Cold Equations: Silent Weapons

Book : Star Trek: The Next Generation

by David Mack

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

Book Two in the New York Times bestselling Cold Equations trilogy set in the expanded universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation! A WAR OF LIES Three years after the disastrous final Borg Invasion, a bitter cold war against the Typhon Pact has pushed Starfleet’s resources to the breaking point. Now the rise of a dangerous new technology threatens to destroy the Federation from within. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise crew answer a distress call from an old friend, only to become targets in a deadly game of deception. To protect a vital diplomatic mission, they must find a way to identify the spies hiding in their midst, before it’s too late. But Worf soon realizes the crew’s every move has been predicted: Someone is using them as pawns. And the closer they get to exposing their enemy, the deeper they spiral into its trap…

Release date: November 27, 2012

Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1 1
Few things vexed Hilar Tohm as much as being kept waiting. Ever since her youth on Trill, all through her years at Starfleet Academy, and since then as an analyst and now a section chief for Starfleet Intelligence, she had prided herself on her punctuality, and she took it as an affront when others failed to extend to her the same degree of professionalism and courtesy. In her opinion, those who insisted on arriving late to scheduled appointments tended to fall into one of two categories: the passive-aggressive, who used their tardiness to exact a measure of revenge on others, and the utterly rude, who kept others waiting as an exhibition of personal power, a means of telling others, I feel free to waste your time because I think mine is more important.

She took a sip of tepid oolong tea with lemon and honeysuckle honey, brushed a lock of her curly chestnut hair from her eyes, and glanced at her wrist chrono. It counted down the final thirty seconds to 1600 local time, adjusted for the peculiar variances of chronometry on the Orion homeworld. He’d better not be late.

Twenty seconds before the hour, the person for whom she had been waiting stepped through the café’s front door, took a cursory look around the room, and spotted her. Slim and blue-eyed, Data was a bit taller than the average human. His complexion was fair, and his head was crowned with a shaggy tousle of light brown hair parted on the right. He dressed in simple clothes—dark trousers and shoes, a cream-colored linen shirt, and a jacket of synthetic leather—and he moved with grace and confidence. Without a wave or any shift in his expression, he slalomed through the room of closely packed tables and back-to-back chairs filled by patrons of dozens of different species, working his way toward her with tireless resolve.

He reached her table and greeted her with one polite nod. “Is this seat taken?”

She responded with their prearranged challenge phrase. “I was saving it for my brother.”

“All men are brothers—until the rent comes due.” Tohm motioned for him to sit, and he settled into the chair across from her. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“No problem.” She lowered her voice. “What name are you traveling under?”

Data leaned forward and whispered, “Daniel Soong.” A one-shoulder shrug and a self-effacing half smile. “Call me sentimental.” His mien shifted like mercury, at once sharp and businesslike. “I just want to say that I appreciate your discretion in this matter.”

“And I just want to say that if certain notable persons hadn’t vouched for you, we wouldn’t be talking right now.” Impatient, she stole a look at her chrono. “What do you need?”

The human-looking android reached inside his jacket, took out a translucent aqua-colored isolinear chip, and pushed it across the table to within a few centimeters of Tohm’s hand. “A comprehensive search of the Orion banking system. The private databases and offline archives.”

She extended one finger and sneaked the chip beneath her palm with a magician’s sleight of hand. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything related to the finances of the persons and corporations identified on that chip.” He cast furtive looks over his shoulders, as if he were concerned about mechanical surveillance or eavesdroppers on one of the most privacy-obsessed worlds in the quadrant. “The entities in question should already be known to your associates. Some of them have been flagged for investigation for more than a century, and all are currently on the SI watch list.”

His demeanor was calm and professional, but the scope of what he’d requested put Tohm on edge. “This is quite a bit more than I was led to believe you’d need.”

“What degree of aid had you anticipated?”

