Star Trek: Enterprise - 015 - Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “And now it’s time for them to count on us.” The historian stepped aside, gesturing to Dax and his team. “Look at them. They’re civilians. Thinkers. They’re more afraid than we are. We’re the ones who are used to taking risks. To facing the possibility of death in service to a greater purpose. We took on this risk to help the Federation, and they bravely came aboard to take it with us. And now our only hope of making that risk worthwhile is if they can find a way to get us out of here—or at least to ensure that the breakthrough they’ve made can be transmitted back to the Federation, for the good of all our worlds, all our families.

  “We’re the ones who face danger every day. So let’s show them what we’re made of . . . and help them through this.”

  Tatopolous and the others were suitably abashed. They began to disperse, the historian gently herding them away. Relieved and grateful, Williams turned back to Sangupta and the engineers. “Anyone else hurt?”

  The engineers seemed fine. The Vulcans and Andorians had shielded Dax with their greater strength and seemed unharmed. The Tellarite seemed to have enjoyed the scuffle immensely. “Okay,” the armory officer said. “Still, maybe you should try to keep to yourselves for a little while. Give tensions time to cool. You come with me,” she said, gesturing to Sangupta. “Let the doc take a look at you.”

  Sangupta gestured to his face. “This? I’ll be fine. You shoulda seen the other guy.”

  “I did, remember? Didn’t look to me like you laid a finger on Tatopolous.”

  “Yeah, but I still look better than him.”

  “Damn it, Rey!” She pulled him down off the catwalk, making him duck beneath the railing along with her, and over to a small space between a pile of supply cases and a structural member. “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”

  “What?”

  “You can see how tense everyone is. It doesn’t help when you’re treating this situation like a joke. Or like a distraction while you focus on, on abstract science instead of practical solutions.”

  “Hey, you never know what knowledge might be useful until it is. Come on, this accident solved our whole integration problem!”

  “Only if we get out of here alive. That’s what your priority should be.”

  “And I’m always thinking about that. If I come up with something, I guarantee you’ll know about it. But the more active I keep my mind, the better it works. And sometimes stepping back from one problem and tackling another will help you solve the first one.”

  She rolled her eyes at his infuriating, endearingly cocky grin. How did someone so smart end up acting like such a vain, shallow jock?

  True to form, he leaned closer to her, resting an arm against the wall behind her. “You know, for a moment I thought you pulled me back here to talk about us.”

  She pushed him back. “There is no ‘us’ anymore. Maybe there never should’ve been. We’re too different.”

  “And vive la différence, I always say. You heard what Sam said: Working together can be worth the risk.”

  His innuendo was blatant, but she was in the mood to take him literally. “I have to wonder,” she said, looking back at the site of the confrontation. “Appealing to Starfleet pride was enough to defuse this fight, but what about all the others? What about the civilians who aren’t as used to taking risks? If even Starfleet personnel turn on each other under pressure, how can the Federation work?” She sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the only way is if we keep it as loose as possible . . . let every world stand by itself.”

  “Hey.” The science officer grew unwontedly serious. “That’s not what I believe. Loose government, yes, but not segregation. We should all be free to mix as much as we want, as individuals.”

  “But maybe we’re not ready for that to work. Not this closely.”

  He reached up and tweaked her chin. “But we just figured out how to get our technologies to work together. We just had to find the right way to approach the problem.”

  Williams had no response. Rey gave her one last cocky grin and went on his way to the medical tent, leaving her to her thoughts.

  Shaking it off, she reversed direction, wanting to make one more check on the mood of the crew and make sure things hadn’t flared up again. She found that most of them had turned in for the evening, while a few were playing cards together. But she spotted Sam the historian leaning against a structural member by himself, just watching them all. She made her way over to him. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks for the help back there.”

  “My pleasure, Lieutenant.” He looked down. “I meant what I said—I agreed with them at first. Treated those engineers like intruders, pariahs. But then I saw what Alex and the others were doing, saw how ugly it became . . . I was ashamed.” He shook his head. “I was saying those things to myself as much as to them.”

  “Still, they were the right things to say.”

  “Thank you.”

  To break the ensuing silence, she said, “Umm, I liked what you said about hanging together or hanging separately. That was Ben Franklin, wasn’t it?”

  “Apocryphally,” he said with a shrug. “But one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, most likely.”

  “I don’t think we’d have a Federation, or a United Earth, if the American Founders hadn’t shown the way.”

  “Well, they were only halfway there,” Sam replied. “It was centuries before all Americans were given equal representation.”

  “But they started the ball rolling.”

  “Yes, they did.” He studied her, and she began to notice that he was more pleasant-looking than she’d noticed before. Not her type by a long shot, too quiet and intellectual, but it wasn’t as if fraternization was an option anyway. “Sounds to me like your American roots go back a ways.”

  “The family’s lived in Iowa for generations.”

  “With a name like Valeria, I would’ve expected something more . . . Roman.”

  She laughed. “Good catch. Valeria Messalina Williams, at your service,” she introduced herself with mock pretension.

  “Wife of Emperor Claudius.”

