I'm browsing through a list of quotations, trying to find an inspirational quote for the new ship's dedication plaque, when my ready room console shrills an urgent alert at me. I hit the comms channel. "Shohl," I say.
An unfamiliar face appears on the screen; human, light-skinned, dark-haired, rather narrow and sly-looking. "Admiral Shohl? I'm Captain Per Bengtsson, from the Diplomatic Corps... I'm a liaison officer to the Ferengi Alliance." Well, that explains the slyness. "We have a situation, and I think you might be the only person who can help me."
Sounds peculiar, but then there are so many different emergencies. "I'll do whatever I can, of course. What's the problem, Captain?"
"We have a joint research programme with the Alliance at a deep space research station, Alpha Two Twenty-Seven - I'm transmitting coordinates on your data subchannel now. A senior researcher, DaiMon Trelt, is asking for urgent assistance - he claims to be facing some sort of threat. The thing is, he can't - or won't - say what kind of threat it is, and he's insistent that there's a strict time limit."
Things start to fall into place. "I see. You need a ship out there, quickly, and it's got to be ready for any possible contingency. Which means you need a powerful, multi-role vessel... and there's only one around that's also fast enough."
Bengtsson gives me a rueful smile. "You catch on quickly, Admiral."
"It's happened before. All right. Send me whatever details you can along the data channel, and I'll get King Estmere under way."
---
King Estmere hurtles between the stars, her drive eating up the parsecs. In the briefing room, Bulpli Yulan, my security chief, calls up a holo-display; a bulbous, globular shape with a ring beside it.
"It's a very standard commercial station design," Bulpli says, her black Betazoid eyes intent on the data. "The particle accelerator ring is for high-energy research, which is consistent with what we've got on this DaiMon Trelt. From a security point of view - this is a commercial design, with no defensive capability worth speaking of. If it comes under attack, we'd have to do the work of keeping it safe. I've roughed out a possible plan using the Mesh Weaver frigates to support the station - but there are too many possibilities, I guess, for us to come up with anything definite."
I nod. "We've no idea how the station might be attacked, if there's even going to be an attack at all. Klerupiru, what else have you been able to find out about DaiMon Trelt?"
My Ferengi data-warfare expert tugs fretfully at her uniform collar. "Serious academic expert, and I mean serious," she says. "Plenty of credibility... and at least one real motive for making him a target. A paper released about a year ago suggests, well, if his current line of high energy research pans out... it could make it possible to replicate latinum, commercially."
"Oh." In theory, anything you can put through a transporter, you can make in a replicator. In practice, a transporter signal is holographic in form, self-encoding and almost self-deciphering; identifying the complex interrelations of coding molecules like DNA within it, or the intricate interlocking crystalline structure of dilithium, is almost impossible, so some substances are either non-replicateable, or too complex to replicate in commercial quantity. Latinum, a dense and mildly toxic superfluid amalgam, is unusual enough that a standard commercial replicator can't even approximate its physical properties, so the Ferengi use it as backing for their currency. But if it becomes possible to replicate latinum.... "Yes, I can see that having the potential to destroy the Ferengi economy might make him some enemies. How do you think they'd go for him?"
"There's any number of ways. Hired assassins, obvious, but still possible. And those computer systems on that station are wide open for subversion attacks - oh, sure, they have standard commercial-grade security, but what's that worth? And Trelt himself spends hours chatting on video links, they tell me." Klerupiru mutters something under her breath. "Data subchannels could be pouring whole teraquads of viruses into that system.... One thing occurs to me, we ought to rig some way of shutting down that accelerator ring in a hurry. Breach data security on that, you could make it blow up real big, real quick."
"A high-density tetryon pulse through the main deflector should be easy enough to set up," says Dyssa. "I'll program it in as a contingency thing."
"Do that. What about this thing Trelt is worried about? This countdown?"
"That's... kind of interesting," says Klerupiru. "Near as I can make out, there has to be some kind of adaptive software agent running in the cloud. I mean, the big cloud - the quadrant-wide data net. Every second or so, it rents a minuscule time-slice on some random data-transfer system and sends a subspace ping at Trelt, carrying a small data packet - a number. A steadily reducing number."
"Psychological warfare," says Bulpli. "Wearing him down."
"But he seems convinced something will happen when it reaches zero," I say. I frown. "Are we going to get to the station before the countdown runs out?"
"It'll be close, but I think so," says Klerupiru. She tugs at her collar again. "But what happens when it hits zero, I don't know."
---
"Coming out of warp," says Anthi Vihl. On the main screen, the streaking stars slow to points of light.
"Hailing the station now," says Cordul, the heavy-set Trill at the ops station. "Got them. Patching you through."
I clear my throat. "This is Admiral Tylha Shohl aboard the USS King Estmere," I announce. "We're responding to your request for assistance. As a first precaution, we're going to deploy our auxiliaries to support you. Please do not be alarmed."
"Launching Alpha," says Anthi. "Launching Bravo." Twin shudders as the first two Mesh Weaver frigates leave the launch bays. "No other traffic on scan."
"Get some tachyon detection going, in case of cloaked ships," I order. I have to think about every possibility... but the station, floating before me in deep space, looks peaceful enough right now.
"Aye, aye, sir. Launching Charlie. Launching Delta."
"Station admin has acknowledged, sir," says Cordul, "and I have a direct link to DaiMon Trelt."
"On screen."
Trelt is an ageing Ferengi, his face sagging with wrinkles. His ears are enormous. He's sitting in some kind of command chair with a high, flaring headrest - a lot more imposing than my command chair - and, behind him, there is a riot of coloured light, flickering horizontal lines behind some translucent barrier. His voice is high-pitched and indignant.
