Atonement Read online

  “She can’t.”

  “Then why are we whispering?” Bacco asked.

  “Hello, Seven,” said a male voice Paris immediately recognized.

  Paris raised a hand to forestall further conversation as Bacco and Akaar leaned forward to listen.

  STARFLEET MEDICAL, CLASSIFIED DIVISION

  “I hoped you had received my message,” Briggs said. He was seated in his private office behind a workstation. Seven stood opposite him.

  “If by message you are referring to the pain and suffering of nineteen former residents of Arehaz whose catomic molecules you attempted to modify and then injected into your test subjects, then yes, Commander Briggs, I did,” Seven replied.

  “You left me no choice, Seven,” Briggs insisted. “Your samples as well as Patient C-1’s and Doctor Frazier’s no longer accept modification. In fact, they disappear completely from any test subject into whom they are injected after only a day.” Briggs rose and circled his desk. Leaning against it and facing Seven directly, he asked, “How did you do that?”

  “What makes you think I did anything?” Seven asked.

  “You are the only random factor in this equation. My previous experiments failed, but they were instructive failures. There is no other explanation beyond your involvement for what I’m seeing now. You somehow still control the catoms that were once yours, don’t you? Even after they have been extracted, they are still connected to you.”

  “It is my belief that all catomic particles exhibit collective properties,” Seven advised him.

  His eyes widened at this.

  “Upon what do you base this belief?”

  Seven smiled mirthlessly. “Experience.”

  Briggs stood upright. “Excellent,” he said. “We’ve wasted too much time already. I’ve held up my end of our agreement. It’s time for you to honor yours. You will begin by giving me a full report on all of your catomic research.”

  “You have reneged on several key points of our agreement,” Seven corrected him. “I will, however, provide you with the data you require insofar as it is instrumental in curing the catomic plague.”

  Briggs sighed. “Fine. We’ll start there.”

  “There is one piece of data I require in order to properly direct your efforts.”

  “What?”

  “Did you intentionally create the catomic plague?”

  Briggs was clearly taken aback at the inference. “Of course not,” he retorted.

  “Allow me to rephrase,” Seven said. “Did you accidentally create the catomic plague?”

  Briggs closed his mouth in a tight line and his eyes hardened. Finally he began, “I don’t see the relevance . . .”

  “If I can determine the precise point of origin, it will enable me to track down every mutation, variation, and replication. In order to completely eradicate the plague, every affected particle must be neutralized.”

  “That will never be possible,” Briggs said. “We don’t even know how many people might have been affected who were never brought in for treatment. The plague’s viability so many months after it first appeared suggests—”

  “Your infection rates have been artificially inflated, Commander,” Seven cut him off.

  Briggs shook his head sadly. “Surely you have not given credence to the unfounded speculations of Doctor Sharak and Lieutenant . . . what was her name?”

  “Wildman.”

  “Yes, Wildman.”

  “Long before I was briefed on the discoveries of Doctor Sharak and Lieutenant Wildman, I saw you perform multiple experiments on the same alien female. This was troubling, apart from the fact that she was clearly not suffering from the plague. More than once, I saw you kill that female and irradiate her remains. It made no sense until Doctor Sharak exposed Ria, the Planarian you had planted on Coridan. They then discovered the exact same woman hiding within the evacuated area on Aldebaran. There were several additional versions of her developing in maturation chambers.”

  “You have no proof,” Briggs began.

  “I know. No proof of your Planarians’ existence will ever be found. Your control over them is absolute. Not only were they willing to infect countless innocent individuals with the plague at your request, their work is equally thorough when it comes to destroying themselves and all evidence of their lives. I imagine there is a great deal about Planarians that you have learned since you re-created them, just as I assume there is a lab somewhere off-world where a steady stream of replacement test subjects are being grown as we speak. How many times have you regenerated this female to further your research?”

  Briggs smiled warily. The look in his eyes suggested that she had just gone from a source of help to an imminent threat. But there was pride in it as well. Part of him wanted Seven to know the depth and breadth of his genius.

  Finally he said softly, “One thousand, nine hundred and sixty-one.”

  PALAIS DE LA CONCORDE

  President Bacco had listened with growing consternation to the conversation transmitted through Paris’s combadge. Akaar had placed both of his meaty fists on the table and was leaning over it, completely absorbed by Briggs’s words.

  When Briggs admitted to re-creating almost two thousand copies of a single life-form in order to conduct his experiments, Bacco rose from her seat. She looked ready to crawl through the combadge and throttle Briggs with her bare hands.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Admiral,” she said softly, “but didn’t the Federation outlaw genetic engineering of sentient life-forms a few hundred years back?”

  “Yes, Madam President.”

  Bacco waved over a security officer and said, “Get me Esperanza immediately.”

  The officer nodded and departed. As Seven questioned Briggs further about the regenerative properties of the Planarians, the president’s chief of staff, Esperanze Piñero, entered and hurried toward her.

  “Do you have any idea how many people you’ve just—” Piñero began.

