Star Trek: TNG: Cold Equations II: Silent Weapons (28 page)

Ignoring the hubbub in the room, La Forge gave all his attention to Data. “Is that how you’re drawing the line between who you were and who you are? ‘First life’ and ‘second life’?”

“It seems appropriate,” Data said. “Because my prior self was destroyed, his original continuity of consciousness ceased to exist. Mine is therefore unique and separate, and by virtue of sequentiality,
second
. As distinctions go, this one seems far from trivial.”

Debating philosophy, ontology, or semantics with Data inevitably gave La Forge either a headache or a prolonged bout of depression, but he pressed on. “Okay. So, what if sometime in the future, you decide to upgrade to another body? One with better programming, engineering, materials, whatever. Would you have to think of that as your third life?”

“Not necessarily. Now that I understand the process, I believe that I could, if I wished, transfer my consciousness into a new body without an interruption of awareness. My mind would travel between forms while remaining sensate. In such an event, the move to a new body would be merely an event within the continuity of my second life, not a new existence.”

There were half a dozen follow-up questions La Forge wanted to ask, but he was interrupted by Elfiki’s manic exclamation from across the lab: “I think we’ve got something!”

La Forge pointed at Data. “To be continued.” Then he and Data started dodging through the cluster of personnel on their way to Elfiki. The scientists and engineers backed up to make room for them as they joined the lieutenant at the workbench, upon which lay the partially disassembled android. “All right, Dina. Talk to me.”

The lithe Egyptian woman brushed a lock of her dark brown hair behind one ear, and she gestured around the room at other officers as she named them. “Lieutenant Newitz found that the composition of the glass inside the android’s head was an exact match for the synthetic obsidian Tholians manufacture for their starships. Lieutenant Anders from Xenology pointed out that the specific density of the glass matches that used in the Tholians’ thoughtwave transmitters.” She picked up a padd and used it to call up scans and simulation graphics on the large display screen behind her. “In some of the glass samples, Lieutenant Talenda detected an unusual fluctuation in the subquantum membrane, suggesting a possible quantum entanglement, which Anders says is consistent with current theories regarding the operational principle behind thoughtwave transmission. But what’s really fascinating is the relay that connected the obsidian to the body’s control circuits. According to Ensign Lamar, it bridges three distinct technologies. At one end it communicates with the obsidian transceiver, so that interface is Tholian. The core of the relay consists of Romulan components. And the other end has been reverse-engineered to pass buffered signals to and from a Soong-type android’s proprioceptive controls and sensory matrix.”

Data regarded the brain with a new appreciation. “Most remarkable.”

La Forge studied the enlarged schematic of the signal relays. “Why is the relay core using Romulan parts? Why not translate directly from the obsidian transceiver to the body?”

Elfiki split the screen to add a new set of data, a dense jumble of raw code. “Because the relay started out as Romulan technology. It was developed as part of a telepresence research program back in the twenty-second century.”

“I remember reading about that,” La Forge said, his memory jogged. “They were using a tiny ethnic subgroup of telepathically gifted Andorians—”

“The Aenar,” Elfiki cut in.

“Right. They used them to remote-pilot drone starships across interstellar distances. But the program fell apart once it was exposed and they lost access to the Aenar.” He shifted a piece of the ruined obsidian transceiver to get a better look at the mostly slagged relay underneath. “So, we have a Tholian transceiver with a Romulan telepresence interface inside an android body that we know was stolen by the Breen. The Typhon Pact’s learning to pool their resources.”

Data stared at the screen full of code, then he looked at Elfiki. “Lieutenant, would it be possible to use the information we have to block the thoughtwave frequency being used to control these androids? Or to track them, identifying both receiver and source?”

She looked over her shoulder at Anders and Lamar. “Guys?”

Anders, a tall woman with dark hair and an aquiline visage, nodded. “In theory? Sure. But the odds of deducing the frequency from this bunch of shards aren’t good.”

Lamar, whose long blond hair, square jaw, and athletic build had led some of the crew to nickname him Thor, added, “It’d be a big help if we could capture one of these things intact. Then we’d have a real shot at finding out what makes it tick.”

