Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Would we? By Vulcan policy, these races would never have been contacted at all, due to their inability to create high technology of any kind, let alone warp drive. In time, the Federation may see the wisdom of adopting the same policy.”

  “Although,” Jahlet countered, “many of us would rather see the Federation maintain the freedom to trade with pre-warp worlds.”

  “But the members of the Partnership would have little to offer in trade, left to their own means.”

  Reed frowned. “It’s not as if the Ware offers its services free of charge. It demands raw materials, refined products . . . and sentient lives.”

  “Even so,” T’Pol replied, “it is difficult to deny that the Partnership has managed what no other civilization known to us has done—achieved a measure of symbiosis with the Ware, one that does not require the sacrifice of lives.”

  “Not always.” Reed paced before the windows, beyond which the clouds seemed to be thinning, the light increasing. “But you know what they’ll do to Thenar and her crew if they’re found guilty. They’ll be installed as Ware processors for the better part of their lives! Oh, the Senior Partners claim they’ll be given periodic respites to ‘mitigate’ the neurological damage, but Doctor Liao is convinced it’ll be enough to cause them permanent brain damage. And there’s a nonzero chance it could be a death sentence!”

  He took a deep breath that did little to calm him, then continued. “What the Partners don’t seem to appreciate is that it isn’t just their own well-being at risk. They have the Ware mollified, but not contained. Nothing’s stopping it from spreading to other worlds, worlds that don’t know the Partnership’s tricks for holding it at bay.”

  “But their methods could be shared with other worlds. And if these beings could achieve so much, it suggests that we could devise a more comprehensive solution—a way to reprogram the Ware so that its benefits would be available to the galaxy without the cost in lives.”

  “I have a hard time believing that’s possible, T’Pol. The Ware is a weapon.”

  “Swords may be beaten into plowshares, Malcolm.”

  She stepped closer to the window as the transport broke through the clouds into brilliant sunlight. Above them, rapidly drawing nearer as the transport rose, was an enormous city floating in the sky—a collection of thousands of interconnected modules of gleaming gray-white Ware architecture, airborne islands linked by a network of bridges and buttresses. As with the Xavoth city below, its edges stretched far enough to be lost in atmospheric haze, even though T’Pol could see much farther through the clear air at these heights.

  “Say what you will about the Ware,” she said to Reed, “but it made this possible.”

  The city was named Zytheel, and it was home to the Hurraait, Enlesri, and other oxygen-breathing species that shared this world with the Xavoth. T’Pol knew that it was one of several aerial cities, others of which were adapted for the environmental needs of Nierl, Sris’si, and other exotic Partner races. Avathox was one of the Partnership’s central worlds, home to Partners of every race in the alliance. The aquatic environment where the Sris’si lived needed antigravs to hover in the sky, but Zytheel’s nitrogen-oxygen mix made it naturally buoyant in Avathox’s atmosphere even at the Minshara-level temperatures and pressures found above the clouds, leaving the antigravs as a backup system only.

  Once the transport docked, the Senior Partners allowed the Federation contingent to wander the city, observing the life and activity within it. As an explorer, T’Pol found it a fascinating opportunity, and she could tell that Jahlet, Reed, and even Williams and her subordinate found it so as well—though there was a somber undercurrent to it all, for they knew the Partners were showing them this to remind the Starfleet crew of what their colleagues on Vol’Rala had unwittingly destroyed.

  While most of the interior architecture was the familiar white-walled Ware design, Zytheel’s inhabitants had customized it to suit their needs—painting the walls, clearing out large interior spaces as parks and gardens, enriching the scenery with foliage and sculpture. One whole module of the city had been converted into an open grassland of the type where the Hurraait had evolved, and dozens of young Hurraait used it as a park, running through it and playing games that mimicked the hunting behavior of their forebears. All of it was done under the watchful eyes of their Monsof helpers; although there was no evident danger to the children here, each Hurraait was bonded from childhood with one of the hominid Monsof, who served as the ratite’s “Hands” for the duration of the Monsof’s shorter lifespan.

