Strange New Worlds 2016

by Various

  Bashir felt queasy. “You’re saying the Federation assassinated her?”

  “I—I don’t know. I’d thought halting her announcement had satisfied them.”

  The doctor’s lips parted. “You gave her the sedative?”

  Miserably, Lubaar nodded.

  Garak stared at Odo, leaning against his desk as he listened to Rokor. The news that Trestan was being held against his will in the derelict ore-processing facility should have goaded the constable into action. Instead, he was fussing over details.

  “How did you deduce that Thebroca Horven assassinated Dal?”

  Rokor shifted his weight.

  “Stands to reason,” Garak broke in. “She’s a member of the Obsidian Order—or so I’ve heard.”

  Odo ignored him. “Why kidnap your brother? Perhaps because you’re a former assassin. Or so I’ve heard.”

  Garak clicked his tongue. “Arrange the puzzle later, Odo. Can’t you see the man is anxious?”

  “If the kidnapper is holding him in ore processing, why aren’t station systems detecting them?”

  Garak jumped to his feet. “Biomimetic spray, of course! They’re probably registering as voles.”

  “But such tricks don’t fool lemurs, do they?”

  Garak sucked in his breath. “Lucky thing I happened to be—”

  “Stop lying.”

  Before Garak could retort, Rokor grasped Odo’s shoulder. “Stop risking Trestan’s life.”

  The constable jerked away. “Fine. I’ll pull up the facility’s schematics on my viewscreen—”

  “No need.” Rokor held out the padd tucked under his arm.

  Ignoring Odo’s scowl, Garak moved closer. Apparently, Fletflet had tracked all the way to level thirty-three. Good girl.

  Pointing at the red dot inside the refinery, the Bajoran said, “I wrote a message on the lemur’s collar in code that Tres and I used during the Occupation. I told him to remove the red bead from the collar, swallow it, then pinch the lemur’s tail. This green dot shows the creature separated from him. If it’s doing what we hope, it’s hiding within a couple meters of Horven.”

  “We?” Odo glared at Garak.

  Emphatically, he shook his head. “Leave me out of this.”

  Before Garak could continue, Bashir dashed in. “I know who—”

  “The Obsidian Order,” Odo interrupted, “though not our resident member. Gul Horven’s wife killed Dal and engineered the attempt on Lubaar. We could use your help, Doctor. We’re picking her up now.”

  “We?” Garak felt tension building between the bone plates above his eyes. The headache would last a week.

  “Yes, we.”

  Horven was holding Trestan one level below where O’Brien had accidentally triggered Dukat’s anti-uprising program, causing lockdown of sensitive areas all over the station. Odo remembered the incident as the excruciating hour he’d spent trapped in his office with Quark.

  He studied his team. Ordinarily, he’d have employed his own personnel for a rescue operation, but this situation involved several factors requiring discretion. Despite being a physician, Bashir had seen action. As for Garak and Shaloza Rokor, well, their experience was even more extensive.

  Bending over Rokor’s padd for one last look at the situation inside, Odo switched to vertical view. Trestan’s position high above the deck suggested he’d been imprisoned somewhere near the top of the chute designed to feed molten ore to the refinery blast furnace.

  When the green dot rose, Garak whispered, “Let’s move. I doubt Thebroca’s bringing Trestan his supper.”

  Odo held up a shushing finger, then punched his security code into the entrance keypad. The next step was their plan’s weakest. He’d ooze out a vent on the opposite side, but due to the clangor solids made in air ducts, their only recourse was to burst through the door together.

  He left them to it. Unlike Garak, who’d pried off a grille to give his lemur access, Odo sluiced through myriad tiny holes, then flowed around behind the walls, unhindered by exhaust fans and filters. Reaching his exit point, he heard Horven.

  “Just one fingertip so your brother will take his job seriously.”

  Forming the Klingon hawk some said was the model for their bird-of-prey, Odo dive-bombed Horven. She dropped her knife and grabbed her disruptor. Odo retracted to the size of a gnat to avoid her zigzagging blast.

