Walk in the Dark
By Drogna
Chapter 13
T'Pol met Archer at the hatchway to the central core of the station.
"Were you able to find out anything else from the clones?" asked Archer.
"The one we are looking for is the earliest iteration, and therefore probably also the strongest. The damage to her cells from replicative fading may be negligible."
"So she's going to be as fast as Soong's Augments?"
"Yes, and probably resistant to energy weapons," said T'Pol.
Archer took out his phase pistol. "I'll go first."
T'Pol nodded and drew her own weapon. Archer pressed the door release and stepped through. He checked around him carefully, took a step forward and then signalled T'Pol to follow him. Before she could step through the door, it slid shut forcefully.
"T'Pol!" Archer shouted and turned to try and open the door.
"I control this station, Starfleet, put down your weapon," said a voice behind him, and he whirled around to see a woman stood behind him. She had dark hair and coffee coloured skin. Archer could see the resemblance to Khan in her features. She was dressed in a plain black jumpsuit and pointing an old model phase pistol at him. "I mean it, Starfleet."
"You must be Dr Kaur," said Archer, as he laid his phase pistol on the floor in front of him. The woman kicked Archer's phase pistol away to the corner of the room, well out of his reach.
"My name is Rebecca. I am not Sarina Kaur, she died over a century ago. She was weak, human, and made mistakes. I do not. I've been watching you, Starfleet. I was surprised that your ship's crew was so small. Then I realised that you're not supposed to be here. You need this facility to cure your crewman and I doubt that you would do that for anyone. This man is someone special to you."
"I don't have time for games," said Archer.
"You know what I am, but you don't seem afraid of me," said Rebecca.
"You're not the first Augment that I've met," said Archer.
Rebecca walked steadily towards Archer. "You know what I can do to you. I'm more intelligent than you and more skilful. I'm faster and better."
"You may be faster, but you're not better."
"Such arrogance when you are in such a precarious position, Starfleet. I could kill you just by squeezing my finger. This is my station, make no mistake, and you have trespassed."
"We didn't come here to take you prisoner, until a few hours ago we didn't even know that there was anyone alive on this station."
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
"If I had followed protocol and reported the existence of this station then you would already be dead," said Archer.
"Yes, and isn't that an interesting turn of events. It was Starfleet who originally built this station. Does it surprise you that there were factions within your own organisation who were willing to hide me and support my work?"
"Very little surprises me anymore. If they were supporting your work why did they abandon the station?"
"My experiment was failing. We had intended to have an army of geneticists, clones of Sarina One, the first Augmented clone of Sarina Zero. Instead I put my cloned sisters into cold sleep one by one as their genetic code began to unravel, I hoped that I could perfect treatments to save them. You see, cloning a normal human is easy, but cloning an Augment is more difficult task. Some of them died before they even reached maturity due to flaws in the cloning process, others suffered from premature aging, and some died during treatment. The ones in cold sleep are the ones who had enough genetic material worth saving. Finally I was the only one left and I was out of options. The technology that I needed didn't exist yet, despite my Vulcan contacts who brought me equipment from their trading partners. I put myself into cold sleep to wait for technology to catch up with our ideas."
"But our arrival triggered the process to wake you."
"I was automatically woken when you accessed the treatment room. You were meant to be an ally for my cause and instead I find a small group of rebellious Starfleet officers who have disobeyed orders to save their friend. Very noble, but of little use to me." A dark smile curved her lips. "However you do have something that I want."
"I assume that's why you haven't killed me yet."
"Of course. I will exchange the lives of you and your crew for your ship."
"You need us to fly it."
"You overestimate your importance, Starfleet. I only need to keep one of you alive. Once I have your command codes I can take your ship, and my sisters, and go wherever I want."
"Your sisters are dying from replicative fading," said Archer.
"You're not as stupid as you look. Obviously you have been paying attention to that Vulcan of yours. Some of them are suffering lesser affects than others. I have enough genetic material to begin again elsewhere. I can still save my sisters."
"So Augments aren't perfect after all," said Archer and the next second found himself pinned by his neck against the wall.
"We don't need perfection to defeat humans," said Rebecca, and dropped Archer unceremoniously to the floor. She moved away to a computer console and Archer saw her take something out of a stand on top of the console and fit it onto her left hand. She then clipped an attached metal band around her wrist, briefly wresting her phase pistol on the console. Archer would have seen it as a chance to attack, but she had already proven that she didn't need a weapon to kill him.
With a small movement of her fingers she brought up a picture of the treatment room where Trip and Phlox were. Archer could see that Phlox had begun phase two of Trip's treatment and the white ring was lit up once again.
