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#1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith
#2: Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#3: Hard Crash by Christie Golden
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#5: Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
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#7: Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
#8: Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
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#16: Oaths by Glenn Hauman
#17: Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#18: Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#19: Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
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#21: War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#22: War Stories Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
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#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack
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#31: Ishtar Rising Book 2 by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
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#34: Collective Hindsight Book 2 by Aaron Rosenberg
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#36: The Demon Book 2 by Loren L. Coleman & Randall N. Bills
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#48: Creative Couplings Book 2 by Glenn Hauman & Aaron Rosenberg
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#56: Wounds Book 2 by Ilsa J. Bick
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COMING SOON:
#62: The Future Begins by Steve Mollmann & Michael Schuster (What’s Past Book 2)
#63: Echoes of Coventry by Richard C. White (What’s Past Book 3)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
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Copyright © 2006 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
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This story is dedicated to the people of
Springhill, Nova Scotia
and Sago, West Virginia.
May all those lost souls rest in peace.
Acknowledgments
The ships of the S.C.E. are traditionally named after scientists and engineers who’ve helped change our view of the world as we know it. The U.S.S. Trosper is no different. It’s named for Jennifer Trosper, who, as this is being written, has been tapped by the United States to begin work on the Moon/Mars initiative after her work as mission manager for the Spirit rover on the Mars Exploration Rover mission is completed.
The U.S.S. Landry is named in honor of Bridget Landry, Deputy Uplink Systems Engineer, Mars Pathfinder.
The Shuttlecraft Reeves is named in honor of Glenn Reeves, flight software architect for MER, whose foresight helped save Spirit from the brink.
These are folks who may not have made the front pages of your local newspaper like their superiors, but their contributions to the pursuit of knowledge are no less worthy of note. To acknowledge their contributions here is the least I can do. Thank you all for helping us learn a little more about the planet next door.
My gratitude for the consultation on Jewish culture goes to Michael and Nomi Burstein, Lesley McBain, and Todd Kogutt. My thanks to Siona for the memory jog on tricorders. And thanks to Carolyn Clowes, who gave us the Belandrid species in her novel The Pandora Principle, and to Hannah Louise Shearer and Melinda M. Snodgrass, who wrote “Pen Pals,” the episode that gave us Drema IV and Sarjenka.
Thanks, as always, to my excellent writer’s group for all of their assistance in bringing this story to you.
Prologue
May 2377
U.S.S. da Vinci
The comm unit in Captain David Gold’s ready room chirped. “Sir,” Ensign Susan Haznedl began, “there’s a message coming in for you. It’s from Starfleet Command. Marked private.”
The curious tone in Haznedl’s voice piqued Gold’s interest. The U.S.S. da Vinci and her S.C.E. contingent were between missions, and Gold found he was actually beginning to enjoy the nice respite of general peace and quiet. His mind worked through every possible candidate without a solution. Raising one gray eyebrow, he said, “I’ll take it in here.”
Before he could turn to face the small viewscreen on his desk, it had already shifted to a display of the Federation logo. The logo disappeared, and was replaced by a small text message:
Friend David Gold,
I would like to invite you and your wife to join us in celebrating the occasion of the first of the Dreman people to graduate from your Starfleet Medical Academy. Details will follow if you are so inclined to join us. This would not have been possible without your gracious assistance.
Your friend,
Liankataka
Gold stared at the scre
en, blinking in surprise. Had it been eight years since Drema IV already?
The memory of a ready room long behind him, one filled with more than pictures in frames, flashed into his mind. Thank-you gifts from starbase commanders, pictures his then-young grandchildren had drawn, dreadful statues that his children had made in their art classes to give as heartfelt Father’s Day and Grandfather’s Day presents, had all been out on display. After he’d lost so many of those things over the years—mostly thanks to the da Vinci’s near destruction at Galvan VI—he’d thought better of having such treasures with him. Boxing up quite a few of the items that had survived, he’d sent them back to Rachel for safe keeping. He’d only kept a few things around after that to remind him of what had come before the da Vinci.
