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  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.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

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

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

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

  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: 1-4165-1091-5

  First Pocket Books Ebooks Edition July 2005

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  Chapter

  1

  U.S.S. da Vinci

  in transit between Recreation Station Hidalgo

  and Coroticus III

  ONE WEEK AGO

  T he crystalline walls sparkled with reflected light as the brown ball shot out arcs of electricity at the nine Starfleet personnel in EVA suits.

  A bizarre structure had entered the Artemis system, and the U.S.S. da Vinci had been sent to investigate this unknown technology. While doing so, they found a known one: the brown ball, an Androssi security device.

  One of the Starfleet people, a Tellarite officer, broke cover and headed for one of the faceted wall sections that looked like a series of sparkling icicles. Another bellowed, “Tev, what the hell are you doing?”

  Two seconds after Lieutenant Commander Tev broke cover, another followed him, this an enlisted security guard, armed with a phaser rifle, which he shot at the brown ball.

  “Computer, freeze program.”

  At the command from Lieutenant Commander Domenica Corsi, the tableau stopped moving. Andrew Angelopoulos sighed. Here it comes.

  “All right,” the security chief said to the people under her command, gathered in the da Vinci’s hololab for a debrief, “who can tell me what Angelopoulos did wrong there?”

  Around him, six other enlisted guards raised their hands. Angelopoulos put his head in his.

  Standing before them, Corsi, flanked by her deputy, Chief Vance Hawkins, smiled. “Angelopoulos, do you know what you did wrong?”

  Venturing a smile, he said, “Yes, ma’am—I shouldn’t have bothered wasting my energy defending a stupid officer who doesn’t know not to break cover?”

  Several chuckles started to form, then died when Corsi’s facial expression managed—somehow—to get darker.

  “Most officers—particularly engineers, a type of officer we are overburdened with on this ship—are too stupid to know not to break cover. That’s why we’re here. Now, when Hawkins beamed down with you, Robins, Lauoc, Krotine, and T’Mandra to support Tev, Stevens, and Conlon, you each had a task. Hawkins was in charge, Lauoc and T’Mandra were to secure the perimeter, and what were the rest of you supposed to do, Robins?”

  Angelopoulos had opened his mouth to answer, but Corsi had instead posed the question to Madeleine Robins. She had been in security on the da Vinci since the ship was first given over to the S.C.E. six years ago; she even predated “Core-Breach.”

  The older woman said, “We were to protect the engineers, ma’am. I had Stevens, Krotine had Conlon, and Angelopoulos had Tev.”

  “Right. Krotine, what does protecting the engineers mean, exactly?”

  The wiry Boslic woman gave Angelopoulos an apologetic look before saying, “Stick by the engineers at all times—no matter what.”

  “No matter what, yes.”

  Corsi paced back and forth in the hololab. Angelopoulos wished they would get past this part and move on to their assignments for the upcoming mission—from what Angelopoulos heard from Bennett and Phelps in engineering, they were splitting into three groups. Before that, though, Corsi was taking the opportunity to pick apart their mission to Artemis IX, undertaken before their unexpected rescue of Commander Gomez from Rec Station Hidal
go.

  Finally Corsi turned her pitiless blue eyes on Angelopoulos, who, for his part, was trying desperately to sink into the bench. Next to him, Makk Vinx was doing a terrible job of holding in one of his trademark guffaws.

  “Angelopoulos,” she said in a slow voice, “does ‘no matter what’ include following officers when they break cover to start playing with their crystals?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Yet you didn’t do that.”

  “No, ma’am. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Congratulations, that’s the second wrong answer you’ve given in five minutes. People, we’re security. Our job is to expect the unexpected and to keep the people on this ship safe. You, Angelopoulos, failed in that regard pretty spectacularly on Artemis. Most of you came on after Galvan VI, and that’s because seven good people died protecting this ship. If you can’t handle that, then you can follow Powers out the door. Understood?”

  As one, all nine security personnel, even Hawkins, said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Angelopoulos bit his lip in annoyance. Back on Risa, Hawkins had asked Angelopoulos what he thought of Corsi, and he descirbed her then as “brusque.” After that dressing-down, brusque would be a relief.

