“And still,” Bacco said, “even after Krim’s address, the vote was close.”
“But you prevailed, ma’am,” Piñiero noted.
“We prevailed,” Bacco said. “I have no particular interest in whether Bajor has a Federation space station at the mouth of the wormhole. For all I know, it would prove just as effective to assign a company of starships there as to spend all the resources in constructing an all-new replacement for Deep Space Nine. But Krim is right: our nose has been bloodied and we’ve been knocked down. Our only response, short of going to war, is to clean ourselves up, rise, and stand tall.”
“And now we’re going to do that,” Piñiero said. “So as far as I’m concerned, the Council meeting went rather well.” She did not smile even slightly, but in the echo of her earlier words, Bacco could hear mischief.
“You don’t have to be so persistent,” Bacco told her. “I already said you were right.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know,” Piñiero said. “For some reason, though, I never tire of hearing that—especially from you.”
Bacco shook her head as she considered a variety of pithy retorts, but before she could choose one, two quick tones sounded. Piñiero raised one of her padds in front of her and activated it with a touch. As she did, the turbolift arrived at the fifteenth floor and the doors parted.
Agent Kistler exited and looked both ways down the corridor. Then he peered back inside the lift. “We’re clear,” he said.
Bacco didn’t move, waiting as Piñiero continued examining her padd. Finally, her chief of staff looked up. “Madam President,” she said, “you have a visitor.”
“Where?” Bacco asked, confused. “Here? In the Palais?” She immediately thought of her daughter, but she had just spoken with Annabella yesterday, and she’d been on vacation with her family halfway across the Federation.
Since Bacco had become president, she’d welcomed legions of guests to her office, but, other than in times of crisis, none of them unexpected or unannounced. Because of that, she could not imagine who would presume to show up at her office without an appointment—or who would even be permitted inside the Palais, let alone up to the fifteenth floor. But she could see from Piñiero’s expression that somebody had done exactly that.
“Yes, ma’am, he’s waiting outside your office,” Piñiero said. “It’s Slask.”
“Slask?” she echoed, her surprise shifting, but not abating. “From S’snagor?”
“That’s the one,” Piñiero said.
Bacco could tell that her chief of staff had no explanation either for the sudden appearance of the Gorn adventurer. Bacco had befriended Slask when she’d served as the governor of Cestus III, which bordered on the Hegemony. She had not seen him in years, although during the course of her presidency, he had willingly functioned as a clandestine messenger of sorts, both delivering and receiving off-the-record messages for her that would have been difficult to safely transmit otherwise.
“Do we know what he wants?” Bacco asked. When Slask had delivered messages to her in the past, it had always been through intermediaries, never in person.
“He refuses to say,” Piñiero said, consulting the padd again. “He says he’ll speak only to you.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Bacco said.
“No, ma’am,” Piñiero agreed.
Bacco looked to the security officer beside her. “Agent Wexler,” she said, “I’ll go into my office the back way. I need you to see Slask, confirm his identity, and assess his intentions.” She highly doubted that either of the security officers with her would have allowed her to meet with Slask otherwise. Turning to her chief of staff, she said, “Esperanza, I’d like you to go too. Since you know him, you should be able to judge how important this is.” She shook her head, not pleased with how suspicious her position had made her. “It’s not that I don’t trust our old friend,” Bacco said, explaining more to herself than to Piñiero, she thought. “It’s just that we’ve got so many issues with which to deal right now. I’ve got to prioritize.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Piñiero said. She and Wexler stepped out of the lift and headed toward the anteroom outside the presidential office. Bacco assumed that Slask waited there not just with her assistant, Sivak, but also with some number of uneasy, distrustful security officers.
Bacco left the turbolift, and she and Agent Kistler walked toward the rear entrance of her office. At the door, Kistler entered. Bacco knew that active sensors unlocked the entrance only if they read the president’s presence there. Kistler confirmed the room safe for her, then escorted her inside.
