Текст книги "Precipice"

Автор книги: David Mack

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

26

July 21, 2267

Neera lurked in an alcove concealed by a heavy scarlet curtain and let her man-toy Ganz bask a bit longer in his charade of authority. The Orion figurehead reclined regally behind the desk of his private office aboard the Omari-Ekonand listened to a courteous supplication by a dark-haired human named Joshua Kane.

“First, I’d like to make clear I didn’t seek out this contract,” Kane said. “The client came to me.”

Ganz replied in his rock-steady baritone, “I understand.” With one huge green hand he pushed a bowl of roasted Argelian cashews across the polished antique wooden desk to his slender visitor. “Have a nut.”

Kane bowed his head and scooped up a small handful of nuts from the bowl. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome. Continue.”

The bearded human closed his fist around the cashews and used his empty hand to punctuate his words with gestures. “They offered a sizable fee for the job—ten million credits.” He held up his empty palm and dipped his chin. “I’ve arranged for them to make the deposit to your anonymous account on Orion.”

“That’s good,” Ganz said. “I trust you’ll have no objection to my taking a standard fifteen percent commission?”

Shaking his head, Kane replied, “No, sir. Not at all.” He sounded hopeful as he asked, “Does that mean I have your permission to accept the contract, sir?”

“On two conditions,” Ganz said. “First, if anything goes wrong, or if you or someone working with you gets caught, this never comes back to me. My name is never mentioned. Agreed?”

Kane nodded. “Agreed.”

“Second,” Ganz said, “no killing. Not one body. If I find out there were fatalities, or that innocent people got hurt, I will be very upset. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, sir. I haven’t taken a life yet, and I don’t plan to start now. You have my word: no one dies for this job.”

Neera pulled aside the scarlet curtain just enough for Ganz to see her give the signal to dismiss his guest.

The barrel-chested Orion man gave no indication of seeing Neera, but then he said to the human, “I’m glad we reach, Mister Kane. Good luck, and safe travels.”

“Thank you, Mister Ganz,” Kane said. He bowed his head as he backed away from Ganz’s desk and held up his closed hand. “Thanks again for the nuts.” The door slid open behind him, and he backpedaled out to the corridor.

After the portal hushed closed, Neera emerged from hiding and pressed a key on the wall that locked the door. She strolled toward Ganz’s desk and savored his leer as he watched the swaying roll of her supple hips. “Efficiently handled, my love,” she said.

“I’m glad you approve.”

She circled his desk, dragging one finger along its edge. “We may have a leak that needs to be plugged,” she said.

Ganz stared awestruck at her, as if he had lost himself in her eyes. “What kind of leak?”

“The Starfleet JAG office has been asking our government for access to Orion banking records,” she said, giving his rolling chair a gentle push back from the desk.

Her hulking beau sat up straighter. “My records?”

“No.” She eased herself onto his lap. “Cygnar-Ralon.”

His forehead creased, and his brow furrowed. “Zett’s company.”

“Yes,” Neera said. “It is.” She had never liked Ganz’s chief enforcer—an impeccably tailored and implacably brutal Nalori named Zett Nilric—and welcomed anything that might persuade Ganz to reconsider his seemingly unshakable faith in the man.

“Do they know it’s his company?”

Neera whispered in his ear, “I don’t think so.” She felt the muscles in his arms and neck stiffen.

“That’s still not good,” Ganz said. “Why are they asking questions about Cygnar-Ralon?”

Stroking her soft palm over Ganz’s smooth, jade-hued pate, Neera said, “They’ve linked it to a suspect in last year’s bombing of the Starfleet freighter Malaccainside Vanguard.”

“I remember the bombing,” Ganz said. Suspicious, he continued, “But I didn’t order it, and I didn’t sanction it. So why would Starfleet have evidence linking it to Zett?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Neera was determined to make Ganz answer it for himself. She planted delicate kisses on the side of his thickly muscled neck and said, “I’m sure you can reason it out, my love.”

An angry sigh flared Ganz’s wide nostrils. “Because he’s been freelancing without permission.”

“Which suggests ambition or greed or both.” Shifting her amorous attention to the other side of Ganz’s neck, Neera added, “No matter which it is, it’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t,” Ganz said. He pulled away from Neera. She got up from his lap and let him stand. When he was anxious, he liked to pace. He circled around his desk. “We’ve spent a great deal of time and a considerable sum of money working on a way to get back into Admiral Nogura’s good graces,” he said.

