Hearts and Minds

by Dayton Ward

  “The Tevent assault force has pinpointed our location,” said Picard into the handheld radio’s microphone. “More are coming. We can’t afford to be taken into custody, Mister Worf.”

  “Understood,” said the first officer, his voice sounding tinny and distant through the radio’s speaker. “Stand by for beam out, Captain.”

  Kneeling next to Picard and doing their best to tend to Janotra’s injuries, Chen and Elfiki leaned over to cover the Eizand dissenter’s stricken form when more weapons fire echoed across the hillside. Positioned several meters away behind another rock outcropping, Ravel Dygan aimed his Eizand weapon and fired. The Cardassian was rewarded for his efforts with another Coalition soldier falling to the ground.

  “Do they want to capture us or kill us?” asked Chen.

  Picard’s attention was divided between Janotra and the troops attempting to maneuver closer without exposing themselves to return fire. “I honestly don’t know at this point. If they want to take us alive, then their tactics are rather sloppy.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging, sir.” Chen was using a piece of her blue uniform undershirt to bandage the wound on the side of Janotra’s head. The Eizand rebel had fallen unconscious, succumbing to his injuries.

  “Captain,” said Dygan, and when Picard looked in his direction the Cardassian was pointing his free hand toward the sky. “Do you hear that? It sounds like an aerial vehicle.”

  Damn.

  Now able to hear the sound, Picard agreed with Dygan. “Something’s coming, all right.” Being caught out in the open would be suicide if the assault force was able to bring air assets into the hunt.

  “Cover would be good right about now,” said Elfiki.

  She reached for the pack that had lain next to her feet after she and Picard emerged from the underground passages and sought refuge with Chen and Dygan at what they hoped would be an extraction point. Picard had been thrilled to learn of Chen’s success in using the tricorder’s emergency data transfer protocol to attract the Enterprise’s attention. The Eizand radio given to her by Janotra was also a huge help, allowing first Chen and then him to make contact with the starship.

  Weapons fire from somewhere higher up on the hillside tore into the ground near Picard’s feet, making him draw his body into a ball while searching for the source of this attack. More shots rang out, with Dygan returning fire as best he could, but the tide of this skirmish was turning in even greater favor of the Coalition troops.

  “Hey. Wait!” shouted Chen just as Picard watched a transporter beam coalescing around her and Dygan as well as the wounded Janotra.

  As he hoped, the Enterprise transporter scanners were able to distinguish between the human and nonhuman members of the away team, given that none of them had combadges for identification, focusing on extracting Chen and Dygan as well as Janotra. In seconds, all three were gone, and Picard had only enough time to sling his own pack over his shoulder before he felt the familiar tingle on his skin as the transporter found and claimed him. The hillside along with the advancing Coalition troops disappeared in a shower of sparkling light, replaced mere heartbeats later by the interior of Presider Hilonu’s office. He and Elfiki materialized facing the window overlooking the Ponval city, the last lingering tendrils of the transporter were releasing their hold on him as he turned to his right in order to see the Eizand leader standing behind her desk. Her expression was one of shock, violation, and mounting anger, as she reached for something on her desk. Raising his weapon, Picard pointed it at her.

  “Don’t.”

  Freezing in midmotion, Hilonu glared at him. “How dare you intrude on my inner sanctum? What is the meaning of this insolence?”

  Staring past the muzzle of his phaser at the presider, Picard could not help thinking about Lieutenant T’Sona, who had given her life in this room in order to protect him. The tragic waste of her death angered him, and it required physical effort to rein in that emotion. There would be time for mourning later, but understanding and acceptance would take far longer.

  Damn it.

  Behind him, Picard heard another set of transporter beams flaring into existence near the door leading from Hilonu’s office. Six columns of energy coalesced into the forms of Lieutenant Rennan Konya and a detachment of Enterprise security officers. All six officers were armed with phaser rifles and wearing tactical equipment vests over their Starfleet uniforms, and each member of the team wasted no time aiming their weapons at Presider Hilonu.

  “Good to see you, Captain,” said the ship’s deputy chief of security in greeting. “Commander Worf sends his regards. Thought you might need some backup, sir.” Stepping closer, he reached into a pocket of his vest, extracted a communicator badge, and handed it to Picard. “He also mentioned you might need one of these.”

  Affixing the combadge to his own uniform jacket, Picard smiled. “The commander is most efficient when it comes to such things.” He nodded in the direction of the door. “See to it that no one comes in here.”

  “Aye sir,” replied Konya before turning his team toward the door.

  “Captain Picard,” snapped Hilonu. “This behavior is outrageous! Do you actually believe I will stand here and do nothing? You are already scheduled to be tried for the horrors your people inflicted upon mine. Do you wish to add endangering the life of a senior Tevent government official to your quest?”

  Picard removed his backpack, grateful to be out from under its weight. “I promise that you are in no danger, Presider. We have no desire to harm anyone, even in self-defense, but we will protect ourselves if provoked.” Indicating for Elfiki to begin arranging the equipment for use, he said, “As for why we’re here, it’s a simple matter, really: we’re here to offer you the truth about your planet and your people, in the hopes that you’ll broadcast it to your world. The question is, are you afraid to face what this information may tell you?”

