STAR TREK: DS9 - The Lives of Dax Read online

  Tobin’s hands jerked and the cards he had been gathering fluttered wildly into the air. Lela, he thought, almost saying the name out loud. The doctors at the Symbiosis Institute assured him that the voice he sometimes heard was only his imagination, that the persona of Dax’s only previous host had been completely integrated into his own, but it still made him jump every time he imagined he heard her. Tobin knew he could be annoying and he didn’t need his subconscious—or whatever the voice was—reminding him. It was exactly the sort of thing that was starting to make him wonder what the Symbiosis Evaluation Board had been thinking when they chose him to host Dax. What did they see that I can’t? he wondered as he gathered up the cards and stacked them into a deck.

  He saw that Skon had already deposited his tray at the recycler and was standing at the door, looking back toward him to say, “I am returning to the lab. If you would care to accompany me, we can review the adjustments you made to the phase transition coils before we perform another test.”

  Tobin smiled gratefully and leapt up—too quickly as it turned out. He banged his knee on the lip of the table and points of light exploded behind his eyes. Even as he hopped around the room trying to get the pain under control while not careening into other tables or chairs, there came a low, ominous thud, then a shock and a shudder.

  Tobin Dax’s last coherent thought before everything went dark was: Oh, great! Now what have I done?

  When the darkness began to recede, he was aware of only his aching head, his burning lungs, and something stabbing, stabbing, stabbing him in the eyes.

  It was a sign, a sign from the Creator. A sign that he never should have left home, never should have let himself be lured away from Trill by these humans and their insane ideas. It was a sign that said, HULL BREACH.

  Tobin was in a very cramped place. When his vision cleared, he recognized it as the ship’s primary Jefferies tube, the one that ran almost the entire length of the ship, from the computer core to engineering. He was wearing a rebreather, no doubt because there was smoke everywhere. Skon was there, too, his back against the opposite wall, calmly keying commands into his padd. A thin optical cable ran from the device into a dataport in the curved wall.

  Tobin tried to sit up, but instead bumped his head against the low ceiling. Skon reached out and pressed him back against the wall. “The artificial gravity has failed or been deactivated,” he said. “Do not exert yourself unnecessarily until you have become acclimated.”

  Tobin inhaled deeply, letting the rebreather do its job, and felt his stomach shift a bit on its moorings. He had experienced zero-g once or twice in his life and though he didn’t like it, he wasn’t cursed with the hopeless disorientation some people suffered. “What happened?” he asked. His voice echoed in his head, reverberated by the plastic cup over his mouth and nose.

  “I am attempting to determine that now,” Skon said, studying his padd. “The computer core has been damaged or gone off-line, though several of the peripheral servers are still functioning. The damage is ... considerable. There are hull breaches on several decks, including the bridge. Most of the critical hull surfaces have buckled and one of the warp nacelles appears to have been shorn off. The Heisenberg is no longer spaceworthy.”

  “Did we collide with something?”

  “Unlikely,” Skon said. “Captain Monsees’s crew is competent and the deflectors were functioning properly. The sensor logs show some sort of space/time rupture just before the ship dropped out of warp. Someone released an explosive near our flight path. Possibly a small amount of antimatter, but more likely a nuclear device.”

  “That would do it, wouldn’t it?” Tobin said. “But who’d do such a thing?”

  “External sensors are still functional—barely. But they detect the type of ionic energy associated with Romulan drive units.”

  “Romulans?” Tobin gasped, almost spitting into his rebreather. “But the captain said that the route we were taking to Alpha Centauri is one of the most secure in the sector! And their ships don’t even have warp drive! The only way a Romulan ship could get this far away from their own space at sublight ...”

  “... Would be if they had left their region many years ago,” Skon confirmed. “But considering even what little we know about the Romulans, such a plan is not so surprising.”

  Tobin slowly nodded his head, working his way through the problem. He knew that the humans and Romulans had been engaged in a vicious border war for the better part of three years, ever since one of Earth’s exploratory ships had strayed into Romulan-claimed territory, the galactic equivalent of stepping into a hornet’s nest. Very little was known about the fiercely xenophobic Romulans and the only thing everyone agreed on was that they were ruthless, implacable foes.

