A Time to Hate

by Robert Greenberger

  “If I were to activate the substation, this would begin a countdown,” Taurik said, gazing intently at the device. It was welded to the housing and had four distinct wires leading to the power connections within.

  “Do you recognize it?”

  “Not specifically, but I studied terrorism as an Academy elective.”

  “For my elective, I took history of exploration,” Studdard said, but then realized Taurik probably didn’t care. “Can you cut it out?”

  “I cannot. The damage to this station is too severe for me to repair it in an effective manner. The bomb further complicates the situation. I’d need a complete damage control team and three hours minimum to ready this station for use.”

  “Why a bomb? Wasn’t the damage enough?”

  “Neither of us knows enough about the people and what has happened to them to formulate a proper theory,” Taurik replied dryly.

  “Well, then, let’s call the ship and get Mr. Data to authorize the manpower.”

  On the engineering deck, La Forge had reconfigured one of the workstations to keep track of the myriad deals he had established over the last two days. One small screen monitored the path of the Ferengi Dex’s small craft. He considered himself pretty clever to have “convinced” the trader to act as courier in exchange for an Enterprise crew’s performing maintenance and upgrades on his battered old ship.

  With all the rebuilding going on throughout the Federation in the years following the Dominion War, the farther from the Federation’s core a ship was assigned, the more problematic it was to stay properly outfitted. The regional quartermaster was unable to fulfill all the starships’ requisitions, so La Forge, at Data’s suggestion, had created a trading network for the ships in the nearby sectors. The other ships had all responded positively to the idea.

  He had been coordinating the incoming supply data and had started matching it against the needs of other ships. Kell Perim, the Trill conn officer, volunteered to help plot the optimal course for the Ferengi. After all, with the ship in orbit and not needed elsewhere, she had spare time, and this was as productive a use of that time as anything else.

  One added benefit to the trading network was that the Enterprise was at the center. La Forge figured he could do some damage control by getting the word out about what really happened between Picard and Command and curtail some of the gossip. The tongue-wagging had besmirched the crew worse than anything officially reported through Starfleet channels or the news media.

  But La Forge still had engineering to worry about. One of the plasma injectors on the starboard nacelle had acted up, and he had had to take the warp engines offline to handle the repairs. Anh Hoang, his alpha shift specialist, had already suited up to climb through the maintenance shafts from the pylon to the nacelle and visibly inspect the injectors. Without all thirty-six injectors working in perfect unity, a stable warp field could not be safely generated.

  He looked up to see the white-suited engineer being checked over by Chintok. La Forge liked the notion of one of his Vulcan engineers doing the inspection, since they wouldn’t overlook a thing.

  “Ready?” he asked Anh.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied through the microphone. “I estimate it will take me thirty minutes or so to get to the injectors and give them a good look.”

  “You get thirty-two minutes,” Geordi warned her good-naturedly. “If you don’t have a report by then, we’re coming after you.”

  “Not to worry, sir,” she replied in a quiet voice.

  “Good luck. Chintok, go down with her and see her off.”

  “Acknowledged.” The Vulcan accompanied the petite woman off the deck and into the turbolift. La Forge saw the door close and then turned his attention to the diagnostic tabletop display of the ship. He activated the transponder that would follow Anh, and her red blip popped into view. Satisfied, he thought he had some time before he needed to check in with her, so he returned his attention to his new trading board.

  He’d already arranged the swap for a new quad, sending a chambliss coil to another ship, and just got in a request for a new set of phase transmission coils for a ship that had gotten messed up pretty badly while surveying an ion storm. A quick check of Dex’s ship’s course against the various manifests showed that the U.S.S. Jefferies, a mere two sectors over, had a surplus. He made a notation to add the Galaxy-class ship to the itinerary. Geordi chuckled to himself as he imagined the complaints from the Ferengi, knowing all the while the goodwill—and profit—he was earning with each new ship was as good as latinum.

  As the two flew, the night giving way to day, Will realized his father was done talking for now. Kyle had his personal demons to wrestle with, and there wasn’t much else to discuss.

  Without looking at the pilot, Will reached inside his jacket and activated his combadge.

  “Riker to Picard.”

  “Will! We were growing concerned.” At the captain’s voice, Kyle looked over at his son, a mixture of surprise and anger crossing his craggy features. Will ignored him.

  “I am currently flying with my father, tracking El Bison El. My father is convinced that Bison holds a key to unlocking the cause for this problem.”

  “We’ll take his word for it, for the moment. Is everything all right?”

  There was a lot to be read into that question, and a lot Will wanted to say, but he was hesitant with his father hearing. Observations and conjecture he would have happily shared remained tucked away, waiting for a chance to be recorded in a personal log entry.

  Will took a long look at his father, who refused to meet the gaze, keeping his eyes forward. They continued to fly in silence for several long moments.

  “Everything seems fine,” Will finally said, making an effort to keep his voice neutral. “With luck, our next stop will be where Bison is currently on the run. What’s happening there?”