Studying his reaction, she said, “An address, perhaps. Maybe some comm records. Nothing quite this”—she tapped her finger on the isolinear chip—“incendiary.”

The youthful android seemed unfazed by her admission. “Should I interpret your reticence to mean you cannot or will not assist me in this matter?”

“Not necessarily. But I’ll need to know more about what I’m investigating.”

Concern creased Data’s brow, and a thin frown pursed his lips. “I am reluctant to say too much, for a number of reasons.”

His evasiveness captured her interest. “What can you tell me?”

“The subject of my inquiry is an individual who has eluded Starfleet custody on at least two occasions, and who has traveled throughout the Federation and beyond under more than a hundred aliases. He possesses knowledge that I think might be vital to Federation security.”

Tohm searched Data’s face for any hint of mendacity, but his expression was all but inscrutable. “What makes you think the Orion banking industry has the intel you want?”

“As resourceful and independent as this person has proved to be, he still has occasional need of the Federation and its resources. But even if he did not, I believe he is unwilling to sever all ties with our culture. If he is to maintain such contact, however tangential, he must have some manner of financial identity we will recognize and accept. I have ruled out the Bank of Bolarus and the Ferenginar Credit Exchange as the havens for this identity. He would not entrust his fortune to depositories under the control of our rivals, and he cannot be using an account at an institution that reports its holdings to the Federation government. That leaves the Bank of Orion as the most likely shelter for his remaining financial personae.”

I’ll give him credit for this much: he’s thorough.

She slid the chip off the table and tucked it into her pocket. “I’ll see what I can do. But I have one more question.” He cocked his head and affected a quizzical look, prompting her to ask, “You’re not currently on active duty, so why are you really looking for this guy?”

Her query seemed to amuse Data, who suppressed a smile and looked at the table for a moment until he recovered his composure. “Let it suffice to say that it is… a family matter.”

“All right, then.” He appeared satisfied to let his answer stand, so she did the same. “I’ll need a couple of days. How do I reach you?”

A tilt of his head in the general direction of downtown. “Contact me at the Royal Suite of the Imperial Star Resort, under the name Miller.”

“The Imperial Star?” She was certain she must have misheard him. “The one inside the Nalori diplomatic compound?” He nodded. She was about to ask why he was using the nom de voyage Miller, then thought better of it. “Fine. I’ll be in touch soon.”

He stood. “I look forward to hearing from you.” They shook hands, and Tohm was surprised to find Data’s flesh warm to the touch, and his fingertips slightly callused. He smiled as he released her hand. “Good night.”

Tohm watched Data weave his way out of the room, and then she slipped out of the café through its rear service door. For the briefest moment as she stood in the alleyway, she felt the dread of being watched—but when she turned to confront her stalker, she found only an empty lane, darkened windows, and the muffled drone of nighttime traffic in the Orion capital. You’re getting paranoid, she teased herself. Maybe you’ve been a spook for too long.

Hands tucked into her pockets, she quickened her steps back toward the Federation Embassy. Because as certain as she was that no one was following her, she knew that in her line of work, sooner or later she would be wrong.

Radiant and prismatic, the gas giant’s rings arced across the Enterprise’s main viewscreen. Picard gazed upon them in wonder, swelling with admiration for their ineffable beauty and harboring unspoken regret over the idea of tampering with such natural marvels.

Limned by the soft glow of bridge consoles, his crew attended to their duties with a minimum of conversation; semimusical response tones punctuated the white-noise hush of life-support systems and the low-frequency pulse of the impulse engines. Gathered around the aft bulkhead’s master systems display were Lieutenant Dina Elfiki, the strikingly attractive young senior officer of the ship’s sciences division, and two specialists from the astrometrics team: Lieutenant Corinne Clipet, a dark-haired and soft-spoken theoretical physicist from France, and Ensign th’Verroh, an astrophysicist who the year before had chosen to remain in Starfleet, even though it had meant being disowned by his family after Andoria’s secession from the Federation. The trio of scientists had been charged with carrying out the principal tasks of the Enterprise’s current mission: infusing the rings of Azeban V with the same kind of regenerative metaphasic radiation that had made the Ba’ku planet inside the Briar Patch of such interest to Starfleet.

