Deep Space Station S-8
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
The general store on the promenade was closed for the night, but Naylis admitted Sulu and Knox anyway, before locking the front entrance behind them. An actual steel door slid into place, as opposed to merely a protective force field. The lights were dimmed and most of the shelves and display cases were in need of restocking. Sulu had never seen the place so empty before.
“Just need a few moments of your time,” Sulu said.
“I’m at your service, Lieutenant.” Naylis stepped behind the central counter to straighten up a display of pocket-sized transponders. “Your timing is impeccable, I must say. I was just about to head to my quarters.”
Sulu kept a close eye on the Troyian merchant. He had brought Knox along as backup while Johann remained posted outside Tilton’s room in the infirmary, in part to keep anyone from seeing the manager in his present state, but also to guard Tilton from anyone who might want to silence him. Doctor M’Benga was hopeful that proper treatment could reverse the worst of the brainwashing. Sulu wanted to give Tilton a chance at recovery.
“Let me get straight to the point,” Sulu said. “What do you know about neural neutralizers . . . and how to get your hands on one?”
Naylis stopped fiddling with the display. He looked up at Sulu with a quizzical expression on his face. If he was alarmed by this line of inquiry, he did a good job of hiding it. Sulu resolved to never play poker with the man.
“I assume you’re asking in your professional capacity, Lieutenant. Please tell me you’re not actually in the market for such an insidious piece of merchandise.”
Sulu noted that Naylis didn’t pretend to be unfamiliar with neural neutralizers, the existence of which was hardly public knowledge. Perhaps he judged that feigning ignorance would be unconvincing, considering his reputation for being well informed on matters of interest.
“Could you get me one if I was?”
“Goodness, what makes you think that?”
“Well, Grandle did say you could get your hands on just about anything for the right price . . .”
“Anything legal,” Naylis stressed again.
Sulu recalled Grandle’s skepticism regarding that claim. “That’s right. You said that before.”
And yet a neural neutralizer was apparently hiding in or around the station, and, from what Sulu gathered, Naylis was notorious for having his mint-green fingers in all sorts of pies.
“Look, Lieutenant,” the merchant said. “I trade with dealers all over the quadrant, so, yes, I’m quite aware that the black markets exist, even for items banned throughout the Federation for very good reasons, but you have to believe me when I tell you that I would never stoop to such illicit dealings. I’m a legitimate businessman.”
“Funny thing, though,” Sulu said. “I asked the station computer to give me a rundown of recent imports and exports passing through this station, and it turns out that you recently received several large shipments from the dark side of Habah VIII, which is known to be a hub of illegal tech trafficking.”
“Among other things,” Naylis said. “If you look closer at the database, you’ll see that those shipments are listed, accurately, as a large quantity of used antigrav lifters of the sort that will come in handy for prospectors on Baldur III.” He gave Sulu a conspiratorial smirk. “What can I say? You can get lifters at a good price, and with considerably less red tape, if you’re not too picky about whom you deal with, but it’s not as though they’re dangerous contraband. If anything, I was simply doing my best to lighten the loads of many a would-be miner.”
Sulu glanced around the store. “Where are those lifters now?”
“Sold out almost instantly,” Naylis said. “I made a handsome profit, if you must know, without having anything to do with a neural neutralizer.”
“Then you won’t mind if we look around a bit?”
“Must you?” Naylis said, sighing theatrically. “It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had my supper yet.”
“All the more reason for me to get down to business.” Sulu nodded at Knox, who stood by attentively. “Keep Mister Naylis company while I see what I can find, one way or another.”
“Aye, sir,” Knox said, watching his back. Her phaser remained clipped to her belt, but Sulu was confident that she could deal with Naylis if he tried to cause trouble.
Naylis’s easy smile curdled. “Really, Lieutenant, I must protest. This borders on harassment. Perhaps we should see what Mister Tilton has to say about this?”
“Tilton is indisposed,” Sulu said. “Just sit back and let me do my job.”
