by David Mack
Taran’atar noted his men’s intense focus on the images of the two human men. These were the gazes of soldiers memorizing the faces of future targets. “Any questions so far?”
Second Ankan’igar pointed at Bashir. “Is he still aboard the Enterprise?”
“All available intelligence suggests he is. The reason we are here is to develop a viable strategy for boarding the Enterprise, taking custody of Bashir, and returning him alive and with minimal injury to this vessel so that he can be held accountable for his crime.” Taran’atar switched the image to a schematic blueprint of the deck plans for a jaunt ship. “These are an approximation of the Enterprise’s interior, based on sensor analysis and limited firsthand observation by covert operatives.”
“Question,” said Fifth Golgan’adar. “How heavily guarded is their brig?”
“Its automated defenses are formidable,” Taran’atar said. “But that is of no concern. We have intercepted communications that suggest the fugitive Bashir has been confined to guest quarters, along with the rest of his associates. That should facilitate his capture and repatriation.”
Third Keltan’iklan nodded at the schematics. “These plans show several suites of guest quarters. How are we to find the correct one before the ship’s security forces intercept us?”
“We will go aboard shrouded and remain so while we scout the vessel. As there do not appear to be other ‘compulsory guests’ on the Enterprise at this time, we need only determine which suite is under armed guard. That will be the one containing Bashir.”
A turn of Fourth Morgul’itan’s head telegraphed the next question. “How are we to board the vessel? Any approach by one of our ships will cause the Enterprise to raise its shields before we achieve transporter range.”
“The mission profile calls for us to be smuggled aboard the Enterprise as passengers on a shuttle carrying the Founder. We will shroud ourselves and debark the shuttle after the Founder and her Vorta entourage have departed.”
Doubt crept into Second Ankan’igar’s tone. “Why would they not beam over?”
“We will express reservations regarding the safety of the transporter systems on the Commonwealth’s vessels. Though we were willing to beam the Founder to the surface, we will refuse to entrust her life to a hand-off between our respective systems.”
The explanation did not seem to sit well with Keltan’iklan. “If they don’t believe us?”
“Then we will have no choice but to board the vessel and take Bashir by force.”
All the subordinates responded with nods of affirmation. Morgul’itan studied the jaunt ship’s plans with keen eyes. “If the Founder or one of her Vorta could disable the Enterprise’s primary shield generator for just a few seconds, we could beam over.” He stepped forward and tapped a point on the schematic. “If we materialize here, we could split into two groups and investigate all the guest suites in under two minutes.”
“Yes, good,” Golgan’adar said. “But this plan’s viability depends upon the response time of the Enterprise’s security forces.” He looked at Taran’atar. “Do we have any intel on them?”
“Not as such. However, intercepted comms suggest they were able to retake their own commandeered vessel ShiKahr from hostile forces in under four minutes.”
A low growl of respect from Ankan’igar. “They’re not amateurs, then.”
Taran’atar met his second’s inquisitive look. “No, they are not.”
Golgan’adar was unfazed by the news. “We should always assume we face opponents who are, at the very least, our equals. Given that presumption, how do we propose to exfiltrate the prisoner Bashir alive? Can we count on the Enterprise’s shields staying down long enough for us to transport out once we secure him?”
“Unlikely,” Keltan’iklan said. “The jaunt ships seem to have multiple redundancies built into their key systems. We might knock down the shields long enough to get aboard but not long enough to complete the search and transport back out.”
“There is another concern,” Morgul’itan said. “The ShiKahr remains in orbit with the Enterprise. If the crew of the Enterprise deduces our objective, even if they cannot raise their own shields, they could call upon the ShiKahr to protect them with its defensive screens.”
Ankan’igar bristled. “Then we mount simultaneous assaults on both ships!”
“How?” asked Golgan’adar. “Our initial attack upon the Enterprise depends upon a covert strike against its defensive systems from within. If we mount an open attack on the ShiKahr at the same time, the result will be a full-scale engagement between our fleets.”
“That’s a likely consequence if our mission succeeds,” Ankan’igar said. He turned toward Taran’atar. “Is that the Founder’s goal? To trigger a war with the Commonwealth?”
The second’s query unleashed a flood of similar questions.
Keltan’iklan asked, “Are we expendable in the name of protecting Bashir?”
“What are the Founder’s orders regarding collateral damage?” asked Morgul’itan.
It was Golgan’adar who asked the question that left Taran’atar dumbstruck. “When does the Founder want us to launch the mission?”
Their attention weighed upon Taran’atar. He had been born incapable of lying to his own men. The effectiveness of the Jem’Hadar as a martial entity depended upon unbreakable unit cohesion at all levels of the command hierarchy, from the most venerated Honored Elders to the lowliest of new hatchlings waiting their turn to draw their first blood and earn their names. He did not want to tell his soldiers the truth, but he knew they would discern it from his silence.
Keltan’iklan’s countenance became grave. “Who ordered the planning of this mission?”
“No one,” Taran’atar said.
Dark, paranoid glances passed among his men. Ankan’igar was the first brave enough to meet Taran’atar’s stare. “You launched this operation on your own initiative?”
