by David Mack
“Okay, so we throw FNS a bone,” Piñiero said. “We still need to talk about the political fallout. If the Typhon Pact was behind this, its ambassador will start talking tough as soon as she thinks she has us at a disadvantage.”
“Then we have to keep her on the defensive,” Bacco said. “But how do we stop Tezrene from feeding the real story to the press?”
Piñiero shrugged. “We play dumb and pretend to carry a big stick.”
“I’m listening,” Bacco said.
Shostakova nodded. “So am I.”
“Even though we can’t admit the data theft occurred, the Typhon Pact knows that losing the monopoly on slipstream is a big deal for us. And they know the kind of losses we took in the Borg invasion. What we need to do is make them think that we have some other ace up our sleeve—one so devastating, they don’t even want to know what it is, much less see it in action—and that we’re prepared to use it on whoever we find out bombed the Utopia Planitia shipyard.”
Shaking her head, Bacco walked toward the door. “And what if we end up provoking the Typhon Pact into a shooting war?”
“I don’t think we’re there yet,” Piñiero said as she and Shostakova fell into step behind Bacco and followed her into the hallway. “If they were ready to go head to head, they wouldn’t be pulling this cloak-and-dagger shit.”
Bacco threw a look over her shoulder at Shostakova. “Do you agree?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Shostakova said. “For the moment, at least.”
Plodding toward the kitchen, Bacco asked, “What does that mean?”
Shostakova replied, “It means that I think we have a very short grace period in which to act. The Typhon Pact might be playing catch-up with us on a technological level, but if they have those plans, it won’t take long. At best, we have a few months before this goes from an embarrassment to a disaster.”
“Then talk to me about response plans.” Bacco crossed her kitchen, moving on a direct course for the replicator. “If the clock’s ticking, what’s our play here? Diplomacy? Direct military engagement?”
Piñiero and Shostakova swapped apprehensive glances, and then the defense secretary said, “Neither. I think we need to look at covert options.”
The suggestion wasn’t unexpected, but it left Bacco desiring a moment to think things through. With a touch of her fingertip, she activated the replicator and said, “Decaf coffee, French roast, black and hot.”
As the beverage took shape in a whirl of light and with a pleasing sound, Piñiero lifted one eyebrow at Bacco and asked, “Decaf?”
“Thank my doctor for that,” Bacco grumbled. “He says my blood pressure’s up again. You know how it is.” Aiming a sour look at the youthful brunette, Bacco added, “What am I saying? Of course you don’t—you’re not even fifty yet.” She picked up her coffee from the replicator and sipped it, wrapping her hands around the white mug to warm her cold fingers. Leaning against the countertop, she asked Shostakova, “When you say ‘covert options,’ are you talking about Starfleet Intelligence or Federation Security?”
“Starfleet. If this were a strictly internal matter, I’d say keep it on the civilian side. But if we’re facing off with the Typhon Pact, we’ll need to take action on foreign soil, and Starfleet is better equipped for that.”
“Maybe, but they’re also more culpable. If we send civilians to an enemy planet, we can disavow them if they get caught or killed. If we send Starfleet personnel, it’s an act of war. So why risk a military op?”
“Because only Starfleet has the resources to mount a covert insertion and extraction mission on this short a timescale,” Shostakova said. “I assure you, Madam President, if a better option were available, I’d recommend it.”
Bacco took another sip of coffee and savored the tendrils of warm vapor that snaked into her nostrils and opened her sinuses. “Okay, Raisa, give Starfleet Intelligence the go-ahead. If the Typhon Pact is trying to build a slipstream-drive starship, SI is authorized to do whatever is necessary to stop it.”
Piñiero said, “Ma’am, I’m not sure that broad a license is—”
“Whatever is necessary, Esperanza,” Bacco repeated, silencing her chief of staff. “They hit us at home, killed our people, and stole our property. If they try to use it against us, I want them shut down with extreme prejudice. SI is cleared to proceed with a full-sanction black op. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now get out of my house. I have to bullshit the Federation Council about this in forty minutes, and I’d like to shower first.”
