CHAPTER 1
Earth
Muttering to himself with unintelligible syllables, the prisoner in cell A-14 scribbled out the last line he had hastily written. It was no good; it was flawed in nearly invisible ways, but the answer was clear to him, the formulas flowing through him with unusual clarity. He was not a madman, nowhere close, he knew. Although few people could hope to understand the ragged hieroglyphics before him, those who could begin to decipher dashed lines and dots immediately identified the work of a genius.
So naturally, I'm a convict, the prisoner thought to himself, allowing a small portion of his racing mind to stray on oft-traveled roads. According to the prosecutor, the prisoner was one of the most dangerous people alive, even more dangerous than the assorted murderers who were only slowly disappearing from Earth society, and the irony was not lost on the prisoner; he had never taken any lives, never harmed another being, yet he was the worst of them all, guilty of a far worse crime: giving life.
It wasn't a hard life, if one could consider incarceration easy. Although he wore shackles on his wrists and ankles, they could be separated, allowing him to move his arms and legs freely; and the food wasn't so bad, if one didn't have an appetite. And with his vaunted designation—a class-A convict—the prisoner had the wing almost entirely to himself, sharing it only with the ever-present guards who watched him constantly through the duranium bars.
During his confinement, the prisoner already had completed the work of several lifetimes. Leafs of paper, stacks of paper, entire reams of paper populated his cell, all covered with the same mosaic of handwritten notes, formulae, and indecipherable scrawls; but he had little hope that they would ever be used to relieve suffering, save lives, and uplift humanity. His work was tainted, tainted with the wrongdoings of others who had abused such knowledge to play pitiful games of power.
The prisoner knew precisely how long he had been in prison; even without a calendar, his mind could track the days, and the hours of the days. He had been in this facility for nine years, two months, and eleven days; his capture was four months and six days before that.
He had aged during those years, faster than a person should; but incarceration was like that. His once-black hair was now white, possessing only a few flecks of silver; his skin had turned pale, and a once-strong build was now trim. Dressed in regulation drab-gray overalls, he appeared in many ways like any other scientist, having spent too many years in a laboratory; his best distinguishing feature was a long nose, coming to a sharp point at the front of his face.
126 Ceti
The tunnels stank of rotten eggs.
But that was the price of living in a place where no one would look.
The central star was itself a meaningless entity in the barrens of space.
At one point, many generations in the past, it may have mattered; in the vivacity of its youth, when the stellar furnace consumed illimitable quantities of hydrogen, pumping out enough heat and warmth to fuel the gradual aggregation of life. Civilizations may have risen and fallen, empires passing by in twinkles of time, fates altered and futures determined.
Conversely, it may never have mattered.
Now, in the tapering twilight of its existence, the star no longer burned with the furious might of its brethren. Never a large entity, as it slowly compressed inward upon itself, its mass insufficient to trigger the runaway fusion of a red giant, the thermonuclear forge died a wheezing, asthmatic death.
Now, only a small ball of cosmic mass remained—scarcely larger than the planet Earth, balanced between the inward pull of gravity and the outward push of electron degeneracy, the once-star radiated its remaining heat into the coldness of space. As more generations passed, the white dwarf remnant would slowly cool and dim, becoming little more than a cold, dark mass.
On Starfleet charts, the star was unimaginatively labeled as 126 Ceti.
Around the fifth planet, itself a minor gaseous ball, orbited a loose collection of shattered rocks. They were not native to the system; at some point, far in the distant past, a heavy asteroid of remote origins screamed into the system. Striking the gas planet, the dense rock shattered into pieces; and as eons went on, the fragments settled into standard orbits.
The new moons were, in fact, completely inhospitable to most forms of life.
Amid the craggy ridges and ravines slashing the surface of each rock glowed greenish hellfires from below. Radioactive cores emitted great quantities of heat, causing deep reservoirs of copper sulfate to burn as endless piles; and old-fashioned water, transiting upward and downward from steam to ice and back again, added to the sickly glow and burning stench.
In the tunnels and warrens slicing through the rock, some natural and others chiseled and hewn by calloused hand, they had dug out an existence of sorts during the years of their second exile. It was not easy; only their genetic modifications allowed the exiles to survive at all in such a caustic place. But it provided safety, the sort of safety borne in anonymity and absurdity.
Ruâx growled to himself as he moved swiftly through the dark passageways, unerring with his direction. The burrows were not pitch black; some glow came through the rocks, casting a particular greenish hue about the entire complex, and various banks of machinery added multi-spectrum light of their own. But predominantly, it was altered genetics that allowed Ruâx to move so comfortably in the dimness; his eyes, nearly glowing, had long since been adapted for low-light vision.
