Embedded Files
“Captain’s Log, Stardate 54879.6. T’ Psycho has just departed New Canberra, wi’ a load o’ colonists on board. I’m grateful for t’ quiet mission, but surely Command has better use for a Sovereign class starship in wartime than shiftin’ colonists? But at least it means that we get a few days easy cruise on our way to the Harwood Colony. End log entry.”
Olding finished his log for this shift, and noticed once again how the rest of the bridge crew carefully did not meet his expression after he’d recorded a log on the bridge. Olding didn’t see the problem with it, and had always recorded logs whenever he thought of something to say, regardless of where that might be. It seemed, though, that the crew were embarrassed by overhearing their captain’s comments on any given situation. And it wasn’t as if he was being as forthright as he was in the logs he recorded in his ready room. The contents of some of those would really set some ears burning.
In truth, his short rant against the misuse of his ship was the only thing he really had to say at the moment. All systems were functioning as close as they ever got to normally, and the ship could practically fly itself on a simple run between two star systems. Even the colonists weren’t causing any problems, and had bedded down in their temporary accommodation without any complaints whatsoever.
There was one dark cloud on the horizon, Olding realised. He had a medical checkup when he finished his bridge shift today. In common with half the starship captains he’d ever met, Olding hated checkups, although in his case he had good reason to fear visiting the Doctor. Jackson didn’t so much adhere to the Hippocratic Oath as use it as a general guideline, and over the years had probably done more damage to ship’s personnel than any number of aliens, rogue Starfleet officers and Borg infestations had ever done. In fairness, Jackson’s medical staff, and in particular the duty nurses lauded as saints by an ever grateful crew, did wonders to keep the CMO under control, although they’d never managed to shake him of his habit of keeping extraordinarily sharp scalpels to hand ‘just in case’.
Olding groaned as he remembered the appendectomy he’d had last time he went in for a check up. There’d been nothing wrong with his appendix, but a bored Jackson had whipped it out anyway for the practice. Thankfully, though, the fact that he didn’t have an appendix any more made it a little less likely that Jackson could pull that stunt again. And the good news was the scar had healed nicely.
Olding stretched, stood, and straightened his uniform. He did have other duties to perform before his checkup, and he may as well get on with them. He began walking towards the turbolift. “Mr Damerell, you have t’ bridge.”
Behind him there was a loud thump as Damerell performed his customary dead faint and slid out of his chair. Olding kept walking, knowing full well that someone would revive the Ops officer shortly. Damerell was getting better now, it being only a matter of minutes between him being placed in command and him regaining consciousness.
Several decks below, the Counsellor was finishing off the weekly security briefing. In her guise as First Officer/Ship’s Counsellor/Security Chief, the Security Chief section of the job was actually fairly quiet. Barring the normal level of collective insanity that roamed free aboard the ship at any given moment, the Psycho was a long way from being a security nightmare, which meant that it was a refreshing change when they had guests aboard and Security actually had something to do.
After reviewing the arrangements she’d made, it occurred to Hill that she might have overdone the security precautions a bit. She had armed guards on duty at the entrance to all key positions on the ship, with tactical backup teams ready to roll at a moment’s notice. The colonists were under constant observation, although she’d toned down the body armour and phaser rifle requirements for those guards outside the cargo holds that had been modified as temporary barracks. She’d also made sure all the security teams had re-read the Starfleet Major Incident Manual with the Hill Adjustments, so that everyone was fully briefed on what to do in the event of some unforeseen and admittedly unlikely disaster taking place.
As the last security officer left to go on duty, the Counsellor reviewed her troop dispositions once more, and made a note to try and persuade the Captain to let her run a full-scale exercise at some point. Olding hated carrying out drills, especially ones that shook up the ship’s internal running, as it could take weeks for everything to settle back down again, but they hadn’t had a major security drill for some time. In the meantime, though, the Counsellor mused, she could run a theoretical exercise in her office right now. Reaching behind her, the Counsellor grabbed a box full of plastic soldiers.
Olding paused outside the security office. Procedure demanded he reviewed the security protocols in place for the colonists, but Olding couldn’t really see the point. This batch of colonists seemed peaceful folk and there was more chance of a bar fight in Fred’s than in the colonists causing trouble. That said, there had been a bar fight in Fred’s a few weeks back. Security hadn’t got involved, though, as Fred had taken the opportunity to demonstrate the possible uses of his ornamental horse trough. After the offenders had had their heads dunked underwater a few times, things had settled back down, pretty quickly.
Harrumphing to himself more for form’s sake than anything else, Olding entered the security office.
