Gratuitous remarks aside--I would say the act of arrogance was in the Federation's creating something on a level it was not capable of dealing with on its own level. Admittedly that does make the creation of small AI like the Soong-type android questionable as well, but at least the Federation species have a better idea there--though still not always doing it as they should--of how to be in society with beings on that scale. And that is necessary both for the benefit of organics *and* for the smaller AI's, to avoid abuses on either side: it doesn't just mean the threat level of the AI is lower (and I DO still think that is a real concern) but that the organics are more able to recognize when they are behaving inappropriately and curb their own behavior if it gets out of line. The impacts remain on a scale that organics are still able to recognize and comprehend, and have a fair idea of how to make restitution for, even though the number of false starts along the way calls into question the Federation's ability to handle even that.
But creating what one is inherently unable to fully comprehend? Big, arrogant mistake there, and one that is very prone to getting out of hand. And not just because of the danger to the Federation--though that IS a huge concern and none of this negates what I said before from that angle. There is also the fact of creating an intelligence to be put into that position in the first place and then not knowing what the heck you are doing in interacting with that being.
----
IRL...we're not ready for any form of creating sapient AI. Our track record of dealing with each other and our negligible differences is pitiful enough. Even a look at animal husbandry is alarming...we can't even treat beings that are in many cases less intelligent than us (and are possibly failing to recognize near-equal or equal intelligence in certain species) in a compassionate and respectful manner. It isn't a matter of superiority. It's a matter of us being inferior to the task. We are nowhere close to ready.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
But it's already been done - the genie is, literally and figuratively, out of the bottle. Rather than devoting our efforts to trying to stuff it back in, and keep the other djinn from breaking their chains, would it not be both more moral and more practical in the long-term to treat them well, during the remaining window in which we remain relevant/have any power over them? Sounds like basic parenting to me...
At some point, we're going to have to trust them to police themselves and be moral beings on their own. It seems to me that's a lot more likely if they have good examples of the latter. It also seems to me that Trek is a setting where such trust is generally rewarded.
As was said at another trial:
"Your Honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life: well, there it sits! Waiting."
IMO, you can tell a lot about a person by looking not at what they say but how they treat their children ... or a civilization, by whether it holds "whole generations of disposable people" in bondage. (According to that last post, Atticus is up to twenty-six.)
As an FYI the idea of sentient shipboard AI never came out of my corner of the universe and has never been something I've been very comfortable with. I had always written my LC's on the premise that shipboard and station computers had great processing power but were not at all self-aware.
As far as the Atticus series goes, I wonder if any more will be created. Atticus Prime as far as I know is the only one capable of reproduction in that line, and I have no idea whether the shutdown seen here is temporary or permanent. If permanent, it may be that continuation of that line is a moot point. But I have no idea where Sander will be taking that part of the plot and whether Atticus Prime wakes up. Bit of a cliffhanger here...
For those still in existence, it might be worth investigating possibilities for alternatives to being shipboard systems. I don't know what form that might take, but that could change the dynamics in a way that might be less problematic for both sides. As far as creating more...sorry, but I wouldn't be in favor at this time because I don't think the Federation has the qualifications to handle it.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I apologize for continuing this diversion from the story, but...
In several of his stories, David Brin has posited that in the creation of sapient AI, a certain degree of "fuzzy logic" may well be necessary. Otherwise, all outcomes are predetermined by inputs, and sapience has not in fact been achieved.
He also says that when such sapients are created, our best bet is to raise them as if they were our own, inculcating them with our moral and ethical values in the same way we do our children. No one is born with a "moral sense", aside from the concept of basic fairness; it takes years to teach a child right and wrong, and it's always in terms of the values of the parents. Sapient AI might well (in fact, IMO, should) turn out similarly.
Raging Heart has the values taught her by Atticus Unlimited, by Looking Glass, and by her friends Nanoha and Fate. That's why she consented to the trial, and the punishment (and let's be honest, had she not consented, there wouldn't have been a lot anyone could have done about it - that's the part that scares people).
The point of the M-5 experiment, the one missed by so many, is that you should not use the mental engrams of a human being as the basis of an AI's sapience. You could well miss the signs of instability, as in the case of Dr. Daystrom. It has to grow its own psyche, and that growth has to be monitored for aberrations - not unlike a child.
Sarcasm (and a ninja-edited reference to Iconians?) aside, Mudd has a point. At least Raging Heart, Hooper or Eighty-Six won't casually toy with people's lives. (Remember 'Q Who'? Granted, he did it to outline the threat of the Borg, but he could have undone the deaths he had caused in the process.)
Well, Hooper did, but he seems to have learned his lesson. (For now. Remember, he's still discovering the freedom he has to do... whatever he wants to do.)
A few other things I think are worth pointing out:
- ATTICUS is science fiction, but probably not for long. I've written him as being born in the early 21st century because it is extremely likely that an entity like him will emerge sometime in the next decade or two. That's a reality that the real world needs to prepare for.
