by David Mack
At the foot of each pod was a primary control panel. Hain activated the panels on Pods One, Two, and Three as she walked the perimeter of the circular room, stopping to verify that the return signals from the androids all were being received and processed with total fidelity.
Visual and auditory signals were the easiest to confirm. Observing the team members through one another’s points of view, she could see that none of them had any obvious cosmetic damage. They all appeared to be perfectly normal humanoids—a male Orion, a female human, and a male Trill. By contrast, the team’s tactile, olfactory, and gustatory senses were harder for her to quantify remotely. The best Hain could do was confirm that the signals were transiting the pods’ preprocessors and emerging unchanged. So far, so good.
She averted her eyes as she passed the dark and deactivated Pod Four.
Her uniform’s thermal regulator activated, and she felt a soothing rush of coolness circulate through its sleeves and pants, into her gloves and boots, and best of all inside her helmet. Although she wasn’t nearly as sensitive to heat as the Amoniri, she disliked perspiring inside the armor she was required to wear at all times, except when she was alone in her quarters. Her pulse slowed as her body temperature cooled, and she relaxed herself with a deep breath.
On the far side of the room from its airlock, which protected its entrance, was an operator’s master console with a chair. Hain settled into the seat, made a final check of the uplink’s nodes, and opened a channel to her agents. “Berro. Olar. Sair. Do you all copy?”
The team’s lone remaining female answered first. “Sair here.”
“This is Olar. I read you.”
“Berro, affirmative.”
They sounded in good spirits. That was encouraging. “All your numbers check out at this end. How do you three feel? Any anomalies after that run-in at the bank?”
“Negative,” Sair said. “Self-diagnostics came up clean. But we can’t wake up Dolon.”
It was time to break the bad news to the team. “Dolon’s gone. He took too much damage from the energy field, and the feedback pulse cooked his brain.”
Berro asked, “So, what now?”
“Disassemble his body into as many parts as possible, and use the molecular acid packs in his field kit to melt him down. We can’t let his body be found, and we can’t risk you slowing down by taking it with you. It’s dead weight now. Get rid of it.”
Her order met with skepticism from Olar. “What about his parts that won’t melt down?”
“Break them down with the sonic drill and dump them in a river. Or a sewer. But get rid of them, and make certain they won’t be found. Understood?” The operatives acknowledged the order. “All right. After you finish that, I should have new orders for you. Signing off.”
She terminated her link to the trio and observed for a few minutes until they began breaking down Dolon’s now useless body and preparing it for dissolution. It was going to be a slow and tedious process, and Hain had no desire to keep watching. Satisfied that the team was on mission and still fully operational despite the setback at the bank, she reset the master panel and uplink pods’ monitors to standby and headed for the exit.
Inside the airlock, the plunge in temperature sent a chill down her back. Her uniform’s regulator, as usual, was slow to adapt to such a rapid change in environment. She shivered as she tapped her security code into the airlock’s keypad, opening the door that led back to the main area of the lab. Why can’t the SRD task a few scientists with improving these uniforms?
It was a rhetorical question, but as she glanced at her regular duty station, she was sure she saw the answer. Visual feeds from Berro, Olar, and Sair showed three overlapping perspectives on the coldhearted dismemberment of their comrade. Dolon’s body had represented a significant investment in terms of materials, labor, and research, and now it was being tossed away as garbage. How many other technologies could have been developed for what that had cost? How many more people throughout the Confederacy could have been fed?
Hain would never speak such subversive questions aloud, of course. She knew better than that, and had even seen with her own eyes what became of those who failed to heed history’s bitter lessons. In the end, a bit of sweat, a cold shiver, and a pang of conscience felt like small prices to pay for the privilege of staying alive.
9
Starlight that had been stretched into passing streaks contracted to points on the main viewscreen as the Enterprise dropped out of warp eight million kilometers from Orion. Picard noted the crescent shadow darkening the tiny blue-green orb of the Orions’ homeworld, the edge of night creeping in its petty pace through its endless cycle.
