Star Trek: Enterprise - 015 - Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Enterprise’s encounter was approximately sixteen light-years from our current location,” T’Pol said. “It stands to reason that the aliens’ homeworld or base of operations may be somewhere in this general vicinity.”

  “Still, it’s a huge region, much of it unknown. I’m not sure it helps us track them down.”

  “And the area is too large and ill-defined to make it practical to divert shipping elsewhere.”

  Thanien’s antennae curled disapprovingly. “The last thing we should do is retreat from these aggressors. We know, from both Enterprise’s and Docana’s encounters, that they slink away when you slap them down hard enough. That’s what we need to do here.”

  “While that might be effective in the short term, it would be preferable—”

  “Captain!” Ortega called from the helm. “A ship just dropped out of warp, twelve kilometers ahead!” the lanky, tan-skinned ensign went on. “They’re closing on the Axanar—no, wait, changing course toward Endeavour!”

  “Polarize the hull plating. Raise shields,” T’Pol ordered. “Weapons online.”

  Of course, Thanien thought as he climbed out of the situation room. They know the Axanar pose no threat now. He clutched the railing as the enemy vessel opened fire, its weapon ports spitting out scythelike arcs of plasma the same bright green that glowed from its flanks. Endeavour rocked. “Shields holding,” Kimura said.

  “Phase cannons,” T’Pol ordered. “Target their weapons and return fire.”

  Endeavour’s beams raked the ship’s dark hull, but it had already veered around to fire on the Axanar ship. Unexpectedly, Metsanu returned fire—just from a single emitter, its beam guttering like a flame in the wind, but enough to make a point. The delta-wing vessel veered off. “Intercept course!” Thanien ordered. Ortega had the ship in motion before he finished the words, and Kimura’s fire did some damage to the enemy’s weapon ports and raked across one of the glowing side flanges, causing its own viridian light to gutter. With both Endeavour and Metsanu closing to flank it, the vessel retreated, a green aura surrounding it before it gravity-lensed and vanished into warp.

  “Pursuit course,” Thanien ordered Ortega.

  “Belay that,” T’Pol said. “Rendezvous with Metsanu.”

  Thanien moved closer. “Captain, we have an opportunity to track them to their base.”

  “Have you forgotten that the Axanar still have casualties?”

  “Not in critical condition.”

  “Nonetheless, the sooner we render aid, the better their odds of a full recovery.” She met his gaze evenly. “As you pointed out, Commander, these aliens are unlikely to attack again after meeting significant resistance.”

  “And what of the next ship they attack?”

  “This is only the third such attack we are aware of in the past dozen years. For the moment, the Axanar would seem to be the more pressing concern.”

  Thanien held his tongue, reminding himself yet again that he no longer served aboard a battleship. Still, he had to wonder about T’Pol. Her entire civilization seemed to be sinking into pacifism in the years since they had recovered the true writings of their great thinker Surak. He could tolerate that as a philosophy, even respect it in the abstract, so long as there were others in the Federation willing to handle the unpleasant necessities of its defense. But T’Pol was the commander of a ship of the line—a ship that, for all its nominal purpose as a research vessel, still needed to be ready to defend itself and others. Thanien had promised himself he would strive to make this work as Archer wished. But he was not yet fully convinced that he could entrust his safety, or that of his crew, to T’Pol.

  —

  Doctor Phlox and Elizabeth Cutler naturally arrived early, while Takashi Kimura was still helping Hoshi Sato set up the compact poker table. One benefit of the added hull of the Columbia-class was that it eased some of the crowding in the saucer section, allowing for somewhat larger senior-officer quarters, but it was still a tight squeeze, especially when trying to set out refreshments, table, and so forth with four people in the room. “Sorry, we’re early again, I know,” Elizabeth said. “I tried to slow Phlox down, but you know him.”

