Rogeiro said.

  “Sisko out.”

  He would complete his message to Captain Picard, but first he waited. Seconds passed, perhaps half a minute, then another. At last, he felt the change in the vibrations flowing through the ship. His momentum shifted almost imperceptibly as the inertial dampers worked to adjust to Robinson’s course change, and then the thrum of the warp engines surged in intensity as the ship leaped to dramatically higher velocities. It would take mere days, and not weeks, to reach the Bajoran wormhole, and beyond it, the Alpha Quadrant and Deep Space 9.

  Sisko could only hope that would be soon enough.

  33

  Ren Fejin floated uncontrolled above the planetary system’s orbital plateau, dying, but not dead.

  At least, seemingly not dead, thought Commander Orventa T’Jul. But perhaps reanimated.

  Perched on the edge of her command chair on the bridge of Eletrix, T’Jul observed the Breen cargo vessel as it tumbled slowly across the primary viewscreen. From his position at the sensor panel, Sublieutenant Vorsat had reported many of Ren Fejin’s systems down: engines and thrusters, shields, communications, transporter, and as T’Jul herself could see, the cloak. Emergency power functioned, and th
e entire ship’s complement—thirteen Breen and one Romulan—registered as alive, although life support operated at minimal levels. As various aspects of the asymmetrical freighter twisted into the light of the Overne sun, the reason for the vessel’s failures became evident: irregular black patches spread across its hull.

  “It’s taken fire,” said Tomalak, noting the obvious. He stood beside T’Jul’s command chair, to her right. Opposite him, to her left, the lone Breen aboard waited without comment.

  Paying Tomalak no heed, T’Jul looked over at Sublieutenant Vorsat, who stood at the sensor station on the port side of the bridge. “What can you determine about the weapons that caused the damage?” asked the commander. With the Breen ship inside Dominion space, T’Jul knew the answer, but before she acted, she wanted to be absolutely certain of her facts. Something about the state of Ren Fejin troubled her, and she needed to figure out what that meant.

  “Energy readings on the hull indicate an assault employing polaron beams,” Vorsat said.

  “The Jem’Hadar,” said Tomalak, once again mentioning something readily apparent as though drawing an unexpected conclusion.

  During Tomalak’s time aboard Eletrix, T’Jul had grown to despise him. Aware of his long record of service to the Empire, and specifically of his decades in the Imperial Fleet, she nevertheless characterized his mind as dull. In the short span of the joint mission with the Enterprise crew, Tomalak had carried out the role of liaison adequately, but really, almost anybody on board with a modicum of organizational skills could have performed the task. He added nothing of value to the process of interfacing with the Starfleet officers, and he certainly fell far short of providing the knowledge, intelligence, and calming influence she had witnessed in Ambassador Spock.

  T’Jul had spent all of her adult life in the Imperial Fleet, not all of it easy. As a young officer, she faced all the same obstacles everybody did at that age and in that position, but her unusual appearance—her considerable height, her lighter hair, her green eyes—also contributed other challenges. Through her rise to warbird command, though, she saw most of the opposition to her, most of the suspicions, disappear in the bright light of her performance, like shadows banished by a noonday sun. She did not receive universal acceptance—nobody did—but she did gain the respect of many of her superiors along the way.