Star Trek: The Next Generation - 113 - Cold Equations: Silent Weapons Page 3

  Still, it was difficult for her to imagine her sweet, towheaded boy ever engaging in such superficial discrimination. “You raise some good points,” she said to Casmir, “but I’m not sure it’s as inevitable as you make it sound. After all, my first son, Wesley, was the child of two Starfleet officers, and he never treated others that way.”

  Casmir nodded. “You’re right—the scenario I’m suggesting is far from preordained. Children’s natural tendencies, the size of their social group, and how they’re raised can all make a huge difference. Though I’d be willing to guess that in the case of your first son, he didn’t start his socialization process as the son of the commanding officer.”

  “No, he didn’t.” She turned away from Casmir, hoping to call over René for a farewell hug and a kiss on the cheek before she left to start her shift in sickbay. Then she saw the boy deep in play with his peers, turning tight circles in eager, choppy steps, all of them laughing and whooping and making a happy noise that filled the room. All thought of interrupting him left her mind, and she let herself enjoy the sight of children at play . . . until she realized why their motions all looked so familiar. They all were chasing one another with arms outstretched, fists clenched, thumbs jabbed forward as they whooped at the tops of their lungs; they were pantomiming the firing of phasers, pretending to stun one another, collapsing atop one another in comical piles. And the last child standing was René, who opened his fist long enough to swat the left side of his chest, like a Starfleet officer tapping his combadge to open a channel.

  Crusher turned back toward Casmir, who studied her reaction with a sympathetic expression. “So,” he said, “I’ll see you at 1400, then.”

  She pretended not to be discomfited by what she’d just seen, viewed now in the context of their conversation. “Yes. If that changes, I’ll contact you.” With a halfhearted smile, she backed out of the nursery and hurried back to sickbay, wondering as she walked whether it might be time to reconsider her family’s future in Starfleet, after all.

  2

  Like everything else made under the official auspices of the Breen Confederacy, the laboratory code-named Korwat by the Special Research Division was drab, utilitarian, and utterly bereft of even the slightest hint of authentic cultural identity. Any detail, however minor, that might have betrayed the unique aesthetics that underpinned its functions had been stripped away long ago during the facility’s design phase, leaving only the soulless practicality of cold machines.

  Of all the places in which Thot Konar had hoped to make his mark and ensure his legacy, none had been so bleak or depressing as this. It was a far cry from the arid beauties of the Paclu homeworld inside the Breen Confederacy, his long-departed place of origin. Having since accustomed himself to the close-packed subterranean cities of worlds that dotted the Confederacy’s border, or the cramped confines of the military vessels he had served on in his youth, he also found his current assignment disconcerting for its extreme isolation.

  His only regular company for the last two hundred-odd days had been his subordinate, fellow SRD scientist Chot Hain. Though neither had spoken openly of anything other than their shared work—the revelation of personal details between colleagues was taboo within Breen culture and expressly prohibited by military regulations—a number of subtle nonverbal cues had led Konar to think Hain was female, though he remained unaware of her species. In truth, he wasn’t entirely certain of Hain’s gender, but unless and until new evidence contradicted his supposition, he resolved to think of the expert programmer as a female.

  By the time he exited his private quarters, concealed head to foot in his people’s mandated uniform—grayish green body armor and a roomy snout-shaped headpiece—Hain was already at her station in the main laboratory, at the end of the long passageway from their separate dormitories. She noted his arrival with a brief swivel of her chair in his direction, and her mechanically disguised voice issued from her suit’s vocoder and was translated by a companion circuit inside his own helmet: “Sir.”

  “We have new orders.” Konar saw no value to preamble or pleasantries, not when there was much to be done and little time in which to do it. “Command wants us to bring Operation Zelazo on line and deploy all assets immediately.”

  Hain ceased her labors and struck a confrontational pose as she turned toward Konar. “It’s too soon to go operational. We haven’t finished testing the control system, and I can’t guarantee the synaptomimetic circuits will work as planned. I need more time.”