  Picard rapidly filled in his first officer, and Will grew despondent, a sense of guilt building up in his own mind. Clearly, these people deserved better, and he could only imagine how something like this grew out of control. He hoped Kyle and Beverly would have time later to compare notes, match up bits of information and complete the puzzle. Starfleet Medical was never this sloppy, he knew, and that made him wonder about the Federation president’s chief of staff. And once more he wondered how a tactician got involved in a medical issue.

  When they signed off, Will settled back, lost in his own thoughts.

  “See, we’re better off solving this on our own, Willy,” Kyle said. Will inwardly winced at the childhood name, but it passed quickly.

  “Actually, I would think a starship’s resources would be useful,” Will countered.

  “Sure, for the fires, the breakdown of society, and bolstering their joke of a government,” Kyle said. “But we’re on a manhunt and even your wondrous sensors can’t pick out one native from among millions.”

  Will had to grant him that point. Changing the topic, he asked, “Dad, tell me again how you got involved?”

  Kyle looked at his son for a long while before speaking. The look on his face was one Will had seen countless times before. He was calculating the odds, which told Will the answer would be crafted to Kyle’s desires, not his own need for the truth.

  “Let me save you the interrogation. This problem came to light during the beginning of the war. Everything affecting a member world was suspected of Dominion involvement. I was screening hundreds of reports with Starfleet Intelligence and the president’s office, looking for their crafty hand. Delta Sigma IV was ruled out but still, they had a legitimate problem. I got involved because of their homeworlds. We didn’t need their belligerence right then so I had to make sure it wasn’t going to be a problem.”

  Will absorbed the story, listening to the tone of the voice, watching the body language. He knew his father; his training completed the task. This was part of the story. But his father hadn’t offered the Bader and Dorset angle previously, so this was tossed out like bait, with Kyle wait
ing to see what might happen. Rather than take the misdirection, Will ignored it.

  As they flew, he knew he’d have to keep a closer eye on his father. Doing good was just part of the story but there had to be more.

  Anh felt confined in the environmental suit, but recognized it was going to protect her from severe radiation exposure. She disliked the feeling of such close confinement, and it made her sweat. It was a rare instance that anyone climbed into the nacelles when the ship was anywhere but in spacedock. Still, balky plasma injectors meant the ship couldn’t go faster than impulse, and that meant the nearest starbase was months away. And that wouldn’t do at all.

  Chintok, a Vulcan colleague who had been with the ship for some time, walked beside her, saying nothing. She didn’t mind the silence and was thankful La Forge hadn’t sent someone chattier, such as Beloq, the recently assigned Bolian. As they walked through the maintenance corridor that connected the secondary hull to the nacelle support struts, she reflected on her role. She had done her assigned work on the Enterprise and been commended for her efforts, but she had never really had much opportunity to show what she had learned while on Earth. She had made fixing the plasma injector sound like routine repair work, something she could do with ease. However, the last time she had touched a plasma injector was three years ago, in a lab, after it had been removed from a nacelle. She hoped it really would be easy to inspect and repair.

  This Enterprise had endured many more critical problems in its short life; that was part of its allure for her. That, and the fact that it was rarely back at Earth.

  When they reached the access point, Chintok placed his palm against a sensor that checked his DNA and recognized him as an authorized member of the engineering staff. A series of loud clicks reverberated through the deck as massive magnetic locks opened, granting access from the strut to the nacelle itself. There were ladder rungs built into the hull, constructed to fit the boots of environmental suits.

  Anh looked at Chintok, but his features hid his thoughts completely, and she idly imagined being able to do that. It might keep well-meaning people like the counselor from thinking there was anything wrong. Feeling she needed to do something, she gave him the traditional thumbs-up gesture, turned her back to him, and placed one foot within the nacelle.

  As she climbed, it wasn’t long before she heard the access panel close and the locks being reenergized. In an emergency, a locked access panel would slow down a rescue effort, but it was necessary to prevent any radiation from seeping anywhere near the crew. Now it was just her, alone in the nacelle, with the various humming sounds of the systems doing their work. Since there was no crew nearby to be disturbed, starship designers didn’t feel the need for sound baffling. Anh tested herself, trying to match the high-pitched squeals to systems she knew. Those are the power transfer conduits.

  She had not been alone like this in a long time, not since the Breen attack. After the attack, her family and friends looked after her so diligently that she began to feel constricted. She couldn’t yell at them to leave her alone; they were too well meaning, and she was too polite. She couldn’t walk away from her position at Starfleet; it was all she had left. But when it all got to be too much, and the memories wouldn’t leave her dreams, she knew it was time to leave. Not Starfleet, but Earth. Not once did she feel as if she were abandoning the rebuilding efforts. No, she convinced herself that the starships protecting the Federation from even worse damage needed qualified help. The casualties among experienced crew were quite high, and she told everyone she was needed.

  And now she was, finally, needed.

