Vectors 29

Nessick's antennae twitched with pleasure as he set the last datapad down on the neat stack. Soon, very soon, he would be back among his own people... and soon after that, they would be on their way to loose the new weapon against the Borg.

He looked around the cluttered laboratory, considering. Time to blank the computers? It scarcely seemed worthwhile... the listening post was still providing valuable information, it might be useful in the future. If Tuarak did not destroy it in a fit of pique, when he returned to find it empty. Nessick shrugged. He was not going to miss Tuarak.

A discreet chime sounded from one console. He turned towards it, touched the controls. "Nessick," he said.

"This is battlecruiser 219-67-C," a voice replied. "Approaching for pickup."

Nessick sighed inwardly. The ship had a name, there was really little point in being so guarded on a secure channel... but, there was no use arguing. "ETA?" he asked.

"Sixteen minutes."

"Excellent, excellent. I will transmit the schematics now, and you may transport the specimen of the device once you enter range... but, I think it is preferable if you dock and I transfer the protomatter fuel by hand. One does not wish to take chances with such a volatile substance."

"Best not to risk the transporter," the voice agreed.

"Quite, quite." Nessick slotted a datapad into the console, tapped out a sequence of commands. "Schematics transmitting over your data channel now. We have a location for a first strike?"

"We have identified a Borg communications node. It is not strongly guarded - we will infiltrate, and proceed along the lines you have described."

"Yes," said Nessick. "Yes, that should prove most satisfactory. How long to reach the node?"

"A matter of - " The voice broke off. Nessick frowned.

"Battlecruiser. Battlecruiser, respond, please," he said urgently.

A long pause, then the voice came back. "We have sensor contacts inbound."

Nessick hurried to another console. "I have tactical telemetry and will transmit," he called out.

"Two inbound. Identifying now -" The voice cut out, abruptly, with a discordant squawk of sound. Nessick muttered under his breath. He keyed in urgent commands on the tactical console.

The display formed as a spray of random visual noise at first, signatures of every scrap of solid matter or energized plasma in the nebula. Then it steadied, and the computer assigned identifications to the objects on scan - and Nessick groaned aloud.

The Octanti battlecruiser was crippled already, warp drive wrecked, shields down, escape pods spitting from its hull. Some short distance away, two sleek elegant shapes were still pounding at the cruiser with white-gold flashes of corrosive plasma fire. Hazari. Nessick's mind raced. Of course, he had had dealings with the Hazari - he had had dealings with half the powers of the Delta Quadrant, it was part of his role - but how had the Hazari come to him, now, like this?

Not just Hazari, he thought, but hostile Hazari. And there was only one reason why the Hazari might be hostile to him.... Somehow, Tuarak must have let something slip, and now Ge'Sirn was here. Nessick was thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life, and the conclusions he was reaching... appalled him.

But there was no help for it. Nessick turned his attention to another console, where a communications icon was flashing urgently. He touched the control. "Nessick," he said.

"This is Ge'Sirn," the Hazari's voice answered. "You've got something of mine. I want it back."

Nessick's hands moved on the control panel. Status lights blinked on and off, changing. Several rooms away, the constant humming of a force field abruptly stopped.

"You have damaged one of our cruisers. Please assure me that you are doing everything in your power to rescue my compatriots from their escape pods. We Octanti are so few in number -"

"They'll keep," Ge'Sirn's voice snarled. "Or, if they don't, what the hell do I care? I want the actualizer. Now."

"You do not have schematics for it? Careless of you, most careless."

"I need the protomatter. And I don't want you to have it. Now transport it, or I open fire."

"No, no," said Nessick, "you will not do that, because if you do, the protomatter may be destroyed in the barrage. Indeed, I am quite certain that it would be destroyed. I am in a position to make sure of that, you see."

There was a brief pause, then Ge'Sirn said, "Then I'll board your station and get it."

"Will you, now?" Nessick knew he had to choose his words carefully. "My station is not large, but it is... complex. I know it well, and you do not. You would have to search a long time to find all my hiding places, a long time indeed."

Another pause. "You've got transporter inhibitors engaged,"said Ge'Sirn. "OK, so I can't beam troops onto your station. But there's nothing stopping me doing a straightforward board and storm. In force. I will flood your little rathole with troops, and there's nothing you can do about it. You better be waiting at the airlock for me, with the protomatter in your hands, because that is the only way you stand even a chance of surviving this, you treacherous little -"

"Yes, yes, you make your point forcefully," said Nessick, "but, nonetheless, I do not think I shall comply." And he cut the channel before Ge'Sirn could answer.

He peered vaguely about the room. He had to be very sure he knew where everything was, now, and there was much to do. The clock was ticking. Two clocks were ticking.

---

The indicators on the airlock extension glowed green. Hard seal. Ge'Sirn smiled grimly.

The door slid open, revealing a docking hatch. It was one of several such dotted about the crazy little conglomeration of modules that was Nessick's listening post. Right now, N'Drask would be connecting up to a similar one, somewhere a couple of hundred metres above and to Ge'Sirn's right - if he had the plan of the station clear in his head.

"Checks out OK," his science officer said, beside him. "Locked, but I think I can get a standard override through the control bus. No radiation or toxins on the other side, either, at least not that I can scan -"

"He won't poison his own breathing air," growled Ge'Sirn. "Let's have it open, then."

"You sure? I mean, this is only a basic unit, and he's got some sort of sensor spoofing going on in there -"

"Open it." The Octanti wanted to hide himself, so much was obvious. Ge'Sirn's grim smile broadened. He couldn't hide from this force.

"All right," he said, turning to face his crew. "We are going in as soon as the doors are open, we will set up a secure perimeter in the space beyond this lock. Looks like some sort of receiving area for cargo, and it communicates with the docking port N'Drask's on. Once we've linked up with N'Drask, we cut the ships loose with a skeleton crew so Nessick can't slip past us and get aboard. Then we sweep this place, section by section, corridor by corridor, room by room."

"Till we find him?" someone asked.

