“More,” T’Pol added, “it was the Section’s attempt to avert the creation of Klingon Augments that led to the spread of the Qu’Vat mutation, provoking the internal unrest that nearly escalated into an invasion of the Federation. Their attempts to increase the Federation’s security have tended to produce the opposite result.”
“I finally see,” Tucker said. “The Section exists to break the rules in an emergency—to do the wrong thing for the greater good. But that doesn’t work. Because the damage from doing the wrong thing doesn’t just go away. It provokes more wrongs, more trouble, and sooner or later it comes back to bite you in the ass.”
“But what can we do about it?” Archer asked. “They don’t legally exist. They don’t answer to anyone. We could expose them, but how much could we prove? And what would it do to the Federation if people learned how much our formative actions were tainted by Section Thirty-one’s involvement?”
Reed shook his head, darkly amused. “We thought the Ware’s builders had created a monster. A system meant to serve and protect, but given so much autonomy that it became impossible to contain. It seems we have a monster of our own to contend with.”
“You’re right, Malcolm,” Tucker said. “The Section is losing its way. It’s looking for excuses to break the rules to justify its own existence. It’s serving itself, not the Federation.
“And I can’t be a part of that anymore.”
“Do you have a plan, Trip?”
“I’m workin’ on it, Jon. It’s a long way from ready, but I wanted to give you three the heads-up.”
“Understood. Whatever you end up doing, I’ll back your play.”
“As will I,” T’Pol said, though he hardly needed to hear it.
“Count me in, too,” Reed said. “I have my own scores to settle with Mister Harris and his cronies.”
Tucker smiled at them. It was a pleasure to be back among his old crew again, just as it had been a joy to return to engineering—a joy that Harris and his schemes had indelibly tainted.
Soon, he would have to give this all up once more, in order to proceed with his plans. But at least he could enjoy it in the here and now. It would give him strength for what lay ahead.
November 12, 2165
Qam-Chee, the First City, Qo’noS
Laneth stood defiantly alongside K’Vagh and Kor before the High Council. From the seat of power at its head, Chancellor Khorkal gazed down upon them for some time before speaking. Councillor Alejdar stood by his side, a place reserved for a senior advisor—an impressive height for a female to reach. But then, it was rumored that Alejdar had somehow managed to obtain the secret Federation formula that the Defense Force had used to eradicate the Ware drones. Laneth was torn between hatred toward the elegant noblewoman for her role in the rebellion’s defeat and admiration at the influence she had gained despite the barriers against her sex.
Finally, the new chancellor spoke. “General K’Vagh, son of Wor’maq. General Kor, son of Kaltar. You have fought long and hard against this Council—first to attempt its conquest, then to defend your remaining territory. You have won the right to this parley.” Elsewhere on the Council floor, angry grumbles came from the contingents led by Councillors B’orel and Ramnok. “There are those who denounce the dishonor of fighting with bloodless drones,” Khorkal said, acknowledging the complaints. “But your warriors fought and died well in holding the Qu’Vat sector after the Ware was defeated. Some say that you have earned the right to be called true Klingons, despite your . . . disadvantage.”
K’Vagh limped forward a step, leaning heavily on a thick, gnarled cane. He had been injured in the battle that had earned the parley invitation from Khorkal, and he had yet to heal completely. “I would put my warriors against any Klingon. Whatever change befell their heads, their hearts remain mighty. As they have proven time and again in battle.”
“Save for those who fled like cowards and abandoned their allies.” That was Councillor Ja’rod, testing out the new authority he had gained. His triumph against the Ware had earned him the seat vacated by Khorkal’s ascension to the chancellorship.
“Common pirates and mercenaries,” General Kor countered. “None of them were ever true warriors. We were better off without their unworthy assistance.”
“Enough,” Khorkal warned. “Only some say you have earned your place as Klingons. Others still insist that none with the taint of humans can stand among us. Councillor B’orel still calls for your extermination.”