“Sounds like a plan,” La Forge said. With a nod he signaled Data to follow him as he moved for the door. “Let’s go tell Worf we have a new mission objective.”

•   •   •

The empty chair and
glenget
that only a day earlier had been occupied by Esperanza Piñiero and
Nizor
Szamra felt to Imperator Sozzerozs like open wounds.

He was flanked on his left by Togor and on his right by Azarog. Staring back at him from the other side of the table was President Bacco. Seated to her right was the frost-haired Councillor Enaren, and on her left was the Federation’s secretary of the exterior, Safranski, who had been introduced as a Rigellian, looked like a Vulcan, and was alternately as taciturn as a rock and as verbally aggressive as a Ferengi. No one had spoken of the previous night’s bloodshed, but it continued to cast a shadow over the summit, making the Federation’s insistence that it continue seem more like a symptom of denial than an act of hope.

Perhaps I could cling to some shred of optimism if I didn’t know we brought them here on a lie
. Dwelling on that shameful truth filled Sozzerozs with bitter resentment toward the Breen.

“I’d like to begin this morning by thanking you all for agreeing to resume our talks,” Bacco said. She emulated the salutary spread-hands gesture that the late Piñiero had mastered with such grace. “It would be easy to abandon diplomacy in the wake of tragedy. Our hope is that your willingness to continue the summit indicates you share our commitment to a successful outcome, one that will benefit both our peoples.”

As rehearsed, Togor answered on behalf of the Hegemony. “Thank you, Madam President. We, too, are encouraged by your desire to resume our conversation. The only tragedy greater than yesterday’s deaths of our trusted colleagues and sworn defenders would be if we permitted their lives to be lost in vain. To honor the blood they have shed for us, we will continue to work toward the goals that first brought us here.”

Sozzerozs’s leathery visage betrayed no sign of his cynical brooding.
Why do such noble sentiments so often come cloaked in lies?

Cort Enaren, Betazed’s elderly but still commanding representative on the Federation Council, pressed on to keep the meeting going. “At the risk of trying your patience, venerable elders, I would like to suggest we start fresh. We expect the shift in circumstances has led to changes in expectations and estimations on a number of points. So, rather than attempt point-by-point revisions of our earlier agendas, we suggest that it might be more efficient to draft new language that reflects our situation as it is, rather than as it was.”

Azarog let out a low, soft hiss of approval. “This seems wise. Recent events have given us reason to expect violent reactions by other powers—perhaps those of the Typhon Pact, or another local power that prefers not to see the Hegemony and the Federation in alliance.”

Safranski nodded. “Understandable. Shall we discuss strategic matters first, then?”

The imperator rasped, “What would be the point?” All eyes in the room fixed upon him. Gorn and humanoids alike regarded him in shock—and, in the case of his countrymen, with anger. Officially, under the terms of their membership in the Pact and their specific agreement with the Breen Confederacy, they remained engaged in a campaign of deception, with instructions to drag out the summit until cued to terminate their efforts. Sozzerozs, however, was weary of the ruse. “We have been here for days that never seem to end, talking in circles around issues that refuse to be resolved. You ask us for concessions we cannot afford to make. We ask you to guarantee outcomes that are beyond your control. You insist we risk the wrath of five major powers to side with your Federation—but when we demand you intercede to spare us from the wrath of your blood-bond ally the Klingon Empire, you mew that you can’t interfere in their politics.” A long, slow-rolling growl resonated inside his chest. “This is all a waste of time.”

A tense and awkward silence settled over the room.

Then, in a voice that was calm but also brooked no argument, President Bacco declared, “Everyone, please give me and Imperator Sozzerozs the room.”

Her subordinates Enaren and Safranski stood without hesitation and moved toward their exit. Togor and Azarog looked to the imperator for instruction, and he nodded his concurrence. The
wazir
and
zulta-osol
rose from their
glenget
s and lumbered out of the meeting room. As they exited, Bacco pointed first at her personal defender, Wexler, and then at Hazizaar, the
sikta
of Sozzerozs’s Imperial Guard corps. “That includes the two of you. Out.”

