Star Trek (9 page)

“I
wish you would die again,” said Em-Lin, talking to the empty space to the right of Vance Hawkins's head. “I wish you would die and stay dead this time.”

Vance got up from crouching in front of Em-Lin and rubbed the back of his neck. No matter what he said or did, he could not seem to get through to her. She was lost in the depths of the haunting vision that had completely superimposed itself over reality since the Dominion transmitter had kicked into high gear.

It figured. The only Miradorn he could stomach, a Miradorn who had earned his respect by single-handedly defusing a quantum bomb booby trap and saving many lives, and she was locked up tight in a world of her own with the ghost of her dead twin sister. He had listened to her talking to her sister, Or-Lin, long enough to know that it was not a pleasant world to inhabit.

Maybe it was time for him to stop trying to bring her out of it. If she had been any other Miradorn, in fact, he would not have tried as long as he had already. It wasn't his job, anyway; Lense, not the deputy chief of security, was responsible for treating nonresponsive victims of trauma.

So why was he even now trying to think of a way to break through to Em-Lin?

She had proven herself to him by saving lives, but the truth was, she had worked for the Dominion. For all he knew, she could have contributed, directly or indirectly, to the prison camp operation on Jomej VII.

Still, he had a gut feeling that she deserved to be rescued from the private hell in which she was suffering. In addition, Vance hoped that her expertise with changeling technology might help to deactivate the Dominion transmitter and save the Miradorn on Zasharu.

He crouched down in front of her again. Maybe, he thought, it was time to try something more creative. If this didn't work, he could always summon T'Mandra from patrolling the shrine above and ask her to try a Vulcan mind-meld as a last-ditch effort.

Vance activated his wrist beacon and aimed its beam directly into Em-Lin's eyes. At first, Em-Lin continued to look off to one side, watching her invisible tormentor. Then, Vance moved the beacon into the space that she was watching, fixing it right on her eyes, and when he slid it away, her gaze followed it.

Before Em-Lin's eyes could drift back to the empty space into which they had been staring, Vance spoke. This time, however, was different from all the other times when he had tried to reach her by talking.

For one thing, he was shouting in her face. For another thing, his words were not actually directed at Em-Lin.

“Or-Lin,” he said, holding the light from his beacon steady in Em-Lin's eyes. “I need to talk to your sister.
Please,
let her talk to me.”

Em-Lin's eyes flicked to one side, then back, then away again. She did not say a word.

“It's an emergency,” said Vance. “Dominion devices are killing the people of New Mirada and Zasharu. I believe Em-Lin can help deactivate them.”

Em-Lin's eyes returned to focus on the light from Vance's beacon…then slid back to the empty space again. Her mouth opened, but still she said nothing.

“Please, Or-Lin,” said Vance. “Let her talk to me. I only want to save your people.”

“She's here all the time now,” Em-Lin said suddenly, her eyes returning to the light. “Before, it was only some of the time.”

Vance switched off his wrist beacon.

“To me, she's like a living, breathing person,” said Em-Lin. “I can see her, hear her, and touch her all at once. Not that that's a good thing. We weren't exactly getting along before she died, and our relationship hasn't improved since then.”

“Thank you for letting your sister talk to me, Or-Lin,” said Vance.

“You both want the same thing,” said Em-Lin. “You want me to help repair the Dominion transmitter.”

“Can you do it?” said Vance. “You know your way around changeling technology better than any of us.”

“I can do some of it,” said Em-Lin, “but I'm not familiar with all the components. You'll need someone else to do the rest.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” said Vance.

“Or-Lin,” said Em-Lin. “My dead twin sister says to tell you she'll be happy to help.”

C
arol threw back her head and screamed as loud as she could. Even then, she was drowned out by the sea of screaming Miradorn all around her.

But it helped her to keep going, and that in itself was pretty amazing.

Falcão was so overwhelmed by the ongoing chaos that she didn't seem to notice Carol's outburst. Of the rest of the triage team, only Corsi looked in her direction, and then only briefly. As for Rennan, it was impossible to tell if he had dismissed the scream with his telepathic abilities as not signaling danger, or if he was just too distracted by the mob of shrieking children who were clawing at him, too distracted to pay any attention.

Every last one of them was in hell—the triage team and the Miradorn children and grown-ups and old-timers—so why
not
scream? Those who weren't screaming on the surface of New Mirada were in a tiny minority today.

The same for those who were trying, in the face of utter hopelessness, to lessen the suffering. Carol's triage team of four was outnumbered by the thousands out there in the street in front of Mother Wu's house.

And every single victim of Overlobe Syndrome whom they tried to assist ended up comatose and dead. So far, Carol had not met a single survivor.

Just now, in fact, right before Carol's own screaming fit, twin infants had died in her arms. Two tears ran down her face, one for each of the babies, as she caught Corsi's eye.

Without a word, Corsi pushed her way through the crowd and took the babies from Carol. She disappeared in the screaming horde, taking the tiny bodies to the same place where she had been delivering all the dead. Carol did not know where that place was, and she had absolutely no desire to see it.

Moments after she gave up the infants, Carol found two more children, no more than toddlers, screaming in the middle of the street. One of them, a boy, had a bloody head wound that clearly required immediate treatment.

Carol turned to call for Falcão—and caught her breath. The barrel of a very large gun was aimed right at her, less than a meter from her face.

A tall Miradorn man with patchy silver hair held the gun with one hand. The other hand clawed at his head, and his features were contorted in an agonized grimace.

