Chapter
4
Gomez was flat on her back, legs in the air, her body buried up to its intimate parts in the Hidalgo Station communications console. Working on archaic technology without a manual was just the kind of challenge she normally got a charge out of, but people’s lives were at stake and this was no time for the joys of tinkering. Rerouting the com circuitry past the systems block had taken almost the entire two hours before Captain Gold had said he’d call back, but she’d done it—she hoped.
Gomez slid out from under the console, scraping her back painfully on a metal edge as she did so. She stood up too quickly, waited for the dizziness to pass, and then flipped on the communications switch. “Commander Gomez to Director Jerifer,” she said. Nothing. The light on the unit that showed its status was green, meaning her voice should be getting out—unless, as sometimes happened, all she’d done was reroute power to the status light. “Commander Gomez to anyone who can hear me,” she said again, resisting the temptation to shout into the com unit. There was no reply. She tried again, and the communicator sprang to life.
All she had managed to do was open an incoming channel from the interior communications links, so she could hear the station crew talk about breaking out emergency equipment and ways to break into the computer control center. Meanwhile, Director Jerifer and Tobias Shelt kept trying to reach her. None of that was helping her concentration, so she tried to cut it off—and failed. Instead, it got louder, which didn’t help much.
From the reports and from the gauges in the control room, Gomez saw that station shields were on full, preventing anyone from leaving, that the power systems were still fluctuating like they had on her way up to the control room, and that people were starting to feel the negative effects of the truncated life support. Director Jerifer was doing an excellent job keeping the panic down and the engineers she had gotten rid of were jerry-rigging spot bypasses for the power lines and reactivating mothballed air regenerators with S.C.E.-level efficiency. Even so, conditions on the station were getting harsh, if not yet deadly. Gomez noticed she was breathing more quickly in the thinning air and that it was starting to get cold in the control room.
Just as Gomez was regretting not having even one of the station engineers inside with her to help, the overhead display popped into life all by itself. Aha. Maybe I accidentally rerouted the audio circuits through visual? As long as she could get a message out, she’d count that as a success. She waited while an image formed on the display. As surprised as she had been to see the image of an angry Captain Gold the last time she’d checked the screen, Gomez was far more surprised to see her own image up there—not as she was, tired, cold, and pissed off, but instead sitting calmly at the communications console.
Then the image of her on the screen began speaking in her voice, not to her, but to Starfleet in general and Captain Gold in particular. It was reminding the captain that his deadline for releasing the political prisoners had run out, and that the tyranny of the state over the common people had to be reversed, and that left her no choice but to reduce station life support another ten percent. Then the display dissolved into a split screen, and Gold’s image faded in.
Gomez’s blood boiled with frustration as she watched Captain Gold trying to talk “her” out of this rash action that endangered people’s lives. Gold went on to ask for more time, which the Gomez simulacrum denied. How could he really think that’s me? Gomez thought. I’m nothing like that. The result of the conversation was that station life support began falling another ten percent, and as the lights dimmed and Gomez felt the control center become colder and the air even thinner. Gomez took a dozen deep breaths, got down on her knees, reached into her kit for the appropriate tool, and began opening the panel under the life-support console. If Captain Gold thinks I’m the cause of this problem, Gomez thought, I’d better keep trying to be part of the solution.
Captain Gold stared at Hidalgo Station as it grew larger in the window of the observation lounge. His second conversation with Gomez had not gone well, in part because Starfleet Command had not been able to finish analyzing the list of prisoners by the time the two-hour deadline was up. Now Abramowitz had asked to meet with him and Soloman in the observation lounge to discuss what she had learned from reading Gomez’s personal logs. She hadn’t sounded happy, and as Gold turned to take his seat at the table perpendicular to the cultural specialist and the computer technician, he could see from their faces that they were not the bearers of good news.
“I take it,” he said to Soloman, “that you were able to override the security profiles on Gomez’s personal logs?”
“Yes,” the Bynar answered softly. “And having done so, I stored the logs in a general access file.”
“Which I scanned through,” Abramowitz put in. “There was a lot of material there, Captain, too much to do more than get a cursory overview in such a short time. But I pulled out a few telling passages. This one is from about three months ago.” Gold steeled himself as Abramowitz lifted up a padd and began to read from Gomez’s logs. “ ‘I must find a way to force the Federation to realize what it has become, what it is becoming: a nightmarish dystopian state that stifles dissent, imprisons those who love freedom, and builds horrible weapons like the Wildfire device to serve its need to destroy all those who oppose it.’ ” Abramowitz stopped reading from the padd and looked up at the Captain. “It only gets worse from there.”
“The Wildfire device wasn’t developed as a weapon,” Gold said, “no matter how many lives it cost us in the end.”
“Correct, Captain,” Soloman said tonelessly, “and Commander Gomez was certainly aware of that.”
“So,” Carol continued, “this shows her thinking had become distorted and delusional by three months ago at least; perhaps Commander Duffy’s death hit her harder than we thought.”
“I requested her Starfleet psychological profile,” Soloman said, “and it does not show a propensity for this kind of mental instability. I’m at a loss to explain how she came to be in this state.”