  The Partnership had raised many questions that T’Pol was finding it difficult to resolve in her mind, making her wish for the counsel that had so often been available to her in the past. She had been looking forward to reuniting with Trip Tucker upon reaching Partnership space, hoping that together they could discern the reason for their inability to connect telepathically in recent months. But Trip was still aboard Pioneer as it probed deeper into the unknown in search of the Ware’s elusive origin planet.

  Finally, she could hold out no longer. When she and Reed stopped to appreciate the spectacular view from the peak of a narrow, arched crossover bridge between modules of the city—an eclectic cluster of modules in the near field, then nothing but blue sky and white clouds beyond as far as the eye could see—T’Pol took advantage of their momentary privacy to broach the issue. “How has our mutual friend been?”

  Reed took her meaning instantly. “He’s well. Getting back into engineering work agrees with him. There are times when he’s almost his old self again—closer than I’ve seen him get in years, at any rate.”

  “Nothing has been troubling him unduly?”

  “The Ware situation, of course. The threat to Vol’Rala’s crew . . . the incident on Etrafso . . . the search for the Ware builders. But no more than the rest of us. If anything, I’d say his . . . isolation . . . has been to his advantage. He’s not as close to sh’Prenni and the others as the rest of us. Concerned, certainly, but not as personally invested. And he’s built up quite a thick skin over the past decade.”

  “I suppose he has,” T’Pol replied. Could it be that he was schooling himself to such detachment over the lives lost and endangered that he had closed his mind to his bond with T’Pol? But that seemed unlikely. They had connected during other crisis situations in the past; and the loss of contact had occurred months ago, before Trip had encountered the Partnership.

  Could it be, conversely, that he was too content? T’Pol could imagine, even without Reed’s words, how Trip would be revitalized by the opportunity to return to the kind of technical problem-solving and innovation he had loved so much aboard Enterprise. Cracking the technology of the Ware, devising a way to deactivate or contain it, was the kind of challenge that could keep him excited for months. Could it be that when he was fulfilled by his work, when he was not in need or distress, he felt no urge to reach out to T’Pol? Was their bond merely an emotional crutch to him?

  And was her reaction to that prospect a sign that it was merely a crutch to her as well?

  “T’Pol?” Reed was studying her with concern, and she realized with some abashment that she had allowed her emotions to show.

  “I am fine, Malcolm.”

  “I don’t blame you for missing him,” Reed said, though she knew he had sensed something deeper in her reaction. She appreciated his polite fiction. “You know . . . my team has been managing fine for weeks without Endeavour. But Pioneer could surely use a hand in the search for the Ware builders. Why don’t you take Endeavour and rendezvous with them?”

  She met his eyes. “I appreciate the offer, Malcolm. But Admiral Archer sent Endeavour to assist you and Captain sh’Prenni. It would not be appropriate to base my choices on personal considerations.”

  “Finding the Ware’s origins would assist us. It could be the key to this whole problem. And the rest of the task force is busy cleaning u
p Ware outside Partnership space. Travis and his people could really use the assistance of a Columbia-class starship.”

  T’Pol considered. Refusing a logical assignment to avoid the appearance of a personally motivated choice would itself be a personally motivated choice. “Very well,” she agreed. “If you are confident your people can manage without a ship . . .”

  “There’s no shortage of transport drones available in the Partnership, I’ll give them that much. It’s an easier commute between worlds here than it is in the heart of the Federation.”

  “Then I shall leave Commander Thanien behind with a team to assist you, then take Endeavour to aid in the search.”

  “That will be fine.” Reed gave her a tight smile. “Good luck, T’Pol,” he said, meaning it on several levels.

  She took his blessing in the spirit intended, but she did not believe in the human concept of luck. Outcomes were the result of a mix of choice, circumstance, and accident. It remained to be seen what circumstances she and Charles Tucker would face upon their reunion—and what choices they would make.