As the agent took up a position inside the main door, Bacco crossed to her desk. A bright morning shined in at her through the curved windows that formed the outer wall of her office. She glanced quickly at the Tour Eiffel, the centuries-old iron tower that graced the Left Bank of Paris as it overlooked the River Seine, but she gave it no more attention than that. She sat down behind her desk, her mind racing over Slask’s unforeseen appearance at the seat of the Federation government.
It occurred to her that the Gorn waiting in her outer office might be masquerading as her old friend. Perhaps the Typhon Pact had sent an impostor as part of another attack on the Federation and the Khitomer Accords. Perhaps he would walk in, draw an energy weapon, and shoot Bacco down. Or maybe he would trigger an explosive device implanted in his body. She imagined the window-walls of her office splintering outward into the brisk morning air and raining down fifteen stories onto the Champs-Élysées, while thick, black smoke rose from the top of the Palais, disfiguring the sky like a scar.
Bacco closed her eyes, uncomfortable with such dark musings. Wanting to put them out of her mind, she tried instead to think constructively, to consider the decisions she would soon need to make. The Enterprise crew had arrived at Earth with Tomalak in their custody, as well as with additional information about the actions of the Typhon Pact in the Gamma Quadrant. Admiral Akaar reported to the president that, while under interrogation by Captain Picard, the former Romulan proconsul had allowed the Enterprise crew to test whether or not he was a Changeling. Tomalak did so, Akaar explained, because Picard informed him that morphogenic tracer particles had been detected aboard the Breen freighter.
“What the hell are ‘morphogenic tracer particles’?” Bacco asked.
“I believe that they exist only in the mind of Captain Picard,” said Akaar.
Tomalak’s responses to the Enterprise captain, though, including his willingness to be tested, confirmed that a Changeling had been present aboard the Breen vessel. That meant that there likely had been contact between the Typhon Pact and the Dominion, a situation that could prove dire for the Federation. Bacco had consequently charged Akaar and his admirals with formulating a plan of action on that front.
The intercom on Bacco’s desk chimed, and she opened her eyes. “Madam President,” said Sivak, his tone containing no hint of his frequent impudence. The elderly Vulcan—he had passed the two-century mark some years ago—had been a part of Bacco’s staff, like Piñiero, since her days as governor. Often irreverent to the point of insolence—surprisingly so for a full-blooded Vulcan—he kept her affairs organized and her office running smoothly, and he also acted as a gatekeeper for her. That he had permitted Slask to wait in the anteroom indicated his belief that the Gorn posed no threat. “You have a visitor,” Sivak continued. “Slask, of S’snagor, has requested a meeting with you. He insists that the matter is urgent, but that it will take up very little of your obviously valuable time.” There, at the end, Sivak had slipped in just a soupçon of disrespect with the use of the word obviously. Perhaps strangely, it suddenly made Bacco feel less anxious about Slask’s arrival.
Before she could respond, though, the door to the outer office opened. Piñiero entered, followed by Agent Wexler. “One moment, Sivak,” Bacco said, closing the intercom channel.
Both Piñiero and Wexler approached the desk. “It’s definitely Slask,” Piñiero said.
; Bacco looked to Wexler. “He passed every security checkpoint and every verification we have, otherwise he wouldn’t even be in the building,” the agent said, “let alone on the fifteenth floor.”
Bacco stood up behind her desk. “All right, then,” she said. “Let’s see what my old friend has to say.” She reached for the intercom and activated it. “Sivak, please send in my visitor.”
“Right away, Madam President.”
As Bacco closed the intercom, Piñiero moved to the front of the desk, while Wexler moved to the main door and opened it. A moment later, Sivak entered. “Madam President,” he said, “may I present Slask, of S’snagor.”
A Gorn walked in, the body beneath his green, reptilian hide quite muscular. He had silver, multifaceted eyes, a mouthful of narrow, sharp teeth, and rows of hard ridges beginning at his brow and crowning his head. Bacco recognized her old friend at once.
