Precipice

by David Mack

  He landed on his face.

  “Fourteen–six,” Desai said with a triumphant grin.

  “I hate this game,” Jackson said.

  July 31, 2267

  A chirping comm woke Rana Desai from a deep sleep. She opened her eyes to near-total darkness inside her quarters and hoped she had merely dreamed the beeping tone that announced an incoming message. Listening to the soft background hum of the station’s ventilation system, she was almost ready to close her eyes and let herself drift back to sleep when the alert sounded again. It was a triple tone, which indicated a priority signal.

  Desai stifled a groan and pushed aside her bed covers. She picked up her soft cotton bathrobe from the floor and wrapped it around her naked body as she got up. Tying shut her robe, she padded out of her bedroom to the main room of her quarters and slipped into the chair behind her desk.

  She silenced the comm alert before it could shrill again, then activated her desktop monitor. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, a familiar face appeared on-screen.

  It was T’Prynn. “Hello, Captain,” the Vulcan woman said. “I apologize if I woke you.”

  Shock put an edge on Desai’s whispered reply. “T’Prynn? What are you … ? What’s this about?”

  “It is urgent that I speak privately with you,” said T’Prynn, whose surroundings were nondescript but resembled a ship. “However, given my current status, a face-to-face discussion seemed imprudent.”

  In no mood to be manipulated by the former intelligence officer, Desai said, “You’re facing charges ranging from tampering with Starfleet medical records to going AWOL. The only conversation I’m willing to have with you is the one in which you surrender yourself to Starfleet.”

  “I think you should make an exception in this case,” T’Prynn said. “The reason I am contacting you is that I am offering to trade intelligence.”

  “Then you’ve contacted the wrong person,” Desai said. “You should be talking to your successor, Commander ch’Nayla.” With mocking sweetness, she asked, “Should I transfer you?”

  Unfazed by Desai’s challenges, T’Prynn said, “I have proof the Klingon military is conspiring with criminal elements associated with the Orion known as Ganz and his entourage aboard the Omari-Ekon. I would be willing to trade my evidence for certain pieces of information regarding Starfleet’s current activities aboard Vanguard.”

  “Tempting,” Desai said. “Surrender yourself and we can talk about it in detail for as long as you’d like.”

  “The Klingons appear to have solicited the services of a suspected master thief,” T’Prynn said. “This is unusual behavior for the Klingons, who as a rule take whatever they want by brute force. Their actions in this case suggest either they lack the strength to take what they want, or they wish to conceal the fact they are the ones who have taken it.” She arched one eyebrow. “What I wish to know is this: What might be of such great value and dire risk to the Klingons that they would resort to hiring criminals to acquire it on their behalf?”

  Desai replied, “Those are all very interesting questions. I’m sure Admiral Nogura and Commander ch’Nayla will be willing to give them all due consideration when they interview you in the brig here on Vanguard.”

  T’Prynn remained the picture of calm. “I understand your reticence to trust me or to share classified operational data. That’s why I am prepared to offer you a valuable item of intelligence up front, as a demonstration of my good faith.”

  “Why can’t you understand this, T’Prynn? You’re a fugitive from Starfleet military justice. Until you turn yourself in, nothing you say will be compelling enough for me to treat you as anything other than a suspect. Are you listening to me? Until you surrender, it won’t matter what you tell me.”

  “Diego Reyes is alive and in Klingon custody.”

  Desai recoiled from the screen. “You’re lying.”

  “I assure you, Captain, I am not.”

  Shaking her head in furious denial, Desai said, “You have a long track record as a liar, T’Prynn. You tell people what they want to hear, you manipulate them, blackmail them—”

  “I am guilty of those offenses,” T’Prynn said. “And one day soon I will stand and answer for them in a Starfleet court. But what I have told you is true: Diego Reyes is alive. I have proof of it, recorded less than forty-eight hours ago, and I can tell you on what vessel he is being held.”

