Star Trek: TNG: Cold Equations II: Silent Weapons (13 page)

He stepped through his front door, turned off his apartment’s security alarm, and dropped his briefcase on the floor just past the threshold. That was where he left it each night when he came home. Why bring it an inch farther inside than it needed to be? He never opened it once he was here. Its contents were part of that rotten, merciless, corporate hell he’d left behind on the other side of the city. Why would he ever let that evil contaminate his last refuge? This was his place; work had no dominion here.
Damn them,
he raged.
They steal enough of my life as it is.

Plodding in heavy steps across his living room, he kicked off his shoes one at a time, shed his suit coat, and discarded his necktie with a lazy toss onto the back of the sofa. The maid would police them up and wash them all tomorrow while he was away. He unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his trousers on his way into the kitchen.

Kinshal arrived at his replicator nook wearing only his undershirt, his shorts, and his socks. Resting his forehead against the cool blue tiles above the machine, he mumbled through lips numbed by alcohol, “
Orroyo
.”

The replicator whirred into action, spinning energy and raw mass into a plate of sticky, boiled grains topped with a fatty seafood stew, a traditional Orion favorite. He was especially partial to his machine’s version of the dish, which had been patterned from an original recipe prepared years earlier by his mother. This was as close as replicated fare came to perfection.

Inside a storm of glowing particles, heralded by a musical wash of noise, the delicacy took shape, and he reached for it, eager to recapture a moment of his squandered youth in a mouthful of salty, savory decadence.

A cold wire looped around his throat and sliced into his flesh with brutal force.

Gasping for air he couldn’t find, fighting to scream through his severed larynx, Kinshal clawed at his maimed throat, tried to pull the garrote from his neck. Its wire sliced off his fingertips, which tumbled to the floor between his feet, into the spreading pool of his blood.

He flailed his arms, threw wild backward jabs with his elbows, but found only air.

Vital warmth sheeted down the front of his undershirt as his sight grew dim and his head swam. Afloat in the last wave of his own consciousness, he cast about for answers, for a reason, but found nothing. Nothing but darkness and silence.

Nothing.

•   •   •

Hain watched the Orion man’s body on the lab’s main screen. When the corpse ceased twitching, she opened a channel to her team in the field. “Berro, he’s dead. You can let go now.”

“I wanted to sever his spinal cord to make sure,”
Berro replied over the comm.

“You’ve succeeded. Put him down.” She checked the feed from the other android deployed to Kinshal’s residence. “Sair, get the retinal pattern.”

Sair’s visual feed showed her moving into position above Kinshal’s still-warm body. The android’s face pressed to within inches of the dead Orion’s, and Hain saw its fingers pry open Kinshal’s eyelids as wide as they would go. Then the high-resolution receptors in Sair’s ocular sensors scanned Kinshal’s retinas and transmitted their patterns back to the lab. Hain put the scan through a filter to make sure it was clear enough for their purposes. “That looks good, Sair. You’re clear. Berro, get rid of that body, and make sure you leave his apartment spotless. Our profile on Mister Kinshal says he has a maid who cleans his residence daily. I don’t want her calling the local authorities because she found bloodstains in the lavatory.”

“Understood.”
The android agents set to work, moving with tireless efficiency as they removed all traces of their presence from the premises. Berro cooked the man’s corpse into sludge with a few packets of concentrated bioreactive acid and flushed the watery sludge down the shower drain. Sair sprayed the apartment with an aerosol of nanites that would break down any incriminating fibers, and then dissociate themselves into innocuous carbon atoms. Within minutes of the murder of Kinshal, there was no evidence that the crime had ever occurred.

Hain added the retinal scans to her biometric profile of Kinshal, a file that encompassed everything from his DNA and his body-mass distribution to his voiceprint and now his retinal patterns. Those had been the last pieces of the puzzle, ones whose acquisition had been postponed until the latest possible moment. But with the SRD pressuring Operation Zelazo into premature action, the timetable for Kinshal’s demise had been accelerated. The next day of operations would determine the mission’s outcome—and Hain knew that failure was not an outcome her superiors would be willing to accept.

Satisfied her profile on Kinshal was complete, she reopened the channel to her agents. “Wrap it up and get out of there. As soon as the new template’s ready, we’ll begin Phase Two.”

11

Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Worf would not have believed such a facility was part of a Federation embassy. The secure sublevel of the diplomatic headquarters on Orion was as bleak and austere a place as he had ever visited. Its sublevel was defined by bare walls and floors of thermocrete, as well as hardened portals that seemed better suited to a Klingon maximum security prison. Of course, that’s what this rarely mentioned area of the embassy was: a prison.

Armed Starfleet officers assigned to the embassy guarded the door to the interrogation room in which Data was being held. As the human ensign entered a code to unlock and open the door, the Bolian lieutenant supervising him warned the trio from the
Enterprise,
“Be careful. The prisoner’s restraints have been removed. If he gives you any trouble, we’ll be right outside.”

Worf suppressed his impulse to gut the Bolian. “We will
not
need you.”

The door opened. Picard entered first, and Worf followed him inside, trailed closely by La Forge. As soon as all three of them were inside the cramped room, the guards closed and locked the door behind them.

Data—whose human appearance and civilian clothes still caused Worf a moment of cognitive dissonance—grinned at the sight of his former shipmates. “Captain! Worf! Geordi!” He got up from his chair, shook the captain’s hand, clasped Worf’s forearm and slapped his shoulder, then hugged La Forge. “It is good to see all of you. Thank you for coming.”

“Nothing could have kept us away,” Picard said. His smile faded as the reason for the visit weighed upon him. “Data, we don’t have much time. Are you aware of all that’s happened pertaining to your arrest?”

