“Hard to say. Arbiter Deqan is taking his time with the Rite of Succession. Before I left, he ordered prospective candidates to report for the ja’chuq, an involved ritual in which the challengers recite their achievements and deeds to demonstrate their worthiness to lead. Apparently it’s quite time-consuming, and there have been calls for its elimination from the Rite, but Deqan insisted on going through with it. I think that, in the wake of recent events and accusations, he wishes to give tempers a chance to cool.”
Archer laughed. “Among Klingons? That I’d like to see.”
“Anyway, I’m just grateful to be out of there. I think some of the councillors were, ah, disappointed that my findings did not incriminate any of their rivals for the chancellorship. I’m grateful to Krell for ensuring my safe departure before he . . . well.”
“I’m glad you’re coming back too, Phlox,” the admiral told him, smiling. “I’ve had Endeavour standing by near the Klingon border—I’ll tell T’Pol to rendezvous with your freighter as soon as you’re clear.” His smile widened. “And then I’ll see you on Denobula. I hear it’s gonna be one hell of a wedding.”
Phlox gave a grin that put Archer’s to shame. “I can guarantee it will be an experience you’ll never forget!”
4
July 28, 2165
Pebru homeworld
“DON’T LET THEM SURROUND US!” Valeria Williams called to her security team as they closed ranks against the mob of rioting Pebru. “We have to get through to our people at all costs!”
The rest of the team shared the armory officer’s urgency as they brandished their particle rifles and stunned the charging horde with precision fire, advancing step by laborious step toward the besieged government complex. After all, not only would defeat by the raging mob mean they had failed in rescuing their crewmates . . . but it would be damned embarrassing. The Pebru were chubby, pear-shaped bipeds with small heads, pointy snouts, and stubby arms with barely functional digits. They were perhaps the least physically imposing species that Williams had ever fought against. Losing to them would be like being beaten by a mob of overweight Corgis.
But the lieutenant reminded herself that the Pebru had a ruthless streak. They had deliberately infected more than a dozen pre-warp worlds with Ware in order to provide the rapacious technology with alternative sources of live processors, victimizing others to spare themselves. The majority of those worlds had suffered horribly from their selfishness, while the Pebru had thrived.
“Their line is weakening near the left entrance!” Ensign Ndiaye cried.
Williams spotted the opening before her second-in-command finished her sentence. Trusting that she and the ensign were on the same page, she turned to Crewman Kemal. “You and Sandra drive them to the right! Make us a hole!” She pushed forward, Katrina Ndiaye at her side, and fired relentlessly at the few remaining rioters who stood between her and the left entrance. They were slow-moving, making easy targets, but there were still enough to overwhelm her and the ensign if Kemal and Yuan failed to shift the rioters’ line. Indeed, one managed to evade her fire and get close enough to leap at her. She took that one down with a right cross to the snout. The Pebru went down so easily she almost felt bad about it, but she reminded herself that if she let even one rioter knock her over, the others could overwhelm her.
In the Pebru’s defense, this uprising did not represent the will of the majority. Most of the Pebru masses had been kept ignorant of their government’s atrocities, and the recent revelation of the truth had led to that regime’s ouster. But the revelation had come along with the shutdown of the Ware network on which the Pebru depended for virtually their entire civilization. Their anatomical limitations made it difficult for them to build or operate technology without the Ware to synthesize it for them, and so they had been forced to endure significant hardships in the wake of the shutdown. Most Pebru blamed their government for bringing things to this point, and there had been widespread gratitude for the restoration efforts undertaken by the Starfleet task force and other neighboring powers like the Tyrellians—a civilization of interstellar traders who had lost both individuals and profits to the Ware (since their own goods could not compete with the advancement or convenience of the Ware’s products) and thus were happy to assist the worlds now liberated from it, in hopes of nurturing future trade partnerships.
Yet many of the ousted leaders still sought to regain political influence and avoid imprisonment. In recent weeks, they had mounted a propaganda campaign to exploit the masses’ growing frustration at the harsher standard of living they now endured. An ugly sentiment of xenophobia, shifting the blame for the Pebru’s hardships onto outsiders rather than their own leaders, had been spreading through the more gullible and angry segments of the populace, finally erupting into these riots.
For Williams, the timing of the upheaval could not have been worse. Left to herself, she could take on a mob of rampaging xenophobes every day and chalk it up to exercise; there were surely no categories of life-form more satisfying to punch in the face than bigots. But her concern was for the people inside the government complex—specifically for one man that she’d failed once and was determined never to fail again.
As Williams and Ndiaye fought their way to the steps of the blocky, gray-white government complex, the doors opened and the Pebru defenders inside, employees of the new, reformist government, started firing their own low-powered stunners at the mob. With their assistance, the women from Pioneer were able to break through the line and reach the doors. “Where are our people?” Williams asked.
Urging them inside, the captain of the defenders gestured with a stubby forelimb. “This way,” he replied, leading her down the stark, white Ware-built corridor while his fellows remained to hold the entrance. Williams hoped that they and her team outside would be enough to contain the mob until reinforcements arrived.
