Star Trek: The Next Generation - 115 - The Stuff of Dreams

by James Swallow

  Worf nodded. He had heard the Kinshaya described by Terrans as resembling a creature from Earth’s ancient mythology, a beast called a griffin, a four-legged mammal with broad wings, a tail, and a striking, savage face. Even a personal holo-cloak would not be able to hide one of them inside the close quarters of a starship’s decks. “It raises the question: Is this spy in the employ of the Typhon Pact or the Holy Order?”

  Picard nodded. “The Kinshaya are rather the poor cousins in the Pact, from what Starfleet Intelligence has gleaned. Their recent internal political conflicts have kept them from making a greater play as part of the Pact’s united front. . . . That could explain why this operative is an independent mercenary instead of, say, a Breen agent. That may indicate the Kinshaya are doing this without the knowledge or approval of their Typhon Pact allies.” He paused again. “We can dwell on the exact nature of the reasoning later. Right now, we have to isolate and interrogate this infiltrator. If he is responsible for the explosion on board the Newton, he could very well be capable of something worse.”

  “I took the liberty of informing Lieutenant Šmrhová of the situation. She’s assigned additional security staff to all sensitive locations aboard the Enterprise.”

  “Thank you, Worf. But I fear a reactive stance is the wrong one. With the Newton’s internal damage, the Enterprise engaged in repair operations, and the nexus still in motion, time is against us.” Picard’s frown deepened. “I was afraid of this, Number One. Captain Bryant was right: the nexus is being coveted by those who will do whatever they need to in order to possess it. And it galls me that we have to keep this from Commander Rhonu.”

  “For the moment, at least,” agreed Worf. “In the meantime, Doctor Crusher’s team continues to work on the other genetic trace. It may have come from one of the Newton’s crew, but until the reconstruction modeling is complete, we cannot be certain.”

  “We can’t afford to sit and wait. With each passing moment, the nexus is moving closer to the Holy Order’s territory . . . and if they did facilitate the sabotage of the Newton, we may well be looking at an act of war.” Picard stood up and crossed to the window, staring out into the darkness. “We need to go on the offensive, Number One.”

  Despite himself, Worf smiled thinly. “I am always ready for that, Captain.”

  Picard turned to face him, tapping a finger to his lips. “We need to shake the tree, Commander. Force the hand of this spy. It’s a risk, but we don’t have a lot of choice.”

  “What do you propose, sir?”

  The captain met his gaze. “I think we should take a leaf out of Will Riker’s playbook. Specifically, poker.”

  * * *

  They materialized without warning on the Newton’s bridge, six columns of blue-white light that dissipated to deliver Captain Jean-Luc Picard, his first officer, chief of security, and an armed detail of security officers.

  Commander Rhonu was on her feet as Šmrhová signaled her men with juts of her chin, sending them to take up stations at the two turbolift doors to port and starboard, and the alcove at the aft of the compartment. “Captain Picard?” said the Betazoid. “What is the meaning of this?” But even as she asked, the woman was sensing something of the reason for the unexpected arrival, her telepathic senses touching on his surface thoughts.

  “Please, all of you, remain still.” Picard held up a hand and nodded to Worf. “Go ahead, Commander.”

  “Commencing,” said the Klingon, producing a tricorder. He proceeded to run a swift scan of all the Newton officers at their stations.

  Picard looked up to see that Doctor Kolb was also present at one of the freestanding consoles, apparently in the middle of a consultation with the Newton’s Vulcan science officer.

  “Jean-Luc, what’s going on here?” Kolb exchanged an anguished look with Rhonu, but she appeared not to notice.

  “Captain, I insist that you explain yourself!” she demanded.

  “All clear,” said Worf. “Gene scans are normal, no evidence of bio-masking present.”

  Picard nodded. “Thank you, Number One.” He turned to the Betazoid. “I apologize for the sudden arrival, Commander. It was necessary to maintain the element of surprise.” Lieutenant Šmrhová was already at the main tactical panel, pushing her way past the Tellarite duty officer standing before it. “My crew have uncovered something disturbing, and this was a crucial step in resolving the situation.”