“Whee! Bang! Mortars! Dakka dakka dakka dakka…” The Counsellor enthusiastically swept a load of plastic soldiers off her desk, before returning her attention to the remaining few, who appeared to be mounting some kind of last stand around a coffee mug. “Sound the last post! Form square!”
“Uh, Counsellor?” Olding was almost afraid to ask.
The Counsellor glanced up, saw her commanding officer and instantly went up several points in Olding’s estimation by not fluffing her excuse when it came. “Tactical exercise, sir.”
“I see. Any chance I could see your plans for t’ colonists?”
“Of course.” The Counsellor stood, and handed Olding a padd with the relevant details on it. She then picked up a padd of her own, looked critically at the disposition of her troops on the table top, frowned and made a few notes. She then moved one soldier about half a centimetre to the left. “Better,” she said to herself.
“Counsellor?”
“Sir?”
“I see you’ve taken t’ opportunity to lock down t’ whole o’ t’ ship again.”
“We need the practice, sir. And thinking of which…”
“Another exercise?”
“It has been a while since the last one.”
“Aye, it has. I’m still tryin’ to get my shower to work properly, tha knows.”
“We’ll try and be more careful this time round.”
“Aye, well, I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Olding handed the padd back to the Counsellor, and glanced at the chronometer on the wall. It was time for his checkup. “I’ll be seein’ you, Counsellor.”
“Yes sir. And, Captain?”
“Aye?”
“One of my tactical teams is less than thirty seconds from Sickbay, should you need backup.”
That almost caused a smile. Olding nodded, and said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The next forty-five minutes were the usual selection of exhausting tests, annoying pokes, prods and scans, accompanied by the occasional moment of gut-numbing terror that Olding associated with a normal trip to sickbay. At the end of it, as Olding pulled his shirt back on, and Jackson pondered the results, Olding felt brave enough to ask, “Will I live?”
“Hmm…” Jackson seemed to be thinking for quite a while about it, long enough in fact that Olding started to worry. Finally, the CMO broke the silence by saying, “Sorry, what was the question?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Doctor.” Olding left sickbay, relieved to have got that out of the way for another couple of months.
In sickbay, Jackson saved the captain’s test results, decided to figure out what they meant on another occasion, then pottered around for a while tidying up and sorting his scalpel collection on the wall mounted plinths. Between each biobed readout was a different selection of antique medical cutting tools, most of which had seen use in the fairly recent past.
His tidying was interrupted by a bleeping from his office. Someone was trying to contact him. Jackson wondered who it could be, as he very rarely got calls. Even sick crewmen on the Psycho tried to avoid calling sickbay for some reason.
He entered his office, and sat down at his desk. Thumbing the screen, he said, “Jackson here.”
The face that appeared on the display was unknown to him, as was the background and indeed the uniform the stranger was wearing. The only thing he could spot was that the person was human in origin.
Before he could start asking questions, the stranger leaned forwards and said, “The big cheese flies at midnight.”
Time stopped for Jackson.
Eighty-seven years previously…
Agent 11423 crawled sinuously through the ventilation duct, silenced phaser rifle strapped securely to his back. This mission was tougher than most, but he would prevail. He always had. He’d taken out four guards to get this far, and wasn’t about to turn back now. If Intel was right, then he was getting close to his target. Of course, in the eight years he’d been doing this sort of work, Intel hadn’t always been right. Far from it. 11423 grinned humourlessly, teeth gleaming white against his blacked-out face, and crawled on.
He remembered a time on Kronos, when he’d been told he expect minimal resistance from a couple of sentries, and a dilapidated security system. That particular mission had become a three day running fight through open country, living off the land and carrying his waste with him. He’d lost count of the body count after the first twenty, and by the time he’d reached the LZ he was four pounds lighter and in the final stages of exhaustion. But the Klingon Empire had lost a chancellor during that fight, and to this day they remained convinced it had been a rival faction within the High Council.
Although this mission was tough (which was why he’d been given it), the concept was simple and indeed it was almost identical to every mission he’d ever carried out. Infiltrate the target’s base, get in close, and eliminate the target. Of course, then came exfiltration, but it was understood in 11423’s line of work that operative survival after the target had been taken out of play was not essential to a mission’s success. He knew that, and accepted it as part of the price of doing business.
If the blueprints for the building were accurate, he should be approaching the duct exit point to begin his final approach to the target. Speed and silence were of the essence now.
As he arrived at the grille covering his exit from the duct, 11423 realised that, for once, Intel had got it right. Just as expected, there was the door behind which his target was located, with two armed guards outside it. They were probably just thugs, but the agent hadn’t stayed alive this long by underestimating his opponent.
