Star Trek Corps of Engineers: Ghost Read online

  And she suddenly understood something else, too. If she hadn’t discovered those chromosomal abnormalities, or hadn’t noticed the fresh flowers or the fruit, the ghost logs would’ve invited her to compare Jennifer’s patterns from two separate transport sites.

  And the last place she transported from. So she knew she was in danger and she was trying to leave a message…but why not go to the authorities?

  She said, “Why did you kill her? Why Duren?”

  “I couldn’t let either destroy a lifetime of work.”

  “We go away, too, and you really think people won’t investigate Drura Sextus? You’re dreaming.”

  Strong’s laughter was hard, cruel, and a bit triumphant. “Let them. They won’t find anything.”

  I knew it… “That place…the one with the waterfall. It’s underground, isn’t it?” She’d scored a hit; a muscle jumped in Strong’s cheek. “What are you?”

  Strong said, very quietly, “Isn’t the real question: What was Jennifer?”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I’ll do better than that.” The point of the phaser wagged aft beyond the ship’s science and engineering stations. “Into the transporter, please.”

  “No. You can only kill me once.”

  “Not true.” The phaser tracked down to her abdomen. “I can kill the baby first.”

  She was surprised by how quickly that decided it. She wouldn’t let anything happen to the baby, but complying with what Strong wanted—and clearly, he aimed to beam her out in the widest possible scatter—was tantamount to a death sentence to both her and her child. Saad’s child.

  “All right.” She put her hands up, easing back from the point of the phaser. “Just don’t shoot. Not yet. We can talk about this. If there’s something medically wrong, if that’s what was going on with Jennifer…”

  She was babbling, she knew, but her innermost thoughts focused on the baby: Your mother loves you; but I’ve got to try, so whatever happens next…

  Strong was circling, moving to crowd behind, and this would be her last chance because she’d never have another. She turned with Strong, never relinquishing his gaze—that’s right, look at my eyes, keep looking—and as she took a step back and then another, Strong kept pace, the distance between them never changing.

  Then she shifted her weight, stumbled as her feet tangled, then swayed as her center of gravity pulled her left, made her clutch at a bulkhead. Strong wasn’t ready, and now he’d overcompensated; he was closer than before

  What I do, I do for you, baby; this is for you.

  Moving faster than she ever imagined a pregnant woman could, Lense grabbed the bulkhead with her left hand, cantilevered her body, then snapped her right leg toward Strong. Her boot caught him in the stomach, and the man let out a huff of air in surprise and sudden pain. He doubled, and then Lense charged. She smacked against his chest, plowing into the center of his mass, her momentum and bulk sending them both crashing to the deck. Strong grunted as he smacked against metal; his head struck with a sickening thud, and his body went limp for a moment just as she heard the clack of the phaser spinning away.

  Now, while he’s down, get the phaser, get the phaser!

  Rolling, she pushed off, lunging for the weapon. But she was ungainly, still too slow; she’d only gotten this far because surprise was on her side. She heard Strong behind her, felt him rearing up, and she twisted, tried to aim a kick for his face—

  Then, a crushing pressure encircled her throat, squeezing off her air. An image flashed in her mind: Duren, his head slipping from his shoulders, his neck nearly sawn in two.

  No, no!

  Panicking, Lense bucked, her fingers scrambling for her neck. Something there, muscular as an arm…

  Whatever gripped her propelled her to the bulkhead. She put up her hands, too late. Her face smashed against metal; there was a crunch like eggshells as her nose shattered. Pain exploded in her face. She hit so hard and with so much force that she went limp, nearly lost consciousness. Blood spurted from her ruined nose, and the brackish taste of warm rust filled her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue.

  Then just as quickly, she was jerked back, flailing, still unable to breathe. Her pulse pounded in her temples; black ate at the edges of her vision.

  And then, just as abruptly, the pressure around her throat lessened, enough for her to haul in a wheezy, tortured breath. The air hacked her ravaged throat, and she coughed, spraying blood, her lungs on fire.

  But now she could see. Now she knew.

