Takedown

by John Jackson Miller

  “That’s not much help,” Bowers said. “Maybe we can use it to capture a psychiatric team for the admiral.”

  “We wouldn’t hold them for long,” Leishman said. “I told you, the unit wasn’t quite working anyway.”

  Another dead end. Dax drained her vial. She was hungry, but with the replicators off-limits to them, the only food was combat rations.

  Feeling she needed to do something, Dax began to rise—then a violent quake shook the room, sending canisters and boxes tumbling to the deck. She looked to Mirren. “Are we fighting anyone?”

  Mirren shook her head. “No, the slipstream drive was activated.”

  “Accent on was,” Leishman said, sitting up straight. She brightened. “That was the sound of Aventine dropping out of the corridor unexpectedly. I knew it—he’s been pushing the drive too hard!”

  Dax took a deep breath. This was something. She knew it would be a while before Riker would get the ship moving again—but it wasn’t clear what that time would buy them. “Oliana, you said Enterprise was still after us?”

  “Like a dog on a trail. But I can’t see how she’d find us. They’d know our heading, but would have to drop out of warp repeatedly to find us. And if Riker doesn’t want to be found, he could make us very hard to detect.”

  Dax knew all that. But she also knew Aventine’s crew needed help. And that Enterprise—or someone—would run across them again. She looked to Leishman. “Cancel the order for finding a way to communicate inside the ship. We need a way to communicate outside the ship.”

  “To do what?” Bowers asked.

  Dax thought for a moment. “Tell me what was wrong with the tractor beam, again?”

  Leishman let out a deep breath. The engineer clearly didn’t see why it mattered. “There are sensors that identify, for our graviton beam, the mass of the item to be hauled. But if any of the matter we’re grappling is transmuted to energy in a matter/antimatter reaction—as might happen in the engines of a fleeing vehicle—we get a greatly magnified feedback pulse instead of information. The incoming charge shuts down the unit. Pretty much defeats the purpose of a tractor beam.”

  The explanation had brought something else to mind. “You know, maybe there’s something there,” Dax said, rubbing her hands together. “There was something Worf did during the Dominion War. The Detapa Council was aboard a Cardassian ship being attacked by Klingon cruisers. We were on Defiant, trying to rescue the Council, but we were down to our last trick. Then Worf had an idea—to diffuse Defiant’s tractor beam so as to function as a partial shield, disrupting the disruptor fire. It worked—and we saved the Council.”

  Leishman nodded, which Dax took as confirmation she had it right. “What are you thinking, Captain?” the engineer asked.

  “If we could target our tractor beam on incoming fire, the energy might do more than knock out the tractor unit. We might kill power to the whole ship.”

  The chief engineer shook her head. “It can’t be phaser fire. Whatever we turn the beam on has to have mass.” Leishman thought for a moment. “Now something like a torpedo—that’d do it. We hook onto one of those just as the matter/antimatter reaction starts and it’s lights-out. For a moment anyway.”

  “How do we get someone to fire a torpedo in the tractor beam’s arc, right when we’re there?” Bowers laughed. “Maybe we ask the Klingons nicely next time.”

  “We can’t ask anyone,” Kedair said. “What are we going to do, stand in the ports and wave?”

  “We can’t,” Mirren said. “Riker has set them all to opaque. We can see out. That’s it.”

  “Which is why we need a way,” Dax said, “to communicate outside the ship.”

  “Communicate outside, communicate inside.” Leishman knelt and gathered up her papers in a clump. “I’d better go before I get any more requests.”

  Dax sighed as the engineer stood. It was true: the conversation had circled back, a sure sign they were spinning in place.

  “Okay, Mikaela’s right. One problem at a time,” she said. “Let’s try to get our ship back. Dismissed.”

  The staffers filed out into the circular area, ringed with hatches in the walls and ladders leading up and down. The last to emerge into the area, Dax surveyed the faces of the drained people standing there. They were good officers, and she had tried to lead them well—as well as she could, as well as anyone could in the situation. But they were at their limits.

