Force and Motion (22 page)

The comm chirped once more.

Cretak slapped the console and opened the channel. “Damn you, Finch!” he shouted, surprising himself.

“Too late,”
a voice responded.
“I think that's been taken care of.”

Cretak knew he wasn't an authority on humans or their whimsies, but he also recognized that the speaker didn't sound human. For that matter, he didn't sound like someone who was inside a crumbling space station. He sounded . . . amused? Disaffected? “Who is this?” Cretak asked.

“Turn on your viewer,”
the speaker said.

“Why should I?”

“Because I like to look a man in the eye when I'm making a deal.”

Deal?
Cretak wondered.
What in the names of the D'ravsai?
But he couldn't resist turning on the viewer.

The speaker must have been sitting very close to the pickup, because his features—particularly his flat, ridged nose and his thick brow—seemed to fill the screen. He smiled very briefly, showing a row of sharp teeth, though
the smile did not reach his eyes.
“My name is Nog.”
The image shimmered and, for a moment, Cretak thought something was wrong with the signal, but then he realized the effect was due to the fact that Nog was wearing some kind of environmental suit.

“What do you want, Nog?” Cretak asked.

Once again, Nog—a Ferengi, Cretak guessed—grinned, but only very briefly, as if he couldn't resist enjoying a private joke.
“It's not about what
I
want, friend. I'm contacting you to discuss what you might want. Or perhaps I should say
need
.”

“What do you know of my needs?” Cretak asked, taking control of the conversation. He knew about the Ferengi, about their much-vaunted ability to extract wealth from the unwary. Cretak almost chuckled to himself, though ruefully.
How can he take something from someone who has nothing?

“All too much, I'm afraid,”
Nog said.
“I have some very bad news for you, sir.”
He shook his head, his voice filled with what Cretak knew he was supposed to believe was regret.
“Very, very bad.”

“If you mean that Doctor Finch has reneged on our deal, that I'm to return home without the aid he promised—” Cretak snorted. “I have been informed.”

The image on the monitor appeared to jump, like the signal had dropped and then quickly been reestablished. The Ferengi appeared briefly disconcerted, but quickly regained his composure.
“Ah, yes. Of course. Finch's bug. Does that translate?”
he asked.
“Do you know what a bug is?”

Cretak was on the verge of being insulted, but he
was also curious about what the Ferengi was saying. “Of course I know what a bug is. I live out in the land, the sky over my head, soil in my hands every day. Back when there was soil . . .”

“
No, no,”
the Ferengi said.
“I mean the other kind of bug. It might not translate.”
He lifted his hand, huge in the pickup, and held his thumb and forefinger so that there was only the tiniest space between them.
“Microscopic. A pest . . . No, wait, not a pest. Nuisance? No.”
He waved his hand.
“Wait. I meant
plague
. Finch's plague.”

Now Cretak was very confused and unable to conceal it. At first, he had thought the Ferengi was attempting to weave a tapestry of lies, but now he sounded as if he was having problems even finding the correct terms. Or maybe the translator was flawed? “Plague?” he asked. “
What
plague?”

“The one that's enveloping your ship,”
the Ferengi said.
“They're like a swarm of locusts. Does that word translate? Do you have locusts on your world? Yes? How about a swarm that can survive in space? Can you imagine that? Or that it's on your hull now, burrowing into the seams? Our sensors are offline, but yours might still be functioning. For a little while longer. You should be able to find the swarm if you know where to look.”

“What?” Cretak asked. His stomach shriveled in his abdomen. “What are you talking about? What swarm? What
bugs
?”

“I'm really very sorry,”
Nog said.
“I assure you that I had nothing to do with this situation.”
He must have manipulated the viewer controls, because the camera pulled back and the Ferengi's whole face filled the screen. He was
wearing a helmet, though it was one of the larger sorts, so it was possible to see his entire face. That was it. No uniform was visible, but he recognized the suit.
Starfleet. The Federation.
Nog continued,
“I was sent here to try to resolve the problem, but have run into some additional problems.”
He smiled and, this time, Cretak sensed a genuine warmth and sincere desire to assist.
“Fortunately, I think we can help each other.”

