La Forge cut in, "Then there's still the 'Royal Protocol' to deal with." He turned his synthetic eyes from Kadohata to Konya as he explained. "The Borg don't have to grow new queens from scratch-they can just reprogram existing female drones with the operating system for one."

He looked back at Kadohata as she noted, "That's where your nan.o.bot sabotage came into play."

"Right," La Forge said. The chief engineer's face showed no anger, but Konya could feel the man's ire coiling inside him. "It was designed not to give the Borg time to adapt once it was deployed. But it sounds like they acquired an unreleased specimen and reverse-engineered it."

The unrelenting negativity was raising Kadohata's pulse and blood pressure. She asked La Forge, "Isn't there any other way to disrupt their link?"

"Maybe," said the chief engineer. "But I have no idea how to go about looking for it. We have no access to the Collective, no living Borg drones to experiment on, and no time to do the research. Plus, last time-" Words seemed to catch in his throat, and Konya felt La Forge's profound discomfort as the man made himself finish his sentence. "Last time I had Data to help me."

Konya had never met Data, but like most people in Starfleet he had heard more than a few tall tales about the android. The last such story had not had a happy ending: Data had sacrificed himself to save Captain Picard's life and destroy a ship-based thalaron weapon that had boasted enough power to exterminate entire planets with a single shot. Judging from La Forge's pained expression, Konya surmised that Data and the chief engineer had been close friends as well as colleagues.

"Mister Konya," Kadohata said, commanding his attention. "For now, transphasic torpedoes still work against the Borg. Do you know what makes these warheads tick?"

"Sort of," Konya said. "They're based on creating dissonant feedback pulses in an asymmetrically phased subs.p.a.ce compression wave." As he had expected, his answer provoked nods from La Forge and Kadohata and a confused stare from Crusher. For the doctor's benefit, he added, "Essentially, the torpedo spreads out the energy of the wave among multiple subs.p.a.ce phase states. When the Borg modulate their defenses against one or more phases of the compression pulse, they make themselves vulnerable to the remaining pulses. And the phase shifts vary randomly, so the Borg can't antic.i.p.ate the transphasic state of one torpedo based on the previous one." Crusher nodded.

For the first time since the meeting had started, Kadohata sounded hopeful. "How else can we apply that theory?"

"I've started working on creating a transphasic mode for our shield generators," Konya said. "If I'm right, they should make it very hard for the Borg to score direct hits on us. But we still have to be careful-it won't take them long to change over to wide-dispersal firing patterns. And the downside of these protocols is power drain. Running them'll cut our maximum warp speed down to nine-point-one, and there's a risk we could burn out the shield emitters in a prolonged battle."

Crusher asked, "How about the phasers? Could we rig them to fire a transphasic pulse?"

"Sure," Konya said, "if you feel like blowing up all our emitter crystals." Putting aside his sarcasm, he continued, "An iron-60 crystal matrix might be able to handle it, but not at power levels high enough to be effective. The essential problem is that phasers are designed to synchronize energy streams, and transphasic weapons rely on unsynching them."

"Apples and oranges, then," Crusher said.

"More like apples and trout," La Forge replied.

Kadohata keyed in some notes on her padd. "Konya, can you have the transphasic shields working before we reach Korvat?"

"Yes," he said. He looked at La Forge and added, "I'll need some help from you and your team in engineering, though."

"You've got it," La Forge said. "Send down the specs and we'll make it happen."

The second officer finished tapping on her padd. "Keep me posted on your progress. I'd like to have at least one bit of good news for the captain before we go into combat." She looked around at the other officers and nodded. "Thanks, everyone."

Crusher was the first person out of La Forge's office, followed by Konya and Kadohata, who walked together to the same turbolift. His psionic sense of the second officer's physical state made him aware of her myriad minor aches and pains.

As the two of them stepped into the turbolift, he tried to sound sympathetic as he said, "Stressed out, huh?"

"A little," Kadohata said, her London-like accent enhancing her gift for understatement. "I never look forward to giving the captain bad news, but that's all we seem to have lately."

He nodded. "You carry most of your stress in your lower back," he said. "It must get uncomfortable."

"Yes," she said with a suspicious glance. "It does."