  “Denobula is a very crowded planet,” Phlox pointed out in his defense. “We learn early in life to allow ample time to reach our destinations, in case of delays.”

  “You’ve been living with humans for over a decade, Phlox,” Takashi pointed out as he pushed past Hoshi to set the dip on the table. The armory officer’s own formidable bulk was responsible for more than his share of the crowding in the room, yet he maneuvered with a grace Sato had long admired.

  “And with other species for more than a decade before that, in the IME,” Phlox added cheerfully, referring to the Interspecies Medical Exchange of which he’d been a prominent member prior to his service on Starfleet’s behalf. “But that’s a considerably smaller fraction of my lifespan than yours.”

  “And of course Michel isn’t here yet,” Elizabeth said. “He’d be late to his own . . . court-martial for being late.” The others stared, and she looked around sheepishly. “I figured ‘funeral’ was too obvious.”

  Hoshi chuckled, pleased that the soft-spoken, cherubic Cutler was back among the crew. After serving as an enlisted entomologist and medic on Enterprise for over five years, she’d been seriously injured during a battle with the Romulans and had needed a few months to recover fully. She’d been offered an honorable discharge, but her injuries had only made her determined to serve Earth more effectively, so she’d enrolled in Starfleet’s officer training program, broadening her scientific knowledge and overall skills. She was a bit harder now, and a bit sadder, than she’d been when Hoshi had first met her; but then, all of them were, and Elizabeth still had much of her sweet nature. She was a welcome addition to the crew.

  “Now, now,” Phlox said. “Given the repairs required for both our ship and the Axanar’s, Mister Romaine has good reason to be delayed. And I enjoy the extra time to sit and socialize before the game begins.”

  “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Sato said. “What did Commander Thanien think of movie night?”

  “He quite enjoyed it,” Phlox replied. “Well . . . aspects of it. He told me he admired the respect humans had for the creative achievements and rituals of their forebears, despite the much lower technology they had at the time. He appreciated the insight into his human crewmates. But I suspect he didn’t find the movie itself as entertaining. Perhaps romantic comedy was the wrong genre for him; relationships involving only two sexual partners are rather alien to the Andorians.”

  “Maybe we should try Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,” Cutler quipped.

  “We should’ve invited him tonight,” Kimura said as he laid out the poker chips. “Better yet, invite both him and the captain.”

  Hoshi pursed her lips. “Hmm, if you’re trying to create a bonding experience for them, I don’t know. Last time, Thanien was just so competitive.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “You would think so,” Sato teased, punching him in his massive bicep. “But I don’t think it’d help build any bridges between him and T’Pol.”

  “But his tells were easy to read,” Cutler said. “As I recall, I cleaned up pretty well that night.”

  “Yeah,” Sato said with a laugh. “I don’t think he realizes how much his antennae give away.”

  “Speak for yourselves,” said Kimura. “Between a linguist, an entomologist, and a xenobiologist, I’m at a disadvantage when it comes to reading antennae.”

  Cutler furrowed her brow. “I don’t know about that. I think Andorian antenna movements are more like cat or dog ears than insect antennae. They angle forward when they’re curious, droop when they’re sad, fold back when they’re in fight mode . . . kind of intuitive, really.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind for our next sparring session,” Takashi said.

  “You’re lucky,” Hoshi replied as she got out the cards. “You probably have more in c
ommon with Thanien than any of us. No problems getting along there.”

  Kimura hesitated. “Well . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think he’s crazy about us being involved. He’s asked me if it might compromise my judgment in a crisis. Or yours.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly unheard of in the Andorian Guard,” Sato protested, remembering Shran’s grief years ago when his crewmate and lover Talas had been killed by a Tellarite diplomat aboard Enterprise. “Besides, we’re equal in rank and we head different departments, so there’s no ethical issue.” Kimura had been a major in the MACOs, a rank corresponding to lieutenant commander, when Sato, still a lieutenant, had first become involved with him. It had been all right then since they weren’t in the same chain of command. She’d caught up with him in rank by the time the services were combined, and he’d actually passed up a promotion to stay with her aboard Endeavour—a touching gesture, though it made her worry that she was holding him back from the career he deserved.

