Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code (9 page)

“Oh, we were far worse than that, my boy.” The speaker was Pehle’s father, Sohon Retab, an older, portlier version of his son with shorter, grayer hair but an impressive, braided beard. “We mismanaged our environment for centuries in the name of easy profit. We made the Denobulans our scapegoats for the mass famines of three centuries ago, but we were at least as much to blame.”

“You’re too kind to our ancestors, Sohon,” Vaneel insisted. “They were the ones who chose to unleash a biological
weapon against your crops.”

“But they could not have anticipated how little genetic diversity we had in our key crops. They meant only to weaken our war efforts and our economy, but instead whole staple crops were wiped out planetwide, and twenty million died. The only good thing that can be said of either side in the affair is that it shocked us both enough to sue for peace—even if the only peace our ancestors could agree upon was mutual avoidance.”

“You’ll have to excuse Father,” Pehle said. “Making speeches is an occupational hazard for a legislator.”

“I happen to like his speeches,” Vaneel said, taking Sohon’s arm. “He has a lovely voice. And I like what he has to say.”

“Now, this is why you’re lucky to be marrying her, my boy,” Sohon declared. “She’s smart enough to flatter her future father-in-law.”

“It’s no mere flattery, Sohon. You’ve done so much to change people’s minds on Antar. It’s thanks to reformers like you that I can walk down a street with Pehle in his hometown and feel welcome there.”

“Now you’re the one being too kind, dear girl. I think most of us were ready to let go of our fear of Denobulans. For centuries, the corporate rulers used them as scapegoats for all the restrictions and deprivations they imposed on us—exploited our fear of an outside race to keep us from recognizing the true cause of our problems.”

“A familiar pattern,” T’Pol observed.

“But it didn’t sit well with us. We’ve embraced other cultures since the wars, for the most part. The famines taught us the importance of diversifying our crops, our technologies, our ideas. We’ve eagerly sought out the new and different,
made friends with numerous other species, so this vestigial terror of the Denobulans was out of place. Our leaders convinced us—well, we convinced ourselves—that they were the exception to the rule, the one irredeemable race. I think most of us were relieved to discover they weren’t the monsters under our beds after all. And once that particular corporate lie was exposed, it made the people question the rest. And that, not my own meager oratorical skill, is why the Reformists are in power now.”

Phlox smiled. “Even so, Sohon, you deserve a lot of credit for your openness to this marriage. I understand that even today, Antarans have a strong belief in monogamy.”

Sohon cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that took some soul-searching. Until I realized how your system makes sense for your people. You hardly ever sleep! You don’t need to return home every night, and so you wander widely instead. Having more people in your life whose paths can intersect with yours is only reasonable. Besides,” he added with a laugh, “not needing to sleep is the only way one could possibly have time to tend to three spouses!”

Phlox laughed in reply. “Even without sleep, it can be hard to find time for three spouses, with so much else to do. We Denobulans get so caught up in our work—it’s fortunate that we tend to be self-sufficient when it comes to our emotional needs.”

“I imagine that without sleep, you could easily lose track of time. You could be apart for weeks and it would feel little different from hours.” Sohon shook his hirsute head. “I envy that. My wife had to remain on Antar to shepherd a vital piece of legislation through the Council. This is the longest I’ve been apart from her in twenty years, and I feel every moment keenly.”

Pehle grasped his father’s shoulder. “Well, Vaneel has promised not to neglect me—not while I’m awake, anyway. Although she has been trying to convince me to look for at least one more wife.” He drew Phlox’s daughter into his arms. “But I’m afraid I’m the type to love only one woman.” He pulled Vaneel into a kiss, which she returned aggressively.

Nearby, her husbands Thesh and Sun-woo looked on without jealousy. “Your loss,” the human husband said. “I’ve already got a second wife and my eye on a possible third. So far I’m not having any trouble giving them enough attention, even with the need to sleep.”

“Oh, I can attest to that,” Vaneel said, even as she continued to cuddle with Pehle.

