“Please hurry,” said the woman, clamping her eyes shut against the pain.
“Done and done,” said Vance, bracing a foot against the wall and giving the fork another yank. This time, it came free, and he tossed it aside.
“Gotta go,” he said, his mental countdown swiftly approaching zero.
Gasping, the woman followed him. “My name is Em-Lin,” she said. “I think I can help.”
Chapter
8
“Please let me take a look,” Em-Lin said a second time, louder and more firmly than the first. “Unless either of you has a better idea right now.” Ever since she had followed Vance to the access panel for the quantum bomb system, he and Lauoc had blocked her view of the controls.
Now that Em-Lin had gotten their attention, Vance and Lauoc looked at her, then at each other, then back at her. Em-Lin saw naked and abundant skepticism in their eyes, but that was okay. She did not much care what the Starfleeters’ opinions of her might be, as long as she was confident that she could do the job.
Lauoc was the first to step aside. “We have less than a minute before the quantum bomb goes off,” he said, raising his voice over the latest round of weapons fire.
“It’s a morphic system,” said Vance. When he jabbed a finger into the circuitry, glowing wires slithered away from his touch and reformed a connection several centimeters beyond his fingertip. “Shape-shifting technology.”
Em-Lin nodded and pushed forward to the open access panel in the wall. By her reckoning, the bomb would detonate in thirty-five seconds.
There was no time for explanations, and they were unnecessary anyway. Em-Lin knew all about morphic circuitry.
The Dominion had taught her well.
Gritting her teeth against the latest surge of pain from the wound in her side, Em-Lin thrust her hand into the hip pocket of her burgundy coveralls and found the tool that she needed. It felt like a metal rod at first, but came to life when she touched it. As her fingers wrapped around it, the tool wrapped around her fingers, twisting and twining like a fast-growing vine.
She drew the device from her pocket and focused her thoughts on it, reaching out with her mind just as she had always done with Or-Lin. She felt the tool waiting, its tiny, fuzzy brain vibrating softly with the simple question that was the sum total of its desires:
What do you want me to do?
Em-Lin sent back the answer: Turn off the bomb.
As soon as she thought it, Em-Lin felt the tool reshaping itself for the task ahead, growing dozens of tiny, silver tentacles around its tip. When she raised it toward the open access panel, the tentacles fluttered excitedly, reaching straight out for the maze of flashing circuitry inside the opening. The tool itself grabbed hold and pulled itself the rest of the way into the gap.
“What is that thing?” said Vance.
Em-Lin silenced him with a wave and continued to focus her mind on the tool. At this point, the slightest distraction could mean complete disaster.
Inside the access point, the tool’s tentacles grew and branched and flowed along circuitry pathways like liquid. Em-Lin felt the circuitry reacting, realigning itself to escape the intruder and preserve functionality…but the tool sensed every change and shifted the shape and qualities of its extrusions to compensate.
In the end, the tool was smarter and more agile than the bomb system. The bomb’s control program tried one last surprise maneuver, attempting to use the tool itself to trigger detonation, but the tool caught on fast and shuffled the corrupted code into final deactivation commands.
With fewer than ten seconds left until the scheduled explosion, the quantum bomb system went permanently offline.
“All clear,” said Em-Lin.
Vance kept looking from her to the tool and back.
“What I want to know, is where can I get one of those?”
“Me, too,” Lauoc said.
“Pretty sure we’re going to want to buy ’em in bulk,” said Vance.
Em-Lin’s smile turned into a grimace as the pain in her side flared up. She sagged, releasing her grip on the tool, and Vance automatically wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“You need to see our doctor,” said Vance.
Em-Lin shook her head and reached for the shape-shifting tool. Deactivate all booby traps, she told it with her mind as soon as her hand made contact and the gelatinous substance of the device wrapped around it.
The answer flashed right back to her: Cannot. The tool showed her why with a series of images flickering over the link.