  It was a commonly held opinion among the local sentient species that the only thing that had saved Earth from being overrun was its FTL drive, and a cunning that Tobin, for one, found hard to reconcile with their offhand, sometimes foolish good humor. Ironically, as he and Skon had discussed on more than one occasion, the Terran-Romulan conflict could easily be interpreted as one of the reasons for the growing sense of political, scientific, and even military unity found among Earth’s nearest neighbors.

  “What could they possibly want from us?” Tobin asked. A thought struck him and he felt his heart skip a beat. “The prototype? You think they know what we have in the lab?”

  Skon shook his head. “Unlikely. The device had not even reached the theoretical stage when they presumably left their space. No, if we are correct and have been attacked by Romulans, then I believe they are unaware of the purpose of our voyage.” Light from his padd’s display danced across Skon’s angular features, cutting deep shadows around his mouth and eyes. “The lab has not opened to space,” he reported. “I think we can assume that the prototype is intact.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Tobin said, relieved. “When the Romulans leave, we can dismantle it—take the data core and use the escape pods. ...”

  “That will not be possible,” Skon reported. “All the escape pods are gone.”

  Tobin was stunned. “Gone? They left without us? Captain Monsees would never do that.”

  “I agree,” Skon said. “So we must postulate another scenario that fits the facts: If the crew did not escape, then perhaps the Romulans jettisoned the pods to make escape impossible.”

  “But what could possibly be so important that they’d risk ...” Then he understood. “Oh, no,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Skon said, closing his padd and slipping it into his belt. “It is the only logical conclusion.” He pulled out a small worklight and shined a low beam down the length of the Jefferies tube. “This leads to engineering. We can confirm our theory there.”

  “And then what?” Tobin said, pushing himself off the wall, his stomach wobbling slightly.

  “And then,” Skon said, floating down the tube into the darkness, “we will do whatever logic dictates.”

  Moving through the Jefferies tube in zero-g turned out to be less arduous than Tobin had anticipated, rather like swimming with a mild current. It was one of the few times in his life that he could remember being thankful for his modest stature. The biggest problem, it turned out, was resisting the urge to push off the walls and zip along. But Skon, nearly half a meter taller and ten centimeters broader, was in the lead and kept their progress at a controlled rate. Closing in on engineering, they found an entrance to the air circulation system, undipped the grate, and struggled into the considerably narrower space. Fortunately, Skon took the precaution of bracing himself against the duct walls when he stopped or he would have been shoved through the grillwork overlooking the engine room when Tobin bumped up against his feet.

  Skon pushed himself up toward the top of the duct so Tobin could creep along beneath him until he could see through the grillwork.

  He saw the Romulans at once.

  There were two in plain view, clearly humanoid, though their armored EVA suits and the refl
ective visors on their helmets made it impossible to say anything more definite about them. That they hadn’t removed their helmets suggested either that they didn’t trust the Heisenberg’s atmosphere, or they had doubts about the ship’s continued reliability as a container of said gases. Both soldiers held large energy weapons that Tobin presumed were the Romulans’ notorious disrupters, named for their tendency to shake apart matter rather than, like the Terran lasers, bump up its energy state until it was vaporized.

  The Romulans were herding prisoners toward the maintenance airlock on the starboard side, moving confidently in the zero-g. Tobin was relieved to see both Captain Monsees and First Mate Burgwin; the computer specialists Mira Laasa and Katie Lo; the Martian mathematician whose name he couldn’t pronounce; Heyes the navigator and Chief Engineer Jarman; and two other engineers whose names escaped him. All were apparently injured. It looked like nine survivors, or half the ship’s complement if he didn’t include himself and Skon. Tobin pointed and whispered, “Over by the hatch. Do you see?”

