Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: 29 Apr 2004 17:53:49 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) Part 3 "Third Way Out" Several hours later, Julian sat in sickbay, immersed in reading. The trunk did not contain the book so sought after by the expedition, "The Grand Chessboard", but it had produced a fascinating bounty of political literature of the period. The door chimed. "Enter." Jordan stepped in, an arm of freshly replicated books under her arm. "You look thoughtful Doctor. I hate to disturb a man who is thinking." Julian smiled. "Quite all right. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about some of these books we replicated from the transporter record of the trunk." Jordan nodded. "Yes, judging by the diary we found, it appears the two skeletons were those of a pair of professional ‘political activists' of the late 20th and early 21st century. They died around 2020. Probably suicide, considering their last entry." Julian shook his head. "Well they certainly valued their reading." He pointed toward a small pile of books on the table. "These are all very different authors on the surface; Pilger is a journalist, Zinn a historian, Vidal an essayist, Chomsky a linguistics professor turned anarchist, Mahajan an anti-war activist, Chalmers Johnson, an East Asian scholar. Yet they all have something in common. They're old style muckrakers. Quite frankly, reading their contemporary analysis of the events of 2001 C.E. in the mirror universe has given me a disturbing historical speculation about the North American Terrans' ‘Day of Terror'." Jordan sat down across from him. "And what is that?" Bashir closed the book he had been reading. "That one of the government security agencies of the North American republic let it happen. They apparently knew about the plot, yet did nothing, probably so that their citizens' patriotic fervor would be aroused to support the wars that had already been planned back in the 1990's to secure Eurasia, whose resources they viewed as the key to global dominance." Cynthia nodded. "That's one theory someone has already come up with. But it may be even worse than that." Julian frowned. "How so?" The archaeologist shoved her stack of books across the table. "Our team of historians have been reading, analyzing and cross-referencing this new material from the trunk. They've already formulated an initial hypothesis." "Which is?" "That their government actually organized it." Jordan paused for effect. "Let's consider the following in favor of both the ‘organizer' and the ‘facilitator' hypothesis. First, we know that the covert agencies of the old North American Republic were, for their day, every bit as powerful, ruthless, relentless and omnipresent as their contemporaries or say the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order in our own era." "Hmmmm. More like Section 31 I would say." Cynthia grimaced. "Exactly. So, given all that, especially the fact that historically, in both our universe and theirs the North American NSA-CIA had been facilitating the organizing and training of a network of 100,000 fanatics in Afghanistan via Pakistan for over two decades before, a case can legitimately be made that they had considerable foreknowledge of the plot. They had plenty of opportunity to infiltrate these same organizations they had financed and created with local operatives. Furthermore, from what we've been able to glean here, after the Day of Terror there were no reprimands or court-martials for negligence of duty in failing to follow standard policy in the event of a hijacking, specifically, intercepting the high jacked aircraft. According to sources cited by Vidal, fighter aircraft weren't scrambled until an hour and twenty minutes after it became apparent that there were simultaneous multiple highjackings, well after the damage was done. Besides which, its highly suspicious that their President wasn't in the capitol on the day of the attacks. " Julian shook his head. If Garak were here now he would no doubt be expressing surprise and admiration for the crafty deceitfulness of ancient human intelligence services. "Blew up his own shop," Bashir mused. "What?" "Oh, sorry. I was just thinking of my old friend Garak again. He once did something similar, on a much smaller scale, without loss of life. When he discovered that an assassin was stalking him on DS9, he blew up his own shop, with himself inside it, so that constable Odo would interrogate the prospective assassin before he could act. Quite a clever ploy actually." Cynthia nodded. "Some techniques never change. When we go to the Islamabad and New Dehli sites on Wednesday I'd like to try to check out Vidal's assertions in his book "Dreaming War" that the Pakistani Intelligence Service wired money to the leader of the hijackers and met with the NSA in the Pentagon a week before the attacks. With luck we can locate the Indian and Pakistani newspaper records that he cites." Bashir shook his head again. "We've been very lucky so far. It's a pretty cold trail after nearly four hundred years." On the bridge of the Defiant, Ensign Jackson, the helm officer, addressed Ezri. "Sir, that Alliance battle cruiser that was in orbit of Alpha III, its disappeared!" Ezri rose from the command chair and stood behind the console. "What do you mean ‘disappeared'?" "When its orbit took it behind the planet, it never came out. It's been over an