“And it’s almost within our grasp,” Neera said as she slinked seductively into Ganz’s chair.

He began pacing in front of his desk. “But all that time, treasure, and blood will have been spent for nothing if Zett implicates us in a terrorist attack on Nogura’s starbase.” He cast a pointed stare at Neera. “And we need that safe haven, now more than ever.”

“I know,” she said, easing the chair forward so she could rest her elbows on the desk and fold her hands in front of her. “But before that can happen, I think we need to accept that Zett might now be more of a liability than an asset.”

Ganz’s countenance was at once sad and grim. He nodded. “I agree.” With a plaintive look, he asked, “What should we do?”

Devious schemes coaxed a half smile from Neera, who narrowed her eyes and told her loyal front man, “Let me handle this my way—discreetly.”

27

July 30, 2267

“We’ve been cooped up in this bloody tin can for more than four months,” Pennington complained across the mess cabin table. “If I get arrested by Starfleet, will this period of captivity count as time served against my sentence?”

T’Prynn replied without looking up from her soup, “I think clemency on such grounds would be highly unlikely.”

Pennington’s head drooped, and he couldn’t help but turn a weary frown at the bowl of bland seaweed broth T’Prynn had prepared for that morning’s meal. The traditional Vulcan dish was the only thing she ever made for breakfast.

He sighed. “Pass the salt, please.”

“ Plomeeksoup has a delicate flavor,” she said as she handed the shaker to him. “Adding too much salt or other seasoning will mar its subtleties.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.” He shook enough salt to cover the entire surface of his soup. After stirring it gently into the liquid, he lifted a spoonful into his mouth and swallowed it. Then his face puckered and he winced in revulsion.

T’Prynn’s calm was preternatural as asked, “Is there something wrong with your soup?”

He glared at her, stung by the irony as he said, “It’s too salty.” Even though the statuesque Vulcan woman did not react, he was certain that behind her placid mask of detachment she was laughing at him.

She ate another spoonful of her soup and said nothing.

Pennington stood, picked up his tray, and placed it in the reclamator. After the panel slid closed, he heard the whirring and clanking of dishes and utensils being washed and organic matter being flushed away for purification and recycling.

“I thought I might spend today counting my nose hairs,” he said to his inscrutable companion.

She swallowed another spoonful of soup. “You should use a tricorder. Its results will be more accurate, and it will take less time to compile.”

“Maybe,” Pennington said. “But can it braid all those tiny little hairs together?” He pointed at her and exclaimed with a manic gleam of triumph, “I think not!”

Unfazed, she replied, “Even for a human, your behavior is most peculiar. Do you require a medical examination?”

“No, just a change of scenery.”

She finished her soup, got up, and carried her tray to the reclamator. “I advised you before we embarked on this mission that it would be time-consuming and monotonous. You cannot say I misled you as to its nature.”

“I never said you did. Doesn’t make drifting in the dark any more interesting.”

She consigned her tray and dishes to the food slot. As it hummed from behind the bulkhead, she and Pennington walked out of the mess hall to the main corridor. “Perhaps you would prefer—”

An automated alert over the ship’s PA system cut her off. “Signal intercept in progress,”said the synthetic male voice.

They dashed to the cockpit and scrambled into their seats. Pennington locked in the signal, boosted the gain, and verified they were recording it. T’Prynn fed the signal through the ship’s rebuilt main computer and applied her formidable array of code-breaking algorithms.

“Signal’s five by five,” he said. “Recording confirmed.”

“Decryption has begun,” she said. “The message was coded with a Klingon cipher.” Flipping switches on her console, she added, “Routing the original message to the forward monitor. It will replay from the beginning.”

The forward display stuttered, and the picture rolled for a moment before it stabilized. The first image to appear was that of a male Klingon soldier in a dimly lit space. It didn’t look like a ship’s bridge, so Pennington assumed it was the man’s private cabin. He said, “Kutal toAli Baba, respond.”

T’Prynn quickly explained, “The Ali Babais a private vessel that frequently docks with Ganz’s ship. It belongs to a suspected thief named Joshua Kane.”

“Good to know,” Pennington said.

The other side of the transmission cut in, and the image automatically split-screened on the Skylla’s display. The second man was a human with dark hair and a fair complexion. His hair was close-cropped, and his beard was neatly trimmed. “ Captain,” he said to Kutal. “ Right on time.”

Kutal asked, “Have you been granted permission to accept our contract, Mister Kane?”

