by David Mack
The image on the main viewscreen magnified to show a small area of the facility in greater detail—and then Vale saw a small starship docked at an access point on the station’s hull. “Mister Tuvok, do my eyes deceive me or does there seem to be someone aboard that station?”
“I believe you are correct, Captain. And judging from the station’s continuing dialogue with the Breen, I suspect that whoever is controlling that facility is haggling with them.”
“Number One, order all ships to hold here until further notice.” Vale aimed a hopeful look at Pazlar. “You just got yourself a bit of time, Commander. Make the most of it.”
Pazlar returned the captain’s smile and set herself to work. “Aye, sir.”
Thot Tren had embarked upon this mission knowing he might face a variety of threats and horrors. Brutal ship-to-ship combat he could accept; close-quarters battle between small units of his Spetzkar versus alien rivals of whatever stripe would be met without hesitation. But the obstacle to his plans that now presented itself was an affront to him on every level he could imagine—personal, professional, and moral. It simply was not right that he should be compelled to contend with something as base and vulgar as this in the name of duty.
Looking back at him from the viewscreen of the Kulak, the Ferengi known as Gaila prompted Tren in his most condescending nasal shrill, “Well? How much do you bid?”
All Tren wanted was to reach through the screen and throttle Gaila. “How dare you presume to lay claim to what is rightfully ours.”
His implied threat only made the Ferengi bare a fanged grin. “Finders keepers, my dear thot. Now . . . let’s waste no more time on insults! My factory offers a wide range of munitions, from high-speed low-yield tactical torpedoes to planet-busters to star-killers. Take your pick!”
Was this Gaila really so obtuse? “Do you not see how many warships I control? The sheer firepower at my command?”
The grin became a sneer. “Do you not see how many fully loaded defensive batteries this station has? Are you not aware that none of the ships in your armada have any heavy ordnance? Or that their particle-beam weapons, even en masse, are no match for this station’s shields?”
It was maddening for Tren to admit, but Gaila was right. The station’s defenses were impressive, and without the bounty contained within the munitions plant, his armada was not worth half what it should be. All the same, it galled and infuriated him to be on the receiving end of terms dictated by a Ferengi. And he dreaded losing face in front of his crew. He needed to do something, anything, to salvage his faltering position.
“I did not come all this way just to barter with the likes of you.”
“Technically,” Gaila said, “what we’re doing isn’t bartering, it’s haggling.”
Tren clenched his gloved fists. On top of everything else, the Ferengi was a pedant and a jester. Hidden behind his mask, Tren seethed. He felt his nostrils flare as he huffed angrily, and a growl rolled deep in his throat. To hell with negotiation. I want this little pest dead.
He closed the channel to the station and returned to his post in the center of the command deck. “Bol, target all weapons! Disruptors, torpedoes, everything we have! Vang, tell the Sulica, the Tarcza, and our Husnock controllers to do the same. Hit that station with all we have! Fire!”
No one questioned him, no one asked why. It took his people less than four seconds to turn his order into an onslaught. A firestorm of energy converged upon the munitions plant. The station’s shield bubble crackled into view as it dimpled and retracted beneath the fierce assault.
“Maintain fire,” Tren ordered. “Bring down their shields!”
The fusillade raged on. As one volley of torpedoes after another slammed into the shield, it seemed to buckle inward. For a moment, Tren believed his forces were about to bring the station to heel.
Then the station fired back.
It was a display of raw power so unnerving that it made Tren feel hollow. Massive beams of particle energy burst from the station’s weapons array and vaporized six of his Husnock ships. Then a salvo of thirty-six Husnock torpedoes streaked away from the factory at ten-degree intervals around its perimeter. Each torpedo punched through the defensive screens of a different uncrewed Husnock vessel. All at once three dozen Husnock warships were consumed from within by gouts of blue-green fire—and then they all vanished in blinding flashes that left several dozen more Husnock vessels damaged and adrift.
An incoming signal buzzed on the communications console. Sevv silenced the alert, vetted the message, then faced Tren. “Mister Gaila wishes to resume your conversation, sir.”
