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  Georgiou replaced the goggles and opened the hatch before her. True to her expectations, the cargo area was a canyon of black pillars when she peeked inside. Crates and cylinders stacked to twice her height, all still sitting on the deck. She grasped the doorframe and reoriented herself before stepping gingerly down into artificial gravity.

  She popped off the goggles and cast them away. After several seconds to adjust to the darkness, she thought she saw a bit of light here and there behind the obstacles; since there were ports in the bulkhead facing outward, she assumed she was seeing starlight.

  Still, she wasn’t going to take any chances.

  “Illuminate cargo deck and shuttlebay ten percent,” she told the data slate. It responded, giving her just enough light to see something that she’d first noted weeks earlier on a pass through Discovery’s corridors: an emergency cabinet, positioned partway up the bulkhead. She’d made a beeline for one earlier when her journey began, obtaining the night-vision goggles it held before directing the computer to seal every other locker aboard Pacifica, lest its occupants get the same idea.

  She opened this one with a smashing high kick. The door swung open, revealing more goggles, an oxygen mask, a first-aid kit, and a communicator. She wasn’t interested in any of those.

  “Here we are,” she said aloud, admiring the phaser in the low light. She’d avoided taking one from the earlier cabinet, for fear Pacifica had some tracking system on its weapons that wasn’t visible through the main computer; that would be just the sort of thing Starfleet would have. But now, there was no stopping her. Not when she was this close to—

  Georgiou froze. She sniffed the air. Something was burning. Phaser in hand, she began to turn—only to step back, startled, when a torch-bearing figure emerged from behind a column of cargo containers. “Boo!”

  “Get back!” Georgiou stuck the phaser in the face of the new arrival—a face, she now saw in the firelight, that was contorted with laughter.

  “I thought that was you, Georgie! Nobody can kick a door open like you.”

  “Blackjack?”

  “Finnegan, Blackjack—your choice,” he said. His torch, she noticed, was a bunch of chemical-soaked rags twisted around a half-meter-long lug wrench. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  She was still reeling. Blackjack? Now? “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for trouble—you know me.” He brought the flame below and before his face, grinning evilly in the light. “You do know me, don’t you?”

  “No, I mean what are you doing here? I thought they kept you on Thionoga.”

  “Oh, that. Cornwell got me out and brought me here,” Finnegan said. “I used to be Starfleet, you know. There’s some secret mission—she thought you might be happier if I was on the team.” Torch in hand, he wandered the stacks of cargo, a troll in the forest. “Besides, Thionoga didn’t want to keep me there any longer. They know what I can do. Pretty soon I’d get around to doing it.”

  “Cornwell said you were no murderer.”

  “Ah, but she just knows what I was convicted of.” He smiled back at her. “She doesn’t know what I was guilty of.”

  She stared at him. “New tooth.”

  He clicked his teeth together and gave a little growl. “Helps to have ’em when I’m hungry. I get testy when I get hungry.” He leered at her. “But they tell me you know that.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean they told me about who you are—and where you’re from.” He bowed theatrically. “Never met an emperor before.”

  “The news is certainly getting around.”

  “They also told me who I am. Where you’re from, I mean.”

  “And what did you think of that?”

  He laughed. “It’s crazy.” Then he began balancing the base of the lug wrench on his open palm, looking up at the flame as his makeshift torch teetered back and forth.

  Georgiou had anticipated a lot of eventualities in her escape, but finding Blackjack again wasn’t one. It seemed plausible that Cornwell might have brought him in; the Federation and Section 31 had certainly recruited a lot of other people to work on her. But she didn’t remember any menace in Finnegan’s voice or demeanor back on Thionoga, and what she was hearing from him now was certainly not like the Blackjack she knew. His manner was—what? More playful? Mocking?

  Maybe this is just what he was like before the surgery.

  “Normally you can’t set things on fire on a starship,” he said, grasping the wrench again to end its teetering. “Definitely something wrong above decks. Bet it feels like old times.”