The trio’s low murmuring, full of esoteric jargon and clipped reports, made poor fodder for eavesdropping, so Picard shifted his attention to the port-side station closest to his command chair. The ship’s new chief of security, Lieutenant Aneta Šmrhová, was engaged in a hushed but tense exchange with the first officer, Commander Worf. The broad-shouldered Klingon loomed over the slender but athletic human woman, who’d recently had her raven hair shorn to a stylish and asymmetrical bob that swept forward on the right, beneath her jaw.

Šmrhová’s struggle to preserve a façade of cool professionalism in the face of Worf’s withering criticism was apparent, and Picard wondered—not for the first time in recent weeks—if his first officer was treating her unfairly. The young woman, a native of the Czech city of Ostrava, had served on the Enterprise for more than four years without drawing a single negative word from Worf, but since the first day that Picard had promoted her to fill the post left vacant by the death of Lieutenant Jasminder Choudhury, it had seemed as if Šmrhová could do nothing that met with Worf’s approval. It felt uncharitable to ascribe Worf’s hostility toward Šmrhová and his micromanagement of her job performance to his grief over the violent loss of his inamorata Choudhury, but Picard found himself at a loss for another plausible explanation for his first officer’s behavior toward the new security chief. Compounding his concerns was the fact that Worf had pointedly declined several summons to meet with the ship’s counseling staff, and after the senior counselor, Hegol Den, had made such a session mandatory, Worf had sat silently through two consecutive appointments. If this situation doesn’t resolve itself in the next day, Picard decided, I’ll have no choice but to intervene.

Worf stepped away from the security console and passed Picard as he returned to his seat on the captain’s right. His mien was serious and alert. “Our activities continue to attract interest.”

“The same ship again?” In the week since the Enterprise’s arrival at Azeban V, the crew had detected fleeting signs that they were being shadowed by a cloaked Romulan warbird.

The Klingon’s aspect turned grave. “A new signal has been caught on sensors. Lieutenant Šmrhová and Ensign Rosado have reason to suspect our new observer is a Breen warship.”

Picard frowned in concern. Just as they had been warned by Starfleet Command prior to starting their mission, they had become a locus for the Typhon Pact’s attention. “What of the reports from the Beta Aurealis system? Have they been verified?”

A subtle nod. “A reconnaissance flight by the U.S.S. Starling confirmed the presence of a Tzenkethi mobile surveillance platform. It appears to have been deployed to monitor our operations here.” He shot a disgruntled look at the rings on the viewscreen. “But if they learn how fruitless our efforts have been, they might soon lose interest.”

“I suspect their interest will last as long as our attempts continue.” He called up the most recent tactical scans on the command screen beside his chair. “Run three battle drills at random intervals over the next six shifts.”

“Aye, sir.”

Picard stood and walked aft to the master systems display, where he insinuated himself silently into Elfiki’s work group.

As the other officers took note of his presence, their conversation tapered off, and the svelte Egyptian woman turned and graced Picard with a coy smile. “Captain.”

“Lieutenant. Has your team made any progress since yesterday?”

Anxious, evasive looks traveled back and forth between Elfiki, Clipet, and th’Verroh. “That depends, sir,” Elfiki said. “Do you consider documenting the myriad ways in which our first round of energizing pulses failed to produce anything remotely resembling metaphasic radiation to be evidence of progress?”

“Not as such, no.”

She averted her eyes toward the deck to downplay her mild embarrassment. “Then I guess the answer would be no, we haven’t made any significant progress. Sir.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lieutenant. Setbacks and negative results are par for the course in scientific research.” He gestured at the display. “How do you plan to proceed?”