“Honestly, Vaneel,” came a new voice, “I hope you don’t intend to put on public displays like that all the time.” The new speaker was a female Denobulan who resembled Vaneel, but with blond hair and a narrower face.

“Rempal, hello,” Phlox said. “Everyone, this is Feezal and Kovlin’s daughter Rempal—Vaneel’s half-sister.”

“Hello, Rempal,” Archer said. “So . . . you’re Phlox’s wife’s daughter with another husband. Would that make you . . . his niece? Or his daughter-in-law?”

“Second-tier daughter, actually,” Rempal said. “But at this rate I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be gaining any more nieces or nephews myself.”

Vaneel glared. “Rempal!”

“I’m sorry, dear, I’m just worried about you. We don’t know if it’s even possible to have children with a human, let alone an Antaran. I know you think you’re making an important statement and all, and I applaud that, really. But I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of your happiness.”

Vaneel faced her half-sister tensely, crossing her arms.
“You just don’t understand. You haven’t even tried. You look at the man I love and all you see is an Antaran. You don’t notice who he is, just what.”

Her words saddened Rempal. “I’ve got nothing against Antarans. This is about you, not him.”

“And that’s exactly the problem! You and your father, you don’t see him. Even Mother Vesena, all she sees is a symbol, a historic first to boast about.”

“And you expect me to believe that isn’t exactly what you want him to be? Considering how important his father is to the peace process?”

“Speaking of peace,” Sohon interposed in a booming voice, “perhaps this is a question better discussed in more private surroundings.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Vaneel said. Turning to Archer and the others, she said, “I apologize for the outburst. I think the rain is clearing up now—perhaps we could all use a bit more space.” Taking Pehle’s arm, she led him out from under the pavilion.

“Wow,” Dani Erickson said as she, Archer, and the
Endeavour
party emerged into the waning daylight. “Family.”

“It has its complexities,” T’Pol noted. “It is only logical that they would be compounded in families as large as the Denobulans’. I begin to have some insight, Phlox, into why you are content to spend so much time apart from one another.”

Phlox waved it off. “Oh, this was a minor tiff. Nothing you should allow to trouble you. Oh, look!” he said, pointing off into the distance. “The sun is about to set behind the Tregnig Towers. If we can find just the right viewing angle from this roof, the refractions between the building edges can be quite spectacular.”

Sato exchanged a look with T’Pol. They had both known Phlox long enough to recognize that he was more concerned than he let on.

•   •   •

After the party had broken up and the offworlders had gone off to sleep, Phlox tracked Vaneel down in her favorite hallucinatorium, where she often went to rest and work off her anxieties. Phlox had never been able to hallucinate as easily as Vaneel, instead tending to dream during his occasional brief naps—which was less satisfying, since he rarely remembered the experience. He envied his daughter’s ability to confront and cleanse her subconscious more openly.

But tonight he found her restless and frustrated, pacing the empty, padded chamber without even talking to herself. “Am I intruding?” he asked.

She looked at him hopefully for a moment, then slumped. “Oh. You’re real.”

He declined to take it personally. “I take it you’re having difficulty hallucinating?”

“Nothing seems to be coming tonight. I don’t know why. I certainly have plenty to be tense about.”

“Rempal only wants what’s best for you, you know that.”

“I know, but I just resent it that she doesn’t think I know my own mind, my own motives. Why does she think I come here so often? I always listen to myself.”

He considered her. “Unless you don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“Oh, not you too, Dad.” She turned away and resumed her long-legged pacing.

“Of course not, Vaneel. You know I’m on your side.”

Looking embarrassed, she slumped against a cushioned wall. “I know, Dad, sorry. You’re the one who understands
better than anyone. You always raised us not to listen to Great-grandmother Palbak’s stories, not to believe the old prejudices. And it was you who first made the effort to get to know an Antaran in person, who paved the way for everything since. I would never have met Pehle if not for you.”

