Without thinking, O'Brien stepped around the desk and gripped Chao by the shoulders. It was a terrible breach of protocol-she was the captain of a starship now-but he couldn't think of any other way to break through her denial. "Listen," O'Brien said, and slightly tightened his grip. "There were no orders. I'm sorry, but there weren't. It was all just him."

Chao's eyes widened and her mouth hung open. For the first time, O'Brien could see the lines of exhaustion around her eyes and mouth. The commander flinched and collapsed into the chair-the captain's chair-covering her mouth with one hand and gripping the edge of the desk with the other.

Pushing with her feet, Chao spun the chair away and stared out the port at the Enterprise, her hand still over her mouth. The strand of hair had come loose again and swung back and forth as she breathed deeply. Thirty seconds pa.s.sed. A minute pa.s.sed. The only sound in the room was Chao's breathing. And then, speaking in very low tones, she said, "s.h.i.t, Miles. s.h.i.t. I knew it . . . I knew it . . . I did. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't . . . I didn't . . . dammit!"

O'Brien knew that the ready room's sensors were likely recording everything being said, so he had to think quickly. "You couldn't have known everything," he said, trying to steer Chao away from destroying her career.

"I knew enough," she groaned. "Enough that I was able to keep the crew placated when they began to come to me with their questions, their suspicions." Chao pinched the bridge of her nose, and O'Brien heard her snuffle back a sob. "Dammit, Miles. I knew . . . enough. Enough to be scared, but I didn't ask him. I didn't demand to see the orders or-"

"That's not your job," O'Brien said.

"No?" she snapped, lifting her head. "Then what is my job? I'm the second-in-command. It's not one of my jobs, it's the main job: you watch the center chair. You ask questions. You keep him honest, to himself if no one else . . ." She gasped and then let the breath out slowly. As the air left her lungs, Chao drew into herself. "s.h.i.t," she said again. "Just . . . s.h.i.t."

O'Brien stepped away, retreated to the other side of the desk, the side where chiefs stood.

By the time he was in his spot, Chao had spun her chair back around and was looking the chief in the eye. "Mister O'Brien," she said, "could you see that any relevant information that may help the crew understand what's happened is transferred to our central database?"

"I'm sure that's already been done," O'Brien replied. "Captain Picard is very conscientious about protocol, but I'll be happy to confirm."

"Thank you." She nodded. "Please ask Captain Picard whether I can speak to Captain Maxwell before we go into warp. I'd like to check if he has any . . . I don't know . . . recommendations? Requests?"

"I'll ask," O'Brien said. "I'm sure there are regulations about this sort of thing, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what they are."

"Me too," Chao sighed. "I suppose I'll find out soon."

"Anything else?" O'Brien asked, but then felt embarra.s.sed by his informal att.i.tude. "I mean, excuse me . . ." He straightened. "Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"No, Chief," Chao said. "Thank you. You're dismissed."

"Thank you, Captain," O'Brien said, and turned to leave.

Before he reached the door, Chao spoke again. "Miles," she said, her tone softer, more familiar. "Did I hear correctly that you got married?"

O'Brien turned, surprised, but pleased by the moment of familiarity. "Yes. Just a couple months ago."

"How's married life treating you?"

He laughed. It felt inappropriate, considering the circ.u.mstances, but he couldn't help it. When O'Brien recovered, he rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger and said, "Well, so far, so good, I guess."

Chao smiled, which made her look even more exhausted, though she seemed genuinely pleased. Folding her hands in her lap, she asked, "Is that a recommendation?"

The chief thought about the question, inspected it for b.o.o.by traps, but found none. "Yes."

Chao nodded and then, almost as an afterthought, said, "Dismissed."

The chief headed for the transporter room and returned to the Enterprise.

O'Brien volunteered to appear on Maxwell's behalf at the court-martial, as did Chao. Whenever he tried to find her and speak with her, Chao seemed to disappear, like a spirit or ghost who could fade into the neutral gray paint of any interior room.

Despite Starfleet Command's request that she remain as captain of the Phoenix, Naomi Chao resigned her commission after Benjamin Maxwell was sentenced.

January 9, 2386 Runabout Amazon As soon as the transporter released him, Nog asked, "What do you mean, 'That's Captain Maxwell'?"

"What I mean," O'Brien said, "is at that moment, you were seeing the man I remember from my days on the Rutledge."

"Oh," Nog said. "I thought that's what you meant." He cleared his throat, then asked, "Computer, any unusual or unknown microorganisms in the transporter filters?"

"Define unusual," the computer requested.

"Anything . . . dangerous?" Nog added.

