Star Trek: New Frontier®: Blind Man’s Bluff Read online

  Her front door chimed. She was in the middle of carefully painting flowers on a newly crafted vase and didn’t feel like getting up. Without giving the slightest consideration as to who might be at the door—one simply didn’t worry about such things on Tendara Colony—she called out, “Enter, if you’re so inclined.”

  The door slid open. The person filling the doorway did not enter. Instead she stood there, in the arch, as if afraid to come in because she wasn’t certain as to what sort of reception she would receive.

  Annie glanced up at her, most of her attention still focused on the vase. Then the brush suddenly slipped from her now nerveless fingers.

  “Aunt Annie?” the newcomer said tentatively.

  Annie got to her feet, her legs trembling. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She had not seen her for so many years, but the woman looked so much like her mother, how could she be mistaken for anyone else? Unheeding of her surroundings, Annie started forward and banged into the table upon which the vase had been balanced. The vase tumbled off, struck the floor, and shattered. She walked right over it, the pieces crunching beneath her boots. “Oh my God,” she said again. “Annika?”

  She didn’t notice the young woman flinch at the name, and bite back a response. Instead she said evenly, “I’m home,” and then Annie was across the room and threw her arms around her. The pressure knocked the breath right out of her and she had to gasp to get it back.

  Annie drew back for a moment and touched Seven’s face where the implants had once adorned it. She could see where they had been; the skin around it was slightly browner.

  As if reading her mind, Seven said, “I could go in for tanning treatments to even out the skin, but I decided to let the sun do it naturally.”

  “Oh my God!” she said a third time and hugged Seven once again, so fiercely this time that it seemed to Seven as if her ribs might snap. “Oh, my little girl! This is… it’s a miracle!”

  Tears began to run down Seven’s face. They came so easily these days, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was this: this place, this person, this life. She said the first thing that came to mind: “I’m sorry about your vase.”

  “To hell with the vase,” said Aunt Annie. “Let it be broken. At least my family is back together.”

  iii.

  Seven had spent most of the week at Aunt Annie’s doing one of two things: listening to stories of her youth, and sleeping. Fortunately at no point did she do both of those things simultaneously.

  My name is Seven. I will not be Annika. Not for anyone. That had been the immediate response that had almost sprung from her lips. It had become reflex to her.

  But this was the woman for whom she had been named. This was the woman who had saved her life in infancy. This was the one thing left from the life that she had once known, a life that she was feeling the need to connect with in order to become a truly whole person. And the first thing she was going to do to that end was to reject the name that was based on Annie Kalandra’s own?

  Not for anyone but her.

  Annie regaled Seven with all the stories she’d had pent up all these years. Tales of little Annika: her first word (“light,” as it turned out, and not the more predictable “mama” or “dada”), her first faltering steps. All the typical remembrances of a life long past. Plus she also had many other stories that, as a close friend of the family, she’d learned: tales of Seven’s father when he was growing up, and how he had first met her mother (it was a long, protracted story having to do with an umbrella). These were the kinds of tales that one heard incessantly growing up so that, by the time someone was as old as Seven was, they would be common knowledge, part of the family history.

  In this case, however, it was the equivalent of getting a protracted information dump in one extended sitting. It was rather odd for Seven in many respects. She was hearing about her own life, and the lives of her parents and family, and yet it was like listening to a series of anecdotes about total strangers. But at least she was able to listen with empathy. When she was Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One, the stories would have been meaningless. When she was the recovered Seven of Nine aboard Voyager, the stories would have had some mild interest to her in that they related to a past that she knew was hers, even if she did feel utterly disconnected from it. Now, as Annika Hansen—in actuality if not in regular practice—she was able to appreciate them for what they were, even as she was only partly able to… well, to assimilate them.

  She realized that she was coming up against the limits of her new status. She was now fully human in most aspects, with no trace of her Borg identity manifest on her body. Yet—and it was difficult for her to admit, but it was true—inside she was still dealing with the learning curve of being a “normal” person.

  She didn’t allow any of her inner concerns to be on display for her “aunt,” however. Annie was so overjoyed to see her, and was clearly enjoying the entire process of doting on her namesake, that there seemed no point in dropping any of her inner turmoil on Annie. It wasn’t as if it was something with which Annie could help her. The feeling of disorientation was something that she needed to work out on her own, and she hoped that she would be able to do so, given enough time. For now, simply spending time with Annie was a good start to acclimating herself to the worlds around her. Aunt Annie was her point of entrance back into the life of Annika Hansen, and perhaps something that would enable her to leave behind the voices that still rattled around in her head.

  Besides which, Aunt Annie was not only a great recounter of anecdotes, but she also made a formidable apple tart.

  It was on the sixth day of her vacation with Aunt Annie, while she was in the middle of eating one of those apple tarts in the kitchen, that Annie came to her with a concerned look on her face. “There’s someone at the door asking for you,” she said.

  “Really?” Seven cocked a curious eyebrow. “The only person who knows I’m here is my supervisor at Starfleet Academy. Who could it possibly be? Is it…?” She suddenly perked up. “Is it someone from Voyager?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Is the visitor in a Starfleet uniform?”