It was their own miniature city of Dis.
Earth
Scarcely moving his eyes, the prisoner managed to send a glare of displeasure at the unseen voice of the intercom. "You have a visitor," it announced abruptly, tones flattened by machinery.
"I'm busy," the prisoner answered, his voice lacking the expected sounds of aggravation. Instead, he spoke with a sarcastic lilt, in almost sing-song manner.
"Stand up, Doctor," the intercom demanded, growing forceful in quick succession.
Closing his eyes for a moment, the prisoner muttered again, scrawling out a few last hasty notes on the paper before him. Most prisoners enjoyed visitors; anything to break up the monotony of countless identical days, stretching across months and years. But for the doctor in cell A-14, it was an unwanted distraction, threatening to spoil the delicate diagrams rearranging themselves in his mind.
But some things are inevitable, he reminded himself, and throwing down his pencil, the prisoner turned and stood. In the cramped confines of the cell, he raised his arms; and with a metallic clink, the bracelets on each wrist pulled together with magnetic lock, forming a pair of restraints. The prisoner swallowed back a curse; there was little need to cuff him, in the presence of several guards.
Its only real purpose was to humiliate him.
126 Ceti
Raâkîn growled softly to himself as he massaged his temples, trying to ease the building pain of blood vessels pounding and throbbing behind them. It had not been an easy day; but then, it never was, here in the brutal exile of the Afflicted.
For ten years now, since their desperate flight from the world of their childhood, Raâkîn had led the dismal band of wretches, most of whom were only now exiting the biological era of their teens. There was only one blessing, he knew; his leadership was unchallenged, ordained upon him by their father, who knew the way of all things. The old man's guidance still shone over his chosen children, a vestige of illumination amid the nightfall of their lives; and perhaps, one day, they would be reunited with him.
But not today, Raâkîn silently reminded himself, willing his blood pressure downward in futile endeavor. The throbbing continued, unsought and undesired, threatening a spasmodic twitch behind his eye. Today was the first day of the rest of their lives, stuck in a forsaken hellhole; and here he was, the leader of a great race, refereeing a dispute over the hydroponic beet crop.
Sitting in a makeshift chair, welded together from scraps of bulkhead and conduit, Raâkîn's piercing glare was amplified by the thunder within it. He was, even by the standards of the Afflicted, physically imposing; tall in stature, broad in chest, a tapered waist and legs resembling those of the race of old. His muscles were sharp and well-defined, without a trace of paunch, the whole system undergirded by a network of enhanced respiratory and circulatory systems.
Barely listening to the debate before him, Raâkîn nonetheless heard and logged every word in the eidetic recall of enriched neurons; subprocesses in his mind charted the arguments, weighing the points and counterpoints against one another. A greater portion was devoted to cracking the opacity, to determining the motivations and dissensions underlying the overwrought fracas.
But mostly, his mind was devoted to controlling the agony building within it, the looming presence of hyper-misery.
Thus it was with relief and dread that Raâkîn's ears registered the trotting clank of boots upon metal, moments before Ruâx appeared in the open doorway of the chamber. A pointed glare from Raâkîn silenced the bickering foes before him. "What is it, Ruâx?" he demanded of the newcomer, his voice tired but hopeful. Whatever it was, it promised to be more interesting than beets.
"Maâlîk and Câîm have returned," the other exile answered. "You're not going to like this."
Gamma DeuteronCeti
The bruising beats of booming bass reverberated upon the plasma window, adding the slightest flicker of violet shading to the otherwise-translucent barrier as the now-muted sound dropped to a low thrumming rhythm. Lights began to flash in the darkness beyond, scintillating flares of intensified color diffracted within hanging clouds of smoke, appearing and disappearing in less than the blink of an eye; from olive to pine to emerald, they tantalized the mind with the scarcest hints of what lay within.
Then the main frames kicked in, sending the strobes into overdrive as they followed the pounding tempo of the alien machines, soaring and spiraling with surging palpitation; and the undulation of bodies, throbbing and thrashing together, following with glowing-eyed delirium.
Then everything ceased; and for a moment, everything fell dark within the heavy odors of heated air and unwashed bodies. Only a single whistle sounded, once, then twice, and it began to oscillate, upward and downward; and as the quivering assibilation grew in strength, great green-hued plasma arcs leapt upward, lighting up three cages dangling from the unseen ceiling.
And the beat resumed, its tempo even faster before, as the three dancers began to writhe in serpentine fashion, their sinewy curves moving in unimagined manners; gossamer silk hung upon them from a thread, threatening to fall away completely from glowing-green skin. Diaphoretic fragrances wafted across the moist air, charged with steamy sultriness.
