Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven (27 page)

“Look at this sequence,” Xiong said, pointing at the screen. “I think the twelve elements in this pattern correspond to the differences we detected on the facets of each artifact. I think it defines the unique way each facet absorbs or reflects energy.”

Theriault pushed his pointing finger aside with her own. “Yes! And this larger sequence tells us which facets to place in contact with one another.” She glowed with delight. “Oh, my God! It’s an
assembly guide
!” Then realization set in. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately, yes. It means we did this completely wrong.”

Xiong stepped away from the screen, put two fingers in his mouth, and split the sedate atmosphere of the Vault with a shrill
whistle. His flock of white-coated scientists and Starfleet specialists all looked up at him, their reflex Pavlovian in its perfection. “Everyone! Listen up! I have bad news, and I have good news. First, the bad news. I know you’re all eager to start running experiments and testing your new protocols, but all that’s going to have to wait—because we need to go in there and take that thing completely apart.” Groans of disbelief and disappointment resounded inside the lab, then subsided as Xiong raised his arms and waved everyone back into line. “The good news is the reason why. We have new intel that we think will clear up all the problems we’ve had bringing this array on line. I want you all to get started on breaking down the array. By the time you’re finished, Lieutenant Theriault and I should be ready to give you specific instructions for how to put it back together—the right way, this time.” He clapped his hands, breaking the spell of attention. “Let’s get to work!”

With varying degrees of enthusiasm and equanimity, the research team trudged inside the isolation chamber and began the delicate, tedious labor of disassembling the makeshift array. Theriault joined in to help speed things along as Xiong continued to study the data on the screen and add more of his own annotations. Hoping this might be a chance to make an appeal to his better nature, Marcus joined him at the master control panel.

“Ming,” she said softly. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

He paused in his analysis and gave her his attention. “Of course, Doctor.”

She gathered her courage. “Now that you’re taking the array apart, I want to ask you to hold off on putting it back together, even if just to—”

“You know I can’t do that,” he cut in. “I have my orders. We all do.”

The same old argument; it made her want to scream. “I’m aware of that, Ming. But I’m worried about what our work is being used for. And about how it’s being used.”

Xiong crossed his arms. “We’ve talked about this. You voiced your concerns, and Admiral Nogura overruled them.”

“And you agree with his decision?”

Conflicting emotions played across his youthful face. “It’s complicated.”

“I understand that.” She reached out and gently grasped his arm, hoping a bit of real human contact would help put her point across more effectively than mere words. “But this thing you’re building—I think it’s dangerous, Ming. It could be used for unethical purposes.”

He gently brushed away her hand. “That’s true of any technology. A warp drive could be used to accelerate payloads into planets at superluminal velocities. To an undefended planet, a warp drive can be a doomsday weapon. Technologies aren’t inherently good or evil.”

“Are you sure?” She aimed a troubled look at the array, which had already been stripped of a dozen crystals. “That thing was made to be a prison, Ming. And the research you did on the first two artifacts showed us that when those crystals are occupied, they can be used to generate almost limitless power. They destroyed
eleven
worlds from
hundreds
of light-years away. Does that seem like an ethical piece of technology to you? A weapon that runs on slavery?”

“Those worlds were destroyed by
mistake
.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He looked flustered. “We checked, Doctor. None of those planets were inhabited. In fact, most of them were lifeless rock-balls. No harm done.”

“Tell that to the ecosystem on Ceti Alpha V. It was completely destroyed when we blew up Ceti Alpha VI and changed its orbit.”

“Well, then,” Xiong said, “it’s a good thing nobody
lives
on Ceti Alpha V.”

She could see he was becoming defensive, but she had come too far to abandon her argument now. “So why is Starfleet covering it up? Did you know they forged new charts of the Ceti Alpha system? They’re pretending Ceti Alpha V is actually Ceti Alpha VI! Why?”

“We’ve been ordered not to talk about that, Doctor.
Ever
.”

