Miles continued. “And I know Tiron came with you on the transport from Korvat. I had him checked out, and he seemed to have acquitted himself well against the Alliance during your escape.”
Keiko nodded. “He fought as well as any of us, and he helped us escape.” That much was the truth, at least.
Miles sat up straight on the couch and pointed an accusing finger at her. “And you let Shar kill him. For nothing!”
Keiko crossed her arms in front of her chest. “His sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, Miles. There was a reason for—”
Miles sliced the air with his hand. “It wasn’t worth it, Keiko. All this. The bombs, the sabotage, the lies. We would have figured something out. You just needed to give us time.”
Keiko shook her head. “Miles, there wasn’t any time to waste. You know how vulnerable we were. I still can’t believe the Intendant and her cronies didn’t attack the station immediately after Empok Nor. I don’t think they realized how close they came to wiping the rebellion out.” She let that sink in, then added, “And I don’t think you or Michael or anyone else realized how close we were, either.”
Miles considered that, but shook his head. “I still don’t think it was right, sacrificing Tiron like that.”
Keiko threw up her hands in annoyance. “He volunteered, Miles! I presented the idea to him, and he asked to be part of it. He knew what he was getting into.”
Miles shrugged and looked away. She sensed a full-blown pout coming on. “You still could have told me, Keiko. I am the bloody general here, damn it.”
Keiko stared at him, stunned. He wasn’t mad at what had happened, not the specifics. He was mad at her for lying to him, for betraying him. She was surprised to feel hot tears welling up in her eyes. She had disappointed Miles. The one man in her life who had offered her unconditional love, who had stood beside her through all of the accusations and dangerous moments, the man she had discovered she loved more than anyone else in her life. She was shocked to discover that she couldn’t bear to have him leave her, that she feared her recent actions had driven an impenetrable wedge between them.
“Miles, I…I don’t know what to say.”
Miles stared at her, his features softening somewhat when he saw the tears rolling down her face. In a lower tone of voice, he said, “I just wish you had said something. I would have gone along with you, helped you. Tiron was a good man.”
Right then, Keiko almost broke down, almost told Miles everything. But she dug deep and maintained her hold, the training drummed into her keeping her will strong. This wasn’t the time. The greater cause had to persevere in secret for a while longer.
She tentatively raised a hand to Miles’s cheek, hoping that this wouldn’t drive them apart. She cleared her throat and said, “Miles, I’m sorry I didn’t share the plan with you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He nodded and took her hand in his. She felt the strength in those hands, the hands that could please her as no others could. She feared those hands striking out against her but knew that Miles would never do such a thing.
He carefully placed her hand in her lap and stood up. “I’ve got to get to work. We can talk about this later.”
Keiko brushed her tears away in frustration. Miles was upset, and rather than take it out on her, he was going to go bust up some of the station’s recalcitrant machinery.
She nodded at him, not trusting herself to talk. He took one final look at her, grabbed his boots, and stomped out of their quarters.
As the door cycled shut behind him, Keiko forced back the sobs threatening to rush from her throat. Why did she feel this way? What was it about Miles that had her in such disarray?
She stared around the quarters, her eyes finally falling on Obachan’s cup. She stared at it, letting the tears flow freely. It all came down to family. She wanted Miles in her life, in her family. And what she’d done, what she had had to do, had hurt him.
She glanced at the doorway where he had gone. This would pass in time. Miles wasn’t one to hold his frustrations in for too long. The two of them would have a long talk, maybe several long talks, and they’d walk on eggshells around each other for a while, but they’d work through it.
Keiko pulled the data rod out from underneath her. Perhaps it contained the information the rebellion needed. Perhaps it would be enough. She clenched it tight and held it close to her breast, as if it were the most precious and fragile thing in the galaxy…next to her love for Miles.
Empathy
Christopher L. Bennett
HISTORIAN’S NOTE: This tale takes place in late 2376, approximately one year after the events of Saturn’s Children from Star Trek Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances, and three years before the events of Star Trek Titan: Taking Wing in the mainline universe.
