Identity theft, p.1
Identity Theft, page 1
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Dedicated to John Ordover, for inviting me to join the Star Trek crew twenty books ago
Historian’s Note
This story begins in 2269 (CE), during the U.S.S. Enterprise’s historic five-year mission, when Pavel Chekov is just an eager young ensign.
It continues in 2289, twenty years later, aboard the Enterprise-A, where Chekov is now head of security… and not as young as he once was.
One
Ensign Pavel Chekov, Personal Log. Stardate 5839.7: The hostage crisis on Voyzr continues to escalate, with both sides of the ongoing civil war holding Federation relief workers captive in order to force or prevent the UFP’s intervention. First the secessionists seized a party of Federation volunteers, who were providing humanitarian aid to civilian refugees and casualties, in hopes of getting the UFP to formally recognize their Alliance; then the global Republic “detained” their own hostages to discourage the UFP from acceding to the Alliance’s demands. In-person negotiations with both sides have gotten nowhere fast, so Captain Kirk has embarked on a daring plan…
“Anytime now, Ensign,” the captain urged.
“Aye, sir.” Chekov raced to make sense of the Voyzr control panel, which, on top of everything else, was inconveniently designed for beings with six fingers on each hand. Perspiration dripped from beneath his bangs and glued the back of his regulation black undershirt to his spine, but he wasn’t about to let Kirk down with their entire mission at stake. A tricorder was slung on a strap over his shoulder. “Just a few moments more, sir.”
“With all deliberate speed, Chekov.”
“Understood, Captain.”
The rescue party—consisting of Chekov, Kirk, Sulu, and Security Officer Brenda Cassidy, who had previously distinguished herself during a rescue mission in the Mogab system—was under siege in a control room overlooking the main fusion generator in a secret Alliance base hidden away in a repurposed pergium refinery. On the bright side, they had already succeeded in liberating the four hostages, who were huddled in a corner, looking more shaken than scarred by their ordeal. On the other hand, both rescuers and rescued were presently trapped inside the control room as irate Alliance soldiers tried to force their way through the protective blast door sealing off the chamber, which Kirk had welded shut with his phaser. Sidearms drawn, the captain and Cassidy had taken up defensive positions facing the barrier, while Sulu guarded the not-fully-rescued hostages. Two Voyzr soldiers—a sentry and a technician, respectively—were heaped in another corner, stunned into unconsciousness after being caught unawares by the rescue squad, their limp bodies disarmed and dragged out of the way. A thick, radiation-proof screen shielded the control room from the two-story-tall generator.
Sizzling energy blasts buffeted the sturdy duranium door, which was already growing red hot in the center. Molten metal began to trickle down the length of the door, not unlike the sweat dripping down Chekov’s face. He could feel the heat radiating from the door, uncomfortably impressing on him the urgency of the situation. Flashing emergency lights and blaring sirens did not make deciphering the unfamiliar control panel any easier.
“Attention, intruders!” a stentorian voice bellowed from a public-address system. “We have you cornered. If you value your lives, surrender at once!”
One of the hostages whimpered, backing farther away from the door.
“I don’t know about you, Captain,” Sulu quipped, perhaps to buoy the anxious civilians’ spirits, “but I’m starting to think we’ve worn out our welcome.”
“An astute observation, Lieutenant.” Kirk displayed no sign of surrendering, now or ever. “Chekov?”
The young ensign wondered if Kirk regretted leaving Mister Spock in command of the Enterprise; Spock would have surely mastered the arcane controls by now. Chekov attempted to channel the Vulcan science officer’s inimitable sangfroid as he used both hands to dial in what he believed to be the correct command sequence. Simply phasering the controls and/or the generator was not an option, at least not without risking a catastrophic meltdown, which would rather defeat the point of liberating the hostages.
“Aye, Captain. Here goes nothing.”
Chekov held his breath as he turned the master dial to initiate a total system shutdown—in theory—and pressed down on the dial to confirm the command. It then felt as though a long Siberian winter passed before, to his relief, the background thrum of the generator slowed to a halt.
