The Oppressor's Wrong (15 page)

And such a request didn't seem as suspicious as simply announcing the chip's discovery on the
Enterprise'
s comm system.

And doing it from his quarters seemed appropriate. Though it didn't leave enough time to tell Picard or Riker what he was doing.

Daniels pressed his hand to the panel. “Lights,” he said as he came in, and once again froze in the doorway.

A young man sat at his comm station, his head bent, his shoulders slumped. In his hand he held a phaser. From the half line of red light, Daniels knew it was set for stun.

He also suspected he knew who this young man was. “Cadet Third Class Bael Nomine?”

Nomine nodded slowly, but kept his head bent down. “Please, Mr. Daniels, come in.”

Daniels stepped in, and the door shut behind him. “You killed Lieutenant Huff.”

“That was an accident. She caught me off guard.”

“You're not a shape-shifter.”

Nomine sighed and raised his eyes. His dark, Betazoid eyes were sad, red-rimmed. “No. But I can create the illusion.” He closed his eyes and his appearance melted, blurred, and changed.

He'd become Daniels's old friend Jonathan DeNoux as he stood, the phaser trained on Daniels's chest. “Alien technology, adapted and perfected by me.” He tapped his left temple. “All controlled from an implant in here. Little did I know it'd be used like this.”

“For murder?”

“In the service of Starfleet.”

Daniels eyed his quarters. His own phaser remained strapped to his hip, but his hands weren't free. One held the chip, the other the damaged padd.

“Please, don't try to run,” Nomine said, still wearing a dead man's face. “I can read your surface thoughts. It helps me when I'm camouflaged in the field—to gauge the reactions of my marks.” He smiled. “I know you have the chip and the padd. Which is good. And I can shoot you now and the ship's sensors won't detect it.”

“Dampening field?” Daniels looked over at the
comm station and saw a small, spherical device that he didn't recognize. “Is that how you do it? Create the holograms that surround you?”

“No. That device is going to get me and you out of here without detection.”

Daniels did not like the sound of that.

He held up the chip and the padd. “Here they are—and you have to know the chip's too damaged to read. We've tried. We did ID your blood on it. And Hahn's.” He focused his gaze on the cadet. “He found out about you, didn't he?”

Nomine nodded. “He was a smart man. A man I respected. He was paying attention. Checked the communications logs.”

Daniels's eyes widened. “The missing data.” He glanced at the chip in his hand. “It's on here, isn't it? Proof that you were communicating with …” He frowned, hoping Nomine would fill in the blank and give him the name of the man the young cadet worked for.

Nomine abruptly held the phaser up high, aiming it at Daniels's face. “What I did was for the good of the Federation. It must be protected.”

Suddenly a few things became clearer to Daniels. “You didn't set the bomb to kill Hahn.”

“No, I set the bomb to prove to everyone that the Dominion is a real threat. That we need to change our
security measures. It was all supposed to go without a hitch—no casualties.”

“But that's where it went wrong,” Daniels said, looking about the room to find a way past the phaser fire. He tried masking his thoughts, thinking of Data's cat portraits. “That was the flaw in the plan. You planted it too far away. The Dominion killed twenty-seven people, Bael. You couldn't do it, could you? You couldn't kill more innocents.”

“He was already dead.” Nomine's exterior broke. His own face returned, melting away to reveal black eyes and a thinner face. “I didn't kill Hahn, but I was told to put him there, near the bomb. And then the
Enterprise
came early and we were rushed to finish …”

“Who? Who was rushed?” Daniels leaned forward. “Cadet, who are you working for?”

Nomine sniffed, tears rolling down his cheeks. “He told me to do it again—and I did. I didn't want to. But I have to follow the chain of command.”

The color drained from Daniels's face. “Do what, Nomine? What did they tell you to do?”

“… another bomb.”

“Where?”

“Engineering.” He smiled. “It was so easy.”

Another bomb.
Dear God …

Daniels didn't have a choice, he had to risk contacting
the captain. He took a step forward and set the padd and chip on the bed. “Nomine, you have to tell me where the other bomb is. You're not the type of person that can kill so easily.”

