Текст книги "Lesser Evil"

Автор книги: Robert Simpson

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Not quite all at once, Bashir, Bowers, and Nog responded with “Aye, sir.”

“Doctor,” Vaughn went on, “You’ll find the drone’s medical records in a subsection of Ensign Tenmei’s medical file.”

Bashir understood then, his eyes widening. “I see…. Thank you, Commander. We’ll begin work at once.”

“Keep me posted,” Vaughn said. He contacted the Defiantand ordered Ezri to beam him up.

After he dematerialized, Bashir went back to the alcove, Nog and Bowers following close behind. “What was all that about?” Nog said almost immediately.

Bowers shook his head. “I’ve never seen him like this. Ever since he found out about the transponder signal, he’s acted as if nothing else matters.”

“And why would the drone’s medical records be in Prynn’s file?” Nog asked.

Arriving at the alcove once again, Bashir looked into the still, pale face of the drone with a new understanding of what was driving Vaughn’s decisions. The knowledge made Julian feel as if he’s just beamed directly into the middle of a mine field. All he could do now was hope that when one of them finally went off, as he felt certain it must, the damage could be kept to a minimum.

“Because, apparently,” he said in answer to Nog’s question, “this poor woman is Commander Ruriko Tenmei. Prynn’s mother.”

8

Ro flexed her fingers on the grip of her phaser as she surveyed the room. Seven duty personnel at stations, plus Akaar and Lenaris in the pit. This would go a lot easier if I’d been able to lock those two in the station commander’s office when I implemented the security override. Nothing’s ever easy….

Ro tapped her combadge. “Taran’atar.”

“Here.”

“I’m in ops. Raise shields.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Lieutenant,” Lenaris began. “You’d better have a damn good explanation for this.”

Ro ignored him and scanned the ceiling with her eyes. Four dual-support pylons radiated from a central hub suspended over the situation table, obscuring her view of the ceiling above. I don’t spend enough time up here,she thought. I never really noticed the ceiling before. This is gonna be tricky….

“Have the room cleared, General,” Ro said.

“I don’t take orders from you, Lieutenant,” Lenaris said dangerously. “Relinquish control of the station and restore power to ops immediately.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because you might try to stop me.”

“Stop you from what?” Lenaris asked. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to capture Minister Shakaar’s assassin,” Ro said, marching past the station commander’s officer as she sought a better view of the ceiling. “He’s right above your heads.”

Everyone’s eyes went up. The ceiling, of course, seemed peaceful.

“For your own safety, clear the room,” Ro warned again. “Now. This is going to get very messy very quickly.”

“Lieutenant Costello!” Akaar’s voice boomed. “Place Lieutenant Ro under arrest.”

You predictable son of a—

“Belay that,” Lenaris said suddenly. “Stand down, Lieutenant Costello. All personnel, evacuate the operations center.”

“General, what are you doing?” Akaar said.

Ro looked at Lenaris. The general was facing Akaar squarely, refusing to be intimidated by the admiral’s superior height. “I’m giving the station’s chief of security a little latitude, Admiral,” he said evenly. “Unless you intend to challenge my authority as acting commander of Deep Space 9?”

Akaar said nothing, but Ro could imagine his teeth clenching. He might really believe she was untrustworthy, insubordinate, and criminally reckless, but he was still wise enough not to make the situation worse with a power grab over her.

Finally Akaar turned to the ops crew, who stood frozen at their stations. “Well? You heard the general. Clear the room.”

As the officers and crew exited in the turbolifts, Akaar turned back to Lenaris, who clearly intended to remain behind. “I am staying as well,” the admiral said, his tone making it clear that nothing, not even if Bajor announced it was joining the Dominion, would change that.

“Suit yourselves,” Ro muttered. She finally found a clear line of sight that afforded her a decent degree of cover: the column next to the operations station. She slapped her combadge again. “Taran’atar, I’m in position. Can you verify the target?”

A moment of silence, then, “Negative. Security sensors still do not register the presence of a life-form beneath the array.”

“I’m running the risk of blowing a hole in ops big enough to send the station spinning out of the system! I need verification!”

“I have none to give. You will have to trust your instincts,”Taran’atar said. “Or make a leap of faith.”

Ro shook her head, muttering, “You and I are gonna have to have a long talk when all this is over.” She quickly adjusted the setting on her phaser. “Gentlemen, if I were you,” she said to Lenaris and Akaar, who were still in the pit, “I’d find some place else to stand.”

