“How?” Shumar asked.
“Artificial aurora, sir. A diffuse burst from the phasers, directed above the shuttle.”
Shumar did a double take. “Phasers?”
Kelly blushed. “Pardon the slang, sir. Phase cannons.”
Shumar nodded. “Do it. Quickly.”
Moments later, beams of phased nadion energy sprang forth from the ship, exciting the nitrogen in their path to blue luminescence. Shumar could not tell from this angle, but he knew the beams must be spreading out with distance, and soon they created a burst of shimmering, rippling curtains of blue and green light, splashing out across the atmosphere like luminescent dye poured in a pool. It was surely the most beautiful combat tactic Shumar had ever seen.
Paris smiled. “Phasers. I like it.”
Kelly shrugged. “Easier to say.”
The auroral interference blinded the Klingons’ sensors long enough to let Essex rendezvous with the last shuttle, though a few of their random potshots came uncomfortably close to both craft. But finally the last evacuees were aboard Essex, the planet emptied of all but its primitive indigenous life.
“Which still leaves one problem,” Paris pointed out. “Getting them all out of a war zone.”
“Sh’Retsu here,” came the voice of Atlirith’s captain. “We’ve destroyed one battlecruiser. We’re coming in to lend you support. You see to the evacuees; we’ll ensure the base is held.”
“Very good, Molsetev,” Shumar replied. “But we could use some assistance getting this Bird-of-Prey off our tail.”
“Should be easy,” interposed ch’Menlich from Docana. “We’ve taken out the other cruiser’s warp drive and weapons. A single Bird-of-Prey will be short work.”
Shumar worried whenever victory over a Klingon seemed easy. As it turned out, his concerns were well-founded. As the two Kumari-class vessels moved in to trap the smaller Klingon ship between them and Essex, the surviving D5-class cruiser suddenly accelerated toward Ardan IV. “Sir!” Mullen cried. “It’s on a collision course with the planet!”
Even as he spoke, the Bird-of-Prey fired a spread of disruptor bolts at Essex and broke past it, also diving planetward. “They’re targeting the dilithium mine!” Kelly warned.
“All ships, retreat to a safe distance!” Shumar ordered.
Perhaps that was an excess of caution, given the modest size of the planet’s dilithium deposits. Still, he had no desire to be anywhere close to the sight that filled the viewscreen mere moments later. Two blinding flashes of light erupted on the surface in quick succession as the antimatter cores of two Klingon warships detonated, the atmosphere intensifying the blast effects enormously. That would have been bad enough . . . but then the dilithium began to ignite.
“Mary, Mother of God,” Kelly breathed, crossing herself. “It’s Coridan all over again.”
Mullen swallowed. “On a smaller scale . . . but . . . yeah.”
Within minutes, much of the planet’s surface was obscured beneath a spreading, rubicund cloud of dust, flickering with electric discharges and underlit by the glow of the molten surface. “It won’t be long until the cloud covers the entire planet,” Mullen said. “The heavy metals . . . the radiation . . . I doubt much of the indigenous life will survive, except in the ocean depths.” He shook his head. “All those species . . . we were only just starting to learn about them.”
“My God, what were the Klingons thinking?” Paris grated. “I’ve seen some sore losers, but this?”
Shumar put his hand on her shoulder briefly. “They were thinking that if they couldn’t make Ardan Four a foothold, they’d at least make sure we wouldn’t have it either. Or its dilithium, or the supplies and repair materials for our fleet.” He exhaled heavily through his nose, ruffling his mustache. “They wanted to weaken our border, and they’ve succeeded, though not as much as they’d planned.
“We’d hoped that stopping this attack would avert a war,” Shumar went on. “But I think it’s safe to say the war has just begun.”