  “There is no more time. We have our orders. It’s time to put our team in the field.”

  The junior scientist waved angrily at her screens of benchmark-test data, vital signs, and a thousand other metrics only she seemed to understand. “This is outrageous! Did you explain to Command what’ll happen if we overload this system? Not only could we lose contact with our assets in the field, the entire system could crash beyond recovery. I mean, look at the size of that signal! It’s not as if I can just run a backup on that, now can I?”

  For all her passion and precision, she can be woefully impolitic, Konar lamented. “I’ve explained the dangers to our superiors, at length and in great detail. They’ve decided that recent developments merit such a steep calculated risk, and it’s our duty to carry out their will.”

  Hearing the orders spelled out in stark and unforgiving terms seemed to quash Hain’s objections. “I understand.” She turned toward her screens for a moment, then looked back at Konar. “Do we have any specific objectives beyond bringing our field team on line?”

  “Yes. Download command protocol packet Hairotekija.”

  Konar stood back and waited while Hain opened and reviewed their classified directive from SRD Command. He had already read it and knew how foolhardy it was. He was curious to see if his junior colleague could restrain her righteous indignation long enough to obey orders. She spent twice as long poring over the file as he had; he wondered whether it was taking her longer to parse their instructions or if she was using the time to collect herself before voicing a reaction. At last, she turned and regarded him with a casual lift of her snout, but her body language was tense and ill at ease. “It’ll take two hours to initialize the transmitter,” she said. “I’ll have a steady uplink to our assets in the field within an hour after that. I need to request three hours of prep time for each agent, to make sure everyone is—”

  “You can have one hour per agent, no more.”

  It was an unreasonable restriction, and they both knew it, but Konar had no choice. His agenda and timetable had been imposed on him by the head of the SRD himself, Thot Tran. He feared the possibility that Hain would choose this moment to make a stand that would bring them both an onslaught of undesirable attention from their betters.

  Even concealed by the anonymizing armor of a Breen mask, her dudgeon was palpable. She answered with flat tones of acquiescence. “Very well. I’ll limit the checks to vital systems only. Ready to commence Operation Zelazo on your order, sir.”

  “The order is given.”

  Without a word, Hain went to work, powering up every system in the lab and launching scores of new applications they hadn’t yet started to debug, never mind test. In a matter of hours, their hastily convened operation would swing into action. Konar couldn’t begin to estimate their odds of success, given the obstacles that lay ahead for them and those who were depending upon them. All he could do was hope that he and Hain hadn’t just inaugurated a future disaster.

  Not daring to expect the best but only to avoid the worst, he returned to his private quarters to inform his superiors that their mad scheme was at last under way.

  • • •

  Inside the antechamber, Thot Tran saw nothing at all, only darkness and silence. He knew he was being scanned by a variety of subtle instruments, checked for hidden weapons, discreet elements of potential compound explosives, or elevated vital signs that could suggest he harbored violent intent toward the Confederacy’s head of state. Today, at least, he h
ad borne none of those things to his meeting at the Linnavhava, the centuries-old official residence of the Breen leader.

  Light assaulted him as the door to the domo’s private office opened, liberating Tran from the security antechamber. He stepped forward without waiting for his eyes to adjust because he did not want to appear hesitant or timid. To be invited into the home of the domo was a rare event, even for someone of such elevated status as Tran, who served as the director of the Breen military’s Special Research Division; it would not do for him to make a poor impression now.

  At the end of the long room, seated behind a grand desk, wreathed in shadows broken only by the ambient glow of the holographically projected, gently curved screens that overlapped one another and surrounded him on three sides, was Domo Brex, the appointed leader of the Breen Confederacy. Like his predecessors, he had been elevated to his post by a vote of his peers inside the civil government, out of recognition for his years of service, his excellence as a manager and leader, and his ability to foster consensus on a variety of issues. His annual review had recently seen his tenure extended for another term, and he lorded over his personal sanctum with the relaxed composure of one who lived free of mundane worries.

