The Argelian freighter Jorvan heaved to starboard after dropping out of warp. In the ship’s cramped command hub, the captain sat at one of the four control stations surrounding the central console. On the small monitor set into his panel, he watched the star field as it whirled about, until it fixed on the white, G2-class star of Laskitor.
“Set course for the third planet,” said the captain. Despite the heavy thrum of the impulse engines, he did not raise his voice, nor did he need to do so; his tone left no doubt that he expected the few members of his crew to follow his orders at once. Though relatively new to Jorvan, the captain had commanded several vessels throughout his career, which had lasted a considerable length of time. He’d long ago grown comfortable in a leadership role.
Although perhaps not quite as comfortable as I used to be, he thought.
“Laying in a course for Laskitor Three,” said the flight controller from her position to the captain’s right, her panel perpendicular to his. She tapped at her controls, and a digital overlay representing their flight path appeared on the captain’s monitor.
“Ahead one-half impulse,” he said, choosing the slower speed consistent with the practice of conserving fuel in older, less-efficient freighters such as Jorvan.
“One-half impulse, aye,” said the half-human, half-Vulcan flight controller. “Estimated time to orbital insertion, one hour, forty-seven minutes.” With Jorvan lacking both the sophistication of a starship’s warp navigation and the extreme precision of its sensors, the crew had brought the freighter into the system above the plane of the ecliptic. As a result, they would have to make the final leg of their journey to the planet at sublight velocity. Again, their procedures did not deviate from those expected of an older freighter.
“Anything on sensors?” the captain asked.
“Negative,” replied the tactical officer, who crewed the station to the captain’s left, opposite the flight controller. “But our range is limited,” she added.
“Of course,” the captain said. “It just makes it difficult to sit here and wait for the possibility of an attack.” He pushed his seat back from his station and stood up, the heels of his boots tolling against the metal decking. He straightened the dark-brown flight jacket he wore over his heavy work pants and pale-blue cotton shirt. He really had nowhere to go in the confined space of the command hub, other than to circle the four conjoined control panels at its core. He resisted his inclination to do so, figuring that it might set the flight controller and tactical officer on edge.
On the other side of the central console from the captain, the final control panel sat empty. The fourth member of Jorvan’s crew maintained watch on the freighter’s power and drive systems from the engineering compartment, located in the lower, aft section of the ship’s boxy structure. Between the command hub and engineering, four enormous cargo bays composed the bulk of the freighter.
Filled to capacity, the hold carried food, medicine, and equipment bound for the inhabitants of Laskitor III. Displaced from Entelior IV, which had been devastated by the Borg, the quarter of a million surviving colonists had spent months being relocated to the Laskitor system. Two years after the invasion had forced them to find a new home, the colonists still struggled to establish a stable infrastructure that would sustain them independently. Freighters made irregular but much-needed runs to the planet, ferrying all manner of supplies from the Federation.
Had the narrative of the people late of Entelior IV been unique, it would have been a sad but potentially uplifting story, but because some variation of it had occurred on world after world, it formed just one small part of an overarching tragedy. Only recently had the Federation’s efforts to transport provisions begun to fulfill the needs of the relocated and recovering populations. In the Bajoran sector, relief efforts—
“Captain,” said the tactical officer, a note of expectation in her voice, “sensors are picking up a vessel approaching on an intercept course, bearing—” She hesitated while she worked over her controls. “Strike that, sir. I read two vessels, bearing three-five-three mark six-one.”
“Can you identify them?” the captain asked, though only one answer made sense.
“Trying to,” said the tactical officer. “These old sensors don’t have the refinement that … got it. Two vessels, each with a limited profile, shields and weapons energized … and a helical structure.”
“‘Helical,’” the captain repeated. “Tzenkethi harriers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Standard shields,” said the captain. He placed his hands on the back of his chair but did not sit down. “Bring us about. Lay in our escape course and engage.”
As the two officers acknowledged his orders, the captain thought about what lay ahead. Off and on for months, the Tzenkethi Coalition had sent agile, heavily gunned assault ships out beyond their borders, in the direction of Federation space. Distinctively shaped, the aptly classed harriers attacked freighters carrying supplies to colonies newly resettled in the Laskitor, Corat, and Ergol systems. The Tzenkethi refrained from striking the colonists directly, perhaps because the settlements possessed virtually no planetary defenses and no weapon systems—or perhaps because the Coalition wished to stop short of committing an irrevocable act of war. In intercepting freighters, the Tzenkethi claimed encroachment on their sovereign territory. The harriers typically turned the Federation vessels away, occasionally disabling them or destroying their cargo. Two freighters had gone missing during the previous six months, but no solid evidence existed to implicate the Tzenkethi in the disappearances. The Federation had warned the Coalition against interfering in humanitarian efforts, and President Bacco had used particularly strong language in lamenting the two lost vessels, but the Tzenkethi had responded with their usual mix of belligerence and anti-UFP rhetoric.
“They’re approaching at high speed,” said the tactical officer. “Less than five minutes to intercept.”
“How long before we can safely go to warp?” the captain asked.
“Two minutes, ten seconds.”
The captain reached forward and touched a control surface on his console. A boatswain’s whistle sounded two high-pitched tones, indicating the activation of the freighter’s internal communications system. “Bridge to engineering.”
“Go ahead, Captain,” came the immediate response.
“We’ll be going back to warp within five minutes,” said the captain. “Are we ready?”
“On your order,” said the engineer.
“Very good. Bridge out.” He looked once more to the tactical officer. “Open an audio channel, standard Tzenkethi frequencies.”
“Aye, sir,” said the tactical officer, working her panel once again. “Channel open.”
“Tzenkethi vessels,” the captain intoned, “this is the Federation freighter Jorvan. We are on a humanitarian mission to Laskitor Three. We respectfully request that you stand down and allow us safe passage.” The captain waited, but he heard only silence.
“Nothing, sir,” the tactical officer said quietly. “But they are receiving us.”
“Tzenkethi vessels,” the captain said again. “This is the freighter Jorvan from the Federation. We ask that you allow us to proceed on our mission of mercy to the inhabitants of Laskitor Three. We are delivering food and medicine, as well as agricultural and other equipment. We would consent to being scanned so that you can assure yourselves that we are introducing no weapons of any kind into the system.”
After a few seconds, the tactical officer said, “Still nothing. They remain headed directly for us.”
Of the flight controller, the captain asked, “You know their top speeds?”
“Yes, sir,” the flight controller replied. “I’ve programmed our course accordingly, with a slightly slower maximum velocity. If the harriers should gain too quickly on us or fall back too far, I can adjust our speed so that it reads like phase variances in the warp coils.”
“Well done,” the captain said. “Time to warp?”
“To stay out of their weapons range,” said the flight controller, “we’ll need to begin our run thirty-nine seconds before they arrive.”
“Make it so.”
The captain waited, tense but anticipatory. At one minute prior to when they would need to flee the harriers, the flight controller announced the time, and then again at ten-second intervals. At ten, she counted down by ones. The captain listened to the sound of the ship as the warp drive engaged, the heavy vibrations of its operation well in excess of those produced by the impulse engines. The old freighter seemed to shudder beneath his feet.
“The Tzenkethi are in pursuit,” said the tactical officer.
The captain felt his hands tighten on the back of his chair, and he forced himself to relax. None of it’s as easy as it once was, he thought. Age had something to do with that, of course, but more than that—or at least in concert with it—everything had changed. No longer defining himself as the brash cadet, nor even simply as the vastly experienced captain, he had settled into different roles in his life: husband, father. He had long imagined such a change in his personal circumstances, but he had not foreseen the depth and profundity of the changes that had occurred within him. His personal life colored his professional life in a way he had never thought possible.
“The harriers are gaining on us,” reported the tactical officer.
“As expected,” said the flight controller. “There’s no need as yet to alter our velocity.”
Minutes passed, and the captain kept counsel with his own thoughts. He trusted his crew to perform their duties without issue, though he sometimes wondered if he still trusted himself. Not only had both his personal and professional lives changed, so too had the whole of life within the Federation. Even as entire world populations fought to recover from the Borg invasion, so too did Starfleet, its primary focus of voyage and discovery almost entirely placed on hold. Recently, rumors had begun to surface about a renewed commitment to exploration, but it remained to be seen whether—
“Captain, the Tzenkethi are closing to within weapons range,” said the tactical officer.
“On-screen.”
The tactical officer manipulated her controls, and the image on the captain’s monitor shifted, revealing the two harriers in flight. Unlike the great, teardrop-shaped battle cruisers of the Tzenkethi Coalition, the hulls of the smaller assault vessels wore not a silver, lusterless coating, but a rainbowlike sheen. Narrowing toward their aft sections, the harriers resembled an artist’s modern interpretation of the spiral end of a conch shell.
“We’re nearing the debris disk of the Beta Eneras system,” said the flight controller before the captain even asked.
“Their weapons are on a buildup to discharge,” said the tactical officer. She looked up at the captain. “They’re not looking to disable us.”
“Shields?” the captain asked.
“They can withstand an initial volley,” said the tactical officer, “but probably nothing more.”
“Understood,” said the captain. “After the first hit, raise the upgraded shields.”
“Aye, sir.”
He returned his attention to the monitor. On it, he saw bright specks of light growing in brilliance at the aft tips of the Tzenkethi ships. As he watched, the illuminated points began to spin quickly around the curving hulls of the harriers, racing forward until they reached the bows of the ships and fired spiral torrents of energy out into space.
A roar tore through Jorvan’s command hub, as though a substantial asteroid had crashed into the freighter. The captain flew from his feet and landed hard on the deck, pain slicing through his hip, his wrist twisting unnaturally as he tried to cushion his fall. Within his own body, over the cacophony surrounding him, he heard the sickening sound of a bone breaking. The lighting panels went dark, throwing the space into an eerie glimmer generated solely by the glow of the instrument panels in the center console.
“Shields down,” called out the tactical officer, somehow still at her station. “Raising upgraded shields.”
The captain glanced toward the conn and saw the flight controller climbing back to her feet. “We’ve fallen out of warp,” she yelled, even as the din around them settled into a relative calm. The meaty pulse of the warp drive had vanished, and the drone of the impulse engines failed to replace it. “We’re drifting.”
