The Cleanup

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  “Remember our many converts in the Gamma Quadrant, as well,” Chi-Sa said solemnly. “The word of Ho’nig has spread like lightning beyond the wormhole.”

  “Like I said, that was a tough call to make,” said Ven-Sa. “Good thing you Federationists don’t hold grudges.”

  Gomez flashed Ven-Sa a smile, but she knew that relations between the Federation and the Miradorn were not all sweetness and light. The pain of the Dominion War was still pretty fresh in the Federation’s little corner of the Alpha Quadrant. The Miradorn had aided the Dominion in noncombat roles, serving chiefly in logistics support, but the fact remained: help of whatever kind from anyone, including the Miradorn, had fueled the war machine that had taken so many lives and nearly brought down the entire Federation.

  Gomez personally held no grudge, though. Her only concern was the success of the mission. “It’s in our mutual best interest to clear out these booby traps,” she said. “And I think we’d all like some answers about why they’re here.”

  “Good question,” said Stevens. “There’s some major ordnance planted around this shrine. What are the traps protecting?”

  Ven-Sa snorted. “Or are they just a farewell gift from our former allies? They’re not really known for leaving showers of candy and flowers when they pull out, are they?”

  “Just look what they did to Cardassia,” said Chi-Sa.

  “I think I have an answer for you.” The high-pitched, tinkling voice of P8 Blue, the insectoid Nasat structural systems specialist, drew everyone’s attention to the rim of the blast crater in the middle of the entryway floor. “Is there supposed to be a massive chamber underneath the shrine of Ho’nig?”

  Ven-Sa and Chi-Sa looked at each other and answered simultaneously. “No.”

  “Well, there is now,” said P8 Blue, known affectionately as Pattie to her teammates. “The explosion opened a pinprick hole in its shielding.” Pattie returned her attention to the screen of her tricorder, adjusting several controls with her pincerlike digits.

  Gomez walked over to stand alongside Pattie and directed her own tricorder into the heart of the crater. “How big is the chamber?” she said.

  “If I had to guess,” said Pattie. “I’d say it’s bigger than the shrine itself.”

  For a moment, Gomez watched data flickering across the screen of her tricorder. Familiar energy signatures and trace elements told the story. “It’s a Dominion facility,” she said, “and it’s functioning.”

  “Functioning?” said Ven-Sa. “Functioning how?”

  “I can’t tell yet,” said Gomez. “We need to get down there.”

  “And to do that, we have to clean up the booby traps.” Stevens blew out his breath and looked around the shrine. “Booby traps set by the Jem’Hadar, no less.”

  “Without damaging the shrine of Ho’nig,” said Ven-Sa, “if at all possible.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Gomez. “We came prepared.” She waved in the direction of two of the four security personnel who had accompanied the team to the shrine. “Hawkins and Soan have more than a little experience with demolitions.”

  Deputy Chief of Security Vance Hawkins coolly met Gomez’s gaze. For reasons unknown to Gomez, he did not seem to be in a particularly good mood today. “We’ll do our best,” he said.

  Beside Hawkins, the diminutive Bajoran Lauoc Soan simply nodded in agreement.

  “What can we do to help?” said Ven-Sa.

  “We could use a guide,” said Gomez. “Someone who knows this shrine and the surrounding caves inside and out.”

  “Done,” said Ven-Sa. “No one knows this place better than Em-Lin. She and her sister were spearheading restoration efforts here at the shrine.”

  “Em-Lin’s sister died in the explosion,” said Chi-Sa.

  Gomez frowned. “Will Em-Lin still be fit to work here then?”

  Ven-Sa shrugged. “If it means saving the shrine. This place is her passion, that’s for sure.”

  “All right then,” said Gomez. “We’d better get busy. We only have two days until the pilgrims get here.”

  “If we’re lucky,” said Chi-Sa. “They seem to show up earlier every year.”

  “ ‘It is better to be one year early than one minute late,’ ” said Gomez.

  Ven-Sa brightened. “You are familiar with the teachings of Ho’nig?”

