by Andy Mangels
Turning away from the guard, Zweller whispered, "Let me see what I can do."
After the visit to the destroyed village, no one had thought to relieve Zweller of the tricorder Grelun had returned to him. Zweller had maintained possession of it by leaving it attached to his belt, right out in the open.
He had, in effect, hidden it in plain sight. The rebels apparently didn't see the point of confiscating something that he was clearly making no effort whatsoever to conceal.
While Grelun hadn't exactly given Zweller the run of the Army of Light compound, the rebel leader had allowed him considerable freedom of movement in exchange for his tactical advice. That, and for helping the Chiarosans use the replicator salvaged from the
Archimedes to create weapons and spare components for the freedom fighters' dozen or so battered fighter craft.
Zweller thought of his surviving Slayton crewmates, reflecting that Roget would be extremely upset if he ever discovered just how badly maintained the ships that captured the Archimedes had been; the Starfleet shuttle could easily have held its own against them.
During the eight days or so he had spent among the Chiarosan rebels so far--it was awkward expressing time in terms of days on a world without sunrises and sunsets--Zweller had come to feel that these grim warriors had become at least tolerant of his presence. Many of them now genuinely seemed to like him, and were no doubt grateful for his help.
Thus Zweller was unsupervised when, less than ten minutes after parting company with Riker and Troi, he entered an empty alcove. Here he opened a wallmounted panel through which part of the compound's optical data network ran. Having been designed for Chiarosans, the panel was quite high, forcing him to stand on tiptoe, his arms stretched uncomfortably above his head. Alert for the sound of approaching Chiarosans, he worked as quickly as possible, patching the tricorder into the microminiaturized ODN terminal node he had installed four days previously; he'd left it there while ostensibly helping one of the rebel engineers run a diagnostic on the base's communications system. Forcing contemporary Starfleet hardware to work reliably alongside the Chiarosans' systems--most of which appeared to be analogous to Federation technology from the late twenty-second century--had been a bit of a challenge, despite his extensive training in obsolete technologies.
But core technological principles rarely changed much, even after two centuries.
Using the tricorder's input pads, Zweller navigated through a complicated series of hierarchical icons. This complex command sequence was intended to surreptitiously isolate this particular comm terminal from the rest of the base's computer system. At the same time, it would attempt to seize control of a portion of the backup comm system using every possible clearance code, running the code sequences at nearly a billion cycles per second. After each attempt, the program in the tricorder would erase all evidence that it had ever tried to jimmy its way inside the facility's systems.
A tense minute elapsed while the small display on Zweller's tricorder repeatedly flashed a single word:
working. Two minutes passed. A bead of cold sweat crept down the small of his back, chilling him. Three minutes.
Then the display gave way to a cheerful green: communications
ARRAY: ACCESS APPROVED.
Yes!
Zweller's hands were now becoming slick with sweat from the effort of holding his body in such an unnatural posture. As carefully as he could, he entered the next sequence of icons, a grouping even more complex than the previous one. The idea behind this particular command set was to get inside the base's security grid. were he actually to try to use the base's transmitter before doing that, he would more than likely trigger a security alarm.
It would take only a few moments to send the Enterprise a burst of data containing a set of detailed instructions, including the coordinates of each of the holding cells relative to the location of the rebels' subspace transmitter.
Assuming that the transmitter could pierce the local static, Johnny and his crew would trace the signal to its source, establish its location, and then apply his
coordinate correction data to calculate the positions of each of the imprisoned Starfleet officers. While Zweller was well aware that the transporters aboard the Enterprise could not beam anyone directly off the planet-there was far too much atmospheric ionization to permit that--he was reasonably certain that a low-flying shuttlecraft could pull it off, with a little luck.
He decided that he would preprogram the holding cells' forcefields to come down in six hours. Six hours would give Picard ample time to get a shuttle close enough to the compound to beam every Starfleet captive to safety.
And because even the Chiarosan government probably couldn't intercept such a brief, tightly focused subspace transmission, the rebel compound's location would remain beyond the reach of Ruardh's military machine.
It was a win-win scenario. Zweller grinned at his own cleverness.
working, flashed the tricorder as it continued trying countless security-grid access codes. Another crimson blinking minute passed. Then two.
Three minutes. More sweat flowed, this time stinging his eyes. He brushed it away with his palm, stifling a curse.
Four minutes. Why the hell was this taking so long?
He heard the deliberate clip-clop of a soldier's boots.
The sound approached, then withdrew, then ceased entirely.
His hands had begun to shake. I'm getting too old for this.
Then, in green: security grid: access approved. The muscles in his calves and shoulders were aching from his awkward, upward-reaching stance. His fingers had become slippery with sweat and his arms were growing numb. Not wanting to risk revealing his presence by using the tricorder's voice interface, he began scrolling
and entering the icons that would transmit his data-burst to the Enterprise.
The tricorder's display flashed an interrogative icon.
Then he saw what he had done. He had inadvertently mistaken one icon hierarchy for another. It was the equivalent of making a typographical error on a computer equipped with an old-style keyboard interface.
