Keith R.A. DeCandido was born and raised in New York City to a family of librarians. He has written over two dozen novels, as well as short stories, nonfiction, eBooks, and comic books, most of them in various media universes, among them
Star Trek, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Marvel Comics, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity, Resident Evil, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Farscape, Xena, and
Doctor Who. His original novel
Dragon Precinct was published in 2004, and he's also edited several anthologies, among them the award-nominated
Imaginings and two
Star Trek anthologies. Keith is also a musician, having played percussion for the bands the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players, the Boogie Knights, and the Randy Bandits, as well as several solo acts. In what he laughingly calls his spare time, Keith follows the New York Yankees and practices
kenshikai karate. He still lives in New York City with his girlfriend and two insane cats.
TERRI OSBORNE made her professional fiction writing debut in 2003 with the critically acclaimed “Three Sides to Every Story,” the Jake Sisko and Tora Ziyal story in the
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tenthanniversary anthology,
Prophecy and Change. Her other fiction work includes “ ‘Q’uandary,” the Selar story in the
Star Trek: New Frontier anthology
No Limits; Star Trek: S.C.E.: Malefictorum, the landmark fiftieth installment in the series; and “Eighteen Minutes” in the tenth-anniversary anthology
Star Trek: Voyager: Distant Shores. Beyond that, she is hard at work at more fiction, both in and out of the
Star Trek universe, including an original dark fantasy novel set in Dublin, Ireland in 1940. Find out more about Terri at her Web site: www.terriosborne.com.
Chapter 1
The first thing Lieutenant Commander Domenica Corsi did when the mess hall doors opened was drop to the deck on one knee.
The second thing she did was draw her phaser.
Before she could figure out exactly what had flown through the doors at eye level, it changed shape, morphing until a winged yellow ball about the size of her head floated in the air before her, complete with a strange, almost cartoonlike smiling face on its surface. The idea of Dominion incursion crossed her mind, but she quickly dismissed it.
It wasn't their style.
Why do I have a feeling Fabe's got something to do with this?
"Sorry, Dom," Fabian Stevens's contrite voice said from behind her. "It kind of got away from me there."
I like him, but I swear I'm going to have to kill him.
She holstered her phaser. "Kind of?" Brushing back a strand of blond hair, she turned on him, fully prepared to read him the riot act for losing a dangerous device on her ship. He, of all people, should have known better.
She stopped cold at the sight of an elaborate contraption sitting on top of his head. Black goggles rested on his forehead, with red, yellow, and blue leads running back to oddly shaped earpieces. Tiny red lights at the edges of the goggles' faceplate suggested that the device was still working. The only thing missing was a laser, but she was sure he probably had one in there somewhere. To her, it looked more like a truly unfortunate attempt at a Borg disguise than anything else. Corsi gestured at the contraption. "What is on your head?"
A Cheshire-cat smile spread across Fabian Stevens's face, and a mischievous glint she knew all too well lit his brown eyes.
Why do I suddenly get the feeling I'm going to regret asking that?
"A little idea I had," he said, gesturing with gloves that were covered in the same red, yellow, and blue leads. "I was reading over some of the reports from Project Voyager. Do you know they've got a mobile emitter for their EMH? Then I remembered this report about an experimental control interface that Commander La Forge tried out a few years ago. It plugged right into the implants for this VISOR unit that the commander used to have. Ended up acting almost like an old-fashioned virtual reality unit, but this actually allowed him to control an experimental probe. He was able to guide it through the upper levels of a gas giant with this interface and directly interpret the data. Okay, yeah, the research was abandoned when the war broke out, but it's still a useful concept. Of course, I had to completely redesign it to work on someone that had no sensory implants, but it occurred to me that if we could combine those two ideas, we'd have -- "
"Something with some very interesting possible uses," Corsi interjected. Her mind began to work over the various potential options, and liked what it saw.
Stevens nodded, his voice taking on that tone that she had long since learned to associate with engineers when they were on a roll. "Took me a while to figure out how the mobile emitter worked, and I'm still not sure I managed to get everything. I mean, come on, reverse-engineering technology from the future? I love a challenge, but according to their reports, this thing's got twenty-ninth-century technology built into it, and Voyager's engineer has a very weird way of keeping her notes. It wasn't easy, but I finally figured it out. Adding antigrav circuitry would make it too bulky to be practical. Wait a minute." The look in his eyes told her he'd had an idea. He walked back into the mess hall, placing the headset goggles on the table beside him and taking off a pair of gloves as he sat and began working on a padd. Surprisingly, his short dark hair wasn't mussed from the headgear. Neat trick.
"Fabe? Why aren't you working on this in the hololab?"
"Had to eat sometime," he said with a shrug, as though there were any other answer.