AUGUST 2382
3
Julian Bashir sat alone at a small table on the upper level of Quark’s bar. He had been nursing a raktajino for the better part of an hour; it had long since gone cold, and his last sip had left a bitter aftertaste. His closed-off body language—hunched forward over his drink, elbows on the tabletop, outer arm raised to block his peripheral vision and avoid accidental eye contact—was deliberate. For reasons that even Bashir himself failed to grasp, he had a habit of visiting the social hub of space station Deep Space 9 when he wanted to be left in peace.
In the old days such a ploy would always have backfired. Sooner or later, one of his friends would stop by and join him, disregarding his halfhearted protests. But that had been when he’d still had friends on the station, at a time when his attempts at seclusion had been just transparent invitations for solace. Looking around the Ferengi-owned restaurant, gaming emporium, and embassy, Bashir saw only strangers and passing acquaintances.
Miles O’Brien had left DS9 with his family years earlier, after the end of the Dominion War, to help in the rebuilding of Cardassia Prime. Garak, of all people, had been appointed Cardassia’s ambassador to the Federation. Benjamin Sisko, after returning from his brief sojourn with the Prophets—the nonlinear-time entities that had created and resided within the Bajoran wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant—had gone to live on Bajor and never returned to active duty on the station. Odo had not yet come back from his pilgrimage to commune with the Founders on some remote world in the Gamma Quadrant. The Jem’Hadar observer Taran’atar likewise had not returned, having been designated a persona non grata by Starfleet Command after he attacked and nearly killed Captain Kira and Ro Laren before becoming an outcast even from his own people.
It had been more than a year and a half since Ezri Dax had accepted a transfer to the U.S.S. Aventine as its second officer—only to become its commanding officer as the result of a battlefield promotion, when her captain and first officer were killed during an early battle of the Borg invasion. To fill gaps in her ship’s roster, she had poached three of Deep Space 9’s best young personnel: command officer Sam Bowers, engineer Mikaela Leishman, and Dr. Simon Tarses, who had excelled as an attending physician under Bashir’s tutelage.
A sharp, nasal voice from the bar’s lower level pierced the white noise of the crowded dining room, interrupting Bashir’s maudlin reminiscence. “Doctor! Another raktajino for you?”
“No, thank you, Quark,” Bashir called back, shaking his head at the Ferengi bartender, who also served as his people’s ambassador to Bajor, now a member world of the United Federation of Planets.
Quark nodded once at Bashir, began wiping down the bar, and then mumbled under his breath, “That’s fine. It’s not as if I’d rather have paying customers at that table.”
An ordinary human being would not have overheard Quark’s sarcastic grumbling from the busy bar’s upper level, but Bashir was far from ordinary. Born with severe developmental delays, he had lagged behind his peers until the age of six, when his parents—in violation of Federation law—took him to a clinic on an alien world for a program of genetic resequencing and enhancement. Over the course of two months, young Julian was transformed into one of humanity’s elite. He had been made smarter, stronger, and more dexterous, and gifted with keener senses, faster reflexes, and greater stamina than most human beings could ever hope to possess.
They gave me eve
rything except the ability to be happy, Bashir brooded. He considered ordering another raktajino just to vex Quark, but then he noted the time and realized his daily hour of exile from the station’s infirmary was nearly over. Abandoning the dregs of his caffeinated Klingon drink, he left the restaurant through a portal on its upper level and strolled to the nearest staircase.
The crowd on the Promenade was denser and slower moving than usual, no doubt because of an upcoming Bajoran religious festival that had become a major draw for tourists.
To think that when I came here thirteen years ago, most of the Federation had never heard of Bajor. Now they take vacations here. That rumination brought Bashir up short, and he stopped halfway down the stairs to the Promenade’s main level. Have I really been here thirteen years?