  “No. It’s a Vulcan, if that’s of any use.”

  “Tuvok!” she said immediately, springing to her feet. “I wonder what he’s—”

  “It’s not a he. It’s a woman.”

  She remained where she was. “A woman?”

  “I may not know if someone is from Voyager, but I’m reasonably sure I can tell male from female,” Annie said drily.

  “Very well,” said Seven. She came around the table and started to head out into the living room.

  Annie stopped her for a moment, picked up a napkin, and wiped some crumbs from the edges of Seven’s mouth. Seven wanted to tell her that she was perfectly capable of wiping her own face, but kept it to herself. Annie had married once, but it had not lasted, and she had never had children of her own. So she had a boatload of maternal instinct and was happy to utilize it anywhere the opportunity presented itself. Seven smiled inwardly and allowed Annie to finish cleaning her up before she went out to see who this mysterious Vulcan visitor was.

  She walked into the living room and there, indeed, was a female Vulcan. She was dressed simply, in nondescript clothing… so nondescript, in fact, that it caught Seven’s attention. Most Vulcans she knew were either ambassadors or members of Starfleet; that seemed to be the two professions that prompted Vulcans to leave their world. Otherwise they tended to be rather insular; certainly they didn’t show up on random colony worlds. The fact that this particular Vulcan was attired in such a way that she more or less looked like a colonist prompted Seven to wonder just why she was dressed in that manner. It made her think that she might be hiding something.

  “May I help you?” she asked politely.

  “Annika Hansen,” said the Vulcan. She was tilting her head slightly, like a canine trying to listen carefully for sounds that only she could hear.

 
Seven glanced in Annie’s direction. She automatically wanted to correct the Vulcan, but the fact that Annie was right there… “Yes,” Seven replied, trying not to grit her teeth.

  The Vulcan paused and then said, as if to verify it, “Seven of Nine.”

  Seven actually felt more comfortable hearing that name, even as she heard her aunt draw in her breath sharply. “Who wants to know?”

  “Well, I do, obviously. You’re,” and unusually for a Vulcan, a smile seemed to tug at the edges of her mouth, “not exactly what I was expecting for a former assimilated Borg.”

  “Please state your business or I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “All right,” she said. “First of all, I wish to extend my condolences on the passing of Kathryn Janeway. I never had the pleasure of meeting her, but from what I understand, the two of you were very close.”

  “We were, yes,” said Seven, “and I appreciate the sentiment. I think I’d appreciate it a little more if I knew what you were doing here.”

  “I’m here because of the nature in which Admiral Jane-way passed away. It involved…”

  “I know what it involved. I was there.”

  “You were?” It was Aunt Annie who had spoken. “You were there when Admiral Janeway passed away? During that whole awful business when the Borg ate Pluto? You didn’t tell me that, dear.”

  There was a great deal that Seven had not told her. She hadn’t wanted to give Annie the impression that the most recent years of her life had been a walk in the park, but neither did she feel the need to tell her in extraordinary detail every hazard that she had encountered.

  The Vulcan’s gaze darted from Seven to Annie, and then, before Seven could reply, she said, “She was there in an advisory capacity, watching from a distance. Without her… advice… the situation would not have been resolved in a manner favorable to the Federation’s interests.” She then regarded Seven with an upraised eyebrow as if to say, Do you wish to contradict me?

  “Yes, that is precisely what happened,” Seven told her without inflection.

  There was a dead silence for a moment, and then Annie said, “You know what? I think it would probably be best if I went out for a walk. Let you two talk about… whatever you need to talk about… for a while.”

  “That would be most considerate,” said the Vulcan.

  Moments later, having picked up her hat and light jacket, Annie walked out, leaving the two of them in the living room, both standing and staring at each other, like sculpted bookends.

  “Who are you?” said Seven the moment the door slid shut behind her aunt. “Why are you here? And why is the manner of Admiral Janeway’s death of any importance to you?”

  “My name is Soleta.”

  “Soleta.” The name was familiar to Seven, but it took her a moment to recall it. Then she did, and her eyes widened. “You were the Vulcan science officer who turned out to be a Romulan. You were discharged from Starfleet as being a security risk.”

  “I didn’t turn out to be a Romulan. My mother was Vulcan, my father Romulan.”

  “From my understanding of the antipathy between the races, I am surprised your mother took up with—”

  “She didn’t ‘take up’ with anyone. It was not remotely consensual.”

  That stopped Seven for a moment. When she ran the conversation back through her head, she realized that she had sounded rather stiff, even Borg-like. It was almost as if thinking and reacting like a normal human was something that required practice. “I am…” She cleared her throat. “I am sorry. About that.”

  “So was my mother, but she didn’t let it affect the way she raised me, so…” And she shrugged. “In any event, I am here because I was sent by Captain Mackenzie Calhoun.”

  “Calhoun, your former commander.” When Soleta nodded, Seven said, “I met him. Jean-Luc Picard introduced us at Kathryn Janeway’s memorial service. He seemed very… interesting.”

  “He is that.”

