Nechayev said quickly, “They’re not our ‘friends,’ Gul Evek.”
“Not hardly,” DeSoto said, trying to sound bitter. “They abandoned Federation citizenship. Admiral, I’ve already requested permission to enter the DMZ to pursue Lieutenant Tuvok. If a Malkus Artifact is in Maquis hands, that’s two reasons. General Order 16 is very clear on the subject.”
Before Nechayev could speak, Evek said, “The general orders of Starfleet are of little interest to Central Command, Captain. What we want is revenge for the indignities—”
“What you want is to escalate the situation,” DeSoto said, “and start a war.”
“You surprise me, Captain. The Maquis declared war on us when they blew up the Bok’Nor at Deep Space 9 months ago. It will end when they’re all dead.”
DeSoto didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. “Admiral—”
“Don’t worry, Captain,” Nechayev said quickly. “We don’t plan to escalate this situation. Right now, I think it’s in the best interests of both Central Command and Starfleet to send one ship from each fleet into the zone to try to locate the Malkus Artifact and confiscate it.”
“I don’t agree,” Evek said sharply, then softened. “But I have been overridden. The Vetar will join you in the Demilitarized Zone in three days, once we have finished overseeing the evacuation of Nramia.”
“Gee, Evek, I thought you were in a rush to get revenge.” Despite DeSoto’s tone, he was glad to see that the Cardassian was putting saving the lives of those on Nramia over vengeance. That kind of attitude was the only way there was to be any hope of peace along the Cardassian/Federation border right now.
“I think we all agree that safeguarding lives is of utmost importance,” Nechayev said before Evek could respond.
“Bridge to Captain.” That was Voyskunsky’s voice.
“Hold on a second, please, Admiral, Gul.” DeSoto then muted the video and audio feed to Evek. Nechayev’s face now took up the entire viewscreen. “Go ahead, Dina.”
“Captain, we’ve reacquired the emissions from the Malkus Artifact.” Now DeSoto was glad he’d muted Evek. The use of the word “reacquired” would not have jibed with the cover story they’d given the Cardassians. “It’s in motion, heading for the Slaybis system.”
DeSoto turned to Nechayev’s image with a questioning look. “Why do I know that name?”
“There are two Class-M planets in that system. One is a Cardassian colony. The other is a human colony.” Nechayev hesitated.
“Slaybis IV,” DeSoto said, finally putting it together with a Starfleet Intelligence dispatch that he and Voyskunsky had read as part of their briefing prior to being posted to the Cardassian border. For that matter, they had shared the contents of that briefing with Tuvok prior to his departure. “SI has an operative there, doesn’t it?”
Nechayev nodded. “Obviously, this information should not be shared with Gul Evek.”
“Yeah, but the artifact going to Slaybis should. This might be just what we need to give him a kick in the tail.” He brought Evek back up on the screen. “Gul, that was my bridge. They’ve detected a signal that matches the records of the Malkus Artifact—and it’s heading for the Slaybis system. I believe there’s a Cardassian colony on the second planet?”
Evek spoke with a sarcastic disdain. “After a fashion. The colonists on Slaybis are a group of fanatics, Captain. Cultists who think that technology has ruined their lives. They flew to Slaybis in a spaceship that they proceeded to dismantle and now live a peaceful, agrarian lifestyle unsullied by the evils of replicators and other such equipment.” Evek hesitated. “Captain, do you mean to tell me that those murderers of yours are headed for Slaybis II?”
“We don’t know where they’re headed, just that they’re on course for that star system.”
“They’re not even a formal part of the Cardassian Union! They’ve rejected any form of aid from the government—it’s funded by a few rich eccentrics.” Evek spoke in a tone of voice that told exactly what he thought of oddball projects funded by wealthy civilians.
“That makes it less likely to be a target, if there’s no military value,” DeSoto said. “Of course, there’s a human colony there, too.”
“I think we can safely rule out a Maquis attack on a human colony, Captain. If the Maquis are targeting a completely unmilitary—one might even say anti military—target, then—”
DeSoto saw an opening. “Then, Gul Evek, we need to go in now. We can’t afford to wait three days for you to finish your evac. Let the Hood go to Slaybis—we can be there within twenty-four hours.”
