by David Mack
Decades of experience had taught Graniv that the best time to extract the truth from someone was when they were in fear of their life and running out of time. Now seemed an opportune moment to press her hosts for something they clearly all knew but weren’t telling her. “I’m not leaving this hotel until one of you tells me who we’re running from.”
The ultimatum exasperated Sarina. “We don’t have time for—”
“Make time,” Graniv said.
The human woman looked at Bashir. “You want to do it?”
His tension became resignation. “We think Uraei is being used by an extralegal covert operations cabal known as Section Thirty-one. They claim to operate within Starfleet, but there’s no official record of their existence. We have reason to think they’ve existed for at least two centuries, and their tactics include blackmail, bribery, deception, and murder.”
“Information I wish I’d had yesterday.” Graniv decided a swift exit sounded like a good idea after all. She asked Data, “Does your ship have a transporter?”
“It does, but the hotel and casino are transport shielded. We must proceed to the roof.”
“Then let’s move,” Graniv said.
“Finally,” Douglas grumbled as the group hurried out of the suite.
They were halfway to the stairwell door when four people clad in black stepped out of the turbolifts. A lavender-haired Catullan woman and three men—a human, an Andorian thaan, and a Bajoran. The Andorian was the first to see the quartet leaving the suite. He reached to pull a phaser from his hip—
Data, Bashir, and Douglas all beat him to the draw and fired.
In under a second, the corridor filled with searing pulses of orange light. When the barrage ended, the four agents all lay stunned on the floor.
“Shakti says there are more agents coming up in other lifts,” Data said as he led them into the stairwell and up the steps to the roof access. “And more entering the lobby. We must hurry.”
The android and the pair of enhanced humans easily outpaced Graniv as they jogged up the stairs. As they rounded the last switchback before the final flight to the rooftop door, she closed the gap enough to say to Bashir, “You’re quite the marksman, Doctor.”
“Yes, well . . . I’ve had practice.”
“How much?”
“More than I ever wanted.”
The last flight of stairs tested Graniv’s limits. Her chest refused to draw breath; her leg muscles seized and defied her command to finish climbing. Fatigue burned in her limbs, acid pumped through her racing heart, sweat shone upon her forehead. By the time she stepped onto the roof and gulped in the cool night air, her head spun and her face burned with shame. Stooped and huffing like a blacksmith’s bellows, she had never felt so out of shape in her adult life.
If I live through this I’ll never skip morning yoga again.
Bashir sidled over to her. “Are you all right?”
“I will be. I just need a minute.” She stood and braced herself for the calming pressure of a transporter’s confinement beam and the gentle change of scenery that would follow.
A crimson storm of disruptor blasts shrieked down from the darkness and tore across the roof, peppering Graniv and the others with shrapnel and half-molten chunks of roof gravel.
She leaped to cover behind a ventilator housing and recalled the advice of her first managing editor, the late great Heinrich Neuhaus: You know a story’s worth chasing when someone tries to kill you for it.
• • •
Sarina peeked out from behind a heat exchanger to spot their attacker, only to dodge another fusillade of disruptor fire. “Dammit! Where are those shots coming from?”
“The angle is inconsistent with the elevations of adjacent rooftops,” Data shouted back from his own meager cover, a dense cluster of signal-repeating antennae mounted in the middle of the roof. “It also is changing with each volley. I will ask Shakti to investigate.”
Angry red bolts ripped into the antenna array and showered the roof with sparks. Julian pivoted out from behind the stairwell and returned fire along the trajectory of the incoming shots, but his phaser pulses dispersed into the night without finding their mark. Rapid-fire pulses from the sky blasted the roof-access door out of its frame and down the stairs behind it.
Losing patience as well as her nerve, Sarina yelled over the din and roaring wind to Data, “Forget investigating! Just tell her to beam us out!”
“She cannot.” There was a brief pause before he continued. “Something is projecting a transport-blocking field on the roof. Most likely the same something presently shooting at us.”