  Gomez pinched her thumb and index finger close together. “Just a little.” She had met a Bolian follower of Ho’nig during her mission to Sarindar. The Bolian, whose name was Zilder, had left her a copy of the Se’rbeg, the holy book of Ho’nig, when he was killed by the murderous shii.

  Ven-Sa bowed. “Perhaps you and I can speak further of his teachings,” he said.

  Gomez shrugged. The truth was, she thought she might enjoy talking about Ho’nig with the priest. For reasons that she could not quite put her finger on, she had found parts of the Se’rbeg inspirational. She almost hated to admit it, because Zilder had gotten on her nerves while trying to convert her, but she sometimes felt drawn to the teachings of Ho’nig.

  “Maybe later,” Gomez said to Ven-Sa. “First things first. Could you find our guide while we bring down some equipment from the da Vinci?”

  “Consider it done,” said Ven-Sa. “Please be patient with Em-Lin, however. Losing her sister was very traumatic for her, and she’s not really been herself lately.”

  “I can only imagine,” said Gomez. “Each set of twins functions as a single being, right?”

  “That’s something of an oversimplification,” said Chi-Sa, “but that’s more or less it.”

  Ven-Sa cleared his throat. “Let’s just say that when a Miradorn loses her twin, the…attachment…doesn’t end overnight.”

  “Especially when the loss is traumatic,” said Chi-Sa. “There can be a…continuation.”

  “What your people might call a haunting,” said Ven-Sa. “This is what Em-Lin is going through.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” said Gomez, trying to imagine what a Miradorn haunting might be like. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chapter

  3

  “Vance,” said Commander Gomez. “Will you work with the local security personnel to establish a perimeter around the shrine?”

  Four men—two sets of Miradorn twins in blue-and-silver-uniforms—stepped forward, and Vance Hawkins nodded. “I’m on it,” he said without hesitation.

  Inside, though, as he looked at the four Miradorn with their familiar widow’s peaks and pasty skin, Vance thought of Jomej VII and felt a chill.

  “Shall we?” he said, waving toward a spot to one side of the plaza in the cave outside the shrine. As the four Miradorn walked toward the place that he had indicated, Vance summoned the rest of the security team from the da Vinci with a bob of his head.

  Everyone gathered in the plaza. Vance introduced Soan, Tomozuka Kim, and T’Mandra. The Miradorn introduced themselves as Boz-Nu, Yet-Nu, Saf-Lig, and Gre-Lig. It was all very businesslike but perfectly friendly.

  Vance shook hands with all four of the Miradorn, and he was no less professional than always—but underneath it all, deep underneath, he was crackling with tension.

  One instance of abusive behavior by a handful of people did not mean that an entire species was no good. Vance knew that. In time of war, people often did things that they normally would never do. Vance knew that, too.

  Still, he was not comfortable around the Miradorn.

  “We have twelve men on shrine detail,” said Boz-Nu. “We have another thirty-six from surrounding precincts on call for the pilgrimage. How about if we bring them all in early?”

  “Sounds good,” said Vance. “I’d like to see a map of these caves.”

  Saf-Lig drew a disc-shaped holoprojector from a pouch at his hip. As he raised the projector, his hand brushed past a holster slung at his side. The black grip of a handheld weapon stuck out of the holster, curved and padded for comfort.

  Vance had seen weapons like that on Jomej VII.

  At
the touch of a button, a glowing blue map leaped out of the holoprojector, rippling in midair in the middle of the group. “This is the shrine of Ho’nig,” said Saf-Lig, stirring his finger in a large block of space in the center of the three-dimensional map. “I suggest we set our perimeter in a dome configuration, securing the caverns above the shrine as well as the ring of caverns fanning out on the same level as the shrine.”

  Vance nodded, staring intently at the map—though, actually, he was looking right through it at the holstered device strapped to Saf-Lig’s side.

  It was a Miradorn “puppet gun,” the ultimate in personnel control devices. Why bind a prisoner or opponent with physical restraints when the puppet gun can inhibit his actions by manipulating nerve clusters in his brain?

  The puppet gun enabled its user to take complete control of a target’s body. A user could make an attacker freeze in his tracks, make a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, and waltz right into a waiting cell.

  A user could make a target do other things, too. Things like turn against his own allies or sabotage his own handiwork.

