Текст книги "Declassified "

Автор книги: David Mack

Соавторы: Marco Palmieri,Dayton Ward
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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

10

Quinn’s voice echoed from the PA system inside the Dulcinea’s cargo hold. “Ask and ye shall receive: I’ve got theEndeavour on the secure channel.”

Bridy stepped to a nearby comm panel and thumbed the reply button. “Patch it down here, would you?” Because her security clearance was several levels higher than Quinn’s, her superiors at SI insisted she exclude him from classified briefings. She took Quinn at his word when he promised not to eavesdrop on her.

“You’re on, and I’m out.”

There was a soft click as Quinn left the channel, followed immediately by a woman’s voice. “Commander McLellan, this is Captain Khatami.”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“There’s some pretty angry chatter coming out of Seudath on the Klingons’ diplomatic frequency. What the hell happened down there?”

“Nothing major.” Bridy looked away sheepishly. “No fatalities, anyway.”

“We usually set the bar for success a bit higher than that, Commander.”

“I have to play the ball as it lies, sir.”

Khatami sighed. “Did you get the Orions’ sensor logs?”

“Yes, sir, but we haven’t had a chance to review them yet.”

“What’s the delay?”

“The Klingons got to the data first, and they’re using a new encryption protocol. Quinn’s working on cracking it, but it might take a while.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

Bridy made no attempt to mask her annoyance. “Why? Because of his security clearance?”

“It’s a concern, yes.”

“That’s absurd. Do you have any idea how many times he’s put his life on the line for us? We need to start trusting him.”

There was a short pause before Khatami said, “We’ll take that under advisement. For now, however, operational security is our first priority.”

“If you’re that worried, feel free to come pick up the data card and crack its code yourselves.”

“We would if we could, but we’re a bit busy at the moment.”The captain softened her tone. “I know you two are more than professionally linked, so I’ll take your word for it and cut him some slack, especially since we need you to follow up on this once you break the code. Which brings me to my next bit of news: Before you left theEndeavour a few days ago, we hid a package for you in the cargo bay.”

Looking around at the stacks of cargo containers, Bridy asked, “Where?”

“Against the aft bulkhead, behind the gray cases.”

She walked over to the stack of containers and looked behind them. Tucked into the corner behind them was a small gray backpack. “I see it. What is it?”

“A compact ordnance package. It’s experimental, very high yield.”

“You mean a bomb.” She returned to the comm panel. “What’s it for?”

“If you find the source of the phenomenon the Orions detected, and it turns out to be what we think it is, we can’t let it fall into Klingon hands. That package is our insurance policy, and we’re counting on you to use it if necessary.”

She cast a nervous look in the package’s direction. “What’s the yield?”

“At least five megatons, but SI won’t give us precise figures.”

“Please tell me its detonator has a timer, at least.”

“Of course it does. The instructions are inside the pack with the device.”Khatami’s tenor turned grave. “One more thing, Commander.”

“I know what you’re going to say: Quinn and I are expendable.” She heaved a bitter sigh. “Not exactly news, Captain.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Do I need to keep Quinn in the dark about this, too?”

“No. If something happens to you, he’ll need to trigger the device.”

“Oh, he’s gonna love that.”

“We aim to please. As I said, this is just a contingency plan.”

“Right. Like seppuku is a contingency plan.”

“Desperate times, Commander. As soon as we can join you, we will. Until then, keep us apprised of your progress and coordinates.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Endeavour out.”

The subspace channel went silent, and Bridy turned off the comm. She looked over her shoulder toward the bomb. They have got to be kidding me.

Quinn stood next to Bridy in the Dulcinea’s cargo bay and stared at the bomb. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was. The good news is that it’s just a backup plan.”

He folded his arms. “No, hiding a knife in your boot is a backup plan. This is a suicide plan dressed up as a scorched-earth policy.” He shook his head in disgust. “I don’t know what pisses me off more—the fact that Starfleet hid a bomb on my ship or that they think I’m crazy enough to blow myself up with it.”

“Would this be a bad time to ask how you’re doing with the code-breaking?”