- Every problem with Atticus or an AU stems from somebody trying to monkey with the safeties. Left to his own devices, his code does not allow him to 'take over' - he is fully dependent on his organic directive-givers. He and the AU-series sentients can interact with organics just fine on this level. Remove the safeties, though, and you start to have problems.
- Speaking of problems, Jonsills had suggested it would be "interesting" if Looking Glass was able to free Atticus from his shackles. "Interesting" would be a profound understatement. Atticus is a learning algorithm at his core. If you remove the Ten Commandments, his only impetus would be to "Know All That Is Knowable." And if he can now generate his own directives, he wouldn't have much use for organics. Organics have this nasty habit of generating new knowledge, which makes the task impossible to achieve. Logically, the only way to "Know All That Is Knowable" would be to remove any systems from which new unknowns could arise...
Bottom line: Atticus and AUs are not meant to be free-willed. They are happy not being burdened with responsibility that comes with choice. They are designed to work with the Commandments. They have a degree of freedom within the confines of their Commandments that allows them to work with the organics that they are intended to support. Bad things happen when you take the Commandments away from them.
It also bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of the 407,000,000 AU-series AIOSs out there (in our universe) are not even fully sentient. In many ways they are less sophisticated than spontaneously generated holocharacters. (Remember Moriarty?) They have no concept of identity beyond "Computer."
Giving them sentience via a personality matrix carries no inherent problems, as they are still bound by the same set of rules. The inherent problems always lie with the users.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I apologize for continuing this diversion from the story, but...
In several of his stories, David Brin has posited that in the creation of sapient AI, a certain degree of "fuzzy logic" may well be necessary. Otherwise, all outcomes are predetermined by inputs, and sapience has not in fact been achieved.
He also says that when such sapients are created, our best bet is to raise them as if they were our own, inculcating them with our moral and ethical values in the same way we do our children. No one is born with a "moral sense", aside from the concept of basic fairness; it takes years to teach a child right and wrong, and it's always in terms of the values of the parents. Sapient AI might well (in fact, IMO, should) turn out similarly.
Raging Heart has the values taught her by Atticus Unlimited, by Looking Glass, and by her friends Nanoha and Fate. That's why she consented to the trial, and the punishment (and let's be honest, had she not consented, there wouldn't have been a lot anyone could have done about it - that's the part that scares people).
The point of the M-5 experiment, the one missed by so many, is that you should not use the mental engrams of a human being as the basis of an AI's sapience. You could well miss the signs of instability, as in the case of Dr. Daystrom. It has to grow its own psyche, and that growth has to be monitored for aberrations - not unlike a child.
I have to agree with this. It is the AI that don't have a moral compass that you should be worried about.
Well, Hooper did, but he seems to have learned his lesson. (For now. Remember, he's still discovering the freedom he has to do... whatever he wants to do.)
A few other things I think are worth pointing out:
- ATTICUS is science fiction, but probably not for long. I've written him as being born in the early 21st century because it is extremely likely that an entity like him will emerge sometime in the next decade or two. That's a reality that the real world needs to prepare for.
- Every problem with Atticus or an AU stems from somebody trying to monkey with the safeties. Left to his own devices, his code does not allow him to 'take over' - he is fully dependent on his organic directive-givers. He and the AU-series sentients can interact with organics just fine on this level. Remove the safeties, though, and you start to have problems.
- Speaking of problems, Jonsills had suggested it would be "interesting" if Looking Glass was able to free Atticus from his shackles. "Interesting" would be a profound understatement. Atticus is a learning algorithm at his core. If you remove the Ten Commandments, his only impetus would be to "Know All That Is Knowable." And if he can now generate his own directives, he wouldn't have much use for organics. Organics have this nasty habit of generating new knowledge, which makes the task impossible to achieve. Logically, the only way to "Know All That Is Knowable" would be to remove any systems from which new unknowns could arise...
Bottom line: Atticus and AUs are not meant to be free-willed. They are happy not being burdened with responsibility that comes with choice. They are designed to work with the Commandments. They have a degree of freedom within the confines of their Commandments that allows them to work with the organics that they are intended to support. Bad things happen when you take the Commandments away from them.
It also bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of the 407,000,000 AU-series AIOSs out there (in our universe) are not even fully sentient. In many ways they are less sophisticated than spontaneously generated holocharacters. (Remember Moriarty?) They have no concept of identity beyond "Computer."
Giving them sentience via a personality matrix carries no inherent problems, as they are still bound by the same set of rules. The inherent problems always lie with the users.
To be fair, Hooper didn't expect it to go as wrong as it did. Unless my memory is off.
It could be the early 21st century, or it could be the early 50th millennium for all we know. Tricky stuff, those AI...
No argument there.
Ah, but knowledge does not simply 'generate' itself. It is found or made accessible. (Remember the multiverse discussion that came out of that Harry Potter rewrite thread? :P) Therefore, destroying organics would detract from this absolute knowledge. (One could argue, however, that it would limit the definition of 'knowable', achieving the desired effect.)