He was shaking, and he looked unsteady on his feet. “Make it stop,” he said, his voice breaking. “Make it stop make it stop make it stop!”

“I'll do what I can,” said Carol, extending a hand. “Please give me the gun.”

Suddenly, the man released a shuddering howl. His eyes clamped shut, and his finger squeezed the trigger.

Before Carol could react, she felt something slam into her and knock her to one side. She heard the piercing, oscillating whine of a disruptor beam blast by as she toppled onto the writhing bodies of afflicted Miradorn on the pavement.

Looking up, Carol saw someone trying to wrestle the gun away from the man. It was a Miradorn woman, and Carol instantly recognized her as soon as she caught the briefest glimpse of her face.

The woman was petite and pretty, with glossy black hair and smooth skin. Though she was older than she looked, she overpowered the gunman in a flash, wrenching away his weapon and knocking him unconscious with a single chop to the side of his throat.

Carol knew her as Mother Wu.

“I'm back,” said Mother Wu, stuffing the gun in a pants pocket and reaching out to help Carol to her feet.

“Thank you,” said Carol. “Thank you for the rescue.”

“I'm here to help,” said Mother Wu. “What do you need me to do?”

Carol hesitated before asking the question on her mind, but then she asked it anyway. “What about your boys?” she said.

“Nurse Wetzel couldn't do anything for them,” said Mother Wu. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “They're both dead.”

Carol looked at her, strangely filled with pity for Mother Wu and her “boys.” They had kidnapped her, but she felt only sympathy and sadness for them now.

It was the same way she felt about the whole planet, she realized. The Miradorn had helped the Dominion bring death and destruction to the Federation, and hard feelings remained on both sides, but now that the Miradorn were suffering and dying, nothing that had happened before seemed to matter.

All that was left was the sympathy of one creature of flesh and blood for another. In the end, that was what all life boiled down to.

A single tear traced its way down Carol's cheek. As the world continued to scream around her, she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Mother Wu, hugging her tightly.

Mother Wu was stiff against her and never relaxed. Eventually, though, she reached around and patted Carol's back as if to comfort her.

As if Carol were the one who needed comforting.

T
he King of Half the Known Universe exhaled his last, rattling breath in the arms of Lieutenant Commander Mor glasch Tev.

The king, whose name was Ag-Liv, had thrown himself on Tev as soon as Tev had opened the door to the throne room. Screaming in pain, Ag-Liv had begged Tev to do something to make it stop, but Tev had not been able to help him.

Jo-Liv, the King of the Other Half of the Known Universe, lay nearby, shrieking and tearing his hair out and rolling around on the floor.

Even the Kings of the Known Universe were helpless in the face of Overlobe Syndrome. True, they were largely figureheads in a constitutional monarchy, their titles symbolic holdovers from the days before contact with other species, when the Miradorn had fancied themselves the center of the universe. Still, it said a lot about the state of affairs on New Mirada that two of the most powerful, well-protected men on the planet were as defenseless against Overlobe Syndrome as the lowliest Miradorn living in a gutter.

“Here, boss,” said Makk Vinx, the Iotian security guard who had beamed to the royal palace with Tev and Bartholomew Faulwell. Vinx reached out and took the weight of King Ag-Liv from Tev. “Lemme get this for you.”

As Vinx carried the king across the room and lowered him onto a throne, Tev snorted, trying to clear the scent of death from his sensitive Tellarite nostrils. Between the mayhem in the streets and the overabundance of dead in the halls of the palace itself, Tev had inhaled far too much of that terrible scent for one day.

Scanning the room with his tricorder, he found the changeling signal that he had been following. From orbit, Ensign Haznedl at ops had located three possible sources of the signal. After beaming to the other two sites, Tev had finally found the location of the Dominion transmitter on New Mirada, the ironic “twin” of the device on the moon of Zasharu.

Now that he had found it, Tev thought that he should have guessed the correct site in the first place. As on Zasharu, the transmitter had been hidden under a long-standing locus of power—political this time instead of spiritual. As the shrine and the royal palace were not likely to be disturbed by demolition or new construction, both sites were quite safe for secret underground installations. Tev really should have known.

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone for as long as he lived.

“The Dominion transmitter is directly beneath this room,” said Tev, continuing to watch the readouts on his tricorder. “I am literally standing on top of it.”

“'Scuse me,” said Vinx. “This other bigwig over here's about to kick the bucket.”

“The only way we can help him is by rendering the transmitter inoperative,” said Tev. “Assuming we can get to it, of course.”

“There's a problem?” said Bart Faulwell, who was examining an intricate, sculpted emblem like a coat of arms on the wall behind the thrones.

“As on Zasharu, the underground transmitter chamber is heavily shielded,” said Tev. “It is also protected by a plethora of Jem'Hadar booby traps.”

“And here we are without a changeling multitool or an expert on Dominion technology,” said Faulwell. “And more Miradorn are dying every minute.”

Tev paced the floor of the throne room and thought for a moment. One solution came to mind, but it relied on the use of experimental technology. Given more time, he would prefer a traditional approach to the situation, one involving tested and more predictable techniques, but time was in short supply. The Miradorn crisis was quickly becoming an extinction-level event.

Tev needed to do what was necessary to end this disaster as fast as possible. He needed to take a chance on his unproven creation and hope for the best.

He touched his combadge. “Tev to
da Vinci,
” he said. “There's an equipment case labeled
UNCERTAINTY
on a rack in my quarters. Please retrieve that case and beam it down to me immediately.”