  “You have a saboteur on board your ship,” Worf said bluntly, and the tension on the Newton’s bridge leapt by degrees.

  “Th-the explosion in the engineering bay?” said Kolb. “Do you expect us to believe it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I agree,” said Rhonu. “What makes you think that was deliberate? And even if it was, that the culprit is on board this vessel?” She squared off before the Enterprise’s captain. “I remind you, sir, that the cascade failure took place well after your vessel arrived out here.”

  “We have proof.” Picard produced the padd that Worf had given him earlier and handed it to Rhonu. She studied him, and he knew she was reading his intentions. The captain allowed it; he wanted her to see his resolve. Slowly, a realization crept across her expression, the first inklings of understanding pushing away her irritation at his breach of protocol. “I need to address your crew, Commander,” he told her.

  At length, she nodded. “Intraship,” she ordered. “Go ahead, sir.”

  Picard stiffened. “Attention all decks, all crew. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. As senior officer on site, I am hereby exercising my rank and placing the U.S.S. Newton under my temporary command, as per Starfleet regulations. A hazardous anomaly has been detected on board the Newton, and in order to isolate and neutralize it, the ship must be subjected to an intensive isophasic scan. Stay at your stations or remain in your quarters until you receive the all-clear. Scan will begin in five seconds. Picard out.”

  “Isophasic?” echoed Rhonu, raising an eyebrow. “Is that a new protocol, a new scanning system you have aboard the Sovereign-class ships? I don’t recognize it.”

  Picard said nothing, glancing at his first officer. Worf studied his tricorder. “Three. Two. One. Mark.”

  The Newton bridge crew visibly braced themselves for some kind of effect, but nothing came. Rhonu glanced up at the Enterprise on the main viewscreen, hanging over the smaller ship. No bright sensor beams or probing energy waves were being visibly emitted from the other vessel.

  She eyed the other captain, touching his thoughts once again, and caught some measure of the truth. “I’ve never played the game myself,” she told him, fishing for a response.

  “You should,” Picard told her. “If you could find the right opponents.”

  Kolb bent over the science console, grimacing. “Sensors register no scans in progress. Jean-Luc, I don’t understand—”

  Šmrhová’s combadge chirped and she tapped it. “Go ahead, Enterprise. What do you have, sir?”

  Commander La Forge’s voice answered from the bridge of the other vessel. “We read an aspect change on one of the Kinshaya ships. It’s picked up speed, moving in on a parabolic trajectory.”

  Rhonu stepped down to the ops station near where Picard was standing and looked over the shoulder of the helmsman seated there, reading his instruments. “Yes. There it is. Port quadrant, mark two. Closing at high impulse, running with weapons cold.”

  “A stealth approach,” said Worf. The Klingon turned to Picard. “It appears our target has blinked, sir.”

  Picard nodded. “Now we have his tell, let’s use it.”

  “There’s no such thing as an isophasic scan,” said Rhonu flatly. “No ‘anomaly.’ You’re trying to flush out our saboteur.”

  “Correction, Commander,” said Šmrhová. “We have flushed out our saboteur.”

  “And put my crew at risk!” Rhonu said, her voice low and intense. “This is reckless, Captain Picard.”

  “You may lodge a formal complaint with Starfleet Command if you
see fit,” he replied. “But in the meantime, I would suggest you use the Newton’s internal sensors to scan for an ultralow-frequency subspace burst. That Kinshaya ship is responding to a signal, Commander.”

  “They’re coming to rescue the spy,” she said, following the train of logic. Rhonu turned and shot the Vulcan a look. “You heard him, Sallos. Look for any subspace radio emissions.”

  The pale-skinned science officer set to work without comment, with Kolb watching worriedly at his side.

  “Kinshaya ship is still closing,” reported La Forge. “If they maintain present course and speed, they’ll pass within transporter range in just under two minutes.”

  Rhonu looked to Picard. “If we go to Red Alert, the spy will be trapped. He won’t be able to beam through our shields.”