"If you'd like to relieve some of that tension, I could-"

"I'm married, Lieutenant. Happily. With three children."

Konya blinked, amused by her reaction. "That's nice. I was going to say that I could recommend some excellent ma.s.sage-spa programs in the holodeck that would help.... Sir."

"Oh," Kadohata said. Keeping her eyes on the turbolift doors, she added, "Thanks." After a moment, she added, "Sorry."

Konya felt Kadohata's pulse quicken and her temperature rise. But even without his empathic senses, he would have been hard-pressed not to notice her intense blush response. Red is a good color on her, he decided with a mischievous smirk.

Worf carried his bat'leth and walked at a quick step through the corridor, eager to reach the holodeck. The Enterprise was still at least two hours from Korvat and ready for action; now it was time for him to clear his thoughts and sharpen his focus, and for him that meant sixty minutes of exertion in his most intense "calisthenics" holoprogram, which La Forge had facetiously nicknamed "Nausicaans with Knives."

A female Bajoran ensign cast a wary look at the weapon in Worf's hand as he pa.s.sed by her. The Klingon honor blade, which had become a familiar sight to many of Worf's shipmates on the EnterpriseD, continued to draw bemused stares from his new comrades. It had only added to his already fearsome reputation.

He arrived at the holodeck portal and reached over to activate his calisthenics routine. To his surprise, there was already a program running, one that he didn't recognize. It wasn't marked as private, and the portal wasn't locked, so he tapped a control on the companel to open the doors.

Magnetic seals released with a soft, rising hum. Then a quasi-hydraulic hiss of escaping air accompanied a muted rumbling of servomotors as the doors parted, revealing a majestic vista of jagged stone, ethereal mist, and azure sky.

Jasminder Choudhury stood on the mountaintop ledge with her back to Worf. She raised her arms in a fluid motion from her sides until her palms met high above her head. Her rib cage retracted as she exhaled and lowered her arms. Then she finished the traditional yoga breathing exercise by bringing her hands back together, palm to palm, in front of her chest.

Worf stepped into the serene-looking holographic simulation and caught the scent of alpine sage in the cool, thin air. Behind him, the holodeck doors closed with an obtrusive whine and an echoing thud, and then they vanished into the panorama of mountain peaks jutting up through a slow-rolling sea of clouds.

Choudhury inhaled and lifted her arms again, and she seemed to take no notice of Worf's arrival. As her palms met above her head, he cleared his throat with a resonant grunt of annoyance.

She continued her exercise until she had completed another slow exhalation, and her hands were once again pressed together in front of her. Then she let her arms drop to her sides as she turned and cast an untroubled smile in Worf's direction. "Yes, Commander?"

"What are you doing here?"

The trim, tall woman smirked. "Yoga."

He furrowed his brow at her flippant answer. "I reserved this hour for my private use."

"I thought you'd reserved Holodeck Two," she said.

"No, I reserved this holodeck." As he studied her face, he became convinced that she was not surprised by this apparent and unusual scheduling mistake. "This was not an error, was it?"

Choudhury shook her head. "I don't know what you-"

"I have served with you long enough to know that you are methodical, organized, and precise. You would not use another person's reserved holodeck time by mistake." He stepped closer to her, his demeanor one of overt challenge. "Why are you here?"

Even as he loomed over her, she maintained her enigmatic, close-lipped smile. "All right," she said. "You've caught me. I was hoping to catch you alone, and your exercise hour seemed like the best time."

"The best time for what?"

"To learn about your training regimen," she said, as a gust of wind fluttered her loose, brightly colored silk exercise clothes. "I hope you won't think it's out of line for me to say so, but you're one of the most stoic Klingons I've ever met."

"Stoic?" He reflected on the boundless reservoir of angst with which his life had afflicted him. "Hardly."

She responded with a reproving tilt of her head. "Compared to most Klingons I've met, you're a man made of stone. I know it's rude to describe someone based on racial stereotypes, but there have been times, when we've been working together, that you've seemed almost...well, Vulcan."

