The Cleanup

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  All right then, thought Gomez. No more niceties. You want strictly business, you’ve got it.

  “The changeling device,” she said. “It’s a leftover from the Dominion?”

  “No,” said Em-Lin. “Our scientists based it on Dominion morphic tech, but it’s strictly Miradorn design.”

  That piece of information gave Gomez new respect for the Miradorn scientists. “Our team’s setting up to break through into the lower chamber. We’ve detected signs of functioning Dominion equipment there. Any ideas what we might find?”

  Em-Lin shrugged. “I didn’t even know the chamber existed until today.” Her eyes drifted away from Gomez, and she resumed staring into space.

  “Given the knowledge you seem to have of Dominion technology, we can use your help,” said Gomez. “Whatever’s down there could be a hazard to the pilgrims.”

  “I’m sure the pilgrims will have the best Chala Ho’nig yet,” said Em-Lin, “what with the shrine in ruins and all.”

  “Not exactly ruins,” said Gomez.

  “Not yet, maybe,” said Em-Lin.

  The cartoon thermometer was now straining to burst. “Let’s just see if we can prevent anyone else from dying. How does that grab you?”

  Em-Lin did not answer. She was too busy staring into space. Her eyes slid from side to side as if she were following the movements of something invisible to Gomez and Lense.

  Pika Ven-Sa had mentioned earlier that Em-Lin was haunted after the death of her twin. Was that what Em-Lin kept staring at—the ghost of her sister?

  Gomez could not quite suppress a shiver as Em-Lin’s eyes slid closer and closer, as if whatever they were following was moving over to stand right next to Gomez herself.

  Whatever or whoever.

  Clapping her hands together, Gomez said, “Okay then. What’s the good word, Elizabeth?” When Lense didn’t respond, Gomez repeated her name.

  “Hm? Oh, sorry, Commander.” Lense closed her medkit and nodded. “She’s good to go.”

  I am definitely having that conversation about an assistant with Elizabeth again—maybe this time with the captain in the room. “Follow me, Em-Lin,” said Gomez, taking a quick step away from the spot where she had been standing. “Let’s find out what’s down below.”

  On her way past the space that Em-Lin had been watching, Gomez felt another shiver, though she knew that she had much more to fear from a functioning Dominion facility than any supposed ghost.

  Chapter

  11

  “And fire!” said Pattie, watching as the blinding golden beam of the phaser drill punched straight down into the crater in the floor of the shrine. The beam stabbed at the tiny hole in the obsidian-like shielding, sending up showers of sparks.

  This was the same spot where Em-Lin’s sister had been killed by an exploding booby trap; even after all the other explosions and weapons fire in the shrine, this was still the only site where the Dominion shielding under the floor had been breached.

  The job now was to turn a pinhole into a hatchway through which people and equipment could pass. The good news was, according to Pattie’s analysis, the shielding was practically impenetrable, a smart changeling tech product that could reshape itself to prevent penetration, but the section of shielding around the pinhole had been effectively “killed” by the explosion. The shielding’s reformative capabilities had been negated.

  Now, it was just a matter of applying the proper force to the right points around the pinhole. Done correctly, the procedure could cut a good-size hole in the shielding without sending the ceiling crashing down on whatever was in the chamber below it.

  Pattie, of course, knew no other way to do the job other than correctly.

  She had ordered the phaser drill from the da Vinci and retrieved it from a beam-down site outside the zone of interference around the shrine. With help from Fabian, she had set it up on a tripod over the crater.

  So long as she wasn’t about to set off some undetected last-ditch booby trap, everything would work out fine.

  As Pattie continued to steer the drill and watch the readouts on her tricorder, she heard someone walk up behind her. “What’s our status?” said Commander Gomez, raising her voice over the loud whine of the drill.

  Turning, Pattie saw that Gomez was accompanied by the Miradorn woman, Em-Lin. Pattie could see that Em-Lin was in a terrible mood—not that she could blame her, after what had happened to her sister and the shrine.

  “We’ve punched through several points in the weakened section of the shield,” said Pattie. “Time to connect the dots.”