"There are only minutes left! Seconds!" he cries. "What sort of support do you call this?"
Gratitude. You have to love it. "We're here now, sir. My ship is more than adequate to cope with any threat - you couldn't be better defended by the USS Enterprise, I assure you. We can transport you aboard whenever you wish -"
"No!" Trelt yells. "I know what happened to Trosek when his timer ran out! And your Admiral Storok! I'm not trusting to your starship, Admiral! I'm staying here, where I know I'm safe!"
"And 'here' would be -?"
"The control cabin for the accelerator ring! I know every force, every energy that can be unleashed here, Admiral, and they all answer to me! I intend to stay right here until that timer has run out, and then -" He stops. He has obviously not thought past that point. "And then - we can decide what to do!" he finishes lamely.
"DaiMon Trelt -"
"Professor Trelt! I am a full Professor at the University of Taralcore! I have tenure! I earned my qualifications!"
I repress a sigh. "Professor Trelt, then. We should go over all the possible sources of threat, and see what King Estmere can do to counter each one. We're already defended against attack from space -"
"Trivial!" Trelt shouts. "The attack, when it comes, will come from some completely unexpected quarter!"
"Well," I say, trying to stay reasonable, "we need to go through the possibilities, so that it isn't unexpected. Sir -"
"We are in the final seconds!" Trelt screeches. "What possibilities can you think of -?"
"Data subversion and virus attacks, for a start. How secure are your systems?"
"They are -" Trelt begins. But he never finishes.
Behind him, the glowing lights grow brighter, and brighter, colours merging into a featureless glare. The Ferengi's chair is silhouetted against it - and then the glare breaks through, a brilliant light shining through Trelt's body, like a star suddenly bursting out on his chest. Trelt screams once, and falls silent. The image vanishes in a blast of static an instant later.
"Tetryon pulse!" I yell.
Dyssa is already hitting the engineering console. There is a grunt and a hum as King Estmere's power cycles shift, pouring energy into the main deflector. Someone has switched the channel on the viewscreen, and I can see the station, and the flames spitting from its wounded side. The accelerator ring is broken, is drifting away from the body of the station, spraying chunks of white-hot metal.
"Field established," says Dyssa. "The accelerator ring is neutralized... there's damage to the station, but it's containable." She turns towards me, and her face is ashen. "Containment failure on that accelerator ring," she says. "Like a tiny crack in the casing, but a beam came through -"
"Software intrusion," says Klerupiru. "Gotta be."
"Evacuate the station staff, and send in security teams to secure the computers. We'll prove that," I say.
"We damn near couldn't," says Dyssa. "That beam, it was aimed precisely. Through Trelt's comms console - and at the station's antimatter core. It was maybe half a second away from breaching antimatter confinement."
A gap in the accelerator's shielding - a narrow, white-hot needle of pure destruction emerging from it. It burned through Trelt in an instant, through the station's hull in a few instants more... and if it had reached the antimatter, the resultant explosion would have left nothing to investigate.
Someone is playing for keeps.
---
Hours pass, while the station's shaken crew is evacuated, while Klerupiru and Bulpli begin their forensic investigations - and I make my preliminary report to Starfleet Command.
I don't expect a quick response, but I get one. I'm in my quarters, about to go to bed, when the comms console bleeps for my attention.
The face on the screen is one I know; dark-skinned, white-haired, human - Admiral Paul Hengest, of Starfleet Intelligence. "Your report rang all sorts of bells in my department," he says, without preamble.
"Sorry," I say. "What am I not supposed to know about, then?"
"The other countdowns," he says. "You must have heard about Admiral Storok -"
"Some sort of accident, the reports said?"
"Still might be. But he had a countdown, and it ran out exactly the same time his accident destroyed the USS Cumberland. We are trying to keep a lid on this. To avoid panic. As are the Republic, with the death of Admiral Trosek due to transporter failure. And the Klingons, with General Khlar found dead in his own ancestral estate." He draws in a ragged breath.
"And now we have a prominent Ferengi scientist dead, too?" I say.
"Also," says Paul, "Legate Enem Jerak, commander of the Cardassian Third Order, apparently assassinated by True Way fanatics in his home earlier today. And a high-up in the Breen Confederacy, Thot Sef - I don't have all the details on that one, yet, but somebody or something took out him and his Chel Boalg cruiser too."
"All with anonymous countdowns running?"
Paul nods. "The only thing I can think," he says, "is that somebody is sending a message. That they can reach out and get at us, reach right through our security and kill our people... and there's nothing we can do about it."
"We may be able to salvage something from the research station's computers," I say.
"That might be the first stroke of luck we've had so far," says Paul. "Otherwise, we have next to nothing to go on. Damn it, I don't need this. Not on top of everything else we've been through - and our other problems." His gaze sharpens suddenly. "Have you heard from Admiral Pexlini recently?"
"Not lately. She's officially off my hands, since we reassigned that Vaadwaur prize ship to her. I understood she was on her way back to the Delta Quadrant?"
"That was the plan, yes. Until the Mask of Dhalselapur turned up on the black market, with an astronomical price tag attached. We've got some questions for Pexlini over that business."
I stare at him, and try to marshal my thoughts. "Pex struck me as many things," I say, "but crooked wasn't one of them."
"I agree," says Paul, "but, well, the first rule of being a successful crook is not to look like one. And Pex is a successful crook, that's pretty much the definition of a good field operative. But with a security question already hanging over her, from that business with Kalevar Thrang, and now this.... Well. We'll just have to see what happens."
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