Her comment reminded Worf of his mind-meld with the famed Amba.s.sador Spock, many years earlier, during a mission to stop the ancient telepathic tyrant known as Malkus. The meld had been a profound experience, one that had imparted lasting effects of which he had been unaware at the time. Lingering traces of Vulcan stoicism now infused some of his mannerisms, and snippets of Vulcan sayings sometimes infiltrated his discourse. He had, until this moment, thought that he and Captain Picard-who also had melded with Spock, on a separate occasion-were the only ones who would ever notice his echoes of those affectations.

Choudhury interrupted his moment of reflection. "I'm sorry if I offended you just now," she said.

"Not at all, Lieutenant," Worf said. "It is an interesting observation." He smirked. "Is this what you hope to learn more about by emulating my training regimen?"

With a coquettish shrug of one shoulder, she replied, "It's one thing I'd like to learn about you."

Intrigued by her forthright manner, he asked, "What other aspects of my life do you find of interest?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

She stepped forward into his personal s.p.a.ce. "You're one of the most intriguing people I've ever met, Worf, and I'd like to learn whatever you're willing to teach me."

"Are you certain that you are ready?"

"I'm a quick learner."

He liked her att.i.tude.

"Computer," he said. "New program: Worf Calisthenics Number Four." The mountaintop yoga retreat dissolved and was replaced by the interior of a Klingon martial-arts school. A cold stone-tile floor appeared under their feet, and walls of thick, dark wooden beams surrounded them. The ceiling rose high overhead, but, compared to the open dome of sky in the previous simulation, it felt oddly close. Red and black banners emblazoned with the Klingon trefoil were draped high on the walls, above racks loaded with a variety of bladed Klingon weapons. Above Worf and Choudhury was a balcony level, from which a master could observe training drills for new students.

"Let me teach you Mok'bara," Worf said.

9.

Dr. Simon Ta.r.s.es had seen some gruesome spectacles during his nearly fifteen years in Starfleet, but the pair of crispy-molten corpses that had been beamed into his sickbay from the Columbia qualified as one of the most unique and horrifying.

After completing the preliminary autopsies, he had decided to beam down from the Aventine with a mixed team of medical investigators and security specialists, all of whom, including himself, had some measure of training in forensics.

He and the rest of the group emerged from the coruscating haze of the transporter beam inside an oppressively dark section of a pa.s.sageway on D Deck of the Columbia. Before he or the members of his team could activate their palm beacons, a blue light snapped on in front of them. Its beam was aimed into his eyes, half blinding him.

As he raised his arm for shade, he pierced the darkness and saw the dour, squamous frown of Lieutenant Kedair. "I told the captain no one should come down here," Kedair said.

"She didn't agree," Ta.r.s.es replied, as the other members of his team activated their own lights, filling their section of the pa.s.sage with pale blue light and overlapping shadows. "I have orders to collect evidence. Lead the way, please."

Kedair scowled as she turned and led the group through the curved pa.s.sageway. The Columbia was a small ship compared to some on which Ta.r.s.es had served, and it was a short walk to the scene of the mysterious homicides. They were still a few sections away when the odors of putrefaction started to become overwhelming. Ta.r.s.es suppressed his gag reflex-a skill he had learned while dissecting cadavers in medical school.

Then they arrived at the scene of the two deaths, and it was every bit as horrible as Ta.r.s.es had imagined it would be when he'd seen the corpses. With the bodies removed from the pa.s.sageway, all that remained were isolated pools of congealed fatty liquids and stains of scorched blood, all surrounding humanoid-shaped patches of clean metal deck plating.

"Have at it," Kedair said, and she stepped away and tapped her combadge. "Kedair to Darrow. Regroup at location alpha, we have visitors."

"Acknowledged," said a female voice via Kedair's combadge.

Ta.r.s.es squatted beside the pockmarked puddle of boiled flesh and half-disintegrated synthetic fabrics. He lifted his tricorder and activated a series of preprogrammed scans. "All right, folks," he said. "Let's work quickly, before the good lieutenant here has an apoplexy worrying about us."

"I don't worry, Doctor," Kedair said. "I antic.i.p.ate undesirable events and outcomes, and try to prevent them."

"Well, you should take it easy," Ta.r.s.es said. "At this rate, you'll antic.i.p.ate yourself to death."