Elfiki nodded at Clipet. “Corrine?”

The chestnut-haired Frenchwoman stepped up to the MSD and began keying in commands, triggering simulations on several screens. “We believe that part of the reason our first round of experiments yielded no change in the rings’ energy output is that too many of the elements and compounds inside the rings are inert. However, there is a high concentration of kytherium in the rings’ dust. I think that if we introduce a catalyst such as corvelite, we could break down the kytherium, releasing a number of highly reactive compounds that might respond to our efforts to initiate metaphasic conversion.”

It was the most promising lead that Picard’s crew had presented to him so far. “Very good. How long until we’re ready to proceed?”

“Four days,” Elfiki said. “We’ll need to replicate a sufficient quantity of the catalyst to seed the rings, but we can’t store that much at once, so we’ll need to stock up to maximum capacity first, then continue production during the distribution phase.”

Picard nodded. “Make it so.”

Elfiki, Clipet, and th’Varroh replied in unison, “Aye, sir.”

Picard returned to his chair. As he settled in, Worf leaned over and said in a low voice, “Do you think their plan will work?”

It was a legitimate question, but not one Picard knew how to answer. “It’s hardly my area of expertise, Number One. But if I were to hazard a guess? I would say no.”

Worf’s glum mood deepened. “I do not understand why the Enterprise was chosen to carry out such an ill-planned experiment. Why not send a science vessel, instead?”

His question led Picard’s eye back to the tactical report on his command screen, and the mounting evidence that the Enterprise appeared to have become the Typhon Pact’s primary object of interest. “I suppose that depends on what, exactly, Starfleet hoped to accomplish by sending us here. If the goal was to replicate the rings of Ba’ku, then perhaps this was an error. But if the idea was to draw the attention of our rivals… then I’d have to say we’ve succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.”

It was a slow day in the Happy Bottom Riding Club, the crew lounge of the Enterprise. Most of the tables were empty, and only a handful of officers and noncoms were scattered around the spacious compartment decorated in aeronautical memorabilia from twentieth-century Earth. Sal, the bartender, set down two glasses of real booze, one each before Geordi La Forge and Ravel Dygan, then stepped away to let the men contemplate the beverages they’d ordered on a mutual dare.

In front of La Forge was a squat tumbler of kanar, a syrupy alcoholic treat from Dygan’s homeworld, Cardassia Prime. The chief engineer picked up the glass and rolled it in a slow circle, testing the viscosity of the fluid within; the kanar moved like industrial lubricant. He took a whiff of it and wrinkled his nose in confusion. Its sweeter notes seemed enticing, but it was laced with a pungent kick that threatened a less than benign drinking experience.

Wary of imbibing, La Forge said to Dygan, “You first.”

The Cardassian operations officer, who was serving on the Enterprise courtesy of the Officer Exchange Program, seemed equally suspicious of his pale golden libation. He held it up to the light, sniffed it, then recoiled in fear and revulsion. “What did you say this was called?”

“Tequila.” A mischievous grin lit up La Forge’s face. “Be careful. It packs a wallop.”

Dygan put down the glass. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

La Forge laughed. “Of course it is.” He was still chuckling as he shook his head. “I haven’t done something this dumb since I was at the Academy.”

“My friends and I were much the same as cadets at the military academy on Kora II.” The recollection turned his mood wistful. “It’s hard to believe so many of them are gone now. Most of the people I knew back then died in the Dominion War.” He wore a sympathetic expression as he added, “I’m sure that’s a feeling you know all too well.”

La Forge nodded. “Sorry to say, yes.” He stared at the opaque surface of the kanar as he gathered his thoughts. “It’s not that I can’t make new friends, but it seems to get harder as I get older. And sometimes I just don’t seem to get as close to new friends as I did to old ones.”