Ah! Looks like there were holes in the Intelligence briefing after all. Two doors along from his target, there were distinctive scrape marks on the floor. Someone had taken a weapons crate into that room, which meant the presence of a tactical backup team within easy reach of his target. It looked like the mission had just got tougher. 11423 began to re-evaluate his options.
USS Psycho, present day
Olding tried to focus on the padd he was reading, but it was no use. He wasn’t a hypochondriac, far from it, but Jackson’s refusal to tell him the results of his physical was annoying him. Olding decided he wasn’t going to hang about and wait for the answers to come through. “Olding to Jackson,” he said, tapping his commbadge. No answer.
“Olding to Jackson.” Still nothing. Olding sighed. “Computer, locate Doctor Jackson.”
“Doctor Jackson is not on board the Psycho.” Olding’s sigh became a groan. Yet another technical fault. He slapped his desk communicator instead and tried again. “Olding to Jackson.” Yet again, there was no response. Half-wondering if it would work at all now, he tapped his badge, and said, “Olding to Engineering.”
“Stark here, go ahead.”
“Mr Stark, the comm system is up t’ spout again. Get someone on it, will you?”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m tryin’ to raise the Doctor, and apparently he’s not on board.”
“Oh. Right. That’s a new one, actually,” Stark said. “I’ll let Barfoot have a go at it.”
“Good. Olding out.” Olding returned to his padd, finding that at least trying to get hold of Jackson had shifted some of his anxiety.
Stark paged Barfoot, who ambled cheerfully into the Chief Engineer’s office. “Wassup?”
“The Captain’s reported a commbadge fault. He can’t raise the Doc.”
“No probs, I’ll take a look.” Barfoot ambled cheerfully out again and Stark praised the joys of delegation. Returning to his padd, Stark considered the new recipe for chicken marsala he’d been emailed by the head chef on Starbase 54. It didn’t look too bad, but there were probably a few changes he’d make. Stark made a few notes on his padd, then opened the fridge in the corner of his office and considered the contents. He pulled out a packet of chicken breasts, walked over to the preparation area, and began chopping, whistling a happy tune all the while.
Out in Engineering, Barfoot studied the problem he’d been set. After having tried his own commbadge once or twice, it seemed that the Captain had been right. An internal sensor scan revealed no sign of Jackson either. Well, Barfoot thought, at least this was a simple one. Obviously Jackson’s badge had gone kaput. Simplest thing to do would be to find the Doctor, give him a new badge, then strip the old one down and fix it.
Barfoot tapped on the shipwide intercom, and said, “Barfoot to Jackson.” He waited expectantly, but there was no answer. Accessing the internal sensors, he carried out a scan for Jackson’s biometrics. Nothing.
“Hmm,” Barfoot said. He widened the scan, to perform a count of crew on board. Sure enough, there was one missing. Tapping his commbadge, he said, “Barfoot to Olding.”
“Olding here.”
“Sir, it’s not a comm fault. The Doc’s not on board.”
“How can that have happened?”
“Don’t know yet, sir.”
“Well bluidy find out!”
“Yes, sir.” Barfoot signed off, and then tapped his badge again. “Barfoot to Hill.”
The Counsellor was picking plastic soldiers up off the deck when her commbadge sounded. “Go ahead,” she said, stretching under her desk for a grenadier who had worked his way into the most awkward corner to reach.
“Counsellor, it’s Barfoot. We have a missing person. The Doctor’s vanished.”
“How did that happen?” The Counsellor’s fingers brushed against the grenadier.
“I don’t know yet. He’s not registering on ship’s systems.”
“Have you done a diagnostic?”
“Just finished it. There’s nothing wrong with any of our sensors.”
“Unusual.”
“I know. Usually at least one system is on the blink somehow.”
“I meant the Doctor.”
“Oh, right.”
“Okay, if you check the transporter logs, I’ll do the shuttle bays. I’ll alert all security personnel to keep an eye open for him.” The Counsellor managed to get a firm grip on the grenadier and hauled him out of his hiding place. “Gotcha!”
“Blimey, that was quick,” Barfoot commented.
“Ah, no, that was something else. Carry on, Mr Barfoot.”
“Aye aye, sir, uh, ma’am, I mean, Miss, or maybe…” The Counsellor cut Barfoot off in mid-blather.
Eighty-seven years previously…
11423 rotated his body painstakingly slowly. He’d had to crawl further down a much narrower duct to get into a position where he could take out the sentries noiselessly. Now, all he had left to do was to swing his upper body around to hang downwards, his legs holding him in place within the duct.