Prone on the gravel, hands over her head, Graniv snapped, “Now can we call the police?”
Data winced as disruptor shots punched through the array close above his head. “The field blocking Archeus’s transporter also scrambles our comms. Shakti will alert the police.”
Two quick bursts caromed off of Graniv’s low block of shelter. Wreathed in the smoky aftermath, the Trill looked ready to bolt. “Maybe we go back inside?”
Sarina made no effort to mask her disdain. “And do what? Fight our way out through an unknown number of assailants and major civilian casualties? No thanks.”
Julian took another shot at the darkness before Data called out, “Wait, I see it.”
The sky still looked black and starless to Sarina. “See what?”
“An aerial drone, I think. Too small to be a crewed vehicle. I believe it is cloaked.”
“Then how can you—” She stopped herself as she remembered that his synthetic eyes were capable of seeing in a greater variety of spectra and temporal phases than those of most organic species. “What’s the plan?”
“We—” He pivoted around the antenna array and fired into the air as he shouted, “Shift your cover!” His warning was answered by a withering salvo from the drone. Sarina, Julian, and Graniv all barely scrambled to new defensive positions before their previous hiding spots were set aglow with lethal showers of superheated plasma.
Data picked up where he’d been cut off. “We must split the drone’s focus.” He drew a second phaser from inside his jacket. “One of us draws its fire so the others can take it down.”
Sarina considered that a dubious proposition. “It might be designed for multiple target acquisition. All of us breaking cover at the same time might just get us all shot.”
“True. But I believe I can monopolize its sensors by presenting a clear and present threat—and, by so doing, give you and Doctor Bashir a chance to neutralize it.” After a moment, and with a measure of sincerity that would have read as sarcastic coming from anyone else, he added, “Unless you have a better idea, of course.”
“Just tell us when to move and where to shoot.”
“The where will be obvious.” Data adjusted his phasers to maximum power. “As for the when: I will go on one. Wait until my shot makes contact before you break cover.”
“Understood,” Julian said.
Sarina reset her own phaser to full power. “Ready.”
Graniv tucked herself into a fetal curl and hugged her knees. “Just do what you’re gonna do before I piss myself here.”
Data started his countdown. “Three. Two. One.” He charged away from the antenna array, firing his phasers on the move. The searing orange shots slammed into the cloaked drone. Its cloak stuttered off, and its shields snapped on a fraction of a second later. Its electromagnetic bubble of protection shimmered and crackled under the punishment of his phaser beams.
Then Julian darted into the open and pinned the drone with a phaser shot, and Sarina did the same. Their beams converged upon the aerial vehicle, which bobbled before it retreated beyond easy targeting range, trailing smoke and burning plasma in its wake.
Julian was the first to cease fire, followed by Sarina, and then Data. Their victory, which Sarina s
uspected would be short-lived, nonetheless seemed to leave Julian ecstatic. “We did it!”
“Not yet,” Data said. “Transporters and comms are still being blocked, which would suggest the presence of more—” Flurries of disruptor fire finished his thought for him.
There was no time to hide, nowhere to run. Broadsides of disruptor fire pummeled the rooftop from two vectors, filling the air with smoke and dust—harsh barriers to human vision but no impediment to the mechanical senses of sophisticated killing machines.
An Orion police vehicle raced toward the roof, lights flashing, siren wailing. It was met by a hail of disruptor fire that sent the shattered, burning aircar plunging into the side of the hotel. The car exploded, filling the night with broken glass, shattered polymer, and fire.
With ruthless efficiency the drones trained their arsenals back upon the rooftop.
Even as Sarina dived for the nearest protection she could reach, she knew the only thing likely keeping her alive was Data’s expert-level two-handed marksmanship, which was forcing the two new drones to maneuver and adjust their firing solutions on the fly.
