“Did you thank your father for the book?” Kasidy asked.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said without looking up.
Sisko squatted back down. “You’re welcome, Rebecca,” he said. “Maybe it would be okay with Mommy if you went to your room to look at your new book, and then let me come read it with you a little later.”
For the first time, Rebecca peered directly at Sisko. “Okay,” she said.
Sisko got back up. “Is that all right with you, Kasidy?” he asked.
“It is if Miss Rebecca promises to mind her manners,” Kasidy said.
“I promise.”
“All right then,” Kasidy said. “You may go to your room.”
Still clutching her new book as though she feared it might fly away if she didn’t, Rebecca headed back down the hall. Kasidy bent to pick up the two starship models, which she placed on the table beside the duffel. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” Sisko said. “It’s my fault for staying away so long.”
“I know,” she said, and motioned toward the chairs in front of the fireplace. Sisko followed her over and they both sat down. “But it’s not as though you left when Rebecca was an infant. She remembers you, and I make sure that we talk about you often. We look at family pictures and recordings, and I’ve shown her your last couple of messages. She knew you were coming home, and she was genuinely excited about it.”
“It’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Sisko said, though in truth, Rebecca’s reaction concerned him. More than anything, he thought, it underscored the impact of his departure on his daughter and their relationship. He also wondered how he could continue being parted from Kasidy, but still keep a good, positive presence in Rebecca’s life. “We just need to get reacquainted.”
“I hope so.”
Kasidy offered Sisko something to eat or drink, which he declined. They sat quietly in front of the fire for a while, the silence between them feeling neither particularly unnatural nor unbearably awkward. Finally, Sisko said, “We need to tell Rebecca what’s going on.”
“We can’t do that,” Kasidy said at once. “Don’t you think I’ve had to deal with this question of what to tell our daughter and what to keep from her? I face it every day.”
“We can’t continue to lie to her,” Sisko maintained. “It’s not right.”
“And it wouldn’t be right to tell her that her father left because he worried that, if he stayed, something terrible would happen to her and her mother.”
“We don’t have to put it quite like that,” Sisko said.
“However we put it,” Kasidy said, “if we tell her your reason for leaving, it will scare her when you do come to visit. And Rebecca would also likely interpret the situation as somehow being her fault.”
“I understand your point,” Sisko said. “But can we really justify continuing to lie to our daughter?”
“We’re not lying,” Kasidy insisted. “When you left, and since you’ve been gone, I’ve told her that Starfleet needs experienced starship captains to help protect the Federation. None of that is untrue.”
“It’s a lie of omission.”
“For right now, Ben, I can live with that,” Kasidy said. “And since I’m the one raising Rebecca right now, you need to respect my decision.”
Sisko didn’t say anything for a few moments. He considered all that Kasidy had said, in relation to his own feelings about the situation. “All right,” he said at last. “But at some point, we need to tell Rebecca everything.”
“At some point, yes,” Kasidy agreed. “But not now. She’s not even six years old yet.”
Reminded of Rebecca’s age, he said, “Soon. I wish I could be here for her birthday.” Rebecca would turn six just a few days after he returned to Robinson.
“You should record a message before you go back to Starfleet,” Kasidy said. “That way, she’ll be sure to have it on—”
Kasidy stopped and looked past Sisko. He turned to follow her gaze and saw their daughter standing just inside the hallway. When she saw him look at her, she held out to him the book he’d earlier given her. “Daddy, are you going to read to me?”
Sisko smiled. He looked to Kasidy, who smiled back at him and nodded. “I would love to, honey.” He walked over to Rebecca, and she immediately led him off toward her bedroom.
Despite doing what he needed to do in order to protect his wife and daughter, Sisko knew that he had made life difficult for his family. But as he sat down on Rebecca’s bed and she nestled against him, as she handed him the book and waited for him to read to her, he thought maybe things would work out after all.
