by David Mack
“Indeed,” Spock replied. He picked up his own tea.
“May I ask a politically sensitive question, Your Majesty?”
Nodding from behind his tea, Spock said, “You may.”
“Did you, just minutes ago, reject an offer of alliance from Regent Gorkon?”
“I did,” Spock said.
At the risk of being hounded from the Romulan Senate for speaking out of turn, Pardek told Spock, “Praetor Vrax intends to make you a similar offer.” He watched Spock’s face for a reaction but could discern nothing behind that frown-cut visage and gray goatee. “You will reject the Praetor’s offer as well?”
“I shall,” Spock said.
None of it made any sense to Pardek, who set down his teacup a bit more roughly than he’d intended. “I’m sorry, Majesty,” he said, “but I find your actions baffling. You are a wise and learned man—your public addresses and scientific policies have confirmed that. But in strategic and political matters, you seem committed to a suicidal agenda.”
“I disagree,” Spock said.
“Majesty, the Cardassians haven’t come to Khitomer to broker a treaty with your empire; they’re afraid of you, afraid your democratic reforms will inspire a demand for the same in their own nation. And it’s hardly a coincidence the Tholians declined your invitation. Even after you disbanded Operation Vanguard, they’ve remained openly hostile toward your empire. I predict that within two decades they will ally with the Gorn to oust your colonies from the Taurus Reach.”
“And with the Breen to seize all territory from Izar to Vega,” Spock said. “We are well aware of the Tholians’ plans.”
Pardek sat stunned for a moment. “Then why do you not act?”
“Because I choose to react,” Spock said. “I plan to renounce preemptive warfare as a tool of foreign policy. I will not incite conflicts based solely upon what might occur.”
The Romulan senator didn’t know whether to think Spock noble or naïve. “A risky policy given the current astropolitical climate,” Pardek said.
“Perhaps,” Spock replied. “But it is the most logical one. The resources of an empire are finite and in great demand. It is foolish and wasteful to expend them against potentials when they can be more effectively deployed against actualities.”
Allowing himself a moment to absorb Spock’s argument, Pardek leaned back in his chair and idly stroked his chin. “If I might be permitted to inquire, Your Majesty … what did you expect would be the outcome of this summit?”
“An alliance between the Klingons and the Cardassians,” Spock said. “Now that Gorkon lacks sufficient fleet power to conquer my empire alone, he and Legate Renar of Cardassia will negotiate a pact predicated on the goal of destroying the Terran Empire. The Tholian Assembly and the Romulan Star Empire will declare themselves neutral even as they seize several remote systems. The Breen and the Gorn, being consummate opportunists, will work as mercenaries; they will aid the Cardassians and Klingons in their conquest of Terran space. This will all transpire within approximately two years of this conference’s end.”
What horrified Pardek most about Spock’s prediction wasn’t its specificity but rather that the Vulcan Emperor had delivered it with such tranquility. “If you know all this is coming to pass,” Pardek replied, “why do you plan to refuse the Praetor’s offer of alliance? Why let your empire be conquered when we could help you defend it?”
Spock replied with terrifying certainty. “Because the fall of my empire will mean the end of all of yours.”
46
The End in All Things
Spock sat alone in his study. It was late at night. Marlena was asleep, and a deathly quiet suffused the palace’s deserted halls.
The optolythic recorder on his desk awaited his final entry for Memory Omega’s archives. He had postponed this decision until all his other preparations were complete. Many times he had debated with himself whether this final step was necessary, or if it would ultimately prove self-defeating. Arrived now at the moment of action, he accepted the uncertainty of his decision’s consequences and for once chose to embrace truth for its own sake.
I owe the dead at least that much, he scolded himself.
Spock picked up a cup of plasska tea and sipped from it. Setting down the cup, he was ready to begin.
He activated the recorder and faced its camera lens as he spoke.
“I am Spock, the current ruler of the Terran Empire, and this is an accounting of my crimes.
“To attain command of the Starship Enterprise, I murdered my commanding officer, Captain James Tiberius Kirk. I did so without express orders from Starfleet Command or a member of the Admiralty.
“To retain my command over the next several years, I killed several members of Enterprise’s crew. Specifically, I committed or sanctioned the murders of Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, Ensign Janice Rand, Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas, Lieutenant Ilia, and Commander Willard Decker.
“In my role as captain of the Enterprise, I committed war crimes against the crews of foreign navies. Specifically, I murdered the crews of the I.K.S. VorchaS and the Romulan bird-of-prey Bloodied Talon.
“I initiated the self-destruction of the imperial starships Hood and Lexington, with all hands aboard, to stop the renegade I.S.S. Excalibur and save my own vessel and crew.
