Malefictorum

by Terri Osborne

  “Can I help my deputy stand up?” Corsi asked. “Otherwise he’s just going to lie here and bleed on your floor.”

  Just turn around, Luaran. Just turn around.

  “No,” the Vorta said, disdain filling her voice. “Let him die. He can be the first casualty of the new war.”

  Great, Corsi thought. We’ve got a nut job Vorta who wants to restart the war. I really hate being right sometimes.

  She glanced down at Hawkins, giving him a quick “sit tight” look.

  “This way,” Luaran said, gesturing toward central control. “After you.”

  Konya took the lead, followed by Gomez and then Corsi. She hated the feeling of the plasma rifle at her back. “New war, huh?” Corsi said. “Hoping to lead the battle with your little acoustic weapon?”

  “Ah, so it’s been used, has it? That would explain why there’s a Federation starship sitting outside.”

  “Yes,” Gomez said, beginning to turn her head to the left. “Where’d you get the nanites?”

  “That would be for me to know and you to…not know, human.”

  “Really?” Before she could take another step, Gomez finished the turn and flipped the switch on her belt that controlled the camera’s light. Corsi ducked, just in time for the beam to hit Luaran full in the eyes. In the time it took her to stand up, backup phaser in hand, it was already over. The Vorta crumpled to the ground in a heap, a phaser burn still smoking on her back.

  Gomez turned the light off, and when her eyes adjusted, Corsi saw Hawkins propped up on his right elbow, his backup phaser in his left hand. Tapping her combadge, she said, “Corsi to da Vinci. Beam Hawkins to sickbay and send over some backup. We’ve eliminated the Vorta threat and need to secure the facility.” Before Laura Poynter could execute the command, Corsi said, “Nice work, Hawkins. Nice work.”

  As soon as he was gone, she turned to Gomez. “Let’s hope she only had the one Jem’Hadar. Commander, is that link still working? We need to figure out what those consoles in there do.”

  Chapter

  15

  “What’s the word on the computers, Gomez?” Captain Gold asked.

  Sonya Gomez looked up from the console, keeping the penlight aimed at the ceiling. “Working on it, Captain,” she replied. “We’re downloading the data and should have them ready to go in about an hour.”

  Corsi checked the security sensors one last time. Looks like they were calibrated to only pick up intruders with enough mass to be a threat. Might even have been able to have the hologram do a human projection and it wouldn’t have picked it up.

  That reminds me.

  She began visually scanning the upper edges of the central command chamber, looking for signs of the charring from the plasma rifle. She finally found it, directly over the subspace relay controls. A smattering of charred parts were scattered over the top of the unit. Corsi gathered them up in one hand, and shoved them into a small shoulder bag she’d had sent over from the da Vinci.

  “What’s that, Commander?” Gomez asked, looking up so her light hit the scorched spot on the wall.

  “Parts of Fabe’s little toy,” Corsi replied. “It would have worked if Luaran hadn’t shot it. Figured I should bring it back for a fitting burial in space.”

  Gomez chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” Corsi asked.

  “Bart. He says now Fabian may finally shut up about you co-opting his experiment.”

  Corsi glowered at the camera over Gomez’s right ear. “Yeah, right. Faulwell, tell Stevens he can kiss my entire ass. No, he might actually enjoy that. Never mind. I’ll be happy to pay him back for that when I get back to the ship. Have you figured out whether or not she’s got more of those things out there?”

  Gomez looked back down at the consoles that surrounded her. She reached toward one with her left hand, working a few controls. “I can’t find any more references to it in the database. Looks like the one that we got was the prototype. Tellow’s ship didn’t show any sign of any copies being made.”

  Corsi looked around the small control chamber. “All of this, just to create one stealth weapon? What about test subjects? She couldn’t have sent that thing out without testing it on someone first.”

  “With the gravitational field of a gas giant to work with? I’m guessing that she’s dumped all of the bodies into the planet’s atmosphere.”

  Clambering down from the console, Corsi said, “What about the nanites?”

  Gomez smiled. “Already got it covered. I’ve shunted them all into one portion of the computers’ drive. There should be enough for them to chew on in there to last a week or two. That’s enough time to take care of them.”

  “So, what do we do with nonsentient nanites that are programmed to build weapons?”

  Gomez shrugged. “We’ll think of something.” Something on the display seemed to catch her attention.

  “What?” Corsi asked.

  “She did get lucky, didn’t she?”

  That only served to confuse her more. “What? How?”

  “The book.”

  Corsi walked around to look at the console. “Just looks like a bunch of cryptic symbols to me. What’s Faulwell say?”

  “He says it’s a development log. Apparently Luaran spent months looking for something she could attach the weapon to, and wasn’t able to move forward until Tafock Navar Relal became popular and traffic started coming back into the Gamma Quadrant through the wormhole.”

  Corsi stared at the display. “We got all of them; DS9 is purging the nanites from its system, and they have no record of the program being downloaded to anyone. The Wadi ship and the Musgrave both came up clean. We’ve purged it from our system. The three padds that actually contained the thing are in custody. I think we’ve got all of them.”

  Gomez raised her head, a wide smile on her face. “Nice work.”

  Epilogue

  “In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” the priest intoned.

  In unison, everyone around her said, “Amen.”