It was imperative that Taran’atar correct his soldiers’ misunderstanding. “I have not launched this operation. No action has been initiated. I have anticipated one possible request the Founder or her agents might make of us, and I am ensuring that if such a request comes, we will be ready to carry it out without delay. That is all, and nothing more.”
Slow nods of fearful caution. Once again, the others let Ankan’igar speak for them. “We understand, First.”
“That will be all for now. Dismissed.”
Taran’atar faced the jaunt ship schematic as his soldiers filed out of the room. They had accepted his explanation, just as they and all of their kind had long ago been genetically programmed to do. This was the way of things, the shape of their existence.
Hidden from their sight by the closing of the strategy room’s door, Taran’atar surrendered to a bitter flush of shame and self-castigation.
What was I thinking? How could I have dared to think I might know the mind of a Founder well enough to anticipate one’s desires? Never has a Jem’Hadar been so arrogant!
He could only hope that none of his men had discerned his error of judgment. Because if any of them reported this irregularity in his behavior to any of their Vorta, then this first mistake born of pride would likely be Taran’atar’s last.
* * *
“Come in, sit down, and start talking. And do try to get to the point. I don’t have all day.”
As brusque as the Taurus Pact consul’s invitation was, Kersil Regon accepted it with a gracious smile and a follow-me-inside glare at Kort, who plodded into the diplomat’s office. The two spies in disguise settled into the comfortable armchairs that faced Zolim Fel Tun-A’s desk. Regon smiled. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Zolim. It really has been too long.”
The aging Tzenkethi squinted at his two guests. Though he once had been luminous like so many other members of his species’ upper echelons, his glamour had faded with time’s passage. His golden hair had dulled, and his majestic complexion, which once had sparkled in the right light, now betra
yed an ashy texture. Even his eyes had darkened and given up their inner light. Just as withered now was his patience. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize you.”
“Nor should you. We’ve had quite a bit of work done recently, and Tellus Prime was such a long time ago.” A diabolical smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. “How’s your knee?”
She saw that her invocation of places and events from their shared past had jogged his memory. His mild annoyance became surprise, and then it gave way to barely contained rage. “Regon.” He shifted his glare to her companion. “Which means this must be Kort.”
“Yes, I must be.” The surgically altered Klingon looked himself over, and then he shrugged, as if to say without words, What is one to do? “What do you think, old friend?”
“First, I was never your friend. Second, you’ve looked better.”
Regon harrumphed. “We could say the same.” She looked around at his barren office. “Never thought I’d see you give up intelligence work.” Unable to help herself, she added with a cruel note, “I guess the Autarch finally put you out to pasture, eh?
Zolim’s manner grew sharper by the moment. “Last I heard, you were the one left out in the cold. A shame your masters in the Obsidian Order lacked the foresight to provide you with a retirement plan.” He snickered under his breath at Kort. “Or the compassion to keep you on the payroll long after you’d outlived your usefulness.”
Kort tensed to spring from his chair. Regon slapped her hand against his chest to keep the ill-tempered old coot in his seat. “You’d be dead before you got across the desk.”
The Tzenkethi steepled his long fingers. “Heed her well. She just saved your life.”
“Yours as well, petaQ.” Kort eased back into his chair.
Regon put on her most businesslike demeanor. “As much fun as it’s been catching up with you, Zolim, we’re here for a reason.”
“What a relief. I was starting to think I’d have to kill you for nothing.”
She settled back into her own chair and crossed her legs. “I presume you’re aware of what’s going on in orbit?”
“The great showdown? I might have caught a few details on the news.”
“Well,” Regon said, “how long would it take the Taurus Pact to muster a few battle fleets on either side of this fast-brewing apocalypse?”
Zolim laughed. “Why would we do that? This isn’t our problem.”
Kort leaned forward. “We never said it was. In fact, we think you and your allies ought to be looking at this calamity in the making as an unparalleled opportunity.”
The sales pitch garnered Zolim’s suspicion—but also his interest. “How so?”
“Obviously,” Regon said, “the Taurus Pact has nothing to gain from going head to head against either the Commonwealth or the Dominion. But if those two titans square off, there’s a good chance they’ll do each other a lot of damage, especially in the sectors adjacent to this one.”
Picking up the rhetorical baton, Kort continued. “Not only would the Pact be well positioned to lay claim to strategically valuable planets and star systems; if you had forces here when the fighting starts, you could lay claim to the Bajoran wormhole—and seize control of all shipping and passage between here and the Gamma Quadrant.”
“In other words,” Zolim said, “you want my people to do your people’s dirty work.”
Regon shook her head. “Not at all. If done correctly, no one ever needs to know the Taurus Pact lit the fuse on this war. The Commonwealth and the Dominion will each blame the other for firing the first shot. And while they’re busy wiping each other off the map, the Pact—and, yes, the Klingon Empire and the Cardassian Union—can divvy up the Commonwealth’s shipping lanes and vital resources.” A rakish tilt of her head. “And if we happen to find, floating amid the wreckage of their fleets, some of that secret technology they’ve been using to keep the rest of us running scared for the last few years . . . so much the better.”