Finally, he was ready. He reached out with one hand, and released the catch holding the duct hatch closed. As the hatch swung open, he allowed himself to slip downwards until his upper body was dangling down into the corridor. From inside his sleeves slid two throwing knives, fitting snugly into his palms. He narrowed his eyes for a second, then, with a practised flick, threw the knives.
The first security guard caught a glimpse of movement, and began to turn to face it. Half a second later, he caught a knife in the throat. His colleague never got a chance to mourn him, as 11423’s second knife killed him at almost the same moment.
11423 gripped the duct coaming, and effortlessly slipped his legs out of the duct, spun around and landed catlike on the deck. A moment later, the phaser rifle was unslung from his back and in his arms. He advanced stealthily to the sealed door and studied the entrance controls. It was more sophisticated than he’d been briefed on, but far from impossible. It would require a few minutes work, though.
He extracted his toolkit, and set to work, modulating the lock frequency by microscopic increments, anxious not to set off whatever alarm system was in place.
As he got deeper into the coding, he was more and more impressed by the quality of the system on the door. This was much more sophisticated than he’d been led to expect. One thing was for certain, when he turned in his after action report, there would be some seriously scathing comments on the quality of the intelligence he’d received. Nonetheless, he was almost through.
His eyes flicked left, to the door he’d identified as hiding a tactical team. He’d just heard the sound of a servo whining. Dropping the toolkit, he raised the phaser rifle and assumed a kneeling firing stance. A moment later, the door slid open, and another guard stepped out into the corridor. Without hesitation, 11423 fired.
The guard was thrown backwards, landing in a heap further down the corridor. The sound of him hitting the floor, though, was completely blanked out by the earsplitting siren that screeched into life. 11423 cursed. Their sensors were far too sophisticated. What the hell was going on here?
One thing was for certain, he couldn’t hang around. 11423 turned tail and disappeared down the corridor. The mission wasn’t blown, but it had got a lot more complicated.
USS Psycho, present day
All over the ship, alarms started sounding. Olding, who had been touring the bridge, looking over people’s shoulders and generally making the crew uncomfortable, spun round to face Bleep’s station. “What the hell is goin’ on?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… It would seem someone has discharged a phaser set to kill, Captain.”
“Who?”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Unknown, Captain. The phaser was fired outside the door leading to the colonists temporary quarters.”
“Oh, bluidy hell!” Olding fumed for a second, then said, “Turn that bluidy siren off! Sound intruder alert and secure all critical compartments!” As the crew obeyed his orders, he tapped his commbadge, and said, “Olding to Hill.”
“I know, Captain. I’m on it. We’re securing the area around the colonists now.”
“Find out who did this, Counsellor, and string ’em up by t’ unmentionables.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Counsellor arrived outside the colonists door at the run, to find her tactical team covering the corridor. To her horror, there was not one but three corpses littering the deck. Two were the guards, and the third was Lieutenant Hoyos, her deputy Security Chief, and the man in charge of the colonists’ security for this shift.
“Who did this?” she demanded, to be met by shrugs and shaking heads.
“Whoever it was got away before we could get an ID on them, sir,” one of the guards reported. “They’re long gone now. We’ve swept the corridor up to the main junction points in both directions, and have guards posted. They can’t get through now.”
“We thought that before,” the Counsellor pointed out grimly. “Have we checked the colonists?”
“No, not yet.”
“Come on.” The Counsellor unlocked the door and headed inside, phaser drawn.
Inside, the colonists were huddled together, and had formed a barricade across the cargo hold. As the Counsellor entered, something heavy was thrown at her, and she ducked out of the way just in time. “Everyone alright?” she called out, lowering her phaser.
“Yes,” a voice answered from behind the barricade.
“Thank God.” The Counsellor strode over to the barricade and clambered over it. The colonists watched her warily as she found a crate and perched on the edge of it. “Okay,” she began. “Who’s the target?”
Down in Engineering, Barfoot was just about to go in search of Jackson when the alarms went off, and the big blast door came rumbling down. Stark sprinted out of his office, whisk in hand, and over the noise of the alarm, yelled, “WHAT’S GOING ON?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
“IS IT A CORE BREACH?”
“NO!”
“THEN IT’S NOT IMPORTANT! KILL THAT BLOODY RACKET!”
Silence filled Engineering. “That’s better,” Stark said. “What the hell happened?”
“Unauthorised phaser fire, sir,” an engineer reported. Stark and Barfoot exchanged surprised looks.
“Crikey,” Barfoot commented.
“Yeah,” Stark replied. “So they’ve sealed us off. Must be serious.”
“What do we do?”
Stark looked around him. “Anyone fire off a phaser? No?”
