“In a word, Commodore, chaos. The government’s ground to a halt. We may need to take drastic actions.”
Sontor spoke up then. “It is likely that the Malkus Artifact is indeed responsible for the virus.”
The Vulcan from the Enterprise said, “Agreed. The logical deduction would be that someone has unearthed the artifact and is using it to foment chaos.”
“Or at least strife,” Kirk said. “Chaos is random, and there was nothing random about the attack on the government.”
Masada tugged on his ponytail. “I’ve picked up the artifact’s energy pattern, but I haven’t been able to localize it.”
“Nor have I,” Kirk’s first officer said.
“In that case, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said with a small smile, “the logical course would be for you and Mr. Masada to pool your resources. And see if there’s any more information about the Zalkat Union.”
“That goes for our doctors, too,” Decker said. “Time to prove if two heads really are better than one. One question, Doctor—if it’s not contagious, do we need to quarantine the planet?”
McCoy fidgeted with a stylus. “I’d still recommend it, Commodore. All right, so it’s being transmitted to a person with some kind of artifact instead of traveling on microbes through the air—that’s still transmission of a disease, and it still calls for a full quarantine. No ships leave orbit, no ships come into orbit. That includes us.”
“Very well—put that into motion as soon as we’re done here.” He turned to Kirk. “In the meantime, Captain—”
Decker’s words were cut off by the comm officer. “Bridge to Decker.”
He thumbed the intercom, and the young ensign’s face appeared on the three-screen monitor in the center of the briefing room table. “Decker here.”
“We’re getting an emergency distress call from a Chief Bronstein on the planet. She’s apparently the head of the Proximan Police Department. Riots have broken out in Sierra City, and they’re requesting immediate assistance.”
“Tell her we’ll be sending a party down. Decker out.” He stood up. “Captain, I suggest you and I both beam down and assess the situation in person and put both our security staffs on standby.”
“Commodore, if there are riots breaking out—” Takeshewada started.
“I’m a big boy, Number One, I can handle myself. You have the conn while I’m gone.” Decker noticed that this Spock person didn’t put up the same argument. He wondered if that was because he was spineless, or just knew better than to argue with his captain—and if the latter, did that mean Kirk was stubborn or that Spock just knew him too well?
Of course, Hiromi knows me too well, and I’m pretty damn stubborn, but so’s she. She’ll keep beating her head against the same wall, figuring it’ll fall sometime…
However, that was speculation that could wait. “Let’s go, people.”
Chapter Three
“CHIEF, we’ve got more problems.”
“Oh, good,” Anna Bronstein said through gritted teeth. Her chief deputy had just entered her toocramped office with this unwelcome news. The chief of police for the Alpha Proxima II colony had been up for thirty-six straight hours dealing with crisis after crisis. Keeping order at the hospitals alone was proving to be a nightmarish duty, and that was only the tip of the iceberg—and now people were rioting in the streets. Her shoulder-length brown hair, normally tied up and neat, was loose and tangled, her head felt as if someone had taken a welding laser to it, and her uniform was starting to take on a rather unfortunate odor of sweat and grime.
I should’ve joined Starfleet like Aunt Raisa, she thought crankily. She had only been on the job for a month, was still learning half the regular procedures, and now she was scrambling to implement the emergency ones.
“I was just thinking I needed more problems. What is it this time?”
Deputy Armando Ramirez ran a hand through his thinning black hair. “Well, first of all, the people we have guarding the water reclamation plant are about to go off-shift, and we don’t have anyone to relieve them.”
“Can’t they work another shift?”
“All of them are on their second shift—some of them on their third. They’re gonna collapse soon.”
“Is there anywhere we can divert?”
Ramirez snorted. “That was a joke, right?”
“I had my sense of humor surgically removed when I took this job, ’Mando.”
“That explains a lot, Chief.”
Bronstein glowered at Ramirez, then started gnawing on her fingernail again. “Have half of ’em work half the shift. Let the other half get some rest, then switch ’em off. What else?” The nail broke off, and she looked at the finger like it had betrayed her.
“Nobody’s showing up to run the cargo transporter downtown.”
“So?”
“Nobody at all. That’s the one they use to get the food and stuff to Arafel County. If nobody shows up, they don’t get their food.”
Bronstein frowned. “Doesn’t Arafel have an emergency supply?”
“Well, yeah, but that’ll only last a couple days, and—”
“In a couple of days, we’ll probably all be dead, ’Mando. That’s not a priority.” She started nibbling on her middle finger’s nail. “How’s Stephopolous coming with his investigation?”
“It’s definitely murder. Stephopoulos figures that it was the roommate.”
Bronstein got up from behind her desk, which was presently so covered with reports and other items that she couldn’t tell what the desk was made of anymore, and started to pace. “Why is it that the first wrongful death this planet has had in six years has to happen when the planet’s falling apart at the seams?”
Ramirez scratched his ear and started to answer when Bronstein said, “’Mando, that was a rhetorical question. Anything else?”
Before Ramirez could answer, she heard a familiar sound—that of a transporter. She whirled around to see two patterns starting to coalesce in the doorway to her office. Without hesitating, she unholstered her phaser. Ramirez did likewise.