  “Tell me now,” Desai said, even as she felt the wound of her months-old grief being torn open by T’Prynn’s news.

  “First I require information. The only location in the Taurus Reach where the Klingons would be reluctant to attempt a seizure by force is Vanguard. What is currently aboard the station for which they would be willing to engage the services of a professional thief?”

  Desai’s inner skeptic told her not to trust T’Prynn. “No,” she said. “I won’t be tricked, not like this.” Her anger flared. “You know what Diego meant to me. I won’t let you use those feelings to make me give you what you want.”

  “Captain—”

  Before the Vulcan could say another word, Desai terminated the transmission. The monitor went dark with a soft click. She pressed a button on her desk and opened an audio channel to the operations center. “Desai to ops.”

  Lieutenant Commander Yael Dohan, the station’s gamma-shift officer of the watch, replied, “Ops, this is Dohan. Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Commander, I need a trace on the source of the priority message I just received in my quarters.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Hang on a second.” Over the line, Desai heard people working and sharing reports in muffled conversations. A moment later Dohan was back on the line. She sounded confused. “Captain, I think you must be mistaken. The comm logs show no incoming messages to your quarters since yesterday at fourteen thirty-three hours.”

  Desai thumped the side of her fist on her desktop and mumbled under her breath, “Damn you, T’Prynn.”

  Dohan asked, “Do you want us to check the logs again, Captain?”

  “No, Commander. That’ll be all. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am. Good night.”

  The channel clicked closed, and Desai sat at her desk and fumed in the dark. Then she noticed Haniff standing in her bedroom doorway, the muscles of his nude body well defined by the light spilling from her desktop monitor.

  He asked in a groggy voice, “Something wrong?”

  “No,” Desai lied. “Go back to bed.”

  He nodded, turned, scratched the back of his neck, and plodded back into the bedroom. Desai turned off her computer monitor, looked toward the bedroom, and sighed. If T’Prynn was lying, then she was even more cruel than Desai had ever thought. But if she was telling the truth …

  Then this is certainly going to make things a bit more interesting, Desai brooded.

  Pennington shook his head and fought to rein in his temper as T’Prynn shut down the comm terminal. “How could Desai be so stubborn? You practically gave her everything, and she still wouldn’t listen to you.”

  “She has good reason to doubt my veracity,” T’Prynn said. “An assessment with which I expect you could sympathize.”

  The Vulcan woman seemed completely untroubled by the harsh rebuff she’d just received from Captain Desai, and Pennington didn’t understand why. “Okay, so if the goal was to win her trust, why not just give her the coordinates for Kane’s rendezvous with the Klingons and let Starfleet sort it out?”

  T’Prynn got up from her seat. “Because we do not yet know what the purpose of that meeting is.” She walked aft, and Pennington followed her down the dark and silent corridor.

  “What difference does it make?” he asked.

  She answered over her shoulder, “If Kane’s transaction with the Klingons turns out to be innocuous, exposing it will be of little or no expiatory value to me.” The door to the ship’s only shower room opened ahead of her, and she continued inside with Pennington close behind her. “Furthermore, tipping off
Starfleet to that meeting before we establish its parties’ intentions would prematurely alert Ganz and his retainers to the breach in their internal communications by Starfleet Intelligence.”

  He turned his back as T’Prynn began undressing. Though she had shown no sense of self-consciousness about disrobing in front of him during their months alone in space, he nonetheless felt discomfited each time it happened. He asked, “So what do we do now?”

  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed T’Prynn setting her folded garments inside a cubby hole above the changing bench. “We will proceed to the rendezvous coordinates and establish a surveillance position.”

  “More low-energy, run-silent-run-dark, then?”

  “Correct. Radio silence and a minimal energy signature will be essential to avoiding detection while we await the arrival of Mister Kane and his Klingon clients.” Nude, she stepped into the shower and turned on the water. “Be patient. I suspect that whatever Kane is up to will be revealed soon enough.”