Christopher L. Bennett is the author of two novels in the Star Trek Titan series, Orion’s Hounds and the upcoming Over a Torrent Sea. He has also authored such critically acclaimed novels as Star Trek: Ex Machina, Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Buried Age, and Star Trek: The Next Generation—Greater Than the Sum, as well as the alternate Voyager tale Places of Exile in Myriad Universes: Infinity’s Prism. Shorter works include Star Trek: S.C.E.—Aftermath and Star Trek: Mere Anarchy—The Darkness Drops Again, as well as short stories in the anniversary anthologies Constellations (original series), The Sky’s the Limit (TNG), Prophecy and Change (DS9), and Distant Shores (VGR). Beyond Star Trek, he has penned the novels X-Men: Watchers on the Walls, and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder, and is also developing original science fiction novel concepts. More information, original fiction, and novel annotations can be found at http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/.
Dr. Jaza Najem hated his audiences with Governor Khegh. The fat, unkempt Klingon put up a boisterous front, but his jovial manner masked a ruthless manipulator, and his hedonism contained a strong sadistic streak. It was people like Khegh, in Jaza’s view, who stained the reputation of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and enabled its enemies to rationalize their attempts to destroy it.
But Khegh was Lru-Irr’s planetary governor, and Jaza had to face him if he wanted to persuade him to mitigate Dr. Ree’s methods. Not that he had much hope; Ree’s fondness for playing with his prey (including his Irriol research subjects, the “prey” in his hunt for knowledge) appealed to Khegh’s sadism. Jaza knew he would have to speak in terms of the success of the project, striving not to appear soft on the Irriol. This wasn’t about mercy; these were perilous times, with Terran insurrectionists gaining strength by the day, and Jaza understood the danger Terrans posed as well as did any Bajoran. He accepted that preventing the terrorists’ victory was worth the sacrifice of a few individuals. But he knew Khegh was already inclined to dismiss him as a bleeding heart.
So he had instructed Christine to act properly deferential toward him during the audience and had attired her in something revealing enough to satisfy Khegh’s expectations for a slave, even a Theta. He wondered if it was wise to bring her at all, for it would undermine him if Khegh caught a glimpse of his true feelings for her. But he was useless at organizing his notes without her help. He would just have to keep up a suitably tough façade.
He therefore tried not to grimace at the sight that presented itself when he entered the ornate main hall of Khegh’s headquarters. The “entertainment” Khegh was currently laughing at involved a clear-walled tank of water in which a willowy blond slave woman was immersed totally nude, lacking even the collar and chains that were the standard and sole accouterments of the other slave women who flanked Khegh’s thronelike seat. The weakly thrashing woman’s delicate skeletal structure and chevron-shaped nasal-frontal ridges showed that she was not a Terran like Christine, but a more exotic breed of slave.
“Quite a sight, isn’t she?” Khegh roared, noting Jaza’s gaze. “Rare catch, too. An Elaysian—the Terrans destroyed their world a century ago. But some refugees finally turned up, and…” He gestured to the woman in the tank. “Cost me two Deltans. Hardly w
orth the expense, though. Low-gravity species. Too fragile to hold up to beating or bedding, so I had to find another way to get some fun out of her.” He took a hefty bite from a leg of something (Jaza didn’t want to know) and talked around it as he chewed. “Water’s ice-cold…but if she climbs out on the shelf…her own weight crushes her, and soon enough she has to go back in the water! Clever, eh?”
Hence the lack of a collar, Jaza thought, looking at it analytically to harden himself to the sight. She’s too weak to escape, particularly in the above-normal gravity here. Beside him, Christine shuddered, and Jaza caught a flash of anger before she caught herself and lowered her gaze, her long auburn hair tumbling over her face. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he restrained himself.
“Indeed, it is imaginative,” came the articulate growl of Dr. Shenti Yisec Eres Ree. The Pahkwa-thanh medical researcher strode forward to study the Elaysian, his long-snouted, brown-scaled head tilting contemplatively. Jaza stepped back to dodge the sauroid’s heavy tail, which tended to thrash about when he was intrigued. “Although I confess I fail to see the point in playing with a creature one does not intend to eat.”
