Chapter 9; Brazed Vegetables
"I'm glad that you warned me." Alyssa Ogawa surveyed her surroundings. While nowhere near as devastating as other planets she had seen after the Genesis Wave, the place was definitely worse than she had hoped. The flora seemed only somewhat effected and there were few other creatures, none sentient and very few otherwise on the planet other than Cardassians. Small food animals did inhabit the area to the west of here but at least there weren't any moss creatures trying to use the local inhabitants as food. The natural surroundings were still twisted and she found it rather disconcerting. Despite the damage to the ecosystem, the hardest thing for Alyssa to cope with had been the people. Most of them were so mangled she could barely fathom how they were still alive. The ones actually walking ranged from close to healthy looking to a couple that she saw that even had extra limbs jutting out from odd angle on their body. Of the ones that were disfigured she took notice of one man barely in his twenties if she were to judge that even had a third leg placed at an obscene angle from between the healthy two.
No one seemed to notice the officers as they walked through the street. This was another thing that Tom had warned her about. Most of the people her remained nearly catatonic. About the only time that they could be aroused was when they were offered food, and then they only cared about the food. Even though they were non-coherent the away team had still elected to disguise themselves. The only ones that would likely notice them were the guards, and as far as the guards were concerned, there was no way that they would not notice them, they knew every single subject here; but better to hedge the chance of being noticed at first glance. The whole thing reminded her of being in a Borg cube. This was rather creepy. "Do you think that they even know that there is someone in front of them at all, or if they would understand us?"
"I think that they do. What they probably think though is that anyone that is healthy is part of they guard and should be avoided at any cost. I think that they see us on a level as something just to not notice, in hope that it will go away. What ever they were bombarded with not only left them mutated but they are now suffering from a plethora of illnesses and malnutrition. Starvation kills more of them than the illnesses."
"Do you have any idea when this grizzly experiment started?"
"What we lifted suggests a little over nine months ago. I showed up about six months ago. The only things we have managed have been what would be called comfort medicine. We've smuggled in food, clothes, and what medical help we could. They weren't able to do much. Several have died under our care." Riker looked sick to himself. Before this mission, he head never killed someone other than in combat. Even the years he had spent with the Maquis had never placed him in a position to do what he found reprehensible, but in his opinion necessary under the circumstances. Oh, prior to this place he had killed many times, but never in his life did he expect that he would perform a mercy killing. Not just one, but several.
His entire contact with the colony went through his mind. His regular contact here had been one of the guards. He was actually a very decent man. Granted he had once been part of the Obsidian Order, but he had a kind heart and more scruples than that organization allowed. He had stepped on one too many toes during his tenure. In a fit of sadistic ire they assigned him to this colony, obstensively to keep an eye on the guards and research scientists. He was never informed about what was going on here, but he knew that the victims needed help. Tom's cell had been the ones to intercept the pleas for aid.
Over the six months he smuggled in what he could. On that fateful trip the unthinkable but expected happened. Several women who had been subjected to the experiment had been pregnant, and Tom was there when most of them gave birth. Of the fifteen that went into labor, eight of the children were stillborn. His first euthanasia had been one of the mothers of those stillborns. She had severely hemorrhaged during delivery. She survived that only to have the internal injuries become septic. She might have survived another day or two, but Tom made a decision. He ensured that she would pass quietly in her sleep, via a hypospray.
The children that did survive were harder, but even more necessary in Tom's opinion. They were so grotesquely deformed that none of them would live more than a month. It he had access to Starfleet medical facilities they might have been able to do something, emphasis on might. He made sure that the mothers never knew what happened. All they ever found out was that their child did not survive through the night. Every one of the women would show a look of relief that at least made it possible for Tom to sleep at night.
He was beginning to learn to live with it when he had been rescued. Now that he knew what was going on here he realized that because of Genesis he had been in a battle, just not one where the enemy was known. The Admiral, and the entire crew of the Titan had seen the war, where as he had only dealt with the aftermath. He let out a low sigh, hoping that no one would notice him shake off the melancholy and addressed the team. "My contact should be on his regular patrol. If my time sense is right, we shouldn't have to wait long. We have a standing agreement that he checks here for messages during his patrol every day. I should talk to him alone at first. Once I establish our identity and what we have come for I will introduce you. Hopefully we will have access to the computers before night fall." He did not elaborate. If they didn't get the stuff tonight they would be stuck for about two days while the waited for the patrol cycle of both starships and foot to resync themselves so they could be at the beamout point.
"From there this is my mission, got it?" She had worried that allowing Tom to be the lead would cause a problem.
"Hey I'm just the tour guide." Tom had an innocent look, which apparently unnerved the Titan's first officer.
Tina had to stop herself from calling him either Captain or Will. This was Tom and she was going to need time to realize that she was dealing with two people that sounded, acted, and looked nearly identical. "I wish you had given us more data to go on though. You said that it took your guy nearly four weeks to crack that thing. And here I have just a few hours. How do think that we could do it, having to start from scratch again?"
"Rebs installed a password, that way I wouldn't have to try to remember the codes as well as everything else I had to get out. He could only manage to get it to install to a very minor system, but it will get you by the toughest part of the security system."
"What's the password?" A pang of regret that was so overwhelming that it made Tina physically startle washed over her. Tom had felt so strongly about a simple code word that he had managed to get past her shields, leaving her as overwhelmed as she knew Deanna must feel sometimes. She heard him frame the word in his mind before he spoke. For that instant she felt a large sense of sympathy for the man. She heard the word frame in his mind before he spoke.
"Imzadi."
