Star Trek: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

by David Mack

  Bowers lifted his chin at the data sheet for the Mogonus. “Where is it now?”

  “En route to Andor, ETA three hours and nine minutes,” Kedair said.

  The three officers looked at Dax, and Bowers struck an upbeat note. “Orders, Captain?”

  Dax reviewed the facts in front of her and made a decision.

  “Set an intercept course for the Parham.”

  Confused looks passed among the other three officers. Kedair pointed at the icon for the Orion ship. “But Captain, the Mogonus—”

  “Would have cost more credits to hire than Julian’s ever had in his life. But more important is the Parham’s maintenance-and-inspection record: It failed a health-and-safety inspection on Deep Space Nine just over a week ago—right before it got a clean certificate from Julian. I’m willing to bet that was no coincidence.”

  “Computer,” Bowers said, “end program.” The illusory cosmos dissipated like vapor as the holodeck gradually lowered the four officers to the deck and reactivated its artificial gravity. Just as they touched down, Bowers noted, “To catch the Parham before it lands on Andor will mean using the slipstream drive—and even that’ll be cutting it close.”

  “Do whatever it takes, Sam.” The four of them set foot on the deck and moved together toward the exit, which opened ahead of them. “Julian’s on that ship. Catch it. That’s an order.”

  • • •

  “Grab your socks, Doc, we’re droppin’ outta warp in three . . . two . . . now.”

  Bashir’s pulse quickened as warp-stretched starlight shrank back into discrete points—and then his breath caught for half a second in his chest as Captain Harris swung the Parham through a tight turn that brought the northern hemisphere of Andor into majestic view. They were close to the planet, definitely within standard orbital distance, and the blue-and-white orb dominated their field of view. The Parham’s cockpit windows polarized to reduce the blinding effect of the planet’s reflected light, causing the stars behind the planet to vanish into darkness.

  For a world that had been placed under unilateral economic sanctions by the Federation, Andor had no shortage of starship traffic. With just his naked eye, Bashir counted several dozen vessels of various origins and sizes coming and going. Some were in standard orbits from which they could transfer personnel and cargo via transporters, while others shuttled to and from the planet’s surface. Cresting the curve of the planet’s northern hemisphere was a Tholian battleship. All that activity transpired at the bidding of Andor Control and under the watchful auspices of two Andorian military starships, which patrolled from antipodal high orbits.

  Harris keyed a short string of digits into his ship’s comm and pressed TRANSMIT. “Hang tight, Doc. Soon as Control gives me landing coordinates, we’ll set down and get you on your—”

  A flash of bluish-white light from outside the ship forced Bashir to shield his eyes with one arm. When the painful radiance began to fade, he lowered his arm to see one of his worst fears realized. The Aventine had just arrived in orbit between the Parham and Andor, by means of what he could only surmise had been a terrifyingly precise quantum-slipstream jump.

  Angry voices clamored over the Andor Control comm channel, and the two Andorian warships began accelerating away from their patrol positions to intercept and flank the Aventine, which was pivoting its bow with preternatural grace toward the Parham.

  The small freighter’s owner-pilot gaped at the huge, Vesta-class starship looming over his ship. “They’re chargin’ weapons and a tractor beam. I’m guessin’ that ain’t good.”

  “Correct.” As if on cue, the comm over Bashir’s head chirped twice to announce an incoming audio signal from the Aventine.

  Harris reached up and thumbed open the channel. “Yo.”

  “Attention, commander, S.S. Parham. This is Captain Ezri Dax, commanding the Federation Starship Aventine. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

  Bashir pressed a finger against his lips and looked at Harris: Say nothing about me. Harris raised his hands away from the helm controls, as if someone on the Aventine were watching him through a viewport. “Sorry, Cap’n, but I reckon y’all have made some kinda mistake.”

  Another voice—masculine and gruff—joined the conversation. “Attention, commander, Aventine. This is Captain Kainon th’Liro, commanding the Andorian Imperial warship Ilmarriven. You have no legal authority here. You and your vessel are ordered to withdraw.”

