“You do that, Horatio. You’re good at that.” Portia shook her head. “I’m not. I need to fight to survive. It’s what we are at the core, whether we like it or not. At least we can make it our own.”
She looked around at the others. “These two are obviously staying here. Who’s coming with me?”
Bertram shrugged and stepped forward from the wall where he’d been leaning distractedly this whole time. “I’ll come. Why not? I never wanted this Starfleet thing anyway. You have a battle for me, I’ll fight it. At least if we get caught, they’ll ship us back to Arcturus where we belong.”
With a sigh, Viola stepped forward too. “I’ll join you. I’ve tried to become what they want me to be, but I can’t change my instincts. It was simpler before all this.”
Titus moved to join her, then Caliban. Benedick stood with Horatio, and they were soon joined by Rosalind, Lysander, and the rest. It was not quite an even split—seven to five in Horatio’s favor.
But it would do. A small team was best for infiltration anyway. And peace activists would not be formidable opponents.
“Let’s go,” she told her four.
But Horatio moved to block their exit. “Please reconsider this, Portia. This would be reckless enough at any time, but especially now, in the midst of the vacuum flare crisis. This planet needs everyone working together for its protection. Protecting civilians is our innate purpose. Let us show them that.”
Bertram scoffed. “Haven’t you heard? There is no protection. The things can strike anywhere, even inside people.” He squinted, no doubt from the strain of thinking. “Wonder what’d happen if one appeared inside your brain. Would your head explode?” Mercifully, everyone ignored him.
Portia held Horatio’s gaze unflinchingly. “The more distracted Starfleet and the Earth authorities are, the better for us. And five soldiers more or less won’t make any difference to Earth’s defense. You handle that, Horatio. We have our own mission.”
After another moment, Horatio sighed and stepped aside. “You have the right to choose for yourselves. I’m just sorry you didn’t make a better choice.”
Portia started for the door, then paused alongside Horatio and turned to him. “They left us no better choices to make, comrade.”
U.S.S. Enterprise
“You’re kidding.” Rajendra Shastri gestured around himself at the Enterprise communications lab, staring in disbelief at Captain Spock. “You want me to work in here, alone, with her?” His last gesture was toward Uhura, who again stood alongside Spock and Commander Scott.
The captain met his agitation with unwavering calm. “You agreed, Mister Shastri, to offer whatever assistance you could to resolve this crisis.”
“I’ve told you everything I remember about how we made contact. The rest was in Uhura’s head, and that means it’s gone now.”
Uhura took a step forward. “Not necessarily. At home, I discovered that some lingering imprint of my memories is still there—like a palimpsest in an ancient parchment. With a strong enough sensory stimulus as a reminder, the residual neural connections were revived, and I recovered partial memories. So…”
She faltered, so Spock took over. “Thus, our best option is to reconstruct the environmental stimuli surrounding your breakthrough at Argelius. It would take too long to travel there, but this laboratory is a reasonable approximation of the private facility you say you and Commander Uhura engaged.”
“Reasonable?” Commander Scott made an offended face. “It’s a damn sight better. Still, we can knock it down to their standards if we have to. Just tell me everything you remember about how their lab was set up, laddie, and my cadets and I will whip it into shape. Or out of shape, as need be.”
“So you set the stage, and then what?” Shastri shook his head and paced the lab for a moment before continuing. “Uhura and I were in there for two days. Working, talking, joking around. And finally… things… happened.”
Uhura blushed and looked away. Spock retained his poise and spoke with delicacy. “It should not be necessary to concern ourselves with what occurred after the primordial contact. Re-creating the state of affairs before that point is all we should require.”
Shastri tensed, then spoke carefully. “But even that… it’s not like that first kiss came out of nowhere. We were already close, comfortable, physically affectionate. We gave each other shoulder rubs when we got tense or tired. We had an easy rapport, teasing and joking. We knew each other so well… there was a shorthand between us. We hardly had to finish a sentence before the other knew what we wanted. Sometimes just a glance was enough.
