Fenris – Ranger Headquarters
Seven stepped back from the others but was unable to look away from the words on the screen: Federation Security Agency. “It must be a mistake.”
Ellory shook her head. “There’s no way to fake something like that in a secure financial chain code. And I’ve seen the FSA’s metadata before. That’s as legit as it gets.”
The senior Rangers all wore similar expressions of concern. Zhang’s was the gravest. She pointed at details in the displayed code. “The FSA put large sums of money into several different Federation-based NGOs. And within two days of each deposit, they each funneled identical amounts through a Ferenginar shell corporation into Kohgish’s accounts.” She frowned. “I don’t know what bothers me more: the FSA funding a local warlord, or its pathetically lazy attempts at money laundering.”
Not wanting to draw attention, Seven stayed quiet. Nonetheless, she felt her face flush with the warmth of anger and embarrassment. I was a fool to trust Mardani. It cannot be a coincidence that the FSA sent me to the Rangers while also funding Kohgish’s fleet.
Yivv palmed sweat off their bald blue pate. “Why would the FSA bankroll Kohgish?”
Saszyk applied a data filter to the perplexing flood of metadata and reduced it to a more easily parsed trickle. “The first payments from the FSA to Kohgish were initiated the day after the Federation Council announced it was organizing a massive interstellar relief effort for the people of the Romulan home system.”
Deputy Chief Shren added, “The same day they quietly put out a press release to say they were recalling all NGOs and available starships from the Qiris sector, effective immediately. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“On Earth,” Harper said, “it used to be known as ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ ”
Ellory changed the filter set and repeated the data analysis. “Kohgish didn’t waste any time, either. Within hours of getting the money, he started buying huge orders of small arms, starship ordnance, and antimatter fuel reserves for all his ships.” She shot a worried look back at Harper. “No one makes that many deals that fast—not this far from the core systems. He must have had those deals lined up and waiting ahead of time.”
“Which means he was expecting the funds from the FSA,” Harper said. “Whoever made the deal with him knew what was coming well in advance of the announcement.”
A nod from Ellory. “All the more reason to think it really was the FSA. But why?”
Harper called up a local star chart on the tactical table’s main surface. He pointed at relevant details as he continued. “Because this sector in general, and Soroya IV in particular, are the perfect place to deploy a proxy force.”
Zhang asked, with a quizzical look, “To what end?”
“Preventing a rogue faction of Romulans—like the ones that have been rumbling lately on Gasko II—from invading Federation space and disrupting the relief effort.”
Seven’s anger still churned and roiled inside her, but she refused to let it be seen. Mimicking a calm person, she asked, “Would the FSA have had anything to gain from Kohgish’s violence against his own people? Or his increased practice of piracy?”
“I’d doubt it,” Harper said.
Ellory added with mounting cynicism, “But they also didn’t try to stop him when he turned a humanitarian crisis into a blood-soaked power grab.”
Saszyk shrugged. “No one’s perfect, Ranger Kayd.”
Harper restored the flow of the original, unfiltered data to the tactical screen. “We have another problem. When we heisted Kohgish’s war chest, we made a trail of our own. It won’t be long before the Ferengi tell Kohgish where to come looking for his money. And once Kohgish knows, it’s a good bet he’ll tell the FSA. At which point we’ll be in a world of pain.”
Yivv’s demeanor turned fearful. “He’s right. The Federation has spent months smearing us. Calling us vigilantes. Imagine what they’ll do if they find out we have this evidence.”
“I don’t have to imagine,” Zhang said. “They’ll burn us to the ground to keep us quiet.”
Inspiration struck, so Seven spoke. “Then don’t let Kohgish be the one to tell them.”
Her suggestion met with a tableau of confused faces.
Shren’s antennae waggled a bit as he asked, “What does that mean, Ranger Seven?”
“It means, sir, that we should release the information ourselves.”
Ellory asked, “Which part?”
“All of it. Or a partially redacted version, at least.” Seven returned to the tactical table and shouldered past Harper so she could lean on the table’s edge. “Tell the people of the galaxy what the FSA did. What Kohgish did while acting as the UFP’s proxy.”
“Not a bad idea,” Zhang said, weighing its merits behind raised eyebrows. “We can send this data, plus any corroborating evidence we can find, right to the Federation News Network.”
“And the Interstellar News Service,” Yivv added.
Saszyk piled on, “Not to mention every guerilla news outlet from here to Izar.”
Harper nodded in approval. “I like it. Put the spotlight on them, make them play defense. If we’re lucky, it might limit their freedom to act against us, at least for a news cycle or two, until we have a chance to get our act together.”