“Damn it, Ming, ask yourself why they’re keeping it a secret even from their own people. What if it’s because some admiral at Starfleet or some politician on Earth wants to see if the array can destroy chosen worlds on purpose? What if they want to make a weapon out of it?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t be so sure, Ming. Power corrupts, and this array is about as close as we’ve come to absolute power.” Turned half away from her, his body language suggested he was ready to shut her out. She changed tactics. “Ming, you’re better than this.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I read the reports you wrote after you first got here.” She leaned sideways to catch his eye one last time. “You did some groundbreaking work. And you used to be a voice for mercy and reason. You represented everything Starfleet claims it stands for. Now you’re in charge of a project whose principal objective seems to be trapping and enslaving the Shedai.”

His mood darkened. “Actually, our primary objective is to eliminate the Shedai as a threat, for the good of the Federation and the galaxy at large. Studying their technology for new applications is actually our secondary mission.”

The revelation horrified Marcus. “So your most human option is slavery, and the only alternative is genocide?” Xiong didn’t seem inclined to respond to her outburst, so she added, “The Ming Xiong whose research I admired would never agree to be a party to this.”

“People change, Doctor.” Determination put a fierce cast on his angular features. “I’ve seen good people killed, watched nations push each other to the brink of war, and faced an enemy so powerful that I still have nightmares about it. I sent one of my few real friends to her death so we could obtain the intelligence T’Prynn brought us today. I’ve made more compromises, broken more promises, and shed more blood than I’d ever thought possible. The reasons why don’t really matter anymore. I’ve come too far and seen too much to believe that everything will be all right if only we make token gestures to morality. What matters
now is that the whole galaxy seems to be out to kill us, and the Shedai are at the front of the line. So either help us get this array working, or get the hell out of my lab.”

Stung by Xiong’s vitriolic rebuke, Marcus stormed away, leaving him to his infernal device and willing collaborators.
Those morons at Starfleet Command are going to get us all killed,
she decided. It was time to put a halt to the madness, to plead her case to someone who would listen to reason and intervene before it was too late.

As she opened the secure hatch and left the Vault, she was not surprised to note that none of her so-called colleagues and peers paid the slightest heed to her departure. But she vowed they would not continue ignoring her for much longer.

Sequestered in her private office, T’Prynn drew quiet satisfaction from the comfort of slightly higher gravity and temperatures, and lower humidity and air pressure, than were standard aboard Vanguard—or, for that matter, inside most Starfleet vessels and facilities. She had configured her environmental controls to approximate as closely as possible the climate of her native Vulcan. It was a small indulgence, but one that made her daily work routine more agreeable.

A number of tasks still awaited her attention before that day’s duty shift drew to a close. She needed to decrypt a few packets of intercepted Klingon signal traffic, review reports from a handful of recently debriefed field operatives, scan the latest public news from both the Federation and its neighboring rivals for patterns of interest, and conduct a cursory review of the official identity files of all newly arrived visitors to the station to see if any triggered alerts from the biometric recognition systems concealed inside the docking bays and primary corridors.

It was a slow day aboard Vanguard, all things considered.

A soft beeping from the companel on her wraparound desk alerted her to an incoming subspace message on a secure frequency
from Earth. She checked the encryption keys, which confirmed the message had originated at the headquarters of Starfleet Command. Following protocol, she tapped in her authorization code to accept the transmission. The Starfleet emblem on her panel’s vid screen was replaced by the careworn features of Admiral Selim Aziz, the director of Starfleet Intelligence. His skin was of an especially rich shade of brown, a visible testament to his Tunisian heritage. When he smiled, his gleaming teeth seemed almost blinding in contrast to his complexion.
“Good morning, Lieutenant T’Prynn.”

“Good
afternoon,
Admiral.”

His smile faltered, then vanished.
“Ah, yes. I forgot to account for local time aboard the station. My mistake.”

