Part 18 (2/2)

The group pa.s.sed through a set of frosted double doors into a comfortably furnished reception area. Its honey-hued wood paneling and warm lighting cast a pleasant glow over the off-white carpet, which was adorned by a pale blue outline of the Federation emblem. Long sofas and a few armchairs surrounded a C-shaped formation of coffee tables.

Standing between them and the bank of turbolifts was a presence as austere as the surroundings were relaxed. Shoulder-length gray hair framed his proud countenance, and the pristine blacks and grays of his Starfleet uniform flattered his tall, heavily muscled frame. He nodded to Bacco, who strode ahead of her security detail, hand outstretched to greet him.

”Admiral,” she said, shaking the hand of Leonard James Akaar, the official liaison between Starfleet and the Office of the Federation President. ”Any good news to report?”

He pressed his lips together, making his chiseled features appear even more stern. ”I am afraid not, Madam President.”

She frowned. ”Why should you be any different?”

The doors of a large turbolift gasped open a few meters away. A burly Zibalian man from Bacco's security detail stepped inside, made a quick scan with a handheld device, and motioned everyone inside. Bacco entered and moved to the back of the turbolift. Akaar, Piniero, Shostakova, Safranski, and the other three security men followed close behind. The doors hissed shut. The senior agent on the detail, an ex-Starfleet officer named Steven Wexler, issued the turbolift command with a whisper via his subaural implant. The lift began a swift descent.

Bacco said to Akaar, ”Give me the bad news, Admiral.”

”We've lost three critical starbases near the tri-border,” Akaar said in his rich rumble of a voice, referring to the region of s.p.a.ce where the territories of the Federation, the Romulan Star Empire, and the Klingon Empire collided. ”In the past hour, Epsilon Outposts 10 and 11 have gone dark. We're proceeding on the a.s.sumption that they've been destroyed.”

”What about Khitomer?” asked Shostakova. ”What went right at Khitomer?”

Akaar directed his reply to the diminutive defense secretary. ”The Stars.h.i.+p Ranger used phase-inversion technology to penetrate the Borg's s.h.i.+elds and sacrificed itself as a single, ma.s.sive warhead to vaporize the cube.”

Shostakova recoiled, shut her eyes, and inhaled sharply, almost as if by reflex. Safranski, unfazed by the report, replied curtly, ”Can we do it again?”

”Too late,” Akaar said. ”Captain Calhoun tried to sacrifice the Excalibur using the same strategy, but the Borg had already adapted. His chief engineer rigged a salvo of torpedoes with phase-inverters, each set to a different variance. Enough made it through to destroy the cube, but it's safe to a.s.sume the Borg will be ready for that tactic next time.”

The doors sighed open, revealing a windowless corridor with soft, indirect lighting. Agent Wexler was the first person out of the turbolift, followed by another agent, an Andorian thaan. They sidestepped clear of the others who were exiting the lift, and remained just ahead of Bacco on her left and right as she led the rest of the group toward the Monet Room.

Bacco said to the admiral, ”What's Starfleet doing before there is a next time?”

”The Enterprise is following a lead that may reveal how the Borg are reaching our s.p.a.ce,” Akaar said. ”We've deployed every available s.h.i.+p to reinforce the Enterprise, but it will take a couple of days before they arrive. Until then, she'll be on her own, out by the Azure Nebula.”

From behind Bacco and Akaar, Safranski inquired, ”That's near the tri-border, isn't it?”

”It is the tri-border,” Akaar replied.

Antic.i.p.ating the president's next order, Safranski said, ”I'll have K'mtok and Kalavak summoned to the Palais.” Bacco nodded her approval; she expected that she would soon have an urgent need to talk to the Klingon and Romulan amba.s.sadors.

She turned left at an intersection and neared the door to the Monet Room. ”Admiral,” Shostakova said, ”we need an update from Starfleet on its evacuation plan for the core systems in the event of a full-scale Borg invasion.”