Khegh laughed. Klingons generally were not comfortable with sentient species shaped differently from themselves, but they respected the Pahkwa-thanh’s predatory nature. The Klingons had lost thousands in their failed attempt to conquer the Pahkwa-thanh homeworld, and apparently granting such honorable and songworthy deaths to so many warriors was the Klingon idea of a generous diplomatic overture, since the two species had become stalwart allies thereafter. “If you like,” Khegh told the doctor, “I could give her to you when I’m done with her.”
“Hrrr…too bony. And I prefer prey that can run.”
“Good point, good point.” Khegh took another huge bite and washed it down with a swig of bloodwine. Jaza reflected that it had been a long time since the governor had been in any shape to run after anything. “So what’s this all about this time? And quickly, I’m a busy man!”
Christine handed Jaza a padd, and he stepped forward. “Governor, despite my earlier protests, Ree is still engaged in unnecessary and needlessly destructive research upon the Irriol subjects.”
“I dispute ‘unnecessary,’” Ree countered politely. “If we are to understand the Irriol mind, we must understand all of its facets. Few things engage the psyche as profoundly, as primally, as the confrontation of pain, terror, and death.”
“And ingestion? Governor, I have seen Ree eating his subjects’ organs as he vivisects them. He isn’t preserving them for study. That is…wasteful.” He strove to maintain detachment. He held out the documentation, but the governor waved it aside.
“I have many Irriol organs on file already,” Ree responded, “and scans are sufficient in most cases. But there is much that a researcher’s own senses can reveal. Bajorans are a visual species. My people rely more on scent…and taste. Additionally,” Ree went on, his tail writhing more excitedly, “observing the subjects’ response to their own ingestion is informative.”
Khegh roared. “You can’t argue with that! Nothing like the look in an enemy’s eyes as you rip out his heart and bite into it.”
Jaza fought to keep down his last meal. Christine gave him a surreptitious look of encouragement, hidden from Khegh by her hair. “I can’t fault my colleague for…enthusiasm,” he said, drawing a gracious nod from Ree. “But we must not lose sight of what’s at stake here. We’re trying to harness the power of a whole race of empaths. Imagine what a weapon that would be for the Alliance.”
“I know why we’re here,” Khegh snarled. “Only reason we conquered these pathetic jeghpu’wI’ in the first place.” Psi-capable species were a rare prize, since the Terran Empire, fearful of their power, had done their best to wipe out every telepathic race they discovered. The Alliance was not so shortsighted or reflexively destructive; its standing policy was that any psi-capable race or individual must be secured, regulated, and analyzed, its power used to strengthen the Alliance. Ree was an expert in the field, thanks to his people’s extensive study of their own empathic minority, though he himself was psi-null.
“But we need to go about it in the right way,” Jaza argued. “The Irriol think in terms of the gestalt they share with the other life forms on their world. If we want to harness that gestalt, we should take advantage of their communal psychology. We should present ourselves as partners, build trust and affinity the same way they do among themselves, so they will cooperate voluntarily. Making them fear us as predators is counterproductive.”
“On any other world, I might agree, Najem,” said Ree. “But the Irriol have a keen understanding of their place in nature. They do not perceive their predators as enemies but accept them as players in the gestalt. They will sometimes surrender to predators voluntarily when they subconsciously sense that it serves the greater good of the ecosystem.”
“But predators do not inflict unnecessary suffering, as a rule.”
“Do we not? We play with our prey to wear it down, disorient it. It may feel unnecessary to the prey, but it is not. I believe the Irriol understand this through their gestalt.” Ree shook his head in excitement. “It is bracing to confront a prey creature with a conscious understanding of its role in the hunt,” he said. “I am learning much.” Jaza knew that Pahkwa-thanh propriety precluded hunting any sapient species that did not accept its role as prey. The Irriol appeared to be one that did, or at least came close enough to satisfy Ree’s definitions, and he was taking full advantage of it, not only in the lab but also out in the wilds, pursuing a far more literal hunt when the mood seized him.
