Vectors

by Dean Wesley Smith

  They would give him the funds, of course, or even better, he would never pay them and use the money for that brush. Which he would then keep locked up—and he would wear the key around his neck. He didn’t want to risk cross-contamination again.

  No matter what that female doctor and Kellec Ton had said. They believed that someone, or something, had actually brought the virus to the bar. They believed that the Ferengi had been infected first. Quark had begged them and even tried to bribe them to prevent them from sharing that insight with Narat, and in the end they had agreed. Kellec Ton, to Quark’s surprise, negotiated the bribe: He wanted Quark to help with the Bajoran resistance on the station. In small ways. Funneling in messages or supplies, or helping someone escape Odo’s eye. Quark refused, until Kellec Ton reminded him that they could easily reinfect the Ferengi—and make certain the virus didn’t spread beyond Quark, Rom, and Nog.

  Quark didn’t believe the threat. He didn’t think Kellec Ton was that sort of man (and the hu-man female’s attempt to hide her laughter reinforced that) but, on the off-chance that the threat was real, Quark agreed to those terms, for a time of limited duration. He suggested a week. Kellec suggested a month. They had compromised on two weeks.

  Which was good enough for Quark. It protected his bar, his livelihood, and, much as he hated to admit it, his family. For it looked like Rom and Nog weren’t going anywhere soon. And that meant that Quark had to teach them to be at least mildly competent.

  “Brother,” Rom said. “Gul Dukat would like a vodtini twisted.”

  “A what?” Quark asked, turning toward his brother.

  “A vodtini twisted.”

  “And what is that?” Quark asked.

  “A hu-man drink, suggested by the good doctor. Apparently she said that generations of hu-mans drank it after their workday was over to relax.”

  “A vodka martini with a twist?” Quark asked.

  “That’s it!” Rom said.

  Quark looked over his brother’s head at Gul Dukat. He was sitting at a center table, looking exhausted, but he was managing to laugh with a few of the guards. “Does he know what vodka does to Cardassians?” Quark asked.

  “How should I know?” Rom asked.

  “Tell him that if he wants to drink it, he has to take it outside. Tell him that the fumes are too much for my other patrons.” Quark shook his head. “Who’d have figured the hu-man was a practical jokester.”

  Rom frowned. “Jokes, brother?”

  Quark nodded. “Vodka and Cardassians,” he said. “If they’ve never had it before, it turns them green.”

  “That doesn’t seem very funny to me,” Rom said, and went back to Gul Dukat’s table.

  Quark watched him. What he didn’t want to explain to his idiot brother was that sometimes the point of practical jokes wasn’t humor. Sometimes the point was to teach someone a lesson.

  Apparently the lady doctor believed Gul Dukat had some lessons to learn.

  * * *

  How many times would she have to say good-bye to the Enterprise? Pulaski leaned back in her chair in the captain’s ready room. The fish were swimming in their aquarium, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard had a clear glass on his desk filled with perfectly brewed Earl Grey tea. The faintly flowery smell of the liquid permeated the room.

  Picard was standing behind his desk, looking out the portholes to the stars. The ship was heading back to Deep Space Five at full warp. Apparently someone there had a new assignment for Pulaski and wanted her to arrive on the double.

  Just what she needed. More work.

  Beverly Crusher sat beside her, nursing an old-fashioned cup of coffee. Pulaski was having one as well. It wasn’t Cardassian or Bajoran. It was an Earth beverage, with a taste of home.

  She couldn’t believe she was leaving. Even when she, Ogawa, Governo, and Marvig had boarded a Cardassian transport ship she hadn’t believed she was going home. The trip to the Enterprise had been very different from the trip bringing them to Terok Nor. They were being treated like royalty, each with large cabins even though they weren’t staying long enough to sleep in them, and the captain was treating them to a lengthy meal filled with things Pulaski had never seen before.

  It all made her feel vaguely guilty about her parting recommendation to Gul Dukat. Even Kellec had given her a funny look when she gave it.