  11

  September 16, 2165

  Zytheel, Avathox

  SAMUEL KIRK WAS GLAD that Endeavour had joined the task force. Its crew and Pioneer’s had worked well together during the Rigel mission last year. Not to mention that Captain T’Pol and Ambassador Jahlet were both accomplished diplomats, bettering the task force’s chances of reaching some sort of accord with the Partnership and securing the Vol’Rala crew’s freedom.

  He was also glad to have the assistance of such a legendary linguist and first contact veteran as Hoshi Sato. It was no affront to his friend Grev to think so; while the amiable young Tellarite was a language prodigy in his own right, even he was in awe of Commander Sato and her uncanny intuitions into alien mindsets and methods of communication. Some of the Partnership’s members, such as the Monsof and Sris’si, had very different ways of thinking and communicating than most humanoids. The Sris’si, for instance, not only perceived the world through echolocation rather than sight, but were a largely solitary predator species. With less social interaction than most sophonts, their intelligence was not filtered through language as strongly as most, their communication more through action. And the Monsof were at a far more basic level of linguistic processing than Federation humanoids, for all their intelligence in other respects. It was only through the shared benefits of the Ware that these races had been able to interact with the other Partnership species at all.

  And yet Kirk was not ready to dismiss either species as having nothing to say. Both had experience with attacks by anti-Ware factions like the Silver Armada and the Manochai. The Monsof, like the Nierl, had lost their homeworld to a Manochai assault, leaving them as refugees that the Hurraait had taken in. It was Kirk’s suspicion that those races’ vehement hostility toward the Ware was due to prior experience. The Partnership scholars that Kirk had spoken to had insisted they knew nothing of the Ware’s beginnings, but maybe there was some clue hidden in the accounts of the invasions. Conquering armies often left tales and records of their own behind in the lands they overran, if only to attempt to justify their conquests to their victims.

  But drawing out the clues from one species’ documentation of another species’ accounting of itself was a tricky linguistic challenge, especially when the mediating cultures were as exotic as the Partners. Kirk hoped that Sato and Grev together could make a breakthrough that Grev alone could not.

  When he returned to the two communications officers’ study kiosk after going to get them coffee (for the Partnership’s Ware had scanned Pioneer’s nutritional database weeks ago), Kirk found them laughing and gossiping instead. “Oh, Val hasn’t given up,” Grev was saying. “And she’s not the type to try to make him jealous by pretending interest in someone else. She’s just being his friend, same as always—though maybe a little more pointedly.”

  Kirk made himself known. “Aw, Grev, I’ve asked you not to gossip about me. Val and I aren’t your personal soap opera.”

  “You just keep telling yourself that, Sam,” Grev said, patting his hand as he retrieved his cup of coffee. Sato laughed.

  “Oh, marvelous,” Kirk said. “Two communications officers who think my love life is funny. It’ll be all over the fleet soon.”

  Sato’s striking, dark eyes became sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I don’t mean any harm. I’m sure Grev doesn’t either.” Kirk nodded, chastened.

  “Besides,” Grev couldn’t resist adding, “it’s hardly fair to call it a love life, is it? And whose choice is that?” He sipped the coffee. “Oh, Sam, this is mocha! I wanted hazelnut. Be right back.”

  He left the two humans alone, an uncomfortable silence in his wake. “You know,” Sato began after a moment, then broke off.

  “What?”

  “It’s not my place.”

  “That didn’t stop you when I wasn’t in the room.” His expression was sardonic, but his tone softened the words.

  The older woman sighed. “I just think you’re making this harder for yourself than it has to be. I mean, look at Grev. He’s obviously got a crush on you, and even he’s trying to push you and Val together. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  Kirk blushed. “Honestly, sometimes I wish I could return Grev’s interest. It’d be a lot simpler. But . . .” He fidgeted. “Don’t ever tell him I said this . . . but I just can’t find a way to see Tellarites as attractive.”