  Pattie tweaked the drill’s control panel, and the phaser beam slowly traced a wide arc around the circle of pinholes that she had cut. Sparks and smoke leaped out of the crater as the beam sliced through the obsidian shielding, leaving a fiery red track in the black material.

  “Even without its changeling properties, this is still tough stuff,” said Pattie. “Its tolerances are unbelievably high. I’d say it’s a good thing the Dominion didn’t deploy it during the war.”

  “We didn’t see any of this changeling tech during the war,” said Gomez. “I wonder if the Dominion was holding back, or if it was just a late development?”

  Gomez had directed her question at Em-Lin but got no response. In fact, Em-Lin was turned away from Gomez, gazing at something that Pattie could not see.

  Pattie had been around enough to know that just because she couldn’t see it, that didn’t mean that something wasn’t there. Grabbing her tricorder, she quickly recalibrated it and aimed it in the general direction of the space at which Em-Lin was staring.

  But according to the tricorder, there was nothing more in the empty space than met Pattie’s eyes. If, as the priest had suggested, Em-Lin was being haunted, the ghost was undetectable by conventional sensors.

  “Too bad there’s no one here who used to work for the Dominion,” Gomez said loudly, staring hard at Em-Lin. “Maybe they could answer our questions about changeling tech.”

  In addition to ignoring Gomez’s comments, Em-Lin walked away without explanation.

  Gomez shook her head and blew out her breath in frustration. She hiked a thumb in the direction of Em-Lin, who was still walking away. “This is the same woman who shut down half the Jem’Hadar booby traps and saved all our lives an hour ago.”

  “I get the impression her tolerances aren’t quite as high as the Dominion shielding’s,” said Pattie, wiggling her antennae for emphasis.

  Gomez sighed. “Let me know when you’re done here,” she said, starting after Em-Lin.

  “Commander,” said Pattie. “Something just occurred to me.”

  Gomez stopped. “What’s that?”

  “What if the Dominion wasn’t holding back the changeling tech because it could help them win the war?” said Pattie. “What if they abandoned it because it’s somehow too dangerous to use?”

  “And we might be about to encounter great peril because of it?” said Gomez.

  “Exactly,” said Pattie.

  “Then I’d say that would be pretty much par for the course, wouldn’t you?” said Gomez, shooting Pattie a wink before scooting off after Em-Lin.

  Pattie made the tinkling sound that was her equivalent of human laughter and turned back to the controls of the phaser drill.

  Chapter

  12

  So maybe the truth isn’t always such a great thing, thought Carol Abramowitz as the burly, curly-haired Miradorn male tied her to a chair. Maybe I was better off not knowing just how much the Miradorn dislike the Federation.

  While Carol was being strapped to the chair, she watched the Miradorn’s twin shackle the unconscious Corsi to an overhead metal beam in the dungeonlike basement. Rennan already hung alongside her, also out cold, his face bruised and swollen and his uniform torn.

  As outcomes went, this was the opposite of optimal. Thanks to the magic of twenty-twenty hindsight, Carol realized that it had also been highly avoidable.

  If only she had not bo
ught that one last round of drinks back at Pash-Ta’s. She should have known, as rowdy as the crowd had gotten, that she was pushing her luck. Sure enough, one drink too many per discontented Miradorn, and the gang had turned ugly. Rennan had sensed it coming, but by then, the first glass was already flying across the room toward Corsi’s head.

  Sadly, the turn for the worse had not ended with a beating at the hands of a bunch of drunken Miradorn. It just so happened that a pair of lowlife opportunists had been lurking among the crowd, and they had quickly seized the chance to capture the away team for their own purposes—which only now were becoming clear to Carol.

  There was just one problem.

  “There’s no money in the Federation!” she said when one of the burly Miradorn finally removed the gag from her mouth.

  The man, whose name was Zhik-Wu, sneered at Carol. “Everybody knows the Federation’s rich,” he said. “They’ll pay to get you back!”

