Slings And Arrows_ The Oppressor's Wrong Part 12

So many mistakes. He wasn't an explosives specialist. He wasn't even a real soldier. But he was loyal. He believed in the admiral and what he knew was a real threat from the Dominion.

"I was trying to discredit Daniels."

"Really?" Leyton's tone was even. Frightening. "So you wanted to make fun of the man I endorsed? My, my, Ishmael-who are you really trying to make a fool of? Him or me?"

Snowden remained silent.

"Well, not all is lost," Leyton said in a casual tone. "I'll instruct Picard to depart, as I've already set that in motion. Before he leaves, I want Nomine to set the second bomb in the s.h.i.+p's engine room-as close to the warp core as possible."

Nomine's eyes widened. He could feel the waves of surprise emanating from Snowden. "Sir?"

"We can't let Picard's att.i.tude infect the rest of the fleet. I'm having to deal with my own little thorn here-and luckily I've been able to neutralize him. I intend on doing the same to the Enterprise."

"Admiral," Snowden said slowly, "you're talking about destroying the Enterprise."

"Not destroy her-simply wound her. You see, Ishmael, this is why I'm here, and you're there. The Enterprise is the fleet's pride and joy, and Picard has his rather colorful if not respectable service record. Now, how do you suppose the Federation itself would react if the Dominion crippled the flags.h.i.+p?"

Oh no. He held his tongue, bit his lower lip. This was madness. It was insane.

"Ishmael, remember what I told you about the chain of command. We must follow it at all costs. You have your orders."

Snowden straightened in his chair. "I can see your point."

"Get the job done, gentlemen. Your s.h.i.+p is on its way, Snowden. Leyton out."

Even before the screen had darkened, Nomine was leaning forward on Snowden's desk, his hands planted on the smooth surface. "We can't do this, Captain. It's unreasonable."

"I realize it sounds like that now," Snowden admitted. "But as Leyton has always taught me, we must all follow the chain of command. The crippling of the Enterprise will cement the Federation's support of martial law. There will be outrage and a call to arms. I can see where the admiral is going with this."

"But all those lives?"

Snowden glared at him as if seeing him for the first time. "If you don't think you can carry out your mission, soldier, perhaps I should do it myself?"

"No." He stepped back. "No, sir. I can do it. I will do it."

"Good. Now get back on board that s.h.i.+p and plant the bomb. And if anyone gets in your way, eliminate them."

"Yes, sir." He nodded to his superior officer, turned on his heel, and walked through the door, his head filled with a cacophony of mixed emotions while his heart rose higher and higher into his chest and threatened to choke him.

Riker's interviews on the starbase failed to turn up anything new. And as for discovering anything else in the rubble, Daniels and Sage did little more than upset the delicate const.i.tution of Snowden, who did keep a discreet distance from Travec.

After a simple dinner and a light concerto concert in the lounge, Daniels met Data in the art sciences studio, his first visit in nearly a week.

As he sat down, he realized Data had asked the computer to play a pleasant violin piece-not one that he recognized. He peered with curiosity at the android, who was happily painting away at his own easel.

Though the music was relaxing, he was having trouble getting past the odd att.i.tude of Admiral Leyton, as well as the over-the-top reactions of Snowden.

It's like he's overcompensating for something. Putting on a show of some kind.

And as for finding out the reason for Hahn's presence at ground zero- "I'm missing something."

Data stopped painting and peered out from behind his easel. "Do you require a new paintbrush?"

Daniels realized with a start that he'd loaded his brush several minutes ago but had yet to apply it to the canvas. "I'm sorry, Data. With everything we've found-the logs, Admiral Hahn's disappearance and then reappearance-we're still no closer than we were before. I'm feeling frustrated."

"I too am experiencing that same emotion of late." Data set his brush down and came to stand to the right of Daniels's easel. "Much of what I see in my mind is not what my hand is painting. This is adding to my frustration as I start over. I have now used sixty-seven canvases since starting my portrait of Spot."

"Data." Daniels blinked at him, his mouth open. "You've used how many canvases?"