Deputy Shren looked uncomfortable. “News cycles pass quickly. And once the public’s attention moves off the FSA, its retaliation for this embarrassment will be all but assured.”
Seven faced the Andorian. “Then I suggest we use the intervening time to make sure we’re ready for them, Deputy Chief.”
Her answer drew a crooked half smile of approval from Zhang. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Harper, you, Seven, and Kayd get it done. Saszyk, you and Yivv warn our people to get ready for the blowback.” Bearing a look of fierce determination, Zhang headed for the operations center’s exit. “And, Shren? Go grow yourself a spine.”
Two hours after the intelligence trove mined from the chain codes had been sent to the media, there was nothing for Seven to do but stew in her quarters, once again relegated to disciplinary confinement.
The work itself had been simple and quick, which she had expected. What had surprised her was how swiftly the news agencies had reacted to receipt of the information. She had thought they might need several hours, perhaps even a full day, to vet the authenticity of the data, to question its provenance. Instead, all the major details had been released as parts of headline reports just over ninety minutes after Seven, Harper, and Ellory had sent them out. FNN had reacted first, but INS hadn’t been far behind, and now the various independent channels were disseminating the story across the quadrant and beyond.
Someone at the FSA was, no doubt, suddenly having a very bad day.
I wonder how Mardani will react to the news.
Her hidden FSA comm device had not yet received any incoming signals. If her so-called handler had learned of the exposure of the FSA’s link to Kohgish, he had not yet seen fit to make contact with Seven to discuss it. She had briefly considered using the device to contact him, to try to put him on the spot about whatever role he might have played in the fiasco. The longer she thought about it, however, the less she cared to hear his side of the story. Her gut told her she had been manipulated. Lied to. Used. In the light of such a revelation, what more was there to say?
Someone outside knocked lightly on her door.
Seven got up from her bunk. “Yes?”
The door slid open to reveal Ellory. The Trill woman beamed with joy. “Good news! Commander Zhang lifted your confinement.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“I would just like to know.”
“Because your plan worked. Every reporter in the quadrant is grilling the Federation government about the Kohgish scandal. We haven’t seen this many politicians trip over their own tongues since… well, ever.” She held up a metallic flask. “Come have a drink with me.”
Seven peeked past Ellory and confirmed for herself that the guards who had been posted outside her quarters earlier now were gone. “Very well.”
She followed Ellory through long hallways, into a lift, and then through more hallways until they reached an outdoor terrace overlooking the threshold of the flight-operations bay. Inside the bay, ground crews worked to repair, rearm, and refuel prowlers scheduled for the next shift of patrols, while deck officers supervised the landings of the last shift’s returning spacecraft. But all of that paled in comparison to the distant brilliance of Fenris’s capital city, a metropolis of high towers and colossal structures ranging from pyramids to hollow hemispheres.
Overhead yawned a night sky decorated with the misty sprawl of the Milky Way. Gazing up at the cosmos, it suddenly no longer mattered to Seven how much of space she had seen aboard starships. There was something magical about staring up at the stars from a planet’s surface. About feeling the pull of connection to a world beneath one’s feet, and the call of eternity from the endless darkness above.
Ellory removed the cap from her flask, took a swig, and offered it to Seven. “To little victories.”
Seven accepted the flask and took a nip. The bourbon was sweet and smoky, and the heat of alcohol in her throat, which she had once thought so peculiar, now felt welcome. She handed the flask to Ellory. “To little victories.”
Ellory tucked the flask away inside her jacket. “You say it like you’re reading a eulogy.”
“Forgive me. I am… not in a festive mood.”
“Because of Soroya IV?”
Seven nodded. Ellory leaned forward and rested her arms atop the chest-high wall that ringed the terrace. “I get it. A bad beat like that? It stays with you. But you need to go forward.”
“But you yourself said—”
“I know. And I shouldn’t have laid all that guilt on you. It wasn’t fair.” She reached out and gently clasped Seven’s right hand. “I’m sorry about that.”
Seven pulled her hand from Ellory’s, though she wasn’t sure why.
Ellory looked concerned. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. It’s just that—” Seven struggled to put words to her feelings, which were all new and unfamiliar to her. “For the longest time after Voyager’s crew freed me from the Borg Collective, I felt cut off from my human side. I… didn’t know how to feel.” Unable to bear the intimacy of eye contact, she looked up at the stars. “They tried to help me, but I wasn’t ready. And after we made it back to Earth, they all went on with their lives.” To her own shock, she felt tears fall from her eyes, and her chin trembled. “And they left me behind.”