  And it all sounded so innocent: a vodka martini with a twist. But she had done so because Dukat had annoyed—no, perhaps the correct term was angered—her, with his insistence on quotas and returning the station to normal. She had overheard him ordering double shifts and punishment for any Bajoran who still claimed weakness from the illness. He had also ordered harsh measures for the prisoners who had instigated the fighting.

  He was putting Terok Nor back together the old way, ignoring Kellec’s contribution and refusing to see that Bajorans were people, just like Cardassians.

  It had riled her temper. And so she had sweetly told Dukat of a way he could rest at the end of his day.

  At least she could be sure he wouldn’t get sleep for one night. Maybe more. And if she ever saw him again, she could claim ignorance of vodka’s effects on Cardassians.

  “Are you sure you’ve told us everything?” Crusher was saying, her tone sympathetic. She had been through one of these plagues too and she had said, when Pulaski got off the transporter pad, that she would be there any time Pulaski needed to talk. “You have a strange expression on your face.”

  Pulaski smiled just a little. She wouldn’t admit to the vodka remark, not in front of Captain Picard, but she did say, “I guess I am a bit surprised by the level of hatred between the Cardassians and the Bajorans.”

  “I think I can understand the Bajorans’ reaction,” Picard said, returning to his chair. “After all, the Cardassians have been occupying their planet for some time now.”

  “Yes, but they worked together on Terok Nor for a brief time, and then even that fell apart.” Pulaski sighed. Not even the coffee was helping her bone-deep exhaustion. “And now both sides are blaming the other for the plague. The situation has grown worse instead of better.”

  “I can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t the designer’s intent,” Crusher said.

  “What do you mean?” Picard asked.

  “Well, we can assume that this plague is related to the one we dealt with on Archaria III,” Crusher said. “It almost seems like a second trial of an experiment.”

  Pulaski looked at her. She had had the same thoughts.

  “After all, it didn’t respond to the same solution, and the stakes were escalated. There were three species involved. There was a new method of delivery. And—” Crusher paused to look first at Pulaski, then Picard “—this one had the added benefit of destabilizing a precarious region. So if this second trial failed, perhaps the designer saw a benefit in worsening the Cardassian-Bajoran situation.”

  Picard picked up his glass cup. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “A monster,” Pulaski said.

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” Crusher said. “And I’m not sure I want to find out.”

  “Surely you want to catch this person or persons,” Picard said.

  “I do,” Crusher said, “but on my terms.”

  “Terms?” Picard asked.

  Crusher nodded. But before she could respond, Pulaski spoke. “I understand what Dr. Crusher is saying. We weren’t able to track the designer from the scant information we received from our sources on Bajor, and I take it, you had no more success on Archaria III.”

  “That’s right,” Picard said.

  “Which means that the only way we’ll be able to track this monster down . . .” Crusher said.

  “Is if there’s another plague,” Pulaski said tiredly. “Let’s hope that his experiment is over and he leaves us in peace.”

  “Unpunished?” Picard asked.

  Pulaski nodded. “Unless we can find him before he causes more deaths.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t wan
t to see any more death.”

  She felt a hand on her arm. She opened her eyes to see Crusher looking at her with concern. “You really should rest before you go to your next assignment. If you want, I’ll contact Starfleet Medical and ask them for a leave—”

  “No.” Pulaski smiled. “Work is always better for me. But if you both will excuse me, I do think I’ll go to my quarters now. I hope you won’t be offended if I sleep most of the way back to Deep Space Five.”

  “Not at all,” Picard said.

  “We’ll wake you so that you’ll have enough time to get your notes together before the briefing with Starfleet Command on Deep Space Five,” Crusher said.

  “No need.” Pulaski stood. “They’re already together. I like to finish my tasks before going to bed. I sleep better that way. Good night all.”

  She heard them say good night as she stepped from the ready room to the bridge. Commander Riker sat in the captain’s chair, and he smiled at her as she walked past. Data said hello and Geordi, who was at the engineering station on the bridge, asked her if she was doing all right.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and stepped into the turbolift. What she didn’t tell them was how much she’d miss them, just like she would miss Kellec. It seemed as if her life was about moving away from the people she cared about.

