Studdard lifted his head and saw the heavy figure rear back, ready to throw another explosive. He raised his phaser, took aim, and fired, hoping he was not too far away.
The crimson beam crossed the street at an upward angle and hit its target. The figure staggered, dropping the device. A moment later, an explosion rocked the roof of the building. Studdard knew that whoever was up there was most likely dead. He uttered a loud curse, not wanting anyone’s death on his hands.
Grigsby rounded the corner, phaser at the ready. He gazed up at the smoking remains of the nearby rooftop, at the smoldering hole in the communications center’s wall, and then at his lieutenant.
“These people are crazy,” Grigsby said.
“No kidding,” Studdard replied. “And we have to protect them from themselves.”
As La Forge left engineering for an appointment, the shift change was beginning. Among the first to arrive was Anh Hoang; after all, she had nothing else pressing. Despite her session with Counselor Troi earlier, she hadn’t given any thought to picking up her dancing or other hobbies. Normally, she used her free time to read and correspond with family, most of whom were still on Earth. Taurik, just back from effecting repairs to the media center on Tregor, waited patiently for the beta shift to arrive and take their positions before handing over command. While Yellow Alert had long since been canceled, it was prudent to follow protocol at shift turnover.
“Lieutenant, this engineering section is yours,” Taurik said gravely. Actually, he always sounded grave, but Hoang knew that was endemic to his people.
“What do I need to know?”
“All systems are nominal. We remain at station keeping orbit.”
“Heard we had a visitor,” she said. While she didn’t interact with her crewmates much, she did pay attention to the talk in the corridors or commissary.
“Yes, a Ferengi trader. It appears Commander La Forge is engaging his services to acquire the parts we lack.”
“Sounds odd, doesn’t it?”
“The commander seems to have a plan, and we will just have to trust him.”
“If you say so,” she said, and fell silent. Taurik nodded to her and left the section. She idly wondered what he did during his free time. Vulcans, she heard, preferred to keep to themselves. Meditation was popular, Anh knew. None danced, and no one questioned their motives.
She checked the status board and the tabletop schematic of the Enterprise, making sure every system was fine. With the warp engines not in use, she figured now would be a good time to make some modifications to the intermix chamber that might create a faster warp field. La Forge had approved the plan a few days earlier, much to her pleasure.
Grabbing a tool kit, she headed for the warp core, positioned in the middle of the section. It thrummed with energy, even in a passive mode, and acted as the ship’s heartbeat. As she busied herself with tools and a tricorder, Hoang allowed her thoughts to turn to her conversation with Troi. Until the counselor raised the issue, she hadn’t given any thought to dancing once again. Could she really have been closing off her entire life on Earth by joining the Enterprise? Was she betraying her family’s memory by moving on? It took her months after the war ended before she could even make a decision as momentous as leaving Earth. One of the many grief counselors she spoke with had made the casual suggestion to put it all behind her, and Anh did so, literally, by requesting a ship assignment. Her commanding officer on Earth thought it would be a good idea to get some starship experience. Be good for her career, he said. What went unsaid was it would also be good for her to get away from the memories, let time heal the wounds.
She didn’t feel wounded. She didn’t feel much of anything. Her time in engineering seemed to be the only time she felt it was worth continuing. And she knew deep down that was not any way to live and she truly appreciated Troi’s trying to help, but she had had enough of that kind of help on Earth.
Anh wanted to make a new life for herself on her own terms. If only she knew what kind of life she wanted.
“Can I go home now?”
Crusher looked over from the microscope, noticing she had remained in the same position for way too long and her back ached. The first Dorset woman was calling across the room, disturbing everyone’s efforts. Using this as an excuse to get up and stretch, Crusher strolled over to the woman, who seemed uncomfortable on the bed. Crusher decided it was simply irritation that was making her squirm, because her biobed readings remained normal.
Despite the time invested, the doctor had little to show for her efforts, so she could sympathize with the woman’s frustration.
“Soon,” she told the woman.
“Now.”
“I will be the judge of that, not you,” Crusher said, adding steel to her voice. If the woman was going to cause trouble, she would be ready for it.
“What more do you want from me? You have my blood! Want my soul?”
“No thanks, I have one of my own,” Crusher replied. She glanced at the other beds and noticed they were being watched. Nurses and technicians were also surreptitiously keeping an eye on things. Weinstein gave her a questioning look, asking about summoning security. Crusher shook her head no with as little movement as possible. She would handle this.
“We have a problem, and you are as much the solution as anyone else. Do you want to help your people?”
“Give me a gun or a pike and I’ll help them! There’s work to be done, to preserve our way of life. No more contamination from them.”
“Us?” shouted a Bader woman from the other side of the room. She sat up, resting on her elbows, a look of disgust on her face. “You give us dung for music and boxes to live in and call it architecture. We’ve been as contaminated as you claim and I for one am sick of it!”
“And what will you do?”