“Now…” Shastri’s eyes focused on Uhura for a moment, then turned away. “No offense, Captain, but I’m not sure you can understand how hard it is for humans to get over a broken heart.”
Spock looked back evenly. “I am more familiar with the human response to loss and grief than you imagine, Mister Shastri. I am aware of the personal difficulty of what we ask—not only for you, but for Commander Uhura, whom I consider a friend as well as a colleague. Yet the current situation—”
Uhura touched Spock’s arm briefly to halt him, offering a grateful smile. She then stepped closer to Shastri. “Rajendra… this will be hard for both of us. But you were Starfleet once. You were willing to set aside personal needs and face hardships for the greater good.”
“I walked away from that a long time ago.”
“Because of your principles. Your belief in what’s right.
“That’s why I stayed on the Enterprise after I lost my memory. I was offered a medical discharge so I could focus on my recovery… but even without my memory, I felt a need to serve. To make a difference for others, help them as my colleagues on the Enterprise helped me when I was lost and empty. That’s what draws us all to Starfleet: the need to make a difference in people’s lives.” Her voice grew wistful. “No matter what we have to sacrifice along the way.”
Shastri held her gaze for longer than he had since beaming aboard. Uhura realized that he really did have beautiful, soulful eyes.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “Okay. I’m sorry, I guess this is just as hard for both of us. I’ll… I’ll help any way I can.”
She took his hand in hers. “Thank you, Jen.” He jerked as if he’d received a static shock, but allowed the contact.
It only lasted a moment before he tugged his hand away and retreated, moving off toward Scott. “Okay, first off, there was a holo-table in the middle of the room. The Argelians love their sensory displays. It was circular. And the lighting was softer, more indirect…”
Uhura sighed. It was a start.
Chapter Seventeen
Starfleet Headquarters
Major Missions Room
Admiral Cartwright breathed a sigh of relief when the latest flare subsided with no serious damage. “Final duration and diameter?” he asked.
Lieutenant Kexas answered crisply. “Six point eight three hours, sir. Zero point seven six astronomical units.”
Cartwright traded a look with President Lorg. “At that diameter, the next one has roughly one chance in eight of engulfing Earth. And a not insignificant chance of engulfing Mars.”
Lorg absorbed the prospect of harm to his birth planet stoically. Cartwright knew the president took pride in his heritage as a member of Mars’s small Tellarite community, which had played an often overlooked role in the planet’s colonial history. But he was also a second-term Federation president, responsible for far more worlds than just his own. Cartwright had been by Lorg’s side in enough crises to know that.
“How go the verteron arrays?” the president asked.
The admiral let out a grim sigh. “They’re an antiquated technology. There aren’t many left—we had to haul some out of the terraforming museum on Mars. Morrow’s got the Corps of Engineers working round the clock to repair the ones we have and whip together some modern equivalent for the rest. One of our SCE team heads, Commander al-Khaled, has proposed a way to modify a starship deflect
or dish to create a similar verteron beam—projected outward, unlike Mister Scott’s idea for a verteron field inside the ship. If we rig enough ships in time, they could form an orbital cordon to help cushion the blow on Earth or Mars, to an extent.”
“Well, that’s something.” Lorg did not appear any less worried, though. “What does the subspace damage look like?”
Cartwright turned to Kexas, who fielded the question. “Local subspace permeability is up fourteen percent from baseline, sirs. Subspace interference is increasing, even between flare events. Even old-style radio communication is growing unreliable. We’ve had to switch to laser communication as a backup.”
The Edoan furrowed her heavy brow ridges as she called up data and simulation results on the master situation table with all three of her orange-skinned hands. “The intervals between flares are growing shorter as well, sir. They’re lasting longer, but the time between their respective midpoints is also decreasing. I believe the greater subspace permeability is making it easier for the plasma beings to punch wormholes through. Or perhaps as the barrier between our time and their more accelerated time erodes, the temporal differential is decreasing, so they appear to come faster.”