Sulu walked the store, methodically scanning the premises with a tricorder in hopes of finding something suspicious. There was no guarantee, of course, that the neutralizer was nearby, or even that Naylis was indeed responsible for smuggling it onto the station—the case against the merchant was circumstantial at best—but it was a place to start searching for the neutralizer. The way Sulu saw it, an educated guess was better than no clue at all.
Wonder what Mister Spock would think of that logic?
The tricorder hummed as it surveyed the shop, finding nothing out of the ordinary at first. Then a blank spot registered on the display as the scans were unable to probe beyond what appeared to be a largish closet door located below an Employees Only sign. Fiddling with the controls, Sulu confirmed that the area behind the door was shielded against conventional scanners, which struck him as, well, excessive.
“What’s behind this door?”
“Just a walk-in storeroom,” said Naylis with affected casualness. “Nothing more.”
“Then why the heavy security?” Sulu asked.
“Call me paranoid,” Naylis said. “You can never be too careful in my line of work.”
Sulu didn’t buy it. Legal wares and supplies didn’t require this level of secrecy. A control panel next to the doorway regulated access to the storeroom. “Care to open this for me?”
“I think not, Lieutenant.” Naylis crossed his arms atop his chest. “I know my rights.”
“And I smell a rat.”
Sulu detached an all-purpose door opener from his belt, having come prepared to poke around where he wasn’t wanted. The small handheld cylinder, which functioned as a high-tech skeleton key, was designed to circumvent both mechanical and magnetic locks via a combination of miniature tractor beams and signal emitters. This particular lock was a good one, much harder to pick than, say, the locks in that twentieth-century Air Force base he and Captain Kirk had burgled a few years back, but the device worked just as well this time around. A beep sounded as the door slid open to reveal far more than just shelves of unsold stock.
“Bingo,” Sulu said.
The storeroom had been converted into a rough approximation of the neural neutralizer chamber back on Tantalus V. A reclining chair leaned backward beneath a circular beam generator embedded in the ceiling. A transparent partition, crudely assembled from what looked like repurposed materials, separated a freestanding control console from the actual neutralization chamber. Sulu repressed a shudder at the sight of the chair, which was presumably where Tilton’s mind and memories had been tampered with.
“Ensign,” he addressed Knox, “please ensure that Mister Naylis stays put.”
“Aye, sir.” She drew her phaser. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“Wait,” Naylis cried out. “I can explain!”
“Really?” Sulu found that hard to believe. “This should be good.”
“Well, you see . . . that is, you have to understand . . . it’s merely that . . .” His voice faltered as he recognized the futility of trying to talk himself out of the hot water he had just landed in. “On second thought, I can’t explain.”
“I figured as much.”
Sulu traded the door opener for his communicator. He flipped it open, intending to hail Grandle, when the store’s front entrance retracted and the security chief strode in to join them. She arrived alone, a grim expression on her face.
Speak of the devil, Sulu thought. “Good timing, Chief. I was just about to page you.”
“Got word that something was up,” Grandle said. “What’s going on here?”
Sulu wasn’t sure where to begin, with the fact that Tilton was the saboteur, that the manager had been brainwashed by a neural neutralizer, or that Naylis had just been caught with a neutralizer in his possession? Probably the latter, he decided.
“There’s something you need to see,” Sulu said. “Take a look at—”
“Just a moment,” Grandle said.
Without warning, she punched Knox in the head, knocking the unsuspecting ensign out cold. Knox slammed into the counter before crumpling to the floor. Startled, Sulu reached for his phaser, but Naylis got the drop on him by pulling a vintage Klingon disruptor pistol out from beneath the counter.
“Not so fast, Lieutenant,” the merchant said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Grandle drew her own phaser as well. “Don’t make a move, Sulu. We’re taking this station back from you.”
Outnumbered and confused, it took Sulu a few moments to grasp the truth.
“Naylis got to you too. You’ve been brainwashed like Tilton.”
“Watch your mouth!” Grandle barked. “I don’t have to listen to you. You don’t belong here. You never belonged here!”
“That’s right, Mister Grandle. Lieutenant Sulu is the real troublemaker here. He needs to be dealt with . . . for the good of the station!”
“That’s absurd!” Sulu wondered how much conditioning had been required to turn Grandle against him. “Think, Grandle! Listen to what you’re saying!”
