Articles of the Federation

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “I have to say that I’m not all that impressed,” Tran said. “I think President Bacco has proven herself incapable of dealing with the larger issues of the presidency after serving only one planet for so long. The Federation’s a big place, and it takes a lot to run it.”

  Goodwin rolled his eyes. “Oooh, great wisdom there. ‘The Federation’s a big place.’ For the love of kimchee…”

  Velisa asked, “What, exactly, do you think she’s done wrong?”

  Tran smirked. “How long do you have?”

  “Give us an example.”

  “Why do that?” Goodwin asked. “Much easier to take shots without giving specific examples.”

  McCall glowered at his roommate. “Will you shut up, please?”

  After thinking about it for a moment, Tran finally said, “Well, just for one example, the Reman refugee situation. That was bungled from the outset and resulted in a ship full of dead Remans who should’ve been under Federation protection.”

  Kav made a snuffling noise. “That is not what happened.”

  “Oh, you were there, were you?” Tran said snidely.

  “I did not need to be,” the Tellarite said with a huff, which Goodwin had never seen anyone do in real life. “I read the reports, including the transcripts of the security council’s discussions with various senior staff members and diplomats and Starfleet officers on the subject. The president did all that she could—the Remans chose to kill themselves instead.”

  “Fine, even if you give her that one,” Tran said, “her appointments to the sub-councils have been a joke. First she appoints Artrin, then she calls for his resignation—and replaces him with Eleana, of all people? I have nothing but respect for the councillor from Delta, but she’s got entirely the wrong temperament for judiciary. Tomorrow, the new session begins, and judiciary’ll be listening to the B-4 case. That needs a rational legal mind, not Eleana and her bizarre interpretations of law. And I don’t see how anyone can think it’s a good idea to put so new a councillor as Krim on security. On top of that, she’s done nothing to keep the peace on Romulus. She actually signed off on a plan that puts Klingon ships in the home star system of the Romulan Empire. It’s a miracle that interstellar war hasn’t broken out.”

  Before Velisa could follow up, Quinn said in a gentle voice, “But, Rina—war hasn’t broken out. Don’t you think it would have by now if it was going to? Besides, sending the Remans to Klorgat IV was an idea born in the Palais, and done in such a way as to keep the Klingon alliance intact.”

  “Actually,” Tran said, “I question the wisdom of going to such trouble to do so. The Klingons have certainly done nothing to encourage keeping the alliance intact.”

  Kav snuffled again. “I would think that the people of the Federation made their feelings on that quite clear by electing President Bacco. Special Emissary Pagro had a much more aggressive strategy toward the Khitomer Accords and made it clear he would abrogate them if the empire did not change their way of doing things. If the people wanted to sunder the alliance, they would have voted for him, no?”

  Tran waved her hand. “There were other issues besides the Klingons.”

  However, Kav wasn’t finished. “And the Reman refugee situation at Outpost 22 could have been prevented if Starfleet had done its job properly. There was a starship at the outpost and a fully crewed base, yet they were almost destroyed by a handful of Remans in a ship that was one step away from flying apart?”

  “Oh, please,” McCall said. “Like that jackass has ever been out in space, facing the real dangers out there. I’d like to see him in the middle of nowhere with a cranky warp drive or facing a Romulan warbird with shields down—or be stuck on a shuttle in interstellar space with no communications and fading power—or—”

  Goodwin had had enough. “If I recall, Cadet, the only time you set foot off Earth is when you went to Luna for training exercises, plus that one trip to Jupiter Station last year. Have you ever even been out of this solar system?”

  In a small voice, McCall said, “That’s not the point.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Shut up, I’m watching.”

  Tran was back to talking. “Look, I accept that she beat Pagro, but just because the people spoke a year ago doesn’t mean they’re right a year later. What about the Trinni/ek? They humiliate the Federation at a state dinner, and the president invites them back?”

  “What a dip,” Goodwin said even as Kav started defending the president. “Why are we watching this crap?”

