Distant Early Warning Page 4

After first activating his tricorder and adjusting its scan field to search for fluctuations in the data processing network, Farber entered the Jefferies tube and found a familiar-looking orange, tri-sided service ladder. The ever-present hum of the station’s massive power generators was very audible in the shaft’s narrow confines, though it was not enough to drown out the low-pitched whine of his tricorder or even the sounds of his boots on the ladder rungs as he climbed.

  While he often traversed the comparable crawlways on the Lovell as a means of exercise—doing so as fast as he could, of course—on this occasion he moved at a more leisurely pace so that the tricorder could conduct its scans. The going was slow and mundane, with Farber splitting his focus between the tricorder’s miniaturized display screen and the access conduit itself. Service platforms were installed at regular intervals on each side of the ladder, and horizontal ducts intersected with the shaft in correlation to each deck within the station’s secondary hull. Farber tried not to pay too much attention to the markings on the shaft’s bulkheads at each juncture, as they only served to remind him that he was climbing ever higher and ever farther from the sensor control room. He was now ten decks up from the sensor array, past the station’s immense primary energy reactors and moving upward toward the areas designated for cargo storage and maintenance facilities.

  He was almost to the next deck when he saw it.

  A trio of dark lines of varying thickness, running down the wall and contrasting with the light gray of the bulkhead to his left, standing out even in the shaft’s reduced illumination. Following the streaks with his eyes, he saw that they ended at the bottom edge of a rectangular grille for one of the station’s uncounted ventilation ducts, situated on the bulkhead a meter above a service platform. It only barely reflected the shaft’s subdued lighting, at first glance appearing to be leakage from some kind of coolant or perhaps a hydraulic seal.

  Stepping off the platform, Farber reached into his tool satchel and extracted a work light. When he directed its bright beam onto the wall, he knew without question that he was not looking at a lubricant leak.

  Blood?

  He ducked down in order to see through the grill, moving the work light so that it could shine through the thin grating, and froze when the light washed across familiar gold material and reflected off gleaming braid.

  “Oh my god,” he breathed as he looked upon the body of a dead human male. The man’s throat had been slit, and congealed blood stained his neck, uniform, and the bottom of the ventilation duct into which his body had been unceremoniously shoved. A pungent aroma of dull copper assailed his nostrils, the scent of death. How long had the man been here?

  Casting frantic glances around the shaft to ensure he was still alone while trying not to drop his work light or stumble from the service platform, Farber reached with one shaking hand for the communicator clipped to his waist.

  More than an hour later, Farber sat in a small, almost claustrophobic office. Before him was a utilitarian gray desk, the undecorated room’s most prominent furnishing. Other than the standard-issue computer interface terminal, the top of the desk was free of papers, data slates, clutter, or personal possessions of any kind. He could not even detect a faded ring from where a coffee cup might once have rested. Everything about the office indicated that its current owner made a supreme effort to spend as much time as possible away from these uninviting surroundings.

  Though he had washed his face and hands after his initial interview with the station’s security chief, Lieutenant Haniff Jackson, Farber realized he once again was rubbing his hands as though trying to clean them. He had caught himself doing it several times since his grisly discovery, even though he had not touched so much as a drop of blood from the unfortunate soul he had found.

  The door behind him slid aside, allowing Jackson to enter. He was a stout man, like Farber himself, well-muscled and moving with the confidence Farber had always found to be typical behavior for security personnel. Dark skin contrasted starkly with his gold tunic, the ribbed collar of which stretched around his thick neck. He was bald, though he sported a mustache and a small patch of facial hair just beneath his lower lip.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Lieutenant,” Jackson said as he maneuvered his compact, barrel-chested frame behind the desk and settled into the office’s only other chair. He carried a data slate in his thick left hand, which he laid upon the desk before directing his attention to Farber. “I don’t suppose you have anything to add to your original statement?”

  Farber shook his head. “No,” he said, recalling what little he was able to offer in the way of information during Jackson’s first interview, conducted down in sensor control. Beyond his discovery of the body itself, he of course could offer nothing else. “I guess he and I weren’t all that different,” he added. “Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “One way of looking at it,” Jackson countered. “Ensign Malhotra was last reported conducting an inventory in Cargo Bay Nineteen, but he’s been missing since yesterday. At first we thought he might have been involved in some thefts we’ve experienced.” Shaking his head, the security officer sighed. “It looks like he might have been, at that.”

  “I wondered about that,” Farber said, only realizing after he heard the words that he had said them aloud.

  His eyes narrowing, Jackson leaned forward in his seat. “What do you know about that?”

  Farber cleared his throat as he adjusted his position in his own chair. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean to muddy the waters with that comment. It’s just that I noticed that bay’s cargo manifest was the last thing accessed on the computer station located inside that room. You didn’t know?”

  Obviously still confused, Jackson shook his head. “So far as we could determine, the manifests look completely legitimate, even though we know they had to have been altered by someone who knew what they were doing. Why were you reviewing them?”