  “I don’t think he approved much when it happened in the Guard either,” Takashi said. “He’s a by-the-book kind of guy.” The door signaled as he spoke, and Cutler, who was closest, went to open it. “But I think he just needs to get to know us better, see what a good team we make both on and off duty.”

  “By watching me beat the pants off you at five-card stud?”

  Phlox perked up. “Oh, are we playing strip? I’ve always wanted to try that.”

  Chief Engineer Romaine, who had chosen that moment to arrive, stared at them wide-eyed. “Umm, what did I miss?”

  —

  “Yeah, I remember those guys,” Charles Tucker said. “Just about the freakiest aliens we ever met out there.”

  “Certainly an exception to the humanoid norm,” T’Pol replied. They walked hand in hand along Sanibel Beach, clad in bathing attire. The sandy ground around them was littered with a wide variety of seashells, casting long shadows in the light of the setting sun.

  In reality, T’Pol was in her quarters on Endeavour, engaged in her nightly meditation. It was in this state that she was at times able to contact Trip across great distances through their telepathic mating bond, mainly in times of great emotional need on his part, or, admittedly, her own. Apparently her concerns about the attack, and her disagreement with Thanien, had been sufficient to enable such a connection. Or perhaps their minds were just particularly well attuned tonight. Initially they had always perceived each other in the pure white space that T’Pol preferred to visualize when she meditated. But in recent years, Trip had convinced her to let him “spruce up the place” with vistas from his own memory. The beaches of Sanibel Island had been a favorite vacation spot for him, and he was glad of the opportunity to “bring” T’Pol here—particularly since the island, like most of Florida, was still feeling the environmental consequences of the 2153 Xindi attack and was no longer in the pristine condition that Trip’s memory presented to her now.

  Trip snapped his fingers. “Shroomies! That’s it.”

  She stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s what the security guys called those aliens. ’Cause their heads looked kinda like mushrooms, you know?”

  “A very juvenile slur,” she observed.

  “Well, they didn’t show a lot of consideration for our feelings. And it’s not like we had anything better to call ’em. Didn’t seem like they could even speak.”

  “Perhaps you would feel differently,” she observed, “if you had experienced human children addressing you as ‘Miss Pointy.’ ”

  Trip was chastened. “All right, point taken. Uhh, no pun intended.” T’Pol glared, but it was just to tease him. She could feel his sincerity through the bond.

  As they walked in silence, T’Pol contemplated how close this beach had come to falling victim to human folly. Many such low-lying coastal areas on Earth had been well on their way to total immersion in the previous century due to humanity’s irresponsible warming of their planet’s climate. Ironically, another human folly had intervened; the so-called nuclear winter following the Third World War had countered the warming process long enough for the human race, having finally discovered sanity in the wake of their near-annihilation, to stabilize their climate once and for all with assistance from Vulcan technology and expertise. The beach was a testament to humanity’s ability to scrape through the worst disasters and somehow come out reasonably intact—which made it doubly appropriate that Trip favored it as his mindscape, considering how many bouts with seemingly certain death he had survived over the years. He had even managed to escape the cumulative transporter damage that had afflicted Archer and Reed, as Phlox had confirmed through a surreptitious physical some months ago. T’Pol noted a twinge of irrational hope within herself that the beach would eventually be restored to this condition once again. Perhaps one day she and Trip could even visit it in reality.

  “You know,” Trip said, “one attack by these aliens, I could write off as a fluke. But now you’re tellin’ me there’ve been two more in the past three years.”

  “That we know of,” she added. “A records search has turned up several other ship disappearances in this region over the past two decades, but the rate is not sufficiently above the average to prove a pattern.”

