Now it was up to Hawk and his teams. The warp pylon was the most restricted area of the ship, the place where they’d have the most control over what route the Changeling would take. It was in the Jefferies tubes now, but the plan was for the security teams to trap it there. It would need to either drop the chip or move to the life support duct that ran parallel to the tube, and there, it would encounter a difficulty—
Picard and his security shadow entered the transporter room. La Forge and another security officer waited.
“I’ll take that chip now, Geordi.”
La Forge placed the oblong, translucent blue chip in his hand. He clenched it in his fist. “A literal bargaining chip.”
Picard stepped onto the transporter pad. His security escort started to join him. Picard signaled him away. “Once again, this is something I must do alone. Geordi, try not to put me inside a bulkhead.”
“I’ll do my best, Captain. Next stop, nacelle control.”
“Energize.”
There was the familiar whine of the transporter, the peculiar sensation of flickering in and out of existence, and he was in the control room at the rear of the starboard nacelle, looking forward through a force field at the warp coils. On the other side of the force field, deadly drive plasma flooded the space. On the Enterprise-D, this opening had been covered by doors that could be opened only for ninety seconds at a time before the force fields began to fail. With the new design, the doors were an emergency measure, and under normal circumstances could be left open indefinitely.
He turned, phaser ready, and watched the hatch for the Jefferies tube that provided access to the room. He waited several minutes, but finally the hatch slid open, and the Changeling, in liquid form, flowed into the room.
Picard aimed the phaser.
Becoming aware of Picard with whatever senses it possessed in its natural state, the Changeling again assumed the form of Addison. “You won’t stop me, Picard.”
He lowered the rifle slightly. “I don’t intend to. And I’m sure by now that I don’t need to. You no longer have the chip containing the shakedown logs for the Enterprise.”
“I had to travel through a duct. There was—”
“A micron-filter not listed on the inaccurate schematics you’d previously studied, a recent field modification. You see now how useful the shakedown logs can be.”
“Are you taunting me, Picard?”
The captain reached to his belt and produced the chip Geordi had given him. “I want you to understand exactly what it is I am doing for you.” He looked around the room. “I had to keep up appearances down below, but they can’t monitor us here. If this were discovered, my career with Starfleet would be over.”
The Changling laughed. “You mean to tell me you’re selling out your precious Federation, Picard?”
“Not by choice, but I’ve come to accept the inevitable. The Federation is doomed, and defeat by the Dominon is inevitable. Why should I and my crew suffer in a hopeless war? Better to sit it out on the rear lines and hope we survive to see Dominion rule. I contrived to take the shakedown logs from you, but now I offer to give them back.”
“I tried to destroy your ship, Picard. Why do you choose to trust me now?”
“My people have already found and disabled your sabotage device. Even if you were of a mind to withhold information from me, I doubt you had time to plant a backup, or that you had any reason to. We’d never have found it in time if you hadn’t told us where it was.”
“True. But the logs do me no good if I’m still trapped on this ship. Do you offer me escape as well?”
“The Enterprise is already moving at full impulse away from the star and out of the nebula. We should reach a zone safe enough for you to leave the ship in the next five minutes.”
He pointed at a console next to the force field opening. “This panel will briefly deactivate the force field. After I’m safely in the Jefferies tube, use it. This room will flood with plasma, but I’m assuming you can change into some form that can survive it long enough for you to travel the length of the nacelle inside the warp coils, through the Bussard collectors, and out into space.”
The Changeling approached him carefully, then took the chip from his outstretched hand.
It held the chip in its palm for a moment, inspecting it, then the rectangle sank into its flesh, safely secreted inside its body. “Very good, Picard. You succeeded in manipulating me, deceiving me. You have started to think like a Changeling, and that is a very dangerous thing in itself. Perhaps even more dangerous than this ship.” It studied him for a moment. “I’m sorry, Picard. You’ve succeeded in saving your ship, but you didn’t save yourself.”
It flashed into liquid form, shooting past Picard to activate the control panel.
The force field buzzed, flickered away.
Million-degree drive plasma flooded the room.
And Picard vanished in a ball of incandescence.
CHAPTER
12
The Changeling took the form of a sun-hunter, a silvery spaceborne creature shaped like a rocket-propelled pumpkin seed, and capable of enduring the plasma long enough to escape the ship, the chip still hidden safely deep inside its body. It was a shame there wasn’t time to destroy the Enterprise, but now it and its sister ships would be neutralized in the war to come.
And an even greater threat had been eliminated. Had Picard really intended to betray his Federation, or had it all been part of some larger scheme he had been trying to pull off? Well, it didn’t matter now.