”We don't have one,” Akaar said, and his matter-of-fact tone made Bacco bristle. ”If the Borg get past us at Regulus, there will be nothing between them and the core systems. In essence, Madam President, if the Federation had what was once called, in Earth history, a 'doomsday clock,' its hands would now be set at one minute to midnight.”

A grim pall settled over the group, which became very quiet as they strode the final few paces to the Monet Room. Agent Wexler stopped just shy of reaching its door, letting President Bacco move past him.

Bacco resolved not to surrender to the paralysis of despair. ”All right, Admiral,” she said. ”If we can't evacuate the core systems, we d.a.m.ned well better find a way to defend them. Which is why I've brought you all down here to meet my new deputy security adviser.” She stepped to the door, which slid aside with a soft swish, and she led the group into the Palais's unofficial war room.

On one wall hung an impressionist painting from earth's preunification period, Bridge over a Pool of Water Lilies, by Claude Monet. Panoramic viewscreens dominated the other walls. Most of the middle of the dimly lit room was taken up by the long, dark wood conference table, which comfortably seated up to twenty people. The group filed in and spread out to Bacco's left and right on one side of the table.

Standing on the other side were two people. The middle-aged Trill man was her senior security adviser, Jas Abrik. An irascible former Starfleet admiral, he actually had managed the presidential campaign of Bacco's opponent, Fel Pagro, during the special election the previous year. In exchange for his silence on a potentially explosive matter of national security that had emerged during the election, she had appointed him to this key position in her cabinet. He had treated it like a coup.

He didn't seem quite so enthused about his new deputy.

Bacco introduced the statuesque, fair-haired human woman, who had jarring patches of silver machinery grafted to her left hand and temple. ”Everyone,” said the president, ”this is Seven of Nine. She's here to help us stop the Borg.”

Struggling bodies and flaring tempers added to the musky heat of the Klingon High Council Chamber. Shouts of ”Federation lackey!” were met with angry retorts of ”Traitorous petaQ!”

Instead of calving into partisan ranks on either side of the dim, sultry meeting s.p.a.ce, as the councillors normally did, they were a shoving, bustling ma.s.s in the brightly lit center of the room, atop the enormous red-and-white trefoil emblem that adorned the polished, black granite floor.

Elevated above the mob, on a dais at the end of the chamber, Chancellor Martok struck the metal-jacketed end of his ceremonial staff on the stone steps before him. Explosive cracks of noise resounded off the angled walls and high ceiling, to no avail. With his one eye he glared at the disgraceful thras.h.i.+ng and longed for days of honor that had long pa.s.sed into history.

Martok stepped forward and hammered the end of his staff down on one of the marble tiles, harder than before. This time the percussive banging was loud enough to halt the melee and shatter one of the square tiles into dusty, broken chunks. The councillors all set their feral gazes on him.

”This is war!” he boomed. Then his voice turned to gravel. ”The hour for debate is over. You stand for the Great Houses of the Empire. It's time you showed our enemies what greatness is!”

The chancellor descended the stairs and prowled forward through the muddled ranks, which parted, disturbing the humid air and creating a current that was rich with the odors of sweat and warnog-tainted breath, and the traditional scents of targ-tallow candles and braziers of sulfur and coal. ”Some of you”-he aimed a lacerating stare at Kopek, his longtime bitter political rival-”say this is not our war. That it's an internal matter for the Federation. Use our strength for conquest, you say, and let the Federation defend itself.” He spat on the floor and scowled at Qolka and Tovoj, who in recent months had become vocal backers of Kopek's verbal sabotages. ”I never want to hear that excuse again.” He continued stalking through the knot of councillors, making eye contact with each one as he pa.s.sed-with Mortran and Grevaq, Krozek and Merik. ”Don't pretend you haven't heard the news from Khitomer,” Martok growled. ”The Borg came gunning for us. It was no accident. No coincidence.”

