“What would your estimation be, Mister Nog?” asked Tuvok.
He shrugged, but in truth Nog’s mind was already caught up by the mystery of the subspace waveforms—not to mention the strange AI. He heard the doors open and close behind him as he went on. “At a guess? A micro-dimensional pocket domain acting as a subspace radio conduit. But deep into the low ranges, hard to find unless you know the exact quantum frequency.”
“Tuvok was right, sir,” Vale was saying. “He is good.”
Nog turned to see who the commander was addressing, and he immediately snapped to attention at the sight of a human in an admiral’s uniform. At the admiral’s side stood another female commander, this one a striking dark-haired Betazoid. Nog was momentarily wrong-footed when he recognized the senior officer. “Tom . . . ?”
“Huh,” said the admiral, almost to himself. “Now I know how he feels.” He shook his head. “No, Mister Nog, I’m William Riker. You’ve already met the rest of my people; this is Titan’s diplomatic officer, Commander Deanna Troi.”
“The daughter of the notorious Lwaxana Troi?” He bowed slightly. “An honor to meet you, Commander.”
“Notorious?” asked Vale, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean famous?”
“No,” said Deanna wryly, “he doesn’t.”
Nog felt all eyes on him, and it wasn’t comfortable. “Sir . . . why have I been brought here?”
“Let’s get to that,” said the admiral.
* * *
Riker turned to Tuvok and threw him a nod. The Vulcan went to the holodeck’s control panel and entered another code string.
“Secured,” reported Tuvok. “This compartment is fully isolated from all of Titan’s internal systems.”
He looked around the compartment, taking them all in, meeting their gazes one by one. “I’ll come right to the point. In the past few weeks we have all been forced to cross lines. To make choices that were unpalatable to us, because of circumstances beyond our control. But that ends now.” Riker walked into the middle of the chamber, studying the subspace domain Torvig and White-Blue had uncovered. “I am taking back control. Not just for myself, but for my crew, my fleet, and my Federation. I need you to help me do it.” The room was silent now, and Riker’s throat became dry. “In the past, I’ve sailed close to the wind more times than I should have. Bucked regulations, even downright disobeyed direct orders on occasion. And I’ve asked a lot of you, taking you with me into harm’s way time after time. It is my privilege that you didn’t question, that you gave me your trust. I want to thank you all for that . . . and then ask you once more, to do so again.” He thought about the others who were not in this room, people like Ssura, Ranul Keru, Melora Pazlar, Y’lira Modan, and other members of the Titan’s crew; all of them had already given implicit declarations of their loyalty. Riker found Deanna’s warm, steady gaze upon him, and he drew strength from it. “Everyone here senses the shadow that has fallen over the United Federation of Planets since Nan Bacco was assassinated. The laws we stand by are being eroded. The principles we swore to uphold, dismissed. Power . . . abused.” He shook his head. “Enough is enough. Our duty is clear-cut and undeniable. We either stand foursquare behind the ideals this uniform represents, or we stand aside and watch others push us to the brink of open war. Our resolve has been tested to the limit by the challenges we have faced, and now a new threat is rising.” Riker glanced at Nog. “You’ve seen it. We all have.”
“Aye, sir. . . .” said the Ferengi quietly.
“Here’s what I need. I want every one of you to dig deep, to call in your favors, to use every ounce of skill and courage you have. I want you to help me get to the heart of what is going on in the shadows before we reach the point of no return.” He paused, weighing his next words. “There is a rot at the core of the Federation . . . and we are going to put an end to it.”
“You demand much, William-Riker,” said White-Blue.
“No one knows that more than I do,” he admitted. “I won’t question anyone who wants to step away. This road I’m on . . . it could take everything from those who follow me.”
“I’m in,” Vale said simply.
“Agreed,” offered Tuvok.
Riker looked around the holodeck, and he was heartened by the affirmations that surrounded him. It is my pride and privilege to know these people.
Nog rubbed a hand over his scalp. “So. Where do we start, sir?”