He smiled. “I just convinced one injured Antaran to let me save his life. You were the one who chose to expand on that small opening, to travel to Antar and build bridges. To share Denobulan scientific knowledge to help repair Antar’s ecosystem.”

She pursed her lips. “I suppose I was rather spectacular.”

“As always.”

He came over to the wall and lowered himself to sit beside her, grunting a bit and lamenting his aging joints. He may have been in prime health for a Denobulan in his early eighties, but that was still middle age, and even Denobulan medicine couldn’t work miracles. “But it occurs to me,” Phlox went on, “that given how much of an activist you’ve been these past several years, it’s understandable that others might see your relationship with Pehle as an extension of the same. It certainly is a striking statement of defiance toward . . . the old ways.”

“That’s a bonus, to be sure,” Vaneel admitted. “There are certain types of people whose disgust and condemnation for your actions is profound reassurance that you’re on the right path in life.”

“True,” her father said. “But the question is, does Rempal or Vesena deserve to be put in the same category as those people?”

Vaneel sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Of course not. They mean well.” A loaded pause. “They aren’t Mettus.”

The pause before Phlox spoke was longer. “I try to
convince myself that Mettus believes he means well, in his way. That he believes he’s defending something positive about Denobulans.”

“He belongs to a hate group, Dad. A group that’s issued death threats against my fiancé.”

“You don’t believe Mettus had anything to do with that?”

“He hasn’t been a part of this family for over two decades. He’s a stranger to us.”

Phlox grew thoughtful. “He was always very passionate about what he believed in. Very stubborn. And contrary, relishing a good argument. Much like you, in fact. Oh, you and he had some barn-burners in your youth.”

She stared. “ ‘Barn-burners’?”

“A colorful idiom I picked up from an old shipmate back on
Enterprise
. I’m honestly not sure I’m using it correctly.”

“But I see what you’re saying,” Vaneel replied. “You’re wondering if this marriage is part of some extended argument with Mettus. If I’m doing this to make a point of defying his hatred. Of countering his voice.”

“You did agree it would have that effect. And that’s hardly a bad thing. But your sister has a point that your personal happiness is important as well.”

Vaneel thought it over for a while. “All right . . . I admit, maybe I was too defensive with Rempal. Too quick to assume that she might have some lingering prejudice. I’ll apologize to her later.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t need an apology. She just wants to know you’ll be happy.”

Vaneel clambered easily to her feet, evoking a touch of envy from Phlox. She slowly paced the confines of the room as she spoke. “Of course, I knew this marriage would be seen as symbolic. It is a very important statement. There’s no
denying that.”

“Agreed.”

She turned to face him. “But that’s exactly why I knew it wouldn’t be enough to marry Pehle for that reason alone. If it were just a symbol—if the essence, the connection, weren’t there—then it would likely fail, and that would’ve harmed the cause Pehle and I both believe in. That’s why we waited so long to commit. We both wanted to be absolutely sure that it was what
we
needed, just the two of us. That we couldn’t possibly be happy without each other.”

Her gaze shifted to the empty air beside Phlox, and she smiled. “And I know that’s true, Dad. Because I see him. He’s with me now.”

Phlox smiled back. If her hallucinations were finally kicking in, then he knew she would be fine. “Does he look happy?” he asked.

She frowned. “Actually, he’s riding a purple
flegnar
beast. They’re usually orange. He’s having trouble taming it. I should probably help.”

“Ah.” Phlox tried not to grunt too much as he levered himself to his feet. “I’ll leave the both of you to it, then.”

5

August 7, 2165

U.S.S. Vol’Rala

“W
ARP NEUTRALIZED
,” Ramnaf Breg reported from her helm console. “On course for orbital insertion in two-point-four milliphases.”

“Acknowledged,” said Captain sh’Prenni. “Good job.”