The Pebru captain led them deeper into the complex, which put them farther from the rioters yet drove home that there’d be no escape by transporter. The walls were made from materials that resisted sensor and transporter beams; it might be possible for Pioneer’s transporter to get a lock if they were by the outermost wall, but it would be a risk. Beaming out from deeper inside would be impossible. That was why they’d had to break in the hard way to begin with.
Still, it was a relief when they reached the archive room and she saw the faces of the two she’d come to rescue. “Val!” cried Ensign Bodor chim Grev. “Thank Kera and Phinda!” The cherubic Tellarite communications officer shot to his feet and ran over to give her a hug. “I knew you’d save us, but I’m still relieved you’re here.”
Behind Grev, Lieutenant Samuel Kirk looked equally relieved but was more reserved in expressing it. “He’s right,” the soft-spoken historian said. “It would’ve been annoying to get killed just when we’ve made a possible breakthrough.”
Williams studied Kirk, wondering what lay beneath his flippancy. Over a year ago, he and Grev had been taken hostage by the First Families of Rigel IV in an attempt to sabotage their system’s entry into the Federation, and Kirk had been tortured to motivate Grev to help them decrypt classified files stolen from the Rigelian authorities. The ordeal had changed the thoughtful, gentle-natured historian, leaving him more haunted, less open with his feelings.
But that was something to save for a later time. It was simpler—and more important to the mission—to focus on what he’d just said. “You found something about the origin of the Ware?” she asked him.
It was easier to get him to talk to her when it was strictly business. “Maybe not the origin, but at least the Pebru’s source. Their early records are fragmentary—they had a mostly oral history before the Ware era—but I’ve found references to another civilization that either gave the Ware to the Pebru or shared it with them.”
Williams frowned. “What’s the difference?”
“Shared in the sense of coexisti
ng. It sounds like the Pebru were initially part of a larger community, but then had a falling out with them. I get the impression that they got sick of being exploited as sacrifices to the Ware, so they struck out on their own to become the exploiters.”
“Any indication of where this other race came from?” the armory officer asked.
“Not a race,” Grev said, “a multispecies community. In fact, I’d say the best translation of the Pebru name for them is ‘Partnership of Civilizations.’ ”
Williams stared. “Those people Vol’Rala encountered? The ones who claim to use volunteers for the Ware?”
“Not necessarily,” Grev said, warming to the debate. He was far more easygoing with his human crewmates than most Tellarites would be, but he still relished a good argument. “After all, it’s a pretty generic label. Partnership, Consortium, Alliance . . . Federation . . . there could be multiple neighboring groups with equivalent names.”
“But the description fits what we know about the Partnership,” Kirk said, “including the general region of space where they were encountered.”
“So maybe their whole ‘volunteer’ thing is just a smokescreen,” Williams replied.
The discussion was interrupted by a series of loud bangs and rumbles and the distant sound of shouting voices. Williams’s communicator beeped; she fished it out of the sleeve pocket in her gray tunic and answered it. “The rioters have broken into the building,” Kemal reported. “We’re inside, but we’ve fallen back to a defensive position. We’ll try to hold them off until reinforcements arrive.” More shouting and weapons fire sounded. “I just hope that isn’t much longer, ma’am.”
“Don’t be modest, Ediz. You and Sandra can hold that line all by yourselves, right?”
“Right. Got it, Lieutenant. Kemal out.” The crewman tried to instill his voice with the same certainty she expressed, but there was a hint of resignation beneath it.
But Williams had been watching Kirk and Grev, and she’d seen the fear in their eyes—especially Kirk’s—at the prospect of falling into enemy hands again. Putting her communicator away, Val stepped closer to Kirk and lightly touched his arm. “Don’t worry, Sam. I promise, I won’t let you down. Never again.”
They were both surprised by the intensity in her voice. From the look in Kirk’s eyes, Williams feared she’d done more to upset than comfort him. During the Rigel incident, she had prioritized saving a stranger over bringing back intelligence about Kirk’s captors, delaying his rescue. If she hadn’t made that choice, he could have been spared days of torture. Once she’d told him that, it had changed things between them. Before, he’d always been clearly attracted to her, though she’d done nothing to encourage it; not only was he not the bold, athletic type of man she normally preferred (though he did have lovely eyes and a very attractive mouth), but her previous attempt at shipboard romance had interfered with her work and earned her a chewing-out from Captain Reed. But though she’d made sure to keep their relationship platonic, she’d come to value his friendship greatly, appreciating his intelligent, inquisitive mind and his innate gentleness and empathy.
Ever since Rigel, though, Sam had pulled away from her. She couldn’t blame him for that, and she’d given him the space he needed to heal, hoping that they could renew their closeness in time. Grev had been there as his stalwart friend—clearly as unrequitedly attracted to Sam as the historian had been to her, but just as selfless and loyal in his friendship. Although Val thought the two of them would make an adorable couple, she’d come to realize that she was grateful that nothing seemed likely to happen on that front. She felt she owed something to Sam, and she yearned for a second chance with him—thus her determination to prove that she would not fail him again.
But what if the reminder of that failure just drove him further away?
