"And this," says Director Da'mas, "is the main routing control room."
I nod politely. It is - well, it is a room. There is one technician on duty at a central control console, and a great many status display panels around the walls. There is one window, just past the control console, through which I can see the lowering grey-green clouds of Qo'noS over First City.
"From here," Da'mas continues, "we can monitor transporter traffic throughout the whole of First City, apart from those secure military transfers which must be routed through KDF stations only."
"It is one such transfer that I am trying to arrange," I murmur. Da'mas pays no attention. He has paid my words no attention since he first saw me. It is very easy to see where his attention is concentrated. My white-leather KDF uniform is not an Orion costume of silks and jewels, but it fits fairly snugly; I could wish, instead, that I had worn a shirt like the ones some human females wore in the past, the ones with a directional arrow and the printed message, My eyes are up here.
"Garaka has a secure cargo which must be transferred to registered storage vaults," I continue, uselessly. "I have all the details on my datapad." Well, not perhaps all... this is why I am trying to arrange the transport discreetly, after all. I silently curse my ill fortune. A simple clerk in the transporter logistics office would have been amenable to persuasion - but no, I had to cross paths with the Director himself, anxious to impress me with his authority....
"Bulk cargo is processed between these terminals." Da'mas makes a sweeping gesture at a row of status displays. "Impressive, is it not? The commercial lifeblood of the Empire flows along my pathways here! Millions upon millions of darseks flashing through the ether at any instant!"
By now, I could content myself with some few darseks - Something catches my eye. I frown, and step closer to one of the status boards. "What is that?"
"What?" Da'mas turns his attention away from my chest for a brief moment, to glance at the board.
"There is an overload building -" I step up to the display myself. I have monitored enough transporter traffic myself to see when there is a problem. "Freight reception pad - if I am reading it right, here in First City. Something is very wrong with it."
"It is nothing, I assure you. Automatics will handle it." He lays an overly familiar hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off.
"Automatics are clearly not handling it. Pad four one five dash three seven three - where is that? Physical location!" I snap at the technician.
His mind, fortunately, is on his work. "That's main freight reception - this building itself. Working to isolate that circuit -"
"No!" I snap back. "That is a massive overload - put it through and the pad will blow! Emergency cross-patch to the EPS grid!" First City's EPS grid, like that of a starship, is hardened to resist overloads - it can take this power surge and spread it over the whole of the grid, dissipating it harmlessly.
"Yes, sir!" the technician says, but he is drowned out by Da'mas's sudden shout of "No! Do not give orders in my control room, Orion!" It is all too easy for a Klingon to switch between lust and anger, when they even bother to make the distinction. "Let the automatics handle it!" He reaches over and strikes the technician's hands away from the console.
An alarm bleats, loudly, from the status board. "Connect to the grid!" I shout.
Da'mas turns on me, striking me in the face, hard enough that I stumble back. "Keep quiet!" He turns back to the control console. That is when I draw my disruptor and shoot him through the head.
But it is already too late - the thud of his falling body is drowned out in the sudden roar of an explosion below. The technician curses freely. "You were right - automatics failed - I shifted some of the load, but not enough -"
More alarms are screaming. I peer over the technician's shoulder at the main board. "Explosion, yes - fire in the infrastructure. Activate all failsafes."
"On it." His hands swipe across the board, throwing row after row of switches - shutting down the transporter network, before the fire can take hold of this station and send its signals into chaos. I hit my wrist communicator. "Shalo to Garaka."
"Here Garaka is." The scrambled syntax of the Gral Temm warrior, Foojoy - a capable officer, nonetheless. "Of interference, comms and transporter, much there is -"
"I know. We have an overload and explosion at the main commercial transporter control. Send an alert to the civil authorities and dispatch shuttles with fire-fighting and rescue gear."
"Of orders, confirmation there is. At your location, interference too much is, safe transport of living matter to permit."
"Can you transport non-living matter? Equipment?"
"Affirmative."
"Then lock on to my current coordinates," I say, "and beam down my CRM 200."
---
The Breen weapon is bulky, unwieldy, nearly as long as I am tall. It is also the most effective device I can think of using, in this situation. Its cryonic projection beam should make short work of the hottest wildfire.
Actual fire-fighting equipment will be on its way - First City responds quickly to disasters and attacks. There will be a delay, though, precisely because the transporter network is now down. I have every intention of surviving through that delay.
I do not know how extensive the damage is, but the overload was more than enough to blow up one transporter pad - the wailing alarms indicate structural damage and fire hazards aplenty. Thankfully, the layout of the facility is fresh in my mind, from the late Director's guided tour.
I make my way down the corridor, away from the control room. The overhead lights are flickering, and there is a distinct odour of smoke in the air. This private passage connects to a main thoroughfare, and thence to a bewildering maze of transit halls and loading bays, all with their adjacent transporter pads - I do not know how many more of those pads might have blown out and caught fire, as the power surge spread through the system. I curse Da'mas's memory. We could have spread that surge through the whole city - no one would have noticed it, except for a brief flicker in the lights -
There is plenty of flickering light ahead of me - hot and orange-red. The door at the end of the passage is already gaping open, and there is fire beyond. I narrow my eyes, take aim, and fire.