The patterns became two white males in gold Starfleet uniforms. That means either two people from those ships that responded to our distress call or two imposters.
“Identify yourselves now,” she said without lowering the phaser.
The younger of the two men held his arms out in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m James T. Kirk, captain of the Enterprise. This is Commodore Matt Decker of the Constellation. We don’t mean you any—”
“Don’t move,” Bronstein said when Kirk started moving forward.
He stopped moving. “I’m sorry. We’re here in response to your distress call. We’ve both got security teams standing by, but we need you to tell us where to put them.”
Decker put in, “We figured that beaming down in the middle of the street might cause more problems than it would solve.”
Well, if they are Starfleet, at least they’re not idiots. “Ramirez?” she asked, not taking her eye off of Decker and Kirk.
She could hear the whirring of Ramirez’s tricorder. “The transporter beam did originate from orbit, and not from a position that matches any of the satellites or local ships.”
Bronstein let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and lowered her phaser. “I’m sorry, Captain, Commodore, but the way things have been—”
“Say no more, Chief, we understand,” Kirk said with a nice smile and in a gentle, reassuring tone—and, to Bronstein’s surprise, she actually felt reassured, an emotion she would not have given herself credit for feeling.
The commodore, though, didn’t smile when he asked, “So where can we put our people down?”
Indicating the west wall, she said, “Take a look.” The wall contained a map of Sierra City, with sections marked in red and blue. The amount of red far exceeded the blue. “The red areas are where the worst of the rioting is—the blue areas are the ones we’ve got contained. Everything else is stable, for now. We’ve been try
ing to keep people indoors, but we’ve got everybody working double and triple shifts. Not surprisingly, the worst is at Government Center, since people want their elected officials to actually, y’know, do something. Second-worst is the two hospitals.” She shook her head. “Can’t tell what they’re thinking.”
“They’re not,” Decker said. “They’re a mob, Chief—mobs don’t think, they just act.”
Bronstein sighed in acknowledgment.
Taking out his communicator, Kirk said, “We’ll try to provide you with some relief. Kirk to Enterprise.”
Decker also took his communicator out, and they each spoke with their security chiefs. While they did so, Bronstein said, “Ramirez, get in touch with the OICs at all the sites and tell them to expect some help.”
Nodding, Ramirez headed back to his desk in order to contact the officers in charge.
“We’ll have people in place within the next minute,” Decker said. “Their phasers are on stun and they’ll be able to pacify the crowd.”
“Great—then what?” Bronstein said. “We don’t have holding facilities for this many people, and I can’t just leave them lying in the street.” She sighed. “Running this place is supposed to be a straightforward operation. I’ve only been here four weeks, and I specifically came here because it was supposed to be calm and relaxing. The worst thing I have to deal with is crowd control during holidays and major sporting events. Now, I have to—”
“Excuse me?” came a small voice from doorway. Bronstein turned to see a short, pale man wearing an ugly one-piece brown suit. “I’m looking for Chief Bronstein?”
“That would be me. You are?”
The little man entered, gave Kirk and Decker a surprised look, then offered his hand to Bronstein. “My name is Johan Trachsel, and I’m one of the directors of the Sierra City Medical Center. I was told to come see you about authorizing an Emergency Powers Act for the hospital so SCMC can simply treat everyone who walks in without having to go through the usual entry process.”
“You mean you haven’t been?” Kirk asked, sounding as surprised as Bronstein felt.
“I’m afraid not—or, rather, some of the doctors have, but it’s been haphazard. We’d rather it was official to save problems down the line.”
Decker snorted. “Assuming there is a ‘down the line.’”
“We prefer to remain optimistic, sir.” He turned to Bronstein. “In any case, I’ll need you to sign off on this.”
Bronstein blinked. “Me? Why me?”
Trachsel went wide-eyed. “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” Bronstein asked, exasperated.
“Uhm, well, you see—you’re in charge now.”
Again, Bronstein blinked. “In charge of what?”
“The planet. The entire council has been either hospitalized or is dead. According to the Proxima charter, in the event of something like this happening, power then goes into the hands of the chief of police.”
Bronstein stupidly looked down at her hands, as if Trachsel had spoken literally. Casting her mind back, she remembered something during her orientation about the fact that the chief of police was next in line if the entire government was incapacitated, but she hadn’t taken it very seriously—after all, how likely was that to happen in real life?
Then she looked up. “Me? In charge?”
“I’m afraid so, ma’am.”
She found herself looking helplessly at Kirk and Decker. Decker was inscrutable, but Kirk looked sympathetic. “I’m barely able to do my job, now I’m supposed to do the whole government’s?”
Trachsel was holding out a copy of the executive order and a stylus. “Please, ma’am, if you can sign this, we can streamline the treatment of the sick.”
“Right, fine,” she said, grabbing the stylus and signing in the appropriate spot. “Someone may want to mention this to the lunatics throwing things at Government Center…”
Soon, they’ll all be dead.
She stared out the window. It all looked so peaceful. So quiet.
But she knew better.
She had been watching the newsfeeds. They were rioting now. Maybe not here, near her house, but elsewhere in Sierra City, oh, yes.