“Humans are often more complex than our psych reports would indicate,” Captain Gold said to the Bynar. “We like to think we know each other, but there are always things that remain buried within us that can erupt unbidden.”
“Sir,” Abramowitz said, “this means that it’s really Commander Gomez doing this. I was hoping—”
“For mind control or alien possession? So was I.” Gold took a deep breath and accepted the situation for what it seemed to be. “So we switch tactics.” He tapped his combadge. “Gold to Corsi.” A half second later the da Vinci security chief responded, even though she was under orders to sleep and heal after being wounded in the violent encounter on Artemis IX.
“Yes, Captain?”
“I need you in the observation lounge as soon as you can get here.”
“Acknowledged.”
Gold turned his attention back to Soloman and Abramowitz. “When Corsi gets here, we’ll bring her up to speed. She’s trained for negotiating in this kind of situation.”
“Yes, sir,” Abramowitz said. Her expression told Gold that dealing with one of their own on this level was as hard on her as it was on him.
“Carol,” he said softly, “Gomez needs help. She’s sick, same as if she’d broken her leg. We’ll stop her, get her out, and get her through this.”
Abramowitz smiled wanly back.
“Sir,” Soloman asked, “I still remain uncertain that we have properly assessed the situation. There is something….” The Bynar trailed off, his speech hesitating almost the way it had when he first became solitary. “I request permission to continue my investigation into Commander Gomez’s records over the last three months.”
“Granted,” Gold said. Over the years, he’d learned never to stand in the way of a subordinate with a hunch.
The door to the lounge slid open and Corsi stepped in, still favoring her left foot. The EMH had patched her up after she was wounded on Artemis IX, but it didn�
��t have quite the deft touch Dr. Lense had.
It hadn’t been six minutes since Gold had asked Corsi to join them, and he was certain she’d been sound asleep when he called. Yet here she was, her eyes bright, her uniform pressed, her blond hair pulled back in her usual bun. “You move quickly,” Gold said to her.
“Part of the job. So,” Corsi said, “someone want to fill me in? Has the commander gone nuts or what?”
Commander Gomez was busy fighting with the life-support controls. The computer was still ignoring her inputs, and the brilliant idea she had come up with to bypass the blocks was taking a lot more effort than she had thought it would going in. Gomez had noted that the readout lights were still providing accurate information, and had to be maintaining a connection to the life-support and communications nodes, so she might be able to piggyback on the connection and send control signals down the same line.
It was cold enough that her hands were getting a bit numb, she was panting in the thin air, and it wasn’t helping her concentration to have to listen to Domenica Corsi using what were colloquially called “nutball” negotiating strategies to try to convince the fake Gomez on the screen to give up her insane plan. That sharp-as-a-tack “Core-Breach” Corsi couldn’t tell that the Gomez on the screen wasn’t her hadn’t made sense until the security chief had begun reading passages from what she claimed was Gomez’s personal log—things she’d never written.
Whoever did this to me, Gomez thought as she worked one end of the console board out of its slot to get access to the circuit connections underneath, put a ton of effort into it and is no slouch technically—they’ve had had to bypass not only Starfleet security protocols, but the extra ones I put on my personal logs. It wasn’t impossible, obviously, since Corsi was able to read out parts from her logs—even if it was nasty things about the Federation that she’d never even thought of writing. But it would take someone with expertise at least as great as Soloman’s—and the Bynar knew the Starfleet security protocols going in. Gomez decided she wanted to meet whomever set this thing up, first to congratulate them, then to punch them in the eye.
Who has it in for me that bad? Gomez thought, blinking her eyes against an arc of electricity that burned out what she had hoped would be the last circuit of her brilliant improvisation. The Androssi? This isn’t their style. Those Ferengi we met a while back? No, we helped them. Luaran? She’s still in custody, and besides, it’d be Corsi she’d be peeved at. Gomez sighed. The S.C.E. so rarely dealt with anyone on a personal level that it was hard to think of anyone she had irritated so much that they would go to all this trouble to get back at her. As far as I know, she thought as she burned her fingers pulling out the blown circuit, I haven’t killed anyone’s brother, mother, sister, father, or even their second cousin. I don’t live a perfect life, but I can’t think of anyone I’ve pissed off badly enough to single me out for something like this.
The wiring finally replaced with ones cannibalized from other consoles, Gomez fed power into the reworked circuitry. It had been difficult, detailed, and intermittently painful work to wire up a device that would backfeed along the readout connection, send control signals back to the life-support nodes and put them under her command. It was brilliant, innovative engineering done in the midst of a high-pressure situation with lives at stake, just what the S.C.E. had built its reputation on. The only problem was it wasn’t working. Gomez sighed. Back to square one.
Soloman sat across from Carol Abramowitz in the observation lounge and reviewed everything the computer had on Gomez. The Bynar found nothing out of the ordinary. The commander, as mentally uncompiled as she had become, had nonetheless managed to stay on top of her duties right up until she left on her ill-fated shore leave. On her most recent mission, the one that took the da Vinci to Empok Nor, she had acted with her usual top-notch professionalism—and saved Soloman’s life. There was simply nothing in her words or actions to show that her thought processes were getting buggy.