The beam from the CRM 200 is pallid and greyish, and it makes a savage hissing sound, and it is cold - I have only used this weapon while wearing a protective EV suit, before, and I have not felt the savage, bone-aching cold that radiates from it. But, where that grey beam strikes, the fire dies in a wide circle around it. I advance, cautiously.
The fires are out - in the immediate vicinity. But the air is hazy and choking with smoke, starved of oxygen, bitter in my eyes and my nostrils. Without breathing gear, I will not make it to an exit. Perhaps I can smash out the control room window, and get one of my shuttles to hover close enough to pick me up -
There is a frantic hammering sound from somewhere nearby. I turn, quickly. The hammering is repeated. Someone is pounding on a door, some way down the thoroughfare. I squint through the smoke, my eyes filling with tears. There is more hammering, and shouting.
I advance down the passage, holding the gun out in front of me. There is the thud of an explosion, the dull roar of more flames, somewhere nearby. Sparks jet from a ruptured conduit in the wall - I swing the gun around, quell the incipient blaze with a hissing jet of cold. The air feels as though it is gripping my throat. The shouting is hoarse and urgent. A doorway, a doorway to a transit hall - temporary accommodation, I think, for civilians awaiting transport to a colony ship. The metal of the door is warped, and the pounding from the other side is growing ever more frantic.
I slam the butt of the big gun against the metal door, once, twice, a third time. "Stand back!" I scream. No alternative. "Going to blast! Stand back!" I drop the CRM, pull out my disruptor, set it for wide beam and maximum power. Subtlety will not help, here.
I fire. The metal door dissolves at once, reduced to red-hot particulate debris. Anyone standing too close will have received severe burns - well, they might get those in any case. The air beyond is filled with a black haze, with redness glowing dimly through it - and a figure stumbling out, and then another, and another -
"We were trapped!" someone yells at me, and bursts into a coughing fit.
"I do not know a safe route out -" I begin.
Another door bursts open nearby, and fire bellies out of it, spreading over the ceiling, starting to take hold of the walls. I curse, holster the disruptor, snatch up the CRM. It shudders in my hands as I activate the wide-area setting. "Stand aside!" I yell, and the smoke bites inside my throat. A wavering cone of frigidity blasts out of the CRM's muzzle, and the light of the flames dims. I cough. The weapon is doing nothing to improve the quality of the air - and I still do not know a safe route -
Then there is an unearthly screeching noise - the sound of armoured ferroconcrete yielding to precision sonic disruptors. Light abruptly brightens in the passageway. Daylight. The end wall simply vanishes, and the smoke billows out, and there are shining shapes coming in through the hole, humanoid shapes reduced to silvery abstract forms - firefighters, in full protective gear. I lean back against the nearest wall. I can leave matters to the professionals, now.
---
By the time I return to the control room, J'mpok is there.
It is a measure of the Klingon character, I suppose. If there were a terror attack on Earth's capital, considerable effort would be devoted to getting the Federation President away from it. But, in a crisis, a Klingon Chancellor must be seen to lead from the front. He scowls at me, and kicks at Da'mas's body. "Was this necessary?" he growls.
"It was," I snap back at him.
"Chancellor." The technician is on his feet. "The Director obstructed the General - if he had heeded her advice, we would not have had an explosion."
J'mpok wheels round to glare at him. The technician glares back. Again, it is hard to imagine a Federation citizen speaking so to their President.... "You understand what happened?" J'mpok demands. He sounds more aggressive than usual. Of course, he has been in a foul mood since that last assassination attempt.
"Someone sent an unstable mass of high energy density to one of the pads in this building," the technician snaps. "We diverted some of the overload - I think the whole structure would have been wiped off the map, if we had not! I have put an emergency forensic hold on the transporter logs -"
"Good," says J'mpok. "You acted correctly. And, clearly, you know the systems and procedures. What is your name?"
The technician stands to attention. "I am Karak, son of Dral, of the house of Qar'lak."
"Very good," says J'mpok. "You are now director of civilian transporter operations. Serve well. Or, at least, better than him." He kicks Da'mas's corpse again.
Karak salutes smartly. "Qapla', Chancellor."
"We will need those transporter logs," J'mpok mutters. "If there are to be explosions in First City, they will be at my order, and mine alone. And I have a dozen esteemed and heroic Councillors screaming already about interruptions to their commercial operations - I do not need this."
"Garaka is ready to offer any assistance you require, Chancellor," I say, and cough.
"So is half the KDF fleet," J'mpok says sourly. "If I need things shot at, I have more help than I can manage -" His heavy-lidded eyes glitter. "But you, now - yes, perhaps it is as well that you are here." He glances at the CRM, and gives a derisive snort. "You fought the fire with that thing?"
"It was most convenient to hand," I say.
"No doubt. Well, we make use of the tools most convenient to hand." His gaze rests on me - and not in the insulting fashion of Da'mas. "Work with the new Director. Check those sealed transporter logs - I want to know where that cargo came from, I want whoever sent it to answer for their actions." He picks a datapad off the console. "Eighty-six dead. More than three hundred wounded. And it could have been much worse. You are subtle, General, I know you are. Use your subtlety to find the culprit."
"Yes, Chancellor." There is no arguing with J'mpok when he is in a mood like this. "Though, if I might make a suggestion -?"
"Oh, of course you have a suggestion. Out with it!"
"There are other resources," I say, "that I would like to use...."
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