“That’s the way of things,” Dygan said, staring through the amber lens of liquor in his hand. “We love best those we loved first.” Then he took a maudlin turn. “Some things truly are irreplaceable.” He banished his blue mood with an affected smile. “But sometimes they come back, eh? Your old friend Data, for instance.”

“Yeah…. Data.” Being reminded of his best friend’s reincarnation left the normally gregarious La Forge momentarily speechless. More than four years after he had helped Data go to his doom aboard the Scimitar to save Captain Picard from the madman Shinzon and destroy a thalaron weapon that could exterminate entire worlds, La Forge had found himself assisting in his friend’s return—inside the android body his creator, Noonien Soong, had made to enable himself to cheat death. All at once, four years of grief had been made moot; four years of loneliness and slow healing had been rendered meaningless. La Forge was overjoyed to have his friend back, but to his surprise, he had also discovered that he felt angry. He masked his unease with an awkward smile. “I still haven’t really got my head around that.”

Dygan struck an apologetic note. “I didn’t mean to pry, or open old wounds.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He dismissed the perceived offense with a wave of his hand. “As we say on Earth, water under the bridge.”

After picking up and contemplating the tequila for a few seconds, Dygan set it back down with exaggerated caution. “I don’t mean to make light of how confusing your situation must be, but I have to say… I envy you, just a little bit.” He looked La Forge in the eye. “There are few things I wouldn’t give to bring my best friend back from the grave.”

The younger man’s admission dredged up La Forge’s submerged guilt. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I’m not. Having Data back is… amazing. If I could’ve done it myself, I would have. But the way it happened raises questions I don’t know how to answer.”

“Such as…?”

At first, La Forge was reluctant to speak. Then he put aside his reticence and decided to confide in Dygan. “Well, for starters, on a purely semantic level, it’s not really him but a copy of him. The original Data—body, mind, and soul—went up in flames with the Scimitar. This new Data has most of the original’s memories… but not quite all of them. His memory of that life ends at the moment he uploaded his engrams into B-4’s positronic matrix. But—and here’s the part I can’t quite get a handle on—except for a gap of about a day, he remembers being the Data I knew. And what are we, any of us, except the sum of our experiences? If he remembers the life he lived, how can I say he’s not really him?”

Silent and pensive, Dygan ruminated on those points for a moment. He looked down at the glass in his hand. “Perhaps we should have saved this conversation for after the first round.”

“You opened the floodgates,” La Forge said.

“So I did.” A far-off look in Dygan’s eyes gave La Forge the impression he was thinking something profound. Then the Cardassian said, “I think that if he wasn’t the man you knew, you’d have been able to tell when he was standing in front of you. Did he seem the same?”

La Forge thought back to the moment he saw Data sit up on the worktable inside the lab on Mangala, and the discussion they’d had before he departed the Enterprise in the Archeus, the ship the android had inherited from his father. “Yeah, he did. In every way…. It was him, I’d swear it.”

“Then it was him.”

Could it really be that simple? Was it possible that all the philosophical and ontological conundrums that seemed to accompany Data’s resurrection were, in fact, irrelevant? La Forge wanted to think so; questioning his friend’s return had felt like an act of denial, as if he were experiencing the stages of grieving in reverse—in effect, mourning his grief.

“I hope you’re right,” he said.

Dygan slapped a reassuring hand on La Forge’s shoulder. “Trust me, sir.” He lifted his glass, and La Forge did the same as the Cardassian added, “To old friends.”

“To old friends,” La Forge said.

He and Dygan downed their drinks in single pours—then both men doubled over as they sprayed the deck with spit-takes. La Forge gagged and smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in a futile bid to rid it of the sickening taste of kanar, and Dygan dropped his glass as he coughed and gasped for air. From the end of the bar and around the room came the knowing chortles of their shipmates. Pulling himself upright against the bar, La Forge groaned. “An hour from now I’m gonna be really sorry I did that.”

“Then I envy you again,” Dygan said with a grimace, “because I’m sorry now.”