He began scrolling and entering commands again, more slowly this time. The shaking of his hands intensified.
Muscle fatigue was making his right leg begin to shimmy.
He entered the final icon in the command sequence.
TRANSMITTING.
He never heard the footfalls of the stealthy Chiarosan guard whose rough hands seized his shoulder half a second later.
Will Riker was surprised when a pair of very angry, very large Chiarosan warriors suddenly marched him and Troi from their cell, only to escort them into another similar one located a fair distance away.
He was even more surprised to see Commander Cortin Zweller awaiting them there, already confined in the cell. Zweller appeared to have lost his favored guest status;
his tricorder was missing and his face bore several bruises that hadn't been there when they had parted company some twenty minutes earlier.
Riker found it difficult to suppress a wry smile. So, evidently, did Deanna.
"I take it that Grelun has declined your request for our early release," Riker said blandly.
Zweller responded with a humorless chuckle.
"Vehemently.
I suppose he moved all the other prisoners, too, once he suspected that I'd transmitted their transporter coordinates to the Enterprise."
A surge of hope swelled within Riker's chest. He made certain his back was to the guard standing on the other side of the force field before he responded.
"And did you?"
Zweller shrugged, then spoke in a barely audible whisper.
"I think so, but there's no way to be sure. But I am certain about one thing--I managed to sabotage the security grid before I got caught. I don't think they'll discover it until after it's too late."
"And what will that accomplish?" Troi wanted to know.
Zweller absently touched a bruise on his forehead and wince
d.
"The detention-cell forcefields should come down in a little less than six hours. I tried to send a burst-message asking the Enterprise to send a shuttle for us then. If they can get to within a few kilometers of us, they should be able to beam us all out of here, even through all the atmospheric interference."
"If your message got through, then the captain will get us that shuttle," Riker said quietly. He needed to buoy his spirits. This was a slim hope, but it was something.
"Fat lot of good it'll do us if Grelun's moved everybody around," Zweller said.
"The shuttle crew won't know where to try for a transporter lock. And they won't have a lot of time to run scans if Grelun scrambles his fighter craft to intercept them."
"I'm afraid I have more bad news," Troi said, her eyes closing.
"I don't see how things can get much worse now," Riker said.
"I do. I'm picking up extremely strong emotions from Grelun. He no longer has any intention of releasing us."
Her eyes came open then, twin pools of apprehension.
"He's furious. W. If the referendum doesn't go the way he wants it to, Grelun intends to declare total war on
his opponents. He'll probably start by executing all of his prisoners, and then ..." she trailed off.
"And then?" Zweller prompted.
"The rebels have left Chiarosan civilians out of the conflict so far, but--" Riker finished the thought for her. "--b the gloves will be off if the pro-Federation side wins."
"Judging from the ugly state of Grelun's emotions," Troi said, "you can expect a blood bath. A long, drawn out planetary civil war."
Zweller smiled.
"You're overlooking an important detail, Commander Troi. The pro-Federation side doesn't stand a snowball's chance on Vulcan of winning the referendum."
Riker shot a grave look at Zweller.
"I might be inclined to agree with you. Commander. Except for the one thing that you seem to have overlooked."
"Which is?"
Riker pointed toward the stone ceiling.
"Which is that the man commanding the Enterprise is Jean-Luc Picard.
The man who served as Klingon Chancellor Gowron's Arbiter of Succession. Thanks to the captain's diplomacy, the Klingon civil war lasted for months instead of years."
Zweller's smile faltered then.
"Diplomacy wasn't his strong suit when I knew him. Commander."
"It's never a good idea to underestimate Captain Picard," Troi said.
Zweller looked up at them both.
"Then for everyone's sake, you'd both better hope he fails in a big way this time" Never during the nine years he had so far spent serving alongside Captain Picard had Will Riker thought he would find himself agreeing with such a sentiment.
Now, he had no other option.
Chapter Seven
"Launching probe. Captain," said Data, his hands gliding over an ops panel.
Hawk watched as Picard leaned forward in his seat, staring at the forward bridge viewscreen as the small probe sped off into the starry blackness. The captain's eyes narrowed, as if by squinting he could see more clearly what the probe saw.
Data turned.
"Would you like me to activate visual telemetry, sir? It would be more effective."
Hawk stared at Data. The android's directness always amazed him. Coming from anyone else. Data's question might have seemed an insult, but Hawk--and everyone who had ever served on the bridge --knew better.
"Yes, Data," Picard said, settling back into his chair.
The image on the viewscreen changed only slightly, though digital counters and coordinate graphics appeared around the edges, showing the data that the probe was recording as it sped through space.
While they had been supervising the technicians who had worked on the probe, Data, Hawk, and La Forge had analyzed the sector maps, using the residual radiation traces found on the Slayton's wreckage--as well the starship's velocity and trajectory--to pinpoint the probable site where the vessel was destroyed. Not surprisingly, this location was very close to the volume of space that Hawk's sketchy sensor data labeled as the likeliest source of the first subspace slippage, as well as the probable epicenter of the half-dozen or so lesser spatial disturbances that had followed.
