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“What the hell is that thing?” Dax asked again.

  “I don’t know—but it doesn’t look good at all,” Kubisiak said. He pointed to sensor data on the cockpit monitor. “Farragut’s aware of it. They just scanned it, see?”

  “It’s moving faster,” Dax said. She leaned in closer, not believing what she was about to say. “It’s like the scan aggravated it.”

  Eagan appeared in the cockpit behind her. “What’s going on? What did Farragut say?”

  Dax pointed. “That thing’s going after the ship.”

  As Eagan gawked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, Kubisiak slapped the console and shouted, “What’s wrong with Farragut? Shoot, already!”

  Phaser fire finally did come from the starship—but it was too late. The cloud was upon it, first billowing across the saucer section, and then sinking in, as if it were being absorbed.

  Eagan shook his head. “That’s not right.” He headed toward the copilot’s chair, forcing Dax to quickly relocate the sample kits to the deck at her feet. Eagan worked the comm controls. “Farragut, this is shuttlecraft Leizu, civilian research group. What’s your condition?”

  Static. And then—screams.

  “—killing us! It’s killing us!”

  Eagan’s breath caught. “What do you mean?”

  “The cloud! We need doctors—but it’s already struck sickbay!”

  Eagan gaped at the sight of the ship—seemingly peaceful against the backdrop of Tycho IV. He seemed spellbound. “Sir,” Dax said.

  He didn’t respond. When he didn’t respond a second time, she reached past him and touched the comm control. “We have doctors aboard, Farragut. Do you want us to dock?”

  “No, keep your distance!” came the shouted reply. And then, after a pained couple of moments: “Yes. Yes! We’ll beam them over.”

  Eagan blinked. Reevaluating the situation, he reentered the conversation. “We’ll go to the departure pad aft. It’ll be three to transport, Farragut.”

  Dax straightened. “I’ll tell the doctors we’re going.”

  Eagan grabbed her arm. “I’m the third. You stay.”

  “But people are hurt—”

  “I’ve had Starfleet training, you haven’t.”

  “Then you’d better take me too,” Kubisiak said, producing his phaser from underneath the seat. “I’m security when I’m not a taxi driver.”

  “Gotcha. You see?” Eagan said to her. “Someone’s got to stay.” He released her and reached for the cases on the deck. “Pilot, help bring these. They could come in handy.”

  “Aye.”

  Dax watched, helpless, as Eagan and Kubisiak gathered their goods and piled out of the cockpit. Leaving her alone with the planet, the starship, and the blinking comm panel.

  Silent, but for the screams.

  11

  U.S.S. Farragut

  ORBITING TYCHO IV

  Dax had spent the last year telling herself that Starfleet hadn’t worked out. In truth, she’d washed out. Too old to seriously vie for the highly competitive medical program, she’d done the initial weeks of training for the regular service—only to realize that her recruiting officers had only been interested in her celebrity. They’d wanted her to serve a public relations role, attracting cadets Starfleet wanted more than it wanted her.

  A show pony, to use a term she’d learned from McCoy. She’d departed then. The Dax symbiont found Starfleet service intriguing, but that life would have to wait for another host.

  But in the shuttle watching Farragut, Dax had found herself wishing that she’d stayed in just a bit longer, to pick up more skills. And she found herself aching for all those aboard the starship, people who might have been her comrades had things worked differently.

  The cloud had departed. Or vanished. Or both. Dax had waited for an interminable hour, alone and unable to raise Farragut or her team on the comm. Then, she’d seen the vapor-like object emerge from a part of the starship’s hull—not the same place where it had entered. It moved as if it were a living thing, yet nothing in Leizu’s computer archives described anything similar.

  Then it was simply gone, as if it had always been a trick of the light.

  She’d acted at that point, orders and consequences be damned. Emony had never flown a shuttle before, much less piloted one into a landing bay. All that would have come later, had she stayed in Starfleet. But her preceding host Tobin had worked as an engineer, and had the hand-eye coordination needed for magic tricks; combining those skills with a forgiving piloting system and Emony’s dogged focus, she’d stuck the landing.