The engineers exchanged glances, but no-one came forwards. Stark turned back to Barfoot, shrugged, and said, “Not a lot else we can do until they let us out. Best get back to work.”
Barfoot nodded, and returned to his attempt to find Jackson. Hell of a time to go missing, he thought, right in the middle of a crisis.
Eighty-seven years previously…
11423 was back in the ducts again, breathing hard and very annoyed. He hadn’t had an op go this wrong since… well, since New Berlin, and that one had been nasty with a capital N. Now local security was on to him, and they would make it ten times as hard for him to get through to his target. And trapped inside a facility like this, finding alternate routes would be that much harder.
His breathing slowed back to it’s usual rate, and he began to think tactically again. He’d messed up his first attempt, that was true, but it didn’t mean that all his options were closed off. He did have the advantage of knowing what security would do next. They’d move the target to another secure location. All he had to do was to figure out where that would be.
One thing was for certain, he wasn’t trusting his intelligence information any more, and that was going to include the maps he’d memorised. The first thing he needed was to establish the layout of this facility. And that meant getting back into the computer system.
11423 set off down the duct, searching for some kind of access port he could link into.
USS Psycho, present day
The Counsellor left the cargo bay, thinking. She had three men down, one by phaser blast, but the other two had died due to a knife in the throat. That suggested some specialised training at work.
She knelt by the body of one of the knifed men, thinking hard. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” She asked her security team.
“Not since training,” a grizzled Chief Petty Officer replied.
“Not outside sickbay,” a more junior member of the team responded jokingly. The others hushed him, but the Counsellor, feeling her hackles rise, said, “You may have a point.” She tapped her commbadge. “Hill to Barfoot.”
“Yeah?”
“Mr Barfoot, have you found our missing Doctor yet?”
“No, not yet. What’s going on up there?”
“Long story, Mr Barfoot. Keep trying, and let me know the moment you get anything.”
“Aye, smarm.”
“Smarm?”
“I was trying to run together Sir and Ma’am. I could try Smiss if you like. Or Ma’ams. Or Misss…”
“Mr Barfoot, you’re starting to sound like an asthmatic snake. Just let me know if you get anything on the Doctor.”
“Olding to Hill.” The Captain’s voice arrived just before the Counsellor could think about updating the bridge.
“Go ahead.”
“What t’ bluidy hell is goin’ on down there?”
“We have three men down, sir. Unknown assailant, but I do have a theory.”
“Well? Who is it?”
“I’d prefer to discuss it in person.”
“Then get up here bluidy quick, Counsellor.”
“On my way, sir.” The Counsellor signed off, and turned back to her team. “Chief, you’re in charge. Make sure no-one gets into that room, and find out who the target was!”
“Aye, sir.”
On the turbolift ride up to the bridge, the Counsellor considered her suspect. It seemed barely credible, yet at the same time made a horrid sort of sense. But she needed to run it by the Captain first.
She arrived at bridge level only to be greeted by a warning tone, and the computer voice saying, “Warning. Access restricted. Please state command code for bridge access.”
“Authorisation Hill-Epsilon-Two-Four-Six-Oh-One.”
“Access granted.” The doors slid open and she stepped out onto the bridge.
Olding stepped up from the Ops console where he had been intimidating Damerell. “Well?”
“Could we go to your ready room?”
“Fine.” Olding led the way, and sat himself down behind his desk. The Counsellor stood, arms behind her back. “I think our killer is also our Doctor.”
“What?”
“Jackson went missing just before this happened. Two of my men were killed by well-placed knives. Where have we seen abilities like that before?”
Olding had a mental flash to Jackson’s office in sickbay and the dartboard on the wall. There were virtually no marks other than the cratered mess that was the bullseye. “I see your point, Counsellor. Bring him in.”
“If we can find him, I will. But I’d like to know why he’s doing this.”
“So do I,” Olding replied. “We have seen him kill people like this before.”
“During combat,” the Counsellor replied. “I’m pretty certain I’ve never seen him do it cold-bloodedly.”
“Do you know what happened to him at t’ Academy?” Olding asked.
“I’ve no idea.”
“He got thrown out and accused of attempted murder.”
“What?!”
“Aye. He dissected t’ wrong body.”
“A live one?”
“Got it in one. T’ whole case was a bit strange, but it shows he had an affinity for sharp things right from t’ start.”
“So how did he get a commission?” the Counsellor asked.
Olding shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I gave it him.”
“You what?”
“It was a crisis, he said he’d had medical trainin’, I needed someone to back me up! Look, it was all a long time ago. You want to know about it, read his file.”
“I think I’ll have to,” the Counsellor said, standing to leave.