Finch's Lab

Nog put the transmission
briefly on hold and looked back over his shoulder at the chief and Maxwell. “I think I have his attention,” he said.

O'Brien and Maxwell both nodded appreciatively. Maxwell said,
“I believe you do at that.”

Hangar Deck

Nita Bharad lay
on her side, staring into space. She panted hard. The back of her jumpsuit was damp, probably from perspiration, but possibly from blood, too. It clung to her skin. The air in the hangar had grown cold, and she shuddered miserably.

The last round had been the worst. She was fairly certain one of her colleagues had lost her grip and been bucked up into the air and then dropped, but Bharad was too tired to look around.
Tired and thirsty,
she thought.
I would sell my mother for a glass of water.
She closed her eyes
and felt her mind drift toward exhausted slumber, though she got hung up on an odd thought as she so often did before sleep:
Glass of water. Why a
glass
of water?
Had she ever really drunk water out of a glass? Growing up, they had drunk out of mugs and tumblers and metal bottles, but a
glass
?
Ever?
Such were the thoughts that kept her restless mind astir at night.

What was the fate of her girls?
Bharad rolled onto her back and groaned. Something was sprained or torn. Opening her eyes, she stared up into the gloom (everything but the emergency lights was out) and tried to imagine Ginger and Honey sliding down on their threads to find her, bind her up, and carry her away to her bed, safe and protected. In her mind's eye, the girls floated like a pair of soap bubbles.

No soap bubbles floated before her. The only thing she saw were motes of debris—flecks of plasteel and ­insulation—whirling in eddies and currents of thinning, increasingly toxic atmosphere. They were strangely beautiful. She began to drift away with them.

And then Bharad's right wrist began to vibrate, and the movement jerked her back into the here and now. She lifted her arm and stared blankly at the comm device on her forearm. It vibrated again. Unable to lift her left hand to activate the comm, Bharad dropped her wrist onto her forehead and the vibration ceased. “Who's there?” she asked dourly.

“Hello, Nita,”
Maxwell said.
“How're things?”

“Get me a beer, Ben,” Bharad replied, grinning.

“For you, anything,”
Maxwell said.
“But I can do you one better.”

“Better than a beer?” Bharad asked, and, despite her dehydration, felt her eyes moisten. “What could be better than that?”

“How about a way off this station?”

Bharad smiled. “You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Ben Maxwell.” Somewhere nearby, someone worked up the energy to moan loudly, and Bharad silently wished whoever it was would kindly please shut the hell up.

“Listen to me, Nita,”
Maxwell said.
“I
promise
you, there's a way. We've got it figured out. I wanted you to know because people are going to start being transported away any second now.”

Off to her right, Bharad heard the telltale sound of a transporter beam grabbing someone. She had only transported a couple times herself and hadn't either particularly liked or disliked the experience
. It is
, she thought,
a wonder, but not a mystery, if there is a difference between the two
. “Thanks for the notification,” she said, her voice cracking. “Any idea where they're being sent?”

“A ship,”
Maxwell said.
“A passerby. A Samaritan.”

“Oh, lovely,” Bharad replied. “And why isn't this Samaritan's ship falling apart?” And added, “Like the others?”

“We're not entirely sure it won't,”
Maxwell said.
“Their engines are different. We believe it won't attract Finch's bugs.”
He chuckled.
“At least, that's the theory. Not that we're telling him that . . .”

“What?” Bharad asked, feeling, for a brief moment, outraged on behalf of their Samaritan. She suspected, knowing Maxwell, that the Samaritan wouldn't be quite
so generous if he knew the Complete and Entire Truth. “And why aren't we telling him that?”

Maxwell didn't acknowledge the question. Instead, he continued,
“It's going to be pretty cramped. Just so you know.”
Another transporter beam locked and whirred off to the left.