Breg smiled. The Arkenite prided herself on the precision of the maneuver. Strictly speaking, a ship emerging from a spacetime warp should retain the real-space momentum it had possessed upon entering warp—but it was possible to finesse the collapse of the warp bubble to impart a selective torque and acceleration to the ship within, allowing fine course adjustments at the moment of warp egress without the expenditure of extra thruster fuel. It wasn’t easy to gauge the effect to just the right degree, but this time, she’d pulled it off to perfection. She hoped that augured further success in the confrontation ahead.

“Oh, the long-range scans were right, Captain,” Hari Banerji announced. “This planet is just covered in Ware. Numerous Ware stations and ships in orbit, too.”

“Hail them.”

Banerji made the attempt. “No reply.”

“Keep trying. Broadcast our intentions and our information about the Ware.”

“Understood.”

In the lull that followed, Breg turned to her right to resume her ongoing conversation with Kitazoanra zh’Vethris. “Anyway, far be it from me to say an assassination attempt is a good thing. But the Keepers’ attempt on Lecheb’s life was the worst possible move for them. All they did—besides putting her in the hospital—was guarantee that she’d remove her objection to Starfleet intervention.”

“And would you feel any differently if they’d succeeded in killing her?” zh’Vethris asked from the adjacent navigator’s seat, her lips and antennae twisting in that wry, observational way that Breg found so attractive. “It would’ve achieved the same result.”

“Not necessarily,” Breg told her. “Whoever had succeeded her as acting governor might have been too afraid to endorse intervention openly and free the Council’s hand.” She shook her head. “I just wish
Vol’Rala
weren’t stuck out here, unable to join the fight.”

“Eager to dish out some payback?”

“Well . . . a little,” she admitted. “But mainly I’m concerned for my
sia lenthar
. My bond-group. They’ll be better off once the Keepers are subdued, no question, but the fighting itself may grow intense, if the Keepers are as stubborn as I expect. I feel I could do something to protect my
sia lenthar
if I were there.”

“More likely you’d feel even more guilty about any harm you couldn’t prevent,” Tavrithinn th’Cheen observed from the tactical station on Breg’s left. “There or here, the answer is the same: Trust the Guard. Your colleagues are as well-trained as you. They’ll keep your kinfolk safe.” Breg smiled at th’Cheen, appreciating the support. The tactical officer tended to be aloof and arrogant, a property of his upbringing in one of the oldest, most prestigious Andorian clans, but
sometimes he could display unexpected solicitude toward his shipmates.

Th’Cheen’s antennae angled forward as he spotted a readout on his console. “Captain! A drone fleet is deploying from the nearest orbital station. Reading five drones.”

“No preliminaries this time,” sh’Prenni said. “The Ware must recognize us from our previous encounter.”

“We are getting a hail about returning their stolen ‘components,’ ” Banerji affirmed.

“Mmm, I don’t think we’ll comply. Vrith, is there a control ship?”

“No, Captain. Drones only,” th’Cheen confirmed.

“I doubt they need one,” Banerji replied, “with a home station close at hand.”

“Then we target the station.”

“We’ll need to get past the drones first,” Giered Charas reminded her.

“Oh,” zh’Vethris said. “And here I was hoping for a challenge.”

“Never take a fight lightly, Zoanra,” the captain told her. “Not even the dull ones.”

“Of course not, Captain.” Breg chuckled as the navigator’s antennae drooped in embarrassment.

Still, the young
zhen
had a point. Ware drones may have had a powerful computer intelligence directing them, but it lacked flexibility and imagination. From what the task force’s crews had discerned in prior battles, they were driven by a finite set of protocols. In this case, not only were they attempting to retrieve the live “components”
Vol’Rala
had taken (no longer aboard, but the Ware had no way of knowing that), but since the ship was a known offender, they were also trying to defend the planet’s Ware from further sabotage. That posed a
challenge in getting close enough to the controlling station to attempt a shutdown. Not only were three of the drones maintaining a blockade, defining a plane in space between
Vol’Rala
and the station no matter how the battlecruiser maneuvered, but the remaining two were free to harry
Vol’Rala
and blast at its engines and weapons. Irritatingly, the Ware’s skills at starship diagnostics and repair made it extremely good at calculating an enemy’s vulnerable spots.

