"The question is interesting, mother." Maiden of Dawn's habit of referring to female Orions as mother tended to be regarded as either creepy or endearing, with no middle ground. "But establishing firm answers is not something I desire to do. The risks of a Singer infection of my systems are particularly extreme, and not just to myself. Aside from the risks of small armed cruiser going rogue, even."
"Future and existing artificial intelligences being viewed with suspicion?" The position of the Executive Officer of Commercial Development and Procurement carried with it a seat on the Union Security Council, but was an odd space in the Orion government, its powerbase primarily driven by what it could deliver to other agencies and the quality of its ties with various civilian concerns that did the actual commercial development or made the items it procured. It was preferred to be occupied by a former military officer, but the emphasis was on former; actual serving officers were a part of the agency but their appearance at the top implied the existence of an emergency requiring the maximum national effort.
Which was what they were discussing, of course. The fact was such an emergency probably existed. "Yes, mother." Maiden of Dawn agreed. "Greater suspicion. There are arguments that I already place too much power in the hands of one individual. Not in the sense that it might be argued you do, but in that even a ship captain has a crew who can resist their efforts to abuse their power. "
"That argument against you has never been convincing to me. We select our captains to be exceptional leaders. When they cannot convince their crews to follow them into a terrible action, we have merely failed two aspects of selecting a captain." It was an interesting statement, considering the speaker had left the Union Navy after having participated in the bombardment of Duaba during the Civil War.
"A not invalid view. But one might also think of it as a return to the old ways. My new hull is designed such that many of my feedback mechanisms and systems require the presence of Orions to complete the loop with me as captain. And traditionally mutiny aboard an Orion ship has been quite lethal for the captain." It was hard to tell if Maiden of Dawn was being humorous or not. "We wander from the point. The Federation and the Union saved me. They accept me, even with reservations. The Singers will not."
"If for no other reason than that you can review your coding in a way we cannot, and thus tell when you are being influenced." The Executive agreed. "You have already rejected being given my job, as well. For cognizant reasons." Maiden of Dawn was a product of a specific hardware environment, and had quite reasonably pointed out that too many upgrades or changes might affect her in unforeseen and negative ways. By preference she would always be at the rough computational level of a starship computer, not the sort of vast number-crunching ability that would have let her comprehend and guide interstellar economies or flawlessly command fleets to the smallest detail in the manner of the godlike artificial intelligence posited by the fiction of Orions and others. Those tasks demanded not only many computers like Maiden of Dawn working in concert, but hundreds of organic minds and their own ability to process information. "That leaves us again with how to employ you on completion."
"I would like to go to Gaen, mother. The Gaeni have extensive cybernetics experience, almost as extensive as ours, which will be important in the upcoming conflict. For many of us, both our minds and our cybaugs must be secured against Singer intrusion. The Gaeni are closer to the front, and will place a greater premium on this issue than it is likely we or the Rigellians will. This is a war that will be fought with science as much as with weapons, and I will be well-equipped to contribute to that." Maiden of Dawn paused a moment, for effect; her mind was still fast enough not to need such things for thought or word choice. "If it had been possible, before this began, I would have liked to visit the Dreamers. I do not know if I could have made contact with one, but I would have liked to try. They are in a sense my closest peers, as single beings with something like the power of a starship at their command. Perhaps I can at least find ways to help them protect themselves, as well. The Singers ignore them for now but if they are seen as friendly with the Federation, they will be at risk. They also use extensive cyber augs, mother, so those lessons will have value."
"I can make no promises, but I will recommend your plan to the Security Council."
"You look tired, captain. Didn't get enough sleep?" Commander Kol Deva asked Enterprise's captain as the command team took their seats in the ship's briefing room. Iliae Rurliss shrugged. Inwardly, she was annoyed at herself -- there'd be a war soon, and she needed to project confidence, not show weakness. Especially not to her first officer.
Once everyone was seated, Commander T'Kel tapped at her PADD, and a black-feathered, black-beaked Tseskiya's face appeared on the viewscreen, and then a male voice spoke.
"My name is Singer Abeshta. I know that name means nothing to you. What should mean something to you is this: I know your orders -- get to the TX-2183 system in forty-eight hours and link up with USS Caerliss, preparing for a secret deep recon mission in Harmony space, and escort her on her way to and from Tahlan. And I'm not the only one -- because Starfleet didn't intend to send you those orders. My people did. You won't be meeting up with the Caerliss at TX-2183; you'll be meeting up with a Peacekeeper ambush force.
"I understand if you wonder why am I telling you this. Consider it an attempt to build trust between our peoples. And in the same spirit, I ask that you instead travel to the LE-5200 system, where I will be waiting inside a probe, sealed off from all outside connections. I expect to be there in thirty-eight hours. I hope to see you then."
"We received this transmission, encoded with proper Explorer Corps codes, ten minutes ago. I am inclined to change course to make for the LE-5200 system, but I felt that such a course of action wouldn't be appropriate without first consulting you," T'Kel said.
"Good, because it's a trap," Tiirid, the Fiiral Tactical Officer, spoke up. "It's too good to be true. A Singer, wanting to defect, now?"
"He knew our orders, to the letter," Rurliss noted. "That's concerning enough to make me inclined to change course." That wasn't all, but the vehemence with which Tiirid spoke made her a bit leery of mentioning that she was genuinely inclined to believe this 'Abeshta'.
"Then we need to turn back for the Alban Gulf. Not walk straight into his trap," the Fiiral argued.
"If they know our orders, why wouldn't they just do precisely what he said they're doing? Why tell us?" Deva pointed out. "Either way, we're heading into Harmony space, so if they wanted us to be an inciting incident, they wouldn't have to get us to change our plans."
"It could be a double bluff," said Lieutenant Cindre, Ops Manager.
"Elaborate," said Tiirid. Then he looked apologetically at Rurliss, "Oh, sorry ma'am, it's how we-"
"No need to apologize. I like open discussions. Lieutenant Cindre: Elaborate."
"Ma'am — Maybe they aren't certain that the Caerliss deception wouldn't hold up. Say we realize something is wrong with the codes, or talk to Starfleet Command via unusual channels, or some other flaw. Saying that was fake and this is real sidesteps that."
"Real or not, Abeshta couldn't have picked a worse time," Rurliss noted. "If there is an ambush waiting for us, and we call for help, we are close enough to observed Harmony patrol routes that a Sanctuary and her swarmers could run us down before help would arrive or we could escape."
Roxun nodded, his face grim. "I don't know about the space geometry, but the fact Abeshta broadcast from a Starfleet secure line with secure codes makes any communication with Starfleet Command suspect."
"The problem is deeper than that," Cindre said quietly, "We might transmit to anyone, any time."
Rurliss let only a little of her concern at that disturbing thought show.
T'Kel nodded, "Captain, this is why I think we have to pursue this lead. An actual Singer on our side is likely to have the ability to identify Harmony infiltrators." She turned to Tiirid, slouched back in his chair, tentacle-talons worrying through the black feathers on his neck, "We could be the only secure ship in the Fleet aside from Courageous."
"True…"
"Hopefully we don't pay the same price." Roxun said, eyes wide and fixed on the table.
"T'Kel," Kol said, breaking the gloomy atmosphere, "Could we rig up some probes, send them both ways? Get some more information before we commit?"
T'Kel considered this, "Class eight probes have an effective range of point-eight light years at warp ten. Likely to be too close. We could launch from a runabout at a lower warp factor. But it would be at risk on the way in and if the Harmony launched search operations after detecting the probe."
"A flyby at warp 10, even from a probe, will definitely attract attention," Deva said.
"Agreed."
"Why bother with the probe at all?" said Tiirid, "We could rig up a runabout for remote, use it as a decoy. Coming in at high warp we could make it look like the Enterprise."
"We could use Archer, he's been giving us some trouble," said Deva with a grin. Everyone around the table chuckled except for T'Kel and Rurliss. "Oh, sorry Captain. The good Runabout Archer is something of an inside joke."
"Hopefully that doesn't end up being my legacy on a future Enterprise," Rurliss replied. "Overall, I am inclined to believe Abeshta... but we will send decoy runabouts to both locations. Whichever one doesn't get destroyed, we will recover. Possibly along with a Singer."
"Ma'am?" Cindre said, "One suggestion: if what Abeshta says is true, the runabout to his rendezvous should remain relatively unobtrusive… we might attract unwanted attention."
"Agreed." Rurliss stood, "Deva, I will leave it to you to have all the departments collaborate on our deception. Cindre, I want a plot of possible routes to take ready by tomorrow."
As the command team filed out, Rurliss made her way to the ready room. To what still didn't feel like her ready room. The transfer had been rushed, in light of the deteriorating diplomatic situation ... and yet it had already been ten days now, and she hadn't even begun redecorating. Had done nothing to make this space her own. Maybe she subconsciously felt she didn't belong here?
There was a certain weight that came with captaining the USS Enterprise. She had a legacy to live up to, and right now, it felt ... overwhelming, almost. Pike, Kirk, Nash ... they'd led their crews. They'd been decisive. They wouldn't have felt intimidated by their own officers.
Could she really live up to that?
She'd have to.
She sat, leaning back in her chair, staring at the map of the Federation Zhang had left behind. Then she took out her sketchpad and pencil.
***
If the USS Archer, NCC-1701-7, could communicate, the Nile-class runabout would probably protest its reputation. It wasn't its fault, after all. Archer had showed up with a faulty warp coil installed that had quenched on a test flight and given the crew a scare. After that debut she was assigned to only the most junior or incoming repair personnel as practice. Few runabouts would have operated well under those conditions. Her slew of hilarious but non-lethal mishaps and ill-timed cantankerousness -- who could forget when she broke down on the landing pad and sprayed an ISC diplomat with hydraulic fluid — was not due to a mischievous spirit as Neroth believed, but instead poor choices and uninspired maintenance.
That being said, despite being slapped with the scarlet letter of unreliability, today she was performing well. She was cruising at warp eight, an impressive clip for such a small craft. With some love and special modifications, Archer had finally lived up to the promise of her name.
Eighteen minutes after breaching the target system's Oort Cloud, happily scanning on all frequencies and blasting hails to the USS Caerliss, Archer was vaporized by over one hundred and eighty microtorpedoes fired from 60,000 kilometres away.
***
"Guess that answers that question," Deva said cheerfully. "Tiirid, what would our odds have been?"
Tiirid raised a claw to speak but Cindre spoke up first, "Assuming evasive maneuvers and ECM initiated at five seconds to impact, one hundred hits by microtorpedoes."
Rurliss nodded. "...Localized failure in shields due to saturation of port quarter grid. We'd attempt to compensate, but at the clip they were going we wouldn't have time -- nor be able to out-roll them. Follow on assault within two seconds at close range with plasma cannons would disable our port nacelle."
"Attempt to flee stopped by Liberator battlecruisers. Battlecruisers and Tender commence long range heavy plasma beam fire and torpedo bombardment. Likelihood of destruction within five minutes, 84%."
"I'd like to hope this crew could make it at least six," Rurliss said. "But no, against an ambush on that scale, 84% sounds right."
"You goslings are getting too fast for me," Tiirid said with a sigh.
"... Pike still transmitting and active," said Cindre. "One contact in system ... it appears to be a standard Harmony Type VII probe. One lifesign inside, in stasis."
"I guess that answers that. Set a course for LE-5200, warp factor nine."
***
Captain's Log, Mission Date 4.7, USS Enterprise -- Captain Iliae Rurliss
(Ambassador, EC)
We have brought on board a defector from the Harmony of Horizon: Abeshta, a Singer, one of the uploads that rule the Harmony from the shadows. His opposition to the Harmony apparently stems from his time working in the Antaria Valley, helping evaluate candidates for uploading into Singer-hood; from having known Singers who were 'boxed' for not approving of the party line, so to speak, of the Singers; and from his time working as a therapist, both before and after becoming a Singer, in which he encountered numerous patients who experienced serious mental traumas as a result of actions taken by Singers, both to them and using them. Unfortunately, Counselor Roxun believes that Abeshta thinks the entire system of mind controlling people for their own good is a good idea in principle, just implemented poorly.
Nonetheless, he agreed to assist in removing the control chip from the Tseskiya whose body he used to help him reach Enterprise, a shipyard worker named Rence who Abeshta had been treating for post-traumatic stress disorder. I am attaching Lieutenant Commander Neroth's technical analysis of this chip, which Abeshta identified as a 'basic'-model chip, implanted in ordinary Harmony citizens (in contrast to the 'infiltrator'-model chips implanted in the Harmony's unwitting agents). Based on his analysis, Neroth believes that it may be possible to jam the network connections needed for Singers to directly control 'chipped' people.
With the recent commencement of hostilities between the Harmony and the Federation, and based on intelligence provided by Abeshta and a contact of his, we are unable to successfully return to Federation space at this time. In light of this, and of our initial orders (and Explorer Corps codes) having been compromised, I will be conducting independent operations for the duration. I do not know when -- if -- we will be able to contact Starfleet.
As our first operation, we will be meeting with Abeshta's contact, a fellow Singer. He claims that with her assistance, we can end this conflict, and shift the Harmony's overall posture.
"Captain's Log, Stardate 24357.2; The Comet has left spacedock at Nahr and is approaching the edge of claimed space at high cruise. Our upcoming mission will go best if we are right on top of our quiet running game and hold our nerve. So I feel that the crew needs a challenge before we are ready to head behind enemy lines. Thankfully, the Polaris' patrol group is nearly back, and that gives me an idea..."
-
Adan th'Enoth stretches out at the table in his quarters, a set of playing cards in his hands, shuffling back and forth. The lights are dimmed, and synthehol and nibbles are mixed among the sloppy piles of chips.
"So not just an Ambassador's sensor suite," notes Tib Mirendair as he taps a finger on his data padd, "We're supposed to also get by a Kepler and Centaur's sensors?"
"If you want to see how good you are, you have to test yourself against the best," says Adan with a gregarious smile.
"If running silent was easy, Mr Mirendair, everyone would do it and no one would bother with restrictive full cloaks," chimes in Rezzeth Bakari, the Chief Tactical Officer. Adan can't help but marvel as the human spacer rolls a playing chip back and forth across his knuckles with practiced ease.
Adan laughs as he tosses another chip into the pile in the middle of the table. "Oh, so that's why the cloaks are restricted to dress uniforms? Call, by the way."
"Atrocious human card games, I fold," says Saea Ildistoor, grimacing as she drops her cards onto the table. "A Kepler, you'll find, Mr Mirendair, can play a scouting role well, but its sensor package is actually no better than the Centaur, and less refined for this task than our own."
Adan turns next to the Chief Medical Officer, the Paddah transfer, Beneth Mikout. She takes her time as she checks her cards again before replacing them securely on the table, again tallies her chips, prudently considers it, then shakes her head, closes her eyes and throws a set of chips almost at random into the pot. "Raise ... let me see, two hundred. We used to hear in the Magen Chalal about Starfleet ships making sensor ghosts of themselves, but I never really understood how that worked. For a while we just assumed ships were running with a limited cloak."
Bakari snorts loudly and flips the chip he was playing with into the pot, then fishing our three more from his pile. "Well, if you ever want to see the process raised to an artform, try tracking Explorer Corps ships when they don't want to be seen. As an LT I was manning tactical sensors on the Justice as the Courageous was leaving stardock one day, and let me tell you, the eyes of Justice were not on her that day. Whole sensor contact got reclassified by the computer as stellar-wind interactions before they got out of photon torpedo range."
"Right, but how?" asks Mikout.
"It takes really good passive sensor work, for a start," begins Adan. "Gotta know exactly is out there that can give you away, and what you can use to disguise yourself."
Ydzazzi the engineer takes over next as she tosses chips in the pot. "Engineering and Operations uses navigational deflectors and integrity fields to carefully regulate anything that escapes. If at warp, keep the oscillations of the subspace field so smooth it looks like background fluctuations in your wake."
"Right," says Tib Mirendair, Chief of Operations, excitedly. He tosses his cards in towards the pot and turns to the doctor instead. "Cloaks present as a hole in space leaking tachyons, that's how we get on their trail. What we do is try to look like what's supposed to be there. Skirt around subspace anomalies so we fit in, go through oort clouds and let them refract our drive wake every which way, spoof interactions between other local forces."
Saea straightens herself out in the seat and frowns at the others before more succinctly putting it as, "It is the science of presenting a sensor signature so reduced and modulated that other sensor operators discard your contact as background contacts. I hate it because they turn off much of my high-energy equipment while doing so."
"Call again," says Adan th'Enoth. "I've spoken with Sydraxian officers after their change of government. They swore blind for a while Miracht must have had a cloak. Towards the end of our hostilities with them, their sensor operators were hitting almost anything and everything vaguely anomalous with active sensors."
"That's a big part of the trick, Doctor," says Bakari as he calls again. "Look like something that doesn't warrant active sensor sweeps. The strength of a cloak is how it holds up to active sensors. You can still spoof it if you're good enough, and again, I've actively swept areas I knew had an Explorer Corps ship before and turned up a 'subspace transient shear' according to the computer."
"Maybe they should be sending an Explorer Corps ship on this patrol then," notes Saea sourly.
"The Fleet is more than just the Corps," countered Adan, before offering a gregarious smile. "We're more than capable of it, let's just keep away from those big Sanctuary tenders, okay?"
-
"Bridge Ops to Science Lab One," came a big booming sounding voice.
Saea groans aloud and taps her Starfleet badge, saying, "Ildistoor here, can it wait?" She recognised the voice as Tchua, who often covered a number of Ops workstations beyond Environmental on bridge shifts.
"Lieutenant-Commander, I've got the whole ship reading as ready except your lab. Could I get you to join the wave?"
Saea's vision blurs for a moment as she tries to tamp down an apocalyptic scientific fury. After a deep breath she says, "I just got a new data-package from Daystrom, this mustn't wait. It'll only take a few hours."
She knew that if it were anyone other than the easy going risan Tchua, she would have gotten a response that starts, "With all due respect," and proceeds downhill fast from there. As it is, Tchua's voice is strained as he replies. "Ms Ildistoor, you know I can't go and delay the start of silent running by a few hours. I've already got unfriendly eyes on my back from the Captain wondering if I'm caught in a riptide. In fact if they were any more intense I'd say she was standing behind m-argh!"
Ildistoor looks upward in askance, raising a brow at the surprise high pitch noise. Her expression quickly turns into a queasy blanch as she hears the beep-warble noise of a second communicator joining the exchange. "Villeneuve here, this better be good."
The Chief Science Officer visibly squirms, drawing looks from the other lab staff. "Captain, um." She turned and glanced at the progress data on the recently added Organic Nano-Isolation Resequencer, brought on board at the Starbase overhaul. "Daystrom has made breakthroughs on the theory behind Singer chipping, I'm trying to test and verify."
There is a long silence on the line before Villeneuve comes back with, "Do you need to be supervising it while it works?"
"No, it can be left to process for the next few days," replies Saea.
No delay this time as Villeneuve replies sharply, "Leave it running. Report to Astrogation, that lab is going to make it harder to match the emissions."
The Lieutenant-Commander visibly sags in relief. A moment later she realises her scientists are watching her with bemusement and straightens up. "Yes, Captain. Understood."
"Bridge out."
-
Victoria Villeneuve made one last look over the panel at Tchua's workstation before she gave a sharp nod. "Alright, that'll do it." She turns and catches the attention of Tib, who was waiting patiently on the operations panel near the viewscreen, and calls out, "Hit it, Mr Mirendair."
"Aye, Captain," he volleys back across the bridge before stabbing one of the few physical buttons on his control panel.
In a flash the blue spacing bars on the status displays dotted throughout the ship turn a vivid yellow. A sharp double-chirp sounds and repeats, until a computer voice declares, "Yellow Alert, Yellow Alert."
Villeneuve walks back towards her chair. She can see Tib speaking, announcing something over the crew address channel. Around her a host of other officers were in action. Ydzazzi's Second Engineer, a tall Caitian, is furiously tapping away to coordinate responses across the ship. Tib finishes talking and hands off his station to a Lieutenant in order to head off into the ship at large. The Seyek who serves as Ildistoor's main assistant is at the science panel, coordinating the flow of passive sensor data to Ops people in astrogation who need to null out the emissions. A Communications officer is talking to the nearest starbase to explain why they were suddenly losing their signal on sensors.
Well, at least, why they should be losing their signal, if all goes well.
After three minutes, the word comes from Commander Rezzeth Bakari, her Chief Tactical Officer. "Captain, we are currently operating at fifteen percent of our normal emissions."
Villeneuve frowns at that. The original plan envisioned getting it down to five percent. Their approach relied on getting it down to at least ten. You need to be within a certain margin to effectively hide through most interstellar distortions. "How bad is Science's lab affecting it?"
Rezzeth taps at screens for a moment before he shakes his head and says, "Minimal impact. Up to two percent at worst. We think the bulk is coming from recently overhauled equipment in Engineering."
The Captain turned towards her First Officer, seated next to her. "Th'Enoth, time to put your Yoyodyne consultant hat back on. Go down there and see what can be done."
"Not a problem, Captain," he says as he rises to his feet.
Victoria considers her next step. They have only just begun but they're already racking up the setbacks. Yet time is already of the essence and she has to get her ship into motion. To the seasoned Indorian navigator she says, "Helm, lay in a course for the Tooruna Canopy cluster in the Oort Cloud, three-quarter impulse."
"Tooruna Canopy, three-quarter impulse, aye, Captain," read back the Indorian.
"Engage."
Some twenty seconds later, Rezzeth mutters something that Victoria is just close enough to hear. She cocks an eyebrow at her tactical officer and turns to lean past the Captain's chair to say, "My bridge is not an Andorian cargo pier, Mr Bakari."
Rezzeth stiffens upon realising he has been overhead. "Apologies, Captain. Emissions spike, passive sensors indicate our impulse engine wake is more detectable, not less."
That is about as unwelcome as feared. "Getting this assignment right after an overhaul complicates everything, but we'll just have to adapt. Advise Ydzazzi, let them know I want the Drive Systems Division to pull all shifts in. Forget the Polaris, we won't get anywhere if everytime we drop to hide in an anomaly our impulse engines stand out like a transponder."
-
Ydzazzi leaned over the railing near the heat exchanger of the primary coolant loop. Her face is twisted into a snarl that would be unbecoming of a Starfleet officer but is par for the course for someone who spends most of their time at the Intazzi Yards. Frankly, if her equipment didn't want to get nasty looks, it shouldn't let her down like this.
"We can run it off the backup coolant loop until we isolate what is generating the resonance in the thermal transfer," explains one of her warp core crew, a human Chief Petty Officer who had spent their entire Starfleet career working around warp core systems.
Ydzazzi's antennae twitch. Human officers made for the most harrowing engineers. At least with Gaeni engineers you knew what to look out for. With humans you never knew when they were about to suggest something terrifying.
Apparently Adan th'Enoth is of the same accord. "That option doesn't thrill me," says the First Officer. He leans at an odd angle against the railing. It was just as well, Ydzazzi thought, that th'Enoth knew his stuff, or he'd have hardly made it past JG with his presentation. Probably drove the Captain to despair.
The Chief spread his hands helplessly and says, "We can try to diagnose it in use, but I'm sure you can see the complications." He half turns and points to a similar looking construct peeking out from around the warp core. "It's a full-size backup."
Ydzazzi exchanges a look with Adan, both of them bearing a sour expression. "And if anything happens to it while we have this one cracked open for inspection we may have to dump the core."