A quick visit to the stellar cartography labs had provided Hawk and Data with further scientific background of the Geminus Gulf. Hawk was somewhat surprised to discover just how little there was to go on. According to the few pertinent records that Keru had managed to retrieve--which had come, thanks to the barrenness of the Gulf, mostly from some of the more obscure stellar cartographic al journals, as well as from his correspondences with colleagues serving aboard other Federation starships--the random subspace fluctuations in the vicinity had intensified substantially over the past two years. Prior to that, even the most patient and long-suffering researchers hadn't seen fit to spend much time taking readings in the Gulf; one science-vessel commander had characterized the entire region as a kind of "interstellar tabula rasa."
Hawk was back at his post, mentally reviewing the dates, locations, and intensities of all known subspace fluctuations in the Geminus Gulf when the turbolift opened. Batanides strode out, dressed impeccably in her admiral's uniform, her face once again composed. Hawk knew she must be holding in an enormous amount of emotional strain following the death of her lover. What he didn "t know was whether or not she had been aware
of the ambassador's involvement with Section 31. Had Tabor managed to keep his association with the bureau a secret from her as well?
His eyes tracked her as she went to sit at Picard's right-hand side, in the chair usually occupied by Will Riker. She gave Hawk a brief glance--and in that look he saw not the slightest glimmer of recognition. At that instant, the lieutenant became relatively certain that even if she did know about Tabor's activities, she remained unaware of the ambassador's efforts to recruit him.
Hawk's mind raced as he turned back to the conn and the viewer, while behind him, Picard and Batanides conversed in low tones.
A few minutes later. Data interrupted them, his eyes steady on the screen while his fingers slid across his console.
"Captain, I believe the probe has encountered something."
"What specifically, Mr. Data?" Picard looked at the screen intently, though the starfield looked no different now than it had moments before.
"Impossible to tell for certain, sir. There is definitely an energy field being generated at coordinates 294 by 025 by minus 121. It appears to be a cloaking field of some kind, though its size is larger than anything our computers have ever mapped."
"Is it natural?"
"Unknown. It could be a natural phenomenon, but the readings I am seeing are inconclusive. It is also possible that the field is technological in origin."
"Which doesn't tell us much," Picard said.
"Data, approximately how large would you estimate this field to be?"
The android cocked his head slightly, a move that Hawk recognized as a sign that Data's curiosity had been piqued.
"The probe is moving along the outskirts of the
field now. It appears that the cloak may cover a volume of space roughly the size of a large gas giant planet."
"What?" Batanides leaned forward in Riker's chair, a surprised look on her face.
"Are you saying there's a cloaked planet in this system?"
"Not necessarily, sir. We do not know what is cloaked, nor if anything is indeed 'cloaked" in the traditional sense of the word."
Picard spoke up, pointing at the screen.
"Data, what happens to the signals that the probe is sending toward the field?"
"They disappear, sir. They are not reflected, nor deflected.
All trace of them is gone."
Hawk fidgeted slightly at his console. Before he realized he was doing it, the captain evidently noticed it.
"Is there something you want to contribute, Mr. Hawk?"
"Captain, may I suggest
that we attempt to send the probe into the field itself?" Hawk asked, relieved.
"At worst, we get one of our probes destroyed."
"Yes, perhaps you're right," Heard said agreeably.
"We might be able to get some valuable telemetry readings from a probe, even if the field does destroy it. I think the Enterprise is sufficiently far from the... anomaly to prevent whatever happened to the Slayton from happening to us.
Still, we can't be too careful." Picard then raised the volume of his voice, though everyone on the bridge was clearly already listening.
"Yellow alert. Shields at maximum."
Then, the captain nodded toward the young helmsman.
"Go ahead, Mr. Hawk." The lieutenant moved his fingers over the console swiftly, while to his left. Data stared attentively at the numbers and pictographs displayed on the screen.
The silence on the bridge was palpable, and all eyes were on the viewer. Suddenly, the blackness of space
began slowly wavering, as if the starfield were a curtain being moved aside. For an instant, the viewer showed the infinite emptiness behind that curtain, and then in a burst of static it was gone.
"All signals from the probe have stopped, captain," said Data. He tapped at his console, then turned his head toward Picard.
"I cannot restore contact."
"What did we just see?" Picard asked as he rose to his feet.
"Whatever it was, it lasted precisely .763 seconds."
"Interesting. If I had blinked at the wrong moment I would have missed it. Replay and freeze the image."
"Yes, sir." Once again, the viewscreen displayed the hazy picture, suspending it in time. The effect was like looking into a warped funhouse mirror, with space itself showing odd distortions, and reflections of the probe broken up throughout the image. The only tangible looking object visible in the immediate foreground appeared to be an artificial satellite of some sort; the numerical telemetry overlays, which Data displayed on the viewer, showed that the device was no larger than a Starfleet shuttle pod
