by David Mack
Eloch crossed his arms and raised his chin at a haughty angle. “I want to talk to your commanding officer.”
“I will inform him of your desire.”
Narrowed eyes conveyed Eloch’s suspicion. “He told you to stonewall me.”
“It might be some time before Captain Picard is able to speak with you.” Worf motioned for the governor to depart. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable waiting in your own home.”
The governor bristled at the suggestion. “You think you can get rid of me that easily?”
It took all of Worf’s willpower not to respond, Actually, I hope you will leave me no choice but to use deadly force. Instead, he marshaled an insincere smile and exorcised any trace of hostility from his voice. “I merely suggest, Governor, that it might be some time before the investigation yields results. Until then, the demands of operational security strictly limit the intelligence I can share with you or the planet’s civilian law-enforcement agencies. Rather than ask you to suffer further inconvenience by waiting here for our next report, I thought you might prefer to return to your residence or office.”
“A most politic suggestion, Mister Worf. Well played.” Eloch started to walk away, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I still want to talk to your captain.”
“I am sure he will look forward to it, Governor. Good night.” Worf delivered the last two words with sufficient gravity that Eloch had no choice but to infer the conversation was over. He stood and watched the governor depart; it was nearly half a minute before the Kobliad stooped through the hatchway of his executive shuttle and passed from Worf’s sight. Several seconds later the small craft made a near-silent vertical ascent until it was well above the highest local buildings, then it accelerated away toward the capital, three hundred kilometers to the north.
As the ship vanished into a bank of low atmospheric haze and the hum of its engines faded, Captain Jean-Luc Picard exited the Annex and stopped at Worf’s side. “You handled that well, Mister Worf.”
“Thank you, sir.” The Klingon turned a curious eye toward his captain. “Why did you not wish to speak with him?”
Picard drew a deep breath and adopted a pensive mien. “I’ve been a starship captain for nearly half a century. In that time, I’ve had countless conversations exactly like the one you just had with Governor Eloch. Learning to placate the egos and tempers of those in power is a skill every starship commander needs to cultivate, sooner or later.”
Worf was both flattered and discomfited by the implication of Picard’s explanation. “I was not aware that such a career path remained available to me.”
“Why? Because of your actions on Soukara?” The captain spoke as if it was a minor infraction, but Worf’s record had been blemished by a formal reprimand after he scuttled a vital mission during the Dominion War in order to save his wife, Jadzia Dax. It had been a grave offense during wartime, but now Picard verbally waved it off. “That was ten years ago.”
“Captain Sisko was certain it would bar me from ever attaining my own command.”
Captain Picard remained upbeat. “That was before you served as the Federation’s ambassador to Qo’noS. I know you hold Captain Sisko in high esteem, but he was wrong, Worf. If Starfleet didn’t think you were ready for command, they wouldn’t have let me appoint you my first officer. Your job isn’t merely about being my Number One; it’s about acquiring the necessary experience to command a ship of your own.”
The topic of conversation made Worf distinctly uncomfortable. “That may be so. However, I think it is premature to speak of my promotion.”
Picard’s mood turned quite earnest. “Far from it. You’ve been my first officer for more than four years, and during that time your service has been exemplary. I have no doubt that you’re more than ready to take on greater responsibilities.”
Ever since Worf was a child, he had never liked being pushed into decisions. Now, as ever, he could not help but push back, even if only obliquely. “If memory serves, you allowed Captain Riker to serve as your executive officer for fifteen years.”
“Well, in my defense, he was a slow learner.” With a rakishly arched brow, Picard added, “Look how long it took him to marry Counselor Troi.”
Worf conceded the debate with a frown. “Good point.”
“No decisions need to be made in haste,” Picard assured him. “Just give it some thought.”
He looked his captain in the eye. “I shall.”
A soft chirp warbled from Worf’s combadge, followed by the mellow, feminine voice of the Enterprise’s chief of security. “Choudhury to Worf.”
“This is Worf. Go ahead.”
“We’ve finished our sweep of Captain Maddox’s lab—and I think you and the captain need to see this immediately.”
Picard hurried back inside the Annex, and Worf followed him. “We’re on our way.”
• • •
After more than a decade in Starfleet, Lieutenant Jasminder Choudhury had seen her share of crime scenes, and in all that time not one had ever struck her as being the site of a “perfect crime”—but she had to admit, Commander Maddox’s ransacked lab came closer than most.
The criminal investigation team, a half-dozen experts in various scientific disciplines, had retreated to the room’s periphery to pack up their test kits and doff their blue disposable field suits, which both protected the investigators from airborne and contact pathogens and minimized the risk of contaminating the scene with their uniform fibers or traces of their genetic material. Choudhury stood at the door of the lab, waiting for the all-clear signal that would mean she was free to enter and begin her own walk-through of the lab. Pending that clearance, she reviewed the investigators’ preliminary findings on her padd and was dismayed by what she read.
