Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice

by James Swallow

  “But the Andorians want to come back into the Federation.”

  “They do now. But on their own terms, not Ishan’s.” Dax nodded over Vale’s shoulder. “Company is coming.” She turned and saw the warden and his aides, with Atia walking at their side.

  Vale got to her feet and looked down at the Trill. “Bashir’s side of things needs to be heard. For everyone’s sake.”

  “I don’t know where they took him,” she replied. “Protective custody, they said. Whatever the hell that means.”

  “You’re going to get a fair hearing, Dax. You have the right to your day before the Judge Advocate General in a formal court martial, the chance to put your side to the Federation. I promise you, Riker will make that happen.”

  “I know you believe that, Christine. I know Admiral Riker does. But still . . . I’m not hopeful. Not for me and the others . . . and especially not for Julian.”

  The Trill looked at her, and Vale saw an impossible, alien distance in her eyes; as if for a second she was peering into the depths of the nine lifetimes that existed inside the woman before her. She tried to imagine how Dax felt at this moment, isolated here and seemingly abandoned by her own colleagues.

  “We did the right thing,” the other woman repeated, “and now we’re going to pay the price.”

  Eight

  Tuvok lowered his head to enter the Snipe’s secondary cargo bay, pushing open the narrow manual hatch in front of him. He saw Nog standing with Jan Kincade and Tom Riker off to one side of the storage compartment, the trio dwarfed by the wall of bulk containers filling most of the rest of the chamber.

  Kincade turned as he arrived. “Good, we’re all here. Maybe we can get this done with, then?” She shot a look at Nog. “I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that we’re on a clock here, Lieutenant Commander.”

  The Ferengi shook his head. “Absolutely not, Colonel.” He looked at Tuvok. “Sir, could you secure the hatch behind you?”

  Tuvok did as he was asked, his interest piqued at Nog’s sudden insistence on security. It had been only a few hours after they had returned to the Snipe that Nog’s message had reached the Vulcan: a private summons to meet belowdecks. He was interested to know what had prompted this sudden shift in behavior from the engineer.

  On an overturned cargo pod that Nog was using as a table were a number of items, including a portable computer console and holographic projector, a tricorder and samples of plastics and metals each sealed in an environment-neutral packet. He gave them a quizzical look, attempting to glean their purpose.

  “You told me you had something important,” Kincade was pressing. “Do you or don’t you?”

  “Oh, I do,” Nog said, his teeth flashing in a quick grin.

  “Then why are we down here instead of up in the ops center?” asked Tom.

  Nog’s smile went away. “I thought . . . it might be better to discuss this privately first, with the ranking Starfleet officers on the team.”

  Tuvok nodded toward the human. “Mister Riker is neither of those things.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Tom muttered.

  “That’s true,” said Nog, “but he used to be. And I need him to confirm something for me.”

  “So?” Kincade’s patience was thinning. “Get to it.”

  The Ferengi rubbed his hands, and Tuvok sensed that he was taking some enjoyment from the thrill of his as-yet-unrevealed discovery. Nog picked up a shard of cracked, worn metal. “This is piece of the nillimite-alloy plate I recovered from the encampment site. I guessed that it was used as part of a landing platform for a transport ship of some kind.”

  Tuvok nodded. “That seems a likely probability.”

  “I think it’s going to lead us straight to our targets.”

  “A chunk of inert metal?” Tom seemed unimpressed. “Did they scratch their stellar coordinates into it?”

  “Almost.” Nog put down the alloy fragment and activated the holoprojector. An image of the shard blinked into being, floating in the air. Readouts and scan data haloed it. “The ship they used left a trace behind. It’s enough to figure out what kind of craft it was and get a good idea of where it came from.” He manipulated the projector’s controls, and the view zoomed in to the surface of the fragment, down to the microscopic level. The metal’s molecular structure became visible, arranged in layers of crystalline lattice. “I think our targets were using the same shuttlecraft on each trip they made to and from the ice world. The patterns of weight distribution, deformation of the landing platform, and the ground beneath all point to a uniformity. And each time they touched down . . .” He tapped another key, and the display highlighted what seemed to be great jagged-edged boulders ground into the minuscule landscape. “They left something behind, pressed into the ice and metal.”