The android nodded. “Yes, sir. It seems I am considered a suspect in the murder of the SI section chief, Commander Tohm. As I lack a clear alibi for the period in question, I am unsure how I will verify my innocence in this matter.”

La Forge raised a hand to interject, “One thing at a time, Data. What’re you doing here?”

“I have been looking for clues that will lead me to Emil Vaslovik. Commander Tohm helped me access the records of the Bank of Orion to verify some of my suspicions.”

The captain looked confused. “Was that why you tried to gain access to the bank?”

“I did no such thing, sir.”

His assertion sparked worried glances among the three
Enterprise
officers. Worf decided to cut to the heart of the matter. “If it was not you who tried to enter the bank . . . could it have been another Soong-type android?”

“That would seem to be the most reasonable conclusion,” Data said. “Are Captain Bateson and his crew aware of the android factory we discovered sixty-eight days ago?”

“Not yet,” Worf said. “That incident was classified as top secret by Starfleet Command.”

The news did not seem to trouble Data. “Still, when it is made available to the JAG office, that should make it possible to secure my release.”

Picard’s mien turned grim. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Mister Data. We still lack evidence that any of those androids are present on Orion. And there is the additional complication of the severity of the breach at the bank.” Noting Data’s lack of understanding, the captain continued. “The reason Starfleet is involved in the investigation is that President Bacco is conducting a private summit inside that institution.”

Data nodded at a curious angle. “That would account for their exaggerated response.”

La Forge stepped around Worf to clear his line of sight to Data. “Is it possible the Breen have figured out how to program some of the androids they removed from the factory?”

“I do not think that is likely.” Data wore a look of stern thought. “None of the software they had at the factory would have enabled them to activate and program a positronic brain.” Looking up at Picard, he added, “They were not even close, sir.”

More pragmatic concerns nagged at Worf. “However they have been activated, we need to track them down. Is there any way we can find them before they act again?”

“Its energy emissions seemed to have been camouflaged,” La Forge said. “I’d guess they probably have access to sensor-spoofing hardware and software, which would mean they could make these things show up to sensors as whatever they want—or as nothing at all.”

The speculation seemed to give Data an idea. “You might be able to detect short-range fluctuations in electron potentials caused by the androids’ positronic brains.”

La Forge shrugged. “If their sensor blinds are good enough, we might not even be able to read that. But it’s still worth a try.” He looked at Picard. “I’ll have Taurik work something up.”

“Very good.” The captain fixed his worried stare on Data. “What concerns me, Mister Data, is your legal predicament. Have you provided your defense counsel with any account of your whereabouts during the hours in which Commander Tohm was murdered?”

Data nodded. “Yes, sir. Unfortunately, the dearth of public surveillance technology on Orion has made it all but impossible to confirm my alibi.”

Picard frowned. “I admit that in principle I find their devotion to individual privacy commendable. The notion of a state monitoring its people’s every action troubles me. Unfortunately, in this instance, audiovisual records of the public transit system, or of routine electronic commercial transactions, might save you from a lifetime in prison.”

“The irony of my situation is not lost on me, sir.”

The captain laid his hand on Data’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Data. I give you my word: the
Enterprise
and its crew will not rest until you are free.” He looked at Worf. “Number One: Do whatever it takes to confirm Mister Data’s alibi. That’s an order.”

It was a directive Worf was eager to carry out. “Aye, sir.”

•   •   •

Basking in dry heat and feasting on raw meat, for the moment Imperator Sozzerozs had no cause for complaint.
Say what you will about the Orions, they understand hospitality.

He and his retinue lounged in the private suite the bank’s staff had prepared for them. To accommodate the particular needs and preferences of Gorn physiology, all of the suites’ regular furnishings and embellishments had been replaced with appointments suited to the archosaurs. Its walls had been removed, creating an open floor plan that satisfied the Gorn’s preference for clear lines of sight. Organically curved slabs of volcanic rock were spread out, giving Sozzerozs and each member of his delegation his own territory in which to repose beneath the ruddy glow of heat lamps that simulated the radiation of their native star. Steam baths were never more than a few strides away, and even the artwork had been tailored to their aesthetics. The spacious chamber was decorated with sculptures carved from a type of obsidian that remained cold even when exposed to extreme temperatures, and to which had been applied electrically conductive filaments that created bright thermal patterns visible to the Gorn’s infrared visual receptors.

The only part of the suite that wasn’t bathed in magnificent warmth was the buffet, which had been larded with the most remarkable assortment of raw meats Sozzerozs had ever seen. Mammalian meats, poultry, fish, Chelonian delicacies, even a smorgasbord of small live prey—it was a banquet that made clear the Orions took the time to learn about their guests and spared no expense to please them and make them comfortable.

Which meant, naturally, that his chief adviser Togor had to find some way to spoil it.

“I have the full report of this morning’s disturbance, Majesty.”

Bowing to the demands of his office, Sozzerozs put aside his Sybaritic indulgences and gave his attention to the
wazir
. “What happened?”

“A failed attempt to breach the secure perimeter. Four persons appear to have been involved, but the Orions are unable to specify the perpetrators’ species or genders.” He held out a glossy black data tablet for Sozzerozs to look at. “The first one to strike the bank’s force field was incapacitated. His accomplices carried him away during their retreat.”

Sozzerozs slid off his basking rock. “And this matters to us because . . . ?” He plodded across the rough sandstone floor to the buffet. Togor followed him.

“The bank’s sensors detected strange energy readings when the first intruder hit the force field. We’ve not yet identified those readings, but since this morning, the Starfleet personnel on the planet have maintained a state of high alert. They also executed a rapid deployment into the capital’s starport this morning. Witnesses to the incident say a human man was arrested, but the Orions and the Federation refuse to identify him, or reveal their charges against him.”