hour..." An alert beep sounded from the console. "Now there's a ship launching from the surface of Alpha III. Engine signature indicates a Ferengi merchantman." Ezri frowned. "What's its heading?" Jackson's hands flashed over the console. "Its course heading will take it within half a light year of the Terran system." Ezri clasped her hands behind her back. "Dax to O'Brien." "O'Brien here," came the reply over the comm system. "Miles, do Ferengi merchantmen frequent the Alpha Centauri system?" There was a pause. "I really don't know Captain. Ferengi's have license to trade throughout the Alliance. Why?" Ezri hesitated. Eight lifetimes of instinct told her not to tell the Terran rebel too much. "We're monitoring a .... situation here. I'll keep you posted as necessary." The next morning found Julian accompanying Jordan and the expedition back down to the grey dead planet. Today they would be on the other side of the world from New York. Julian watched the coast line of the Eastern Mediterranean grow larger in the view screen as the Chaffe II dropped down from orbit. They quickly descended through heavy rolling clouds of acid rain, emerging above a landscape that was as smooth and featureless as it was dark. Despite the high winds in the area, Alvarez piloted the shuttle to a perfect three point landing. Following the survey team down the ramp, Bashir found himself standing on smooth black glass that stretched out in every direction to the grey horizon. "Where are we?" "Downtown Baghdad," the archaeologist replied routinely as she monitored her tri-corder. Julian was appalled. He was familiar with the ancient city on his own Earth. It was a beautiful historic capital. First, of the ancient caliphates of the once mighty Arab empires, then later in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the Eastern administrative center of the old Arab Federation. But in the Mirror universe it was .... nothing. Despite a creeping foreboding he managed to ask, "What...when did this happen? Was this the Alliance or ..." Jordan kept her gaze focused on her tri-corder readings as she answered the Doctor. "Sometime around 2040 we believe. Late stage of what was still nominally the North American republic. Apparently there was some sort of revolt, centered on Baghdad. All the country's petroleum reserves had already been exhausted, so it was decided that an example should be made. They used nuclear weapons launched from geo-synchronous orbit." Julian stared at the black glass. An obsidian tomb of an entire people and civilization. An unexpected visceral reaction churned in his gut. This site struck at him personally in a way that he had never experienced before, that he had never felt back home on Earth or in the Federation. He realized what it was. He hated the ancient Terrans who had created the Empire here. Those who had done this. Was this then the Mirror Earth's 21st century equivalent of the destruction of Carthage? What sort of ‘Romans' had erased this lovely old city and all its people from existence? And never rebuilt it? This was beyond the tragic neutron nuclear exchange of 2053 in his own universe. This was personal. This was genocide against a helpless opponent. Julian watched Cynthia cut away a cone of the black glass beneath their feet with a fine phaser beam. "Why are we even here?" Jordan retrieved the sample with a gloved hand, placing it in a specimen bag. "Confirmation on the date Baghdad was destroyed, that's all." Suddenly, Alvarez's voice broke in on the shuttle comm system, "Defiant reports there's an Alliance battle cruiser in the solar system and its heading straight for Earth at warp speed! Captain Dax says to get everybody aboard the Chaffe II and off the planet right now!" Klaxons sounded "red alert" on the Defiant as Ezri ordered the ship to battle stations. "Where's the shuttle at?" "Shuttle is away and heading for rendevous Captain." Jackson replied. "Can you give me magnification on the intruder yet?" The star fields in the view screen seemed to lurch forward. A rainbow colored point of light in the center flickered briefly. "Sorry Sir. Intruder is still at warp and beyond visual range." "Location, bearing, and speed of the intruder?" "Intruder passing Neptune's orbit. Still bearing 97 mark 210. Speed is warp 4.3. ETA to Earth is 3 minutes.' Ezri stood up. "They're worried about pushing warp in a solar system. That gives us a little time. If they stay on their present bearing they'll be in the Southern hemisphere when they go to orbit. Mr. Jackson, raise cloak and take us over the North pole, one quarter impulse. Notify the Chaffe II that we'll rendevous on the day side of the planet at the following co-ordinates." Outside, in space, the Defiant seemed to shimmer out of existence, replaced by a hazy bubble that shifted orbit toward the polar terminus. END Part 3 of 5 "Third Way Out" -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. 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: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? Thu Apr 29 22:08:00 2004 X-Persona: Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.91]) by mamo (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1bjnoa7vc3NZFk70 for ; Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:04:30 -0700 (PDT) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13518-1083290670-stephenbratliffasc=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yah