Still, the bridge crew had experience with the drones’ tactics and had studied the other task force members’ encounters with similar craft. As soon as Breg saw a drone maneuver toward
Vol’Rala,
she immediately knew how to move the ship to evade its fire. Th’Cheen could just as easily anticipate how to redirect the shielding energy for point defense, and between them they left Charas free to direct return fire, leading the drones’ predictable maneuvers and landing the majority of his hits successfully. Only the drones’ swift repair capabilities kept them in the fight. But Charas had studied Banerji’s scans carefully enough to let him target his attacks to sever pieces of the drones, eroding them until there was not enough left with which to rebuild.

It all went so routinely that, despite her assurances to the captain, zh’Vethris couldn’t resist carrying on her gossipy exchange with Breg. “At least your news from home promises to be good in the long run,” she said with a sigh. “For me, I foresee no end in sight to my family’s nagging. Incoming, fifth octant.”

“Acknowledged.” Breg veered the ship to evade the fire.

“At least until my fertility window runs out,” the navigator went on, “and it’s too late to pressure me into a
shelthreth
. I wish I could get them to accept that I’m just not the maternal type.”

Breg chuckled, aware of how truthful that was. Zh’Vethris was a striking beauty and enjoyed the attention of the other three sexes—four if you counted Arkenite females, since Breg and zh’Vethris were currently in a friendly but intensifying sexual relationship. Breg knew that starship captains often discouraged romance among their crews; she counted herself fortunate that sh’Prenni was a believer in following one’s passions. Zh’Vethris seemed relaxed and soft-spoken, but underneath it, she was as fiery as any Andorian. Her adventurous spirit had led her to seduce Breg out of curiosity, and that spirit had proven infectious enough to persuade Breg to experiment for the first time with a lover who was not Arkenite—an experiment that was still producing remarkable benefits. At first, Breg had thought zh’Vethris was merely taking an alien lover as an excuse to avoid the pressure to commit to a
shelthreth
group. She couldn’t imagine that the
zhen
’s lively spirit could tolerate being anchored to a single set of partners. Yet in the moons since their involvement had begun, the two of them had only grown closer. Physical passion aside, it still felt more like a deep, relaxed friendship to Breg than a fiery romance—but then, maybe that was the kind of relationship that had real staying power.

“Damage to particle cannon five,” th’Cheen reported. “Rerouting power to compensate.” As he worked his console, he went on: “It’s not just you at stake, though, Zoanra. Fertility is not something Andorians today can afford to waste.”

The navigator rolled her wide, dark eyes. “Oh, not you too, Vrith. I get enough doomsday warnings from my
zhavey
. Seriously, it would take centuries before our population sank to an unviable level. Surely it won’t take
that
long to find the answer.”

“Even so, why take chances?”

“If every Andorian in their prime went home to procreate and parent, then who would run the Guard? We’d have to cede Starfleet almost entirely to humans and Vulcans. Can you imagine? Heads up, opening in the blockade, third octant!”

“Got it,” Breg said. “Course laid in.”

“Firing,” said Charas. “Target destroyed!”

“If you’re done gossiping,” sh’Prenni said, “take us in and prepare to deploy probes.”

Three points defined a plane, but two only made a line. With one of the blockading drones destroyed along with one of the attacking drones, and with the remaining attack drone on the wrong side of
Vol’Rala,
the battlecruiser now had a clear path to the controlling station. Charas released a spread of four probes toward the station, and though a drone managed to take out one probe with its particle beam,
Vol’Rala
’s cover fire allowed the other three to reach the station.

This time, thanks to the work done by Banerji and Philip Collier’s team on
Pioneer
, the wake-up protocol had something extra added. The engineering teams had studied the telemetry from the original reawakening event, identifying the specific commands that Travis Mayweather and the other captives had sent into their life-support systems to override their sedation and restore themselves to full wakefulness, deactivating the Ware in the process. This way, the reawakening should work even on captives who had been duped into wanting to stay under. At least, that was the hope. This was the first time it was actually being attempted.