  They needed a break. And right now, she didn’t care where it came from.

  Behind Bowers, a hatch cracked open. A wild-haired human tumbled out of the darkened tunnel, his several tool belts clattering as he hit the deck.

  “Oh, hello,” Ensign Riordan said, noticing the crowd. “Er—am I interrupting something?”

  Twenty-six

  ENTERPRISE

  NO’VAR OUTPOST

  It was a good thing, Picard thought, that La Forge felt certain Aventine would need significant time to get back under way. Because it had taken far longer than he’d expected to put through his call. That, more than any Starfleet briefing, told him what he needed to know about the situation in this sector and beyond.

  The subspace communication networks of all the powers operating in the region were damaged, with many of the normal routes for relaying messages dead. Certainly, there were thousands of talented engineers out there on all sides working on repairs—but not one of the installations Riker had struck was back operating, as near as the Klingon outpost’s systems could tell.

  And Aventine’s victims were only the beginning. Combining what Enterprise had learned from Admiral Akaar with the Klingons’ information, Worf had counted no fewer than thirty strikes against communications hubs. The attacks were distributed across political lines: Khitomer Accords signatories, Typhon Pact members, and various nonaligned powers had been targeted. And, again, there was that strange inclusion of deep space facilities devoted to pure science.

  The number of ships suspected to be involved in the incident was now between five and ten, although nobody could tell for sure. Defense forces around the region had been jumpy—and there were clearly already freebooting opportunists out there, taking advantage of the lack of communications coverage. Dygan and his team had struggled to separate the real from the imagined, the connected from the incidental. Many of the displays in his evidence room had been filled in, and names of several ships and their captains were now known.

  As Enterprise’s chief security officer had remarked, this conspiracy—if it was one—involved players from more powers than the one against the Khitomer Peace Conference, years earlier.

  “That’s progress,” Picard had darkly joked. “Inclusivity, that’s our goal.”

  Now, having finally made a tenuous subspace connection, Picard learned that his joke had a special irony. “Let me get this straight,” the captain said as he, Worf, and Dygan sat before the viewscreen in the observation lounge. “You’re telling me all this may have begun at a peace conference?”

  “It’s possible,” Christine Vale said. The Titan commander was one third of another trio, gathered around another observation lounge table many light years away. Commanders Tuvok and Deanna Troi had joined Vale.

  Needing to retrace the path of both Riker and Aventine, Picard had chanced trying to reach Titan. Even given the poor connection, Picard could spot the obvious worry in Troi’s expression, caused by the unhappy news he had been forced to deliver earlier. On its exploration mission to the Genovous Pulsar, Titan had been completely out of contact with Starfleet Command as a result of the attacks in its neighborhood.

  “Admiral Riker transferred his flag to Aventine within hours of the Summit of Eight,” Vale said. She was clearly unnerved, as well; she had paused the conversation earlier to order a security team to reconstruct Riker’s movements. “He left, and we left for Genovous. That’s the last we’ve heard—from anybody, really. It’s a mess out there.”

  The Summit of Eight. It was the first Picard had heard of the meeting;
it was clearly a secret Akaar had either not been able to share, or had not yet considered relevant when they were cut off. The account Picard had already heard had astounded him.

  “Eight powers—four Khitomer and four Typhon—called to this Far Embassy. And we don’t know who made the invitation?”

  “We thought our invitation came from the Romulans,” Vale said. “As I understand it, the Tzenkethi thought their invite came from us.”

  “Someone has been setting up blind dates,” Picard said. “How could the Federation agree to attend—and on a station whose origin they could not confirm?”

  “When the battlefield is this wide,” Tuvok said, “even a small chance at peace is worth the risk. The admiral did not fear it.”

  He wouldn’t, Picard thought. He wondered if his friend, new to the ambassadorial role, hadn’t found the prospect of a diplomatic coup enticing. “How long was Riker on this station, this Far Embassy?”