  Tuvok peered at the image. “It is possible. Particulate matter gathered up on the skids of a shuttle could survive transit, especially if the landing gear was a retractable array. A trace amount would be deposited at the new landing site.”

  “So, like tracking dirt into the house on your boots,” Tom noted.

  “Exactly!” Nog replied. “I ran a biological and geological trace on the compounds left behind and separated out anything native to this world. There were . . . a lot of matches, and that was just in this sector. But there’s more here.” He highlighted another micro section of the shard. “I found oxidized deposits, which means a breathable atmosphere, and minute particles of refined tritanium, duranium, and nitrium.”

  “Rust and starship-grade hull metals,” said Tuvok. “Curious . . .” He glanced at Kincade, who said nothing. “But inconclusive.”

  “I’m not done yet,” Nog told him. “The ‘dirt,’ as Tom puts it, wasn’t all that they left behind.” He switched the display to show the same sample, but now the readouts were measuring levels of ambient radiation in the metal shard. “I realized that if they were landing a ship down there in the same spot on a regular basis, then the surrounding area would be marked with a radiation fingerprint. The decay patterns of energetic particles discharged when they touched down or lifted off.” The screen lit up with a complex series of nested waveforms. “This is the radiation residue trace of an impulse thruster. Once I realized that, I was able to guess the power output of the engine being used and cross-reference that with what data I had about the size and tonnage of the craft. We know it was small enough to land in the clearing near the encampment, but big enough to carry people and cargo.”

  Tom gave an appreciative nod. “Pretty clever, Nog. But it still doesn’t tell us where the targets ran to.”

  The Ferengi faltered for a moment. “Well. I mean, it’s a given we’re working on the hypothesis that they went to wherever the shuttle was based.”

  “Which could be the other side of the sector,” Kincade noted. “Hell, the other side of the quadrant if the shuttle had a parent craft to carry it . . .”

  Tuvok broke in before the conversation could drift. “For the moment, let us make the assumption they did not. Mister Nog, I presume you checked the impulse engine’s output pattern against known designs in the Starfleet database?”

  “Yes!” He grabbed a padd and brandished it like a trophy. “There’s a human phrase that Ro Laren used when she was security chief on DS9: ‘We caught a lucky break.’ The radiation trace matches up to one kind of impulse engine system that we know of. And with that pattern and the approximate size and mass of the shuttle, I was able to figure out exactly what kind of ship we’re looking for!” The Ferengi’s enthusiasm was building, and his words came quicker as he went on. “Knowing that, I could estimate the operating range of the target ship, narrowing it down based on approximate times between the deposits of the radiation traces and decay rates!” Nog barely paused to take a breath. “Overlay that with the minerals and metals data, and it was possible to isolate four different planets in the local sector as likely candidates for the shuttle base.”

  “That’s some impressive deductive reas
oning,” said Kincade, her tone flat. “All of which could be completely wrong if even one of your circumstantial assumptions is slightly off.” Before he could protest, she raised a hand to forestall any complaints. “Show me these planets.”

  Somewhat crestfallen, Nog offered the woman the padd he was holding, and Kincade gave it a narrow-eyed once-over before passing it to Tuvok. “Commander, your thoughts?”

  “If Mister Nog’s conclusions are correct, I suspect that this world is most likely the origin point of the shuttlecraft.” The Vulcan indicated a file showing a planet in the Iota Nadir system, a bleak sphere designated IN-748. “Federation survey data lists it as currently uninhabited, designated as an inactive site for materials recovery and vessel decommissioning.”