“Counsellor,” Olding said. “Could it be that one of our colonists is actually guilty?”
“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t think so. Unfortunately, Jackson is our prime suspect right now.” The Counsellor shrugged apologetically and left.
Jackson’s file made interesting reading, alright. The Counsellor was amazed this hadn’t come to light before. He’d been in the Academy for about five minutes before being charged with attempted murder. Then came nearly four years of bumming around as a washer-upper for Starfleet Catering, then the trip to Port McCaffrey and his field commission. After that, eight years as CMO for some obscure station out on the Romulan neutral zone, then his posting to the Psycho. And in all that time, no sign of any medical training whatsoever!
The more detailed records of Jackson’s time aboard the three Psychos the Counsellor already knew: a distressing ignorance of the finer art of medicine coupled with a predeliction towards amputation, but at no point had he ever just attacked somebody. She needed to pull his records from the space station to get the complete picture of Jackson’s service record.
The Counsellor accessed Starfleet’s central records to get the old files. Normally, that was an instantaneous process, but this time, it took a lot longer. Finally, the Counsellor discovered that the station Jackson had been on, LV-426, had been destroyed shortly after he left in a freak accident. That in itself made her wonder, so she dug deeper into the files. They had had a fifty year security lock on them, but that had expired thirty years before, so she could get into them with no problems.
The station had been the target of a sneak Romulan attack, part of the occasional flare ups in the cold war between the Federation and the Empire at that time. Fortunately for Jackson, there was no suggestion of any inside information being leaked. The Counsellor shook her head. It had come to a pretty pass when she was suspected him of murder, treason, and probably of having been the third gunman on the grassy knoll (Although, given the crew’s history with time travel, it was distinctly possible that Jackson could yet be one of the gunmen on the grassy knoll).
Accessing the station’s crew listings, the Counsellor received something of a shock. The CMO on board at the time had been a Lieutenant Harvey. Nothing wrong with that, except he’d been there for four years. His predecessor had been Ensign Ruby, who had completed five years service aboard the station. In short, Jackson had not been aboard LV-426 when his records claimed he had. The Counsellor felt a shiver run up her spine. There was something big here, and she didn’t know what, yet. She had a feeling that solving the mystery of Jackson’s career would give her some answers as to why he had gone nuts.
Eighty-seven years previously…
11423 slid cautiously out of the maintenance tube he’d been hiding in. He had found a computer to access, studied the map, and was now deeply confused. His briefing had been that he was to infiltrate a planetary installation, and the map he had found clearly showed he was aboard a starship of some kind. And what was worse was, now he thought about it, he couldn’t clearly remember getting aboard a starship. He could remember the freefall from the shuttle in low orbit, he could remember the first night planetside and then the long walk towards the installation, but after that everything went vague. 11423 wasn’t used to vagueness, and it disturbed him.
Shaking his head, he forced himself to concentrate on the mission. Regardless of peripheral confusion, he still had a clearly defined operation to complete. Unslinging the phaser rifle, this time carefully set to stun, 11423 set off as stealthily as he knew how down the corridor.
He’d been right in his guess earlier. The security forces had moved his target, and those surrounding him, to a new location. Doubtless they thought they’d be secure here. Unfortunately for them, they’d underestimated 11423. He’d already picked out the new location before his opponents had, and reconnoitered it. And now, he’d found a route in that they hadn’t.
The supposedly secure location was an empty storeroom, next to the armoury. It was much smaller than the previous spot, and with an armoury next door was reckoned to be better protected. However, they’d missed the fact that the armoury had an emergency access hatch in it’s floor that led straight into a full storeroom. By accessing it from the deck below, 11423 could get into the room next door, which due to its seals the guards could not, and make his final approach to the target in relative comfort.
He paused below the hatch, slung his rifle, then leapt upwards, catching hold of the hatch controls. A quick twist, and the hatch swung down. As it did so, 11423 swung his legs upwards, flicking them through the hatchway and hooking them either side. Straining at the waist, he brought his upper body up until he was safely inside the armoury. He hadn’t yet let go of the hatch, and closed it carefully behind him. The rifle came off his shoulder once more, and he considered his new surroundings.
As the plans had suggested, he was effectively walled off from most of the armoury behind a large stack of crates containing phaser rifles. His wrist mounted tricorder told him there were another two guards within the armoury itself. 11423 nodded approvingly. The security was better than he’d been briefed on, but then, aboard a starship, he would have expected no less.