  Blood dribbled from Strong’s mouth. Except the liquid was golden, like honey, and what held her…

  No…my God, what is he…?

  Preston Strong had no rope, and he didn’t have a third arm or hand.

  But he had grown a tentacle.

  “I could kill you.” Strong was still crouching, breathing hard. She’d torn his shirt; she saw where her nails had scored his chest. What passed for his blood oozed in golden ribbons, and more sludged along his chin, dripping like molasses to the deck. His hair was wild, his eyes gleaming with fury. The tentacle around her neck—muscular as a man’s forearm and tough as thick leather—tightened until Lense gagged. “It would be so much easier to just kill you and be done with it. But then there’d be a body, and I can’t take that chance. Now get up.”

  He rose, scooping up the phaser as he did. He didn’t need it. The tentacle—perhaps six meters long—jerked her to her feet then half-dragged her to the platform.

  Her face throbbed; her chest was on fire; but her mind scrabbled to absorb what she was seeing.

  Like a Founder, he’s a metamorph…

  She tripped her way up the platform and then the tentacle held her in place as Strong crossed to the transporter controls. The console beeped as he initiated the transport program and only then, a precious few seconds before beam-out, did the tentacle withdraw, slithering back toward Strong, as if being reeled onto a spool, and melding into his flesh.

  “Wh—why?” Blood clogged her throat. “Wh—what are…”

  Too late.

  “What do you mean, there’s a force field?” Fury crackled in Stern’s voice and then she was moving, pushing past Faulwell and another security guard. She joined T’Var at the mouth of the umbilical leading to Jennifer Almieri’s shuttle. “There can’t be! Someone would have to override SpaceDock computer protocols and that would set off an alarm and…”

  “Nonetheless, there is a force field now.” The Vulcan’s face belied no emotion as he punched in an authorization code. A hum as a panel slid to one side, and then a secondary system’s control console whirred into place.

  “Admiral!” A security guard, his face slick with sweat, staring at a tricorder. “I’m reading transporter initiation!”

  “Can we override?” Stern snapped. The security guard jerked his head in a quick negative.

  “Come on, come on.” Faulwell’s fists bunched in frustration. “You’ve got to hurry!”

  The Vulcan’s fingers flew over the controls. “Believe me when I say, Dr. Faulwell: You do not need to remind me.”

  She felt it, the same tingling over her skin that she’d felt countless times before; a flattening of perception in that tiny nanosecond before dematerialization.

  Elizabeth Lense had only known true despair twice before: almost eight months ago when she was snatched from Saad—and the other, in a past she’d thought buried and lost.

  Then, just as her world broke apart, she saw Bart Faulwell stir—and change—and…

  Help! Her mouth moved, but her brain slowed as she dissolved in the matter stream…help…

  …but before her eyes…

  …me…

  …Bart changed from a he…

  …no, can’t be…

  …to a she.

  And then…

  CHAPTER 17

  Darkness. Cold. A sense of movement and then pressure. Someone calling…

  Am I…?

  And then the baby thumped.<
br />
  “Uh.” Lense eased open her eyes to find Stern, looking thunderous, on her left, Scotty crowding in on her right. Swallowing was torture, and her mouth tasted bad: dead blood and raw meat. “Wha…”

  “Easy, lass.” Scotty put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re in Medical. They had to keep you in stasis for a time. Three days, give or take.”

  “The ba—by…”

  “Still kicking. That youngster’s a fighter. No harm done, so far as we know.”

  “St—stro—nngg…”

  “Dead, we think,” Stern put in. “Judging from the residual energy signature in the shuttle, he was phasered to subatomic particles. We sure as hell didn’t do it. We only just managed to…”

  She broke off, looking up at the sound of footsteps coming from Lense’s right—footsteps—and then Faulwell elbowed in beside Scotty. “Hey, they said…” His voice trailed off as he saw her face. “Elizabeth, what’s…?”