"The transporter filters removed four different forms of virus that are considered a nuisance to seven species and fifty-seven known varieties of bacteria or related microorganisms that are considered infectious in two hundred fifteen species. None of these is cla.s.sified as dangerous under current Starfleet protocol." The computer paused, as if gathering its thoughts. Nog c.o.c.ked an ear. He knew the computer would leave the best for last. "Also, two uncataloged species of microorganisms were detected and isolated. Genetic scans will be sent to Starfleet Medical, though initial sensor readings indicate they are benign to most known species."

O'Brien nodded in satisfaction and moved toward the c.o.c.kpit. Nog, less easily a.s.sured, asked, "Nothing dangerous to the runabout?"

The computer paused, possibly because it was having difficulty parsing the question. Finally, it answered, "Affirmative."

"Good," Nog said, satisfied. He moved to the c.o.c.kpit and sat down in the copilot's seat. The primary engines came online as the chief studied whatever data the sensors were able to read about local s.p.a.ce. "Anything?" Nog asked.

O'Brien grunted the all-purpose dissatisfied grunt of the seasoned engineer, followed by the similarly all-purpose, "Let me try something." He pushed the pilot's seat back, squatted under the console, and removed an access panel. A couple tweaks of a probe and a yanked isolinear chip later, the chief was pulling up a fuzzy map of local s.p.a.ce. A moment's study and he slid the display over to Nog's station. "It isn't pretty," he said.

Nog studied the scan. "No," he agreed. "It's not." The good news-the only good news-was that the transport's warp core hadn't cracked until it was a decent distance away. Otherwise, Nog realized, they wouldn't be having their current scintillating conversation.

"As it is," O'Brien continued, "no subs.p.a.ce communications to Deep s.p.a.ce 9 until we're out of this interference. Look at that ripple." He pointed at the crescent-shaped wave of disrupted subs.p.a.ce extending from the explosion's point of origin out toward the edge of the sector.

"Do you think the station's sensors will pick up the explosion?" Nog asked.

"Eventually," O'Brien said, pulling up the communications interface. "They'll send out a probe to investigate. Hopefully, we'll be home before the probe returns to explain what happened." He tapped in the code to unlock the subsystems and swiped past a couple of graphical interfaces until he found the subs.p.a.ce transmitter's guts. After bypa.s.sing a couple of safety lockouts, he knit up the system and pointed the runabout's primary comm dish directly at the still-stationary transport.

"How do you think they're doing?" Nog asked nervously.

"Let's find out," O'Brien said, and sent a hail.

Nog wasn't sure what he expected to hear in response to the hail, but he was unprepared for the squelch of white noise followed by the timorous, "h.e.l.lo?"

The chief responded in kind. "h.e.l.lo?" he said. He cleared his throat and continued in a more decisive tone, "This is Chief Miles...o...b..ien. Who am I addressing?"

The respondent also cleared her throat and replied, still softly, "This is Nita, Chief. Nita Bharad. You might remember we had a drink earlier today with Ben."

"Of course," O'Brien said. "How are you, Nita? What's your status?"

"Our status, Chief," Nita replied breathily, and Nog imagined her looking around at her colleagues, all of whom would have nodded in agreement. "Yes. We're all really, really scared."

"I'm only getting audio, Nita. Can you send an image?"

"Oh," Nita said. "Hold on a moment. How's that?"

The viewscreen blinked on. Bharad's face filled the center of the screen. In the fuzzy middle ground, Nog saw what must have been the bodies of a couple of other pa.s.sengers. The background was a milky white, like the cabin was filled with cotton fibers. There were stress lines around Bharad's mouth and eyes. The doctor looked like she might have been weeping or, perhaps, perspiring heavily. Under the circ.u.mstances, either would have been entirely understandable.

"That's fine, Nita. How many people are with you? Are any of you injured?"

"Twelve people," Bharad said, still speaking very softly. "And Ginger and Honey. They're here with me too. Could you pa.s.s that along to Ben when you have a chance? Tell him we boarded the Wren and not the Aubrey, like he suggested. I'm sure he's right about the chairs on the Aubrey, but it looked like so many people were boarding her, and I didn't want to crowd Ginger and Honey. And I figured, how long are we really going-"

"I'll tell him, Nita. What about injuries?"

"No injuries. We're all fine. For now. We saw what happened. We're not idiots." Her voice went higher, and her words more staccato. "Until this thing flies apart and we all-" Bharad bit down on her words and looked away. "Dammit," she said, speaking even more softly. "I said I wouldn't do that. I said . . ." She closed her eyes and Nog watched as a single tear trickled down from the inner curve of her eye, following the laugh lines down around her mouth. She did not appear to be the sort of person who cried often. "What happened to the Aubrey, Chief? What's going to happening to us? Don't mince words, please. We're all scientists here. Well, most of us." Without warning, the eyes and mandible of one of the giant spiders loomed large in the screen. It must have been down on the deck or on Bharad's lap and suddenly decided it was time to see what was happening, like a dog waking up from a nap while riding on its mistress's lap.