And from behind the plasma window, in his vantage point overlooking the floor below, Vatis'Kish was immune. It had as much to do with evolution as it did the protective barrier; for every time that evolution increased the potency of the pheromones of Orion women, natural selection followed by increasing the resistance of Orion men.
And everyone else, Vatis'Kish reflected as he watched the growing bacchanalia with a cautious eye, is out of luck. Few people, if any, stood a chance against the provocative allure of his dancers.
Not that many even try, he noted, trying to identify the various alien races represented by the refuse below. Who attends this debauchery with the intention of not enjoying themselves? Those who were not interested—the deviants who were unwilling to indulge their sensual desires, even after a lengthy haul in the desolation of interstellar space—were carefully directed to other portions of his sprawling establishment.
And those of discerning taste enjoyed special hospitality.
"Boss." The raspy voice behind Vatis'Kish barely disturbed the meaty Orion, but he stood up anyway, lifting his bulk from the low-lying couch. Truth be told, he had little interest in the carousing; but it was a business investment, and he was obligated to perform due diligence.
"What is it, Ryna?" Vatis'Kish asked tiredly, feeling the unwanted throb behind his eyes as he turned to face the newcomer. He dwarfed the other man; a Zakdorn—one of the subject peoples of the Hegemony, itself a de facto wing of the Syndicate—his business manager was of not even of height.
What Ryna lacked in height, he also lacked in appearance; short and stout, his face was covered in baggy skin and dangling ripples, some of which quivered when he spoke. His voice was high-pitched and nasally, and his hair constantly oozed a gelatinous substance.
But he was a brilliant business manager.
"There's a Rigelian asking to see you," Ryna answered, his voice squeaking as if in mock outrage. "Introduced himself as 'Rudo Oni.'"
"Bring him in," Vatis'Kish growled. It was not normally so easy to gain access to the Orion boss; but the codename belonged to a trusted agent.
Nonetheless, his Orion bodyguards shifted into protective positions.
Earth
The transparent doors of the holding cell gave an audible hum as they slid open before the prisoner, granting him ingress to the sterile, pastel-coated room beyond; but the prisoner paused in the threshold, giving a nonchalant air of studied indifference, requiring a gentle nudge from behind to send him through.
He wasn't expecting any guest in particular; but definitely not this one.
"Jonathan Archer," the prisoner drawled, revealing only a slight hint of the curiosity he felt. "Of course I recognize you, Captain; you're quiet famous, after all. Saving Earth, and all that." He began to pace slowly, circling around the newcomer. "So what brings you here? No, no, let me guess," he added quickly, raising his cuffed hands and waggling a finger at the Starfleet captain. "Are they naming the prison after you?"
"I need to ask you a few questions, Dr. Soong," Archer replied tersely, his clipped words matching his tense body.
"Indeed." Arik Soong gestured vaguely with his hands. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I just don't have the time," he added, musingly. "I'm in the middle of some rather important work."
"It won't take long," Archer answered tightly.
Soong harrumphed with disdain. "Time means different things, Captain, depending on your vantage point."
"I think you'll find this to be worth it."
"Indeed," Soong replied again. "That's quite a promise, Captain. But then…I suppose it's not every day that one gets to speak with the man who 'saved the planet.'" The last words received quoting gestures in the air. "Please, have a seat," he added, indicating a collapsible plasticine chairs; the room's entire contents consisted of two such seats. "I'm afraid I'm not allowed anything more…cordial."
The unusual choice of wording hung heavy for a moment.
Soong returned to his chair and sat down, but turned to face the captain. "Well, I suppose it's not every day one gets to speak with the man who 'saved the planet'," the doctor said, adding gestures for the last phrase. While Soong strongly disliked being interrupted from his work, the air of conviviality in his voice betrayed his curiosity. "Please," he said, gesturing with both arms for Archer to enter the cell. The captain stepped through the threshold. "I apologize for the clutter," Soong said with a half-smile. His voice modulated into a mocking tone. "I'm not allowed 'traditional recording devices'."
Archer nodded at the security guard, who closed the door and stepped out of sight. The conversation was only for the ears of the two men in the cell.
Archer returned Soong's jab. "You programmed a PADD to unlock every security door in the building," he reminded the doctor with a smirk. Following that incident, Soong had been restricted to pencil and paper.
Soong's face took on a look of fond reminiscence. "I was particularly proud of that," he said with no trace of sarcasm. "I made it all the way to Sausalito." He returned his gaze to Archer, and the moment of unmasked honesty vanished. "On the rare occasion I get stuck on a problem, I find a vigorous escape attempt helps to… 'clear the head'," Soong said with the old, faint mocking tone.