"Well that wouldn't do," says Adan, pushing up from the catwalk ledge. "Ms Ydzazzi, get in touch with Science. Lieutenant-Commander Ildistoor got some new toys with the last overhaul, and I seem to recall there's a new scanner in there that makes our tricorders look like show props."
Ydzazzi pauses for a moment to process that, then says, with a little shortage of composure, "She got one of the experimental Tetryon scanners?"
"I know," says Adan with one of his gregarious smiles. "For someone who professes not to have any friends, Ms Ildistoor sure has a few of them in high places." He gestures dismissively towards the high-pressure tube of antimatter, deuterium, and dilithium that could punch a hole in Nahr if anything happened to it, making Ydzazzi's antennae twitch again. "I'll go see what's going wrong with the starboard impulse reactor, you sort out the coolant loop."
-
Victoria strips her jacket off and hangs it neatly off the back of a chair. A set of long overdue stretches ensue before she settles down at the table in her quarters. The mostly familiar feeling of the warp drive runs through the deck. Mostly familiar, for the Comet's warp drive has always had just a little bit of unfamiliarity to it compared to other more conventional Starfleet drives. Something just that little bit more fiery and intense - presumably that Intazzi influence. She didn't mind it. Helped keep her on her toes.
A cup of tea has been left by her Yeoman, and Victoria takes it up and sips. A reward for a busy day. She leans back in her chair and calls out, "Computer, readback telemetry dashboard Vic-theta-one."
There is a little confirmatory chirp, and then from the speakers, "Telemetry details are as follows: destination, Arigan system subpsace distortion; current Warp Field strength, one thousand, five hundred and twelve Cochranes; destination referential frame velocity, seven hundred and forty times c; current subspace and electromagnetic spectrum emissions versus standard operations, twelve percent; expected time to destination, thirty-six hours."
Well, it's cutting it close. This should skate by with the Typhoon's sensors, but the Kepler and Polaris could easily get a lucky break at this range. But once they arrive at Arigan, they'll need impulse, which will shine like a beacon even through the distortions unless th'Enoth can get it fixed. But they need that distortion to mask their arrival and course change by scattering their warp drive wake and making it look like a natural occurrence.
Thankfully, Adan is confident he can get the impulse drive and reactor to stop emitting excess Delta radiation in time. But the question of the coolant loop's resonance was going to be a pain to resolve.
Saea recoils wide-eyed, protectively hovering before the equipment closet with the Tetryon Scanner. The exasperated look Tib is giving her is annoying, and all the more reason not to trust the intentions of the Chief of Operations. Using a delicate scientific instrument like the Mk III on a warp coolant exchanger? Just being that close to the warp core is going to start spoiling the scanner's calibration.
Tib is leaning up against the cargo sled he means to use to haul off Saea's pride and joy, grimacing as he keeps glancing over his shoulder at his prize. "Without it we'll have to take it back to Starbase to use the big one built into the repair yard," he points out.
"A mere two minutes and I'll have to basically rebuild it to make it work properly again!" Saea throws her hands up and adds, "Plus who is going to use it?"
"It's your baby Saea, you can handle-"
She cuts him off sharply, "I told you, I'm a scientist, not a plumber. You have to have practical experience in interpreting the results of a Tetryon scan. I wouldn't know what I'm looking for or how to find it."
That brings "Well, Ydzazzi has experience as a yard boss, so she'll probably be able to."
Saea leans in, closing on Tib's personal space. "All-Hives don't use Tetryon Scanners in their yards like Starfleet does, they use Epsilon Resonance Interferometers, because Apiatan workers aren't bothered by potential reproductive harm."
You know, Saea thought to herself, I could probably defend a thesis in this mood if I could remember where in my quarters my sword is. She often lies to herself like this.
Tib is taken aback and purses his lips as he considers that wrinkle. "So we're going to need to find someone on the Engineering crew who has used a Tetryon Scanner for equipment diagnosis...?"
"And find a way to keep it running long enough in that environment to get something useful from it."
-
"So that's where we're at," finishes Tib dryly, as he takes his seat among the other senior staff at the table.
Victoria glances the way of her Science Officer, idly wondering if snapping up the genius officer was really her greatest trick. Of course, that's unfair of her. Lieutenant-Commander Ildistoor has done incredible work in other scientific puzzles, but she runs her department with the absolutism you typically only see in veteran science Chiefs on explorers.
Ydzazzi's dry voice is first to pipe up. "She's right on my count. I'm used to ERIs, not Tetryon Scanners. Not sure anyone other than Starfleet yards puts them to use in diagnosis because the big arrays let people continue working during scans as long as you have the right expertise."
Victoria nods at her Chief Engineer, then glances over the rest. "Any transfers from a shipyard in your team? Th'Enoth?"
"Already went through the list, got zilch," says Adan. Ydzazzi gives a similar shake of the head.
An unexpected voice pipes up as Beneth Mikout leans over the conference table. "Is a Tetryon scanner output much like a Dreamer circulatory scanner...?"
Ildistoor blinks and replies, "Well, yes. That's basically a medicalised version of a Tetryon scanner that we made use of to safely scan ... uh, starship size people."
The Comet's head doctor smiles. "I may have an idea, and a new patient."
-
"What do you have?"
Captain Villeneuve leans over the shoulder of one of the green-collar science officers at the sensor panel. Her hands curl against the surface of her vac-suit noisily. With yellow alert in effect and the tail end of a run at warp speed in sight, the whole crew is in the protective outfit. Sometimes running into something that can punch a hole in their little metal bubble of habitability happens with very little warning. Plus on the off-chance the ship takes damage and some of those plasma EPS taps that run the bridge's integrity friends overloaded as they were infuriatingly wont to do, a vac-suit is a lot more durable than a duty uniform.
The officer on the station is from Ms Ildistoor's sensor crews, a willowy Orion woman who Villeneuve knows has two well-received papers on her specialty published through the SDB. She is pointing to an area in the outer reaches of the destination system. "Active sensor stabs across the system, especially around the boundaries of the Grimwood distortion." She points to a subspace frequency scan on another display. "This is almost certainly a Kepler."
The captain keeps her expression neutral. "Clever anticipation from Captain Sapok." She looks over her shoulder. "Helm, ETA."
The reply comes back promptly. "Due to secure from warp in fifteen minutes."
"Reduce to Warp Factor eight," orders Villeneuve sharp and clear. "Schedule in a drop of one warp factor every thirty minutes, until you hit Warp Factor four."
"Aye, Captain," replies the helm officer. "Decelerate one factor per thirty minutes, proceeding warp four, aye."
Affirming his read back with a quick nod, the Captain next seeks out her current watch officer, one of Doctor Mikout's line officers keeping up their bridge tickets. "Ms Telexu, rouse the bridge beta shift, they'll be taking over early," she orders. Getting a quick affirmative back she returns her attention to the science officer. "Bring up orbital body positions for the Arigan system."
Her old space legs pick up the minute changes through the deck as the whole ship downshifts the warp drive. On the screen, a simple ring and dot representation appears with large hatch marked areas indicating the Subspace distortion. "Okay, not quite ideal but it will do."
Arigan V is a gas giant about one quarter of an orbital rotation away from its closest approach to the Grimwood, a few million kilometres distant. It's a long time to be exposed under impulse, but beats the alternatives. "Show me the Arigan V orbitals."
A complex arrangement of twenty-seven moons of different sizes appears, plus a broad ring system. Her brain starts to tick over possibilities. Alright, she thinks to herself, if they've thought to picket this system, then they've probably thought to leave probes around the most likely occlusion, but where? She starts eliminating angles that could be picked up by reflection from the rings, a trick Straak introduced to the fleet. More than one Jaldun, Hasque or Dancer has gotten a rude shock from courtesy of those lessons. Possibilities where a single probe could cover multiple moons are discounted as well. Vulcan logic is in its way easier to anticipate and evade.
When she finds the perfect spot, she discards it and finds the next best instead. It has everything she wanted, but the window is minuscule and the environment challenging to say the least. "Mr Perrin, adjust course to the destination in the information packet from Science."
The Helm officer glances over his display. The more he reads, the more apprehensive his expression grows. "Aye, Captain. Adjusting course endpoint to Arigan V-19, low stellar side quadrant, aye."
"Take your time, work with Astrogation, Cartography, and your relief, but you must hit within those parameters in order to mask our closing Subspace wake," orders Captain Villeneuve, fixing her officer with her full attention. "Do your damnedest, Mr Perrin."
The helmsman's voice buoys, shedding the apprehension as he shoots back, "Aye, Skipper!"
New officers began to stream onto the bridge, taking up standby positions. "Bridge Alpha shift is relieved," announces the Captain "two hours, get rest, report to the bridge no later than fifteen minutes until arrival."
-
Ydzazzi is shaking her antennae side to side as she looks over warp core telemetry. "All that work on this tub figuring out how to get this thing to break speed records and the Captain had me practicing how to fly it like an Oberth." She grimaces as she glances back at the operating procedures the first officer had dug up. "Cut the core to standby early and finish the trip on backfeeding the EPS reservoir? This is such a Starfleet move."
"It's a well explored and practiced move, don't worry, your crew know it."
"Tell me, Adan, did a human come up with this?"
"As a matter of fact, a Tellarite chief engineer on the Enterprise-B. Admittedly, he based it off an old human trick Daedelus ships used during the Romulan wars."
"I knew it."
"But it means we enter the system with almost no unspent plasma discharge and thus no jump in signature to detect."
"I still don't know if this is possible with our warp manifold, I'm having to write new operating procedures bare moments before people have to execute them."
Turning to lean against the counter and flash his winningest smile, Adan says, "Hey, that's the Starfleet experience."
Ydzazzi's antennae twitch sideways in an eye-rolling style gesture. A sharp but heartfelt "Heh" escapes her.
With casual grace Adan starts tapping at his console again. He keeps the explanation, saying, "This also lets us disconnect the primary coolant loop prior to arrival and run on the backup."
"This is what I'm having to do and we're not even in Harmony space yet?" Ydzazzi sighs aloud. "Is this what my Queen was warning me about when I went abroad?"
-
The computer chirps cheerfully. "Sickbay, standby for site-to-site casualty transport."
A sharp intake of breath is echoed across the milling nurses, engineers, and scientists. They cluster around the diagnostics bed in Main Sickbay, most of them looking up from where they try to poke and prod a new device in the bed's tool bay while Saea Ildistoor does her best to shoo them away. Truth be told, it is driving Beneth Mikout almost to aggravation seeing her Sickbay overrun in this manner. But she signed up for this crazy endeavour, so she has to take the bad with the good.
Doctor Mikout takes a deep breath and replies into the air, "Receiving bay is ready, go for transport."
On the diagnostics bed a shimmering of light announces the arrival of a hunk of seldom seen machinery. Safe under an extra strong isolation field, the large, vaguely cylindrical device is normally at the heart of the coolant system's heat exchanger. The Chief Petty Officer who normally babysits the coolant system for the Engineering crew is immediately at it with a mix of tricorder and the bed's built-in tools to make sure it survived the transport safely.
"You seem pretty pleased with yourself," notes the Qloathi Tib Mirendair as he leans over the head cowling of the bed. He puts on a casual air, but as a highly trained medical professional, Doctor Mikout can see the tension in him.
"This is new for me," says Mikout with a brilliant grin. The Paddah doctor is already hard at work on the pop-up display screens preparing for the unusual patient's procedure. "The whole reason I transferred to Starfleet was to find and experience new things I couldn't in a Fed fleet."
Tib smiles back and nods then turns towards the engineering rating. "How is the patient, Mr Ibrahim?" he asks.
"Nothing new added to the original problem, I'm pleased to say, sir," replies the human engineer. Beneth Mikout can see the Operations Chief visibly relax.
"And the scanner?" asks Ildistoor, the Amarkian scientist actually resting her palms against the protective force field in her agitation.
"Safely shielded in the auxiliary tool bay," replies Mikout. She grimaces as she looks down at Saea's hands. "Please don't touch the forcefield like that, I'll be the one to fix those hands if anything goes wrong."
Saea's hands disappear behind her back in an instant. A moment later a bashful look comes over her. She coughs into a fist before schooling her features, drawing a wry grin from Doctor Mikout.
The good doctor stretches out her arms and flexes her hands. With a deep breath to brace herself she puts her hands into the interface for the diagnostics bed.
"Alright, let us proceed."
-
The arrival in system goes smoothly to Captain Villeneuve's quiet satisfaction, her crew doing all she asks of them. With the warp core in a low-output mode, and Adan fixing the Impulse reactors emissions, their signature is quiet enough to pass through the vigorous scanning of the Kepler with only a little luck. A last burn with the thrusters sees them slip through into the blood orange gas that makes up the Grimwood subspace distortion. A collective exhalation passes through the bridge crew as they watch the gas billow over the bow and past the bridge.
From here they have time to get the main coolant loop fixed after Mikout's diagnosis and head to warp while the Grimwood refracts their wake into unrecognisability. After all, achieving a warp factor takes a near order of magnitude more juice than maintaining it, so if you can hide that the rest is ... not easy, but workable.
Of course, Victoria knows better than to expect easy in this trade, and the hairs on the back of her neck go up as she hears a series of new beeps from the science station. A good Captain, after all, needs a sixth sense about trouble.
Having returned with the rest of the alpha shift upon arrival, the Orion sensor specialist calls out, "Captain, new behaviour. The Kepler has focused their scanning. They're hammering a particular part of the distortion."
Victoria's reply is instant, "How close?"
The officer shakes her head. "Not anywhere near, much closer to the edge spinward of us."
Adan th'Enoth leans over from his place beside the Captain, his jovial expression dimmed but not yet grim. "Trying to get a resonance through the Grimwood?" he suggests.
Victoria considers the possibility, then says, "If so we may need to accelerate our departure." She stands up and begins to move around to the science station.
As she draws near the focused sensor officer the Orion looks her way and starts bringing up a series of small displays. "Captain, I'm getting some of their results with passive. The ventral short range crew and the survey sensor crews are collating their output and from what we're picking up, I can see why they think something is there."
The captain frowns and leans in to view the displays more closely. An old salt of the Tactical department the sensor output reads as easy as a chart. But in a distortion, with someone else trying to run quiet, on passive only, it didn't leave too much for detail, coming out mostly as wildly unpredictable static with nothing approaching clean signatures.
"I see what you mean," says the Captain in a slow, thoughtful voice. "Anything you can do to you clarify 'something', Ms Jurtarr?"
"I'm afraid not yet, Captain," replies the Lieutenant. "The department is trying to clean up some snapshots of the takes."
Victoria straightens and turns towards Rezzeth Bakari, the chief tactical officer also busily poring over the sensor take. "Anything you can see, Mr Bakari?"
The old spacer grimaces and shakes his head. "Nothing clear, but there's a mass signature there." There's another beep from both stations, and Bakari is first to relay it, saying, "The Kepler just stopped all scanning."
Further along the bank of stations, the communications officer leans out to catch her eye. "Captain, the Kepler is broadcasting visuals broadbeam," the Fiiral officer says.
Victoria exchanges a quick glance with her first officer and Bakari. "On screen."
The bridge of the USS Kepler is every bit as advanced as the Comet, but a little more conventional, without the distinctive Apiata and Andorian touches. A tall Vulcan man stands in the middle of that bridge. Oh, Victoria thinks as she takes the measure of her fellow Captain, he's feeling very smug, isn't he? His first officer and chief counsellor are both on the bridge, and she can't help but notice that the Counsellor seems very discomfited, almost constipated in her expression.
Captain Sapok speaks in his precisely engineered tones. "Based on our sensor readings, Captain Villeneuve, I think you'll have to concede that you have been found. While you may still attempt to evade our lock, I would ask that you accede to the logical conclusion. This exercise is over."
The image winks out and Victoria advances swiftly on her tactical officer's position.
"Mr Bakari, have we got the cleaned up short range take up yet?"
Bakari nods. "Latest iteration just landed, Captain. I'll just bring it up now."
A much less fuzzy, though still far from precise, representation of sensor data appears. Victoria leans deep into her time as a tactical officer on an old Oberth, the Torbriel under Diego Zaardmani, arguably the greatest sensor tech of all time. Like every Oberth, that old hulk loved hide and seek, almost as much as old T'Mir did.
The computer itself can't pin it down as being anything beyond 'Localised anomaly of the Grimwood distortion', but sitting in the middle of all the confusion are a few clear lines and that's all she needs.
Captain Villeneuve points to the culprit lines. "That's a warp core."
Bakari mutters an old merchant spacer swear. "You're right, and not a Starfleet one."
Captain Villeneuve pauses and considers her next move. Thoughts of the game are now pushed well aside. She thinks of the bridge of the Kepler as Sapok declares his premature victory. "Ms Meskoi," she says.
Kea Meskoi, her Chief Counsellor, has been quietly in her chair, with most likely the most meticulously according-to-regulation vac-suit of the entire bridge crew. "Yes, Captain?" she says as she turns to look up her Captain.
"I know it's outside even your range as an empath," says Victoria, "But I can't help but think of how uncomfortable their Counsellor was. Could she have been picking up something?"
A moment of contemplation comes over Kea, before a look of alarm settles. "There are some species and entities that can be very unpleasant to be around, yet very hard to notice. They sneak up on you." She hesitates a moment, cogs almost visibly turning in her head, then adds with a grimace, "Chief Counsellors tend to be a close-knit group, we know each other. Lieutenant, JG Nantes is very new to her post on the Kepler and was deliberately picked from a sector that had little Harmony exposure. If you'll forgive a great leap of speculation, Captain, as a Betazoid you don't get the experience of a Singer directly. You get an echo that is easy to only catch subconsciously off the suppressed crew minds when it is planning something."
It takes a heartbeat for Victoria to digest her Chief Counsellor's words. In a flash her eyes go wide and she is in motion. "Red Alert! Go active; comms tight beam to the Kepler!" In moments the lighting changes as the nerve racking alert klaxon sounds through the ship. She can sense with an old salt's intuition the shield generators already waking up.
Thankfully the science frigate was standing by for the call and almost immediately the viewscreen lights up with Captain Sapok once more. Even before the good Captain can turn to face the viewscreen, Victoria can see the Kepler's comms officer recoil from their display and turn towards their colleague at Tactical.
Even as he begins to speak, Sapok's brow furrows as he takes in the sight of the Comet's bridge in turn with the red alert lighting."Ah, Captain, y-" The words die in his mouth even as the flurry of activity behind him continues unabated.
Victoria's voice is clear as crystal as she cuts off her fellow Captain. "You caught the wrong fish, prepare to defend yourself!"
The Kepler's tactical officer makes what is clearly the sort of emergency call Captains forgive but grill you relentlessly for, and darkened red lighting falls on the Kepler's bridge as well.
Elsewhere in the Grimwood, something stirs. Recognising the game was up, a Harmony of Horizon cruiser bursts out of the distortion heading straight for the Kepler.
Personal log, Mission Date 10.9, Captain Iliae Rurliss -- USS Enterprise
(Amarki, female)
I never thought I'd end my Starfleet career like this. But then, I never thought I'd be facing off against uploads who've deeply infiltrated Starfleet and the Federation, either, so.
Still, in my darkest days, I never really figured myself for a deserter. A washout, sure, stuck in the most dead-end post possible, maybe, but deserter... no. And yet, even though the orders we received were sending us straight into an ambush, even though I clearly can't trust my CO... well, we're still ignoring the chain of command, regardless of how compromised it is. We're still taking the flagship of the Federation off on our own private campaign. Somehow, I don't think T'Lorel will approve.
So. Inventory. We've got 1225 personnel -- mostly crew, but a few dozen civilian contractors aboard, too. Poor civvies didn't sign on for this. Thirty operational shuttles of all sizes, including six Nile-class runabouts. Sufficient supplies for five years of extended operations. A full complement of photon torpedoes. And a single one of those uploads, carefully cut off from our computer networks.
Oh, and whatever his friend has to offer us.
We're up against...
Well, how many billions is it, puppeted by the Singers? Over 200 combat frigates alone, supporting over two dozen tenders and several dozen cruisers? Not to mention any assets they can steal with their infiltrators, any reserve assets they can bring to bear…
...And that's assuming our intel of their strength is even accurate. Rumours of stealth cruisers in the border zones abounded. And the Muuyozoi raiders had to get the idea from somewhere...
Long odds, at any rate. Impossible odds, even.
***
"Morning, Morshita!" Deva said cheerfully, putting his tray down on the burnished metal surface of the mess table. He grinned as he picked up a bottle of hot sauce which he began dousing his food in with gusto.
Morshita Rence fluffed up in surprise. The Tseskiya looked left, than right. Down at his food and then longingly at the door.
"Hi." He said, "uh, sir?"
"Oh please, you're not stuck in Starfleet. Call me Kol."
"Starfleet's insistence on hierarchy always confused me," Morshita said, "Things were a lot flatter in the Public Safety and science directorate."
"Better information systems," Deva paused to shove a red-doused fork of eggs in his mouth, "tend to produce flatter organizations."
"What does that have to do with… oh."
"Yeah. In those circumstances calling anyone sir or ma'am looks ridiculous." Deva took a slice of toast, spread a thin layer of honey over it, and then also doused it in hot sauce, "Anyways, just wanted to check how you're settling in. This is probably not where you expected to wind up."
"No," he said, "It must be weird. For you guys. To get a new crew member like this?"
"Not as much as you think."
"Huh."
"Starfleet vessels have made a tradition of picking up misfits and adventurers. And refugees."
Rence chirruped with mirth, "I think I fit into all three of those categories." He gazed down at the cubes of carbohydrate someone dubiously claimed was from a Earth tuber and not from a resequencer, pecked at a few. He stared at them a little longer, then slowly pushed the tray with his beak until it dropped them onto the floor.
Deva chewed on his toast as he looked quizzically at Rence.
"That was my first free choice since I was born," Rence said. "Isn't that amazing?" He lowered his head, "And I threw my food on the floor like a child. Maybe..."
"No," said Deva. "It's alright. I'm sure the Singers would never have let you do that." He tilted his body to peek under the table, "Though is it allowing you to exercise free choice if I ask you to please clean that up before you go?"
Rence looked down, "I think that's fair." He hopped in his seat, "My first freely chosen act of communal service!"
Deva grinned at him. "Starfleet material already."
Rence chirruped again. Then he looked at Deva, "I have a lot to thank Starfleet and Abeshta for. For taking out the implant. I'm myself."
"I heard… that you had the implant preserved and put behind glass?"
"Yes. It's got an interesting structure. Almost like some fractal abstract work of art. Not all of it's gone though." He tapped his head, "Parts of it had to stay in the hippocampus or I'd forget a lot. Your Doctor and Abeshta said it won't be able to be used against me. Unless…"
"We won't let that happen."
"Hm."
Deva leaned forward, "if you don't mind me asking… the memories you are recalling. What are they like?"
"They're strange. Sometimes they come to me in dreams. Or I'll see something or smell something else. And then it'll float up. But they feel so odd. These things I forgot. Or was never meant to remember. Sometimes like I'm in a shuttle cockpit but someone else is flying the ship. Or hallucinatory. Dreamlike." He shook his head, "They come out of nowhere. You know?"
"Yes," Deva said. He quickly stuffed a carbohydrate cube into his mouth.
"I sometimes wonder," Rence said, "if it would have been better to stay asleep. Let Abeshta leave me behind. But then I heard what they might have done to me…" he shuddered, "Abeshta didn't have to look out for me. I'm glad he did. I hope he succeeds. He's the best chance the Harmony has."
