“In searching the Breen freighter,” Picard said, “we conducted exhaustive sensor scans. We found two items of particular note: Jem’Hadar DNA, and morphogenic tracer particles. The quantities of each tell us that at least seven separate Jem’Hadar boarded the Breen freighter, along with at least one Changeling.”
Tomalak felt his jaw tighten, and he forced himself to relax. “You’re lying,” he said, but even he thought his tone sounded unconvincing.
“At least one of us is,” Picard said. “My motive for lying might be to attempt to get you to admit something to me that you do not wish to tell me. But what would your motive be?”
Tomalak said nothing.
“Obviously, you don’t want the Federation to know that the Typhon Pact initiated contact with the Dominion,” Picard said, answering his own question. “But that doesn’t address what cargo you might have hidden aboard the Breen freighter—unless you are that cargo.”
“What?” Tomalak said, but then he understood Picard’s point. “You think I’m a Changeling.”
“Given the information I have, is that not a reasonable conclusion?” Picard said.
Tomalak stared at Picard, unsure how to respond. The captain clearly possessed the evidence for his deduction, despite its being fallacious. If Tomalak could demonstrate the falsehood to Picard, then perhaps he could drive him away from the truth. “It may be a reasonable conclusion,” he said, “but that does not make it correct.”
“Are you willing to prove that it’s not?” Picard asked.
Tomalak almost asked how the captain expected him to do that, but he knew how. Like the Federation, the Empire had fought against the Founders during the Dominion War, and so knew how to unmask them. He also realized why Picard had called in another of his crew. “You may take a sample of my blood,” Tomalak said, standing up. He knew that any part of a Changeling separated from its body would revert to its gelatinous state.
“Nurse Gigon,” Picard said.
The blond woman reached to the pouch at her side, opened it, and withdrew a handheld device with a clear tube attached to it. As she approached Tomalak, he again considered taking action—perhaps throwing an arm around the nurse’s neck and threatening her life—but as before, he decided against it. Gigon lifted the device to the side of his shoulder and pressed it against him. Tomalak glanced at the tube and saw his green blood flowing into it. When the nurse pulled the device away, she withdrew the tube, held it up for Picard to see, and waited.
Nothing happened. The blood remained blood.
“Are you satisfied now of my identity, Captain?” Tomalak asked.
“Oh, I’ve always known who you are, Tomalak,” Picard said. “Nothing that you’ve said, nothing that happened at Deep Space Nine, nothing that happened on the Eletrix or the Breen freighter has changed that.”
The captain looked to his officers. “Thank you, Nurse, Lieutenant,” he said. The two women moved to the front of the cell, and Picard followed. The security chief kept her weapon trained on Tomalak until all three had exited to the outer chamber and the force field had been reestablished.
As the two women moved out of sight, Picard peered back into the cell. Tomalak expected him to say something, but he didn’t. He simply turned and left.
Tomalak didn’t know how, but suddenly he had the feeling that the captain had just bested him.
5
As the transporter effect completed and her vision cleared, Ro Laren thought that they had been beamed to the wrong coordinates. She stood in a pool of light that did not extend much beyond the portable, two-person emergency platform on which she and her security chief had materialized. Still, despite her inability to see much around her, she sensed that they had arrived in a large space.
Ro stepped down from the platform, as did Jefferson Blackmer beside her. The hollow scuff of their boots on the concrete floor reinforced the impression of openness about them. Ro glanced up and saw a single illuminated lighting panel in a ceiling at least ten meters above her head. The air smelled stale. “Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked, still peering upward. Her voice echoed back to her from the shadows.
“I verified the coordinates before we beamed down,” said Blackmer. “And I confirmed our meeting with both the defense and transportation ministers.” They both turned in place, looking around, but Ro could not see beyond the circle of light in which they stood. “Maybe we should contact the ship,” Blackmer suggested.