The ready room he now occupied seemed far more spartan than the one on the U.S.S. Progress. Oddly, he had never really paid that much attention to how this room had smelled before. It was the sterile, austere, almost hospital smell of a room that had known life, but hadn’t truly been lived in. It served its purpose, and that was all he needed. He missed the old, dusty smell of the aging clay statues mixed with the intense aromas of the dried dill from his wife’s herb garden and the mustiness of the books that had unfortunately become more decorative than practical as the years passed. Yet, they were all smells that he hated having grown accustomed to not having around. Still, when push came to shove, they were all just things.
Tsotchkes are replaceable; people aren’t.
That was the moment the idea occurred to him. Those eight years might have just given him the answer to what he should do about his recalcitrant chief medical officer and her incessant denial over her need for an assistant. Flipping the comm switch on his desk, he said, “Gold to Gomez. I think I’ve got a solution to our little problem.”
Chapter
1
Late 2369
Beneath Latik Kerjna, Drema IV
Day 1
Somewhere in the near darkness of the mine level, an all too familiar voice was cursing. Sinterka’s head perked at the sound. Not once in five years—including fighting a war—had he ever heard that kind of vulgarity leave anyone’s mouth, let alone that of his old friend.
When Sinterka thought that his boss had finished taking the names of every Exile ancestor in vain and calling down the gods upon them back to the dawn of time, he ventured closer. The occasional lamp-covered head bobbed up to see what was going on as he passed, only to return its attention within a few seconds to the greenish-orange stone it was mining. The sharp smell of sweat soaked the air as Sinterka made his way over to where his old friend and shift supervisor, Eliatriel, a normally staid and reserved man, had his hands over something that had been buried deep within the dilithium. On his face was a look of panic unlike anything Sinterka had seen since the Uprisings. “El,” Sinterka began, his voice a rasp from the dust in the air, “what did you find?”
His boss raised a long-fingered hand to silence him. “Don’t start a riot, Sin. I need your help. We need to clear this shaft as quickly as possible.”
Covering something with both hands…needing to clear the shaft…cursing the Exiles. Slowly, the pieces came together, and Sinterka realized what his boss was hiding. “A xurta?”
Eliatriel nodded, brushing a lock of garnet hair out of his eyes. “A xurta. And if there’s one, there are more.”
Sinterka’s stomach chose that point to begin making him regret the sandwich he’d had on his meal break. “More?”
Eliatriel practically kicked him in the behind. “Yes, now go. Get people up to the surface. I’m going to see if I can get this thing out of here without killing us all.”
“Out of the dilithium? El, have you lost your mind? What if it goes off?”
Shaking his head, the supervisor said, “What do you want me to do? We need one of these things intact. When was the last time you saw a functioning Exile transporter?” When Sinterka could offer no answer, Eliatriel continued, “We never did figure out how to disarm these bombs during the Uprisings. If we can get this one out, maybe we’ll finally be able to find a way to get rid of these things so we can keep mining.”
Sinterka gaped at his friend. Finally recovering his wits, he said, “And get yourself killed in the process. El, what about Sarjenka and Rakan? What do I tell them? If that goes off, what will it do to the dilithium? We don’t need the tremors to start again.”
“You don’t think I know that? Sinterka, stop talking to me and get up the shaft. That’s an order. I need to concentrate.”
Against his better judgment, Sinterka slowly walked back toward the shaft. “Shift’s over, guys!” he yelled into the lamplit, oily green darkness. “We need to get to the surface! Nice and steady.” To the occasional shouts wondering what was wrong, he said, “Nothing to worry about! Early day today, that’s all. A gift from the supervisors for a job well done.”
Deep in the back of his mind, however, Sinterka tried not to worry about what he would tell Eliatriel’s family if everything went wrong. Of course, there was always the possibility that all the bombs would explode. Then there was the possibility that the dilithium would focus those energies back into the planet, causing it to begin tearing itself apart once again. If that happened—provided he even survived—Sinterka was fairly certain telling Eliatriel’s family how he had died would be the least of his concerns.
Please, old friend, take care. Traiaka keep him safe. Traiaka keep us all safe.
For his part, Eliatriel tried his best to be as safe as possible. The small, cylindrical device had surfaced as he’d been clearing out the beginnings of a new dilithium vein. Thank the deities for whatever stopped the tremors, he thought. If this had been talrod, I would not be here.