  Georgiou had no time to relive anything. She began making her way through the aisles. “Allow me,” Finnegan said, hurrying ahead and lighting her way.

  “Why are you really in the cargo hold?”

  “It was the only place I could find with gravity.” He looked to her. “What—uh, what are you doing here?”

  “Same old, same old.” She waved the phaser before her. “I’m leaving. But this time, I won’t be needing you to mess with any space doors.” She gestured toward the data slate. “I’m taking care of it myself.”

  He stood, motionless. “Where to this time?”

  “Same as before. Anywhere else.” On the starboard side of the storage area, something caught her eye. She stepped quickly to the port, where she saw NCIA-93 hovering stationary off the starboard bow: Leland’s ship.

  She’d known it was there, of course; she’d even spent time on it between her recruitment on Qo’noS and her deployment to the prison ship that took her to Thionoga. What she didn’t fully know was what its armaments were. Distracting Pacifica’s crew was one thing; she was reasonably certain her sabotage would give her a window during which it could not fire on her. But Leland’s ship type had appeared in no records she’d ever seen, and she had never been allowed to visit the bridge. She doubted she’d be able to simply fly a shuttle past it.

  Then she remembered the man behind her. “You were Starfleet?” she asked.

  “That’s right. Jack of all trades.”

  “Your shuttles aren’t armed—but I know they can be.”

  “Simple stuff,” Finnegan replied. “We switch in equipment pods—I used to be able to mount one in under five minutes.” He rested his free hand against a cargo container. “Nothing a smart person can’t do on his own!”

  “Control your fire,” she said.

  “Okay, there is that—fire control’s from the back station. Shuttle pilot can’t do that.”

  “No, I mean control your fire,” Georgiou said, gesturing indifferently to his torch as she stepped past. In the seconds it took for Finnegan to realize what she meant, the rags on his wrench, burnt through, tumbled from it. They singed his wrist on the way down, causing him to swear—and then to angrily stomp on them after they hit the deck.

  She looked back at him. He sure wasn’t Blackjack, she decided, but he was probably right about the fire control systems. The Terran Empire didn’t even make an unarmed shuttle; Starfleet, on the other hand, existed under the delusion that it was not a military organization, ignoring basic necessities in the process.

  She would not. “Blackjack!”

  Nursing his wrist, he looked up. “Huh?”

  “They want you to shadow me? So shadow me.”

  “You mean—?”

  “I need your help after all. Come on, before I change my mind.”

  “Whatever you say, Your Highness!”

  “And keep the wrench. You look good holding it.”

  18

  NCIA-93

  “Admiral on the bridge!”

  “Not intentionally,” Cornwell said, stepping into the command well of the Section 31 vessel. She and Leland had just been transported across from Pacifica after an interminable period during which the two were locked, weightless, in the dark with several colleagues. “That’s the last time I let you talk me into using a briefing room without a window. Or a comm.”

  “If you coul
d make calls out,” Leland said, “it wouldn’t be a secure room.”

  “It certainly secured us.” Cornwell had seldom seen Leland flustered, but the ordeal had definitely unnerved him. She could relate, having transferred her own flag to NCIA-93 only after it became apparent no fix for Pacifica was coming quickly. “Do you have any idea what’s happened?”

  Sydia pointed to several screens showing readouts from the ship. Many sections were blinking or black, indicating that the only systems still working on Pacifica related to autonomic features like life support. “We have never seen such a disruption of user control outside a test environment.”

  That jolted Cornwell. “You mean you’ve seen it inside a test environment?”

  Leland’s eyes fixed as she said that—and then he and Sydia looked at each other. “You don’t think—”

  Sydia went to another console and called up some information. “It seems,” she said gravely after a moment, “that there has been unauthorized access to Pandora’s Box.”

  “To what?” Cornwell said.

  “No, no,” Leland said, shoving past Sydia to sit at the station. “That can’t be right.” But after a minute at the controls, he clapped his hands on his scalp. “She did it.” Mesmerized, he pushed himself back. “Damned if she didn’t do it!”