“I told you to be quiet!”
A brilliant carmine phaser blast stunned Sulu.
Dazed, Sulu woke to find himself in the neutralizer chamber, seated in the chair beneath the beam projector, as Grandle strapped his left wrist to an armrest. His right arm was already bound. Fear vaporized any last trace of grogginess from Sulu’s brain as he realized what was happening. Naylis was about to brainwash him too.
No! he thought. Nobody is going to make me a zombie again!
“Listen to me, Grandle. This isn’t who you are. You can fight this!”
“You’re wasting your breath, Lieutenant,” Naylis said. Turning his head, Sulu saw the Troyian standing by the control console, aiming a disruptor at Knox, who was back on her feet again, but who was also clearly in no position to come to his rescue. Naylis smirked at Sulu through the clear partition. “Mister Grandle and I recently had a long talk in this very room. She understands now where her loyalties lie. Don’t think you can convince her otherwise.”
Sulu wasn’t so sure of that. Was it just wishful thinking, or could he make out a flicker of uncertainty on Grandle’s face? She grimaced as she finished strapping him to the chair. A vein at her temple pulsed. She bit down on her lip as though fighting something trying to get out.
“Is he secure?” Naylis asked.
“Yes.”
Sulu thought he heard a hint of strain in Grandle’s voice. He tested his bonds; despite Grandle’s statement to the contrary, the left one was actually a bit loose. Given time, Sulu figured he could probably work that arm free.
Provided Naylis gave him that time.
“Why are you doing this, Naylis?” he asked, stalling. “What’s in it for you?”
“I could tell you,” the smuggler gloated, “but you’re not going to remember any of this.”
“No harm in telling me, then. Indulge me. I’m sure you must have a very good reason for going to such lengths.”
“Reasons,” Naylis corrected him. “Plural.”
“Such as?”
“For one, a consortium of tardy prospectors paid me handsomely to delay and discourage their competition. For another, I personally benefit from keeping as many travelers as possible stranded here at the station rather than moving onto Baldur III.” He grinned mischievously. “It’s a win-win situation, as they say.”
“For you, perhaps,” Sulu said. “From where I’m sitting, I’m not feeling the win.”
“Give it time. Trust me, Lieutenant, you’ll soon be seeing things my way.”
Sulu tried to wiggle his left hand free without Naylis noticing. He watched anxiously as Grandle joined Naylis by the control console and took custody of Knox, who was surely next in line for the neutralizer. He shared an anxious look with the young ensign, whose arms appeared to be tied behind her back. Her phaser was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t do this, Naylis,” Sulu said. “No amount of profit is worth sinking to these depths.”
“Spoken like a true Starfleet officer,” Naylis said. “It’s ironic, though. You may recall that my home planet is positively awash in dilithium crystals, with fortunes just waiting to be seized. Alas, I’m afraid that I fell out of favor with the royal family—for reasons we need not discuss—which means that I’ve been forced to eke out a living as an exile. But who knows? l may soon be able to bribe myself back into the royals’ good graces, which would certainly justify taking a few moral shortcuts.” He smirked at Sulu. “Consider yourself lucky, Lieutenant, that I have better options than simply eliminating you and your ensign.”
Sulu’s arm was almost free. He just needed a few more minutes.
“But listen to me ramble on,” Naylis said. “I hope I’m not boring you.”
“I’m all ears.” Sulu considered his options once he got his arm free. Could he manage to liberate the other one without Naylis catching on? And then what? He was still unarmed and at a severe disadvantage. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere soon.”
“True,” Naylis conceded. “But let me ensure that I have your full attention.”
He flicked a switch on the control panel, activating it. Sulu realized in horror that the time for stalling was over. A hum, growing rapidly in volume, signaled that the neutralizer was warming up. Desperate to avoid being neutralized, he yanked his left hand out from beneath the loose strap holding it in place. He reached frantically to undo the strap trapping his other arm, terrified that it was already too late.
It was.