  “Shut up, I’m watching,” McCall said again.

  Goodwin pointed at Tran. “Come on, this idiot has it in for Bacco. The Trinni/ek were sick, it was all over every-where. She’s just got an agenda—or, at least, her boss does, and she’s towing the party line.”

  Kav was finished saying whatever he wanted to say, then Quinn stepped over Tran’s rebuttal. “The thing you have to understand about first contacts is that no two of them are alike. When you’re dealing with an alien species, none of the rules apply, because the rules are being written as you go. Nobody knew about the effects of the Trinni/ek’s sun’s magnetic field. There was no way to know. It was a simple error, one that would’ve been made regardless of who was in the office on the fifteenth floor of the Palais de la Concorde.”

  Tran snorted, sounding frighteningly similar to Kav. “Well, if it doesn’t matter who sits there, why bother even having a president?”

  Velisa turned to the viewer behind her. “President Thelian, you’ve been quiet so far. Do you have an opinion on how President Bacco is doing?”

  “Yes.” Thelian’s voice was barely audible. “I spent very many years in Starfleet. When I retired, I decided to get into politics. My reasons were very simple: I had met many politicians in my time. I thought I could do better.”

  “Yeah, well, that wouldn’t take much,” Goodwin muttered.

  “Will you please for the love of cole slaw shut up?” McCall asked.

  This time Goodwin wound up to throw the padd at his roommate, but again he declined to actually make the toss.

  “That thought proved to be baseless. As Ms. Tran said earlier, the Federation is very large. It is proportionately difficult to run. There have been days when I thought the job to be impossible. Most of those days were when I was president.”

  Several people chuckled at that, and even Goodwin had to admit that it was funny.

  “The point is that the job is difficult. The main reason for that is not because of how one deals with the expected. President Zife was elected because everyone knew we would be at war with the Dominion. Under his leadership, we were ready. President Jaresh-Inyo was elected when no one knew of the Dominion. He proved unable to handle that crisis. That is why his presidency is remembered so poorly. When President Bacco was elected, she was expected to be able to keep the Klingon alliance intact. So far, she has done that. But she also was not expected to have to deal with the fall of the Romulan government. No one saw that coming. Such a catastrophe could have sent the quadrant into chaos. But it did not. For that, we have to give at least some of the credit to the leadership of President Bacco.”

  “So you’d say she’s doing a good job?” Velisa asked.

  “All right, that’s it,” Goodwin said.

  “Goodwin—”

  “No, I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. He just spent half an hour talking, and that host still can’t figure out if he said whether or not she’s doing a good job? How can you watch this?”

  “Look, Goodwin—”

  He got up. “No, forget it, McCall, I’m leaving. I’ll go to the lounge, the library, the commissary, anything so I don’t have to listen to this garbage.”

  “Hey, if you’re stopping at the commissary, will you pick me up something?”

  Goodwin opened the handled door that led to the hallway. “Sure, what do you want?”

  McCall smiled. “I’d love some kimchee.”

  This time, Goodwin did throw the padd at him.

>   Chapter Twenty-Three

  KANT JOREL WAS ABOUT READY to poke his eyes out with hot pieces of metal when Zhres’s voice came over the intercom. Jorel didn’t understand it—he had done everything he could to alienate Zhres, same as he had every other assistant, yet the Andorian had now lasted a full year in the position, which shattered the previous record. Not only that, but Zhres even still had his will to live. It vexed Jorel no end.

  “What could you possibly want right now?”

  As unflapped as ever, Zhres said, “Ozla Graniv is here to see you.”

  Jorel’s nasty retort died aborning on his tongue. “Ozla’s back?”

  “No, this is merely a convincing hologram of her. Yes, she is back and she says it’s quite important that she speak to you.”

  “All right, send her in.”

  The doors parted to reveal a much slimmer Ozla Graniv. “It’s about time you came back,” Jorel said. “Gora’s been driving me insane.”

  “Well, that’s a short drive for you, isn’t it, Jorel?”