  Yet nothing in the lives of either of Dax’s previous hosts prepared her for what she saw in Farragut’s halls. Death everywhere. Officers and enlisted alike had dropped where they’d stood, their faces and lips a ghastly blue. She’d remembered to wear an oxygen mask on the way out, but nothing could make her breathe normally. Not here.

  The survivors she’d found were all panicked, and none of them were making much sense. She’d been able to piece together what had happened early on: For some reason, the officer at the weapons station—a rookie like her, she’d heard—had failed to fire on the cloud in time when it approached Farragut. It had traveled the halls and vents of the ship then, wreaking havoc and killing those unlucky enough to be in its path. Details of what had happened weren’t entirely clear beyond that, but one thing was certain: Garrovick was dead, along with roughly half his crew.

  And so, she discovered, was most of her team.

  She had tracked them to the deck that main sickbay was on. Evidence was everywhere of the desperate defense that had been waged against the invading cloud; the anteroom to the clinic was barricaded with bodies, all in the same condition. One belonged to Kubisiak. His phaser still clutched in his withered hand, the pilot seemed to look up from the deck in a twisted expression of horror.

  Garber and Winnock she found sprawled over patients. Rolling them over, she wondered if the Farragut officers they’d tended to had even been alive at the time. No matter: her colleagues had given their all, dying in the service of others, and that fit with everything she knew about them.

  That left only one other missing from her party—her supervisor. But before she could search for Eagan, he came to her, his sagging frame supported by a dark-skinned older human in a blue uniform. Eagan’s face was drained of color and his body was nearly limp, and yet his dangling hands clutched the handles of two medical cases.

  Dax rushed to his side. “Sir!” She peeled off her oxygen mask, trying to get him to respond.

  “Dax?” he mumbled, his eyes unfocused. “Take… these.”

  She tried to peel the cases from him, only to find that his grip was so tight she had to force his hands open.

  “Set me… down, Ananke,” Eagan rasped.

  She recognized the name as belonging to Farragut’s medical officer; she’d corresponded with the man remotely in preparation for the study. He did as he was asked, resting Eagan’s body in one of the few clear spaces on the deck. All the biobeds were in use, none by the living. Ananke directed Dax to bring a wet sponge.

  “People reported a sickly sweet smell—and then collapsed,” he said. “There’s not a red blood cell left in any of the dead.”

  “What… what would do that?”

  “It did.” Taking the sponge, Ananke wiped Eagan’s forehead. “He was the last person to encounter it before it withdrew. I don’t think it finished what it was trying to do to him.”

  Dax brightened. “Then maybe he’ll be okay.”

  Eagan groaned. “It… got me… enough.”

  “Try to relax, Rudy,” Ananke said. “I can’t hit you with any more stimulants.”

  “Not… important,” Eagan said. He called for Dax—and then squinted at her, upset, when she appeared, empty-handed. “I told you… take the cases…”

  She’d set them down nearby. She gestured. “They’re right there, sir.”

  “No,” he said, attempting to lift his right hand. She r
eached for it—and tried not to recoil when it felt like half-thawed meat. “I said… take the cases! With you, in the shuttle!”

  Turning back to the containers, Dax realized they were the diagnostic packs they’d intended to use at Tycho IV to test for the presence of local organisms that might impact their surveys.

  “Both the kits have been exposed to the—to the whatever it was,” Ananke said. “Eagan risked everything to get them into its path.” The Farragut officer added handfuls of petri dishes to each case. “I’m enclosing tissue samples we’ve taken from the deceased—and I’ll send my report to your shuttle. We can’t spare a soul right now.”

  Dax understood. She stared at the cases. “Where should I take them?”

  “One to Starbase 23, for sure,” Ananke said. “It’s close, and they’ll have a proper quarantine facility for sample intake, in case there’s some plague involved here.”