Livid but also humbled, Tren assented with a gesture. “Put him on-screen.”
The Ferengi, damn him, looked even happier and more smug than he had before. It made Tren want to gut the little grifter. “Really, Thot Tren. Did you actually think that would work? What you saw was just a small taste of what I can do with this station’s armament. And those torpedoes that scrapped a decent chunk of your fleet? Apparently those are low-yield Husnock munitions. I just wanted to bloody your nose, not cut it off—but now that you know what my merchandise can do, doesn’t that make it seem more valuable than ever? Not to mention, if you ever do break through my shields and hit the station . . . what do you think’ll happen to you and your precious fleet when this station ignites like a sun?” A grub-eating grin. “Wouldn’t it be more profitable for everyone involved if we could be sensible about this?”
Every fiber of Tren’s being told him to kill Gaila. But his training told him he had no choice now but to negotiate. “Very well, Mister Gaila. What do you want?”
“So glad you asked! Let’s start with what you need. Two hundred forty-five Husnock vessels with varying load-outs. Judging from their configurations . . .” He made some calculations while mumbling under his breath. “All right, I’m ready to propose a package deal to arm all your ships with what I think are their optimal complements. Sending you the specs . . . now.”
Another feedback tone at the communications panel. Sevv verified the data, then routed it to the heads-up display in Tren’s helmet. As soon as Tren saw the subtotal and the final tally on Gaila’s proposed invoice, his temper flared. “Are you out of your mind, Ferengi?”
“It’s a fair price.”
“It’s nearly half the gross domestic product of the Breen Confederacy!”
“Think of it as an investment in your future.”
“Your price is insane! We’ll never pay that much for one round of munitions.”
Gaila waved his hands and shook his head. “No, no, no! The price I quoted you wasn’t for a single load of ammunition. It was my price for relinquishing this station—lock, stock, and barrel.” A dismissive shrug. “But, if you’d rather buy your ordnance from me a la carte, I’m happy to oblige, and to offer you a far more reasonable one-time bill.”
Another beep at Sevv’s console, and the invoice total refreshed in Tren’s HUD. The number remained outrageously high, even for weapons of such an apocalyptic nature.
Swallowing his rage, Tren said to Gaila, “I need to present your offer to my superiors and request authorization for payment. If the Confederate Congress approves your terms, we will make the necessary financial arrangements through the Bank of Orion.”
“Splendid. But I’m not a patient man, Thot Tren. Especially not when dealing with the Breen. You have thirty minutes to secure the funds. After that, you can either leave, or see your fleet blasted into dust.” He made a show of checking his chrono. “Tick-tock, thot. Gaila out.”
The channel closed, and the viewscreen reverted to an image of the munitions factory.
Vexed and hungry for payback, Tren opened a secure channel to his Spetzkar commander. “Tren to Chot Braz.”
“Go ahead.”
“Find a way to breach the factory and take that Ferengi out of our equation. You have twenty-nine minutes, starting now.”
Twenty-three
* * *
Tw
enty-one minutes had elapsed since Tren tasked his Spetzkar commander with breaching the munitions station. After all the time Tren and Braz had served together in the Breen Militia, it came as a surprise to hear Braz utter opinions Tren had never before heard from him.
“My team and I have looked at this every way we know how, sir. Given the time and the resources on hand, we are forced to confirm Mister Gaila’s boast: the station is unbreachable.”
Tren was not ready to walk away, not when victory was so close at hand. “Are you quite certain? I’m prepared to sacrifice a few ships if it will get us inside.”
“It won’t make any difference,” Braz said over their private transceiver channel—a precaution Tren had taken to avoid impairing his crew’s morale with bad news. “Any attack powerful enough to breach the shields runs a high risk of detonating the munitions stored on the station. The resulting blast would vaporize them and us, just as the Ferengi said.”
To have been outwitted by a Ferengi: that was too shameful a legacy for Tren to bear. There had to be another way forward. He moved to stand with Vang at the tactical console, behind Bol. “Is there any way to conceal a cyberattack inside a comm signal to the station?”