  She sighed. If there was one thing she had learned in all her years in Starfleet, it was that every time she left one group behind, she found another—different but just as good—ahead. She knew that. But it seemed as if she would never find a group quite like this one again.

  Or perhaps she was just tired. Things always seemed better after she got a little sleep.

  Pocket Books Proudly Presents

  Double Helix #3

  RED SECTOR

  Diane Carey

  Go to the next page for a preview of Red Sector . . . .

  “Animals,” Ensign Stiles grumbled. “I’d like to get you disrespectful slugs on starship duty for five minutes, just five minutes . . . .” He buried himself in padded insulation as he pulled his flak vest over his head, then slipped into his gauntlets, adjusted his sidearm, and led Perraton out into the coach’s main seating area.

  Here, five other members of Oak Squad were already suited up and looking at him from inside their red-tinted helmet shields. Jeremy White, Bill Foster, Dan Moose, Brad Carter, Matt Girvan—their names and faces swam before his eyes like a manifest, and for a moment he thought the blood was rushing out of his head. Midshipmen and ensigns, all in training for what would eventually become specialties, now they were assigned to Starbase 10 in the Security Division, under their senior ensign—Stiles. At twenty-one, Eric Stiles was the old man of the outfit. Perraton was next, at twenty years old and forty-two days junior to Stiles’ ensign stripes. Knowing that they had heard the ribbing he took from the wings, Stiles felt his face flush. He had to lead the mission. He’d gotten himself into this on purpose. He had to address them as a commander. Nobody to hide behind. They’d seen the landing. His dream of a crisp textbook military approach and regulation landing had gone up in an ugly puff. Now the squad members were blushing and snickering, burying grins, trying not to look right at him—that was hard to take!

  “Heads up.” His voice cracked. “There’s a riot going on outside. Some kind of local political trouble. The embassy is beam-shielded, so we have to go in the security door. As we approach, the guard will drop the door shields. We’ll have to go in and come out in single file. We’re going to put the dignitaries between us, at two or three in a row. There are about twenty of these people, so the seven of us’ll be just about right. I’ll go last, with the ambassador right in front of me. He’s the primary person to guard, and if he gets so much as a hangnail, somebody’s gonna answer to me in a dark alley. After we get—shut up, Foster!”

  “I didn’t say anything!” Bill Foster protested.

  “Quit snickering! This is . . . this is—”

  “Serious,” Perraton supplied.

  “I know, Eric,” Foster muttered.

  “You call me ‘Ensign,’ mister!”

  “Aye-aye, Ensign Mister.”

  “I want the rest of this mission to go like clockwork! I don’t want a single twitch that isn’t in the rule book! Don’t snicker, don’t scratch, don’t burp, don’t slip, don’t do anything that isn’t regulation!”

  A hand was pressed to his shoulder and drew him backward a step on the plush carpet.

  “Everything’ll go fine, Eric,” Perraton mildly interrupted. “We’re ready when you are.” His short dark hair was buried under a white helmet with Starfleet’s Delta Shield printed on the forehead, now obscured by the raised red visor. The shield glowed and sang at Stiles. Starfleet’s symbol.

  And Stiles had to make it look good. In the echo of Perraton’s mental leashing, the symbol now lay heavily upon him. If he couldn’t yell at his men and tell them they were scum, how would he keep them in shape?

  He huffed a couple of steadying breaths, but didn’t lower his voice. Now that he’d gotten up to a certain level of volume, it was hard to reel in from that. He took a moment to survey the squad—bright white helmets, black leggings, white boots, red chest pads against the black Starfleet jumpsuits, and the bright flicker of a combadge on every vest. Elbow pads, chin guards, red visors . . . looked fair. Good enough. The uniforms made up for the inadequacies he saw in the people.

  Time to go.