Lieutenant Joanna Faur called out her report without looking up from the helm. “We’ve secured from warp and are on orbital approach at full impulse. ETA, two minutes.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Picard glanced at Worf. “Contact the Federation Embassy on the surface. We might need their help locating Mister Data.”
The Klingon nodded. “Aye, sir.” He got up and walked starboard to one of the auxiliary consoles, from which he could send a secure transmission to the embassy.
An urgent tone warbled from the security console, and Lieutenant Šmrhová muted it as she assessed its cause. “Captain, there’s another Starfleet vessel in orbit—the Atlas.”
Hearing the ship’s name jogged Picard’s memory. “That’s Morgan Bateson’s command.” He peered at the viewscreen, on which a tiny gleaming speck betrayed the first sign of the other Sovereign-class starship. Perplexed, he muttered, “What would he be doing here?”
“Whatever their business, they’re hailing us, sir.”
Picard was intrigued and concerned in equal measure. “On-screen, Lieutenant.”
The image on the forward viewer changed from the slowly growing sphere of Orion to the bearded, balding head of Captain Morgan Bateson. He looked a bit grayer in the temples than he had the first time Picard had seen him, when Bateson and his previous command, the U.S.S. Bozeman, had emerged from a temporal loop in which they’d been snared for nearly ninety years. In the sixteen years since that incident, Bateson and much of the rest of his twenty-third-century crew had acclimated well to the twenty-fourth century—Bateson himself best of all. Not only had he briefly commanded the Sovereign-class Enterprise during its 2372 shakedown cruise, his leadership in the battle against the Borg a few years earlier had earned him accolades in the civilian press as “the hero of Vulcan” and “the right captain in the right time.”
For all his fortune and fame, however, Bateson was in a foul mood, nearly red in the face with anger. “Picard! What in blazes are you doing here?”
Picard stood and tugged his tunic smooth. “Good to see you again, as well, Captain.”
“Just answer the question,” Bateson snapped. “You’re supposed to be at Azeban.”
It struck Picard as odd that Bateson would be so well acquainted with the Enterprise’s deployment orders, but then he remembered how high-profile the mission had been and chalked it up to the burdens of celebrity. Nonetheless, discretion still seemed to be in order. “We were. An alert diverted to us to the Tirana system, and then a distress signal brought us here.”
Bateson mustered an insincere smile. “We’re not aware of any distress signal originating from within this system, Captain. I’m afraid you must be mistaken.”
“I assure you, we’re not.” Keen to test Bateson’s reaction, he added, “We received it on a dedicated channel from our former shipmate, Lieutenant Commander Data.” The other captain’s mask of composure faltered. He’s not much of a poker player, Picard mused.
Almost as swiftly as Bateson’s façade had faltered, it recovered. “I’m afraid you’ve been misled, Captain Picard. Now, as much as I hate to pull rank, I need you and your ship to reverse course and leave this system, immediately.”
“Pull rank? We both wear four pips on our collars.”
Moment by moment, Bateson’s glare grew colder.
Beneath his graying beard, his facial muscles bulged as he clenched his jaw. “Check your recent orders from Starfleet. I have full authority over operations in this sector.”
Glinn Dygan pulled up a screen of data on the operations console, checked it, then nodded over his shoulder at Picard. “Confirmed, sir.”
Knowing that Bateson’s authority and orders were genuine only deepened Picard’s sense that something was amiss. “Morgan. What exactly is going on here?”
“You’re in no position to ask questions, Picard, so—”
“I’m asking them anyway,” Picard said, stepping forward to emphasize his point as he challenged Bateson to explain himself. “This is damned irregular, Morgan, and you know it. I have it on good authority that one of my men, a Starfleet officer to whom I owe my life, is in danger on the planet’s surface—and I’m not leaving until I know he’s safe.”
Šmrhová looked up from the security console, eyes wide and voice raised in alarm. “Captain, there’s a Gorn battleship in orbit. Its energy signature matches the Hastur-zolis.”