“I am guilty of numerous acts of sedition and treason. I suborned mutiny against Grand Admiral Garth of Izar and Grand Admiral Matthew Decker, both of whom I conspired to murder. I sabotaged Operation Vanguard, suborned mutiny against Commodore Diego Reyes, and made a treasonous pact with the Tholian Assembly to destroy Starbase 47.
“I assassinated Empress Hoshi Sato III and murdered four platoons of her imperial guards. Acting through intermediaries who perpetrated false-flag attacks, I fomented war between the Cardassian Union and the Tholian Assembly.
“To protect my own political interests and safeguard my hold on power, I ordered the assassination of my own mother, Amanda Grayson.
“I ordered the genocidal extermination of the Trill symbionts, a sentient species, and sanctioned the covert abduction and assassination of hundreds of thousands of Trill humanoids with whom mature symbionts had been bonded.
“Before my reign ends, my executive actions will result in the deaths of billions, and the brutal servitude of billions more.
“I declare these facts not to seek absolution, but to ensure the truth of my reign is preserved. I have become that which I opposed. I am the monster against whom I once railed with such vigor. I am a despot and a tyrant.
“I say these things not as a boast but as a confession. History must never glorify me. Do not applaud me because I claimed to have noble motives. Do not venerate me if one day my plan should come to fruition. Instead, remember me for who and what I really am:
“A villain.”
He turned off the recorder. Removed the permanently encoded optolythic data rod. Turning the translucent, pale blue cylinder in his fingers, he hoped his message would enable a future society to be wise enough never to let someone like him wield power again. He pressed the rod into a foam slot inside a black case, beside a hundred others he had prepared for delivery to Carol Marcus.
Then he closed the case’s lid, locked it, and stood.
It is done, he told himself.
Spock picked up the case and walked out of his sanctum, holding his sins and those of the Empire in his hands.
47
The Ashes of Empire
Nine years had passed since Carol Marcus had last met with Emperor Spock. It had been one of the most demanding and all-consuming periods of her life. There had been few people whom she could trust, and fewer who were actually cleared to know the true scope of the project Spock had code-named Memory Omega. Only her son, David, had she entrusted with the whole truth, shortly after he’d joined her on the project.
Memory Omega was the most ambitious project of its kind she had ever seen. It was a repository of the collected knowledge of
the Empire—all its peoples, all its worlds. Science, history, music, art, literature, medicine, philosophy—the preservation of all these endeavors and more was its mission. Multiple redundant sites were linked through a secret, real-time communications network unlike any other known in the galaxy: quantum transceivers, composed of subatomic particles vibrating in perfect sympathy even across interstellar distances, perhaps even across any distance. A frequency provoked in one linked particle vibrated its simpatico partner perfectly. Marcus had hypothesized each pair of sympathetic particles was actually just one particle occupying two points in space-time simultaneously, but so far she had been unable to prove or disprove her supposition. What mattered was that the system worked, and its transmissions were undetectable and completely beyond interception. And what she found most amazing about it was that it had been invented by her own beloved son.
She wished David could be at her side now. A trio of Vulcan imperial guards—one leading her, two following her—escorted her through the deserted, cordoned-off corridors of the I.S.S. Enterprise. Acting on confidential orders from the Emperor, Marcus had left Regula and booked passage on a civilian luxury liner to Garulon. Ten minutes ago, Enterprise had intercepted the liner, though on what pretense Marcus had no idea. As soon as the luxury ship had dropped out of warp, a transporter beam had snared Marcus from her stateroom and rematerialized her aboard Spock’s imperial flagship. This, she surmised, was to be a meeting with no official record and no unnecessary witnesses.
She was led to a door that glided open before her. The guard who had been walking in front of her stepped aside at the threshold and signaled with an outstretched arm that she should continue inside alone. Marcus walked through the open doorway and recognized the telltale signs of a Vulcan habitation: the artificial gravity was slightly stronger, the temperature a little higher, the humidity and the illumination significantly lower. The door closed behind her. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she recognized Emperor Spock on the far side of the room. He looked at her. “Come in, Doctor.”
Marcus crossed the room, honored her host with a nimble curtsey, then replied, “Your Majesty.”
Spock acknowledged her with a nod. “For a number of reasons,” he said, “this meeting must be very brief. Recent developments have made it necessary for us to hasten the completion of the project.”
Alarmed, she asked, “Developments, Majesty?”
“A Klingon-Cardassian alliance will soon move against us,” Spock said. “Within two years they will launch a massive, coordinated attack that will destroy Starfleet.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t think that’s enough time, Majesty. Too many sites are still offline.”
“The Imperial Corps of Engineers is at your disposal, Doctor,” Spock said. “Memory Omega must be completed before the invasion begins.”
Marcus replied, “I don’t think we can finish the project in two years without compromising its secrecy.”
Spock sat and steepled his fingers while he pondered the situation. “Can the last six sites be automated?”
