by Dave Stern
All extant sources put the number of people killed in the billions.
Following the war, there was a blank spot in the histories, an interregnum of close to half a millennium, after which the Thelasian Confederacy—occasionally claiming ties to the Allied Worlds—arose to become the dominant power in this part of the quadrant. But of the Barreon…
There was nothing.
Hoshi pushed back from the console, and frowned.
Antianna. Ondeanna.
Maybe she was imagining it, at that.
The console beeped.
The screen cleared, and filled with the image of Doctor Hael, from the Kanthropian sickbay.
“Ensign Sato.”
“Yes?”
“I thought you might like to know. The Andorian has awakened.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
She closed down the system, and hurried from the room.
Theera was indeed conscious. Weak, barely able to talk, but otherwise lucid.
With no memory, whatsoever, of what she had said while under the influence of the mind-sifter.
“I am sorry.” The Andorian shook her head. “I wish I could help.”
“That’s all right.” Hoshi stood over the bed, hesitant about pulling up a chair alongside it. Maybe it was her imagination—her guilty conscience at work—but Theera seemed to have closed herself off again.
“I want to apologize to you,” Hoshi said. “I didn’t know that they were going to do that—the mind-sifter. I didn’t think—”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember anything. Not the pain, not what I said…” She shrugged. “Nothing.”
Hoshi nodded. In a way, that was fortunate.
The two were silent a moment.
“Do you think it is possible,” Theera began, “that the Kanthropians would return me to Andoria now?”
“Now?” Hoshi shook her head. “I don’t know—right now, as I understand it, we’re being shadowed by the Antianna fleet. I don’t think any ships in the Armada are leaving anytime soon.”
“There are courier ships aboard S-12, are there not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Would you ask Elder Green if one would be available to take me?”
“I could ask, though I doubt…” Hoshi’s voice trailed off as she realized something. “Theera. Did your memory come back, is that why you’re asking to go home? Because if that’s the case, then…”
“No.” Theera was shaking her head emphatically. “It’s just…I want to be there. As soon as possible. I want to start living my life again.”
There was a sudden edge to her voice. Hoshi couldn’t quite place it. Excitement, impatience…something else?
“I understand,” Hoshi said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Thank you.”
Hoshi smiled. “You’re welcome.”
The two were silent a moment.
“I should get going now,” Hoshi said. “Let you rest. Get back to work—we’re still trying to…”
“You should come,” Theera interrupted.
It took Hoshi a minute to figure out what Theera was saying.
“To Andoria?”
“Yes. You should leave here too. Come back with me.”
That edge was back in the Andorian’s voice, and now, hearing it again, Hoshi recognized the emotion behind it. Not excitement, not impatience…
Fear.
“Theera,” Hoshi said. “Is something the matter?”
The Andorian lowered her gaze.
Of course, Hoshi thought.
“It’s them, isn’t it?” she prompted. “The Antianna?”
Hesitation. And then…
Theera nodded.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“That’s all right.” Now Hoshi did take that chair, and pull it up next to the diagnostic bed. “I understand.”
She put her hand on top of the Andorian’s.
“I’m not going to pretend you don’t have reason to be scared. But we’ve found something, I think—a clue, in what you said under the mind-sifter—and so I think we can talk to them, I think—”
“You can’t talk to them,” she said, suddenly grabbing hold of Hoshi’s hand. Her grip was strong. Painfully so.
Hoshi winced, and tried to free her hand.
“If they catch us,” she said. “You don’t know what they’ll do. You don’t know what will happen.”
Hoshi gave a sudden twist, and freed her hand. It throbbed with pain.
“We’ll find a way to talk to them,” Hoshi said. “I know we will.”
The Andorian shook her head.
Hoshi said her good-byes, and left the room.
Doctor Hael was waiting for her outside the door.
“Ensign Sato,” he said. “I’m glad I was able to find you.”
“What’s the matter?”
“General Jaedez wishes to see you. Immediately.”
Hoshi was escorted back to the Conani flagship, to the general’s office, where she found not only Jaedez but Teraven there as well, waiting for her.
They were looking at something on the viewscreen.
The general caught sight of her first, and waved her forward.
“Ensign Sato. Excellent. Please, come in. We desire your opinion as well.”
She walked to the front of the room, and saw what they were all looking at.
It was an image from Theera’s “interrogation.” The Andorian, risen from her chair, the restraints that had held her to it lying on the deck beside her feet, snapped in half.
Hoshi’s own outstretched hand was visible in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
“We are interested in your opinion, Ensign.” Teraven, who’d been standing to one side of the general, now moved front and center, pointed to the image on the screen behind him. “If you have an explanation for this. How the Andorian was able to snap these restraints, to physically move while under the influence of the mind-sifter.”