The freighter shook again as another salvo pounded into Jorvan, but without even hearing a report from his tactical officer, the captain could tell that the upgraded shields had protected the ship far better than its regular defensive system. Still, he felt no desire to learn how long the new shields could endure. He reached up and took hold of his chair with one hand, holding his other arm close against his body as he sought to protect his injured wrist. As he pulled himself back up, he said, “Where the hell’s the cavalry?”
“They’re here,” said the tactical officer.
On his monitor, the captain saw the Tzenkethi ships altering their courses, but too late. The impressive figure of a Federation starship swooped into view. The great ellipse of the primary hull, the squat form of the engineering section, and the angular, streamlined warp nacelles distinguished the Starfleet vessel as one of the Sovereign class. The captain knew that, concealed among the larger bodies of Beta Eneras’s debris disk, the ship and its crew had lain in wait for the opportunity to halt a Tzenkethi attack in progress.
The captain watched as bands of gold energy sliced through space, landing on their marks. It did not take long for the larger, more powerful vessel to compromise the shields and weapons systems on both harriers. Then blue-white curtains bathed the assault ships, the tractor beams tethering them to their captor.
Concerned about his crew, he peered at his officers. “Are you all right?”
From the tactical station, Lieutenant Choudhury nodded. At the conn, Lieutenant Chen said, “Just a few bumps.”
The captain stabbed at a control surface to open an internal comlink. “Bridge to engineering,” he said. “Mister Taurik, what’s your status? Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” said the engineer. “I was thrown from my feet during the attack, but I have suffered no injuries.”
“Very good,” the captain said. “Report to the bridge.”
As the engineer acknowledged the order, the tactical officer said, “Captain, we’re being hailed.”
“And it’s about time,” the captain said with a half-smile. “On-screen.”
The image of the two harriers hanging in tow winked off, replaced by that of a starship bridge. At its center stood a tall Klingon, clad in the black-and-gray uniform of Starfleet, his red turtleneck indicating his place in the command division. “Captain Picard,” he said, “are you all right?”
“Yes, we are, Mister Worf,” said Picard. “Have you taken the Tzenkethi crews into custody?”
“We have, sir,” Worf said. “After disabling their shields, we transported them directly to the brig. Medical teams are currently examining them for injuries.”
“Well done,” Picard said. Knowing that the danger to his crew had passed, he felt a sudden playful urge—a side of himself that fatherhood seemed to trigger. “But what took you so long?”
“So long?” Worf said, visibly confused. But then the captain saw a twinkle in his eye, and his first officer said, “I was curious to witness the firepower of the latest generation of Tzenkethi harriers.”
“Indeed,” Picard said, appreciating how far Worf’s sense of humor had advanced over the years. “I trust it was illuminating.”
“Yes, sir,” Worf said. “And I trust it was of no inconvenience to you.”
“Nothing more than a broken wrist,” Picard said, motioning to the arm he still held steady against his body.
Worf’s mouth dropped open, a stark look of concern freezing the rest of his features. “Captain, I can assure you, we proceeded according to the plan and with the utmost haste.”
“Of course you did,” Picard said, forcing a toothless smile onto his face as his wrist began to throb. “This occurred during the first attack. There’s nothing you could have done about it.” He paused, then added, “And it’s nothing Doctor Crusher won’t be able to mend.”
The mention of Picard’s wife appeared to distress the first officer further. He’s right to feel apprehensive, Picard thought. But it’s not Worf who Beverly’s going to take to task about this.
The turbolift door slid open, and Lieutenant Commander Taurik stepped into the command hub. Refocusing his attention on what needed to happen next, Picard said, “Prepare to release the Tzenkethi ships from the tractor beam and to transport the Jorvan’s cargo into the Enterprise’s holds. We still have supplies to deliver to Laskitor Three. Then we’ll return here to make whatever minimal repairs are needed on the Jorvan so that it can travel back to the nearest starbase under its own power.”
“Aye, sir,” Worf said.
Picard looked to his officers, and then back at the image of his exec on the monitor. “Four to beam aboard,” said the captain.
When Sisko walked into the cargo bay, a sudden sense of déjà vu bloomed in his mind, claiming his attention like an almost-remembered song lyric or a not-quite-recognized scent. He stopped abruptly at the sight of the hold loaded with shipping containers of various shapes, sizes, and colors, with Brathaw and Pardshay apparently confirming the delivery against a manifest. As Kasidy emerged from Xhosa through the circular hatchway of the airlock, the eerie feeling of reliving an already experienced moment seemed complete.
Is this the same cargo bay where we first met? Sisko asked himself. He couldn’t recall the designation of the hold he’d visited after Jake had pushed him to make Kasidy’s acquaintance. With Deep Space 9’s many bays, though, it seemed unlikely to him that—
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Rebecca asked, breaking Sisko’s spell.
“What?” He turned and squatted down to face his daughter, her small hand still clasped in his larger one. “Nothing’s wrong, honey. I was just looking for Mommy.” He allowed himself the fib, wanting to avoid describing a happy, significant time in his relationship with Kasidy, concerned that Rebecca might ask questions. While he and Kasidy had admitted to their daughter that they would continue to spend their marriage largely apart from each other, they had chosen not to tell her precisely why, instead cleaving to the justification that Starfleet needed its experienced officers to help protect the Federation. They did not wish to lie to Rebecca, but neither did they want to frighten her with the actual reasons Sisko had left Bajor. And so, for the present, they settled on a lie of omission. Because of that, they also elected to delay their divorce—Sisko withdrew from the Adarak court his petition for the legal dissolution of their marriage—fearing that word of their official separation would become public and that their daughter would eventually hear about it in school.
“Mommy’s right there,” Rebecca said with her visible six-and-a-half-year-old sense of exasperation. She dropped her hold on the antigrav sled she towed along behind her, and on which she had insisted that Sisko place her carryall. He had picked it up in his quarters aboard Robinson, where he and Rebecca had been staying, but she’d wanted to manage the bag herself. In the hold, she pointed toward Kasidy, who saw them and started in their direction.
Sisko stood back up and turned to greet Kasidy with a hug. She wore a two-toned, formfitting brown coverall, with a blue shirt beneath. The outfit accentuated her attractive curves. “Hello, Kasidy.”
“Hello, Ben.”
Since he had first returned to Bajor seven months ago to visit Rebecca, he and Kasidy had achieved a rapprochement of sorts. While she remained hurt and angry about his leaving and continuing to stay away, she also understood his reasons for doing so—although she believed him completely wrong. For his part, Sisko recognized and concurred with her reasonable demand that he play an active role in his daughter’s life. He also suspected that she thought that seeing her regularly would tug at his heartstrings and perhaps eventually drive him back home for good.
About Sisko’s longing for her, Kasidy could not have been more right. But he also could not dismiss the Prophets’ admonition to him, or overlook all of the terrible events that had occurred before he’d left Bajor and that underscored the verity of the warning he’d received. Despite Kasidy’s pain and his own, as well as the impact on Rebecca, Sisko could not allow himself to falter in his resolve to safeguard his family. He continually reminded himself that what he did, he did for them.
To Rebecca, Kasidy said, “And how’s my big girl?”
“Hi, Mommy.” She took her hand from Sisko’s and held her arms up to her mother. Kasidy bent and picked her up, offering a grunt as she did so. “Oh, my. You’re getting too big for this.”
Though still below the average size for her age—she weighed just twenty kilos and reached only a hundred fifteen centimeters—Rebecca continued to develop at a healthy pace. Since he’d begun visiting his daughter, Sisko could see her growth. He thought that was probably due to the fact that he only got to see her every couple of months, though they did send each other subspace messages every few days.
“So how did you like Deep Space Nine?” Kasidy asked. Ever since Sisko had given Rebecca the models of Robinson and Xhosa, she had become fascinated with space travel. She had pleaded with Kasidy to take her aboard her freighter, and after making that first journey, Rebecca asked to visit both Robinson and Deep Space 9, the latter of which she had learned about in school. When Sisko’s orders brought his starship to the station, there seemed no better opportunity. While Kasidy made a shipping run aboard Xhosa, Sisko spent a week on Bajor with Rebecca, and then three days on Robinson and DS9. Having completed her job with a final stop at the station to offload shipments in transit, Kasidy would take Rebecca home from there.
“It was great, Mommy,” Rebecca said. “Daddy showed me ops and the giant docking arms and the airlocks and I went in a holding cell—”
“Wait,” Kasidy said, cutting off Rebecca’s excited narrative stream. “You went where?” She peered past their daughter at Sisko.
“We were on the Promenade, and Miss Rebecca wanted to go through each and every door,” Sisko explained. “The new security chief, Blackmer, was gracious enough to give us a tour of his office. Since there was nobody in any of the holding cells, he very generously offered to lock our daughter up.”
“‘Generously,’ huh?” Kasidy said, with an inflection that indicated she didn’t know whether or not she approved. “And how was that?” she asked their daughter.
Rebecca appeared to think for a moment, and then said, “I liked it and I didn’t like it.” She hesitated, then added, “It was neat to see the force fields, but it was like when I was taken and couldn’t go anywhere.”
Sisko felt his blood run cold. He saw a look of dread pass over Kasidy’s face, which she quickly hid away. Rebecca’s abduction had taken place three years earlier. After the ordeal, she met regularly with a counselor for a couple of months, but mercifully, at not even four years of age, she seemed to suffer no ill effects from the experience. She’d said nothing about remembering any of it during her time in the security office, and as far as Sisko knew, she had not spoken about her kidnapping outside of her counseling sessions, nor even made reference to it, since it had taken place.
“Did that make you feel bad, honey?” Kasidy asked.
Rebecca shrugged, a movement that seemed to involve most of her small body. Then her eyes grew wide as she appeared to recall something. “Oh, and I got to go to Earth in a sweet hollow.”
Kasidy’s brow wrinkled in confusion, but Sisko laughed loudly, his emotions swinging quickly to the other end of the spectrum as his daughter delighted him. “We were talking about where you and I came from,” he told Kasidy, “so I decided to show Rebecca. Quark has some Earth programs, so we visited a—” He reached forward and playfully squeezed his daughter about the middle. “—holosuite.”
“Oh,” Kasidy said with a smile, clearly amused by their daughter’s malapropism.
“Mister Quark wears clothes that looked like I colored them in my coloring books,” observed Rebecca.
“He certainly does,” Kasidy said. “And what did you think of Earth?”
Rebecca shrugged again. “It was good,” she said. “Kinda like Bajor, but different. I liked it, except the baseball was boring.”