  Dax gulped. She guessed she was already exposed to whatever it was. But there was no worrying about that now. “I’ll take care of it.” Then she looked again. “And the other case?”

  “Also… to the starbase,” Eagan said, straining. “The Import… Inspection Service office. Understand?”

  Dax wasn’t sure she did, but she agreed anyway.

  “They’ll… want to see samples… firsthand. Tell them… Eagan wants to get them to Leland. Got it?”

  “Leland,” she said, memorizing. Then she did a double-take. “Wait. You want me to take medical samples to an import office?”

  Eagan reached for her with his other hand and pulled himself feebly toward her. “If this… is what I think…” He lost focus and struggled to find words. “I’m depending… on you,” he finally said. “Go.”

  Dax looked to Ananke—and back to her boss. “Aye, Captain.”

  Eagan’s hand slipped from hers and he sagged flat to the deck. His labored breaths ceased.

  Ananke knelt and checked for vital signs with a tricorder. After a few moments, he lowered his gaze. “One hundred percent mortality rate.” Ananke closed Eagan’s eyes.

  “Is it okay that I take these?” Dax asked, one case under each arm. “I’m not really a doctor.” She wasn’t even sure she could fly a shuttle through warp without the computer’s help.

  “You’re on Rudy’s team,” Ananke said. “You’ve got clearance on medical matters.” He gestured around him. “And I don’t think we’re going to run out of tissues to sample.” He drew forth his communicator and flipped it open. “Ananke to bridge.”

  A weary human voice answered. “Kirk here.”

  “Clear shuttlecraft Leizu departure to Starbase 23, priority one, medical.”

  “Of course. Bridge out.”

  Ananke closed the communicator and stared at it. “That’s the young man who didn’t fire in time,” he said. Seeing Dax waiting on his word, the doctor turned to face her. “Please,” he implored, “see this through, for the sake of all who died.”

  “And lived,” she said.

  “No, I don’t think anything will get us over today.” He looked again at the communicator. “And some of us will have more trouble than others.”

  Stage Two MURDER

  You’ll never be better than the people you work with. Look at Emperor Georgiou, back in the day. She surrounded herself with the worst of the worst, a wretched lot. One was a grinning madman who laughed gleefully as he murdered people.

  A while ago, I found out he was my countryman. I didn’t like being called “Smiley” so much after that…

  —GENERAL MILES O’BRIEN

  Road to Rebellion, 2375

  12

  U.S.S. Pacifica

  STARBASE 23

  It’s like I’m invisible, Dax thought.

  The Starfleet admiral and the human named Leland had been talking past each other since they had met at either side of the briefing table, grave-looking entourages in tow. Dax had been seated at the end, her back to the screen showing the visuals from Farragut that were part of Ananke’s report. She was more than happy not to look at those again.

  But four hours into the scheduled thirty-minute briefing between Federation officials, Starfleet, and whatever Leland was, Dax had begun to think back fondly on all the Olympic panels that had judged her over the years. Those meetings were neither organized nor rational, but at least when they argued over her, she was out of earshot. Now, Dax was hearing female pronouns left and right in the crosstalk, and understanding neither what the others were talking about, nor why she was being discussed so heatedly. She was just a courier, the bringer of bad news.

  But as news went, it didn’t get much worse.

  The last hours had been a whirlwind. The nature of Eagan’s research project had required a fast shuttlecraft, handy for zipping between the various starships whose crews were under study. That had more than served Dax in the emergency: Leizu had arrived from Farragut in short order, once she’d figured out the automatic navigation system.

  At Starbase 23, she’d provided Eagan’s samples and Ananke’s report to the Federation without delay. Its officials had been grateful in the extreme. Starfleet had heard from Farragut via subspace, of course, but its recovery vessels were still getting underway to Tycho IV. It was entirely possible something else bad might yet happen to the starship; she preferred not to think about it.

