“No bet, Admiral. The question is, how to prove it?”
Archer sighed. “And what do we do about it if we can? We’ve got other things on our plate at the moment.”
“Don’t we always?”
Archer didn’t need to respond, since the very existence of this meeting was answer enough. As they entered the conference room, a bright, open chamber with a wall of windows looking out on San Francisco Bay, Archer saw he was the last chief of staff to arrive. Arrayed around the table were his fellow chiefs of Starfleet’s various divisions: Admiral Shran of Andoria; Fleet Commander T’Viri of Vulcan; Admiral Flar of Tellar; and Admiral Osman of Alpha Centauri. Defense Commissioner sh’Mirrin also sat in on the meeting.
Greeting his colleagues, Archer took a seat next to Shran. The windows were behind him, so he wouldn’t even have the view to cheer him up. And the news was indeed grim. “All our analysts agree,” Commissioner sh’Mirrin finished after she brought the gathered chiefs up to speed. “The Klingons aren’t waiting. Despite their internal strife, they’re readying for an attack on a Federation outpost. We don’t yet know which one, so we need ships in position to guard the whole border area.”
“I have assessed our fleet distribution,” T’Viri put in. She operated the table controls to put a tactical chart on the three-sided viewer in the table’s center. “This would be the most efficient reallocation of available vessels.” Archer noted that the plan included the approval of Admiral Narsu’s request to transfer Essex to his command out of Starbase 12—which meant that the mystery of Theta Cygni XII would have to go unsolved a while longer. No doubt Captain Shumar would be disappointed, but if any Theta Cygnian refugees had escaped the planet at all, their fate was not immediately at stake. Like any Starfleet officer—like Archer on that terrible day when the Xindi weapon had burned a swath across the Earth—Shumar knew that exploration must be set aside when the defense of his home demanded it.
Shran frowned as he studied the display. “That would mean pulling ships away from the border of Ware space. We need those assets there if our task force requires assistance liberating Captain sh’Prenni and her crew.”
“We can’t just invade another nation if their verdict doesn’t go the way we want,” Archer protested. “I want sh’Prenni out as much as you do, but we have to do it the right way, or we’re no better than the Klingons.”
“And ‘the right way’ is just to let others carry out whatever injustices they want? I don’t hear you saying that where the Saurians are concerned.”
“I don’t want to invade them either. Not even now.” He filled the others in on Williams’s news. “Things only got that bad on Sauria because of our rush to make contact with a society that wasn’t ready for the impact we’d make.”
“Which has nothing to do with the Partnership!” Shran cried. “They’ve been spacegoing for centuries. They’ve interfered with plenty of other cultures. Now they’re messing with ours, and a friend of mine is about to pay the price!”
Archer held his tongue. This was not the place to rehash the argument they’d been having for weeks. Matters had not been this tense between Archer and Shran since before the Federation was founded. But Archer could hardly blame Shran for his concern for his protégée. It would be petty to remind him that sh’Prenni would never have been in this mess if she hadn’t recklessly interfered in a culture she didn’t understand.
Commissioner sh’Mirrin filled the silence. “No one here is happy about the Saurian situation, Jon. But we have our own invasion threat to consider. You know that if we need to ramp up production to wartime levels, we’ll need Sauria’s resources, even if we have to hold our noses while shaking the hand of the person who provides them.”
“After all,” Admiral Flar put in, “if we stop buying Maltuvis’s dilithium, he’ll just sell it to the Klingons, and then where will we be?”
“These are matters for debate in the Commission and the Council,” said T’Viri. “We should focus our attention on matters of logistics and strategy.”
“Quite right,” sh’Mirrin said. “To that end, Alexis, how do we stand on new ship construction? Even with the reallocations T’Viri suggests, we’re thin on the Klingon front. And the grim reality is that we’re likely to become thinner if a war starts. We’ll need to ramp up production.”
The discussion turned to construction timetables and starship specifications for a while. The next new Columbia-class ship was still months from completion, but new waves of Intrepid-class light cruisers and delta-shaped Ganges-class frigates were also under construction as part of Archer and Osman’s fleet modernization plan. While not the most cutting-edge designs, they were more advanced and versatile than the favored wartime classes of Samuel Gardner, Archer’s predecessor as UESPA chief of staff. Gardner was the warhorse who’d pushed the mass manufacture of the old, basic Daedalus- and Marshall-class ships during the Earth-Romulan War, favoring speed of construction and—frankly—disposability over the innovation and flexibility of the multipurpose vessels Archer preferred. Yet Archer now feared the looming Klingon conflict could scuttle his modernization plan and force the fleet back into Gardner’s military mode. There was already pressure to abandon the Ceres-class construction plans in favor of the more combat-oriented Poseidon class, and to reconvert the surviving Daedalus-class ships into troop transports if war broke out again. The Andorian Guard, meanwhile, seemed content to stick with its tried and true Kumari and Sevaijen classes.
Still, Archer couldn’t help considering the resources that would be needed to build and power those ships, and where those resources would need to come from. He had to make one more try to offer alternatives to bankrolling Maltuvis’s dictatorship. “I think we should intensify efforts to upgrade Rigel’s shipbuilding facilities to Starfleet specs,” Archer suggested. “Aside from their technical expertise, they have access to multiple sources of dilithium and rare metals.”