Joyful shrieks and squeals spilled into the corridor from the Enterprise’s day-care nursery, and Doctor Beverly Crusher felt her son René’s pulse quicken as his excitement level surged in response to the sound of other children playing. The toddler tried to sprint ahead of her, only to be restrained by her gentle hold on his wrist. “Calm down, René,” Crusher said.

The nursery, located a couple of compartments away from sickbay on Deck 7, was a bright and cheerful space set up by the ship’s Denobulan assistant chief medical officer, Doctor Tropp. Its walls and carpeting had been remodeled in soothing pastel hues, and it had been stocked with a variety of toys—some educational, some simply fun, all safe and hypoallergenic.

Crusher let go of René’s hand as the door hushed open ahead of them, and he scampered inside, his cherubic face bright with glee as he joined his friends, a handful of young children of various humanoid species who ranged in age from eighteen months to three and a half years. At two and a half, René was right in the middle of the pack, but his friendly disposition and gentleness of spirit enabled him to interact easily with both the older and younger children. Seeing him hug his friends hello brought Crusher a feeling of contentment and an easy smile.

Looking up, she caught the eye of the nursery’s principal adult supervisor and beckoned him with raised eyebrows and a small wave. Hailan Casmir was an Argelian teacher, musician, and puppeteer who appeared to be in his early thirties. He wore his blond hair in a loose mane that framed his lean, angular features, which were accentuated by his close-cropped, honey-hued beard. Casmir was married to one of the ship’s engineers, a Bajoran woman named Lieutenant Taro Trinell, with whom he had fathered a daughter, Taro Katín, who was just a few months younger than René and had recently become one of the boy’s favorite playmates.

Casmir shook Crusher’s hand. “Doctor. A pleasure, as always.”

“Likewise.” She nodded at René. “I just want to let you know I plan on picking him up early today, around 1400, and he’ll be out tomorrow.”

Her news drew a frown of mild concern from Casmir. “Nothing’s wrong, I hope.”

“No, no. Just routine vaccinations, but he’ll have to be isolated for twenty-four hours afterward, just to make sure he doesn’t suffer any unexpected side effects.” She crossed her arms and observed the children’s playtime frenzy with a clinical eye. “How’s everything going?”

“Splendidly,” Casmir said. “Little René’s become quite the ringleader around here. I don’t know how much of that is natural charisma as opposed to the others’ expectations of him as the captain’s son, but he has a knack for setting the tone to suit his mood.”

“Is that really a good thing?”

He shrugged. “It’s neither good nor bad. He’s got a talent for imitating behaviors that he sees, and for persuading others to join him in doing things that he likes. On the other hand, he still has a bit to learn about sharing with others. But all of this is normal for a child his age.”

She knew that Casmir was right. Her first son, Wesley, had gone through much the same process of socialization, though he had been less prone to taking the lead with his peers. Regardless, she harbored concerns. “Be that as it may, Hailan, try to encourage René to let someone else choose the games once in a while. I don’t want the others to fall into a pattern of treating him differently because he’s the captain’s son.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

His answer sounded agreeable enough, but Crusher sensed there was something he was holding back, something he was trying to avoid saying. “But…” she prompted.

“But… as he and his peers get older, if they remain on this ship, it won’t be possible to separate their perception of his identity from his relationship to the captain. It’s a natural part of informal socialization among most humanoids to develop layers of hierarchy. In earlier, less developed cultures, adolescent social groups often split along economic lines. These days, the divisions are usually based on achievements, in either academics or athletics. But on board a starship, where life is far more regimented, and a system of military rank defines the interactions of adults, children tend to model their relationships on those they see every day.”

Crusher’s first impulse was to debate Casmir’s point, but she recalled having seen signs of exactly that kind of unconscious caste system aboard other starships on which she’d served, and it was consistent with accounts she’d heard from people who had grown up on starships or starbases. Children of officers tended to socialize with one another, as did