Janeway frowned. She looked out at the wall, trying to imagine where Khan was. She could imagine Amy and her security officers, fanning out, trying to cut off avenues of escape in this ancient feeling building. SHe sighed, softly. "My job would certainly be easier if achieving utopia were a prerequisite to joining the galactic community. There would be fewer wars. Fewer injustices." SHe lookd at Lindy, who was listening to her seriously. "Because you're right, the galaxy is full of despots, of empires, and hegemonies. The Federation is surrounded by them. We fight them. We tolerate them. We're even friends with some of them."
Lindy smiled, wryly. She knew what that was like.
Janeway felt herself growing more confident as she spoke. "There's no one else like us out there, but then do you know why there is only one Federation? Oh it isn't simply because it is one of the more difficult kinds of societies to nurture and develop nor is it because ensuring a just society that treats equally an ever growing number of different cultures is an never ending balancing act and we're the only ones that managed to hold out."
"I'll give you a hint. It's in the name. The United Federation of Planets. We stand alone, not because we are the last beacon of goodness in a cold dark galaxy, we stand 'alone' for the simple reason, that when we reached out into that black unknown, someone reached back. And it happened again, and again, and again."
Janeway felt herself getting carried on by the words. She knew this might be one of the more important diplomatic messages she'd ever delivered. It was getting easier. "Two became one. Three became one. Four became one. Sometimes it was them reaching for us, sometimes it was us reaching for them. It wasn't easy and sure as hell wasn't painless but we never let that stop us."
"Do you want to know what is easy? Being a successful lithium dictator. There's an entire galaxy's worth of examples. You said it yourself, it's the lowest common denominator of governments. But humanity can be so much more. The proof is sitting in orbit above you."
Janeway sighed.
"You're a superhuman aren't you? You're supposed to be better than us, aren't you? Why settle for mediocrity? It took a humanity devastated by the fires of nuclear war less than a hundred years to set aside their differences and, as one people, take their first steps towards the stars and they didn't have your fancy augments." She nodded, slowly. "So what if its harder to create a just society. So what if its harder to do the right thing. You're a student of history. Tell me Khan, why did we choose to go to the Moon?"
There was a silence that seemed to stretch on forever.
Khan chuckled, softly.
"I've gone, you know," he said. "On my own yacht. I went to the little plaque, and I looked at those words..." He was quiet for a long moment. "But it wasn't me who did it. That was in the 1980s. Before all this." He sighed, ruefully. "I shall surrender myself. If only...to see how humans of the future climb." He sounded like he was grinning, and...maybe a bit wickedly. Maybe with a rakish little twinkle to his eyes. The sound of it was so damn charming, even through the radio, even without his face. "Because I believe you'll be climbing the ladder as it burns, Captain."
"That does seem to be our style," Janeway said, nodding.
A moment later, Amy's voice came on. "Khan's coming out. With his hands up."
Janeway breathed out a slow sigh of relief. "Take him into custody. For the moment." She rubbed her palm against her chin, while Lindy shook her head slowly and stepped over.
"You got a way with words, Kat," she said.
Janeway...
Katheryn...
Felt her heart skip a little. "That's the first time you've used my first name, Lindy" she said, smiling slightly at Lindy.
"Welll, you are calling me Lindy now," Lindy said, smiling at her. She looked aside. "I figure, we're both Captain's and all. We don't have to stand on formaility." She puffed up her chest, standing up just a little bit taller, as if she was even more impressive than she...she actually was. Kat grinned at her, seeing that Lindy was...she had to be comparing herself to Janeway, to the
Voyager and the
Val Jean.
"Come on," Kat said. "We need to collect the President and Joint Chiefs and get back to the talking. This Earth's problems...aren't over just because Khan is going to send the withdraw order to his troops and start ceasefire talks." SHe frowned. "And considering he's dealing with Joseph Stalin, we may be in for some serious negotiations."
Lindy nodded. "Do you think the Earth's really in that much danger?"
Two years.
The words echoed in Kat's mind.
They only have two years.
"We'll deal with it," she said.