  “But he is your former commander. Yet you are here on his behalf.”

  “I owe him more than a few debts that, in truth, can never be repaid. So he knew he could count on me to help him perform this service.”

  “And what service would that be? Does it pertain to the passing of Kathryn Janeway?”

  “Only in that you have more experience with artificial life forms and computer intelligences than any other human.”

  “And you need me to apply that experience to a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what,” said Seven, “would the nature of that problem be?”

  “Captain Calhoun needs someone to help him terminate a once-human computer entity that could possibly destroy the entire Federation.”

  Seven stood there silently, taking that in. “Can I get you something to drink?” she said at last.

  “Is it alcoholic?”

  “It could be.”

  “Then yes, definitely.”

  iv.

  Soleta had not known what to make of the note that had been left in her quarters on her ship, the Spectre. The vessel had been stolen by the D’myurj—technically by her former (and now deceased) lover, but the D’myurj had been pulling the strings—and recovered by the crew of the Excalibur. She had not expected to find a handwritten note from Calhoun, however, if for no other reason than that she couldn’t remember the last time someone had handed her something written on paper. She couldn’t imagine where Calhoun had managed to acquire it, although she supposed that she shouldn’t have been surprised. There was very little Mackenzie Calhoun could not accomplish if he put his mind to it.

  The fact that he left a note at all was enough to pique Soleta’s interest, because she couldn’t fathom the reason for it. She had picked it up and read it with curiosity. By the time she got to the end, it was all she could do—even with all of her training in suppressing her emotions—to prevent her hands from trembling.

  She knew that there had been problems with Morgan. She knew that the being that had once been human, and was now the computer heart of the Excalibur, was becoming somewhat unpredictable. But the notion that Calhoun felt the need to embark on this secretive, even byzantine, course of action in order to remedy the situation was enough to drive home to her just how dire things had become.

  She was a spy. She was a Romulan spy, or at least she had been. She was the absolute last individual that any reasonable person should trust with any sort of delicate mission, particularly when it involved something that could impact on the internal security of the Federation. Yet she was the one upon whom Calhoun was now depending, in the name of old loyalties that he couldn’t possibly know for sure she would respect.

  Except he did know. That was the damnedest thing about him. He knew and had every confidence that she would not let him down.

  She knew that she wouldn’t. As certainly as she knew anything else in this life, she knew that she would not let Mackenzie Calhoun down, especially when she was the only one upon whom he could count.

  It made sense, after all. Morgan would monitor any normal form of communication that he might employ. He could hardly send a standard subspace communication to Soleta, even encoded, because it would lay bare his concerns and plans to the very entity that he was trying to undo.

  But a simple piece of paper facedown on a table was out of reach for Morgan, unless she was in a holographic form. And since there was no holo-technology in Soleta’s quarters, Calhoun was able to leave it there for her with relative impunity. In order to thwart something exceedingly hightech, the best way to do so was something very low-tech.

  Of course, it was possible that Morgan was going to be monitoring Soleta’s comings and goings as well, seeing her as a potential threat. But she didn’t think that was going to be the case. There was no reason for Morgan to regard her as a threat, particularly since she was a solo operative with no direct connection to the Federation. She was the absolute last person that Calhoun would turn to.

  Which might make her thin
k you’d be the first person he’d turn to…

  Soleta, with impressive discipline, had forced herself to shut down that line of thinking. Incessant paranoia could wind up immobilizing her, make her second-guess her every move. Should that happen, she would be of no benefit to Calhoun or to anyone. She had to proceed as best she could, in as careful a manner as she could, and trust to both her instincts and Calhoun’s chess-like ability to outthink an opponent by being five steps ahead.

  She just hoped that five steps would be enough in this case.

  Tracking down Annika Hansen had been simplicity itself, because Seven had made absolutely no effort to cover her tracks. Why should she? It wasn’t as if she was on the run from anyone. She had formerly requested vacation from her Starfleet superior, and had filed a flight plan, itinerary, and emergency contact information with the proper authorities. Naturally all of that had been confidential, not remotely intended for public dissemination. It was available only for Starfleet and not meant for prying eyes.

  As a consequence of these extended security procedures, Soleta had required a full six and a half minutes to crack into the Starfleet mainframe and extract the information she wanted as to Seven’s whereabouts (as opposed to the three or so that it would ordinarily have required). In considering such worries as Starfleet security, she took some consolation in knowing that only a former science officer such as herself would have the know-how to commit such a detailed piece of investigation, and there was not an abundance of people like her around.

  Once she had obtained the information she wanted, she had piloted the Spectre directly to Tendara Colony. She had to think that this was a remarkable stroke of luck. If Seven of Nine had still been at Starfleet Academy, obtaining access to her might have been slightly more problematic. First of all, Soleta was still considered persona non grata. Second, computers monitored the comings and goings of anyone at the Academy. No one thought anything of this; it was simple routine security procedures. Yet now that very security which they thought that computers offered was in fact putting security at risk, and almost no one was aware of it. Nor was warning anyone an option. Morgan would doubtlessly learn of it, and besides, they wouldn’t believe Soleta anyway.