For a few moments, Breg feared the theory was a bust, for the drones continued their harassment of
Vol’Rala
and further drones were incoming from around the curve of the planet. But finally, the drones lost attitude control and began to drift, and Banerji reported that the repetitive warnings from the
station had stopped. “Rendezvous with the station,” sh’Prenni ordered. “Ready a boarding party to assist the reawakened captives.”

“What’s the extent of the shutdown?” Charas asked. “Is it planetwide?”

After examining his readouts, Banerji shook his head. “The orbital facilities only. I’m still reading active Ware systems on the surface.”

The first officer grunted. “I knew it. Your latest trick is only a partial measure.”

“Always rushing to judgment, eh, Giered? In fact, I anticipated this. Before, we had the cooperation of the sleepers. They woke themselves up, once we gave them the initial nudge. So all that needed to be transmitted was the basic revival signal. The actual shutdown procedures were initiated locally.”

“Then this is practically useless, if we can only do it to one facility at a time!”

“I’m getting to that. Now that this station is under our control, I should be able to employ its own communication systems to push the shutdown codes through to the rest of the Ware in this system.”

“Not beyond?” sh’Prenni asked.

It was Silash ch’Gesrit who responded. “It’ll take a lot of power to force the signal through planetwide,” the chief engineer said. “The power demands to transmit it over subspace would be prohibitive, even to target just one other system, let alone the entire Partnership network.”

“All right, then we take it one system at a time—unless we can convince the Partnership to see reason.” The captain cocked her antennae forward. “For now, though—”

“Captain!” Banerji called. “We’re getting a hail from the surface.”

Zh’Vethris threw Breg a look. “Took them long enough to notice us.”

“Always refreshing to hear a living voice, though,” the captain told her. “On the screen, Hari.”

The semicircular display lit up with an image of two aliens—erect beings resembling some kind of arboreal rodents with golden fur and large, circular eyes. The one nearer the screen had a bright, multicolored fin atop its head. Behind them were the crisp, institutional white walls of a Ware facility.
“Please,”
the finned one said without preamble,
“whoever you are, stop this attack! Our people depend on the Ware!”

“I’m afraid that’s exactly the problem,” sh’Prenni said. “I’m Captain Reshthenar sh’Prenni of
Vol’Rala,
a starship of the United Federation of Planets. And you?”

“Tefcem var Skos of the Partnership world Etrafso. My overmate is Wylbet, for whom I speak.”
Presumably that was the finless individual in the background.
“Please, we ask only to be left alone. We mean your people no harm.”
Var Skos raised a mittenlike hand in supplication.

“The harm is not from you, Tefcem var Skos, but toward you and your people, inflicted by the Ware.”

“The Ware is our bounty, our protection.”

“It is a trap. You’ve become dependent on it to fight your battles, feed your people. We have seen whole civilizations destroyed by such dependence.”

“And what gives you the right to decide this for us?”

“The Ware threatens all life. If you feed it victims, you help it spread and endanger other worlds. We act in the defense of all worlds, including your own.” Sh’Prenni stepped forward to stand behind Breg’s right shoulder. “I know this will be a difficult transition for your people, and I’m sorry. But the Federation will assist you in regaining your self-sufficiency. We will assign a vessel to see to your needs and guide you through the transition.”

“And will we still have our prosperity, our health?”

Breg felt compelled to speak up. “No one can prosper if anyone is exploited. If people’s lives aren’t valued, then any material value you cherish is an illusion.”

“You do not understand our lives, alien. You will take the very essence of the Partnership from us.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that before,” Breg snapped. “Defending your own kind, your own ways, at any cost, so long as it’s others who pay the price. Your so-called Partnership lives on the backs of its weaker members. You’ve made them too dependent to stand for themselves. But that’s where we come in.”