  “Negative,” Dax replied. “We are in pursuit of a fugitive from Starfleet justice, one whom we have reason to suspect is being harbored aboard the civilian vessel Parham.”

  Harris and Bashir watched the two Andorian battleships take up positions on the Aventine’s aft flanks, one above the Federation ship, the other beneath it. The Andorian commander’s voice remained unyielding. “Aventine, can you identify the suspect?”

  “Affirmative. Starfleet officer Doctor Julian Bashir. Rank, commander.”

  “Parham commander,” th’Liro said. “Identify yourself.”

  “Captain Emerson Harris. I’m on file with Andor Control.”

  “Captain Harris, is the Starfleet fugitive aboard your vessel?”

  Harris started to reach for the mute switch, no doubt to concoct some lie to protect Bashir, but the fiasco had gone far enough. Bashir caught Harris’s hand and answered for him. “Captain th’Liro, this is Doctor Julian Bashir.”

  “Captain Dax,” th’Liro continued, “with what crimes is Doctor Bashir charged?”

  “Treason, espionage, assault on an officer, theft of Starfleet property, and desertion.”

  “That’s absurd! You can’t charge me with desertion. I resigned my commission before I left the Bajor system.”

  “Really, Julian? That’s the charge you want to contest?”

  “I’m just saying, if you’re going to sully my name, at least get your facts straight.”

  “I think you ought to be a bit more concerned about the—”

  “Doctor Bashir,” th’Liro cut in. “Do you confess to being a fugitive from Starfleet?”

  “Yes—and at this time, I formally request asylum on Andor.”

  Dax’s voice pitched upward with anger. “What? On what grounds? If you think I’m—”

  “Captain Dax, I remind you that you have no authority here. Doctor Bashir’s petition is by no means assured of approval, but until we receive a ruling from our government, your ship will stand down. If the Parham makes any attempt to flee, we will deal with it. And if Doctor Bashir is to be taken into custody pending extradition, that will also be under our jurisdiction.”

  After a tension-filled pause, Dax replied, “Acknowledged, Ilmarriven.”

  The Andorian commander continued. “Doctor Bashir: What is your reason for requesting asylum on Andor?”

  “To bring you the cure for your people’s fertility crisis—which also happens to be the reason that Starfleet and the Federation want to see me behind bars.”

  His statement was met by a long silence, followed by a soft-spoken reply. “Acknowledged.” After another pause, th’Liro added, “Stand by.”

  Changing status indicators on the Parham’s master control console made it possible for the freighter captain to let go of the breath he’d been holding. “They’re powering down.”

  “For now. The real question is, what happens next? ”

  “Beats the hell outta me. I’d usually kick back with a beer while waiting on a bureaucrat, but with all that firepower pointed our way, I’m a bit too wound up to swallow right now.”

  “I understand, believe me.”

  Bashir’s thoughts turned toward the planet’s surface. Had his message reached Shar? Had his old friend known what to do with news of his imminent arrival? He had been counting on Shar and his colleagues to have a network in place for manufacturing and distributing the cure once they’d extracted it from his bloodstream. But knowing who was in control of the Andorian government, he couldn’t risk surrendering himself to just an
yone. If what Shar had told him was correct, Andor’s current presider had every reason to want Bashir to fail.

  If someone’s on my side down there, maybe I have a chance, Bashir told himself in a halfhearted bid to prop up his faltering courage. But if not . . . then this is about to become the biggest blunder of my entire life.

  • • •

  Presider ch’Foruta jogged through the stately, high-ceilinged main passage of the Parliament Andoria, his chief of staff at his side, and silently cursed whomever had decided to shield the interior of the new government’s capital building with transporter scramblers. He struggled to expel words between labored breaths. “How in the name of Uzaveh did it get called for a vote?”