“That’s true,” Osman agreed. “There’s also the Vegan debris disk and our trade deal with the Vissians.” The jovial Centaurian looked up from her data slate, her dark eyes piercing. “But I can’t order up a dilithium-rich planet on request. And Flar’s right—better we get Maltuvis’s minerals than the Klingons do.”
“I just don’t like the idea of throwing innocent Saurians to the wolves to benefit ourselves.”
Osman pondered. “Well, who knows? Maybe Captain Reed’s task force will crack the Ware’s programming soon and find a way to bring it under our control. Imagine having a whole armada of drone warships to take on the Klingons.”
“If we could make them work without enslaving sentient beings in the process. And if the technology could be trusted not to turn on us. I tried trusting it once, thank you.”
Shran looked at him askance. “Would you rather trust Maltuvis? There are no ideal solutions here, Jonathan. You should’ve learned that by now. When the galaxy is falling down around you, you have to prioritize whom to save. You look to your own first and let the rest take care of themselves.”
“Sauria is one world,” T’Viri said. “The equation is simple. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Archer kept his peace, recognizing that he had no sound alternatives to offer. Still, he couldn’t help wondering: How many times do we have to sacrifice the few before they outnumber the many?
September 28, 2165
U.S.S. Endeavour, Silver Armada border
The Silver Armada’s border patrol ships were considerably less polished in appearance than Travis Mayweather had expected from the name. They were a ragtag assortment of older ships apparently cobbled together from mismatched pieces with little regard for aesthetics. But they were abundant and quite heavily armed, so Mayweather had no doubt of their ability to prevent any unwelcome ship from entering their territory. Pioneer and Endeavour had been confronted on their approach by four Armada ships and required to submit to
a thorough inspection to ensure they were Ware-free. Mayweather and T’Pol had offered no resistance, and they had been greeted with hospitality once their lack of Ware and their agenda toward it had been established.
The species operating the Armada came from a planet they called Pegenor, a superterrestrial world with high gravity and a dense atmosphere that was mostly nitrogen and oxygen, but thickly laden with carbon dioxide and volcanic gases. They had been able to breathe the atmosphere aboard the Starfleet ships with only the occasional whiff from breathing tubes built into their uniforms, though a visit in the other direction would have required full EV suits. The Pegenoi were oversized near-humanoids with heavy, elephantine feet, scaly blue-gray skin, and stocky, apish bodies that could barely fit through some of the tighter hatchways aboard the Starfleet ships. But they conducted their inspections diligently nonetheless, determined to keep the Ware out of their space at all costs.
According to Captain Garaver, the Pegenoi female who led this interceptor group, their species was one of multiple races in the region that had been former clients of the Ware, and the only one that had managed to maintain a space fleet following the societal collapse that had resulted from its spread and the ensuing wars to purge it from their territory. “The Ware drained so many of our resources and our great minds before we rose against it,” Garaver told Mayweather and T’Pol, “and we expended so many more in the battles that followed. Many of our neighbors had forgotten how to create or invent without the Ware, and collapsed back to the primitive when it was gone. Some were happy to revert to a more basic existence, free of machines. Others still struggle and need help, but our resources are stretched thin by the effort to guard our space. This is why we welcome trade with any who are free of Ware.”
“Societies fitting that description seem uncommon in this sector of space,” T’Pol observed.
“The Ware infests this region,” Garaver answered solemnly. “Ever spreading on its own, manipulating its victims into spreading it as well. We must guard relentlessly against reinfection. But we do not have the resources left to take our battle wider. Your own success against the Ware is a great victory. You must share your method with us.”
“Our method is only partially effective,” T’Pol replied, remaining noncommittal. “Our goal has been to locate the Ware’s original creators in hopes of gaining insight into its fundamental nature and purpose.”
“Which is why we need to know about the other ship that entered your space four days ago,” Mayweather added. “The man aboard that ship is also seeking the Ware’s creators, but he wants to exploit the Ware for his own gain, not stop it.”
Garaver took a thoughtful suck on her breathing tube. “Yes, we thought as much when we spoke to him, despite his claims,” the massively built captain said. “That is why we told him what he sought to know.”
Mayweather frowned. “Excuse me, there may be a translation problem. Did you mean you didn’t tell him what he wanted to know?”
Garaver smiled. “I mean that we told him exactly where to find his answers. The origin world of the Ware. It is here, in our space. And we will be happy to take you there.”
September 30, 2165
Ware origin world
They found Daskel Vabion alone in the single intact structure left on the planet. All around, the world was a barren, irradiated ruin, without enough oxygen to sustain life. This temple had been built by the world’s last survivors, and now that they were gone, the Pegenoi maintained it and supplied it with oxygen for the benefit of visitors.