"We find him, or we find his damned transporter inhibitors or whatever sensor jammers he's got out. Take those out, and finding him gets a lot easier. Or we can just find the protomatter, take that, and blow the whole station on our way out. I'm easy."

There were muttered grumbles of assent from the ranks. "OK, then," said Ge'Sirn.

"Door's opening," the science officer said.

The hatch swung inwards, revealing the barren metal chamber of an airlock beyond, another hatch in the wall ahead. Ge'Sirn stepped through, armed troopers crowding after him. "Think that inner hatch is locked on a separate circuit," the science officer called out. "Opening now."

The inner hatch opened, and Ge'Sirn saw - a wall, beyond it. A metal barrier, a simple barricade. Useless. He raised the stubby corrosive-plasma gun in his hands, took aim, fired. The metal burned away in white-hot, flaming droplets. Ge'Sirn kept firing until the barrier was comprehensively destroyed. He waited a while before leading the way over the hot, smouldering deckplates.

The receiving area was a vast empty space, loading gear stacked neatly against the far wall. The Hazari troops formed up, weapons ready, their eyes vigilant. Ge'Sirn looked about him. There was no movement in the room -

He frowned. Was there a voice, though? He thought he could hear some kind of voice - somewhere, at the edge of hearing -

There was a very definite boom and crash from somewhere close at hand. He looked up. A catwalk crossed the room, a little below the vaulted ceiling, and N'Drask was on the walkway now, leading his own crewmen into the station. "He blocked the damn door!" he called to Ge'Sirn in aggrieved tones.

Ge'Sirn looked round again, spotted a ladder up to the catwalk, gestured to N'Drask to take it. He was charting the exit points from the loading area in his mind's eye. The station was complicated - but it was not so large, after all. They would keep this room secured as a base, and spread out slowly -

"Told my ship to stand off," N'Drask said as he joined Ge'Sirn.

"Me, too." Ge'Sirn glanced at the science officer, who nodded. "OK. So there's just us, until we get the transporter inhibitors down." He looked at his own crew, and at N'Drask's. "Think we've got enough here to deal with one Octanti."

"Damn sure we have," said N'Drask. "Though I guess all we want's the protomatter, right?"

"And I don't want Nessick to have the designs for the actualizer," said Ge'Sirn.

"Yeah," said N'Drask, "but by now he'll have looked it over, he'll have some idea how it works -"

Ge'Sirn lifted the plasma gun in his hands, looked at it pointedly. "So he will."

There was a pause, during which he could hear N'Drask gulp. "All right, then," N'Drask said, reluctantly.

"Just so long as we're clear on that," Ge'Sirn said. He frowned. He still couldn't shake the feeling that someone was whispering.

"I've got some idea of the layout," N'Drask said. "He had to be talking to us from some control centre, right? Now, there's a bunch of modules with serious electronic hardware in them -"

He stopped. Ge'Sirn was looking straight past him, at something else. An intercom panel on the wall. A panel with an alert light flashing.

Ge'Sirn strode over to the panel, flipped the switch. "This better be surrender," he said.

"Ah, regrettably, no," Nessick's voice replied. "I just wanted - well, I suppose, I wanted to see how things were progressing. And to apologize. I do regret, I most deeply regret, what I have been forced to do. But you left me no choice. No choice at all."

"Where are you?" Ge'Sirn demanded. Nessick's voice had sounded strange and faint, over the rising buzzing in his ears.

"Ah, I am on my way to take control," said Nessick.

"Control of what?"

"Oh, this situation. And your ships. You should not judge all Octanti by the standards of an academic like myself. The survivors from the battlecruiser are spacewalking to your destroyers now. They are highly competent soldiers, they will easily overwhelm the few of your crew left aboard."

"Like hell! They won't have time to take control of the systems before I knock down your transporter inhibitors, and once my crew get back aboard -"

"That will not happen," said Nessick. "It is something, as I say, that I regret bitterly. But it had to be done. I wonder, what sensory cues have you been perceiving? I understand that some people feel a tingling in the flesh, or smell strange odours, but the most common sign of infection is an auditory one. Have you been hearing anything, Ge'Sirn? Voices, perhaps?"

He was hearing voices. A torrent of voices, growing louder and louder -

"I monitored many sources of information." Nessick's voice was fading in the rising storm. "I even had some devices of our most deadly enemy. Working with those, now, required precautions, many precautions. I have disabled those precautions, especially for you. I repeat, I do regret this, most sincerely, most sincerely indeed. I would not willingly have given even one living soul over to them -"

Ge'Sirn was no longer listening. His face was turned towards N'Drask, and it was growing pale, not with shock or any emotion, but as part of the process, the process which was making dark lines of circuitry spread under suddenly pallid skin, was drowning his own consciousness in the roar of a billion voices in his head -

The being that had been Ge'Sirn faced the one that had been N'Drask, and they spoke in unison.

"We are the Borg."

Vectors 27

Rrueo

I believe I am starting to warm to Y'Nadan.

True, the Hazari spokesman is loud and arrogant, taking up one end of the Brathana's conference room as though he owns it. But he is also practical, and he shows the right attitude towards dealing with the Vaadwaur.

"And I say, knock his head off his shoulders and use it for a door stop!"

"Rrueo agrees," I say. "But first we must find him, and we have little to go on."

Y'Nadan glares at the other two Hazari in the room. N'Drask sits quietly at the conference table, his eyes darting occasionally from side to side. Ge'Sirn, beside him, is a slumped, sullen shape. "You two have any ideas?" Y'Nadan snaps. "You brought him here, after all."

I let my psychic senses feel the room. Y'Nadan's mind is a force, constant and powerful, like a tidal bore. N'Drask... N'Drask's mind is active, and ingenious, but it is like a mechanical engine - finely crafted, highly tuned, but in the end it answers to another's hand on the controls. For all his abilities, N'Drask is a follower at heart.

And he follows Ge'Sirn, whose mind is as sullen as his body, a dark thing squatting in a briar-like tangle of plots and possibilities. Had I time, and interrogation devices to hand, I might unravel those plots and uncover whatever truth lies within him. But I do not have time, and our diplomatic relations with the Hazari would not permit it in any event.