As the admiral and the general took positions roughly equidistant from Ro along the uppermost level of ops, Ro raised her arm, pointed her phaser directly at the central ceiling plates and fired. Something flared—maybe a circuit bank or a power conduit—and Ro held her breath, waiting for the pull of escaping air that signaled a hull breach. But nothing was blown out into space. Instead, metal plating and subspace tranceiver components showered ops. Crashes and sparking equipment resounded through the chamber, some of the debris bouncing off the ceiling pylons and spinning in new directions. Akaar, the biggest humanoid in the room, had to dive and roll to one side to avoid being hit by shrapnel.

Silence fell. Smoke wafted from the opening Ro had made, and she strained to see through it. Gradually it thinned. Blackened machinery and the intact outer hull of the station was all she saw.

No…

She searched the transceiver compartment and the overhanging pylons with her eyes. There was nothing, no sign that a humanoid had ever been up there. “Do you see anything?” she called to Lenaris, standing by the transporter stage. The general shook his head.

“Lieutenant,”Taran’atar said through her combadge. “What happened?”

Ro couldn’t speak. She stood openmouthed, staring at the ceiling, unable to believe how completely wrong she’d been. Again…

“Akaar to security,” the admiral growled, picking himself up off the deck. “Send a team to ops immediately.”

Still staring at the damage she’d done, Ro let her phaser drop to the deck. There was a crash—

Something smashed into the situation table, shattering the surface and leaving a large depression. The impact made Ro flinch, and for a moment she thought one of the pylons had given way. But there was nothing there. It was as if the table had simply caved in on itself.

Or something invisible had struck it…

Ro retrieved her phaser and advanced toward the pit, stopping short when she was halfway down the steps, unwilling to believe her eyes.

Something flickered atop the shattered situation table. Then whatever mechanism had been in operation finally gave out, and Ro found herself staring at the unmoving form of a humanoid, covered completely in a loose-fitting red environmental suit.

Ro trained her phaser on the figure as she looked up at Akaar. “Well, this just got a little more complicated, didn’t it, Admiral?” she asked.

Lenaris looked at Akaar, who was staring intently at the figure splayed over the situation table as he made his way toward the pit.

“What is it?” Lenaris asked. “Is it Gard?”

“Oh, it’s him,” Ro confirmed, looking at the unconscious face through the suit’s visor. “But what’s really interesting is his choice in attire.” She gestured with her weapon at the red garment. “This, General, is an isolation suit. It provides the wearer limited life support and generates a very localized cloaking field, small enough to hide a man. The problem here is that Gard could only obtain such a suit from the manufacturer.”

“Who?” Lenaris asked.

Akaar bent over to study Gard’s prostrate form more closely. “The Federation.”

9

This will work,Vaughn told himself. It has to.

He stood in the center of the medical bay, watching Bashir and his assistants begin the slow, complex task of disengaging sections of Borg technology from Ruriko’s body. Nog had solved the problem of separating her from the regeneration alcove by connecting it to a second, portable energy supply. After that, it was simply a matter of beaming Ruriko, alcove and all, directly to Defiant’s medical bay. Nog continued to monitor his makeshift generator, which provided Ruriko with uninterrupted life support while Bashir and his med-techs, Richter and Juarez, went to work. Ruriko had yet to open her eyes.

Bowers stood by with phaser in hand, prepared to take action if the circumstances warranted it. Sam had remained unhappy about beaming Ruriko on board, and with good reason. Vaughn was taking a huge gamble.

From the moment Vaughn recognized Ruriko’s transponder signal, he dreaded making the choice he’d faced inside the wreckage of the Valkyrie.Until he’d actually set eyes on her, he’d manged to convince himself he had the luxury of time. But really, he never doubted for an instant that Ruriko was alive; special ops transponders were wetwired into the nervous systems of their operatives. They self-destructed immediately upon brain death. For Ruriko’s to be working seven years after she’d been lost could only mean one thing: she’d survived.

That Ruriko had succeeded in neutralizing Veruda’s A.I. before it interfaced with the Borg had never been in question, nor what the outcome would be. She and Vaughn had both understood the necessity of his order to take the Valkyrieand pursue the Borg ship, just as they’d both known that the mission would cost Ruriko her life.

But she beat the odds. She made it off the Borg ship and back onto the Valkyrie. What neither of them had counted on was the Borg’s apparent success in assimilating Valkyrie,and all hands aboard her.

This is my fault,he thought as he stared at her face. I consigned her to this, as surely as if I’d stabbed her with the assimilation tubules myself. She’s endured seven years of hell because I was never able to put her before duty.

Strange, how easily the old emotions resurfaced, even after seven years. He thought his reconnection to Prynn following his encounter with the Inamuri would finally unshackle him from the past. I should have realized. I should have known that something like this was coming. The signs were there, the coincidences too numerous….