  “I am afraid of nothing,” said Hilonu. “I certainly do not fear anything you can present me.”

  Picard gazed upon her with sadness. Watching her body language, listening to the inflection in her voice, and seeing the anger burning in her eyes was enough to tell him that Presider Hilonu had no idea what he was talking about or why she should care. He regretted what he was about to do, but the fate of this planet’s entire population, and its interactions with its interstellar neighbors both known and unknown, demanded he do so.

  “With all due respect, Presider, after watching this, you may want to reevaluate your opinion.”

  27

  Near Sralanya

  April 19, 2063

  The world outside the windows was breathtaking.

  Valmiki Goswami remained as captivated by the lush green-blue orb as the first time he had lain eyes upon it, mere moments after emerging from hibernation. Despite obvious differences in the shapes and sizes of the land masses, the planet was remarkably like Earth. Below the blanket of clouds that only partially obscured its oceans and continents, Sralanya teemed with life. It was still too far away to see such details, but Goswami imagined dark clusters dotting the landscape, indicating immense cities visible even from orbit as described in the mission briefings. Billions of beings, going about their lives in much the same manner as the people he and his companions had left behind. What were their thoughts, their goals, their dreams? Had anyone paused to admire the simple beauty of a flower, or an animal running in the wild, or a sunset?

  Did anyone suspect they were supposed to die today?

  “Val? You all right?”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Goswami saw Meredith Harper standing a few steps away, drying her still-wet red hair with a towel. The tiny, coffin-sized shower was one of the few extravagances afforded to them in the ship’s cramped berthing area, and she had taken advantage of it following her own emergence from cryogenic suspension. Now she wore a standard gray one-piece jumpsuit, the front of which was unzipped far enough to reveal a blue T-shirt underneath. Over the jumpsuit’s left breast pocket was a white lab
el with her last name in red block letters, and an American flag adorned her left shoulder, as opposed to that of India on Goswami’s own suit.

  He forced a smile. “Sorry. I guess my mind wandered.”

  “Yeah.” Harper stared at her towel. “Mine too. You’d think after napping for twenty years, I’d be more alert.”

  The hibernation process responsible for sustaining Peacemaker 1’s three-person crew since the spacecraft’s departure from Earth nearly twenty years earlier had performed in accordance with all specifications as well as the hopes and dreams of the engineers who had designed and constructed the system. Goswami understood how it worked, thanks to the time he had spent studying it as part of his training, and so possessed a working knowledge of its operation. While he could make some rudimentary repairs on his own or with the aid of instructions from the ship’s computer, that was as far as his understanding took him. All he knew now was that it had worked, and he and his fellow astronauts were alive.

  Despite the rigorous preparation for this mission, Goswami was still coming to terms with the notion that he along with Harper and the crew’s third member, Park Ji-hu, had aged mere weeks thanks to the hibernation process, while nearly twenty years had passed on Earth. By the time they returned to their home planet, many of the people they knew would be aged or even dead. Children born just prior to Peacemaker’s departure were now young adults, perhaps attending college or serving in the military or simply lying around the house, annoying their parents while glued to some gadget or other distraction. What events of note had occurred during those years? How had technology and society advanced during that time? Was war still a constant specter, or had the nations of the world figured out a way to live in harmony? Perhaps the alien invasion Goswami’s superiors had feared finally came to pass, making his mission here irrelevant.

  Wow. Some pretty thick irony there.

  “I guess you’ve seen it,” said another voice as Goswami and Harper were joined by Park. His close-cropped black hair also still damp from his shower, he wore a jumpsuit like those of his companions, but with the flag from South Korea on his left shoulder. “It’s absolutely gorgeous. I’ve already had the cameras angled for some great pictures.”

  Goswami nodded. “Almost like home.”

  “So,” said Harper, exchanging looks with her friends. “Are we really going to go through with this?”

  “Well, we did come all this way.” Goswami intended the reply to carry a bit of levity, but it came out flat and even a bit sardonic, and he felt guilty about even attempting to make a joke at all. This was serious business, after all. The fate of an entire world—perhaps two—was at stake.

  Five years of training and preparation, overseeing and participating in every step of mission planning down to the smallest detail, had brought the Peacemaker’s crew to this moment. The plan had been under way long before Goswami’s selection as commander of the mission, originated from deep within the bowels of the intricate web of secrets that was Majestic 12. Neither Goswami nor his fellow astronauts had even met anyone from the clandestine organization that had come up with this notion. For security reasons, intermediaries saw to it that the Peacemaker crew had all the information they were required to have at the appropriate times during their training, without there ever being a need to meet with those overseeing the entire affair. Even their meeting with the president of the United States, less than a week prior to the ship’s departure, had avoided discussing mission specifics, which Goswami found comical given the chief executive’s authorization for the launch to go ahead as planned.

  It was as though no one wanted to talk about attacking a planet and perhaps wiping out an entire civilization.