She turned to face Archer again. "You will give me your ship or I will begin killing your pitiful excuse for a crew. I'm sure you know what would happen to your friend if I were to turn off the power halfway through his treatment cycle. Clarke's Syndrome is such a nasty disease and he's quite some way along."
Archer picked himself up from the floor, rubbing his sore neck. "Don't do it." He couldn't let her kill Trip, not after everything that they had done to get him here. He stared at Rebecca for a moment and then he realised he really had no choice. "You can have Enterprise."
"Really, Starfleet, that was far too easy. You're giving me so little to work with here. All you humans are such cowards."
"Compassion isn't the same as cowardice," said Archer.
"You'd better try to explain that to your Vulcan friend," said Rebecca. She flicked her fingers again and the door opened to reveal T'Pol and Hess, who had obviously been working on the lock to try to open it. They immediately reached for their weapons. "You will forgive my rudeness, but I needed to speak with your Captain alone. He has agreed to my terms."
"Your terms?" T'Pol levelled her phase pistol on Rebecca.
"Your ship in exchange for your lives," said Rebecca.
"Captain, she is a wanted criminal," said T'Pol.
"I know T'Pol. She's threatening to cut the power to the treatment room."
"I see. What is to stop us overpowering you once we leave this room?" asked T'Pol.
"I have a device that allows me to send commands to the computer core," she held up her wrist so that they could see a metal band that led up her wrist and around two of her fingers. Tiny buttons could be seen on her palm and Archer had no doubt that a normal human with average finger dexterity would have trouble using the device. "I was not exaggerating when I said that I control this station. One gesture and your friend is dead. Now, put down your weapons or I might decide that I don't need him after all."
T'Pol and Hess laid down their phase pistols on the floor.
"So what next?" asked Archer.
"We go to wake some of my sisters," said Rebecca.
Rebecca herded her hostages towards level five and the cryogenics room. Archer wanted to try to communicate with T'Pol and Hess but he knew how good Rebecca's hearing probably was. They entered the room and it lit up as Rebecca twitched her index finger.
"We will revive Leah and Abigail," said Rebecca.
"Not the others?" asked Archer.
"Two is all I need," said Rebecca. "Vulcan, you can do it."
"Her name is Commander T'Pol," said Archer.
"I don't care about your names, Starfleet. To me you're all the same. Inferior." Rebecca sneered.
"Which two are Leah and Abigail?" asked T'Pol.
"Eight and nine, beside my casket." Rebecca indicated with her phase pistol which two she meant. "Remember, Vulcan, no mistakes or your friend dies and then you do."
T'Pol stepped forward and checked the brass plate on the first casket, before she went to the control panel on the pod. T'Pol took a few moments to familiarise herself with the controls and then pressed several buttons. Rebecca watched her actions carefully.
"The sequence has begun," said T'Pol.
"Good, and now Abigail as well," said Rebecca and indicated for T'Pol to move to the next casket.
T'Pol did as she was told and began the sequence to wake the other Augment clone. Archer could see her surreptitiously studying Rebecca while she worked. He doubted that Rebecca had noticed it, because without knowing T'Pol, it would be impossible to tell, her demeanour was as calm as ever. T'Pol was looking for weaknesses but she had already passed up several opportunities to attack Rebecca and Archer was sure this was because she didn't want to risk Rebecca harming Trip. He was certain that T'Pol was hatching a plan but, unless they could find some way to get alone for a minute, he couldn't ask her what it was.
"We have some time to kill. I want you to call your other crewmember, the one in the computer room, and tell her to meet us at the treatment room," said Rebecca.
Archer nearly asked her how she knew about Hoshi, but he guessed that she had access to a life signs detector. He carefully pulled his communicator out of his pocket, not making any sudden movements that could be interpreted as aggressive. "Archer to Sato."
"Go ahead, Captain," said Hoshi, brightly.
"Hoshi, drop what you're doing and get down to the treatment room. Phlox needs you."
"I'll be there in about ten minutes, I've nearly finished the download," said Hoshi.
"Now, Hoshi. Leave the download." His eyes met Rebecca's and he hoped that Hoshi didn't want more information. Rebecca could easily vent the atmosphere from a portion of the station or shut down life support, and he wasn't sure that he could stop her.
Archer could hear a puzzled hesitation before Hoshi replied. "Yes, sir. On my way."
Archer closed the communicator.
"Let's go and meet her," said Rebecca. "After you, Captain."
Hoshi was sure that something was up, as she closed her communicator. She specialised in listening and picking up inflections in speech. She could identify any accent from any region of over twenty different countries, and emotional tone was just as easy for her to hear. The Captain had sounded strange, tense, and that was very unlike him. She flipped open her communicator again.
"Sato to Enterprise."