  He also thought that her shot at Frank Powers was unjustified. True, Powers had complained that he signed on to the da Vinci because he figured protecting engineers would be comparatively easy duty, only to find the ship diving into a black hole within a few weeks of his signing on. Then he was badly injured on Phantas 61, and when Powers recovered from that, he requested a transfer. But that doesn’t make him bad security, it just makes him…

  Angelopoulos didn’t finish the thought. He also noticed that, while Corsi mentioned Powers and the people who died at Galvan VI, she didn’t mention Ken Caitano. He died, not protecting the ship or doing his duty, but from some secret weapon created by a crazy Vorta, one that also claimed his roommate, Ted Deverick, one of the engineers. Corsi had taken those two murders particularly hard for some reason, and Angelopoulos wondered if that meant she was going to be even harder on them.

  Like it could get worse.

  “All right, we’re en route to Coroticus III—we should be there in three hours. It’s one of two pre-warp planets that the Dominion occupied during the war, the other being Sachem II. We’re going to help to set the observation posts back up, and also to examine cultural contamination the Dominion might have engaged in, on both worlds. Prime Directive’s in full force on this one, and there’ll be lots of engineers, including a bunch we picked up at Hidalgo, so the away teams will include four security per. Chief Hawkins will have Angelopoulos, Krotine, and Konya on Sachem. I’ll be taking T’Mandra, Vinx, and Lauoc to Coroticus.”

  Thank God. Angelopoulos let out a long breath. I thought for sure she’d stick me on her team. At least Hawk doesn’t want to kill me. Probably.

  “After that, the da Vinci’ll be headed to Avril Station for an upgrade. Robins, you’ll be it for security, but Commander Ling told me that six of her people will be detached to you to handle security for Commander Gomez and her team.”

  Robins simply nodded.

  “Powers’s replacement will be reporting to the ship at Avril, also, as will Deverick’s, and the U.S.S. Musashi is supposed to be dropping Lense off—apparently their CMO was up for the same prize. Robins, I expect you to break the new guy in.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Even though he knew full well that the best thing for him would be to keep his mouth shut, Angelopoulos found himself saying: “Uh, ma’am, don’t you mean Caitano’s replacement?”

  Now Corsi glared at him, and Angelopoulos was trying to bury himself under the bench. “Of all the people in this room who should be keeping their mouth shut, Angelopoulos, you’re pretty much at the top of the list.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “And I said Caitano’s replacement.”

  Angelopoulos wisely said nothing. Hawkins was giving Corsi a strange look—she really did say Powers, and that meant something was wrong. But no way was Angelopoulos going to pursue it just at the moment.

  “All right.” Corsi looked out at everyone. “Dismissed.”

  Stepping over Vinx and T’Mandra, Angelopoulos set a land speed record getting out of the hololab. He wanted to be away from Corsi as fast as possible. He’d been in security for a little over three years, going back to just before the war, and one truth he’d learned was that, if you were in your CO’s doghouse, avoid said CO like the plague.

  On his way down the corridor, he almost literally bumped into Lieutenant Commander Tev. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Guard,” the Tellarite said dismissively, and started to walk past him.

  “Uh, sir?”

  Tev turned around and asked impatiently, “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to apologize to you, sir.”

  “I was unaware of any offense you’d committed. If you had, I’m quite sure I would have reported you for it.”

  This is a bad idea, Angelopoulos told himself, but, as with his pointing out Corsi’s misstatement, he found the words coming out of his mouth before his brain could stop them. “Back on Artemis, sir, you broke cover, and I was slow to watch your flank. I didn’t anticipate your move and lagged behind. So—”

  “Of course you didn’t anticipate my move.” Tev snorted, which sounded like a pipe bursting. “You couldn’t possibly have worked out how to use the crystalline power systems to overload the Androssi security device as I did—you are simply a security guard. Few on this ship could have anticipated what I would do, and none of them are in security. Therefore, Guard, you have nothing for which to apologize.” Tev continued down the corridor. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a most onerous duty to perform.”

  Well, that didn’t make me feel any better.

