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  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.

  CBS and the CBS EYE logo are

  trademarks of CBS Broadcasting Inc.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from CBS Studios Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 1-4165-3307-9

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com/st

  http://www.StarTrek.com

  To Dean, Christie, Dayton, Kevin D., David, Aaron,

  Dave, Greg, Scott, Dan, Jeff, Ian, Mike, Robert G.,

  Glenn H., J. Steven, Christina, Heather, Christopher,

  Michael M., Andy, Loren, Randall, Allyn, Kevin K.,

  Paul, John D., Glenn G., Terri, Ilsa, John O., Cory,

  William, Phaedra, Robert J., Steve, Michael S., and

  Richard

  What a long strange trip it’s been—you

  guys have been the best, and I look forward

  to more voyages on the da Vinci

  with you and everyone.

  HISTORIAN’S NOTE

  Chapter 1 of this story commences at the same time as the second-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” (2365). Chapters 2–9 proceed through the second, third, fourth, and early fifth seasons of the show, with Chapter 10 shortly after the fifth-season episode “Disaster” (2368). The Epilogue jumps ahead eight years to early 2376, taking place a few months prior to The Belly of the Beast, the first S.C.E. story, shortly after the Dominion War ended in the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

  CHAPTER

  1

  Captain’s log, Stardate 42523.7. We are en route to the newly established Starbase 173 for port call. Crew rotation is scheduled, and we will be off-loading experiment modules.

  Ensign Sonya Gomez had been practicing The Speech for days.

  Originally it was just a speech, one she would give upon meeting her new commanding officer, saying what an honor it was to be serving on her new ship. When she got the word that her request had been approved and she was to be assigned to the Enterprise, it suddenly became The Speech. This wasn’t just some old assignment; this was the flagship! She’d be reporting to Lieutenant Geordi La Forge, about whom she’d heard so much from her friend, Lian T’su, who’d graduated a year ahead of her (and would be her roommate on the ship).

  Along with another Academy classmate, Ensign Dennis Russell, Sonya had reported to the Enterprise at Starbase 173, and then gone straight to main engineering to meet their new CO, The Speech running through her head the entire time she walked through the corridor. She tried to figure out what to do with her hands. Next to her, Denny looked maddeningly calm.

  La Forge took only a few minutes to introduce himself, show them around, and give them duty assignments. Neither ensign got the chance to say anything. “Sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got a senior staff meeting in a few minutes. Welcome
aboard.” Despite the hurried nature of the introduction, and the terse tone La Forge had had throughout, he said the last two words with a genuinely warm smile. With the VISOR the lieutenant wore covering his eyes, it wasn’t easy to judge his mood, but that smile put Sonya at ease.

  But she hadn’t had the chance to give The Speech. Worse, she’d studied the engine specs, expecting to be quizzed on them, but La Forge did no such thing. Sonya was assigned to gamma shift at first, serving under Ensign Esmeralda Clancy. This would give her plenty of chances to show off her knowledge of the Galaxy-class vessel, and get to do it in the lower-key atmosphere of the night shift.

  The tour ended at the upper core on deck thirty-one. She and Denny walked down the corridors of the deck toward the turbolift. “You didn’t get to give your speech,” Denny said with a cheeky grin.

  “I know. The opportunity never really presented itself.” Sonya stifled a yawn. “I need to get some sleep.”

  “What’d you do last night—or were you up rehearsing The Speech?”

  Sheepishly, Sonya said, “That and studying the ship’s specs. I was up all night.”

  Smirking, Denny shook his head. “Figures.”

  “Denny, I don’t want to be—”

  “I know, Sonya, I know, I was there for your meltdown before finals, remember? Look, it’ll be fine.”

  Sonya was already tired of hearing that. “Anyhow,” she said after realizing that glaring at Denny was doing no good, “since my shift doesn’t start for eight hours, and I was already off-kilter from the starbase’s different cycle, I’m gonna catch up on my sleep, make sure I’m in good shape for gamma.”