“Damn.” Cartwright grimaced. “Which makes it a matter of even less time before Earth or Mars is hit. Get me Captain Spock.”
The Zaranite, Ensign Kozim, shook his bulbous, masked head after a moment. “Too much interference, Admiral. We can’t get through anymore.”
Lorg clenched his fists. “Then we just have to wait and hope they come up with an answer before our luck runs out.”
San Francisco
Ashley Janith-Lau stood at the front of the office, looking around at her fellow activists. Their number had been growing since the Warborn controversy began, and the group assembled here included both veterans and newcomers, among them the Starfleet cadets Vekal and Targeemos.
“I want to thank you all for coming in today,” she told them. “It wasn’t easy to arrange with the comms interference, and it’s understandable that a number of us chose to stay with our loved ones at this uncertain time.”
“You are a loved one to us, Doctor,” Rogo proclaimed exaggeratedly, provoking chuckling from the group. “Which is why we must demand Starfleet make amends for falsely accusing you. Now that the Warborn have proven that their bloodlust cannot be tamed, it’s time to insist on expelling them from the Academy!”
Janith-Lau held up her hands to settle down Rogo and the others who seemed inclined to follow his lead. “This isn’t the right time to address that, my friends. All of Earth—make that the whole Solar system—is facing a crisis, and all of us, Starfleet included, need to work together to protect the public. Remember, it’s not Starfleet itself we object to, just its trend toward militarization. When it comes to disaster response and rescue, we’re on the same side.
“So what we’re here to do is discuss the ways we can assist in the crisis. Figure out what resources we can bring to bear, what community and personal connections we can draw on, how best to coordinate our actions in the absence of reliable communication. I’ve already reached out to the city’s disaster response teams and—”
The door burst open, startling her into silence and a number of her listeners into outcries. A group of Arcturians rushed in, brandishing phasers. Janith-Lau recognized the big one who’d kicked the door in as Bertram. The others, four in all, were harder to tell apart, but she was fairly sure she recognized the one who stepped past Bertram to lead the group as they spread out and covered the room’s occupants with their weapons. “Nobody move!” the leader cried, her voice confirming that she was Portia.
T’Sena was the first to recover her wits. “What is the meaning of this?”
Portia answered the diminutive Vulcan, but her head turned to take in the whole group. “Call it intelligence gathering. We’re here to confirm who really killed Commander Rakatheema.”
T’Sena looked down her nose on the cadet. “Your actions would appear to verify your own guilt.”
“I’m not the one who had a motive to get rid of him, and the rest of us with him.”
“This is absurd!” Rogo cried. “Ashley was the one who was framed.”
“A convenient way to allay suspicion, isn’t it?”
Janith-Lau stepped forward slowly, her manner placating. “Portia… let’s just talk about this, okay? We’ve both been accused of this crime—that gives us common ground. We’re willing to hear you out, but not if you come like this, waving phasers around and frightening people.”
Portia stepped closer, keeping the phaser’s emitter pointed at Janith-Lau. “Your pacifist act is unconvincing. Rakatheema’s dead. I didn’t do it. You’re the only other ones who have a reason.”
“To oppose him, yes. To challenge him. But we do not believe violence solves problems. It just makes it harder to find solutions.”
“That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? We were made to solve problems with violence. It’s the whole reason we exist. So you reject our right to exist.”
“We believe you don’t have to be bound by your origins. You can choose to be more.”
“And what if we choose to fight? For Starfleet, for ourselves, it doesn’t matter which. If we get to choose, then you don’t get to tell us which choice is right.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Janith-Lau saw Vekal spring into motion. She had a brief impression of his hand reaching for Portia’s shoulder, poised for a Vulcan nerve pinch. But before he reached her, she spun, grabbed his wrist, and threw him to the floor.