  “Georgiou did what?” the admiral demanded.

  Leland stepped away from the terminal and pointed. “My developer team belowdecks runs simulations to game out Starfleet’s response to cyber threats. They’re always designing new malware packages. Apparently one of our guests must have known they were here.”

  Sydia pointed to a notation on another screen. “It looks like the files were first accessed when she was aboard, between Qo’noS and Thionoga. A back door was inserted into the system, accessible via subspace.”

  Leland acknowledged. “And this says a Federation official with priority clearance opened a channel downloading it to Pacifica an hour ago. Know anybody who would do that?”

  Cornwell had heard enough. “Where’s Georgiou now?”

  “Our sensor sweeps have been unable to tell,” Sydia said. “We are not even certain she is on Pacifica.”

  “We’re one of two starships parked in deep space. She’s either there or here. Find her. She’s either got a ride coming, or she’s going to find one.”

  Standing before his people, Leland swallowed his pride. “Do what the admiral says.”

  As the humbled bridge crew turned back to their stations, Cornwell stepped nearer to Leland and his aide and spoke in low tones. “This is ridiculous. Not only did Section 31 build a means to disable one of Starfleet’s own ships—but she stole it while she was training for your loyalty test!”

  “Perhaps,” Sydia said, “we did not give her enough to do.”

  U.S.S. Pacifica

  Doolittle. Chennault. Hanson. Reading the shuttle names as she passed them, Georgiou had seen another of Starfleet’s little hypocrisies. Finnegan had mentioned they were named for military aviators, a peculiar choice for an alleged peacetime organization. She’d brought it up earlier when one of her trainers had explained who the original Farragut was. The ridiculous justification was that they were all voyagers by sea or air who had acted with distinction; the martial nature of those acts was secondary. She’d laughed then. I’ll just bet they don’t honor anyone who was on the losing side.

  At last, she came to the shuttle she’d been hoping to find. “Here it is. Boyington.” She gestured to Finnegan, who was tailing her with a service vehicle. “You’ve brought the wrench. Have at it.”

  “With pleasure,” he said.

  “Try it with speed.” He’d taken his damn sweet time finding the weapons pod and loading it onto the crawler; now, as he backed the machine toward the shuttle’s snub nose, she wondered how committed he was. Three times already, he’d stopped to ask her questions that didn’t need answering, usually with some malicious twist thrown in. She couldn’t tell whether he was trying to delay her, to establish his bona fides as her ally, or both—but she was unconcerned about capture. She’d used the data slate to trigger a new round of convulsions for Pacifica, thanks to the programs she’d discovered during her time on NCIA-93.

  “Why this shuttle again?” Finnegan asked as he hefted the weapons pod into position.

  “Boyington’s the one they intended for our expedition,” Georgiou said. “It’s long range, warp capable—and is fully stocked with what you people consider food.”

  “And drink, I hope.”

  She ignored him. “We ought to be able to make the Alpha Quadrant in a few days. Have you ever heard of the Badlands?”

  “Sounds like a fun vacation spot in your world.”

  “It’s a good place to not be found—and it hasn’t been tainted by the Federation yet. There are worlds ripe for the plucking, ready for a leader.”

  Wrench in hand, Finnegan paused in his work. “You’re really looking to become an emperor again?”

  “I never stopped being one. Now hurry up. I have places to go and worlds to—”

  “I can’t believe this!”

  Georgiou spun, phaser in hand—and saw Emony Dax standing outside the open doorway to Boyington. The emperor raised an eyebrow and lowered the weapon. “Ah, our little lurker comes forth. The sensors had said someone else might be here.”

  Dax walked toward her. “Leland’s been beaming people aboard in various places, trying to help out. I asked to be sent to the shuttlebay.” The young woman’s eyes were wide in the low light. “Looks like it was the right call. Did I just hear you say you’re going to leave?”

  “Why ask questions you already know the answer to?” Georgiou had grown tired of delays. “Blackjack, are you done yet?”