  Tom took the padd and glanced at it. “A breaker’s world,” he said, using the colloquial name. “A graveyard for derelict starships and scrapped tech.” He paused, absently stroking his beard. “Good location for a hideout. And it would explain the traces of hull metal particles and the rust.”

  “You said you know what kind of ship the targets are using.” Kincade turned back to Nog. “How?”

  The Ferengi took another long breath. “As I said, the impulse radiation only matches one class of sublight engine.” He pressed a key on the projector, and it displayed a blunt piece of machinery that resembled a metal tooth torn from the mouth of an iron giant. “I recognized this technology as soon as I saw it.” He tapped another button, and the engine component shrank to merge with the outline of a squat little spacecraft. It was heavy and thickset in design, and it reminded Tuvok of the desert beetles that colonized the sandy outskirts of Kir City on Vulcan.

  Nog was looking at Tom. “Mister Riker, can you tell us what kind of ship that is, please?”

  Tom answered without hesitation. “That’s a Duulet-class cargo shuttle. They used them all the time at the Lazon II penal colony.”

  “A Cardassian vessel,” Tuvok noted. “Not a Tzenkethi ship. You are absolutely certain of your findings, Lieutenant Commander?”

  Nog’s expression became firm. “I’d put latinum on it, sir.” He hesitated. “My uncle Quark told me there’s no such thing as a sure bet, but I think this is fairly close.”

  “But our targets are not Cardassians,” insisted Kincade. “The mission intel is very clear on that.”

  The Ferengi didn’t address her unspoken question. “After I pieced this information together, I went back down to the surface with Khob and took more samples, this time from the remains of the outpost tents.” Nog indicated the slivers of plastic. “All the life-support hardware left down there had been ripped out or wiped, but there was still trace data in the material of the walls themselves.”

  Tuvok understood. If the same environmental conditions were maintained inside a sealed building for a long enough period, that building’s structure itself would exhibit certain characteristics that could be measured, even after the initial conditions had been altered.

  Nog continued. “I was able to get a probable range for the internal temperature settings. Twenty-nine degrees centigrade. That was the standard ambient environmental protocol on space station Terok Nor . . . and it’s the standard on all Cardassian starships and outposts.”

  It was now clear to Tuvok why the engineer had chosen to partition this information before revealing it to everyone in the Active Four unit: Nog’s discovery went directly against what they had been told about their targets and their origins. He looked around, seeing the questions in the eyes of the others. After a moment, he spoke. “How do you wish to proceed with this new data, Colonel?”

  Kincade glanced at him. “We have orders not to break subspace radio silence unless it is a matter of extreme urgency. So for now, we proceed as before. Nog’s data is circumstantial, but it’s all we’ve got right now, so I’m willing to give it a crack of the whip.”

  “And the discrepancy?” Tuvok’s gaze was steady. “We were told we were hunting the Tzenkethi.”

  “As far as we know, we still are,” insisted Tom. “I have more reason to loathe the Cardassians than anyone on this ship, but Nog’s data doesn’t prove anything definitively. We’re here for one reason, and one reason only. To bring Bacco’s killers to justice. Right now, that’s the only thing that is certain.”

  “He’s right,” said Kincade, striding toward an intercom panel on the wall.

  She tapped the panel and a moment later Ixxen’s voice crackled over the link. “This is the bridge.”

  “Lieutenant, I want you to break orbit and set a course to the Iota Nadir system, planet designation IN-748. Maximum warp.”

  “Maximum, Colonel? That might attract some undue attention. . . .”

  “We’ll take that chance. Get it done. Kincade out.” She turned back to face Tuvok and the others, and her eyes were hard. “Until I say otherwise, what we talked about in here doesn’t leave this room, understood?”

  “Understood,” said Tuvok, holding his concerns silent for the moment.