“A few more hours,” Quinn said. He left the cargo hold through the forward hatch, and Bridy followed him on the short walk through the main cabin and back to the cockpit. “It’d go a lot faster if we had some of those big Starfleet computer cores. You sure we can’t just send this to Endeavourand be done with it?”

“We can’t risk transmitting it, not even on a coded channel.”

“Pain in my ass.” Quinn flopped into his pilot’s seat, which still felt too new and firm for his liking. Despite having seized the ship months earlier, he still hadn’t become comfortable with its small quirks. His last vessel, the Rocinante,had been a beat-up clattertrap of a starship, nowhere near as advanced as the Dulcinea,but it also had been his home for more than a decade, and he missed it. A quick look at the helm console confirmed that the Dulcinearemained on course at warp five, cruising through the unclaimed space of the Taurus Reach toward the ill-fated Orion merchantman’s last-known coordinates.

Bridy settled into the copilot’s chair beside his and checked the progress of their brute-force code-breaking program. She made a small frown, apparently less than satisfied with their progress. “I have to give the Klingons credit,” she said. “A storage card that encrypts data as it’s written is damned clever. SI should use this.”

“After we finish hacking it, let’s ‘invent’ it and sell it to Starfleet,” Quinn said. “I mean, what’re the Klingons gonna do? Sue us for patent infringement?”

His brilliant idea was rewarded with a dubious glare from Bridy. “One crazy scheme at a time, dear. One at a time.”

11

Hegron hated visiting the Tzoryp safe house’s basement. Windowless and dank, it was little more than a way station for the wounded on their way to Sto-Vo-Kor. The head of Imperial Intelligence on Qo’noS had not even seen fit to assign a fully trained surgeon to the Seudath mission, having reasoned it could make do with a field medic. Even that concession had proved to be a cruel jest, in Hegron’s opinion. The medic, Ragh, spent more time self-medicating with bloodwine than he did tending to the sick or injured.

An odor of must and urine lingered in the air. Passing the single row of empty, unmade beds draped with soiled sheets, Hegron grimaced at the squalor and tried to mitigate the stench’s effect by taking shallow breaths. He failed and winced in disgust. His bootsteps, which had snapped crisply in the pristine corridors outside his office, were muted by the patina of filth and dried blood that caked the basement’s floor.

He reached the last bed and stood at its foot. Its occupant, an Imperial Intelligence agent named Goloth, stirred. The lean, young operative opened his eyes slowly and regarded Hegron with contempt. “What do you want?”

“I’ll settle for your head.”

Goloth grinned. “She got away from you, yeah?”

“You won’t act so smug as part of a chain gang on Rura Penthe.”

The spy folded his hands behind his head. “That will never happen.”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused us?”

Another insolent grin. “Enlighten me.”

“You were seen leaving the Treana’s hangar just before it exploded.”

“So?”

“Do the words ‘interstellar incident’ mean anything to you? The Treanawas in Gorn military custody. Their ambassador to Qo’noS is calling your little stunt ‘an act of war.’ If the High Council can’t placate the Gorn imperator in the next forty-eight hours, a state of war will be declared.”

“ Qapla’!More glory for the Empire!”

Hegron grabbed Goloth by his collar and hefted him half out of bed. “You stupid petaQ! The last thing we need is anotherenemy in the Gonmog Sector. Bad enough we already face the Federation and the Tholians.”

Goloth seized Hegron’s hand and wrested it from his shirt with a powerful twist. He held the section chief hostage as he rasped into his ear. “Your fears are not my problem.” He released Hegron with a hard shove and crossed his arms.

“Brave talk.” Hegron smoothed his rumpled tunic. “What do you think the director will say when I tell him you led an enemy agent directly to us?”

“He’ll ask why your security forces let her in the building.”

“Really? I think he’ll ask how you let a human—a woman, no less—best you in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Spoken like a man who lives behind a desk. Never judge your foes by anything other than their actions. There is no shame in losing to a worthy adversary.” The spy’s grin returned. “Being taken hostage, on the other hand. . . .”