  Sighting his visitor, Brex banished his cocoon of holograms with one grand gesture, sweeping his hands outward in an arc from his chest. “Welcome, Thot Tran.”

  Tran approached to within a respectable distance of the desk and bowed his head. “I am honored to be received, Domo. How may I be of service?”

  “My chief adviser informs me that your team at Korwat has begun their operation. Are the other elements of your initiative ready to move, as well?”

  “Yes, my lord. I’ve seen personally to the details of every facet of this mission.”

  Brex stood and circled his desk in slow steps. “Good. But I need to impress upon you how vital this project is to the future of the Confederacy.” Halting in front of Tran, the domo towered over him. His august presence projected power and menace. “We stand poised at a historic moment of opportunity, Tran. As I predicted, the Romulans’ recent political overtures to the Federation have undermined their credibility with some of our more hard-line allies within the Pact. The Tholians’ Ruling Conclave, in particular, has begun to lose faith in Praetor Kamemor’s judgment, and I expect the Romulans’ political capital with the Tzenkethi autarch has also been sharply reduced.” All but touching the snout of his mask to Tran’s, he asked, “You see the opportunity in this, yes?”

  “If the Romulans are unwilling to lead the Pact, we will.”

  “Precisely.” Brex stepped past Tran and kept walking. Intuiting the domo’s desire, Tran fell into step behind him as he headed toward a sliding portal that led to a shielded promontory that overlooked the submerged capital city, which sprawled around the Linnavhava. Overhead, shafts of sunlight, broken by their passage through dozens of meters of arctic pack ice and a hundred meters of preternaturally clear seawater, danced through the city’s great sectioned dome of transparent duranium and dappled the metropolis below. “Once we win the trust of the Tholians and the Tzenkethi, the Kinshaya will fall into line, and we will become the preeminent power within the Typhon Pact—and, by extension, all of local space.”

  Intrigued by the domo’s curious omission, Tran asked, “What of the Gorn, my lord?”

  “They have their role to play. As we all do.” He rested his hands on a railing and leaned forward as he gazed out at the city. “But great victories, by definition, entail great risks, and this venture of ours is no different. If we want to take the future’s reins, we’ll need to make terrible sacrifices. Above all, each of our pawns must know as little as possible about their parts in this grand illusion we’re about to conjure. The stakes this time are too dear for us to accept failure. We must have victory, at any cost.” He looked down at Tran, the force of his personality too great to be contained by his plain disguise. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Not wanting to presume to know the domo’s mind, Tran replied, “Perhaps it would be best if you impressed it upon me in simple terms, my lord.”

  “If I tell you to burn an asset for the good of the mission, you burn it. If I tell you to give up a hundred secrets to protect the one that really matters, you obey without question. And if I need you and all those under your command to lay down your lives for the sake of victory—”

  “It will be done without delay. Your word is law.”

  The domo clapped a massive, powerful gloved hand on Tran’s shoulder. “Excellent. Victory is within our reach, Tran; it’s time for us to seize it and take our rightful place.” He turned Tran to face the city at his side. “Accomplish this task I’ve set before you, and for the next thousand years the galaxy will call the Breen its masters.”

  3

  Matter and energy swirled in a shimmering tempest inside the replicator nook. Two plates, each adorned by a boneless chicken breast accompanied by sautéed asparagus and roasted parsnips sweetened with maple syrup, solidified with a musical hum from the whirling flurry. Crusher waited until the last glimmer of light and the last sonorous echo had faded before she reached in to retrieve that night’s dinner for herself and Picard.

  Her husband’s voice, as deep as the night and as smooth as silk, carried from their son’s adjacent room, where Picard sang a classic French lullaby:

  “Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,

  Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

  Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!

  Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.”

  Hearing the tenderness in his voice, she pictured him standing over René’s bed, his gaze wistful as he tucked in his son for what they hoped would be an uninterrupted night of rest.

  One of the advantages of the Enterprise’s current extended assignment to Azeban V was that Picard and the rest of the crew had been able to maintain regular schedules for nearly a month. There had been few surprises since their arrival, and Picard had taken advantage of their routine’s sudden stability to spend more time helping with René. While Crusher prepared their dinner each night, he fed and bathed René, and then dressed the boy in pajamas and a night diaper—still a necessity, though René had coped well with toilet training over the past couple of months—before tucking him in for a few bedtime stories and a final lullaby to coax him to sleep.

  Crusher had welcomed the extra help with René’s daily routine, not only for the break it afforded her, but because she knew how much Picard cherished every moment with his son. Gone was the man who once had professed so ardently his dislike for and discomfort with children of any age. To see him now, lovingly attending his son, it amazed Crusher that it had taken Picard so long to start a family.

  He emerged from René’s room attired in loose-fitting civilian clothes and paused a moment to rub his eyes. His face brightened as he saw dinner ready on the table, and he crossed the room to join her and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Everything looks wonderful.” They sat down and unfolded their napkins onto their laps, and he picked up the open bottle of wine from the center of the table. “Torrontes. An excellent choice.” He half filled her glass, then his own.

  “I’m glad you approve.” She tasted the white wine, which was crisp and semidry, with pleasing tart notes and a hint of minerality. Its fruity bouquet mingled with the savory aromas of chicken and asparagus and the sweet fragrance of maple-roasted parsnips, and all the various notes complemented one another. Picard set down the bottle and dug into his dinner with a healthy appetite. Crusher took a bite of each item on her plate and followed it with a sip of wine. “Jean-Luc . . . I have an idea I’d like to run past you.”

  Picard looked up from his meal, at first en garde in the face of her verbal gambit, then he relaxed, swallowed, and gave a small nod. “Continue.”

  “After I dropped off René at the nursery today, I had an interesting conversation with Hailan. We talked about something that you and I haven’t given much thought before this.”

  “O
h?” He set down his fork and gave her his full attention. “What, exactly?”

  She chose her words with care. “We were discussing René’s progress in socialization, and Hailan noted how well René got along with both older and younger children. I asked him to encourage René to let the other children choose the group’s games or have first pick of toys once in a while, because I don’t want him to grow up thinking he can behave selfishly just because he’s the captain’s son.”

  A sympathetic half nod. “I agree. What did Hailan think?”

  “This is the part that troubles me. He thinks that as René gets older, if he remains with you on the Enterprise or some other ship, it’ll become more and more difficult for him to separate his role within his peer group from his identity as ‘the captain’s son.’ After I left the nursery, I looked into this myself, and it seems Hailan’s right. There’s no telling how René might deal with it. He might embrace it and become self-conscious, fearing to make a single mistake that might sully his—or your—reputation. Or he might rebel against it, and get into who knows what kind of mischief. But even if he manages not to let it affect him too much, he can’t control how others are going to treat him. Some people will walk on eggshells around him because they’re scared of drawing your wrath, and some will try to curry favor with him because they hope to use him to influence you. That’s a lot of pressure for a young boy.”

  Her appraisal of the situation left Picard pensive. He removed his napkin from his lap and set it on the table next to his plate. “You’re right. I hadn’t given this much consideration. But it sounds as if Hailan raised some excellent points.” He stroked his upper lip with his index finger for a second. “Do you have an opinion as to what we might do about this?”

  She gathered her courage to make what she expected would be an unpopular suggestion. “I don’t think it requires immediate action. All the reading I’ve done suggests that among very young children, the effects of such social connections are negligible. It won’t really be an issue for another six or seven years. That being said . . . we might want to consider laying some groundwork for an eventual transfer away from starship duty.”