The Sky's The Limit Part 13

Lwaxana clutched her heart as the color came back into her face. "Thank the fates." She leaned against a lichen-infested tree trunk as she recovered from the shock. "That was far too realistic for my peace of mind. You're quite sure that she survived?"

"P-pretty much." In truth, he was slightly less confident than he would have liked. This holodeck had been acting up, after all; who was to say if the safety protocols were one hundred percent reliable? Certainly it wouldn't be the first time that a faulty holodeck program put someone in genuine danger; Geordi liked to joke that the Enterprise's holodecks tried to kill them at least once a year. At the moment, that quip didn't seem very funny.

Ro had taken a calculated risk. The odds were in her favor, but still...

"I found them!" A camouflaged frog dropped from the treetops, splashing down in their path. His extended claws glinted in the moonlight. Barclay gagged on the pungent odor emanating from his slimy secretions. "Over here!"

"Finally!" Povz's voice croaked from the Tadigean's comm. "Hold them there, Jhirm! Don't let them get away!"

The looming amphibian blocked them with his bulk. "They're not going anywhere."

"W-we'll see about that," Barclay said, feigning confidence. He shoved Lwaxana behind the widest cypress and stepped between her and their foe. Inspiration struck and he snapped off a low-hanging tree branch, which he brandished before him like a sword. Hours spent playing D'Artagnan in a holographic recreation of The Three Musketeers emboldened him. "En garde!"

Watch out for those poison tears. He fixed his gaze on the parotid glands behind Jhirm's eyes. The fleshy sacs pulsed, giving Barclay a split-second warning. He dived beneath the water just as the neurotoxin sprayed from the corners of the amphibian's eyes. Barclay held his breath, loath to swallow any of the fetid water, then scrambled to his feet to the right of his batrachian adversary. The point of the broken branch stabbed Jhirm right in his poison gland. The Tadigean yelped in pain.

"I shall speak with my sword, sir!" Barclay crowed, doing his best to stay in character. For better or for worse, he felt considerably more courageous facing the enemy as D'Artagnan than as himself. He wiped the slimy water from his eyes. "One for all, and all for Starfleet!"

"Hot-blooded filth!" Real tears, not poison, leaked from his eyes. "Are all primates insane, or are you more brain damaged than most?"

He slashed at Barclay with his claws, but the embattled lieutenant deftly parried the attack with his makeshift rapier. The claws scarred the fresh bark, but the st.u.r.dy limb held together. Bending a knee, Barclay ducked beneath Jhirm's attacks and thrust.

The pointed branch pa.s.sed through the frog's flesh and bones without leaving a scratch.

Huh?

Encountering no resistance, Barclay stumbled forward, almost falling face-first into the pond sc.u.m. He withdrew the branch, which still looked solid enough, and waved it back and forth through the startled Tadigean's torso. The wooden sword was suddenly intangible.

Another holodeck glitch, Barclay realized. Just when I didn't need it.

This never happened to D'Artagnan...

Fortunately, Jhirm was momentarily transfixed by the sight of the insubstantial weapon pa.s.sing harmlessly through his flesh. "How in the Heavenly Hatchery-?"

"Excuse me, Mister Jhirm," a female voice called out. "If I could have your attention...?"

The baffled amphibian spun around to find Lwaxana standing a meter or so behind him. She pulled back on a leafy cypress branch with both hands, so that it was as taut as a coiled spring. "Stay right where you are, please." She released the branch, which snapped forward into Jhirm's face, hitting him with the force of a reverse tractor beam. The impact flung him backward into the unyielding ma.s.s of a solid tree trunk. A groan escaped his blubbery lips as he slid limply into the water. Bubbles rose from his submerged gills.

"So much for that annoying toad," Lwaxana said, wiping her hands against each other. She smirked at Barclay. "I hope you don't mind that I rescued myself."

He couldn't helping feeling a little upstaged. Well, sure. Her branch stays solid. He tossed aside his own useless weapon, even as the engineer in him considered the possible implications of this latest malfunction. The three-dimensional image of the branch had remained intact, but the replicated matter had evaporated. Maybe the visual and tactile systems really were interfering with each other in some way?

