“We’ve been ordered not to talk about that, Doctor. Ever.”
“Damn it, Ming, ask yourself why they’re keeping it a secret even from their own people. What if it’s because some admiral at Starfleet or some politician on Earth wants to see if the array can destroy chosen worlds on purpose? What if they want to make a weapon out of it?”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t be so sure, Ming. Power corrupts, and this array is about as close as we’ve come to absolute power.” Turned half away from her, his body language suggested he was ready to shut her out. She changed tactics. “Ming, you’re better than this.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I read the reports you wrote after you first got here.” She leaned sideways to catch his eye one last time. “You did some groundbreaking work. And you used to be a voice for mercy and reason. You represented everything Starfleet claims it stands for. Now you’re in charge of a project whose principal objective seems to be trapping and enslaving the Shedai.”
His mood darkened. “Actually, our primary objective is to eliminate the Shedai as a threat, for the good of the Federation and the galaxy at large. Studying their technology for new applications is actually our secondary mission.”
The revelation horrified Marcus. “So your most human option is slavery, and the only alternative is genocide?” Xiong didn’t seem inclined to respond to her outburst, so she added, “The Ming Xiong whose research I admired would never agree to be a party to this.”
“People change, Doctor.” Determination put a fierce cast on his angular features. “I’ve seen good people killed, watched nations push each other to the brink of war, and faced an enemy so powerful that I still have nightmares about it. I sent one of my few real friends to her death so we could obtain the intelligence T’Prynn brought us today. I’ve made more compromises, broken more promises, and shed more blood than I’d ever thought possible. The reasons why don’t really matter anymore. I’ve come too far and seen too much to believe that everything will be all right if only we make token gestures to morality. What matters now is that the whole galaxy seems to be out to kill us, and the Shedai are at the front of the line. So either help us get this array working, or get the hell out of my lab.”
Stung by Xiong’s vitriolic rebuke, Marcus stormed away, leaving him to his infernal device and willing collaborators. Those morons at Starfleet Command are going to get us all killed, she decided. It was time to put a halt to the madness, to plead her case to someone who would listen to reason and intervene before it was too late.
As she opened the secure hatch and left the Vault, she was not surprised to note that none of her so-called colleagues and peers paid the slightest heed to her departure. But she vowed they would not continue ignoring her for much longer.
Sequestered in her private office, T’Prynn drew quiet satisfaction from the comfort of slightly higher gravity and temperatures, and lower humidity and air pressure, than were standard aboard Vanguard—or, for that matter, inside most Starfleet vessels and facilities. She had configured her environmental controls to approximate as closely as possible the climate of her native Vulcan. It was a small indulgence, but one that made her daily work routine more agreeable.
A number of tasks still awaited her attention before that day’s duty shift drew to a close. She needed to decrypt a few packets of intercepted Klingon signal traffic, review reports from a handful of recently debriefed field operatives, scan the latest public news from both the Federation and its neighboring rivals for patterns of interest, and conduct a cursory review of the official identity files of all newly arrived visitors to the station to see if any triggered alerts from the biometric recognition systems concealed inside the docking bays and primary corridors.
It was a slow day aboard Vanguard, all things considered.
A soft beeping from the companel on her wraparound desk alerted her to an incoming subspace message on a secure frequency from Earth. She checked the encryption keys, which confirmed the message had originated at the headquarters of Starfleet Command. Following protocol, she tapped in her authorization code to accept the transmission. The Starfleet emblem on her panel’s vid screen was replaced by the careworn features of Admiral Selim Aziz, the director of Starfleet Intelligence. His skin was of an especially rich shade of brown, a visible testament to his Tunisian heritage. When he smiled, his gleaming teeth seemed almost blinding in contrast to his complexion. “Good morning, Lieutenant T’Prynn.”
“Good afternoon, Admiral.”
His smile faltered, then vanished. “Ah, yes. I forgot to account for local time aboard the station. My mistake.”
She saw no point in prolonging or capitalizing upon his apparent discomfort at the minor faux pas. “It’s of no consequence, sir. How can I assist you?”
“I noted with interest your report of a successful reinterview of Cervantes Quinn. Has the intelligence produced by that debriefing proved useful to the team in the Vault?”
“It has. Lieutenant Xiong informs me the new intel provided by Mister Quinn has been instrumental in the reconfiguration of the array, and it is expected to be of equal value when it comes time to bring the system fully on line.”
A sage nod from Aziz. “Excellent.” He eyed T’Prynn with suspicion. “I also noticed that your report did not explain how your reinterview managed to elicit this intelligence from Mister Quinn, when your initial interview failed to do so.” He folded his hands and leaned forward. “Without casting aspersions upon your interrogative methods, I am compelled to ask what made this latest debriefing more successful than the last.”
She had hoped no one would ask about this, but now that Aziz had, there would be no way to avoid an official record of the matter. “A most reasonable inquiry, Admiral. I extracted the information from Mister Quinn’s memory by means of a Vulcan mind-meld.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment, then nodded once. “From what I know of your people’s customs, that can’t have been an easy thing for you.”
Giving away nothing with her face or voice, she replied, “It was not, sir.”
“I commend you for making such an extraordinary effort, Lieutenant.” Concern creased his ebony brow. “However, it raises troubling questions about Mister Quinn.”
“Such as . . . ?” She focused on masking her alarm at the direction of the conversation.
“My first query would be whether he remembered this intelligence all along but simply chose not to divulge it during his first debriefing.”
“No, sir,” T’Prynn said with verbal force. “My opinion is that Mister Quinn was afflicted by a psychological block induced by emotional trauma. He was unable to recollect the details of that mission with sufficient clarity due to his distress at the death of his partner.”
Aziz pressed his index finger to his lips for a moment, striking a thoughtful pose. “Would you say that your mind-meld had the effect of helping him overcome that mental block?”
A small nod. “That would be a fair assessment.”
“So his memory of that day’s events are now clear in his mind?”
“I think they are, yes. The meld has greatly improved his specific recall.”
The admiral’s mood turned solemn. “Most unfortunate.” He paused, seemingly deep in thought. Before T’Prynn could ask him to explain, he continued. “If his memory had remained unreliable outside of the mind-meld, I might have been able to authorize a simple mind wipe for him and left it at that. But if he recalls the details of the Shedai’s technology clearly, even one of our engram erasures won’t hide that kind of detailed information from a Klingon mind-sifter.”