  Jorel couldn’t help but laugh. “See? Gora’s wit was never this caustic. So where’ve you been? I was considering sending search parties.”

  “I told you where I was,” Ozla said as she sat down on the couch. “Tezwa.”

  Taking the seat on the other end of the couch, Jorel said, “No, you started off on Tezwa. You even filed some decent stories.” They were, in fact, excellent stories, but Jorel was hardly about to say that out loud. “Then in June, you disappeared.”

  “It takes a while to get from Tezwa to Earth when you don’t have Starfleet ships at your beck and call.”

  “It doesn’t take four months.”

  “It does the way I went.” Ozla took a deep breath. “Jorel, I need to tell you something very important: I know the real reason why Zife resigned.”

  “We all know the reason.” Jorel said it with ease, even though he’d never been entirely sure of it. He knew that the notion that it had been planned for months was false, for all that he’d flogged that particular horse in the press room. The causes stated in Zife’s resignation speech had certainly all been valid, and Zife’s chances for reelection had dwindled with each new mishandled crisis in any case, but it was still a bit odd. However, he was hardly about to say so to a reporter.

  “We all know the stated reason. But I know the real reason, and unless you give me a good reason not to print it, I’ll be writing about it for all of Seeker’s subscribers to see.”

  Jorel didn’t like the sound of this. “What’re you talking about, Ozla?”

  “I’m talking about Tezwa. I’m talking about six nadion-pulse cannons that the Zife administration put on Tezwa eight years ago.”

  Great, now she’s subscribing to conspiracy theories. Jorel had seen several publications that had advanced this theory. Most were of the type that also said that transporters murdered you and replaced you with a soulless duplicate, that replicators were being used to disseminate mind-controlling drugs, that the universe was one big holodeck, and that the citizens of the galaxy were just pawns in a giant chess game among beings of pure energy. All had circulation figures that were at best in five digits. “Ozla, you can’t possibly—”

  “I have a source, Jorel. A reliable one who told me that Nelino Quafina, the former secretary of military intelligence under President Zife—and who, I might add, resigned when Zife did—brokered the delivery of those cannons to Tezwa via the Orion Syndicate.”

  Jorel laughed. “Ozla, come on. You’re a legitimate reporter. In fact—and I’m not saying this lightly—you’re one of the better reporters in the room.” Jorel had to keep his eye from twitching as he said that; it went completely against his grain to compliment a reporter ever, much less twice in one conversation.

  Testily, Ozla said, “You think I don’t know how crazy this sounds? Except it doesn’t, really, once you take a look at it. I know the Syndicate, and I know what they charge for this sort of thing. Tezwa didn’t have the money.”

  Jorel already saw the holes in her theory. “Tezwa had a bankrupt economy, they probably borrowed—”

  “Their economy was trashed because they bought ships from the Danteri. That’s what drove them to financial ruin. Even at their most economically stable, they couldn’t afford both the cannons and the ships.”

  Not liking the turn this was taking, Jorel said, “Look, Ozla, that’s all well and good, but you can’t—”

  “The cannons aren’t why Zife resigned. Zife resigned because Starfleet Admiral William Ross forced him to or they would have removed him from power.”

  Now she was just getting silly. “And this is based on what, exactly?”

  “I have a source who was part of the transaction. And I have the diary of one of the military leaders on Tezwa.”

  “A source.”

  Ozla regarded his dubious words with a nasty expression. “I have a lot of sources in the Syndicate, Jorel. Sources whose position in the Syndicate were improved by my exposé and who feel they owe me.”

  Witheringly, Jorel said, “How nice for you that you’ve helped criminals be upwardly mobile.”

  “Upwardly what?”

  “Never mind.” Jorel waved his hands back and forth. “This isn’t—”

  “I have this story, Jorel. But—” She hesitated. “You may have noticed I’m a bit thinner than I was the last time you saw me.”

  “Yes,” Jorel said, seeing no reason to lie to spare her feelings at this point—nor, indeed, at any point.