Slask waited as Sivak withdrew, closing the door after him. Then he said, “Madam President,” hissing his greeting in the sibilant language of his people, which Bacco’s translator rendered in Federation Standard.
The president gritted her teeth, parted her lips, and thrust her tongue to the front of her mouth. It had been some time since she had spoken the language of the Gorn, and even then, she’d only managed short phrases. Still, she gave it a shot, hissing out a welcome to her friend.
Slask produced a rumble deep in his throat, which Bacco knew would sound to the uninformed like a prelude to attack, but which she recognized as laughter. “You honor me, Madam President,” Slask said. “You remember well, and you do far better in my tongue than I could ever do in yours.” He plodded across the office toward the desk, his movements slow and methodical. He wore a white, patterned tunic, belted at the waist, along with a buttoned black vest. When he reached the desk, he bowed at the waist.
“You remember my chief of staff, I’m sure, Esperanza Piñiero,” Bacco said, eschewing Slask’s language for her own.
“Of course,” Slask said, and he offered Piñiero a bow as well. “It is good to see you again.”
To Bacco’s surprise—even though she should have stopped being surprised by Esperanza years ago—Piñiero hissed out her own greeting.
Once more, Slask laughed. “Am I on Earth, or back home on S’snagor?”
Bacco chuckled, though she had begun to feel apprehensive again. She needed to learn the reason for Slask’s visit. She motioned toward the two chairs that faced her desk, and both the Gorn and Piñiero sat down. “So tell me what brings you here,” Bacco said.
“First,” Slask said, “please forgive me for coming at all. I know that our relationship, beyond the personal, has proven useful to both of us since you began serving as Federation president. That has been possible primarily because our friendship is not something widely known. By my coming here to speak with you directly, I have obviously put that secrecy at risk.”
“I trust your judgment,” Bacco said, and she meant it. In the time she had known Slask, he had demonstrated a quick and analytical mind, as well as a keen understanding of political life. “I believe that you would not have come here yourself unless circumstances warranted such an action.”
Slask nodded, a movement that involved not just his head, but the whole of his upper body. “I think you will see the importance of my visit,” he said. “I am, of course, aware of the attack on the Federation in the Bajoran system, as well as the destruction of your space station. I do not know if this will mean much to you, but I have ascertained from a source I trust that Imperator Sozzerozs never approved such an action, nor is he pleased that it has taken place.”
“I do appreciate that,” Bacco said, thinking back to her interactions with the Gorn leader at the summit on Cort, which she had thought had gone well. “But those sentiments would take on much greater meaning if the imperator were to issue such a statement in public.”
“I agree,” Slask said. “But we both know that there are other forces at work. From what I understand—and from what seems evident to me, based on Sozzerozs’s reaction to the attack on the Federation—the Typhon Pact is still finding its way. The alliance remains relatively new, and it is large and in some regards unwieldy. There are differing points of view between individual governments, and also within individual governments. While the Hegemony and the Federation have had difficulties in the past, we have also shared long periods of calm, and even of peaceful interaction. I believe that Sozzerozs presently has no interest in engaging in battle with the Federation, but I am also mindful that he will not wish to antagonize any of the signatories to the Typhon Pact who do.”
“Signatories like who?” Bacco asked, although she already knew the identities of the UFP’s enemies. Still, she wished to hear Slask’s assessment.
“The Tzenkethi, of course,” he said.
“Of course,” agreed Piñiero. “Everything that’s gone wrong within the Coalition for the past two hundred years is the Federation’s fault.”
“The Breen too, I think,” Slask said. “And the Tholians.”
Bacco waited, but Slask said no more.
“Not the Romulans?” she finally asked. More than anything, Praetor Kamemor’s disingenuous attempts to sow peace among the worlds of the Khitomer Accords and the Typhon Pact—and more specifically, between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire—maddened Bacco. At least the Tzenkethi never prevaricated about their hatred for the Federation. It galled the president that Gell Kamemor had held out an olive branch across the negotiating table while holding a loaded disruptor pistol beneath it.