  “My family, we’re big Roman-history buffs. It’s kind of a tradition to give Roman names to our children: Marcus, Julius, Octavia . . .”

  “Tiberius?”

  “Believe it or not.” They shared a laugh. “No Caligula yet, though.”

  “Nice to hear your family has an appreciation for history.”

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her neck. “You know, I have to confess . . . I’m not sure what a historian does on a starship.”

  “Well, how can you really learn about an alien world if you don’t understand its history? Any world we visit that has written records or other documentation of its past, my job is to study it.”

  Williams nodded. “Of course. That makes sense.” She thought it over. “And I guess . . . if we come across a culture that’s similar to, say, ancient Rome or Mauryan India or something, you could offer perspective on how it works.”

  “Up to a point, sure.” He gave a smile that was confident in a far less cocky way than Sangupta’s. “Not to mention that we’re making history ourselves out here. ‘With every light-year,’ as Admiral Archer likes to say. Somebody has to write it down.”

  She laughed, enjoying his smile. Then she blushed. “I’m sorry, Sam . . . I can’t remember your full name.”

  He smiled more warmly and clasped her hand. “Kirk,” he said. “Samuel Abraham Kirk.”

  12

  April 5, 2163

  Rigel V

  SHRAN’S EMERGENCY CALL got Archer out of bed in the middle of the local night. Luckily, the steward at the command center had strong coffee ready for him; it looked like he was going to need it. Looking around, he saw that Commissioner Noar was already here.

  “We’re surrounded,” Commodore th’Menchal reported on the big screen. “The Mutes must have been able to track us, and they came in force. They’ve taken out our engines, and they destroyed one of the Rigelian ship
s as a warning.” Archer lowered his head. “Then they sent this message.”

  Of course, it was edited together from the fleet’s own transmissions, most of it in T’Pol’s voice. “You cannot escape. Surrender—all—crew—without further violence. You cannot escape. . . .”

  “Where’s the rest of the task force?” Archer asked Shran.

  “The nearest reinforcements are here,” Shran said, showing him on the tactical map. “At best speed, they’re eleven hours away.”

  “We need to fight our way out,” insisted Garos from another comm window. “With Rivgor’s firepower, we stand a chance of holding them off until reinforcements arrive.”

  “It may not be necessary,” T’Pol said. “They could simply be instructing us to surrender their own captured crew back to them.”

  “We know their methods, Captain,” Garos countered. “They have attempted to capture or destroy every ship that meets them.”

  “Garos is right,” Noar said. “We should attack them as soon as the reinforcements arrive.”

  “If we do that, we’ll be committing to an all-out war,” Archer said.

  “Which is obviously more than justified at this point!”

  “Gentlemen!” T’Pol said. “If I may. Lieutenant Commander Sato has made what she believes to be significant headway toward understanding the aliens.”

  “Has she got a translation?” Archer asked.

  “More a hypothesis pertaining to their mindset. She believes the aliens’ objectives may be scientific rather than military.”

  “Scientific?” Shran scoffed. “Tell that to the crew of Thejal.”

  “Certain . . . anomalies remain about that event, Admiral. I grant that our hypothesis is inconclusive, but I think it imperative to resolve the question of their true motives before we commit to an irreversible course of action.” T’Pol took a moment to compose herself, eyes darting around, and Archer’s suspicion about what she planned to say was confirmed a moment later. “I would like to attempt a mind meld with one of the aliens.”

  “What?” Noar cried, echoed by th’Menchal. “Outrageous! We can’t waste time on Vulcan mysticism and half-baked theories when the Mutes are holding Starfleet crews at gunpoint. They may have reinforcements of their own coming!”

  “And what if she’s right?” Archer demanded, confronting him. “Do you really want to be responsible for starting a war if it could’ve been avoided?”

  “Admiral,” Garos said, his voice disbelieving. “The Mutes are clearly testing the Federation’s resolve. Showing weakness now could be fatal.”

  “He’s right!” Noar said. “We have to meet their aggression in kind! Show them we won’t be the ones to back down!”

  “That’s very Tellarite of you,” Shran told him. “But there’s more to good strategy than putting up a tough front. It’s information that wins battles, but nothing so far has let us get into these creatures’ heads. If T’Pol believes she can do it, the attempt could gain us valuable intelligence about their technology, their command structures, their strategies. Maybe even the location of their homeworld.” He pointed to the tactical display. “If we start a fight now and those ships are lost, we may lose out on the best source of intelligence we’re going to get. We should at least let the captain find out what she can before we go into battle.”

  Noar maintained his confrontational pose but seemed unsure of himself, his resolve wavering. Archer noted his gaze darting to the comm window where Garos’s reptilian features were displayed, almost as if looking to him for guidance. Garos gave no indication that he noticed. “All right,” the commissioner conceded, looking as though it took some effort to back down. “You’re still in command of the fleet—for now. But I’ve warned you what might happen if I think you’re losing your nerve.”

  Shran bristled at being so openly challenged in front of his subordinates. But Noar stormed out before anything more could be said. Shran gathered himself and turned back to the screens. “Proceed with the mind meld, Captain T’Pol. But don’t take any unnecessary risks. And have your crew stand ready in case the Mutes run out of patience and start shooting.”

