Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:26:07 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson inheildi@earthlink.net Title: Faith: Hope Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: REP 9/18 Rating: [PG-13] Codes: Troi had come through. Bashir now had access to the ship's computer and medical database. Deep Space Nine had saved his notes and Kira had sent them over as soon as she'd received his request. She even tacked on a little message. A prayer, in Bajoran, thanking the Prophets for their kindness in the return of a friend. It was from Irlo Bron's first and only prophecy. She'd gone through a lot of trouble to find such an obscure reference. Even more important than the database and the records was Data. He'd come through, too, and Bashir now wore the freshly cleaned shoes he'd worn for the last six months. Together with the computer access, he'd found his mind sufficiently occupied as to lose track of time and the brightening of the light. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't even hear the yellow alert or the door to his quarters opening. "Back to work already?" Sloan asked. Julian smiled, and without looking up, pressed the key, finishing the project he'd been working on. "Complete," the computer intoned. "Don't tell me you thought up a cure for the Blight while you down there." Sloan quipped. Bashir turned to look at him. Sloan was once again dressed in his customary black. He was smiling, too, trying to be playful, perhaps. Julian's own smile widened. "No," he said leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs on the computer console. The sparse light in the room was enough to shine on the toes of his shoes. At least he thought so. "I've thought up a cure for you." Sloan didn't speak and Bashir saw with great satisfaction that he'd confused the poor man. Sloan didn't know what to say. All the better. "I suppose you've come to say good-bye," Julian said, bringing his feet back to the floor, "or that you were hoping I'd go with you." Sloan nodded, still smiling as he almost always did. "You're too public to come just now." Bashir dropped his smile and his pretense. "I won't be coming at all." "Oh, I think--" Sloan began, still smug. "I think better," Bashir interrupted, correcting him. "And probably more often. I really must thank you for that. You gave me six months of very little distraction. I had to put my mind to good use." Sloan's own smile was fading, "What use?" Bashir leaned forward and slipped off his left shoe. Then he replaced both of his feet on the floor. He stood, allowing Sloan full view of his project, not that there was much to see. At least, there was not much that he would allow the man to see. A small device, black and box-like, sat at one side of the console. Bashir lifted a slender tool from beside the device and pried loose the sole of his shoe where it met the arch. A small disk slipped out and into his hand. Sloan smirked, "I was curious about the shoes." "You were lax not to have checked them," Bashir corrected again. "But you wouldn't have found it if you had. It wasn't in the shoe then." Sloan waved a hand, dismissing the shoe. His smile was back, though not as broad. "What is it?" His eyes reminded Bashir of Garak when the Cardassian fancied himself Bashir's mentor. There was a hint of pride in his face. His pupil had learned to conceal things from him. "It's my insurance," Bashir answered, holding the little disk up. It was quite small, barely the size of his finger. "You might have checked for isolinear chips or data rods, but you wouldn't have thought of compact disks, archaic form of data storage as they are. You played me so well on Romulus, I thought I should return the favor." The pride slipped and Sloan's countenance took on an air of annoyance, something Bashir had had a lot of experience recognizing, he mused. "What data?" Sloan asked simply, no longer eloquent spy of his previous visits. "Every kind imaginable," Bashir answered, allowing himself some pride. "Operative assignments and aliases, shield configurations, resonance frequencies, warp engine calibrations, transport pattern encryptions. . . ." He let the list trail off. "You're bluffing." "But you know me to be such an honest man," Bashir teased. Still, he wasn't against a little show to prove his honesty. He placed the disk in the little device, which promptly swallowed it up. He pressed a tab on the console and one on the device simultaneously. "Computer," he ordered, "display Sample: Sloan." "Working," the computer replied. A beam of blue light emitted from the small device and expanded into a holographic display. Data began to scroll slowly across it. Names and aliases. The data ceased and blinked away to reveal a galactic map with sparkling lights clustered at one end. The view began to zoom inward toward the cluster and finally through it until only two lights were visible. The coordinates were clearly marked. "You," Bashir narrated, "and your man Dolson." The sample spent, the viewscreen collapsed again into a beam and then winked out of existence altogether. Sloan didn't smile. Bashir even thought perhaps he had gone slightly pale. It was hard to tell though. "And this is supposed to scare me?" Bashir cocked his head to one side and let his tone slip into sarcasm. "Scare you? I didn't think that was possible. You have nothing to fear from me." "Then what is the disk for?" He was very direct now, and Julian sensed Sloan's power shifting to him. Julian held the cards and Sloan had to wait to see what was played. "The disk is nothing," Bashir told him, "a catalyst at best. It's gone beyond the disk now. But still, you needn't worry." "Then why show me at all?" "To simply make you aware," Bashir replied, waving his hand over the device, "as you now have a vested interest in my welfare and security." Sloan smirked again, trying to take the power back. "Are you trying to blackmail Section 31?" Bashir shook his head sadly. "My dear Sloan, it's more complicated than that. And more simple. Blackmail would be a threat to do something if you did not do that which I asked of you. I'm not going to do anything. I don't have to. I only have to not do something if you should do that which I asked you not to." Sloan raised his eyebrows, but otherwise didn't comment. "Once in every twenty-six hour period," Bashir continued, spelling it out, "I shall enter an encryption code. If I don't, the information will be broadcast on a secure