Turn The Page

by Dayton Ward

  It took Sarjenka an extra moment to decipher the guard’s actual question, owing to his peculiar speech patterns. A native of the planet Sigma Iotia II, Vinx represented a unique and highly imitative culture that for reasons surpassing understanding had chosen to model their entire society from a book left on their planet by an Earth vessel more than two centuries earlier. The tome, Chicago Mobs of the Twenties, contained textual accounts and photographs depicting one of the more violent times during Earth’s history. Despite the Iotians having interacted with other races and even aspects of human civilization since that initial contact, they still seemed content to continue perpetuating the ideas and trappings as put forth in that book. For natives like Vinx, who had been born and raised into such a culture, what once might have been nothing more than mimicry was now simply an accepted way of life.

  “Simply neutralizing all of the implants across the continent would put the rest of the population at undue risk, Mr. Vinx,” Sarjenka replied. “Don’t forget, the majority of the reformant community does still consist of legitimate criminals carrying out lawfully imposed sentences of punishment.” Of course, she had considered that notion herself before dismissing it, knowing full well that the ramifications of such drastic action—while seemingly noble and altruistic in so far as the reformants and the question of free will were concerned—presented far too many unpleasant and immediate problems.

  One step at a time, she reminded herself.

  Looking down at her tricorder, Sarjenka studied its reduced image display, which depicted a wire-frame rendering of the target building. Crimson dots indicated the positions of reformants, and a pair of blue dots represented the two Morhenza. A quartet of emerald pinpoints marked the location of wide-field broadcast transmitters Soloman had transported down from the da Vinci. Amplifiers for the signal he would transmit at Sarjenka’s command, the devices had been positioned twenty meters away from the building at its four corners.

  Tapping her combadge, she said, “Sarjenka to da Vinci. Soloman, please initiate the broadcast.”

  “Transmitting now,” the Bynar replied, and Sarjenka watched on her tricorder as a series of curved green lines began to emanate from the indicators representing the broadcast amplifiers, expanding outward in a cone shape and bathing the perimeter of the building.

  The reaction on the ground was immediate. Though the majority of the reformants visible along the promenade made no move nor offered an indication that anything was amiss, both Lisqual identified as Morhenza abruptly jerked as if subjected to an electrical shock, dropping their weapons and reaching up to grasp their heads in their hands. Both men fell to their knees, convulsing in response to the signal now being received by their implants. After a moment, the Morhenza stopped moving, their bodies still, while their facial features were twisted into expressions of pain and fear. All the while, the surrounding reformants gave no indication that they even were aware of what was happening to their companions.

  “They’re alive,” Sarjenka said after a moment, studying the scan results on her medical tricorder. “I’m not detecting any neurological damage.”

  “Not so fast, doll,” Vinx said. “You got yourself one in dutch.”

  Sarjenka followed his gaze to see another reformant near the building’s far corner, gripping his head and screaming in obvious pain. He fell to the ground, his body jerking and twitching in a violent seizure. In mounting horror, Sarjenka consulted her tricorder. Thankfully, there was no indication of neurological trauma, but the test was still not going according to plan.

  “Soloman!” Gomez shouted into her combadge. “What’s happening?”

  “There appears to be some breakdown in the signal,” the engineer replied. “Implants other than those of the Morhenza seem to be susceptible. I will have to refine the transmission to avoid affecting other reformants, but there is a new problem.”

  “Of course there is,” Gomez said, punctuating her remark with something under her breath that Sarjenka still heard—and recognized as a particularly colorful Andorian profanity. “What now, Soloman?”

  “Our actions have triggered another of Jannim’s protocols,” answered the Bynar. “It seems she anticipated any attempt to override the directives she issued to the Morhenza.”

  “Tell me about it,” Corsi said, her phaser in her hand.

  In response to her warning tone, Sarjenka looked up to see that, all around them, reformants were seemingly being spurred into action. No longer standing idle in the streets, they now were moving about, picking up bricks, metal shards, or whatever else they happened across. While many of the reformants resumed their destructive activities from earlier in the day—taking aim at abandoned vehicles or the store fronts, Sarjenka felt a slice of cold grip her spine as she realized several of the rioters were instead turning their attentions toward the courtyard.