The dust motes spun before Bharad's eyes. “Any sign of my girls?” she asked softly. “I'm worried about them. Something may have happened . . .”

“One of them is right here with me,”
Maxwell said.
“Ginger. With her new best friend.”

“Not Honey?” she asked.

“No sign of her,”
Maxwell said.
“But I'm sure she's fine. She's smart, Nita. As smart as her mom.”
Another transporter beam activated.

And then Bharad felt the deck below her buck. As she was flung up into the dank and dreary space, she briefly—very briefly—found herself thinking about playing with soap bubbles, the kind you made with a dish full of soap and glycerin. She tried to imagine she was one of those iridescent globes—shimmering like an oily rainbow, carried along by a breeze—and that she would either float away or pop.

Chapter 21

Eleven Years Earlier

Starfleet Penal Colony

“L
et's talk about firsts,” Doctor Gunther said. He was sitting in his overstuffed chair and Maxwell was sitting—not lying, but
sitting
—on the couch. They had met several times since he had been assigned to the colony. Most of their interactions had been cordial, however Gunther found Maxwell to be a frustrating patient.
Insufficiently inve
sted in the therapeutic process,
he had written in the patient file.

“Firsts?”

“Firsts. The first time something happened.
Personal
firsts.”

“Oh,” Maxwell said. “Like, first time sailing a boat or first kiss or first day of school. That sort of thing.”

“All good examples,” Gunther agreed. “Pick one of those.”

“Or first child born or first time in space or first time drunk.”

“Also good examples. Excellent. You've got the idea.”

“Or,” Maxwell continued, “first sexual encounter or first fight or first funeral.”

Gunther sighed. “Sure.”

“Or first time in battle or first time someone died by your hand or—I don't know—first time I thought I was going to die.”

Gunther set aside his padd, asking, “
First
time you thought you were going to die?”

“Sure,” Maxwell said.

“How many times have you thought you were going to die?”

Maxwell looked confused. “How many?” He turned and looked out the window. It was a typical summer morning. Heavy gray storm clouds scudded along the horizon. Shafts of golden light streamed down between the banks so that the ocean's surface was alternately glittering and gloomy. “I spent most of my career out there. It's part of the job.”

“How many?”

Maxwell turned his head to stare out at the ocean. Gunther noted that his cheeks were darkened by black and gray stubble. It was the first time he could recall seeing the former officer appearing in anything less than perfect wardroom condition. “Times I thought,
I might die today
?”

“Yes.”

Maxwell shrugged and turned back to look at Gunther. “More than I can count.”

“That must be exhausting.”

“I suppose,” Maxwell agreed. “You get used to it.”

Gunther let the words hang in the air for a few moments and then retrieved his padd. He knew he had just made a tiny inroad and wanted to take notes. “Tell me about the first time.”

January 9, 2386

Ops Center

Robert Hooke

“Nita?”
Maxwell called.
“Nita?”
He flicked the communicator control stud on his environmental suit's gauntlet on and off several times. Since returning to ops, Maxwell had tried to contact Bharad, with no success. His frustration was becoming palpable to Nog, even through the environmental suit. He turned to Nog and asked,
“What's happening? What's the pilot doing?”

Nog moved closer to Maxwell, careful to make sure his back was to the screen in case the Romulan was watching their interaction. “Exactly what we asked him to do,” Nog explained. “He's beaming the scientists out of the hangar and onto his ship. He can't beam them all at once. A shuttle that size, the transporter probably has only one pad.”

Maxwell said,
“We've convinced him that his ship may start falling apart any second, so he's probably more than a little nervous.”

Nog glanced at the screen from the corner of his eye, but all he saw was the pilot's forearm and shoulder. The Romulan was busy, presumably manipulating transporter controls. “Probably,” he agreed.

“But we are reasonably sure the Mother won't be attracted to his engine?”
Maxwell asked
. “Aren't we?”

Both O'Brien and Nog remained mute.

“You think,”
Maxwell asked,
“Nita was just caught up in the transporter beam?”