  Odo saw Trestan shackled to the observation platform just above the blast furnace. Calmly, the young man squeezed under the control box. The faithful lemur jumped onto his lap.

  Beneath, Odo’s team charged into the room, raced to three corners, and trained their weapons on Horven. Before she could switch her target, Odo spread around her in a net, reserving just enough of himself to form a mouth at her ear.

  “The only thing saving you from Garak is the bother he’d have explaining why he also shot the chief of security.”

  “Damn you, shapeshifter.”

  When Horven dropped her weapon, Odo resumed his usual form and kicked it clattering down the steps.

  “Pity,” Garak called up, “seeing such a rising star face such an ignominious end.”

  Horven spat. “You don’t know the mess you’ve made. When I pass the news to Tain—and I will—you’re dead.”

  “Who’d believe a disappointment like me defeated a prodigy like you? But compared to your fate—hourly prayers in a Bajoran penitentiary until old age finally releases you—I’d prefer death. Wouldn’t you?”

  Weary of Cardassians, Odo squatted to unshackle Trestan. When the boy gasped, he looked up to see Horven dislodging a neck plate. The surgical alteration revealed a bubble under her skin. Before he could stop her, she popped it. Instantly, she slumped.

  Toxin. When Odo darted a glance at Garak, the Cardassian looked unsurprised.

  “Did you hear the tragic news? A Romulan freighter crashed into the moon of Tasadae, obliterating the entire tribe.”

  When Bashir nodded, Garak placed his tray across from him and settled on the vacant chair.

  Tired of poking at his enchilada, Bashir laid down his fork. “Supposedly, the captain flew too close trying to see the new humanoids.”

  “Hmm. I’m just glad a Cardassian transport heard their distress signal and beamed the crew aboard.” Garak smiled. “Cardassians helping Romulans. Perhaps your Federation ideals are rubbing off on us.”

  Federation ideals. Bashir twisted his napkin. The fake tribe that the freighter had wiped out had flouted those ideals. The real reason for their secrecy was avoiding the repercussions for experimenting with sapient beings.

  “What I can’t figure out is why the Order wanted Dal and Lubaar silenced. At most, their evaluation was delayed. Whatever their conclusions were, no doubt a second team would have reached the same ones.” Shrugging, Garak spooned up a mouthful of sem’hal stew.

  Why indeed? Had the Order wanted the delay to remove the Changelings and their stasis-field-generating-rock enclosure? Had their Romulan counterparts, the Tal Shiar, crashed a freighter to cover up?

  “Congratulations, though. You won this week’s Manhunt Pool.” Garak leaned closer. “Now tell me how you helped the Yridian con man.”

  “You really enjoy hearing how gullible I am, don’t you?” Bashir grimaced. “Okay. Last year, I received a subspace call claiming to be a classmate from Starfleet Medical Academy. He said, ‘Guess who.’ When I tried Dicky Poole, he said, ‘Bingo. Now guess my business.’ ”

  Garak laughed. “Classic con.”

  “Yes. I gave the Yridian the optimal sleep chamber idea. Every speculation I voiced, he recorded. When I finished, he had a promo of Deep Space 9’s chief medical officer endorsing the Best Nest franchise and agreeing that any agent Dicky Poole sent to represent it could be trusted.” Bashir hung his head. “You’re
right, Garak. I must stop being naïve.”

  “Ah, Doctor. Don’t take my judgments so seriously.”

  Bashir raised an eyebrow. “So now you’re advising me to not heed your advice?”

  “Correct.” When Garak’s eye crinkles deepened, Bashir suspected he was about to hear a deliciously enigmatic bon mot. “After all, what kind of friend would I be if I allowed you to trust me?”

  THE DREAMER AND THE DREAM

  Derek Tyler Attico

  THE ORB OF VENGEANCE.

  Three days ago the thought of the Pah-wraiths having an orb of their own would have been sacrilege, but that was before the cult of the Pah-wraiths found the orb in the Gamma Quadrant, before they bombed the Bajoran temple on Deep Space 9, and before they kidnapped Kasidy Yates-Sisko and her son, Jonathan. Now, watching from the shadows as the cult members performed their unholy ritual on this dead asteroid in the Badlands, Captain Kira Nerys felt like the universe had simply gone mad.