On his way back to the dais steps, he pa.s.sed Kryan, the youngest member of the Council. Behind him, and closest to the dais, were Martok's three staunchest allies in the chamber: K'mpar, Hegron, and Korvog. He nodded to them, ascended the steps, and turned to face the a.s.sembled councillors en ma.s.se.

”When the Borg came to destroy one of our worlds, our allies bled for us. They died defending us. Three Federation stars.h.i.+ps sacrificed themselves for Khitomer, a colony world of less than half a million Klingons. Do you remember the last time that happened? I do.” He let the implication sink in before he pointed at his nemesis, Kopek. ”And so do you.” Over his opponents' shamed silence, Martok said simply, ”Narendra III.”

Grunts of acknowledgment came back to Martok in reply.

He pressed on, ”Blood shed for a friend is sacred, a debt of honor. And if you won't stand and fight beside a friend in blood, then you are not a Klingon. You are not a warrior. Run home to your beds and hide, I have no use for you! I won't die in the company of such petaQ'pu. The sons of our sons will sing of these battles. Time will erase our sins and fade our scars, but our names will live on in songs of honor.

”The Borg are coming, my brothers. Stand and fight beside me now, and let us make warriors born in ages to come curse Fek'lhr that they were not here to share our glory!”

His partisans in the chamber roared the loudest, but even Kopek's allies joined the chanting war cries, their bloodl.u.s.t inflamed with rhetoric. Martok would never admit it aloud, but he suspected that a full-scale conflict with the Borg might be enough to push the Empire past its breaking point. It did not matter; better to die in the struggle than to surrender. As long as he and his people perished with honor and not as jeghpu'wI', he would not consider it a defeat.

Unity in the Council would be critical to the war effort, Martok knew. He saw Kopek step forward, away from the others. Martok took one step down to meet him, maintaining his one-up power position for its symbolic and psychological advantages. Making eye contact with his adversary, he said, ”Choose, Kopek.”

He saw that the choice was galling for Kopek, and that pleased him. Despite years of political maneuvering, Martok had never been able to halt Kopek's dirty tricks. It had taken a Borg invasion to outflank the ruthless yIntagh. Where scheming and coercion had failed, circ.u.mstance had prevailed.

With a clenched jaw and bitter grimace, Kopek extended his open right hand to Martok, who took it. ”Qapla', Chancellor.” A feral gleam shone in his eyes as he released Martok's hand, turned, and declared with a raised fist, ”To war!”

The councillors roared their approval, and Martok flashed a broad, jagged grin. ”It is a good day to die...for the Borg.”

Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris sat alone in his quarters aboard the U.S.S. Voyager and picked lethargically at his dinner. He had ordered a platter of deep-fried clams with a side salad of spinach and sliced tomatoes. The clams were rubbery and tough, but he knew that was because he had let them sit too long and get cold. Can't blame the replicator for that, he brooded.

More troubling to his palate was that the clams seemed to have no flavor. They were just a texture without a taste. He felt the same way about the salad. The leaves were the perfect color and crispness, but they were an empty crunch. The grape tomatoes felt right as his teeth cut through them, but they delivered none of the sweetness that he'd expected.

Can't blame that on the replicator, either.

He didn't figure there was anything wrong with the food itself. The problem was him. Nothing had been right since B'Elanna had left and taken Miral with her.

Food no longer tasted good. Synthehol had no effect. Sleep brought no rest, only dreams of loss and regret.

It had been several months since he'd last seen his wife and daughter. He had wondered if B'Elanna would return for Kathryn Janeway's memorial service. Captain Chakotay had been there, of course, along with Seven, and just about everyone else who had served with Janeway on Voyager-with the exception, of course, of Tuvok, who by that point was already hurtling away into sectors unknown as the new second officer of the U.S.S. t.i.tan under Captain Riker.

<script>