He could hear the guards conversing in low tones. There was no chance of him getting into the storeroom without them hearing him, so they had to be taken out. Normally, he’d use his throwing knives, but he’d been forced to leave them behind and he wasn’t carrying any more. A phaser was out of the question in an armoury, regardless of how low he set it. Besides which, 11423 didn’t trust stun settings. There was too much leeway on how long a target would be down for. Fortunately, he still had his sheath knife. 11423 drew his knife, clasped carefully in his right hand, and began to inch his way around the crates.
He paused when he had line of sight on the targets. Both guards were some distance away, and there were enough obstacles in his way to make a stealthy approach nearly impossible. That left him with only one other option, which was riskier, but his only chance.
11423 slowly drew back his knife hand, aimed carefully, and threw. The instant the knife left his hand, he was bringing the rifle round and bounding forwards towards the two guards.
The knife hit the guard furthest away from him, going clean through his temple and killing him instantly. The other guard registered the fact his comrade was down, and began to spin round to face his attacker. As he did so, he slapped at the badge on his chest, and called, “Chalk to Security! He’s…”
11423’s rifle caught him around the face, butt first, and he toppled to the floor. 11423 leapt over his still-falling body, snatched the knife up and swung it around in a blood-streaked trail that caught Chalk’s neck in mid fall. By the time Chalk hit the deck, he was dead.
11423 regarded his two victims. Chalk’s call meant that this approach to the target was blown. He had to get out now. The operative cursed under his breath. The mission was never supposed to be this complicated. He ran back to the hatch, opened it, and, after checking the corridor below, dropped through and made his escape. Thirty seconds later, he was back in the access tubes and hidden from view.
USS Psycho, present day
“Chalk to Security! He’s…” the voice came over the Counsellor’s commbadge. The Counsellor swore, stood up and ran for the door. Chalk was one of the guards she’d allocated to the armoury next to the storeroom. It sounded like Jackson had struck again.
She arrived in the storeroom to find yet another blood stained mess. Both guards were down permanently. “Hill to Olding.”
“Let me guess.”
“I’m afraid so, sir. He got to the armoury next door. Both guards are dead.”
“Why can’t we track him?” Olding sounded frustrated, and the Counsellor couldn’t blame him.
“He’s got some kind of biosigns blocker on him. Easy enough to modify one from the equipment he has in sickbay.”
“Do we know who he’s tryin’ to kill?”
“No, sir. I have people interviewing the colonists, but so far we haven’t been able to find anyone with a connection to him.”
“I am this close to lockin’ everyone in the holodecks and anaesthetising t’ ship again,” Olding said.
“Probably wouldn’t work, sir. He’s shown he’s too smart to fall for something like that.”
“Hmm. Doesn’t sound like our Doctor.”
“I know.” The Counsellor pondered for a moment, then took the plunge. “Captain, there is something not right about Doctor Jackson.” She explained the inconsistencies in his file, as quickly as she could.
“What are you suggestin’, Counsellor?”
“I don’t know, yet, sir. But there is more to our CMO than meets the eye.”
“Hmph. That would be a first. Find him! Olding out.”
The Counsellor stood in the darkened armoury, swore viciously, then grabbed a phaser rifle, checked the power charge, and strode out into the corridor. She still had a mystery to solve, but she also had to stop Jackson before he killed anyone else.
Olding signed off from the Counsellor, and drummed his fingers against the command chair. The crew all had their heads down, anxious not to incur the Captain’s wrath at a time like this. All except Damerell, of course, who was staring vacantly into space. As Olding watched, he saw the beginnings of drool forming at the corner of Damerell’s mouth.
Before he could suck in a breath and begin shouting, Bleep saved Damerell’s life by saying, “Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… Incoming message, Captain. Priority One coding.”
“Bluidy marvellous timing,” Olding grumbled. “I’ll take it in my ready room.”
He entered his ready room, and answered the call. It revealed a man wearing a dark leather uniform, the like of which Olding hadn’t seen before. “Who the hell are you?” Olding growled.
“My name is not important, Captain. I have some information that may be of importance to you.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that your Doctor is not who you thought he was.”
Olding’s expression didn’t flicker, but he was impressed. “So who is he then?”
“Your Counsellor has been making enquiries about him in the Starfleet archives,” the man said. “Those enquiries activated flags that have come to our attention. We haven’t seen his file in a long time, so it came as a surprise to us that he was still active. But then, your crew have had quite a ride through the decades.”
“Get on wi’ it,” Olding said. “I know my history.”
“But not this bit. Your CMO used to work for us. He was one of our finest deep-cover operatives. That should answer your questions.”
“It doesn’t even start to answer my questions!” Olding thundered. “Who the hell are you, what the hell do you do, and why is my CMO killin’ people?!!!”
That took the man aback. “He’s killing people?”
“What did I just say?”