The beam projector lit up overhead. Energy surged through the concentric circles defining the apparatus. Don’t look, Sulu thought, attempting to avert his eyes, but an invisible beam overcame his resistance. He sank back into the padded seat, his gaze irresistibly drawn to the glowing rings of light, which exercised a practically hypnotic pull on him so that he couldn’t look away. It was like a gravity well, seizing his concentration, dragging his thoughts into an inescapable vortex. His body tensed as he fought against the pull, but his mind grew sluggish, like an unresponsive helm, leaving him adrift and alone, barely able to hear his own thoughts, let alone hold on to them. The universe went away—except for Naylis’s voice.
“Everything is as it should be. There is no sabotage, no saboteur, just a string of unfortunate accidents. You investigated the matter and found nothing. Naylis is innocent. You were wrong to suspect him . . .”
Sulu tried to tune the Voice out, but it was all there was, filling the growing emptiness inside his mind, so that it became harder and harder to distinguish his own thoughts from the Voice. His mind and the Voice were becoming one and the same.
“You can trust Naylis. You should listen to him, follow his advice. He and Grandle know what they’re doing. They’ll take care of everything. Just do as they say, believe what they tell you . . .”
Sulu couldn’t look away. He couldn’t stop listening. But he refused to surrender to the Voice, to have his will hijacked yet again. Captain Kirk had fought the neutralizer, so he could too. And possibly someone else as well . . . ?
“Grandle!” he shouted over the Voice. “Fight this! You can do it!”
Just stringing the words together cost him. Pain racked his body as he convulsed in the chair, gripping the armrests with white knuckles. His head throbbed as the lights spun faster and faster above him, the beam increasing in intensity. His jaw clenched.
“Hush. Relax. It only hurts when you struggle. Just give in and all will be well. Just trust Naylis and you’ll be fine . . .”
Sulu bit down on his lip. Resistance was excruciating. In desperation, he latched onto a single image to anchor him in the emptiness: the helm of the Starship Enterprise. He clung to that visual even as the Voice buffeted his mind, trying to shake him loose from himself. He just needed to stay on course for as long as he could. He forced his jaws open one last time.
“Fight it, Grandle. Fight . . . !”
Ensign Peggy Knox was tortured by the sight of Sulu being tortured. She longed to go to his rescue, do her duty as a security officer, but Naylis and Grandle had the upper hand at the moment. Her hands were tied behind her back, her phaser had been taken from her, and Grandle had a tight grip on her arm and was watching Knox like a hawk.
Or was she?
Knox felt Grandle stiffen beside her. Tearing her anxious gaze away from Sulu’s torment, the ensign saw that Grandle appeared to be showing signs of strain, as though Sulu’s urgent appeals were getting to her. The security chief was practically vibrating with tension, her face betraying hints of some inner conflict. She blinked repeatedly and began to rock back and forth on her heels. Her hand tightened around Knox’s upper arm, her fingers digging into the flesh beneath Knox’s bright red sleeve to steady herself. Her head swayed as though she was feeling dizzy.
“Fight it, Grandle! Fight!”
Knox experienced a twinge of hope. She studied Grandle closely, waiting for an opportunity. Sulu had explained to her about neural neutralizers earlier. He had also mentioned that some people had been known to push back against their conditioning, although never easily.
“No more words, Sulu. Just sit back and listen,” Naylis said into a microphone at the control panel. Intent on brainwashing Sulu, he paid no attention to what was going on with Grandle, trusting the security chief to watch over Knox until it was the ensign’s turn in the chair. He turned a dial on the control panel, presumably to increase the force of the beam. The hum turned into a high-pitched whirring. “You have nothing to fear. There is no saboteur. You’ve proven that already. You know that now . . .”
Sulu screamed in anguish, thrashing violently in the chair. Knox wondered how long he could hold out against the neutralizer. He was obviously going through hell to keep from surrendering to the device. His suffering tore at her heart.
“Give it up, Sulu,” Naylis said. “You can’t fight it. No one can.”
“No . . . one,” Grandle muttered under her breath. “No . . . NO!”