  “He’ll know that, and he’ll have planned accordingly, perhaps prepared a secondary sabotage,” replied the captain. “Raise shields now and it could trigger another systems failure.”

  The commander scowled. “Then how in the name of the Rings do we catch him before he flees?”

  “Unauthorized transmitter located,” reported Sallos, his tone dull and flat. “Deck Four, Section Six.”

  “That’s how,” Šmrhová said, with a feral grin. “Captain?”

  “Mister Worf, take the lieutenant and go after the target.” Picard looked to his first officer. “It is imperative we capture him for interrogation, is that clear?”

  “Aye, sir.” The Klingon pocketed his tricorder, exchanging it for the phaser holstered at his hip.

  Rhonu snapped her fingers and gestured to her own tactical/security officer, a dark-skinned Deltan. “Lieutenant Haln, go with them.” As Worf led them out, she turned on Picard, her dark eyes sharp and challenging. “I think you need to tell me exactly what is going on and what you know, sir.”

  * * *

  The turbolift deposited them on Deck 4, and Worf was the first out into the corridor, his phaser drawn and ready. Šmrhová and Haln were a step behind. The Deltan had a tricorder raised, using it to trawl for the microsecond-fast pulse from the subspace transmitter.

  “The trace is degrading quickly,” reported Haln.

  “Which way?” Worf looked up and down the corridor. This was one of the Newton’s residential decks, for the moment empty of personnel after Captain Picard’s earlier announcement.

  Haln pointed and Šmrhová set off at a run. “Three cabins here,” she said, as they came upon quarters assigned to some of the science vessel’s married crew members.

  The Deltan’s face soured as the tricorder emitted a low tone. “Trace is gone. It’s one of these two.” He indicated a pair of cabins.

  Šmrhová pressed her ear to the doors one at a time, and at the second she froze. “I hear voices,” she whispered.

  Worf indicated the door. “Mister Haln, If you would?”

  Haln nodded and ordered the Newton’s computer to release the lock. The door hissed open and the three of them shouldered into the cabin, weapons raised.

  Inside was a family of three Boslics in the middle of a meal, and they stood in panic at the sudden intrusion. Every one of them began talking at once, until a curt growl from Worf threw silence across the room.

  Šmrhová ran a bio-scan. “Nobody here seems like they are preparing to jump ship,” she offered. “Tricorder says they are what they seem to be.”

  “What is going on?” demanded the Boslic female, one of the ship’s medical officers.

  “You are the victim of a ruse, Ensign,” said Haln grimly, crouching by a low planter filled with Kaferian peony plants. He reached underneath it and revealed a hexagonal object small enough to fit in his palm. Haln held it up between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s Orion design, all right. I recognize the manufacture.”

  “A relay module.” Šmrhová took the device and scowled at it. “Our spy must have planted it here to throw us off the scent.”

  “He must be close,” said Worf, thinking it through. “Such relays only have a short range. I would surmise our target is somewhere else on this deck.”

  “How long until the Kinshaya are in transporter range?” said Haln. “Sixty seconds?”

  “I have an idea,” said Šmrhová, and she quickly attached the relay unit to her own tricorder. With a few quick keystrokes, she accessed the device’s functions. She shot a look at Worf, Haln, and the Boslic family. “Everyone cover your ears, this will be loud.” She tapped a control and suddenly the relay module gave off a piercing, static-laced shriek as the security chief forced an overloaded feedback spike through the circuitry.

  Worf immediately caught an echo of the same noise coming from behind a cabin door a meter down the corridor.

  * * *

  The site-to-site transport put the Enterprise’s first officer in the ’fresher cubicle at the exact same moment Haln and Šmrhová entered the cabin. He saw an Arkarian male in civilian clothes spin toward the doorway, the brassy shape of a meson pistol in his fist. The Klingon didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at the infiltrator and slammed into him at full force, the body-check shoving the spy into a wall. Worf grabbed his wrist and gave it a savage twist. The meson pistol fell heavily to the floor as the Arkarian cried out in pain, slumping.

  “We don’t have long,” said Haln.