Vabion’s Klingon escorts had left days ago, finding nothing for them here, but the Vanotli industrialist had remained, combing through the historical records and relics left behind, with the assistance of a text translation device the Pegenoi had lent him. The device contained the Ware’s translation database, the one piece of Ware code the Pegenoi suffered to exist in their space—for naturally it contained the languages of the Ware’s creators, and theirs was a story that the Pegenoi wanted the seekers of the Ware’s origins to learn. Mayweather had not understood why until he saw the look of desolation on Vabion’s gaunt face.
“The Ware’s creators were not one race,” the Vanotli genius explained to the Starfleet landing party, readily sharing his discoveries once he recognized that misery loved company. His listeners included Mayweather, T’Pol, Tucker, and Sangupta as well as Captain Garaver and a pair of Endeavour security guards. “They were a corporation—an industrial giant within a trading network of four disparate races. They assembled knowledge and talent from all four civilizations, combining their areas of skill and expertise to advance their technology. They developed goods and services that could be adapted for sale on worlds with exotic environments—not only the two within their own community, but others among the worlds farther removed with whom they began to trade, including the Pegenoi.
“Their goal was to provide the finest in customer service—the most advanced technologies, the most adaptive and reliable systems, the most authentic replications of any desired goods. In order to reach new markets, the systems had to be able to scan any species’ biological and environmental needs and quickly adjust. The computers had to be sophisticated enough to translate any language in moments. They even made the technology self-repairing, so it would be more reliable than what their competitors could provide. After all, they profited from the material goods paid in return for the Ware’s products and services, and in the licensing fees paid for the use of their proprietary replication patterns. The Ware was a base investment that would repay itself over the long term; hence, it was designed for endurance rather than obsolescence.”
“So what happened?” Tucker interposed. “It demanded so much computing power that they needed to start kidnapping people to use their brains?”
Vabion smirked. “On the contrary. The Ware Corporation—let us call them that for simplicity—devised the most advanced and powerful computers in the entire sector. Electronic brains more than capable of handling the requirements of the system, operating entirely without the assistance of living beings—either from without or from within.”
Mayweather shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. This is just one more of your lies.”
“To what end, Mister Mayweather? If anything, it makes tragically perfect sense. You see, the computers they built were so efficient, so adaptable, so self-sufficient that the corporation’s need for live employees diminished. They were able to save a great deal of money by laying off their workforce and relying on the Ware to manage itself. They even programmed it to market and distribute itself, to recruit new consumers in other star systems.”
Mayweather was still skeptical. “And what, it suddenly came to life and started to eat them?”
There was a quality of sadness to Vabion’s chuckle, as well as a touch of hysteria. “Again, you’re looking at it from entirely the wrong direction. The problem is not that it gained self-awareness. The problem is that, despite all its power and versatility, it remained resolutely dumb.” He paused. “But I am getting ahead of the story.
“No, the guiding intelligence remained the Ware Corporation. Which, like any corporation, sought to maximize its profits. Naturally they had competition, and naturally there were corporate spies attempting to penetrate their secrets. They designed the Ware to resist all attempts to parse its programming. They became utterly fanatical about preserving their monopoly on its technology—so that they could monopolize all technology, all industry. They sought to buy out their competitors or drive them out of business. They used their influence to control legislators and amend the laws in their favor. They even bought up the educational institutions so that they could ensure no one but their employees had the knowledge to develop technologies that could compete with the Ware.” He shrugged. “Basically, the same things I did on Vanot. Just good business, you know.”
When he paused, Garaver spoke. “Meanwhile, the Ware’s c
lient worlds became more dependent. We could get everything we needed made for us, so fewer of us bothered to learn the skills necessary to fend for ourselves. Some worlds were raised from basic agriculture or hunting lifestyles. They became spacefaring peoples without even understanding basic physics or engineering.”
“For decades, the corporation monopolized higher learning,” Vabion continued. “But the executives themselves had become so reliant on the amazing computers of the Ware that they grew lazy and thoughtless. In time, they began to ask: ‘Why do we spend money teaching scientists and engineers when the Ware can make all we need? Why not shut down the universities and put that money in our own pockets?’ Their experts warned that this was dangerous. The computers at the heart of the Ware were the one thing that could not be easily replicated, for they were so complex, so fragile. But the executives had grown up pampered by the Ware. They could not believe it was capable of failure. And so they closed the schools and left the fate of the Ware entirely up to the Ware.”
T’Pol raised a brow. “And the Ware was designed to be adaptive. To repair itself using the available resources.”
“Exactly!” Vabion spun toward her and gestured sharply with a bony finger. “That was its imperative. To maintain its ability to provide service. But it did not understand service. It had no consciousness, no judgment, only mindless imperatives. It knew it had to go through the motions of serving its customers at all costs, but it did not know what service was for. It enacted its function as an end in itself, oblivious to the consequences to the people it was attempting to ‘serve.’ ”
“Now you’re contradicting yourself,” Mayweather declared. “How could it be so sophisticated but have no intelligence?”
Surprisingly, Vabion replied without the condescension Mayweather had learned to expect, appearing simply thoughtful. “Intelligence is a specialized form of processing. It is not something you gain merely by putting a billion adding machines together. The system needs to be designed in a specific way, a network analogous to a living mind.”
Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code Page 22