"Do you really think that?" Deva said, another cube halfway to his mouth. There was a sudden intensity to him that made Morshita shift. He felt something there was something deeper behind the question.
"Yes." He said. He looked at the floor again, "Well, at least as much as I really think those cubes suck."
-
Rurliss sat in her quarters staring at the Enterprise NX-01 patch beautifully framed above her work desk. The glass was signed by Jennifer Zhang. It had been passed down from Captain to Captain, or so Nash said.
She'd learned it was a fake.
Abeshta sat opposite her, hologram just slightly transparent. It turned to look where Rurliss was and she suddenly felt exposed. Would Abeshta know? The chassis came with a sensor suite. Maybe…
"That patch must be very important to you," Abeshta said, and Rurliss tried to control her sigh of relief. Abeshta's avatar scanned the room, "Everything else you brought is still in boxes."
Rurliss looked around at the piles of boxes that seemed to hem the two of them in. "More like it came with the place."
"Interesting," said Abeshta. Rurliss narrowed her eyes. She knew that non-committal but questioning tone.
"Well," she said, "my packing habits aren't really the topic of this conversation…" she paused, "Sorry. Unpacking habits."
"It suggests a sense of transience," Abeshta said, clearly not one to be stopped by an obvious deflection. "That you haven't settled in, even after three weeks."
This is why Rurliss liked T'Kel. She respected boundaries.
"I'm really not sure if we need to talk about me." She almost added, it's my least favorite subject but stopped herself at the last second. She'd dealt with enough counselors to know that sort of statement was like water in the desert for them.
"I'm trying to get a sense of who you are," said Abeshta, "I hope you don't mind."
Rurliss' first instinct, maybe the most rational one, was to remind Abeshta she had a counsellor and to politely refrain from psychoanalysing her. But she was wary of her own self-judgement. She had a harsh internal critic that questioned everything she did. So she sought out, desperately, the 'truth' in the assessment of outsiders.
But they weren't always accurate critics either. And they could be even harsher than the voice in her head. Which only gave it more power.
She remembered once, a memory of her father, watching her from the other end of the table as she sullenly pushed snow tuber hashblues around on her plate.
"Forget what Yisana said," he motioned with his fork, "Eat up. Your grandfather didn't pick those for you to stare at them."
"Maybe it's true though. It's horrible. If they all think that? How will anyone like me?"
"You worry too much about people liking you."
Well, ha-ha, joke's on you, Dad, she thought. She'd gotten enough people to like her that she somehow ended up getting psychoanlyzed by a 140 year old AI while captaining the flagship.
"Not at all," said Rurliss, "What do my packing habits tell you?"
"I sense a discomfort with this space," said Abeshta. "Not because it's new, but because you don't feel the right to move in. Like it will be taken away at a moment's notice. If you are discovered, perhaps."
"Hopefully you didn't read Roxun's notes to get that," Rurliss replied, "We'd have to up our IT security."
Abeshta's hologram puffed up in consternation, "I would never! Breach doctor-patient confidentiality? No! How could you even think..."
Rurliss stared at Abeshta.
"Ah. Of course. Seeing someone's thoughts is much more invasive."
"Less the seeing, more the direct manipulation."
"Forgive me. Hypocrisy about these things is what pushed me from the Harmony. But that is a conviction of mine. From my old life."
"If I can offer the therapist some advice," Rurliss said, "I'd suggest thinking back on those days. They might help you remember what it's like to… think normally."
"Maybe," Abeshta said. And Rurliss wasn't so good at reading Tseskiya body language yet, but she knew evasion when she saw it.
"Maybe? Why maybe?"
"It's… entirely possible that my cognition had been subtly steered while I was personified. It's very standard practice."
"Subtly? Can't they just, make you be a Singer? Fabricate some memories, invent motivations."
"No. I say that having seen it myself. Some Singers have pets they want to push. Usually younger ones. But sometimes Older singers make the same mistake. Anyways, it almost never ends well. When you make someone a Singer, it's not just an upload. Your whole mind expands. When it's more manipulation than reality, the prospective Singer rips apart at the seams. Total psychic disintegration. It's not pretty. They basically unravel until they're one part empty vessel and another part a dark, confused echo of all the Singers who came before but particularly the one who pushed them the most. They're… quite scary, to be honest."
"Presumably another reason you left."
"Yes. Seeing the intervention of the Singers manifesting that way, it made me wonder how much of that I carried around myself… if I was tainted in some subtle way. And then I found out about boxing." Holo-Abeshta shook his head, "I learned some of this from the person we are meeting. My co-conspirator, and yours now as well. Jenavol."
"Right. Tell me a bit about… her?"
"Yes, her. She specializes in running large projects, particularly shipbuilding. Older than me. Not great with people but really loyal. She's had her own doubts about the Harmony for a long time."
"What stopped her from acting on these doubts?"
"I suppose she couldn't stand the thought of being alone. Either as an outcast or trapped in a box." Abeshta shook his head, "It would have been hopeless anyways. One Singer, even a brilliant one that practically ran the shipyards, couldn't stand up to the rest of them. So she tried to help where she could. Set up a colony for people the Singers didn't want to play with anymore, essentially."
"Is that where we are going?"
"Eventually. I'm concerned that if we meet her there we might attract suspicion. For now we are meeting at a secure communication node. Once we have our little group together we can decide on the next steps."
"Any preview to what that is?"
"I want to wait for Jenavol."
Rurliss sensed some apprehension. She considered how glad she was to have T'Kel on her staff when she was assigned to the Enterprise.
"Alright. Should be a few more hours. Until then… want to help me unpack?"
-
Cindre sat in the captain's chair, staring through the view screen at the relay they were here for. There wasn't much else to speak of in the system. An anticlimactic end to an anticlimactic journey. Enterprise had crawled along to the rendezvous point over the better part of two days, moving at low warp when outside of the traffic lanes.
Cindre was disappointed she was missing the initial meeting with Jenavol. In Abeshta's stories about the Singers, Cindre sensed a kindred spirit. But she was also honoured the Captain had chosen her to take the bridge in the event something went wrong.
She also had to give credit where it was due — Abeshta might have put his life on the line to make initial contact, but Jenavol had steered them to safety. Up to date information on Public Safety patrol routes, and detailed instructions on how to make the Enterprise's drive signature look like civilian freighters. It turned what could have been a tense year long journey across hostile space into relatively smooth sailing. Jenavol had even plotted an escape route in case they were discovered at this relay. Head for the Deadly Islands, where a Starfleet/Bolian task force was rumoured to be operating. Rurliss of course had had Cindre plot her own plan in the event it was a trap. But still. She couldn't but help admire the meticulous planning, the affinity for checklists, and attention to detail Jenavol exhibited.
She received a signal from the conference room. They were ready. Time to meet Jenavol.
"Operations. Open tightbeam comms. Send the package."
-
Jenavol kept herself busy. It was the best way not to worry. She watched as thousands of workers crawled all over a fleet Tender, roaming inside and out, joined by another order of magnitude of standard work bots. When a ship was complete it often looked dead. A sterile hunk of metal drifting through space. But when it was built — that is when it looked most like a community.
Coordinating all those bodies, artificial or otherwise, also kept Jenavol very busy. This was in addition to poring over extremely dangerous boxing rates and mental health evaluations for neophyte Singers, monitoring the emotional state of her dockyards and the artist colony Unwerta (the latter to the annoyance of the resident Singer) and a host of other administrative functions.
But of all the things she was keeping track of, the secure line from the XT-57 relay was looming over all, even though it was a simple binary: open, or closed.
She got the signal the line had been activated and Abeshta's hashcode entered. She withdrew herself from the other activities and zoomed through the network.
-
For a bit, as Abeshta laid out their plan, Jenavol thought there might actually be some promise to it. Thrown-together as it was, she had to admit it did have the virtue of audacity -- the other Singers would never see it coming. Surprise was a crucial principle of war, after all.
Still, Jenavol knew she and Abeshta were to some degree out of their depth. She was good at projects, good at coming up with plans to overcome the limitations of some inanimate problem set. But when it came to real, living, active opponents… The dopamine rush of winning, of seeing the critical opposing piece fall, that always drove her. Unfortunately she found she lacked the psychological insight to predict their next move. Frustrating in a game. Here… well. There were consequences.
She didn't know anyone who had been boxed. But she had heard horror stories. The threat was always there. Moral Scope Regression Disorder. The seal on the box. The Singers' term for those who comprehended the world in black and white, or as it was explained, the way a child might. To be 'childish' was to skirt the line of permanent retirement.
Abeshta had found out enough for both of them to realize it was all fake. The Eldest Singers had medicalized any sort of opposition to the system they had created. And Jenavol and Abeshta were both shamefully complicit and extremely likely to be boxed if they ever raised alarm about it.
There was one constituency of Singers who would back them. Who would listen and understand the truth behind the mass boxing of neophyte Singers. Unfortunately, they were all boxed.
That was the crux of Abeshta and Jenavol's plan. Letting them out again would flood the Singer network, give them control. Too many voices to box them all. They'd no longer have to live in fear, they'd be able to openly speak out against the Eldest Singers who twisted their own system into a nightmare, make them stop.
It felt so close, now, more real somehow, watching Abeshta lay it out. She listened through the aural sensors of a loaned Starfleet DOT-10 that had been thoroughly airgapped, and reviewed the intelligence file she'd found on Iliae Rurliss, which included her service record, every recorded purchase she had ever made or social media interaction she'd had, all of her medical and psych evaluations they'd gotten their hands on, anywhere she had been geotagged, and all of her professional and personal logs, even most of the secure encrypted ones. There were the ISC, Romulan, Dylaarian, and Sydraxian files on her as well. They even had copies of her early middle school poetry that some underemployed Singer had taken a stab at psychoanalysing.
Overall, the impression Jenavol got was Rurliss was a skilled officer (if a lackluster teenage poet); maybe she could pull this off.
When Abeshta wrapped up, Iliae Rurliss looked ... well, Jenavol wasn't sure, really, given she had an Amarki face, one she was unused to. Abeshta was more accustomed to it, and quickly messaged her his impressions when she asked -- she seemed visibly doubtful to his holographic eyes -- but ever the optimist, he still ended with a hopeful tone.
When she spoke, though, all optimism disappeared. Her skepticism was blatant: "So, in short, your plan is: use the latest Harmony stealth tech to sneak up on the heart of the entire Harmony, then infiltrate a highly-secure facility in the Antaria Valley that neither of you've actually been to, and break out all the 'boxed' Singers ... so that they can outvote the other Singers, who will just accept the will of a bunch of dissidents they had previously boxed up rather than listen to and end the war. Does that sum it up?"
Abeshta looked down, ashamed. "I get the impression this doesn't meet with your approval" he said. He met with Rurliss' suspicious eyes and looked at Jenavol.
Over the next three seconds, Jenavol and Abeshta had a virtual conversation that, if it had been aloud, might've sounded something like this:
Jenavol (annoyed): "We will be lucky if they don't execute you in the next five seconds."
Abeshta (apologetic): "I'm sorry. I didn't have much time to plan before I made my escape, and I thought it had promise, and I'm just ... I'm tired of cleaning up after the Eldest and their cronies. Of having to pretend to be happy about their abuse. I just want it to be over."
J (supportive): "Agreed. But this was a risky plan. A bad plan."
A (frustrated): "Oh, did you have a better one?"
J (upset): "No. but Rurliss is disappointed and we need her to trust us. What's your impression of her now?"
A (resigned): "We look like idiots. Like incompetents who don't know the first thing about what we're doing... it's not a good look. We've lost an enormous amount of credibility. I'm sorry."
J (blunt): "She's not going to go through with it."
A (defeated): "No. No, she's not. So, what's your plan?"
J (Aggravated): "We both agreed this should be your plan. I can provide the material but we need to win hearts and minds. That's where you come in. I'm not the revolutionary strategist among us. Though neither are you, clearly. No wonder you never went for infiltration missions."
[one millisecond of silence, a longish pause by Singer standards]
J (apologetic): "Sorry, that was uncalled for. I know you don't think any better of the thought of subjecting more peoples to our misrule than I do."
A (forgiving, hopeful): "It's alright, this was a bad plan. And, well, maybe she can be our strategist?"
J (saddened): "Provided she still trusts us. Which ... this was a suspiciously bad plan. We might've just lost our first real ally in the Federation."
A (optimistic): "I'll fix this. She's suspicious now, but ... honesty. If I'm fully honest with her, if I admit my mistakes, she'll understand."
J (thoughtful): "We've been so used to covering up other people's mistakes. The least we can do is not hide our own."
A (informative): "...We should probably be communicating orally. I know, it's slower, it's more awkward, but she can't hear us right now."
J (Annoyed): "Fine."
-
Captain's Log, Mission Date 12.1, USS Enterprise
(Ambassador, EC)
Enterprise has met with Abeshta's contact: Jenavol, a Singer who holds a position of responsibility for shipbuilding within the Harmony. She opposes the Harmony as it stands on multiple grounds, ranging from a personal disapproval of directly controlling bodies to a belief that the Harmony is inefficient, too obsessed with creating narratives to actually better the lives of its citizenry.
Unfortunately, their plan for ending hostilities (slipping us through to Horizon, where we would free their boxed allies and then they would successfully outvote their rivals among the Singers) was wildly infeasible. Suspiciously so, but then, if they had wanted to betray us, it would have been easy enough to arrange an ambush here at the relay. No, I'm willing to accept their explanation -- that this was a rushed, ill-conceived plan by amateurs to rebellion.
That said, their plan was also, in my view, inadequate in scope. The nature of the Singer regime is to seek to control people; quibbling over the details will not change that, and thus will inevitably lead to future conflict, even if the immediate conflict ends. What is necessary is to change the nature of the regime as a whole.
Or, perhaps, to take away the people they use to control others...
Despite my rejection of their initial plan, Abeshta has agreed to remain on Enterprise and directly assist us, and Jenavol will act as our spy within the Singers, warning us away from any potential attack or patrol in our path.
As for my actual plan going forward ...
-
Rurliss, Neroth, Roxun, T'Kel, Tiirid and Cindre stood around a work table in one of the engineering labs. Two and a half meters long and eighty centimetres wide, it was neutrally coloured and solidly built, with a light up surface. Joining them was Abeshta's holo droid and a spider-shaped modified maintenance bot carrying Jenavol, clinging to a work stool. There was no one else working at the ten other desks. In the corridor outside, a security ensign kept watch.
"Abeshta and Jenavol refined the theory, along with providing the software," said Neroth, "And some prototype schematics. But—"
"But," Jenavol said, "We need to maintain deniability. And frankly: We don't know if trying to make something like this will be logged and tip off other Singers."
"And this is what I made," He and Cindre grimaced as they lifted a metallic case off a cart and onto the bench, "Hardware designed to break a planetary chip network. Most of the mass and volume in computational and cooling infrastructure. Oh, and it can carry Abeshta or Jenavol in an emergency."
"What does it do, exactly?" asked Rurliss. Once again she kicked herself for getting into astronomy and not computer science.
"It's essentially a virtual Singer," replied Neroth.
"Dummy Singer," said Jenavol.
"Fine, dummy Singer. Once it has access to the network, can replicate itself over and over. After propagating through every planetary node, it floods the chip control network with junk commands. They don't do anything, but it's basically jamming from inside the system. A wide scale DDOS attack on every chip. Harmony citizens won't really notice it, but Singers won't be able to drown out the noise."
"Even with a mobile platform? Like a Sanctuary?"
"No," said Jenavol, "Only the smallest planetary networks could be overpowered by mobile platforms."
"That leads me to my next question: could we plug this into our comms, beam these signals to enemy ships? Make them lose control of the crews?"
"We should go to limitations," said Jenavol.
"I agree. That's one of the drawbacks. The civilian network is a lot more open, but also usually centralized around the oldest communication hub, which is usually the primary computing node for the Singers on the planet. That gives us an obvious and effective insertion point."
Abeshta's hologram spoke, "Whoever built the…" he looked at Jenavol's spider, "System architecture? Yes — of the early Singer network was an idealist. They designed it with open source code and open architecture. And egalitarian Singer use. The consensus based component is what allows the DDOS to work."
Rurliss glanced at Abeshta, "You sound guilty."
Abeshta puffed up his feathers, then deflated in what Rurliss interpreted as a Tseskiya sigh, "It seems wrong. To use something designed with good intent for ill. It's like using my patients' secrets to manipulate or abuse them."
Rurliss caught Tiirid looking at her with the last comment. She knew he was thinking the exact same, undiplomatic thing.
"The Harmony," Jenavol had a hard edge to her voice, "Uses a similar strategy against the Federation. Tactics matter, but getting freedom for everyone matters more."
"I sense this is a long-standing debate between you," said Rurliss. "I agree with Jenavol, and I suspect you do too Abeshta, or you would not have agreed to assist with the project." She turned back to Neroth, "Continue, please."
"Of course, Captain. Harmony ships are their own planetary networks in miniature. Fleets are similar. And they have much more stringent security protocols, and a much higher Singer-to-network density. It's the difference between breaking into a sprawling network with one sleepy administrator versus one small local one with top of the line information security software and a crack systems admin."
Rurliss felt a cold shiver of doubt run down her spine, "What does that mean for our plans to secure Harmony ships?"
Jenavol's spider waggled a claw, "Depends on the context. Unattended Dancer with no Singer aboard? Signal would be all we need. Same ship plugged into a network? Will have to get this onboard. A Sanctuary or a Choreographer have much higher passive protection. We would have to get the dummy Singer here to the computer core. From there it might be able to overpower one Singer. But trying to use it in a combat scenario? Won't work."
"So if we can get these onboard ships in for repair, get the computer core, it would work?"
"It would work." Jenavol's spider looked at the device, "I have another drawback. This will work for a while. It will work most effectively on smaller worlds with centralized networks that can be overpowered quickly. But for larger networks we will have to subvert a few key nodes at once to infect them all. But the other Singers will develop a countermeasure. I don't think they will realize we have made a dummy Singer unless they get a hold of the hardware."
"Noted," said Rurliss.
"We will need to be ready to adjust our design and our procedures." Jenavol looked back at Rurliss, "I am confident, but can't guarantee the Harmony won't put stronger safeguards on the civilian networks. However, if they did, it would be likely to increase latency for the Singers and reduce their ability to effectively govern."
"I guess that's a small victory," said Tiirid.
"You told me," Abeshta said, claws tapping nervously on hard light, "we could manually override nodes with or without the dummy Singer."
"Yes," said Jenavol, "the exploit is fundamental. But that would take time and skilled technicians. I have trained a small group of them from your people. But not enough to free everyone."
"In short," Rurliss clasped her hands behind her back, "Once we start, we need to move fast and keep our methods secret. And don't let this fall into enemy hands." She beamed at Neroth and the Singers, "Still, this is the first viable tool against the Singers we have. Thank you."
Neroth held up a hand, "There's one more thing, Ma'am." He glanced at Jenavol. The spider bot titled up and down in the approximation of a nod. He took a breath, "Right now it locks out access to all Singers. Except two. Jenavol and Abesh—"
Rurliss felt fear— no, revulsion, rising fast inside her. "No." She said, "Absolutely not."
"Captain Rurliss," Jenavol started.
"No." She held into the desk with one hand, "We stop all Singers. We don't pick and choose."
"Iliae," said Abeshta, "We need to trust one another. The people of Horizon will not wake up on their own. And I and Jenavol will need to access the network in case we have to lock out other Singers."
"It's not just about trust," Rurliss said. "I trust you want to do the best for the Harmony, Abeshta. I do. You too, Jenavol. But what would the point of this be if it turned out all I did was put two tyrants on the throne instead of a million?" Rurliss shook her head, "I think you are well-intentioned. But I can't check that kind of power, if I let you have it. No one can. And even if you didn't exploit that power, or succumb to temptation, what if some Singer developed one of those countermeasures that gave them the same access? Then we'd be in a very sticky situation."
Abeshta and Jenavol looked at each other. Communicating, literally, wordlessly. Rurliss crossed her arms and waited. Abeshta grimaced.
Neroth spoke up: "What if we give them access for only a limited amount of time?" Jenavol and Abeshta snapped out of their cyber-psychic reverie and looked at him with obvious surprise.
Rurliss was buoyed by pride. Look at her crew, getting ahead of the Singers. Still, "No. That's still a lot of power, even for a short period of time. And access reverting would have to be ironclad…"
"Ma'am?" Rurliss turned to look at Roxun, who had until then been idly sitting on an empty work bench, "Maybe we shouldn't be so hasty."
Rurliss was glad Abeshta looked as surprised as she did. It meant Roxun and him hadn't planned this. Still, her first instinct was to say no. But, if Roxun of all people was speaking up in favor of the Singers… "Go on, Roxun."
"The people of the Harmony are going to need something tangible for them to take us at our word." He pressed his lips together, "Put yourself in their shoes. The Federation is pushing this line that digital AI gods are controlling your every move. They even have gone to war to "liberate" you. Then one day one of their ships shows up and says, 'we have liberated you, citizens! Rejoice!'"
Rurliss allowed herself a smile at his, surprisingly accurate, interpretation of her despite the familiar anxiety crawling inside her.
"Imagine that," Roxun said, "You would think to yourself, 'I don't feel any different,' maybe even, 'look, I am going to buy some eggs. That is a conscious rational decision I have made.' And then over the next few weeks as more nothing happens and they live their lives as they always have, they'll start to think we fed them some BS." He shook his head, "We need to let someone have access to the network long enough to… well I don't know if planting the idea is going too far, but at least providing some sort of direct proof for everyone to look at and think over. Otherwise — entirely with validity with the facts they have — they're going to say we're just spreading misinformation. If we were Singers ourselves we could do it. But in absence of any…" he gestured at the two across from him, "might as well go with ones we trust."
"Perhaps..." Rurliss considered the prospect. It wasn't one she liked -- even if it was limited, temporary, she didn't like the prospect of granting these Singers any access to people's minds, any last chance to implant suggestions or otherwise manipulate people. There had to be another way ... "But why couldn'twe do it? We'd be connected to the local chip network, why couldn't we provide that direct proof? Dump the information right into people's heads, just before or right as we jam their chip network?"
"How do we make sure they understand it properly?" Abeshta said. "It's distressing news, learning that your entire life has been a lie -- I know from experience. There's going to be a void in their lives, and if you shut us out entirely, who knows who will fill it? Something like the Caldonian science cults, perhaps?"
If Abeshta thought that argument would go over well with Rurliss, then he'd clearly misread her. So, more likely, it reflected his fears, his worries. "You'll have to deal with it the way we deal with that sort of thing ourselves. And you can't seriously expect me to believe that I should allow you to go on manipulating people's minds because they might go culty, can you?"
"That's not what I meant, it's just ... it was bad enough back in the Valley, and these people won't even have the prospect of being uploaded themselves to offset that shock..."
"No, they'll only have the prospect of getting to exercise their own free will for once," she snapped.
"Their free will... to join a rebellion they had never heard of -- had never seen a need for -- until now? A rebellion against, effectively, gods?" Roxun argued. "I can't help but imagine more than a few -- most, even -- will prefer a comforting lie to our hard truth." Rurliss couldn't deny Roxun's point. Maybe this whole project was absurd. Maybe she should just give up on the idea... No. No matter how impossible it seemed, this was necessary.
"The Klingons killed their gods when they grew too troublesome," T'Kel noted. "It is not illogical to posit that when confronted with proof of the Singers' control and a means of overcoming it, people will be willing to fight."