Until this moment, DeSoto had never seen a Cardassian grit his teeth. It was not a pretty sight. “Captain, the term ‘demilitarized zone’ means a zone with no military. The treaty—”
“—can be flexible up to a point,” Nechayev said.
“We cannot allow a Starfleet presence in the zone without an equivalent Central Command presence.” Evek’s words were sure, but his tone was weakening. DeSoto tried not to smile. His white pieces were surrounding Evek’s black ones oh so slowly but surely.
“What if we promise to share all intelligence we gather on the Maquis?” Nechayev said.
Evek leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “What assurances do I have that you’ll share all your data gathered?”
Nechayev’s lips moved only infinitesmally, but it definitely qualified as a smile. “I never said we’d share all our data, Gul, only that we’d share our intelligence on the Maquis. You won’t have unexpurgated access to Captain DeSoto’s logs, but you will be provided with useful intelligence. And all we ask in return is for one ship to go unescorted into the DMZ just long enough to save a planetful of Cardassian cultists.”
Unfolding his arms, Evek glared at the screen. DeSoto once again had to keep himself from smiling. The gul was making a show of thinking about it, but DeSoto knew when the other player was ready to resign. And, as little as Evek might have thought of the people who formed the colony on Slaybis II, it would be politically unwise to condemn them to death over a technicality in the treaty.
“Very well—but I expect a complete sharing of intelligence on the Maquis. I am determined to make sure this ragtag group of terrorists are wiped from the face of the galaxy once and for all!”
Evek punctuated his outburst by cutting off the communication at his end.
“Very dramatic.”
Nechayev actually chuckled. “I’m surprised. Evek doesn’t usually go for those kinds of histrionics. But this is a difficult situation.”
“True. If that’s all, Admiral, we need to get the lead out.” DeSoto moved as if to cut the connection.
“One thing, Captain.” DeSoto’s finger hovered over the control. “The most important thing right now is retrieving the artifact. We can’t afford to let it fall into Maquis or Cardassian hands. It’s far too dangerous.”
“We’ll get it back for you, Admiral. Hood out.”
As he walked out to the bridge, he shook his head. Gee, Admiral, thanks so much for explaining to me what I already knew.
“Dina,” he said to Voyskunsky as she vacated the command chair for him, “if I ever turn into a hidebound desk-jockey type, please don’t hesitate to shoot me in the head.”
“Noted and logged, sir.”
“Anyhow, we’ve got our free pass in the DMZ. Baifang, set course for the Slaybis system, warp nine. José, keep an eye on those readings. If the artifact changes course even a micrometer, I want to know about it. Manolet, arm phasers and load torpedo bays.” He gave Voyskunsky a small smile. “We’re the lone white piece in a sea of black pieces.”
A chorus of “Aye, sir’s” flew about the bridge.
Hsu added, “Course plotted and laid in, sir.”
“Hit it.”
When the Liberator came out of warp, Cal Hudson was surprised to see an intact hull.
“Pull in to forty thousand kilometers,” he told Mastroeni, and then did a full scan. The sensors
explained the seeming discrepancy between the hull-buckling sounds in Chakotay’s distress call and the image on the viewscreen: Hudson was reading severe damage to the inner hull, and also extreme temperature variations throughout the small vessel. “Looks like Tuvok’s weather controller got loose inside the ship.”
“The emissions are still in motion, about two light-years ahead and traveling at warp three.” She looked over at Hudson. “Their course takes them right to the Slaybis system.”
“Slaybis?” Hudson racked his brain, and then came up with a match. “There’s a human colony on the fourth planet and a bunch of Cardassian farmers on the second. Neither of them’s much of a target. Why would whoever has the artifact be heading there?”
“You can ask Chakotay himself,” Mastroeni said, looking down at her console. “He’s hailing us.”
A dark face appeared on the tiny viewscreen. The captain of the Geronimo had determined features, accented by a featherlike tattoo over his left eye, and close-cropped black hair. “This is Captain Chakotay of the Geronimo. You must be Captain Hudson.”