“Sir?”

Bashir had walked up to him. Vaughn pulled his eyes away from Ruriko’s pale visage and refocused on the doctor.

“Her condition remains stable. Using records from our database on the previous attempts to reverse Borg assimilation, we’ve neutralized the most dangerous elements of the Borg technology, but we’ve had to leave intact the ones that are keeping what’s left of her body alive.” Bashir paused to allow a reaction from Vaughn. He offered none, so Bashir pressed on. “Something else you should understand, sir: the extent of her assimilation is far greater than anything we have on record. It’s possible that in time, we’ll be able to restore her human appearance, but she’ll never be able to survive without extensive biomechanical help.”

“What about brain activity?” Vaughn asked.

“There’s some, but it’s difficult to be precise, because of the Borg modifications. As best I can determine, she’s in a coma. But it’s impossible to know how much damage she endured after spending two years on minimal life support. I’ll know more after we’ve returned to the Alpha Quadrant, where the proper facilities can be utilized to—”

“No,” Vaughn interrupted. “You’ll do the work here.”

From the corner of his eye, Vaughn could see that Sam had turned suddenly in his direction. He’d overheard them.

Bashir hesitated. “Sir, please try to understand. I’ve done all that I can safely attempt to do for her under the present circumstances. Defiant’s medical bay simply isn’t equipped to handle a case like this. Certainly not without replicators. The degree of mutilation alone—”

“We’re not leaving orbit, Doctor,” Vaughn said. “I’m not putting Deep Space 9, Bajor, or anyone else in the Alpha Quadrant at risk of exposure to Borg technology until I know it’s safe to do so. And only after her mind has been restored.”

“I don’t know that I can do that.”

Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you’re going to try.”

Bashir met Vaughn’s challenging stare and held it. “All right,” he said quietly. “But I want to be clear that this is against my medical judgment. And I fully intend to enter it into my log that your orders are putting this woman’s life and the safety of the crew at risk.”

“You’re certainly at liberty to—” Vaughn began, but was interrupted by the worst sound he could imagine.

“Mom…?”

Vaughn spun around. Prynn stood there, in the open door of the medbay, staring in mute disbelief at Ruriko’s still-standing form across the room.

“Get out,” Vaughn snarled, moving to block Prynn’s view as he marched toward the door. “Get out of here now!”

“But, Dad—”

“Now!”Vaughn shouted, forcing his daughter into the corridor. “Mr. Bowers, confine Ensign Tenmei to quarters.”

“Sir?” Bowers said.

“Do it, Lieutenant.”

Bowers hesitated, but finally came out to usher Prynn along, who stared at her father in disbelief. “C’mon, Prynn,” Sam said gently. “Let’s go.”

Mouth agape, Prynn shook her head uncomprehendingly at Vaughn as he retreated into the medical bay and sealed the door behind him.

“I think he’s losing it,” Sam told Dax sometime later, alone with her in the captain’s ready room.

Dax frowned as she listened to Bowers’s report from behind Vaughn’s desk. News about the crashed ships on the surface, the discovery of the surviving drone and its identity, as well as Vaughn’s confinement of Prynn had spread throughout the ship. “He’s got to be under a lot of strain, Sam,” Dax said.

Bowers nodded. “I’m not disputing that, Ezri. I can’t begin to imagine what he must be going through right now. But you didn’t see him down on the planet, or in the medical bay. He’s lost his perspective. He’s made it personal.”

“What do you expect?” Dax asked. “Ruriko Tenmei is the mother of his only child. To find her transformed into a Borg drone, after believing she was dead for seven years—”

“This is about more than Commander Tenmei,”Bowers said, raising his voice. “We’ve discovered evidence of a Borg incursion into the Gamma Quadrant. Our first priority is to report it to Starfleet. But Vaughn’s even suspended transmissions to the station.”

“This incursion is over two years old. We’ve never encountered any evidence of Borg contacts in the Gamma Quadrant before this. It may be an isolated incident. The delay of a few more days or even weeks isn’t going to make—”

“Lieutenant,” Bowers said, “this is the Borg we’re talking about. We don’t know what the hell they were doing, or when they might return to finish the job. And judging by the fact that the wrecks down on that planet went untouched until we found them, it’s a safe bet the Dominion never found out that one of their ships encountered a Borg vessel. I don’t know about you, but I for one don’t ever want to have to face a Jem’Hadar drone. And God help us all if they ever manage to assimilate a Founder. We need to do something about this now.”