The security chief rolled her eyes and walked away. Ta.r.s.es turned his attention to the results of his tricorder's molecular scan. Around him, the forensic specialists worked at a brisk pace, keeping their conversations to a minimum. Some were removing core samples from the deck or bulkheads; one was gathering sc.r.a.pings of charred tissue or swabs of still-tacky liquefied bioma.s.s. One of the security specialists was creating a holographic doc.u.mentation of the pa.s.sageway section.

A crunching squish of a footstep near Ta.r.s.es turned his head, and he saw one of Kedair's security officers, a human woman, making an awkward pa.s.sage of the narrow gap between him and a Benzite ballistics expert. Ta.r.s.es berated her, "Do you mind?" When she looked down with a confused expression at the crouching chief medical officer, he added with a frantic wave at her feet, "You're standing in my blood!"

She backpedaled until she was clear of the forensic team, and then she took up a sentry position a few meters away.

Ta.r.s.es continued working and fighting the urge to retch. Ignoring the rotten-perfume odor of burned skin and fat did not make it go away, but Ta.r.s.es clung to the fading hope that his nose might soon acclimate to the sickly stench so he could concentrate solely on his work.

Outside the coc.o.o.n of light in which Ta.r.s.es and his team worked, a dim sparkle formed in the impenetrable darkness. That faint glimmer multiplied with a sonorous rush. Sound and light blossomed a few sections down the pa.s.sageway, and a humanoid figure took shape inside the transporter beam's prismatic halo.

Captain Dax emerged from the fading glow and found herself illuminated by a half-dozen palm beacons. Lifting her hands in front of her face, she said, "As you were. Please." The beams were redirected, leaving her in a penumbra of reflected light.

Kedair slipped past the forensic team and moved to meet the captain as she approached. Ta.r.s.es flipped his tricorder closed and followed Kedair. Together they intercepted Dax, who raised her chin toward the forensic team. "What've we got?"

"Still no definite cause of death," Ta.r.s.es said.

Before Ta.r.s.es could elaborate, Kedair said, "We've ruled out friendly fire, and my team has kept this deck secured since the bodies were found. Except for the doctor and his forensic team, no one's been down here."

Ta.r.s.es was quick to add, "My preliminary autopsies found evidence of neuroelectric damage in both subjects' brain tissues, and their bodies exhibit molecular dissociation on all levels, from the epidermis to the marrow."

Dax looked to Kedair and asked, "What can kill like that?"

"The caustic effects are similar to damage inflicted by the Horta," the Takaran woman said.

"Except that the caustic injuries were highly localized," Ta.r.s.es pointed out, "and instead of fusing synthetic and organic matter on the corpses, it dissolved them without mixing them."

Kedair narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw. "Which is what made me think of a Denebian predator called a teblor," she said with ill-masked irritation.

"Interesting," Ta.r.s.es said, deriving more than a touch of schadenfreude from poking holes in Kedair's guesses. "But the teblor doesn't possess anything like a neuroelectric attack. And if memory serves, it lives and hunts in environments with a peak temperature of no more than two degrees Celsius."

Crossing her arms, Kedair said, "Yes, I admit, it's a bit warm for a teblor on this rock with no name. Of course, an Altairan cave-fisher-"

"Would leave a trail of easily followed slime back to its watery lair, neither of which seems to exist within a thousand kilometers of here," Ta.r.s.es said.

"Doctor," said Dax, "instead of telling me what the killer isn't, can you offer any insight about what it might be?"

It was Kedair's turn to smirk as Ta.r.s.es admitted, "Not at the moment, Captain."

"We're running out of time down here," Dax said. "Starfleet Command wants us out of orbit in just over fifteen hours. I've asked for an extension because of what happened to Yott and Komer, but I wouldn't count on it." To Kedair she continued, "Send nonsecurity personnel back to the Aventine and run a hard-target search of every compartment, locker, crawl s.p.a.ce, nook, and cranny on this ship. If whatever killed our people is still here, I want it found."

"We could use some extra sensor capability," Kedair said.

Dax nodded. "I'll have Leishman free up whatever you need." She looked at Ta.r.s.es. "Has your team collected enough evidence for a.n.a.lysis?"

"Enough for a start," Ta.r.s.es said. "But I'd really like to widen the search to see if-"