Star Trek: TNG: Cold Equations II: Silent Weapons (14 page)

The imperator loomed over the buffet table, savoring the wide selection of raw victuals. His adviser remained half a step behind him, watching his every movement with intense focus. “Why should we be concerned about what appears to be a strictly internal Federation matter?”

“Because, within hours of the man’s arrest, the Federation vessel
Enterprise
arrived in orbit, and its captain has been granted a private audience with President Bacco.”

The bad news whipped the imperator about-face. “The
Enterprise
is here?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

Anxiety drove Sozzerozs to grind his fangs. “Could their arrival cause Bacco to cancel the summit? The Federation has tried to avoid attracting the attention of the rest of the Pact.”

Togor reacted with a pensive tilt of his long head. “They might withdraw, but I doubt it. Their efforts to shift the Pact’s focus away from Orion has been done at our request. Most likely, they will seek to gauge our reaction to the
Enterprise
’s presence, and then act accordingly.”

“Good.” Sozzerozs speared a handful of bright red meat on his talons, shoved it into his maw, and chomped hungrily. Bits and flecks of half-masticated flesh leaped from his gullet, peppering the gritty floor and Togor’s silken tunic. “When they sound us out, make sure they know we remain committed to the summit. And just to maintain appearances, make some kind of formal objection to the presence of the
Enterprise
. We can’t let on that it doesn’t matter.”

Togor raked up a shredded mess of raw fish on his own jet claws. “I understand, sire.” He shoveled the delicate fillets into his mouth, where they all but disintegrated as soon as he started to chew. “What shall I tell Thot Tran when Domo Brex demands an update?”

“Tell the Breen nothing more than you absolutely have to. It’s bad enough that we let them bully us into this scheme of theirs. I won’t have us leaping to do their bidding every time they deign to ring some metaphorical chime.”

“As you command, Majesty.” He picked idly at the glistening cuts of poultry. “Should I ask for an estimate of how much longer we are expected to prolong this charade?”

Sozzerozs swallowed a deep growl of irritation. “A waste of time.”

The
wazir
bowed his head and backed away. “Understood, Majesty.”

Alone again, Sozzerozs chose to relish the moment while he could. He stepped down into one of the steam baths and submerged up to his neck. The flow of hot vapor under and around his scales was deeply soothing, a desperately needed relief. There had been as much truth as falsehood in the stories he and his courtiers had spun for Bacco and her aides, but the one great omission was the only fact that really mattered: the summit was just for show.

Neither he nor his advisers knew the true ultimate objective of the Breen. All that Brex and Thot Tran had shared was that these talks were a key element in a cooperative intelligence mission that would benefit all members of the Pact, and the Gorn’s only directives were to make the secret conference drag on for as long as possible, and to ensure the Federation did everything in its power to “distract” the Typhon Pact, for the safety of the Gorn, out of deference to “the dire political risk” they claimed to be taking by engaging in such negotiations. Meanwhile, in star systems scattered across the quadrant, the Breen and Tzenkethi would play their parts, pretending to be ensorcelled by Starfleet’s comical attempts at misdirection.

The imperator suspected the Breen were overreaching in a futile effort to prove themselves the Romulans’ equals in the arts of subterfuge, but that wasn’t what vexed him. The itch beneath his scales was the fact that he was now playing a starring role in this farce—and he had no idea how it was supposed to end.

•   •   •

Dodging and shouldering through a crowded sidewalk in Kinarvon, one of Orion’s major cities, the
Enterprise
’s chief of security looked grouchy and uncomfortable in civilian garb. “This is ridiculous,” Šmrhová said. “I feel like a character in a holodeck program.”

La Forge felt bad for her; he was enjoying his break from the constraints of the uniform. “Lighten up, Aneta. We’re supposed to be incognito.”

“Sure we are. Two humans on Orion, and one of us has cybernetic eyes.”

He shot an offended glare her way. “What? I’m wearing dark glasses.”

