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  To everyone still fighting to save us from our greatest mistakes.

  Historian’s Note

  * * *

  The main portion of Shield of the Gods takes place in April 2385, shortly after Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations—Time Lock and approximately four months before the dedication of the new Deep Space 9 in Star Trek: The Fall—Revelation and Dust.

  I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

  —Theodore Parker, “Of Justice and Conscience,” 1853

  I

  * * *

  Stardate 62250.5

  April 2, 2385 (A Tuesday)

  Qhembembem Outpost

  Agent Teresa Garcia liked to think she’d become fairly seasoned. She may have only been a field agent of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations for a little under four years—not quite long enough that she could effortlessly call up the exact time interval like many of the veteran agents—but she’d seen enough extraordinary things that she felt little could shock her anymore.

  Still, the traders’ bazaar on the Qhembembem Outpost was enough to make her dark eyes widen and her mouth fall open in disbelief as she looked around. It wasn’t just the visual and aural cacophony of the place, the stalls of various exotic designs where traders from numerous species hawked gadgets, jewelry, artworks, and assorted indescribabilia of even more diverse origins than themselves. That by itself would have been stimulating, the sort of rich sensory experience that she delighted in sharing with her partner. Meyo Ranjea’s Deltan sense of wonder toward stimulating experiences of all kinds was infectious, and it made it easier for Garcia to enjoy what was frequently a plodding and thankless profession.

  No, what stunned Garcia was the nature of the goods that were being hawked openly before them. “Look at all this stuff,” she said to Ranjea. “Phasing cloaks. Thought makers. Multiphasic isotopes. Consciousness-transfer devices. Isolytic subspace charges. Practically all of the most dangerous, advanced, illegal technologies I’ve ever heard of.”

  “A perfect place for the aspiring time traveler seeking a constructive path integrator,” Ranjea reminded her. “The rest of it is for other authorities to deal with—eventually. For ourselves, we should be grateful to find a supplier so close to home.”

  “Yeah . . . grateful,” Garcia muttered with bitter irony.

  The Qhembembem Outpost, occupying a borderline-habitable planet around a pair of red dwarfs barely bright enough to be called stars, had once been a hub of slave trading, drug dealing, and other criminal activities of the sort that thrived in lawless space. It had been shut down more than two centuries ago, once the rise of the Federation had brought peace and order to the sector. But the Qhembembem system happened to fall within the vast dead zone left by the cataclysmic Borg Invasion of 2381, and the small outpost that remained had been obscure enough to be overlooked even by a Borg armada determined to assimilate or eradicate everything in its path. Afterward, with the Federation and its neighbors focused on rebuilding the surviving worlds on the fringes of the dead zone, there had been few resources to spare for policing the great void, and criminals had been quick to take advantage. But the new generation of criminals had brought a more modern twist to Qhembembem, making it a hotbed of trade in dangerous, outlawed technologies on the cutting edge of innovation. Why sell abducted slaves when you could sell machines that would let you enslave any mind you desired or create a subservient clone of anyone you wished? Why sell consciousness-altering drugs when you could sell people the means to alter the physical reality around them? Garcia had never been surrounded by so many dangerous creations at once—except in the Eridian Vault, where the DTI stored the most hazardous temporal artifacts it had confiscated over the decades.

  Or had stored, in one particular case. And therein lay the problem that brought Garcia and Ranjea to this place.

  “Here’s our man,” the Deltan said, gesturing toward a stall positioned before a large, heavy-duty storage container. Garcia noted that the stall was occupied by a lean, aging Ferengi who was currently haggling with a Vendorian over what appeared to be a chroniton field coil. That in itself would have warranted an arrest if the Federation still held enforcement power here. But right now, it was a mere distraction.

  Luckily, the agents’ drab gray suits and practiced professional blandness kept them from standing out amid the crowd—even though Deltans almost always attracted attention from nearly every humanoid around them. Perhaps the Ferengi was too distracted by the scent of latinum as he neared the close of his deal. He seemed suitably startled as Ranjea spoke his name. “Lant. Still up to your old tricks, I see.”

  The saggy-featured Ferengi gave a sharp cringe at the sight of them and promptly whipped the field coil behind his back. “Agent Ranjea! And the lovely Miss Garcia—even lovelier than before, if such a thing is possible.” She met his reflexive condescension with a hard, silent stare that made him fidget. “Ah, yes, this—this isn’t what it looks like, I assure you.” The Vendorian darted away into the crowd, crossed its tentacles, and began to shimmer, though it was lost within the crush of passersby before Garcia could see who or what it had shapeshifted into.

  “Don’t worry, Lant,” Ranjea said. “We’re not here for you this time.” Lant had been on the DTI’s sensors ever since 2376, when he had used an ancient temporal transporter to get rich in Ferenginar’s past. Starfleet had undone his meddling and the device had been destroyed, but Lant had been trying to get back in the time-travel game ever since. If he ever got close to success, something would have to be done about him, but for now he remained in the “nuisance” category.