Now, Ge'Sirn stirs, and the tangles in his mind shift and darken. "We didn't know," he says in sulky tones. "We thought we'd seen him off. But, well, we've got tactical scans of that ship, we can reconstruct his warp signature -"

"Timor has all that is needed, there," I say. Though the science vessel is in sorry shape after the battle, and M'eioi is overseeing the urgent repairs. "It is doubtful we could track the warp signature through Underspace, though, even if the Turei can be persuaded to allow us access."

"Yeah," says Y'Nadan, "but we can pick it up again once they leave the Underspace, and there are two likely exit points near here. We can cover both, if we split our forces up a bit -"

"Rrueo does not like to divide an already small force -"

"I figure on sending a pair of Hazari ships with each one of yours. That still gives you a bigger force than you had when you started, right? Hazari Intelligence has a file on this Tuarak," he adds in dark tones. I did not even know the Hazari had a centralized intelligence agency, though there is no valid reason why the idea should surprise me.

"What does it say?" I ask.

"Tuarak is a former Overseer of the Supremacy, and a right-hand - thug - for one of the higher ups, High Overseer Kabol. But Kabol turned out to be infested with a neural parasite, and all his staff were downgraded in the clear-up, even if they weren't infected themselves. Tuarak went - independent. He took one ship, the interdictor cruiser we saw here, and as many loyal followers as he could scrape together, and he's been working ever since as a privateer. You Klingons have similar setups, right?"

"It is not unknown." And this explains some of what I felt in Tuarak's mind - the pride, the poisonous grievances. "If this is correct... then Tuarak is a man with much to prove, and little to lose," I say. "Such men can be dangerous adversaries."

"Yeah," says Y'Nadan, "but I don't care how motivated he is, he only has one ship, your Alphan friends gave it a proper pounding, and we need to catch up with him before he can make repairs. Sound like a plan to you?"

"Indeed," I say. I do not know if Pexlini will approve of this plan, but it will do no harm to present my self-proclaimed new commanding officer with a fait accompli. "Though there is one other possible lead we should investigate - this name Rrueo heard, Nessick."

At the sound of that name, the briars of Ge'Sirn's mind all tremble as if in a high wind. No time to be subtle; I turn to him with fierce eyes. "You know that name. How?"

If he did not already know I was a telepath, he does now, and the tangles of his mind contract into a hard knot. I could break it... given time and opportunity. "I don't know for sure if it's the same guy," he says in guarded tones. "It's just the one name, after all, but -"

"Spit it out!" snaps Y'Nadan.

"I've had... dealings... with an information broker by that name," Ge'Sirn mutters. "Octanti. Never met him - talked by subspace radio - but some of his info's been pretty reliable. If it's the same guy, I might have some idea where he is - backtracking from signals records, that kind of thing. If it's the same guy. It's a big galaxy out there, know what I'm saying?"

"Still, it's a possibility," says Y'Nadan.

"Rrueo concurs. It should be investigated. While repairs to Timor and Ostankino are completed, Rrueo will take the Brathana out... obviously, Rrueo must take Ge'Sirn with her."

"Obviously," Y'Nadan echoes.

Ge'Sirn folds his arms across his chest. Sparks are flickering in the tight knotwork of his brain. "Not without my ship," he says.

"Or mine," N'Drask adds. Yes, indeed, Ge'Sirn holds the key that sets N'Drask's motor running. I narrow my eyes at them both.

"Oh, it's reasonable," says Y'Nadan. "You could use the added firepower of their ships, anyway."

This is true... but Ge'Sirn has something in mind, and I do not know what. "Rrueo is not anxious to have the protomatter device turned against her," I say slowly.

"Oh, use your fuzzy head," Ge'Sirn snaps. "I can't use the protomatter device, can I? Tuarak has it."

"You expect Rrueo to believe that you cannot manufacture another?"

"Of course I can," says Ge'Sirn. "Can churn out a dozen of 'em before my replicator runs out of specialist materials. But I've got no protomatter. The whole reserve was in the actualizer when Tuarak took it. Scan my ship. You can confirm that."

"Rrueo will do so. Well, then." I rise to my feet. Something is still worrying me about Ge'Sirn. "Starfleet's ships need repairs. Rrueo is ready to take the Brathana out within the hour, though." I fix Ge'Sirn with what I hope is an intimidating stare. "Do not waste Rrueo's time."

---

"It sounds OK to me." Pexlini is shuffling across the Brathana's command deck, evidently in pain - from the vascular protoplasers and the rapid-healing agents administered to cure her various acceleration injuries, I would judge. Such healing can be swift, but there is always a price to pay.

"Rrueo does not trust Ge'Sirn," I say.

"Well, heck, who does?" says Pexlini. "That's why I'm locking the Hazari up neatly with a contract. Cooperation on returning the actualizer, conference afterwards with Federation and Empire representatives to decide what to do with the damn thing, standard no-hostile-action-against-friendly-personnel clause, yadda yadda, all that. Ge'Sirn signed it. It's in his interests, after all, his only alternative is to go chasing Tuarak by himself."

"Rrueo... supposes that will suffice. The Hazari honour their contracts." I frown. "Federation and Empire? Not Republic?"

Pexlini shrugs. "It'd take too long to get the Roms into the loop, and besides, what are they going to say that we won't? We'll tell them all about it once this has blown over - and when we've got our secure comms back. This Nessick," she adds, "sounds distinctly interesting to me."

"What the Romulans do not know will not hurt them," I mutter.

"Dead right," says Pexlini. "By the way, the same thing goes for those discreet listening devices I've got stuck to N'Drask's ship. I'm gonna pass the details over to your comms people, you never know when that sort of thing will come in handy." She moves off towards Oschmann at the comms console; her movements are rapid, but stiff. I follow, my tail switching - my disquiet is still there.

Oschmann looks up as Pexlini hands her a datapad. "So," the human renegade says, "what's the story here, exactly?"

"Pexlini is familiar with the Hazari and is therefore handling negotiations with them," I say. It seems a reasonable enough pretext - I have, obviously, not announced Pexlini's real status to my crew.