“Yeah, at night.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s not suspicious. No, sir.”

Noting the street sign overhead, he nudged her to the right. “Turn here.” They rounded the corner onto an avenue busy with road traffic and pedestrians, and blazing with neon light from store signs whose reflections shimmered across wet pavement. La Forge plucked a miniaturized padd from his overcoat pocket and stole a look at its screen. He tilted his chin up toward their destination. “That’s the place up there, on the left.” He spotted a break in the traffic and darted across the street with Šmrhová right alongside him. They slowed when they reached the far sidewalk and stopped to size up the shop they’d come to find. He peeked through the front window and saw shelves and display cases packed with high-tech gadgets, spare parts, and precision tools of various origins—Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, and many more. The engineer smiled. “Yeah, this looks like the kind of place Data would shop.”

“Great. Let’s hope its owner is more helpful than the transit workers we questioned.” She lifted her hands as he stink-eyed her. “I’m just saying, we’ve retraced every step Data said he made last night, and so far no one remembers seeing him.”

La Forge sighed in exasperation. “What did you expect? We’re dealing with Orions.”

“That’s my point. It’s like these people have a genetic predisposition not to remember anything—conversations, romantic trysts, contracts, murders. How can the whole damned species have amnesia, Geordi?” She plunged her hands inside her trench coat’s pockets and stewed beneath a few stray locks of her sable hair. “We’re trying to save a man’s life, and all these people care about is not getting involved. They make me sick.”

She wasn’t wrong, and he knew it. Persuading Orions to meddle in one another’s affairs, or to involve themselves in the troubles of offworlders, was one of the most difficult tasks known to social engineering. But for Data’s sake, they had to find a way.

He sidled up to her. “Look, this is the last place on Data’s list. We didn’t come this far just to quit. Whatever happens, let’s just go in there and get this over with.”

“Fine.” She turned and led him through the shop’s front door. Inside, they tried to act casual, as if they were just random customers browsing the store’s wares, but the sinewy, bald Orion man behind the counter challenged them in an angry, nasal voice. “What do
you
want?”

Hoping to disarm him with kindness, La Forge grinned. “Hi, there.”

“Don’t ‘hi’ me. You want something or not?”

Šmrhová posed herself seductively against the sales counter and gave the owner a come-hither stare and a salacious but coy half smile. “No need to be so rude, Mister . . . ?”

He tried to hold on to his blustering bad mood, but it melted away as he looked into the comely brunette’s dark brown eyes. “. . . Jasser.”

She batted her eyelashes and bit her pouting lower lip. “Well, Mister
Jasser,
there is something we want.” She took her own micropadd from her pocket and held it toward Jasser. On the device’s screen was an image of Data as he currently appeared. “This man says he was here for over an hour last night, buying a number of computer parts. My friend here has the list.”

Taking his cue, La Forge held out his micropadd, on which was displayed a list Data had compiled from memory, detailing every item he had purchased at the shop, how much he had paid for each one, and how long he had been there.

Šmrhová waited for Jasser to take note of the list, then she continued. “We’re trying to help him verify his story, and we’d be very grateful if you could check your records and confirm these purchases, and the time they occurred.”

Jasser looked away from her, shook his head, and backed up half a step. “No, sorry. I don’t remember anyone like that.”

La Forge pointed at the interface panel for a retail-service computer. “Could you just check? If he was here when he said he was, it’d be a big—”

“No, no. I’d remember a big sale like that. You must have the wrong place.”

“I’m quite sure we don’t,” La Forge said. On a hunch, he glanced up and around, using his eyes’ full-spectrum sensitivity to look for telltale energy flow patterns and electromagnetic disturbances. He found them: in the corners, behind the counter, and overhead in the center of the shop. Pointing at the hot spots he knew had been camouflaged with decorative mirrors—or, in the case of the one directly overhead, disguised as a smoke and fire detector—he said to Jasser, “You have this whole place wired for surveillance. To prevent shoplifters, right?”