October 14, 2165
U.S.S. Pioneer
Charles Tucker sipped his cold coffee, idly praying that this latest dose of caffeine would fire up the right neurons to give him the key insight he needed. His hopes buoyed more substantially when Olivia Akomo entered the engineering lab. “Good, you’re still awake,” he said. “I could use a fresh set of eyes. I’ve been going over this code for hours, trying to see a way we can fix the autoimmunity problem. Maybe you can find a new angle.”
Akomo’s dark eyes studied him for a time before she replied. “Are you sure the autoimmunity reaction is a problem? Maybe it’s the solution.”
He gave her a sour look. “There are a lot of people in the Partnership who wouldn’t see it that way.”
“Is that really our responsibility, Phil?” He blinked at the name. He was too practiced in the use of his Philip Collier alias to have trouble recognizing it, but it was surprising to hear Akomo address him so familiarly. “Don’t we have a greater responsibility to the Federation?”
“What are you saying?”
She moved closer to the worktable, leaning in over him. “I’m saying the Klingons have already destroyed Ardan Four. They’re about to invade the Federation, because they blame us for the Partnership giving Ware to their own rebels. But what if we could offer them a solution to the Ware problem? A way to destroy it once and for all, in exchange for the Klingons calling off the invasion?”
Tucker rubbed the bridge of his nose, still a bit surprised to feel the bump that had been surgically added to it as part of his disguise. “I thought of that. Of course I did. But you know it’s not that simple. Those rebels are an oppressed minority, one we had a hand in creating in the first place.”
“And that makes us responsible for them? Hell, that’s just one more reason the Empire wants to destroy us!”
“It means it’d be a pretty rotten move to throw them in front of a hovertrain for our convenience.”
“It’s not like they have any less reason to want us dead.”
“And what about the Partnership? You know the Klingons wouldn’t stop with their rebels. Give them a way to disintegrate the Ware and the invasion would be over in days. The Partnership would be over.”
“They’re the ones who made a deal with the rebels.”
“And that means they deserve to be conquered?”
“It means they’re not our priority. We serve the Federation first.”
“At others’ expense?” He shook his head. “You sound like my bosses back home.”
She glanced away, shifting her weight. “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that.”
Even bleary and sleep-deprived as he was, he caught on to her meaning and shot to his feet. “You’re working for the Section?” Her silence was confirmation enough. “How long?”
She sighed. “Only recently. I was contacted by your Mister Harris over subspace. You know he has ways to do that undetected.”
“I know a lot about the way he operates.”
“And he knows you aren’t happy when it gets morally edgy, like it did on Sauria. So once he saw the way things were heading with the Partnership and the Klingons, he decided you needed a backstop. Someone to remind you of your responsibilities to the Federation in case the shades got a little too gray.” She gave an abashed sigh. “I didn’t like what he was selling. Not at first. But there’s more to consider here. There’s all we’ve learned about the Ware. Advanced technology and medicine that could do miracles for the Federation. Solve our transporter problem, give us matter replication—”
“Sure, except what good is it if the Klingons can disintegrate it with the push of a button?”
“I know, I know. But the situation has changed. New technologies won’t benefit us if the Klingons destroy us first. I was willing to do almost anything to crack these secrets—”
&n
bsp; “Just like Vabion.”
“No! He wanted it for personal glory. I wanted it for the good it would do my family, my community, my Federation. That was worth bending a few rules, making a few compromises. And if I have to sacrifice all this technology for their survival, then that’s worth it too.”
He stared at her. “Your community. Your Federation. You think that’s just about places and things? What about the ideas that built the Federation? People and species overcoming their differences to build a peaceful, cooperative society. That’s what the Partnership is! They represent everything we stand for. They’ve built something amazing here, something we can learn so much from. Give the Klingons the means to destroy the Ware and most of these races will lose all their technology, go back to living like animals, lose everything they’ve achieved. Assuming the Klingons don’t just kill them all out of revenge!
“Is that defending the Federation, Olivia? Or is it destroying everything we are?”