channel to every Starfleet officer and crewman and every member of the Federation Council. In short, the secret will be out, and all its components exposed." He didn't think it necessary to add that the encryption code would automatically update itself according to a complex mathematical equation which he would have to calculate everyday in order to enter the proper code. "Doctor," Sloan tried again, sighing, "I've already told you. You are a member of Section 31. Whether you like it or not, we're not your enemy. And breaking codes is something we do every day." "Not my code," Bashir corrected. "Six months, remember. If I am not where I choose to be," Bashir went on, "I will not enter the code. It's that simple." Sloan opened his mouth, probably to assure Bashir that there were ways of making him give up the code. But Bashir didn't give him time. "And you should know that there's nothing you can do to me to make me give up the code. It wouldn't matter anyway. You could take me away, even perhaps take the device away, but I couldn't enter the code even if you made me want to. It requires both simultaneous local and remote access. In other words, I have to be where I want to be. If I'm not, the code doesn't get entered and the secret is out." Sloan was starting to understand that Bashir had thought of all the options. He had to be. He did look pale. "What if you're captured by the Dominion?" Bashir had foreseen that possibility, too. He had contingencies, but most of all, he had Section 31. "Then we should hope that that doesn't happen. I'm sure they could find the code long before you could. They were able to get all my memories and medical knowledge last time." "And if you were to die?" "Are you threatening?" Bashir asked in return. Sloan held up a hand and his tone matched the sincerity of that night he'd told Bashir it was an honor to know him. "No, Doctor, I am not threatening," he said. "But there is a war on, and you will be going back to active duty, I take it." "There is always a risk, yes," Bashir conceded, "but if I die, I won't care one way or the other whether the information is released. Still, I'm sure, given sufficient time, I can come up with a workable solution, perhaps even one that reverts the information to you should I die. But then, that's already happened, hasn't it? My death, I mean." Sloan dropped his eyes. "An opportunity presented itself. It was thought that you'd be more amenable to your membership in Section 31 if you had no other obligations. You weren't supposed to call Commander Data." "Oh, you were going to come back for me?" Bashir posed. "May I ask when?" "It really doesn't matter now, does it?" Sloan threw another hand up. "Well, I did say I enjoyed being wrong, didn't I?" "Wrong about me?" Bashir felt the victory. Sloan was going to back down. "You didn't predict this, did you? Not like everything else." "It doesn't mean we won't find a way around this," Sloan countered, trying to salvage something from the situation. "I can't stop you from trying," Bashir admitted. "But I will stop you from succeeding." "To the challenge then," Sloan offered. "I'll miss you, Doctor." "I'm sure you will," Bashir returned without reciprocating. "Your ship is waiting." Sloan's mouth turned up on one side. "What ship?" Bashir turned and pointed out his viewport toward a patch of empty space. "That one," he said. He heard no response, so he turned back around. Sloan was gone. The door chimed. "Security, Doctor," someone called. "We'll need to search your quarters." Bashir sat down in the chair again and covered the little device. "Of course," he replied, and the door slid open. "Has anyone entered your quarters?" It was Daniels, the Security Chief. As he spoke, two other officers spread out with lighted rifles. "You mean Sloan?" Bashir asked. "I told you he'd escape. You might ask Mr. Dolson. I'm sure he knows where to find Sloan." Daniels lowered his weapon toward the floor. "Dolson? Why him?" "I overheard them talking one night from the cell. He's Section 31." "Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Daniels asked, stepping forward. "Would you have believed me?" Bashir asked in return. "You thought I was a criminal." Daniels rested one hand on the console. "I didn't," he replied. "I was following orders. You're going to be with us for awhile, I hear. We're your crew. And we're a good crew. You have to trust us. You *can* trust us." Bashir regarded him for a few moments. He seemed sincere enough, but he was also young. Young and naive. Trust was something too often broken. Best not to expect too much than to be disappointed later. "I'll give that some thought, Lieutenant. Thank you." "Clear, sir," one of the other officers reported. "He's not on the ship anymore, is he?" Daniels asked Bashir. Bashir shook his head. He saw no reason not to tell the truth. Besides, he liked Daniels' forthrightness. "No. He beamed away just before you entered." Daniels frowned, but he kept his voice calm. "And you didn't call Security?" "With him standing right here? No." "He couldn't have beamed off the ship," Daniels tried to argue. "The shields are up." "He beamed into my cell last night, too," Bashir offered, not contradicting him, but leading him in the right direction. The two officers behind Daniels were waiting for him, shifting their weight and shouldering their weapons. But Bashir had Daniel's attention. "Past the forcefield?" he asked, incredulous. Bashir nodded, and Daniels shook his head. "If they've got technology like that, why aren't they sharing with those of us who are fighting this war?" he asked, voicing a thought Bashir had had first had over a year before. "They like to think they're fighting it, too," Bashir guessed. "Or they like to think they are the only ones fighting the only war that is truly important." -- --Gabrielle I'd much rather be writing! http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/ The Edge of the Frontier http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/ This Side of the Nether Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Thu Jan 29 20:46:00 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n23.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.79]) by condor (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aM6IC1jZ3NZFjK0 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:36:05 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13037-1075361691-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.