Lindy grinned at her. Their eyes met and Kat felt her skin prickle like she was in a transporter beam.
***
Neelix and Neelix Jr. sat across from one another in Neelix's bar. Neelix Jr. was running his finger around and around the edge of his glass. "Synthahol," he said, slowly. "Syyyynthahol...ol...ah...ahololol..." He lifted his chin - a spasmodic little jerk that he seemed to do without thinking, when he was distracted. It made him a bit taller, a bit less hunched. For a little moment. "See, normal alcohol
effects me. But this synth...ahol..." He said the words with slow, careful deliberation. "Not a thing! Barely feel it!"
"I can tell," Neelix said, his voice dry. "So...my sister and your father met after the ceasefire. And they just...fell in love?"
"Mmhm!" Neelix Jr. said, nodding. "Since you were off on deep insertion duty, she didn't know if you were alive or dead." He spread his hands, slowly. "They fell in love. They got married. They went to a Viidian doctor to have me - combinatorial genetics is one of their many specialities, and not related to their little, ah..." He made a wiggling with his fingers. "It's one of the...the...the less fraught bits of their...you know..."
"Special products?" Neelix said.
"I was going to say abominable galactic crime," Neelix Jr. said, his voice flat, his eyes losing all their humor. "You did a good thing, when you tussled with them."
Neelix chuckled. "I, ah, did get my lungs stolen, you know."
"Dreadful," Neelix Jr. whispered, then sipped his drink. "...do you hate me, Uncle?"
"Hate you?" Neelix exclaimed.
"I'm half Haakonian. Lots of Talaxians do, you know. A light frigate going a fraction of C into a megacity tends to leave...well, there's real estate I have hereditary right to on Konia that still glows in the dark thanks to the Talaxians, I'll have you know." Neelix Jr. nodded, then let out a little giggle. "Not that hasn't stopped me, heh, selling it a few times."
"Selling it?" Neelix asked.
"To cover debts. You know. It's quite nice territory, if you just check the climatological data and don't think to cross reference that with the radiometric maps." Neelix Jr. grinned.
Neelix's smirk was knowing. "You may be more like me than I care to admit." He sipped his drink. The two of them took a moment, watching the Earth spinning out the window. "That scares me."
"Glad to be terrifying," Neelix Jr. said. Then, quietly. "There's just one thing I worry about."
"Yeah?" Neelix asked.
"I crashed here...and I'm...pretty...sure that my distress beacon is dead now. Has to have been dead. You haven't picked it up." Neelix Jr. frowned, slightly. "But what if..."
His eyes closed.
He laid his head forward.
He began to snore.
Neelix frowned.
"What if," he whispered, softly.
***
Sept Relora Listening Station Far Listener
Kazon Order
The pounding of Jurah's feet on the metal catwalk of the
Far Listener rang through to Submaje Lorne's door well before the panting woman even showed up. Lorne lifted his head, frowning fiercely as the door hissed open. "What is it, Jurah?" he asked, his voice short, sharp. Jurah had been bothering him all week with every single little-
"Sir," she said. "Borg level alert. We've picked up a coded Haakonian distress transmission - heavily degraded subspace message. I tracked it back. It went to the...to the Big Shiny."
Lorne froze, his fingers above his keyboard.
"And sir..." Jurah gulped. "The Shiny?"
Lorne stood up, slowly. "What about it?"
"It's...gone. In it's place is a standard Hullen class livable star, a few gas giants a few terrestrials...and...enough subspace traffic for almost a billion people."
Lorne sat back down again, as if he had been punched in the stomach.
"BIllion?" he asked.
"There's enough traffic to match the Talaxian homeworld, sir. It's primitive subspace, but it's transmitting."
Lorne rubbed his hand over his face.
"Sir, orders?"
Lorne considered the ramifications.
The implications.
He nodded.
"Call the Septmaje," he said. "Tell her that we've got a Condition Borg, maximum alert."
Jurah gulped. Nodded. Ducked back out. Her clanging feet echoed through the still opened door.