"N-not at all," he lied. "But we can't stay here." Povz and the other Tadigeans were already on their way. He hastily consulted his tricorder; according to the readings, the control panel was not far away. "Just a little bit farther, I promise."

"You don't need to coddle me, Lieutenant. I'll have you know that I once walked the Pilgrimage of a Thousand Steps barefoot, wearing nothing but a large floral hat. Of course, I was much younger then..." She reclaimed the Sacred Chalice from the soggy ground at her feet. "Lead on, Mister Barclay."

Keeping one step (or hop) ahead of their pursuers, they continued their trek through the seemingly endless swamp. We have to come across the wall with the control panel eventually, Barclay thought, following the sensor readings, which led them to a natural levee along the sh.o.r.e of a slowly moving stream. Tall gra.s.s and skunk cabbage carpeted the slope. A bed of pink carnivorous plants, resembling a Vegan weeping flytrap, snapped at unwary insects. According to the tricorder, the concealed panel was right above the voracious flytraps.

Naturally, Barclay thought. Why not a nest of Denebian slime devils, too?

The hungry plants nipped at his ankles as he approached the apparent location of the control panel. Their high-pitched screeches hurt Barclay's ears. His finger stabbed the empty air-and the panel materialized before his eyes. Eureka! Now he just had to figure out how to fix the defective holodeck before Povz and his venomous colleagues caught up with them. What could be simpler?

Barclay opened the panel to expose a complicated array of isolinear chips. He ran his hand through his thinning brown hair, daunted by the challenge before him. The weepers biting his ankles didn't make it any easier to concentrate on the problem at hand. Boy, he thought, could I use some of that Cytherian super-intelligence now.

Almost a year ago, an alien species had artificially enhanced his intellect for their own purposes. For a brief interval, his IQ had exceeded 1200, but that augmented intelligence had completely faded away over time.

Or had it?

Was any of that incredible genius still lurking somewhere in his brain cells? Sending his mind back to those heady days aboard the Enterprise, when he had effortlessly thrown together a revolutionary new warp propulsion system, Barclay tried to call up what it had felt like to have all that sheer intellectual power at his command. His brow furrowed in concentration as he sought to squeeze just one more burst of inspiration from his straining gray matter. Maybe if he just pretended he was still a supergenius?

Let's start with trying to reactivate the voice controls, he decided. He began rearranging the isolinear chips in hopes of bypa.s.sing the bug in the system. Diagnostic lights flashed green, giving his confidence a much-needed boost. Yes! Now we're getting somewhere. He began to transfer the verbal recognition codes to one of the auxiliary subprocessors. This should do the trick.

He realigned the final chip-and the entire program crashed.

The sheltering swamp, with its many secluded nooks and crannies, vanished before their eyes, instantly replaced by the wide-open s.p.a.ce of the dormant holodeck. Barclay and Lwaxana found themselves abruptly exposed to view, as were Povz and his murderous cohorts.

The stunned Tadigeans looked about the empty chamber in confusion. "What the sp.a.w.n?" Their bewilderment, however, did not stop them from immediately spotting their unarmed prey. "Get them!" Povz croaked harshly. "Don't let them trick us again!"

Their backs up against the grid-marked wall, Barclay and Lwaxana had nowhere to hide. Another program, Barclay thought frantically. We need another program, p.r.o.nto! He opened his mouth, hoping that the voice controls were truly functioning once more, only to feel the spray from a Tadigean's eyes splatter against his face.

Oh, no! he despaired. I was too slow...!

The neurotoxin took effect instantly. His entire body went numb, freezing him in place. He tried to speak, but his tongue and vocal cords were paralyzed. He could barely breathe, let alone summon a new holographic environment. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched helplessly as Povz's minions surrounded Lwaxana. They hadn't poisoned her, at least not yet. Perhaps they judged the middle-aged matron not much of a threat on her own?

"Keep your warty hands off me," she said imperiously, declining to cower before her foes. "As an amba.s.sador in full standing for the people of Betazed, I demand that you abide by the conventions of the Treaty of Pullayup."

Barclay was impressed by Lwaxana's indomitable att.i.tude but doubted that Tadigean terrorists were likely to respect any legalistic niceties. But she can still talk, he realized. She can instruct the holodeck herself, if she just knows what to say.

