Pulling Strings
Unknown User has added you to the chat. Say hi!
Unknown User: The black skirt was a perfect pairing with the blouse. How was Camp Nath?
KT: Sharkies scare the shit out of me. And now I've got 12 of them following me everywhere.
Unknown User: if you're that scared, imagine how anyone who takes a shot at you will feel. Good. If you're up to it, I've got another lead you can track down.
[file upload: ]
KT: ?
Unknown User: Blackjack screwed over his own people too. Take that to Susan Markstrom, she'll fill in the blanks.
KT: I thought Susan took full responsibility for the Qari disaster during her court martial?
Unknown User: She did, but she didn't have to, and this document proves that. Ask Susan how the Qari were able to develop the bioweapon on their own, then show her that.
KT: Okay… and how does that help us?
Unknown User: This clears a good woman's name who should still be commanding a ship, and it helps build our case. Blackjack was setting up his own people.
KT: I see what you mean. Off to Starfleet Medical I guess?
Unknown User: Good guess. Probably better to dress more professionally this time. We're getting to the end point.
KT: One more thing. My Cop buddy wants to meet you.
Unknown User: I can't. Not yet.
KT: all this means nothing if you don't testify!
Unknown User: I mean that it's not time yet, it's not safe for me to come forward, even with your bodyguard.
Unknown User: You've trusted me so far. Just be patient a for a little bit longer, okay? I gotta get going. Don't forget to look up.
Unknown User has logged off.
As much as the Source was starting to frustrate me with the endless mystery, I knew he was right. We were starting to reach the end point of the investigation. I put on a nice two-piece business jacket and skirt to take the ten minute shuttle flight to San Francisco, and the might of the Federation itself, Starfleet Headquarters.
Starfleet Medical is a six story building on the Starfleet HQ Campus, sitting next to the Presidio Batteries just below the Merchant Road off-ramp of the Golden Gate bridge. The Building is painted in a god awful shade of pastel green that hasn't been changed since the Federation Starfleet was called the United Earth Starfleet. Across the road to the north in Marcus Miller Battery the Tucker Memorial Building, home to the SCOE (Starfleet Corps of Engineers). To the North-east on East Battery is Starfleet Command Proper in a large silver dome, which holds the SIC (Situational Information Centre) and Aki Nakamura's office, among other things.
From Torpedo Wharf to West Bluff is the main transport shuttle hub, with a direct tram to Pilot's Row, where the General Staff live in old-style houses in comfort. Crissy Field is open to the public, where a podium dominated the west end of the field for graduation ceremonies, while on the east end of the field you have baseball, hoverball, Frisby, and nice park spaces.
Of course, the largest part of HQ, stretching from West Battery all the way to Mountain Lake is Starfleet Academy – Earth Campus. 43 000 students a year come and go from this campus by the bay, not to mention all the business associated with the day-to-day running of the fleet. If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up getting trampled.
"Look out!" Susan shouted at me, dragging me away from a troupe leading out from the medical building, "It's lunch time. They'll squash you."
I'm never quite sure what to call Susan. Her full written title in academia is Captain Dr. Susan Markstrom, PhD (Genetic Medicine), MSc (Computer Science)
"Captain usually implies you're the CO as a Starship, but of course, not everyone in Starfleet is on a starship," Susan explained to me as we walked to her lab, "So in most cases, it's just my formal rank, usually only admirals use Captain Markstrom. Most of my students call me Dr Markstrom. My patients call me Dr Susan. My friends call me Susan. And you count as a friend, Kirin."
I've known Captain Doctor Susan for a decade now. She first came to my attention during the Torga V Crisis. Her old ship, the Intrepid class USS Resolute, was dispatched to help a colony that had suffered a computer virus ruining their automated planetary management systems. Susan used a direct neural interface to connect to an AI program she developed, successfully saving the colony by uploading a counter-virus.
It cemented Susan's reputation as the foremost expert of AI in Starfleet, until the Qari Disaster, which I asked her to tell me what happened.
"I.. made a mistake," Susan softly replies, dipping her head low behind her terminal in the lab, "I got caught up in my own ego. The Qari and the Gelvans were ready to go to war over that one planet. I started remembering all the stories about the Archers, the Kirks, the Picards, the Sulus, the stories that every Starship Captain dreams about having."
"I thought I could be the big hero, save the day. I didn't think through the consequences. When my CMO discovered that bioweapon in the Qari delegates, I.. I just acted. I thought that if I neutralized the virus, that would force the Qari to sit down with the Gelvans and have an honest talk."