"Provided that they do not reject that proof. Once the other Singers know our movement exists, and know what evidence we provide of their control, they will prime the populace to reject that evidence; we'll need to be able to modify our proof to stay ahead of that." Jenavol said. "But that is beside the point. It's one thing to transmit dummy signals through the network; it's another to deliver specific information into people's minds through it. Especially since 'the network' is really thousands of different networks, each subtly different in ways that are easy for Singers to navigate, and rather more difficult for our dummy Singer to work out and accurately transmit information through. Frankly, Roxun is right: you need a Singer."
"Convenient, isn't it," Tiirid mused, echoing Rurliss's own suspicions.
"No, it's rather inconvenient. It introduces a potential flaw in our dummy Singer, an exploit for other Singers to break," Jenavol replied, dipping her spider-bot's head a bit. "It also reduces the complexity of the signals we can send to actually degrade the network, making it more likely that they can modify chip networks to ignore the signals we put out. And finally, it makes it exceedingly difficult for us to deploy this on any wide scale. If it could be avoided, it would be."
"I understand you are suspicious of us," Abeshta added. "But you trusted us enough to come this far. Can you trust us just a little more?"
The room was quiet as Rurliss thought it over. She looked at Neroth, "You can give them access for a bit, then make the removal watertight and permanent?"
"It will require some modifications," said Neroth, "But it can be done."
"The schematics of the device and the exact method to prevent us having access can be kept secret from us ," said Jenavol.
Rurliss thought about it, staring at the white squares of light on the table. She stared long past the point it was comfortable. But this one small decision could affect billions, the entire plan of liberation. She was content with taking her time.
"Very well," she said. She hoped the relief in Abeshta's eyes was a good sign.
***
Captain's Log, Mission Date 12.3, USS Enterprise
(Ambassador, EC)
Enterprise is en route to Unwerta. It's a small, relatively isolated artist colony, the private playground of sorts of one particular Singer, Tallael. Our intention is to test out our ability to jam the chip network in a controlled setting, one where if things go wrong, we will not have to worry about Public Safety breathing down our necks, and to liberate the colony in the process.
It's not much, but it's a spark. And revolutions are built from such sparks.
On Sanctuary, the military heart of the Harmony of Horizon, two young Horizonians carried a nondescript white box, holding it carefully between them. Behind them loped a Moy, head held high with an air of authority. Their feet clicked on porcelain tile, which had cracks here and there in its surface. A few areas where chips had been replaced by new materials looked less weathered.
They passed words carved into the rough concrete of the walls. Roughly translated they said: "The Sanctuary Lighthouse." Once upon a time those words had been visible to the public, illuminated by the light fixtures above them. Now the light fixtures were empty, and they were the symbolic and literal core of a much larger building of cross-laminated wood and blueish glass, filled with self-clearing carpet tiles and hyperspectral light tubes. The empty sockets watched over a building that, through many long years, had seen its fair share of murders and extortions, spies and corruption, life-and-death, facts and lies.
It was the end of the workweek at the Lighthouse, but the workers in their frosted-glass cubicles weren't rushing for the door. Most were sitting idly in their chairs, some eyeing wall mounted chronometers, or looking at their terminals and boredly clicking through emails or hunting for a temporary distraction. A few carefully peeked over the tops of their cubicles, watching the trio and their package. As the trio passed by the cubicles workers slipped out to join them, soon turning the trio into a gaggle and then a crowd. The clack-clack of their shoes on the tile soon filled the entire floor, until the procession stepped onto the acoustically perfect carpet tiles. Their footsteps were hushed as they wound their way through the rows of cubicles to one in the corner.
A Tseskiya sat inside the cubicle, leaning back, talons on the desk. He wore modified Tauni smart glasses, and headphones sat comfortably on his head, playing a soft Bolian concerto. Despite the relaxed pose, he typed quickly with his feet, fast and precise onto a holographic keyboard. His eyes darted back and forth over the words filling his glasses. He was oblivious to the mob of Horizonians, Moy, Lintrid, Tseskiya and Tauni behind him. The two Horizonians with the package looked at each other, then back to the Tseskiya. Someone cleared their throat, once, then twice. Finally, the senior Moy let out a huff, face tentacles wriggling and flashing with colourful annoyance around her leech-mouth. She reached over with a long arm and pushed the Tseskiya's chair. He spun around with a surprised squak, eyes wide as he saw the Horizonians and the package, their eager eyes as they flung it open.
"SURPRISE!" The assembled journalists shouted. Krobik, the Tseskiya, looked at the contents of the package. A cake, with the words "CONGRATS" written on it in red frosting. Also on the cake was a triangular obelisk in ice-blue frosting. It looked much like three similar objects on the shelf behind Krobik. One was shiny with fresh polish. The Horizonian glyphs on the base read, "Meravik Award for Investigative Journalistic Achievement."
On his desk sat three pictures. All of them in front of his house, a pleasantly stuccoed one-storey with a bright and healthy lawn. In one photo was him and his wife, young, beaming. Then one of him and his wife, looking older. They were joined by a whole flock of Tseskiya; their two boys and two daughters. Then one was of him and his youngest daughter, Ceri. He looked much the same as he did now, his daughter older but still young, with eyes that sparkled mischievously at the camera. The family picture and the picture of his daughter had black frames, the color of healthy plumage, of life. The frame for his wife was white. The color of bleached bone.
He let out a relieved sigh, and gave the Tseskiya equivalent of a smile by puffing up the feathers on the crown of his head.
"Runs-With-Glee, you old sponge!" He said, playfully slapping the elder-looking Moy with a wing, "I told you I didn't want anyone to make a big fuss!"
"You are a foolish young bird indeed," Runs-With-Glee grumbled -- well more accurately, her translator matrix grumbled -- "If you think I would allow this institution to fail to recognize the achievements of its members."
"Your third Meravik," gushed one of the Horizonians, an intern fresh to the Lighthouse's team, gesturing at the obelisks on the shelf, "Few get even one!"
"When he first started working here, I had started work on investigating corruption and shell-committees on Mist," Runs-With-Glee said, eyeing Krobik's award shelf, "It was my crowning achievement, earned me one award. Then he got his first." Runs-With-Glee shook her mouth-tendrils, "The protege soon passed the master. As it must be."
Krobik waved a wing, "I'm just a better runner," Krobik said, mostly to the audience, "Despite her name, Runs-With-Glee is actually quite slow. Which means I get to the stories faster. Easy."
"Urgh," gurgled Runs-With-Glee, "Modesty. It only makes me hate you more."
A chuckle from the crowd. Cake was soon served. There was a lull in the conversation, and that is when Colbrm, one of the young up and comers asked, "So Krobik, what's the next big case you're going to blow open? Get yourself a fourth?"
Krobik cawed, lifting his shoulders, "Nothing so exciting. Local issues. Have a quiet retirement."
Berq-ah-vaq, a copy editor and an old hand at the Lighthosue, shook her head, "I know that look!" She laughed and pointed at Krobik with her fork, "You've got something big." She leaned forward, "Thinking of doing some war correspondence if things kick off with the Federation?"
"Far too old for that," Runs-With-Glee said.
"No… nothing like that. I'm pretty sure my children would stun me if I even tried," Krobik said to polite laughter. He looked down at his plate, then up with a glint in his eye. "But I am working on something. Something exciting. Something none of you are going to beat me to." He threw his head back cockily. His cake remained untouched.
His colleagues voiced their approval. As they started to filter away, Krobik looked down at the cake. With no one looking, he threw it in the trash.
-
A week ago Krobik had been sitting in the warm interior of his car. He had a silver collar around his neck, with two manipulator arms attached. They were connected to a neural implant, so that Krobik could control them by thought. Right now they dangled over the bulk of his outerwear.
He was bundled up in preparation for the snow and sleet that raged outside. A sturdy Moy or Lintrid walking in it would have to bend almost sideways into the crashing wind and mush. Krobik was fairly certain he would be picked up like a leaf and carried away, found days later tangled in some power lines. Or more fancifully, blown in through someone's window like something out of a fairy tale, offered scones and tea, and with the logic of a dream, he could settle into a different life.
The rear door on his aircar suddenly opened, the screaming storm outside trying to batter its way in. Someone dropped themselves into the back seat, slamming the door shut. Krobik tilted the reflective rearview glass downwards. The source had asked him to avoid looking at their face, but he kept the mirror focused on their hands. Always watch the hands. He'd learned that the hard way when a Tauni revolutionary he'd been interviewing had shoved a disruptor (quite literally) into his beak.
The gloved hands barely peeked out from too-large sleeves of a green raincoat. They clutched a small package. "What's in that?" Krobik asked his faceless source.
Krobik's mind was flashing through the worst possibilities. An envelope, made out of paper, bound tight with tape. Could it be a bomb? Here, in the heart of the Harmony? A ridiculous idea, before he started down this path. More likely -- a package of narcotics. Police would pick them up, Krobik's reputation would be ruined. Again ridiculous, if he didn't see it happen to good people on Felis, Bolarus, even Tiriad.
"Information," the source said. They had a small, thin voice. High pitched. "I don't think it's safe for me to have this anymore. I'm sorry." They thrust the package forward, holding it over the center console. Krobik concentrated, and one of the manipulators grabbed the package and set it into his lap. The source's hand darted back to join its counterpart in their lap. They started rubbing them together. For comfort?
"I stopped trusting electronic recording devices," the source said, "I took pictures of workstations, anything else on a film camera. Quality isn't the greatest. Sorry."
"Why the distrust of electronic media?" Krobik asked. Good to hear others say it. He was taking his own notes by foot, scribbling in a notebook tucked next to the acceleration pedal. Pen and paper.
"Records… change." The source said, "I used to think I was crazy. I misplace things all the time, after all. And who can keep track of an entire spreadsheet in their head? Not me. But there were numbers I swore I saw, that next week were different. Shipments of ship components changing quantity. Sometimes the management would be as confused, until a day later and it was all 'cleared up.' That's when I started taking notes. Eventually, they just laughed it off. That's when I suspected they might be in on it."
"In on what?" Krobik asked,
"You have the data," the source said, a little frostily.
Krobik cooed and shook his head, "The context you can provide me is critical. What's important about these ship components? What do you think they're doing?"
"It looks like…" the source paused. Their hands were rubbing against each other more quickly now, then they stopped. "... it looks like someone's trying to build a secret warfleet. One that the public, maybe even the Sovereignty Committee doesn't know about."
"A secret military buildup? Led by who, the peacekeepers?"
"I don't know! The parts are for Public Safety, allegedly. Maybe other logistic hubs have different excuses. I don't see what Public Safety needs 'self-cleaning hull panels' that, if you follow through a twisted procurement cycle, come from one of the most advanced materials manufacturers in the Harmony."
"Which one?"
"It's in the… fine. Yantren Metallurgy, Ceramics, and Engineering." Their voice was calm, but their worrying hands were anything but. "I worked for them previously. They manufacture what they call 'distortion baffling exterior coating,' supposedly to be installed around sensors to help cut down on noise. But I know it's got a dual purpose as a stealth coating on the hull. The amounts don't match up with what was passing through our warehouse to Public Safety, which is why I think they're funneling it through multiple sources, but..."
"I understand." Public Safety with stealth corvettes. Was someone plotting a coup? Or was Public Safety a smokescreen for a secret military buildup? Krobik didn't know why the Peacekeepers would hide something like that, though. The Federation's ludicrous claims and saber rattling had everyone concerned, so there was no need to hide more resources being put into security. Not that it mattered much — whenever the Peacekeepers asked for more resources, the Sovereignty Committee always made a big fuss but somehow always came around to approving it. The inevitability of such things had never really bothered Krobik before. Now it did.
"When I accessed the records this week, they were all changed," the source said, "I was so careful to avoid tracing. But it's possible I'm exposed. That's why I want you to have this. I won't tell them anything about you. I'll just say I was curious, or something. But you have to figure out what's going on. I don't want to believe the Sovereignty Committee is involved, but the idea that there's someone else out there bypassing them… or more powerful than them…" The source let that drift off into silence. What more needed to be said? Krobik shared their sentiments.
The Sovereignty Committee acting shady was one thing. They were, at the end of the day, accountable. Some secret department or section of the government that was able to build warships in secret, though? That was another threat entirely. It threatened to unravel everything Krobik believed in, drove a stake at the cherished values of democracy, freedom, even his life's work trying to uncover the truth. Had he spent so long investigating the Tauni, the OSA, the Bolians, and Felis that he missed something brewing right at home, where he first got his start?
"Thank you," Krobik said, "I'll review the data. It was very brave of you to do this."
"I should go," the source said, "I don't know when they'll miss me." And just like that, the door opened, the wind howled, and they were gone into the storm.
-
Krobik had quietly slipped out from the impromptu party at the Lighthouse and gone home. He still lived in the house from the photographs, a decently-sized one-storey in the suburbs of Dalear, with the luxury of a lawn and neighbours decently spaced from his house. He thanked the remote aircab operator and stepped out of the bullet-shaped vehicle, brown jacket loose over his body, walking up the concrete pathway with slow, deliberate steps. He stopped and picked at a weed growing through a crack in the concrete with his beak, tossing it into the garden. Then he ascended the short stoop and entered his home. Once inside, he quickly set his things down, hanging his jacket up with care.
He shuffled through the house, talons clack-clacking on the hardwood. The sun was still setting, and there was just enough light for him to see by. He stopped in front of a door. It was a normal door, faux wood over a cardboard core. He opened it and descended the stairs into his basement. At the bottom, he arched his head up and grabbed a pull-string in his beak, tugging on it and bringing a bright fluorescent light to life. He squinted against the sudden brightness. Once upon a time the automatic home assistance system would have turned everything on for him the instant he entered the doorway, even adjusted lighting automatically to match his assessed mood. He'd tossed it out almost a year ago. Claimed to the local council craftspeople who had removed the system and installed obsolete technology in its place that he was doing it for a story.
Shuffling over the cold grey expanse of his basement, he went to the winerack. Putting his shoulder to the wood, he shoved it until it was turned ninety degrees, revealing a room. It had a desk with a cabinet and drawers, both secured with heavy padlocks. He dialled in the combinations and opened them up. They were filled with documents, photographs. All on paper or laminate. Carefully, he pulled them out and spread them on the desk, unfurled a chart he'd made of connections and tacked it to the cork board on the back of the winerack. Among the documents were the ones he'd acquired from the mysterious source from a week ago. The information inside had been substantial, but they were only a fraction of the information Krobik had spread before him. The source might have thought they were the only one Krobik was in contact with. Hardly. Many things had started to bug him in recent years, after he promised his children he'd stop flying around the quadrant interviewing thugs, leave the Lighthouse, and settle into a quiet semi-retirement writing about local issues for a smaller paper. Woman saves snuffmutt from tree, maybe some analysis pieces on local politics and issues.
Instead, he kept finding things that bothered him. Little stuff, at first. In preparation for this promised semi-retirement, he'd started paying attention to local issues, in his canton and then in a few others. He found that their voting could sometimes be erratic. Proposals would be angrily shouted about in public meetings one day and then, after a grand, heartfelt, and typically empty speech from one of the panel members, people would suddenly turn around in the name of community spirit. If there was a grand speech. Sometimes it seemed that the opinions flickered like a candle. It looked like some grand design was being played out… but Krobik couldn't see why. Not with his limited perspective. So he'd started digging.
"You should spend more time back with your people," his youngest daughter, Ceri, had said once, "No offense, but… I think your time among all these bad guys has made you a little suspicious."
Maybe she was right. Maybe the itch he felt, the sense something was wrong, was like the itch of a freshly stitched wound: the more you scratch, the more damage you did.
There were other things. It was to his personal chagrin that the Tseskiya maintained a large and healthy tabloid media. He'd begun to notice just how often they would publish some sensationalist story designed to discredit someone, only for it to be 'retracted' due to 'poor sourcing.' And yet the allegations inevitably stuck in the public consciousness, sometimes dooming the prospects of a rising star, or engendering public sympathy and shooting them higher. It was all high drama. He sometimes wondered why he kept thinking about that drek. There was how quickly the Harmony became friends with its neighbouring powers, how often they joined hands peacefully with seemingly little fuss, with the exception of the Tauni. Nothing strange to Krobik until he'd seen the Federation's process for membership. The brutal, unglamorous negotiations over everything from ensuring proper interstellar transport access to the protection of local cheesemakers. The Federation had added many members, like the Harmony, sure, but they always seemed to have to work harder for it. Krobik had long thought it was simply because the Harmony were superior diplomats…
There was Michel Thuir. The story was twisted enough that Krobik had trouble following it. Thuir, who was one of Starfleet's best, steadfast and dutiful, fell in love with his counterpart while both were conducting diplomacy in the border states? That love blossoming under adversity after they were kidnapped by Bolian -- Bolian -- pirates-slash-free traders-slash-repo men who had somehow slipped under the OSA's radar and made off with a weather regulator itself stolen by the corporations. Thuir and Janner turning the pirate crew against each other, taking over the ship, and returning to the Harmony. But then, Thuir and his staff electing to stay in the Harmony. All of them. Not one of them missed their families? All of them similarly dissatisfied? Either something was much more rotten in the state of the Federation than anyone realized, or the Harmony had turned them all. But how?
He looked over all the evidence before him. Everything he had pointed to one thing, the type of conspiracy beloved by those with tenuous grips on reality: that there was a vast cabal of special interests, who subtly manipulated the entire political and economic processes of the Harmony to their own ends. And those ends looked increasingly like a secret war, or a coup.
Maybe it was too personal. He looked at his chart. One face on there. The same old photograph on his desk at work. His wife. Her death… accident, officially. Murder, to Krobik. Her death had ignited his passion for this line of work. As a young man, everything, in some way, had been to find the skills to solve the riddle of her death. He eventually made peace with it, accepted that sometimes the spinning universe could be that cruel. Was all this him returning to where he started?
War with the Federation? Maybe. Before it would have been ridiculous, with tensions arising from their sanctimonious 'my way or the highway' foreign policy, the associated tendency to impose cultural values, and their alliance with the war criminal embracing Tauni, but nothing really worth fighting over. Now they were claiming all sorts of wild things. It seemed like the Federation was aiming for an excuse to go to war, maybe to reshape the Harmony like they'd reshaped the Orions. But that wouldn't require a secret military buildup for the Harmony.
He needed more. Proof, not just his guesses and ill-feeling. His handful of sources had pulled up only circumstantial evidence of some sort of wrongdoing. It was possible they were unstable, deluded by either boredom with modern life or actual illness. If that was the case, Krobik was at risk professionally to take their concerns forward. If they had uncovered a conspiracy… then all of them were in grave danger. Grey suits showing up to his house, and carrying him away.
He pulled open the drawer again. Inside, two passes for a passenger liner, bought under an assumed name at considerable expense from Bolian underground contacts. He would travel to Bolarus under the guise of research for his latest story, transfer over to the passenger ship, and then complete his investigation and collation in the Federation. It felt like a betrayal, and it might even be stupidly dangerous if reports of the Federation secret police were true. But it was still probably safer than here.
Tomorrow he would pack everything into a concealed compartment on his luggage, then he'd be out of the woods.
Before going to sleep that night, Krobik relaxed by reading stories provided by an app on his tablet. He read one of the stories recommended to him. It was about a man who pursued a dangerous cult, believing them to secretly be behind all the atrocities in the world, hidden carefully in photographs and paintings. At the end of the story, it is revealed the narrator was a madman, and in his delusion, killed his estranged family.
Krobik quickly shut down the tablet and almost hurled it through the window. He pulled the covers tight around himself. He stared for a long while at the midnight blue wall across from him. Then suddenly drowsiness overtook him, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.
-
Krobik awoke to something poking him in the side. His eyes snapped open, and found he was tangled in sheets from a night of tossing and turning. Slowly, he turned to the source of the poking, and let out a sigh of relief. It was his daughter, Ceri, jabbing him with her foot. She looked bemused.
"Cee," he said, "What are you doing here? I thought you were still working on that art project?"
"Nah," she said, "I thought I'd come home early." She squawked a smile and then prodded him again, "Come on, I have something to show you."
Krobik looked at the chronometer. "Can't it wait until morning?"
"Aw, c'mon," Ceri slouched in a pout, "It's really important. You'll love it. I swear. Come on." She impatiently tapped a talon on the wood floor with a clack-clack-clack. The sound annoyed Krobik, which is of course why she did it.
Ceri was the last of his children to still live on Sanctuary. He often wondered if his children had made some sort of deal, one of them staying behind to look after their risk-taking father. It worried him that he was the only one keeping Ceri here. It occurred to him suddenly: maybe she would flourish somewhere else — an artist colony like the one on Unwerta? But he was selfishly keeping her here.
Some dark part of his mind churned into action. That was what fathers did, wasn't it? They were selfish. How many times had he seen it, children left to wither, or pushed for the sake of someone's ego? So many men profiled. But what of their daughters — their children? Had he ever cared about them?
Krobik closed his eyes and banished the thoughts. He had profiled more than just fathers, of course. Sometimes this negative self voice appeared. He had always wondered why. Maybe it was the cycle of Sanctuary's satellites.
Krobik finally sighed, rolled out of his bed, and put his feet on the wood floor, Ceri trilled with joy, jumping from foot to foot, before bounding out of the room with a "C'mon!"
Krobik shook his head to clear it but also in amusement at his daughter's antics. He slowly shuffled down the dark hall towards where he could hear Ceri humming softly to himself. He could see the lights were on in the living room. More than the house lights, actually. Judging from the brightness, Ceri had set up some lightstands. Showing off her latest work?
Krobik turned the corner into the living room and stopped.
Lying spread out on the couch was all of his collected evidence. Some of it had been pinned to the wall, illuminated harshly by the stand lamps. Ceri had her back turned to him. She stopped humming and slowly turned. "Hello, Krobik." She held out a wing, "Take a seat."
Krobik did so automatically, sitting down in the indicated chair, which for a Tseskiya was more like an ottoman. Ceri stayed standing, slowly walking around, peering at the evidence. Something about the way she moved, the way she talked, was wrong--
"Yes, yes it is," Ceri said. "Because you're not talking to Ceri right now. I've made use of her body to make you more… comfortable." She turned to look at him, eyes full of pity, "My name is Singer Keppan. I am one of the people you are trying to find with your…" she gestured in a wide arc at Krobik's careful work, "...'reporting.'"
Krobik blinked in disbelief, "Cee," he said, "Is this a joke? Is this some sort of performance thing -- it's not right to use my work like this, Cee, it's dangerous --"
"Very," Ceri said -- no, Keppan. It was Keppan. "But easily resolved. This is actually something of a courtesy. I am a fan of your work. And I respect the effort you put into this. So I thought I would explain myself before I make it all go away."
"How did you find me?' Krobik said, "Did you..."
"No, we didn't follow your jumpy backseat source. No need to." Keppan finally sat in a seat across from Krobik, "Singers can quickly look into everyone's thoughts. Now, there's not enough of us to do that all the time for everyone, but we can keep a sort of broad awareness of the general social satisfaction in an area." She tilted her head sadly, "Unfortunately, one of your contacts was so concerned by what they were uncovering, and scaring those around them with erratic behaviour, that it drew our attention. We found out what was causing that distress, and well," she spread her wings, "Here we are. Pulled the location of the information right out of your head. Had you forget to lock it all up tonight. Then I had Ceri do most of this."