"Sixty-seven. I am on my sixty-eighth tonight."

Daniels set his brush down and moved off the stool. "Show me." He followed Data to a stack of discarded canvases in the back of the room, neatly tucked out of the way-or as out of the way as sixty-seven twenty-by-forty canvases could be.

With a glance at the android, Daniels knelt down beside the stack and pulled one of them toward him.

An orange tabby cat leaned back in the picture, licking himself. Daniels tried not to laugh because in truth the stroke quality and precision were incredible even if the subject was a bit-quirky. He pulled another one out. Same image, only with different hues and stroke patterns. With a sigh he pulled canvases at random and looked. All of them were the same image.

An orange tabby cat, its right back leg thrust into the air, its head bent down in front.

Daniels laughed the first good laugh he'd experienced in weeks.

"Why are you laughing?" Data frowned, looking from the paintings to Daniels. "See? I have failed. These were not meant to incur humor."

Daniels put a hand to his chest as he laughed and then wiped at the tears in his eyes. "But, Data..." He gave a wide smile. "These are great. I don't know about meaning to make them humorous, but you did. Why-why did you pick this pose to paint?"

"It was the pose I saw in my head when I closed my eyes." He leaned his head to his left shoulder, toward Daniels, and grinned. "It is also her favorite position."

"Data, you do realize what Spot's doing, right?"

And then Data joined in the laughter as Daniels picked out several canvases and lined them up against the well shelf. He couldn't believe the android had painted a series of a cat cleaning herself.

"T'Saiga to Daniels."

"Daniels here."

"Do you have a sec? I have something you should see in engineering."

"I'll be right there," Daniels said.

"I will continue my series." Data turned and ambled back to his painting.

Daniels found Sage ensconced with La Forge and Travec in the far corner of engineering at one of the diagnostic consoles. The latter leaned up as he approached. "We might have found what it was the shape-s.h.i.+fter was looking for."

Sage nodded from where he sat in front of the console. "About a week ago Lynch handed me a padd he said was yours. I left it in the holodeck and earlier today Travec here got frustrated with it."

"It was broken," Travec said, his hoofs on his hips. "I was in need of a working padd and it was-as you so often say, Mr. t'Saiga-giving me fits."

Daniels smirked at Travec.

Sage glanced at the ceiling, his golden eyes bright, his ears twitching. "After he threw it at me, I noticed carbon scoring and something dark smeared on the back of it. So I gave it to Dr. Crusher for a.n.a.lysis."

La Forge nodded. "It was blood."

"Hahn's blood?"

"Yes," La Forge said. "But she also found Betazoid blood."

Daniels frowned. "I don't recall there being a Betazoid registered on the station. Did Crusher pull a DNA match?"

"Yep," Sage said as he pulled up a standard Starfleet profile sheet. "Bael Nomine. A third-year cadet at Starfleet Academy. Specializing in holographic technology and a member of Red Squad."

"Red Squad?" Daniels mouthed the name. It wasn't familiar. "Never heard of it. Is it some special degree or cla.s.sification?"

"No, it's evidently some sort of elite cadet group," La Forge said. "That's what the captain knew about it."

Daniels ran a hand through his hair. "Besides that, why would a damaged padd have this Bael Nomine's blood on it? And why would a shape-s.h.i.+fter want it?"

"Might be because of this." Sage held up a scuffed green isolinear chip.

Daniels took it and looked at it. "It's not coded."

"No," La Forge said. "Which leads us to believe it's a personal memory chip. I could see it inside the padd with my VISOR, jammed in on top of the padd's original memory."

"Someone hid it there." Daniels smiled. "You think Hahn did it?"

"Well, the chip has Hahn's blood on it," La Forge said.

"Have you been able to read it?"

"Not yet. The chip was damaged in the explosion, though the padd was a great place to hide it."

Daniels closed the chip in his hand. "I'm going to gamble that Hahn hid it, and the shape-s.h.i.+fter was after it. There's something on this chip he doesn't want discovered."

"We'll keep trying to pull the data off," Sage said.

