Read Online Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles by S.D. Perry - Free Book Online
Authors: S.D. Perry
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needed an assistant…”
“I needed a cooperative Bajoran, to enter your biospecs into the new system’s recognition software.”
Mora was puzzled. “But it’s an anti-aircraft system. Why—?”
“There’s another aspect to it that perhaps you weren’t aware of, Doctor Mora.” He could tell by the delightedly smug expression on her face that she was about to tell him what it was, though she’d obviously taken some pains to conceal it from him. How like her, to seek pleasure by making him uncomfortable.
“I recently decided to add another function to the sensor sweeps,” she went on. “As you know, it took me a long time to fine-tune the targeting sensors so that we will avoid accidents involving Cardassian aircraft, to compensate for the effects of Bajor’s highly variable atmosphere…”
“A great many tests,” Mora said.
“Yes, Mora, more tests than I had anticipated. How odd, that every time I thought I had adjusted it perfectly, it seemed even more misaligned than it had been before.” She gave him a hard look.
Mora felt sick. He shouldn’t have been so obvious in sabotaging her calibrations, though he’d done his best to make each change appropriately subtle. Of course, Reyar had her suspicions, but Mora knew that Yopal wouldn’t listen to a word of it—the director of the institute had never cared for Reyar. “Oh?” he finally croaked.
“Yes, well, never mind that. I confess, part of what took me so long to perfect this system was my own distraction. Halfway toward completion I had the idea to combine this project with another that I envisioned, and I shifted much of my focus to that. Yopal barely knows anything of it—I cleared it with the prefect, of course, no thanks to our esteemed director.” She smiled now, her self-satisfaction back in full force.
“Are you going to tell me about it?” he said, as politely as he knew how.
“It will target moving objects on the surface,” Reyar said, obviously pleased with herself.
“Moving objects? Like…”
“That’s right. Not just aircraft leaving the atmosphere, but smaller objects. An object as small as a person. In fact, it’s designed to locate people who attempt to cross proscribed boundaries. Bajoran people.” She smiled. “That’s part of why we’ve come to the station, Mora, and why I abandoned the idea of deploying a satellite network in favor of a ground-based detection grid. You see, those signal towers will alert officials here on Terok Nor any time an aircraft has been shot down. But it will also alert personnel here when unauthorized Bajoran travelers have been detected in the regions that are known to be frequented by terrorists. That way, Dukat can deploy troops to investigate a particular region, instead of just having them wander aimlessly around in the hills and forests as they’ve been doing all this time, using less reliable sweeps from their aircraft—or even handheld tricorders. This system is simple, really. So simple, I don’t know why anyone hadn’t thought of it before.”
Mora caught his breath. “Not everyone can be as brilliant as you are, Doctor Reyar.” He could not look at her in the eye, knowing that she was waiting for his reaction, and in truth, he was finding it difficult to conceal his horror. He had not counted on something like this…
“So,” he said carefully, “it will work on the same principles as a tricorder?”
Reyar frowned. “No,” she said. “The targets are too broad. In the future, I plan to remedy the imprecision of this system, but for now, these physical sweeps should be more than sufficient to help pinpoint the locations of terrorists.”
“Terrorists,” Mora said. “But if innocent civilians were to trip the system…”
Reyar’s frown went deeper. “If a civilian remains within the boundaries designated for Bajorans, he has nothing to worry about. It is designed to target terrorists. If a Bajoran is carrying proper identification and a permit
“I needed a cooperative Bajoran, to enter your biospecs into the new system’s recognition software.”
Mora was puzzled. “But it’s an anti-aircraft system. Why—?”
“There’s another aspect to it that perhaps you weren’t aware of, Doctor Mora.” He could tell by the delightedly smug expression on her face that she was about to tell him what it was, though she’d obviously taken some pains to conceal it from him. How like her, to seek pleasure by making him uncomfortable.
“I recently decided to add another function to the sensor sweeps,” she went on. “As you know, it took me a long time to fine-tune the targeting sensors so that we will avoid accidents involving Cardassian aircraft, to compensate for the effects of Bajor’s highly variable atmosphere…”
“A great many tests,” Mora said.
“Yes, Mora, more tests than I had anticipated. How odd, that every time I thought I had adjusted it perfectly, it seemed even more misaligned than it had been before.” She gave him a hard look.
Mora felt sick. He shouldn’t have been so obvious in sabotaging her calibrations, though he’d done his best to make each change appropriately subtle. Of course, Reyar had her suspicions, but Mora knew that Yopal wouldn’t listen to a word of it—the director of the institute had never cared for Reyar. “Oh?” he finally croaked.
“Yes, well, never mind that. I confess, part of what took me so long to perfect this system was my own distraction. Halfway toward completion I had the idea to combine this project with another that I envisioned, and I shifted much of my focus to that. Yopal barely knows anything of it—I cleared it with the prefect, of course, no thanks to our esteemed director.” She smiled now, her self-satisfaction back in full force.
“Are you going to tell me about it?” he said, as politely as he knew how.
“It will target moving objects on the surface,” Reyar said, obviously pleased with herself.
“Moving objects? Like…”
“That’s right. Not just aircraft leaving the atmosphere, but smaller objects. An object as small as a person. In fact, it’s designed to locate people who attempt to cross proscribed boundaries. Bajoran people.” She smiled. “That’s part of why we’ve come to the station, Mora, and why I abandoned the idea of deploying a satellite network in favor of a ground-based detection grid. You see, those signal towers will alert officials here on Terok Nor any time an aircraft has been shot down. But it will also alert personnel here when unauthorized Bajoran travelers have been detected in the regions that are known to be frequented by terrorists. That way, Dukat can deploy troops to investigate a particular region, instead of just having them wander aimlessly around in the hills and forests as they’ve been doing all this time, using less reliable sweeps from their aircraft—or even handheld tricorders. This system is simple, really. So simple, I don’t know why anyone hadn’t thought of it before.”
Mora caught his breath. “Not everyone can be as brilliant as you are, Doctor Reyar.” He could not look at her in the eye, knowing that she was waiting for his reaction, and in truth, he was finding it difficult to conceal his horror. He had not counted on something like this…
“So,” he said carefully, “it will work on the same principles as a tricorder?”
Reyar frowned. “No,” she said. “The targets are too broad. In the future, I plan to remedy the imprecision of this system, but for now, these physical sweeps should be more than sufficient to help pinpoint the locations of terrorists.”
“Terrorists,” Mora said. “But if innocent civilians were to trip the system…”
Reyar’s frown went deeper. “If a civilian remains within the boundaries designated for Bajorans, he has nothing to worry about. It is designed to target terrorists. If a Bajoran is carrying proper identification and a permit
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