Dax was silent. She knew Sam was right. And as ship’s first officer, the responsibility of addressing the situation fell to her. “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Bowers sighed and nodded.

“How’s Prynn?” Dax asked.

“Mad as hell,” Bowers said. “Not just at her father, either. She’s pretty pissed at me for refusing to tell her anything, and for confining her to her cabin.”

“I’ll deal with that, too. Anything else?”

Bowers shook his head.

“Take the bridge,” Dax said. “I’ll relieve you as soon as I can.”

Bowers nodded and left.

“Computer,” she said when he was gone. “Locate Commander Vaughn.”

“Commander Vaughn is in his quarters.”

Dax sat back and sighed, wishing she knew what she would say to him.

10

“Have you questioned him yet?”Asarem wanted to know.

Seated around the wardroom table and facing the viewscreen with Lenaris, Ro, and Ambassador Gandres, Akaar listened with his brow knotted in turmoil. Gard’s capture, while a major step in solving the mystery of why Shakaar was assassinated, had raised a whole new set of questions…questions he almost feared to learn the answers to.

“He’s not cooperating,” Ro said, responding to the first minister’s question. “He’s obviously been trained to resist interrogation. He might even be resistant to the standard truth drugs. Unfortunately, we can’t even try those in his present condition without killing him.”

“The injuries he sustained were life-threatening, First Minister,” Lenaris elaborated. “Dr. Tarses was able to stabilize him, but he reports that Gard will require several days to recover before he can be released. He is currently confined to the isolation ward in the station’s infirmary, under guard.”

“But if you have the assassin alive, there aboard the station,”the first minister said, “then what is theGryphon chasing?”

Akaar and Lenaris exchanged a look before the admiral replied, “We do not yet know, First Minister. Perhaps Gard’s accomplice. If so, Gryphon’s mission would be essentially unchanged. It was my intention to have Gard interrogated again before updating Captain Mello and Colonel Kira.”

Asarem frowned. “And can you explain the isolation suit, Admiral? Can you, Ambassador?”

Akaar shook his head. “Not conclusively,” he said. “Not yet, at any rate. Starfleet uses isolation suits for the express purpose of conducting covert cultural observations of prewarp societies. But the technology is closely guarded. I have contacted Starfleet Command to see what they can learn.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you that this is beginning to look more and more like a conspiracy by forces within the Federation, gentlemen,”Asarem said frankly.

“I agree, First Minister, that it looks that way,” Akaar said. “But I am not yet convinced that that is what we are really facing.”

“First Minister, I assure you,” Gandres chimed, “that my government utilizes no such devices for any purpose whatsoever. If there is a plot against Bajor, then it may be by a handful of rogue elements, but certainly not by the people of Trill or the Federation. If Gard—”

Gandres was interrupted by the wardroom doors parting to admit Dr. Girani. She looked pale and exhausted. No,Akaar thought. She looks as if she has just experienced a shock of some kind.

“Doctor,” Lenaris said, “do you have something to report?”

“Sirs, First Minister, pardon my interruption, but I’ve finally completed the autopsy report on Minister Shakaar.”

“And?” Asarem prompted from the viewscreen.

“First Minister, my preliminary examination showed none of this, but upon a detailed scan of the body, I discovered two anomalies that I cannot explain. Shakaar’s brain and nervous system contained an alien biochemical, which I’ve now identified conclusively as isoboramine.”

Everyone in the room looked at her blankly except Gandres. The Trill ambassador seemed stunned. “That’s impossible.”

“I ran the tests four times, Ambassador,” Girani said. “There’s no mistake.”

“And what is isoboramine?”Asarem asked.

“It’s the unique neurotransmitter that facilitates the integration of host and symbiont in a joined Trill,” Girani said.

Akaar’s eyebrows went up.

Asarem positively stammered. “Doctor, are you…are you saying Shakaar wasjoined?”

“He couldn’t have been,” Gandres insisted. “Only Trill can be joined to symbionts.”

“That is not entirely true, Ambassador,” Akaar said, pacing the room thoughtfully. “Starfleet is aware of at least one instance in which a Terran served as host to a symbiont, at least temporarily, and under extraordinary circumstances.” The admiral turned to Girani. “However, if Shakaar was somehow joined, then there would be a symbiont in his abdominal cavity. Was there, Doctor?”

“No, sir,” the doctor said. “Despite the presence of isoboramine, Minister Shakaar’s abdominal cavity showed no indication of ever carrying a symbiont.”

Akaar scowled. He felt as if all the pieces were there, but the picture eluded him. There was something familiar about all this…but what?