“Then let him come and deliver it,” K’Vagh said with a smirk.
“That is just what I had in mind,” Khorkal said, bringing him up short. “This dispute has gone on long enough. The leading parties are both here now. Let us resolve this in the most direct manner—with a duel. You against B’orel.” He glanced at a quiet, older councillor toward the rear. “Assuming Deqan has no objection this time.” A roar of laughter echoed through the hall, and Deqan made a gesture of acquiescence.
“But that is not fair!” Kor challenged. “K’Vagh is our leader, and he is injured.”
“We will accept a cha’DIch to fight in his name.”
Kor hesitated, clearing his throat as he sized up the younger, leaner B’orel. However, he appeared to be girding himself to volunteer as K’Vagh’s second in the name of his family pride. Before that disaster could come about, Laneth stepped forward. “I will fight for the general!” she exclaimed.
That garnered shocked reactions throughout the hall—and an appreciative smile from Alejdar. Laneth realized she might have to start liking the noblewoman.
B’orel looked around in protest. “I will not fight a female!” he insisted.
“You may nominate a cha’DIch of your own,” Laneth taunted, “if you are too afraid.”
That did it. “I fear no common whore,” B’orel snarled. “Certainly not half-human scum like you.”
“Then you will die without fear. It will be the first honorable act of your life.”
B’orel’s eyes widened in rage and he reached for his d’k tahg. K’Vagh stepped forward. “Wait!” he cried. Khorkal lifted a hand, stilling B’orel. “What are the stakes?” the general asked.
“If B’orel wins, the QuchHa’ will be expelled from the Empire, no longer to be called Klingons. Any who remain will be slain.”
“And when I win?” Laneth asked.
Khorkal gave her a warning glare. “If K’Vagh’s champion prevails, the QuchHa’ will be allowed to remain in the Empire. You may continue to live in your current territory. Those who have noble titles and lands may retain them without further challenge. And this Council will approve the petition of Doctor Antaak to continue researching a cure for your condition.”
“We do not need a cure,” K’Vagh insisted. “This is who we are now.”
“Perhaps one day, your deeds will prove your equal worth,” Khorkal said. “For now, you will still face much resistance. The prospect of a cure will diminish enmity toward your existence. And if you are right, and it matters not what you look like, then it will matter not if you are cured.”
K’Vagh grimaced, feeling the falsehood of those words as Laneth did, but he did not dispute them now. “What about Council representation? My people will need a voice.”
Khorkal gave a slight rumble in his throat, one too dignified to be called a laugh. “If your champion is victorious over B’orel, then an opportunity will present itself.”
After conferring briefly with Kor, K’Vagh nodded. “Very well.” He turned to Laneth, leaning in. “You are my finest warrior. My daughter in battle. Do me proud.”
“No less than ever,” she replied. It earned a chuckle, though she had not been joking.
Laneth swaggered forth, unfastening the top two stays of her jerkin both to convey casualness and to give B’orel a visual reminder of her femininity, so that he would underestimate her. His automatic
contempt toward those unlike him was a weakness she would readily exploit.
“Good idea,” B’orel said, frankly ogling her chest. “You’ve shown me right where to slip the knife in.”
“You would need instruction to know where to insert anything into a female,” she countered.
Once again, he proved absurdly easy to provoke. Brandishing his knife in a reverse grip, B’orel charged her, blade poised to plunge down between her breasts. With her knife in her right hand, she slashed across his forearm as she spun aside to the left, evading the blow. He winced and grabbed his arm, but his gauntlet had minimized the damage, and the cut across his forearm did not prevent him from striking backhand at her as he went past. She crouched down below the swing, then struck at his side. He spun clear of the lunge, then kicked her in the chest, knocking her onto her back. He leapt down onto her, blade going for her heart, and she rolled away.