He scanned the edges of the device, running his long fingertips over the exposed face once he realized there were no obvious triggers, almost as though he could sense what might set it off. If we only had one of the Exile transporters remaining.
After brushing a drop of perspiration off his brow, he reached down and grabbed the smallest pick in his tool kit. Eliatriel adjusted his headlamp, making sure it illuminated his workspace at just the right angle so as to avoid any heat buildup on either the dilithium or the bomb. When he had it where he wanted it, Eliatriel measured out a hand’s width from the edge of the cylinder and began to slowly carve around the device. Some of the xurtas he’d seen over the course of the Uprising had been connected to heat-sensitive detonators, others to pressure-sensitive ones. He could see no way to determine which of the two was in use in this case. If it was as long as the others he’d seen during the resistance movement, it would be about half the length of his forearm, and pressure-sensitive detonators could have been placed anywhere in that length.
He gently worked at the stone with the tiny pickax for what felt like an eternity, slowly scraping bits out and allowing them to drop to the level’s stone floor. If he only stopped once for food, he figured there was a good chance of getting the thing unearthed before the end of his shift.
And if he were truly fortunate, it wouldn’t explode as he brought it to the surface.
Chapter
2
FEDERATION COUNCIL
Report on application of fourth planet in the Selcundi Drema System for Federation Protectorate status.
Commander Jan Siok, filing
Stardate 45998.3
On Stardate 45624.2, a low-band audio-only transmission was received by the U.S.S. Landry, Admiral Jameson Tucker commanding, from the Selcundi Drema system. Enhanced audio on the transmission indicated that it was a specific request intended for the United Federation of Planets. The transmission was determined to have originated from the fourth planet in the system. Admiral Tucker notified Starfleet Command, and it was determined that—in consideration of the past observation by the U.S.S. Enterprise, Captain Jean-Luc Picard commanding [Mission report, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, Stardate 42865.6, linked here]—Prime Directive protect
ion was no longer to be afforded the Dremans, and the initiation of official first contact protocols should begin.
Federation Ambassador Lanara Diol was dispatched to the system to begin talks. Her report on the first meetings indicates that the people of Drema IV had already been in contact with outsiders, people they referred to as the Exiles. According to Ambassador Diol, the Exiles descended upon Latik Kerjna [Drema IV’s capital city] en masse and, using superior technology and weaponry, were able to force the otherwise passive Dremans into servitude. The first dilithium mines had been excavated less than a decade prior, and the Exiles forced the natives to work in the mines to provide dilithium for Exile ships. After approximately ten months, the Dreman people worked up the courage to rebel, and with superior numbers, were able to deal the Exiles a solid defeat. According to the current Guardian of the Dreman people, no Exile survived what they refer to as the Uprising. [Report of Guardian Shalkara, filed with Federation Council on Stardate 45954.4, linked here.]
It was at this point in the planet’s history that excavation of a new dilithium mine uncovered remnants of probes carrying the insignia of Starfleet and the Federation. The Dremans chose to attempt to contact the Federation. Their technology is not at the stage where they are able to protect themselves from invasion before the incoming force lands on the surface. They fear Exile reprisals.
Their culture remained prewarp, but Ambassador Diol likened their situation to the planet Bajor after the Cardassian withdrawal, an opinion with which the Federation Council agrees.
The Dremans have offered their considerable resources of dilithium in exchange for consideration of protectorate status. They desire nothing more than protection from another outside invasion, protection which they are not capable of mounting themselves at this time.
A sample of Dreman dilithium was returned to Starfleet Headquarters for examination, where it was discovered that the focal energies produced by one four centimeter by four centimeter crystal were roughly three times the energies produced by a standard dilithium crystal of the same size, with a recrystalization rate twice the norm. It has been determined that the addition of Dreman dilithium to the Federation supply line would increase the lifespan of Federation dilithium at least twofold, possibly more. Dr. Leah Brahms, speaking for the Theoretical Propulsion Group at Utopia Planitia, stated that the group believes that adjustments to standard warp drive technology will be required to allow for optimal use of the new resource.
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