  It’s not Bart! Lense struggled up, the sudden movement making the room spin. “N—no.” She coughed. “No…not Ba…”

  “Relax, Commander. That’s Faulwell,” Stern said, her voice knifing through Lense’s panic. “He’s the one who alerted us, after he came to. He was attacked in his quarters.”

  “Yeah, and my data got wiped,” Faulwell said. “Everything’s gone.”

  “And if you’re wondering how we knew to come to Almieri’s ship, we didn’t have a clue,” Stern said. “I only figured it out after Starfleet Security Central contacted me wanting to know why I’d authorized a priority tap on your private communications. I hadn’t. Someone who looked like me had. Probably the same thing that masqueraded as Faulwell.”

  Lense was bewildered. “Then…ho—how…?”

  Stern grunted. “How come you’re alive? We think it saved you. Near as we can figure, it killed Strong, reversed the matter stream, but then held you in the pattern buffer. A precaution maybe, so whatever had been done to you could be…stalled until we figured out a fix. And then it just transported itself out, likely to a cloaked ship.” She folded her arms across her chest. “But whatever it was, it’s gone.”

  Lense relaxed, fractionally. But there were a million questions crowding into her mind, something that Stern must’ve read because she said: “Here’s what we think, near as can be determined. There must’ve been a sequestered data stream married to the transporter pattern buffer. When you were beamed out, that data stream merged with your pattern. The data stream contained, essentially, those anomalous codes we’d…you’d found in Almieri’s body.”

  Oh, no. Her eyes widened. “Is…it…did…?”

  “Yes.” Stern touched her arm. “It was in you. Scotty couldn’t resolve it once the streams married.”

  Then I’m going to die. Lense couldn’t breathe. Why did they bring me out of stasis? It’s only a matter of time. Hell, time might be the trigger…

  Stern was talking again: “It can’t hurt you, Commander. It’s been rendered inert. You can thank your baby for that. It seems that the fetus’s DNA mounted some sort of response and effectively neutralized whatever this stuff is. The doctors say that the sequences have been excised from your DNA and chewed up. That kid’s an efficient little bugger; just wish there was some for us to study.”

  Lense tried to form the words: “Sh—shape…”

  “Shapeshifters,” Faulwell said. “We know, Elizabeth. My data may have been wiped, but they can’t get at what’s up here.” He tapped his temple. “That’s what the script on those ruins was about.”

  The Tholian descriptions were quite precise, Faulwell explained. While they mentioned these shapeshifters’ many abilities, they did not describe the shapeshifters’ need to revert to a gelatinous or liquid form.

  “So they’re not Founders,” Faulwell concluded. “Then who?”

  Scotty grunted. “I can tell ya. I’ll bet they’re the Chameloids. Drura Sextus is in Klingon space, and so is Rura Penthe.”

  Faulwell considered this. “It fits. The Tholian descriptions make it sound as if these shapeshifters were a genetically enhanced species so rare as to be practically mythical. The only record in the Starfleet database references Stardate 9521.6, the date when Dr. McCoy and Captain Kirk were sentenced to the Klingon penal planetoid, Rura Penthe, and they met one.”

  “A charming vixen named Martia—and no one’s seen hide nor hair of one since, good riddance. Leonard thought that maybe the Chameloid might be native. They had one form—big hairy brute, he was, and remarkably well-adapted to cold.”

  “Well, there’s precedent for considering that the Chameloids’ abilities might be linked to temperature; there are any number of shape-memory polymers responsive to temperature. But there’s been no opportunity to study one.” Then Faulwell scowled. “Here’s what I don’t get: It left me alive. It had to know I’d at least remember something.”

  “Lad, whatever attacked you left you alive on purpose. It was warning us, maybe—as much as maybe it dared.”

  Stern nodded. “Maybe the same with Elizabeth then: It didn’t like what was happening to his or her people, or maybe how they’re being used, if they are.”

  Lense cleared her throat: “Th—then why not…come right out…and sa—say so?”

  No one had an answer for that.

  About the rest, they could only speculate.