“Daddy took you to a baseball game, did he?” Kasidy said. She looked at Sisko. “Ebbets Field?”
“Dodger Stadium, actually,” Sisko said. “I was going to show Rebecca one of your brother’s games too, but … well, she’s young. We’ve still got plenty of time to teach her the game.”
“Ugh!” Rebecca said, and she buried her face in Kasidy’s shoulder.
Kasidy snickered at their daughter’s reaction. Then she asked Sisko, “So when do you leave?”
“Tomorrow at oh-seven-hundred,” he said. “The crew is finalizing preparations right now.” After an absence of more than six years, Starfleet would finally resume its exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Since Elias Vaughn and the Defiant crew had completed a three-month journey of discovery on the other side of the wormhole, numerous events had conspired to prevent a return there: the emergence of the Eav’oq from subspace on Idran and the relocation of that world’s planetary system to the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the Bajoran wormhole; the arrival of the Ascendants, led by the crazed Iliana Ghemor; the Even Odds disaster; the calamity on Endalla; and ultimately, Starfleet’s decimation by the Borg. But with the Cardassian Union and the Ferengi Alliance joining the Federation and the Klingon Empire in the Khitomer Accords, the influx of starships and crews to protect the four powers, coupled with Starfleet’s rebuilding efforts and Cardassia’s recovery from the Dominion War, freed up resources for an increase in the number of exploratory missions. When Starfleet Command had proposed six months of exploration in the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko had utilized his experience in the region to lobby for and win Robinson’s assignment to the mission.
“Are you still excited about it?” Kasidy asked.
“I am,” Sisko said. When the prospect for the mission had first arisen, he’d spoken with Kasidy about it before putting in his request. Since he had begun visiting Rebecca every two months, something he would be unable to do for half a year if he took Robinson to the Gamma Quadrant, he wanted to consult with her before pursuing the mission. Since they could easily and honestly explain Sisko’s longer absence to Rebecca, and since he would still exchange messages with his daughter every few days—even though it would take longer for each message to reach the communications relay that carried messages through the wormhole—they had agreed that he should go. “After my time on Deep Space Nine, and after everything that’s happened since, I’m anxious to do something actively constructive,” he said, “rather than just trying to help avert destruction.”
She peered at him with an expression of sadness. In it, he could see her love for him, and her sorrow over their separation, but more than anything, he thought he saw pity in her eyes. The look touched him and scared him at the same time, though he could not say exactly why.
“I really hope you find what you need out there, Ben,” said Kasidy.
“Thank you,” Sisko said, because he could think of nothing else to say—at least nothing safe. “Are you going right back to Bajor?”
“Yes,” she said. “I want to get home again early enough so that Rebecca can get a good night’s sleep before going back to her regular school.” While she had been with Sisko aboard Robinson and Deep Space 9, Rebecca had attended the station’s school.
“Have a safe trip back,” Sisko said. “And you—” He nuzzled his face against the curve of Rebecca’s neck. “—be sure to mind your mother and do well in school.”
Rebecca looked from Kasidy to Sisko and back again. “I want to stay on Deep Space Nine.” She elided the name of the station and ran the words together: DeeSpayNine.
“Don’t you want to go home, honey?” Kasidy asked gently.
“No.”
“But you’ll be going on Mommy’s ship again,” Sisko reminded her.
“Oh,” Rebecca said, gazing over at the airlock hatchway. “Right.” Kasidy set her down on the deck, and Rebecca grabbed her antigrav sled and raced toward Xhosa.
Kasidy looked to Sisko and rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure where she gets all her energy.”
“She’s definitely got a miniature warp core somewhere inside that little body,” Sisko said. “She wore me out. I’m looking forward to the Gamma Quadrant mission just so I can get some rest.”
Kasidy smiled at the jest, but then her mien grew serious. She reached up and placed her hand on Sisko’s upper arm. “Be careful out there,” she said. “Rebecca needs her father.”
“And I need her,” Sisko said. “I’ll be careful.”
Kasidy dropped her hand, and the two hugged once more. Then she caught up with their daughter, who stood waiting in the hatchway. Sisko waved. “Bye, Rebecca. I love you.”
“I love you too, Daddy,” she said, waving back. When Kasidy reached her, she took Rebecca’s hand and led her into Xhosa.
Sisko stood there motionless, peering after his wife and child. After a moment, movement caught his eye, and he turned to see Xhosa crew members Brathaw and Pardshay looking at him from where they worked over the cargo they’d just offloaded from the ship. Suddenly self-conscious, Sisko nodded curtly, then quickly headed out of the bay.
Sisko waited until later that night to leave the confines of Robinson again. Three days earlier, after he’d returned with Rebecca from visiting her on Bajor, he’d spent much of their ensuing time together showing her around the ship. His daughter also wanted to see Deep Space 9, though, and he needed to take her to school there as well, so he hadn’t been able to stay away from the station completely.
But he’d wanted to stay away—and still did.
As a lift whisked him down from where Robinson had moored to the top of one of DS9’s docking pylons, he examined his reticence to walk the familiar corridors of the station. He had spent seven years there—seven years that, while filled with challenges and even tragedies, had proven the most satisfying time of his life. His son grew into a man during that period. He met and married Kasidy, became a captain, successfully defended the Federation against the Dominion, and positioned Bajor for its eventual admission into the Federation. He initially resisted becoming a religious icon for the Bajorans, but came to accept and even embrace his position as Emissary.
Sisko did not fear or dread being on Deep Space 9 again. Since leaving the station after the end of the Dominion War, he’d been back a number of times. Nor did he shrink from the possibility of running into old friends and colleagues; indeed, so many of the people he knew best—Kira Nerys, Worf, Miles O’Brien, Odo, Ezri Dax—had long ago departed DS9. Of those who remained, Sisko might not necessarily enjoy catching up with them because he would not wish to discuss his personal life, but the last couple of years had made him adept at deflecting uncomfortable questions directed his way. When Robinson had first arrived at the station, he’d reported in person to Captain Ro without experiencing a moment of discomfort.
What is it then? he asked himself as the lift carried him through a crossover bridge toward the central core. He could not deny that during Rebecca’s stay with him, he had resisted showing her the station, and when he had shown her, he’d done so in a way that mostly allowed him to see as few of its residents as possible. In reserving a holosuite to show Earth to his daughter—Robinson’s holodecks had been powered down during preparations for the ship’s upcoming mission—he even communicated with Quark via the comm, rather than in person.
The lift changed direction, and so too did Sisko. Maybe I am afraid of something, he told himself. If so, that still left him with his unanswered question: what was it that troubled him about returning to the station?
When the lift slowed to a stop, Sisko stepped out onto the Promenade. Most of DS9’s social, entertainment, and services hub lay in the dim lighting and the resultant quietude of the station’s simulated night. Farther down from where he stood, though, bright lights shined from the entrance of Quark’s and bathed the deck in multiple colors. Sisko also heard the general hum of a crowd, interrupted by the raucousness of a few revelers, doubtless from around the dabo table.
It’s nice to know there are some constants in the universe, Sisko thought. He smiled, despite his downbeat mood. The urge to head over to Quark’s rose in his mind. He could have a glass of grosz and listen to Morn spin one of his endless tales—during his tour of the station with Rebecca, the only person Sisko had run into whom he knew, other than Ro Laren, had been the loquacious Lurian. Afterward, Sisko could even take in an old baseball game in one of the holosuites, perhaps revel in the daring play of the great Jackie Robinson.
First things first, Sisko thought. You came here for a reason.
He made his way to the infirmary. Also shrouded in the shadows of the station’s virtual night, the outer compartment contained only two medical staffers, one Sisko didn’t recognize, and one he did. Both looked up as he stopped just inside the main doorway. Standing at a lighted cache of equipment, a tricorder in hand, a med tech said nothing, obviously waiting for the officer on duty to address their visitor. Seated at a workstation, a woman with long, reddish blond hair and blue-green eyes looked surprised when she saw the captain. Krissten Richter had been assigned to Deep Space 9 perhaps a decade earlier, during Sisko’s own tenure on the station. Pushing away from her console and rising to her feet, she said, “Captain.”
Sisko moved farther into the room. “Lieutenant Richter,” he said, reading the rank insignia on her uniform. She had been promoted a grade since he had last seen her. “How have you been?” he asked.
“I’m well, sir, thank you,” Richter said.
“And how is Ensign Etana?” he asked, recalling the identity of Richter’s romantic partner.
The question elicited a wide smile from Richter. “Very well, sir,” she said. She reached up to her right ear and pointed to the piece of jewelry she wore there. Bajoran in origin, the earring attached to her lobe, and two connected chains draped from there up to the top of her ear. Indicating the second loop by taking it between her thumb and forefinger, she said, “We got married.”
“That’s wonderful,” Sisko said, offering up a genuine smile of his own. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir. We’re very happy,” Richter said, stating the obvious. “How is Captain Yates? And your daughter?”
“Both doing well,” Sisko said. Before Richter could inquire further, he quickly added, “I don’t have much time, but before I depart aboard the Robinson tomorrow morning, I wanted to visit Captain Vaughn.”
Richter’s smile wilted. “Of course,” she said, lowering her voice. “He’s in one of the secondary-care rooms. Right now, he—”
“Captain,” said a voice Sisko knew well. He turned to see Doctor Bashir crossing the threshold from the infirmary’s primary ward. The doctor approached Sisko with a hand extended. Sisko took it. “It’s so good to see you, sir. I was hoping you’d stop by while the Robinson was here.”
“It’s good to see you, Doctor,” Sisko said. “How are you?”
Bashir seemed to draw himself up. “Actually, I’m excellent,” he said. “Maybe never better.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sisko said. “Is there some particular reason?”
Still standing beside Sisko, Richter attempted to cover her smile with one hand. Bashir saw the nurse’s expression, and then he motioned deeper into the infirmary. “Shall we go into my office?”
Sisko allowed the doctor to lead him out of the main room. Once in his office, Bashir asked, “Do you remember Sarina Douglas, Captain?”
Sisko thought for a moment. “The woman from the Institute,” he said at last. “The one with cognitive-sensory dissonance, who you treated.”
“That’s right,” Bashir said. “That was more than eight years ago. Since then, she’s become her own woman and a productive part of society. She’s actually in Starfleet now.”