  Skon nodded, then spoke softly. “Personal thruster units. They came in through the airlock.” That sounded right to Tobin. When the ship dropped out of warp, the Romulans must have had a boarding party ready to cross over. But why were they herding the prisoners toward the hatch? To transfer them to the Romulan ship? No, impossible—there was no way they could do that without EVA suits.

  The Romulans arranged the prisoners in a loose semicircle around the hatch, then stepped back far enough that they could cover the entire group in a crossfire. When they were finished, a third armored figure floated out from behind the warp core, paused briefly to study the blue light that danced within the containment fields, then pushed off until he came to a stop in front of the airlock hatch. The Romulan commander—and Tobin had no doubt that was who this was—peered through the small round window, then tapped on it with the knuckle of his armored glove.

  Tobin almost jumped back when a hand slapped the window from the other side. It was replaced almost immediately by a face, a round, soft face—one of the project technicians—a woman named Williams. Tobin had been introduced to her when he had boarded, but they hadn’t exchanged a word since because she worked the gamma shift and he tended to work during alpha hours. Her unprotected face was smashed flat up against the thick viewport as she screamed soundlessly at the Romulan. Tobin was surprised to see that she seemed more angry than frightened. In fact, though he was by no means proficient at lip-reading, Tobin was almost certain that Williams was cursing at the Romulan.

  The Romulan leader moved his face closer to the window, apparently so he could study her expressions more carefully. It was disconcerting to Tobin to watch the woman go on and on, her breath fogging the glass. Everyone—including Williams—knew what was about to happen, but the tension of waiting for it to occur was almost more than Tobin could take.

  Finally, Williams’ cursing subsided and she only stared at the Romulan, her breaths coming short and fast. Then, almost offhandedly, the commander flicked a finger toward one of the guards who then jabbed at a switch on the airlock controls. Three telltales over the hatch turned red, one after the other, and the face in the window disappeared. Tobin thought he heard a sound of air being expelled, though he knew that this was impossible. Then, he heard it again and realized that the noise was coming from Skon, though whether it was a moan, a sigh, or a prayer, Tobin never knew for certain. All the scientists and crewmen seemed to sag into themselves. The telltales cycled through again and the lights shifted back to green.

  The commander turned back to his prisoners, then walked the perimeter of the room and pointed to different pieces of machinery, control panels, diagnostic devices, until he finally returned to where the research team and crew now stood huddled together, some staring at the floor, others glowering at their captors. The commander prodded first one, then another team member toward various pieces of equipment, but each and every one sullenly refused to move. “The message is clear,” Skon said. “ ‘Cooperate or die.’ ”

  “But it doesn’t look like any of them are going to do what he asks,” Tobin whispered. “That’s ... that’s ... I’m not sure what that is. Incredibly stupid? Foolishly brave?”

  “I have observed,” Skon replied, in a manner that would have sounded admiring if he were anything but a Vulcan, “that humans are a very stubborn people.”

  The Romulan commander had clearly come to the same conclusion, and decided that another demonstration of the consequences of noncompliance would have little impact if the prisoners didn’t have an opportunity to ponder the first one. He ordered the guards to move the humans down a short hall that, Tobin knew, led to a cargo hold. Even as the prisoners were herded off, a fourth Romulan emerged from the depths of the engine room and began to study control surfaces while the leader turned his attention to the reaction chamber.

  Tobin and Skon eased back into a recessed area that was far enough away from the grill that they could speak in near normal tones without the risk of being overheard. “You were right,” Tobin said. “They’re after the warp technology.”

  “That,” Skon replied, “would be a logical conclusion. It is suspected that the Romulans are years, perhaps decades, away from developing warp drive. However, if they had a model to study in detail ...”

  “Yes, yes. It won’t take them long to figure it out. Fine,” Tobin said, his voice rising sharply with impatience. “So, what are our options?”

  “They are almost as limited as our resources,” Skon said. “I would order our priorities thus: first, prevent the Romulans from taking possession of the Heisenberg. Second, if possible, free our comrades and escape.”