"Do you need the chip back?"

La Forge pursed his lips. "No, I've made a backup of what we've got. I'm afraid I damaged it in the process."

An idea was forming in Daniels's head-a way to bring the shape-s.h.i.+fter into the open. "Mind if I borrow this?"

Daniels turned left down the hall, the chip in his hand along with the damaged padd. He called ahead to Porter and Barclay, who were still conducting a full-spectrum scan of the starbase.

"Anything turn up yet?"

"No," Porter said after a drawn-out pause. "That ghost image is back again, though. Barclay's trying to pinpoint it."

"I'd keep checking. I have to grab something in my quarters and I'll be right there." His plans were to send out a personal message to Sahvisha at the DPO to ask him about clearing data from a damaged isolinear chip, one he'd found inside of a padd. Daniels figured if the shape-s.h.i.+fter was watching them for it, then he'd be monitoring communications as well.

And such a request didn't seem as suspicious as simply announcing the chip's discovery on the Enterprise's comm system.

And doing it from his quarters seemed appropriate. Though it didn't leave enough time to tell Picard or Riker what he was doing.

Daniels pressed his hand to the panel. "Lights," he said as he came in, and once again froze in the doorway.

A young man sat at his comm station, his head bent, his shoulders slumped. In his hand he held a phaser. From the half line of red light, Daniels knew it was set for stun.

He also suspected he knew who this young man was. "Cadet Third Cla.s.s Bael Nomine?"

Nomine nodded slowly, but kept his head bent down. "Please, Mr. Daniels, come in."

Daniels stepped in, and the door shut behind him. "You killed Lieutenant Huff."

"That was an accident. She caught me off guard."

"You're not a shape-s.h.i.+fter."

Nomine sighed and raised his eyes. His dark, Betazoid eyes were sad, red-rimmed. "No. But I can create the illusion." He closed his eyes and his appearance melted, blurred, and changed.

He'd become Daniels's old friend Jonathan DeNoux as he stood, the phaser trained on Daniels's chest. "Alien technology, adapted and perfected by me." He tapped his left temple. "All controlled from an implant in here. Little did I know it'd be used like this."

"For murder?"

"In the service of Starfleet."

Daniels eyed his quarters. His own phaser remained strapped to his hip, but his hands weren't free. One held the chip, the other the damaged padd.

"Please, don't try to run," Nomine said, still wearing a dead man's face. "I can read your surface thoughts. It helps me when I'm camouflaged in the field-to gauge the reactions of my marks." He smiled. "I know you have the chip and the padd. Which is good. And I can shoot you now and the s.h.i.+p's sensors won't detect it."

"Dampening field?" Daniels looked over at the comm station and saw a small, spherical device that he didn't recognize. "Is that how you do it? Create the holograms that surround you?"

"No. That device is going to get me and you out of here without detection."

Daniels did not like the sound of that.

He held up the chip and the padd. "Here they are-and you have to know the chip's too damaged to read. We've tried. We did ID your blood on it. And Hahn's." He focused his gaze on the cadet. "He found out about you, didn't he?"

Nomine nodded. "He was a smart man. A man I respected. He was paying attention. Checked the communications logs."

Daniels's eyes widened. "The missing data." He glanced at the chip in his hand. "It's on here, isn't it? Proof that you were communicating with..." He frowned, hoping Nomine would fill in the blank and give him the name of the man the young cadet worked for.

Nomine abruptly held the phaser up high, aiming it at Daniels's face. "What I did was for the good of the Federation. It must be protected."

Suddenly a few things became clearer to Daniels. "You didn't set the bomb to kill Hahn."

"No, I set the bomb to prove to everyone that the Dominion is a real threat. That we need to change our security measures. It was all supposed to go without a hitch-no casualties."

"But that's where it went wrong," Daniels said, looking about the room to find a way past the phaser fire. He tried masking his thoughts, thinking of Data's cat portraits. "That was the flaw in the plan. You planted it too far away. The Dominion killed twenty-seven people, Bael. You couldn't do it, could you? You couldn't kill more innocents."