Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (21 page)

“I told him.”

“You told him? How?”

“Well, I must confess I’d have prefered to just contact him from the
Challenger,
but with you all watching me all of the time . . .”

“And rightly so!”

“All right, I can’t really hold that against you, can I? The fact is, being in a rehab colony put me in contact with other people who also needed rehabilitation.”

“So you got contacts with the Ferengi and others.”

“Yep, but I had no real need for them even after I was released. I was just hanging around, trying to live out my life in this century. But then Starfleet poked their noses into my life again, asking me to take a look at
Intrepid.
That’s when I came up with a plan. I couldn’t use
Challenger
’s communications system to contact Bok, at least not without alerting you Starfleet folks to what I was doing, who I was doing it with, and what we were planning.”

“But
Intrepid
’s communications system is a lot more limited.”

“To you, maybe. But remember, Commander, this is from my era. I know this gear, and how it works. I know how to work around it, and use it without you knowing about it.”

“And you let Bok know where to find us.”

“Exactly.”

“So . . . What about us?”

“What about you?”

“What are you going to do with us?”

Rasmussen looked surprised to be asked the question. “Nothing.”

“You can’t expect us to—”

“I expect you to do exactly what you came on board to do. Oh, I daresay Bok will have his guards watching you, to make sure you don’t interfere with our project, but other than that it’s the same mission. Only the support vessels have changed.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that Bok just came here to perform a scientific service.”

“Of course not. What he has in mind . . . is a business venture, and it won’t harm anyone. Anyone else, I suppose I should say. Poor Ensign Carter . . . This was supposed to have been done bloodlessly.”

“Yeah, right.” Carter’s family would be delighted to hear that.

“If you don’t believe me, come on up to the bridge. The science station is free for you to use. Well, Bok’s locked out the flight and command controls, but you can play with the sensors and the
Intrepid
’s archives to your heart’s content.” Rasmussen extended a hand. “Come on, let’s see what Bok’s up to.”

La Forge and Barclay exchanged a glance, then rose. “So, what’s this business venture?”

“Oh, that?” Rasmussen beamed excitedly. “It’s great! I’d love to tell you, but you know how Ferengi are about that kind of thing. You’ll love it when you hear, though. Seriously.” He hesitated, and shrugged. “Well, maybe not love it, but you
will
be impressed with the ingenuity of its execution.”

“Maybe I should just ask Bok himself,” Geordi said sourly.

“Maybe you should. He’s not such a bad guy, you know. He just has his own way of putting things across. He’s what we used to call damaged goods.”

“We still call it that,” La Forge said drily.

“Then I’m sure you understand what he’s like. Me, I don’t mind so much.”

“So you’ll tell me what this business deal is?”

“No . . . Geordi, you know, I feel a kinship with you. I’m an inventor, and you’re an engineer . . . I sometimes have to engineer things, and I daresay you’ve invented a thing or two in your time.”

“Yes,” La Forge said, playing along.

“Exactly, which means it’d just be unfair to you to tell you what we have in mind.”

“Unfair?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you ought to not know, or anything like that. I have no secrets from you now. It’s just that you’ll feel so much better to have worked it out for yourself than if I tell you.”

“Really?” La Forge was revisiting the idea of throttling Rasmussen, and damn the consequences.

“Of course! I really wish I could just tell you, but . . . Where would the challenge be if I just told you what I’m doing? When you work it out you’ll get such a buzz! I can’t take
that
away from you.”

“You told them
what
?” Bok demanded.

Rasmussen relaxed into the
Intrepid
’s center seat. “Look, you said yourself that your engineers couldn’t have gotten
Intrepid
up and running. These are the experts who did. They’ll be invaluable.”

“For interfering!” Bok knew the dedication of Starfleet far too well. Or perhaps, he thought, it was a hew-mon thing. Maybe he was wrong to go into partnership with a hew-mon. He was, after all, of the same make as Picard, the son-killer.