He continued down the stairs and caught his reflection on one of the shops’ windows as he passed by. His hair had started to thin a bit on top, and much of it was showing signs of gray, as was the close-cropped beard he had grown recently. His fortieth birthday had passed without much more than a celebratory subspace comm from his parents and an automated message from the station’s computer. Some days he could almost ignore the sensation that time was catching up with him, but he was only months shy of turning forty-one and keenly aware that while he might to some eyes still appear youthful, he would never again be young.
Worst of all, he had in recent months been haunted by a feeling he had kept at bay most of his adult life but that now seemed to hold him in its grip. He was, in a word, lonely.
The doors of the infirmary parted as he approached, and he trod with light steps as he entered the dimly lit medical center. All the biobeds were empty, and most of the displays were in standby mode. That was the way Bashir liked to see his professional domain: unoccupied. Unlike the other tenants of the Promenade, Bashir felt most successful when no one needed to visit his place of work.
He passed his office and stole around the corner into the intensive-care ward. At the far end of the spacious room, a single biobed was illuminated by a soft, orange-hued overhead light. Lying comatose in the bed and attached to a complex array of life-sustaining technologies was Captain Elias Vaughn, who had come to Deep Space 9 years earlier as its first officer. He had served briefly as its commanding officer before his passion for exploration had inspired him to transfer to starship command—a decision that had proved fateful and tragic.
Sitting in a chair beside the bed was Vaughn’s daughter, Lieutenant Prynn Tenmei. The young woman held a slender padd, from which she read to her father in a low, dulcet voice. “‘The ship’s prow cleaved the black water,’” she said as Bashir drew closer, “‘and the sails snapped over Wade’s head, filled with gusts driven by the inferno on shore. All around him huddled the weak and frightened, the orphaned and dispossessed—while behind him, the second land he had come to love and call home burned, torched by the Wights of Scarden. Never again, Wade vowed, his hands closing into fists. Never again.’” Tenmei scrolled to the next page of text as Bashir sidled up behind her shoulder. “‘Wade turned his back on the fire. In the distance, lightning danced on the edge of a storm. Sea spray kissed his face as the deck rolled under his feet. Confronted by a darkness with no horizon, he finally understood what it meant to fear the future.’” She turned off the padd, looked at her father, and added, “End of chapter twenty-four.”
Bashir asked, “Book two of The Twilight Kingdoms?” Tenmei nodded, and Bashir continued. “I read that trilogy as a boy. It’s amazing how well it holds up, even after all these centuries. I guess one could call it timeless.”
“My mom used to read it to me when I was about nine or ten,” Tenmei said. “I don’t know if Dad ever read it, but I thought he might like it.”
The coldly rational part of Bashir’s mind wanted to point out that Vaughn was probably no longer capable of liking or disliking anything, as he had shown no evidence of higher brain function since being wounded eighteen months earlier during a battle against the Borg. However, the more compassionate part of Bashir’s personality knew that this was a subject to be broached delicately with Tenmei, who had lost her mother to Borg assimilation nearly a decade earlier.
Tenmei looked up and fixed Bashir with a bitter glare. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
She stood, set her padd on her chair, and leaned over her father. “I’m not ready to give up on him,” she said, finger-combing unwashed wisps of Vaughn’s white hair from his forehead. She pressed her honey-brown palm to the old man’s gaunt, pale cheek. “He wasn’t meant to go out like this.”
Voicing his reply with care, Bashir said, “You mean free of pain and with a loved one by his side? There are worse ways to go.” Suppressing a flood of undesirable memories, he added, “Believe me, I’ve seen them.”
“So have I, Julian.”
Bashir saw no value to pressing the point or provoking an argument. He nodded once, turned, and started to walk away. He paused and turned back as Tenmei said, “I’m not clinging to some fantasy that he’ll wake up on his own.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I know he won’t. But you’ve done so much under such worse conditions—replacing Kira’s heart, rebuilding Ro’s spinal cord, not to mention what you did to save Bowers that time…” Wiping her eyes with the back of one hand, Tenmei sniffled to clear her sinuses and then swallowed hard. “I’m just saying, you’ve worked miracles before.”