Ro agreed. She began to reach for her combadge when a loud, echoing thud resounded about them. Banks of lighting panels in the ceiling simultaneously activated, illuminating a large, warehouselike space. Ro saw that the portable transporter platform lay at one end of an area that measured perhaps twenty meters wide and twice as long. Great, gray walls stretched unbroken all around, containing no doors and no windows. In addition to lighting panels, air-transfer ducts lined the arced roof overhead. Rows of computer interfaces, companels, and other equipment, all appearing inactive, marched from side to side throughout the space.
Ro turned to look behind her. In each corner of the building there, she saw an enclosed room with a single door. A sizable, solid gate, clearly intended for the movement of large equipment into and out of the space, stretched between the two rooms, in the building’s front wall. Above the gate, rows of Bajoran characters spelled out WYNTARA MAS CONTROL CENTER.
One of the smaller doors opened, and a pair of Bajoran Militia officers appeared, both of them conspicuously armed. They took positions on either side of the doorway, and then four other individuals followed them out. Ro had expected both Bajor’s ministers of defense and transportation at the meeting, but it surprised her to see the first minister.
Asarem Wadeen strode directly toward Ro and Blackmer, and the captain stepped around the portable transporter platform to greet her. The popularly elected head of Bajor’s government, Asarem had captured an impressive sixty-seven percent of the vote when she’d won her second sexennial term a year earlier. Immediately after the end of the Cardassian occupation, the provisional government had appointed her second minister, a position she held for five and a half years until she replaced First Minister Shakaar Edon upon his assassination. Shortly after that, during the regular election cycle, she’d been returned to the government’s highest office by the people of Bajor.
Asarem stopped in front of Ro. The first minister wore a tailored scarlet suit, a color that complemented her long black hair and sienna complexion. She stood more than a dozen centimeters shorter than Ro, but the confidence with which she carried herself and the charisma she projected made her seem larger than life.
“Captain Ro,” said Asarem. “It’s good to see you again, though I wish of course that it could have been in more pleasant circumstances.”
“Thank you, First Minister,” Ro said. “It’s good to see you, but I didn’t expect you here this afternoon. I hope everything’s all right.”
“As well as it can be, given the situation,” said Asarem. “I wanted to welcome you to Bajor in person, and to thank you for all that you and your crew did in evacuating Deep Space Nine. I understand that you succeeded in saving more than ninety percent of the people on board.”
“More than ninety percent of the civilians, yes,” Ro said. Although she had no desire to correct the first minister, she could not ignore the ultimate sacrifice that so many of her crewmates had made. “Nearly eighty-four percent overall, but we lost almost three-quarters of the crew.” The captain felt pressure behind her eyes as tears threatened. In the week since the destruction of DS9, she had fought many times against crying, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In addition to having to face the deaths of so many of her crew—deaths for which she felt responsible—she also counted many friends, both Starfleet and civilian, among the casualties. She both anticipated and dreaded the memorial ceremony she would lead tomorrow in Ashalla, Bajor’s capital. Over the previous seven days, it had been hard enough to console her own crew—and impossible t
o console herself.
Asarem closed her eyes and bowed her head briefly before looking up at Ro again. “I’m very sorry for your losses,” she said. “I offer my condolences.”
“Thank you, First Minister.”
Asarem waited for what Ro considered a respectful moment, and then the Bajoran leader turned to her left and motioned toward the heavyset man there. “I believe you know the minister of transportation, Kifal Illior,” she said. Kifal had thinning brown hair, but a full, neatly trimmed beard. Ro acknowledged him with a nod.
“And this is our new minister of defense, Ranz Vecta,” Asarem continued, gesturing to the man at her right. Ro had first seen him on the comnets when Asarem had nominated him to replace the outgoing defense minister, who’d chosen to retire from public life. After Ranz’s confirmation by the Chamber of Ministers, the captain had made sure to read up about him. Much younger than the man he’d succeeded, he looked barely older than forty, but his résumé boasted two decades of impressive military service, first in the Resistance and then in the Militia. He stood at least a head taller than Ro, with chiseled features and unusually dark eyes. As with Kifal, the captain nodded to him.