  Nodding, Denny said, “Sounds vaguely planlike. Me, I’m gonna see when the holodeck’s available. From what I hear, these Galaxy-class ships have state-of-the-art holography, and I’ve got a great program I want to try out.”

  Remembering Denny’s proclivities from the Academy, Sonya said, “Another murder mystery?”

  Rolling his eyes, Denny said, “Yes, another murder mystery. This one’s from New York City in the late nineteenth century.”

  “What, you’re gonna solve Jack the Ripper again?”

  “That was London. And I already did that.”

  Sonya chuckled. She remembered that Denny had reprogrammed one of his endless murder mystery holodeck scenarios so that the person who solved the Jack the Ripper case was able to reveal that the killer in question was possessed by an interstellar energy creature, as had been revealed by a Starfleet vessel a century earlier. He had said that getting the reactions of nineteenth-century humans accurate had proven challenging.

  “Uh, excuse me,” said a voice, and Sonya looked up to see a fellow officer—a junior-grade lieutenant, in fact, wearing the gold of operations and security—coming toward them. He had unkempt brown hair, wide brown eyes, and smile lines around his mouth. “I’m, uh, running late for a staff meeting.”

  Sonya and Denny stepped aside to let the officer pass. As he did so, he turned, and gave Sonya a long look before turning and jogging down the corridor.

  “Who was that?”

  Denny shrugged at Sonya’s question. “Probably one of the senior staff La Forge was having a meeting with.”

  “Is it my imagination, or was he looking at me funny?”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in it—most people look at you funny.”

  Punching Denny lightly on the shoulder, she smiled and they continued to the turbolift.

  Sonya took in her new quarters. They were huge.

  She had spent most of the last year memorizing everything there was to know about the Enterprise, and had found her quarters without a tour guide, or asking the computer. Sonya’s sense of direction had become legendary at the Academy—by the middle of her first year, the fourth-years were asking her for shortcuts around campus—and she was now confident that, just from her intensive study of the ship’s specs and diagrams, she could walk from here to the cargo bay with her eyes closed.

  Even so, even knowing from those specs just how large the quarters she would share with a fellow ensign would be, she wasn’t prepared for the massiveness of the space.

  An advantage of the constant annihilation of matter and antimatter that powered a Starfleet vessel was that it provided energy to spare. One of her Academy professors, upon learning of Sonya’s assignment to this ship, had laughed, nodded her head, and said, “Ah, the Galaxy-class—a monument to waste.” Having specialized in the study of antimatter, Sonya knew as well as anyone how true that was, but she’d never really thought of it in terms of giving even lowly ensigns on a ship that was a thousand strong so much room.

  The quarters included a main room containing two desks, a round table, several chairs and a couch, and a replicator. On either side were two smaller rooms. She approached the first, and found it filled with an impressive array of Bolian artifacts. Assuming that this belonged to Lian—who’d had a passion for Bolian art for as long as Sonya had known her—Sonya walked over to the other room, which was undecorated, and furnished with a bunk, another desk, and another replicator, as well as a door that she assumed went to the commode.

  As she had indicated to Denny, ship’s time was off a bit from the starbase; she checked the computer station on the desk and saw that alpha shift had ended a few minutes earlier. Lian was, like Sonya, on gamma, serving at ops on the bridge during the night shift, so her roommate’s lack of presence here was a bit of a surprise.

  Lian and Sonya had shared a plasma physics class a year earlier. Though the former was a year ahead of the latter, they’d become fast friends, and Lian had continued to write to Sonya from her posting to the Enterprise. Reading of Lian’s adventures and her descriptions of the amazing new Galaxy-class ship, Sonya realized that this ship was where she simply had to be assigned. She’d been driven from the moment she’d first applied to the Academy, but the letters from Lian made her realize that this was the only place she could possibly go.