  “Understood. T’Pol out.”

  Shran turned to Archer. “Do you think she can pull it off? How much experience does she have with these melds?”

  “Not as much as I’m comfortable with,” Archer admitted. “But I taught her everything I know. Long story,” he added at Shran’s quizzical look. “At the moment, I’m more concerned about Commissioner Noar. Is it me, or is he getting more belligerent than usual?”

  “I’ve certainly never seen him stand up to me like that before,” Shran agreed. “And he was a little too eager to rush into battle unprepared. What do you think’s going on with him?”

  “That’s a good question.” Archer had a suspicion, but he preferred not to voice it without evidence.

  But then, he always enjoyed the chance to do a little exploring.

  U.S.S. Pioneer

  Rey Sangupta waylaid Grev as soon as he stepped into the nacelle monitor shack. “Hey, Grev, I need you to listen to something.”

  “Can it wait?” the stout Tellarite asked. “Captain Reed has me trying to cobble together a working field coil for the subspace transceiver. Which isn’t easy when each of us can only work on the transceiver for forty minutes at a time.”

  “I know, I know, but this could be important!”

  Grev sighed. “All right, what?”

  “I managed to boost the sensor grid, get some more detailed readings from outside.”

  “And?”

  “Listen,” Sangupta said with enthusiasm, “to what I picked up from the super-Jovian on the EM bands.”

  He worked the scanner he held, and it played a series of eerie, swooping tones over a background of clicking static. Grev listened for a few moments and shrugged. “It’s just normal magnetic field fluctuations from the planet. The space boomers call them siren calls.”

  “No, that’s what I thought at first, but listen! They’re different, more complex. And the sources are too localized—localized and moving, and not just following the winds.”

  “Okay, so how is that useful to us?”

  “Grev, I think there’s something alive down there! And the computer says the signals are pretty complex. A lot of information. That’s why I wanted you to listen. I think they could be intelligent.”

  “What’s that, Lieutenant?” Captain Reed approached them from the other end of the small room. “You think there might be people down there?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Something alive.”

  Grev listened a bit more closely to the signals, running an analytical program as he did so. “Any sign of advanced technology?” Reed asked while he worked.

  “Nothing like that, sir. These seem more like biologically generated signals.”

  “You know what they remind me of?” Grev said after a moment. “The songs of that extinct Earth species, the humpback whales. Intelligent, maybe, but the intelligence of social animals.”

  Reed frowned. “Then it doesn’t help us get out of here, does it?”

  “Well, no, sir,” Sangupta said. “I just thought it—”

  “Lieutenant, your only thoughts should be directed toward helping Pioneer escape this radiation field before we plummet into that atmosphere. If you can’t contribute anything useful to that effort, at least stop wasting the time of those who can. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” the science officer replied, bowing his head. “Understood, sir.”

  The captain stalked away. Grev sidled up next to Sangupta and patted him on the arm. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But really, what were you thinking? Didn’t Val already talk to you about this? Abstract curiosity is all well and good, but it’s useless if we don’t survive.”

  “I know, I know,” Sangupta replied. “But life is about living, not just surviving. Nobody gets out of it alive in the end, so we just have to make the most of the time we get.

  “If these are
my last days . . . well, if there’s something new and amazing to be discovered down there, I’d never forgive myself if I died without finding out about it. All in all, I can think of worse ways to go.”

  Grev shook his head. “Rey, you’re an incurable romantic.”

  “I hope so, Grev. I hope so.”

  —

  Therese Liao was waiting when Tobin Dax returned to the catwalk and removed his EV suit helmet. She bided her time while Captain Reed asked for his status report on the impulse engine repairs; Dax said something about how the gravimetric distortions of the wormhole had knocked the fusion initiators out of alignment, or some such jargon, the upshot of which was that the repairs were taking longer than hoped, especially when the work could be done only during brief shifts in the cumbersome spacesuits.

  But Liao had more immediate concerns. Once Dax had concluded his report and was occupied removing the rest of his EV suit, she stepped forward and confronted him. “Doctor Dax. You were out in the radiation for nearly ten minutes longer than you were supposed to be.”

  “Was I? Sorry. I got so caught up . . .”

  “Don’t apologize to me. You’re the one whose health is in danger. I need to examine you for radiation damage.”

  “Doctor, that’s really not—”

  “I know your people have some kind of taboo about alien doctors, but under the circumstances, you’re just going to have to set it aside, unless you want to risk radiation sickness or cancer.”

  Dax’s hands went protectively over his midsection for some reason, but he still shook his head. Reed stepped forward. “Doctor Dax, I need all my engineers at their peak if we’re to get out of this. I’m sorry if it disrespects some sort of Trill custom or taboo, but under the circumstances I can’t worry about such niceties. I’m giving you a direct order to let the doctor examine you.”

  The Trill deflated. “All right.” He let Liao lead him back toward the aft compartment serving as the makeshift sickbay, though he looked like he was being led to the gallows. “Can you promise me that any . . . results will stay confidential?”