“For running essential systems that are not a security threat. Deflector control, sensors, and so on. It wouldn’t do our venture any good if we”—Rasmussen slapped one fist into a palm—“went face-first into a planet, would it?” Bok merely grunted, thinking about all the ways in which letting the Starfleeters live could cause problems. Mainly it was that they would try to sabotage the ship, and contact Starfleet.

“We’re going to need them when we reach the Infinite,” Rasmussen pressed. “And they
are
experts.”

Bok nodded reluctantly. “Very well. They can work on the sensors and other systems, but nothing that can be used to affect our navigation and flight control, and nothing that can be used to send transmissions. And always under armed guard.”

“Works for me,” Rasmussen agreed.

La Forge was tempted to refuse to order his staff to help Bok, but if it meant even the slightest chance to contact
Challenger,
it was worth it.

“Balis,” he said, “take charge of deflector control monitoring. Reg, you’ll aid the crew from the marauder that’s flanking us. I’ll take the sensors on the bridge. Everyone else . . . take a look at the environmental controls. They still need work.”

There was a chorus of “Yes sir.” Then the Starfleet crew-men left the mess and went back to work.

Barclay found Bok and Rasmussen standing in the corridor facing the segmented, copper-colored, three-meter
diameter vertical bowl that was
Intrepid
’s transporter platform. Rasmussen stood as far away from it as possible, shaking his head. “I’m glad we’re not using this thing to travel.”

“Me too,” Reg agreed.

Bok snorted. “There’s nothing to fear about a transporter.”

“Not now that there’s been two centuries of technological advances, but back in
Intrepid
’s day . . . They weren’t used for people that often. And this one’s been out of service for a couple of millennia.”

“Upgrades,” Bok said thoughtfully. “What a concept, making people buy the fixes to make their purchases work a little closer to the way they were supposed to . . .”

Rasmussen gave him a sidelong look. “Or a little safer. You know, in my century there was a real belief that transporters copy a person and kill the original. And you know how a copy of something degrades every time you copy it.” He shuddered.

“That’s not how transporters work.”

“Not now.”

“They’re much safer now,” Barclay agreed, half disbelieving. “Relatively speaking, that is. I mean, now and again you get the odd anomaly.”

“Anomaly?” Rasmussen echoed.

“Sometimes the pattern can be deflected by ion storms, or reflected back from atmospheric conditions, and then you find yourself in another reality, or that there are . . .” He coughed. “Two of you.”

“And when’s the last time anything like that happened?” Bok sneered.

“Well, actually, just a couple of years ago, we were experimenting with transporting active holograms, and power
surge through the transporter caused a matter echo . . . But we really don’t like to talk about that. It’s funny how, just when you think you’ve seen the worst, something even more distressing happens.” Reg shivered at the memory. “Then you have to find something for the other person to do, like join the Maquis, or explore the opposite side of the galaxy . . .”

“Opposite side?”

Bok turned away with a wave, and drew his communicator. “Enough monkey-brained opinions. Grak, is Sloe ready with his cargo?”

“Ready, Daimon.”

“Energize.”

As the three men watched, the transporter floor and ceiling lit up, and a human materialized, along with a bulky metallic tower-like device covered in metal and crystalline tubing. The device was on a small grav-sled, and the man had one hand on the handle of the sled. The man was around Rasmussen’s age, but had youthfully bright eyes in contrast to lank graying hair tied in a rough ponytail. He was tall, and wore drab clothes that he had probably bought new half a century ago and never needed to replace.

“Welcome aboard, Sloe.”

“Daimon.”

“Is the cloak ready to install?”

“It tested fine back on the marauder. Of course, that was with modern power systems, not twenty-second century ones. But I see no reason why it shouldn’t work as well here.”

“Excellent. I’ll need you to install it as quickly as possible.”

“It shouldn’t take long, really. It’s an older model, not
such complex connections to deal with.” Sloe patted the device as if it were a pet.

“Older, but hopefully no less effective.”

“The original model dates from before the Klingon civil war, so it’s bound to have been penetrated at some point, but more likely by the Romulans than by Starfleet.”

“Then let’s hope the Romulans didn’t share their data,” Rasmussen grumbled.

“Well, just in case they did, I’ve made a few modifications.”