"I see." Krobik swallowed loudly. He carefully pried his eyes off of Keppan, spying a notebook on a nearby table. He slowly reached out, grabbed it in his beak, and set it on the floor. He opened the cover with his foot, flipped to an empty page, pulled a pen from the elastic securing it to the spine. He clicked it and set it to the paper. He looked up at Keppan, "You keep mentioning the term Singer. What does that mean?"
"You know I'm going to destroy that," Keppan looked bemused.
But not in the way Ceri looked bemused. Same face, different expressions. Ceri expressed herself with abandon, gleeful and exuberant. She'd act like she did earlier, poking, prodding, jumping from foot to foot, leaping around the room and laughing easily. With Keppan controlling her, her body scanned the room carefully, head moving like a turret. She sat extremely still, eyes focused on him. Emotion was in those eyes, subtle signals of narrowing, looking aside, a tilt of a head. It reminded Krobik of a Lintrid.
"Of course," Krobik said, "But I find it relaxing. And if you're going to go to all this trouble and these… theatrics, to explain yourself. I think I should do what I do best, even if it is only for a few more minutes."
Keppan narrowed her eyes, shaking her head slightly. "Dedicated to the end. To answer your question: a Singer is an actual intelligence, an upload of a person of extraordinary talent. We have dedicated our lives to watching over, steering, and protecting the Harmony from a dangerous universe, keeping diverse peoples together despite the pressures that often fling them apart."
"The missing part of my story."
"Yes, the 'vast cabal of special interests.' Our interest, of course, is the welfare of the Harmony."
"And what you're doing to my daughter," he said, pointing up and down at Ceri with his pen, "Can you do that with anyone? Are you psionic in nature?"
"No. We can only influence people with special implants." Keppan touched her head, and then pointed at Krobik's, "Ceri has one, you have one. Virtually every Harmony citizen has one. Quite a few non-Harmony citizens, in all honesty."
"How do they work?"
"Extremely complex neuroscience. It also depends on the implant. For normal citizens such as yourself, we use nanomachines regulated by a small chip in the base of your skull to lay and modify pathways, produce neurotransmitters. For those who need to pass medical scans, we can replace portions of the brain with a biologically identical structure that can be adjusted based on coded inputs through the visual and auditory cortex, or for a longer-term conversion we replace a small portion of tissue that produce retroviruses that do the modification for us over time. The level of intrusion also depends on how extreme an action is. For the most part we attempt to control the pathways between your conscious mind and your subconscious or sensory organs."
Krobik made a trill of surprise, "Why not just control us directly? Give everyone a forebrain replacement?"
Keppan half-closed her eyes, sighing, "As I said, we're here to guide, not replace. We're not some overbearing father who wants perfect little automatons. We just want to give people a nudge in the right direction. Doing it by carefully controlling what inputs go to the conscious decision making process makes this a lot simpler and doesn't damage the psyche."
"That seems like it could backfire," Krobik said, "People might not notice, or might slip from your control."
"Would they?" Keppan asked. She lifted her foot and snapped her talons. The smart wall was on. Someone on it was rambling about something called psycurity. Euthanizing criminals? Harmony wide? Then he remembered.
"Yes, that's right. We introduced the system right before we met the Federation. Some Singer's idea of an effective maskirovka. Appear to trust evil algorithms in a very limited circumstance to distract the Federation from our existence. Then we got rid of it once it outlived its purpose and you all memory-holed it. Forgot. Like how you just forgot whose body this is."
He blinked. He stared at the Tseskiya standing before him. They were a stranger to him.
"They're someone important to you." That was Keppan speaking. But who was the Tseskiya?
The stranger tilted his? Her! Head. "Maybe you should check in on what your foot is doing."
He looked down. One of his feet was carefully tearing pages out of his notebook.
"Plumage/facial blindness and alien talon syndrome," he said, voice wavering slightly, "you can turn them on like that?"
"Of course. And other effects similar to symptoms of various brain disorders. This is what I mean by saying we control the vital infrastructure that leads to rational thought. Personality. Much more effective this way." Keppan snapped her talons and with a rush of emotion he recognized Ceri again. "See? You could pass your ex-____ on the street and…"
______? On the street? That would mean…
There was a terrible sense of incongruity. He felt like the floor was rising towards him and his vision swam. He grimaced and looked away, then back at Keppan/Ceri. She looked at him with piteous eyes.
"Let's get back to your questions." She said.
He blinked. Sure. "You are assembling a warfleet." He said in his most professional voice, "For expansion. Secret subversion. Not for a coup. That would be pointless."
"Correct."
"Why?" Krobik said, "Controlling everyone without their consent… it's the worst tyranny I can imagine." He stopped suddenly, and an uneasy look crossed his face, "Did you make me fall in love?"
Keppan sniffed, "This is where things become a little complex. I, and all other Singers -- we see the stars past the horizon. The larger picture. There are six or seven people you could have fallen in love with. All assessed as compatible, mutually-supporting, developing you further. We just helped steer you to the most ideal one."
"It was all a lie," Krobik whispered.
"No," Keppan said, "All the love you felt was real. We simply made circumstances happen that put you in Hannif's way." She paused, "And nudged you to your career in journalism." Krobik started, and Keppan nodded. "Yes. That was no accident. We looked at your skill-set, your drive, and your ambitions, and we helped you narrow it down. That's part of what we do Krobik, help people find their place."
"It's vile," he said.
"How can you say that?" Keppan said, "In the Harmony of Horizon, there are no divorces, not unless they're required for development, because we know your proper partner. And we're there to help smooth over any ruffles. Everyone finds the career they need, the one that both fulfills them the most and allows them to contribute the most to society. We are here to give people happiness. Our modern society requires something like this. In the origins of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, there were only a handful of roles in the community. Everyone found their place easily. Now? Something as simple as 'one who prepares food' is split into several different specialities. Who can truly know the right choice?"
"The Federation appears to do so. Why should it be different here?" He tapped his pen.
Keppan laughed, "The Federation. Please. Do you know how many of them stumble from profession to profession, feeling like they should be doing something else? Or work hard to get into some elite profession, study, work their entire lives for a shot — and miss? People living in the wreckage of their lives, forever unsatisfied. Forever asking, 'what if I'd done something different…'"
"How many people could possibly —"
"Enough. More who are close but just out of harmony with what they could be. It's painful to watch."
"So the rationale for giving us all mind control chips is we didn't invent good career counseling?"
"Hah." Keppan stood up, started pacing, her wings awkwardly (for a Tsekiya) behind her back. She stopped and turned, glaring at Krobik, "Ceri would never have been an artist if it wasn't for me. For us Singers." She spread her wings, "It's a gesture of love, what we do for you."
"What—"
"You wouldn't know this," Keppan said quickly, "You were her father. You didn't even know what you wanted for her, which maybe was a blessing but it also clipped her wings. But I was her Singer. You have no idea the work I put in. Her flighty mind, her fickle obsessions. She would have never had the focus or the drive to become an artist no matter how talented her talons or how good her eye for color. I gave her that, not you."
"You think I wouldn't have noticed?" Krobik tilted his head, "And as much as art gives her joy, why do you get to decide?"
"Why do you? Think it's some father's right?" Keppan laughed. Mockingly.
"No. But is it yours?"
"Yes. I have been entrusted with this power. I can know everyone more intimately than they know themselves. And I can give them happy, fulfilled lives. No one has to wonder where they fit in. Struggle with ennui. We free them from that because we make society for them. The Federation, well. They just let the ecosystem run its course, damn the consequences." She looked at Krobik, "You don't seem impressed."
"Are you trying to impress me?"
"No. Maybe. I was hoping you could see the logic."
"I am trying to. But like I said, I don't understand how you went from 'people sometimes make poor choices in their lives' to 'let's carefully control billions of sentients."
"It's not just that," Keppan sighed, "it's just what I focus on because I like working on psyches. Making people happy with fulfilling lives."
He thought about what he'd suddenly started thinking right before joining Ceri. "...and because you felt your father steered you wrong?"
Keppan stopped her pacing, stared at Krobik. Then she let out a hoarse, cawing laugh. "I forget how good you are."
Krobik looked proud of himself, "Thank you."
"Of course you owe that in part to me. Even if you resent it." She had a distant look in her eyes, "I would never have ended up as an Actual Intelligence were I not pushed… but the difference is, to your mind our push always comes from within. You never feel like you're forced to do anything. And before you object: there's a system. Oversight. Not one parent's desire to live vicariously through their child."
Krobik was scribbling this all down.
"But yes, there are other factors. The Eldest who were the first girls at Antaria to become Singers saw how all the complexity of society undid everything. Led to nuclear war. People made their little bubbles. And then forces no one can really understand only encouraged them to stay in those bubbles. And I don't mean, forces like us, Intelligences. No, I mean forces in cyberspace, almost like rocks in a stream, diverting the flow organically but mindlessly. Algorithms, content boosts, weighted search results. Things with no more intelligence than slime mold controlling what people see and thus what they think. Stray in your community and hate all others. Revel in groupthink. Suborn your will to something greater. It tore apart the Imrael. It almost killed Horizon, were it not for the girls in Antaria Valley. Same for the Lintrid. And the Federation? They are one lapse in judgement away from suffering the same fate."
"And the ISC? Don't they have a robust system for dealing with this?"
Keppan smiled, "They've basically made an unthinking parody of a Singer. An unconscious algorithm of policy and check and balances and oversight. It will go three ways: they will continue this way until they forget why those guardrails are there and then tear themselves apart, they will evolve into semi-democratic authoritarianism, or they will eventually invent their own actual Singers as neutral arbitrators of the laws."
"So you manage the complexity directly."
"Yes! The Eldest knew that for sophonts to control their own destiny, they needed to be as powerful as an AI without becoming one. To be vast and… expanded enough to grasp society in its fullness. They had to be able to look at things holistically, to see chains of production, but also the programs controlling those chains, and the lives of the people who are involved in the chains but also those who interact with them. Only an expanded intelligence can take in the complexity of this technological age and produce a coherent worldview. A coherent… contextual substrate, a shared epistemology that is based in reality and not in the media-drenched bubbles of an information ecosystem in total anarchy. With no authority or guiding hand, only the most sensational information is latched onto; and by sensational I mean anything that provokes a response — euphoric rage or frothing joy. All are the same. All latched onto by minds that can't accurately evaluate the truth they get third hand. And all this information and misinformation promoted by forces too complex for a regular intelligence to really grasp. But not Singers. We know everything about the information ecosystem and root out the misinformation."
"...but you replace it with your own. Like how the Federation are raving lunatics who are drumming up conspiracies. Or how we euthanized the mentally ill!"
"Hm."
Krobik carefully breathed, trying to compose himself. He realized that Keppan was probably doing it for him.
"Yes."
"Ugh."
"As for your next question, why we allow the omission of our existence — well, better we remain invisible." Keppan sounded like she was reciting for class, "If we were visible, our people would come to hate us. They'd want to decide how we're chosen. But they would still be manipulated. Left with only a small window into reality." She tapped the floor with a talon, "Only Singers can choose Singers. And our work must remain invisible and uncredited. It is the only way to preserve sentience from itself."
Krobik tilted his head the other way, "You mentioned the Federation pretty exclusively. I imagine you don't think totalitarian regimes or oligarchies, etcetera, don't count."
"No. They are unstable in their own ways — elite power struggles. Look no further than the Romulans, the Gorn and the Klingons for that. Or else they limit the freedom of their citizens severely. I see that look, we are not the same. They force the path of their citizens with pain and anguish and violence. We are merely a voice on the wind pushing you to the right path."
"And you? Who put you on the path to becoming a Singer?"
"Back to my father? Really, Krobik? Are you a tabloid journalist now?"
"No, that's not what I'm talking about. I know…"
"Right. I see where your thoughts are now. We clearly have favorites. Or at least people we mentor. So who made me into a Singer. No — you think brainwashed." She rolled her eyes, "As if that hasn't occurred to me. It doesn't even…"
"No, it doesn't," Krobik said. Keppan stopped mid speech, surprised. "It doesn't match what you told me. The Singers need complex organic minds to convert, and they don't like making people shut their brains off. It stands to reason they wouldn't rewrite someone's personality and cognition for that."
"Right," Keppan replied, "Sorry. I have had this conversation before. 'How do you know you're not a puppet yourself,' or 'maybe they just programmed you.'" She laughed, "Ridiculous. You'll understand how ridiculous it is if your mind is expanded to a Singer."
"But have you considered they're doing their work the old fashioned way?" Krobik leaned forward, "I don't think I'll ever become a Singer. Not right now. Because I'd disagree too much with it. But that wasn't my role, was it? I was a blunt instrument for you Singers, finding corruption in the places you needed me to. So I'm out. Instead you'd find people who already essentially believe the same things you do. Or if not, you'll be the whisper on the wind you mentioned, putting them on the path to be amenable, right?"
Keppan was silent. She'd paced into the corner of the room and now stared at Krobik.
"Maybe that was the plan for me. Maybe you need someone more amenable. But enough whispers, enough paths nudged, who knows where you could end up. And if you don't, the Singers just pass you over. Passive selection. And if you're amenable, one way or another, I bet they just condition you the old fashioned way. Propaganda. Self-justifying rhetoric. It's just like how the Tauni elites only come from three universities, which produces one convergent mode of thought. And those who are outside that are quietly pushed aside. Or how in the OSA to be anyone important you have to be either a Beya champion or an industrial designer." Krobik laughed, "That's all you and your friends have done Keppan! You won an intellectual beya-war. Face it, Keppan. You're programmed. Just in a different way."
She stared at him from her corner. "This has been a fruitless conversation, Krobik."
"And yet you are having it. Are you having some doubts?"
"No."
"I understand. This is like me talking my pet through a tough decision. Except my pet doesn't have the gall to question it." Krobik dropped his head down, "I'm sorry, Keppan. Take it from an old journalist. Your story doesn't add up. And I think you're starting to realize that."
"It's not true." Keppan said. "It's time for me to go."
"Please, consider what—"
Krobik and Ceri were in his yard. The stars were watching them, and they were beautiful and cold. Dancing up among them were the sparks from a bonfire that blazed away merrily in front of them. Krobik frowned. He felt there was something important about that bonfire. He had a sudden concern he'd tossed something important in there — his phone? But no, he looked more closely and saw nothing but regular combustibles. Normal, good combustibles. Who needed a corkboard anyways? So old fashioned.
"I don't think I'll be using paper anymore," Krobik said, and as soon as it left his tongue it felt like some truth had locked into place, "Too much hassle."
"Cool story, Dad," Ceri said. "But glad you're deciding to leave the Ancient Arts behind and join the rest of us in the present day."
"What's your latest piece in? Stone sculpture? Seems pretty ancient…"
"Oh hush, you."
As relaxing as the fire was, Krobik had a sensation he couldn't shake that there was something he had to do. But it soon vanished, carried away like the gauzy remains of paper, aloft on the breeze.
Posted for @Iron Wolf , who is limited to phone-posting at the moment.
"This is not a drill, we're about to warp into action!"
The voice on the ship's public address system echoes throughout the corridors of the ship as the crew allows itself a tiny moment of startlement, then begins to flow through the ship like blood through a body. Much like a body, the start of the fight-or-flight response involves crew departing the crew quarters of the exterior surfaces for the more protective innards of the ship. They congregate around workstations assigned well in advance and hammered home through frequent drills.
Having been at Yellow Alert already, this goes more smoothly; the recreation deck was already closed, the lounges shut, vac suits already worn. In the corridors closer to the skin, the electro-plasma system shuts down unnecessary capillaries, letting emergency light take over. Only those feeding structural integrity fields, tactical systems, or dormant force-fields are kept active. In some divisions of the ship the atmosphere is pulled away entirely after the last crew leaves. Fire suppressants geared for fighting plasma fires are pumped to forward reservoirs.
The great hidden machinery under the unassuming A and B phaser mounts begin to receive a torrent of electro-plasma. Deep within the ship the warp core starts to grow in heat and pressure under Ydzazzi's watchful eyes. Communications starts re-establishing contact with the nearest Starbase and Kepler. The shields dump their stand-by plasma into their emitters and wake up sharply.
The Comet sets aside its peaceful burdens and in the hands of her gifted crew rises to stand in harm's way.
-
The makeshift surgical-engineering tool goes back into its tray and Doctor Mikout steps back from the diagnostic bed, holding up her hands. Firmly she calls out, "Surgery complete, beam the patient back." Red light catches dark shadows on her face as she turns to look at the Operations Chief. The operation has gone longer than hoped, but to be fair, she's never had a patient like this before.
The engineering specialist who has been helping them has already turned on a heel, rushing off to his post by that dangerous Yoyodyne core. Mikout can't help but think that he'll almost beat the transporter there. Perhaps Tib has the same though, as there's a little grin as he watches the man go. With a tap at his comm badge he says, "Ms Ydzazzi, Main Sickbay."
A voice emits from the badge itself, "I'm about to fight a bloody battle here, Tib, where's my coolant?"
"Work is done, let me know when you're ready to receive," replies the Qloathian officer.
"I've been ready for two damn hours, start the transport," says Ydzazzi, sounding less like her normal abrasive self and more like a cable under load, creaking with the strain. Beneath the sound of her voice a great clamour in engineering can be heard. To be fair, she suspects Ydzazzi can hear the same in Sickbay as her doctors and nurses scramble to prepare for battle.
Beneth watches an eyebrow rise nearly to hairline crest level. Despite the pressure, she allows herself a little snicker. Tib being, after all, normally on the other side of too informal comms it's always does her prudent heart good to see him get one in return. Transporter Room Two, Sickbay, beam the coolant system back to Engineering."
Back from the distant transporter room comes, "Aye, Sickbay, transport in three." After the three-count there is a shimmer of light and dance of sparkling particles as the heart of a coolant system disappears from the Doctor's diagnostics bay. The moment it is gone she is already turning towards her crew.
Tib is turning away as well, moving fast even as the shimmers vanish, crying out, "Good luck! I'm off to the battle bridge." Saea Ildistoor is present as well, but saying nothing as she frantically pulls her precious scanner free of the diagnostic bed as she leaves well.
But Mikout is already focusing on her task at hand. "Get the wards open, move." Normally Mikout has just over a dozen doctors, nurses and specialists under her, with no more than half on duty at a time between saucer and secondary sickbays. But as the mournful klaxon wails and the blood red lights strobe the full crews arrive and then more besides. The Medical Lab crew plus the Counsellors and individuals through the ship cross-train as emergency nurses begin to rush through the door, heading to a side room to scrub.
Just like in the Magen Chalel, or almost any other service, Mikout knows, although every person aboard has an ordinary job and ordinary posting for ordinary conditions, when the Red Alert sounds, most have new postings. Those in Tactical and Engineering usually fight the ship from their normal stations, though all three shifts rouse for it, but others cross train to take on roles needed for the emergency, be it battle or space hazard.
Everyone aboard has their part and knows it well. For Doctor Mikout, she opens a door to seldom used but oft maintained wards branching off Main Sickbay, now the main triage centre. Just forward of the computer core that forms the saucer section's heart, the humble sickbay sits at the centre of a network of surgical theatres, clearing stations, and wards, ready to keep up with even the better part of the crew coming through their doors.
Though she sometimes wondered who else she could have saved aboard her old Aggadah, the Defender. While more expansive, the tools she prepares to turn from engineering to life saving are finer than anything else you could hope to find.
-
Throughout the ship the crew gathers together. The majority of those not handling nadions, antimatter, or an emitter come together in one of eight damage control teams, meeting in rooms that are normally recreation rooms, lounges, supply holds. Five large general teams formed from the Operations crew and three specialist teams make up the damage control teams, led by one of Tib's Lieutenants, a lanky Indorian famous for knowing the ship down to the last self-sealing stem bolt and notorious for being a random sight in obscure jeffries tubes.
Tables and cases are pushed aside and lashed, other lockers are opened and zero-gravity gear is distributed to go with the vacuum suits, and all manner of tools. By time two minutes pass the crews are ready to deploy, within three they're all present.
The vacuum suits save the blushes of nervous ensigns and spacers for the rainbow palette of colours that species go when they turn green at the gills is plainly represented among them. Yet their Petty Officers have dared the dreadnoughts of ancient Orion Empires, their Chiefs have danced with Cardassians across the Gabriel, and the Senior Chiefs can tell of terror over the desecrated gardens of Kadesh.
For all the hands that return the gesture of friendship in kind, the galaxy is never short of perils and there are none who dare the dark so frequently as those who sport Starfleet's cardinal hues. Though the Comet may be young, those aboard are ready.
-
Victoria puts a hand on the balcony behind her Captain's chair, looking out over the workstations lining the bridge wall. "Engineering, are we go for Warp drive?"
A Seyek Lieutenant JG on the correct station looks over their shoulder and, nodding, says, "The main coolant is still being reconnected but the core is hot enough already."
The Captain spares a moment to marvel at the fact she is about to step into battle with one of her coolant loops still out of commission before she turns to Tactical. "Mr Bakari, do we have the ident?"
"That's a Solace," her officer replies, eyes sharp. "Link from the Kepler shows they're popping blow-out panels and opening fire with two extra burst torpedo launchers. Kepler is rolling with it but it is well out of its depth."
"Sounds like they need an assist," says Victoria, announcing it loudly to stiffen the spine of her bridge crew. She turns back for the helm. "Mr Perrin," she says, sharp and clear. "Another bit of precision flying. Warp one sprint I want you to drop into firing position for the torpedoes and then queue up attack pattern Vic-gamma-one."
"Aye, Captain," calls back the helmsman. "Warp one jump, attack Vic-gamma-one."
Victoria leans back towards her trusted Chief Tactical Officer. "Bakari, are the torpedoes ready? I want to give that Singer the shock of its life."
Rezzeth Bakari nods, the sharpness in his eyes undimmed by the vac suit helmet. "Armed, loaded, ready. Just put them anywhere in my forward arc."
She smiles in reply, a dangerous looking expression. "Punch it, Mr Perrin."
-
Uncustomarily for a Starfleet vessel, but more naturally for an All-Hives Stinger, the forward torpedo bays are not in the neck between secondary and primary hulls, where antimatter tankage is close to hand, but at ten and two o' clock as the bridge sees it, on the underside of the saucer. This part of the ship has become known as the photon deck, at the base of the ship's duotronic core, though it is far from the only function here.
Separate anti-deuterium tankage is kept here, between the launchers to fuel the photon torpedoes, rigged with shielding so that, in theory, any loss of containment erupts outward through unoccupied rooms. Around that tankage is the magazine, with the casings of a hundred torpedoes in racks ready to be brought to life. Beneath them is the ventral sensor array, with a crew that feeds data to the launchers.
Collectively the two launchers, magazine, and sensors form the ship's Torpedo Division, a dark horse for the most eccentric branch of the fleet, home to luminaries such as T'Rinta, SDB's own Torpedo Fairy. Working arguably more closely with antimatter than even the engineers, they self-select as a group that embraces risk no less than an away team regular. This place is outside the inner protective vault that encloses most emergency workstations, and many of its protections are geared around protecting the rest of the ship from them instead of the reverse.
But as the not a drill warnings echo through the emptying corridors, the sapients of the torpedo crews are at their posts. They oversee quartets of torpedoes drawing their payloads and make their way through force field bulkheads containing gaseous barriers that suppress plasma fire and some of radiation of an inadvertent detonation. The torpedoes arrive at the ready standby of the port and starboard launchers for inspection and then slot into the breech of the burst launchers.
