Part 32 (1/2)
Agent Kistler joined the huddle. ”A doctor's coming.”
Press liaison Kant Jorel asked, ”Should we take her pulse?”
Piniero threw a glare at him. ”Are you a doctor now?”
Abrik cut in, ”I wouldn't touch her if I were you. Last time we checked, those Borg implants of hers still work.”
”Oh, for crying out loud,” Bacco grumbled. ”Move.” She reached a hand toward Seven but paused as Akaar called to her.
”Madam President,” the gray-haired admiral said, his voice loud and bright with the promise of good news. ”The all-clear signals have been verified, and Captain Picard has confirmed that the Borg threat is over.”
Piniero asked with naked cynicism, ”For how long?”
”Forever,” Akaar said. ”Captain Picard reports that the Borg...no longer exist.”
Wide-eyed, Abrik stammered, ”H-how?”
”The captain a.s.sures me it is 'a long story,' which he will explain fully in his report.”
”He d.a.m.ned well better,” Bacco said. ”Because that's a story I want to hear.” The sound of the secured door opening prompted her to look over her shoulder. One of the Palais's on-call doctors and a pair of medical technicians hurried inside, and Agent Kistler waved them over toward Seven.
”All right, everyone,” said Agent Wexler. ”Move back, please. Let the medical team through. Thank you.”
Even as the others retreated to make room for the medics, Bacco stayed by Seven's side. The stricken woman was whimpering and sobbing into her s.h.i.+rt-sleeves.
The doctor, a young Efrosian man who sported a haircut and a goatee that were trimmed much shorter than was customary in his culture, kneeled beside Bacco. ”Madam President, we can take it from here,” he said, opening his satchel of surgical tools.
”Just give me a moment,” Bacco said. She reached out and placed her hand lightly on Seven's shoulder. Leaning down, she whispered in as soft and soothing a voice as she could muster, ”Seven, it's Nan. Are you all right? Can you hear me, Seven?”
Bacco waited, her hand resting with a feather touch on Seven's shoulder. Then she felt a stirring, a hint of motion.
Seven's breathing slowed but remained erratic. In gradual motions, she lowered her arms, pushed herself from the floor, and rolled onto her back. As her face and left hand came into view, Bacco gasped.
The Borg implants were gone. A tiny ma.s.s of fine, silvery powder lay on the floor where Seven had rested her head, and a glittering residue clung to her left hand and temple.
”Seven,” Bacco said, stunned. ”Are you all right?”
With her beauty no longer blemished by the biomechanical scars of the Borg, Seven looked up at Nanietta Bacco with the tear-streaked face of an innocent.
”My name is Annika.”
30.
Rubble and dust crunched under Martok's boots and cane as he struggled to the summit of a great mound of shattered stone and steel, which only that morning had been the Great Hall.
He ignored the bolts of pain shooting up his broken leg. It had been crudely set and splinted with long, inflexible strips of metal salvaged from a ruptured bulkhead on the Sword of Kahless. His flags.h.i.+p's sickbay and all of its medical personnel had been killed during the calamitous battle against the Borg hours earlier. Without any of the advanced surgical tools that could repair his fractured femur, he had been forced to settle for a more old-fas.h.i.+oned treatment of his wound.
At the peak of the smoldering mound of debris, he steadied himself and kept his weight on his good leg. Pivoting in a slow circle, he drank in the devastation around him. The First City was a husk of its former self. Only the scorched, denuded skeletons of a few prominent architectural landmarks were still recognizable. Where once the city's main boulevard, the wo'leng, had cut like a scar from the Great Hall to the smooth-flowing waters of the qIJbIQ, its second great river, significant portions of the broad thoroughfare had been erased by chaotic smears of smoking wreckage and crashed transport vessels.
Thick clouds of charcoal gray and deep crimson blanketed the sky. A sharp, acrid bite of toxic smoke was heavy in the air, and the profusion of airborne dust left the inside of Martok's mouth dry and tasting of chalk. It reminded him of historical accounts of Qo'noS in the years immediately following the Praxis disaster, which had pushed the Klingon homeworld to the brink of environmental collapse. This was a catastrophe almost on par with that one. Seven major cities on Qo'noS had been destroyed before the Borg cubes had, inexplicably, withdrawn on reciprocal courses, back toward the Azure Nebula.
Councillors Kopek, Qolka, and Tovoj had died with the home guard fleet and a force of their allies defending Qo'noS. Councillors Grevaq, Krozek, and Korvog had died with Martok's fleet. Most of the other members of the High Council were at that moment missing in action, and Martok had no idea which of them would turn up alive or dead.
For the moment, Martok alone was the High Council, and the temptation to wield unitary power was taxing his will; the call of ambition was powerful, and it was all he could do to remind himself that succ.u.mbing to it was what had fatally undermined his predecessor, Chancellor Gowron.
I will not make that mistake, he vowed. I will not be that man. That will not be my legacy.
He limped across the ruins to stand with General Goluk.
”Do we have casualty reports yet, General?”
”Only preliminary numbers, my lord,” Goluk said, poking at the portable computer in his hand.
Martok scowled to mask a sharp jolt of pain from his leg. ”Tell me,” he rasped.
”Sixteen million dead in the First City. Another seven million in Quin'lat, eleven million in Tolar'tu. Based on rough estimates from Krennla, An'quat, T'chariv, and Novat, we believe their combined death tolls will exceed forty-three million.”
A dour grunt concealed Martok's dismay. ”So, seventy-seven million worldwide?”
”Yes, my lord. Though, as I said, that's just an estimate.”
Nodding, Martok looked away and let his eyes roam across the vista of death and destruction. Despite the solemnity and tragedy of the moment, he permitted himself a sardonic grin.
Goluk asked, ”Is something amusing, Chancellor?”
”This is the second time since I became chancellor that the Great Hall's been leveled,” Martok said. ”I could be wrong, but I think I might be the only chancellor who can make that claim.” He stabbed the rubble with his cane, and bitter laughter welled up from his throat. Shaking his head, he continued, ”Do you know what irritates me most?” He glanced at Goluk and then looked at the shattered stone under their feet. ”I'd finally learned my way around this maze, and now I have to start over again.”
Both men laughed, though Martok knew neither of them had any mirth in his heart. Though the Borg had been routed, to call this a victory would at best be an exaggeration.
The day was theirs, but no songs would be sung.
President Nanietta Bacco closed her eyes and drew a long breath to calm her frazzled nerves and steady her shaking hands. She waited until the pounding of her heart slowed by even the slightest degree, and she nodded to her press liaison, Kant Jorel, and her chief of staff, Esperanza Piniero. ”I'm ready.”
Piniero said to Agents Wexler and Kistler, ”Let's go.”
The two presidential bodyguards stepped forward and were the first ones through the door at the end of the hallway. A deep susurrus of echoing conversations filled the air. Bacco walked with her shoulders back and her chin up, leading her entourage into the main chamber of the Federation Council, which occupied the entire first floor of the Palais de la Concorde.
Her eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting in the chamber and to the glare of the spotlight pointed at the lectern on the podium along the south wall. Every seat in every row on both the east and west sides of the chamber was filled, including those in the supplemental rows. The visitors' gallery was packed to capacity, and a row of security personnel held back a standing-room-only crowd of Palais staff and VIP guests along the north side of the speakers' floor.
Bacco wondered if the intensity of interest demonstrated by the staff, diplomats, councillors, and guests was any indicator of the public's interest in the address she had come to deliver. I guess I'm about to find out, she decided.