Disengage, Em-Lin told the tool, and then, though she didn’t think it would understand, she sent it this, too: Thank you. Always be nice to your tools, her father had taught her.
“We can’t shut down the other booby traps from here,” said Em-Lin. “After activation, each trap operates independent of the overarching system. We’ll have to work on one device at a time.”
“If by working on the devices, you mean getting medical treatment for your injury,” said Vance, “then great.”
Em-Lin tried not to let Vance or Lauoc see her wince at the pain in her side, but she did not think that she hid it very well. “Do we have to get across the shrine anyway?” she said. “To get to the medical care, I mean.”
“We do,” said Lauoc.
“Then if we’re already going in that direction,” said Em-Lin, “it won’t matter if we make some stops along the way, will it?”
Something exploded nearby, and Vance shook his head. “All right,” he said. “But we’re running you right out of here if you start getting worse.”
“Fair enough,” said Em-Lin. “Where’s the next terminal?”
It was then, just as she slowly started forward, supported on either side by Vance and Lauoc, that Em-Lin heard Or-Lin’s giggling voice in her ear once more.
I have an idea, said Or-Lin. Why not set off the next bomb? Why not come join me, and bring the Starfleeties with you?
Em-Lin did not dignify Or-Lin’s questions with an answer. She was not about to get into an argument with a dugo tenya, and she certainly had no intention of doing its bidding.
Even though it wasn’t like she didn’t have any Starfleet blood on her hands already.
Chapter
9
“You can buy us as many drinks as you want,” said the surly, scrawny Miradorn man. “It won’t change the fact that we don’t like the Federation!”
“Fair enough, fair enough,” said Carol, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I can accept that, Ti-Lat. All I want to know is, what do you like the least about the Federation?”
With a wide grin plastered across his face, Ti-Lat looked around at the mob of Miradorn drunks crowding Carol, Corsi, and Rennan at the bar. “Where to begin?” said Ti-Lat, and everyone in the room roared with laughter.
Finally, thought Carol. Some honest answers. The kind you don’t get at a grade-school assembly.
“Excuse me,” said another male Miradorn bar patron, tapping Carol on the shoulder. “I seem to have run dry.”
The man’s female twin tapped Carol’s other shoulder, raised an empty glass, and turned it over. Only a single drop ran out. “This mysterious dry spell seems to have affected me as well.”
Smiling, Carol waved at the bartender. “Another round for everyone,” she said, “and it’s on Starfleet!”
Every Miradorn in the barroom groaned and groused at once. Corsi looked alarmed, scanning the discontented crowd for signs of impending violence, but Carol wasn’t worried. As long as Rennan, with his Betazoid sensitivities, looked relaxed—which he did—Carol knew that the danger was minimal.
Meanwhile, the information that she was getting was worth every Miradorn credit that she spent in Pash-Ta’s Place. Where better to find out what people really thought than at a bar? Carol was growing happier with each passing minute that she had insisted on finding a place like this immediately after she and her team had escaped from Brag-Ret and Sog-Ret at the grade school.
&
nbsp; With a fresh round in the offing, Ti-Lat downed his remaining half glass of lavender-colored liquid and slammed the glass down on the bar for a refill. “So what do I like least about the Federation, huh?” he said gruffly, which was how he said everything. “I’ve got one word for ya: synthehol!”
The crowd in the bar erupted in laughter and shouts of agreement. “How do you people drink that swill?” hollered someone. “You can’t even get an honest hangover!” said someone else.
Corsi looked alarmed again, but Rennan stayed cool. “I can’t argue with you on that one,” Carol said with a rueful nod. “So what else don’t you like?”
A disheveled Miradorn woman who had a crazy look in her eye and smelled like she hadn’t bathed in a long time stumbled in front of Ti-Lat. “Tellarites!” she said, her toxic breath blasting Carol square in the face.
“What an obnoxious bunch!” someone said from the crowd. “It doesn’t say much for your Federation, having them as members!”
“I say cut ’em loose!” said the crazy-eyed woman, giving Carol another blast of rancid breath.