  “And, third,” Tobin added, “save the prototype. Think of the combined years of work and research that have been sunk into it. We have to figure out some way to salvage the databases, if nothing else. I don’t think any of the labs that have contributed work have copies of all the files, and there’s work we’ve done on board that no one else has.”

  “I have not overlooked this,” Skon replied. “But I think we must consider it a distant third objective. Preserving knowledge is a high priority, but logic dictates that a higher one is preserving the lives of the device’s creators, and preventing that knowledge from falling into the hands of those who might use it for evil purposes.”

  Tobin stared. “Skon, I’m ...” he started to say. “Sorry, it’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Vulcan use the word ‘evil.’ ”

  “Do not misunderstand me, Tobin Dax,” Skon said. “Evil—malice, malevolence—call it what you will, is not an abstract concept ascribable to some supernatural power. The desire to gain advantage over others either through deliberate action or inaction is one of the fundamental motivations in sentient beings. How could logic overlook such primal behavior?”

  “I see your point, but it still doesn’t address the question of what we’re going to do!”

  “Let us first rule out the things we cannot do,” Skon said. “We cannot overpower the Romulans with force. I counted four armed soldiers and four thruster packs. I believe we can safely surmise there are no others, but the odds are still two to one against us, and we have no weapons. The element of surprise might aid us slightly, but not sufficiently. The Heisenberg, as we discussed previously, can no longer achieve warp speeds without substantial repair work. The Romulan vessel would enable us to escape, but we have no way to commandeer it, and our escape pods are no longer an option.”

  “I don’t think I like where this is going,” Tobin said.

  Skon did not respond immediately and Tobin would have sworn that he could hear the sorted and resorted variables tumbling around in Skon’s mind. Finally, he said, “Our options have dwindled to one, Tobin: We must destroy the Heisenberg.”

  “What?” Tobin hissed. “That’s the best logic’ can come up with?”

  Skon held out his hand in a soothing gesture. “Be calm, Tobin,” he said. “Considering how carefully the Romulans plann
ed the attack, it is remarkable that even that recourse is available to us.”

  “But to destroy the ship ... the prototype ... everyone aboard ...”

  “The Romulans are not known for taking captives,” Skon said. “They will likely execute our shipmates anyway, whether they cooperate or not. The same is true for us. The ship is too small for us to avoid detection indefinitely.”

  “But still ...” Tobin said, his mind racing. Tobin Dax would be the first to admit that he was not the cleverest Trill to ever grace the face of his planet—“Not the sharpest blade in the knife block,” as his mother (a wonderful cook) used to say. His successes as an engineer were, he believed, more attributable to plodding perseverance rather than brilliance or insight. His only notable “talent”—if it could be called such a thing—was his ability to panic, or, more accurately, to think his way through panic. Rather than making his mind lock up, panic sent Tobin into cognitive overdrive. Perhaps it was this ability that made the Symbiosis Commission decide he would be a worthwhile host.

  So when Tobin wrapped his mind around the idea that he might soon become a random and loose affiliation of atoms, his mind began leaping through possibilities until, without thinking, he blurted out, “What if ... what if we blow up only part of the ship?”

  Skon’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

  “We could rig some kind of ... wait. Give me your padd.” Skon handed the device to Tobin. “I don’t know this interface. How do you call up schematics? Oh, wait.” He rumbled with the keys. “There. All right—look here. The Heisenberg is designed like a lot of Terran warp-capable ships. Basically, it’s just a big tube with warp nacelles slung underneath the back half. Engineering is separated from the habitat section by a safety junction with blast doors and heavy shielding on either end, the idea being to protect the rest of the ship in the event of a radiation mishap.” As Tobin’s thoughts grew clearer, he began to work the padd more confidently, his fingers flying over the controls. “Suppose we placed explosive charges here ... and here inside the junction.” Two points near the center of the ship schematic began to glow. “We could blow free of the engineering hull and push ourselves away with steering thrusters. Wait! Are the steering thrusters still available?” Tobin checked the diagnostic Skon had run earlier and nodded. “Yes. See? Here—we could fire them from an interface in the Jefferies tube.”