“And you know my aide, Enkar Sirsy,” Asarem concluded, pointing out the final member of her party. The first minister did not introduce the Militia officers, who hung back at a watchful distance.
“Of course,” Ro said. “It’s good to see you, Sirsy.” It pleased Ro that Asarem had brought Enkar with her, rather than her other aide, Theno. While the captain usually enjoyed Theno’s impertinent attitude, she didn’t think she would appreciate it that afternoon.
After Ro introduced Blackmer, Asarem said, peering around, “So, what do we have here?”
“Many years ago,” said Minister Kifal, “this installation housed the transportation control center for the province of Wyntara Mas.” He turned and pointed up at the writing on the wall behind him. When he looked back, he began walking forward, toward where equipment crowded the space from wall to wall, and the group followed.
“‘Many years ago’?” Ro said. “How far back are we talking about?”
“This control center was put into operation not long before the Occupation,” he said, which put its age somewhere near the half-century mark. As the group came abreast of the equipment, Ro had no trouble believing that. In addition to the thick layer of dust that covered everything—she noted that everybody’s footsteps left trails along the floor—the technology appeared well out of date. “But even after the Cardassians officially annexed Bajor,” Kifal continued, “this center continued to function. It coordinated all active transportation for the entire province: ground vehicles, shuttles, and transporters. It even monitored orbital traffic, though it fed that data to the consolidated space center in Musilla. Only later, when Central Command began limiting the movements of Bajorans, did the Cardassians shut this place down.”
Ro stopped at a bank of computer interfaces and dragged her hand along the surface of a monitor. Her fingertips left tracks in the dust. “So this place hasn’t run in how long?” she asked. “Thirty years? Forty?”
“Actually, after the end of the Occupation, we reopened this center,” Kifal said. “It required a great deal of updating, but we brought it back on line relatively quickly. It functioned effectively for three years, until we finished constructing the new planetary operations center.”
“So it’s been about a decade then?” Blackmer asked. Kifal nodded.
“I don’t mean to offend,” Ro said, examining the computer interface before her, “but this equipment not only looks old, it looks obsolete.”
“Some of it is,” said Kifal. He moved beside Ro and tapped at a control on the interface. It blinked slowly to life and displayed a menu of functional options. “As you can see, the overall design appears outmoded, and there’s a lag in some operations. But as a part of our efforts to use this place while we built the planetary ops center, we reconstructed the infrastructure that connects Wyntara Mas to other decentralized facilities, as well as to the Militia net.”
Minister Ranz walked over, and Kifal moved out of the way to allow him access to the computer interface. Ranz leaned in and worked its controls. A series of additional menus appeared in rapid succession, and he navigated through them until Ro saw a banner that read BAJORAN PLANETARY OPERATIONS CENTER. Ranz stepped through a couple of other menus before calling up a list of names and designations. He scrolled down until he evidently found the entry he wanted, which he selected with a touch. An external technical diagram of a familiar Starfleet vessel appeared. Ro read the label above it: U.S.S. Defiant, NX-74205. Below, she saw a shifting set of long numbers that she recognized as orbital coordinates.
“Your ship, Captain,” Ranz said.
“Is this in real time?” Ro asked.
“It is,” Ranz confirmed. “As Minister Kifal indicated, the infrastructure supporting this installation was upgraded a little more than a decade ago. It’s not the most advanced technology, but it is functional. For access to orbital data, we’re networked with planetary ops.”
“We also understood that Starfleet would retrofit this center with its own computers, interfaces, and communications,” Kifal said. “That would obviously increase efficiency. Also, communications relays in orbit of Bajor would link continuously to whichever Starfleet vessels are patrolling the Denorios Belt.”