Cowards. Weaklings.
They had had it so easy, and now they were falling apart at the seams.
And it was all her doing.
Sure, they went through the motions, pretending to be civilized. But introduce a little bit of death into their perfect lives, and they become savages.
Their lives had been disrupted. Just as hers was. They stole her life from her, now she was stealing their lives from them.
She turned on the newsfeeds, curious as to whether things had gotten any more entertaining in the last fifteen minutes.
“According to the latest reports, Starfleet security personnel have been sighted near Government Center as well as at Kurkjian Memorial and SCMC. It is hoped that the presence of additional forces from Starfleet will help curb the tide of violence, though some are questioning the presence of Starfleet under these circumstances, and wondering what that means in terms of the search for a cure. Presently, two starships are in orbit, the U.S.S. Constellation and the U.S.S. Enterprise. Both ships have impressive security staffs and heavy armaments. They also have medical facilities that rival our own, and have the benefit of not being inundated with rioting citizens. Further—”
She turned it off in disgust. Damn Starfleet, anyhow, who asked for them to stick their noses into this?
Not that it mattered. She’d just have to use the gift again.
The gift that gave her power.
The wonderful black box with the green glow.
Take my power away from me? I’ll show you power, my friends. I have the power to make you dead—and turn the rest of you into a band of raving lunatics.
She laughed. People used to say that she didn’t have a sense of humor, which wasn’t true. She just didn’t like to laugh very much. When she did laugh it was always awkward and painful-sounding.
Now, though, she laughed with the greatest of ease.
It had been difficult to not run all the way down Pirenne’s Peak after she had found the gift. But that was dangerous, both to herself and to her ability to keep the gift secret. After all, it was her gift. She couldn’t share it, not with anyone—not even Alvaro. No, it was hers. Her gift, her salvation, her instrument of revenge.
So she had calmly made her way back down the trail, moving as fast as she could without raising suspicion, and then had waited impatiently in the queue for the transporter that would take her home.
She held the gift in her hand and contemplated it. She wondered who to use it on next. Maybe I’ll use it on the rioters. That would be so wonderfully ironic, wouldn’t it?
Again, she laughed.
Soon, they’ll all be dead.
Never thought I’d love the sound of a transporter so much, Matt Decker thought.
He stood with Jim Kirk on the roof of Police Headquarters, which afforded them a fine view of the Government Center. Not to mention the hundreds of people who were yelling, screaming, holding signs, throwing things, and pushing against the barely adequate cordon of exhausted-looking police officers. That cordon was all that kept the mob from pouring into the GC.
Then Decker heard the familiar whine of a transporter beam, only amplified to a much greater degree than what he was used to. As the sound increased, the noise from the mob quieted down proportionately. No one was sure what the noise was, at first, but they didn’t seem to think it was good.
After a moment, the noise reached a crescendo, and some forty humanoid figures started to coalesce.
The transporter whine died down, but a concomitant noise increase from the crowd did not occur—mainly due to the fact that the transporter had heralded the arrival of two score people wearing red Starfleet uniforms and each holding a phaser rifle. These were Kirk’s people, so Decker didn’t recognize any of them—the Constellation security detail was
assigned to the hospitals—but they looked sufficiently menacing.
Some people continued to shout, but the efforts were much more half-hearted.
Decker remembered a skirmish with a Klingon patrol several years earlier—the Klingon transporters, he had noted then, were almost totally silent. At the time, Decker had envied that discrepancy—especially since it had almost got him killed. Today he was grateful for it. The noise had had much more of an effect than even the presence of armed Starfleet personnel.
“Attention, citizens of Sierra City,” came a voice from everywhere. Again, Decker didn’t recognize the voice, but he assumed it to be that of Kirk’s security chief, doing what he was supposed to do: using an amplifier on his voice as he tried to talk them down. True, they could have just stunned everyone from orbit, but that had a certain ruthlessness that both Decker and Kirk wanted to avoid if possible. Besides, as Bronstein had pointed out, that would raise the question of what to do with the unconscious bodies. Better to at least attempt to pacify with words rather than phaser beams. And we can still knock ’em out from orbit if we need to.
The security chief continued: “Please disperse and return to your homes. The Proximan government is doing everything it can to alleviate the current crisis, but it cannot function under these conditions. If you do not comply, we will use force. Please do not put us in that position.”
With that, the Enterprise security personnel started moving forward—but with their phasers lowered. Emboldened, the Sierra City police did likewise, with their weapons holstered, guiding people away from the GC.
Amazingly enough, it worked. Where the mob probably figured it could handle a few local cops, a cadre of Starfleet security was a completely different matter.
“Everything is being done to alleviate the crisis,” the Enterprise security chief said. “Please return to your homes and await further word. With your help, we will get through this and cure the disease, but we can’t accomplish anything with actions like this going on.”
Ever so slowly, the crowd started to disperse. People lowered the signs, pocketed items they intended to throw, and started to move off. Some still shouted the occasional epithet, but without the white noise of the screaming crowd to back them up, they came across as petty and weak rather than threatening.
The Brave And The Bold Book One Page 4