“You!” she cried, pinning him down. “You’ve had it in for us from the first day.”
“And you are proving my concerns warranted through your actions,” Vekal gasped. “You are too innately aggressive to be in Starfleet.”
“Warborn are not aggressors. We defend.” She dragged him to his feet and shoved him into Bertram’s grip. The big Arcturian held the leaner Vulcan effortlessly. “I’m entitled to defend myself against a false charge of murder. I’m entitled to hunt down the real killers.”
Vekal only grew haughtier. “You are delusional. These people are pacifists. Rakatheema was an experienced Starfleet Security officer. Even if they had the inclination to murder him, they would not have the skill.”
Portia peered at him. “But you would, wouldn’t you? You peace-loving Vulcans certainly put a lot of effort into martial-arts training.”
“It is a way to discipline our minds and bodies.”
“And it gives you the precision you’d need to crush an Arcturian’s windpipe. That Vulcan strength wouldn’t hurt either.”
“You merely attempt to obfuscate the evidence pointing to your own guilt. The fact that you do so in the midst of committing a violent crime makes it less than convincing.”
The Warborn cadet bit back her response, pausing for a moment. “I have never needed your approval, Vekal. It’s irrelevant to me.” Turning away, she shifted her attention—and her phaser—back toward Janith-Lau. “You, though—you’re the leader here, the one behind the strategies. Anything this group does is on your orders or with your consent.”
Portia grabbed Janith-Lau’s hair, yanked her head back, and stuck the phaser’s nozzle against her neck. “So you’re the one I want to have a conversation with.”
Janith-Lau strove to manage her fear. “We can talk. But I can’t tell you anything but the truth. I found Rakatheema dead. That’s all I know.”
Bertram stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. “Give her to me, Portia. I’ll have her talking soon enough.”
Portia’s eyes widened, as if she were shocked by her own actions. She relaxed her grip, lessened the pressure of the phaser barrel on Janith-Lau’s neck. “No. No, remember your training, Bertram. Intelligence extracted through torture is never reliable.”
“It would be satisfying, though.”
With a disgusted look, Portia shoved Janith-Lau back into an empty chair. “We’re not thugs! That’s what they want peop
le to think we are. We’re soldiers! We’re professionals! We have standards.”
Bertram shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Portia. You say you hate our makers and everything they made us for. Yet you embrace what they made us to be.”
Portia scoffed. “And you keep saying we’re wrong to question their design for us, but you’re the first to suggest defying their standards. And Horatio worships their code but uses it to justify abandoning our warrior nature entirely.
“Maybe none of us really know who we are or what we want. We weren’t given a choice. Which is why we need to fight for the space to figure it out for ourselves—not let them damn us as berserkers. We’re here to exact the truth, not revenge.”
Janith-Lau dared to stand and take a single tentative step toward Portia, catching her attention. She tried to focus on Portia’s eyes rather than the phaser barrel that recentered on her chest. “I want to believe that, Portia. But please… what will it take to convince you that we were not behind Rakatheema’s death, or your framing?”
The bright-eyed Warborn youth struggled with the question. “I will question everyone here. You will tell me of your actions, your whereabouts on that night. We will see if there are any discrepancies, or if certain questions make you nervous.”
“This whole situation makes us terrified. How can you distinguish that from dishonesty?”
“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
“Let us go, Portia. Let me talk to Captain sh’Deslar, even Admiral Kirk. They can reexamine the evidence, see if—”
“Sh’Deslar wouldn’t hear me before! She swallowed every lie! And Kirk just went along with her.”
Portia closed in on Janith-Lau once more, grabbing her arm and brandishing the phaser. “But he cares about you, doesn’t he? Maybe now he’ll have no choice but to listen to us.”
“You don’t know Jim Kirk very well if you think he’ll back down in the face of a threat.”
Living Memory Page 23