She thought about that, then tilted her head and shrugged. “Yes, but they’d be little more than data-backup nodes.”
“Precisely,” Spock said. “We could halt the terra-forming at those sites and relocate their teams to the existing ones.”
Marcus shook her head. “That would overpopulate the current sites, Majesty. With fewer than three hundred fifty personnel, the sites can be sustained indefinitely. If we exceed that, resource depletion becomes inevitable.”
“Over what time period?” Spock asked.
It took her a few moments to do the math in her head—which was embarrassing, since she knew Spock had probably already completed his own mental calculations with greater accuracy than she was capable of emulating. “Doubling the populations,” she said, “reduces the sustainability period to just less than ninety-one years.”
He frowned. “Unfortunate, but it will have to suffice. I will make the necessary adjustments to the other aspects of the operation.”
All the secrecy in which Spock had shrouded this grand project still worried Marcus. She, her son, and several dozen of the foremost scientific thinkers in the Empire—as well as forty-seven previously suppressed dissidents, artists, and progressive political philosophers—had been sequestered inside the Genesis Cave deep within the Regula planetoid for close to three years. They also had directed the creation of several dozen more hidden redoubts just like it, in various remote sectors of the Empire, always in unpopulated star systems as devoid of exploitable resources as they were empty of life-forms. Though it had seemed at first like an intellectuals’ paradise, it soon had come to seem increasingly like a prison.
“Your Majesty, I have a question about the project.”
In a surprisingly candid tone, the Emperor said, “Ask.”
Mustering her courage, she said, “Why are all the people who most strongly support you being hidden away? It’s obvious you’re working to turn the Empire into a republic. We could help ease that transition. Why sequester us?”
“When the Klingon-Cardassian invasion comes,” Spock said, “it will succeed, and we will be conquered. But when the war is long over, Memory Omega will be the seed from which our republic will be reborn, rising from the ashes of empire.” He got up, moved to a cabinet along one wall, and opened it. From inside he took a large black case with a handle. “Inside this case are data rods containing the final entries for the archives.” He handed it to her. “Guard them well.”
The case was heavy enough that as Marcus took it from Spock, its weight wrenched her shoulder. Straightening her posture, she asked, “What’s on them?”
“The truth,” Spock said. After a pause, he added, “The transporter room is standing by to beam you back to your ship. You should return before your absence is noted.”
“Of course, Majesty,” she said.
He lifted his right hand and spread his fingers in the traditional Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Doctor Marcus.”
Remembering the proper response, she lifted her own right hand and copied the finger positions as best she could. “Honor and long life, Your Majesty.” They lowered their hands, and Marcus walked toward the door. As the portal opened ahead of her, she stopped and looked back. “I just realized,” she said, “I never thanked you for killing Jim Kirk. … I was always afraid of what he would’ve done if he’d known about David.”
“You were wise to fear him,” Spock said, sending a chill through her. “He would have killed you both.”
The door buzzer sounded and Spock bid his visitor enter.
He turned at the sound of the opening door. Captain Saavik walked in and saluted him as the door closed behind her. “Doctor Marcus has been beamed back to her ship, Majesty.”
“Well done, Captain.” Now that he had a moment to actually look at her, he was pleased to see commanding a starship flattered her. The hesitation of her youthful self was gone, the uncertainty of her Academy days supplanted by conviction and discipline. It would be a shame to make her give it up, but it was time for her to embrace a larger destiny. “Two days after we reach Earth,” he said, “I will convene a special joint session of the legislature to make a statement about the results of the Khitomer Conference. But before I do so, you will resign from Starfleet and return to Vulcan.”
Saavik’s stoic countenance betrayed no reaction. “Permission to speak freely, Majesty?”
“Granted.”
“Is there a connection between the timing of your address and your request for my resignation?”
Spock nodded. “There is. When my declaration is complete, nothing will be the same. It would be best if you were away by then, traveling under an alias.”
For a few moments, she broke eye contact and processed what he had said. When her eyes turned back to him, they carried the gleam of cognition. “Then this is to be the moment you spoke of so long ago?”
“It is,” he said.
His answer seemed to trouble her. “This is far more abrupt than I had imagined it would be. Unrest, even rebellion might follow, and our enemies will—”
“I am aware of the risks,” Spock said.
Small motions and expressions—a twitch near the creases of her right eye, the subtle curling of her fingers into the first inkling of a fist—conveyed her profound anxiety. “This is not a time to deprive yourself of allies, Your Majesty.”
“Nor am I doing any such thing,” Spock countered. “I am, however, redeploying my allies to those locations where they can serve me best. And it is time for you to return to Vulcan.”
The muscles of her face relaxed, and her fingers gave up their slow curl. Resignation brought her singularity of focus and tranquility of mind.
