Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code (30 page)

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 living 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.”

Phlox chuckled even more vigorously, overjoyed to laugh with Mettus even over the smallest thing. “I hope the lack of crowding isn’t difficult for you,” he said.

“There are enough people around to keep me sane,” Mettus replied. “But I actually enjoy the relative solitude. It gives me time to think.” He furrowed his brow, so much like his mother did. “My comrades . . . back in the group . . . they never gave me much time to think. I suppose they wanted to make sure my only thoughts were theirs.”

“I shudder to think what they must have done to you, my boy.”

Mettus gave him a sharp look. “Don’t attempt to absolve me . . . Doctor.” Phlox winced. Even now, his son held on to the distance between them. “I went to them willingly. I liked what they had to say.”

Phlox took that in. “And . . . now?”

The younger Denobulan sank into thought. “The Antarans still did us much harm.”

“In the past. And we harmed them.”

“We are very different. I still don’t believe Vaneel can be happy marrying one of them.”

Phlox sighed heavily. But after a moment, Mettus went on. “Still . . . spending every day surrounded by Antarans . . . I see they aren’t all bad. One of the guards . . . she talks to me. Brings me books. Antaran books, badly translated . . . but some of them have interesting ideas. They admit the Antarans’ mistakes. Call the war an injustice, but without blaming us. And some of them are funny. My guard is funny.” He shifted, uncomfortable at what he was feeling. Phlox smiled warmly, having seen that look on the faces of
so many of his children—and one or two of his eventual wives.

“I think,” Mettus went on, “that I can understand now what always confused and upset me before.”

“What’s that?”

“How you could defend them. How you could tolerate sharing a universe with them after all their—all they did to Denobula. I thought that dishonored the memory of all we lost. Betrayed who we are.” Phlox closed his eyes briefly, but he waited for his son to continue. “I think I see now . . . that it’s more complicated. That the bad in a person . . . in a race . . . doesn’t destroy the good. It doesn’t mean . . . you can’t listen to them. Can’t learn from them.”

Phlox leaned closer to the barrier. “There’s a word for that, my boy. It’s called forgiveness.”

Meeting his father’s eyes, Mettus blinked rapidly. “Do you think Vaneel will ever forgive me for killing Retab?”

“I know she will,” Phlox said. “I know . . . that I forgive you, son.” He put his hand against the clear panel. “And I hope . . . that you can finally forgive me, too.”

After a long pause, Mettus’s fingers pressed against the panel opposite his. “Father,” he said.

Epilogue

December 29, 2165

Centauri VII, Alpha Centauri system

N
OT MANY PEOPLE
lived outside the colony city in the delta of Centauri VII’s largest river. This was an arid world in the current epoch, still in the earliest stages of terraforming, and the vast deserts beyond the delta were deathly hot and inhabited by a variety of small but deadly arthropods, the robust survivors of the evolutionary competition to endure the planet’s numerous extinction events over the past few billion years.

But every colony world had its pioneers, recluses, and rugged individualists—those who, for whatever reason, scorned the company of others and sought a degree of solitude unattainable on a civilized world. Thus it was that Charles Tucker, after an hour’s travel through the desert in the fastest skimmer available for rental, found himself at the compound of Antonius Taranullus, being escorted inside by a hovering spherical drone with whining turbofans and an ominous-looking phase-weapon emitter.

The man who had until recently been Willem Abramson, and countless others before that, rose from his work etching a lithographic plate as Tucker came in, greeting him with an impressed look on his newly clean-shorn face. “Mister Collier,” he said. “You are a persistent man.”

“And you’re a hard man to track down, sir.”

“Dead men usually are,” replied Abramson—or was it Taranullus? “At least, I have found so in the past. The march of technology makes it increasingly difficult to arrange my deaths convincingly. Still, I had thought my latest methods sufficient.”

I certainly hope so,
Tucker thought. “Believe me, Mister . . . sir . . .”

“Akharin will do.”

Tucker nodded. “Akharin. You weren’t at all easy to find, even knowing what to look for. This is a pretty remote place.”

“As I needed it to be.” The immortal sighed. “I had grown confident enough to dabble in fame and importance for a few decades, but I had forgotten how quickly fame turns to ashes in the mouth. All my ambitions for robotics breakthroughs to make a better world . . . gone now. Once again, the fiercely ethical humanity of this modern age refuses anything to do with technologies that have proven harmful. So they reject the idea of robotic servants as righteously as they rejected genetic enhancements before. As for bioneural circuitry, I doubt that research will be pursued again for generations.” He shook his head. “Had the people of my original nation believed that way, humanity would have abandoned the wheel after the first chariot battle.”

Tucker looked the man over, realizing that his age and origins made it conceivable that he had actually invented the wheel. “So was that the final straw?” Tucker asked. “Six thousand years living on Earth and you finally decided you were fed up with the human race?”