“Interesting… That shouldn’t be happening.”
“You’re tellin’ me!”
“No, Captain, you don’t understand. When we discharged Jackson, we buried his memories and training. He doesn’t know he was once an assassin.”
“Looks like he’s remembered,” Olding said.
“Then someone has reactivated him,” the man thought fast. “We did have a reactivation system in place, but it hasn’t been used in decades. Somebody must have activated it.”
“So it wasn’t you,” Olding said.
“No Captain, Section 31 didn’t even know 11423 was still out there…. Oh shit. Forget I said that last bit.”
“The Section 31 bit? Or the 11423 bit?” Olding said, finally getting a handle on this conversation.
The man squirmed. “Both.”
“Listen, sunshine, I don’t care if you’re Section 31 or not. I want to know what’s goin’ on. Jackson’s killin’ people, and I’d like him to stop.”
“Okay, look. If he’s been reactivated and has started killing people without warning, then it means he’s reset to his last mission and is trying to complete it.”
“What happened on his last mission?”
“It’s a long story, Captain.”
“Tell it.”
The man looked at Olding, took a deep breath, and began to explain.
“We’re going for defence in depth here,” the Counsellor explained. “Clever didn’t work, so maybe brute force will.”
She and her security troops were clustered around yet another map. Rather than move the colonists again, the Counsellor had simply stripped every other normally patrolled site on the ship and surrounded every conceivable entry point to the storeroom. There were four guards on every duct, corridor, hatchway and cable path that even came close to the room. Behind them were the Counsellor’s roving tactical teams, and behind them were automated sentry guns, built from a phaser/tricorder combination. They were programmed to track on movement, and would ignore anyone whose biosigns they could actually read. Whilst it would be an exaggeration to say the Counsellor was confident of success, she was certainly not going to make it easy for Jackson to get through.
“Okay, people, let’s move like we’ve got a purpose! Phasers on stun, good luck, and stay alive!” With those encouraging words, the security forces moved out, and the Counsellor began her own private patrol. She hadn’t got far before her commbadge bleeped.
“Olding to Hill.”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“Counsellor, looks like you were right. Listen to this…” Olding told the Counsellor the story of Jackson’s past, and his last mission as a Section 31 assassin.
“Thanks, Captain. I think I can bring him in with no more deaths now,” the Counsellor said.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Thought not.”
11423 crawled through the maintenance tubes, feeling the unaccustomed sensation of fear. He’d nearly been caught twice trying to complete his mission, which was almost unheard of for him, and, worse still, he was convinced someone had been playing games with his memory. There were large holes in his normally perfect recall, and the sense of disorientation he’d had since he found himself on this starship just wouldn’t go away.
Then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any stranger, it did.
“11423, this is Control. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
He didn’t recognise the voice, but that was normal. But the message itself made no sense! He hadn’t yet completed his mission.
“Negative, Control. The fox has not jumped. The dustbins have not been kicked.”
“11423. The lazy dog has gone to sleep. Other foxes have raided the bins. Your mission is over.”
11423 considered this for a minute. He had the strangest feeling he had had this conversation before, except the last time Control had been male. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but it wasn’t happening. It was as if a fog was forming around his mind. 11423 gripped the rifle tighter. He had to maintain control. Even if his primary target was already gone, he would have to exfil, which from a starship was going to be challenging.
“11423, Control. Please explain breed of dog.”
“Say again?”
“Give us the breed of your dog!” 11423 was concerned now. Surely Control would know the identity of his target? Maybe it was just a test for him. “The dog is Joe Falco.”
“Understood. And, 11423?”
“Go ahead, Control.”
“Mary had a little lamb. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged, Control. Mary had a little lamb.” 11423’s head swam, and he could feel consciousness slipping away. He fought it, but to no avail The last thing he heard was Control saying, almost to herself, “His fleece was white as snow.”
The Counsellor heard the thump over her commbadge, and sighed. “Right, he’s down.”
“Now what do we do? We still can’t find him,” one of her security guards complained.
“We don’t need to. He’ll come round in a few minutes and tell us himself.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Sure enough, a few minutes later, the Counsellor heard Jackson’s voice over her commbadge saying, “Er, can anybody hear me?”
“I can, Doctor. Are you lost?”
“Well, I’m in a Jefferies tube. Any idea why?”
“It’s a long story, Doctor. Let me know where you are, and I’ll come and fetch you.”
“Oh, okay.” Jackson sounded thoroughly confused, and in that he wasn’t alone, the Counsellor reflected. There were a lot of unanswered questions out there, and she still wanted answers.
The story continues in ‘The Good, The PADD and The Ugly’.
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