  Almieri’s original expedition might have run into one or perhaps more Chameloids some twenty years ago. Or maybe they’d stumbled onto the process for manufacturing them; no one was sure. The Tholians specified that the Chameloids were genetically engineered, though the Tholians never specified who had done the work. While Tholians were masters at energy manipulation, genetic-enhancement wasn’t in their playbook.

  Stern said, “Here’s one for you. I tried raising Drura Sextus, got no response. I got a starship diverted to investigate. The place is a ghost town. If there was anything at the Drura Sextus site, it’s gone now—and has been for a while. Meaning that whatever’s going on is happening somewhere else. Jennifer Almieri and the others haven’t been going to Drura Sextus for a real long time. And yet Almieri’s grant kept getting renewed and her destinations approved over and over again.”

  Faulwell asked. “Who’d front a phantom operation?”

  “Well, now that’s a damn good question, isn’t it? Just ask yourself: Who stands to gain if you can make a shapeshifter?”

  Silence.

  Then Scotty said, “Somehow I think that’s a dangerous question.”

  “Yeah,” Stern said. “Like maybe the answer can get you killed.”

  They had one more shot: the material the Chameloid left when Strong licked that envelope. But it had degraded into vermicelli.

  And they never did find Livilla Darly.

  That didn’t surprise Lense. Because before she was whisked away in that transporter beam, she’d caught just a glimpse of bronze hair.

  She knew.

  EPILOGUE

  One week later:

  A harpsichord softly playing: Wanda Landowska weaving strands of a Bach fugue into an ever more complex melody. The kid liked the music, too; he was jammin’.

  She was sorting through piles of Jennifer’s papers. There was a lot of detritus here, what remained of a life about which Lense knew very little. It was also late, but the transporter’s privacy block was on. Though…

  That guy standing outside the first time I was here…Strong?

  Felt wrong. He could’ve killed her then. Then who…?

  The shrill of Almieri’s comm made her jump; then she remembered that she’d left word as to where she’d be. So she wasn’t surprised when Julian Bashir’s face shimmered into focus.

  “Still hard at it?” He cocked his head and squinted. “Is it my imagination, or is your nose seated on your left cheek now?”

  Her hand went to her nose which, she knew, was planted exactly where it ought to be. And her shiners were gone, too. “Don’t be a creep. And I’m almost done with the papers. I’ve still got a
ll the artifacts and Jennifer’s personal things…” She made a vague gesture. “What’s up? You get anywhere?”

  Bashir grunted. “Now you’re being witty, right? It’s going to take us a long time to crack this, but we can do it. One thing, though: I’ve figured out the mechanism. One of the components appears to be a mitochondrial poison. Without mitochondria, the cell has no fuel, and without fuel, it rapidly dies. Normal decomposition would’ve been sped up tenfold and that accounts for Almieri’s advanced state of decomposition.”

  He paused so dramatically that Lense said, “You want a drum roll?”

  (Actually, she was impressed.)

  Bashir made a face. “Spoilsport. Oh, and the trigger, I think I figured that one out as well.” Another dramatic pause. “Smell.”

  “You’re kidding.” That was Lense’s immediate reaction, but her mind skipped to that lone bottle of…“Perfume,” she blurted.

  “Precisely, or any volatile that can cross lipid membranes into each and every cell. Once begun, the chain is an escalating cascade. Inevitable.”

  “So Jennifer was murdered.” Saying it out loud made it real.

  “Perhaps because she’d discovered whatever genetic manipulation was being done was finally too much of a horror, and she was eliminated.”

  Or maybe she got cold feet. Uncharitable, but Lense thought that might be true, too. “We’ll never really know.”

  “Maybe not today. We’ve still got work ahead of us, though…but…”

  “What?”

  “I think this has to stay between you and me, Elizabeth. It’s one thing to have that Tholian script, but it’s another for us to have what might be a new kind of weapon, even if we don’t know how to use it yet. Wipe your data, my friend.”

  Could she do that? She hesitated, and he said, “You have to promise me, Elizabeth. It won’t be gone. I’ll have it, but I’m safe. No one knows about me. Plus, you’ve got the baby to think of.”