  “We’re actually here to request your cooperation,” the Deltan went on. “We’re pursuing a criminal who’s stolen a dangerous piece of temporal technology. We have reason to believe she needs a constructive path integrator to make it functional. And rumor is that you recently came into possession of such an item.”

  Lant gave a nervous chuckle. “You flatter me, Agent Ranjea. Path integrators are an extremely advanced technology, and exceedingly rare. They require benamite crystals to function, you know, and the supply of those has become even scarcer since the Federation began scooping them up for its slipstream drives. If I did have such a device in inventory, I would be entitled to charge quite a hefty sum.”

  “We don’t want to buy it,” Garcia told him. “But the woman we’re after does.” She pulled out her pocket padd and showed him an image of the thief, a gray-skinned humanoid female with long black-and-red hair. “Her name is Daiyar. She’s a member of the Tomika, a civilization belonging to the Vomnin Colonial Consortium out in the Gum Nebula.”

  “Ah, yes. Vomnin are quite the connoisseurs of advanced technologies, aren’t they? I imagine she’d be more likely to go to them than come here.”

  “Except that we already have the cooperation of both the Consortium and the Vomnin Confederacy in watching out for
Daiyar,” Ranjea said. “After all, they’re the ones whose history is most likely to be affected if she should succeed in obtaining a path integrator. As you say, such devices are rare, and the whereabouts of most of them are known. And all the major governments with access to such technologies are aware of the risks should they fall into the hands of a rogue actor. They’ve all taken steps to safeguard against attempted thefts.”

  “Which leaves places like this,” Garcia said, “where there’s no one to keep an eye on such things. Easier to buy one than try to steal it.”

  Lant chuckled. “Except she already stole from you, didn’t she?” The agents’ wordless reactions made him laugh harder. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard the scuttlebutt. That secret vault of artifacts whose existence you don’t admit to was raided a while back. I’m guessing that ‘dangerous piece of technology’ you’re trying to recover is one you failed to keep safe before. Which means you’re, ah, highly incentivized to ensure my cooperation, aren’t you?”

  Garcia sighed, cutting to the chase. “What do you want, Lant?”

  “Oh, just a little breathing room. Call it benign neglect. You go your way, I go mine.”

  She stared. “We’re trying to stop someone from changing history. You’re asking us to let you do the same?”

  “You wound me, Miss—ah, Agent Garcia. I learned my lesson the last time. Rule of Acquisition Number 248: ‘The definition of insanity is trying the same failed scheme and expecting different results.’ Trying to change history just gets people like you and Starfleet on my tail trying to change it back. There are subtler ways to profit from movement through time.”

  “Such as?” Ranjea asked.

  “Ah, that’s my trade secret. But it’s nothing you should have to worry about, providing you agree to my little proposal.”

  “I don’t think you get it, Lant,” Garcia said, hardening her tone. “This woman is determined and ruthless, and she has advanced tech at her disposal. She wouldn’t bother to haggle with you. If you’re lucky, she’ll use a hypnotic device on you and make you so docile that you’ll just hand the integrator over to her—free of charge.” Lant shuddered as if she’d spoken a particularly vile obscenity. “Or maybe she’ll just beat you up and take what she wants. She’s a lot stronger than she looks.”

  The Ferengi merchant cringed at her aggressive tone and stance. “All right, all right. What is it you want from me?”

  “To be the bait.”

  Lant stared. “What? After all that, you expect me to voluntarily put myself in harm’s way?”

  “We’ll be nearby, watching closely,” Ranjea said in his most reassuring tones. “When and if she comes for the integrator, we’ll be on hand to intercept her—and protect you. All you have to do is maintain your calm and keep her occupied long enough to let us arrest her.”

  “You don’t make it sound as if she’ll come easily. You graysuits aren’t exactly Starfleet security, are you?”

  Garcia grabbed Lant by the front of his garish tunic, relishing the “bad cop” role. “You’d be surprised at the kind of training we get, Lant. Want an illustration?”

  “Ah, no, no. While I’d relish a tumble with you under other circumstances—” She tightened her grip in warning, no longer as an act. “All right, all right, I apologize!”

  After one more pointed moment, she released him. As Lant readjusted his tunic, Ranjea asked, “Then we can count on your cooperation?”

  “Very well. If it’s the only way to get rid of you afterward.”

  “Oh, we’ll never be very far, Lant,” Garcia purred. “As long as you continue with your current pursuits, we’ll be there to keep an eye on you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Lant sullenly replied. Then his gaze grew more devious. “A hypnotic device, you say? I’ve heard rumors of temporal operatives who use such instruments. This thief wouldn’t be a member of your own little fraternity, would she? Is that why she was able to put one over on the DTI?”