“Theoretically,” Bol said. “But we don’t know enough about the Husnock systems inside the station to craft an attack. And before you ask: yes, we scoured the computers on the ships of the Husnock armada for intel on the station. They all had the same set of access codes, none of which are working now. That suggests the Ferengi and his people changed the codes.”
“Smart,” Vang said. He glanced at the console chrono. “Sir, we have seven minutes to answer Gaila. Should I order the fleet to assume attack formation, hold position, or withdraw?”
Denial left Tren in a state of mute paralysis. Beaten by a Ferengi. A common criminal.
Sevv silenced an alert on his panel. “Sir, we’ve just received a message on a coded frequency. Its point of origin is unknown, but the sender is hailing us by name.”
Time was slipping away, and Tren was ready to seize any opportunity he could find. “Start tracing the signal. And put it on-screen. Let’s all see what they have to say.”
The signals officer routed the message to the command deck’s main viewscreen. A bald, round-faced humanoid with a low and prominent brow slurred in a nasal voice, “—the Pakled salvage hauler Gomjar. Please respond.”
“This is Thot Tren, commanding the Breen dreadnought Kulak. Identify yourself.”
“Cherbegrod. Captain of the Gomjar.”
Inside his helmet, Tren winced. As if dealing with a Ferengi wasn’t degrading enough. Now I’m wasting precious time on a Pakled. “What do you want, junkman?”
“Wanted the station. Had it first. Then the Ferengi came. Stole it from us.”
That revelation kindled Tren’s interest, and he saw from the change in Vang’s posture that his first officer recognized the possible opportunity the Pakleds represented. “You say you had control of the Husnock munitions factory before the Ferengi did?”
“Yes. Our station. He took it.” All at once a sly expression manifested on the Pakled’s cherubic face. “Now the Ferengi robs you too. Won’t give you weapons.”
A readout in the lower right corner of the viewscreen reminded Tren that he had only six minutes left to answer Gaila’s demands. “Our dealings with Gaila are not your concern.”
Cherbegrod shrugged. “Just want to help you.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
Now there was a dark shadow of malice in the Pakled’s features. “To make Gaila pay. Make him suffer. Teach him Pakleds are smart.”
Was it possible the Pakleds really were in a position to undermine Gaila? Tren had to know. “And how, precisely, will you do that?”
Cherbegrod folded his hands in front of his chest and rested them atop the curve of his belly. “Pakleds smart. Use shortcuts to make jobs go faster. Put shortcuts in computers.” His eyes narrowed, betraying the Pakled’s deep cunning. “Backdoor codes in security systems.”
Vang stepped forward beside Tren to ask Cherbegrod, “If you can penetrate the station’s security, why haven’t you?”
“Code only opens doors. Twelve men with Gaila. Big booms. Too many for us to fight.” His sinister smirk widened. “But you . . .”
If what Cherbegrod said was true, it was too good an offer for Tren to ignore. “What’s your price, Pakled? How much for the backdoor code to the security system?”
The Pakled nodded at one of his men. Instantly, a figure expressed in bars of gold-pressed latinum, along with a handy conversion of their value in Breen sakto, appeared in the heads-up display of Tren’s helmet. It was a princely sum, but not an unreasonable one.
“As you see, Pakled prices are fair. Not like Ferengi’s.”
“Very fair.” Tren relayed the figure over to Vang’s helmet display. “Send us your account information and the station’s backdoor code, and we’ll transfer you the money.”
“Money first. When we see payment, we give you the code.”
Bol interrupted with a private message on Tren’s transceiver. “Found their ship, sir.”
Tren replied on the isolated channel. “Send its coordinates to the Sulica. If the Pakleds try to cheat us, I want their ship pulverized.” Switching back to the coded Pakled frequency, he continued, “Very well. I am authorizing payment now. But be warned, Cherbegrod: my crew has a lock on your ship. If you cheat us, you will be destroyed.”
“Fair deal,” the Pakled said.