Hoshi shrugged. “The restraints were defective. Obviously.”
“No,” Teraven said. “They were examined prior to your arrival. There was nothing wrong with them.”
“Then…” Hoshi shook her head.
Her hand throbbed where Theera had held it. The Andorian was strong. But that, really, was no explanation either. Strong didn’t break duranium.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t explain it.”
“General?” Teraven asked, turning to Jaedez, who gestured for him to proceed.
“Perhaps,” the Pfau said, “the Andorian is not what she seems.”
“I don’t understand,” Hoshi said. “What else would she be?”
“A spy.”
Hoshi did a double take.
“What?”
“Theera is a spy. An Antianna, in the guise of an Andorian, placed among us to sabotage the fleet.”
Hoshi shook her head in disbelief.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am quite serious,” Teraven said.
“It took three of my men and their weapons to subdue her earlier,” Jaedez said. “To bring her to this ship. That strikes me as unusual.”
Hoshi—who had been about to express her opinion more forcefully—suddenly frowned, as she remembered the contemptuous ease with which one of Jaedez’s guards had handled her.
“Well…she’s had training, obviously. That’s all.”
“I have had training,” Teraven said. “Training takes you only so far against a superior opponent.”
Hoshi couldn’t dispute the truth of that.
“Ensign Sato, I seem to recall a conversation,” Jaedez said, “with you present, where Elder Green told me that the Andorian had been spending her time reviewing background—personal, professional—that she should have been familiar with?”
“It’s because she has amnesia,” Hoshi blurted out.
“Or so she would have us believe,” Teraven said. “Perhaps she simply seeks to further her m
asquerade.”
“She’s not faking.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just…I’ve spent enough time with her to see. That’s all.”
Teraven frowned. “Hardly scientific proof.”
“You’re saying she painted herself blue, and glued on a set of antennae. That hardly seems scientific to me either.”
“Such surgical ‘masquerades’ are not unknown.”
Hoshi shook her head. “So you’re saying that none of the information we obtained from her is reliable?”
“Given this evidence”—Teraven gestured to the tape—“given the fact that no one still has provided a satisfactory explanation as to how the Andorian can possibly recall a scan that took place on one ship when she was on another—yes, I am afraid that in my opinion, none of the information we gleaned courtesy of the mind-sifter can be considered reliable.”
“I am in agreement,” Jaedez said. “We have ordered Elder Green to cease construction on the light-emitting diodes. Furthermore—”
“You can’t do that!” Hoshi said.
Jaedez raised an eyebrow.
“You forgot your place, Ensign,” Teraven said.
Jaedez held him back. “No, no. I will hear her out. Proceed. Tell me why you think—exclusive of the Andorian’s ‘recollections’—the diode project is worth continuing.”
Hoshi took a deep breath.
“It’s not the diode project I’m concerned with,” she said—and launched into her theory regarding the possible connections between the Antianna and the Barreon.
“Ondeanna,” Jaedez said when she had finished. He gestured to Teraven. “Run the recording, please.”
Teraven did, playing the entire session back, pausing it at the very end once more, on the image of Theera, arms outstretched, reaching for the sky.
“I am in agreement with Elder Green—at least partially,” Jaedez said when it finished. “I do not hear the word as Ondeanna, but Antianna. Regarding the Andorian’s expression of intent, however…” He turned to Teraven. “Commander?”
“‘Join.’” Teraven frowned, and shook his head. “What could it mean, in this context, Ensign?”
“I’m not sure,” Hoshi admitted.
She looked up at the screen. The look on Theera’s face, the yearning, in her eyes…
An idea came to her, all at once.
“But there’s a simple way to find out,” she said. “Send a signal.”
Teraven frowned. “A signal. To the Antianna?”
“Yes.”
“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but we have been sending signals. Thousands of them, over the last few years, at a guess. The aliens have responded to none.”
“Well we haven’t been sending the right one, obviously.”
“And the right one is?” Teraven asked.
Hoshi looked at Jaedez and saw understanding in his eyes.
“Ondeanna,” he said.
She smiled. “Precisely.”
The test was simple enough to set up.
Jaedez took Hoshi to the flagship’s bridge. Introduced her to his com officer, who in turn showed her to an unused station which he then reconfigured to give her external transmission privileges.
Hoshi settled herself into the seat, and set up a few quick parameters. Signal strength, transmission frequency, and content. A burst message, once every fifteen seconds, saying the same thing, over and over and over again.
Ondeanna.
Simple enough, she thought, and turned around.
Jaedez was deep in conversation with one of his officers. She waited for a pause in the conversation, and then caught his eye.