  Reaching for the tricorder still slung from his shoulder, Farber replied, “As I said earlier, I was making scans of the main data conduits as well as the transfer hubs and interface terminals while moving through that access shaft. It wasn’t until after I’d found Ensign Malhotra and climbed back down to sensor control that I realized that my tricorder was still activated. While I was waiting to be interviewed, I went over the scans, and noticed the discrepancy.”

  “Let me see that,” Jackson said, reaching for the tricorder, and Farber watched as he spent several moments studying the information stored within its suite of removable data discs.

  “Wait a minute,” the lieutenant finally said when he finished his review. “Whoever altered the manifest did an exceptional job covering their tracks, but your scans show the modifications in the database as though they were painted on the bulkhead. How did you find this?”

  “I’ll admit they were good,” Farber said, unable to resist a smug smile, “but I’m better. Add to that the fact that my tricorder isn’t exactly standard issue, as I’ve made several modifications to its scanning diodes.” He shrugged. “Consider it an occupational habit.”

  Leaning back in his seat, Jackson chuckled. “I’ve heard that about you Corps of Engineers types.” He indicated the tricorder with a nod. “I’d appreciate a copy of that data as soon as you can get it to me.” Then he smiled. “After that, I might ask you to tinker with some of our tricorders.”

  “Anything I can do to help, Lieutenant,” Farber replied.

  Jackson drew a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, you may have helped to narrow the list of suspects quite a bit. Lots of people can steal from a cargo bay, but I’m betting only a handful can make those kinds of subtle database alterations, and fewer than that are currently running around this station.” He nodded in satisfaction. “When this is over, if you’re still here, remind me that I owe you a drink.”

  “Fair enough,” Farber said. “It’s rare for me to turn down such offers.” As he spoke the words, both men looked up in response to a r
apid flickering in the overhead lighting.

  “Of course,” the engineer amended, “that assumes we can ever fix your station.”

  Chapter

  5

  Unlike the main engineering room aboard the Lovell, one thing al-Khaled noticed most about Starbase 47’s primary engineering control center was the near lack of background noise generated by engines. Whereas his ship’s massive power plant was located in proximity to the work spaces inhabited by the small, fragile beings tasked with caring for it, the low thrum of Vanguard’s power generators—ensconced as they were deep in the bowels of the station—was all but concealed by internal dampening systems.

  He still was able to sense the reverberations, of course, as would any decent engineer.

  The other thing al-Khaled observed about his current surroundings was that, considering the sheer size of Starbase 47, the station’s main engineering center was downright claustrophobic.

  “You’d think your fellow engineers would have looked out for you when designing this place,” al-Khaled said, turning in his seat as Curtis Ballard walked toward him.

  Vanguard’s chief engineer shrugged. “They made up for it. This is the main hub, but there are five auxiliary control rooms spread across the station. Even if something happens here, we can oversee every onboard system from any of those locations. All six stations also have direct turbolifts and Jefferies tube access to the station’s power grid.”

  Al-Khaled nodded. The design approach was but one of several innovations incorporated into the Watchtower-class stations, making them the most technologically advanced model of autonomous, self-sustaining space-based habitats. Once operational, Vanguard would be capable of supporting itself and its crew of twelve hundred for a decade without outside aid, and in addition to its ship-maintenance and repair facilities the station boasted formidable weapons and defensive systems that would allow it to face any threat that might present itself. It was an important consideration out here in the Taurus Reach, light-years from normal Starfleet patrol routes.

  The only problem with that plan, of course, was that it required the station in question actually to have onboard systems that worked.

  Settling into a chair at a console adjacent to the one al-Khaled occupied, Ballard rubbed his eyes before running both hands through his disheveled blond hair. “You know, I hate staff meetings on the best of days.”

  Al-Khaled offered a sympathetic nod. “Lieutenant Farber told me about the crew member they found. I was sorry to hear about that.” While death in the line of duty was a possibility faced by every Starfleet officer, that normally did not extend to being murdered while carrying out regular, even mundane assignments within the supposed safety of one’s own starship—or starbase, as the case may be—and while living and working among one’s own trusted colleagues.

  “Not something you expect, that’s for sure,” Ballard replied. “If I know Lieutenant Jackson and his security team, though, they’ll tear this station apart to find who’s responsible.” Shaking his head, he turned to his workstation. “In the meantime, I’ve got my hands full here.” As he spoke the words, he cast a wry, humorless grin toward al-Khaled. “Sorry, I meant we’ve got our hands full.”

  “No offense taken,” al-Khaled replied. At first, he was concerned that Ballard might take issue with outside engineers being brought in to help him resolve the station’s problems, but the lieutenant had not batted an eye at Commodore Reyes’s decision. A consummate professional, Ballard knew that deploying fresh minds and eyes against a problem was an effective means of finding a solution.

  “You know, Mahmud,” the engineer said after a moment, “I’ve been in Starfleet for seven years. I’ve been on shakedown cruises for three different star-ships, and I was part of the team that got Station K-5 up and running when Starfleet needed it operational six months ahead of schedule.” He shook his head. “That was a host of headaches, let me tell you, but it was nothing compared to the ulcers this place is giving me. I’ve never run into anything like the problems we’ve been facing here.”