“I can't tell you that,” Nomine said as he wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “And I can't let you leave this room.”

Before Daniels could reach for his own phaser, Nomine fired.

“Y
ou told me to do a little digging,” Riker said as he sat down in the chair in front of Picard's desk. “And, as you can see, what I discovered from my father's old friends back home proves what t'Saiga and La Forge found.”

Picard nodded as he reviewed the information sent to him from engineering. “This is astounding.”

“It's treason,” Riker said. “My guess is Hahn discovered what they were doing—about the bomb—”

“And they killed him for it,” Picard said as he looked up from the padd. “Have they been able to identify the receiver of the communiqués?”

“Office of Security,” Riker said, his expression filled with disgust. “There's no identity tag, but they're all
coded with a Starfleet alpha priority.” Riker's expression hardened. “Admiral Leyton.”

“Will, we don't have any proof of Leyton's involvement in this—”

“Yes, we do.” Riker sat forward, his hands on his knees. “I've been in contact with DS9. According to Worf, Captain Sisko asked them to check out the relay station on the other side of the wormhole a week ago.”

“What for?”

“To find an explanation as to why the wormhole had been opening and closing.”

“And?”

“Apparently they found a Lieutenant Ariaga there, who claimed he was ordered by Admiral Leyton to attach a subspace modulator to the relay station.”

Picard looked up from the padd sharply. “Admiral Leyton?”

“As much as I hated to admit it,” Riker said, “Daniels's suspicions proved to be right. Worf's taking the
Defiant
out to rendezvous with Sisko and Odo on Earth.”

“Leyton's behind this?” Picard looked down at the padd. “And Hahn's death?”

“La Forge to Picard.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sir, Barclay and Porter just finished up another
perimeter sensor sweep of the starbase and the surrounding area. And …”
He paused.
“Well, I've found something you're going to have to see for yourself.”

*   *   *

Daniels finally understood Stevens's comment about avoiding a five-alarm headache. It did feel as if he had at least twice that number of alarms singing out in his head.

He put a hand to his temple and pressed it, hoping to turn at least one of them off.

Siobhan is going to laugh at me. I can just hear her voice telling me, “Had enough now?”

No one ever told him life on board a starship was this much fun.

After blinking back the lethargic effects of phaser fire, Daniels sat up and looked around.

He was on the floor of what looked like a closet. A quick check told him his combadge was missing, as well as his phaser. The room was dimly lit by a small light above. He pushed himself up and slammed his head into the ceiling. Painfully.

The door abruptly opened and light blasted inside, momentarily blinding him.

He could make out a figure. Tall, dressed in a uniform. He was holding a phaser. “Out.”

Daniels did as he was told, rubbing his eyes as he
did. “Nomine, this isn't going to work,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You can't kill all those people. Starfleet will find out.”

“I'm afraid Starfleet will learn nothing,” said a voice that was distinctively not Nomine's.

Snowden.

Daniels kept his hands at his sides as he looked around. They were in a small ship of some kind, its configurations matching those of a type-6 shuttle. “This is the ghost we kept picking up on the sensors.”

“Yes,” Snowden said as he gestured for Daniels to move away. “Holographic technology at its finest.”

It was then that Daniels saw the still form of Cadet Nomine. From the position of his body on the floor between the pilot's and copilot's seats, it looked as if he'd been in the pilot's seat when Snowden shot him. “So you're getting rid of all the loose ends?”

“He's not dead. Not yet, anyway. He failed in his mission.” Snowden straightened up but kept his phaser steady. “Both missions.”

Daniels looked back at Nomine. “He was going to run.”

“Yes, with you on board. The only survivor—alive to tell the truth of what happened. Luckily he did plant the bomb. And having you here—though a minor inconvenience—could prove to be a boon. I still have enough unreplicated metamorphic matter to plant
near the bomb so that any of your new protocols will detect it. And with you at the blast center …” He made a clucking noise. “It's all very tragic.”