O'Brien pointed at the environmental controls console.
“Based on the scraps of data I can get out of this thing, yes. The hangar had some hull integrity up to a couple minutes ago. Now? Systems are failing all over the station.”
Waving a hand, taking in the bulkheads and deck below their feed, he added,
“It looks like you were rerouting a lot of the power up here.”

Maxwell nodded toward the still-recumbent Finch.
“His doing, not mine.”

“We're probably alive now because he did,”
O'Brien said.

Maxwell grunted, clearly experiencing mixed emotions.
“Let's just make sure we've got everyone we can. Then, he can beam us over and we can jump to warp.”

Nog gritted his teeth in preparation for delivering bad news.

“That was a grimace,”
Maxwell said.
“Why is there a grimace?”

“I wouldn't recommend going to warp. We don't know how fragile warp space is around the station. We have to assume it's fragile.”

“Impulse?”

Nog made a slightly less pained expression.

Maxwell sagged. “Thrusters?”

Nog and O'Brien nodded in unison.
“We just need to get clear,”
O'Brien said.
“And wait for Deep Space 9 to send a ship to pick us up.”

Maxwell acquiesced.
“All right. I'm going to let you two explain this when he beams you over.”

“What about him, Captain?”
O'Brien asked, jutting his chin toward Finch.

“What do you mean, ‘What about him?' ”
Maxwell asked.
“He comes with us. He goes to prison. I know a good one. Nice ocean view. Good doctors.”
He jabbed a finger at O'Brien.
“And stop calling me
captain
.”

Nog turned away so neither hew-mon would see him rolling his eyes. The Romulan was attempting to get their attention, probably had been trying for a couple minutes. Nog unmuted the audio. “Yes, Cretak. Status?”

“I've beamed aboard everyone I could. Some of your comrades are in poor health. I have provided first-aid ­supplies. Now, may we please leave here as quickly as ­possible?
”

“Of course,”
Nog said, resuming his role as negotiator. “We'll be ready to beam over in—stand by.” He muted the audio and pointed at the blinking red square of light in the lower right-hand corner of the monitor. “What's that mean?”

Maxwell stared at the light for just a fraction of a second too long.
“That?”
he asked.
“Nothing. Proceed with the beaming.”

“You've become a terrible liar, Captain,”
O'Brien said.

“You mean I was a good liar once?”

“You were an officer, so I assume you were.”
The chief pointed at the light.
“But you're avoiding the point. Problem?”

“Yes. Problem.”

“How big?”

“Pretty big,”
Maxwell said.
“Something just ate a hole through the reactor shields.”

“How much time do we have?”
O'Brien asked.

“Not much,”
Maxwell said, just as lights went out and
the artificial gravity failed.
“All right,”
Maxwell said from the darkness.
“How about none?”

O'Brien grabbed the console,
careful not to move too suddenly and go careening into a bulkhead. When he was sure he was stable, he flicked on his light. A moment later Nog and Maxwell did the same, two friendly pools of light framing worried faces. “Okay,” he said. “What's the plan?”

“I go shut down the reactor,”
Maxwell said.
“Before this bad day gets worse.”

“Right,” O'Brien said. “I saw a bag of tools over there. Yours? Yes? Let me see what we'll need.” He pointed Nog toward the spot where Finch had been. “Secure him before he floats away. Try to raise our friend on your suit's communicator. If you can't, push Finch out the hole so the Romulan can see you.”

“No, Miles,”
Maxwell said.

O'Brien, who was already making his way toward the tools, had to halt awkwardly. “Why? What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,”
Maxwell said.
“It's just that there's no reason why we both have to go. It's my reactor. I rebuilt it from scratch. If I can't shut it down in the next few minutes, then it's not going to be shut down at all.
”

“You might need help,” O'Brien began.

“No, Miles,”
Maxwell said, pushing himself off the console and easily gliding to the tool case. He swung it up and fished for a clip on the back of his suit.
“This isn't one of those kinds of problems.”

“Either we all live,”
O'Brien said, trying to parse Maxwell's logic, “or we all die. I'm coming with you.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm the captain,”
he replied, fastening the pack.