“I suppose all of that’s a good thing,” Sisko said, “but I suspect you didn’t bring me in here to talk about this woman’s professional record.”
“No, sir,” Bashir said. “Last year, we reconnected, and she transferred to Deep Space Nine. She’s on Chief Blackmer’s security team.”
“And back in your life as well, I take it?” Sisko asked.
“Yes,” Bashir said. “Yes, she is.”
“I’m very happy for you, Julian,” Sisko said. “I know things haven’t always been easy for you here.”
“No,” Bashir agreed, “but that seems to have changed now. What about you? How are you and—”
“Doctor,” Sisko said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but as I was just telling Lieutenant Richter, I’m afraid that I don’t have much time before I need to get back to the Robinson. I was hoping that I could see Captain Vaughn before I need to be back aboard.”
“Of course,” said Bashir, his feelings clearly hurt at being dismissed so quickly by a man—a friend—that he hadn’t seen in more than two years. “We’ve placed him in a secondary-care compartment. I don’t know if you’re aware, but he was removed from his respirator eight months ago.”
A sense of hope flickered across Sisko’s mind. “That sounds like good news.”
“No,” Bashir said. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. It simply means that the autonomic functions of Captain Vaughn’s brain remain unimpaired. Unfortunately, ever since his injury, there’s been no sign of higher brain function.”
“How is he even still alive then?” Sisko wanted to know.
“Since the accident, a feeding tube has provided him sustenance,” Bashir explained. “Without that and a hydration line, he would die within a matter of days.”
“There’s no chance for recovery?” Sisko asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“But then why hasn’t his body been permitted to die?” Sisko said.
“That’s not my decision to make, Captain,” Bashir said, clearly implying that Vaughn’s daughter had chosen to keep her father—or the husk of what he once had been—from perishing.
Sisko nodded slowly. “I’d still like to see him, if I may,” he told the doctor.
“Of course,” Bashir said. “Lieutenant Tenmei is in there with him now.” When Sisko gave him an inquiring look, he said, “She visits him most mornings and nights.”
“Do you think she would mind if I stopped in?”
“Not at all,” Bashir said. “Truthfully, another face besides mine in there might do her some good.”
Sisko nodded again, and Bashir led him from his office back into the main room. From there, they entered the primary-care facility, which included a surgical table and half a dozen diagnostic beds, all of which stood empty. Bashir gestured to a doorway on the far side of the room. Sisko thanked him, and the doctor withdrew.
Sisko crossed the room and peered inside the smaller compartment. Elias Vaughn lay on a bed beneath a pale-blue sheet, his flesh ashen. His eyes closed but his mouth hanging open, he lacked any sign of the vitality that he had displayed even in the second century of his life. A pair of lines snaked from small devices hanging above him, down onto the bed and below the covers. Outlined beneath the sheet, the shape of his body attested to his condition, his once strong physique diminished by the injury he had borne in the service of his crew and a planetary population in danger. His life had ended heroically—but it clearly had ended.
Sitting in a chair beside her lost father, Prynn Tenmei had one arm outstretched in order to rest her hand on Vaughn’s lifeless fingers. A padd perched on her lap appeared filled with text, though she did not read it. Instead, her gaze seemed focused—or unfocused—on the middle distance. Her face appeared drawn, and dark crescents floated under eyes that seemed vacant.
Is it any wonder? Sisko thought. Beginning and ending most days by sitting beside the inert form of her effectively dead father, how had she even retained her sanity? He sympathized with her plight.
For the first time since Sisko’s own father had died, he considered that it might have been his good fortune not to make it to Earth before Joseph Sisko had succumbed to his many infirmities. How much more difficult would it have been for him to watch his father die? And how would Sisko have handled a situation similar to Tenmei’s? Would he have had the strength to allow the last remaining vestige of his father to pass from existence? Could he have given permission to remove from his father’s failing body the only things that continued to sustain it? He wanted to answer the question Yes, but in the end, he settled for the truth: I don’t know.
Not wanting to startle Tenmei, Sisko rapped lightly on the doorframe. She looked up at him and blinked, and for a moment, he didn’t think she recognized him. The last time he had communicated with her had been from Starbase 197, on the world of Alonis. After the Borg invasion ended, Sisko recorded and sent a message to Tenmei explaining her father’s fate aboard U.S.S. James T. Kirk.
Recalling that, Sisko feared for a moment that, when she realized his identity, he would see resentment or even hatred in her eyes. After all, in addition to delivering to her the news of her father’s devastating injury, he had survived the battle that, for all intents and purposes, Vaughn had not. Why shouldn’t she hate me?
But when recognition flashed across Tenmei’s eyes, she followed it with a smile. Her lips didn’t part, and the shallow expression didn’t light up her face, but it nevertheless seemed genuine. “Captain Sisko,” she said. “Please come in.”
Sisko did so, glancing down at Tenmei’s padd as he neared her. “Are you reading to your father?” he asked.
Tenmei peered down at the padd as well, almost as though she had forgotten it. “I was,” she said. “I like reading aloud to him. I know he can’t hear me, but it makes me feel … not better, but somehow still connected to him.” She let go of her father’s hand, picked up the padd, and touched a control. The text disappeared, replaced by two larger words above a third, presumably the title and author. “Have you read it?” Tenmei asked.
“The Iliad,” Sisko said, “by Homer.” He nodded. “Yes, but not since high school.” He thought he recalled that one of the book’s major themes involved the power of destiny, and how one cannot avoid one’s fate. He wondered if Tenmei had known that before selecting the epic, or if not, whether she had perceived it in her reading.
“It’s interesting,” Tenmei said. “I never read it, and I have no idea whether or not Dad did, but it seemed like his type of story.”
“I can see that,” Sisko said.
“I heard that you were here aboard the Robinson,” Tenmei said. “I thought about asking to come and see you.… I wanted to, but …” She looked down. “I’m sorry. It just seemed too hard.”
It shocked Sisko to hear Tenmei’s apology, and he realized that he had underestimated the depth of her despair. The guilt he managed to shunt aside in his daily life for having disregarded the warning of the Prophets suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. The idea that his decision to spend his life with Kasidy had somehow resulted in Vaughn’s injury seemed absurd on the surface of it, he knew, but he had lived the reality of it. “Lieutenant,” he said, and then started again. “Prynn, you have nothing to be sorry for.” He wanted to throw himself down and beg for Tenmei’s mercy, plead for her forgiveness, but it would have caused her to think him insane. “I just wish that there was something I could do for you now to ease your burden.”
She peered up at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “It’s not my burden,” she told him. “It’s just my life.”
The sentiment rocked Sisko, echoing as it did his attitude about the recent events of his own life. “Prynn, your father loved you,” he said. “Nothing pleased him more than that the two of you reconnected after all those years estranged from each other.” He paused, attempting to invite a response.
“I know,” she said at last. “I loved him, and I was so happy to have my father back again.” She peered over at the body that had once housed Elias Vaughn. “But now …”
“But now your father would not want you here,” Sisko said, gently but firmly. “It would satisfy him to know how much you loved him, but it would destroy him to see you sacrificing so much of your time, and experiencing so much misery, to sit vigil for him in a hopeless cause.” Sisko imagined stepping over to the head of Vaughn’s bed and tearing the feeding and hydration tubes from the machines that controlled them. But of course he could not do that. Instead, he simply said, “There comes a time to move on, Prynn.”
“I know,” Tenmei said, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Really, I do know that. I’m just not there yet.”
“I understand,” Sisko said. “And I’m not trying to tell you what you should do, or when. I’m just saying that you have options. You can stay here as long as you want to, as long as you need to, but you can also have a life—a full life—on the other side of that door.” He pointed back to the entrance to the compartment. “When you’re ready, there will come a time when you can move on.”
Prynn regarded Sisko for a long time, her eyes seeming to study his. Finally, she inhaled deeply, as though trying to calm her fraying nerves. “Thank you, Captain,” she said.
Sisko waited a moment, then walked around Vaughn’s bed to stand beside him. Quietly, he reached his own hand out to rest it atop Vaughn’s. His skin felt smooth but fragile, warm but somehow empty. “I felt a special closeness with your father that I’ve never quite been able to put into words,” he said. “And I know he felt it too. He and I connected on a deep level that I don’t think either one of us quite understood, but it meant a great deal to both of us.”
“He held you in high regard, Captain.”
Sisko looked at Prynn, hoping that the gratitude he felt for her statement showed on his face. “Thank you,” he said. “Obviously, I had the highest esteem for your father.” Sisko leaned in toward Vaughn. He could see the stubble of his beard, which clearly had been shaved off at some point to facilitate keeping his face clean. He saw the slight movement beside Vaughn’s Adam’s apple that revealed his pulse, keeping time with his heart. He saw the rise and fall of his chest as his body, against all odds and for no real purpose, continued to breathe. At that moment, Sisko knew with absolute certainty that, in the next instant, his friend would open his eyes and return to the world of the living.
“Good-bye, Elias,” Sisko whispered. He stood back up and headed for the door. When he got there, he turned back toward Tenmei. “If you should ever need anything …” He let his sentence dangle unfinished, and Tenmei nodded.
“Thank you,” she said.
Sisko headed back through the primary ward and back into the infirmary’s outer compartment. According to Lieutenant Richter, Doctor Bashir had retired for the night. Grateful that he could make good a quick escape, Sisko thanked the nurse, congratulating her once more on her nuptials. Then he stepped back out onto the Promenade.
For just a fleeting moment, Sisko thought about escaping into an old baseball game in one of Quark’s holosuites, or even to Vic’s Las Vegas lounge. But he didn’t want to—at least not on Deep Space 9. He had spent so much time on the station, had lived through so much there, but the words he had said to Prynn Tenmei recurred to him: There comes a time to move on.
Sisko entered the lift and ordered it to take him back to his ship.
Accompanied by the security detachment assigned to protect the chairwoman, Sela boarded a Tal Shiar shuttle bound for orbit above Terix II. There, the shuttle would deliver her to En’Vahj, one of the personnel transports used by the intelligence agency. The Lanora-class vessel would carry Sela back to Romulus—but not before she completed one additional task, the primary reason she had traveled to Terix II.