Dygan swiveled his chair around to face Picard, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Sir, I’m reading a number of coded transmissions between the Atlas and the Hastur-zolis.”
Bateson teetered on the verge of fury. “Damn you, Picard! Your presence is jeopardizing my mission. You need to leave orbit. Right now.”
Picard stared at Bateson, trying to read the truth in the man’s baleful stare. Behind his red masque of anger was . . . fear. “What mission?”
“I’m giving you twenty seconds to reverse course.”
Before Picard could respond, a small icon in the corner of the screen cued him that the channel had been muted. He turned to see Worf step briskly to his side. The first officer turned away from the viewscreen and spoke in a confidential hush. “While communicating with the embassy, I detected a coded transmission between the Atlas and a transceiver inside the Bank of Orion. The encryption frequency was November-bravo-seven-nine-white.”
Picard froze. The frequency Worf had identified was one of the most carefully regulated cipher codes in the Federation. To the best of his knowledge, it was used by Starfleet for only one purpose: top-secret communication with the Protection Detail, a special elite division of the civilian-run Federation Security Agency. He looked at his XO. “You’re certain, Number One?”
“Positive.” He grimaced. “If they are here, that can mean only one thing.”
A grim nod of comprehension. “President Bacco is on Orion.”
• • •
“We won’t make unilateral concessions here,” President Nanietta Bacco insisted. “If you want our help with this, we won’t settle for a simple nonaggression pact. We’ll need to negotiate a real partnership—a binding treaty of alliance.”
Sozzerozs, the Gorn imperator, tasted the air with his tongue and hissed. “That is too great a risk. The other nations of the Typhon Pact would seek revenge for our betrayal.”
“Not necessarily,” interjected Safranski, the Federation’s secretary of the exterior, and a senior member of Bacco’s cabinet. “The Hegemony’s withdrawal from the Pact would weaken them substantially in several sectors, and an alliance with the Federation would make any reprisal against your people tantamount to an act of war against us.” The slim Rigellian shifted his posture to better address the rest of the Gorn delegation. “I don’t think the other Pact nations are ready to risk open warfare just yet—and certainly not under those conditions.”
Wazir Togor, the imperator’s top adviser, hissed. “We do not share your optimism.”
“Well, then,” Bacco said, feeling all her hopes for progress wither. She drummed her fingers once on the tabletop. “It appears we’re at an impasse. . . . Again.”
Seated with Safranski and Bacco on one side of the conference table were Esperanza Piñiero, Bacco’s chief of staff and senior political adviser, and Cort Enaren, the Federation Councillor from Betazed. Facing them from the other side were their opposite numbers from the Gorn Hegemony: Imperator Sozzerozs; Wazir Togor; Nizor Szamra, a key member of the Gorn Nizora, or senate; and Zulta-osol Azarog, whose title Bacco had been told meant “foreign minister.” Thanks to Bacco’s years spent living on and serving as governor of Cestus III, she’d had a fair deal of experience with the Gorn, and normally she could tell one individual from another. However, she suspected these four members of the Gorn’s elite ruling caste must have been close cousins, because she would have been hard-pressed to tell them apart if not for the colors of their tunics: crimson for Sozzerozs; turquoise for Togor; gold for Szamra; and immaculate white for Azarog.
They all had been sequestered for the past few days—far too long, by any measure, in Bacco’s opinion—in the luxurious but windowless secure underground chambers of the Bank of Orion, one of the more defensible locations in known space, and one of the most discreet. The vault-like space in which Bacco and Sozzerozs had agreed to hold this top-secret summit had no surveillance systems, was shielded against transporter beams, energy weapons, and intruders, and—most important of all—was situated on neutral ground for both sides. The nonaligned Orion Colonies often were a source of trouble because of their tendency to turn a blind eye to acts of piracy launched from within their territory against targets outside of it, but in this instance, their longstanding political neutrality had made possible a meeting that otherwise might have been scuttled preemptively by arguments over something as simple as the venue.