The security chief swung her phaser toward the neutralizer chamber. For a second, Knox feared that Grandle was about to put Sulu out of his misery, but then a sizzling red phaser beam struck the beam projector above the chair, disintegrating it along with a chunk of the ceiling. The blast triggered a fire alarm that wailed like a Hibernian banshee. The smell of burning cables and circuitry polluted the air.
Yes! Knox thought. Sulu got through to Grandle, beam or no beam.
“What the devil?!”
Naylis turned away from his console to stare in shock at Grandle, who was losing it, big-time. She waved the phaser, which was obviously not set on stun anymore, about wildly. Her eyes bulged from her sockets, as though she’d just received an overdose of cordrazine, and her face was flushed. Naylis turned a paler shade of green, his own eyes anxiously tracking the business end of the phaser as it swung from side to side. His voice quavered as he tried to talk the crazed security chief down.
“Calm down, Grandle. Listen to me . . .”
“Shut up, all of you!” She reeled unsteadily, sweating profusely. “I can’t hear myself think! My brain is tearing apart!”
She clutched her head, letting go of Knox’s arm in the process. The ensign took advantage of the tumult to break away from Grandle and charge at Naylis. Even with her arms tied behind her back, she still made a decent battering ram, slamming into the corrupt merchant and knocking him backward into the sturdy control console. His head smacked loudly against the control panel, shaking the microphone, and he slid unconscious to the floor. Knox kicked him in the ribs just to make sure he wasn’t playing possum.
Serves him right for taking my phaser, she thought. Left me no choice but to play rough.
But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. Grandle was still waving her phaser around like a madwoman, posing an obvious danger to herself and others. She seemed unable to distinguish friend from foe.
“Make it stop!” she ranted over the blaring alarm. “You’re driving me insane!”
A frantic phaser blast fried the control panel, igniting a fountain of white-hot sparks, as Knox scrambled out of the line of fire. She realized that, ironically enough, she had possibly saved Naylis’s life by knocking him to the floor.
Not that he’s likely to appreciate it.
“Take it easy, Chief,” Knox said in the most soothing tone she could muster under the circumstances. Trying to reason with Grandle was possibly a lost cause, but a phaser and a mental meltdown were a bad combination. She had to at least try to de-escalate this crisis. “Let’s just get you to the infirmary, okay?”
“Shut up! You’re just trying to confuse me! You all are!” She swung the phaser at Knox, who found herself cornered in the refurbished storeroom. Spittle sprayed from Grandle’s lip. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
In desperation, Knox threw a high kick at Grandle, hoping to knock the phaser from the other woman’s grip, but the security chief had not lost her own fighting skills. She caught Knox’s ankle with her other hand and twisted it, causing Knox to topple backward onto the floor. The crash knocked the breath out of Knox, who looked up to see Grandle’s phaser aimed straight at her face.
“Um, mind setting that on stun at least?”
“Trespasser! Intruder! I’ll make you leave me alone!”
Oh, crap, Knox thought. I’m toast.
Before Grandle could fire the weapon, however, Sulu suddenly appeared behind her. A karate chop to Grandle’s neck worked better than a tranquilizer, causing her to crumple to the floor. Sulu stood over her, looking more than a little unsteady himself. Knox assumed that he had somehow liberated himself from the chair just in time.
“Thanks, Lieutenant! Glad to see you’re still you!”
“Am I?” he asked uncertainly. He was blinking and sweating, too, although not nearly as badly as Grandle had been. He looked logy and confused, like someone only gradually emerging from a bad dream that didn’t want to let go of them. His gaze swung back and forth between the fallen forms of Grandle and Naylis. Bewilderment was written all over his face.
“I’m . . . confused. I can trust Grandle, but . . . she was threatening you . . . but everything is fine, Naylis said so . . .”
He was clearly still feeling the effects of the neutralizer beam. Knox thanked her lucky stars that his first instinct had been to come to her defense anyway.
“It’s all right, Lieutenant. It will make sense eventually, once Doctor M’Benga helps you through this.”
She glanced over at Naylis to make sure he was still unconscious; even with the neutralizer trashed, she didn’t want the unscrupulous Troyian to mess with Sulu’s head any further. The sooner she got both him and Grandle under wraps the better.
“In the meantime, maybe you can help me back onto my feet?”