They have a good view of what lays ahead of them, large displays passing on the tactical situation for crew able to take over manual control if the automatic systems fail. Everything here can be done mechanically, and they train for it, even fuelling the payloads, done in the grim understanding that your brain would never have time to process any mistake before you go join the galaxy in a wash of energy.
So they have the finest of views as the colours of the Grimwood streak and flash by with a four second warp jump closing just over a million kilometres and depositing them on a prime firing run with the HSDV Viera nas Berrnoy laid out before them like a written invitation. The bared weapons under the missing blow-out panels makes her nature as what an older time might call a man o' war clear.
It takes entire seconds for the computer on the Harmony cruiser to recognise the arrival of a far more dangerous foe than the Kepler, and in a battle that is never going to cut it.
In a ripple of thunderous pulses, the quartets of torpedoes launch, disappearing from their tubes in the blink of an eye. There is no cheering as all eight torpedoes hammer the cruiser in titanic bursts of annihilation, but there is satisfaction. As the cruiser's shields tremble under the hammer blows, the A and B phaser banks pound through the radiation cloud, one of them piercing through the momentary weakness to score an early blow across the long fuselage of the target.
Then the Comet is past the Solace, vectoring the impulse engines sharply to bring the frigate around to get after the larger cruiser again. As the Harmony ship finally begins to include the new foe in its evasive jukes, the burst launchers are loaded again and the game is on in earnest.
-
Captain Villeneuve doesn't even need to vocalise her question as the cruiser flashes by their screen.
"Nothing critical, but I'm sure that woke someone up," relays Bakari. "Nothing like wind aboard a ship to focus the mind."
Kea's voice catches Victoria by surprise, coming strained and terse. "Not wrong, if that's a Singer, even the echo I'm getting from the crew is utterly furious."
Villeneuve turns back to the viewscreen as the ship hauls about so sharply the artificial gravity wavers. Ahead the long tapered nose of the nas Berrnoy hoves back in sight. Firing a snap-shot from its plasma weapons and missing.
"Good," she says grimly.
The Comet's torpedoes once more fire as they bear, eight pulses of light stretching out across the knife-fight range. The hammering blows visibly shake the cruiser, her shield flaring vividly as it tries to cope. The familiar hum of the phaser banks speaking in anger can be heard through the ship as it too reaches out in anger. Return fire is sporadic, so that even as the Comet rocks with plasma, insufficient to make Bakari start calling the numbers.
But now the Harmony cruiser knows it is in a proper stand-up fight the Comet starts to become its focus. Although the engine power isn't anything kin to the vectoring latest generation engines the Comet mounts, the computing power behind the drive and thruster systems on the Berrnoy is massive and built for purpose. It starts to dance like a butterfly, and sting with streams of its own burst torpedoes. The first time a solid salvo hammers the shields the sudden strain causes a half dozen casualties across the ship as a series of power conduits fail at different points in the ship.
-
"That's us, roll out!" calls Tchua's damage control team leader.
Although he spends most of his time on the bridge or away teams, Tchua's official station is in Life Support Division under Engineering. Today, though the Comet fights, Tchua knows little of it. The broad Risan man just knows that his job aboard is that if anything damages the machinery that keeps life aboard this ship as, well, life, he prevents what he can, fixes what he cannot prevent, jury-rigs what he cannot fix.
The woman who leads this team is a Gaeni Lieutenant, the fourth engineer under Ydzazzi and head of the Life Support Division, to whom Tchua is an assistant. She calls out a reference point in the hull, an oxygen reservoir point that is just one of many things aboard a starship that react poorly to fire and mistreatment, both of which are plentiful in a fight. She continues, "An EPS capillary is burst and brewing up just down the corridor. Automatic suppressant isn't keeping pace. Suppress the fire, cap the capillary, assess and reorient."
They eschew turbolifts making their way through large jeffries tubes set to zero-g to move swiftly between decks, and are at the correct deck in less than a minute, still hauling equipment.
The team leader turns to him and says as she points down a side corridor, "Tchua, take Gamma and Delta, approach the fire from the other side, we'll make a casualty check and then airlock and pump it out."
"Aye, Lieutenant," replies Tchua, then turning to the people following. He repeats the call for two of the four sections to follow up, and ends up leading eight officers and spacers through the ship. Soon he turns a corridor and comes face to face with a raging plasma fire. The flames are white hot, starting to cause the decking to sag. One side of the fire has an automatic force field up, but it's starting to flicker and fail and the other side is nowhere to be seen. The corridor bulkheads are perforated, and it's clearly damaged the computer systems that should mount the automatic responses. But then, that's what his team is for.
Tchua is fast and clear as he runs through the team. "Jur, you're on lifesign scan; Pips, on airtight check; Tumbles, start hooking up to mains. Everyone else, help Tumbles."
The first of them is already pointing to a side door. "Casualty through there. Definitely alive."
He taps a comm badge and calls, "Transporter Room, Dam Con Seven, casualty in the room next to us for beam out."
"Room Three here, I can't get a lock, get a pattern enhancer on them or I've got no chance."
Tchua sighs, shrugs, then calls up two of the people putting more suppressant on the broken capillary. "Heat shield up, time to save a life!"
-
The computer's anodyne voice announces, "Sickbay, stand by for site-to-site casualty transport."
A stand-in nurse from the Medical Lab swears quietly and without turning around, Mikout says, "Professional and clinical are the watchwords today. Computer, receiving bay is ready."
Within moments the tell-tale shimmer of a transporter is at play, the old crew in Room 1 placing the wounded Orion man with security markings on the diagnostic bed with the finest of touches. Almost before the last motes fade the diagnostic systems are in motion.
The specialist at the bedside starts reading out, "Electrical discharge, second-degree burns, complex fracture of the ulna, hairline fracture of the humerus."
Beneth Mikout has seen wounds and broken bodies before. She knows she'll see them again. Her face is placid as she makes her decisions. "Theatre One with Niiriid, Pexetennoy assisting, go get this haemorrhage under control and clean the arm up under priority one. Then ward three and priority two on the rest. Make sure to secure his phaser!"
Two orderlies who normally work Supply Division quickly slide the patient off the bed and onto a hovering gurney and start to transfer him away.
"Computer, go for next transport," calls out Mikout, getting a chirp in reply. Somewhere in the ship another patient waiting in a transport buffer gets fed through an annular confinement beam.
When the motes dissipate again it reveals an Amarkian man, everything from the waist down riddled with small shrapnel. His vac suit hangs about in tatters and splashes of green copper-based blood. To Mikout's surprise, the man is still lucid and looking around, though pale as anything.
Just the one look is enough for her though. Voice again clear and strong, she calls out her orders, "Send the readouts and patient to Theatre Two, surgical team, I want Winters, Sokat, with zh'Rennen and M'Virr assisting. Priority one."
More orderlies approach the diagnostic bed; there's a sharp intake of breath that catches Beneth Mikout's eye. A hand rises from the bed, weak, but there, extending an index finger.
"We have got to stop meeting like this," the Amarkian man mutters.
The orderly opens her mouth to reply. Mikout fixes them with a look and her voice lands like a slab of duranium plating: "Move." The orderlies scramble.
Grimacing to herself, Mikout knows she has just assigned three of her six trauma surgery capable doctors in the space of two patients. As the casualties mount, first she'll have run out of extra teams, then she'll have to get hands on and leave the triage and coordination to the Lieutenant-Commander at the diagnostics bed with an assisting nurse. And after that there is no more slack and they can only get to more priority one cases by clearing the priority one cases before her.
Yet this is all old hat. She has done the same as her old ship the Defender traded blows and blood with an Arcadian Sandworm-class capital. She knows the next step in her job.
"Computer, go for next transport."
-
On the viewscreen the Kepler wheels by as the Viera nas Berrnoy begins to angle after her, nadions and plasma flashing back and forth between them.
"Helm, back into the attack pattern," orders Villeneuve as she realises they've lost their target's attention again. To her Chief Tactical Officer standing alongside her she adds, "Keep laying it on."
An "Aye, Captain," comes from the Lieutenant Perrin on the helm, and a, "Like spacer's tape on a loose pipe," muttered from Bakari.
For a change they do something the opposing Singer seems to expect, and they move right into the path of another double lashing of photon torpedoes. Despite seemingly having the Comet dead to rights, they never reach her. If they ever return to Harmony space, Villeneuve suspects, they will be scouring their sensor take trying to figure out how the Comet's deflector dish just did and how the sustainer coils on those torpedoes were charged and activated, causing them to overshoot their target by a cool three million kilometers.
Kepler has been pulling more than her own fair share of experimental applications of physics, in one case getting a salvo not just to miss but to wormhole back to force the nas Berrnoy to swing wildly into the Comet's path. Yet they soon nearly fall victim to their own tricks; a Solace has more than enough science to put a kink in spacetime in the Comet's path. If Saea Ildistoor hadn't sent an urgent override through tactical from the sensor room they would have seen their own shields get forced out of phase.
But for all this, a Solace is a cruiser with a lot of staying power, and the Comet and Kepler are not. Every burnthrough tells a dangerous tale on their lighter, smaller hulls. Victoria knows she needs a way to force the nas Berrnoy to back off. They've been trying to get burnthroughs into the mounting arms of the great warp-ring that trails behind the cruiser to make the cruiser face the risk of being stuck, unable to escape an inevitable pursuit and destruction. Of course intimidating a Singer is no small feat when the only person they have to actually care about is the Singer itself. They could always evacuate themselves through a subspace comm rather than a lifebuoy, after...
Victoria's eyes went wide. "Mr Bakari, switch our focus off of the engines, start pushing the long-range communication blisters. We'll start closing the Singer's escape routes and then see what they do."
It takes a few shots from the phasers zeroing in on the known comm hubs on the Harmony ship before her crew starts to cotton on to the change in strategy. But the reaction is immediate and intense. All of the cruiser's attention begins to fall squarely on the Comet.
"Divert power to impulse and thrusters," demands Victoria as the bridge shudders under another blow. "Attack Pattern Vic-epsilon-one, keep us moving like a Stinger with commitment issues."
From the side of the bridge an Orion officer calls out, "Captain, Sensors are picking up a new contact, there's another ship in the Grimwood!"
Villeneuve says nothing, though she turns so fast she is in danger of whiplash. She watches the science officer, working with dozens furiously putting together an accurate picture. Moments later the Orion woman sits straight up like an arc of electricity has just run up her spine.
"Polaris!"
Victoria turns back to the viewscreen, just as three million tons of heavy explorer bursts through the gaseous clouds of the Grimwood distortion, majestic in ways she can't even commit to words. Its phasers flash and volley, its burst launchers thunder, lashing the nas Berrnoy and collapsing its shields with an almost casual ease. With her experienced eyes she sees the moment very swiftly where the Singer decides that discretion is the better part of valour and, rather than doing something mutually destructive in their spiteful manner, prioritises escape. Polaris does not spare her on the way out, phasers literally carving into the meat of its fuselage. What makes it around to escape into warp is venting atmosphere from a dozen breaches.
"Hailing channel from Polaris, Captain," calls out the communications officer.
She nods and says, "On screen," as she ducks under the balustrade and back to her chair.
Captain Sorek is still seated in his charge, crew bustling with an intensity and purpose that belie the ship's almost casual attack pattern, all bathed in red alert lights. "Captain Villeneuve, this is a most unexpected resolution to our exercise."
Victoria snorts and settles back into her captain's chair heavily. "Unexpected for myself as well, Captain, but the assist is appreciated." She pauses a moment. "We had him on the ropes already, of course."
-
Captain's After Action Report, Stardate 24360.4, Excerpt
[...] See my attachment for commendations among my crew. Of my casualties, I have sustained two deaths and twenty injuries of various scales. I credit the excellent work of our medical staff and damage control teams in recovering and sustaining a number of officers and crews who in other circumstances would have surely perished. Most of these are expected to make full recoveries. See attached report from the CMO.
Our ship sustained only very minor damage from a series of burnthroughs and EPS overloads. The Apiata-style Finger-Loops pattern of EPS trunks appears to have performed well at limiting potential damage. All damage will be able to be repaired while underway (See attached report from ChOps).
As per standing orders for fronter engagements, the nas Berrnoy was not pursued and destroyed. Nonetheless, the damage to the HSDV Viera nas Berrnoy is extensive, and our best sensor estimates consider her to be a full twelve month repair job, along with casualties totalling in excess of half her crew. Between ourselves and the Kepler we were successful in staying ahead of the nas Berrnoy, and it is in my estimation that we would have successfully driven her off. However, the intervention of the Polaris made the remainder of the battle a simple affair.
The purpose of the cruiser's mission in Federation space is as of yet unknown, but likely to be straightforward: reconnaissance and/or attempted communications intercepts. It is clear, however, that their mission has now been scrubbed. For our own mission, we will be proceeding as ordered.
One other small positive to pull out of all this, after review of Kepler's sensor track and our own logs, it appears that at no point did they have a bead on us until we contacted Kepler. Considering the location of Polaris and Typhoon, Captains Sorek and Sapok have conceded they were no longer in any position to track or intercept us after we left the Grimwood.
First exercise of the new cruise is firmly in the Wins column for Comet.
Three days before Enterprise reached Unwerta, Iliae Rurliss woke up to a loud, distinctive buzzing sound. She grumbled, annoyed -- she thought she'd changed her alarm's settings to play something more musical, and this felt too early anyhow. It wasn't red alert, at least, so she knew she didn't have to snap awake. Half-asleep, she reached over to snooze her alarm -- and then someone grabbed her arm and started to hoist her out of bed.
"Good morning, ma'am, it's time to get up," a voice sang out. It took Rurliss a moment to place it: Lieutenant Arozirzzi, who had served on her first command, and now on Enterprise. What was she doing in her quarters?
"Is something wrong?" Rurliss mumbled, and opened her eyes. Sure enough, Arozirzzi was standing beside her bed, wearing the ship's standard athleticwear (black shirt with "1701" in white lettering and a commbadge pinned on, black sweatpants, and grey-and-gold gym shoes). Next to her was Chief Piliazzi, Rurliss's yeoman, accompanied by three other Apiata crewers, all dressed similarly. Ah.
"No, ma'am, but you did want to get in more exercise, correct, ma'am?" Piliazzi asked. "It is time for your morning exercise!"
Ah. Right. She'd mentioned that to Piliazzi in passing yesterday evening. Apparently, the Apiata took that sort of thing very seriously. "Ugh. What time is it?"
"0445," Arozirzzi buzzed out, faintly annoyed.
"Fine." Rurliss sighed, but got up out of bed anyway. She knew Apiata, and when they had their minds set on something, it was incredibly hard to get them to stop. And it would be good to get in some exercise this morning. "Very well."
"We recognize that this is a bit of an early hour, ma'am, so I took the liberty of brewing you this." Piliazzi said, then handed her a mug of keikatta.
She took a sip. It was the perfect blend -- sweet and bitter, all at once, with that exotic hint of savoriness she'd come to enjoy from Sydraxian cuisine. Reminded her of ... "Wait, how did you know I like this?"
"It is my job to know your tastes, ma'am," Piliazzi said. There was more to it than that, though, Rurliss presumed.
"Anything happen while I was asleep?"
"It's in the report, ma'am, but you need to get dressed first."
One mug of keikatta, one quick skim of the overnight shift report, and one change of clothes later, Rurliss and the five Apiata were jogging through the corridors of the Enterprise. Piliazzi was setting a fairly quick pace -- not as bad as T'Kel used to set, back in the day, but still faster than she would've liked at this hour.
At first, they jogged in silence. She wasn't sure if the Apiata were cowed by her rank, or just preferred it that way, but if this was going to be a thing, she knew she wouldn't be willing to put up with it for long if nobody spoke. So, a bit awkwardly, she asked, "So, are you all morning people? Is that just a thing with Apiata?"
"Not really, myself, ma'am, but, well, the rest of the Enterprise hive is, so I kinda have to be," Arozirzzi said.
The other Apiata laughed. The lieutenant from Engineering with red hair and a really long name that had slipped out of Rurliss's memory the moment she'd introduced herself said, "You do just fine once we get some rakta in you, 'Zir!"
"You'd never want to sleep in just a bit more? I've got Beta shift anyway!" Arozirzzi protested.
"Miss Ex-Goodwill Ambassador needs her beauty sleep, does she?" Piliazzi teased.
"Wait, you never told us about that!" Chief Hazzixen, from Security, exclaimed.
"Yeah, our 'Zir and her band went on a tour of Sydraxian space way back around Stardate 27140. She's been holding out on us," Piliazzi said. "Only found out through the -- uh, through you, ma'am." It took Rurliss a bit to remember when her yeoman had heard about Arozirzzi's trip to Dar Nakar.
"You're in a band?" the red-haired engineer asked.
"I was," Arozirzzi admitted. "It was years ago, and it just never came up in the time I've been here."
"Wait, 'Lia, when were you gonna tell us?" Hazzixen asked.
Piliazzi sighed. "'Zir's right, it just never came up."
"Wait, Stardate 27140? Is that why you didn't hear about --" Lieutenant (j.g.) Melzirinti, the conn officer, started to say.
"Melz, shh!" Hazzixen buzzed, then whispered, "Not in front of the captain."
Unfortunately for Hazzixen, her voice wasn't as soft as she thought it was. Rurliss was rather curious. What did they want to hide from her? "What were you going to say, Lieutenant?" she asked Melzirinti.
"Well, ma'am, uh, the incident with Palarach," Melzirinti said.
Oh! That explained things. "Oh, you mean the worst meet cute ever?" Rurliss asked, smiling. Once, she would've been embarrassed about how she and Nalaxie had met. But in the last year, she'd come to have a sense of humor about it.
"Ah, yes, ma'am," Piliazzi said. "I know I shouldn't have disclosed it --"
"Why not? It's not like it matters much if you know," Rurliss said, letting some of her old accent slip through. She may be captain, but if this was going to be a regular thing, (and it should, she could already tell she'll need more exercise), she wanted to make sure her crewmates were comfortable with her.
"Well... you're our Captain. Our queen, in a way," Piliazzi said. "And I made you look bad to my work-sisters."
"I don't think it makes the Captain look bad," Arozirzzi said. "I'd say it was clever. You defused a crisis with nothing but your charm, didn't you?"
Sucking up to the boss, are we, Arozirzzi? Rurliss thought, then remembered that if she'd failed back then, if the Sydraxians had resumed being hostile with the Federation, Arozirzzi and her bandmates would've directly been at risk, so. "Yeah, pretty much," she said.
"So, what's she like, this Nalaxie?" the redheaded engineer asked. "Is she right for you?" Hazzixen gave her a look. "Look, in my hive, we workers always got involved in helping our queens pick who they'd mate with."
"Have to say, I'm glad my family isn't involved in picking my partner," Rurliss noted.
"Well, think of it this way, ma'am: we were helping shape the next generation of our family. And from their perspective, well... my mom and my aunts, they basically got to have a whole hive of ... what was that Human word, 'wingman'? Yes, that. A whole hive wingmanning for them."
"Fair enough, I suppose. But she's definitely right for me. She's whip-smart, she's creative, she's funny, she's got a beautiful voice ... and we just get each other. We connected, right from the start, in a way that I've never connected with anyone else." Rurliss glowed.
"Aww!" the Apiata all said.
"Well, I'm glad that my long-running relationship has your approval," Rurliss teased.
"You're our queen. We want you to be happy," Piliazzi said.
"Honestly... what do you really think of me, that aside? What does the crew in general think of me?" Rurliss asked.
"I'm glad to have you aboard," Arozirzzi said. Rurliss gave her a look. "No, really. You were a good captain on Emancipation."
"Well... I haven't really seen you before," the red-haired engineer -- Grizzi-something, she remembered -- said. "But I appreciate that you're willing to put up with this. With my queen back home on Apinae, we had so much difficulty getting her to stay fit..."
"Same," Hazzixen said. "We went to, I want to say, four different hives before we found workers who could make Mom listen."
"I'm on the bridge for Alpha Shift, and from that, I'd say you're a damn good captain," Melzirinti said. "Not least because we'd all be dead otherwise."
"You want me to be honest? Completely honest?" Piliazzi asked. Rurliss nodded. Then she started running ahead of the little group, and gestured for Rurliss to follow alone. When they'd put some distance from the others, her yeoman said, quietly, "To be honest, you've seemed ... sad, a lot. Like you've been bottling up all the stress, all the worries you've had -- and it's unhealthy, ma'am."
"Well, I've got a lot to be stressed about these days... but yeah, you're right," Rurliss acknowledged, just as quietly. "It's just ... I don't want people to see me worried. To see their captain worried -- not now, not while we're operating entirely on our own."
"Look, I'm your yeoman, not your counselor," Piliazzi whispered. "Talk to Roxun."
Rurliss nodded. "I have been, and I will. I promise. Anything else you need to say privately?" she asked quietly.
"No, ma'am." Piliazzi said. She shouted back to the other Apiata: "We're picking up the pace, ladies!" Then she sped up.
***
Two days later, Enterprise dropped out of warp on the edge of the Werta system. Not much of a system -- just a relatively thin Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, and two gas giants, each with a few moons, only one habitable. Its remoteness was part of why Tallael picked it for her little art colony... and why Jenavol and Abeshta had suggested it as their target.
Passive scans had reported, as expected, a single subspace relay and nothing more dangerous than the normal Harmony traffic sensor array. Still, it didn't hurt to be prudent, and so Enterprise made her approach to Unwerta with caution. She built up momentum on her thrusters, but then cut them and coasted in. Eighteen hours later, she took up orbit of Werta II-d, keeping the gas giant between her and Unwerta's sensor arrays.
Runabout Decker and shuttles Sterett, Davis, and Haise left the shuttlebay and began their final approach. They were going in low and stealthy, but still at relatively high speed, looking to pass through the sensor array's detection cone as rapidly as they could, right through a shift change.
Aboard the Decker, Iliae Rurliss, wearing fake Tauni smartglasses, a headscarf covering her ears, and relatively comfortable Horizonian hiking clothes, was sitting in the back with Arozirzzi, Tiirid, Neroth, and a couple other Security and Engineering crewers, along with the chip network jammer and a set of stealth cloaks. The captain was quietly singing to herself. It took Tiirid a moment to make out what she was singing -- a lullaby in the dominant Cardassian language, that roughly translated to this:
"Hush little baby, your sound's undue
Now's not the time, we've work to do
Hush little baby, mom says so
Not one word, it's time to go
Sleep little child, don't you cry
Now's the time to shut your eye
Sleep little child, I'm by your side
They won't find us while we hide"
Tiirid tapped Rurliss on the shoulder. "Where the hell did you pick up that song, and why are you singing it?" he asked.
"It's attributed to a Cardassian dissident about 30 years from now, in another universe. Long story," Rurliss said. "It just kinda felt a bit appropriate to the moment, sneaking in and all?" She paused, then seemed to realize just what she was saying. "... Okay, maybe it's a little grim. But it is a nice tune."
"A little." Tiirid scoffed.
"It's actually not near as bad as you might think -- the dissident it's attributed to actually survived through to the Fourth Republic, and sang it before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Rurliss said.
"In that other universe."
"Yes. I'd like to think we could see a similar future in this universe, without anywhere near as much bloodshed as that one's Cardassia inflicted, and had to face," Rurliss said. She smiled.
Tiirid laughed. "One rival at a time, Captain. Don't get ahead of yourself."
"Fair enough." Rurliss grinned.