“Surrender the prisoners!” the loudspeaker blared. “Or we cannot guarantee—”
The P.A. system went silent abruptly, as did the alarms. The overhead lights flickered and failed, leaving only emergency glow strips to provide a cool, silvery radiance that reminded Chekov of a moonlit night back on Earth.
“Done, Captain!” Chekov grinned at Kirk. “With apologies to Doctor McCoy, it’s dead, sir.”
“And the shields?”
“Down, Captain!”
A deflector dome had prevented anyone from beaming in or out of the base, forcing the rescue party to infiltrate the refinery the old-fashioned way, via stealth and subterfuge, after Sulu expertly piloted a shuttlecraft beneath the Alliance’s sensors. A phaser cannon had then been employed to bore their way into an obsolete underground maintenance tunnel, while taking care not to accidently breach a live plasma conduit or deuterium waste vent. The rest had been a cake walk… relatively speaking.
“And none too soon,” Kirk said. “Good work, Ensign.”
Vapor started boiling off the glowing blast door as the soldiers continued their assault, their pulse rifles unaffected by the power outage. An acrid odor assailed Chekov’s nostrils. Kirk flipped open his communicator while keeping a phaser aimed at the disintegrating barrier.
“Kirk to Enterprise.” He glanced over at Sulu and the hostages. “Five to beam up, as planned.”
“Aye, Captain,” Mister Scott responded from the ship’s transporter room, where he was standing by for just this moment. Each hostage had already been provided with emergency transponders to allow the Enterprise to lock onto them. “Engaging transporter now.”
The telltale shimmer of a transporter beam whisked Sulu and his charges up to the Enterprise, where Doctor McCoy and Nurse Chapel were ready to provide whatever medical care the hostages might require. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Chekov took comfort in knowing that, whatever happened next, the unlucky relief workers were safe at least and at last.
Now for the tricky part…
“And the other hostages?” Kirk asked. “Are they safe as well?”
“Affirmative,” Spock reported from the bridge. “Lieutenant DeSalle’s mission was a success. The former captives are securely aboard the ship, as is the rescue party.”
The twin missions had been timed to take place simultaneously, continents apart, with DeSalle and his team tasked with liberating the Federation citizens wrongly detained by the Voyzr Republic. So far, it seemed to Chekov, the captain’s plan was working smoothly enough, aside from a few anxious bumps along the way. He could only hope the rest of the operation went just as well.
“Good to hear,” Kirk replied. “Spock, Scotty, you know what to do.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Spock said. “Proceeding as planned.”
“Aye, sir,” Scott added. “Company is on the way, although I can’t imagine they’ll be best pleased by the invitation… or the locale.”
“Leave that to me, Scotty. Kirk out.”
He nodded at Chekov, who stepped away from the controls and drew his own phaser in anticipation. Cassidy tensed for action as well, while also keeping one eye on the embattled blast door. “Why am I suddenly feeling like a bouncer at a Venusian nightclub,” she said, “struggling to keep the riffraff out while anticipating trouble from unruly VIPs?”
Kirk chuckled at the comparison. “Let’s hope our incoming guests aren’t that much of handful, Lieutenant.”
I wouldn’t bet on it, Chekov thought.
The coruscating glow of transporter beams lit up the chamber, depositing three startled Voyzr in their midst. Visibly bewildered by their new surroundings, they resembled the proverbial deer caught in headlights—in more ways than one.
Although largely humanoid, the Voyzr deviated from the norm by being descended from something akin to Terran cervids rather than primates, as evidenced by the bony antlers sprouting from the men’s foreheads. Downy red fur carpeted their exposed flesh, while curly green wool, of varying shades and hues, adorned their scalps in place of hair. Both men and women sported uniforms consisting of linen jackets, vests, knee-length kilts, and boots. Gracefully contoured snouts protruded from their faces, further testifying to their cervine origins. Large green eyes widened further as they glanced about in confusion before zeroing in on the Starfleet officers, who had all three Voyzr targeted by their phasers. Energy blasts noisily assailed the blast door.