Inside the shuttle, the chairwoman looked into the cockpit, confirming for herself the identities of the pilot and navigator, a pair of former military officers. Satisfied, she retreated to the rear of the main cabin, which could accommodate a dozen comfortably. She took a seat along the rear bulkhead, between the side wall and an open hatchway that led to an aft compartment housing a transporter pad, a refresher, and emergency equipment and supplies. Her guards knew enough to sit at the front of the main cabin, affording her whatever privacy they could.
As soon as the shuttle’s outer and cockpit hatches closed, the pilot’s voice emerged from the comm system. “Chairwoman Sela,” said Commander Retind, “we are prepared to depart as soon as you give the order.” His voice sounded even and professional, and implied a clear awareness that he understood the importance of his passenger.
“I’m ready right now,” Sela said, knowing that the comm system would automatically pick up her words and transmit them to the pilot. “Alert me once we’ve reached orbit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Sela felt the vibrations of the shuttle’s engines powering up, she reached beneath the hem of her gray Tal Shiar uniform tunic and retrieved a small data tablet attached to her belt. She keyed it on, entered a trio of access codes, then brought up a directory of the reports provided to her over the previous day by the intelligence field office on Terix II. She looked forward to returning to Romulus, but after her recent ordeal—first aboard IRW Stormcrow, and then with the Federation crew aboard Starfleet’s U.S.S Challenger—it pleased her simply to be back in the Empire.
When Sela had attended Praetor Kamemor on her state visit to Glintara, the chairwoman had welcomed the opportunity to break from the confines of her office in Ki Baratan, despite the diplomatic nature of the duty. She anticipated trouble beforehand, but underestimated the bond between her predecessor, Rehaek, and the head of the Tal Shiar’s Technical Directorate, Jano Vellil. After an act of sabotage set Stormcrow on an unstoppable collision course with a pulsar, Director Vellil delivered a simple message to Sela, claiming his part in avenging Rehaek.
Foolish arrogance, the chairwoman thought. After escaping the attempted assassination, she surely would have found him out anyway, but the director’s statement of vengeance had allowed her to deal with him quickly and efficiently upon her safe return to the Empire. A disciplinary hearing immediately removed him from the Tal Shiar, and a Senate trial just as swiftly sent him to prison. Only a day after his incarceration, and well before his scheduled execution, Vellil had taken his own life.
I need to be more careful, Sela told herself—a sentiment that she’d continued to repeat after narrowly averting her own death.
She looked up from her data tablet and through a port to her right. The shuttle had lifted off, she saw, and as it rose from the city of Vetruvis, it arced to starboard, bringing into view the magnificent extent of Galixori Canyon. Sela peered out at the vast chasm, at the brilliant greens and blues that climbed its walls, at the raging band of white water that tumbled through it. She recalled vividly when her father had brought her there as a girl, a reward for her academic performance in school. The three-day outing remained an important and powerful memory of her childhood.
Sela pulled her gaze away from the canyon, aware that she must compartmentalize such sentimentality and not permit it to interfere with her professional life. She could tell herself that she should have exercised more caution regarding Vellil, but in actuality, she’d had him under surveillance during the time he’d plotted to kill her. She would need to reevaluate some of her personnel, but she also recognized the simple fact that people such as Vellil often made formidable adversaries.
The director’s plan would have succeeded too, if not for the chance presence of the Starfleet vessel near the Neutral Zone. In the end, though, it had been the Romulan crew of Tomalak’s Fist who had rescued the Challenger crew. Sela had considered holding on to the Starfleet officers to interrogate them, and she also had given serious thought to executing them, but had judged the benefits of both actions as limited. Freeing them, she’d concluded, might have fostered some measure of goodwill with the Federation, but of far greater importance, it provided her cover with the praetor.
Returning her thoughts to her current undertaking, Sela read through the directory of reports she’d received on Terix II, then selected one with a touch. Rounded blocks of Romulan text filled the screen alongside a column of photographs. The chairwoman reviewed the list of operatives she’d sent beyond the confines of the Empire, searching for those who had recently communicated their status to their Tal Shiar handlers. She ran agents on Qo’noS and Earth, on Cardassia and Ferenginar, and on a dozen worlds besides those. Her people had gained access to manufacturing plants and government offices, public works and private industry, starbases and starships.
Working with both Commander Marius of the IRW Dekkona and the Breen Intelligence Directorate, Sela had helped install an operative, Kazren, at Starfleet’s Utopia Planitia Shipyards, from which he had stolen the schematics for the quantum slipstream drive. She had done so, and had seen Kazren safely retrieved, all without the knowledge of Gell Kamemor. Since the chairwoman perceived that the praetor’s avowed pursuit of peace would have spelled an end to such endeavors, she chose not to reveal her involvement in them. Indeed, assigned by Kamemor to assist in the efforts to unmask those responsible for planning the Utopia Planitia operation, Sela had pinned the blame foursquare on the previous praetor, Tal’Aura, and her Tal Shiar head, Rehaek—both of them since expired.
As she studied the list, the chairwoman noted that the Tal Shiar had received recent word from two of their deep-cover agents within the Federation. The communications did not rise to the level of actual intelligence, amounting to no more than coded bursts of seemingly random noise. The signals did indicate, though, the ongoing success of those missions.
Studying the reports of other operatives—several of them Romulans physically altered to produce Vulcan life signs—Sela felt particularly satisfied with the efforts of the Breen. In light of the shared allegiance to the Typhon Pact of both the Romulan Star Empire and the Breen Confederacy, the chairwoman had reached out to the Breen Intelligence Directorate. Initially, Sela sought to unmask the mysterious aliens, a goal she had at least to some degree accomplished; she knew of three distinct species among them, and suspected more.
To her surprise, though, the Breen demonstrated considerable abilities as spies. No doubt because of their physical variation, they managed to place agents on worlds notoriously difficult for Romulans to infiltrate. In the course of her term as chair of the Tal Shiar, Sela had developed a reliable working relationship with Haut, the director of the BID.
“Chairwoman Sela,” came the voice of Retind over the comm system, “we have achieved orbit. We are setting course for the En’Vahj.”
“Understood,” Sela said. She peered again through the port. Splashed with the white of cloud formations, the blue-green world of Terix II hung majestically in space. About it, sunlight glinted off numerous spacecraft, testament to the popularity of the famed tourist destination. The chairwoman saw many Romulan vessels, but also noted quite a few that originated outside the borders of the Empire: the asymmetrical ships of the Gorn Hegemony, the angular ships of the Tholian Assembly, the teardrop-shaped ships of the Tzenkethi Coalition.
Looking back down at her data tablet, Sela closed the document she’d been examining. She then searched for another and opened it, revealing a single line of numbers. She stood up and, passing between her two security guards, made her way to the shuttle’s cockpit. Outside its closed hatch, she activated the comm unit set into the adjoining bulkhead. “Commander Retind,” she said, “I need to speak with you.” She added the classified but seemingly innocuous phrase that indicated to the pilot that she did not speak under duress. After a moment, she heard the locking mechanism of the cockpit hatch release. When it glided open, she stepped inside, and the hatch closed behind her, locking once again.
Retind looked up at her, as did the navigator. The pilot’s dark eyes regarded her from beneath black hair dusted white from age. “Commander,” Sela said, “we’ll be making an unscheduled stop.” She looked through the wide front ports at the abundance of ships in the space about Terix II, though she could not distinguish her intermediate destination. She held out her tablet so that Retind could see its display. “Take the shuttle to these coordinates.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Retind signaled the navigator, who entered the coordinates enumerated on Sela’s tablet into his control panel. The shuttle altered its trajectory.
“Inform me when we arrive,” Sela ordered. She nodded toward the hatch, and Retind touched a control on his own console. The hatch unlocked and slid open, and Sela passed back into the main cabin.
She did not stop there, though, instead continuing on into the aft compartment, where she secured the hatch. Sela then reconfigured her data tablet as she awaited word from the cockpit. It arrived a short time later.
“Chairwoman Sela,” said Retind, “the shuttle has reached the specified coordinates.”
“Very good,” Sela said. “You will wait here until—” She checked the chronometer on her tablet, then provided the pilot with a definite time. “If you have not heard from me by then, inform my security team and proceed to the En’Vahj. Once aboard, report this conversation to the lead Tal Shiar officer.”
For a moment, Retind did not respond, and Sela conjectured that, as doubts and concerns rose in his mind, he fought the urge to voice them. Experienced in dealing with the Tal Shiar, the commander clearly knew better than to question one of its members—particularly the chairwoman herself. “Yes, ma’am,” he finally replied.
Sela operated her data tablet, sending a signal to a second set of spatial coordinates she had brought with her. She received a confirmation at once. Calling up a set of instructions she had programmed into her tablet, she executed it. On her display, she saw verification that the shuttle’s shields had temporarily lowered, and an instant later, her vision clouded with the bright motes of a transporter effect.
Sela materialized in a dark place, barely illuminated by the glow of a freestanding console across from her. Behind it stood a pair of armored Breen. They both walked forward, around the control panel, and approached her. Neither appeared to carry weapons.
They don’t need to, Sela thought. Not while we’re standing in the middle of a Breen starship.
“Chairwoman Sela,” said one of the two Breen, his words translated into the electronic output of his helmet, and then interpreted by Sela’s universal translator. “I am Haut. It is good to see you again.”
Sela took a step toward the two Breen, leaving the pad onto which she had transported. The pulse of the ship’s power hummed through the decking. “Director Haut,” she said. She understood that she had no way of confirming his identity, but he had proven himself trustworthy in their previous encounters. If somebody had replaced him, if somebody sought to dupe Sela, it mattered little; Haut had called for their meeting, and so while the chairwoman expected to learn something new, she had no intention of conveying any classified information herself. Turning to the second Breen, she said, “May I ask who your colleague is?”
“This is Trok,” Haut said. “He is an engineer working to restart the development of a quantum slipstream drive for the Typhon Pact.”
Sela regarded Trok. Other than a slight difference in their postures, she could not tell the two uniformed men apart. “I see,” she said. “And he has something to report to me?”
“I do,” Trok spoke up. “I have been working on a means not just of constructing a safely functioning slipstream drive, but of creating one easily installable across a wide variety of starship classes. To that end, I have been studying deflector and structural integrity technology—and I think I’ve found what I need to make this work.”
Sela looked to Haut. “And what is it he needs?” she asked.
Haut turned to Trok. “Tell her.”