  “We got company,” Vinx said, drawing his own phaser.

  “Stand by to lay down some covering fire,” Corsi ordered, checking the power setting on her own weapon. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t let them surround us.” Tapping her own combadge, she said, “Corsi to da Vinci. Stand by for emergency transport.”

  “No!” Sarjenka yelled. “Not yet.”

  Moving so that he could kneel on the ground to her left, Vinx said, “Don’t gum up the works, Sawbones. We’re gonna have to scram.”

  “We can’t leave now,” Sarjenka argued. “If this keeps up, the Lisqual military will have no choice but to enact more extreme measures. They won’t have a choice.” Hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers, reformants, and innocent civilians were at risk.

  Of course, continuing the broadcast and widening it to encompass all the Morhenza carried a similar risk. While it would certainly quell the renegade legionnaires currently acting under Jannim’s control, what of those reformants who would also likely be affected?

  Sarjenka caught movement in the corner of her eye and ducked as a large chunk of brick sailed through the space occupied an instant earlier by her head. It crashed to the soft earth behind her, landing with a dull thump, underscoring its heft.

  “Vinx!” Corsi shouted.

  The Iotian responded by loosing several wide-dispersal bursts from his phaser, the energy beam expanding outward from the weapon to envelop several reformants approaching from the away team’s left. Corsi repeated the tactic on the other side, catching a smaller number of protestors.

  “If we’ve got a plan,” she said as she selected new targets, “now would be a good time to implement it.”

  In the distance, Sarjenka heard the muted sounds of shouts, sirens, and projectile weapons as the unrest was beginning to worsen in the nearby streets, and reformants were engaged by Lisqual security and military forces. The situation was deteriorating rapidly, she knew.

  What can we do?

  “Gomez,” the voice of Captain Gold echoed from the first officer’s combadge, barely audible over the sounds of Corsi and Vinx firing their phasers. “We’re picking up indications of escalating violence in several of the major cities. The whole thing is coming apart. I’m pulling you out of there.”

  “Transmit the signal,” Sarjenka said. “Broadcast it nationwide.”

  “Are you sure?” Gold asked, the skepticism apparent in his voice.

  She wasn’t sure. That was the problem. All she knew was that regardless of what happened in the next few minutes, many lives would be lost because of what she had done. “We no longer have a choice,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  Several seconds passed, during which Corsi and Vinx succeeded in dispatching those rioters who seemed bent on attacking the away team. Dozens of reformants still were visible in the streets, though they appeared focused on the more immediate tasks of destroying whatever they encountered as they lumbered about the promenade. Sarjenka still heard the reports of weapons fire and even a few muffled explosions echoing between the buildings, audible testimony to the upswing in violence occurring elsewhere in the city. Closing her eyes, she of
fered an appeal to Traiaka, pleading to the benevolent Dreman deity to reach across space and protect the reformants from the consequences of her noble intentions.

  “I’ll be damned,” she heard Gomez say, moments later.

  Looking up, Sarjenka could see immediately that the scene around her was undergoing massive change. Across the promenade, reformants were abandoning their riotous efforts, dropping their makeshift weapons to remain standing wherever they were. Once more, she saw the blank unknowing expressions on their faces, signaling their apparent lack of awareness of anything happening around them.

  “What the hell just happened?” Corsi asked.

  “Gomez,” Sarjenka heard the voice of Captain Gold coming from the first officer’s combadge. “Are you there? We’re reading no reformant activity anywhere across the network. Can you confirm?”

  “Look at ‘em,” Vinx said, gesturing toward the courtyard’s outer boundary. “They just petrified.”

  Releasing a relieved sigh, Gomez said, “Confirmed, Captain. All’s quiet down here. What happened?”