Bacco could only wonder why all sides had not yet gone to war, other than that she and the Federation Council had called for calm. But the president also knew that she could not allow the Typhon Pact to commit such acts with impunity. Starfleet had militarized along the Federation’s borders, and Bacco and the Council agreed that, should the Pact perpetrate another act of aggression, the UFP and its allies would have to react strongly. Chancellor Martok and the Klingon High Council already beat the drum for war—especially to fight the Romulans.
“No,” Slask told her. “Not the Romulans.”
“It seems to me that you might not have all the details about what took place at Bajor,” Bacco said. “But one of the vessels in the attack was a Romulan warbird—a warbird that was supposed to be engaged in a peaceful mission of exploration with a Starfleet vessel, but whose crew faked its destruction before returning to Bajor to join the attack.”
“I am aware of all that,” Slask said. “And I have something for you that I hope will speak to those issues.”
“That you hope will speak to those issues?” Bacco said. “You don’t know?”
“No, not with certainty, Madam President,” Slask said. He reached to the inside of his vest. Wexler took a step forward, clearly to make sure that the Gorn did not produce a weapon—even though the heavy security within the Palais de la Concorde made such a possibility highly unlikely. Instead of a weapon, Slask withdrew a small, flat, translucent rectangle, which Bacco recognized as a data storage chip. “I am happy to deliver messages for you and to you,” Slask said, “but I do not examine their contents.”
“For that, I am grateful,” Bacco said. “Who is the message from?”
“It is from Gell Kamemor.”
Bacco shot to her feet even before she knew that she meant to do so. “What?!” She strode out from behind her desk and across her office, along the front windows. When she reached the far end of the room, she spun around to address Slask again. “Why would the praetor send me a message? To gloat over her success in killing a thousand Federation citizens and destroying a space station vital to our interests? To apologize for doing so? ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fake the crash of one of our starships and then send it to attack your people.’” She hied back to her desk and peered down at Slask. “There were civilians on that station. There were children.”
Slask gazed up at the president without saying anyth
ing, and only then did Bacco realize that she had been yelling at him. Very slowly, Slask reached forward and placed the chip on her desk. When he spoke, the hiss of his speech had become a whisper. “I know that there were civilians and children on your space station,” he said. “That is why, when Praetor Kamemor made it clear that she wanted to deliver a message directly to the Federation president, but not through official channels, I deemed it important enough to risk my own reputation by personally visiting you on Earth.”
Bacco dropped her head. All at once, the strength drained out of her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. Please forgive me, Slask. I’m . . . it’s been a difficult time.” To Bacco, that excuse had begun to wear thin. She reached down and picked up the chip. “Thank you for doing this.”
“If I may ask,” Piñiero said, “how did you come into possession of the message?”
“I would rather not reveal my . . . contacts,” Slask said. “I am sure you understand.”
“Yes,” Piñiero said, “but if we can’t be sure of the chip’s provenance . . .” She allowed the question to dangle unfinished.
“You can be sure,” Slask told Piñiero. “I have confidence that your Federation Security will be able to authenticate it. This is not some elaborate ruse. Understand that I do not know the content of the praetor’s message. It could be that she is issuing a declaration of war. But I do not believe that is what you will find when you play it.”
Slask stood up and regarded Bacco again. “Whatever the praetor’s message, I only hope that it is something you wish to hear.” He paused, then said, “Actually, I hope that the praetor’s message is something that you are able to hear.” He bowed to Bacco, far more stiffly than when he first entered, then turned to Piñiero and did the same. Then he started toward the door.
“Slask,” Bacco called after him. He stopped and turned around. “Thank you,” she said, holding up the chip. “On behalf of my government and my people, thank you.” She closed the distance between them and looked directly up into his face. “And I personally thank you, Slask.”
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 14