  “Defiant, report,” she whispered.

  Lieutenant Commander Nog didn’t need to use his lobes to hear the stress in his commanding officer’s voice. The Ferengi shifted uncomfortably in the Defiant’s command chair, regretting that he was about to add to it. “The weapons platforms haven’t detected us, but the plasma storms are intensifying. The Defiant isn’t going to be able to stay cloaked much longer, Captain.”

  Kira’s voice sounded rushed—almost desperate—over the comm. “I need good news, Chief.”

  It’d been more than five years, but Miles O’Brien worked the Defiant’s console like he hadn’t missed a day. “In the chamber adjacent to you, I’m reading nine Bajorans, three Cardassians, and two humans—one child, one adult female—but I can’t get a lock on them. There’s some kind of force field around them preventing transport.” How the bloody hell had this happened? O’Brien had been happy to get away from teaching, see old friends, and consult on the Defiant refit. Now they were all racing to prevent the murder of both Jonathan Sisko and his mother.

  O’Brien frowned. “It gets worse, Captain, I can’t shut the platforms down. These aren’t like the ones we saw during the Dominion War.” Finding impractical solutions to impossible problems was what he did, what he taught at Starfleet Academy. Now it seemed like everything just led to another dead end.

  The viewscreen showed the three Cardassian weapon platforms orbiting the asteroid it had taken them so long to find. The claw-shaped monstrosities looked like a trio of gargoyles waiting amidst the plasma storm’s angry swirls of orange and red, ready to unleash death and destruction. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” As O’Brien read the telemetry from the platforms guarding the asteroid, he realized that he didn’t have a solution for the impossible problem. “They’re receiving energy directly from the plasma storms.”

  Garak looked up from the communications console with disgust. He didn’t mind detaining and torturing two high-ranking Cardassians to learn that the Pah-wraith cult had supporters on Cardassia, but to find out about the kidnapping after it was under way was unworthy of the Obsidian Order he was rebuilding. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that, Captain. It appears I have even less influence now than I did as a tailor; my access codes have been rejected. In ninety seconds, the platforms will initiate a tachyon sweep.” These people had helped his world, and this wasn’t the time to fail them.

  Ezri Dax felt like she’d aged more in the last three days than she had in eight lifetimes. In the last seventy-two hours, she’d been treated for third-degree burns, held the hands of dying friends, and promised Jake Sisko she’d get his stepmother and brother back. Now that promise felt as worthless as the codes Garak had guaranteed. “A tachyon sweep will fry the cloak, and when that happens . . .”

  “Understood. Stand by, Defiant,” Kira said. The Trill’s despair on the Defiant seemed to have reached the rescue team on the asteroid below. Kira looked over at Bashir and Odo, their faces cast in shadow—a shadow that seemed to have enveloped hope itself. In one swift motion, the former freedom fighter pulled the phaser from her hip holster. “We have to do this now.”

  Kira pointed the weapon toward the group in the next cavern. From this distance, she could just make out an orb ark being held by one of the figures. If she could destroy the ark and the orb contained inside, she was sure all of this would come to an end.

  Doctor Julian Bashir kept his voice low and his eyes fixed on the muted tricorder. “There’s some kind of medical isolation field around them. I can’t locate the power source.” The doctor looked directly into Kira’s eyes, making sure she understood the message. “Phaser fire could overload the field and kill Kasidy and Jonathan.”

  Kira considered Bashir’s words. Even with her skill, at this distance she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t hit the field. But within the next minute, the Defiant would be in serious trouble. She couldn’t block out the thoughts of Benjamin Sisko, her former captain, her friend, the Emissary. This was his wife and child. He’d been gone for five years and it was Kira’s job to protect them, save them—but taking the shot could kill them.

  Kira realized she didn’t need skill. She needed faith. Slowly, agonizingly, the woman who had fought against evil all her life lowered the weapon.