She saw no point in prolonging or capitalizing upon his apparent discomfort at the minor faux pas. “It’s of no consequence, sir. How can I assist you?”

“I noted with interest your report of a successful reinterview of Cervantes Quinn. Has the intelligence produced by that debriefing proved useful to the team in the Vault?”

“It has. Lieutenant Xiong informs me the new intel provided by Mister Quinn has been instrumental in the reconfiguration of the array, and it is expected to be of equal value when it comes time to bring the system fully on line.”

A sage nod from Aziz.
“Excellent.”
He eyed T’Prynn with suspicion.
“I also noticed that your report did not explain how your reinterview managed to elicit this intelligence from Mister Quinn, when your initial interview failed to do so.”
He folded his hands and leaned forward.
“Without casting aspersions upon your interrogative methods, I am compelled to ask what made this latest debriefing more successful than the last.”

She had hoped no one would ask about this, but now that Aziz had, there would be no way to avoid an official record of the matter. “A most reasonable inquiry, Admiral. I extracted the information from Mister Quinn’s memory by means of a Vulcan mind-meld.”

“I see.”
He thought for a moment, then nodded once.
“From what I know of your people’s customs, that can’t have been an easy thing for you.”

Giving away nothing with her face or voice, she replied, “It was not, sir.”

“I commend you for making such an extraordinary effort, Lieutenant.”
Concern creased his ebony brow.
“However, it raises troubling questions about Mister Quinn.”

“Such as . . . ?” She focused on masking her alarm at the direction of the conversation.

“My first query would be whether he remembered this intelligence all along but simply chose not to divulge it during his first debriefing.”

“No, sir,” T’Prynn said with verbal force. “My opinion is that Mister Quinn was afflicted by a psychological block induced by emotional trauma. He was unable to recollect the details of that mission with sufficient clarity due to his distress at the death of his partner.”

Aziz pressed his index finger to his lips for a moment, striking a thoughtful pose.
“Would you say that your mind-meld had the effect of helping him overcome that mental block?”

A small nod. “That would be a fair assessment.”

“So his memory of that day’s events are now clear in his mind?”

“I think they are, yes. The meld has greatly improved his specific recall.”

The admiral’s mood turned solemn.
“Most unfortunate.”
He paused, seemingly deep in thought. Before T’Prynn could ask him to explain, he continued.
“If his memory had remained unreliable outside of the mind-meld, I might have been able to authorize a simple mind wipe for him and left it at that. But if he recalls the details of the Shedai’s technology clearly, even one of our engram erasures won’t hide that kind of detailed information from a Klingon mind-sifter.”

“I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning, Admiral.”

“I’ll be blunt, then: Mister Quinn’s history of alcoholism and
unstable behavior make him a security risk, especially in light of his recent relapse into binge drinking.”

“I’ve taken steps to help him control his addictions. Given time and support—”

Aziz shook his head.
“It’s too late for that, Lieutenant. The intel to which he’s had access is too important and the stakes in the Taurus Reach are now far too high for us to risk Quinn being captured and interrogated by a hostile power or rogue political actor. And considering the current downward spiral of his life, I’m afraid he’s no longer useful to us as a covert asset, which means we have no compelling reason to spend time or resources rehabilitating him.”

T’Prynn said nothing. She just stared at Aziz and waited until he made it an order.

“Covertly neutralize Mister Quinn at your earliest opportunity. Aziz out.”

The admiral terminated the connection without brooking further debate, which was just as well, since there clearly was nothing left to discuss. Quinn’s life had been declared forfeit, and T’Prynn had been designated to collect it.

Seeing no other alternative, she began planning the end of Cervantes Quinn.

As a general rule, Admiral Nogura preferred to conduct official meetings inside his office. He tried to avoid visiting the other departments under his authority because, in his experience, the arrival of a commanding officer—especially one of flag rank—tended to have a disruptive effect on business-as-usual. Convening behind closed doors also provided the additional advantage of discretion. Put simply, people often seemed more willing to speak their minds in private.