A last-ditch ploy presented itself. It meant overcoming his telephobia, but right now he had more tangible dangers to grapple with. Straining against the immobilizing effect of the neurotoxin, he turned his eyeb.a.l.l.s enough that he could stare fixedly at the gold-and-black cap atop Lwaxana's head. He poured everything he had into his eyes, urgently trying to communicate with the amba.s.sador.

Read my mind, he entreated her. You have to read my mind!

It took her a moment, but she got the message. She threw the insulated cap across the room. Her face contorted in pain as the telepathic a.s.sault besieged her once more. Still, she fought back against the agony and looked deeply into Barclay's eyes. Her searching brain found a single command shouting inside his skull: "Activate program: 'Lawrence of Arabia.' "

In a heartbeat, the vacant chamber was replaced by kilometers of arid desert beneath a blistering sun. Shifting sand dunes rolled on for as far as the eye could see. Heat waves shimmered above bleached bones and weathered sandstone formations. A hot wind blew grit in Barclay's eyes. The desert was an ocean in which no oar was dipped...

"Gaakk!" Povz croaked. The sudden change, from murky swamp to blazing wasteland, came as quite a shock, especially if you were, say, a nocturnal amphibian. Blinded by the glare, the flabbergasted aliens threw their webbed hands over their eyes. They reeled about in distress, b.u.mping into one another at random. The merciless heat sapped their strength. Dried slime slaked off their quivering flesh. All but Povz collapsed into the hot sands, gasping like fish out of water. A mouthwatering smell reminded Barclay of a delicacy he'd once sampled on New Caribe. He had a sudden craving for frog legs.

Povz wobbled onto rubbery limbs. The sapphire glow from his pendant flickered and faded. "Uh-oh..."

That was all Lwaxana needed. She charged forward, trampling over the bodies of the debilitated henchfrogs, and swung the Sacred Chalice of Rixx against the Eye of Dread. The fragile crystal shattered into dozens of broken shards and splinters. Povz's eyes bulged from their orbits as a burst of psionic feedback fried his brain. He tumbled backward down a sloping sand dune. His limbs twitched, as though part of some primitive galvanic experiment.

"Be thankful that you can't read my thoughts right now, you revolting toad." Lwaxana lowered the uncracked chalice. She posed with arms akimbo atop a mountain of sand. "That will teach you for trifling with a daughter of the Fifth House."

"Barclay! Amba.s.sador!" An archway appeared in the desert and Ensign Ro came rushing into the holodeck. She held her phaser before her. A Starfleet medkit was clutched beneath her arm. A black eye and split lip suggested that she had not been taken captive by the terrorists without a fight, but she had obviously survived her death-defying plunge off the waterfall. The holodeck's safety protocols must have indeed kicked in at the last minute, transporting her to safety before she hit the bottom. Skidding to a halt at the sight of the defeated Tadigeans, she slowly lowered her phaser. "Nice."

"Please see to Lieutenant Barclay, Ensign," Lwaxana instructed her calmly. "Otherwise, I believe I have matters well in hand."

Personal log, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, Stardate 45376.5 By the time the real Tadigean delegates arrived, precisely when they were supposed to, Flev Ubaan and I had succeeded in reconciling the matter conversion and holographic imagery subsystems so that they were no longer incompatible. Along with the rest of the Cataria's crew, Ubaan recovered from the terrorists' psionic ambush with only a slight headache...and a somewhat improved att.i.tude toward Starfleet "interference."

Povz and his accomplices have been turned over to the Tadigean authorities. Seems they belonged to a rival faction that was bitterly opposed to opening up trade with Betazed and other foreign powers. From what I hear, the negotiations themselves are proceeding smoothly. According to Lwaxana-I mean Amba.s.sador Troi-the Tadigeans are so impressed by the way we handled the terrorists that they're even talking about joining the Federation at last.

As Ensign Ro and I prepare to return to the Enterprise, I like to think that Captain Picard and Commander La Forge will be pleased with the results of our a.s.signment...

"I think you both should know," Lwaxana Troi said as she bid them farewell, "that I intend to give Jean-Luc a positively glowing report of your performance here."