After a moment, Kirk sighed. “Val . . . you didn’t let me down before. None of it was your fault. It was the Families who had me tortured. You just did what was right. You always do.”
She gazed at him, a wave of relief washing over her. “I thought you resented me.”
He looked down. “I did, for a while. But I got over it.”
“Then I don’t understand. Why is it still so hard to get close to you? What more will it take to get things back to the way they were?”
More distant bursts of fire and shouting sounded outside, and Kirk took a moment to contain his alarm before replying. “You don’t get it, Val. What happened to me . . . nothing can make that go away. It will always be part of me.”
“You’re right, I don’t get it. Do you forgive me or not?”
He grew exasperated. “It’s not about you, Val. It’s not about whether you can be the brave space hero and get the guy.”
“I’m not—” She let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t want to score you as a conquest, Sam. I care about you. I want you to know I’m there for you. Damn it, isn’t that what you want?” She winced. She wasn’t very good at this sensitive stuff.
His voice hardened in response to her own. “Not if it’s just about you assuaging your guilt.”
“But you just said I had nothing to be guilty about!”
“The problem is that I had to tell you that!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Umm . . . guys?” That was Grev, his soft voice managing to reach them despite their own raised voices. It helped that it was underscored by a change in the sounds from outside. “The reinforcements are here,” the ensign went on. “The mob is in retreat! We’re okay now!” He looked between them. “Maybe we should celebrate. You guys want to go for coffee?”
Grev’s attempt to play matchmaker, while sweet, was rather poorly timed. “We’ll have plenty of mopping up to do,” Williams said, gesturing to Ndiaye to follow her outside to rendezvous with Kemal and Yuan.
“Right,” Kirk said. “And we need to report what we found out about the Partnership.”
“Or whoever,” Grev couldn’t resist adding. But no one was in the mood to reply.
August 6, 2165
Gronim City, Denobula
Phlox’s home was one of the most remarkable cities that Hoshi Sato had visited in all her travels. She had never seen a place that was so urban and so organic at the same time. Great towers and sprawling arcologies stretched clear to the horizon, reminding Sato of Tokyo or São Paulo on an even grander scale; yet the wide boulevards between them were rich with vegetation, and the buildings themselves were covered with greenery on their rooftops and many terraces. The larger structures were artfully faceted and curved to reflect sunlight around their bulk, breaking up the shadows and keeping the streets bright and airy for their botanical and humanoid occupants alike. Large, leathery-winged mammals soared on updrafts between the towers, occasionally swooping down on the lemurs that climbed and leapt among the branches, commuting across their own arboreal city that coexisted within the constructed one. Their cries and peeps blended comfortably with the constant, gentle roar of ninety million Denobulans going brightly and politely about their business.
“You’re in luck,” Phlox had told Sato, T’Pol, and Elizabeth Cutler as they had made their way through the crowded city toward his family’s pre-wedding gathering. “Since it’s mating season, it’s also monsoon season, and the city is at its most lush and vital. It’s so invigorating!” Hoshi agreed up to a point, though she could have done without the humidity and the frequent downpours.
It could have been monstrous. With so many humanoids cramming themselves into such a tight space, hardly ever sleeping, keeping up a constant level of activity for thirty-five-point-six hours a day, the waste and pollution and disease and tension they generated could have been all but unbearable. But over millennia of close-knit living, the Denobulans had become experts on sanitation and hygiene, and more generally on living together in close quarters. Their world had only one vast continent, most of whose i
nterior was profoundly arid, deprived of moisture by its sheer distance from the ocean. The Denobulans had evolved in the forests along the continent’s southwest coast, sustained by the monsoonal rains and protected from the devastating hurricanes that frequently lashed the eastern seaboard. But even though their modern technology had allowed them to irrigate the desert, mitigate the storms, and spread more widely across the continent, the people of Denobula retained their communal instincts and huddled together by choice, with twelve billion Denobulans crammed into an area barely larger than China or Canada, leaving more than ninety percent of the planet’s single vast continent unpopulated and wild. Being good neighbors, and good caretakers of their finite environment, had been a basic survival strategy for them.
Not that their caretaking was entirely peaceful; they saw themselves as part of the ecosystem they shared, and they often hunted the lemurs and various other small species for food, even in modern times. But they had long since abandoned hunting animals advanced enough to have any level of awareness, and were as humane as they could be toward the species they did hunt, taking no more than necessary and dispatching them as painlessly as possible. Their measured approach to utilizing the plants and animals of their world as integral parts of their civilization and technology explained much to Sato about Phlox’s approach to medicine.
Indeed, a large part of what made the city so beautiful for Hoshi was that she could see it through Phlox’s eyes. He had spoken of it in such glowing and romanticized terms over the years of their friendship that she had expected the reality to disappoint, but instead she found herself reminded of the warm feelings he had often expressed for his home and its occupants. She had seen many remarkable sights on the strange new worlds she’d visited over her fourteen years in space, but this time, the experience was personal, and that made it more profound.
Which made her all the sadder that she could not share it with the man she was going to marry.
Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code Page 7