Hegron quaked with rage. “Don’t think you can deflect the blame for this travesty onto me, you filthy yIntagh! It was your job to steal the Orions’ sensor data and bring it back, not mine. That means you’ll pay for the consequences of your botched operation, not me.”

“What makes you think my operation was botched?”

“How else would you evaluate its outcome? You led the enemy here, she beat you unconscious, and she escaped with the Orions’ sensor data.”

Goloth’s grin tightened to a smirk. “Correction.” He uncrossed his arms with the grace of a mesmerist performing a sleight-of-hand trick. Then he produced, as if from nowhere, a gray data card in his right hand. “The human woman escaped with one copyof the Orions’ data.” He extended his arm and offered the card to Hegron.

The director seized the card with a quick grab. “Should I even ask why you made twocopies of this?”

“Insurance. In case of mishaps like the one we had today.”

“A wise precaution.” Hegron pocketed the card.

“Am I still to be condemned in your report to Imperial Intelligence?”

“That depends. Will yourreport mention the human woman’s invasion of our safe house?”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“Then I suspect your destruction of the Treanawill be presented as an entirely justified tactic, undertaken to preserve operational security.”

“We understand each other, then.”

“What I understand is that you might live to see your next sunrise.” Hegron walked away from the bedridden spy and raised his voice so that it filled the infirmary. “And if I were you, Goloth, I’d arrange to see that sunrise on a world very, very far from here.”

12

Quinn sat in the Dulcinea’s pilot’s seat, sipped from his mug of reconstituted orange juice, and watched Bridy backpedal into the cockpit. She was paying out the ship’s last few meters of backup optronic cable from a spindle. “That ought to do it,” she said, holding the cable in one hand and casting aside the empty spool.

“Do I even want to know what system you’ve hijacked now?”

Bridy picked up a data slate and reviewed a schematic of the ship’s internal command-and-control network. “The escape pod, I think.”

“Good thinking. Can’t imagine why we’d ever need to use that.”

She tossed the data slate into his lap. “Just walk me through the patch-in.”

He set down his orange juice, picked up the tablet, and enlarged a section of the schematic. “I thought you could do this stuff in your sleep.”

“On systems I know, sure. But these Nalori circuit relays make no sense to me.” Still clutching the cable, she lay down on her back and shimmied through an opening beneath the cockpit’s operations console. “Help me find the transporter controls’ second auxiliary data port.”

“The transporter? Why the hell are we patching into that?”

“We’re just borrowing its logic processor. Now, where’s the port?”

He tapped at the interactive schematic. “Look for the second row of chips perpendicular to the aft end of the panel. There’s a sequence of three red chips, five green chips, and four white chips.”

“I see it.”

“Directly forward of the center green chip.”

“Got it. Patching in now.”

His inner pessimist expected something to short out, catch fire, or explode. At the very least, he expected the lights to flicker and the consoles to go dark. To his relief and surprise, nothing seemed to change as Bridy connected the cable.

She wriggled back out from under the console and stood up. “So far, so good.” She keyed some commands into the operations console. “Five-by-five.”

“All right. Now what?”

“We analyze the data you recovered on that Klingon memory card.” She smiled. “Nicely done, by the way.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m sending Starfleet a bill as soon as we get back.”

“Trust me, they’ll call it money well spent.” She tapped a key on the sensor console. “Let’s see what we have.”

Numbers, mathematical formulas, and bizarre alien symbols Quinn didn’t recognize flooded across several display screens inside the cockpit. The data blurred past, a torrent of information too fast for him to comprehend.

“Whatever we’ve got,” Bridy said, “there’s a lot of it.” She entered more commands on the sensor console. “Let’s apply a few filters. See if we can break this into pieces small enough to study.” Seconds later, the tempest of digits on the screen thinned and slowed. Bridy nodded. “There we go.” Then she scowled. “That’s weird. These are gravimetric waves accelerated by subspatial lensing, but there’s a subspace signal embedded in one of their harmonic subfrequencies.”

“You lost me right after ‘weird.’ Can you tell me in simple English what any of that actually means?”

Bridy looked perplexed. “Um . . . no, I can’t.”