Carol smiled as she thought of Tev. “I’ll pass it along,” she said. “What else don’t you like?”
“The Prime Directive!” someone shouted.
Everyone roared in agreement. “Ooo, look at me,” Ti-Lat said in a high-pitched voice. “I’m too good to interfere in the affairs of primitive species, even though they’re the ones who need my help the most!”
“Too good?” hollered a man from the back of the room. “How about too greedy? They don’t want to share what they’ve got!”
“And the Miradorn made a name for themselves without them!” said Ti-Lat. “When the Federation turned us down a hundred years ago, we managed to find other friends to help us!”
Rennan leaned past Corsi to catch Carol’s eye. “The Prime Directive was applied here?” he said to her.
Carol nodded. “Long story,” she said, hoping Rennan would read her mind or at least her expression and catch on that now was not the best time to go into it.
As always, Rennan got the message. He closed his mouth and leaned back without further comment.
“Primitive?” said Ti-Lat. “They called the Miradorn primitive?”
“We’re superior!” said the crazy-eyed woman.
“Why, the Federation’s nothing but a bunch of pugla yort,” said Ti-Lat.
“ ‘Half-mades,’ ” Carol said quietly in answer to Corsi’s questioning look.
Ti-Lat caught the exchange and nosed in close to Corsi. “You’re incomplete,” he said, wobbling a bit from the intoxicants he’d been drinking. “Well, except for the relatively small percentage of twins you put out.”
“Small compared to us!” said the crazy-eyed woman. “We’re practically all twins!”
“You’re only half there!” said a huge, bald Miradorn man with glittering tattoos on his scalp and arms.
“How can you expect us to respect you if you’re only half as good as we are?”
Carol nodded solemnly, taking in what was going around. Ti-Lat and the others were giving her valuable insights; though she had been aware of Miradorn prejudice toward nontwin Miradorn, she had not known that it extended to other species, and she had not known that it was as deep-seated as it seemed to be among the bar patrons. It was a fascinating contrast to the rah-rah attitudes that Carol’s handlers had treated her to in the string of staged pro-Federation events.
The big question now was, were these resentments typical of the general population of New Mirada? And if they were, how might they manifest themselves in future dealings with the Federation?
Carol had a feeling that Brag-Ret and Sog-Ret would have simultaneous strokes if they knew what the Federation visitors were hearing right now.
“Anyway,” said Ti-Lat, slapping Carol on the back. “No hard feelings, right? I mean, this is all between friends, of course.”
“Of course,” Carol said with a smile. “We’re all friends here.”
“Make no mistake,” said Ti-Lat. “We might not be crazy about the Federation, but we sure need you ever since the Dominion left us high and dry.”
Corsi raised an eyebrow. “You need us for what?”
Ti-Lat drained the last drops of lavender liquid from his glass and turned it upside down. “We’re broke,” he said with a cockeyed grin. “We liked the Dominion, we really did, but they cleaned us out.”
“We don’t wanna marry you,” said a man in the back, “but we sure could use a little Federation aid right now.”
“So what you’re saying is, you don’t like the Federation,” said Carol.
“That’s exactly right!” shouted someone.
“Not a bit!” said someone else.
“You don’t like our synthehol or our Prime Directive,” said Carol, “and you think we’re inferior pugla yort.”
Ti-Lat nodded thoughtfully. “I’d say that about sums it up.”
“But you want assistance from the Federation,” said Carol, “because the Dominion, whom you did like, plundered Mirada’s treasury.”
“Yes,” said Ti-Lat. “That’s right.”
“Don’t forget how we need another round of drinks,” said the crazy-eyed woman, waving a glass in Corsi’s face.
“Gee,” said Corsi. “You people sure make it hard to say no.”
Carol just grinned. Strangely enough, she was glad to hear that the Miradorn didn’t like the Federation.
More accurately, she was glad to hear the truth, because she had sensed it all along.