  “You don’t understand,” said Carol, fighting to keep the exasperation she felt from slipping into her voice. “We have a cashless society. No money to pay ransoms with.”

  “You can’t bluff us,” said Zhik-Wu’s twin brother, Pre-Wu, from across the room. The only visible difference between the twins was that Pre-Wu’s blond hair was long and straight, while Zhik-Wu’s was curly. “The cash’ll turn up when they see we have a couple of Starfleeties for sale.”

  Carol watched with morbid interest as Pre-Wu set up a video camera on a tripod in front of Corsi and Rennan. As Carol realized what the consequences of her little miscalculation in Pash-Ta’s would be, her heart not only sank, it plunged right through one side of the planet and out the other.

  The Wu brothers were going to transmit images of the away team to Starfleet to support their ransom demands.

  It would be a long time before any of the captured teammates lived down this embarrassment…especially Corsi, whose reputation as “Core-Breach” was fueled by legends of her prowess in battle. Her hardcore rep would not exactly get a boost from shots of her shackled in a basement, not to mention stories of how she had ended up there after a mere barroom brawl.

  And it was all because Carol had wanted to find out what the Miradorn really thought about the Federation.

  “So,” she said. “Are you going to shoot some holos for your diary?”

  “Just showing off the merchandise,” said Pre-Wu, tapping commands into a handheld computing device. “We’re going to broadcast direct to Starfleetie Command.”

  Carol rolled her eyes and let her head slump, chin touching her chest. Please, not Starfleet Command, she thought. We will never live this down.

  “What do you think?” Zhik-Wu said to his brother. “A million bars of gold-pressed latinum per hostage?”

  “We can do better,” said Pre-Wu. “How about a million and a half?”

  Carol raised her head from her chest. “Did I mention that the Federation’s a cashless society?” she said.

  “Why not ask for two million apiece?” said Zhik-Wu. “It can’t hurt to ask, can it?”

  “Then I say three,” Pre-Wu said with a greedy grin that exposed the worst dental care that Carol had yet seen on New Mirada. “I think that’s good.”

  “I think that’s our magic number,” said Zhik-Wu, reaching out to shake Pre-Wu’s hand.

  “For the last time,” said Carol, “the Federation has no currency. When you make your ransom demand, that is exactly what they will tell you.”

  Zhik-Wu stared at Carol with a bemused expression on his face, then looked up at the ceiling. “Hey!” he hollered, directing his voice upward. “They’re trying to tell us the Federation has no money!”

  “Lies!” said a voice from upstairs, what sounded like the voice of an old woman. “The Federation is loaded!”

  “There.” Zhik-Wu smirked smugly at Carol. “You see?”

  “Who was that?” said Carol, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Mother,” said Pre-Wu. “She knows everything.”

  Carol felt like she was trapped in a truly bizarre nightmare. “That’s good,” she said, “because in that case, I’ve got a few questions for her.”

  “You’re lucky you were lying,” said Zhik-Wu, adjusting some controls on his handheld computer.

  “Why is that?” said Carol.

  Suddenly, the old woman’s voice again shouted down from above. “Because if we aren’t paid by the deadline,” she said, “we’ll have to start killing hostages.”

  “That’s our ultimatum,” said Pre-Wu.

  “So it’s a good thing the Federation’s loaded,” said Zhik-Wu.

  Carol looked up, wondering just how good the old bat’s hearing was. Then, she looked down, wondering if a day that had started out so harmlessly could possibly end with her or one of her teammates stone-cold dead at the hands of a couple of Miradorn morons.

  Chapter

  13

  Thank you for coming down here, sister, said Or-Lin’s voice in Em-Lin’s head. This place will be your tomb, and we will be together forever in death.

  Em-Lin stood frozen as the others continued ahead of her, fanning out in the dark Dominion chamber under the shrine of Ho’nig. Or-Lin’s voice had become stronger and clearer than ever, as if Or-Lin herself were becoming more real.

  Do not be afraid. I will be with you every step of the way as you die.

  Em-Lin took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. The beam from the wrist beacon on her right arm shook in time with the shivers rippling through her body.