  “Shhh,” Bacco hissed, then added softly, “I want the head of Starfleet Medical and the Federation Institute of Health in my office within the next five minutes.”

  “Is this really . . .?”

  “Asses in my office,” Bacco said, carefully enunciating each word.

  Piñero stiffened, taken aback. “Right away, Madam President.”

  STARFLEET MEDICAL, CLASSIFIED DIVISION

  “It was not my intention to re-create her species,” Briggs insisted. “But the potential inherent in Planarian genes for regeneration of diseased tissue was too significant to simply ignore.”

  “Of course,” Seven encouraged him.

  “The first Planarian cells were created from several humanoid species and a few lower life-forms. Once the DNA sequence was complete, the cells began to multiply at rates I had never imagined. I had an embryo within days. She shouldn’t have lived more than a few hours. But she did. And as she continued to develop, I found the thought of destroying her unconscionable.”

  “It must have been very difficult for you,” Seven said with as much sympathy as she could feign.

  “Naria and I worked together for more than two years before Coridan. After, she wanted to help. She demanded that I use her and her sisters as test subjects. She knew how critical my work was and only wanted to see me succeed. I have never imposed my will upon her or any of them. If anything, they’ve pushed me.”

  “Coridan?” Seven asked.

  Briggs became more animated as he spoke, beginning to pace the small room and gesture broadly as if to conjure the images he was creating from thin air.

  “I was on Coridan, attending a medical conference, when the Borg attacked. Naria was with me. She was my assistant. We always listed her species as Kyppran, given the deep pink color of her flesh when her emotional state was unstressed. No one ever questioned it.

  “As soon as the attack began, all officers with medical training were ordered to triage facilities. It was grisly work. There was little we could do for most of o
ur patients. Our supplies were extremely limited, and there was no way for Starfleet to get aid to the planet’s surface with so many cubes in orbit.

  “At the end of the second day, I was called away from surgery for a special mission. Part of a cube had crashed on the surface and several drones were aboard. I was instructed to study those we recovered, in hopes that I could figure out why they were no longer attempting to assimilate us.

  “I’d never seen a Borg before. I’d studied them in the abstract, but the genuine article was something that defied belief. The fusion of organic and technological components, the brilliance of the nanoprobes . . .” Briggs trailed off as if overwhelmed by the remembered ecstasy. “I’d only been at it a few hours when the transformation began. I knew something unusual was happening, but I had no idea at the time that the Caeliar existed, let alone what they intended to do. I thought perhaps I had activated some sort of self-immolation program within the drone. I had to stop it for my analysis to continue. I fired a phaser at point-blank range into his head, hoping it would slow the destruction of his nanoprobes. He died instantly. The transformation ceased. The particles I detected that had flooded his body during the transformation, his newborn catoms, however, did not give up the fight so easily.”

  “You extracted them?”

  “I began to extract as many samples as I possibly could. To this day, I have no idea what airborne virus joined with the catoms I had damaged at the moment of their birth, but within hours everyone who had been anywhere near the drone, including three dozen medical staff members, began to show signs of the plague.”

  “Why weren’t you infected?” Seven asked.

  “I was working in a biohazard suit,” Briggs replied. “I followed all procedures for storing potentially hazardous samples before taking them back to my lab. I was asked to head up this division a few weeks later, when it became clear that the virus had spread. No one ever connected its existence to my work, other than me, of course.”

  “Do you still have those samples?” Seven asked.

  Briggs nodded.

  Seven smiled in relief. “You chose to lead this project in order to correct your own error,” she said.

  Briggs shook his head. “I didn’t realize for some time that it was my actions that had created the plague. That became clear about the same time I realized that there was no way to cure it. Only by unlocking the programming of catomic molecules would it be possible to neutralize the particles that had joined with the virus. Quarantine was our only option.”

  “If you knew this to be true, why continue?” Seven asked. “Why not simply institute the strictest quarantine procedures possible and allow the plague to die a natural death by denying it further hosts?”

  “How can you of all people even ask that question?” Briggs demanded, clearly incensed. “The Borg killed sixty-three billion people in a matter of days. The Caeliar ended them in minutes. Did they ask your permission before they stripped you of your Borg components? No,” he answered for her. “They simply decided that they knew best. Is this the action of a benevolent, peace-loving species? If individual rights are irrelevant to them because they do not exist as individuals, how can our way of life ever mean as much to them as it does to us?

  “The Caeliar are now the greatest potential threat the Federation faces. They will return and when they do, we must be ready. We must unlock the secrets of catomic matter. We must master catoms and we must learn how to turn them against their creators, or like the Borg, when the Caeliar do return, we will be every bit as vulnerable to their will as the Collective was.”

  There were a number of flaws with this premise, but Seven did not bother to enlighten him. It was clear that there was no point in wasting her breath. Briggs was a man defined by fear. It was understandable, given the magnitude of the horrors he had witnessed. But he would never accept that adding to the horror, even with the best of intentions, was not an appropriate response.

  “Did you make this argument to your superiors when you realized that curing the plague was not an immediate option?” Seven asked.