"Doing pretty well out of it, too," Pexlini says. "Got myself a neat little bonus -"

"No doubt," says Oschmann in frosty tones. She eyes the Talaxian with undisguised suspicion.

"If it comes to that," Pexlini says, "what's your story, anyhow? How come you're in with the lumpy forehead mob?" Clearly, tact is not part of her cover story.

Oschmann glares at her. "I'm sure you can look it up for yourself," she snaps.

"I dunno. All I've got is Cynthia Carlotta Oschmann, resigned after being censured by the Inspector General. Doesn't tell me much - and I don't exactly have a pipeline into Starfleet's personnel files, do I?" True, though disingenuous, I note.

"Carlotta Cynthia," Oschmann spits. "Personnel never got round to fixing that - not that it's Starfleet's only mistake. You want to know the story?" She swivels in her seat to glare full-face at Pexlini. "Sidoneus Zeta was a system on the verge of interstellar contact, only one political faction there had already made interstellar contact without knowing it. The Ferengi - well, one consortium within the Ferengi Alliance. Their agents were bringing in new technological innovations, giving their chosen faction an edge. I made an agreement with another faction to provide equivalent technical information to them, enough to level the playing field. There was precedent for it - James Kirk, at Neural -" Her voice has risen to a shout.

"IG's office didn't agree, huh?" says Pexlini.

"Stupid," says Oschmann. "And - dishonourable. So I joined a military where honour still has some meaning."

"OK," says Pexlini. "Kinda see your point, I guess." Oschmann's mind is burning with remembered grievance - and, in the burning, her inchoate suspicions of the Talaxian have been forgotten. No doubt that is for the best.

"So what're your plans now?" Pexlini asks me.

"There are three leads - Nessick, two Underspace exits. We have three ships, and whatever backup the Hazari contract specifies. Dividing our forces never appeals to Rrueo, but in this case, time is of importance."

Pexlini nods. "So, I guess, you want to take Ge'Sirn and N'Drask and follow their lead on Nessick, while M'eioi and I complete repairs and head for the Underspace loci?"

"This seems a sound plan to Rrueo. Perhaps not ideal, but sound enough."

Pexlini nods again, this time enthusiastically enough to set her topknot bobbing. "OK, let's do it, then. Unless you want another set of Hazari - ?"

"Ge'Sirn knows the coordinates, and so Rrueo must have him. Ge'Sirn will want his supporter N'Drask, and Rrueo thinks we want him too, albeit -" I point to the datapad on Oschmann's console "- for different reasons. The Hazari have limited manpower after the bombardment, so Rrueo should not further deplete the forces available to Pexlini and M'eioi." I snarl. "We will just have to hope that Ge'Sirn holds true to this new contract."

---

Hours pass. Hours pass, and I worry, without clearly knowing why.

Our ships speed between the stars, Brathana leading, N'Drask following, Ge'Sirn's ship with its weird parti-coloured hull bringing up the rear. The harlequin coating on the Hazari's ship is purely cosmetic, I have been assured. I do not know whether to be concerned or comforted by the idea that Ge'Sirn's ship remains fully operational.

"Approaching the designated coordinates now," Toriash reports. I sit up straight in the command chair.

"Stand ready to drop out of warp. Do we know anything of this locality?"

"Nothing on the Delta Quadrant intelligence files," Oschmann answers.

Those files are a few known hard facts, supporting a mountain of conjecture, surrounded by a vast ocean of absolute ignorance. "Any information on sensors?" I demand.

"Long range scan shows... some sort of object," says Toriash. "Details are unknown, as yet."

"Drop out of warp," I order. "Approach it. Cautiously."

"Shields or cloak, sir?" asks K'Rokok.

"Shields. Rrueo wants protection more than stealth. We will need to run active scans in any event. Inform the Hazari."

Brathana shudders slightly as she drops to sublight speeds. I lean forward, studying the console displays.

"Metallic. Evidence of power sources...." But no life signs - not visible yet, at any rate.

"My thoughts would be, a communications buoy," Toriash rumbles.

"Possible. The Hirogen use such.... Maintain constant vigilance. Three-sixty degree spherical scans at maximum intensity. Rrueo has no wish to be distracted again by the Hirogen."

"Their comms buoys have life support capacity for a limited crew," Oschmann observes.

"True. A caretaker staff on station would be a wise precaution for anyone, so far from the nearest habitable world...." The buoy - or whatever it is - is in deep space, light-years from the nearest star. I do not even know where the nearest habitable world is, from here. But there are still no detectable life signs.

"Perhaps this Nessick is not at home," K'Rokok suggests in a sour voice.

"Then he will not mind if Rrueo makes herself comfortable and awaits his return," I muse.

"Sir -" Toriash shifts uneasily on his seat.

"What is it?"

"Perhaps nothing." The big Gorn leans forward to peer more closely at his console. "My scans caught a flash, a flicker - not from the object -"

"From where, then?"

"Attempting to refine now, sir." Toriash's shoulders are hunched, his massive talons almost caressing the console. "It looks like... coherent light. Scattering off some particulate debris in space... somewhere behind us...."

Coherent light. A laser beam, encountering some tiny speck of interstellar dust.... But there is nothing behind us, save the two Hazari ships -

My ears fold flat to my head, and my fur bristles. "Red alert. Come about, now."

"Sir?" says K'Rokok.

"Laser link. Secure comms, between Ge'Sirn and N'Drask. If they do not want us to hear what they are saying -"

Brathana dips and swings around -

Not fast enough. White-gold flashes of light streak from the two Hazari ships; corrosive plasma cannon fire, rapid and high intensity - and targeting us.

Shudders run through the ship. There is a brief flash-bang of a transient surge on one console - but the Hazari are aiming their fire precisely, very precisely. Overloaded at one point, our shields flicker and fail, and the plasma barrage proceeds unimpeded into our starboard nacelle.

"Return fire!" And Brathana's disruptors lash out, raking along the Hazari ships' shields.

But it is too little, too late, and I can only watch helplessly as Ge'Sirn and N'Drask turn and vanish into warp.