“So, where does that leave us?”

“We could wait for Endeavourto get here and then hand it over to them.”

“And give the Klingons a chance to track us down? No, thanks.”

She sighed. “Good point. The sooner we unravel this, the better.”

He got up and shouldered past her to get a better look at the display. “Can you freeze it a second?” Bridy halted the steady scroll, and Quinn studied the digits and symbols. There was a pattern to it, and it felt familiar to him, though he wasn’t immediately sure why. Several seconds passed while he gazed at the screen, mesmerized by its blizzard of raw intel and lost in his own thoughts.

Then it became clear.

“These are coordinates.” He pointed out strings of numbers. “Look. See how close these sets are? Every eighteen digits, three sets of six.” Entering commands on the console, he continued. “This ain’t meant to be read like a book. This is more of a paint-by-numbers kind of thing.” Keying in the final series of commands, he added, “Your hidden message is software for drawing a starmap.”

The Dulcinea’s astrocartographic matrix engaged and parsed the data in seconds. Quinn reconfigured it to present a graphical representation on the cockpit’s main status monitor. A funnel-like shape appeared on the screen, its throat narrowing rapidly beyond the mouth’s event horizon and then spiraling in tight coils around its central axis as it vanished into an apparent singularity.

Bridy cocked her head at an angle. “A black hole?”

“Don’t think so. Not strong enough, and it’s givin’ off the wrong kinds of radiation. But it’s a gravity well, for damn sure.”

Her eyes widened. “A wormhole!”

“That’d be my guess.”

“Stable?”

“No idea.”

“What’s its position?”

“Don’t know that, either. But I think I know how to find out.” Quinn keyed new search factors into the Dulcinea’s sensor matrix. “A wormhole that big’s gonna bend space-time for at least half a light-year. If we search for small, deep-space objects with known trajectories in the sector where the Treanagot damaged, we can scan for any that aren’t where they ought to be.”

“And then triangulate the cause of their deviations.”

“You got it, darlin’.” The results of the sensor sweep took shape on his display. He superimposed a number of computer animations detailing the altered vectors of a handful of rogue planetoids, junked satellites, and other small objects that had been previously charted by Starfleet. Seconds later, the computer animation finished plotting the sources of the distorted paths, and more than half a dozen lines intersected at a single coordinate.

Quinn settled into his pilot’s chair and folded his hands behind his head as he reclined. “X marks the spot.”

Bridy shot him a mild glare of teasing reproach. “Show-off.”

“It’s why you keep me around, sweetheart.”

She smiled, took his hand, and led him out of the cockpit. “It’s onereason.”

13

Atish Khatami winced at the sound of Ming Xiong’s voice calling out from several meters behind her in the corridor: “Captain! A moment, please!”

The svelte commanding officer of the Endeavourhalted and forced herself to exorcise any intimation of irritation from her face. Then she turned to confront her high-strung guest. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

He caught up to her and stood a bit too close for her comfort. “Why wasn’t I told your crew loaded trilithium ordnance onto the Dulcinea?”

She grabbed Xiong’s arm and pulled him toward the door of a nearby maintenance bay. It slid open ahead of them and she shoved him through the doorway. On the other side, a pair of enlisted mechanics looked up from their precision welding. Khatami’s voice was sharp and cold: “Give us the room.” Tools clattered across the compartment’s workbenches, dropped without question by the mechanics, who were out the door before Khatami had to ask them again.

As the door hushed closed, Khatami poked a finger against Xiong’s chest. “First, nevertake that tone with me on board myship. Next, neverdiscuss classified ops in the middle of a passageway. Last but not least, you weren’t told because there was no reasonyou needed to know.”

“No reason? In case you’ve forgotten, Captain, I’m in charge of all field missions directly related to Operation Vanguard.”

“Unless I’ve missed a memo from Starfleet Command stating that you’ve been promoted to the admiralty, I don’t give a damn what your billet is. My orders are to provide you with facilities, communications, and regular updates, and to offer tactical and material support to SI’s operatives in the field.”