“So you're doing this to garner sympathy from Starfleet?' Daniels continued to note the ship's interior, locating vital stations. Ops, helm, tactical. “Why?”

“So that President Jaresh-Inyo and all of those with him will understand that fortifying Earth is the best thing to do.” He narrowed his eyes at Daniels. “And it worked—at least the blackout did. Until Leyton sent me this halfwitted cadet to confuse things here. He's not a soldier, he's a scientist. An engineer. He didn't understand that some loss of life was necessary to achieve the greater objective.”

“As in killing Admiral Hahn,” Daniels said. “And now all on board the
Enterprise.”

“Not everyone will die. Most—some decks will decompress. But there will be enough left for them to investigate.” He smiled. “Perhaps I'll rig it so you're suspected of planting both bombs.”

“It won't happen, Snowden,” Daniels said. “We know what you're doing.”

“That's a threat?” He smiled. “You seem to forget, Mr. Daniels, I'm one of Leyton's key officers. I have his protection. And soon I'll have a ship of my own. Maybe even the new
Enterprise.”

*   *   *

“Ardra?” Picard stood between La Forge and Barclay, staring at the amphitheater projection. Travec stood to their right, his attention focused on them. “But our encounter with her was … five years ago? I thought her ship was confiscated and she was turned over to local authorities.”

“She was,” La Forge said. “This isn't her ship, but it is based on her technology. I recognized the holographic signature. It's nearly the same combination of force fields, holography, and transporter technology. Only this system's more sophisticated.” He tapped a panel, and the image moved to close in on the strange star pattern in space. “Barclay and Porter have been seeing the ship since we arrived, only it was sporadically appearing and reappearing.” He shrugged. “Everyone thought it was residual images.”

“Meaning their holography,” Barclay said hesitantly, “was—was tied to the shields. When whoever beamed on board and off, they had to lower their shields.”

La Forge added, “It's possible this is where Admiral Hahn was when he disappeared—whether voluntarily or involuntarily we can't say.”

“I'm more likely to believe involuntarily.” Picard crossed his arms over his chest and rubbed the fingers of his right hand against his lips as he tried to put
the pieces together. “What if Hahn discovered this ship, just as you did?”

“Then I'm positive whoever's been hiding in it would have wanted him dead.” La Forge shook his head. “I'd also rule out any Dominion involvement.” He held his hands out to his sides. “Why would a shape-shifter need this kind of technology to change forms?”

Picard lowered his arms. “A shape-shifter wouldn't. But someone trying to imitate a shape-shifter would. It appears Lieutenant Daniels's suspicions were well founded.” He turned to his right, looking around the holodeck. “Where is Mr. Daniels?”

“He said he had to get something from his quarters,” Travec said. “But that was over an hour ago.”

The captain tapped his combadge. “Picard to Daniels.”

No answer.

“Computer, locate Lieutenant Daniels.”

“Lieutenant Daniels is not on board.”

Picard gave Riker a sharp glance. “Computer, locate Lieutenant Abidah and Captain Snowden.”

“There is no record of a Lieutenant Abidah in Starfleet service. Captain Snowden is not on board the
Enterprise.”

“No record?” Porter said.

“No,” Picard said. “Computer, give the last known location of Cadet Bael Nomine.”

“Cadet Nomine was last located in guest quarters 712.”

Travec stepped forward. “Those are Daniels's quarters.”

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” Sage muttered.

“As do I,” Picard said. “Geordi, can you get a lock on that ship? Possibly beam someone over?”

“Its shields are up,” La Forge said. “Pinpointing it can be—”

A klaxon sounded inside the holodeck. Picard looked up at the ceiling as Sage and Porter returned to the main console.

“We have a bigger problem,” Sage said as he looked at the controls, his golden eyes widening. “It's a bomb.”

“Where?” Picard said.

“Engineering.” He turned and looked up at Picard. “It just appeared suddenly. Its components match the schematics of a Dominion bomb. Some of those chemicals when cooked together don't play well with plasma coolant.” He glanced back at the screen. “The
Enterprise
will have a very nice veranda overlooking what'll be left of the starbase if it blows.”