"Damn him to the fiery pits of Gre'thor!" I screech.

"Starboard nacelle is down," K'Rokok reports gloomily. "Unable to establish warp field. I will have a repair estimate soon -"

"Why did they not try to finish us?" Toriash asks.

"Contracts," I spit. "Pexlini insisted on a standard clause in their contract. No hostile action against personnel. But our warp drive is not personnel. They hold to the letter of their contract - and now they must be on their way to Nessick's real location."

There is an ugly silence on the bridge for a moment, broken only by a hiss as the automated fire suppressors deal with that console.

"There's still one possibility, sir -" Oschmann begins.

"Yes. The tracking devices on N'Drask's ship. But we can do nothing about that until our warp drive is operational again." I claw at the air in exasperation. "Signal the Ostankino and the Timor. Perhaps they will be able to intercept Ge'Sirn in time...."

Vectors 22

"What the hell happened to your ship?"

"Relax," said Ge'Sirn. "It's just... cosmetic."

N'Drask continued to stare out of the viewport. The Hazari rendezvous point was a purpose-built docking station, set into a small asteroid on the fringe of an uninhabited star system. Beneath armoured domes of white cerametal, docking bays had capacity to hold dozens of Hazari ships. The design of the station was bright, clean, functional, all silvery-white surfaces and plain lines....

In the middle of one docking bay, Ge'Sirn's ship stood out like a sore thumb. The hull of the vessel was covered in a shimmering polychromatic sheen, like oil on water, and the metal bulged out in places, in spots that looked like the outbreak of some kind of disease. "What happened?" N'Drask asked again.

Ge'Sirn sighed. "It's just a side effect. We had to overload the new holo-emitters to generate a photonic fleet and chase off the Vaadwaur. Some kind of subspace harmonic modified the crystal structure of the outer layer of the hull. It's harmless. And believe me, it was one hell of a good test for the holo-systems. Should be a lot easier to sell, now we can prove they work."

N'Drask shook his head. "Not going to be easy to sell people on that, though."

"So my ship broke out in coloured warts. So what? The Vaadwaur ran, N'Drask, that's what counts."

N'Drask shook his head. "I hope so. I hope so.... How many others are coming?" He craned his neck, peering around the other docking bays, more than half of them full already.

"I'm hoping for at least seventy ship captains," said Ge'Sirn. "That's enough prestige and financial clout to form a serious consortium. We can develop this thing, exploit it, work on other avenues of research -"

"Have you thought about -?"

"I am not doing a deal with the Federation. You'll just have to go back to them and say you've made a good-faith effort. They're supposed to respect that, right?"

"They're supposed to do a lot of things. But I don't trust 'em. They're tricky. I'm not sure they're just going to sit around and wait for me to get back."

"Have you seen anything? Spotted any sensor traces?" An urgent look came into Ge'Sirn's eyes. "Did they follow you here?"

"I don't know. Oh, nothing turned up on my detectors, but -" N'Drask's shoulders hunched. "Sometimes, you know, you just get a feeling. I'm getting one now. Like, there's a bunch of stuff all on, well, a collision course. And this might be where it's going to hit."

"But nothing definite?"

"Maybe, maybe not. There's been a Kazon heavy raider hanging around - I know, I know, those things are everywhere, they're like vermin. But I'm almost sure it's the same one."

"Kazon raider against seventy-odd of our ships - yeah, that'd work." Ge'Sirn snorted. "Well, anyway. Time for me to go do the really scary stuff."

---

"The beauty of this system," Ge'Sirn declaimed, "is that it makes its own rules. Normally, holograms interact with real objects according to the standard laws of physics, and in those, the odds are stacked against the hologram - it's inherently more fragile, easier to destabilize, than a physical object. Our actualizer, though, sets up subspace harmonics which not only reinforce the hologram's structure, they allow us to program in whole sets of novel interactions with normal spacetime. You can easily create exotic weapons with energy types that will bypass an enemy's shields - I'll be submitting combat records which show this - or novel chemical structures based on unreal periodic tables, which has all sorts of interesting research uses."

His mouth was dry. Above him, as he stood on the presentation dais next to the device, serried ranks of Hazari faces looked down on him. Were they interested? Were they convinced? It was hard to tell.

"What sort of uses?" called out Y'Nadan. He was one of the oldest, most experienced Hazari owner-captains. If he could convince Y'Nadan, Ge'Sirn thought, he could convince anyone.

"We've had some success," he said, "with holographic kironide. Now, you know that stuff is hard to handle and hard to predict. But we can create a substance, using the actualizer, that technically isn't kironide, but works just like it. The implications of that -"

"Psi powers are unpredictable anyway," someone muttered. Not Y'Nadan; his mouth was firmly closed, his expression blank.

"It's one avenue of research," Ge'Sirn said firmly. "There's plenty of others. Biology, for instance." There was a stir among the watching audience. Had he touched on something interesting? Ge'Sirn wondered. "That was why we contacted the Kadirians for field tests. Their holograms, for safety reasons, were already running biological systems, but with an invented biochemistry behind them. Adding our actualizer -"

"Had certain unanticipated side effects," said a snarling voice from behind him. Ge'Sirn whirled round.

His first thought was of N'Drask's description, of a black hairy thing with teeth. But this creature - though it had teeth, and very prominent ones - was not black, so much as blue. And while one of the armed and armoured figures behind it was visibly human, others were quite clearly Klingon, or Gorn -

"Who the hell are you?" It was Y'Nadan's voice.

The creature swaggered up to the presentation dais. "Rrueo-Captain, Rrueo-Thinker, owner and master of the IKS Brathana. Rrueo has had questions for some time, and it seems that this toy -" she laid one hairy hand on the actualizer "- is key to the answers." She turned to face Ge'Sirn. "Will you give them complete information, or shall Rrueo do that?"

"How did you get here?" Ge'Sirn spat.

"Rrueo and her associates tracked your partner's vessel. And Rrueo made a private deal with the portmaster here, to bring the Brathana into dock. Rrueo knows that the Hazari are to be trusted in the matter of contracts. Rrueo suggests, though -" she turned to face the audience "- that you know what you are buying."