Zolim reclined his chair and pondered their proposal. “Would I be correct if I presumed the two of you had a plan in mind for how to make this happen?”
Sly looks passed between Kort and Regon. She flashed a sinister smile. “You would.”
The weathered old Tzenkethi spy turned diplomat got up and walked from his desk to a small low cupboard against the wall. He opened its two front-facing doors. He removed three glasses, which he set on top of the cupboard. Then he took out a squat decanter filled with pale liquid and poured two fingers of liquor into each glass.
He handed one glass to Regon and another to Kort; he set the third on his desk. The careworn ex-spy slumped back into his chair. His face brightened as he picked up his drink and lifted it as if to toast his visitors. “Now then, my old friends . . . tell me everything.”
Twenty-four
My mind to your mind.
Sakonna pressed her ear and her fingertips to the bulkhead. Its insulation would prevent most sound from carrying through to the quarters in which she and the rest of the team had been confined, but her psionic talents—which the organization had honed far beyond her native gifts—could penetrate the duranium and its embedded cabling and machinery with ease.
My thoughts to your thoughts.
She felt the presence of the sentient mind on the other side of the locked door. When a pair of security officers had escorted Cole from the suite a short while earlier, Sakonna had seen a dark-haired woman standing in the corridor beside the entrance. It had been only a brief glimpse, but to her trained eye she had looked human. Her eyes had been hazel, so she had ruled out the possibility that she might be a Betazoid; full-blooded members of that telepathic species had solid black irises. She also had lacked the distinctive hairless protrusion near the temples that identified Ullians, another telepathic threat. Also absent were epidermal spotting patterns, which meant there was almost no chance Sakonna would encounter the dual mind of a joined Trill.
Open your mind. Feel my thoughts becoming your thoughts.
One by one, the layers of the young human’s psychological defenses melted away. Her mind was untrained. Each new wave of suggestions from Sakonna washed over the ramparts of her psyche like a neap tide overpowering a sand castle. Surge after surge wore down the weak battlements of her unconscious, until at last her will vanished, swallowed up by the Vulcan’s.
Sakonna heard the woman’s thoughts echo her own: My mind to your mind.
Her memory became an open book to Sakonna. Her name was Bonnie Burton. She was an ensign, a graduate of the first class of cadets formally trained for service in the Commonwealth military. Her pride at being part of the vanguard of a new era in galactic history was powerful to the point of being intoxicating. The colors of her thoughts were bright and hopeful. It was almost a shame to use her so cruelly, but Sakonna had her orders.
The Vulcan withheld her thoughts from Burton. Instead, she projected an irresistible suggestion into the human woman’s beautiful mind. Unlock the door to the guest suite.
It was almost too easy. Burton turned toward the control panel on the bulkhead by the door. She entered a security override code that she knew by virtue of rote repetition. The door’s magnetic locks released, and the portal slid open.
Remain still, Sakonna directed her psionic puppet. She pushed away from the wall, stepped through the door, and walked quickly to stand beside Burton, who remained locked in place, a statue of flesh and bone. The Vulcan touched her fingertips to key neural junctions on the side of Burton’s face, initiating an even deeper telepathic link. You will stay at your post. You have seen nothing out of the ordinary. You will not remember our link.
Burton stood, rigid and unblinking. I will stay at my post. I have seen nothing out of the ordinary. After reciting the first two directives, her mind turned as blank as virgin parchment.
Sakonna withdrew her hand from Burton’s face and walked away at a brisk pace. She had to reach the nearest transporter room before any other member of the ship’s crew saw her outside h
er quarters. Voices from a short distance ahead made her duck down a side passageway. She pressed her back to the bulkhead and held her breath as two of the ship’s crew, a Bolian male and a feminine Andorian (Sakonna had never been able to discern that species’ multiple genders), passed by without so much as a look in her direction.
As soon as the corridor was clear, Sakonna was moving. It was fortunate that whoever had designed the Commonwealth’s jaunt ships had taken pains to post informative signage and deck diagrams at regular intervals in all the main passageways. Two minutes after escaping her confinement, Sakonna reached a transporter room. She extended her psionic senses through the bulkhead and determined to her satisfaction that the compartment was unoccupied.
She hurried inside and moved to the control panel. Its interface was highly intuitive, and most of its controls were similar enough to others she had used that she was able to power up the console with ease. The target coordinates posed a more serious challenge. She had to access the Enterprise’s sensor network and locate its sister ship, the ShiKahr.
To her relief it was orbiting Bajor in close proximity to the Enterprise, likely as a precaution after having recently been boarded. She focused the transporter’s targeting sensors on the ShiKahr’s main docking bay, and then she fine-tuned its coordinates to the interior of the Królik, which remained under guard inside the ShiKahr. A quick review of the transporter’s sensor data confirmed there were no personnel currently inside the Królik. Sakonna programmed her beam-in coordinates for the interior of the Królik’s main fuselage and decoupled the security circuits on the transporter panel, so that it would not alert the Enterprise’s bridge crew of an unauthorized transporter activation. As for the ShiKahr, she could only hope that its crew was too distracted by its ongoing repairs and security review to notice this brief visit of hers.