  As Tev continued toward the hololab, Vinx walked up beside Angelopoulos. “When you gonna learn to keep your yap shut, Andy?”

  “At this rate? Five minutes after I’m dead.”

  “Which’ll be five minutes from now if you get too close to the boss.” The Iotian shook his head. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a beer. We got three hours, and we ain’t on shift till then. See if we can rustle up some grub, too.”

  Angelopoulos nodded. “Sounds good. Hey, Makk—what do you think’s up with Core-Breach?”

  “Nothin’s ‘up,’ Andy. Just ’cause she raked you over the coals don’t mean nothin’.”

  He waved his hand in front of his face. “No, not that. I deserved to get my aft shields blown off for that one. No, I mean the way she called the new guy Powers’s replacement instead of Caitano’s. What do you think that is?”

  Vinx shrugged as they appraoched the turbolift that would take them to the mess hall. “I heard tell that she was buds with Caitano’s old man, so maybe that has somethin’ to do with it. I dunno, I ain’t no head-shrinker. ’Sides, the dame’s tired—after Artemis, we all are. I’m lookin’ forward to a nice easy mission on Coroticus, lemme tell you.”

  “Yeah.” They entered the turbolift. “Hey, why’s Tev talking about the hololab being an ‘onerous duty’? Thought those engineers loved it in there, playing with their techie toys and stuff.”

  Vinx leaned in close. “Well, between you, me, and the lamppost, I heard tell that Gomez got Tev takin’ some kinda sensitivity trainin’.”

  Angelopoulos blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “That’s what I heard, anyhow. Hey, if any mook needs it, it’s him.”

  “You said it, brother.” Angelopoulos winced. He liked Vinx, he really did, but there were times where his odd way of talking—common to the natives of Sigma Iotia, who had apparently patterned their entire society after a four-hundred-year-old Earth book about contemporary criminals—rubbed off on him. If I find myself calling Corsi “sweetheart,” I swear, I’m gonna kill him.

  Chapter

  2

  U.S.S. da Vinci

  in orbit around Avril Station


  TWO DAYS AGO

  D avid Gold exited the turbolift. He had been on his way to his quarters to reread the letter from his granddaughter Ruth. Little Rinic David was adjusting to having a baby sister, the baby was doing fine, and they had finally decided to name her Kiri, after Ruth’s husband Rinic’s grandmother.

  However, before Gold could even make it to his cabin to peruse the letter yet again, he was summoned back to the bridge by a call from the Musashi, which he hoped was bringing his chief medical officer back to him. He wasn’t sure, as the Musashi had to fly through a massive ion storm in order to get here from Station Kel-Artis, where the Bentman Prize had been awarded. Lense had been one of the finalists for the prestigious medical award. So had Dr. Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9, and they had traveled together in one of DS9’s runabouts. The Musashi, however, had a finalist to pick up in their own chief medical officer, and was then going to Cor Coroli IX. Avril Station was on the way between Kel-Artis and Cor Coroli, so it worked out nicely for everyone.

  The replacements for Caitano and Deverick—a young man named Tomozuka Kim and an older woman named Lise Irastorza, respectively—had reported aboard, and the upgrades to Avril were proceeding apace, despite occasional shouting matches between Gomez and Tev.

  As he entered the bridge, Gold thought again with sadness about the senseless deaths of Caitano and Deverick. He’d been a captain for a lot of years on a lot of ships, the da Vinci for over six of them, and it never stopped hurting when he lost people under his command.

  Gamma shift was on duty: Martina Barre at conn, Alexandre Lambdin at ops, and Winn Mara at tactical. The latter, a tall Bajoran woman, spoke as he sat in his chair. “I have Captain Terapane, sir.”

  “Good. On screen.”

  A very concerned-looking face appeared on the viewer, along with a fortyish, balding man with a blue collar on his uniform. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Captain. Your doctors weren’t at the conference.”

  Gold blinked. “Say again?”

  The man in the blue collar spoke up. “Captain, I’m Dr. Dennis Chimelis—I’m the chief medical officer of the Musashi . I’m afraid that neither Elizabeth nor Julian made it to the conference. As it happens, they didn’t win…er, I did, in fact, but the point is—”