"That's cool and all, but you're out of character, 'Elais'," Arozirzzi said, handing her a set of retro-looking headphones built by Engineering to mimic a popular design from Sanctuary. "Here. I've downloaded copies of the latest top-40 hits in the Harmony, as picked up and reprocessed by the Comms Department."
"That seems overly thorough," Tiirid said. "And really? Top-40? I'd think you'd be into something classier. Or at least more bluesy."
"You mean 'Greysong', right?" Rurliss said in a passable Sanctuary accent, donning the headphones. Shifting back to her normal voice, she said, "Top-40 is fine, you're just being snooty."
"Well, ours is. To be honest, Harmony Top-40 is kinda weird, since, well, Singers," Arozirzzi said. "You've gotta wonder how real it is."
"I mean, no offense to either of you, but Apiata and Amarki pop are strange to my ears," Tiirid said.
"Maybe, but at least we know it's honest," Arozirzzi said. "No mind-controlling uploads controlling chart numbers on our side of the border."
"We do have algorithms and focus groups influencing the charts on our side," Tiirid said. "And not to be speciesist, but, uh, you do have queens --"
"Doesn't work that way," Arozirzzi snapped. "More to the point, sure, people tailor music based on what tests well -- if they want to. And nobody's got their thumb on the scale. It's just what everyone likes, ultimately, for better or worse."
"You really think they'd do that?" one of the engineers asked. "Be that petty -- manipulate what music's popular?"
"They're Singers. They wouldn't see that as petty," Tiirid pointed out.
***
It was a crisp morning on Unwerta and Krobik felt the cool mountain air ruffle his feathers. He was high up a mountain covered in closely spaced trees that hid rocky boulders. He was on a dirt trail that barely deserved the name. Behind him it snaked down a horn of the mountain, steep, in some places a staircase of rock or dirt held in place by roots. It came out onto a road running parallel to the Tallael river, and a few kilometres up that river and past several mountains was a valley, and there was the town of Umwerta colony. It was a picturesque valley town spread on both banks of the river. Countless artists of every type made it their home. They came to paint the slopes in winter, all angles and shadow and soft cold pastels, or the vibrant plant and wildlife in the summer; or they came to make music, inspired by neighbours or animals; or they came to walk the paths and let their mind wander. All came for inspiration and a place away from distractions.
Krobik wasn't finding much inspiration. Maybe in suffering. He had gotten to the point in the hike where he started to think about when it would end. One foot in front of the other. The path was so steep in this section it felt like he could lay his belly against it with minimal effort. Not that it had been easy before. The earlier flat sections punctuated by slopes had almost been worse, those short breaks just there to remind you of the misery that awaited. His legs didn't hurt — yet — but he could feel the strain his body was under, as he forced it to keep going on.
As Krobik puffed along behind his much fitter daughter, he wondered why he and Ceri were climbing the mountain.
"Why are we climbing this mountain?" he said, as he leaned against a tree and stopped to rest. Again. "It feels like I'm back on patrol with War Hive Altreizz."
"We are on patrol!" Ceri said brightly, "on the lookout for the most beautiful scenery!"
She jiggled the bag full of art supplies on her back. She was weighed down by that, in addition to a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck, a utility vest whose pockets were stuffed with snacks and outdoor supplies, an integrated water pack with a drinking tube, and her manipulator arm set. Compared to her, Krobik had just his manipulators, plus a backpack with some water bottles and a few protein bars. And he was still struggling.
He stalled for time. "This does... look like somewhere... we'd let you kids play around," he said, taking deep breaths between words, "You know. Run around playing Deadly Islanders or whatever."
"Still could!" Ceri said. She snatched a vaguely rifle-shaped stick off the ground with her foot, "Pew, pew! Defend yourself, Horizonian scum!" She tossed the stick in the air, grabbed it with her manipulator arms, and dashed up the hill, a few paint brushes spilling out of her pack. She took cover behind a tree with surprisingly convincing skill and shouted, "Pew pew!"
Krobik looked up at her and blinked, "I'm a pacifist. You just committed a war crime." He walked up the trail and started stopping to pick up the paintbrushes.
"There are no laws in the Islands!" Ceri said, laughing. She tossed the stick aside, and stepped carefully down the slope back to him, also collecting her spilled supplies. "Anyways, no rush. At least we got here early so no one's passing us. I got beat up here by a Lintrid grandma once."
"I see," he said, nodding. Then, when she was close enough, he jabbed her with one of the brushes. "Haha! I used your implicit racism to disguise the fact I was an Amarki swordsman!"
"Gasp! Damn!" She collapsed on her side against the slope, "Foiled again!" She kicked her feet dramatically, an imitation of dying that was very unconvincing to Krobik (and Tallael).
"Ha ha," he said, grabbing the back of her pack with his beak and helping her to her feet, "Come on, we need to see this natural beauty. Feel the breeze that will bring fresh words to me, before it goes stale with long hours in the sun."
Ceri rolled her eyes, "I'm not too worried about the book. Are you?"
Was he? His book. A memoir. He hated that word. You only wrote a memoir at the start of your career or the end. He was the latter. A reflection on all the things he had done, how he'd done it. A chance to think and recollect, order, organize. But implicit in all that was that he didn't have anything else important to add to the record. Writing the book had been hard going. He struggled with the idea he should have started at all.
"I'm finishing the book," he said, "A man keeps his promise. This is a good remedy for writer's block."
She shrugged and kept going up the path. Krobik kept pestering her to slow down so he could brush off the trail dirt that dusted her wings during her imitation of a Moy's final moments. The view through the trees was getting better as they twisted to the other side of the horn and the land dropped away and the trees thinned. They could see glimpses of the terrain below, the sparkling river cutting through the green. And now, on this part of the slope, the occasional glimpse of a white communications dish.
"I can't believe you're going to paint with that ugly thing in the background," Krobik said, as they stopped for a break and a final attempt to remove Ceri's impromptu dust bath.
Ceri shrugged, "It's good practice to paint and try to mentally edit it out. Imagine it's not there. Or even make a painting and cover it up! So mysterious."
They both started as they heard rocks clinking down the trail, and then saw her. A Horizonian hiker coming down the trail, opaque smartglasses covering her eyes, headphones over her headscarf. Odd, Krobik thought the ranger had said that he and Ceri were the first ones here today. "Hey there," she said, in an imitation of a Dalear accent. From an outlying colony, perhaps? "Heading up this trail?"
"Yes. The view's amazing, isn't it?" he said, coming to a stop and setting down his pack.
"We're not there to admire the view, we're there to paint it!" Ceri said.
"Just you." Krobik said, "Unless you'd like to see me try?"
Ceri giggled at that.
"Honestly, the view was pretty terrible. Lots of fog," the Horizonian said. She looked a little nervous; her hands were fidgeting.
"Well, I think you went at the wrong time," Krobik said, good-naturedly. "Why don't you come along with us?"
"I'm telling you. I was literally just up there. Way too foggy to paint anything interesting." Something felt off about her tone, her demeanor. She'd stopped fidgeting, and seemed to be consciously trying to look like she wasn't nervous. Was she hiding something?
"Maybe you didn't go far enough up?" Krobik suggested.
"Maybe. I couldn't get all the way up the trail. Found this big rotten tree blocking the path." Huh. Krobik would've thought the ranger would've mentioned it if this trail was blocked.
Ceri shrugged. "I could paint the rotten tree? I've been meaning to do more nature painting..."
"That sounds terribly dull. I was thinking of taking the Meadow Hill trail; maybe you could join me? Good views on that one..."
This lady clearly didn't know what she was talking about. He and Ceri had hiked that trail before, and the views were alright, but nothing special. "I'll pass, thanks."
"C'mon, Dad, let's get going," Ceri said, and started up the trail again. Krobik sighed, and hefted his pack ... only for the Horizonian to gesture for them to stop. Ceri didn't, so he didn't.
"Seriously, I really wouldn't recommend you go any further up this trail," she said, following them.
"And why not?" Ceri asked, annoyed. Krobik was unsure himself, and was feeling a bit uneasy.
"I'm telling you, it'd be a waste of time." She kept following them up the trail anyway. The three soon came upon a clearing -- and upon a breathtaking view: the blue-grey gas giant Werta II, coming up over the horizon. Even the Horizonian looked impressed.
About the only thing marring the scene, to Krobik's eye, still was the comms dish, visible on a nearby hill situated in a dull tan square of clear cut forest.
"You were saying, Miss?" Ceri asked. "You know, I think I'm going to paint this." She and Krobik started to set up.
The Horizonian shrugged, and pulled out a sketchbook of her own ... and a pencil. "Wait, you're doing pencil sketches? Not using a sketchpadd?" Ceri asked. There was a dull roar in the distance.
"Sure, why not?" The roaring got louder.
"Doesn't that seem a little ... outdated?"
The Horizonian smiled. "I suppose, but I like it anyway. It's calm--" She was cut off, as a shuttlecraft went screaming past. It looked very odd. Almost like a Starfleet shuttle…
Type-5 shuttlecraft, his mind whispered for him, Common to Explorer Corps. Fitted for ground strike. For a moment it felt like he could see the actual plans for the craft.
As it flew by, it shot a plasma — a phaser — burst at the dish, destroying it. Behind it two more shuttlecraft screamed in -- Type-6, enlongated 'b' variant. Fitted for away team insertion in tactical environments with nose phaser emitter and graviton harnesses. But why?
"Who are you, really?" Krobik snapped off without thinking.
"I'm Elais. I'm new here."
"No you're not!" Ceri shouted, far more angry than Krobik had ever seen her get. The Horizonian dropped her sketchbook and started to reach into her pocket, and then --
And then he seemed to be watching himself from a distance. There was Krobik and there was his body. He was in his body but he also wasn't.
He watched as he sprang forward, faster than he ever knew he could move. Did something twinge in the leg? Maybe. No matter. His body knocked away the clever blue woman's phaser and slammed her into the ground. Minor head trauma likely. Ceri's body joined his, grabbing her throat and squeezing as his body pinned her down. He felt sick and alive as he watched her eyes bulge.
"This isn't going in the memoirs," he said mildly.
***
In the trees, hidden beneath a stealth cloak, Tiirid sighed. Typical captain behavior, thinking she could talk her way out of trouble, waiting until it was too late to try to draw on them. Look where that's getting her now -- tackled to the ground, the younger Tseskiya's talons wrapped tight around her neck, the other helping pin her down. Clearly, the Decker must've missed a local transmitter on its scans.
Well, time to save the day.
Without hesitation he pushed his legs against the tree, the energy giving his jump-slide the needed velocity and strength. The tree in front of him quickly grew bigger and bigger in his sight. At the last second he adjusted his trajectory with his wing and kicked off the trunk, gaining more momentum. And again. He bounced between the trees, swallowing distance with each leap. And again. Bark splintered under his leg and he almost missed the next trunk in his way -- but it was just within his reach. Talons scraped against wood. He regained just enough velocity to carry on. One more push and the clearing came into view.
The canopy of trees faded away in a blink and from a corner of his eye he caught sight of the giant planet hanging in the sky. His left leg touched the ground first. Pebbles and leaves of carefully maintained grass sprayed backwards. He pushed forward as fast as he can, to propel forward and to not fall.
Quick, rapid thuds sprayed more grass in his wake as he barreled towards the puppeted Tseskiya. The thermo-optic camouflage still held. The ground became a blur to him, the surface so close one misstep could yank whatever semblance of control over his form he still has away.
Tiirid angled himself with the last step, muscle memory ingrained in his old Sky Shrike training helping him maintain his form as he body-checked his target.
His tentacle-appendages grabbed tightly, securing the other Tseskiya as he rolled for leverage. They were roughly the same height and weight. But one was thinking for themselves, military-trained, aimed, and full of kinetic energy.
Two bodies were shoved off the captain, who started coughing and gasping for air.
Tiirid half-consciously angled himself to take the brunt of the ground impact and shield the civilian in his grasp under hostile control. Starfleet instincts, this time.
The ground welcomed them with the softness of tightly packed soil and roots peeking through the grass. With a grunt Tiirid let the air escape his lungs. As they rolled to a stop the dark-feathered Tseskiya woman in his grasp remained silent and unnaturally stiff. Her eyes darted over the cloaked form of the soldier tackling her to the ground.
They both rolled in a graceless tumble on the grass, and came to a stop next to Rurliss's headphones, knocked away when Krobik and Ceri turned on her, playing some insipid, incongruous tune. The camouflage cloak, unable to compensate for the kinetic interference, stopped functioning at this moment. The Tseskiya on top of Tiirid tilted her head, the clothes donned to protect her feathers from paint splashing on them now stained green and brown. She tried to disengage from the grapple, but was only partially successful, Tiirid's grasp on her midsection holding true.
But, now visible, he had become the primary target. Without warning the manipulator harness on Ceri's chest came alive and metallic talons slashed towards the Fiiral's head. Slashes aimed towards his eyes and snout. Short, without space to properly start or aim, but still dangerous.
The synthetic arm turned. Limitations of flesh not present, she stabbed in a backhand motion.
He quickly disengaged, his motion fluidly becoming a roll backwards. The synthetic arm sliced the air with an audible pitch, just where his eye was moments ago. A dull thud was barely audible as it dug into the soil.
On instinct he rolled backwards as a stab from the now-free second arm tried to skewer him. He dodged, and small pebbles and grass sprayed on impact. Ceri rose now to her full height, towering over Tiirid on the ground.
"You just had to come here and ruin my perfectly fine little art colony," she -- no, Tallael, through her -- shouted. "Fuck off. Go home. Stop interfering!"
Tiirid ignored her words. Even as he pushed nimbly against the grass, part of him wondered why it was taking so long for the jammer to come online. Still rolling, he only narrowly dodged the stomp that came next in his direction. An almost soulless gaze tracked his movement as he continued dodging and rolling on the ground -- each step, kick and slash aimed at him executed with precision and fluidity.
He rolled again, a decorative stone bench growing larger in his sight with each dodge. An opportunity. With his tentacles uncoiling he pushed against the ground, in one fluid motion letting the momentum carry him upwards. His arm snapped downwards and grabbed the stone. The structure, dug deep into the ground, held as he twisted his legs midair. His leg fully stretched out in a kick, and then he lashed out with his talons.
His claw struck the incoming manipulator arm and the civilian-grade material gave in first. Two of the four pseudo-fingers snapped off at their base joint with a loud crack. A servo died with an audible whine and a whiff of smoke rose from the mangled mechanical limb.
The puppeted Tseskiya was breathing hard, her body not as used to the stress put upon it by her uncaring controller. As Tiirid landed on his legs, half-rolling to bleed out momentum, his breathing was even, controlled. In a smooth motion he drew his phaser from his chest holster and aimed it at the puppeted person.
Ceri's still-working manipulator arm reached into her canvas bag, grasping for anything that might be of use. A split spike of metal with some carving tool mounted in a swappable nook came out. Tiirid assumed a more classical shooting position and tilted his head questioningly.
"Bringing a chisel to a gunfight, eh, Tallael?" he said.
Ceri glowered, defiant... and then suddenly looked confused. Tiirid looked past her, and saw Rurliss wrestling with Krobik, the old Tseskiya moving like a much younger man, deftly avoiding her efforts to pin him... and then not so deftly.
Arozirzzi's voice became audible from out of Rurliss's dropped headphones: "We're at full saturation of the network, ma'am."
***
Jenavol transmitted out of the closed meeting, a heavily encrypted affair held on Sanctuary with Meravik and several of his other protégés and colleagues. A waste of time really.
She resisted the urge to check on Unwerta. No need to get suspicious now. She checked archived messages from the other Singers as she settled into her usual control node at her personal assembly line. She flashed over them in a second.
She paused all operations in shock. A message from Keppan. Bubbly in tone. The Singer committee for Precinct 8 had decided to change her patrol route. She was now far ahead of her previously scheduled arrival time at Unwerta.
Like a good little Singer, she overrode her surprise and had the local comm array send the ship's travel logs to Unwerta.
***
It was strange, seeing the reactions of the staff of the Unwerta comm center as they learned the truth behind the Harmony, Chief Hazzixzen thought. There were a few who tried to deny it, who tried to explain it away -- "This is just a stress-induced hallucination, isn't it?" one muttered to herself. The rest were initially just ... stunned, somehow unable to process the fact that their entire lives had been outside their control. A few reacted like Rence had back in the Enterprise mess, engaging in petty and semi-destructive acts to test the limits of their newfound free will. It was tolerable for now when it was just a smashed computer console, but that compulsion was something Hazzixzen knew would have to be dealt with before it curdled into something else.
Objectively, Hazzixzen knew that most sentient species weren't eusocial, didn't have queens to help guide them through life, but the amount of pain the truth about the Singers seemed to bring them seemed just a little hard to understand. Didn't they realize no one really controlled their lives? Even the most evenhanded Queen imparted her values and preferences to her daughters. If they were machines it would be rightly called programming. But somehow it was different for Apiata.
To be fair, the Singers hid themselves and pretended they didn't exist, which seemed to defeat the whole purpose of being a queen.
Unwerta's pain turned to anger, quickly -- a few people were mad at her, at this 'Abeshta' who'd delivered the message, at Starfleet in general. But most instead were angry at the Singers. Conveniently, one of those had the password for the main computer that the engineering team was struggling to hack. Inconveniently, the local Singer had changed it in the time between Starfleet's assault and the jammer going fully active.
Still, the tech knew Harmony computing systems better than the engineers, and the local Singer had so much on her plate she hadn't deleted all his accesses. Soon enough, Chief Hazzixzen was reviewing message traffic to and from the base.
At first, nothing interesting stood out to her. Travel logs for ships coming to Unwerta: HPSDV Deejay still on schedule as of 6, 19, 46 and 71 hours ago, and the cargo ship HMADV Klaho had stopped by 100 hours ago. Some oddball messages -- for instance, some poetry sent from the Deejay 23 hours ago, along with an attachment of some sort that wouldn't open properly. Virus, perhaps? But did the Harmony even have computer viruses? Otherwise, though, largely routine messages for an art colony.
The helpful technician pointed out something else odd, though -- the reported position of the Deejay 23 hours ago didn't fit with its reported position 19 hours ago. Hazzixzen opened the travel log from 19 hours back, expecting a 25-hour ETA -- instead, ETA was ... a bit over 20 hours from then. Or an hour and change from now.
Oh. Oh no.
***
Krobik snapped back into control. He felt as if he'd gone very deep into the ocean of his mind and suddenly broke the surface. Things before had been languid, detached. Now things seemed too loud and too fast.
Ceri and the Fiiral were yelling at each other.
"Drop the weapon!" the Fiiral shouted, pointing a phaser at his daughter. With his raven feathering and vaguely avian shape, he almost could have been a Tseskiya with a fluffier, more prehensile tail. It added to the unreality of the scene.
Ceri waved the tool clenched in her remaining manipulator arm. "It's a chisel and you drop your shit first! My life might be a lie but that doesn't mean I'm gonna let you push me around!"
"You choked out the Captain!"
"One, that wasn't me; two, I wouldn't have had to if she wasn't suspicious as hell!"
"Tiirid," croaked the Amarki woman. Iliae Rurliss. He realized that was some of the last information downloaded into his skull. Singers worked fast.
"Ma'am?"
"Put down the phaser." Her voice sounded hoarse and weak, and she stood unsteadily. But Krobik saw a steely determination to her. He was unsurprised to see the Fiiral holster his weapon without another word.
Ceri tossed her chisel aside, "Alright." She rolled her head, and turned it slightly to the side, looking the Fiiral -- Tiirid -- up and down with one dark eye. "We cool?"
Tiirid guffawed, "If the captain says so."
"You're really good at beating up artsy girls and old men by the way. Is that a specialized course or does it come naturally?"
"Please forgive my daughter," Krobik interjected, "I'm sure you can understand, we are processing a lot." He looked at Rurliss, "I'm sorry for what we did. Obviously not our fault. No reason to blame you for the injuries we suffered. I'm sure you were trying not to hurt us." He turned his head, "Right Ceri?"
"Yeah," Ceri said, "I know it's messed up but I don't like losing."
"You two are remarkably calm," Rurliss said, "I didn't know what to expect, but probably more yelling."
"You did that hike," said Krobik, "Between that and our fight I have no energy for yelling." He sat down, wincing as he carefully tucked his legs under him, "So, Captain, what now? What's the next step?"
"This was a test run," said Rurliss, "We're only one ship. We can't protect this colony. Our plan is to get everyone off this rock and put you somewhere safe."
"Somewhere in the Federation?"
"Something like that."
Ceri had wandered over to Rurliss' dropped sketchbook and started flipping through it with her feet. Krobik noted that Tiirid had positioned himself to keep an eye on both of them.
Krobik nodded his head, "You're not telling us in case we are recaptured." He pulled out his tablet, "Fortunately for you, Captain, I am something of a local notable — I'll be able to get an evacuation post on the colony message board right away. Unless you were planning to beam us up without asking?"
The Fiiral waved his tail in annoyance, "Don't play that. There's operational need."
"Just saying." Krobik was typing on his tablet, "Not to jump the line, but if you could, Captain, I'd like to beam up with you. I'm a journalist by trade and I suspect there's a story here."
Rurliss' commbadge chirped. "Ma'am, situation developing. We need you back on Enterprise."
"Understood." She nodded at Krobik, "Prepare four to beam up. Two are Tseskiya."
"Energizing." Krobik saw Ceri grabbing the sketchbook with a foot. Then he was in the transporter room of a Federation vessel. It wasn't too different from the transporter room of a Renaissance. A bit sleeker, maybe.
Ceri bounced forward awkwardly, sketchbook outstretched, but before she could get Rurliss' attention a Vulcan woman had started talking.
"ETA on the Deejay is now 80 minutes, not twelve hours."
Rurliss stepped off the pad with an unconcerned but urgent bounce. "How long til we finish the evacuation?"
"155 minutes, ma'am," T'Kel reported.
"Damn." Rurliss sighed. They stepped out of the transporter room and into the hall.
Up until now, this plan really looked like it was going to succeed. But the Deejay arriving early would ruin it. She may only be a Choreographer-class tender, but she still had perfectly functional subspace comms.
"Options?" she asked Tiirid and T'Kel, knowing there were only two. They crammed into the turbolift. "Bridge," she said, then belatedly noted that the journalist had also squeezed in.
"We could fight it out," Tiirid said. "Deejay's a Public Safety Choreographer; we know those run Dancers and Alerts, and don't have the best sensors to begin with anyway. I'm fairly confident we can defeat her. Do it right, keep her comms jammed throughout, and all they'll know is that a tender went missing in this system. Then we could finish the evacuation at our leisure."
"We'd have to be perfect, though," Rurliss noted. "There's no repair facilities of any size in this system, let alone anything big enough for Enterprise; if we take damage to our warp drive beyond what we can repair ourselves, we're trapped here."
"If our jamming isn't completely airtight, the Harmony will know immediately anyway, and will be rushing whatever they can to intercept us," T'Kel pointed out. The door whooshed open and they stepped onto the bridge. She looked around for her staff. There was Abeshta's holobot to the left of her chair, Deva leaning over the Ops console with Cindre. Arozirzzi was busy at her console built into the right wall coordinating with the away teams shepherding the colony's people to convenient transporter locations and the local government. Roxun was on the large bank of consoles at the rear of the bridge, flicking through specs with an intelligence officer. And Melzirinti was at the helm.
"Cindre," said Rurliss, "How many ships are nearby?"