"I'm telling them everything!" Ge'Sirn shouted.

"Rrueo suspects you do not know everything." Ge'Sirn felt an immense urge to punch the interfering Alphan right in her furry face. He restrained himself. Never mind the armed guards - the creature looked quite capable of tearing him apart by herself.

"What do you know, Alphan?" Y'Nadan demanded.

"Rrueo knows how this device achieves its no doubt impressive results. It infuses holograms with minute quantities of protomatter, using the protean qualities of that substance to bolster and sustain them -"

"I told them that! I'm being honest with them!" Ge'Sirn yelled.

"What you do not appreciate is that the protomatter effect is prone to become elaborate, and in unpredictable ways. In the Alpha Quadrant, it was used, once, in a machine called the Genesis Device. A nebula was transformed into a class M planet - one with hypertachytelic evolutionary processes, one with a burgeoning vitality that even brought one man back from the dead. An asset of considerable value - for the short time before it exploded."

"Nothing's exploded here!"

"Not yet. But when your Kadirians spoke to a Kobali colony, the protomatter amplified some aspects of their entirely fictional biochemistry - it extrapolated, almost, from simulations of the Kadirians' antibodies, a holographic analogue of the virus that ravaged the Kadirian homeworld. That holographic virus lasted long enough to infect the Kobali colonists. There were no survivors."

"That's absurd!" said Y'Nadan. "The virus would have had to continue existing even outside the field of the holo-emitters -" He broke off, stared hard at Ge'Sirn.

"They can," Ge'Sirn muttered. "Our amplified holograms can persist, sometimes for hours -"

"Sometimes days, in a low-energy environment," said Rrueo, "such as the Oort cloud of a star. Rrueo was perturbed to find ghosts in space... but now Rrueo knows what they were; remnants of holograms created by this device - and left there when the emitter was destroyed, by the enemies who want it. Rrueo assumes you are aware that the Vaadwaur are seeking this device?"

"The Vaadwaur?" someone asked.

"The Empire and the Federation are not your enemies," said Rrueo. "We are willing to negotiate, to come to some arrangement that will - suppress a potentially disastrous line of research. The Vaadwaur, on the other hand, are not noted for being reasonable. Rrueo puts it to you that an agreement should be reached, and swiftly."

"No!" Ge'Sirn shouted. "Damn you! The whole point is to build up our resources, push you damned Alphans back to your own side of the galaxy!"

"Your point," said Y'Nadan grimly. "Not ours, necessarily."

Ge'Sirn stared at him, fury throbbing in his temples, his fists clenched at his sides. How had this situation got so far out of his control? He felt physically sick, light-headed, dizzy -

Then he realized. It was not just a feeling.

The human with Rrueo, a cold-faced, light-haired female, spoke. "Something's wrong with the gravity plating." She checked a device in her hand. "Main power levels are plummeting all the way through this installation -"

From all around, there was a click and a hiss. The station's public address system. A voice spoke - one Ge'Sirn recognized with a sudden rush of horror.

"Your attention. This is Tuarak of the Vaadwaur. You are to surrender the Hazari Ge'Sirn and his intriguing apparatus. My forces are taking control of this facility now, and we have established a wide-area tetryon field to negate your power sources. Please, feel free to offer resistance. My troops will relish the entertainment."

Vectors 20

"I tell you, something is wrong, somewhere, and the Federation's after you." N'Drask's face on the semicircular viewscreen was a picture of woe. Ge'Sirn scowled.

"The thing works," he snapped.

"Yeah," said N'Drask, "yeah, but... maybe it works too well. Like, it gave the Kadirian holos some kind of, well, some kind of bug that they passed on to the Kobali colonists -"

"That's crazy talk," said Ge'Sirn. "Those holos are specifically designed not to interact with normal biologies. There's no way they could pass anything to anybody."

"So tell the Alphans that," said N'Drask, "because, right now, they won't believe you. They are after you. We've got to cut some kind of a deal -"

"We will do," said Ge'Sirn firmly. "Look. I'm on my way to the meeting now. I'm going to get at least another dozen ship captains in on this, and we're going to form a consortium to develop this project. Once we've got an agreement, then we'll decide how to deal with the Alphans. And I'll tell you this much, it is not going to involve us lying down for any sort of Federation oversight or interference. Right?" He shifted his weight in the command chair. "Federation's not supposed to interfere with people anyway, yeah?"

"That's what they say," said N'Drask, "but, believe me, some of them are pragmatists, not idealists."

"That's OK," said Ge'Sirn. "That's good. We can negotiate with realists. With any luck, we can negotiate from a position of strength. That's always the best way. Are you going to make it to the rendezvous?"

"This business with the Federation's hit my schedule." N'Drask sighed heavily. "I'll try, but -"

"Yeah, well, don't burn out your warp drive," said Ge'Sirn. "You and me have got a deal already, so your cut's guaranteed. I'll tell the others what you've told me, about the Feds. They need to know, anyway."

N'Drask nodded. "I just hope you know what you're doing," he said, and cut the channel before Ge'Sirn could reply. The viewscreen filled with the image of streaking stars, as the ship plunged on at maximum warp speed.

Ge'Sirn stood up, and strode to the steep access ladder down to the pilot's compartment. "Status?" he demanded.

"On course and speed. Relax, we'll get there," the pilot called up.

Ge'Sirn grunted. "Got to figure out how to play this," he muttered to himself. Negative attention, at this stage, from the Alphans' most self-righteous faction... was something he could do without. But the actualizer worked, it was a genuine technological advance - it shouldn't be hard to sell his fellow Hazari captains on that. Hazari were realists.

"Got a contact on approach," an officer called out from the other side of the bridge.

Ge'Sirn turned his head. "One of ours?"

"Negative. Drive radiation profile is off... I'll have a match in a second." The officer started. "Wait a minute. Incoming hail."

Ge'Sirn strode back to the command chair and took his seat. "Let's have it."

The starfield on the viewer blinked out, to be replaced - Ge'Sirn's eyes widened in shock. The face on the viewer sneered at him.