  Already hard-pressed to keep pace with the presider, zh’Rilah lost a few more steps using valuable air to answer him. “Leader zh’Tarash forced a quorum call.”

  I should have known. Damn the lawyers and their dirty tricks! It didn’t bother ch’Foruta that the forced quorum tactic was one that his own party had employed several times in the past few years to push through its own preferred legislation and ratify controversial executive orders. All it took was a lot of patience on one side and a lack of attention on the other.

  One party waited until Parliament was in session but effectively in recess for routine state business off the floor. Then its members would return to the main chamber, one or a few at a time, and try to remain inconspicuous until enough members of the Parliament were present—by decree, one half of all its elected members, plus one—and a vote could be called. Then, if the party orchestrating the trick held a majority among those present in the hall, one of its members would call a point of order, introduce a binding resolution, and motion for an immediate referendum on the resolution. If the process was executed quickly enough, before opposing votes could be marshaled into the chamber, the minority could defy the majority—for a moment.

  Such a moment was taking shape right then in the Parliament Andoria.

  The Progressives’ leader is becoming a bigger problem than I’d expected, ch’Foruta brooded. Since no one had been able to locate Professor zh’Thiin to extend to her the diabolical offer that ch’Foruta’s intelligence counselor th’Farro had concocted, the presider had tried to arrange a meeting with the elusive scientist through Leader zh’Tarash. The result had been nothing, not even the professional courtesy of a brusque refusal—merely cold silence.

  Who does this upstart zhen think she is?

  A pair of uniformed guards pulled open a pair of tall, ornately adorned outward-swinging doors that led to the presider’s private entrance behind the main chamber’s elevated dais. The imperial soldiers pushed the doors closed behind zh’Rilah. Her footsteps and ch’Foruta’s were loud and met by crisp echoes as they hurried down the passageway. The presider threw a look at his chief of staff. “How are we doing on the quorum call?”

  The zhen touched her ear to better listen to reports from the chamber floor. “It’s going to be close. Sounds like zh’Tarash is trying to close the vote, and we’re running out of delays.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He left zh’Rilah behind and lurched ahead, to a door through which she was not allowed to follow him. It opened ahead of him, and the roar of voices hit him like an ocean swell—the Parliament Andoria had devolved into pandemonium.

  The presider bounded up a short flight of stairs to his ceremonial seat overlooking the chamber from its highest point. Fewer than two-thirds of the members were present, but zh’Tarash had expertly rallied all her Progressives and a few of their allies in other minority parties. A shouting match in the hemispherical seating tiers escalated swiftly to pointed fingers and threatened to degenerate into a brawl at any moment.

  Projecting calm authority, ch’Foruta sat down, picked up his gavel, and pounded it against the block until the deafening reports subdued the chaos below him. He leaned forward and looked down to his ally, Marratesh ch’Lhorra. “Cha Speaker, a point of order.”

  “We recognize the Presider.”

  “I formally request a review of the resolution’s specific terms.”

  The Speaker of the Parliament picked up a padd and read from it while more members of the Treishya hurried into the chamber through its multiple entrances behind the uppermost tier of seats. “Parliament Resolution Four-seventeen, introduced by Leader zh’Tarash and co-sponsored by Leader th’Forris: ‘Be it resolved, and ratified by a majority vote, that the Parliament Andoria grants, with immediate effect, the asylum request received this day from United Federation of Planets citizen Julian Subatoi Bashir.’ The resolution currently stands at one hundred sixty-six votes in favor, one hundred fifty-eight opposed, with no abstentions.”

  Another dozen Treishya had arrived while ch’Lhorra was talking. Quashing zh’Tarash’s bill would now be a simple matter. The presider stood to address the chamber. “Cha Speaker, at this time I move we extend the voting on this resolution, to gauge its support among those of our number now joining us.”

  “Seconded,” added sh’Risham, the Visionist Leader.

  “The presider’s motion carries,” ch’Lhorra declared. “Voting will continue.”