Soloman knew little of human psychology, but pattern recognition of many different kinds was part and parcel of how to deal with computers, and it seemed to him there was no pattern here. Soloman sighed. He was still tired from working desperately to reprogram an ancient defense device before it could disintegrate his crewmates, and he couldn’t help but feel that if he were at his best, he would be able to pull together the sprites of insight that kept flittering just out of his reach. Perhaps Abramowitz was making headway, or perhaps she would see something he had failed to perceive.
“Carol,” he said, “may I interrupt you?”
The cultural specialist looked up at him from where she had been poring over the list of prisoners that Gomez has requested be released. Her eyes took a second to refocus on him. “Please, interrupt,” she said, “I’m getting nowhere with this list. It’s not what it claims to be, and that’s all I can tell you.”
“What do you mean?” the Bynar asked. Anything that was the slightest bit off might be the clue he needed.
“It’s not a list of political prisoners. With a few exceptions, it’s a list of mass murderers, torturers, rapists—a who’s who among the most evil sentients in the galaxy. No culture in the galaxy would call these people oppressed revolutionaries—they’re criminals pure and simple, and dangerous, deadly ones at that. Like I told Corsi, there’s only a handful of these people it’s safe to even think about letting go.”
“The list, though,” Solomon said, “it was carefully compiled?”
“Clearly,” Abramowitz said, “very carefully, and very completely.”
The idea flittered by him like a sprite on a computer display. Mentally, he reached out for the controller, took command of the sprite, and brought it back to center screen. He had it.
Chapter
5
On the bridge of the da Vinci, Corsi was making progress. Whatever had happened to Gomez, whatever psychosis she was suffering from, she wasn’t totally devoid of reason or reasonableness. She could be negotiated with, and she had to be, because the list of “political prisoners” she had provided had finally been reviewed by Starfleet and it was a worst-of-the-worst list chosen from throughout the many different intelligent species of the galaxy, all of whom Gomez was insisting were convicted in show trials on the basis of made-up charges.
Abramowitz had gone over the list in detail, though, and had found one exception to the rule. On the planet Sigma V, the list of criminals wasn’t quite so bad as on the other planets, in part because, it seemed, Sigma V had far less in the way of crime overall. These were the greatest criminals on the planet, yes, but it was a remarkably law-abiding place and not one of them had been convicted of anything more serious than a drunk-and-disorderly charge. All of them were scheduled to be released within three days anyhow.
“So we have a deal?” Corsi asked the image of Gomez on the viewscreen. “A show of good faith on both sides. We’ll release prisoners from the agreed-on planet, and in return you move the station life-support up ten percent. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Gomez said back. “I really don’t want to hurt anyone; I’ll move the life support up five percent when I receive word from my confidential sources that the prisoners have been freed from confinement, another five percent when I have word they’ve been taken on a Mark 17 hauler-class ship to Bartha IX and released to go their own way.”
“Not a problem,” Corsi said. Hauler-class ships were heavy cargo vessels that also carried a few dozen passengers on each run—they were the workhorses of that area of the galaxy and available in great numbers. All that was left was to contact the government of the planet in question and arrange for the prisoners to be released, a problem for diplomats since the planet was non-Federation, but not one that struck Corsi as complex. “We’ll talk again in one hour,” Corsi said, “I should have all the details for you then.” Gomez agreed to that too.
In the observation lounge, Gold took Corsi’s report as somewhat positive news in a bad situation. “So that’s the deal, Captain.
Starfleet has made the arrangements, and the prisoners on Sigma V are being prepared for immediate release. Station life support has already gone up five percent, and when we get word the hauler has arrived at Bartha IX, I fully expect the life support to go up another five.”
Gold nodded. As hostage situations went, this one seemed to be working out relatively smoothly, and if it weren’t for his personal involvement, he would have been much more relaxed and upbeat than he was. Even if they managed to keep everyone on the station alive, and get Gomez out alive as well, he had lost his first officer. As all captains were, he was prepared to lose those under his command—but not like this, not to a mental collapse no one had seen coming.
“I realize this seems like only a short-term solution, Captain,” Corsi said, “but the books all say that if you can get the target to give an inch, you’re well on the way to getting the mile.”
“Maybe,” Gold said, “whatever has driven Gomez to this behavior isn’t strong enough to turn her into a mass murderer.” And perhaps she can be helped back to a normal life, Gold thought, even if Starfleet would no longer be part of that life.
“Let’s hope,” Corsi said, “but the books also say that nothing is one hundred percent.” She was interrupted by the lounge door opening. Soloman and Abramowitz stood in the doorway. The Bynar asked the captain for permission to enter.
“Granted,” Gold said. The expressions on their faces spoke of a certain amount of embarrassment, but on the whole they seemed upbeat. “Tell me you two have better news this time.”
“We do,” Abramowitz said, as Gold motioned her and Soloman to seats near Corsi.
Identity Crisis Page 3