At the moment, Ro knew, Canterbury, Brisbane, and Venture had been assigned that duty, with Enterprise headed for Earth and Robinson undergoing repairs. Admiral Akaar had ordered Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to verify that the Jem’Hadar remained within Dominion borders. After confirming that, Ro had taken the ship, cloaked, on long tours through the Bajoran system, on guard against additional incursions by the Typhon Pact.
“With a continuous comlink to those ships,” Kifal went on, “you can monitor readings from the Celestial Temple.” Ro noticed that the transportation minister didn’t say wormhole, and she wondered what term he would have employed had he been speaking with, say, a human Starfleet captain.
Ro looked around again at the facility. She tried to imagine her crew—What’s left of my crew—working there, but she couldn’t see it. At the same time, she knew that they had few other reasonable choices. “How many personnel can this place accommodate?”
“There are ninety-eight individual workstations,” Kifal said. “But during the upgrades, we might be able to expand that.”
Ninety-eight, Ro thought, knowing that the equipment that would have to be installed would not increase the capacity, but probably cut it by a third, meaning that the center would probably handle only sixty or so of her crew at a time. That’ll be tight. Starfleet intended to assign her another two hundred fifty personnel shortly, which would bring her crew up to just over five hundred in number—still nearly four hundred fewer than she’d had on the station. The plan she had submitted to Starfleet Command called for some of her crew to stay aboard Defiant, while the rest worked at a ground-based facility on Bajor, until a replacement for Deep Space 9 could be constructed. If a replacement is constructed, she thought, realizing that she did not know how Starfleet, the Federation Council, and the Bajoran government would decide to proceed.
But if Starfleet agreed with her proposal to split the DS9 crew between Defiant and Bajor, she’d have to figure out how to do that. Normal capacity for Defiant topped out at forty, and with space for just sixty in the Wyntara Mas center, that meant that she would have the combined capacity for a hundred crew on each of three shifts; that still left her with no place for more than two hundred personnel. Presently, they pushed Defiant’s limits with sixty of her crew aboard, while the other two hundred had been temporarily assigned to the other ships in the system.
Addressing the first minister, Ro said, “I take it that this is the best option available.”
“There are obviously more advanced centers on Bajor,” Asarem said, “but they are all in heavy use. As I understand it, if we chose to adapt
one of those, it would take almost as much time to settle Starfleet personnel into it as here, but then Bajor would also have to modify this facility for the displaced functions, creating far more work overall.”
“I understand,” Ro said. She regarded Kifal and Ranz. “You’ve consulted with Starfleet about this proposal?”
“We have,” Kifal said. “We believe that with only a few immediate modifications, Starfleet personnel can begin using this center in just ten days. Upgrades would continue after that for another thirty.”
“What about security?” Blackmer asked.
“The walls, floor, and roof were constructed with a layer of kelbonite,” Ranz said. “It naturally interferes with the transporter, which is why we needed the targeting platform to beam inside. It also has a defensive shield grid, although that could also use an upgrade.”
Blackmer peered over at Ro. “We can work with that, Captain.”
“Well, it’s not a massive, modern space station at one end of the wormhole,” Ro said, “but we no longer have one of those, so I guess this will have to do.” She still didn’t know how she would find enough work space for her crew, but she would do what she had to do. “We’re expecting the arrival of a new chief engineer shortly,” Ro said, her voice cracking slightly as she thought of Jeannette Chao, who had perished on the station. “When he arrives, I’d like to send him down here to get his opinion, but in the meantime, I’ll contact Starfleet Command to tell them that I believe we can proceed.”
“Very good,” said Asarem. “I’m glad that we can be of assistance.”
Ranz reached down and deactivated the computer interface. As he and Ro started forward, back toward the portable transporter platform, the rest of the group did as well. They had only gone a couple of steps, though, when the first minister said, “I’d like a moment more of your time, Captain.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 11