“Fine words, Mister Collier. Grand ideals. But they won’t matter much to the millions of people who’ll be in the Klingons’ way when they make their push for Earth and Vulcan. Like my sister who lives on Deneva, with her husband and two kids. What am I defending if I let my sister die?”
Tucker stared at her. He wondered how much Harris had told her about his true identity and past. Was she deliberately playing on the memory of his own sister’s death in the Xindi attack? Was she capable of such a low blow? Or had Harris merely studied her history and personality and predicted that she would be the optimal psychological tool with which to goad Tucker?
Either way, it had an impact. He did know all too well, even after so many years and changes of identity, what it was like to lose family to an arbitrary act of destruction. He couldn’t easily set that aside in the name of an abstract principle.
But if he didn’t, then all the good people he’d met here in the Partnership would probably suffer that same loss. How could he choose one over the other?
Maybe, he realized, it was a false choice. “There might be a third option,” he told her. “All we need is to crack this problem, find the solution we wanted all along. If we could control the Ware without destroying it, then we and the Partnership could work together to stop the rebel attacks on the Empire. That should be enough to head off an invasion of the Federation.”
She shook her head. “We don’t know how long it’ll take to find a solution. You saw what rushing led to the first time. The Klingons are gearing up to strike now.”
“But we can tell them—the Section can tell them, through Starfleet, that we’re close to a solution. Use that as a negotiating tactic, offer it in exchange for their backing down.”
“That won’t work. Not against Klingons.”
“We don’t know that! Sure, Klingons are angry and bluster a lot, but they aren’t stupid. We just have to convince them we have something they need, and that’ll give us leverage.”
“It’s too risky.”
“Everything is risky. Even with your—with Harris’s plan, there’s no guarantee the Klingons wouldn’t turn on us anyway once they were done with the Partnership. So let’s not throw away our principles before we have to. Sure, sometimes there’s no other choice, but the Section is supposed to be a last resort. Our responsibility is to do nothing until we’re sure that every other possibility’s been exhausted.
“So let’s at least try it my way first. If the Klingons don’t go for it . . .” He sighed heavily. “Then we can talk about more extreme options.”
Akomo pressed her lips together and considered his words for a time. “Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll go along with your recommendation—for now. But you’d better hope you can be as convincing to Harris.”
“You let me deal with Harris,” he said. “I’ve got practice.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “Yeah? And how well has that worked out for you before?”
16
October 15, 2165
Enphera Desert, Antar
IN ANCIENT TIMES, Enphera had been one of the cradles of Antaran civilization. Its dwellers had perfected agriculture in the flood plain formed by its three great rivers, built sprawling cities from the local wood and clay, and quarried great stones from the nearby mountains to erect massive statues and temples in honor of their fertility gods and goddesses. In modern times, Enphera was a blasted ruin. Dry, barren mud flats stretched clear to the horizon, and fragments of the once-great statues lay scattered about the foothills, whose already uneven landscape was broken further by dozens of sizeable impact craters and a scattering of smaller ones.
As Doctor Phlox peered over the fragmented torso of a once-revered deity, he saw that one of the large craters—the result of an impact that had blasted through the roof and two floors of an underground temple complex and converted it into a sort of natural amphitheater—was now occupied by a dozen or so Antarans in olive drab. They had cleared away much of the accumulated sand and dust and assembled the surviving slabs of granite and sandstone into a facsimile of a courtroom . . . with a young Denobulan man held in irons before the bench as a self-appointed prosecutor declaimed the case against him.
Golouv Ruehn tugged at Phlox’s sleeve, prompting him to lower his head again. “You’ve seen them, Doctor. Don’t let them see you.”
“They have Mettus,” he said. “The trial is already underway. Given that the verdict is already decided, I doubt we have much time.”
“Don’t be so sure, sir. These lunatics like to talk. See those cameras all around? They need to justify their atrocities to themselves as much as to their listeners.”
“But why wait? Surely you have the proof you need to arrest them.”
“Yes, and they have sentries around the ruins. We need to get our people into position to take them all down at once. Otherwise lives could be lost. You and your friends don’t want that, do you?”