  It was getting harder for her to hold herself together, which she knew was not a good thing right now. She had accompanied the Starfleet team and their Miradorn security escort in descending through the hatchway that Pattie had cut into the secret Dominion chamber, and who knew what fresh dangers lurked around her.

  Em-Lin turned slowly in a half circle, casting the light from her wrist beacon at the banks of dormant equipment lining the walls. She wondered where Or-Lin would appear next and what the dugo tenya would say when next she whispered in Em-Lin’s ear.

  She wondered also how Or-Lin could possibly be growing stronger and more real. Typically, a dugo tenya faded away as time passed, completely disappearing after days, weeks, or months, depending on the nature of the traumatic death and the force of the twins’ original bond.

  To Em-Lin’s mind, the strengthening of Or-Lin’s dugo tenya could mean one of three things: Em-Lin was losing her mind; Or-Lin was not a figment of Em-Lin’s mind at all, but a genuine ghost (though Em-Lin had never believed in such things before); or…

  Or Or-Lin was not the dead one, and Em-Lin was the one who was fading away.

  Suddenly, someone touched Em-Lin’s shoulder. With a cry of surprise, she leaped away from the contact, heart thundering as if it had enlarged to fill her entire chest.

  Whipping the wrist beacon around, Em-Lin caught a face in the bright circle of light. It was a familiar face, but not the one that she had expected to see, not Or-Lin’s.

  It was Vance Hawkins of Starfleet.

  “Sorry if I spooked you,” he said. “You probably shouldn’t separate from the group down here.”

  “Oh…no, that’s…” Em-Lin’s breathing was fast, and her pulse raced. She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to regain control of herself. “No problem.”

  Em-Lin saw an unmistakable glint of concern in Vance’s eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said, squinting against the beam of the beacon. “I can send you back up to the shrine with Kim or T’Mandra until we get the lights on down here.”

  “No…thank you. I’m fine.” Em-Lin swung the beacon away from him. Just as she did so, she thought she saw something behind him. Something or someone.

  A shape at the edge of the light. Something or someone in the darkness, less than a meter away.

  Em-Lin swung the beacon back around to Vance, but the shape was no longer behind him. Instead of relief, however, Em-Lin felt more anxious than before, wondering where exactly the shape h
ad gone and what it had been.

  Vance threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the light. “How about if we catch up with the others?”

  “Sure,” said Em-Lin, her voice shaking as she peered into the darkness around her. She heard a rustling noise then, and she spun, cutting the shadows with her wrist-beacon. The light caught just the tail end of something moving fast, flickering past.

  “Em-Lin?” said Vance, taking hold of her right arm.

  You will not leave this place alive, said Or-Lin’s voice, whispering in Em-Lin’s left ear, after which Or-Lin giggled softly.

  Em-Lin’s skin crawled, and she threw herself at Vance, anchoring herself to the one living person she could find in the darkness.

  It was just then that the chamber filled with light.

  Immediately, Em-Lin looked all around for a sign of the dugo tenya. She found nothing.

  “Excuse me,” said Vance, gently freeing himself from her grip. “All clear, ma’am.”

  Em-Lin pulled away and straightened her burgundy coveralls. She felt embarrassed, but just a little. Her fear of the lurking dugo tenya, be it a figment of her traumatized mind or an actual haunting spirit, was still her foremost emotion.

  “Shall we?” said Vance, gesturing toward the rest of his teammates, who were gathered around a huge, glowing tank filled with liquid in the middle of the massive chamber. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

  Em-Lin nodded. She even managed a small, quick smile. As little as she cared for Starfleeters after her experience at the Rasha Nom depot during the war, there was something about Vance that she liked, something that impressed her even in the thick of her conflict with the dugo tenya.

  “Me either,” she said, starting forward, listening as she walked for a set of following footsteps that did not belong to Vance: the footsteps of her dead twin sister.

  Chapter

  14

  “It looks like a lava lamp,” said Fabian, gazing appreciatively into the transparent, red-tinted tank in the heart of the vast chamber under the shrine. “Only a lot bigger.”