  “Soloman happened,” Gold replied. “He’s been working around the clock trying to figure out how to transmit instructions directly to the reformants via the global network. Long story short, he issued an abbreviated set of instructions similar to those provided by Jannim’s automated protocols that were broadcast after her death. In this case, he put them back in their catatonic state, but he told them to remain there until they receive new orders, regardless of what happens.”

  Stepping closer to Gomez, Sarjenka asked, “What about the Morhenza?”

  “Your signal worked, Doctor,” the captain said. “Soloman transmitted it after sending his own instructions. According to him, the implants of the surviving Morhenza are all off-line. Preliminary scans show no signs of neurological damage to any of them. Nice work, Sarjenka.”

  Placing her hand on Sarjenka’s shoulder, Gomez smiled. “Congratulations.”

  “I shouldn’t have hesitated,” Sarjenka replied, feeling guilt gnawing at her. How many lives could have been saved if she had been more assertive? “I put our entire mission at risk.”

  “You hesitated for a grand total of about five seconds, Sarjenka,” Corsi countered, “but you were the only one who could make that call, and you made it.”

  Anything Sarjenka might have said in argument was interrupted, as all around them the large video monitors came to life. On the screen nearest to the away team’s location, Sarjenka saw Dolanara, once more cloaked and shadowed in her adopted persona of Jannim.

  “My fellow citizens, if you are seeing this message, it means that my campaign to bring justice to the most oppressed members of our society is at an end. I no longer control the reformants. Does it mean that I failed, and the result has been a tragic loss of life, or have I brought about a necessary first step toward a new and lasting respect for all of our people? Only you can provide the answer. It is you who will have to act, boldly and decisively, and perhaps even in the face of what you once believed to be true and just. Only then can we move toward a future of promise and hope, whether as members of greater interplanetary allegiance or on our own. Regardless, it is up to you.”

  Wiping tears from her eyes as the image faded, Sarjenka said, “It’s a shame Dolanara did not live to see this.”

  “I don’t think she ever expected to see it,” Gomez replied. “She anticipated that the fight would outlast her.”

  “Maybe that’s why she chose the Jannim identity,” Corsi said. “It was larger than she was, larger than life. It was a symbol rather than an individual, ideal for being at the forefront of her cause. Even though she’s gone, her imagery and her words remain, hopefully as a reminder to future generations to avoid making the mistakes of the past.”

  Taking a final look around the promenade and the sea of now-motionless reformants, as well as the growing number of Lisqual who now were emerging into the open to see what had been left to them, Sarjenka reflected not only on the words of her companions, but also those of Dolanara herself. Her hopes echoed those embodied by Jannim, that the people of this world would find the path to a brighter future, and that perhaps they might accept the assistance of those willing to guide the way.

  Chapter

  9

  “So then, Fabian here decides that maybe he’s expressed his first volley of greetings—spoken in the native Tellarite tongue no less—in a manner inappropriate for the dialect he’s attempted to adopt. His suspicions are confirmed when the Tellarites he’s just addressed knock their chairs to the floor and are now standing and glaring at him.”

  Carol Abramowitz paused in her recounting of the story to smile at Sarjenka, who felt the warmth of acceptance at being included in the small impromptu gathering in the da Vinci sickbay. Standing next to Abramowitz at the bedside of the reclining Vance Hawkins was Fabian Stevens, one of the da Vinci’s enlisted engineering specialists and the current target of Abramowitz’s storytelling. Stevens rolled his eyes and twisted his face into a bizarre, overplayed expression of disgust, an act that elicited a giggle from Sarjenka.

  “Duff told this story better, you know,” Stevens said, propping one arm against the diagnostic bed.

  “Well, it’s my story to tell now,” Abramowitz countered, “and I tell it the way he’d want me to.”

  Sarjenka suppressed another laugh as Stevens and Abramowitz paused in their joint recollection of this apparent comedy of errors, sharing a meaningful glance. She knew of Kieran Duffy, of course, from conversations with Commander Gomez. There was no doubting that he still was missed by those members of the da Vinci crew who survived the mission to Galvan VI.