Archer looked around at the cell, taking in the papered walls, and stepped over to a foot-high pile of papers. "Go ahead," Soong told Archer, indicating for the captain to take a look. "They're DNA sequences. That one is for a modification of the human T-cell. It would render Sharat Syndrome a thing of the past." Soong spoke with a combination of professorial pride and resignation.
Archer slowly stepped around the room, taking in the fine, scribbled print and detailed sketches. "That one increases the visual spectrum by five percent," Soong told the captain, pointing at another sheet of paper. Archer stepped closer to take a look. "Of course, none of this will ever be tested." My life's work. "They clear out my room every few months. I'm told it all gets… 'vaporized'." Soong punctuated the last word with a gesture of explosion. They don't even take a look at it.
Archer turned back to Soong, and spoke with an air of smugness. "Why invest so much time and energy on things no one will ever use?" he asked the doctor.
Soong's voice took on a sharp bite. "How can a supposedly intelligent species reject technology that would enhance ability? Relieve suffering?" The advances I'm making could revolutionize medicine. Cure a hundred diseases, fix a thousand defects.
Archer kept up the verbal joust. "Genetic engineering has caused a lot of suffering."
"So did splitting the atom," Soong responded with a jabbing inflection. "Yet the first ships to colonize the solar system were nuclear-powered." And that doesn't even begin to address the Phoenix. The Phoenix, Zephram Cochrane's ship, the first to travel at warp speed, the first to make contact with extraterrestrial life, the ship that arguably ushered in a dawning age of global peace and cooperation—was built from an intercontinental nuclear missile.
Soong's curiosity was rapidly vanishing, and he was ready to get rid of his guest. "But you're not here to discuss that," he said, referencing the philosophical questions of genetic engineering.
126 Ceti
You're right, Raâkîn thought as he looked upward. I don't like this.
Hovering above, in make-shift parking over a pool of green gases, was a Klingon bird-of-prey; D4-variant, his mind noted autonomously, as his minds traced the unmistakable form. The bulbous nose, a narrow neck, the hunchback main section, and two angled wings tapering downward to the primary disrupter banks…it wasn't the cutting edge of the Klingon arsenal, but in the right hands it was a lethal instrument.
And it was a red flag.
The Orion Syndicate—and, to a lesser extent, the Rigelian Trade Commission—had largely ignored the band of exiles. Their acts of piracy were few and far between, momentary and modest in nature. Sure, there was a sense of theory design behind it; they were Augments, after all, and not common thugs, hitting the ordinary traveler over the head and stealing his means to live.
But their relative anonymity was animated by a sense of survival.
A single Orion marauder could wipe out their entire colony, expunging the exiles from existence. Or a pair of Rigelian corvettes…or a single frigate. Or any number of any species, seeking revenge for the abduction of their shipping. Neither of the power brokers would see the need to intervene.
Raâkîn growled, softly. "Let's go," he snapped, his voice little more than a curtailed lash in the rapidly-thinning air. The hull of the Ba'Sugh, once painted in a dark, non-reflective shade of green, was now blotchy with an assortment of greens, grays, and rust; and from the rear of the darkened belly, a simple ladder of braided cable was descending for them. It was blunt; it was crude; it was Klingon.
Tûrêl, one of his loyal companions, had accompanied Raâkîn to the surface of the planet-cum-asteroid; and now he followed his leader, up the ladder and into the belly of the Ba'Sugh.
Gamma DeuteronCeti
Rudo Oni's eyes flickered about involuntarily as he entered the boss' private warrens. He was no stranger to the Syndicate, but meetings usually occurred outside, in the regular chambers; never here, in the inner alcove.
The officious Zakdorn squeezed past Rudo and out the door, leaving the newcomer alone with the Orion boss and his four guards. Every one of them was huge, at least by Rigelian standards; the four auxiliaries, mostly bare-chested, each overtly displayed sharp-edged scimitars hanging from metal-studded belts.
It was the hard-eyed glare of the boss which filled the room, casting about an atmosphere of biting acerbity and studied violence. Like many of his kind, his body was studded with jewelry; a row of pointed barbells ran the crest of his bald head, and embedded metal underlay the flesh of his forehead, adding a silver hue to his olive-green skin. But the eyes; the eyes were inescapable.
"Welcome." Vatis'Kish spoke graciously to his guest, opening his brawny arms wide. "Have a seat."
Rudo did as bidden; for the shorter Rigelian, the low-lying couches were of ordinary height. "Your hospitality is unrivaled," he offered in response.