“You will both settle down or I will have you restrained,” Crusher shouted above the noise. “And if you continue to hurl insults, I will put you both to sleep. This is my domain and you will both abide by my rules of conduct.” Turning to the Dorset woman who had started the argument, she said, “We show patience and manners. We use pleases and thank yous, and we show gratitude when someone helps us.”
To the room in general, she added, “You’re celebrating a century of unity, and that extends to sickbay. We are all working for a common goal, and don’t forget that.”
She stalked into her office, heard the door close, and, out of sight of the patients, allowed the tension to flow from her body. Her back still ached so she stretched it a little, hearing vertebrae make satisfying popping sounds. Regaining her composure was a quick process.
She toggled a control and within seconds, Weinstein came into her office. The nurse looked relieved to see Crusher calm.
“Well, that was certainly entertaining,” Crusher said ruefully.
“You do have a convincing bedside manner,” the nurse admitted.
“Took extra courses for it and everything. Give them an hour to cool off and then have them taken to different transporter rooms for beam-down to their original coordinates. Have each one escorted by whatever spare crewman you can find, the bigger and more intimidating the better.”
“Excellent prescription,” Weinstein said with a grin, and left.
Crusher sat back in frustration. There was nothing else to learn from the test subjects themselves, but their blood and cell samples would hold clues. She just needed to keep looking because that’s what doctors did. No matter how maddening the people, no matter how long it was destined to take, a solution would be found. The violence didn’t just arrive as a by-product of the celebration.
She just needed to keep focused, ignoring the belligerence and the increasing violence below her.
Morrow, carrying a borrowed phaser, insisted on escorting Chkarad back to his home. The former Speaker seemed no less relieved than when he was in office. When the ambassador attempted to converse with him, he gave monosyllabic replies. As they walked through the debris-strewn streets,
they encountered no inhabitants. People remained behind closed doors, a fearful face occasionally appearing in an upper-story window. Smoke rose in thin columns from farther away, a stark reminder of the violence that continued to threaten the planet.
In his short career, Morrow had been to three riot-torn worlds, helped mediate two civil wars, and once got caught up in an embassy raid. A lot had happened to him and the rest of the diplomatic corps over the last few years. The Dominion War had stretched them beyond their limits, and like Starfleet, they had taken deep losses, usually at the hands of the Breen, the Founders’ lapdogs. He could count at least a dozen friends who died when San Francisco was attacked. Since then, his promotions came through attrition, and his assignments grew more challenging. He actually thought coming to the celebrations on Delta Sigma IV would be a nice break, a change of pace from the tense negotiations that were usually required.
Colt Morrow smiled wryly to himself at the grim reality he faced, instead of the parties and fireworks.
By now, Morrow and Chkarad had turned several corners and were entering a residential section of the city. Brightly painted townhouses flanked only slightly less decorative office buildings and retail centers. There were certainly more plants and trees in evidence, making the area seem tranquil, almost an oasis from the madness. Not quite, though. Litter marred the streets, and two of the homes had been marked with racist graffiti.
Another turn, and Chkarad’s pace quickened perceptibly. Morrow assumed this was the street he lived on with his wife and three children. The heavy Bader took five steps and then stopped dead in his tracks. The street was a cul-de-sac with a ring of four homes and a tall, leafy tree in the center. Windows had been shattered and three of the doors had been pried off their hinges or kicked in. Furniture had been splintered, the pieces hanging out of windows or marring the gardens. Clothing had been ripped, fixtures taken.
Chkarad stared in silence and then, resuming his shuffling gait, headed for the house farthest to the right, which seemed no more or less damaged than the others. Morrow began hoping that the Speaker’s family had managed to flee before their home was ransacked.
A man stood in the doorway of Chkarad’s ruined home, a haggard look on his face, his dull red clothes torn. Recognizing the home’s owner, he didn’t smile but began to cry. Chkarad tried to pass and enter his house, but the man, a fellow Bader, held his arms to stop him. They struggled in silence and Morrow hung back, sensing no malice from the man.
“I don’t think you should enter, Speaker,” the man said.
“I’m not Speaker anymore,” Chkarad said slowly.
“Still, stay out here for now. People have been called.”
“What people?”
The question was left unanswered as the man seemed to debate with himself. Finally he let out a deep breath and let go of the Speaker. Chkarad looked deeply into the man’s eyes and then entered his home.
Morrow hung back, waiting to see when it would be appropriate to walk in. The man finally looked his way and shook his head slowly. Then, the ambassador knew what was within.
He entered, keeping the phaser in his pocket. It wasn’t going to be needed. The hallway was bright with daylight, but the walls were marked up or gouged by furniture wrestled out of the house in haste. He paused a moment, listening for Chkarad, and realized the man was further up the hall, in the kitchen.
Morrow moved slowly, giving the Speaker time, but finally reached the entranceway and saw that the man had sunk to his knees. His family sat at the table. His wife was slumped in her chair. Her throat had been cut open, and her head hung back. A boy was slumped over, facedown in a bowl. A girl had been stabbed repeatedly and hung as limp as a rag doll in her chair. Another girl looked as if she had struggled. Knives had been used to pin her hands to the tabletop while another had been used to kill her.