  “Well, at least it’s not another Delta Triangle.”

  She glared at him again. “The Delta Triangle is a myth.”

  “That’s what you said about time travel.” T’Pol rolled her eyes. Rather than continuing the argument, he examined her more closely. “You’re testy tonight. Thanien still gettin’ to ya?”

  “It is proving difficult to earn his trust,” she admitted. “Our command styles and our worldviews are very different.”

  “As I recall,” he said, “you and Captain Archer didn’t get along too well at first neither. Hell, it took you a coupla years to warm up to me.”

  “Possibly longer.”

  Trip laughed. “So give it time. You’re not the easiest person to get to know, but to know you is to love you.”

  She stopped walking and turned to him. “An interesting hypothesis. Would you care to present your evidence?”

  He took her in his arms and proceeded to make his case. It may have been wholly in their imaginations, but fortunately their imaginations were quite vivid.

  5

  February 7, 2163

  Hansen’s Planet

  “YOU’RE CRAZY!” Valeria Williams cried. “Sir,” she remembered to add as Travis Mayweather glared down at her. “You really want a different Council president every year? They’d never get anything done!”

  Mayweather maneuvered around a low outcropping of basalt, working his way gingerly down the slope toward the savanna where the shuttlepod’s sensors had registered the anthropoid biosigns. If he were still Val’s age, he thought, he could’ve hopped over it like a mountain goat, as effortlessly as the taut-figured, auburn-haired tactical officer did herself. He was still in fine shape for a thirty-six-year-old, if he said so himself, but he’d still rather be a twenty-six-year-old. “Depends on how much power you give the president,” he replied. “The Council’s supposed to make most of the decisions, after all.”

  “But they only meet twice a year! Someone has to speak for them the rest of the time.”

  Heralded by a cascade of loose pebbles, Reynaldo Sangupta slid awkwardly past Mayweather, almost losing his footing until Val shot out an arm and caught his without even turning her head to look. “Why, thank you, my dear,” the science officer said with a gallant flourish, lifting her hand toward his lips. She pulled it away, but gave him a brief smirk that was as much flirtatious as scornful. Sangupta was a good-looking young man, tall with rakish features and rich mahogany skin, and he was fully aware of his own appeal. “But what’s wrong with letting the Prime Ministers’ Conference make the decisions?” he went on. “The planets shouldn’t have to give up too much control to the Feds.”

  “The ministers are too busy dealing with
their own planets’ problems. We need a leader for the whole Federation.” Her hazel eyes darted back toward Mayweather. “And rotating between councillors isn’t going to cut it, Commander.”

  “I see what you’re saying, Val,” Travis replied, testing a protruding rock with his foot and deciding it was firm enough to rest his weight on. “But I still think we need to spread the wealth more. We’ve got an Earth president, the capital’s on Earth, the Council meets on Earth. . . .”

  “We’re the only ones everybody trusts as a neutral broker,” Williams pointed out.

  “That’s just it.” He hopped down to the next firm protrusion, feeling the impact more in his knees than he would have a few years ago. “The Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites aren’t going to get over their suspicions if they don’t get to see each other in action as leaders, working for the good of everyone. I’m just afraid humans could end up dominating too much.”

  “That’s gonna happen anyway, sir,” Sangupta said as he gingerly lowered himself off the same rock Mayweather had jumped from—making the older officer feel a little better about his own condition. He paused to take a reading on his scanner, checking the position of the group of anthropoids they were tracking. Hansen’s Planet had been discovered by the crew of the E.C.S. Bjarni Herjolfsson, who had staked a mining claim on its two dilithium-rich moons but had less interest in the planet (named in honor of the Herjolfsson captain’s favorite prizefighter, Sven “Buttercup” Hansen), for its dilithium deposits were too deeply buried. However, Starfleet had taken an interest in their reports of a tool-using anthropoid species, and had sent Pioneer to investigate.