Only later, when he stood on the bridge of the Robinson and saw Kasidy’s ship exploding in space, would he realize just how wrong that assessment had been.
9
Proconsul Anlikar Ventel sat at the conference table, between two of the six spiral arms that extended outward from its large, round center. As he listened to the reports of the individual representatives of the Typhon Pact member states, he grew progressively more perturbed. In the two hundred days since the Romulan Senate had voted to elevate Gell Kamemor to the praetorship as Tal’Aura’s successor, the new leader of the Empire had worked tirelessly to stabilize the political state of affairs in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. She set the welfare of the Romulan people—as opposed to military superiority, or the acquisition of space or resources—as her top priority, and Ventel agreed with her assessment that pinpointed the primary component of that welfare as interstellar peace.
But as each of the Typhon Pact representatives spoke, their accounts of information relevant to the alliance included actions their people had taken detrimental to continued amity with their spacefaring neighbors. Ventel had hoped for, and had actually anticipated, a far more positive experience when he’d agreed to replace Tomalak as the Empire’s envoy to Typhon I, the space station jointly constructed and maintained by the six Pact nations. Praetor Kamemor judged Tomalak better suited than Ventel as a liaison to both the Romulan Imperial Fleet and the Tal Shiar. As a former, longtime member of the Imperial Fleet, and one who had risen to positions of considerable authority within it, Tomalak retained numerous high-level military contacts. And though he had clashed with Rehaek, the previous chairman of the Tal Shiar, he shared a mutual respect with Sela, the secretive organization’s current head.
Directly across the table from Ventel, the Gorn ambassador detailed a recent clash between Hegemony forces and a Federation starship. As though on cue, a Gorn warship became visible behind Skorn, rising into view through a circular port in the outer bulkhead. The formidable-looking vessel featured a long, tapering primary hull, with slightly curved warp nacelles on either side, mounted asymmetrically to it on short, wide struts. Ventel had first seen the ship when he’d arrived at Typhon I.
An impressive sight in its own right, the space station symbolized in three dimensions what the conference table did in two. A central sphere formed the main body of Typhon I, with six spiral arms projecting from it at its equator. The entire structure evoked the form of the galaxy. Each arm denoted one of the founding members of the Pact, with an internal environment specific to that species, and with external docking ports made to accommodate their vessels. The main sphere blended various features of the different settings in an attempt to provide the best generic space for all the member species. Just as Tomalak had warned him, the temperature of the communal areas dipped below the comfort level for Romulans, but not unbearably so. It pleased Ventel that, unlike the Breen and Tholian diplomats, he did not need to wear an environmental suit.
The proconsul listened as Skorn’s comments drew to a close. Although Ventel’s automated translator interpreted the speech of the reptilian Gorn ambassador, he could still hear the original vocalizations. To him, the hiss of Skorn’s words sounded less like a language and more like a slow atmospheric leak—or like the sibilant warning of a wild animal. The latter characterization matched the content of his remarks, which mostly tol
d of a confrontation between Gorn forces and a Starfleet vessel—a tense encounter that only served to heighten the friction between the Federation and the Hegemony, and worse, between the Federation and the Pact.
Skorn’s address followed one made by the representative of the Holy Order of the Kinshaya, Patriarch Radrigi, and before that, one by that of the Tzenkethi Coalition, Speaker Alizome Vik Tov-A. Radrigi sat perched atop a low disk, his four legs splayed out around it, his two arms at his sides, his wings remaining tucked on his back. He had spoken at length of the seemingly unending skirmishes being fought by the Order with the Klingon Empire. The two powers had warred for centuries, but the recent increase in activity suggested that it might be difficult to preserve the current status quo, with hostilities possibly intensifying to include the Klingons’ Khitomer Accords ally, the Federation, and the Kinshaya’s Pact partners.