  Domenica Corsi stood by the open grave, her head bowed as the casket was lowered. Rest in peace, Ken. Wherever you are.

  Once the gathered crowd started to break up, she turned and walked slowly toward the well-worn terra-cotta cobblestones that formed a path through the ancient Sienese cemetery. Captain Gold took up step beside her, a somber expression on his features, highlighted by the all white of his dress uniform. She didn’t want to consider what the gray-and-white version she wore was doing for her appearance.

  “Do you hate these things as much as I do, Captain?” she asked.

  The exhaustion was evident in his voice. “Maybe more.” After everything that had happened on Deep Space 9 after stopping Luaran, two funerals on top of it was almost too taxing.

  “Domenica!”

  Corsi turned to find Angelina Caitano ambling toward her, a sad smile on her tear-streaked, robust features. “Domenica,” she began, lifting the black mourning veil that covered her face. “You and your captain will eat with us tonight, yes?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Caitano,” she began, “I wish we could have brought him back sooner, but we got caught up in a crisis on Deep Space 9. We really should get back to the ship. We still need to—”

  “Bah!” the elder woman said, throwing her chubby hands toward the sky. “That can wait until tomorrow. My Agosto says good things about you. You found the person who killed our Kenny. You both are family now. So, you come home with us and you eat. Those Starfleet meals cannot be as good as our family’s marinara.” Angelina’s sad smile was suddenly filled with pride. “A recipe that has been passed down for six centuries must have something right, yes?”

  Corsi felt a lump begin to form in her throat. “How can you—? I mean, your son—”

  “Died?” Mrs. Caitano asked. “Yes. This is true. The world, however, it continues. We must move on.” She stepped delicately over the cobblestones, trying to avoid the gaps with the slender heels of her shoes. “The fune
ral—that is where we mourn the death. After that, we find ways to continue with life. Family is the best tradition. We gather. We eat. We talk. We celebrate the life.”

  Corsi swallowed hard. “Good tradition.”

  Angelina smoothed the full skirt of her black dress down with her hands. “I have thought so, too.”

  After the dire histrionics of the Deverick family on the loss of their only child, Corsi was almost grateful for the approach the Caitano family took. She could remember a time when the family on the da Vinci had taken a similar approach to their losses at Galvan VI, and a similar celebration of life in a backyard in New York. A glance at Captain Gold revealed a small, melancholy smile on the captain’s face. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was remembering that same gathering. “Mrs. Caitano?”

  “Yes, Domenica?”

  “May I ask you something about Ken? There was something we found in his quarters that didn’t make sense to me, but ended up not being related to what happened. It’s still bugging me, though.”

  Angelina folded her hands over her ample belly. “Of course, my dear. What is it you want to know?”

  “There was a counterfeit bar of gold-pressed latinum in his quarters. We never did figure out where it came from.”

  “He still brings that with him?” Angelina began to laugh.

  Corsi and Gold exchanged a look. “Yes,” she replied. “It was on a shelf in his quarters when he died. We weren’t sure if it was connected to his death. There was nothing about it in his official file.”

  Professor Agosto Caitano chose that moment to walk up. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “That’s because he got it when he was thirteen years old. He helped one of the local policemen figure out something for an investigation, and the officer gave that to him as a reward.”

  “Some reward,” Corsi dryly said.

  “Yes,” Agosto replied with a solemn expression. “I wish we could have done more to help you find Ken’s killer, Domenica.” He reached out with his free hand, placing it on her arm. “I do want you to know that we’re very grateful for what you’ve done. I am proud that one of my students stopped such an insidious terrorist weapon. If my son had to lay down his life, it is good that it helped to stop that Vorta.”

  Corsi’s stomach twisted. She would have preferred the gratitude for keeping Caitano from ever getting the padd in the first place. However, she forced a sad smile onto her face. If it would help them get some closure, she’d play along.

  Ken, wherever you are, I promise. This won’t happen again. You opened our eyes, and we’re going to keep watching.

  “Now,” Agosto said, releasing her arm long enough to gently pat it. “We go eat.”

  About the Author

  TERRI OSBORNE has been a sound designer, para-legal, administrative assistant, notary public, and award-winning costumer. Through all of that, however, she has also been a writer. She made her professional fiction writing debut in 2003 with the critically acclaimed “Three Sides to Every Story,” the Jake Sisko and Tora Ziyal story in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tenth-anniversary anthology Prophecy and Change. Other short fiction includes “‘Q’uandary,” the Selar story in the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits, and “Eighteen Minutes,” a story featuring the Doctor in the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager tenth-anniversary anthology Distant Shores. Currently, she is hard at work at more fiction, both in and out of the Star Trek universe, including an original dark fantasy novel. Find out more about Terri at her website: www.terriosborne.com.

  Coming Next Month:

  Star Trek™: S.C.E. #51

  Lost Time

  by Ilsa J. Bick

  Almost a year after the S.C.E. crew on the da Vinci helped Lieutenant Nog of Deep Space 9 salvage the hulk of DS9’s sister station Empok Nor, a booby trap left behind by the Androssi threatens the Bajoran system. But the potential damage may be greater than the combined crews of the da Vinci and DS9 can handle, as the threat stretches across two universes—and their only hope for survival may rest with their long-dead crewmates 111 and Kieran Duffy!

  COMING IN APRIL 2005 FROM POCKET BOOKS!