“Cal is fine,” Hudson said. He’d left ranks behind when he quit Starfleet, and being referred to as a captain—particularly given that he was “only” a lieutenant commander when he resigned—just brought back bad memories.
Chakotay smiled grimly. “Normally, I’d be wary of the two of us talking like this.” Maquis cell leaders deliberately avoided contact with each other as a security measure.
Returning the smile, Hudson said, “Hey, if you want us to turn around…”
“That’s quite all right. We’ve got thirty-eight people here and a ship that’s buckling at the seams. My engineer tells me we’ll implode inside of fifteen minutes.”
“You can give me the details once we get you settled over here. Hudson out.” He then instructed the transporter room to start beaming Chakotay’s people over, as well as whatever cargo the Liberator had room for. There turned out to be very little of that; most of Chakotay’s people’s personal belongings were in a safe place that Hudson didn’t want to know the location of.
It only took ten minutes to complete the transfer. From the transporter room, Chakotay said, “If you’ve got the weapons to spare, Hudson, I’d like you to destroy the ship. I’d rather a stray Cardassian didn’t come across any useful remains.”
“Understood.” Hudson nodded to Mastroeni, who loaded the torpedo bays. Within two minutes, the Liberator’ s photon torpedoes had reduced the Geronimo to components far too small to be of any use.
Hudson then joined Chakotay in the cargo bay, where thirty-five of his people were gathered. The other three had been taken to sickbay—a small room that consisted of two beds, a medical tricorder, and a mishmash of medikits. Two had been stunned by phaser fire, and the other had three broken ribs.
“The ship’s been scuttled,” Hudson said. “I’m sorry we had to do that.”
Chakotay nodded. “That’s all right—it was my fault, really, for giving her that name. The real Geronimo fought the good fight, but came to a bad end. Next time, I’ll think more carefully.”
“So what happened?”
Quickly, Chakotay summarized his rescue of three of his people from a desolate planet in the DMZ, with the added bonus of a black box of some kind—the Malkus Artifact. The Geronimo then attacked Nramia, but what Chakotay had ordered as a strike against the capital city turned out to be a planetwide disaster.
“This Tharia person,” Mastroeni said, “doesn’t normally act like this?”
Before Chakotay could reply, a Bajoran woman stepped forward. “Like a complete lunatic? No, he doesn’t. That damn box must’ve done something to him.”
A woman with Klingon-like features spoke up. “He could’ve just cracked. The man lost his entire family.”
Hudson flashed on a mental image of Gretchen, which he forced out of his mind. “What happened?”
“His three mates died in a Cardassian attack,” Chakotay said. “He took it fairly well—maybe too well. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to grieve—or to fall apart.”
“Or maybe just the right tool,” the part-Klingon woman said. “This weapon is incredibly powerful.”
Hudson nodded. “We saw what it did to Nramia. In fact, it’s why we found you.” He then quickly filled Chakotay in on his own reasons for being here, and on their prisoner and potential recruit in the mess hall.
“I’d like to meet this Tuvok,” Chakotay said.
“Of course.” Hudson was about to lead Chakotay to the mess hall when a Betazoid stepped forward.
In a soft voice, the dark-eyed man said, “Excuse me, sir, but there’s something I think you should know.”
“What is it, Suder?” Chakotay asked.
The Betazoid hesitated. “It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, but—well, since you rescued Tharia, B’Elanna, and Gerron, there’s been something—”
“Spit it out,” Chakotay said impatiently. This Suder person spoke very quietly, and Hudson could see how his roundabout way of talking—unusual for a telepath—could be irritating.
“Tharia’s mind has been—different. It isn’t anything specific, but—you know that I’d never pry into your minds without permission, sir. But—Tharia was definitely changed, subtly, by that thing he found.”
Chakotay started to say something, then stopped. Hudson suspected that the large man was going to upbraid the Betazoid for not speaking up sooner—it’s what Hudson might have done under the same circumstances—but then he thought better of it. After all, there was little to be gained by recriminations now.