Her sensitive ears picked up the low thrumming of the elevator arriving at the end of the hallway. Its doors parted, and Captain Picard was the first person to emerge, followed by Worf. Focusing her thoughts, Choudhury maintained a mask of professional reserve as her ship’s two most senior officers approached. As much as she wanted to smile whenever she saw Worf, she knew it would be improper to let their intimate relationship color their behavior toward one another while on duty, either aboard the ship or on away missions. It wasn’t that their romance was the least bit secret; most of the ship’s senior officers were well aware of it, and as long as they didn’t let it interfere with their performance as officers, they had the captain’s tacit blessing.
She stepped forward and met her CO with a polite nod. “Captain.”
“What have you found, Lieutenant?”
She handed him the padd. “This was a professional job. According to Captain Maddox’s statement, there were three intruders. They were well-equipped and knew their way around the Annex.” She walked to a door along the main corridor. “At 2315, they remotely disabled and hacked a subset of the Annex’s sensors—just enough to mask their entrance, path to target, and actions inside the building. To the Institute’s main security center, nothing seemed to be wrong. They didn’t notice when their visual feeds on these areas switched over to looped recordings.”
She pushed open the door to reveal stairs leading up. “One minute later, the intruders breached the building’s only entrance by sabotaging the retinal scanner and magnetic locks with a parasitic plasma charge, and they crossed the first floor to this emergency stairwell.”
Worf asked, “Why didn’t they beam directly into the building?”
“Because the Annex’s scattering field was still active. It was hard-wired so that it could be controlled only from a panel inside Maddox’s lab. It would have prevented them from using sensors or transporters within ten meters of the Annex.”
The captain motioned for her to continue. “What happened next?”
“Once inside, they reached this sublevel in less than thirty seconds.” She closed the door and led Worf and Picard back to the lab’s open doorway. “They gained access to the secured laboratory by
force, cutting through the doors’ locks with high-intensity plasma torches. With the fire sensors offline, they were able to set the torches to maximum power. I believe they breached these doors in under a minute.”
They followed her inside the lab and stayed close behind her as she walked them through the crime scene. “Based on footprint patterns, we think that one of them placed the explosive charges on the computer banks while the other two broke into the androids’ hidden alcove. They appear to have finessed their way through this door’s security systems, because Maddox noticed no sign of damage when he opened it for Commander La Forge an hour ago.” The trio stopped amid the six empty sarcophagi. “I suspect they placed transport pattern enhancers on all six androids, then exited the chamber. According to Elfiki’s review of the Institute’s security office computers, a Trojan horse program was uploaded from this lab at 2320. It initiated a series of system failures in the Annex’s scattering field generators. To the main security office, these would have registered as simple mechanical malfunctions. That’s when the alarm sounded.”
Picard looked up from the padd, his attention keenly focused. “What alarm?”
“The Institute’s general security alert.” Choudhury pointed at several scorched blocks of sensor hardware mounted high on the walls around the lab. “These auxiliary sensors started flashing and wailing—and transmitting signals back to the security center. The guards on duty saw only a few seconds of vid before the intruders shot the backup sensors, but it was enough to make the sentries summon reinforcements from the nearby Starfleet barracks.”
Worf stepped back out into the hallway and cast an inquisitive eye at the blaster damage on the walls. “At what time did Captain Maddox reach the sublevel?”
“By his own reckoning, roughly 2321. That’s when the intruders opened fire at him. About ten seconds later, they beamed out—and took the androids with them.”
The captain tapped the padd’s interactive screen, looked around the lab, then faced Choudhury. “Captain Maddox said the charges on the computer banks exploded almost immediately after the intruders beamed out. Were they remotely detonated?”
“No, sir. We found traces of molecular timers. That suggests the intruders had a rigidly planned exit strategy that included blowing up the computers regardless of whether they’d been detected. If the general alert hadn’t been sounded and hadn’t tripped the auxiliary sensors, the explosion and subsequent fire might have gone undetected long enough to reduce the entire lab to slag. It could’ve been days before we confirmed the androids were stolen.”
Picard furrowed his brow as he reached the end of the notes on the padd. “Do we have any leads to the intruders’ whereabouts?”
Choudhury shook her head. “Not yet, sir. We know they didn’t use the planet’s public transporter network to beam out of the lab, and they didn’t beam to a ship in orbit, because we would have detected that on the Enterprise. That suggests they beamed to a smaller vessel made for atmospheric flight, such as a shuttle or a small transport. Given the limitations of transporters as a line-of-sight technology, and the fact that they can beam through only a limited depth of a magnetically active planet’s surface, we think the escape vessel is still somewhere on the planet.” Sensing that Worf was about to tell her to do what she’d already done, she added, “I have Šmrhová collating all of the planet’s air-traffic data from the past hour to see if we can narrow down the list of targets. With the Enterprise’s computer, it should take under an hour.”
Worf looked concerned. “What if the escape vessel was cloaked? A small starship could operate cloaked inside an atmosphere.”
“Not without kicking up a storm of neutrinos. If there was a cloaked ship in the atmosphere, we’d have detected it the minute we made orbit.”
The first officer seemed irked at being corrected. “A ship with a phasing cloak would give off no such emissions.”