  Garcia kept her cool, as she had been trained. She was tempted to go “bad cop” on him once again, but it would simply be giving in to his provocation for no purpose. Besides, it would be as good as admitting that he was right. Inasmuch as the various temporal agencies of the galaxy could be considered a “fraternity,” Daiyar was a former member of it. Worse, the agency that had trained her was the most ancient, advanced, and mysterious one of them all. That put the DTI at a distinct disadvantage in dealing with her.

  Unless, of course, her own former employers could be convinced to lend a hand. Garcia knew that her superiors at the Department were working that end of the problem even now. She just hoped their efforts would pay off before she and Ranjea had to confront a renegade Aegis augment with nothing to lose.

  DTI Branch Office, Gronim City, Denobula

  “All right, folks, listen up.” Marion Dulmur looked around the situation room at his assembled audience. Only a few of them were physically present, including several staffers of the Denobulan branch office that Dulmur led as assistant director—as well as his former partner Gariff Lucsly, whose stiff and stalwart presence by his side was a comfort he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed. The rest were in attendance only as holograms or images on the situation room’s wall screens—either DTI agents listening in from other field offices around the Federation, or members of the temporal agencies of regional powers including the Typhon Pact, Ferengi Alliance, Colonial Consortium, Carnelian Regnancy, and others. Even relatively unfriendly powers tended to cooperate in matters of temporal security—though Dulmur couldn’t help noticing that one of the most important signatories of the Temporal Accords was conspicuous in its absence.

  “Many of you have already been briefed on the recent theft from a DTI secure facility and the subsequent hunt for the thief. But just to make sure everyone’s up to speed, we’re gonna go over it again. Agent Lucsly, whom you all know, has the most direct knowledge of the situation and the thief, so I’ll let him have the floor.”

  Lucsly stepped forward, not wasting time on preliminaries. “Eight months and twenty-seven days ago, on stardate 61512.7, a radical nationalist group claiming to act on behalf of the Vomnin Confederacy attempted to raid a secure DTI storage facility. I won’t go into details for security reasons, but our safeguards were successful in stymieing their efforts—until five days ago, when their leader succeeded in escaping with a prochronistic temporal drive.”

  On a wall screen, the Ferengi temporal investigator, Vlik, spoke up. “When you say ‘prochronistic,’ you mean it came from the future? Or . . . will come from there?” Grand Nagus Rom had only recently organized Vlik’s bureau, so she was still getting used to the terminology.

  “That’s correct,” Lucsly replied, “which is why this is a matter of such concern. The so-called time drive, which can theoretically convert any warp-capable vessel into a temporal craft, is extremely advanced and untraceable by any known means. Fortunately, the drive is missing one key component, a constructive path integrator. This technology is very rare, highly advanced, and reliant on scarce benamite crystals. This gives us our best shot at tracking the thief down. Our own agents are already securing the known path integrators in Federation space, and most of your respective agencies have already been notified and taken steps to secure theirs. We have requested, and I now reiterate the request for the newcomers, that you all, in turn, contact any more remote temporal agencies you have lines of communication with.”

  The Gororm agent representing the Carnelians spoke up. “But if the theft occurred in Federation territory—”

  “The thief is not from Federation space, and she has access to long-range transporter technology. In fact, she is a former operative of the Aegis.”

  That provoked gasps, murmurs, and other reactions as the listeners were taken aback. Vlik seemed confused, though. “I’m sorry . . . I’ve heard the name mentioned before, but I’m still not fully conversant. The Aeg
is are . . . ?”

  “The Aegis are the most ancient and powerful temporal agency known to exist in the present era in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants,” Lucsly replied. “The species behind the Aegis is largely unknown, as they prefer to operate through intermediaries. They are reportedly able to move as freely through time as others move through space, though whether this is through technology or through some innate extratemporal ability, such as that of the Bajoran wormhole inhabitants, is unclear. Using this perception, they are able to predict when sentient civilizations may face crisis points that endanger their survival—for instance, nuclear tensions, environmental destruction, genetic pandemics, or the like.”

  “And they use time travel to prevent these crises?”

  “Oddly, no. Instead, they recruit—or abduct—members of the endangered species thousands of years before the crisis point, take them to their home planet, and spend generations selectively breeding them into genetically superior specimens. Why they rely on gradual breeding instead of genetic engineering is unclear.”

  “Although,” Dulmur interposed, “maybe their holistic sense of time means they don’t mind a long wait.”

  “In any case, as the point of crisis nears, these operatives are sent to infiltrate the planet and act clandestinely to protect the civilization until it’s deemed mature enough to take responsibility for itself. For instance, Earth was monitored by the Aegis in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, until the alliance with Vulcan and the beginnings of space colonization made the risk of human extinction negligible.”

  The hologram of Ronarek, the Romulan agent representing the Typhon Pact, chuckled. “I’m sure it must kill your self-righteous Starfleet that the human species owes its survival to a group that ignored their vaunted Prime Directive.”