"Thank you, Amba.s.sador," Barclay said. For a second, he wished that he hadn't left his protective cap behind in the holodeck, but the feeling quickly pa.s.sed. He didn't find telepaths quite so intimidating anymore. As it turned out, they actually came in handy sometimes. "We're glad to be of a.s.sistance."

Lwaxana smiled warmly. "Are you quite sure you have to leave so soon? Our holodeck is working perfectly, thanks to your expert attentions. Perhaps you'd like to enjoy its restored capabilities before you embark on your journey home?"

For once, Barclay wasn't even tempted.

"No, thanks!"

Turncoats

Susan Shwartz

Historian's note:

This tale is set immediately after the events of the episode "Face of the Enemy," during the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

SUSAN SHWARTZ.

Susan Shwartz has co-auth.o.r.ed five Star Trek novels with Josepha Sherman and specializes in Romulans. She has also written novels such as Hostile Takeover, Second Chances, Grail of Hearts, Shards of Empire, and Cross and Crescent, which take readers from interplanetary finance and first contact to retellings of Lord Jim and a radical Grail quest, then to events leading up to and away from the First Crusade. She is also the editor of seven anthologies.

Published in ten languages, she has been nominated five times for the Nebula Award, twice for the Hugo, and once each for the World Fantasy and the Edgar. She has a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has studied at Dartmouth, Oxford, and civilian seminars at the U.S. Army War College. She has also lectured at such places as Harvard, Princeton, Smith, SUNY-Binghamton, West Point, the Air Force Academy, and the U.S. Naval War College. For the past twenty years, she has worked in marketing communications on Wall Street.

She lives in Forest Hills, New York, loves opera, has notable art and shoe collections, and admits to being a third-generation Red Sox fan.

ENTERPRISE SPED TOWARD THE DRAKEN SYSTEM AT WARP 9, leaving the warbird Khazara far behind. The threat of battle was over. Stefan DeSeve had accomplished the mission Amba.s.sador Spock had set him. Now, he fought the shakes. He always shook after a mission and always fought not to let it show. Romulans had always found the shakes vastly amusing. Their amus.e.m.e.nt usually carried unpleasant consequences-another reason he had defected back to the Federation, years after fleeing it in the first place.

Live and learn. In a manner of speaking.

"You will come with me," declared the huge security officer who wore his barbaric Klingon metal sash over his Starfleet uniform. At least, Worf was an adversary DeSeve could understand. Far more frightening was the enemy whom the Enterprise's bridge crew had seen on board the Romulan ship and recognized as their Betazoid ship's counselor. Even Captain Picard's austere features had lit.

That was the face of the enemy DeSeve feared.

Only DeSeve's stammer, a consequence of spending half his life protecting himself in the Romulan Star Empire, stopped him before he cried out in alarm.

Quiet, he commanded himself, harsh as any centurion.

He was already a traitor. Did he want to look like a bigger fool than he already was? That hardly seemed possible, given the charges against him. He stiffened his knees to hold himself upright. At least, he could try to manage not to humiliate himself before that Klingon.

If the woman were really Tal Shiar and not this Deanna Troi, once she got into sickbay she would make certain the three Romulan defectors would die before they emerged from stasis. Then, how would she move against Enterprise?

DeSeve didn't know. But he feared it.

The most terrifying thing about the Tal Shiar was that you never knew what they could do or where. You might a.s.sume the worst, but then you always learned how much more terrible their "worst" could be. Many loyal Romulans had disappeared from the fleet DeSeve had thought he knew, the work of Tal Shiar political officers. Even after twenty years of service, DeSeve knew they had him under constant scrutiny. That, even more than the empire's discipline, kept him in constant fear.

It had been worth returning to the Federation to face treason charges to rid himself of that fear, but now he had failed at that too, it seemed.

DeSeve balled his big, ineffectual fists together behind his back. The game was over. He had lost twice.

Compared with that, Lieutenant Worf's too obvious restraint in not turning his broad back on a traitor made DeSeve stifle a laugh. Bad idea even to smile. Worf would probably shove him into the turbolift and, safely out of Captain Picard's sight, smash his face against the paneling, then sling him over his shoulder and haul him into sickbay, claiming he had tried to escape. If that scenario played out, DeSeve might be just in time to see Major Rakal snap this ship's medical officer's spine.