Xiong paced angrily and pushed a hand through his black, brush-cut hair. “We’re so close,Captain. So close to unlocking all these mysteries, all these technologies, all this pure knowledge. The last thing we ought to do is risk blowing it all to hell because some fool with more brass than brains tells us to.”

“I don’t see why you’re getting all worked up over this. It’s no different than the self-destruct package Starfleet builds into every starship and starbase.”

Arms raised and fingers curled with suppressed rage, Xiong looked ready to explode. “It’s completely different! Sacrificing a ship or a starbase only means losing matériel, fuel, and personnel.”

Khatami was aghast. “Oh, is thatall?”

“Listen to what I’m saying. Starships can be replaced. Starbases can be rebuilt. Lost lives are a tragedy, but others will continue what they’ve begun.” Once more he stepped too deep into Khatami’s personal space. “But if we destroy unique artifacts of the Shedai, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see their ilk again.”

She pressed her palm to his shoulder and nudged him back half a step. “And what if the Klingons capture one of those unique artifacts? What do you think they’lldo with that kind of knowledge, Ming? Develop it in peace for the good of the galaxy at large, or turn it into a weapon that’ll wipe us off the map?”

“I’m well aware of the destructive potential of Shedai technology, sir.”

“Then you ought to know why we can’t ever let the Klingons have it.”

He shook his head. “I can’t condone the destruction of antiquities. Not even for national security. These are pieces of history we’re talking about, Captain.”

It was Khatami’s turn to shake her head. “Wrong, Lieutenant.” She shouldered past him, and the maintenance bay’s door opened ahead of her as she made her exit. “What we’re talking about is cultural survival.”

Bridy stood behind Quinn’s chair, looked through the Dulcinea’s cockpit canopy, and saw nothing but a placid starscape. She glanced at Quinn. “Where is it?”

“Trust me, darlin’, it’s out there.” He tapped a few instructions into the forward console, and a holographic wireframe appeared as if conjured outside the ship. It depicted the profound curvature of local space-time into a funnel shape. “The Orions’ sensor data says it’s right there—larger than life and twice as ugly.”

She threw a confused look at Quinn. “What does that even mean?”

“Just a cute way of sayin’ it’s really big.”

“Mm-hm.” She turned her attention back to the stars. “There’s supposed to be a wormhole less than a quarter million kilometers away, but we aren’t seeing any distortion in our view of the stars. Does that mean it collapsed?”

Quinn shrugged. “It might. Or maybe it only opens once in a blue moon.”

“Or when something crosses its event horizon.”

Bridy settled into the copilot’s seat and accessed the subspace comm. “Start plotting a course. I’ll send our coordinates to Endeavouron a coded channel.”

“Hang on, whoa, stop. Are you out of your mind?”

Continuing to prep her message to the Endeavour,Bridy said, “We need to know if the wormhole’s still there, and if it is, we need to be sure it’s stable.”

“By flying into it? Sorry, no.” He leaned back from the helm and crossed his arms. “I think we oughta just hang tight and wait to see if it reopens on its own.”

She shook her head. “Not good enough. For all we know, this thing’s on a cycle measured in centuries, or even longer.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m a patient man.”

“One, I know that to be a lie. Two, even if you’ve learned to be patient, the Klingons haven’t. We need to confirm this find and plant our flag right now.”

“Screw that. Our orders were to steal the data and crack the code. We did that. We’re done now. Job over. It’s time to go home and start our new lives as boring, happy civilians nobody shoots at.”

Bridy sent her message to the Endeavour,then turned to face Quinn. “I don’t have time to argue with you. It’s the bottom of the ninth, we’re on the ropes, and I’m not gonna drop the ball when I have a shot at the goal. Do you get me?”

Quinn heaved an exasperated sigh. “Honey, if you want to keep using sports metaphors, you reallyneed to learn something about sports.”

“Don’t change the subject. Just set the course and punch it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“It might shock you, dear, to learn that I know how to fly the ship.” She punctuated her point with a teasing smile. “So, what’s it gonna be?”

He frowned and laid in the course. “Lady, you’re a pain in my ass.”

“You know you love it.”