  If the Federation had been deeply concerned, the Import Inspection Service’s response was another matter. A receptionist in the featureless office had told her Leland was not on the base, after first denying that anyone by that name worked there. The worker had then asked her for her case of samples anyway. Dax had declined, insisting on hanging on to it until she could fulfill Eagan’s exact dying order. She’d retired to the Federation-supplied quarters for an exhausted catnap—

  —only to awake to find the case was empty. In fact, on examination, she realized the whole container had been replaced by one that was nearly identical. No work appeared to go on in the Import Inspection Service offices, but it apparently was so interested in her baggage it was willing to send someone to break, enter, and supply a duplicate case.

  Leland did arrive, the next morning, in a vessel traveling alongside Pacifica, the Starfleet flagship of Admiral Cornwell. The woman had treated her with kindness and compassion, completely sympathetic about Dax’s ordeal. Leland, for his part, had been more clinical, though not entirely detached; his speech seemed to quicken with every mention of the cloud.

  The Cloud—now described in documentation with a capital letter—had been mentioned interminably in the meeting since. There was the fact that it appeared to have changed its chemical makeup even in the seconds between Eagan’s and Ananke’s readings. And the fact that in the main, it seemed composed of dikironium, a substance that should not exist in nature. And that it could not possibly be alive, though it gave all evidence of having feasted on its victims’ blood.

  Most jarring to Dax: the news that something like it might have been seen once before, a quarter-century earlier. Yet nobody had done anything about it, then or since.

  That was the point where they lost her, with the Federation officials, Starfleet officers, and Leland’s black-clad support staff talking back and forth.

  “…no way to know if these incidents were connected without more data…”

  “…why couldn’t it be a Klingon doomsday device, since we were willing to do the same to them…”

  “…could never ever find the Jadama Rohn if we wanted to, given where it went…”

  “…treaties are made to be broken—especially against a threat like this…”

  “…publicizing could start a panic…”

  “…she isn’t the same person at all…”

  “…she’s the perfect candidate…”

  “…she’s untrained, untrustworthy…”

  “…she…”

  “…she…”

  “…she…”

  Dax slapped the table. “Enough!”

  The officials stopped midsente
nce and stared at her.

  “You keep talking about me like I’m not here,” Dax said. “Stop it!”

  Leland flinched, seeming puzzled to be addressed by her at all. “We weren’t talking about you.”

  “Well, you’re sure not talking to me!” She turned and gestured to the horrors on screen. “Two hundred people are dead—doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Certainly,” said the one person attending the meeting via hologram: a dark-haired Vulcan Federation official whose name she’d never caught. “Their deaths mean a great deal. This discussion is about what to do next.”

  Cornwell opened her hands wide. “Emony, the person we were arguing about isn’t you. There’s someone who might—I repeat, might—be able to get us more information about what happened. But we don’t really trust her.”

  Dax was flabbergasted. “What, is she incompetent?”

  Leland chortled. “Oh, she’s more than competent.”

  “She’s a handful,” a Starfleet officer said.

  “Of plutonium,” another added.

  “The person poses a threat,” the holographic Vulcan said. “She cannot be trusted not to flee. And if she did discover the Cloud’s origins, I would not trust her with that information either.”

  “We manage risk,” Leland said, gesturing to his team. “We wouldn’t send her alone. We’d watch her.”

  “Like on Thionoga?” Cornwell asked. “You had sensors all over that place and a thousand guards.”

  He frowned at her. “If we’re going to start this again—”

  “I said, stop!” Dax faced the image of the Vulcan. “This woman. Can she find out something that would prevent that from happening again?” She pointed to the screen. “Can she?”

  The Vulcan clasped his hands. “It is improbable.”

  “But there’s a chance?”

  “Small.”

  “Then that’s enough. Get her.” She faced Leland. “They want you to surround her with a team. Do it.”

  She paused, momentarily startled at the extent to which she’d taken over a roomful of people, evidently authorities in their fields.