“Yes,”Kane said. “Have the funds been transferred?”

“The first half has been sent,”Kutal said. “You’ll get the rest on final delivery.”

“Very good.”

“Do you have any last questions for our expert?”

“No,”Kane said. “I have all the intel I need. Have you selected a rendezvous point?”

Kutal tapped an interface off-screen. “I am sending you the coordinates now. Meet us there exactly eighteen days after you finish the assignment.”

“Understood. Coordinates received.Ali Baba out.”

The signal terminated, and the screen went black.

T’Prynn stared intently at the darkened monitor. Penning-ton verified there was no more signal to record, and he shut down the intercept system. “Well, we’ve got their rendezvous coordinates,” he said. “Of course, we have no idea what they’re talking about.” He slumped in his seat. “What a waste of time.”

“Quite the contrary,” T’Prynn said. “This intercept has yielded a great deal of valuable information.”

“Were we listening to the same conversation? How do you figure that was anything but a bust?”

She cast a sly look across the cockpit. “First, we now know the Klingons are using pirates and criminals as cutouts in the Taurus Reach. Second, whatever it is that Mister Kane has been hired to obtain for the Klingons, it entails a final delivery at a location whose coordinates we now possess. And third, the Klingon captain has let slip a critical piece of top-secret intelligence.”

Pennington shook his head. “He did? When? What intel?”

T’Prynn tapped a key and replayed the intercepted transmission. She paused the playback just after Kutal asked, “Do you have any last questions for our expert?”

“Computer,” T’Prynn said. “Enhance twenty-four to thirty-six, and track forty-five left. Magnify and brighten midtones.”

Part of the frozen image was highlighted and enlarged. It was just a muddy-dark slice of the background until the image enhancers kicked in.

Then a familiar face appeared in profile, reflected in a mirror, and Pennington understood immediately.

T’Prynn arched one eyebrow. “Diego Reyes is alive.”

28

July 30, 2267

Jackson felt like a fly accepting an invitation to a spider’s web as he walked to the office of Vanguard’s liaison to Starfleet Intelligence. In all the years Jackson had served as a security officer, he had never before been summoned by SI.

He stopped outside the door of an unmarked command office on Level Ten. The corridor appeared to be empty in either direction. As he went to press the visitor’s signal, the door slid open. Cool air escaped from inside, along with the muted sounds of comm chatter and working computers.

From inside a pleasant voice said, “Come in.”

Holding up his head, Jackson put aside his apprehension and strolled inside. A wide partition stood between the door and the rest of the room. He stepped around it. His eyes widened as he surveyed the expansive space on the other side.

In the center of the room, Commander ch’Nayla stood on a low circular dais that was brightly lit from directly overhead. He was surrounded by a 270-degree arc of high-tech consoles mounted atop black pedestals.

Subdued, cool blue lighting spilled across the walls. Huge viewscreens were suspended from the ceiling in an arc that matched that of ch’Nayla’s bank of consoles. Displayed on the screens were vids of all kinds, ranging from news reports and official government briefings to surveillance footage and what looked like intercepted foreign military transmissions.

Through the gap in the consoles, Jackson saw that ch’Nayla had his back to him. Taking a step forward, the security chief said, “You asked to see me?”

The tall Andorian chantapped some keys on his console, turned, and smiled at Jackson. “I did.” He picked up a data slate and stepped down from the dais.

Jackson walked over to meet him. “Quite a setup you’ve got here,” he said, nodding at the screens.

“I requested some upgrades to the intelligence center after I transferred to this post,” ch’Nayla said. “My predecessor’s work environment was a bit spartan for my taste.”

Recalling the dim, high-gravity sauna that T’Prynn had used for an office, Jackson nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Switching gears, he asked, “So, what can I do for you, sir?”

“Actually, I asked you here so that I might do something for you.” Ch’Nayla handed him the data slate. “I’m sure it will not surprise you to learn I try to stay current on all open investigations by the JAG office and the security division.”

“I’d be surprised if you didn’t,” Jackson said. He skimmed the contents of the data slate as ch’Nayla continued.

“In recent weeks, I’ve noted several warrants and subpoenas related to certain notable Orion citizens,” the Andorian said. “I’ve also been apprised of your difficulties in obtaining sensitive intelligence from the Orion financial sector.”

“ Difficulties,” Jackson said, echoing ch’Nayla. “That’s a nice way to say utter failure. I’ll have to remember that.”