  “That’s because I haven’t been able to eat. This is killing me, because—” She closed her eyes and let out a slow, long breath. “I know what’ll happen if I break this story. A Dominion War hero engineering a coup, a Federation president arming an independent planet—and the worst of all, the absolute worst, is that Zife knew about those cannons. You yourself said it in the press room when it happened, that the president himself ordered the U.S.S. Enterprise to escort the Klingon fleet to Tezwa to deal with Prime Minister Kinchawn’s threat to the Qi’Vol colony. That means that Zife sent a Starfleet ship to Tezwa knowing they had these brutal weapons—and didn’t tell them. That means Zife didn’t inform the Klingons that the Tezwans had these brutal weapons that proceeded to kill thousands of Klingon soldiers.” She clenched her fists. “Jorel, if I break this story—I don’t know what will happen.”

  “There isn’t a story,” Jorel said forcefully. “Honestly, do you really think Zife or Ross is capable of such a thing?”

  “Right now, Jorel, I don’t know what to think. But the information I’ve been presented fits the notion that Zife armed the Tezwans and that Starfleet found out about it and forced him to resign. And I can’t just carry that knowledge around with me and not tell anyone. I’m a reporter, this is my job.”

  Jorel shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “Ozla—” He tried to collect his thoughts, but he’d never had a conversation like this, either when he’d had a similar job on Bajor or since he’d moved to the Palais three years earlier.

  He tugged on his earring and finally said, “What is it you want from me, Ozla?”

  She stood up. “Like I told you before, I’m running this story unless you give me a good reason not to. You’ve got one day to find that reason.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and left Jorel’s office.

  Jorel sat on his couch for quite some time after that. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it was, but two questions ran through his head the whole time. One was, What if she’s right? The other was, What do we do then?

  Finally he got up and walked out the door. Zhres was sitting at his desk, reading something on his workstation. “Jorel, FNS is reporting that—”

  “Never mind that.” Jorel meant to speak those words in anger, but they came out of his mouth weakly. “Call Zachary and give me the first microsecond that Esperanza has. Tell him it’s crucial.”

  “What did Ozla—”

  Now he did speak in anger. “When it becomes necessary for yo
u to grow a brain, Zhres, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  Before Zhres could reply, Jorel stomped back into his office.

  It can’t possibly be true. I worked for Zife for two and a half years. He wasn’t capable of—

  Then he remembered what Ozla said about Quafina being the one to have brokered the deal—and that Quafina had resigned with Zife. That had always struck him as odd—that Quafina would resign when Zife’s resignation would put him out of a job when the new election was held in a month’s time anyhow. More to the point, he wasn’t the only one who’d gone down with Zife.

  Min Zife might not have been capable of what Ozla was accusing him of. But Koll Azernal? The Zakdorn chief of staff had once been jokingly referred to by an FNS reporter as “The Brains Behind the Bolian,” but after working in the Palais for over two years, Jorel knew that it wasn’t a joke. Azernal was a ruthless bastard who was more than capable of arming an independent planet on the Klingon border. It was eight years ago. The Klingons had pulled out of the Khitomer Accords. War with the Dominion was only a matter of time. Paranoia about Founder infiltration of the Alpha Quadrant was at an all-time high. Azernal, whose strategic mind was both amazing and frightening, was just the type to have hedged his bets by putting those cannons on Tezwa as a potential exit strategy.

  And if Starfleet had found out about it, they would have been all over Zife. They wouldn’t have been able to go public with it, because revealing it would indeed have angered the Klingons, thanks to the deaths those cannons had caused. But is it out of the realm of possibility that they’d have forced Zife out of office? Jorel had met William Ross several times and knew just how arrogant and self-righteous he could be, given the right provocation.

  Jorel shook his head. This is ridiculous. As he’d said to Ozla, this was simply contorting reality to fit some scatter-shot information. They had no proof.

  But will that matter? If Seeker —which isn’t known for printing inaccurate information—runs this, and people start to look at all the things that don’t make sense…

  “Jorel?”