Instead, he simply said, “Thank you, Lon. Seska, B’Elanna, come with me. The rest of you, stay here. Hudson?”
Hudson and Mastroeni led the trio to the mess hall, where McAdams and Schmidt still stood guard. To them, Hudson said, “You two report to the bridge until Darleen and I report back.”
Nodding, the pair departed. Chakotay, meanwhile, gazed upon the Vulcan. “Hudson says you know about this artifact.”
“Yes. I am Tuvok of Vulcan. My family was killed at Amniphon, and I have come to the Demilitarized Zone in order to join the Maquis. The information about the Malkus Artifact that I provided to Mr. Hudson was by way of—”
“Letting us think you’re legitimate, fine,” Chakotay said quickly. He obviously wasn’t interested in the preliminaries. “One of my most trusted comrades has gone from a sane, steady presence to a homicidal maniac thanks to this thing, Vulcan. I have a Betazoid who says that his thought patterns have changed. Can you explain that?”
“One of the Malkus Artifacts is reported to have the ability to control thoughts, but that is separate from the artifact that affects weather patterns.”
Hudson frowned. “What about the other two people who wielded the artifacts?”
Tuvok’s eyes almost seemed to turn inward for a half-second as he recalled the records of the artifact. “One was a citizen of a human colony. She was a disaffected civil-service worker named Tomasina Laubenthal, and had no history of mental illness prior to finding the artifact. However, she had recently gone through a life change that was believed to be the reason for her using the artifact to commit attempted mass murder. The second artifact was used by the Bajoran terrorist Orta.”
The Bajoran woman—Seska—snorted at that. “I’ve heard of him. He isn’t a model of mental health at the best of times.”
Tuvok steepled his fingers together. “However, the artifacts do not have any visible controls. They must function by reacting to the thoughts of the wielder.”
“Tharia seemed to simply will the device to do what it did,” Chakotay said.
“It may therefore be logical to postulate that the transfer of psionic waves works both ways, as it were—that the artifacts are capable of, in essence, forcing the possessor to utilize them. This hypothesis is supported by a telepath noticing a change in thought patterns.” One of his eyebrows rose. “In the case of Ms. Laubenthal, it probably would have taken v
ery little to convince her to do so, given the life change she had undergone.”
“In Orta’s case, it wouldn’t have taken any convincing whatsoever,” Seska said.
Nodding, Tuvok said, “It is an intriguing hypothesis.”
“It’s also pretty irrelevant.” That was B’Elanna, the part-Klingon woman. “We need to find Tharia—that shuttle can’t go higher than warp three. I assume this tub can do better?”
Mastroeni gave the woman one of her lesser snarls. “We hit warp nine to rescue you.”
“Tharia was headed for Slaybis. He’s got a head start, but we should be able to beat him there at warp nine.”
Hudson shook his head. “We can’t maintain it that long. But I’m not sure why he’d want to go there. The only Cardassians there are a bunch of civilians.”
Chakotay hesitated. “Actually, Slaybis IV was on our list.”
“That’s a human colony!” Mastroeni said angrily.
To Hudson’s surprise, it was Tuvok who responded. “However, it is a human colony with a Starfleet Intelligence operative working on it.” He turned to Chakotay and again raised an eyebrow. “Logically, that is the only possible reason why Slaybis IV would be a legitimate Maquis target.”
Hudson also turned to Chakotay. “Is this true?”
Slowly, Chakotay nodded. “We got word that one of our couriers, a young man named Elois Phifer, was working for SI.”
Tuvok added, “Lieutenant Phifer is, in fact, an SI operative, sent in six months ago to gather intelligence on the Maquis, though his information has been sporadic and less than useful to Starfleet.”
Rubbing his chin, Hudson turned to Mastroeni. Her face was unreadable, which told Hudson all he needed to know. Tuvok gave up an SI operative before Chakotay had a chance to—that was a major point in the Vulcan’s favor.
He tapped an intercom. “McAdams, set course for the Slaybis system, warp seven-point-five.” He turned to B’Elanna. “I can’t risk going any faster than that—we already strained our engines to get to you as fast as we did.”
The Brave and the Bold Book Two Page 7