  “There are riots going on,” he repeated, “but so far nobody’s tried to breach the embassy itself. Our job is to clear a path between the coach and the embassy and get all Federation nationals out. These people don’t have a space fleet, but their atmospheric capabilities are strong enough to cause a few problems. I won’t consider the mission accomplished until we’re clear of the stratosphere. When we get out of the coach, completely ignore the people swarming around unless they come within two meters or show a weapon. Clear?”

  “Clear, sir!” Carter, Girvan, Moose, and Foster shouted. Perraton nodded, and White raised his rifle. Had they accented the “sir” just a little too much?

  Stiles stepped between them and the hatch. “Mobilize!”

  Perraton took that as a cue, and punched the autorelease on the big hatch. The coach’s loading ramp peeled back and lay neatly across the brick before them. Instantly, the stench of molotov cocktails and burning fuel flooded the controlled atmosphere inside the coach. At Stiles’s side, Perraton coughed a couple of times. Other than that, nobody’s big mouth cracked open. Stiles led the way down, his heavy boots thunking on the nonskid ramp.

  They broke out onto a courtyard of grand proportion with colonnades flanking it on three sides and the diplomatic buildings on the fourth side—a battery of fifteen embassies, halls, and consulates. Most of them were empty now. The Federation was the last to evacuate. Two of the colonnades were in ruins; part of one was shrouded in scaffolding while being rebuilt. Most of the buildings had signs of structural damage, but generally the Diplomatic Court of PojjanPirakot was a stately and bright place, providing a sad backdrop for the ugliness of these protests.

  A quick glance behind showed him the positions of the five fighters landed around the coach. Their glistening bodies, streamlined for both aerodynamics and space travel, shined in the golden sunlight. There was Air Wing Leader Bernt Folmer, their best pilot, code “Brazil,” parked like a big car in front of Greg “Pecan” Blake. Behind the coach the tail fin of Andrea Hipp’s “Cashew” fighter caught a glint of sun. On the other side, hopefully parked nose to tail, were Acorn and Chestnut, brothers Jason and Zack Bolt—but Stiles didn’t bother to check their position. He only hoped they were in sharp order.

  All around were angry people waving signs, some in a language he didn’t understand, others scrawled in English, Vulcan, Spanish, Orion Yrevish, and a few others familiar from courtesy placards all over Starfleet Command where multitudes wandered.

  The ones in English jumped out instantly before Stiles’s racing mind. OUT, ALIENS . .
. LEAVE OUR PLANET . . . GET OUT, STRANGERS . . . ALIENS UNWELCOME . . . CURSE ALIENS ALL . . .

  Some of the people were calling out in English, too, though clumsily and without really understanding the arrangement of nouns and verbs. The anti-alien message, though, arrowed directly through to the team.

  To the music of enraged shouts from the people rattling gates and creating a din by banging small silver knives on the iron posts, Oak Squad broke into a jog and flooded into a broad shield of sunlight glaring between the embassy and the consulate next door. The doorways and lintels were heavily reinforced with titanium T-girders, and titanium bands swept around every building, two on each story, like shiny ribcages. Stiles glanced around at his squad, making sure nobody pulled ahead of the formation. This had to be crisp. The ambassador was watching from some window inside that embassy. Everybody was watching.

  Fifty meters . . .

  Oak Squad thundered forward relentlessly, their phaser rifles tight against their chests. As Stiles led his men across the patterned brick, he saw that just the raw heat from the coach’s VTOL thrusters had scorched some of the bricks nearly black and pitted them beyond repair, destroying the geometric design in the historic courtyard.

  His boots felt secure and thick as he crunched over the litter of broken glass, smashed fruit, and rocks that had been thrown by the rioters, who were now milling around the fighters and the coach. These Pojjan people were stocky and thick, with strong round cheekbones and bronze complexions tinged with an olive patina, reminding Stiles of Aztec paintings seen under a green filter. They wore various clothing, from the men’s ordinary shirts and pants or the women’s shiftlike dresses to the brightly beaded tribal tunics and leggings he’d seen on travel posters.