  In less than a minute, the nay votes surpassed the yeas by a margin that confirmed the motion’s irreversible defeat. One disaster contained, ch’Foruta gloated. Now to preempt another. “Cha Speaker, at this time, be informed on behalf of the Parliament that I am issuing an executive order to our imperial forces in orbit, directing them to stand down and permit the Starfleet vessel to take the Federation fugitive into custody without an extradition hearing.”

  He was answered by an enraged outburst from New Restoration Party Leader ch’Szaan. “This is a travesty of justice! What kind of message does it send if we allow our sovereignty to be usurped in our own orbit? We have every right to demand proof of this human’s crimes before we permit a foreign power to arrest him inside our jurisdiction!”

  “This is a matter requiring the utmost diplomacy.” Ch’Foruta struck his most condescending tone. “The Federation might no longer be our trusted friend, but neither is it our enemy, and we would be wise not to make a foe of them through acts of intransigence.”

  The next verbal jab came from an unexpected direction—his ally, Leader zh’Moor. “Leader ch’Szaan speaks the truth, Presider! Setting aside the law, with its guarantees of due process and impartial judgment based on evidence, in favor of executive decree, sets a very dangerous precedent—one the True Heirs of Andor will not support.”

  Some backbencher shen from the maddeningly neutral Alliance Party shouted out, “Bashir says he’s trying to bring us the cure to the fertility crisis! We can’t just turn him away!”

  A surge of voices assailed ch’Foruta, who stood dumbfounded. He couldn’t argue his case based on the truth of the matter—that he wanted Bashir out of the equation because he couldn’t permit the human to deliver the cure and shift the credit for Andor’s salvation away from the Treishya and its allies. Instead, he was forced to stand his ground on the thin ice of a hastily concocted lie. “We have no reason to believe that Bashir is telling the truth about having the cure—”

  “All the more reason for a fair hearing,” zh’Tarash shot back, wading into the fray. “If he’s lying, I’ll be the first to vote for his extradition. But the law demands he be given the chance to present his evidence and be heard!”

  The mood in the chamber was turning ugly, and votes that ch’Foruta would have taken for granted only minutes earlier suddenly seemed in danger of turning against him. There was no time to adhere to the quaint details of protocol. It was a moment for blunt-force politics.

  “The executive order has been issued.” He transmitted the directive to the ships in orbit from his personal padd. “Cha Speaker, I move we recess until tomorrow.”

  Rage flooded up toward ch’Foruta from all sides. Cries of condemnation, calls for his gavel, demands for justice—but no one to second his motion. He shot a baleful glare at ch’Lhorra
, who understood what the presider wanted.

  The speaker cupped his hand over his headset to make his amplified voice audible over the commotion: “Motion is seconded and carried.” Even though it was a clear violation of protocol for him to second the presider’s motion, he swung his own gavel three times against its block and declared, “This body stands in recess until midday tomorrow.”

  Dozens of parliament members pelted ch’Lhorra and ch’Foruta with a storm of small thrown objects as the two Treishya fled their elevated stations and retreated through their respective private exits. Harried by styluses and data chips, ch’Foruta ducked back into his private corridor where zh’Rilah stood waiting for him. She fell into step with him as they ran for the large doors that led out to the main passage. “What just happened in there?”

  “Unless we play our next move perfectly,” ch’Foruta snapped, “the start of a coup.”

  • • •

  “Doc? I ain’t tryin’ to be a nervous Nellie, but I think the Tholians are headin’ our way.”

  Bashir tried to reassure Harris with a calm hand on the man’s shoulder. “Relax. It’s all posturing. They just want to show the Andorians that they’re backing them up. Since they know this likely won’t turn violent, it costs them nothing to look supportive.”

  The captain heaved a worried sigh. “Hope you’re right, Doc. That thing’s real big.”

  Watching the Tholian battleship loom large ahead of them, Bashir found himself sharing a small degree of Harris’s apprehension. “It certainly is.”