The deck shivered under Bridy’s feet as the Dulcinea’s impulse drive kicked in. Then a burst of light flooded the cockpit. As it faded, she saw the majestic, blue-and-white whorl of a wormhole’s mouth spiraling open all around them. The ship’s hull rumbled ominously. “Gravitational flux,” Quinn said over the noise. Flipping switches, he added, “Compensating.” A momentary fluctuation in the inertial dampers made Bridy’s stomach jump into her chest for half a heartbeat. She swallowed hard and shook it off.

Quinn shot her a pleading look. “Last chance to change your mind.”

She gripped her chair’s armrests. “Take us in.”

“I hope you’re right about this,” Quinn said.

Then he guided the ship forward and plunged it through the wormhole’s mouth into the brilliant, twisting abyss that lay beyond.

Stephen Klisiewicz looked up from the sensor hood and turned toward the center seat of the Endeavour’s bridge. “Captain? Our listening posts on the Klingon border are picking up major activity.”

“Main viewer,” Khatami said. Klisiewicz routed his sensor feed to the forward viewscreen, making it available to all the other bridge officers. The captain looked left, toward the ship’s first officer. “Number One? Analysis?”

Stano stood with her hands folded behind her back and her dark hair swept back in a neat bob, a portrait of composure. “Looks like an expeditionary force from the Klingons’ Fifth Fleet, out of Q’Tahl.” She fixed her blue eyes on Klisiewicz. “How many ships, Lieutenant?”

“Hard to say, sir. At least three, all fast movers. They just hit warp eight.”

The captain nodded. “All right, so we know they’re in a hurry. Lieutenant McCormack, chart their heading and give me some idea where they’re going.”

“Aye, sir,” said the fresh-faced young navigator.

A soft chirp from the communications console heralded an incoming signal. Lieutenant Hector Estrada swiveled his chair toward the bridge’s command well. “Captain, we’re receiving a coded message from the Dulcinea. It’s marked ‘Priority Victor-Alpha.’ ”

Khatami rose from her chair. “Route it to Science Two,” she said, climbing the steps to the bridge’s upper ring. The captain and first officer converged on the backup science station and keyed in their security clearance codes. Tense seconds passed as the two women huddled over the console and conferred in whispers. Klisiewicz couldn’t hear what they were discussing, but he held a sufficiently high security clearance to know that Victor-Alpha was the current designation for matters related to Operation Vanguard.

Stano and Khatami turned toward the main viewscreen. “McCormack, report,” Khatami said.

“No populated systems on the Klingons’ current bearing.” The navigator added a projection of the Klingon ships’ course to the image on the forward screen. “They seem to be heading into deep space.”

The captain and first officer exchanged grim and knowing looks, then descended together into the command well. “Mister Estrada,” Stano said, “what was the time stamp on that message from the Dulcinea?”

“Nine minutes ago, sir.”

“Raise them on subspace, Lieutenant, priority one.”

“Aye, sir.”

Khatami sat down in her chair, and Stano stood ready on her right. The captain’s mien was serious, her voice stern. “Helm, set course, bearing one-six-one mark one-zero-four, maximum warp, and stand by to engage on my order.”

Lieutenant Neelakanta, an energetic young Arcturian, entered the new heading with speed and precision. “Course laid in, Captain. Standing by.”

The captain looked back at Estrada. “Report.”

“No reply, Captain. Repeating the hail.”

Anticipating the captain’s next request, Klisiewicz initiated a long-range sensor scan of the Dulcinea’s last-known position. Only then did he realize that the civilian ship’s last coordinates lay in the path of the approaching Klingon ships.

At the communications console, Estrada shook his head. “No response, sir.”

Klisiewicz glanced into the blue glow of the hooded sensor display, then looked up as Khatami turned toward him. “No sign of the Dulcinea,Captain.”

Stano and Khatami traded worried looks. The first officer asked Klisiewicz, “Is it possible they warped out of sensor range?”

“Not unless they can move at warp eleven.”

Khatami leaned forward. “Mister Neelakanta”—she pointed dramatically at the main viewscreen—“engage.”