  Sato pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I dunno, I think he’s kind of cute.” Kirk chuckled. “But this isn’t about Grev. I mean . . .” To his surprise, she smacked his arm with the back of her hand. “What is wrong with you? I’ve seen Val ­Williams. She’s gorgeous. She’s really athletic. She’s smart, she’s ­fearless—­and she likes you. How are you not okay with that?”

  He slumped into a vacant seat. “I know. She’s . . . I thought she was totally out of my league. For a woman like that—for her most of all to be interested in me . . . it’s a dream come true. But since Grev told you everything else, I assume you know the problem.”

  “You mean the fact that she’s an armory officer. That she has to risk her life for others and you’re afraid you might lose her.”

  “Yeah, basically.”

  “Which means you’re an idiot.”

  He stared at her. “Wow. Not the kind of diplomacy I expected from the great communicator.”

  “Screw diplomacy. This is first-hand experience.” Sato leaned forward. “Sam, did you know I’m engaged to be married?”

  He blinked. “Oh yeah, I heard Commander Mayweather talking about it. Um, congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Do you know who I’m getting married to?”

  “Just that he recently retired from your crew.”

  “Takashi Kimura. Until three months ago, he was Endeavour’s armory officer.”

  Kirk took that in. “Oh.”

  “Yes, ‘Oh.’ He risked himself for me, for the crew, for total strangers on a regular basis. And it cost him,” she went on more solemnly. “On Vulcan, when V’Las’s rebels set off that explosion in the Irinthar Mountains . . . Takashi was there. He was badly injured. He lost an arm . . .” She blinked, her eyes moist. “He suffered brain damage. Impairment of language skills, fine motor control, the ability to plan and anticipate . . . Obviously, it ended his Starfleet career.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She held his gaze frankly. “Don’t be sorry for me. I have what you don’t. I have his love. I have every day we shared together . . . and every day we have yet to come, whatever happens. And whatever he’s lost, I take comfort knowing that he still has me. We didn’t get engaged until after he was hurt. Until we realized what we might lose if we didn’t seize every chance life gave us.”

  Kirk spent quite some time absorbing her words. “It’s just . . . so frightening. The risk of losing her if I let myself .
. . I don’t know if I could bear that.”

  “Here’s the thing, though: It’s not just about you.” Sato placed her hand on his wrist. “Takashi put himself at risk because he’s the most selfless man I know. And his selflessness, his willingness to take risks out of love for others, is what inspired me to be able to take those risks too. His sacrifice showed me that risking yourself for others is what love is all about. And you lose far more by avoiding that risk than you do by taking it.”

  Kirk was silent for a long while after that. She had left him with much to consider.

  September 17, 2165

  Beta Lankal system

  Lokog laughed as he and Laneth stared through the space station’s viewport at the cloud of debris slowly dissipating into the orbital space beyond. That debris was all that remained of the Imperial fleet that had defended this station and held this system—a system that was now in QuchHa’ hands. “And all thanks to my mighty drone fleet,” Lokog declared, placing an arm around Laneth’s shoulders. “Do you not find my conquests impressive, my dear?”

  He leaned in toward her, but she slapped him forcefully across the cheek, sending him staggering. She gave him a look of disgust as he regained his footing. “Do not think you are entitled to me merely because I find your services useful, privateer scum.”

  Tasting blood in his mouth, Lokog burned with fury at the humiliation. Of course he was entitled to her! She would have died if he hadn’t saved her. That put her in his debt, and he intended to collect. The high-born Laneth probably expected educated suitors who would woo her with love poetry, but he preferred a more basic form of conquest. After all, what prize was sweeter than one wrested from an opponent by force? And the arrogant bitch needed to be taught a lesson.

  Moments later, though, his attempt at her forceful edification ended with Lokog coming to his senses on the floor against the viewport, his head aching fiercely and his right shoulder perhaps mildly dislocated. Laneth looked down at him with more scorn than anger. “Lowly pirate. You think to pit yourself against Defense Force training?”