The Orion stammered. “I . . . I don’t know what . . . what you’re—”

“Spare me,” La Forge said. “I know that recording your customers is considered a major breach of privacy. Not quite illegal, but definitely unpopular, am I right? If anyone ever found out about those six little cameras . . .” He let the implied threat linger between them.

“Please! You wouldn’t!” The man turned his imploring gaze from La Forge to Šmrhová and back again. “Don’t do this, I beg of you. My reputation would be ruined.”

An evil smile possessed Šmrhová’s face. “No one ever needs to know, Mister Jasser. All we want is a copy of the sales receipt, and the vid footage that proves our friend was here.”

Jasser looked as if they were prodding him with a firebrand. “You don’t know what you ask! The moment they get used as evidence in any court on Orion, I’ll be blacklisted!”

“They’ll never be seen by another Orion,” La Forge said. “This isn’t for a local criminal matter, it’s for a Starfleet military tribunal.”

A weight of concern was lifted from Jasser’s shoulders, and his face brightened. “Starfleet? A military hearing?”

Šmrhová nodded. “That’s right. Completely confidential, and not subject to review by the Orion authorities. Plus, if your security records show our friend was here, you’ll help prove him innocent of a serious crime, and scuttle a major military investigation.”

Now the man beamed with delight. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I will sell you a copy of my security video for one hundred thousand Federation credits.”

La Forge tried not to act flabbergasted, but his jaw fell open. “Excuse me?”

Jasser rolled his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “A man has to make a living.”

“Are you sure you’re not part Ferengi?”

The security chief was back to simmering. “A hundred’s a bit rich for our blood. We’ll give you twenty-five.”

The Orion pounced on the opportunity to haggle. “Ninety.”

Though he had no idea where he and Šmrhová would get this kind of credit, La Forge joined in the process. “Thirty-five.”

“Eighty-five.”

“Fifty,” Šmrhová said.

A faux frown and a shake of his bald green head. “Eighty.”

La Forge was tired of the back-and-forth. “Sixty. That’s our final offer.”

The Orion folded his arms and put on a defiant air. “Seventy-five. Not a credit less.”

Šmrhová drew a compact hand phaser from her coat pocket and pressed its emitter crystal to Jasser’s temple. “How about this? My friend copies it and your sales records from last night for
free,
and I don’t blast your head into dust.” She added in a menacing whisper, “After all, who’re you gonna tell? You can’t exactly call the cops and admit we took something you don’t want anyone to know you have, now can you?” She motioned La Forge behind the counter with a tilt of her head. “Get the copies, and remember to erase the record of our visit.”

“On it,” La Forge said, vaulting over the counter and setting himself to work retrieving the information from the shop’s computer. In less than a minute, thanks to a few passwords coerced from Jasser’s memory by Šmrhová’s vivid descriptions of a phaser’s destructive potential, La Forge held up an isolinear chip. “Got it. We’re good to go.”

Šmrhová waited for him to get back over the counter, and she backed out behind him, keeping her phaser tucked against her hip but trained on Jasser’s center of mass every step of the way. Stepping through the doorway, she pocketed the weapon and blew the Orion a kiss.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Hurrying down the street into the cover of night, La Forge shook from the adrenaline rush. He was still winded as they slowed down. “That wasn’t exactly by the book, Lieutenant.”

“Neither was paying a bribe we can’t afford.” She caught his warning glare. “Sir.”

“Point taken.” He handed her the isolinear chip. “This proves Data was on the far side of the planet when Hilar Tohm was murdered. Send a copy of it to Data’s lawyer. Once that’s done, we can move on to our next problem.”

“Which is?”

“Now that we can show Data didn’t kill Hilar Tohm, we need to prove another android tried to break into the bank.”

“Do you think the two crimes are connected?”

“Only one way to find out,” La Forge said. “Let’s go have a look at her apartment.”

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