It wouldn’t be enough. Fires were spreading across the rooftop, making no part of it safe to shelter on. And no matter how fast Data’s reflexes, or how sharp his vision, the truth was that hand phasers just didn’t pack enough punch to take on attack drones in a stand-up fight.
Sarina’s most optimistic read of the situation told her they’d all be dead in thirty seconds. Her hand tightened on her phaser. Doesn’t mean I have to die on my knees.
She stood and charged to Data’s side, firing at one of the drones every step of the way. By the time she reached him, Julian was already there, making his own stand against the other drone, no doubt driven by the same pessimistic calculus as her.
Just over six seconds later, all three drones—the one they’d winged as well as its two reinforcements—were struck by white bolts from the heavens and erupted into storms of fire and metal, smoke and slag. The smoking clusters dropped and broke up in midair, leaving their orphaned parts to spiral down the better part of a kilometer to the city’s streets.
Half in shock, Sarina asked Data in a whisper, “What just—”
Their savior appeared, an apparition in the dark.
Archeus dropped its cloak, revealing its sleek silver fuselage. The ship’s elegant mirrored hull cast distorted reflections of the capital’s cityscape. Slender warp nacelles were tucked beneath its wings, which swept sharply back, giving the vessel the aspect of a raptor diving at prey. Its tapered bow was crowned by a black canopy over what Sarina surmised was a large command deck.
A woman’s voice issued from Data’s communicator. “Stand by for transport, Father.”
Data grinned at his guests. “Friends, our chariot awaits.”
• • •
Adrenaline overload left Graniv shaking, even after the transporter beam faded to reveal that she and the others were safely inside Data’s small but well-appointed starship, Archeus. She watched Bashir and Douglas step off the transporter pads half a pace behind Data, who stopped and looked back when he saw Graniv still curled in upon herself at the back of the alcove.
“Ms. Graniv? Are you all right? Do you need medical attention?”
It was hard to overcome inertia, but she shook her head. “I’m not hurt.”
The android’s concerned attention compelled Bashir back to Graniv’s side. “Are you sure? Can you sit up?” To Douglas he said, “I need a medical tricorder, please.”
Data stepped behind the transporter console, opened a panel on the eggshell-white bulkhead, and pulled out an emergency medkit. From it he took a medical tricorder and passed it to Douglas, who relayed it to Bashir. The doctor switched it on. Its high-pitched oscillations filled the small transporter bay. “No physical injuries,” he said. “Signs of mild shock, but that’s to be expected, given the circumstances. Have you ever been in combat before?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been the target of a few shots fired in anger over the years . . . but never anything like this. Never a full-scale attack.”
“Would you like something to help you relax?”
“No,” Graniv said. “Just help me stand up.” Douglas and Bashir each took gentle hold of one of Graniv’s arms and steadied her as she got on her feet. “Thank you.”
“I need to get to the command deck,” Data said. He exited the transporter bay and turned right, walking at a quick pace toward the ship’s bow.
It was obvious to Graniv that Bashir and Douglas were impatient to follow Data. “Go,” she told them. “I’m fine.”
Guilt lurked behind Bashir’s query: “Are you sure?”
“I’ll catch up. Go find out what’s happening.”
Duly freed of their obligation, the human couple let go of Graniv. They watched her for a moment to make sure she didn’t topple over, then hurried out in pursuit of Data.
Graniv inhaled deeply. Filling her lungs quelled the shaking in her hands and firmed up the rubbery weakness in her knees. After she exhaled, but before drawing another breath, she felt the tempo of her heart slow by a few beats per minute.
That’s it. There you go. Not dead yet. Just keep doing that.
Satisfied that she was edging her way back toward a calm frame of mind, she left the transporter bay and followed the ship’s narrow central corridor forward to the command deck.
There she found the others huddled around a navigational console, above which an oblong viewscreen displayed a star chart of the sectors surrounding Orion. Beyond the canopy there was only the void of deep space salted with stars. None of them were distorted or drifting with unnatural degrees of parallax, so she deduced the ship was still at impulse.