  Finnegan was not. In fact, she saw that he had stepped back from the shuttle’s prow entirely. He dropped the wrench on the deck, flicked the sweat from his hair, and smiled broadly at Dax. “Well, hello there!”

  “Not now,” Georgiou said, grabbing her forehead.

  “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Sean Finnegan.”

  The angry Trill barely took her eyes off Georgiou to look at him. “Hi,” she said, distracted. “Emony Dax.”

  “Emony Dax!” Finnegan smacked his hands together. “I knew you looked familiar! Me and the cadets used to bet on your gym meets.”

  Dax did a mild double take. “You’d bet?”

  “Well, it was more of a drinking game, but—” Finnegan wiped the grease from his hand onto his shirt and extended it toward her as he approached. “I am a fan!”

  Georgiou rolled her eyes. “Are you going to finish the work? I have places to go!”

  “Yes,” Dax said. “To Troika space—with us!”

  Finnegan balled his fists with enthusiasm. “You’re on the mission too? This gets better all the time!”

  Fine! Georgiou pushed past him, disgusted. The weapons pod only needed a few more turns of the wrench. She set down the phaser and retrieved the tool from the deck.

  “You’re on Leland’s team?” Dax asked Finnegan.

  “Cornwell brought me in. But yeah.”

  “Then you’ve got to stop her. She’s trying to escape!”

  “Not trying hard enough, apparently,” Georgiou said, crouching to turn the remaining bolts.

  Finnegan cupped his hand to his mouth and spoke to Dax. “They told me to stick with her,” he half whispered. “I’ve been trying to slow her down, but she’s dead set on going.”

  “I can hear you,” Georgiou called out. It didn’t stop them from talking, but at least her suspicions were confirmed.

  “You can’t let her go,” Dax said. “Leland says she’s the key to the whole mission. You’ve got to stop her!”

  Work completed, Georgiou rose—and stepped toward the pair. She faced Dax. “Little thing, nobody stops me. Ever. And I am not going on your stupid mission. I never was.” She turned toward Finnegan. “As for you—you’re as disappointing as everyone I’ve met in this universe. Maybe m
ore so. Blackjack was an artist. And he did what he was told.”

  Looking into her cold eyes, Finnegan swallowed. “You know what I think,” he said. “Obedience is overrated. But I will follow an order now and again—from the right folks.” He seized the data slate on her wrist and undid the tape, freeing it. “Let’s go have a nice talk with them.”

  So aggravating, Georgiou thought. “Very well,” she said, spinning—and smashing Finnegan in the face with the business end of the wrench. He tumbled backward, blood flying. She watched as he slammed into the deck.

  “Huh,” she said, kicking his motionless form. “I’ve always wondered what that felt like. No wonder Blackjack enjoyed it.” She bent over to retrieve the fallen data slate—

  —and looked into the muzzle of the phaser she’d set down earlier. Dax pointed the weapon like the head of a snake she wanted kept far from her person. “Stop right there!”

  Forgetting the data slate, Georgiou sneered at her. “Oh, you aren’t serious.”

  Dax stepped backward in the direction of the shuttlecraft’s open doorway. “I’m going to do what I should have done before. I’m going to call Leland. I’ll bet the comm system still works in there!”

  Georgiou’s lips curled upward. “Ah. You aren’t serious.” Clutching the wrench, she stepped toward Dax, menace in every move.

  “Stay where you are. Or I’ll stun you.”

  “How fun! I only had it set to kill.” Georgiou stopped walking. “Go ahead and change it. I’ll wait.”

  Dax glanced down at the weapon—only to look more closely at it. She seemed puzzled.

  “Oh, you are green.” Georgiou chuckled. “Doesn’t come with instructions, does it?”

  Giving up, Dax pointed it again. “I don’t have to change it. Stay back!”

  “You won’t kill me because of your mission—and you can’t kill me, because you’re a child. But I’m not a child—and I don’t care about your mission.” She took a step forward.