“Perhaps not. The obstacles to that investigation might now be removed.” He nodded toward the dais. “Join me.” As they walked to the bank of consoles, ch’Nayla continued. “One of my normally taciturn sources on the Orion homeworld has suddenly become loquacious about a private shell corporation—one that figures prominently in Captain Desai’s reports.”

Jackson felt a tingle of excitement. “How loquacious?”

“Very,” ch’Nayla said.

They stepped into the center of the consoles, and ch’Nayla picked up a yellow data card and inserted it into a slot. The screen directly ahead of them changed to display multiple frames of information, including static images, financial spreadsheets, communication logs, and more.

“We have detailed transaction records that show the CygnarRalon corporate entity belongs to a Nalori national known as Zett Nilric,” ch’Nayla said. “Though he has never been charged with a criminal offense, his dossier suggests he is a former professional assassin for the Nalori government who now works as an enforcer for the Orion crime boss Ganz.”

Pointing at one of the frames of business data, Jackson asked, “Can we enlarge that window, please?” Ch’Nayla magnified it so it filled the right half of the screen. Jackson felt his pulse speed up as he eyed the log of account activity. “The dates on those large cash deposits,” he said. “They bracket the date of the attack on the Malacca. Can we trace the source of those funds?”

“I already have,” ch’Nayla said. “They came from an account on Qo’noS that’s been linked to Klingon Imperial Intelligence.”

My God,Jackson marveled. This is it. The proof that ties the bombing to a criminal organization and the Klingons. He began to wonder what other cases might have ties to Zett Nilric. “Can we analyze the dates on the other transfers and see if they also bracket criminal events from other open cases?”

“Once again I’ve anticipated your needs,” ch’Nayla said. “I have cross-checked these dates with events on file and found what I believe to be seven notable concurrences. Three pertain to major heists on non-Federation planets. Two seem to be linked to acts of deep-space piracy against vessels recently departed from Vanguard. And the final two suggest a link between Mister Nilric and two prominent assassinations of underworld figures believed to have been rivals of Zett’s employer, Ganz.”

“Wow,” Jackson said. “Impressive work.”

“Thank you.” Ch’Naylah began closing the data frames. “I regret only that my discoveries can’t be of more use to you and Captain Desai.”

“What’re you talking about? There’s enough there to let me impound Zett’s ship and cavity-search him till he’s inside out.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t,” ch’Nayla said. “Most of this intelligence was obtained through extralegal methods, and some of it has no clear provenance whatsoever. Almost all of it will be deemed inadmissible regardless of whether it is presented in a civilian court or a court-martial.”

Jackson balled his fists and growled at this latest aggravation. “Dammit! How many bullets can that bastard dodge?”

Removing the yellow data card from the console, ch’Nayla replied, “I share your anger at seeing justice obstructed.” He handed the data card to Jackson. “Though this information cannot be used to convict Mister Nilric, it’s my hope you can use it to disrupt his efforts in the future.”

Accepting the card, Jackson blinked in surprise. “You’re giving me this intel?”

“I’ve declassified it for you and Captain Desai, because it is clearly relevant to your respective assignments. I’ve also briefed Admiral Nogura on my findings.”

That news put a smile on Jackson’s face. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to sound so shocked. It’s just that T’Prynn was never very good at sharing intel with other departments.”

The middle-aged chan’s antennae swiveled in Jackson’s direction as he returned the younger man’s smile. “I am not T’Prynn,” he said.

Eight weeks of not enough sleep and too much caffeine had left Dr. Carol Marcus feeling frazzled and unfocused. Ever since the Endeavourhad returned bearing Ming Xiong and the Mirdonyae Artifact, she and the scores of scientists in the Vault had been working double and even triple shifts to help Xiong unlock the mysterious object’s eldritch secrets.

As she downed the tepid dregs of her fourth cup of coffee for the day, she speculated that her entire department was likely functioning only by the grace of a potent mix of adrenaline and insatiable scientific curiosity.

The reports piled on her desk were too much to face. Stacks of data slates and computer cards threatened to topple over at any moment. When she thought of how hard she had worked to keep her personal work space tidy and organized, the current state of her office felt like a defeat, a surrender to chaos.

It looked like this a year ago,she remembered. Back when I took it over from Xiong. At the time she had prejudged Xiong’s competence based on the muddled condition of his office; now she admitted to herself that she had been too harsh on him. This job could make a basket case out of just about anybody.