Seated at the helm in the front of the compartment was a young woman with fair beige skin and a smart bob of black hair. She appeared human, but that meant little. Argelians, humans, Deltans, and Iotians were all but indistinguishable from one another without medical scans.
“We need to go to warp soon,” Douglas said, full of worry. “Now that we’re off Orion there’s nothing stopping them from coming for us with all guns blazing.”
“They didn’t seem shy about that while we were on Orion,” Bashir said.
Graniv inserted herself into the conversation. “Where are we going?”
“A very good question,” Data said. “I have asked Lal to plot a course that will take us away from the Federation’s core systems, in order to minimize our contact with Uraei going forward. However, that fails to address our pressing need for a final destination.”
“We could head for the rimward frontier sectors,” Lal said.
Her optimism was quashed by Douglas’s cynicism: “And do what? Take up subsistence farming? They’d find us. Maybe not soon, but eventually. No, we need to find a place where we can plan a counterstrike.”
“Such an objective might not be feasible.” Data sounded apologetic. “Given the scope and sophistication of Uraei, excising it from the Federation’s infrastructure would present many challenges—some of which I think could prove insurmountable.”
Douglas’s temper frayed. “We can’t just sit out here and wait to be found.”
“If necessary, I can make us very difficult to find,” Data said. “Archeus has a cloaking device far superior to anything currently used by the Klingons or the Romulans.”
His claim failed to reassure Bashir. “No cloaking device is perfect, Data.”
“True. But there are regions of space, even this close to the core systems, that possess blind spots, gaps in the sensor network. If we take the ship into low-power mode and drift while cloaked, it could buy us the time we need to formulate a more proactive response.”
“Wait,” Graniv cut in. “Going dark for a while sounds good to me, but we need to warn my sources first. They could be in danger.”
Neither Bashir nor Douglas met Graniv’s gaze; they chose to stare at the deck instead. Only Data had the courtesy to ask, “Sources?”
“Doctor Weng and her colleague Professor th’Firron. The scientists who told me about Uraei. They need to know we—”
“You can’t help them,” Douglas said. “If Thirty-one doesn’t know about them yet, you’ll expose them by trying to warn them. Worse, you can’t send a subspace signal back to Earth without giving away our position and heading.”
“But what if this Section Thirty-one already knows about Weng and th’Firron?”
“Then they’re already dead.”
Such nihilism infuriated Graniv. “I refuse to believe that! It’s nothing but an excuse to be selfish and save your own ass! We can’t—”
“Ms. Douglas is right,” Lal said. The young woman swiveled her chair and set her hands flat atop her thighs, betraying her awkward body language. “Shakti downloaded all the news feeds off the comnet before we left Orion. I have analyzed all news items from Earth for mention of the names Weng or th’Firron. Two computer scientists bearing those surnames are reported to have died this morning in an accidental fire that destroyed the forensic data laboratory at the Dresden University of Technology. . . . My condolences, Ms. Graniv.”
The injustice of it struck Graniv like a kick in the stomach. Stricken with grief and guilt, she sank into an empty chair opposite the navigation console. “They . . . they trusted me.”
Bashir took a slow step in her direction, then dropped to one knee in front of her. He took her hand in a consoling gesture. “I’m truly sorry, Ozla. I know this isn’t what you expected. But if Weng and th’Firron are dead, and their lab is gone, then the only evidence of Uraei’s true nature is what’s on the chip we brought to Data. And that means all of us on this ship are about to become the most hunted people in the galaxy.”
Thirteen
14 JULY 2150
Unification Day was the biggest, wildest party in the history of the human race. The celebration spanned seven continents and several dozen cities built on ocean platforms. Rumor had it the colonists on Luna and Mars weren’t exactly overjoyed, but none of Earth’s citizens gave much of a damn what the offworlders thought—at least not while their revels lasted.