“Let me first say that we have in our possession a Jem’Hadar vessel that crashed within Confederacy territory during the Dominion-Federation War,” Trok said. “We found the ship relatively intact, and we have subsequently repaired its deflector and structural systems in an effort to test them. What we have learned is that we can adapt those Dominion technologies to provide us a sustainable, cross-platform slipstream drive.”
The report surprised and impressed Sela. With the current balance—or imbalance—of power between the Typhon Pact and the Khitomer Accords, the realization of a quantum slipstream drive for the Pact remained a top priority. After the debacle that ended the Breen’s first attempt to develop such a technology, Sela had expected neither such perseverance nor progress from the Confederacy. “That is welcome news,” she said. “And so am I to understand that you require a fully functioning Jem’Hadar starship?”
“No,” Haut said, to the chairwoman’s surprise.
“No,” echoed Trok. “While we have confirmed through exhaustive testing that Jem’Hadar deflectors and structural integrity fields will allow us to produce the quantum slipstream drive, we have so far been unable to replicate those technologies ourselves, and to this point, we have no expectation that we will be able to do so anytime soon.”
“I don’t understand,” Sela said, though she feared that she actually did. “Are you saying that for every ship in which you install the quantum slipstream drive, you require a separate Jem’Hadar vessel from which to pirate its structural integrity and deflector systems?”
“No,” Haut said. “That would be unworkable in the extreme.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” Sela said, “because short of going to war against the Federation to gain control of the Bajoran wormhole, and then fighting the Dominion, I don’t see how we could accomplish that.”
“We don’t need Jem’Hadar ships from which we can remove their deflector and structural integrity systems,” Trok said. “We need the equipment they employ in the production of those systems so that we can manufacture them ourselves.”
The idea, Sela thought, seemed as absurd as trying to take a fleet of ships from the Jem’Hadar. But is it? she asked herself. She recalled Praetor Kamemor’s recent proposal to the Typhon Pact, and the likelihood before long of its approval. If Sela could convince the praetor to add another component to her proposal—
Or better still, she thought, if one of her proconsuls could convince her.
“I understand what you need—what we need,” Sela told Haut. “And it just might be possible.”
Haut tilted his head slightly to one side, a nonverbal sign that appeared to cross cultural boundaries to indicate surprise. “Indeed,” he said. “As always, I am impressed by your abilities, your confidence, and what I assume must be your ingenuity.”
“And I’m impressed by the progress you’ve made on the slipstream drive,” Sela said. She turned and stepped back onto the transporter pad. “If there’s nothing else, Director Haut, I’d like you to return me to my shuttle.”
“Of course,” Haut said. He retreated to the console, and Trok followed. “Whenever you are ready, Chairwoman.”
Sela raised her data tablet and touched a control that would again lower her shuttle’s shields, which she had programmed to reactivate after she’d beamed over to the Breen vessel. “I am ready now,” she told Haut. “But I will contact you again soon.”
Haut worked the controls, and once more, the transporter effect took Sela. She materialized back in the aft compartment of the shuttle. After checking to ensure that her command sequence had once more raised the shields, she contacted the cockpit. “Sela to Retind.”
“Retind here.”
“Commander, make your best possible speed to the En’Vahj,” Sela ordered.
“Yes, Chairwoman.”
Sela unlocked the compartment hatch, went back into the main cabin, and returned to her seat along the aft bulkhead. As she looked through the port at the sight of Terix II receding below, she already set to composing the argument Tomalak would need to make to the praetor. If he could convince Kamemor, then Sela felt confident that Kamemor could convince the other leaders of the Typhon Pact. And the Federation, ever desirous to appear that it sought peace, would doubtless fall in line.
Fools, Sela thought. Not just the Federation, but all of them. Had she lived, Tal’Aura would not have allowed the Federation’s tactical technological advantage to stand. Once she had reunited the divided Empire, she had begun planning to take on the Federation and its Khitomer Accords ally. And since Kamemor won’t do that, Sela thought with steely resolve, that duty shifts to the chairwoman of the Tal Shiar.
And I won’t fail Romulus.
At the scheduled time to which all parties had agreed, Federation President Nanietta Bacco walked down an elegant hall toward the Grand Assembly Chamber. By her side walked her chief of staff, Esperanza Piñiero, and behind followed a pair of guards from Bacco’s security team. Under normal circumstances, she knew, the head of presidential security would have insisted on additional protectors for her, but the Boslics had been firm in their requirements. When their government offered their world as a neutral site to host a summit between the nations of the Khitomer Accords and those of the Typhon Pact, they stipulated specific conditions in order to minimize any possible threat to the visiting heads of state.
Marching along with her small entourage through the impressive hall, Bacco felt the weight of the moment upon her, the importance of the event manifest in the imposing surroundings. Great fluted columns lined the walkway, and the stone walls and floor had been buffed to a reflective gloss. High overhead, the walls curved outward, capped by a transparent half-cylinder from one end to the other, affording a long view of a stately mountain range. The incorporation of the vista into the architecture emphasized the Boslics’ general appreciation for nature.
“Well, if this is a trap,” Bacco said to Piñiero, breaking their tense silence, “at least we’ll be going in style.”
“It’s not a trap, Madam President,” replied Piñiero. Despite her use of formal address, her tone conveyed her frustration with Bacco for even joking about such a notion.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” the president told her. “If we’ve been duped, if this is all an elaborate ruse designed by the Typhon Pact to assassinate all of us, it’s too late now to turn back.” Bacco did not think for a moment that the Romulan praetor had requested—had virtually pleaded—for the summit as a means of weakening the Khitomer Accords states, or as the first shot in a massive interstellar war. From a practical standpoint, the Federation maintained technological superiority over the Pact by virtue of Starfleet’s quantum slipstream drive. More than that, even in the wake of the loss of Andor, the addition of the Cardassian Union and the Ferengi Alliance to the Accords reinforced both the size and strength of the military force available to defend the UFP and its allies.
On a less strategic note, but perhaps of greater importance, the president believed that Gell Kamemor genuinely wanted peace. After she had succeeded to the praetorship of the freshly reunited Romulan Star Empire sixteen months earlier, Kamemor’s background of diplomacy and public service had served as a beacon of hope for Nan Bacco. That hope faded several months later when a Romulan starship employing a new, advanced cloak aided in the theft of the quantum slipstream drive schematics from Utopia Planitia. Since that time, though, and despite Starfleet’s own successful covert operation to destroy the Pact’s slipstream prototype, the praetor had taken no other provocative action, not even engaging in any bellicose rhetoric.
But such had not been the case with other members of the Typhon Pact. The Tholians had worked to drive a wedge between the Federation and one of its founding members, leading directly to Andor’s secession. The Tzenkethi, too, had continued to harass several of the UFP populations relocated after the Borg invasion to planets near Coalition space, to the point where Starfleet had needed to intervene. For the previous two months, the Federation had detained thirty-five members of the Tzenkethi military who had attacked an Argelian freighter carrying humanitarian aid through unclaimed space—and on which Captain Picard had sprung his own trap. Despite repeated efforts to open a dialogue with the Coalition about the release of the soldiers, the autarch and the Tzelnira had refused even to talk to Bacco or her representatives. All of which, to Bacco’s way of thinking, generated a real need for a meaningful summit, but also confused her about the aims of the Typhon Pact as a whole.
“It might be too late for us to avoid a trap,” Piñiero said, “but at least I won’t be the target.”
“Nonsense,” Bacco said at once. “You play an absolutely vital role in our government. I’ll make sure the Typhon Pact knows that.”
“Thank you, Madam President,” Piñiero said. “You’re too kind.”
As they approached the end of the corridor, a massive block, made of the same polished stone as the floor and walls, glided open. Initially, it appeared to Bacco as though the doorway led to the outside, but when she passed through it, she saw differently. Before her, a wide, shallow staircase—one of several such sets of steps—descended between raked sections of empty seats, down to an open space dominated by a large, semicircular table. Glancing quickly around, she saw that half of the round chamber echoed the interior design of the corridor through which they had just passed: tall, grooved columns rimmed walls of gleaming stone. But the walls and ceiling in the other half of the chamber, beyond the conference table, had been constructed of a transparent material so clear that it seemed as though the neighboring landscape reached directly into the room. Just off to one side and slightly angled with respect to Bacco’s point of view, a waterfall plunged perhaps a hundred and fifty meters to a passing river, throwing up a delicate mist and providing a spectacular backdrop.
“Wow,” Piñiero said in a whisper.
“Wow is right,” Bacco agreed, just as quietly. “Makes me think we need to take a field trip the next time the Federation Council is in session.”
Peering down at the conference table, the president saw that several other dignitaries had already arrived. Along the left arc of the table sat the Cardassian and Ferengi leaders, Castellan Rakena Garan and Grand Nagus Rom, while along the right arc sat their Breen and Gorn counterparts, Domo Brex and Imperator Sozzerozs. One of the three members of the Boslic Triumvirate, Letix Kortaj, stood at the center of the table’s diameter, her back to those already assembled, and apparently waiting to greet the other delegates as they arrived.
Bacco turned and nodded to her two presidential guards, who responded in kind. As one of the conditions for hosting the summit, the Boslics had demanded that all security officers remain just inside one of the five entrances to the Grand Assembly Chamber. While the Boslics did not confiscate any energy weapons, they made it clear that a dampening field surrounding the entire government complex housing the chamber rendered such arms useless. Looking around again, Bacco saw other security duos at the heads of the other staircases, as well as a number of Boslic personnel. To Piñiero, the president said sotto voce, “Wish me luck.”
“I wish us all luck,” Piñiero murmured.
Bacco started down the stairs, knowing that Piñiero would follow. The president saw that four other individuals sat in the first row of seats, facing the conference table. She assumed, based on their species and the Boslics’ allowance of a single advisor per head of state, that they each played the same role for their government that Piñiero did for the Federation.
As Bacco reached the floor of the chamber, Piñiero moved off to the side and took a seat beside the other advisors. Triumvir Kortaj stepped forward and bowed her head, which the president recognized as a Boslic sign of respect. Characteristic of her people, smooth but pronounced ridges angled up from the bridge of Kortaj’s nose and above her eyes. Between them, three grooves, joined at their bottom ends like an arrow pointing downward, carved out a distinctive biological feature in the flesh of her forehead. Her eyes flashed an electric red, which precisely matched the color of her long, flowing hair.
“President Bacco, I am Triumvir Letix Kortaj,” she said. “On behalf of the Boslic government and its people, I welcome you to our world, to our capital, and to our Grand Assembly Chamber.”