  She looked at the power transfer conduit that paralleled her path to the top of the nacelle. It was thick, with magnetic forces pushing the plasma to the nacelles where it would be used for propulsion. Her job began where the conduit ended, at the injectors. The injectors fired the plasma into each of the corresponding warp field coils, the sequence depending upon the needs of the warp field. Each injector was constructed from arkenium duranide and single-crystal ferrocarbonite, some of the most durable materials found in the Federation.

  Her first stop was to visibly inspect the eighteen injectors in this nacelle and try to see if there was a physical defect that was causing the problem. If not, it was more likely a programming glitch, but diagnostics had ruled that out. As she neared the first injector, set smack in the middle of the nacelle, she debated with herself as to which problem she wanted. A physical one was more serious, allowing her to prove her worthiness to La Forge. But it also represented more dangers, and Anh wasn’t sure how much more danger she wanted in her life right now.

  The injectors were set below the warp coils, and she had to maneuver herself carefully to avoid disturbing the coils and their careful alignment. She decided her best approach was on her belly, snaking forward and ducking her head inside access points to begin her visual inspection. Each plasma injector was set apart, making the inspection fairly easy. “Diagnostic tricorder on,” she commanded, activating a helmet display system that acted as a tricorder, keeping her hands free for work.

  The first several injectors seemed absolutely fine. At most, there might have been a buildup of dust around the fourth one, but nothing that would prevent it from firing at low frequencies for slower warp speeds or higher frequencies for greater speed.

  As she made her way along the row, the engineer concentrated on the inspection, but a part of her mind was aware of the isolation. It was just like when the Breen attacked Earth by surprise. They had first taken over an orbital platform, creating interference that garbled communications. Three ships, small ones actually, then managed to enter Earth’s atmosphere and strike with precision. They first struck the Golden Gate Bridge park and museum, but then switched immediately to Starfleet Command targets. They hit several major buildings, but not the one she worked in. Not that she escaped unscathed; there was enough debris and damage to trap her in the building, cut off from all outside contact, for hours.

  The Breen ships slowly crisscrossed San Francisco, laying down sustained fire, causing fear, consuming life and destroying property. Among the buildings struck was the one containing her apartment, where her husband had just brought their son home from school. It was toward the end of the school year, and they had planned a wonderful vacation to Yosemite Park. The weather had been warm and sunny, and all had seemed idyllic.

  But the Breen changed all that. After the Columbia and the Enterprise stopped them, there was so much to do. It was nine hours before a rescue team could clear a path for the trapped Starfleet personnel to leave. With communications commandeered for emergency use, she remained to help with the injured and to restore the remaining Command buildings to operational status. It wasn’t until nearly twenty-four hours after the attack that she managed to make it home.

  The first thing she noted was that her building was scorched. Immediately she feared the worst. Local police and fire rescue teams were still going from apartment to apartment, looking for survivors and carrying out the dead.

  Before an official could reach her, a neighbor came running up, tears streaming down her face. All she could do was sob and hug Anh. Since the neighbor lived alone, her actions said what her mouth could not.

  All she could think of then was the silence during the time her team had been trapped. After they had given up trying to get out, they had sat in the dark, wrapped in their own thoughts. Anh had thought of her family and the planned vacation.

  She again wanted that isolation after the attack, after the funerals. Anh would never tell the counselor, but the notion of staying curled up in a ball, away from the rest of the world, was a very appealing notion and every so often still tugged at her. Her home had been obliterated by fire, so she had no mementos of her wedding or her son’s birth and early development. All she had were memories, and when alone, she could concentrate on preserving them. They gave her strength to get out of bed in the morning, even here, many light-years from Earth.

  Anh shook her head
, her hair making a brushing noise inside the helmet, and forced herself to focus. She didn’t dare miss a thing.

  The ninth injector looked fine, at first, but then she saw a hairline crack at the base. “Magnify times five,” she commanded. The image on her viewplate wavered a moment and then reappeared, greatly enlarged. She could see that the crack was maybe seven to ten millimeters long, placing the injector out of alignment and causing the frequencies to fall off. The crack had to be recent; otherwise, the ship wouldn’t have been able to arrive at Delta Sigma IV. But what could have caused the crack? That would be her problem to solve once the injector was replaced.

  “Hoang to La Forge.”

  There was some static on the com channel, which was not surprising given the amount of energy flowing around her.

  “La Forge. What did you find?”

  “Starboard injector nine is cracked.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “I can’t say right now, but it’s enough to cause trouble. It should be replaced and studied. Transmitting my visual.”

  “Ah, right, that looks odd. Now that’s going to be an interesting problem.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Anh said, “We don’t have a spare.”

  “Do you think you can repair it?”

  “I can’t answer that, sir, without studying it in the workshop. But I have to try, don’t I?”

  “I’ll see if I can rustle up a replacement, but for now, pull it and bring it with you.”

  “I’ll be more than thirty minutes.”

  “We’re not going anywhere. I’ll inform Data of our status. La Forge out.”

  Anh Hoang let out a deep breath, one she didn’t realize she had been holding, and then reached for the emergency tools that were packed into a case on her right thigh. This was certainly not something she had expected to do when she had gotten out of bed that morning.