The countdown on the viewscreen dwindled to four minutes.
“One more condition,” Cherbegrod said.
Tren grew irate. “We’ve already negotiated terms.”
The Pakled didn’t seem to care. “Money we can give back. No promise, no deal.”
“Name it, quickly.”
“The Ferengi, Gaila,” Cherbegrod said. “He must live. Kill his men, but not him.”
It was a damned odd request. Since when were Pakleds the vengeful type? “Why?”
“None of your concern. Your pledge, or no deal.”
“You have my word as a Breen thot, my men will try their best not to kill Gaila.”
Cherbegrod looked off-screen, nodded, then said, “Deal.”
Another Pakled drifted into frame to tell Cherbegrod, “Money received.”
Sevv turned from the signals panel. “Station security codes received.”
“Testing them now,” Bol said from tactical. “Codes confirmed, sir. We can override the station’s security system and defensive arrays.”
Tren bowed his head ever so subtly toward Cherbegrod. “A pleasure doing business with you, Captain. Now I suggest you and your crew leave. Immediately. Kulak out.” The viewscreen snapped back to an image of the Husnock munitions station.
There were three minutes left on the countdown timer.
Under his mask, Tren was grinning again.
“Vang. Neutralize the station’s security, then order the Spetzkar to board the facility, secure its ordnance, and—if at all possible—take Mister Gaila alive.”
The Spetzkar commandos deployed in silence, and none moved any more than was necessary. They all had engaged the shroud circuits on their body armor—a technology they had developed in secret after the Dominion War, one based on the natural shrouding ability of the Jem’Hadar.
To anyone watching from the Husnock station, there would be nothing to see—just an open cargo hatch on the belly of one Husnock dreadnought, and nothing in the cargo bay. But the multispectrum visors of the Spetzkar’s stealth armor perceived each member of their company as a frost-blue phantom drifting through the zero-g vacuum, straight toward the station.
At the head of the formation, Chot Braz kept his focus on the station’s nearest docking bay door. The plan was for the crew on the Kulak to mute that portal’s alarms and open it ahead of the Spetzkar’s arrival. As he floated closer to the massive door, Braz drew a long breath and slowed the beating of his hearts.
When the time came for him to wade into the chaos of combat, he would be as calm as Pacluro Prime’s frozen sea.
A text message from the Kulak scrolled across his visor’s holographic display: Depressurizing station docking bay. Stand by for outer door override.
Braz and his men were just a dozen meters from the station’s exterior when the docking bay doors retracted downward, into the station’s dark hull. The broad portal was only half open as he and his men glided past above it, all of them holding their positions relative to one another. When the front rank reached the far wall of the bay, they halted, and the subsequent ranks followed in turn. The Spetzkar maneuvered down onto the deck and engaged the magnetic coils in their boots. As soon as Braz had his feet secure beneath him, he turned and confirmed that all of his men had made it safely inside the docking bay.
He sent back a prewritten message to Thot Tren: All personnel are inside.
Behind him, the outer door climbed upward and closed without any noticeable vibration. The moment it was locked, the docking bay pressurized, and its artificial gravity was restored. Braz signaled his platoon leaders with gestures, which they in turn relayed to their troops: Disengage magnetic boots. Deploy as squads. Secure the station. With a final pantomime to suggest oversized ears, he added, Don’t kill the Ferengi.
One of his technical specialists unlocked the docking bay’s interior hatch. Another Spetzkar checked the corridor outside with a sensor sweep and gave Braz the all-clear sign.
With a knifing thrust of one hand, Braz gave the order to move out.
Prowling the corridors in squads of eighteen commandos, the Spetzkar spread through the station while maintaining radio silence. As the station’s lower levels were cleared, text messages appeared on Braz’s HUD, and he sent back written instructions to continue upward.
Three levels up from the station’s ventral docking bays, Braz and his squad met their first resistance. A Chalnoth and a Gorn, each toting a heavy disruptor rifle, grumbled at each other while they walked a patrol outside a munitions storage bay.