  “Three hours, five minutes, six seconds. The others appear to have been there for approximately the same amount of time. We are sending you the list of vessels we saw in attendance.”

  Picard looked at the padd on his table. The information appeared. The few renegade vessels he knew specifics about were not on the list, he saw. But Riker’s first act was to transfer to a faster ship. The others could have done the same. And there was Klingon General Charlak on the list of known attendees. Kersh hadn’t mentioned any conference, but perhaps she hadn’t been told of it yet, either.

  None of this could be a coincidence, Picard thought. Whatever happened, the conference appeared to be the start of the problem.

  “So either the eight of them formed a cabal and concocted this plan while there—in three hours—or something else happened.” Picard looked up at the monitor. “Have you any other information you can share with me? Anything at all.”

  Tuvok read from a padd. “Our security team appears to have found something curious. Our transporter chief reports that Admiral Riker requested that he be beamed to holodeck one on Aventine.”

  Picard’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do that?”

  Troi spoke up. “I know he had been talking about designing a holodeck program replicating his office and quarters here on Titan. He said it would save time on packing.” She paused. “I thought it was a joke.”

  A joke, perhaps, Picard thought, but a perfectly marvelous idea. He’d spent innumerable hours over the years getting admirals and ambassadors settled into their surroundings, having to deal with them when things weren’t just so. Bravo, Number One. “Had he designed this program before departing Titan?”

  Tuvok again consulted the padd. “Our security team’s reconstruction of Admiral Riker’s movements indicates he did visit our holodeck before departing, recording a program. He could have taken it with him. We did not run the program in the interests of protecting his privacy—”

  “I think we’re past that now,” Picard said.

  “We’ll take a look at it,” Vale said. “Stand by, Enterprise—if the connection holds. We’ll be back.” She and Tuvok disappeared from the screen.

  Troi settled into the frame, replacing Vale. She looked anguished, and understandably so. Titan had heard a little about what Riker and Aventine had been involved in; getting confirmation had been devastating for her. But Picard could tell she hadn’t surrendered to despair—yet.

  “Captain, I think there may have been some reason he didn’t want to take me with him.”

  Picard nodded. “If this is Will we’re facing—and if he was already intent on this escapade, for whatever reason—he would want to protect you from the danger.” Or the repercussions, he thought, but he chose not to add that.

  “I don’t think that’s it, Captain. Even when he was on Titan, he seemed anxious to send me out of his presence.”

  This was something. “Do you believe,” Picard asked cautiously, “that perhaps he knew something was . . . wrong with him, something that might infect you too?” This seemed like a worthwhile straw to grasp at; it explained Riker’s actions while going some distance to absolving the admiral from blame.

  Troi thought for a few moments. “No. He wasn’t trying to protect me. I know what that feels like. I didn’t sense that in him.”

  Picard shook his head, deflated. “Then why would he want you apart? Simply so he could do what he intended to do in solitude?”

  She bit her lip, formulating an answer. “I almost think his concern was that I, specifically, could sense that something was different in him.”

  Picard looked to Dygan, who was noting all of this intently. “Certainly,” the captain said. “As a counselor, as a Betazoid, as a wife, you would be trained to—”

  “It’s something more. I think if I could get near him again, I might be able to solve the mystery. I need to go to him.”

  Picard looked uncomfortably at Worf. “That’s not really possible—not right now. We’re in pursuit, and Titan is far away.” There was no chance that Titan could catch up with Aventine—and if Enterprise waited to rendezvous with Vale’s ship, Picard might well lose his quarry.

  Troi looked to her left and edged aside. Vale returned to the screen. “We’ve examined the holographic program,” she said. “It’s exactly what Counselor Troi said it was: a facsimile of his quarters on Titan, minus the occupants. With a computer system identical to what he has in his personal space there.”

  Picard frowned. “That sounds like a dead-end.”