“However,” Girani continued, “a microcellular scan of the wounddid reveal traces of symbiont DNA. Or something very much like a symbiont.”

“What do you mean, in the wound?” Gandres asked. “The wound was to his neck.”

Akaar froze, the realization hitting him like a kligat.He looked up at the face of Gandres, at those of the Bajorans around him and the first minister on the screen, and suddenly he knew that everything about the situation had changed. Blood of my father, not this. Not again…

“Admiral,”Asarem said, watching Akaar carefully. “What is it? You know what this is, don’t you?”

“First Minister,” Akaar said, “I fear that I do.”

Akaar walked into the infirmary’s isolation ward, where Hiziki Gard lay stretched out on a biobed, seeming to study the ceiling. His eyes didn’t move to acknowledge Akaar as the admiral stopped at the foot of the bed.

“I will come right to the point. I know why Shakaar was killed. We found traces of foreign DNA in his neck. We also found a match in the Starfleet database. Shakaar was host to a parasite, one of the creatures who infiltrated Starfleet twelve years ago and attempted to take over the Federation. The same species as the creature that a joint team of Starfleet and Trill civilian scientists encountered a century before.”

Gard said nothing, just continued to stare straight ahead.

“What are you protecting?” Akaar persisted. “Why continue this subterfuge?” Again Gard refused to answer. Akaar slammed his hand on the edge of the biobed and stepped around it, leaning in close. “If these creatures have indeed returned, then they threaten all of us. This is about more than just Trill.”

Gard’s eyes suddenly met the admiral’s. “You’re wrong, Akaar. This is all about Trill, from beginning to end.”

“Tell me how.”

“Why ask me? You know about the previous encounters. You have the DNA. So you already know the truth: outward appearances notwithstanding, the symbionts of Trill and the parasites are essentially the same species.”

“I don’t know enough,” Akaar said. “How long was the parasite controlling him?”

“Months,” Gard answered. “We believe he became infected at some point during his diplomatic trip to the Federation. Unlike most symbionts, parasites completely dominate their hosts. They don’t even access the hosts’ long-term memories. That’s how your people detected them during the last incursion, but only after they’d already overplayed their hand. There are also subtle indications in behavior and body language, but these are more difficult to detect. That’s why I was called in. I’ve spent many lifetimes specializing in the behavioral psychology of joined beings. I was sent to DS9 specifically to evaluate Shakaar, and if our suspicions were correct, to deal with the matter.”

“But what did the creature want from Shakaar? What was it trying to do?”

Gard arched an eyebrow. “To take Bajor into the Federation. Isn’t that obvious?”

“But why Bajor?”

Gard shrugged. “A new direction of attack, perhaps? Infiltrate the Federation through a single species? Maybe to manipulate the sociopolitical landscape in this region as a prelude to some grander scheme? Take your pick. The only way to stop whatever plan they had was to stop Shakaar from signing the agreement, but in such a way that Federation unity couldn’t go forward.”

“That’s why you waited until the signing ceremony,” Akaar realized. “But why was it necessary to kill him?”

“He’d been infected too long. There was no longer a way to free him from the parasite. To all intents and purposes, Shakaar Edon was already dead.”

“Are we still in danger?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You said you were sent to DS9,” Akaar continued. “Is Trill behind this?”

Gard smiled. “That depends on who you ask.”

Akaar turned away, emotions seething. Finally he spun back around and grabbed the folds of Gard’s tunic in his great fists. “Do you think this is a game?”

“I’m growing weary of you, Akaar,” Gard said quietly. “You think you’re old? Believe me, you don’t know what old is. I’ve died more times than I can remember. Next to me, you’re a newborn. So don’t think you can intimidate me.”

Akaar slowly released Gard, but the two men continued to stare at each other. Finally the admiral said, “Gryphonis on its way to Trill.”

That seemed to give Gard pause. “Why?”

“Captain Mello believed they had detected the energy signature of a cloaked vessel, heading in the direction of Trill. We assumed it was you, so she set out in pursuit of it.” Akaar watched the shock seep into Gard’s face. “But if you are here, then it begs the question…what is Gryphonchasing?”

Gard did not respond at once. Clearly he had not expected the news. So the Jem’Hadar was right, and Gard had heard only part of Akaar’s conversation with Mello.“If what you’re telling me is true, then you’ve all been duped. Captain Mello is being manipulated by the same kind of creature that controlled Shakaar. Gryphonis going to Trill for one reason: to retaliate. Not for the death of Shakaar, but the thing that was inside him.

“You have to stop that ship, Akaar,” Gard said. “You can’t allow it to reach Trill.”