“Another round it is,” she said. “And we’ll start it with a toast. To the United Federation of Planets!”
As Carol raised her glass high, every Miradorn in the room jeered and groaned…which just made her smile widen.
Chapter
10
In addition to her skills as a restorationist, and apparently a changeling technology whiz, Em-Lin had a special talent that was becoming increasingly evident: she was great at rubbing Sonya Gomez the wrong way.
This talent began to show up shortly after the booby traps in the shrine of Ho’nig were shut down. Em-Lin had deactivated most of them with her handy changeling multitool, and Soloman had cleaned up the rest with a morphic computer virus that he’d whipped up on the fly.
As the dust settled, Dr. Elizabeth Lense treated Em-Lin’s side, patching the wound left behind by the flying pitchfork. Lense had been outside the shrine during the booby trap barrage, which Gomez knew was a good thing; Lense was pregnant, the result of a relationship she’d had while shipwrecked on a dangerous planet in an alternate universe. We really need to get her an assistant, Gomez thought, not for the first time. However, when she brought it up with Elizabeth, the doctor brushed the notion off.
Pressed for time because of the approaching pilgrimage, Gomez debriefed Em-Lin while Lense ran the dermal regenerator over the wound site. It was the first time Gomez had had a chance to talk to Em-Lin. It only took nine words for Em-Lin to get on Gomez’s bad side.
“I thought you were supposed to preserve the shrine.” Those were the nine magic words with which Em-Lin managed to get off on the wrong foot with Gomez.
Though Gomez had been predisposed to think well of Em-Lin after the way she’d helped end the booby trap crisis, Em-Lin had pretty much thrown all her goodwill out the window in one heave. “That was never our primary objective,” said Gomez, “but we certainly did our best to achieve it.”
“Right.” Em-Lin took a long, meaningful look around the shrine. “This is your best.”
If a big cartoon thermometer were measuring Gomez’s rising temper at that moment, the tip of the thermometer would have been throbbing red, radiating rippling heat lines, just about ready to explode.
“No one died,” Gomez said tightly. “Given the level of difficulty involved, I’d say that’s best enough for me.”
Em-Lin shook her head and kept looking around at the damage, of which there was plenty. Gomez followed her gaze, further annoy
ed because she could understand why Em-Lin was so unhappy with what she saw.
The massive chamber was scarred and charred from one end to the other. The altar had been obliterated, and eight of the sixteen columns around it had been toppled. The floor was littered with debris from shattered statues and smashed reliquaries. The wildly colorful and intricate mural spanning the vaulted ceiling had been smudged by clouds of smoke and dust.
“Two years,” said Em-Lin. “My sister and I worked two years to restore this place. She died restoring this place. Now all that work is gone.”
Because of the Dominion, thought Gomez. Because your people joined the Dominion and gave the Dominion the run of the place. Don’t forget that part.
At the same time she thought it, though, Gomez felt sorry for Em-Lin. It wasn’t like she personally had forged the alliance with the Dominion. However Em-Lin looked at it, she was the victim of circumstances beyond her control.
Gomez shifted gears to focus Em-Lin away from what had been lost. “Thanks to you, the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” she said. “That changeling device of yours was extremely effective in interacting with the morphic systems.”
Em-Lin patted the hip pocket of her burgundy coveralls, as if to reassure herself that the device was still there. Suddenly, then, she cocked her head to one side, as if she were listening to something that Gomez could not hear.
“What is it?” said Gomez.
Em-Lin shook her head. “Nothing.”
Gomez cleared her throat. “You saved some lives here today. If that quantum bomb had gone off, we’d all be dead right now.”
Em-Lin had a distracted look on her face. She looked away, then back, then away from Gomez again. “I was trying to save the shrine,” she said. “That’s all.”
In other words, our lives don’t matter to you. Gomez sighed. I get it.
Lense, who was medicating Em-Lin’s side via hypospray, looked up from her work and rolled her eyes for Gomez’s benefit.
The Cleanup Page 4