  “Perhaps not,” Tuvok said. “Because while we have no access to his personal data files here, we were able to see just how quickly he designed the holodeck program. He built a complete facsimile of his quarters, apparently from memory, in thirty point seven seconds.”

  “Commander Tuvok, inappropriate as it may seem, admirals’ personal quarters are a popular holodeck setting. Certainly it was preprogrammed,” Picard said.

  “I do not mean he drew it from the computer’s memory files. It was new. He programmed it with a combination of vocal commands and key presses made simultaneously on two adjacent holodeck interface panels.”

  Vale nodded. “It’s uncanny, sir. It’s just like the real room. The only things missing are Deanna and Natasha.”

  Picard sat forward in his seat. He didn’t know what to make of it, but somehow, he thought he’d just heard something important. “Can . . . can you do a biometric analysis of the admiral, based on the pattern you beamed to Aventine? For comparison to a baseline on file.”

  Vale and Tuvok looked at each other. “We had not considered that, but it should be possible,” Tuvok said. “What do you suspect?”

  “I’m not sure. How long will it take?” Picard wasn’t sure they could wait in Klingon space much longer. “Aventine will be moving again soon.”

  “I would estimate—”

  The screen went black. Picard, alarmed, clicked his badge. “Lieutenant Šmrhová?”

  The security officer preempted his question. “The connecting station has dropped out, Captain.”

  “Is this temporary? Do you think it will come back up?”

  “Nothing else has.”

  “Just when we were getting somewhere,” Dygan said, disappointed.

  “We are somewhere, Glinn.” Picard stood, his energy restored. “The eight powers they mentioned—all represented in your evidence room. A mysterious summit, on a mysterious station. An admiral who shows a sudden ability at high-speed holodeck program design, apparently working from memory.” He walked to the port, excited. “I don’t know what it all means—but we know it means something.”

  “Sir?” Worf asked. Picard looked back to the others. They didn’t seem to share his elation. Dygan was still puzzling through everything, and Worf was considering the blank screen. “I do not see the connections.”

  “Will has said nothing without meaning in any of this.” Picard paced back behind the desk. “He told me he is heading to the Adelphous Array, and that I would learn something from that. What would I ‘learn’ f
rom that fact?”

  Worf straightened his baldric. “The Adelphous Array is a major installation, larger than any he’s struck before. We’ve seen one, just like it—a hundred light years or so from here, near the Cardassian border.”

  Dygan’s face lit with recognition. “The Argle Array, isn’t it?”

  “Argus,” Picard said. “What would Riker expect me to learn from that?”

  “Perhaps,” Worf said, “he means to say there is no place safe from their rampage. It is a warning that they intend a strike there, too. Perhaps he is encouraging us to set a trap at the Argus Array.”

  “That’s awfully far from here,” Dygan said. “By the time the rogue ships have fought their way there, half the Federation will be cut off from the other half.”

  “Even telling us to watch where he’s going next isn’t much of a warning,” Worf said. “He knows Aventine will get there first. It might attack and leave before we arrive.” He corrected himself. “Or it would have, if the slipstream drive problem hadn’t failed him.”

  Picard shook his head, his smile returning. “No, Number One. When up against an opponent who isn’t making any mistakes, it’s reasonable to assume the mistakes he does make are purposeful. Like leaving when an array isn’t really destroyed. And like pushing a drive so hard that it fails predictably—allowing its pursuer to catch up.”

  With that, he marched toward the door to the bridge. Worf and Dygan, startled, rose and followed.

  “Captain,” Worf said, walking through the now-open doorway. “What are your orders?”

  “Admiral Riker’s giving these orders, Commander. I think I’ve just figured out what he’s trying to tell us.” He walked to his chair. “The Adelphous system, best speed.”

  Twenty-seven

  Dax watched in amazement as Ensign Riordan wolfed down another protein bar. The lanky young engineer hadn’t eaten in two days, or so he had said—although it wasn’t for a lack of food. One of his several toolbelts was festooned with MREs. He’d just forgotten.