  * * *

  The security contingencies in place at the Jaros II complex meant that the comparatively simple act of transferring cargo to the surface via transporter took a lot longer than it otherwise might have. Each separate container was required to be sent down individually and scanned by Warden Sisterson’s staff before the next item could be dropped off from the Lionheart. It seemed like going to extremes, but the warden had made it abundantly clear that he was taking no risks. He was going to follow the orders for heightened precautions laid down in the wake of the assassination on Deep Space 9 to the absolute letter.

  Christine Vale tried to put herself in the shoes of the commander of the penal complex; Sisterson had to be on edge, having suddenly gained custody of Ezri Dax and a handful of politically sensitive prisoners overnight. Even out here, word of the incident at Andor was circulating and there were some who—rightly or wrongly—were already finding ways to connect what happened there with the death of Nan Bacco.

  But Vale was actually pleased about the delay keeping them in orbit. Without it, she would have had little choice but to continue back on the Lionheart’s original heading to Starbase 47, her mission for Admiral Riker incomplete. Everything she had learned from Dax had only served to deepen her concerns and confirm what she already knew.

  Vale sat alone in the starship’s briefing room, which was situated on the deck below the main bridge. Much narrower and more confined than the similar space aboard the Luna-class Titan, Lionheart’s equivalent still commanded an impressive view of the medical cruiser’s secondary hull, ranging away from the windows in a gentle slope down over the aft shuttle bay toward the twin-warp nacelles. Jaros II’s surface was a static backdrop beneath the vessel, kept in geostationary lockstep as the laborious cargo transfer continued. The modified Nova-class starship didn’t have a captain’s ready room, and it wasn’t until she got on board that Vale realized how useful that private office could be to a commander. A place of isolation to think and take respite, even if only for a few moments . . . She wondered how some commanders could ever have done without it.

  The familiar three-tone bosun’s whistle of the intercom sounded, and Vale absently tapped at a control pad embedded in the surface of the conference table. “Go ahead.”

  There was a noticeable delay before the static-distorted voice of a woman answered her. “Commander Vale?”

  She resisted the urge to correct the person on the other end of the intercom. “Yes? Who is this?” Lionheart had only eighty crewmembers, but Vale didn’t know them all by the sound of their voices.

  “Commander, I have some information I think you might find useful. But I need to ask you a question first.”

  Vale sat down at the table, looking around the empty room. “Identify yourself. That’s an order.” For a long moment there was nothing, and Vale wondered if the mystery woman had closed the link, but no, she could still hear the faint hiss of static coming from the hidden intercom speakers. The channel was open; she just
wasn’t speaking. Vale scowled and tried a different tack. “Computer, what is the origin of the intercom signal directed to the briefing room?”

  “The briefing-room intercom system is currently inactive,” replied the synthetic voice.

  “What, am I dreaming this?” retorted Vale. “No, that’s not right. . . .”

  “As far as your ship’s computer is concerned, it is.” The woman broke her silence. “Don’t be alarmed. This is just a necessary precaution. It’s best if any conversation we have doesn’t leave a trace.”

  Vale heard the buzz of static again and something abruptly occurred to her. The interference patterns had the same texture as those heard over interstellar comm channels. “You’re not even on board this ship, are you?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, there’s quite a bit of distance between us.”

  “How are you doing this? You can’t just infiltrate a subspace radio signal into a ship’s internal communications grid. . . .” Vale trailed off. Clearly, if this mystery speaker was to be believed, then apparently that wasn’t the case. “This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” she snapped. “Who are you? And if I don’t get an answer I like, our little chat is over.”

  “I’m . . . a friend of Julian Bashir. I know that you’re trying to find him.”

  Vale tapped another key on the panel and a display flashed into life on a screen in the middle of the conference table. She frowned as she tried to bring up a data feed from the incoming signal, but all the screen showed was a scrambled mass of unintelligible noise, the same soup of cosmic background resonance that existed everywhere in the galaxy. “What makes you think that?”