“Kirk!” trumpeted General Akton, commander of the Alliance forces. A fuzzy red pate, shorn clean of verdant wool, declared where his allegiance resided; as Chekov understood it, those loyal to the self-proclaimed Alliance of Independents—oft en referred to as “Indees”—sheared their heads to better display their clan markings, which were shaved into the velvety russet fur below. Moist, rubbery nostrils flared indignantly. “What is the meaning of this?”
He reached for his sidearm, but Kirk already had the drop on him. “Not so fast, General. Keep your weapon holstered… and your hands where I can see them.”
“And that goes for all of you.” Cassidy raised her voice to be heard over the furious weapons fire coming from the other side of the door. She tilted her head toward the stunned soldiers in the corner. “My phaser’s already gotten a workout today.”
You tell them, Chekov thought. We already have enough hostiles beating down the door.
“I also require answers, Kirk.” Field Marshal Zavetta, the general’s counterpart on the Republic side, regarded both Akton and the Starfleet team warily. Fleecy chartreuse curls crowned her antlerless head. Literal doe eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Where are we… and why have we been brought here against our will?”
Her bodyguard, inadvertently brought along for the ride, was armed with a rifle but, finding himself in Cassidy’s sights, prudently refrained from brandishing it, at least for the present. He nonetheless positioned himself between Zavetta and Akton.
“My apologies,” Kirk said to both commanders, “but you left me no choice.” He indicated the door, where the volcanic red glow was spreading outward from the center, accompanied by the rising din of the pulse rifles. “For the record, General, those are your soldiers attempting to crash the party. I recommend you order them to back off, for everyone’s sake.”
The sooner the better, Chekov thought. He estimated the blast door was only minutes away from being breached. Granted, the rescue party could always be beamed back to the Enterprise in a pinch, but what about the shanghaied commanders? They’d been covertly misted with an aerosolized viridium solution of Spock’s devising during Kirk’s previous face-to-face negotiations with both sides, allowing Mister Scott to lock onto their coordinates from orbit. Unilaterally relocating both commanders on their own planet was provocative enough; literally beaming them off their homeworld onto a Starfleet vessel would be an interstellar incident of the first magnitude, causing the Federation’s entire diplomatic corps to go supernova. That needed to be avoided at all costs.
“I’ll do no such thing.” Akton surveyed the dimly lit control room, comprehension dawning on his face. “If this is indeed where I suspect, you’re trespassing on Alliance soil. You have no business being here.”
“Tell that to the innocent relief workers held captive at this very site,” Kirk said. “You can hardly claim the moral high ground, General, and neither can you, Marshal. In any event, General, I doubt you want to end up the unfortunate victim of friendly fire from your own troops. Call off your soldiers, long enough to sort this out in a civilized fashion.”
The fierce assaults from outside added emphasis to Kirk’s plea, as did the flowing metal rivulets and spreading fumes. The glare from the steadily disintegrating door made it hard to look at directly. Squinting, Chekov saw a red-hot spot in the center of the door turn blue, then white, before dissolving completely.
“Watch out!” he yelled. “Incoming!”
A brilliant turquoise beam punched through the formerly solid door, narrowly missing General Akton, who ducked out of the way just in time. The close call produced an immediate attitude adjustment. Keeping his head and antlers down, he snatched a blocky, handheld communicator from his belt and hastily fiddled with the settings.
“Akton to Saremis Base. This is a Command-Level transmission, Security Code Gazebo-Cumulous-Thicket. Stand down at once!”
A puzzled voice answered him. “General?”
“You heard me!” His finger jabbed the communicator’s miniature keypad. “Transmitting confirmation numeric now. Cease fire… for the present.”
Akton glared at Kirk, dipping his head as though he wanted to gore Kirk with his antlers. Metallic rings on the antlers denoted the general’s rank and status.
“Yes, sir! Confirmation received and acknowledged, sir.”