Wexler bristled at the impetuous dismissal. “Madam President, I—”

“Out, Steven. That’s an order.”

The agent looked at Hazizaar, who looked at Sozzerozs, who nodded his permission. Eyes locked on each other, alert to the tiniest sign of betrayal, the two elite defenders slipped reluctantly from the room. Doors clicked shut after them, and then the two heads of state faced each other across the table with no witnesses, no advisers, no intermediaries.

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” Bacco said, her veneer of genteel civility shed like a worn-out skin. “This whole summit’s been a waste of time, hasn’t it? You’ve been running us in circles, forcing us to make the same arguments over and over, asking for promises you know we can’t make. If you really came here to make a deal, we’d be making one—wouldn’t we?”

He appreciated her lack of guile, and the unblinking ferocity of her eye contact. “You are quite the scholar of the political game, Madam President. I salute you.”

“Save the salutes. Just tell me the truth. Hell, at this point, I’ll settle for
part
of it.”

As much as he admired Bacco’s forthright quality, he knew that to admit too much too soon might doom any hope of real progress. But to squander the opportunity this moment represented would constitute a political and strategic failure of an even greater magnitude. “Our demands have been as unreasonable as they are intransigent. And I confess that you are correct: this has been entirely by design. I regret that I cannot explain in greater detail.”

The human woman took a moment to think about his response. It was a trait that he found commendable. Too many persons he had encountered in the political arena spoke solely for the pleasure of hearing their own voices, and a frightening number sought to fill every silence even when their minds were so evidently devoid of original thought. But not Bacco . . . she could think and speak at the same time when necessary, but she was a thinker first.

She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes as if to pierce his rhetorical defenses with visual acuity. “You were pressured to come here by another member of the Pact, weren’t you?”

The galaxy could use a few more leaders like her,
Sozzerozs lamented.

“For the sake of discussion, let us assume—in a purely hypothetical sense—that what you say is true. Further assume that the same party that compelled us to this summit did not see fit to explicate its motives for doing so—but has made clear what the price of betrayal would be.”

Bacco’s countenance grew stern. “Would this hypothetical external political actor be one that’s known to have a cultural affinity for masks?”

He was impressed that she—and likely, by extension, Starfleet and the Federation government—had been so quick to connect the Breen to the previous night’s attack. “It might.”

“And how might that external power react to a political realignment that sides the Hegemony with the Federation?”

He no longer saw any purpose to prevarication or procrastination. It was time to tell her the truth. “If such a realignment occurred, I would be assassinated without delay, as would my sons and brothers. Then a noble sympathetic to the killers’ agenda would be backed with a covert infusion of wealth and external political support, ensuring his ascension to the imperatorship. Within a few years, the Hegemony would be mobilized against the Federation as a proxy fighter—a mercenary too stupid to realize it’s been bought and sold as a slave.”

Her gaze remained as hard and cold as steel, but when Sozzerozs tasted the air with his tongue, he caught the metallic tang of her fear.
She understands the true stakes now. Good.

Once again, she didn’t rush to reply. She was somber and pensive. As she considered the matter, the scent of her fear swiftly dissipated—and as it faded, his respect for her increased.

She folded her hands on the tabletop. “The rise of a new imperator whose principal loyalty lies outside the Hegemony would not be in the best interests of your people. And if the Hegemony were transformed into a client state, that could severely destabilize the balance of power within the Typhon Pact.” A sly look. “I don’t think that would please Praetor Kamemor.”

“No, it would not.” He fought the urge to grin in response to her implied proposition.

A hint of a smirk gave the president a mischievous quality. “Perhaps, before we worry about brokering a truce with the Klingon Empire, we should focus on strengthening the Hegemony’s bonds of friendship with a nation it already counts as an ally: the Romulan Star Empire. Considering the efforts the praetor has made to normalize diplomatic relations with the Federation, that would be an easy negotiation for us to mediate on your behalf.”