Ellory put a consoling hand on Seven’s back. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know how lost I felt. Because I never told them.” She closed her eyes and forced herself to pull in a deep breath to slow her pulse. “But now everything’s different. Since I came here, I’ve felt myself changing. I’m drowning in emotions, but I don’t know what they are because they’re coming too fast, all at once, mixed together.”
“Try to focus on just one thing you’re feeling right now, Seven. What is it?”
Seven searched inside herself and struggled to put a name to her witches’ brew of roiling emotions. “Guilt.”
“About what?”
“Releasing the information about the FSA and Kohgish. I would never have suggested such a thing when I was part of Voyager’s crew.”
“So why did you do it now?”
She dug deeper into the ugly muck of her inner self. “Because I felt angry. Betrayed. Lied to. But that doesn’t make what I did right. What if we were misled? What if the evidence was fake? Or not as conclusive as we thought?”
“Then people with more time and resources than we have will uncover the truth.”
“But by then the damage will be done. What if this was all just some ploy to manipulate us? A ruse to trick us into slandering the Federation, just to promote someone else’s agenda?”
“If that turns out to be the case, we’ll deal with it in turn. By the book.”
Seven almost laughed. “ ‘By the book.’ That’s a popular phrase in Starfleet.”
“I know. My dad served.”
“Then he was luckier than I am.” Realizing that Ellory needed context, Seven continued, “After Voyager returned home, I applied to join Starfleet. They wouldn’t even consider my application.”
“Because you’re ex-Borg?”
“That was part of it. What really seemed to bother them was that I wouldn’t use my Federation name on my application. If I had been willing to lie… to say my name was Annika Hansen… they might have let me in. But now I’ll never know.”
Ellory sidled closer to Seven so she could stretch one arm across Seven’s shoulders and give her a gentle but steady hug. “Why did you want to join Starfleet?”
In hindsight, the answer seemed so clear: “To feel accepted.”
“You have that here, with us.”
“I know. And I’m starting to think I’d make a better Ranger than a Starfleet officer.”
“I think you’d be amazing at anything you did.”
Seven looked at Ellory. “Thank you.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Ellory withdrew her arm from Seven’s shoulders. “Anytime.” An awkward silence bloomed between them until Ellory said, “I would’ve loved to have met you when we were younger.”
That drew a cynical chortle from Seven. “No. You wouldn’t have.”
It took Ellory a second to catch up. “Oh, right. The Borg thing. How old were you when you were taken?”
“I was assimilated by the Collective when I was six years old.”
There was horror and pity in Ellory’s voice. “So young.”
“I used to think it was a mercy that I didn’t really understand what had happened to me. But I was wrong. I was a prisoner… a slave of the Collective for eighteen years. It wasn’t until long after I was liberated that I fully comprehended all that the Borg stole from me. My childhood. My adolescence. All the years when I should’ve been learning who I was and what I wanted.
“Then we were back on Earth. And the more Admiral Janeway tried to help me, the more they punished her. I was sure that if I didn’t leave, they would have destroyed her. I told myself I couldn’t let that happen. That I needed to go away. Far away.
“But I was wrong about that, too. All I did by leaving was punish myself for no reason…. I was so lonely, but I didn’t know how to connect with people. I couldn’t figure out how to make new friends. How to feel… like I belonged. So I let others use me. Exploit me, as cheap labor. As a one-night stand. As a pawn in a sick game. And the whole time I told myself it was all I deserved. I couldn’t see that what I was really doing was hurting myself.
“When I was on Voyager my friends tried to help me reclaim my humanity. Tried to teach me about love. But they couldn’t give me back all those lost years. Couldn’t tell me who I was. Now I see there were things no one could teach me—things I had to learn for myself.”
“Things like…?”
“Like how beautiful you are.”
Ellory looked into Seven’s eyes as her lips parted with a soft gasp of surprise. She seemed about to say something important—and that was when Seven kissed her.
At the moment of contact, Seven knew it felt right. They pulled together into a mutual embrace as if they had been propelled by inexorable forces of nature, souls drawn into each other’s orbit by emotional gravity, spinning closer and closer until there could be no escape—
And then self-consciousness intruded upon Seven’s thoughts. She pulled away, fearful that she had crossed a line. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I let my desires control me.”
Ellory smiled. “It’s not as if I was saying ‘no.’ ”
“But there’s so much happening right now. So much at stake. Is this the right time?”
The Trill woman brushed a stray lock of flaxen hair from Seven’s eyes, caressed the side of her face, and traced the edges of her ocular implant. “There’s no wrong time for love. If life only ever offers it to you once, you’d damned well better take it.”