Picard was dead.
The Changeling emerged through the glowing red screens of the Bussard collector ducts to see the shimmering nebula far behind them, its star glowing brightly from its center. The Changeling shifted forms again, this time becoming a Starfleet long-range probe. It sensed the Enterprise turning toward it, but they were too late. In a moment, the Changeling went to high warp and left the big ship far behind.
Soon it would rendezvous with another Dominion spy and transfer what it had learned back to the Dominion. And after that…Well, there was still Earth. Best to see it in what little time it had left.
Picard stepped off the transporter platform. Despite their precautions, he felt sunburned from the inside out. He’d let Dr. Crusher—the real one—check him out when there was time.
His combadge sounded. “Riker here. Captain, the Changeling has gone to warp.”
La Forge looked at him. “Captain, should we really have let it escape? After what it did?”
Picard scowled. He wasn’t happy about the situation either. “We may never know with certainty. But at this point, Mr. La Forge, I have little doubt that the Changeling sabotaged the Samson with deadly intent, and that it very likely murdered Lieutenant Addison as well. I am at least certain now that the Changeling was fully capable of those acts, without thought or remorse.”
The room’s doors slid open, and Riker and Hawk entered.
“Captain,” said Riker, “you’re looking well for a dead man.”
Picard nodded. “Well, as I was just telling someone else, I have great faith in Mr. La Forge’s skill with a transporter. In any case, the safety interlocks Mr. Hawk installed prevented the force field from fully disengaging until I had dematerialized.”
“I’m glad it worked, sir,” said Hawk, “but I don’t quite understand the theatrics.”
“While you were literally ‘herding’ the Changeling though the narrow confines of the pylon, I was figuratively herding it through a narrow series of choices, one it followed to the very end. Now it has a false set of shakedown logs that will lead the Dominion to underestimate Sovereign-class ships and waste effort trying to exploit nonexistent weaknesses, and my betrayal of the Federation and my ‘death’ helped to sell those as authentic. We have misled our enemy, and in war, that can be far more valuable than striking down one individual.”
Hawk shook his head. He still looked angry. “There’s no justice in it, Captain.”
“War
isn’t about justice, Mr. Hawk. Like so many of our ideals, war leaves little room for it. It is one of the countless ways that war, necessary or not, diminishes us all.”
Riker nodded. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Captain. I just hope this was worth all the risk you took.”
“I had to know what the Changeling’s intentions were. If there was any shred of doubt, any hope of negotiation, I had to know. But my worst fears were confirmed. This will be a long and difficult war, Number One.”
“At least now if the worst comes to pass, the Enterprise and her sister ships will be able to play their part.”
“These are dark times, when that passes for good news, Number One. Dark times and troubled waters ahead.”
The U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-E, sailed in a smooth arc away from the planetary nebula, which glowed and pulsed behind it like the watching eye of an angry god. The ship’s delicate curves shimmered in the shifting light, form and function existing in perfect harmony. It turned gracefully, and its warp nacelles flashed with blue light from within. And like a beautiful warhorse charging with its rider into battle, it was gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
J. STEVEN YORK has published multiple novels (most recently, MechWarrior: Trial by Chaos, Roc, 2006), novellas, short stories, and eBooks. He’s written fiction for computer games and scripts for radio. He considers his one nonfiction book an aberration, as he sees himself first and foremost as a storyteller, regardless of what form those stories take. He’d be happy scripting amusement park rides as long as they had character and plot. As though to prove this point, he produces a weekly web comic (www.MinionsAtWork.com) photo-illustrated with action figures. In addition to his solo work, he’s co-written two Star Trek: S.C.E. novellas with his wife, romance writer Christina York, and has made a number of collaborations with his friend Dean Wesley Smith. Born in southeast Alabama, Steve has lived in 16% of all the United States at one time or another. After decades of wandering, he now resides on the Oregon coast, where he intends to make a stand. He lives in a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean with his wife Chris, two writer’s offices (located a safe distance apart), two cats named Oz and Sydney, and a battalion of GI Joes.
CHRISTINA F. YORK keeps her fingers in a lot of pies. She has written SF, fantasy, romance, young adult, and action-adventure, as well as things she wouldn’t tell her grandmother about. Besides her own work, she likes playing in other people’s sandboxes, as evidenced by her two Alias novels and assorted short fiction, in addition to her forays into the world of Star Trek. She lives on the Oregon coast with her husband and sometime collaborator, J. Steven York, where they serve two feline overlords.
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