"The Qari have a complex cybernetically-driven immune system. When the species encounters a new disease or sickness, they generate antibodies like anyone else," Susan explains on her console, "But in order to disseminate those antibodies, they have to be translated into data and uploaded to the Qari Central Database, which then transmits the 'cure' to each Qari individual by a form of tight-beam subspace transmission."
"So," Susan says with a sigh, "If I was going to neutralize the bioweapon, I had to upload my counter-virus to the central database. And to make sure their firewalls didn't block me, I used the Torga AI again."
So, what went wrong?
I can see the tears welling in Susan's eyes. She hides it well, grading the papers of her students. But I can read people as well as she can read medical papers.
"The AI… it was designed to be proactive, to anticipate future problems. So, it modified my counter-virus into a vaccine against future pandemics that had the same DNA as the bioweapon. Which, hopefully I'm making sense, is contained in the same protein chain as the Qari reproductive system."
"By the time I realized what happened, it was too late. The entire Qari population was sterilized, permanently."
The negotiations were called off immediately. By some miracle, the Federation Council managed to talk the Qari out of declaring war over the incident, but that was perhaps the only positive thing to come out of the disaster. Susan was court martialed for acting outside the scope of her authority as Captain of the Resolute (she never bothered to wait for orders from Command), and for violating the prime directive, which could have resulted in a life sentence on New Zealand.
"I worked out a deal with the JAG," Susan says to me after telling me about the court martial, "I'd take public responsibility for what happened, and they'd drop the prime directive charge, and I'd plead guilty to acting outside orders. For that, they took Resolute from me and assigned me to permanent ground assignment. I could have resigned, but I took the instructor's post instead."
Doesn't sound so bad to me.
"No, it was worse," Susan continues, shaking her head at me, "My parents are both scientists back home on Alpha Centauri. They said it went against everything they ever taught me, and they all but disowned me. My academic reputation was shattered. I'm not allowed to publish papers unless they get a direct sign-off from the Medical Board, and…" she stops, letting the first tear finally fall onto her desk, "And my husband filed for divorce the day I pled guilty. He said I loved Starfleet more than him. And… he's probably not wrong."
I can see how much this hurts Susan. And a part of me doesn't want to continue. I don't like to hurt my friends. But this? The evidence I had about Blackjack? I wouldn't be able to call myself her friend if I didn't show her.
I slid my PADD over across the desk, gently, and I told her she needed to see this. Susan took ten minutes to read through it. And the second tear fell onto her desk.
"No…" she cried, almost breaking my heart, "No… I don't… I don't believe this. Blackjack? He's a hero. He… he wouldn't have done this. He can't have done this!"
I hold her hand, gently, and I tell her its all true. Blackjack had gone behind Susan's back and visited Qari Prime before the Resolute arrived. He provided the bioweapon to the Qari delegates, and he was the one to tell them to use it if the Gelvans didn't backdown. At the minimum, Susan could get her conviction overturned for a new trial. At the maximum, maybe it could have redeemed the Federation in the eyes of the Gelvans and the Qari.
Susan dried her eyes and looked at me, more confident, more focused. "Kirin… thank you for letting me see this. It wouldn't take a PhD to assume you have a case being built. How can I help?"
Susan would have a few different roles in our little party. She'd be our primary go-between with the Fleet. She'd also be our tech and scientific expert if that became important to the investigation. Susan was weapons-qualified – as all Starfleet personnel are, but she had far more effective weapons than a phaser at her disposal. Just minutes after our talk, she told me she had already started programming a new AI to crack any possible encryption that Blackjack might have employed.
All in all, we had a pretty great team. For all my personal issues with cops, John Liley and his team are the greatest detectives in the Federation, maybe the galaxy. Dan Beckenridge and his Marines were out for blood, and they'd stop any Klingon or mercenary help that Blackjack might have dared to sick on us. And Susan could hack through any digital protection he might have set up.
But I thought there was more I could do. So, after I left Starfleet Medical, I walked across the campus to HQ, and I left a simple letter for Aki-Ojisan, or anyone else in the Admiralty.
To whom it may concern:
Sources have presented compelling evidence that Admiral "Blackjack" Thomas Ashcroft may be involved with criminal elements in the Federation and beyond. Would you care to comment?
- Kirin Terev, FNN Senior Correspondent.
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