  Or degrade himself in humiliating ways in front of other people. That was how Vance had seen the puppet gun used by the Miradorn at Jomej VII.

  “The real challenge comes when the pilgrims start pouring in,” said Saf-Lig. “It will be difficult keeping them away from the shrine.”

  “I’m hoping the da Vinci can solve that problem by holding off any landings or beam-downs until we’re done,” said Vance.

  “That will be a challenge,” said Yet-Nu. “There are multiple landing sites and access points in this region of Zasharu. If I may illustrate.” Yet-Nu adjusted a control on the holoprojector in Saf-Lig’s hand, causing the view to zoom out to include a bigger wedge of the moon.

  As Yet-Nu said his piece, Vance listened and nodded, but his mind still swam with dark memories.

  He remembered Miradorn guards with puppet guns in the prison camp on Jomej VII during the Dominion War. Federation and Klingon prisoners forced to perform in degrading ways for an audience of interrogators. Vance, part of the team sent to liberate the camp, was himself taken over and manipulated until reinforcements arrived and freed him.

  Until that day, Vance had not known what it felt like to have control of his own body taken away from him. Afterward, back aboard the Prometheus-class U.S.S. Shiva, he found that he could not get that terrible feeling out of his mind.

  And he never did. He never really got over it.

  That was why he was having trouble relating to the Miradorn in a buddy-buddy way. That was why his heart just wasn’t in it as he listened to the Miradorn talking about local security opportunities.

  The Miradorn might have worked only in noncombat roles for the enemy, they might have had a reputation as the least malevolent of Dominion allies, and they might now be bending over backward to get in good with the Federation, even to the extent of renaming their homeworld “New Mirada”…but Vance would never forget that day on Jomej VII. He would never forget the red-haired Miradorn man who directed the puppet gun at him, and how the Miradorn’s twin giggled as Vance was made to crawl on all fours like an animal.

  And how he was made to do other things before it was all over. Screaming screaming screaming inside the whole time.

  “Do you find these arrangements acceptable?” said Boz-Nu, snapping off the holoprojector image of the shrine’s surroundings.

  “Absolutely,” Vance said with a sharp nod.

  But he did not return Boz-Nu’s smile. And when Gre-Lig reached out in his direction, Vance did not shake his hand.

  Chapter

  4

  The huge, hairy Miradorn threw his arms around S.C.E. cultural specialist Carol Abramowitz and hugged her tightly against him. His name was Brag-Ret, and his jolliness was rather overwhelming.

  “Welcome to New Mirada!” His voice was deep and resonant as the notes from a tuba. “Already your presence has made this a brighter and more beautiful world!”

  “Thanks,” said Carol as Brag-Ret rolled her from side to side over his great, spongy gut. She winced at his cologne and the wiry bloom of blue-green hair tickling her face and neck; the hair seemed to be part beard and part chest hair bursting from the wide open collar of his purple and pink striped shirt.

  Brag-Ret held on to Carol for one moment more than she thought was absolutely necessary, then unclamped his beefy arms from around her. “And as if fate had not blessed us enough already,” he said, turning toward da Vinci Chief of Security Domenica Corsi, “another extraordinary beauty walks among us this glorious day!”

  As Brag-Ret opened his arms wide for another embrace and took a step toward Corsi, she fired a warning glare in his direction. Brag-Ret hesitated, cocking his head appraisingly to one side.

  Fortunately, Carol was able to catch Corsi’s eye before an interplanetary incident ensued. Carol gave Corsi her best “please-just-let-the-big-smelly-manhug-you” look, raising her eyebrows and nodding emphatically.

  It was enough, though Corsi shot Carol a dark “I’ll-get-you-for-this” look over Brag-Ret’s shoulder as he hugged her.

  Carol shrugged in reply. She had beamed to the surface of New Mirada with Corsi and Betazoid security officer Rennan Konya to take the temperature of pro-Federation efforts among the Miradorn. Starfleet was intensely interested in how the onetime Dominion allies were shaping up, especially given their world’s strategic importance. Why alienate the big, hairy welcome wagon in the first five minutes of the visit? Brag-Ret could yet provide valuable insight into recent developments on New Mirada, in which case the hugs from hell were a small price to pay.