Speaker Alizome had delivered a similar report on behalf of the Tzenkethi. A tall woman of beautiful proportions and exquisite features, she moved with elegance and poise. Her green pupils filled her eyes, and her golden flesh glowed with an internal radiance that had an almost mesmerizing effect on those around her. Though a bipedal humanoid, she too sat on one of the low disks at the conference table, her legs pulled up and wrapped around the base of her torso, making her appear as though the bottom half of her body had gone missing.
Alizome had articulated her words with a voice that sounded like the gentle ringing of wind chimes, though the content of her report possessed a harshness Ventel didn’t appreciate. She related accounts of the Federation relocating several populations from worlds attacked by the Borg to planets located beyond UFP borders. Demonstrating at least a modicum of restraint, the Coalition did not adopt a war footing, nor did they petition the Pact to make any declarations or take any actions against the Federation. Still, it troubled Ventel to hear that the Tzenkethi had chosen to menace the new settlements. The autarch wanted to send the message to the UFP that it could not encroach upon Tzenkethi territory with no fear of reprisal. He also hoped to drive the displaced populations back into Federation space.
Once the Gorn ambassador had finished his report and responded to questions, the Breen representative, Vart, issued an account of recent Confederacy matters. The muzzled helmet of the standard Breen environmental suit converted Vart’s voice into an electronic garble almost unrecognizable as speech. As Ventel’s translator decrypted the ambassador’s words, the proconsul realized that he didn’t actually know Vart’s gender, but had assumed male because of the harsh sound of the vocoder.
“I regret to inform this assembly that our attempt to construct a starship with a functioning quantum slipstream drive has failed,” Vart said.
The news appeared to surprise everybody present, including Ventel, though he guessed that he alone did not count the information as disappointing. After the supposed industrial accident at Starfleet’s Utopia Planitia facility, Praetor Kamemor, suspecting a different reality and fearing Romulan involvement, had set several members of her government the task of learning what truly occurred at Sol IV. Tal Shiar Chairwoman Sela uncovered a secret proposal by her predecessor to employ a Breen operative and a Romulan starship equipped with the new phasing cloak to steal the quantum slipstream schematics from the Federation. The praetor’s own predecessor, Tal’Aura, approved the plan. Tomalak managed to confirm the actual theft via his contacts aboard the Imperial Fleet vessel Dekkona, although when Kamemor spoke with Fleet Admiral Devix, he denied any knowledge of the operation. Pending his own investigation, Devix removed Dekkona’s commander, Marius, from active duty.
The praetor believed the Federation’s characterizing the theft of the slipstream plans as an industrial accident was a clear indication that the UFP sought peace in the region—or at least that they wished to avoid a shooting war. Ventel concurred. And the fact that the Breen had not succeeded meant a continuation of the current balance of power, a state that, to this point, had not led to open warfare.
“A slipstream engine had been completed and installed on a test bed,” Ambassador Vart continued, “but two humans, likely working for Starfleet, infiltrated one of our worlds and sabotaged the prototype. The engine, the vessel, and the shipyard were all destroyed.”
“Surely that could not have been the only attempt being made to deliver slipstream technology to the Pact,” said Alizome, the Tzenkethi speaker, not waiting for Vart to finish his report. “I presume that a secondary effort has now been started.”
“For the sake of security, our engineers limited the scope of the project to a single facility,” Vart said.
“Which would have been effective,” hissed Skorn, “if you had actually been able to keep that shipyard secure.”
Vart rose to his feet and leaned in over the table, the green glow of his wide eyepiece shining in the direction of Ambassador Skorn. If Breen even have eyes, thought Ventel. He had never seen a member of the species out of an environmental suit.
“I did not notice any Gorn willing to travel into Federation space, to conduct an espionage operation at a Starfleet site, or to steal their most advanced technology,” Vart said, Then he turned his gaze on Alizome before continuing. “Indeed, other than the Romulans, it seems none of our Pact allies has much of a backbone.”
Ventel construed the comment as a pointed slight against the Tzenkethi, whose internal anatomy contained bones only along their spines.