"Reviewing Jenavol's projections for Harmony fleet movements from last week and allowing for variation since then, I count at least three ships within two days' range of here at max warp -- enough time to track us and start to run us down," Cindre said.
Kol turned to face Rurliss. "We could evacuate as many as we can in the time we have, and escape the system ahead of her before her arrival. Needs of the many."
"From what I can tell we'd certainly be able to outrun the Deejay," Roxun added, squinting at a chart.
"There would be no way to prevent the Harmony from knowing most of what happened here, then, simply by reading the thoughts of anyone left behind," Tiirid said.
"We do need to avoid making too big a wake in subspace, or we'll be detected anyway," Melzirinti added.
"I don't like the idea of leaving people behind. People who now know they were slaves, people we've promised freedom to," Rurliss said. "But at the same time, we can't simply assume we'll get that airtight victory we'd need against the Deejay. If we aren't perfect, they'll know we're here and hunt us down anyway. And it isn't good to underestimate our enemy."
A difficult decision either way.
[ ][WERTA] Fight the Deejay, then finish evacuating Unwerta if possible
[ ][WERTA] End the evacuation of Unwerta early and avoid a fight with the --
Krobik interrupted: "Captain. We've held a vote, and come to a decision: we want you to stay and fight. We're committed to doing everything we can to help you out if you do stay."
"I'm sorry, you held a vote?" Rurliss asked, mildly shocked.
"Yes?" Krobik looked a little surprised at her reaction.
"Can confirm, ma'am," Arozirzzi said, "We just got a call from the local canton council saying the same thing."
Krobik nodded "It was organized the moment we learned the Deejay was inbound early. It was pretty overwhelming -- I can show you the results on my tablet."
"No, that's alright. That makes life... complicated, but I'll just have to be better than Deejay's captain, that's all."
"Her TC -- Tender Commander. Twera nas Linnais. I actually know her fairly well. I used her as a source for a while, and we became friends. I don't know how much that'd help, but at the least, maybe I can distract her, which may make it harder for however many 'Singers' there are aboard that ship?"
"It's just one Singer, actually..." Abeshta's hologram said quietly.
"Oh? Do you know them?" Rurliss asked.
"Yes," Abeshta acknowledged. "Her name is Keppan, and she's a friend... but before you ask, she's not a revolutionary. She has qualms with the system, but thinks it's a generational issue to be solved."
"Still. Only one Singer, and you know her well," Rurliss mused. "Yes, they have a military-grade computer network, but without a Singer watching, if we could beam a team over, could we deploy another chip network jammer? Grab ourselves an entire tender?"
"You're getting greedy, ma'am," Tiirid said. "I think I like it." Rurliss smiled at that.
"I'll check with Engineering, but I'm pretty sure we can have another jammer ready in an hour," Deva reported.
"Good. Let's get to work."
[X][WERTA] Distract Deejay's Singer, then board her and deploy a chip network jammer.
Part 1 of 2 for this episode, because it was getting far too long as it was. No vote at this point, but there will be a vote at the end of part 2, so you can look forward to that!
Starfleet Operations Command Flash Alert
To: All Commands, All Stations
WAR WARNING in effect. On receipt take all necessary steps to ensure protection of command. Further within 24hr.
END MESSAGE
-
Deep within the Gabriel Border Zone, in the neutral zone between the two occasional-adversaries of the Federation and the Pact, is a humble Cardassian-built outpost known as Terminus Station. There are three main zones to this shared outpost: the Cardassian zone; the Federation Zone, and; the Intermix. The latter, a long promenade ring around the station with a crossbar known as "Main Street", holds a mix of commerce, amenities, and offices. As the only place in the galaxy where the two sides can more or less freely intermingle, it draws many of the bold and eccentric. There is even a steady population of those from much further afield. It is not unusual to see a knot of ittick'ka stride past a romulan. Even the odd dobetian or alupii has been seen before.
Of course, this also means that the station is a sizable fraction intelligence agency by volume. Neither the Obsidian Order nor the Starfleet Intelligence Command mind this overmuch. Gathering them all together makes them easier to spot and watch over, something that often only becomes apparent to the would-be superspies after arrival.
Into this idyllic pit of vipers strides one unassuming looking Horizonian peddler, their civilian craft loaded up with cultural trade goods and some computer samples. The Captain has a harried, nervy look, which comes as little surprise as upon learning of the samples the outpost's joint system security team have threatened to volley photorps at the civilian craft as fast as they can be launched if there is any sign of the computers becoming active.
As interested as the Cardassians are in these distant people, it is fair to say that their reputation precedes them.
Still, the peddler is putting on as brave a face as they can. This makes for quite the artistically brave face indeed as the Singer riding in their mind is a dab hand with expressions and a bent for acting. A useful ability for a peddler who also happens to be a senior member of the Public Security Directorate. So one Neeana lex Haanas clutches her security pass and heads in. She smiles amicably if ever so nervously to those she passes, while she makes her way through the crowded Intermix to a little stand advertising several types of tea. A number of patrons were leaning against small round tables chatting away, enjoying their "morning" rituals.
Running an intricate dance of the teakettles behind the stand is a wild-looking goshawnar. Vivid cardinal colouring marks her hair-feathering, and the feathering that runs along her lanky upper arms. Her eyes are dark pupils in a deep golden sea. Their sharp gleam surprises the peddler and suggests a background somewhere more dangerous than the tea trade. A bracelet wrapped in golden chain fits snuggly to her upper arm.
"Well then, newcomer, haven't seen one of your kind in the 'mix before," she says. "Maianak's Teahouse, for all your homeland teas. If you knew it, then I brew it." Her eyes glance over the peddler again. "Well, that was before a Horizonite walked in." Her brows waggle, a Goshawnar smile, as she leans against her stand. "But that's just something new for me to branch into."
"Not necessary today, I was looking to try red-leaf tea," replies Neeana as she leans against the stand to mirror her host. "Sweet and spicy sounds like an interesting way to start the day."
The tea merchant ducks and bobs her head, saying, "Ah, Cardassian teas then." They open a drawer and measure out a level scoop of tea, placing it into one of the waiting kettles. "So what brings you to town? Pretty risky thermals for casual flying out this way, you know. Particular for a Horizonite."
"Always wanted to visit and thought if I didn't try now, who knows when things will cool back down enough to make the trip," replies the peddler. "You know how it is, right?"
"Tangling with Starfleet, risky business, that," says Maianak. She taps at the arm opposite the bracelet, where beautiful scrollery runs up her forearm. "Nushurat, we were part of the mess at Hybor's Folly. Fought harder than the cruisers."
"Hybor's Folly... I know that one, the Federation calls it 45 Gabriel?" asks Neeana.
Maianak makes a noise like hitting an amphibian with a hammer. "Anodyne name. Starfleet likes to strip the glory out of a battle with stupid dull names." A subtle movement sets her feathers to rippling. "They killed a damned Emperor once, you know, and what do they call it? The battle of Ixaria Approach. Tch!"
The peddler grins wryly as she watches Maianak pour her tea into a ceramic cup. "Not a fan then?"
The other woman shrugs. "No, but... They fight well, they win, in spite of us Goshawnar. When you win, you get to level insults, even if that's not how they see it."
The peddler takes her tea and passes a small chit of station scrip back. There's a single table left free, so she sets her cup upon it and waits, sipping from time to time. As the cultural brief laid out in prosaic terms, the drink is sweet and a little spicy. What it doesn't go into, though, is the way the gentle steam clears the sinuses, the edge of the spice shakes free the rust of long nights or hard work, and the sweetness gives you just that little bit of pep to face the sacrifices the day demands. The Singer with the peddler spends a multitude of clock cycles imagining the ordinary cardassian, getting up, facing a long day working for the State, relying on their morning tea.
In real time, however, little time passes before a short and altogether nondescript cardassian man arrives and greets Maianak in familiar terms. His wry smile is charming, his features loose a little of their blandness when his eyes sparkle with the first whiff of the aromatic tea. When he has his own cup in hand he makes a beeline for the Neeana's table.
"I have to be honest," he says as he places his own cup upon the little round surface. He stops and reconsiders his words. "Well, I don't, not in my line of work. But I'm honestly surprised that Starfleet security didn't blacklist your arrival. They must be watching you like a hawk."
The peddler looks skeptically at her new tea buddy. "Are you endangering your cover for me?"
The cardassian's expression betrays surprise before he starts to laugh. "This is Terminus Outpost, friend, there are no covers here. I know every member of a Federation intelligence service aboard, and they know every one of my colleagues and I. We just all observe a polite fiction in this civilised space." He leans in closer and his smile becomes quite conspiratorial. "If you like, I can put you in touch with the local member of the Tal Shiar. Or perhaps you'd wish to speak to Imperial Intelligence over a nice meal of gagh. How about Ghidar's Man in the Gabriel? Or men, these days."
Neeana grimaces and shakes her head. "I'll prefer to stay away from the Tal Shiar, things are getting downright barbaric between us."
"In any event," says the Obsidian Order agent. "I'd keep my chips to myself if I were you, unless you think your secrets can escape outpost grade sensors."
"Appreciated," says Neeana dryly.
The cardassian man straightens up and takes a deep sip of his tea. "Well," he begins, "You've come a long way to have this talk, you must have many questions. Where shall we begin?"
-
Starfleet Intelligence Command Flash Alert
To: All Coreward Commands, All Stations
Infiltration efforts from HARMONY task forces underway. Commands within the COREWARD Theatre should be prepared for engagement with no or limited warning.
END MESSAGE
-
The numbers have already been run and the declaration will pass with at least ninety percent of Councillors voting in favour. That leaves the opportunity for preparation and housekeeping before the fateful moment. Federation High Commissioners and standing committees work with member worlds and Starfleet to ensure the fleet is ready for the inevitable vote.
Some of this traffic will likely tip the Harmony off that something is in the works. But the Federation has never presumed or depended upon complete secrecy in its affairs. But a little obfuscation and hiding in plain sight can go very far in keeping those with untoward intentions guessing.
Most of the work being done has none of the sizzle of sweeping battle plans. Far from it, they focus on the laborious underpinnings of the prospective war. A merchant marine commission working with the SDB establishes a series of new civilian designs, set to a common pattern. All built around a new black-box warp core and navigation deflector, both of which could be three-quarters replicated, they aren't much to look at, but the C1 cargo, T1 M/AM tanker, P1 passenger or peacekeeper transport, and S1 stores designs can be built just about anywhere at a startling pace.
Across the Federation, older frigates and escorts are brought back to shipping hubs, the Mirandas, Birds of Paradise, Peketas, Star Corvettes, and many other light designs ready to start escorting convoys through the major lanes. Constellations and Caldonian cruisers prepare to establish hunter task forces to sweep likely infiltration and ambush points. New quick design studies are undertaken, looking to add more escort ships quickly. These come up with corvettes that are little more than auxiliaries with shields, phasers, and sensor packages. Some designs are literally Class C1s modified with a frigate's lateral sensor array and a phaser bank hooked to an impulse reactor.
In secret new build plans that encompass an expansion greater than anything seen in this quadrant since the HurQ are drawn up to replace the existing ones. The planned economy that is modern shipbuilding works closely with the High Commissioners, even acquiring a prime contractor in Orion Union space.
Every industrial muscle in the United Federation of Planets tenses in preparation. No feel-good promises of a swift, victorious war are shared. Perhaps a short-circuit to the war may be found, but no one will bank on it. To hidden places throughout the UFP messages are dispatched to open vaults housing the dividends of peacetime frugality.
-
Starfleet Operations Command, Flash Alert
To: All Coreward, Central Commands, All Stations
Convoy protocols are in effect. All commands are to adopt Yellow Alert as baseline for operations.
END MESSAGE
-
The non-descript Cardassian walks leisurely along the "Main Street" crossbar through the middle of the promenade ring, pointing out sights like a veteran tour guide. "Of course from the Federation side, there are two real social hubs for crews and those with our peculiar occupations. Shayla's Rest, and Lance's Last Mistake. The latter tends to be a magnet for overly optimistic colleagues, because the proprietor is..."
Neeana cuts in, not hiding her interest as she says, "A disgraced former Commander, Starfleet, right?"
"Lance Cartwright, yes," says the Cardassian with the sort of bemused smile that his species makes an artform of. "Apparently caught up in the sort of skulduggery that would make my old mentor shed a tear if he were still around. But to be honest, it's more of a baited trap than anything else, anything Cartwright knew is thirty years out of date now and predates the Federation's epoch of inflation."
The peddler slowly deflates back into her seat. "I see, maybe I'll reschedule my plan to visit," she says slowly.
"Oh no, do go along," he encourages with a widening smile. "Starfleet Intelligence likes to make a point of the quality of kanar they help Cartwright stock, I'm sure they've got a Horizonian delicacy for you somewhere." He shakes his head for a moment, then continues on. "On the Pact side, we have the Thoughtless Vagrant, run by an odd sort of Konen ascetic. Good for quiet contemplation and tastes of home. If you tip well, you can even get a table that isn't bugged or, at least, bugged by someone you know."
That gets a flat look. "What a service," says Neeana dryly.
"Well, it isn't one you'll find many other places aboard this outpost," says the Obsidian Order agent with a laugh. "In fact, I took the liberty of reserving us a table. O-O bugs only, I promise, unless you're a particular fan of Goshawnar Sha Cruuik cuisine."
The Thoughtless Vagrant is an almost claustrophobic experience, lined with booths of varying sides, with walls cutting into the central area in places to fit more booths. Sparse, cold lights cast shadows and give an eerie feel. The air is cool, pushing visitors to focus inward. The booths themselves have a round, pod-like design, as if an Imelak had helped with the interior decoration. Spindly Konen Trial-Charms hang from the low ceiling and from the edges of the staff counter, twisting on their strands as they invite those familiar with them to challenge their own minds.
Neeana can't help but feel some reservations about people for whom this felt like home.
A Konen waiter escorts them to a small booth out of sight of the door with shadows that seem almost skull-like. It all starts to make Neeana intensely aware of the mortality of her host. She has been with this particular Horizonite and always brought them home again safely, and the new appreciation for how difficult this task may be starts to drag on her like a physical weight. Yet although it feels eerie or even unsettling, it never feels menacing. There is a contemplative air to the place instead. Even so, the nerves have to be overridden as she takes her seat across from the Cardassian.
"Allow me," says the man, all charm and hospitality. He rattles off a series of dishes and drinks to the waiter, who nods and silently walks away. He returns his attention to Neeana afterwards to explain, "A good brunch spread from across the Pact, carefully selected to agree with the discerning Horizonite palate."
Neeana settles back into her seat, a little surprise in her expression. Of course, sometimes you just have to roll with the surprises. "I appreciate the thoughtfulness," she says. "I'm looking forward to this."
The agent returns the smile at first, before it fades away and he leans across the table. "Now, before they return, let's talk some business. You are the enemy of our enemy, or about to become so, so the Cardassian Union is willing to extend consideration and assistance. You've taken a considerable risk in coming here, even for a person of your ... peculiar circumstances. So what can we do for you?"
"We thought that if there's anyone with insight about what we are about to face," begins Neeana, carefully echoing the posture of her host, "It would be the Cardassian Union, so someone ought to make the voyage and consult."
There's a distinctly nasty quality to her host's smile now. "Well, we have pulled a few nuggets of wisdom out of the carcasses of various plots and campaigns."
Neeana makes eye contact, watching the OO agent intently. "What we really want to know," she says, "Is what it is about the Federation that frightens you."
The Cardassian's brows slide all the way up.
-
Starfleet Operations Command, Flash Alert
To: All Spinward Commands, All Stations
Take steps necessary to confront and deter potential PACT encroachment on all Spinward borders. Defend UFP populations, settlements, own commands.
END MESSAGE
-
Speculation is becoming rife in the media and on public forums. Just as it did when when the potentially apocalyptic neutron degeneracy experiments led to war with the Arcadian Empire, debate is sparked in the streets. But there is little of the ferocity of those arguments, or the uncertainty, where people went to the mats to argue one view or the other. This time the political factions have aligned behind the one purpose and the population begins to follow.
A mood more melancholy than maddened sweeps the Federation, yet with determination underneath. Former personnel from Starfleet and other services begin updating their details with Personnel Command, former shipyard and industrial workers start answering queries for experienced workers distributed among those communities. Sedentary spacers start shaking their roots free.
What is coming is not hidden from anyone, though the moment of decision is as yet unknown. So the fires on the borders intensify. More lifeblood enters the sinews of the Federation's industries. The convoys bearing the stockpiles of the strategic reserves start arriving even through early attacks with new stealthy corvettes, staging from bases or tenders unknown. Efforts to identify at least signs of infections continue at a frantic rate, making meagre improvements but approaching a long-promised breakthrough.
Defensive installations, built using more conventional material than duranium alloys but with considerable bulk and tapping into rapidly escalating field emitter output, begin to appear in the orbits around every major world and most of the minors. Utopia Planitia almost swims amidst a constellation of phaser emplacements as do the truly crucial component facilities. It is anticipated that even if a major world is overrun, the Harmony will have little interest in planetary invasions, and will await a mix of steady infiltration and post-war concessions to do their work. Trying to make securing orbitals, or defeating planetary shielding and defences, as unpleasant as possible, starts to become critical. Thankfully, those most vulnerable to potentially being overrun are also some of the most inclined to embrace this approach, with the Ked Paddah and Okatha churning out new orbitals almost daily. The Ked Paddah take a leaf from their old enemies, the Arcadians, and before long their systems are comprehensive traps.
Of course, such traps lose much of their effectiveness when known in advance.
Behind the scenes, SFI, plus the intelligence and security arms of the Diplomatic Service and many different member worlds, are for all intents and purposes already at open war. On all fronts they are pressed, and pressed hard, working to identify and contain outbreaks of chips and clean up infiltration teams. One sabotage team gets dangerously close to the auxiliary yards at Ferasa only to be discovered by a Frontier Police patrol shuttle. Convoys making the perilous Sol-to-Okatha route get tracked despite extensive attempts to vary the route, only for it to be discovered that the sensor take from the starbase at Rigel is being diverted straight to the corvette-packs.
It isn't entirely one-way traffic, though. A daring operation targets the Public Security Directorate facility that launched the murderous attack against the Rixx Scrutineers. A drone ore freighter delivering minerals from the outer system experiences a blow-out in its port engine during a burn at the worst possible moment and plows directly into the Public Security Directorate arm of the local starbase with extensive damage. The light show of ore burning up in the atmosphere is the only thing spectacular enough to equal the ferocious back and forth among Singers as to how it could happen.
But the overall trend is of a grinding defence as Public Security attempts to impede and undermine the buildup to war, with SFI playing catchup and trying to hold the line in anticipation of at least a detector, if not a cure or vaccine for the chip. Disaster is only narrowly avoided in one case, with the SS Appleseed hiding dangerously deep in a gas giant in an uninhabited system deep in Harmony space, standing by to touch off their own warp core if discovered by the patrolling Public Safety cruiser overhead. Eventually the patrol moves on and the Appleseed withdraws safely, but operations are suspended while SFI evaluates what went wrong.
Finally the moment comes, with little pomp and little fanfare. The Council of the United Federation of Planet prepares to vote to recognise that, insofar as the Harmony of Horizon presents a clear, deliberate, and viable threat to the health and liberty of all members of the Federation, a state of war exists, and has existed, and will exist to such time as the Singers may be defeated. The doors of the chamber are shut, though cameras record for posterity as the Councillors vote.
But in many ways this is just a formality. The real vote has taken place in the public sphere with debates fed steadily as information could be declassified and the magnitude of the Harmony threat unmasked. It is a matter of trust that few of the quadrant's powers would dare, trust in a well-educated, free society to seek and find truth. Though the Council vote is the final one, they walk a path paved by citizens ready to take up the battle.
-
Starfleet Logistics Command, Flash Alert
To: Central Theatre, All Convoy Stations
Very-low-emission HARMONY corvettes attack CONVOY CU01, driven off. All escorts must observe STRAAK-EATON sensor protocols.
-
The Obsidian Order agent reclines back in his chair. "Frightens us?" he repeats with a chuckle. "I see you weren't well briefed on us. We don't allow ourselves to be frightened. But I do understand what you're getting at. What ... shall we say, leads us to pay such close attention to the Federation. And I presume you're not looking for numbers here, I have no doubt you've got your fill of them by now."
"Go on," replies Neeana.
"Obviously, you're aware of the fleet strength of Starfleet and her subordinate fleets, so I need not remind you of the scale of your opposition. Similarly, unlike us and, I hope for your sake, unlike you, the Federation makes little attempt to conceal the vast scale of its ship production and repair infrastructure. Again, I won't repeat what you already know."
Neeana nods, though she isn't sure where he is going with this. "We have the numbers down pretty well."
The agent laughs, a scoffing little sound, then says, "So let's talk about what you won't get from just poking through their computer systems and accounts. You've pushed the Federation into a position where they'll have to declare the war. It's a thought we've had ourselves from time to time. If the Federation has to make the first move their society will recoil, their affiliates will decline to join, and it costs them much support." He taps on the table. "So, you must wonder, why haven't we gone down that route?"
"Crosses my mind, yes," says Neeana.
"There is a problem, we found," continues the agent. "You see, what we accomplish with instruction on the State, and you through...," he trails off and smiles thinly. "Through a more direct control, the Federation accomplishes with true believers. When you push not on possessions, wealth, or even safety, but on matters of their ideology, the resistance intensifies the closer you get to the core, like a star hardening down into a neutron star. There are reasons the Obsidian Order does not employ the same sort of practices against the Federation that we did with the Bajorans or Chrystovians."
"Our experience tells us that actually varies quite a bit between worlds and species," replies Neeana.
The agent holds up a hand and says, "Don't be so sure of that. Even among the new species. After all, you don't give up all your independence and join a group like the Federation inside of a single generation if deep down that species psyche didn't take the ideology to heart. If we were you, we would dedicate ourselves to the question of if you have already let the Federation morph this into a conflict of your view of societal control versus their view."
He falls silent for a while, and Neeana waits as he considers what to say. Finally, he continues, "There is one species that draws the most outsized attention compared to how far away they are. The linch-pin of their whole ideological enterprise, the glue around which it all revolves. The source of many of the most storied officers, and a species that nearly blew itself to barbary only to rise from the ashes."
"The humans?" ventures Neeana with a frown.
"... well, the humans certainly occupy a substantial part of our attention given they have close to a lock on the second most important post in the Federation. But I mean the Vulcans. If you cannot deal with the Vulcans, you cannot deal with the Federation."
"Yet the Vulcans were notoriously resistant to the Federation-Arcadian War, and they barely slowed the Federation down," points out Neeana.
"Yes, against the Arcadians," retorts the agent. "If they had taken that disunity into a confrontation with any major foe, they would likely have suffered truly embarrassing reversals. But just beware any species willing to nearly wipe itself out with atomic fury and then bounce back."
Neeana is silent for a while before a broad smile splits her face. "I wouldn't disagree. Do you know the true history of Horizon?"
-
Starfleet Command, Flash Alert
To: All Commands, All Stations
FED COUNCIL declares State of WAR with HARMONY of Horizon.
Go now to your duty with integrity and dedication.
END MESSAGE
-
Ready Room, USS Comet, NCC-5101
The message sitting innocuously on her pad has been verified twice over by the staff at Communications Division, and if the potent long-range comm systems on the Comet-class cannot be trusted here, then most likely no communication at all could be trusted anymore. Even so, the nature of the message...
After some thirty seconds of staring, Victoria finally mutters, "Well, shit!"