Chkarad sobbed in silence, ignoring the bodies, oblivious to the manner in which his home had been stripped. After a minute, summoning up his strength, the ambassador returned to the hall and used his communicator to contact Picard. He asked for local police help and perhaps Counselor Troi.
He then staggered toward a sink and splashed water on his face, struggling to keep the bile down.
La Forge walked into stellar cartography and noted that their sector was projected on the huge circular screen. Data was at the master controls, continuing to input information, and therefore did not acknowledge his friend’s presence. Knowing better than to interrupt, La Forge occupied himself with studying the stars, trying to recall as many as possible without designations.
“Ah, Geordi, I am glad you are here,” Data said.
“I’ve been curious about this idea you’ve had,” La Forge admitted.
“Out this far from the normal support of starbases, we need to provide a level of self-sufficiency most starships are unused to,” Data explained. “I had determined that there are currently two dozen different starships spread over the nearest dozen sectors, all of which are more than several light-days from support starbases.”
Data manipulated the controls, and a grid pattern now overlaid the stars, breaking them into the blocks of light-years that formed the sectors recognized by most star-faring races. He noted that Starbase 214 was their nearest supply base, and that was some distance away.
“Therefore, it makes sense for all ships in these sectors to share with one another their supply manifests and potential supply needs to see how much support we can offer one another.”
“I see your point,” La Forge said admiringly. “You want to go galactic. I could coordinate the efforts here, since we’re the only ship stationary at the moment.”
“A logical point,” Data admitted.
La Forge thought about it a bit and nodded, smiling. “In fact, by channeling everything through us, it’d give me a chance to chat up the other engineers. A little off-the-record gossip here and there just might help convince people we’re still right in the thick of things.”
“You mean, convince them through unofficial means that the speculation regarding our collective competency is incorrect.”
“Just what I said,” La Forge said with a laugh. “Let’s get started.”
Picard needed action. Or progress. Something other than standing around and offering advice to the Council. Much of it had been taken in the hours since Chkarad resigned his post. Some of it was ignored or forgotten as people struggled to learn how to run a planet in crisis. He finally asked Christine Vale and Beverly Crusher to join him at the Council chamber for an update. Both women materialized within moments of each other, and he had to admit he had seen them look better.
Crusher looked strained, her eyes bright but her jaw set. The injuries treated on the Enterprise had clearly taxed her and her staff. The same held true for Vale, who had been literally around the world working on tactics with her people. He imagined how much worse things would have been had the starship not been in orbit.
“I heard about the Speaker,” Crusher said by way of greeting.
“Morrow says he was devastated by the circumstances,” Picard said sympathetically. The memory hung over the trio for several moments, none quite knowing what to say about the most horrifying example yet of what what happening to the planet.
“Lieutenant, how goes your work?”
“Fine, Captain,” she said somberly. “We’re stretched, and I’ve left only a few on-duty people on board in case something really bad happens. Fortunately, the crew doesn’t seem to be affected by the liscom gas.”
Picard looked expectantly at Crusher, who shrugged.
“From what I can tell, the liscom gas or any other element on the planet seems neutral to all life-forms on the ship. No chance of infection.”
“Well, that’s something,” Picard concluded, hanging on to this news as the first positive thing to have happened all day. “Tell me what you’ve seen of the disturbances.”
“Nothing’s organized on a global scale,” Vale reported. “It’s all
pockets of violence, ranging from bickering over fish to full-scale riots. There’s no discernible pattern.”
“Just to be safe, have your information sent to Commander Data for further analysis. Let’s make sure we cross-check each other to see if there’s anything we missed.”
“Aye, sir,” Vale said. She paused, running a hand through her short hair, and finally added, “You know, it’s odd. The way things have been escalating, it seems as if these people have never done anything like this before. It’s all very basic—street fights, mob mentality, looting, racial in some cases, socioeconomic in others. You ask me, these people have never been violent before.”
Crusher stared at the security chief and then exchanged a look with Picard. He sensed this was a missing piece, a large one by the doctor’s expression.
“Do you have records of the spread of violence?” Crusher asked.
Vale gestured to the monitor boards, which contained all the available data. Crusher led the way and the trio went to one of the larger monitors. Several of the councillors, who had been talking among themselves, wandered over to see if something new was about to happen. The aide at the screen was instructed by the doctor to project the initial reports of violence with time codes. In seconds, the screens flickered and then a fresh map of the world appeared followed by purple lights, each with the time posted.
“Good. Now give me the second twenty-four hour period.”
Again, the screen flickered as more purple lights dotted the map. Picard stood back, watching with interest. Morrow, who had been keeping to himself since returning from Chkarad’s home, had joined the crowd watching the doctor at work.
“Okay, good. Now just give me a moment.”
Crusher studied the screen, her right hand under her chin, the elbow resting on her left wrist. Everyone remained silent, but no one took their eyes off the screen.
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