The incandescent beam blinked out of existence, leaving a coin-sized hole in the center of the door, which only slowly began to cool back to a duller hue. Chekov fanned the air with his free hand to disperse the metallic vapor.
“Stand by for further orders. Akton out.” He lowered the communicator. “All right, Kirk. You’ve bought yourself a brief respite, but I caution you not to test my patience.”
“Nor mine,” Zavetta said. “What are you up to, Kirk, and how dare you interfere with the internal affairs of our sovereign world?”
“Sovereign peoples,” Akton corrected her pointedly. “Your Republic doesn’t speak for all of Voyzr.”
“Only because your ruling clans want to continue running your territories like your own personal fiefdoms, just to cling to your ‘traditional’ power and privileges at the expense of peace and progress.” She looked down her snout at her adversary. “And to lord it over those you deem below you by dint of blood and birth.”
Akton snorted. “Only your sort can make ‘tradition’ sound like an obscenity. You have no respect for our noble history and heritage, you arrogant, overbearing—”
“Watch your mouth, Indee!” Zavetta’s bodyguard dipped his own antlers, as though to butt heads with the enemy general. He was big enough to seem more moose than deer. Rubbery black nostrils flared. “Nobody speaks to the marshal like that!”
“That’s enough!” Kirk said. “There’ll be time to argue politics once you stop shooting and kidnapping each other. You’ve been fighting this war for a generation now. What can it hurt to lay down your weapons, right here, right now, and at least try to make peace for once?”
“Is that what this?” Zavetta asked. “A forced mediation, at phaser point? So much for your vaunted Prime Directive! You have no right to meddle in our affairs. The present conflict is strictly a Voyzr matter, to be decided by the Voyzr alone.”
“If only that were the case.” Kirk took her accusation in stride. “Unfortunately, we have good reason to believe that the Klingons have already covertly inserted themselves into your war… to their own benefit, not yours.”
Chekov nodded, knowing where Kirk was going with this. A neutral world, Voyzr was strategically located at the junction of three major interstellar trade routes, each of which was known to be the safest and quickest way past various deep-space hazards: cosmic eddies, high-intensity gamma-ray fields, gravimetric distortions, a black hole, and such. Although the Klingon Empire had thus far refrained from attempting to conquer Voyzr, constrained by both the Organian Peace Treaty and the threat of Federation retaliation, the planet would be a key asset, in terms of supply lines, should the current cold war between the Federation and the Empire ever turn hot again.
“The Klingons?” Akton echoed warily.
“What evidence do you have of this?” Zavetta asked, her tone equally guarded.
Neither commander, Chekov noted, appeared particularly shocked or surprised by Kirk’s statement. If anything, they both looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“Mister Chekov,” Kirk said, “if you’ll do the honors?”
“My pleasure, Captain.”
A rifle, confiscated from the stunned Alliance soldier on the floor, rested against the side of the control terminal. Chekov returned his phaser to his belt, retrieved the rifle, then approached Zavetta’s bodyguard, which entailed coming rather too close for comfort to the man’s antlers and their sharpened points.
“Excuse me, sir. If you would kindly allow me to borrow your firearm? Strictly for demonstration purposes, I assure you.”
The guard, who had presumably been in close proximity to Zavetta when she was misted with viridium, thereby accounting for his presence here, held tightly on to his rifle as he looked at his commander.
“Marshal?”
She nodded, her stony expression betraying nothing. “Go ahead, Sergeant.”
Frowning, he surrendered his weapon to Chekov, who backed away from the man’s intimidating antlers as swiftly as dignity allowed. Crossing the chamber, he laid both rifles on an open work counter while Kirk and Cassidy kept their unwilling guests covered by their phasers. Chekov scanned the captured rifles with his tricorder. A rapid analysis, along parameters previously calculated by Spock, confirmed what Doctor McCoy had previously deduced based on a forensic analysis of the injuries suffered by various casualties of the war, including an Orion bystander wounded during the abduction of the hostages. The tricorder hummed vigorously.