For several seconds, the only sound O'Brien heard was the inhalation and expulsion of breath inside his helmet. Then Nog said,
“I think he might have you there, Chief.”
O'Brien jerked around to face his fellow engineer as if he meant to throw a punch, but the sudden movement sent him into an uncontrolled spin that he could arrest only by grabbing on to Nog's shoulder.
“Got you,”
Nog said, bracing against the console.

O'Brien looked at Nog, still gripping his shoulder. Then, with a nod, he patted him, released his hold, and turned to Maxwell. “You better get moving,” he said. “We'll get as far away as we can. If nothing happens in ten minutes, we'll come back.”

Maxwell said,
“Good plan.”
He pointed at the thruster pack that they had used to burn back the Mother.
“What about that? You're sure it's tapped out?”

“Positive,”
Nog said.
“Though there's another one in the hangar that has some fuel left. Assuming the hangar is still there.”

“One problem at a time,”
Maxwell said. Just before opening the hatch to the core, he looked back over his shoulder. O'Brien thought he was making sure they were leaving, but then he shone his lamp on a spot on the ceiling, revealing Ginger, who was anxiously twitching her forelimbs.
“And, Commander?”
Maxwell called.

“Sir?”

“Make sure Ginger goes with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If anything happens to her, Nita will
kill
me.”

They spotted the Romulan ship as soon as they were outside the station. O'Brien thought that the pilot was much too close to the Hooke. Maybe one of his passengers was making sure he stayed near.
Probably Nita,
he guessed.
Probably looking for her girls.
And, predictably, Ginger was the first one to disappear in a swirl of transporter effect.
Which must be thrilling for the people on the shuttle.
Nog disappeared a moment later, followed soon after by Finch. O'Brien tried to look back over his shoulder at the station before the beam immobilized him, but there was nothing to use for leverage.
He'll be all right
, O'Brien thought as the transporter took him.
He's come through worse than this in one piece.

Central Core

A long life,
Maxwell thought as he shut the hatch behind him,
filled with many bad decisions, and this may be my worst.
The feeble glow of his torch barely pierced the gloom when he leaned over the handrail and looked down to the bottom of the core. Bits of debris floated past the cone of illumination. Six decks down, he knew, was the hatch that led to the generator room. He could take the safe route and pull himself down the metal stairs along the handrail, but that would take much longer than Maxwell imagined he had. This was one of the many problems he faced (but didn't want to share with O'Brien and Nog). He didn't have a clear idea what he would
confront when he reached the bottom of the core. The blinking red light was a very generic warning indicating only that there was a problem with the reactor.

When the sensors detected a problem with the core, lockdown programs should have isolated the tiny blob of antimatter the station reactor used for fuel and brought the backup generator or batteries online. Maxwell's guess was that the first step in the lockdown had occurred, but not the second.
Why?
The logical assumption was because something had interfered with the program.
What?
Maxwell felt sure he knew, and a part of him really didn't want to go find out. A vivid mental picture formed: a gigantic, shivering blob of purple goo sprouting writhing tentacles. For some reason, this new version of the Mother had a red-rimmed, bulbous eye in the center of its mass.
Maybe it would be better to just wait here in the dark
, he thought.
Either the reactor goes or Miles comes back to get me in ten minutes.

Sighing, he said, “That's not what they pay you for, Ben. Time to clean up the mess.” He vaulted the railing, his tools poking him on the back when he moved his arms. Maxwell awkwardly clung to the steel rail, his feet pressed flat against the stairway's frame. Bending his knees, he pushed off and dropped down into the darkness, watchful for large chunks of debris.

The railing for the stairway on the opposite side of the core, but one (or possibly two?) deck down, whirled into view, much faster than Maxwell had expected. He was barely able to get his arms up in time, but managed to grab the rail and check his progress by swinging his legs around to brake against the stair. “Not too bad,” he said
approvingly. It reminded him of the time he and Maria had gone zip-lining through a forest canopy.