  Valmiki Goswami did not set out to command such a mission, and it was not among the goals he had in mind upon applying to the astronaut candidacy program in 2035 while serving as a lieutenant and an aviator in the United States Navy. Despite his Indian heritage, he enjoyed joint Indian-American citizenship, born in California while his parents lived there under a guest worker visa program. A military career seemed like the fastest way to attain his dream of flying, and eventually applying to NASA, where he hoped one day to participate in a mission to the Moon or one of the system’s other planets. Joining a top secret, all-but-invisible shadow government organization tasked with searching for signs of extraterrestrial activity on Earth and creating defenses against possible alien invasion was not in his original plans. Still, there was no denying the draw of such a fantastic challenge, especially when presented with incontrovertible proof that such threats were real.

  Like Goswami, Meredith Harper and Park Jin-hu were both military veterans who had made the transition to NASA’s astronaut corps. All three were selected for the Peacemaker mission after meeting a lengthy list of criteria, including technical knowledge, experience, and accomplishments in a number of skill areas. Each also possessed an unwavering commitment to the security of their country and their planet. The mission they were being asked to carry out was one that required a particular mindset and fortitude. Could they, at the moment of truth, visit mass destruction upon an enemy in defense of their own civilization? A battery of psychological tests and interviews indicated they could indeed rise to this commitment.

  But that was not going to happen today.

  Making their way to the Peacemaker’s cramped cockpit, Goswami maneuvered himself into one of the two forward-facing seats positioned before the slanted canopy. There was just enough room for the three astronauts in and around the equipment and other components stuffed into the tiny compartment. One of the consoles separating the two forward seats, a piece of retrofitted hardware with a computer setup the crew could use to access the vessel’s own systems, was so large that Goswami and Harper had to climb over it to reach the cockpit chairs. Behind them, a third position had been installed for Park, whose station oversaw all of the ship’s power and life-support systems along with other processes like communications and emergency procedures.

  From where Goswami now sat, he could look down the length of the massive cylinder fitted to Peacemaker’s forward docking collar. Twice the diameter of the massive center fuel tanks that had powered Space Shuttles to Earth orbit during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the weapons platform was essentially the largest six-round gun ever created. Half a dozen Titan V missiles and their support systems were crammed into the massive tube, which possessed no propulsion capabilities of its own. All control over the platform was routed to the Peacemaker cockpit and one of the computer terminals separating Goswami and Harper.

  Sralanya was visible in all its splendid grandeur, and he had to take another moment to admire the planet as it hung alone in space. The very idea of harming this jewel, let alone allowing such devastation to be inflicted by his own hand, filled him with rage and disappointment. The anger was fueled by the knowledge that he was here at the behest of cowards who lacked the conviction to do their own dirty work, but instead sent others to carry out directives born of fear and ignorance. His dissatisfaction, however, was reserved for himself.

  “I can’t believe I ever went along with such a stupid idea. What the hell was I thinking?”

  In the beginning, it was an abstract notion, a scenario developed and tested and theorized to every imaginable limit. Goswami likened it to the military officers who once sat at the bottom of missile silos, prepared to launch intercontinental nuclear weapons against distant targets at a moment’s notice. For all the testing and make-believe, there were no stakes, and neither were there consequences. In Majestic’s case, it was all just another simulation in an endless series of games designed to create strategies for countering an alien invasion. A preemptive strike was justified if one’s entire world was on the line, right?

  Only after the simulations turned to actual mission planning, and he watched the Peacemaker spacecraft being assembled in orbit and fitted with the nuclear weapons platform the ship would push to an alien planet, did the horrific reality o
f the task he had volunteered to perform begin to grip him. That Goswami had allowed himself to be a willing part of such a malicious venture, and that he once believed it to be a righteous cause in the name of protecting his home planet, only furthered his anger and self-loathing.

  “I’m initiating the course correction,” he said, tearing his eyes from the beautiful planet beyond the Peacemaker’s cockpit. “Stand by for platform separation.”

  Uncounted hours of training in a mock-up of the ship guided his hands over the controls, which were a hybrid of Eizand and human technology. It was a simple matter to fire maneuvering thrusters in order to induce a pivot that turned the ship so that it was no longer facing the planet. Satisfied with the vessel’s new attitude, Goswami reached for the row of switches and status indicators dedicated to the weapons package. Habit made his fingers drift over the controls that would begin the process of arming the platform’s six missiles, but he pushed past those to the next set of six switches and began flipping them in sequence. A light illuminated behind each control. He was just activating the last one when an alarm began buzzing in the cockpit.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Park.

  Goswami tapped the console. “It’s a master alarm for the platform arming controls.” He frowned. “Something’s not right here.” As he stared at the rows of switches, each of the toggles he had just activated flipped themselves back to their previous positions, and their associated indicators went dark. Next to them, the controls for the arming package flipped in unison, accompanied by all six lights activating.

  “It’s the computer,” said Harper, her face all but buried in the console and pair of keyboards and monitors that comprised her own workstation. “It’s initiated some kind of override protocol.” Scowling, she muttered a string of colorful profanity. “I’ve never seen these routines before. This procedure wasn’t here during any of our simulations or prelaunch checks.”

  Park said, “Are you kidding me? They installed new procedures and didn’t tell us? Why would they do that?”