  Briggs shrugged. “When I floated the possibility to the head of Starfleet Medical, I was advised that further study of catomic matter was ongoing but that aggressive experiments were years away from approval.”

  “You knew that your work would only continue as long as the plague did,” Seven realized.

  “It’s difficult to be the lone voice in the wilderness, particularly when you know you are right,” Briggs admitted. “Without Naria, I could never have continued. But she encouraged me. She understood. A handful of cells are all that is required to re-create her, and her genetic memory is astonishing. Each new iteration is born with accumulated knowledge of her predecessors. Each one is born with the same determination to assist me. I could spend the rest of my days studying Naria and her sisters and barely scratch the surface of the wonder that is the Planarian species. I’ve set aside that work, my true calling, because my oath to Starfleet demands that above all, I protect the people of the Federation, even from their own ignorance.

  “One day, the Caeliar will return. With Naria’s help and yours,” he said with emphasis, “they will find our people ready to meet them as equals and to fight them, if need be. My peers might think me foolish, but history will judge me as wise.”

  Seven bowed her head.

  “There is so much to be done,” he said, smiling. “I should have told you sooner. I see that now. I apologize, Seven.”

  PALAIS DE LA CONCORDE

  As soon as Briggs had begun to elaborate on Naria’s creation, Bacco had shot Akaar a meaningful glance. He had stepped away briefly from the table to order a security detachment assembled to transport into the classified lab and take the Commander into custody.

  By the time Briggs had begun to wax rhapsodic about the threat the Caeliar posed to the Federation, Bacco moved closer to Paris, saying, “You have my thanks, Commander Paris. It appears the debt of gratitude I and the Federation owe to Seven keeps growing. You’ll leave this to us for now. I swear to you, we will make this right. The admiral and I are going to need a full briefing from both you and Seven, along with Doctor Sharak and Lieutenant Wildman, before this day ends.”

  “Of course, and thank you, Madam President,” Paris replied.

  Akaar joined them again at the table. “Commander Paris?”

  Paris immediately shot to attention.

  “At ease,” Akaar ordered. Then he extended his hand and Paris shook it firmly. “Job well done, Commander. Your father,” he began, then shook his head. “You should be very proud of yourself.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” President Bacco interjected, “I need to go fire a few people.”

  “I’ll join you shortly, Madam President,” Akaar advised her.

  STARFLEET MEDICAL, CLASSIFIED DIVISION

  “Your apology is irrelevant,” Seven said as the whine of transporter signals filled the room.

  Six security officers armed with phaser rifles appeared to the shock and dismay of Commander Briggs.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Briggs demanded.

  “By order of Admiral Leonard Akaar, you are under arrest, Commander Briggs,” one of the officers replied as a second moved to secure Briggs’s hands behind his back with restraints.

  “You?” Briggs asked of Seven.

  “Me,” Seven replied.

  “This is a mistake,” Briggs warned. “You need me. You need men and women willing to do whatever is necessary to defend the Federation.”

  “The Federation you would create is indefensible,” Seven said simply. “The Federation is, above all, an idea, a belief, a moral and ethical framework you have abandoned. How have your choices differed significantly from those you ascribe to the Caeliar and judged horrific? You have seen darkness, you have witnessed atrocity, and your response was to become what you beheld.”

  “The plague—” Briggs began.

  “You’ve told me all I need to know,” Seven cut him
off. “I no longer require your assistance to complete the task you were originally assigned.”

  “But . . .”

  “He is yours,” Seven said to the lead security officer. With a nod, he tapped his combadge and two of the men flanking Briggs were transported away with their prisoner. The others followed Seven from the office. Together they began to search for the chamber where Axum and Riley were still being held in stasis.

  The hard part was over, but Briggs had been right about one thing. There was still much to be done.

  23

  VOYAGER

  Chakotay tensed as the doors to the turbolift were forced open. When Lieutenant Decan slipped through them, his face slightly flushed, the captain relaxed. Decan had clearly climbed up the shaft leading to the bridge from several decks down.

  “Don’t move,” Emem ordered Decan, raising a phaser at him.

  “I have no intention of moving,” Decan said.

  “Did the admiral send you?” Chakotay asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Silence!” Emem shouted, crossing to the Vulcan and placing the business end of his phaser at Decan’s temple.

  “Lower your weapon,” Chakotay ordered forcefully. “We will proceed calmly as long as you refrain from injuring my people. If you’d rather turn this into a free-for-all, we can do that too.”

  “Do as he says,” Lsia ordered Emem, who complied. Decan moved quickly to stand by Chakotay’s side.

  “I don’t know about you, Captain,” Mattings said, “but I don’t take kindly to anyone who presumes to give orders in my control center. In fact, I can’t understand why you haven’t lifted a finger yet to end this fiasco. Hostile aliens have taken control of your ship, and you act like we’re on a routine mission. That one says she wants to rouse the Source, but have any of you considered the possibility that she could harm it?”

  Chakotay turned to face Mattings. Decan hadn’t spoken another word, but he didn’t have to. That Kathryn had sent him meant that help was on the way. His job was to keep everyone alive long enough for it to arrive.