by Cory Rushton
“I wish I had two of you, one for each team. I’m sure Faulwell will do fine on Sachem, but we don’t know the depth of the cultural contamination in these places.” Bart Faulwell was the da Vinci’s linguist, and although his profession demanded a certain knowledge of cultural issues, Carol was the ship’s acknowledged expert. “The Federation has barely begun rebuilding itself, much less the pre-warp cultures under its care. But reports indicate the Dominion was more involved with the locals on Coroticus. Your observations will be crucial.”
“Firsthand observation of a pre-warp civilization.” Abramowitz whistled. “I considered becoming a proper archaeologist, once. Patient observation, good old-fashioned field work, that would be the dream life.”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect dreams when the place has been under Dominion rule for over a year.”
Carol waved a hand dismissively. “I doubt they’d make that big a difference to the planet. Coroticus III was a strategic move. There was nothing about the natives which would have riled up the Dominion.”
“Except that they were solids.”
Carol paused. “Well…true. Still, there’s no indication that the Dominion committed any kind of genocidal crimes on Coroticus. During the treaty process, Dominion negotiators claimed not to have interfered with the local populations.”
“But the Dominion doesn’t have a Prime Directive. Unless it’s something about worshipping the Founders as gods.”
The sociologist looked lost in thought for a moment. “Then we should have fought harder to keep them off the planet.”
Gold shrugged. “We didn’t have the resources to protect Betazed, let alone Coroticus or Sachem II. Besides, it was a Prime Directive issue.”
“I’ve never understood this obsession with the Prime Directive anyway.” Carol folded her arms. “I can never keep it straight, and I did quite well in Professor Gyffled’s class at the Academy. It seems to change from year to year.”
Gold’s eyes twinkled dangerously. Carol could feel a lecture coming, and had nobody to blame but herself. “What’s not to keep straight? Don’t interfere with pre-warp cultures.”
“Or the Klingons. When the Klingons had a civil war, we stayed out because of the Prime Directive.”
“Ah!” Gold smiled, warming to the subject. “That’s because it was an internal matter.”
“Of an ally, and part of the problem was that we were an ally. So we were already involved. It just looked lazy. Or cowardly. What about Bajor?”
“There are different facets and interpretations, but generally it means don’t interfere if you can help it.”
“So maybe the next time the Dominion attacks we should surrender, so that fighting them doesn’t break their natural development?”
The captain frowned. “You’re exaggerating, Abramowitz. I expect you might even be pulling my leg—playing devil’s advocate?”
Carol grinned. “Color me red.”
Gold chuckled. “You remind me of my old friend Gus Bradford. We used to argue about things like this—although, to be fair, I usually took your position.” His smile faded. “Seriously, Abramowtiz, can I trust you with this? Nothing tests our characters like the Prime Directive. I’ve seen it before. Misplaced pity, inappropriate anger. It’s so easy to stand on high and see what’s best for other people.”
Carol nodded. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Gold was silent for a long moment, observing her and stroking his chin. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
She suppressed the sudden, irrational spurt of anger. “With all due respect, sir, people have to stop asking me that. I’m a cultural specialist on a Starfleet vessel. This is what I do.”
He held his hands up in mock surrender and smiled. “I know, I know. But you know me, I have to ask.” He let his smile disappear. “Given what happened on Teneb.”
“You mean when I was nearly stoned to death by xenophobic refugees who caught me with a magically disappearing tricorder?” She kept her face expressionless. “I’d completely forgotten about that.”
Gold looked straight into her face for another long moment before shaking his head, chuckling again. “Sorry to have reminded you. If you’re okay, I’m okay.”
“I’m okay.”
He ducked his head in a friendly dismissal. “Okay.”
Now Abramowitz was on the surface of the planet itself, standing in the midst of the forest clearing where the observation post had stood, hidden from the locals. The post was currently visible, the holographic duck blind down while the da Vinci team surveyed the damage done by self-sabotage and time. The emitters had apparently kept working throughout the Dominion occupation, and it was an open question whether the occupiers had found it.
The main post was a series of four buildings high up in the boughs of the large jopka, cedarlike trees that dominated this stretch of the forest. The buildings had been connected by high-tension suspension bridges, which were to be the first things reconstructed. Visual and auditory sensors hidden throughout the region had fed information back to the post’s computers, and secondary posts elsewhere on Coroticus collected similar information about the world’s other civilizations. Those cameras, located in places with heavy native traffic, would have to be replaced last, given the inherent difficulties of working with advanced technology around pre-warp aliens.
The Coroticans were humanoid, and close enough to Terrans on the surface that no cosmetic surgery was deemed necessary beyond slightly tapered ears, at least for the humans of the da Vinci crew. The ears of the Vulcan security guard, T’Mandra, were deemed within acceptable physiological parameters for Coroticus. The locals wore rough clothing, cloaks and trousers, generally in peacock colors, with tall boots reaching to midcalf. Even the men wore some jewelry on the wrists and ears, although they were more heavily bearded than either Federation woman was used to.