"Go ahead Hoshi," said Lieutenant Reed.
"Malcolm, something's wrong. The Captain just told me to go down to the treatment room and leave the download."
"Maybe Phlox needs you to translate something," said Reed.
"He didn't sound right, his tone was off," said Hoshi. "It was like someone was standing there, telling him what to say. I think they were captured."
"I warned him that he would need backup," replied Reed. "Sometimes I wonder why he bothers to bring me along."
"What are we going to do?"
"She's a very dangerous woman and if we go in there with guns blazing she'll kill them," said Reed.
"I know that, Malcolm."
"What I don't understand is why she didn't just kill them. She must want something, probably Enterprise."
"Then how do we stop her?"
"Well we have surprise on our side," said Reed. "I'm coming over, but I need you to buy me some time."
"You want me to go down there and get captured?"
"It'll make her think that we're still in the dark about what's going on."
"But what good am I to you if I'm captured?"
"You're my inside man. Leave your communicator open and I'll be able to hear everything that's going on. It should give me the edge I need."
"Okay, but be careful, Malcolm."
"That goes for you too, Hoshi," replied Reed.
Archer, T'Pol, Hess and Rebecca arrived outside the treatment room on level three. Rebecca moved a finger against her palm and seemed a little annoyed when nothing happened.
"It's locked from the inside," said Archer.
"Get him to open it," said Rebecca.
"Phlox this is Archer, you can unlock the door now."
They waited a few moments as Phlox unlocked the door and it swished open with a soft hiss.
"Captain, I hope everything went well," said Phlox, smiling. The smile disappeared from his face as he noticed the stranger holding them at gun point.
"Sorry, Doctor. She didn't give me much choice."
"I understand, Captain," said Phlox, as he backed away to let them in.
"She's threatening to cut the power to this treatment room if we don't cooperate," added Archer.
"I see," said Phlox.
"A Denobulan doctor, how intriguing," said Rebecca, entering the room and wandering over to look at the device currently being used to heal Trip. "Your people have no problem with genetic engineering, I believe, but you're serving on a human ship."
"That is my privilege, yes," replied Phlox. "Denobula was fortunate enough to learn early on the limits of genetic engineering, and that it had to be tempered with morality and ethics."
"How backward. You have the ability to create supermen but you chose not to." Rebecca brushed a hand against the side of the tube where Trip lay. "Un-augmented humans are so weak. If my original had been allowed to continue her research then this man would never have been put through this. You wouldn't have had to break the law to save him."
"One of her ideas was to terminate children with genetic defects. If she'd been allowed to continue, Trip would have been killed at birth. The law is there for a reason. To prevent unethical, ruthless women like your original from damaging society."
Rebecca's eyes narrowed. "Be careful how you talk about Sarina Kaur, Starfleet. One finger movement and this man will die a very painful death as his unfinished DNA unravels."
"You stay away from him," said Archer. "You're hiding behind a threat to harm a defenceless man, and yet you think you're so damn superior."
"No one decided to clone you a hundred times, Starfleet. Only superior genes demand preservation."
Archer was about to retort when they heard the sound of approaching footsteps. "Doctor Phlox, Captain Archer said you needed me," said Hoshi as she entered the room, and stopped in her tracks as she took in the scene in front of her. Archer doubted that Rebecca had noticed it, but he could tell that Hoshi was faking her reaction. He knew what Hoshi was like in a difficult situation and the scared person in front of him was a Hoshi of six years ago.
"Get over here, all of you." said Rebecca, and indicated for everyone to move away from the door, before she edged around the other side of the room her gun trained on her prisoners. "Now give me your communicators."
Hoshi reached into her pocket and quietly closed her communicator before she took it out of her pocket. The rest of the officers handed over the small devices, which Rebecca then dropped and stamped on.
"I'll see you later, Starfleet. Remember, if you try anything, your friend is dead."
Rebecca backed out of the room and closed the door. Then there was the sound of the lock clicking into place. Hess immediately went to the door to see if she could open it.
"She's locked it from the outside and all my tools are still at the central core hatch," said Hess and kicked the door hard. Luckily Engineers tended to wear steel capped boots.
"What's your plan, Hoshi?" asked Archer.
"I don't really have one. I called Malcolm and he told me to go along with it, buy some time and hopefully gain some intel but I don't think that she said enough to get us anywhere."
"At least Malcolm knows that we're in trouble," said Archer.
"What did she mean about if we try something our friend is dead?"
"She has a device, like a metal glove, that controls the station's function. She's been threatening to cut the power to this room unless we help her."
"I hope Malcolm doesn't try something. We thought that they were just using you as hostages," said Hoshi.