"Ge'Sirn of the Hazari. I am Tuarak of the Vaadwaur. I have spent some time and effort in looking for you, so do not do anything that requires further exertion on my part. You have a weapon that I find interesting. You will surrender it."

Ge'Sirn sat motionless for a moment, calculating his chances. "The actualizer isn't any sort of weapon -" he began.

"It is a tool, and any tool can be a weapon. If you waste my time in splitting hairs, you will regret it, Ge'Sirn."

"You've got no idea how it works."

"How true. You will instruct me."

Ge'Sirn gestured to the officer, who cut the channel. The screen went blank.

"Single interdictor cruiser... probably enough," the officer said. "What are we going to do? If we run for the rendezvous point, the others might help -"

"Oh, they might," said Ge'Sirn. "Or they might not. We don't have a deal with them yet, and if I come to the meeting dragging a Vaadwaur behind me -" He thought fast, came to a decision. "Take us out of warp, come about, weapons hot."

"We're fighting them? Those interdictors are tough -"

"Yeah, well." Ge'Sirn's leathery face creased in a grim smile. "He thinks the actualizer is a weapon, right? So let's use it that way."

---

On the bridge of the Bereit, Tuarak slammed his fist into the armrest of the command chair. "He cut me off before I had finished speaking," he snarled. "I will not countenance such disrespect from a lesser species. For that alone, I will pull his liver out through his mouth... once I am finished with him."

"Hazari ship is coming about and arming weapons," Sarn reported.

"Oh, he wishes to play, now, does he?... Engage without reservations. Hazari are bound to each other by ties of personal loyalty. Slaughter enough of his crew, and Ge'Sirn must surrender to preserve the lives of the remainder. Temporarily."

"Locking weapons. Polaron barrage programmed. Engagement range in three minutes." Sarn knew better than to debate with his commander when he was in this mood.

On the screen, the elegant silvery arrowhead of the Hazari ship was swinging around to point itself straight towards the oncoming Vaadwaur ship. "Such a sleek design," said Tuarak, "so graceful, so streamlined.... Weapons. Spoil it."

The first volley of polaron fire gouted from the Bereit's projectors. On the screen, dazzling pinpricks of light flashed back towards them - corrosive plasma bolts from the Hazari's cannons. "Damage control parties, stand ready," Tuarak ordered. "Deal with all plasma fires promptly."

The boiling shockwaves of the multiple polaron blasts almost obscured Ge'Sirn's ship, but Tuarak could still make out the flares as the Hazari's shields were stressed to their limits. He permitted himself a cold smile. Ge'Sirn's shields were in tatters already, and this was barely the start of the engagement -

"Sir." Sarn's voice. "Science division reports something strange - the Hazari's energy utilization profile -"

"What about it?"

"Power is not being committed fully to either weapons or shields." Sarn indicated the Bereit's own damage control boards, which showed the Hazari plasma fire was barely warming up the forward shield. "He is diverting power somewhere else -"

"To run, perhaps."

"No, sir. He did not attempt to avoid engagement. Sir -"

"Energy spikes!" another officer shouted out. "Something is happening -"

"Specifics," Tuarak snarled.

On the screen, the embattled Hazari ship was suddenly surrounded by a multitude of points of light, a swarm of sparks that swept forwards, towards the Bereit. "Reading multiple holo-signatures -" the science officer began.

"Holograms!" Tuarak laughed. "He seeks to overwhelm us with holograms!"

Then the deck lurched, and the lights on the bridge flickered. "Incoming energy fire," Sarn reported. "Shield strength dropping. Hull damage reported on decks two and six."

"Close-range polaron barrage," Tuarak ordered. "Clear those things out of the way."

"Firing." Space rippled with polaron blasts, and Sarn frowned. "They're still there. Curious. That blast should have put paid to normal holograms -"

"Then fire again!" And, again, the Bereit shuddered.

"Getting readings," the science officer shouted out. "Sir, these aren't normal holograms - the signatures are operating on frequencies I've never seen before."

"Ge'Sirn's materialized something like... a group of those swarmers from the Dyson Spheres," said Sarn. "But the weapons...."

"What about the weapons?" There were warning lights on the damage control board, and Tuarak could see the Hazari ship, obstinately not crippled yet, swinging around to bring its weapons to bear on the Bereit's flank. "Steer one four eight mark two! Keep him in our forward arc! And reinforce screens!"

"Weapons frequencies are - unfamiliar," said Sarn. "It's like antiproton fire, which we'd expect from Solanae swarmers - but it's accompanied by subspace harmonics outside normal ranges." Sarn's head snapped up, and he turned to Tuarak. "It's outside the normal range of our shields!"

"Compensate," Tuarak spat.

"Trying to.... Sir, the resilience of those holograms is much higher than we'd expect from normal photonics. Our barrages are barely scratching them. And they're not moving like normal swarmers, either. Target prediction and acquisition is barely twenty per cent of normal."

"Reprogram the target predictors!"

And then, on the screen, the Hazari ship's cannons erupted into a blaze of white-gold light - and the image on the screen wavered and flickered, and the Bereit rocked. Consoles on the bridge started to explode, burned out by transient surges along the EPS grid. Warning lights flashed in greater and greater profusion on the main board.

"Forward cannons offline," Sarn reported. "Re-routing the control links now. Sir, he's brought his weapons power up to full. We have hull breaches and plasma fires on decks three through ten -"

"Where is damage control?"

"All parties working at full capacity. Sir, we can't rotate shield frequencies to block both Ge'Sirn's conventional weapons and the exotic stuff from the swarmers -"

The Bereit rocked again. Somewhere, there was a faint but terrifying sound - the voiceless shriek of an atmosphere leak. Tuarak sat motionless, only his eyes moving, his gaze darting between the viewscreen, the main tactical display, the damage control board -

It seemed to take an age before he spoke again. "Drive status?"

"Some damage to starboard nacelle, but we still have warp capacity."

"Use it. Break off the engagement. Retreat."

There was naked relief in Sarn's voice as he said, "Yes, sir."