“All set,” she said.
He walked up behind her, and nodded.
“Very well. Proceed.”
Hoshi sent the message.
“I’ve set it for maximum strength, minimum dispersion,” she said. “To make sure it can cut through any other com traffic. I’ve also set up a directional shift every few seconds, just to make sure we cover all three hundred sixty degrees. It’ll probably take a few minutes to hit the first Antianna ship, because I’ve started at zero degrees heading here—”
An alarm sounded, then stopped.
“Sir!”
The officer Jaedez had just finished speaking to was leaning over a station at the front of the bridge, frowning.
“Colonel,” Jaedez replied. “Report.”
“Picking up movement from the Antianna ships, sir. They’re closing.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jaedez glanced over quickly at Hoshi, and smiled.
“It appears you may have been right, Ensign. Congratulations. Colonel, I want you to contact Elder Green aboard S-12, let her know what we’ve done, and ask her to immediately provide a database of the Barreon language to all…”
“General. Picking up something on long-distance scanners as well.”
Jaedez turned.
“Something.”
“Yes, sir. Hard to be certain, but I think…”
“Confirm that reading, General.”
The colonel was back in position, leaning over the same station.
“I have eighty-eight separate signals, heading in this drection.”
“Eighty-eight?” Jaedez’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, quite sure.” The colonel leaned closer and frowned. “They appear to be ships. Antianna ships, in fact.”
The bridge, all at once, fell silent.
Jaedez turned to Hoshi.
“I sincerely hope, Ensign,” he said, “that the word means what you think it does, and not something else entirely.”
“As do I, sir,” she said.
Jaedez nodded and turned to face the viewscreen once more.
Eighty-eight ships, Hoshi thought. This was either the beginning of a very long negotiation process, or a very, very short war.”
Twenty-Eight
The work was a lot more involved than Sen had originally anticipated.
After the better part of a day, they still weren’t finished. Not even close, by Archer’s reckoning, as he’d only rewired/reconfigured about half the bridge stations. He’d been slowing the last hour or so, though—running on fumes. Sen was tired too. Out of the corner of his eye, Archer had caught the governor yawning more than once. He’d hoped, perhaps, that Sen would nod off, and he’d be able to overpower him. No such luck.
Instead, a few minutes ago, Sen had called a halt to the work, and escorted Archer back where he’d come from. Back to the brig.
“We’ll resume in a few hours,” the governor told him. “In the meantime…make yourself comfortable.”
The captain looked around the cell where he’d spent the last couple of weeks. He barely recognized it; for one thing, he’d been pretty well out of it most of that time—drugged, between, sleep-deprived…
For another, the lights had been permanently dimmed, back then. Now, though, they blared full intensity.
Archer thought that, on the whole, he preferred the darkness.
The cell’s floor, walls, and ceiling were all bare steel, rusted and stained a brownish red. There were no seats or benches of any kind. And the smell…
“You know, there are a lot of empty cabins aboard this ship right now,” Archer said.
“I’m well aware of that,” Sen said. “After I leave you, in fact, I’ll be on my way to the officer’s deck, to find a place to rest myself. I suspect I’ll end up in Commander Kareg’s suite—the monitor images make it look like quite a nice place, actually.”
“I’m sure it is. I’d settle for a simple enlisted man’s bunk,” Archer said.
“I’m sure you would.” Sen smiled. “Good night, Captain. Sleep well.”
He slammed the steel door shut behind him, and left the brig.
Archer glared after him.
Sleep well. He didn’t think so. Not just because the last thing he wanted to do was put his head down on this flo
or. The truth was that these next few hours might be the only chance he had to think for a while. To figure a way out of not just here, but his larger predicament.
One thing he’d realized in the last few hours, since his discovery that Sen was chipped, it wasn’t the Klingon system the governor was hooked up to—it couldn’t be. Because if it had been, Sen wouldn’t have had any problems overriding c’Hos’s security protocols. What was probably going on, the captain decided, was that Sen was talking to a rogue program within it. Probably one he’d introduced himself. A smart program, one that could learn from and actively combat the systems that hosted it. Starfleet had something similar in the works; “intelligent software agent” was the term, if memory served. This program, though, sounded like it was light-years ahead of Starfleet’s design.
Gingerly, he took a seat on the floor, and settled in as best he could.
He put his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and catnapped. He thought about alternative plans of action. He wondered, briefly, what was happening with the Antianna—if, in Sen’s absence, the war fleet had indeed launched, or if Hoshi, and the Mediators, and the Andorian linguist had managed to decipher the Antianna signal, and establish communication. He thought about Sen’s software agent.