Archer was pacing now. "There has to be a way out of here. We can't let her have Enterprise."
"Captain," said a weak voice. Archer turned towards the machine.
"I must have left the intercom switched on," said Phlox apologetically.
Archer moved toward the viewing panel in the side of the white casing. He could see that Trip was awake and blinking. "What is it, Trip?"
Trip turned his head a little so that he could see Archer through the viewing panel. "You need to jam her. That device has to be transmitting to receivers around the station." He sounded very tired and weak, like he was about to fall asleep.
"We don't have any equipment and we're locked in here," said Archer.
"Must be something. Communicators, or maybe the medical equipment. Look around."
Hess was crouching on the floor by the pile of smashed communicators. "I might have enough unbroken parts from all of these communicators to put something together."
"We will need to ascertain the correct frequency also," added T'Pol.
"Unless we just block everything," said Hoshi. "We'd be without communications, but since all of the communicators are broken, that isn't really a problem."
Hess shook her head. "I'm not sure we have enough power for a broadband jam. Let me build it and I'll have a better idea. I need to figure out how many undamaged power-cells we have."
"What about the medical equipment?" asked Archer.
"I don't even know what most of this does," said Hess. "It's all alien and probably incompatible with our technology. Plus without any tools, I'm not sure how we'd open it up."
"Okay, let's get to work," said Archer. He turned to say well done to Trip for the idea, only to find that he'd fallen asleep again.
Reed stalked down the hall as quietly as he could. He had heard the electronic squawk as Hoshi's communicator was crushed. He should have anticipated that move, of course Rebecca wouldn't want them to be able to contact the ship. He was disobeying a direct order to stay on Enterprise, but given the circumstances he didn't think the Captain would complain too much. As there was already a court martial lurking in his future, a reprimand from the Captain was a minor concern.
He thought that Rebecca would probably go back to check on her clone sisters after locking up the Enterprise crew members but he couldn't be certain of that. It made sense that she'd want them out of the way while she made ready to leave the station, prisoners would just get in the way. Even though she had hostages, she was still outnumbered by them, and her backup was still in the deep freeze.
Reed waited a few minutes, until he was certain that Rebecca had left the area, and then approached the treatment room. He found the door was locked. It was a grey metal door with no windows so there was no easy way to break it in. He knocked on the door to let the occupants know that he was there.
"Captain?" he shouted.
"Malcolm?" came the reply.
"Captain, she's locked the door, I'm going to try to rewire the panel." This would probably destroy the lock but needs must at this point. He hoped he wouldn't regret this necessity later. Trip still had several hours of treatment to go and he needed protecting. "You might want to stand back, it's probably going to short out the circuit."
Reed shoved his phase pistol into its holster, pulled a small screwdriver out of his pocket and levered the panel off. He looked at the wires inside. This really wasn't his area of expertise. Trip could probably have looked at the wires and immediately seen what he needed to do, Reed had to pull out his scanner and trace the circuits before he could work out which wires needed to be cut and reconnected to bypass the lock. It all took time and it was time that they really didn't have. Finally he made the final connection and pressed the button to open the door. There was a shower of sparks and the door slid open.
"Good work, Malcolm," said Archer. "Rebecca, the escaped clone, has a remote control that we need to disable. She's threatening to harm Trip by turning off the power to the treatment room. Contact Enterprise and get Travis to jam it."
"Yes, sir," said Reed and pulled out his communicator. "Reed to Enterprise."
Static was the only reply he got. He tried again but he wasn't getting through.
"I believe she is jamming our transmission," said T'Pol.
"She broke the communicators, she wouldn't need to," said Hoshi.
"Maybe she detected my transporter signature," said Reed. "Or she could just be taking extra precautions."
"This station was built before transporter technology became available to Starfleet. It is unlikely that she is able to detect transporter signatures," pointed out T'Pol.
Reed pulled out his scanner. "I am detecting interference but it doesn't look as if it's a jamming device."
T'Pol moved to beside Reed so that she could see the readings. "There is a large drain of the station's power. Something appears to be putting out interference in the range of frequencies that our communicators use."
"What would need that amount of power?" asked Reed.
"Whatever the it is, we're on our own," said Archer. "Anna, can you get that jamming device working with what you've got."
Hess was sitting, legs crossed on the floor, sorting through the broken communicators for parts. "I think so. A little help from the Commander would make things go faster. He obviously had something in mind when he suggested this, but I'm not sure that he's up to talking me through it."
"He may well wake again," said Phlox. "I'll let you know if he does."
Hess nodded and turned back to her electronic jigsaw puzzle.
"I believe I can program Lieutenant Reed's scanner to discern the frequency that we need to block," said T'Pol.
"Good, get on it," said Archer.