Lorne had not drunk a single sip since, one bleary afternoon, he had woken up in a gutter, encrusted with his own filth, and found his old CO looking down at him and shaking his head with slow disgust. It had been twenty year, twenty long years of dragging himself out of that gutter and finding a place among Sept Relora, of finding a place in the Kazon Order that he could be proud of. He stood up, walked from his office, headed down the stairs, entered into the mess hall, opened the stasis unit, then pulled out the biggest bottle of Talaxian brandy he could and downed half of it in one go.
"Sir?" one of his men asked.
Lorne looked at him.
How the hell to tell them that the whole galaxy was about to burst into flames?
***
Rinax-1, Talaxian Presidential starship
Talaxian Reconfederated Republic
"No, no, no, tell them that we will not be cutting off trade with the Viidian Emergency over these rumors until our own intelligence service confirms them," President Lataxia said into her com unit, frowning as she watched the distorted ripple of warp-space shimmer through the window of her ship. "Millions of our citizens depend on Viidian medical technology to live."
And most of my biggest doners, you self rightious prick, she thought.
The voice on the other end of the com unit burbled more inanity.
Lataxia scowled. "Oh, I...don't think you'll be able to get the number of votes in the lower houses that you'd need for that kind of threat to hold
any kind of weight, Senator."
More burbling.
"We'll see about that then," Lataxia said, then slammed her com unit down on the desk, scowling at it. "Fucking dipshit asshole."
"Madame President?"
Lataxia lifted her gaze up and saw that a man in naval blues was standing in the room. She flicked her thoughts through the seemingly infinite number of faces, names, ranks, and positions that she had to keep straight to run a multiplantary republic. Settling them, she smiled. "Admiral Geelix!" she said, brightly, spreading her hands - hoping her fur tufts were quivering enough to seem even remotely genuine. "What brings you up out of ops?"
Rinax-1 was the most heavily shielded and armored and arms civilian liner that the Delta Quadrant had. It was faster than most Kazon ships and had several pieces of technology that ran right up against the edge of the strictly enforced Kazon limits on technological advancement - the edges required to keep the Talaxians at least moderately independent in these dangerous days. That meant it also included a very impressive ops chamber that was connected via subspace to several of their deep space assets, so that her staff could keep things thrumming along. Most of the highest generals stayed back on Talax or in their deep space bases, but there was always at least one who rode along.
One that they could lose, just as Lataxia's vice presidents rode in Talax-1 and Jinax-1 respectively.
Though, of course...
Those were not nearly as well armored.
"Ma'am," Admiral Geelix said. "Our deep space signals operations and deep covert agents have been reporting massive Kazon and Haakonian fleet movements. And...Viidian mobilizations - three of their Pods have started activating their fleets."
Lataxia's blood ran cold.
"Is it...Voyager?" she asked.
She still sometimes had nightmares about
that briefing.
"It is," Admiral Geelix said. "And worse, they're near Anomoly-2."
"I...which one is that again?" Lataxia asked, her brow furrowing.
"Anomoly-2 is a several AU wide silver orb around a once habitable star system," Admiral Geelix said. "It's near the edge of the newly conquered Haakonian territory." He frowned. "It's popped."
"Ah."
"And there appears to be a habitable planet on it with an estimated population of one to three billion people, no warp capable space fleets, and subspace technology almost a hundred and fifty years behind ours."
Lataxia's brows shot up.
"I...see," she said, quietly. "How much are the Haakonians calling up?"
"The 2nd and 3rd fleet."
Lataxia whistled, slowly.
"Well..." she said. "What do the Admiralty recommend?"
"They recommend total mobilization, ma'am," Admiral Geelix said, seriously. "Even if they don't take this planet, moving those two active fleets...it's provocative, ma'am. It's just a hop skip and a jump to making another move on Talax."
"Do we have
any assets in the region?" Lataxia asked, her tufts flattening.
"...possibly," Admiral Geelix said.
Lataxia brightened.
Then she was handed a dossier.
"You have to be
fucking kidding me."
TO BE
CONTINUED