O'Brien strangled back a gasp. The spider ducked back down from view. Nog couldn't repress a delighted "Aww!" O'Brien continued, "We think that Finch's bug, his tailored microorganism, escaped confinement. He thought blowing it out into s.p.a.ce would kill it, but it didn't. It adapted to vacuum. It feeds on high-energy particles. At least, that's the theory we're working on."

Fear left Bharad's face. Instead, she appeared to be gripped by what Nog would have described as curiosity bordering on wonder. "That . . . that's incredible," she said, her voice rising above a breathy whisper. "How do you think . . . ?"

"I have no idea," O'Brien said. "And Finch appears to have, uh, temporarily vacated the premises."

Bharad c.o.c.ked her head to the side, momentarily confused, but then straightened and nodded. "Oh, I see." She returned to the previous line of questioning. "But how did the Mother reach the Aubrey?"

"We're not sure, but our best guess is part of the Mother was vented into s.p.a.ce when Sabih inadvertently activated Finch's emergency procedures. Contrary to expectations, the Mother survived in the vacuum. The Aubrey must have pa.s.sed through it when they left the hangar and the Mother hitched a ride, then found a way into the ship and then the warp core. Broke down the containment field or caused the reaction to go critical." He turned to Nog and asked, "Can you run some scans and see if there's any way to know more about what happened? It might not be important now, but maybe later . . ."

"Oh," Bharad said, strangling on her words. "It's important now."

"Why?" O'Brien asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Bharad said, her voice dropping again, "that our transport is falling apart around us." She looked down at the console before and must have manipulated some setting on the communication station, because it slowly pulled back to show the pa.s.senger cabin. A few of the researchers were sitting, but just as many were cl.u.s.tered near Bharad. Every thirty seconds or so, a dark shape moved through the top edge of the frame: Ginger and Honey moving from side to side. The scanner made it difficult to see exactly what was happening, but it appeared that the arachnoforms were spinning a frothy web that was slowly filling the cabin.

"What are they doing?" O'Brien asked. "What's happening?"

"The Wren's internal sensors told us that she's losing hull integrity. I explained it to the girls and they, well, you can see. I think they're preventing the ship from falling apart. If nothing else, we have atmosphere to breathe. For now . . ."

Nog whispered, "Good girls."

"Can you get us out of here?" Bharad asked, her voice cracking. "We're afraid to activate the engines. Even impulse might-"

"Stand by," O'Brien said, cutting the audio feed. "What do you think? Can we break through the interference?"

"I've been trying to get a lock on something . . . anything," Nog said. "But the transporter beam won't stabilize. Frankly, I'm amazed you can even talk to them. There's so much radiation."

"Can you scan their hull? Is she really breaking up?"

Nog peered at the sensor readouts, but shook his head in frustration. "I can't be sure. Something is happening to the hull's structural integrity. It's eroding, but not like it's being bombarded. Something slower . . . more like digested."

"Should we risk the tractor beam?"

"You heard what Captain Maxwell said. We might tear the ship in half."

"Can we just go over and b.u.mp it back toward the station?" O'Brien asked. It was a ridiculous suggestion, and the chief clearly knew it.

Nog shook his head. "Even if there isn't a cloud of Mother cells around the Wren now, risking physical contact would be bad. We just don't know enough about how this thing functions. Sometimes, it seems to be responding like a simple colonial organism. Sometimes, it seems to be acting with intention."

O'Brien and Nog stared at the image of Nita Bharad as she looked from side to side and then back over her shoulder, talking to her fellow refugees, clearly attempting to rea.s.sure them. She was also waiting for O'Brien and Nog to come back with a solution or a lifeline or just a good old-fashioned miracle.

Nog's mind raced, working through their tools and options, but no casually brilliant solution came. Finally, with all the authority he could muster, he said, "I think our duty is clear here, Chief."

"Which is?"

"To alert Starfleet to this very rapidly evolving-" He stumbled, realizing his phrasing may have been inopportune. "Okay, degrading . . ." He pinched the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. "Never mind. This is bad, Chief. And not just for these people. We need a.s.sistance to help them, and the only way we're going to get any relief is if we can get clear of this interference."

"But by the time we do and get back here," O'Brien said through gritted teeth, "the transport may come apart at the seams." He looked at the monitor. Bharad was talking to someone behind her, trying either to fend off or rea.s.sure an off-screen personage. "They'll panic soon, try something stupid."

"Which is another good reason for us to get out of range," Nog insisted. "I don't like this any better than you do, but we're out of options."

O'Brien appeared as if he very badly wanted to use harsh language. Then he sighed and his face went slack. "If Julian was here, he'd think of something clever."