  Repeated inspections of the hardware and software components that comprised those systems experiencing the irregular and unexplained malfunctions—sensors, the internal communications and computer network, power distribution grids—had found nothing. Even prior to the Lovell’s arrival, Ballard and his team had been working with the theory that something external to the station must be responsible, but scans of the surrounding region revealed nothing—natural or artificial—that might be the cause.

  That hypothesis gained credibility when personnel still on duty aboard the Lovell began reporting isolated odd happenings with the ship’s systems, though nothing as extensive as whatever plagued the station. Then al-Khaled received a surprise when Lieutenant Diamond contacted him with news about the odd power fluctuations aboard the Orion merchant ship, the only other vessel currently docked at Vanguard.

  “I’ve never fully shaken the idea that the Klingons or Tholians might be covertly jamming us,” Ballard said as he leaned back in his chair. “It would make sense, especially given what’s happening aboard the Lovell and that Orion ship, but we haven’t found a single shred of evidence to support the idea.”

  Al-Khaled frowned. “Even if they were capable of doing something like that without us finding it, they’ve got their own people on board. You’d think they’d want measures in place to protect their own communications and computer access.”

  As part of Vanguard’s mission to safeguard diplomatic relations between the Klingon Empire and Tholian Assembly as the Federation continued its push into the Taurus Reach, the station also played home to embassies from all three governments. Both the Klingon and Tholian ambassadors were supported by a staff of attachés and aides, all of whom were in regular contact with their respective home-worlds and appropriate political entities.

  “Their communications and computers have been having the same problems as the rest of the station,” Ballard replied. “Of course, any such protection would be pretty obvious once we started looking for the cause. I’d like to think we had the edge on Klingon technology, but as for the Tholians…” He shrugged. “Hell, nobody really knows about them, do they?”

  The door to the control center swooshed open to admit Isaiah Farber, who entered at a run, and al-Khaled swore he could feel the deck plates vibrating beneath his feet in response to the muscled lieutenant’s heavy footfalls.

  “I think I know what’s going on,” Farber said by way of greeting. “Remember Buquair III?”

  Al-Khaled could tell that Commodore Reyes, while doubtless an intelligent and articulate man, preferred to concentrate on the larger, grander picture while leaving the trivial details to those he commanded.

  It also was obvious that the commodore was not a man of great patience when it came to having to listen to such details.

  “What about this colony?” Reyes asked from where he sat behind his desk as he reached for the coffee cup near his left hand.

  From where he sat next to the commodore’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn, Captain Okagawa replied, “Two years ago, the Lovell was one of several ships sent to Buquair III after an underwater earthquake generated a tsunami and it slammed into the Glassner Colony established by the Federation.”

  Farber said, “While we were helping out with repair and reconstruction efforts, we discovered a very subtle power reading coming from somewhere just offshore. It turned out to be the wreck of an alien spacecraft that had crashed and sunk there decades earlier, and was buried beneath ocean silt.”

  “The earthquake unburied it, Commodore,” al-Khaled added, “and we picked up the distress signal it was still transmitting, though it was on a frequency so low that normal communications channels couldn’t detect it. We picked up the power readings well enough, but we had to recalibrate our ship’s sensors before we could lock on to the signal.”

  Holding up his tricorder, its black exterior practically swallowed by his meaty left han
d, Farber said, “I was recalibrating this after replacing its power cell when I picked up an odd reading. I had our people on the Lovell retune the ship’s sensors in a manner similar to what we did at the colony, and that’s when we found it.”

  Turning in her seat, T’Prynn asked, “You are alleging that something comparable to what you discovered on Buquair III is occurring here?” She shifted her gaze—stern and unwavering in typical Vulcan fashion—between al-Khaled and Farber, and for an odd moment al-Khaled found himself realizing that he found her quite attractive. She was dressed in the female officer’s version of the standard Starfleet gold tunic, with its high, thick collar almost but not quite concealing her long, thin neck. Her dark hair was piled atop her head in a regulation hairstyle that left her small, pointed ears exposed while seeming exotic as it framed her lean features.

  Clearing his throat as he returned his attention to the matter at hand, al-Khaled nodded. “Yes, Commander.” Crossing the commodore’s office to the viewer mounted on the bulkhead to Reyes’s right, he added, “This is what our sensors picked up.”

  He touched the control pad set into the wall next to the viewer, and the screen activated to display a computer-generated silhouette of Vanguard station superimposed over a starfield. Dominating the image was a series of blue lines, uneven and rippling as they expanded from one edge of the star map toward the station.

  “We’re calling it a ‘carrier wave’ for now,” al-Khaled said, pointing to different lines on the screen. “It’s definitely an artificial occurrence, transmitting on a frequency so low that sensors in their normal configuration would never register it.”

  Reyes frowned. “But my people retuned the station’s sensor arrays looking for something like this even before you arrived.” Looking to where Ballard stood near the bulkhead opposite the viewscreen, he asked, “I’m not misremembering anything, am I, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir,” the engineer replied. “We didn’t pick up so much as a twitch.”