Seven looked at Ellory and let herself not just see but truly feel how lovely she was, both in the flesh and in her soul. And then she kissed her again—deeply, slowly, tenderly at first, and then with a passion that surged to life inside her like a bonfire.
She had no idea how long their second kiss lasted, but when she and Ellory finally pulled apart long enough to gasp for breath, they both laughed with giddy excitement.
Ellory pressed her forehead to Seven’s. “Take me to bed.”
A name hewn in stone. It was so cold. So permanent. Looking at it, Harper felt for the first time the full weight of Leniker Zehga’s untimely violent death. There was Len’s full name, in both Federation Standard and his native Zakdorn, beneath a laser-cut image of his badge. And, beside and above it, more than a hundred others, in offset rows of ten, each one a tribute to a Fenris Ranger killed in the line of duty. A cenotaph for those who had given everything they’d had, and all that they were ever going to have. A roster of honored dead.
One of these days…
He heard laughter and bright voices from the end of the long, high-ceilinged corridor. A group of young Rangers emerged from the mess hall at the end of breakfast, their spirits bright. Among them were Seven and Ellory, who both had joined the chow line radiant with the afterglow of their first full shared night together—a love connection that half the Wolf’s Den was gossiping about. With them were Sagasta, Rana, Speirs, and Ballard. They were too far away for Harper to hear what they were saying, but the group’s body language suggested they were all giving the new lovebirds a gentle hazing.
Despite the distance, Seven noticed Harper’s stare. She broke from the group and headed his way, while the others left in the opposite direction, toward the flight deck. Harper turned his eyes back to the wall of names, partly to hide his guilt at having unintentionally pulled Seven away from what had seemed like a very pleasant morning with new friends.
She reached him sooner than he’d expected, thanks to her long stride and fast pace. “Harper? Are you okay?”
“Not as good as you. But, yeah, I’m all right, kid.”
Seven nodded toward Len’s name. “Your former partner?”
“Yeah. A few more days and they’ll have Jalen’s name up here, too.”
“I see. All the Rangers whose names are on this wall—they died in action?”
“We say ‘on the job,’ or ‘in the line of duty.’ ”
“Sorry.”
“S’all right, kid. Just make sure your name never ends up on here.”
“I could say the same to you.”
Harper felt the weight of his years bearing down upon him. “No promises.”
Seven traced the outline of Len’s badge with her fingertips. “What was he like?”
“Whip-smart. Crazy brave. A crusader, sort of like you. He hated seeing bullies win. But his book learning only got him so far. He was a shitty poker player. And he had a lot to learn about street smarts. He would’ve figured it out. If he’d had time.”
Memories of the carnage on Skånevik Prime flashed through Harper’s mind. Blinding pulses of detonation. The acrid bite of expended explosives; the stench of burnt flesh. Disruptor pulses flying past his head as he held Len’s bloodied hand.
He was about to lose himself down a rabbit hole of bitter flashbacks when Seven said, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was. He was my rookie. I was supposed to keep him safe.”
“There is no such thing. Not in this job. Not in this life.”
“You don’t understand. I recruited him. Promised his family I’d take care of him. And I failed. I failed them all.”
“A Starfleet officer once told me that on Earth there was a saying among firefighters: the greatest act of bravery that firefighters ever perform is when they swear their oaths of service. Everything they do after that is just their duty. In many ways, the same is true of anyone who swears an oath to wear a uniform and serve others. I think Len must have known it. But he believed in the Rangers because he believed in you.”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you never even met Len.”
“I don’t have to. Because I know you.”
He had a free hand but didn’t bother palming away the tears brimming in his eyes before he looked at Seven. “Y’know, kid… before you came along, I probably wouldn’t have heard those words from anyone else. I wouldn’t have believed ’em. And you know what else? Just between us girls? Before I met you, I was starting to lose faith in the Rangers. In our mission. I’d been asking myself for months what we were doin’ out here. I was startin’ to wonder if it was all worth it. ’Cause no matter how hard we fought, or how many skells we put away, it always felt like we were fightin’ a losin’ battle.
“But then you came along. And I’ll be damned if you don’t just love shakin’ shit up. You live to break rules, make messes, and drive the brass right up the wall. And I love it. You’re a maverick, kid. And I mean that in the best possible way. With you by my side? I’m startin’ to think maybe this whole shebang ain’t hopeless. Maybe—just maybe—real justice might be possible out here, for the people who need it most.”
His words lingered between them for a few long seconds.
Then Seven reached over and held his hand.
They traded bittersweet smiles and went back to reading the names of heroes.