  She realized that catching up on sleep wasn’t really an option. While she’d made a thorough study of the ship’s specs, she still needed to compare that to how the engines were now with the specs it had at Utopia Planitia a year and a half ago.

  The doors parted with a swish, and Lian entered. She was rubbing her round face with her hands, her dark curls poorly held in by an attempt at a ponytail.

  “Lian!”

  Taking her hands away from her face to reveal her large, expressive eyes, Lian T’su burst into a grin. “Sonya! You’re here!”

  The two friends ran to each other and embraced in a tight hug. Though they’d stayed in touch, they hadn’t seen each other since Lian’s graduation a year earlier. “It’s so great to see you,” Sonya said to Lian’s shoulder. “I’m so glad we got assigned together.”

  “We were lucky,” Lian said. “Phylo was just promoted to junior-grade lieutenant, and she transferred to the starbase. She couldn’t handle the pace here all that well. So I had the space, and quartermaster was kind enough to say yes.”

  They broke the embrace. Lian reached behind her head and yanked the hair-tie out, letting her curls spill loose about her shoulders. “Much better. Sorry, I was doing a double shift, and on alpha, I try to keep my hair up.” She smirked. “Something about the captain being around makes you want to remain tidy.”

  “I bet. Why were you doing a double?”

  “Commander Data resigned. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.” Lian walked over to the replicator. “Green tea, hot.” The replicator hummed, and a ceramic mug with steam rising from its mouth coalesced into being. She took a quick sip of it, and a transformation came over her: her eyes brightened, her other features softened, and she seemed to slouch a bit. “Much better.”

  “Why did Commander Data resign? Isn’t he the android?”

  “Well, even if he hadn’t, I still would’ve pulled a double.” Lian slowly walked over to the couch. Sonya did likewise. “He was being transferred to the starbase so they can experime
nt on him.”

  Sonya frowned. “Experiment? Can they do that to an officer?”

  Shrugging, Lian said, “Apparently. Anyhow, Commander Riker didn’t have a chance to redo the shift rotation, so he asked me to stay on for alpha, and I did. We’re just orbiting the starbase, so it didn’t require a lot of concentration.” She took another sip of the tea, then set it down on the table. “But enough about me, how’re you?”

  “Excited.” Sonya leaned forward on the couch. “I haven’t met Ensign Clancy yet—Lieutenant La Forge said I’d be working for her—and I just can’t wait to get started when gamma starts.”

  “Good.” Lian stood up. “I can take you to Ten-Forward, then.”

  “That’s the lounge, isn’t it?” Sonya asked.

  Lian nodded.

  “I can’t. I’ve got way too much to do.”

  “Sonya—”

  Also standing, Sonya said, “No, I’ve got to unpack and get ready for the first shift.”

  “There’s nothing to get ready for, Sonya.”

  “I have to make a good impression with Clancy. I don’t want her to think I’m just some dumb ensign right out of the Academy. I want to show her what I can do.”

  Lian shook her head. “Sonya, you don’t have to prove yourself.”

  “Yes, I do. You just said your last roommate couldn’t handle it. I have to.”

  “Look, La Forge is going to be very easy to work for. He’s a good officer, and a great supervisor. Engineering was a disaster area before he got his hands on it.”

  “Wasn’t he the one in command when you got battle bridge duty that time?”

  “Yes. He was excellent under pressure, kept us all focused.” She smirked. “Well, me and Solis. I think Worf was born focused.”

  “Worf is the Klingon?”

  Lian nodded. “He’s been in charge of security since Yar died. It’s too bad—she was a good officer. Worf’s a little too tightly wound for security.”

  “I thought security people had to be tightly wound.”

  “Maybe.” Lian shrugged. “Anyhow, you should come to Ten-Forward.”

  Shaking her head quickly, Sonya said, “I have to study the ship’s engine tonight. You remember what Dr. Ra-Havreii said?” She stood straight and put on the Efrosian’s gentle, deep voice. “‘A ship ceases to resemble its blueprints—’”