  “She’s making me look bad, Doc,” Stevens said, offering a mock frown to Sarjenka. While this gathering around Hawkins’s recuperative bed marked their first true conversation, Sarjenka found Stevens’s employment of the “Doc” moniker appealing. Despite its casual-sounding nature, the Earth origins of the diminutive title carried respect for her calling as a healer—or so she had been told at Starfleet Medical Academy—and she took a measure of comfort in hearing Stevens use it now.

  There was a lull in the conversation, during which Sarjenka was unable to keep from looking over at the empty patient bed which until the previous evening had held the stricken form of Leslie Banks.

  “The memorial service is at 1400 hours,” Abramowitz said after a moment.

  Nodding, Hawkins replied, “I’ll be there.”

  “Assuming you behave yourself and follow your doctor’s orders, Chief.”

  Sarjenka turned at the sound of the new voice to see Dr. Lense standing in the doorway leading to her office.

  Stepping into the room, Lense moved close enough to make a show of examining the diagnostic monitor at the head of Hawkins’s bed. With her hands clasped behind her back, the doctor’s state of pregnancy was made that much more obvious, and Sarjenka’s initial response was one of embarrassment. After all, among her people, such brazen displays of advanced gestation were considered rude in mixed company. Nevertheless, Sarjenka tempered her initial reaction with the tolerance and experience she had acquired during her time in Starfleet.

  “Don’t blame Hawk, Doctor,” Stevens said as Lense regarded the small assemblage around his head. “We cornered him.”

  Her right eyebrow arching in almost Vulcan-like fashion, Lense asked, “And so you used the opportunity to subject Lieutenant Sarjenka to Mr. Stevens’s Tellarite story?”

  Abramowitz shrugged. “Actually, that was my idea. Fabian can’t tell it to save his life.”

  Eyeing the group for a moment, Lense turned to Hawkins. “Bed rest means exactly that, Chief. Get some sleep and avoid stressing that shoulder, or you’ll get another twelve hours in here.” As Abramowitz, Stevens, and Hawkins chuckled at that, Lense turned to Sarjenka. “Lieutenant, a word with you, please.”

  Nodding in response to the summons, Sarjenka followed Lense across the sickbay and into the senior physician’s office. She watched Lense wa
ddle a bit as she made her way around her desk and eased herself into her chair in an awkward manner, thanks to her swollen midsection. At that moment, for some reason, Lense seemed more vulnerable than Sarjenka had seen since her arrival.

  “Is there something wrong, Doctor?” she asked.

  Lense shook her head. “No. That’s not why I called you here, Sarjenka. I wanted to tell you that you did a decent job while I was busy with Banks.”

  “Thank you,” Sarjenka said as she moved to the lone chair situated before Lense’s desk. “And I know that you did everything possible to save her.”

  Lense looked at her with eyes reddened by stress, fatigue, perhaps even sadness. “As antiquated as projectile weapons are, they still are quite effective at causing extensive trauma. I thought there was a chance to do more, but…” Drawing a deep breath, she said, “I was unavailable when you could have used a hand. Despite that, you stepped up and performed.”

  Still unsure how to respond to the unexpected praise, Sarjenka again said, “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Lense looked away for a moment, releasing a small tired sigh. “I’ve come across as cold and cranky since you’ve arrived. Whether it’s hormones or stress or any number of things, I just don’t feel as though I’m at my best. I’m learning to deal with it; and the truth is, you’re going to have to learn to deal with it, too. I’m not offering an apology for that. I prefer to work alone, but this mission has pointed out that there might be a need for a second flesh-and-blood doctor on occasion.”

  “Of course, Doctor,” Sarjenka replied, figuring this was as much of an olive branch as Elizabeth Lense was likely to offer at the moment.

  “Good,” Lense said, nodding in apparent satisfaction. “Now, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you release Chief Hawkins to the custody of Dr. Abramowitz? Inform her that he’s to stay in his quarters until the start of beta shift tomorrow, with the exception of the memorial service, of course. Does that sound like a reasonable prescription to further his healing regimen?”