The Bereit swung around, presenting a relatively intact shield facing to the barrage from the Hazari ship. "Maximum evasive. And another barrage, everything we can spare, to drive those things away from us," Tuarak snapped. His eyes were burning.

"Maximum evasive. Disengaging."

Another burst of plasma fire from the Hazari ship tore at the Bereit's aft screen. The ship seemed to shiver as power fluctuated for a second in the damaged nacelle. Then the Vaadwaur ship tore itself out of the swarming cloud of holograms, and raced out of engagement range.

"The Hazari is not pursuing," Sarn reported. "He took heavy damage -"

"That is no consolation," said Tuarak. He glared at Sarn through the smoky air of the bridge. "Forced to flee. I have been forced to flee, from holograms, from phantoms, from illusions. There will be a reckoning for this. There must be."

"We have detailed combat readings. We can develop countermeasures -"

"Yes. No doubt. Some adaptation of the Hierarchy electromagnetic pulse weapons, perhaps. Research it." Tuarak hunched his shoulders, seeming to withdraw into himself. "Countermeasures. Yes. We will have them... and we will have Ge'Sirn's weapon. We will take it. And I swear, Ge'Sirn will face my vengeance. I will make it inventive." He was whispering, almost crooning, to himself alone. "I will visit a death upon him that no one has ever imagined before...."

Vectors 13

In the depths of space, light-years from any sun, two sleek swept-winged ships manoeuvred closer and closer together, finally coming to rest close enough that a docking tube could snake across from one airlock to another.

Ge'Sirn made his way, hand over hand, along the lines strung along the interior of the tube. He felt the drag of the other ship's artificial gravity begin to take hold on him as he neared the airlock, and he swung himself into position to clamber aboard.

N'Drask was waiting on the other side of the airlock. "Welcome aboard," he said.

"Hi, there." Ge'Sirn felt cheerful, comfortable. Back among his own people, dealing with his own kind. You knew where you were, with the Hazari. You always knew where you were, with the Hazari. Hazari were dependable. Everyone knew that.

N'Drask looked gloomy, though, as he led the way to his ship's conference room. "What's up?" Ge'Sirn asked.

"Well." N'Drask flung himself into a chair, and looked gloomier. "I got the stuff, but -"

"But?"

"But when I went back... well, we're going to need another supplier. Wuquen and his gang got careless, and it... melted him, or something. He's gone."

"Uh-huh." Ge'Sirn considered. "Well, we've got a fair supply for the moment... but, yeah, need another source. I'm damn sure I'm not making any of it on my ship, anyway."

"Nor me," said N'Drask.

"How about Wuquen's subordinates? Any of them open for a deal?"

N'Drask shook his head. "Entire base is gone. There was an Alphan ship there, they said everyone was dead. And then I left a sensor drone behind, and I watched them make sure of that. They shot the station with some kind of singularity weapon. Man, it was impressive."

"That's why we need tech of our own. Otherwise, the Alphan incursion is gonna wind up owning us, just like the Borg would if they got the chance. Damn Alphans, we needed them against the Vaadwaur, fair enough, but now they just won't go home." Ge'Sirn paused. "Which sort of Alphans was it, do you know?"

"The Federation. Didn't recognize the species. Some sort of black hairy thing with teeth."

"The Federation...." Ge'Sirn thought for a moment, shook his head. "Never really got a handle on the Federation. Some of the Alphans, fine, you know how to deal. Klingons, don't cross 'em. Ferengi, don't trust 'em. Romulans, don't cross 'em or trust 'em. But the Federation...."

"Near as I can work out," said N'Drask, "it's sort of like the Hierarchy, only run as a not-for-profit."

Ge'Sirn shook his head. "How does that even work?"

"Beats me," said N'Drask. "But they've got some really good ships, advanced tech, the business. So it must work for them somehow. Seems to be four main sorts, but..."

"Four?"

"Humans, sort of like solid-colour Talaxians, seem to be the most common. Tellarites, sort of like short, ugly solid-colour Talaxians, always in a bad mood, you see a lot of them, too. Andorians, blue with white bits and antennae, vicious so-and-so's if you get on their bad side. And they've got a lot of... spayed Romulans, or something, they call 'em Vulcans." N'Drask sighed ruefully. "I got those ones all figured out, thought I had the basics of the Federation, and then...."

"And then?"

"And then a black hairy thing pops up flying one of their ships. Anyway." He stood up. "How'd your end go?"

"Fine, just fine. The Kadirians, they're going to be on board with this, that's for sure. The holograms already are, it's just the flesh and blood ones we need to convince."

"You talk to any of the real ones?"

"Nah. Just the holograms. What the real ones don't know, they won't worry over." Ge'Sirn's leathery face cracked into a grin. "The holograms were excited about it, even. And it worked just fine. So, I'm figuring the next step is to get the Kadirian hologram software and port it to our systems -"

"Kadirian tech isn't that good, though, is it?"

"The hardware is kind of clunky, yeah. But the Kadirians have been running three-quarters of their entire society off holograms for a generation now, so the control software - the AI and self-awareness subroutines - that's at least as good as anything the Alphans have got." Ge'Sirn's grin grew broader. "Couple it with our new gizmo, we will have the edge on them in holographic tech, and that is a big edge to have. And it won't be the only one, either. I've had some ideas."

"I'll just bet you have." N'Drask strode towards the door of the conference room. "I'll get all the stuff we've got. Don't mind telling you, I will be damn glad to get that goop off my ship."

"It's harmless, if you know how to handle it. Wuquen must have been trying to cut costs, or something. Taking short cuts, you know how that works out, with the goop."

"Yeah, well, don't melt yourself, that's all I ask." N'Drask paused at the doorway. "You sure everything worked OK?"

"Smooth as anything. Why?"

"There's been some subspace chatter.... something about the Kadirians, and a Kobali colony. Ring any bells?"

"We did visit a bunch of Kobali, yeah." Ge'Sirn narrowed his eyes, considering. "Everything went just fine, though. Kadirian holos went in, did their survey, chatted to the zombies a bit, went back home. Just fine, no problems."

N'Drask shrugged. "Maybe a coincidence, then. I'll go get your protomatter."