  30

  August 1, 2267

  In the hubbub of Vanguard’s security center, a system-failure alert came and went so quickly on one of the junior officers’ boards that Haniff Jackson almost didn’t notice it. “Seklir,” he said to the young Vulcan man. “Report.”

  Seklir keyed in commands, eyed the data on his monitor, and replied, “Power failure in tube four of the main turbolift hub. The cause appears to be an overloaded plasma conduit, which has caused a fire condition on Cargo Deck B.”

  “On screen three, please,” Jackson said.

  The image appeared in one frame of the master situation monitor. Flames leaped from cracks in a bulkhead, and smoke billowed from a slagged plasma conduit, filling the corridor.

  Jackson asked, “Are fire-control teams responding?”

  “Affirmative,” Seklir said. “The deck officer reports the fire is contained. Sections one-ninety through one-ninety-eight of Cargo Deck B have been evacuated and sealed off until fire teams arrive.”

  The security chief nodded. Closing off sections threatened by fire was standard procedure. It limited the supply of oxygen to the blaze and curtailed its ability to spread.

  Then he realized the fire was directly above the classified laboratory known to its resident scientists as the Vault. “Seklir, deploy additional security teams to Cargo Deck A, in sections one-ninety through one-ninety-eight.”

  “Aye, sir,” Seklir said.

  As the Vulcan ensign relayed Jackson’s order to the deck officer on the lowest occupied level of the station, the image from Cargo Deck B went dark on the master display screen.

  “What just happened?” demanded Jackson.

  Seklir worked at his terminal for a moment. “The fire has spread into the security node at juncture CB/one-ninety-two.” He looked up at Jackson. “We have lost surveillance video and internal sensors on Cargo Decks A and B.”

  Jackson had a feeling something bad was about to happen. And this day started off so well, he thought. He turned and snapped to his deputy, “Signal ops to sound Yellow Alert.”

  Heihachiro Nogura smiled at his yeoman as she set a tray bearing his lunch on his desk. “Thank you, Ensign.”

  “You’re welcome, Admiral,” said Ensign Toby Greenfield. The diminutive brown-haired young woman asked, “Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?”

  “No,” said Nogura. “But I’d like to move the meeting with the department heads back to sixteen thirty hours.”

  Greenfield nodded. “I’ll let them know, sir.”

  Nogura nodded his acknowledgment, and Greenfield left. The admiral picked up a spoon and began enjoying his chicken noodle soup.

  The Yellow Alert klaxon whooped once, and the comm signal on his desk buzzed. Spoon still in hand, he reached over and opened the channel. “What’s going on?”

  “Admiral,” replied executive officer Commander Jon Cooper, “we’re receiving an emergency report from Doctor Marcus.”

  “Details,” Nogura demanded.

  “She says toxic gas is flooding the Vault. Security informs me the fumes might be a byproduct of a plasma fire on Cargo Deck B.”

  Pushing aside his lunch, Nogura said, “Evacuate the Vault.”

  “Yes, sir. Engineering is deploying a hazmat unit.”

  “Belay that,” Nogura said, wary of sending personnel who lacked the proper security clearances into the classified lab. “Contain the situation and seal the lab until Doctor Marcus’s team is able to initiate its own recovery protocols.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cooper replied. “Evacuating the Vault now.”

  Blue fog gave every light source in the lab a pale halo as Carol Marcus fought for breath and waved her people toward the Vault’s exit. “Move it, people!” she shouted.

  Hot, hacking coughs wracked her chest with pain. Fumes stung her eyes, which watered and blurred her vision. Through her hazy veil of sight she struggled to identify and account for all her people. They stampeded past her, toward the bright-white tube tunnel that led back to the nondescript maintenance office they used as their cover address within the station.

  She spotted Ming Xiong easily—he was the only person not running for his life. He stood at the exit, shouting to those who couldn’t see to guide them to the door. “Gek! Tarcoh! This way, c’mon!”