Phlox conceded her point, glancing at the other members of the five-person IME combat-medicine team he had insisted on bringing to the raid as a justification for his own presence. He prayed their services would not be needed.
“Here,” Ruehn said, handing him a spare earpiece of the sort her CIB officers were using. “We’ve got audio surveillance on them. It sounds like it’ll be a while before Bokal is done speaking.”
Phlox took the earpiece and put it in with some trepidation. Fintar Bokal, he remembered, was the leader of this cell of the True Sons of Antar. (Phlox had wondered why no true daughters were included.) He was a young man, younger than Mettus, and he spoke with the self-assured arrogance of youth. “. . . these Denobulans call us a threat to their purity, their ecology. But the truth of things is evident all around us, here in the ruins of our great Enpheran forebears. This historic site stood for thousands of years, revered and preserved by countless generations of Antarans. Yet the Denobulans did not care! They called us the ravagers of their world, but it was they, in their vindictiveness, who targeted our oldest and greatest ruins, the remains of our first civilization, and bombed them into rubble, destroying much of our priceless cultural heritage.”
“Oh, please.” Ruehn shook her head. “It was the corporate state’s fault as much as anyone’s, building their space command headquarters so close to the ruins. It’s not like they cared so much about history—they were the ones who dried the rivers and turned this place into a desert.” She wrinkled her nose. “Hmf. Not to mention that Enphera was only our second or third civilization. But it’s not only Denobulans these people hate. As far as Bokal’s concerned, only his own ancestors count as civilized.”
“I see little sign of civilized behavior so far,” Phlox said.
But Bokal’s rant was interrupted as another True Son came up to him and whispered in his ear. “Ah,” the fanatics’ leader said. “I gather that a vehicle has been spotted nearby. Probably the puppet regime’s stormtroopers coming to silence our truth.” Phlo
x peered around the edge of the broken statue for a better view. “I had hoped to give a fuller accounting of the crimes of this Denobulan—of all Denobulans. Now we must cut these proceedings short. But Mettus-sollexx-oortann’s crimes speak for themselves. The guilt of all Denobulans is carved into the stone around us! So let us expedite justice.” He pulled out his sidearm and placed it against Mettus’s head. “This will make our statement as effectively as anything I could say!”
Phlox was in motion before he even realized what he was doing—and before Ruehn and her men could stop him. “No, we’re not ready!” he heard her whisper sharply behind him.
He crouched behind a low rise to put some distance between himself and Ruehn’s team, acting instinctively to shield them from harm as a result of his actions. He only prayed he would have time. Mercifully, he heard Bokal taunt Mettus: “Does the guilty party wish to cleanse his soul with a confession before I send it on its way?”
“The only guilt I feel,” Mettus snarled, “is for my failure to kill every last one of you!”
“Oh, Mettus,” Phlox muttered, shaking his head.
Bokal made an inarticulate noise. “Here, Denobulan. Let me demonstrate how it’s done.”
“Wait!” Phlox shouted at the top of his lungs, popping up into view. At the last second, he remembered to remove the police earpiece from his auditory canal and toss it into the rocks. “Don’t shoot!” he hollered. “I’m alone! I’m unarmed! I’m a doctor!”
He continued in that vein until two of the green-suited bigots arrived to hold him at gunpoint and drag him down before Bokal. Mettus stared at him in shock and disbelief.
“Another Denobulan?” Bokal asked, his voice deeper and harsher without the earpiece’s modulation. “Who are you? Who is with you?”
“There’s only me, sir. My name is Phlox. I am Mettus’s father.”
“That was your vehicle we spotted?”
“Yes. Yes, there’s only me. I tried to get help,” he babbled purposefully. “Tried to convince my government, your government, the IME, even Starfleet, but none of them would lift a finger!” He didn’t need to reach very deep to feign frustration. “So I came alone. I had to do something.”
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