“Thank you, Triumvir Kortaj,” Bacco said. “On behalf of the government and people of the United Federation of Planets, I thank you for your generosity in agreeing to host this summit.”
Kortaj turned and walked toward the center of the straight side of the table, across from the gathered dignitaries, and Bacco followed. “I’m sure that, even if you’ve never met them in person, you know all of your fellow officials,” the triumvir said. “I thought I’d wait until all of you are present before I—”
A loud report rang out from behind and above Bacco. She spun around and looked to the upper part of the chamber, scanning the doors for the source of the sound. At the head of a staircase to the left, she saw the burly form of Martok, chancellor of the Klingon Empire, apparently alone. He wore full Klingon regalia: a long, sweeping robe over dark pants and tunic; high, black boots; and twin silver baldrics that crossed over his chest. “Peace or war?” he bellowed, his deep, booming voice easily filling the large space. “Let’s make up our minds and be done talking.” He lifted a thick, gnarled cane in one hand and brought it down on the floor, sending a second bang resounding through the chamber.
Kortaj immediately started toward the stairs, but then peered back at Bacco for a moment. “If you would please have a seat,” the triumvir said, pointing toward the side of the conference table at which Garan and Rom sat. Bacco moved in that direction, but then stopped to watch as Kortaj addressed the Klingon leader.
“Chancellor Martok,” she said, bowing her head toward him, and she repeated the words with which she had greeted Bacco.
Martok tramped down the stairs, swinging his cane out before him and bringing it down noisily on each successive step. When he reached the floor of the chamber and faced Kortaj, he lowered his voice to a respectful tone. “Triumvir Kortaj,” he said, “I thank you for the invitation to your world. Your people are honorable and generous.” He walked past the Boslic and regarded the Breen and Gorn leaders. “But as for these petaQ, I’m not so sure.”
A cumbersome silence rose in the chamber. Bacco waited, fighting the urge to explain away the chancellor’s behavior. She had spent enough time working with him through the years to recognize Martok’s harsh sense of humor, as well as the way he often utilized it to measure his opponents. Though she wanted to speak up and somehow make this plain to Brex and Sozzerozs, she realized that she risked not only offending the chancellor, but also demonstrating that she believed his behavior inappropriate and truly insulting, thus signaling to the Typhon Pact dignitaries that they should feel affronted.
Before anybody could say anything else, a hand came down on the end of Martok’s cane. The thick, twisted object resembled a walking stick less than it did a petrified tree branch. The chancellor turned slowly to stare at Kortaj’s hand, and then at the triumvir herself.
“Chancellor Martok,” she said, “I’m afraid that a condition of my government hosting this summit is that no weapons of any kind are permitted in the Grand Assembly Chamber.”
At first, Martok said nothing, and Bacco feared that he might challenge the triumvir’s authority. As she considered how she might defuse the situation, though, he said, “A weapon?” He laughed, a short, loud bark. “This is part of the price I have paid for a lifetime of glorious battles. I am merely—” He paused, surely to set up what he would consider another punch line. “—a tired, wounded old man.”
Kortaj looked Martok in the eye, her hand still on his cane. “Regardless,” she said, “I must impound this.” She pulled at the cane, with which, Bacco did not doubt, the chancellor could beat senseless everyone present. For a long moment, Martok held on to his cane, but then finally he loosened his grip. “Thank you, Chancellor,” Kortaj said. “Now if you and President Bacco would have a seat alongside your allies.”
Only then did Bacco look around at Garan and Rom, Brex and Sozzerozs, to see how they had reacted to Martok’s entrance. The grand nagus sat with his mouth hanging open, clearly stunned, while the castellan sat calmly beside him. Bacco could not read the domo in his Breen armor, but he remained in his chair. Of all those present, only the imperator had risen to his feet. The president noted Sozzerozs’s posture, the tension in his impressive Gorn musculature, and she wondered how close Martok’s brashness had come to instigating an interstellar incident even before the summit had begun.
As Bacco and Martok took their places at the conference table, she noticed the chancellor unburdened by even the slightest hint of a limp. Then the president spied another head of state: Praetor Gell Kamemor stood at the top of the central set of stairs, gazing with an air of quiet dignity toward the chamber floor. Two Romulan guards had already stepped aside and taken up positions along the wall behind her. Proconsul Tomalak accompanied her. Bacco wondered how long she had been standing there, and whether she had witnessed any of Martok’s outburst.
A Boslic guard quickly came down a different set of steps and collected Martok’s cane from Kortaj, which he quickly carried out of the room. Once he had, the Romulan praetor strode down to the chamber floor, the proconsul trailing behind her. At the base of the stairs, Tomalak moved to the first row of seats with the other advisors, while Kortaj again offered her official greeting, this time to the praetor. Once Kamemor had made her way over to Brex and Sozzerozs, the triumvir moved to the middle of the table, and looking across it, spoke to all of the visitors to her world.
“The Triumvirate of Cort,” she said, giving the official title of the three-person executive panel that ruled the Boslics’ government, as well as the name of their planet, “our Congress, and our people are honored to host this historic summit. We feel particularly privileged to assist in such vital efforts to bring peace and stability to both the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.”
A century ago, Bacco knew, the Romulans had occupied Cort for ten years. Although the Boslics eventually repelled the invaders, they lived under the continued fear that they would again have to face the Empire or some other aggressor. The cultural memories and collective fears of the Boslic people made their resistance to a military alliance—with the Federation or any other nation—all the more impressive. They unwaveringly maintained their independence and neutrality even in the face of the major strategic value of their world’s location in space.
As Kortaj went on, Bacco wondered why the triumvir had begun to welcome the delegates as a group when clearly three had yet to arrive: the Kinshaya pontifex maxima, one of the Tholian high magistrates, and the Tzenkethi autarch. The president looked to her allies, who also seemed confused by the seemingly premature start of the summit. Bacco waited for Kortaj to pause so that she might ask about the missing dignitaries, but then the triumvir addressed the matter.
“As I’m sure you have noticed,” she said, peering directly at the heads of state representing the nations of the Khitomer Accords, “several leaders from the Typhon Pact have not arrived. I will ask Praetor Kamemor to speak to this.” Kortaj sat down, and Kamemor stood up.
“Before I say anything else, I would like to thank everyone here today for their willing participation in this summit,” she said. “It is my firm belief that initiating a dialogue among our worlds is not just a reasonable way to ensure the safety of all our peoples, but the only way.”
Bacco listened to the praetor’s words, agreed with them, and believed that Kamemor meant what she said. Ever since the Ferengi Alliance and the Cardassian Union had allied with the Federation and the Klingons, the praetor had sought a dialogue with the president and the other Khitomer Accords leaders. Through former Federation ambassador Spock, Kamemor sent word to Bacco that she wished to defuse the seemingly continual escalation of tensions in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The two heads of state exchanged a number of messages in the ensuing months, until the praetor proposed a summit of all the Khitomer Accords and Typhon Pact leaders, advocating that they come together to find a method of cementing a lasting peace. It required some time for all the involved parties to agree to the meeting, and even longer to find a mutually acceptable place and time for the unprecedented conference.
“I regret that because of certain events,” Kamemor continued, “several of my fellow leaders within the Typhon Pact have chosen not to participate at this time.”
“And how are we to ‘ensure the safety of all our peoples,’” Castellan Garan said, “if not all parties agree to do so?” Bacco saw the set of the Cardassian’s jaw, and knew that the absence of the three Typhon Pact leaders both troubled and angered her—as it did Bacco herself.
Chancellor Martok rose, his chair pushing back noisily on the stone floor, his body language suggesting to the president that he intended to leave at once. “It is unfortunate,” he said, “that you did not elect to inform us of this development before we made the long journeys from our homeworlds.”
“Please, please,” Kamemor said, holding the palms of her hands up to the Khitomer Accords representatives. “While the Kinshaya, the Tholians, and the Tzenkethi have decided not to attend this summit, they have consented to abide by whatever agreements we can negotiate here.”
“You have their proxies, then?” asked Grand Nagus Rom.
“In essence, I do,” Kamemor said.
Bacco peered up at Martok, who had neither left the table nor sat back down. Then she posed a question of her own. “May I ask to what events you refer when you offer them as the reasons for the other Typhon Pact leaders opting to stay away from this summit?”
“Of course,” Kamemor said. “With respect to the Holy Order of the Kinshaya, while the pontifex maxima initially agreed to take part, the Episcopate pressured her not to involve herself in such a categorically secular, and therefore ‘unholy,’ assembly.”
Martok grumbled, apparently at just the mention of the Kinshaya. The Klingons had clashed with them repeatedly for many decades, and the Order evidently remained a problem for the Empire. Although the Federation had encountered the Kinshaya infrequently and knew little about them, Bacco understood the extreme religiosity of their culture, lending credence to the praetor’s explanation.
Kamemor ignored Martok’s exclamation. “The Tholian Assembly informed me that they believed their presence at the summit would prove counterproductive,” she said. “They attributed this to their developing relationship with the people of Andor, and the Tholians’ inadvertent role in the Andorians’ secession from the Federation.”
Bacco choked back a pointed response of her own at the praetor’s use of the word inadvertent. The Tholians had acted surreptitiously in involving themselves in the search for a solution to the reproductive crisis facing the Andorian people. They also clearly calculated the timing of their revelation that they had provided critical data to Andorian scientists that the Federation had not, which then led directly to Andor’s secession.
“And the Tzenkethi refuse to speak with the Federation as long as it holds their citizens captive,” Kamemor finished. She sat down again, leaving Martok the only one at the table still standing.
Bacco joined him. With the Klingon chancellor apparently still on the cusp of leaving, and the summit already stumbling along even before it had really begun, she felt that she needed to say something—to do something. Looking to Martok, she said, “Chancellor, if I may?” Martok appeared to measure her for a second, then took his seat, granting her the floor. Bacco peered across the length of the table. “Praetor Kamemor,” she said, deciding in that moment to take an action that she had mulled for a while, but that her advisors had petitioned against taking. “In the spirit of goodwill, and in an effort to foster positive relationships among all the worlds of the Khitomer Accords and the Typhon Pact, I will release the members of the Tzenkethi military currently in Federation custody. I take this action unilaterally, and without condition.” She turned to the first row of seats in the gallery. “Esperanza, would you please see to it at once?”