Having neither the time nor the inclination for a debate, Choudhury mustered her most politic tone of voice. “Phasing cloaks require a tremendous amount of power to operate, sir. Any vessel large enough to deploy one would be unable to navigate safely inside an atmosphere, and it would be unable to beam up the intruders without disabling the cloak—and revealing itself in a very dramatic fashion. With all respect, I think we can rule out cloaked ships as an element of the crime—especially since there’s a far more pressing question we need to answer.”
The captain traded a bemused look with Worf, then asked, “What question is that?”
“Who triggered the Institute’s general alert?”
“I presumed the intruders triggered the alarm when they uploaded the Trojan horse.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. It went undetected.”
Worf nodded at the environmental controls. “Perhaps when they opened the alcove.”
“Again, no. All primary sensors in the lab had been shut down and spoofed, and the auxiliary sensors weren’t active yet.”
The mystery sparked a heightened level of interest from Worf. “Could the guards in the security center have tripped it?”
“No, I checked. And it wasn’t Captain Maddox. He was upstairs, getting ready to meet with Geordi, when he heard the alarm. There’s no record of where the alert originated, but I suspect it was triggered remotely, just like the intruders’ hack of the sensors.”
Picard’s focus on the question grew more intense by the moment. “Could it have been part of their plan to be detected?”
“I don’t see any way in which being detected would have benefited them,” she said.
“Maybe they were betrayed by an accomplice who had second thoughts,” Worf said.
Choudhury acknowledged the possibility with a measure of doubt. “Perhaps.”
“One thing is for certain,” Picard said with conviction. “Whoever triggered that alert knows more about this situation than we do. Lieutenant, continue the search for the intruders. Number One, do whatever it takes to track down our good Samaritan.”
2
Asking favors of Starfleet Command was never something Jean-Luc Picard enjoyed, but he suspected that his supervising officer, Admiral Alynna Nechayev, disliked granting him those favors even more. The stern cast of the silver-haired admiral’s angular features, which had become more pronounced in the years since the Borg invasion and the rise of the Typhon Pact that followed it, were larger than life on the wall-mounted screen inside Captain Maddox’s private office. “Captain, if I let the Enterprise take over the investigation of the Annex heist, Admiral Andell will never let me hear the end of it.”
“I understand his objections, Admiral. But the Enterprise is better equipped for this task than his security garrison. We have greater manpower, more sophisticated resources, and a superior vantage point, all of which enable us to respond more quickly to leads.”
Deep creases lined Nechayev’s brow. “I could place your ship and crew at Andell’s disposal. He does outrank you.”
The proposition did not sit well with Picard. Despite his best efforts, he knew his displeasure was likely evident to Nechayev. “I think that would be a mistake, Admiral. While I have the utmost regard for Admiral Andell, he’s never commanded a starship. I don’t think he’s prepared to exercise the full capabilities of the Enterprise or her crew.”
Maddox, who had been standing a short distance behind Picard, stepped forward and interjected, “For what it’s worth, Admiral, I think we need to remember that it was Admiral Andell’s garrison that allowed this break-in to happen. As the director of the Annex, I’d prefer a fresh perspective on the investigation—and frankly, I’d like the Enterprise to lead it.”
His declaration seemed to rob Nechayev of her will to argue. “Very well. But just so you know, when Admiral Andell screams bloody murder, I’ll be laying the blame at your doorstep.”
“That’s fine. He already hates me, anyway.”
“So I’ve heard.” She sharpened her gaze at Maddox. “Since you’ve been good enough to join the c
onversation, Captain, maybe you could take this opportunity to tell us what you’ve been working on that someone would go to this much trouble to steal.”
“As I’ve already told Captain Picard and his crew, I haven’t been working on anything new—not since the Rhea McAdams incident ten years ago.”
“Why not?”
Maddox momentarily averted his eyes from Nechayev’s accusatory stare. “After helping Emil Vaslovik invent the holotronic brain, and then losing all that data after the computers were wiped, I just didn’t think I could ever duplicate that achievement. I didn’t even want to try. And once I understood the full scope of our encounter with the Fellowship of Artificial Intelligence, I began to doubt we were ready as a society to continue this research.”
Nechayev appeared confused. “You mentioned Professor Vaslovik, but didn’t Admiral Haftel and Commander Barclay also work on the holotronic android?”
“Yes, but their contributions—and mine—were minor, at best. Vaslovik was the real visionary on that project. I think the fact that neither Admiral Haftel nor Commander Barclay have made any progress in their efforts at developing new AIs should serve as proof of that.”
His answer apparently troubled Nechayev. “Captain, what have you been doing at the Annex for the last ten years?”
To Picard as much as to the admiral, Maddox explained, “I spent the first six years after the McAdams incident reviewing my research into Soong-style positronic matrixes—when I wasn’t teaching classes on the ethics of cybernetics and biomechanics at the local branch of Daystrom University, that is. I’m sure you remember where I was in 2380, when I petitioned the Judiciary Committee on behalf of B-4. Well, after the decision affirming B-4’s personhood, he joined me here and let me study him, non-invasively, as part of my continuing effort to document the work of Noonien Soong. He also brought with him the bodies of his fellow Soong androids, which were bequeathed to his care after Data died.”