  It hurt Odo to see the desperation and fear in Kira’s eyes. When he learned the Pah-wraith Orb of Vengeance was in the Gamma Quadrant, he had used all the resources of the Dominion to locate it. When it was finally tracked to the Badlands, he knew he had to come back, to help his friends, to help Kira. He desperately wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, that he still loved her so much, but instead he turned to Doctor Bashir.

  Odo shifted his jaw slightly before he spoke. The former constable had been in a liquid state for so long that being a humanoid for the past few days felt strange. “Doctor, are you saying that after everything we went through to get here undetected, we have to let them . . . carry out their plans?”

  “Whatever they’re planning, they’re going to have to drop the field to do it.” Bashir realized how empty the words sounded. He had lost thirty-two people when the bomb exploded on the Promenade. Constable McCray’s blood was still on his uniform. After seventy-eight hours without sleep, he could do without the Changeling’s signature pessimism. “Once that happens, we can beam them up in seconds.”

  Kira glanced at the semicircle of figures around Kasidy and Jonathan. Even now she believed the Prophets watched over the Emissary in the Celestial Temple. She prayed Their benevolence extended to his family.

  The spotlight in Kasidy Sisko’s face seemed more like a veil of light, its glare shrouding the figures that surrounded her. One of them stepped forward, the form breaching the wall of light, to reveal a young man. His crinkled nose and robes indicated that he was Bajoran—a people of peace and religion, but the hatred in his eyes belied his smile. Slowly, he reached toward Kasidy’s ear. The isolation field shimmered in contradiction as it allowed his hand to pierce its confines but prevented her from moving. “Your pagh is strong,” he whispered.

  Kasidy stared defiantly into his eyes, hoping to match the evil there with strength. “Why are you doing this?”

  The acolyte withdrew his hand and crouched down, studying the little boy that slept drugged at his mother’s feet. “The family of the Emissary deserves to feel the love of the Pah-wraiths.” As he rose, he pulled the crimson robes in around him, as if doing so gave him comfort.

  Kasidy closed her eyes and focused not on the monster standing over her son, but on Jonathan’s father, the only person she ever truly needed. “Ben, our son needs you, please Ben . . . ” He’d spoken to her once before from the wormhole; now she desperately needed to reach him.

  The acolyte circled the isolation field. “The Emissary has forsaken you.” Leisurely, he allowed his robes to drag across the circular pattern of runes etched into the floor. He removed a knife from his robes and sl
iced his hand open. “He doesn’t love you.” The blood burned as it fell upon the runes. Slowly, almost teasingly, flames crept up to consume the acolyte’s robes. He ignored them. They burned away his robes while leaving him unscathed; the disciple smiled. “He communes with false gods.”

  Finally, he stood in front of his prey covered only in hundreds of ancient Bajoran runes that had been tattooed onto his skin. The young agent of evil outstretched his hands as if receiving an anointment from some unseen force, and the runes began to glow.

  For the first time in her life, Kasidy Yates-Sisko truly knew fear. The acolyte smiled as he watched the turmoil play across her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. From beyond the light, a woman holding the Orb ark came into view. “It won’t be long now.”

  The Defiant shuddered as the illusion of light and energy surrounding it dissipated into nonexistence.

  “Cloak is down, the platforms are firing.” A spread of torpedoes reiterated Ezri’s words.

  O’Brien kept the transporters on standby and pulled power from the warp engines to feed the structural integrity field. Nog hadn’t given the order to raise the shields; there were five reasons on the asteroid below why he wouldn’t. The groans from the ablative armor and resulting microfractures told the chief what he already knew. If the away team didn’t do what they needed to soon, there wasn’t going to be a ship to beam them up to.

  The acolyte chanted as the runes lifted off of his body and encircled the group in a maelstrom of malevolence. “Kosst Amojan, we who believe offer the lives of your enemy to you; come forth and light our way with your love.”

  Kira watched the runes swirl around the isolation field in rhythm to the invocation. She could feel evil seething in the shadows; the risks no longer mattered. She reached for her phaser, but nothing happened. Odo and Bashir were motionless as well. They all came to the same realization: they couldn’t move.