“Modifications?” Barclay asked.

“This is Reg,” Rasmussen said to Sloe. “He’ll be assisting you.”

“But don’t let him touch the cloak itself,” Bok warned.

“Oh, right,” Sloe said. “Well, I’ve introduced an automated random modulation to the phase discriminator, and one or two other little tweaks. If anyone does get a peek through the cloak, the modulation should mean it doesn’t last very long, and they lose us again straight away.”

“Good,” said Bok. “Now stop wasting time. Get down to D deck and install it.”

La Forge powered up the long-range sensors on the bridge, and quickly scanned for some sign of
Challenger,
or any other Federation ship. There was nothing, and that made him uneasy.

He caught himself wondering whether he ought to have just asked Leah where they stood when he had the chance. It would be ironic if she had been waiting for him to make a move, and he now might never have the chance. He told himself to stop thinking like a lovesick teenager, and concentrate on the situation.

Slowly he looked around the bridge, not just in the
visible spectrum, for any sign that the mercenaries might be nervous enough to make mistakes, but everything looked normal. Then, La Forge turned his attention to the sensors, which gave him navigational information, but without the ability to affect the ship’s course. They were heading to a system near Ferengi space, Delta Five Gamma Zeta Alpha. It wasn’t one he knew, but the designation was vaguely familiar.

He felt his Klingon guard step closer, and decided it was time to start doing things the Klingon would recognize as engineering. Opening a toolkit, he started reconnecting a damaged monitor screen to a control panel fabricated back on
Challenger.

Some time later, Bok slid down the short stairway next to the main reactor, and approached the humans who were working there. “Sloe, Barclay,” Bok snapped. “How is my cloak progressing?”

“Quite well, actually,” Sloe replied, sounding surprised. “That’s Klingon workmanship for you. Built to last, which I suppose anything used by a Klingon has to be.”

“Good.” Bok leaned forward, right into Sloe’s face. “Now tell me what the problem is, or I’ll be terminating your contract the practical way.” It would be a pleasure, Bok decided.

“Why should there be a problem? This is all good solid workmanship, Bok.”

“You told me the cloak would be online an hour ago. It isn’t.”

Sloe managed a crooked smile, and waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, that problem. No, it’s okay actually, it’s all fixed now. No more problems.”

“What was it?”

“A compatibility issue. Klingon and Starfleet technology can be cobbled together easily enough, but this ship is ancient. The power subsystems are completely different from anything used in the past hundred years.”

“You’ve solved this?”

“I had to get Reg to adapt a few bits and pieces from—”

“Enough! If it works, it works. That’s all that matters.”

“Oh, it’ll work,” Barclay promised.

“Actions speak louder than words,” Bok reminded him. “Just do it.” Bok climbed back up out of engineering, and returned to the bridge. Grak was there, consulting with the Breen at the helm. “Grak, when you return to the marauder, keep your sensors focused on any pursuit by
Challenger.”

“Do we expect a pursuit?”

Bok grunted. “You can feel free to think that they’ll give up, but they’ll try hunting us down. These Starfleet types are like a tumor, coming back again and again.”

“That’s true.”

“Besides, the mercenaries we hired are the best available, and they have a formidable vessel, but the
Challenger
is a very powerful ship. And Kren has not checked in as agreed.”

Grak scowled. “I told you we should have tried to acquire a Romulan warbird. The
D’Deridex
-class would be more than able to hold her own against a
Galaxy
-class starship.”

“The attempt would have got us all killed. The Romulans have always been paranoid.”

“Then you’re going to need that cloak. Perhaps it’s possible to extend our cloaking field over
Intrepid—”

Bok waved the suggestion away. “Sloe assures me the cloak will be online momentarily. Once that is the case, we needn’t fear
Challenger
following us.”

“Assuming they don’t penetrate the cloak. Such secrets and technologies are notoriously short-lived.”

“Exactly why I have our other ship laying false warp trails across half the sector.
Challenger
can follow one of those for as long as it likes.”

At that moment, Sloe hurried on to the bridge, wiping his hands with a rag. “Daimon Bok, the cloak is ready.”