Turning away, Nog said, "He probably would. This would be the point where the two of you would come up with some improbable solution, something crazy, something that just might work." He sighed. "I wish he were here, Chief. I really do. And I wish I were back on the station. We'd all be a lot happier. I think this is one of those times, though, when we all do"-he waved his hands helplessly-"what we have to do." He turned back to the chief, hoping he had set his face in a look that said the conversation had to end.

On the screen, Bharad was speaking sternly to someone off-screen, waving them away. One of the arachnoforms descended into the frame, stared into the pickup for a count of three, and then leaped away. Another person's hand flapped into the frame, but Bharad roughly shoved its owner back. Nog actually felt like he was watching the tumblers inside O'Brien's mind click into place. Flatly, he said, "That's actually a very good idea, Nog." He tapped the comm and said in his very best everything is going to be fine voice, "Wren, please stand by. We're coming to get you."

Bharad turned back to the monitor. "How? Are you transporting us-" she began, but O'Brien cut her off.

"Stand by," he said, "and tell everyone to calm down. Amazon out." Before Bharad could ask another question he wasn't prepared to answer, O'Brien closed the channel. Spinning on his heel, he strode purposefully to the runabout's storage lockers, which he began opening one by one until he found what he was seeking.

When Nog saw what O'Brien was lifting out of the locker, he squinted at it with mingled curiosity and something that might have been awe. "What are you planning, Chief?"

"Nothing clever," O'Brien said. "Probably something very stupid." Falling back into one of the pa.s.senger seats, he began to undo the fasteners on his uniform. "If I survive," he added, "please don't tell Keiko what I did. She'd kill me."

Chapter 11.

Two Years Earlier Otahuhu Police Station, Auckland Doctor Michael Clark sat in the waiting area, struggling with the urge to prop his feet up in the chair across from his. His left knee ached, the remnant of a recent hiking injury, the sort of thing that could have been set right with a judicious application of an anti-inflammatory. His wife had been pestering him to visit the infirmary and have the strain treated, but Clark was precisely the sort of doctor who hated to be poked and prodded by other physicians. Instead, he rubbed the knee and took another sip of the lukewarm tea the desk sergeant had been thoughtful enough to bring him a half hour earlier, along with the promise that the processing would take "only a few more minutes."

Only a few more minutes. Clark let the phrase roll around in his head as he studied the empty waiting area. Otahuhu District, he decided, is not in the grip of a crime wave tonight. He patted his raincoat folded over the back of the neighboring chair. The fabric was almost dry. Looking out the window, he could see the trunks of the palm trees bending in the wind, their tattered crowns rattling and shivering in the cold rain. He thought about his warm bed and his equally warm wife. He thought about Ben Maxwell and the mistake he, Michael Clark, made when he gave Maxwell his personal contact information and the instruction to "please call if you ever need a hand."

His trip to Otahuhu District was a result of the third call he'd received over the past four months. The first call-from Maxwell-had been a pleasant surprise (despite coming at a late hour), and they had spent a mostly enjoyable hour catching up on recent events. The second call had been annoying, though fortunately the police hadn't required him to come downtown, but only vouch for Maxwell. When the officer had called this time, she had politely insisted that Clark come retrieve Maxwell personally. "And perhaps consider getting him into some sort of treatment program."

"I'm not his doctor," Clark had explained. "Not anymore, at least."

"You might want to reconsider that," she had said firmly. That was five hours ago. Clark rubbed his sore knee.

A red light embedded in the wall beside the innocuous door that led from the waiting area into the mysterious inner workings of the police station blinked twice. The door slid open. Ben Maxwell emerged looking much as he had the last time Clark had seen him: fit and trim, though sporting a two-day growth of stubble on his chin. Some of the whiskers, Clark noted, were growing in gray. He was standing in profile to Clark and speaking to someone on the other side of the door, who then handed Maxwell something that looked like a sack of wet laundry. Clark couldn't see precisely what it was, but it was heavy enough that Maxwell made an oof noise and reset his legs to compensate.

"Thanks," Maxwell said. "Really, thanks a lot. Thanks for taking care of him. Did anyone check? No?" He shook his head questioningly, but did not appear to be receiving an answer. "Okay. Well, thanks." Maxwell stepped aside so the door could slide shut. Through the low-level force field where the desk sergeant sat, Clark heard the sound of what might have been m.u.f.fled laughter. Possibly a moan. Neither was a good sign.

Maxwell turned around and saw Clark. He smiled his d.a.m.nably charming smile. "Hey, Doc," he said. Unable to extend a hand because of the load he was carrying, Maxwell gave a slight bow. "Thanks for coming. Sorry for the trouble. I didn't think they'd call you in the middle of the night when I gave them your name. They said they needed to speak to someone local, but I thought they meant tomorrow morning."