“As I said, anonymity grows increasingly difficult as technology matures. Particularly given the fame I gained in my last identity, despite my best efforts.” Akharin raised his bushy eyebrows. “I have realized for some time that space travel created
new opportunities. I suppose I should thank you for that, given your role in the perfection of the warp five engine—Mister Tucker.”

That brought a wide-eyed stare, which Akharin met with a chuckle. “I am not without considerable resources of my own, sir. And I have seen so many variations on my own face that it is easy to recognize them in others.”

“I guess we both know each other’s secrets, then.”

“Only a fraction both ways, I’m sure. But if your employers desire another service from me, let them know it is unwise to pit their resources against mine.”

Tucker licked his lips. “That’s what I’m counting on, sir. You see, they didn’t send me. They wanted me to find you, but I gave them a false lead.”

Again those eyebrows lifted. “I see. Do you expect gratitude in return?”

“No, sir.”

Akharin smiled. “Then you may have it anyway.” The ancient man pondered. “Come with me.”

They moved through the hallways of the simple house, which Tucker noted were adorned with a variety of magnificent, oddly familiar works of art. Most prominently displayed was a series of lithographs, and Tucker recalled seeing Akharin work on another in his studio. “These are yours?” he asked.

“All of them are. But these in particular are the work of Antonius Taranullus. A series of lithographs depicting the Creation.”

Tucker looked them over, but he had little understanding of modern art. “Biblical?”

Akharin shrugged. “Biblical. Greek. Mesopotamian. Hindu. Scientific. They all have common threads.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Not unprecedented. Michelangelo’s
The Creation of Adam
depicts the figures of God and His host within a shape evoking the cross-section of a human brain. The same patterns resonate through history. That is what I attempt to show here: the Creation that never ends.”

Tucker studied him. “Ending with the creation of man? And woman?”

The immortal gave a faint, hopeful smile. “That is no ending.”

They moved on. “So this is how you plan to make your new fortune? As an artist? Seems kinda risky.”

“Perhaps. But I am not untalented in the field,” Akharin replied with a slight smirk. “And I do have other sources of revenue still available to me, even without the closely watched fortune of the late Mister Abramson. My hope, eventually, is to accumulate sufficient wealth to purchase my own planet, where I can truly be alone with my work.”

They reached a door, and Akharin entered a security code. “In the meantime, I make do with this.”

A flight of stairs led them to an underground lab, where Tucker saw an abundance of high-tech equipment and robotics prototypes not unlike those he had seen on his initial visit to Abramson Industries. “You’re still doing the work. Just in secret.”

“I am.”

“It’ll take a hell of a lot longer working by yourself.”

“I can spare the time, Mister Tucker. And I am not entirely alone. In Abramson’s will, he bequeathed the fruits of his theoretical research to a Mister Arik Soong, whose acquaintance you have made. Despite his, ah, infamy, he has developed an interest in humanoid robotics and has taken quite well to the
research, with some guidance from me. Eventually I will contact him—or his heirs—and guide them further.”

“I wouldn’t rely on Soong if I were you,” Tucker advised. “He’s a devious one.”

“Do not worry, sir. I have other assistance.” They reached the observation window of a clean room, and Akharin let him look inside. Sensing their movement, the man and woman within the clean room looked up—revealing the faces of Daskel Vabion and Olivia Akomo.

Vabion merely gave him a mildly surprised look of acknowledgment, then returned to his work. But Akomo cocked her head, gave him a rakish smile, and winked.

Tucker got the message, and spun to face Akharin. “She was working for you the whole time! I mean—”

“I know,” Akharin said. “And yes. She cooperated with your employers on my instructions. Before she uploaded their worm to erase all of Starfleet’s Ware research, she secured a copy for my eventual use. She also recruited Mister Vabion into my service. He is quite brilliant, and somewhat humbled by recent events . . . yet still arrogant enough to make our collaboration interesting.”

“I have to hand it to you,” Tucker said with a smile. “Not many people can pull one over on Section Thirty-one.”

“Is that what you call it? An ugly name.”

“Well, it fits.”

Akharin raised a brow. “I think it is time you told me what your purpose was in coming here, Mister Tucker.”

“I need help, sir. From someone who has plenty of experience at faking his death and creating foolproof new identities.”

After a thoughtful pause, Akharin guided him away from the window. “I see. Such agencies rarely allow peaceful retirements. Especially for those who plan to betray them.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“I have a problem with the way your agency had you blackmail me into their service. I have no problem with retaliating through their own man.” The immortal nodded. “If you need a suitably convincing death and a new life to follow, I can arrange it.” He spread his arms. “But given my current . . . more humble resources, it will take time.”

“That’s fine,” Tucker told him. “Because before I disappear . . . I intend to bring Section Thirty-one down from the inside.”

STAR TREK: ENTERPRIS
E
 
®

RISE OF THE FEDERATION

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