What followed was too frenetic for her to keep track of every move; Laneth relied on instinct. But soon she scored a second strike, then a third. With each cut, B’orel grew slower, giving her more openings. His cockiness remained, though. “You claw at me like a grishnar kitten,” he panted. “This is the best a QuchHa’ female can do?”
“You are not worth my best.”
He roared. His lunge was sloppy, his raised arms leaving his belly wide open. She did not miss the opportunity. Dropping into a crouch, letting his own momentum doom him, she stabbed upward between the plates of his armor—and between his ribs.
A moment later, the empty shell that had once housed a vile excuse for a Klingon lay lifeless on the floor, and K’Vagh roared in triumph, jogged over to her despite his limp, and pulled her into a crushing embrace that almost achieved what B’orel had failed to do.
But soon enough, before she suffocated entirely, he released her and recovered his dignity. He then knelt over B’orel’s corpse, opened his eyes, and unleashed the death scream. The Council joined in, but Laneth did not, merely taking the time to refasten her jerkin. She understood the political value in K’Vagh’s gesture, but she would not waste the energy heralding the death of a fool.
“Success is yours!” the chancellor said as K’Vagh stepped forward to stand before him, joined by Laneth and Kor. “Captain Laneth, you have proven that your people still have the honor of a warrior. No doubt the QuchHa’ will need to prove themselves in many other battles—but you have earned General K’Vagh his place on the High Council.”
Laneth bowed. “Then the honor is mine,” she said.
Of course, she had known better than to rely on honor. B’orel had been dead the moment her poisoned blade had cut his skin. The rest had just been theater. These people had damned hers for an accident of mutation, one that their experiments had caused. Honor was defined by the victors—often as an excuse to salve their sins. Victory was what mattered, and Laneth had achieved it.
Of course, K’Vagh still held a truer form of honor highly, and it seemed to Laneth that Khorkal did as well. She respected that, but it was a relic of a simpler time. The Empire was entering an age when treachery and deceit held sway, and it was necessary to learn to wield them in the name of victory. There were those among both HemQuch and QuchHa’ who shared that understanding, Laneth was sure. She would have to select her allies carefully. K’Vagh’s patronage would help her secure the power she needed to survive, and to sway others to her thinking. She would need that power to defend him against all who would continue to deny and combat QuchHa’ equality. With so many enemies, her people would need every unfair advantage they could get to hold on to their influence in the Empire.
And once the Empire had found a new balance within itself and was ready to turn its attention outward again, the Federation and its neighbors might find themselves facing a very different variety of Klingons.
November 25, 2165
Laikan, Andoria
The monument to Vol’Rala and her crew was simple and tasteful: a five-meter-high cluster of crystal spires occupying a prominent place in the capital city’s central plaza, thrusting skyward at a high angle to convey a sense of boldness and optimism—the spirit of enterprise for which she had been named. Along its base, the names of Vol’Rala’s captain and crew had been inscribed in every one of their languages.
The only member of the crew whose name was not included on the monument stood before it now, addressing the crowd assembled for the dedication ceremony. “Some people have suggested to me that we may never know Vol’Rala’s true fate,” Hari Banerji said in his quavering, gentle voice. “The Klingons tell us she went down in a blaze of glory taking three battlecruisers with her, but Klingons are prone to exaggeration, and their propaganda has little interest in escape pods. Perhaps, I am told, some of my crewmates and my friends may have found their way to the surface of Cotesc, either to live out their days there or to commandeer a Klingon ship and escape to safety. Perhaps we will learn this monument was premature.”
He sighed. “I would love nothing so dearly as to believe that. But I knew my shipmates too well. They would not have stopped fighting so long as a single life could be saved. They gave everything for the principles the Federation was founded on. And as I was unable to be with them on that horrible, proud day . . . all I can do now is dedicate the rest of my days to living in the same spirit. Let them be an example to us all.”
“Hear, hear,” Jonathan Archer muttered as the crowd applauded. He had already canceled Alexis Osman’s proposal to commission a new starship bearing the name Enterprise. Best to leave that name in honorable retirement for a while, regardless of language, as a tribute to the fallen.