“But we do have brains,” Alizome said, the lyrical sound of her voice unable to mask the venom in her words. “And mine would have told me to maintain a secure backup for the slipstream plans. Surely you made this minimal effort.”
Vart lifted his hands from the tabletop and stood back for a moment before taking his seat once more. “We did make backups,” he said. “They were all held at the shipyard. Prior to the destruction of the facility, one of our engineers packaged them in an emergency transmission to the Confederate Information Bureau.” He paused, apparently not pleased with what he next needed to reveal. “Somehow, the backups became corrupted.”
“‘Somehow,’” Alizome echoed. “With the loss of this opportunity, the Breen have allowed the Federation to maintain their capacity to launch a first strike.”
“Pardon me,” Ventel said, “but if the Federation intended to attack preemptively, wouldn’t they have done so already?”
For the first time since Vart had begun his report, the Tholian ambassador spoke up. Like her Breen counterpart, Corskene wore an environmental suit. Black and angular, it showed off her white, polygonal eyes, which shined brightly through her faceplate. “The Federation Starfleet is still recovering from the Borg invasion, so they are hardly equipped to conduct a war at this juncture,” she said. The electronic transmission of her words sounded far less abrasive than that of the Breen. “But that does not belie Starfleet’s technological superiority, nor does it obviate the Typhon Pact’s need to meet their capabilities in order to keep our own people safe.”
A general murmur of agreement filtered through the conference room. Ventel wanted to argue the reverse, that matching the technological advancement of the Federation’s starships would disturb the flimsy stability of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants in a dangerous way. Though Kamemor meant to lead a new, enlightened Romulus into the future, there remained hawkish factions within her government, and the same held true for the Empire’s allies. If the Pact could exceed, or perhaps even simply equal, the military might of the Federation, the possibility of war would increase dramatically. But because of his newness to the proceedings, and his lack of familiarity with the participants, Ventel chose to hold his tongue.
When everybody had quieted, Corskene spoke into the stillness. “There may be another means of disrupting the Federation,” she said. All eyes turned toward the Tholian ambassador. “As you may know, the people of Andor are facing a health crisis. For centuries, their four-sex reproductive configuration has led them toward the path of extinction. In recent times, decreases in fertility have haste
ned this process.” Corskene paused, apparently for effect. “The Tholian Assembly has chosen to help them solve their dilemma.”
Patriarch Radrigi peered at the Tholian ambassador with a quizzical expression on his face. “How does helping the Andorians disrupt the Federation?” he asked.
“UFP and Starfleet scientists have been hard at work for some time now attempting to find a genetic solution for the Andorians, including the possibility of introducing alien DNA into their gene pool,” Corskene said. “The people of Andor are divided on whether or not this would be a viable answer or a pollution of their race. There are those on Andor who would banish members of Starfleet from their world, and even some who advocate closing their borders to non-Andorians.”
“But why would the Andorians accept a solution from the Tholians,” Ventel asked, “if they’re unwilling to accept one from the Federation, of which they are a founding member?”
“The Andorians are mostly not averse to a scientific answer to their problem, only one that would corrupt their unique genetic composition,” Corskene said. “A century ago, the Tholian Assembly and the Federation both came into possession of a complex library of scientific information that could be readily employed to resolve the Andorian crisis without resorting to the introduction of foreign DNA into their genetic structure. But that data remains classified within the Federation, and its leaders have chosen not to avail themselves of it, even to help the people of Andor.
“So we did.”
“You did … what?” asked Skorn.
“Through an intermediary,” Corskene explained, “we provided Andor’s leading scientist working on the genetic crisis with enough data to make significant advancements in her research. When the time is right, we will make it known that, while the leaders of the Federation willfully chose to withhold from the Andorians a means of averting their prospective extinction, the leaders of the Tholian Assembly—and by extension, those of the Typhon Pact—have chosen to help them step away from the precipice.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 06: Plagues of Night Page 12