In fact, it was one of Abramowitz’s jobs to explore the closest Corotican settlement, Baldakor. While tiny by Federation standards, Baldakor was one of the most important political and spiritual centers on the planet. Further, Starfleet Intelligence believed that the village had been the closest spot to the Dominion presence, and thus most likely to have been affected. Granted, information was sketchy, but that was where she came in.
There was no time like the present to start out on the hour’s hike to Baldakor, although she would need to locate Corsi, her bodyguard, first.
A loud sneeze from behind a nearby copse of shrubs gave her a fairly good starting point.
Chapter
2
The outpost was a mess.
Inside the shields, the photon grenade had destroyed the base’s equipment, causing the walls to collapse on themselves. Even if a Corotican native had managed to slip past the holographic shielding, he wouldn’t have known what he was looking at. A Jem’Hadar soldier, on the other hand, would have been potentially quite interested in the outpost and the information on Coroticus contained within it.
“There’s nothing left,” said Stevens, running his tricorder in a slow circle around the room. “I can’t detect the smallest trace of information, encrypted or otherwise.”
Johal nudged a fallen support beam with his foot. “That’s good. It was a great source of concern at the time. We had to abandon Coroticus to the Dominion, but we certainly weren’t interested in providing research that could help them control the local population.”
Fabian was searching for something to say, something about the lost research and horror of war (something that wouldn’t sound trite) when he was distracted by approaching footsteps, crunching in the fine debris of Starfleet sensor banks and swivel chairs. He turned and nodded to Lauoc Saon, the diminutive Bajoran security guard.
“Mr. Stevens, I’ve found evidence of footprints in the area.”
“Normal local traffic?” asked the engineer.
“I’m not sure. They’re humanoid, but they appear erratic, as if they were looking for some
thing.”
Stevens raised his eyebrow. “Something like a Federation observation outpost?”
Lauoc nodded. “The chronology is confused, but they’ve definitely come back more than once.”
Johal cleared his throat. “It could be locals. If a hunter noticed that wildlife avoided a certain area, and the duck blind has the effect of making it appear that way, then he might have been curious. The Coroticans are just like us, in that way.”
Stevens nodded before turning to Lauoc. “Have you informed Commander Corsi?”
“Yes, sir. She’ll look into rumors regarding the outpost in Baldakor.”
“Is there anything else you’ve found?” asked Johal.
Lauoc turned to the older officer. “Sir,” the Bajoran said, scratching idly at the scar on his face with one hand and holding a tricorder in the other. “If I understand the situation when you evacuated the outpost, you left your tactical officer behind?”
The older officer’s face colored lightly. “Saed Squire, yes. I wouldn’t say we left him behind. It was an unfortunate bit of timing between the Valletta’s arrival and the explosion. I think…” Johal paused for a moment before sighing. “I think he knew he wasn’t going to make it.”
Lauoc nodded. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. Everyone who joins security knows the risks, and we’re glad to take them.”
Security personnel seemed to share this sense of sacred duty, thought Stevens. Dom sure does. Stevens found his attention wandering back to Lauoc’s scar, the result of a Breen neural whip encountered during the war. Security always seemed to pay the heaviest price. In fact, Lauoc was one of seven replacements for security personnel who died at Galvan VI.
“It’s just that I can’t find any sign of that, Commander.” He stepped closer so that he could show the tricorder’s screen to Johal. “Even given the powdering of the outpost, there should be some sign of the lieutenant’s body, even if it’s only at the molecular level. The shields should have kept some of the…material…localized.”
Johal frowned and took the tricorder. He grunted in acknowledgment. “May I ask what you’re suggesting?”
“It could be the local background radiation, Commander,” suggested Stevens. “There’s some low-level thoron radiation throughout the region, which is interfering with our sensors.”
“From the grenade explosion?” asked Johal.
Lauoc shook his head. “Definitely not. It might be related to some sort of weapon discharge, but it would need to be on a fairly large scale to have these effects.”
Johal looked out in the direction in which, Stevens knew, the nearest Corotican village lay. “Do we think the Dominion attacked the locals?”
“We couldn’t tell based on the da Vinci’s sensor readings before we beamed down.” Stevens felt like apologizing. The man was clearly affected by the possibility of the locals suffering at the hands of Jem’Hadar weaponry. For that matter, so was Stevens, and he had no firsthand knowledge of Coroticus at all. Meeting the Jem’Hadar and their level of military technology would have made the meeting between the Aztecs and the Conquistadors look almost equal.
Lauoc glanced at Stevens before continuing. “But more than that, there’s a small chance that Squire survived the explosion. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but if Lieutenant Squire learned anything from his Academy survival classes, this wouldn’t have been a bad world to put them to practice.” He shrugged. “Even with the Jem’Hadar around.”
“Squire was one of the last officers to take survival from Owen Paris before he was kicked upstairs.” Johal rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. “Can we make a search?”
“I’ll ask the commander when she gets back from the village,” Lauoc replied with a nod.
Stevens’s attention was drawn by one of the computer technicians. Ensign Hj’olla was a Tiburonian woman straight out of the Academy, and a year early at that. She was ostensibly in charge of the small team of young computer specialists and engineers temporarily assigned the S.C.E. for this mission, and had made her eager nervousness well known to both Stevens and Commander Gomez from the moment she boarded the da Vinci at Starbase 212.