Satisfied with the exchange, Vatis'Kish resumed his own seat, facing across at the newcomer. "Would you care for a drink? Some ale, perhaps?" the boss asked, already casting a vague gesture over his shoulder to summon the server.
"Ale would be nice," Rudo answered. "But I'm afraid my visit is purely for business reasons."
Vatis'Kish froze, almost imperceptibly, at the words. "Very well," he acknowledged, somewhat thoughtfully. A flick of his hand sent the four guards from the room. "Are you sure you won't be able to stay for a little relaxation?" he asked. "We've upgraded our entertainment since your last visit."
"I saw that," Rudo replied, licking his desiccated lips. The offer was tempting; even here, in the boss' chambers, he could detect the sweet perfumes and aphrodisiacs that permeated the complex. In a moment, they grew stronger; and the Orion serving girl appeared from behind luxurious velvet curtains, carrying two glasses and a bottle of violet ale.
As she sauntered toward them, Rudo could barely shift his sight from the swaying hips. Only a thin, flimsy chiffon covered them, hanging barely above the junction of her legs; and upward, her green curves glistened, accenting two breasts dangling without a gossamer teddy. As she leaned over to pour the ale, one popped out, perfectly positioned for the nipple to stroke his lips.
"Thank you," he croaked out as the girl turned and left, leaving behind a cloud of her own sensuous fragrances. His eyes lingered on her for a long moment after she departed; only then did he try to focus on the boss, forcing himself to concentrate in the intoxicant haze.
"So, now, my friend," Vatis'Kish said warmly. He lifted his own goblet and took a sip. "If you'll forgive my impoliteness…you're not prone to such flights of alarm. "What has you so concerned?"
Rudo Oni forced his thoughts together, focusing on the reason for his hurried mission. "There's a crew of rogue freebooters," he answered, his tongue stumbling slightly. "Operating along the Rigelian Corridor."
"There's nothing particularly unusual about that," Vatis'Kish observed. And there wasn't; the regions outside of the Hegemony's official territory, yet still within the Syndicate's sphere of influence, attracted any number of fly-by-night pirates. As long as the freebooters didn't stir up too much trouble, the Rigelian Trade Commission dealt with them.
And Rudo was an investigator with the Trade Commission.
"This particular crew has…overstepped their boundaries," the Rigelian answered. "I was dispatched to investigate a rumor that they successfully hijacked a Klingon bird-of-prey."
Not bothering to conceal his interest, Vatis'Kish shifted his bulk forward. It took considerable skill—and fortitude—to take a Klingon warship; and the combination made for a very unstable element.
And instability was bad for business; the freighters along the Corridor tolerated a small amount of minor piracy, but they paid the Syndicate to deal with anything larger.
"Thank you for the information, my friend," Vatis'Kish replied. "I'll send a ship to clean up the situation. But I do wonder…why does this need my personal attention?"
Rudo licked his lips again with nervous apprehension. "There was another part to the rumor…" He didn't quite know how to explain it; it sounded preposterous, even to him. "It's supposedly a crew of humans."
"Humans?" Vatis'Kish repeated the unfamiliar terms. "You mean Earthers?"
"Yes," Rudo confirmed uncomfortably. His feet were sweating bullets. "I know it sounds unbelievable, but…a crew of Vulcans allegedly confirmed the DNA."
"A crew of Earthers hijacked a Klingon ship?" Vatis'Kish sat backward, understanding now why this required his personal attention. Rudo would not have come to him without reason; but Earthers, as a rule, were a race of insignificant weaklings. There was a major anomaly at work.
And anomalies are bad for business.
"Thank you, Rudo," Vatis'Kish answered softly. Flickering rays flashed about the room as he shook his head, the metal studs reflecting low lighting.
When will fools realize that the Syndicate does not tolerate challenges?
Earth
"There's a group of rogue humans playing pirate, out along the Rigelian Corridor," Archer responded. "The last—known—victim was a Vulcan freighter."
"Ah, I see," Soong answered with false sympathy. "I understand that you are…quite annoyed." His patience tiring, Soong moved to the point. "But what does this have to do with me?"
Archer refused to break his stride. "The pirates sacked the freighter, but left it largely intact. The Vulcans recovered DNA traces."
"Let me guess." Soong wagged a finger in the air as he continued facetiously. "Human?"
"Not quite."
The mocking bravado disappeared from Soong's face and was replaced with concern, as he realized what Archer meant. "I see," Soong said softly. So that's why Archer came to me.
"They were Augments," Archer continued. "Their genetically-enhanced DNA matched embryos stolen from a medical facility over twenty years ago." The captain paused for emphasis. "Stolen by you."
Soong couldn't hide the look of pride on his face.