  Dr. Tarcoh, a middle-aged Deltan theoretical physicist, collapsed a few meters shy of the door. Marcus staggered out of the line of escaping personnel and labored to help the tall but seemingly fragile man to his feet. She supported his weight as they stumbled the rest of the way to the exit.

  As she passed Xiong, she asked him in a hoarse voice, “Is that everyone?”

  “I think so,” he said, slipping under Tarcoh’s other arm so he could help Marcus carry the man out.

  They exited the brightly lit tunnel into office CA/194–6. The twenty-odd scientists who had left the lab ahead of them had packed the office beyond capacity and spilled out its open door into the corridor beyond. A Starfleet security officer was at the door, waving the scientists out of the office. “Everyone please move into the main corridor,” he said. “We need to seal this compartment! Please proceed to the corridor in an orderly manner and wait there for additional instructions.” The security officer reached out a hand to help steady Tarcoh. To Marcus and Xiong he said, “There are medical teams on the way. Take him to the junction at section one-ninety-two.”

  Marcus and Xiong nodded at the security officer, who waved them past, ushering them out the door. In the corridor, the other scientists cleared the center of the passage and stood with their backs to the walls.

  Looking back to ask the security officer how soon the medical teams would arrive, she didn’t see him anywhere. Then she saw the door to CA/194–6 was closed. For a moment she wondered whether the security officer had sealed the compartment from the inside or from the outside, but there was no time to ask questions. She already had her hands full.

  Lieutenant Jackson reached Cargo Deck A and sprinted out of the turbolift. He was several sections away from the Vault because the turbolift shaft closest to the lab had lost power when the fire had started on Cargo Deck B.

  His every step echoed off the metal deck plates as he ran through the corridors. He saw people standing outside the lab as he passed the junction for section one-ninety-eight. Many of them were dressed like civilians; he guessed they were the scientists who worked in the Vault. Mingled with them were members of the security detail he had sent down to secure the area. Everyone stood aside and let him pass. He kept running until he saw Dr. Marcus and Lieutenant Xiong kneeling beside a middle-aged man with a bald pate.

  “Doctor Marcus!” exclaimed Jackson. “Is everyone all right?”

  Marcus waved at Jackson as if signaling him to slow down. “We’re fine,” she said. “The lab’s been evacuated and sealed.” Throwing a nervous look back toward the Vault’s cover location, she added, “I think one of your men might have locked himself in trying to seal it, though.”

 
Suspicion raised the hackles on Jackson’s neck. “One of my men is inside?” He looked at Xiong. “Which one?”

  Xiong shrugged. “No idea. Never saw him before.”

  Jackson started walking toward CA/194–6. He stopped at a wall panel and opened a comm channel to the security center. “Seklir, this is Jackson. Can you confirm which one of our people sealed the Vault after the evacuation?”

  “Checking, sir,” the Vulcan said. A moment later he added, “None of our people has reported sealing that compartment.”

  “Is anyone in the Vault right now?”

  “Internal sensors in that section are still offline, sir.”

  “Retask some from adja—”

  Something shook the station as if an earthquake had struck. Jackson and the others in the corridor were thrown to the deck as the lights went out. When emergency illumination flickered on, Jackson pushed himself back to his feet and opened an emergency-equipment panel. “Seklir, do you copy?”

  “Aye, sir. What is happening?” “Something just blew up inside the Vault,” Jackson said, retrieving a pair of goggles and a breathing mask with an air canister. “I’m going in to see what it was. Send everyone you can. I want this deck sealed. Got it?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Jackson ran back to the door and keyed in his security override code. With an asthmatic hiss the door slid open. Heat and fumes gusted into his face. He put on the goggles and strapped on the breathing mask. As he entered the smoky office, he secured the air canister to his belt and opened its valve.

  The concealed door to the lab had been shattered into millions of tiny fragments, which lay scattered both inside and outside the cylindrical tunnel. The passage, normally lit to an almost blinding degree, was dark. Jackson moved with speed but also caution. He drew his phaser as he neared the passage’s end.