“It will be difficult,” said Deanna. “We’re going to be watched closely. It may be hard to know who to fully trust.”
“This subspace domain and the holomessenger we intercepted are just parts of a larger covert communications network,” said Torvig. “This network is the key to finding evidence of any criminal acts committed under the aegis of the Federation government.”
“I’ll do what I can from Deep Space Nine,” Nog added.
“Somewhere out there, there has to be a trail. An archive,” said Vale. “Proof.”
“Find it,” said Riker.
* * *
The group dispersed, and soon Will and Deanna found themselves alone on one of the Titan’s observation decks, looking down at the blue-white vista of Earth beneath them.
She reached up a hand and touched his cheek. “This is going to test us all,” his wife said quietly. “You know that Tasha and I are here for you, no matter what happens.”
“I know,” he told her. “You’re the reason why I have to do this. More than my oath, more than because it is right. A galaxy controlled by men like Ishan Anjar is not one where I want us to live, and not where I want my daughter to grow up.” He met her gaze. “If we look out to the stars and we see only darkness and dread, then we’ve lost something we will never get back. That fear will spread like poison.”
“We’ll stop it,” she told him.
He gave a solemn nod. “But one ship, one crew, isn’t going to be enough. We can’t do this alone.”
“You’re right.” Deanna smiled and crossed to an intercom panel. “Bridge?” she called. “This is Commander Troi.”
“Go ahead, sir,” said Keru. He sounded as if he had been waiting for the call. “Ready to proceed.”
“I need you to compose a subspace signal, Ranul,” she told him. “For immediate dispatch. Route it via civilian comm channels only.”
“What destination, Commander?”
“Enterprise. Captain Picard.”
“Tell him . . .” Riker hesitated, searching for the right words. “Sometimes the enemy hides in plain sight.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my Fall colleagues David R. George III, Una McCormack, David Mack, and Dayton Ward for inspiration and comradeship in good measure; to Stan Goldstein, Fred Goldstein, Rick Sternbach, Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, Debbie Mirek, David A. McIntee, Diane Duane, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Daniel Dvorkin, David Dvorkin, S. John Ross, Steven S. Long, Adam Dickstein, Forest G. Brown, Harold Apter, Ronald D. Moore, Mike Krohn, John Vornholt, and many more for their works of reference and of fiction; my most patient editor, Margaret Clark; and forever with much love to my own imzadi, Mandy Mills.
About the Author
James Swallow, a New York Times bestselling author and BAFTA nominee, is proud to be the only British writer to have worked on a Star Trek television series, creating the original story concepts for the Star Trek Voyager episodes “One” and “Memorial”; his other Star Trek writing includes the Scribe award winner Day of the Vipers, Cast No Shadow, Synthesis, the novellas The Stuff of Dreams and Myriad Universes: Seeds of Dissent, the short stories “The Slow Knife,” “The Black Flag,” “Ordinary Days,” and “Closure” for the anthologies Seven Deadly Sins, Shards and Shadows, The Sky’s the Limit, and Distant Shores, scripting the videogame Star Trek Invasion, and more than 400 articles for thirteen different Star Trek magazines around the world.
As well as nonfiction (Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher), Swallow also wrote the Sundowners series of original steampunk westerns, Jade Drago
n, The Butterfly Effect, and novels in the worlds of Doctor Who (Peacemaker), Warhammer 40,000 (Fear to Tread, Hammer & Anvil, Nemesis, Black Tide, Red Fury, The Flight of the Eisenstein, Faith & Fire, Deus Encarmine, and Deus Sanguinius), Stargate (Halcyon, Relativity, Nightfall, and Air), Tannhäuser (Enigma), and 2000AD (Eclipse, Whiteout, and Blood Relative). His other credits feature scripts for videogames and audio dramas, including Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Fable: The Journey, Battlestar Galactica, Blake’s 7, and Space 1889.
Swallow lives in London and is currently at work on his next book.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by Alan Dingman; cover art by Tobias Richter
ISBN 978-1-4767-2222-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-2227-6 (ebook)
Contents
Historian’s Note
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice Page 33