“Prynn, your father’s a hundred and eight years old. Kira, Ro, and Bowers are all in the primes of their lives. And to be honest, I had help with Ro and got lucky with Sam.” He took a few steps toward Tenmei and softened his tone. “I’ve done all I can for your father, Prynn. I’m sorry, but my medical advice is the same now as it was a week after his surgery: you should let him go.”
His words made Tenmei recoil and turn away from him. Her lips pressed together and twisted with grief, and a single tear escaped as she squeezed shut her eyes. In a constricted voice, she protested, “I can’t.” She hurried past him, heading for the exit. “I’m sorry, Julian. I just can’t.” She left shaking her head in mute denial.
Bashir made no attempt to go after her. It wasn’t his place. He walked over and stood beside Vaughn’s bed. The captain’s vitals were faint but steady, his blood chemistry was good, and his brainwave monitor was blank. As much as Bashir wanted to disconnect Vaughn from the dignity-stealing life-support machines that were sustaining his frail old form, that decision belonged to Tenmei, who was Vaughn’s only surviving family member. Until she gave permission to turn off the machines, Vaughn would lie there, in limbo.
He couldn’t blame Tenmei for her choice. She’s smart enough to know what’s right and weak enough not to choose it, he lamented. But that could describe any of us, at one time or another. Walking back to his office, he reminded himself, My job is to heal—not to judge.
Settling into his chair, his mind filled with the clutter of routine tasks that he knew were soon to arrive on his daily action plan: vaccination updates for the children at the station’s schools, physicals for all Starfleet personnel with surnames or official identities beginning with K or L, and a review of his staff’s reports of health-code violations inside all food service and paramedical businesses—except Quark’s place, which, as a foreign embassy, was exempt.
So much for the excitement of “frontier medicine,” he chided himself, recalling his original reason for requesting assignment to Deep Space 9 after he’d graduated second in his class at Starfleet Medical. I guess the frontier inevitably becomes an extension of home once you colonize it. He snorted with cynical derision. Conquer it, sanitize it, and homogenize it. That’s the Federation way.
Just as he was about to get a head start on the next month’s paperwork, a man’s voice announced from an overhead speaker, “Ops to Doctor Bashir.”
“This is Bashir. Go ahead, Jang.”
“The captain wants to see you in ops on the double, sir.”
Cocking o
ne eyebrow with mild interest, Bashir replied, “On my way.”
Bashir stepped off the lift into Deep Space 9’s busy Operations Center—known to the crew simply as ops. As he descended the stairs to the main deck, Lieutenant Jang Si Naran—a Thallonian man with deep red skin, a goatee, and a shaved pate adorned in the back by a long braid of black hair—tilted his head sideways toward the commander’s office, which was up two more flights of stairs, elevated above the rest of ops. Through the transparent panels of the office’s doors, Bashir could see only the back of a tall, dark-haired man in a Starfleet uniform.
Eager to find out why he’d been summoned, Bashir took the steps two at a time and bounded off the staircase with a smooth stride that carried him through the parting doors and into the commander’s office.
“Thanks for coming so quickly, Doctor,” said Captain Ro Laren, who had been promoted to command of the station after Vaughn applied for and received a transfer to command a starship on an exploration mission. The tall, striking brunette dipped her chin as she looked at her other guest. “This is Commander Aldo Erdona from Starfleet Intelligence.” Erdona extended his hand to Bashir.
The intelligence officer’s grip was firm. “Good to meet you,” Bashir said.
“Likewise, Doctor.” Erdona gestured toward the chairs in front of Ro’s desk. “Shall we sit down? We have much to discuss.”
Ro settled into the chair behind her desk while Erdona and Bashir took the seats opposite hers. Bashir asked, “What can I do for you, Commander?”
“I’m here to recruit you for a special assignment.”
“Something medical in nature, I presume?”
The intelligence officer shook his head. “Covert ops.”
Bashir inhaled sharply, frowned, then looked away and cleared his throat. “That’s not exactly my area of expertise.”
“Actually, I read the after-action report of your mission to Sindorin, and—”