Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [89]
Buzz, the badge said under his fingertips, buzz. Then nothing.
He breathed out then in relief, smiled slightly, and turned back to his desk terminal. “Display mission parameters,” he said to it.
“Retinal scan required.” He leaned in over the computer again, making sure to give it the same eye as last time—he wasn’t sure that the Borg might not have done something to the other. “Scan successful,” said the computer, and it began the display.
He read quickly. It was much as he had thought. The inclusion device had been installed in this Enterprise, and then she had been ordered to this area of space, where the device was coupled with her sensors so that she would be able to detect her counterpart. Once detected, the “target” was to be drawn into this space and a spy sent aboard to confirm information about her weapons array. Confirm, Picard thought, going cold; yes, the report made it clear that surveillance of Federation space, using a variation of the inclusion device keyed to subspace communications, had been going on for a long time—unencrypted communications intercepted and evaluated to determine what information could be found about fleet sizes and dispositions, the locations and armaments of starbases and Federation worlds, et cetera.
How long has this been going on? Picard wondered. What do they know already? … for the mission parameters made it plain what they intended to find out. If the Enterprise’s shields remained down long enough, she was to be infiltrated and her command crew captured and beamed over to the attacking ship. They would be tortured until they gave up the secrets of whatever command codes were necessary for the removal of all pertinent classified information regarding Fleet ship strengths and dispositions—anything in the computer that would possibly be of use. Then those officers would be killed and replaced by their counterparts, who would sabotage the ship, supervise the “disposition” of the rest of the crew, and supervise the restaffing of the ship with their own people. A skeleton crew would take this universe’s Enterprise back home, after the other one, Picard’s Enterprise, had been returned to her home space … with his counterpart in command.
Picard’s fist clenched on the desk. If fortune did not favor them, and his ship’s shields were not down when the other Enterprise was ready, they would attack her and batter her until no shields were left, trying to do minimum damage. Then—board, storm, kill the inhabitants. Either way, she would be sent back to her home universe to follow her preassigned patrol schedule for a while. They knew what it was, knew that her patrol would be keeping her out of the more populated spaces, where discovery would be more likely. They would spend perhaps a month or so routinely receiving the communications and data uploads from Starfleet that could be expected, routinely requesting information on this and that.
And then, after a month or two … the invasion. A massive breakthrough on many fronts, hundreds of vessels bursting out to take the Federation on four sides, the Klingons and Romulans each on three. The latter species were to be wiped out, special attention being paid to their homeworlds—Picard thought of those great silent bulks down in the storage areas and went grim. The Federation fleets were to be swiftly divided and destroyed. The entire operation might be expected to take as long as a year, but might take as little as four months if early gains were promptly consolidated.
And afterward, when the Federation worlds were left defenseless … The mission specs said nothing specific, but Picard could guess very well what would happen. “Neutralizations,” “prejudicial terraforming,” other horrors.