  As Worf drew his tricorder, Šmrhová leveled her phaser at the man’s head and gave him a hard stare. “In ten seconds, I’m going to shoot you.”

  The Arkarian—or according to Worf’s tricorder, the Orion that had been surgically altered to appear to be Arkarian—threw a cocky grin back at her. “Do it. Because in thirty seconds I’ll be beamed out of here, conscious or not. And you’re not going to put up the shields, because if you do, the interrupt I planted will cause an emitter overload.”

  “Fine,” said Šmrhová, making a show of resetting her weapon. “I’ll just kill you, then.”

  “You won’t,” he spat back. “You’re Starfleet. That’s not how you operate!”

  “War has a way of changing people,” Worf said, and without meaning to, his words grew heavy with sudden honesty.

  “Twenty seconds to range,” reported Haln.

  Worf spun the infiltrator around and glared at him, searching his face for the truth. “There is no interrupt,” he said, menacing the other man. “You have not had time to plant one.”

  “You think so?” The spy tried to maintain an air of defiance, but there was a most fleeting nerve tic at the corner of his lip. “Try to stop me and this ship will explode!”

  “You have a way of letting the Kinshaya track you.”

  “You’re deluded, Klingon—”

  Worf snarled and tore open the infiltrator’s tunic. A pocket ripped and a second hexagonal device, similar to the relay module, fell away. The spy panicked and tried to grab for it, but he was too slow. Worf’s boot came down hard on the mechanism and shattered it into pieces.

  A moment later, Šmrhová’s combadge beeped and she tapped it. “Security team here.”

  “Lieutenant?” It was La Forge. “Whatever you just did over there, it had an effect. That Kinshaya liberator has just performed a fast one-eighty and reversed course.”

  The faux Arkarian heard the words, and his shoulders fell.

  Worf eyed him. “You were saying?”

  3

  Worf looked up as Picard entered the compartment and he turned away from the open wall of the holding cell. The Klingon offered him a padd, and Picard gave it a quick once-over.

  “Een Norgadd.” Picard read the name aloud, the smiling face of an Arkarian male looking back up at him. “A research assistant from the University of Vega.”

  “We are checking into the Norgadd identity now,” confirmed Worf. “Initial data indicates that it is genuine and not a fabricated cover.”

  The captain looked past Worf’s shoulder to where Haln and Šmrhová stood side by side before the humming energy barrier separating the cell from the rest of the compartment. The same Arkarian face peered back
at him from inside, but he knew immediately, instinctively, that it wasn’t the same person behind that visage. “He replaced an innocent man?” Picard didn’t wait for a reply to the question; the answer was obvious. “Commander Rhonu will join us in a moment. Good work, Number One. I wasn’t looking forward to turning this into a shooting match with those Holy Order warships. Capturing this man has at least bought us some time.”

  Worf eyed him. “The Kinshaya will be back, sir. You may count on that. They are considering their options, but it will inevitably lead to an attack.”

  Picard handed back the padd. “A fine bluff, by the way, pressuring him about the shields. Will would be proud of you.”

  “I admit I have appreciated the opportunity to practice.”

  The brig door slid open and Rhonu entered. Her face was lined with fatigue and irritation. “Let’s take a look at him, then,” she said, striding past them toward the cell.

  Haln and Šmrhová stepped back from the field wall as the other officers approached.

  “Has he said anything?” asked Rhonu.

  Šmrhová cocked her head. “Something about being innocent, sir. He obviously thinks we’re all idiots.”

  The Betazoid commander glared at the prisoner. “Stand up and come closer, Mister Norgadd, or whoever you are.”

  “I’m fine right here,” he replied, sitting cross-legged on the cell’s pallet. “And that name will do for now.”

  “How did you get through Starfleet’s vetting process?”

  “More easily than you’d think, Commander.” The spy offered a sly, practiced smirk.

  “I have my security team going through his quarters as we speak,” said Haln. “We’ve already found some interesting evidence.”

  “Such as?” asked Picard.

  “Copies of the command staff’s duty rosters. Our friend here seemed to pay a lot of attention to Commander Rhonu’s schedule in particular.”