But there was more he could do in their name. He made his way over to Admiral Shran, waiting until the Andorian Guard’s chief of staff finished offering his support and thanks to Commander Banerji. “It was a fine ceremony,” Shran said when he joined Archer. “A fine monument. Thenar would probably have called it pretentious, but it’s worthy of her, and her crew.”
“That it is, Shran.” He took a breath. “If you ask me, though, the best tribute we can give them will be to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Shran frowned in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“I have a proposal,” Archer said, handing him a data slate. “An official Starfleet directive of non-interference.” He went on as Shran warily took the slate and read it over. “We’ve seen what can happen when we try to get involved with other worlds’ affairs, even with the best of intentions. It’s just too dangerous. After this, after Sauria, it’s clear that we need to change our approach.”
Shran shoved the slate back into his hands. “You’re mad if you expect me to support this. Just because we made a few mistakes, we abandon trying altogether? That’s cowardly!”
“No, it’s careful. We clearly don’t have the wisdom to know when it’s right to interfere and when it isn’t. Maybe someday, but not yet.”
“So we just wash our hands of the decision? Stand by and do nothing while others suffer, even when we have the power to help?”
Shran began walking, and Archer hurried to keep pace. “We don’t always know what will help. At the very least, we need to get to know other cultures first. Let them tell us what they need or don’t need, instead of just assuming we know better than they do.”
“And if they tell us they need to oppress or slaughter their people? Conquer other worlds?”
“Then that’s a problem their own people are better equipped to solve.”
“Their world, their problem? That’s not the spirit that formed the Federation, Jon. Don’t forget all the good we did in this. Dozens of worlds were liberated from the Ware. A virulent scourge has been wiped from the galaxy, never to be seen again.”
Archer had to wonder about that. He remembered a similar technology that had been unearthed from an alien wreck in Earth’s polar region a dozen years ago, self-repairing and exploiting livi
ng beings as disposable parts. Zefram Cochrane had claimed to have encountered it, had even said it came from the future. At times, Archer had wondered if it might have been connected to the Ware in some way. Now he knew there was no such link—which meant the Federation might someday face such a technological threat once more. He hoped that by then, they would be advanced enough and wise enough to handle it better than they had this time.
“We’re always going to make mistakes, Jon,” Shran went on. “Choosing not to interfere is as likely to be disastrous as the reverse. We should judge each case as it comes, not hide from the responsibility.” His antennae twitched. “We’ve had this debate before. I’d rather not rehash it today, of all days.”
“Today is when it’s most important. The Federation was responsible for a terrible disaster, Shran. We have to stand up and say to the galaxy that we’ve learned from it, that we won’t let it happen again.”
Shran whirled on him. “This is politics to you? I thought you were better than that. What you mean is that you intend to repudiate sh’Prenni’s actions. To paint her and her crew as villains.”
“No, it’s not about that. Shran, Thenar herself acknowledged her mistake. She and her crew gave their lives to correct it.”
“And they have balanced the scales! Now you propose to drag their memories through the mud for the sake of a political statement.”
Archer sighed. “I’m sorry you see it that way, Shran. Maybe this was the wrong time. Maybe later you’ll understand why I think this is necessary.”
“Don’t count on it,” his old friend said in tones that reminded him of their early enmity. “If you go forward with this non-interference directive, I will fight you. And I won’t be alone.”
Shran stormed away across the plaza. Archer gazed down at the slate in his hands, hoping it hadn’t just cost him a friend.
November 30, 2165
Tileb Prison, Antar
“It’s not so bad here,” Mettus said to Phlox as they sat on opposite sides of a security barrier of transparent aluminum in the prison’s visiting area. “It’s nothing like I was told an Antaran prison would be. It’s clean, quiet. They treat me well. The food is . . . tolerable.” He chuckled. “It’s actually better than I was taught Antaran cities would be.”
Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code Page 33