Piñiero hunched forward a bit, bowed her head, and slowly turned her hands palms-up and spread them slightly apart, a conciliatory gesture that had been found to have a slight calming effect on the Gorn when discussions became tense or heated. “Your Majesty.” She pivoted to offer the show of respect to the others, as well. “Venerable elders. While I understand that the risks for your people are significant, I think we need to keep in mind the many well-considered reasons you cited when you asked for this summit. Azarog told us that you and your court feel marginalized in the decision-making process of the Pact; Togor confided that your people feel overshadowed by the military strength and prowess of the Romulans and the Tzenkethi, and that your scientists worry their efforts are being co-opted and eclipsed by those of the Breen. These are all issues you can address by allying yourselves with the Federation. You would recover full political autonomy, and, as a formal ally, you would benefit from a mutual-defense treaty and access to a wide range of our ongoing research.”
Her upbeat attempt to start the talks over from scratch drew low snarls of contempt from the Gorn. Szamra challenged Piñiero with an unblinking stare, a contest from which the chief of staff wisely demurred by deferentially averting her gaze. “You make it sound so simple,” said the nizor. “But you continue to ignore the political realities of our situation. Withdrawing from the Pact will be a very unpopular decision within the Hegemony. A majority of the Nizora supports continued membership, as does a slim plurality of our people.”
Enaren harrumphed. “So what?” The elderly Betazoid crossed his arms and shot a sour look at Szamra. “It’s not as if you let your people vote. So who cares if they don’t approve?”
Togor replied, “Spoken like someone who’s never lived in fear of a popular rebellion.”
“People don’t rebel when they’re happy and treated fairly,” Enaren shot back.
Not again, Bacco lamented. She had chosen to bring Councillor Enaren to the talks as the sole representative of the Federation Council because he was influential and popular, and because if the summit led to a treaty negotiation she would need someone on the Council who was knowledgeable about its myriad issues. Unfortunately, Enaren had demonstrated a rare talent for annoying the Gorn. For a politician, he was one of the least politic people Bacco had ever met. If only Andor hadn’t seceded from the Federation, I could’ve brought zh’Faila.
“Silence,” rasped Sozzerozs. “Realigning ourselves with the Federation would carry a steep political price. While many of our people have n
o desire for war with the Federation, neither do we desire to make its way of life our own.”
“There are other factors,” Togor added. “Our economy has thrived because of trade with our Typhon Pact partners. The Romulans have become our most important export market. If we leave the Pact, they will likely close their borders to us. Losing that market would devastate us.”
Safranski was eager to respond. “The Federation’s a huge market, Togor—one that continues to accept your products, despite your membership in the Pact. We can elevate your trade status to that of a ‘most favored nation.’ It would reduce import tariffs on your goods and improve your currency exchange rates against the Federation credit.”
“As promising as that sounds,” Azarog cut in, “it fails to address the single most pressing obstacle to a formal alliance between us: the Klingon Empire.” He directed his next remarks directly to Bacco. “While it might be possible for us to make peace with the Federation and convince our people to respect that choice, our history with the Klingons is much longer and far bloodier. They have threatened us many times, and only our membership in the Pact has halted their incessant raids along our border. If we leave the Pact, they will see us as a weak target, ripe for conquest. Is your Starfleet prepared to stand against the Klingons in our name? And if the Klingons push us to war, and both sides call to you for aid, who will you answer? Or would you just fall silent, profess neutrality, and let your greater ally have its way with us?”
Bacco sighed. “I admit, that’s a difficult question. To be honest, it’s not one I’m prepared to answer at this stage. There are too many legal, political, and practical issues to consider first.”
Piñiero looked away from the table and took on a distracted air. It was an affectation Bacco recognized from experience: her chief of staff’s attention had been captured by something being communicated via her in-ear transceiver. Then the dark-haired, olive-complexioned woman turned back to the table. “Perhaps now would be a good time for a break.”