She turned back toward the flying yellow ball, which was still staring at her with that inane, childlike grin. The idea certainly had a lot of potential, she couldn't deny that. A mobile hologram that they could control from the bridge of the da Vinci -- that could look like anything or anyone -- was nothing short of tactical genius. Holograms as distractions were easy, child's play, even, but a hologram that could take an active offensive stance was something else.
Then there were the intelligence-gathering possibilities. The old saying "If I could only be a fly on the wall for that meeting" would take on a whole new meaning. It would almost be like having a Dominion shape-shifter working on their side. Starfleet Intelligence would probably love to get their hands on something like this.
"Can this thing project something that can carry a weapon, too?"
The only answer Corsi got was the chirp of her combadge. "Commander Corsi?" She'd never heard fear in quite that manner; it filled Ken Caitano's voice.
"Caitano? What is it?"
Silence answered.
"Caitano?"
A rock began to form in the pit of her stomach. Caitano was third-generation Starfleet, with commendations for valor during the Dominion War. It had only been two days ago that he'd saved the ship during the fight with the Silgov. The idea that something had struck him with that level of fear didn't set well. "Computer, location of Crewperson Caitano."
"Crewperson Caitano is in his quarters."
Unable to dismiss the sense of urgency that was crawling up her spine, she hit her combadge, "Corsi to Hawkins. Something's wrong. Meet me at Caitano and Deverick's quarters."
Closing that connection, she then said, "Corsi to Poynter, emergency site-to-site transport. Deck four, section nine."
She materialized a few meters down the corridor from the room, taking off at a sprint toward the door. When she got there, she buzzed the door. There was no answer.
"Computer, security override. Priority one. Access code Corsi Gamma Three Two Two."
The door slid aside to reveal a brightly lit room. "Caitano?" she called.
She heard the turbolift doors slide open down the hall. Vance Hawkins, Lauoc Soan, and Rennan Konya walked toward her, concern in Hawkins's dark features.
"No answer at the door," she said. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Hand on her phaser, Corsi followed Hawkins through the door and into the quarters' small sitting room. Caitano and Deverick had somehow managed to luck into one of the two-room quarters that had been added during the ship's refit, so it wasn't until she reached the bedroom that she saw it. Caitano lay facedown on the floor, a trail of dark blood working its way from his left ear down the side of his face. She reached down and checked his neck for a pulse.
Nothing.
No.
Her fingertips registered one very faint beat.
She hit her combadge hard enough that it was sure to leave a bruise. "Corsi to sickbay, incoming wounded. Medical emergency. Poynter, beam Caitano directly to sickbay and then don't let anyone use it without letting me know." She'd have to get permission to lock the transporters down, but that would do for the moment. "Konya, go down there, too. If he so much as breathes a word, I want to know about it. Use the security channel."
Laura Poynter was nothing if not prompt. Before Corsi could finish talking, the shimmer of the transporter formed around Caitano's body and he disappeared, leaving behind a tiny patch of blood-soaked carpet. The Betazoid Konya was already out the door.
"Lauoc, set up in the corridor. Not even Captain Gold gets in here without my permission, understood?"
"Yes, sir," the diminutive Bajoran replied.
While Hawkins worked on getting a set of holographic pictures of the scene, she walked back to the archway and stood between the bedroom and the small sitting room. What she needed at that moment was a single visual sweep.
The layout of the place was typical of the general redesign for two-person crew quarters that the ship had received after its near-destruction at Galvan VI -- sure, she'd seen smaller apartments on Earth, but this was still more livable than some of the ships Corsi had been on in her day. The bedroom had two beds that had been fixed into opposite corners from the archway. Caitano's was to her right, against the room's exterior wall. Deverick's bed sat in much the same position, but against the interior wall. Each bed had an accompanying nightstand, and a narrow shelf for personal effects ran down the length of both the interior and exterior walls. The shelf near Deverick's bed held two small starship models. In what space he had between the shelf and the room's window, Caitano had placed scattered pictures, a couple of padds, knickknacks, and something else. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked, pointing toward the shelf.
Hawkins followed her finger, getting an image of the shelf while he was at it. Both black eyebrows raised. "Looks like a bar of gold-pressed latinum," he said. "Wonder how he got that?"
"He has a weird fascination for the Ferengi markets," Corsi said. "Wong was talking to him about it the other day in the mess hall. One of his stocks probably did well. What I wonder is what the hell he thinks putting it on display like that is going to get him."
"Maybe we should ask Deverick?"
Corsi made a mental note to do just that while she inspected the rest of the shelf's contents. She recognized the friendly eyes, long face, and aquiline nose of Caitano's father in three framed pictures that were perched near the head of the bed. One looked like a snapshot from the younger man's graduation. His father's arm was wrapped around his shoulder, and both generations looked as though it were the happiest day of their lives. An older woman with features similar to, but more robust than, the younger Caitano's -- Corsi automatically presumed she was his mother, although she'd only ever met the professor and his son -- was on his other side. She hoped Dr. Lense could work one of her mir...