  Still, when Brag-Ret’s female twin, Sog-Ret, lumbered into the room and headed straight for Carol with arms spread wide, Carol had second thoughts. She suddenly decided that she would rather be on New Mirada’s moon, Zasharu, helping Gomez defuse deadly Jem’Hadar booby traps.

  “Welcome, travelers!” said Sog-Ret, her voice shrill and sharp like the caw of a crow. “We delight in your magnificent presence!”

  As she wrapped her thick arms around Carol and hugged the breath right out of her, Carol noticed two things about Sog-Ret.

  One, her perfume was even stronger and more sickening than Brag-Ret’s cologne.

  Two, her beard and chest hair were thicker than Brag-Ret’s.

  Interesting choices for the welcome wagon, thought Carol, turning her head away from Sog-Ret to try to catch a breath.

  It was then, as Sog-Ret bounced her up and down over her monstrous breasts and stomach, that it occurred to Carol that perhaps Brag-Ret and Sog-Ret did not represent the welcome wagon after all.

  Chapter

  5

  Just as Em-Lin walked through the arched doorway leading into the shrine, her feet left the floor. A startled gasp escaped her as she floated upward, drifting toward the distant, vaulted ceiling.

  Instinctively, she twisted and fumbled for a handhold or foothold, finally hooking the toe of her work-boot under a sconce alongside the doorway. Swinging around, she clamped both hands onto a statue of Yolo, the Phylosian disciple of Ho’nig, which was mounted on the wall.

  It was only then, as she hugged Yolo tightly and had a look around, that Em-Lin realized that she was not the only person floating in the shrine. Several beings in Starfleet uniforms and two Miradorn priests had also left the floor. Like Em-Lin, the Starfleeters stayed in one place by hanging on to something, but the priests drifted upward with no sign of stopping.

  “Little help, anyone?” said Pika Ven-Sa, who was one of the ones not holding on to anything. His gray robes billowed around him as he slowly ascended, revealing the bright yellow garment underneath.

  “Why don’t we just beam out of here?”

  Near Ven-Sa, a Starfleet male with dark skin crouched on a stone railing, holding on with both hands. “The Dominion shielding is disrupting our transporters,” he said, watching the rising priest.

  “Yet another wonderful booby trap,” said another man in a S
tarfleet uniform. This man had lighter skin than the other man and dark hair. He clung to one of the sixteen pillars ringing the altar in the center of the shrine, pillars representing the sixteen Hearts and Holy Worlds of Ho’nig. “Nothing like an antigravity field to give you a lift.”

  “And a drop when it runs out of juice,” said a black-haired Starfleet woman who was clinging to another of the pillars.

  Em-Lin tightened her grip on the statue of Yolo. The thought of gravity suddenly returning and dragging her down hard made her acutely uncomfortable.

  So did the sight of so many Starfleet uniforms, actually. Em-Lin knew it was politically incorrect, but her time in the service of the Dominion had left her with lingering dislike and distrust of Starfleet and the Federation. They had been the enemy during the war, after all, and she and her world had been poisoned against them. In addition, Em-Lin knew people who had suffered because of Starfleet actions during the war—and she herself, though strictly a noncombatant, had seen firsthand what Starfleet personnel could be capable of, at least in time of war. She knew that she would never forget her experience at the Rasha Nom depot, a Starfleet attack that had left her and Or-Lin as two of only three survivors out of twenty-four Miradorn.

  Em-Lin would have to work with these Starfleeters, and she would find a way to act professional at all times when dealing with them, but she knew in her heart that she could not truly embrace them. In that way, she was on the same wavelength as the rest of her people, contrary to the overblown displays of Federation love designed to bring much needed aid to the depressed economy of New Mirada and Zasharu.

  “How long will the effect last?” said the black-haired Starfleet woman on the pillar, directing the question to the two figures working in the altar space below her.

  A diminutive, pale-skinned Starfleeter with a high, bald head worked in a rectangle of blinking circuitry set into the silver altar. “Two-and-a-half more minutes,” said the little man, his hands flying over the flickering circuits. “The effect will steadily intensify, then cut out completely at the end of that time.”