But Doctor Crusher had been kind to him. If he could try to help her, it was worth getting his face bashed into the turbolift.

"What if the woman you beamed on board really is Major Rakal, not your ship's counselor?" At least, he could try to warn the Klingon.

"The words of a traitor hold no truth. You will be silent." Lieutenant Worf's ba.s.s voice practically made the gleaming bulkheads rattle.

Like most Klingons, Worf had no love for Romulans. But was he aware that in escorting DeSeve to his quarters, he was trying to protect Vice-Proconsul M'ret and his aides against a human traitor while a deadlier enemy might rove free? The irony would have been ridiculous if it weren't so terrifying. Hysteria threatened again, but the control that Starfleet and Grand Fleet military discipline had taught him kept DeSeve from disgracing himself even more-a.s.suming he could.

"His" door slid aside. Worf jerked his chin at him to enter and be quick about it. The cabin they had a.s.signed to him would have been considered luxurious for a warbird's commander. Harmonious tones on paneling, flooring, and chairs. Separate areas for work and sleeping.

DeSeve heard the locks engage and Worf's deep voice instruct the guards posted outside to take every precaution to prevent "the traitor" from sneaking out to a.s.sa.s.sinate valuable Romulan defectors. As if an aging traitor had the strength. Or the will.

DeSeve sank onto the nearest of his cabin's chairs and shook with silent, incongruous laughter. After that spasm subsided, he finally gave in to the shakes, but still managed to choke back the dry sobs that security scanners could pick up. He wouldn't give this ship's crew the satisfaction any more than he'd provided it for the Romulans.

Romulans, as he had told Captain Picard, were a moral people with an admirable clarity of purpose. He simply hadn't counted on living every moment of his life among them in a state of abject fear.

No, that wasn't true. It wasn't simple at all. He had grown tired of the kind of clarity of purpose that had turned a moral people into predators under the lash and mind games of the Tal Shiar.

Romulus had left him with few illusions, least of all the pleasant fantasy that aiding Amba.s.sador Spock in his "cowboy diplomacy" (whatever that meant, it had extracted a bleak smile from the captain) would spare him a court-martial for treason. He had earned the dishonorable discharge and, probably, life imprisonment that were the only possible verdicts. More ruthless than the empire, the Federation did not execute traitors.

At least, for now, he could make use of the luxury of a replicator that could produce more than field rations.

"Romulan ale," he ordered.

Was he imagining it, or did the computer, as it requested he provide the formula for a drink banned in the Federation, sound disgusted? He shrugged. If his hands didn't shake so badly, he could probably make the replicator produce Romulan ale. a.s.suming security didn't just shoot him because it decided he was trying to destroy the ship.

Trading what he knew of Federation engineering for Romulan training, DeSeve had been competent enough to win himself service as an aging subcenturion in engineering on board various warbirds of no particular reputation. Once the political officers had mined him for what intelligence he could provide, he quickly learned that engineers were as closely watched on board as aristocrats with a political agenda. Romulans might accept a defector, might let him learn some of their technology, but they trusted him even less than they trusted the other-the real-engineers who monitored the quantum singularities that powered their ships and spent their watches under armed guard.

No, DeSeve would not tamper with the replicator. But he was cold and thirsty. Cups had been pa.s.sed around on the bridge, even to him. But that had been some time ago.

"T-t-tea. Earl Grey. Hot," DeSeve ordered, imitating Captain Picard. The replicator instantly produced a steaming cup. After all these years away, he found it savory, even invigorating. If only Picard's drink could give him Picard's valor, integrity, and professionalism. Amba.s.sador Spock respected Picard. DeSeve was merely a weapon to his hand.

Confined now to quarters, DeSeve found it hard to believe he had actually sat on the bridge at the captain's side in the very chair that his ship's counselor had occupied. He had given advice that Picard actually listened to. For a while, he had even succ.u.mbed to the cherishable illusion that it was all real, all his to keep. But it was an expedient. DeSeve knew all about expedients. The instant Enterprise fled the Kaleb sector, his use was over, and he was back under arrest.