Stevens wandered over. “You look like you wanted to speak with me, Ensign?”
“Yes, sir. I was wondering if we could get started clearing debris? I noticed that you were speaking about the missing officer, and that perhaps we’ve learned all we can?”
Stevens felt an uncustomary twinge of annoyance. “Were you eavesdropping, Ensign?”
The Tiburonian turned slightly blue under her cauliflowered ears. “No, I mean, I heard…I mean…Yes. I suppose I was, sir.”
The annoyance passed and Stevens chuckled. “You don’t need to call me ‘sir’. You’re an officer, I’m just a noncom.” He smiled sweetly. “Granted, I’m a noncom in charge of this particular operation. Still ‘Fabian’ is fine, or ‘Mr. Stevens’ if you really want to be formal.”
“Until my team is ready to take over reconstruction efforts throughout the sector on our own, yes, sir.”
Fabian got the distinct impression that Ensign Hj’olla would continue to show him the respect due to him by virtue of the mission, for the duration of the mission, and not a moment sooner. No respect for the noncommissioned, he sighed to himself, even when we routinely save the day.
“I suppose you’re right, though,” he said at last. “No reason not to start cleaning up. Your team’s on a pretty tight schedule, even with our help.”
Hj’olla’s face lit up with a sudden transforming smile. “Thank you, sir! I’ll keep one member of the team scanning for trace elements of, of whatever, while we work.”
Stevens nodded and smiled back, slightly overwhelmed. I didn’t know Tiburonians could smile like that. “That’s a good idea.”
Again, she said, “Thank you, sir.” She put her hands behind her back and her feet together, almost unconsciously. “I’m sorry if I came on strong. Again. I really do appreciate everything you’ve done to help me.” She smiled again, softly this time, almost shyly. “Fabian.”
Stevens swallowed. “Carry on, then,” he managed.
Did the ensign just…flirt? His first instinct was a certain self-satisfaction. His second was to look around and make certain Domenica Corsi hadn’t seen. He might not be sure what his relationship with the security chief was, exactly, but he was very certain that flirting with attractive young ensigns wasn’t a part of it.
Not if he wanted to keep all of his internal organs intact.
Chapter
3
Abramowitz breathed in deeply. The smell of livestock and inadequate sewage systems made for an unpleasant aroma, but experiencing it was part of her job. She took another deep breath and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” wheezed Corsi, her own nose red and thoroughly protected from Baldakor’s scent.
“It doesn’t smell as bad as I’d expected.” Abramowitz breathed in again, held it longer. “No, not as bad at all.”
Corsi shook her head. “You make it sound as though that’s a bad thing.” Her stuffed-up nose made all her th’s sound like d’s.
Abramowitz tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. “It might be.” She pointed her tricorder toward one of the larger buildings in the village, a three-story wooden structure decorated with weathered stone statues adorning the top floor. To her trained eye, the statues looked like grimacing lizards holding sticks and blades, protective spirits rather than honored ancestors. “That building has a more sophisticated plumbing system than I would have expected.”
“All cultures develop in different areas at different rates,” said Corsi. “Maybe these people value sanitation above weaponry or vehicular transport.”
Abramowitz nodded her head appreciatively. “Well said, Commander, and certainly a possibility. You’re full of surprises.”
“And pollen.” Corsi growled.
Abramowitz touched her left-hand little finger to her right shoulder as two Corotican women passed. They returned the
gesture, but frowned at Corsi, who had neglected to do so. “Commander, we need to blend in.”
Corsi glowered. “Are you saying they don’t have cranky, rude people on Coroticus? Why does Starfleet always assume we all need to be friendly?” She sneezed, snarling at herself immediately afterward.
“We need to get you another hypospray. We could try another medley, maybe mix anti-sheep with anti-Omicronian orchid?”
“I’ll wait for a real doctor. I’m fine.”
Abramowitz refrained from pointing out that their “real doctor” was off being up for some medical prize or other and wouldn’t be back until this mission was over in a week. Instead, she turned her attention back to the locals as they went about their business. “Their culture approximates that of medieval Europe on Earth, with a strongly agricultural basis.” She touched Corsi’s shoulder lightly, pointing to a nearby domed building, one of the few stone structures in the village. “They even have stained glass.”
Corsi narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Isn’t that Hodge’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development?”
Carol chuckled softly. “Now you’re just showing off. It’s actually Hodgkins’s Law, which describes how separate planets develop similar or even identical cultures, like the Nova Romans. Anyways, it’s no longer in favor since the Palmieri Hypothesis.”
“How’s that work, then?”
“Well, Professor Palmieri always felt that Hodgkins’s Law was…deeply flawed…and…” Abramowitz wandered toward the domed structure as her voice trailed off.
“Oh, very nice,” muttered Corsi, following the cultural specialist.
Placing her hands against the domed building’s stone, dark gray and cool to the touch, Carol stood on her toes and strained to take in the glass above. The building seemed to be a religious structure, the spire above the dome straining toward the skies, home of the gods across the galaxy. “I need to get in there.”