Jaza didn’t blame Ree for being what he was; he was only behaving according to his species’ nature. But he still felt that what Ree was had no place on this expedition. He only wished he could convince Khegh of that.
But Khegh was grinning at Ree, sharing in his predatory enthusiasm. “There you are,” he told Jaza. “They’re used to being prey, so let us treat them as such. Any race that would lie down and let itself be eaten is jeghpu’wI’ to the core, unworthy of being treated otherwise.”
“It isn’t a question of worth, Governor,” Jaza objected. “It’s a question of finding the most effective way to harness and augment Irriol mental powers.” Christine handed him the appropriate padd, though he doubted Khegh would take any more interest in this one.
“Ree tells me you’ve already made progress at boosting their, what, their gestalt. Says it could be a way to communicate without subspace radio.”
“Among other applications,” Ree said. “Though so far, they are strictly local.”
“And dangerous to the Irriol,” Jaza said, holding out the padd. “Most of our test subjects have suffered crippling or fatal brain damage over time. Their brains aren’t adapted to channel psionic energies at these levels.”
“It is a work in progress,” Ree conceded. “Normally, Najem, I would be happy to proceed more cautiously. But I need not remind you, do I, of the urgent threat we face from the insurrectionists?”
Ree had him there, though there was only sympathy in his growling voice as he brought it up. Jaza’s home province still bore the scars inflicted by the Terran Empire’s brutal occupation generations ago. He had been raised with tales of the horrors the Terrans had inflicted upon his family and community, so that he and other Bajorans would never forget, never let it be done to them again.
But aren’t we doing the same to the Irriol? he asked himself. He strove to believe it was different, that Ree was right and the Irriol accepted the imposition. He strove to believe that his government—and he—were acting out of necessity, to defend against the far worse horror that would befall the quadrant if the Terrans were freed to resume their conquering ways.
But when he saw Khegh’s Elaysian slave trembling on the shelf above the tank, her eyes pleading with him to help her before her pain forced her to plunge back into the icy water, he had to wonder how much better the Alliance was.
No, he told
himself. The Alliance had freed Bajor, made it strong and safe. The things that went on in places like this were necessary so that Bajorans, Cardassians, and other enlightened peoples could live free and peaceful lives—and people like Khegh were simply part of the price that had to be paid to ensure that.
Besides—what else was there?
When Jaza and Christine returned to their quarters, he sagged into her arms. Ever responsive to his moods, she kissed him gently, sat him on the bed, removed his tunic, and began kneading his shoulders with her strong, deft hands. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he told her. “And I’m sorry you have to read about the things Ree does to his subjects. I wonder if I should’ve brought you here at all.”
“You’d lose all your notes in a day without me,” Christine teased. “Besides, if you’d left me behind, I’d think I wasn’t your favorite concubine anymore.” Her lips brushed his ear.
He clasped her hand upon his shoulder. “You’re my only concubine, you silly Terran. And the only one I’ll ever need.” He lifted the hand to his lips. “I love you so much.”
“Not so loud. What if someone heard you?” But as her lips brushed his ear, she breathed, “I love you too, Najem.”
“Why shouldn’t I be in love with my own concubine?” he asked. “You certainly deserve it. You’re a Theta—you’ve earned a degree of respect. You’re intelligent, capable, decent, kind. More so than any Terran I’ve ever met.”
“Only through your guidance, beloved. Only because you encouraged me and touched me with your own kindness.”
“Still, you deserve better than to be treated like—like a slave.”
“You treat me wonderfully.”
“I mean by others. By society. I feel you’ve earned the right to be treated like, well, a person with rights.”
Christine came around to sit on his lap. “To be ‘free?’” she asked. “What would I do? Join the rebellion? Be commanded by brutal strangers, risk my life on their whim? Or wander off into untamed space and scrounge for my survival? You’d call that freedom?” She shook her head. “Remember what you taught me about physics? Degrees of freedom are always finite. Everyone lives under constraints of one sort or another. And I have far more freedom as your slave, my dear, kind master, than I could ever have as a ‘liberated’ Terran.” She took his bearded chin in her hands and kissed him again, deep and long.
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