Although the president’s instruction probably surprised her chief of staff, Bacco also knew that Piñiero would do as she’d been asked. “Yes, Madam President,” she said. She immediately rose and headed back up the nearest stairs toward one of the chamber’s exits.
Bacco peered back over at the three Typhon Pact leaders. “I do this despite recorded evidence that the Tzenkethi harrier crews wantonly attacked a freighter bringing medicine, food, and infrastructural equipment to a displaced population in need,” she said. “But I am releasing the prisoners without reservation because I recognize that one of us must take a first step toward peace if we are ever to reach that destination. I feel that Praetor Kamemor has opened the door for all of us, and I have just stepped through that door. I welcome all of you—” Bacco looked around to include Martok, Garan, and Rom. “—to join me.”
The president sat down again. For several seconds, nobody spoke. Finally, the Gorn imperator broke the quiet with a series of hisses, which Bacco’s universal translator interpreted into Federation Standard. “Most impressive, Madam President,” Sozzerozs said. “I cannot speak for the Tzenkethi, but for myself and for my people, I thank you.” Bacco acknowledged the imperator with a nod.
“Now then,” said Triumvir Kortaj, “let us commence as we had planned, with opening statements from each of you.” She looked to Bacco’s end of the table. “Castellan Garan, would you please start?”
The Cardassian rose and gazed around at both her allies and adversaries. As she started to speak, Bacco realized that the group assembled had already accomplished something. Despite all that had been said already, as well as the unwillingness of the Kinshaya, Tholians, and Tzenkethi to contribute directly to the gathering, Kamemor and Bacco and the others had somehow found their way past those obstacles.
To the president’s great satisfaction, the summit had truly begun.
Gell Kamemor walked through the Boslic government complex to the Grand Assembly Chamber, where she made her way down the central stairs and back to the conference table. Most of the heads of state had already returned from their break, she saw, among them Domo Brex and Grand Nagus Rom, who huddled together and spoke animatedly with each other. Each held up his own data tablet for the other to see, occasionally pointing at one of the displays.
As the praetor sat down, she realized that she felt both exhausted and invigorated. Through nearly four full days of talks that had included conversations, questions, debates, and arguments, she counted the summit as an unqualified success. At times, words had grown heated and tempers had risen, but not one of the dignitaries had abandoned the proceedings, nor even threatened to do so—not even the ever-combustible Klingon chancellor.
During the course of the gathering, several trade agreements had been reached, but more than anything, issues long the province of military brinkmanship—or worse, of actual military action—had become subjects for discussion. The parties made little progress on matters such as the martial advantage that quantum slipstream drive provided the Federation. Imperator Sozzerozs raised a concern about the UFP and the Klingon Empire increasing the imbalance of power by allying with the Cardassians and the Ferengi, while President Bacco objected to the Tholians’ part in doing the reverse by helping drive the Andorians to secede.
Despite the lack of resolution in such areas, though, Kamemor welcomed the new dialogues, believing them an essential prologue to a durable peace. She also appreciated the unselfish action taken by President Bacco in releasing the Tzenkethi raiders, without making any demands of the Coalition in return. Although Kamemor had not heard from the autarch during the summit, she had contacted Chairwoman Sela, who in turn checked with one of the Tal Shiar operatives stationed within the Federation; the agent confirmed the release of the Tzenkethi harrier crews from UFP custody.
The idea of Tal Shiar personnel posted secretly on other worlds concerned Kamemor. She appreciated the efficacy, even the necessity, of placing undercover observers among the adversaries of the Empire, but she also understood the potential for diplomatic disaster, which could readily lead to military engagement. Because of the Tal Shiar’s long record of abuses, as well as Sela’s own personal history of antipathy toward the Federation, Kamemor had kept a watchful eye on the chairwoman. Thus far, Sela had demonstrated no propensity for plotting against the UFP, or for supporting anti-UFP sentiment. The chairwoman had even unmasked her own predecessor, as well as the previous praetor, as the perpetrators of the deadly theft of the slipstream drive plans from Utopia Planitia. More recently, Sela had rescued and then released the crew of a lost Starfleet vessel.
Castellan Garan, the only dignitary not yet back at the table in the Grand Assembly Chamber, appeared at the top of one of the sets of stairs. As she paced down toward the chamber floor, Kamemor saw Grand Nagus Rom pull a small handheld device from within his tailored, olive-colored jacket. Amazed, the praetor watched as Brex accepted a stylus from Rom and affixed his signature to the device. When the castellan resumed her place at the conference table, Rom announced that he and Brex had agreed in principle to a redrawing of the borders between the Ferengi Alliance and the Breen Confederacy, potentially settling a conflict of considerable duration.
Everyone present met the news with muted but seemingly authentic enthusiasm. With the summit nearing its natural conclusion, Kamemor judged the moment right for her to introduce the two proposals that she had brought with her. After considering input from Proconsuls Ventel and Tomalak, and conferring with the Imperial Senate, the praetor had decided on two ideas that she believed would promote familiarity and trust generally between the Typhon Pact worlds and those of the Khitomer Accords, and specifically between the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets. If the two alliances wanted to establish amity and make it endure, there could be no better start than between the largest, most powerful nations among them.
“In the same spirit of cooperation that Domo Brex and Grand Nagus Rom have just demonstrated,” she said, “I would like to suggest not an adjustment of borders, but an opening of them.” Kamemor saw that she had everybody’s attention, including that of Brex and Sozzerozs, with whom she had not previously shared her intentions. “Because trade can entwine interests and encourage closer relations, I would like to advocate that the nations of the Khitomer Accords and the Typhon Pact allow each other’s civilian vessels to traverse one of their major trade routes.”
Skeptical expressions greeted Kamemor, including one on the face of the Cardassian castellan. “While I can see how, under the best circumstances, such a loosening of borders could spur improved relations,” Garan said, “I can also see it leading to even more confrontations.”
“Are you espousing a practice that would see Kinshaya ships in Klingon space?” President Bacco asked. “Tzenkethi ships in Federation space? Federation ships in Tholian space?”
“Actually, I am,” Kamemor said. “Not all at once, and not everywhere. But I submit that we cannot effectively put aside our differences, that we cannot become allies—even friends—without exposing our cultures to each other. I am not saying that we should throw open every border, that all states should send ships to every sector of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. We can limit our exposure to each other by selecting individual areas of space in which to trade.”
“Ferenginar welcomes all vessels of commerce,” declared the Grand Nagus.
“That would be a beginning,” Kamemor said, “though I would at the outset choose a region of space with greater diversity, such as the Rigel Corridor.”
“The Rigel Corridor does host a wide diversity of cultures,” said Bacco, “but it is also the heaviest traveled trade and passenger route within the Federation. I’m not sure that the sudden influx of Tholian and Tzenkethi vessels at this time would be readily and peacefully accepted.”
Kamemor nodded her head in understanding. Proconsul Tomalak, who had first recommended using civilian ships along the trade routes, had also predicted the Federation president’s reaction to doing so in the UFP’s most populous areas. He had therefore offered another suggestion. “Perhaps a less crowded trade route then,” Kamemor said. “An area such as the Bajoran Sector.”
Castellan Garan looked at President Bacco. “Most of the traffic around Bajor and even Cardassia these days comes and goes through the wormhole,” said Garan. “You could allow Typhon Pact freighters and trading ships into the sector and into the Gamma Quadrant.”
Bacco seemed to consider the possibility. “There could be no military vessels,” she finally said. “And the civilian ships could not be armed other than for basic protection.”
“I imagined that they would have to consent to random inspections as well,” Kamemor said.
“And what about you, Praetor?” Martok asked. “What region of Romulan space would you open to Klingon traders?”
“Not Romulan space,” said Rom. “Typhon Pact space.”
“What do you mean, ‘Typhon Pact space’?” asked Brex.
“The Typhon Expanse,” Rom said. “As far as I know, it’s a region of space only lightly explored by the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Federation, primarily because of several conflicts that have taken place there. But trade routes there could be opened back up to each of those worlds.”
“‘Opened back up’?” Sozzerozs asked.
“Until the Typhon Pact decided to build a starbase there and militarize the region,” Rom explained, “the Ferengi Alliance had established numerous shipping lanes through it.”
The praetor turned to Brex and Sozzerozs. Kamemor had intended to offer the Devoras Division, an area within Romulan space near both the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, but the Typhon Expanse made more sense, considering its familiarity to the Ferengi. She saw no objection from either the domo or the imperator. “The Typhon Expanse would be acceptable,” she said.
“We would need to work out the details, of course,” Garan said. “As President Bacco already indicated, there would have to be limits on vessels’ armaments, prescribed procedures, inspections, a timeframe.”
“We would have to establish a method and schedule for reviewing the status of the program,” Martok added.
“And a mutually acceptable means of mediating any disputes that might arise,” said Brex.
Suddenly, several voices spoke at once across the table as separate conversations started. To her great satisfaction, Kamemor perceived widespread interest in her idea. She allowed the multiple dialogues to continue for several moments, but she wanted to capitalize on the others’ eager acceptance of her suggestion. She stood from her chair and waited as voices trailed off and faces turned toward her.
Into the hush that followed, she said, “I have a second proposal. While we seek to demystify our people for one another, while we seek to acquaint them so that they might better understand one another, we cannot do so only among the civilian population. The Romulan Imperial Fleet, the Klingon Defense Force, Starfleet, the Breen Militia, and all the other military forces contain sizable numbers of our citizens. And since they have been at the forefront of our armed conflicts, they most especially need to learn to accept the people whom they have so often called enemy.”
“You can’t be saying that you want to allow the starships of the Typhon Pact states to travel within Khitomer Accords territory,” said Martok, an expression of incredulity on his face.
“No,” Kamemor said. “I have no desire to invite tension and conflict. I’m suggesting something smaller, something that would not jeopardize the inhabitants of either political alliance.” The praetor saw expectant looks around the table as the dignitaries waited for her to explain herself, but then awareness seemed to come to the Federation president.
“Exploration,” Bacco said simply.
“Yes,” said Kamemor. “A joint mission of exploration, well beyond the borders of the Typhon Pact and the Khitomer Accords.”
Once again, the people around the table looked to each other, as if they might find answers in one another’s eyes. Finally, Martok spoke. He said words that Kamemor wanted to hear, offering a sentiment that she hoped the others shared.
“It could work.”