Despite the mountains of ostensibly dead-end data their work produced, she and the other researchers had made remarkable discoveries by mining the ancient treasures entrusted to them.

The Taurus Meta-Genome was a complex string of genetic information that, when unraveled, yielded a cornucopia of raw data. Different parts of it had been seeded into seemingly basic life-forms throughout the Taurus Reach, spurring Starfleet to engage in what amounted to an interstellar scavenger hunt.

When coupled with an energy waveform known as the Jinoteur Pattern, the Meta-Genome data was like a key that unlocked one mystery of the universe after another: flawless tissue regeneration, complex matter-energy conversions, and even the first clues to bridging distant points of space-time. Starfleet had documented only part of the waveform’s total pattern, however. Its only known source had been the Jinoteur system, which had been violently destroyed more than a year earlier by a space-time implosion that blinked the system out of existence.

Both the genome and the pattern owed their genesis to a mysterious and dangerous species known as the Shedai. Hundreds of millennia earlier, they had been the rulers of this region of the galaxy. Their civilization had collapsed aeons ago, but the Shedai themselves apparently had lived on, hibernating and hiding, only to awaken when Starfleet began unlocking the secrets of their long-dormant technology.

And now there was the Mirdonyae Artifact—the greatest enigma of them all. It promised to unlock many of the most elusive Shedai mysteries, but Xiong and his colleagues insisted it was not a creation of the Shedai. Alas, after more than eight weeks of subjecting it to every test they could imagine, they seemed no closer than before to explaining who had made it, what it was made of, or where it had come from.

Marcus’s black coffee was now completely cold. She drank it anyway. The next series of reports were all from Dr. Wolowitz in the materials-analysis group, which promised an afternoon of dry reading.

She picked up a data slate and prepared herself for another long struggle against boredom.

Then she heard shouting coming from the lab outside.

It grew louder as she dropped the slate and scrambled to her door, which slid open ahead of her. As it did, she heard one voice, loud and clear, barking panicked orders.

“Shut it down!” yelled Xiong, who ran from station to station around the central enclosure of transparent aluminum barriers. “Cut all power! Everyone stop, stop, STOP!”

The other scientists reacted with a flurry of frightened scrambling as they fought to deactivate every console and process. All the blinking readouts on the various panels went dark, and the lab’s normal undertone of energized components pitched downward in a mellisonant hum before fading to silence.

Marcus stormed across the lab and confronted Xiong. “What the hell are you doing? What’s going on?”

He was still trying to catch his breath. “Had to pull the plug,” he said between gasps. “Before it was too late.”

“Too late for what? I need details, Ming.”

Xiong nodded and composed himself. “Sorry,” he said. “Let me try to bring one system back online so I can show you what I found.” He led Marcus to the nearest console and nodded for the Vulcan man standing there to step aside. Marcus watched as Xiong took care to reboot the console in an offline diagnostic mode. While he worked, she noticed his face was pale and his forehead heavy with sweat.

She placed a hand on Xiong’s shoulder. “Try to calm down, Ming. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”

He fished a data card from his pocket and inserted it into a slot on the console. “This morning I started analyzing all the tests we’ve run on the artifact over the last two months. I cross-referenced all the inputs and results with the latest long-range scans of planets we’ve pinged with the artifact while looking for Shedai Conduits.”

The console loaded the data card, and its display changed to show an interactive star map. “This is what we found.” He tapped the icon for one of the star systems. What appeared was an image of fiery debris scattered in space. “Every time we’ve used the artifact to ping a planet that turned out to harbor a Shedai Conduit, the planet has exploded.”

Eyes wide, Marcus parroted, “Exploded?”

“Complete geothermal self-destruction,” Xiong said. “Over the past two months, we’ve destroyed eleven planets without even knowing it. And if I hadn’t shut down today’s experiment, we’d have raised the toll to an even dozen.”

Marcus covered her mouth with one hand, as if she could hold back the horror that welled up inside her. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. She looked up at the artifact, which was locked inside the experiment chamber. “What isthat thing?”

Xiong shrugged. “Right now, my best guess is it’s some kind of doomsday weapon for attacking the Shedai’s interstellar network of Conduits.” He stared at the crystalline dodecahedron. “If I know Admiral Nogura, his next question’ll be: Can it be used as a weapon against the Shedai?”

She looked at Xiong. “Can it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “All I can tell you is we have to be a lot more careful from now on—because that thing’s Armageddon waiting to happen.”