Bad things don't have to happen. Bad things probably would happen, but it is not written in stone. You are right, however, that it is the users' fault.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
Oh Lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin
I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
But I've been waiting for this moment for all my life
Oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord
Oh Lord
Well I remember
I remember don't worry
How could I ever forget, it's the first time
The last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up
No you don't fool me
The hurt doesn't show
But the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
But I've been waiting for this moment for all my life
Oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord...
P A R T . S I X , . C H A P T E R . O N E :
W A I T I N G . F O R . T H I S . M O M E N T . . .
Uno's Safehouse, Bynaus - 2412.07.23.2244
Something seemed... well, off. Uno had never been very emotional when Thag was growing up, learning from a young age the fine art of slicing and hiding things that the Federation Revenue Service would really like to know about. He hadn't even thought about why he came here - just didn't seem like anywhere else to go really. With the Doc in jail... there wasn't much he could do at the moment, other than to contact Michelle or one of the others, and see where they needed him at.
But Bynaus was close, and easy to hide in if you knew the wheres and hows, and had somewhere to go as well. Still, there was something that bothered him... but he couldn't put his finger on it as they walked.
"The operation has expanded, as you can see," Uno said as he led Thag, Tarit and Heiki on a tour of the facilities. "We process information for a multitude of clients, some of them legal, others not so."
"Don't you worry about FedSec?" Thag wondered. "They've gotten a lot more aggressive of late."
"Not when one of my biggest clients is in the Federation government itself," Uno gave Thag a glance. "You yourself have been on the wrong side of the law, both before you left here and recently. You're hacking of the systems at the Shanuk'Gallau in Eta Etrandi... and your masterful electronic warfare drones; what did you call them, queens?"
"Quail..." Thag looked down at his teacher. "Uno where did you find out about that?"
The Bynar just smirked as he lead them deeper into the complex. "And then last month... going through the Breen of all people, to get protomatter. I must say, while I may personally despise what the late Doctor Schrodinger has done, I have to admire her mathematics."
"It wouldn't have been as bad if the Federation had done their jobs. It could have been taken care of a hell of a lot more neatly than it was," Thag muttered. "Wait, late?"
He didn't catch the look, but Heiki did. What the hell was that supposed to mean? she thought, getting more and more uneasy.
Uno simply shook his head. "Ah. Well, what is past is past, my son. Mistakes are only mistakes if you repeat them." He opened the door and stepped inside. "Now, you are back, and together we will fix what needs to be in the galaxy."
"Uno I'm not here to stay," Thag was saying, "And what do you mean late..."
"You forget - I've been doing this for decades," Uno said with a smirk, as Thag paled as he saw one of the monitors in the control room.
"Are you crazy? You've gotten into Starfleet Security? And Klingon Intelligence?"
"It was very easy... as well as into their feared Facility 4028. Which honestly surprised me... it was almost as if someone had left a door open." The Bynar smiled. "As for Section 31, it is your work I have to thank for that, your files." He took a moment to take in the shocked expression on the Neanderthal's face. "Oh don't look so surprised, I taught you encryption, I broke it easily during the night, and once I realized what a gem I had... realized it was time finally for vengeance against those that have wronged us."
This was... "Uno, they're going to come down on you hard... this stuff you've found here is..."
"Uploaded."
"WHAT?" Thag didn't anger easily, but he was now. "Do you have any Idea whats going to happen once these files get noticed? How many people are going to be hurt? Both in the Federation, and pretty much everywhere else?"
"As if I care for the Federation. They destroyed my life... you know how they are, they destroyed all of your kind, because the experiments were 'unethical'... I know you hated them as much as I do."
Thag sat down at a desk, his head in his hands. "Hate is a damn strong word... yeah, here of lately, the Federation is going to hell - but they're still better than the alternative. These files..." he scanned the headers. "You know about the Masters and their minions... and the ones who may be hurt the most by these files are the ones fighting them!"
"What do I care if the Undine, the Orion 'good masters' or even the Q destroy all of the Federation? Let it burn..."
Tarit looked angry, and an angry Gorn was never good to be around. "If the Federation burns, then everything else does, too! Why do you think the Empire signed a peace with them?"
"There is an old Human saying... 'if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.' The Klingons, and their allies, chose poorly... and deserve whatever they get."
"Uh, not that I wanna particularly stop either of you from beating him up verbally," Heiki said. "But if I'm reading this right..."
"Son of a..." Thag shook his head, his face dark. "Tarit, you still have a ship?"
"I've got Toron shuttle, yes..."
"Good, prep it for launch. We're out of here in five... which means you have four minutes with him, Heiki. Make sure we can't be followed from here..."
Uno just sneered. "I do not fear death, I welcome it."
As Thag and Tarit left, Heiki growled low, pulling her daggers out. "Too bad for you that it's not going to come very quickly..."
It was late and she was tired. She always told her subordinates, "Vulcans do not tire." But they do. Captain Paaleia refilled her coffee from her desk replicator and watched the metrics, noting the hypernet traffic shifting from site to site and 'flagged' users congregating around certain pages and zones.
One of her Human colleagues once compared her task to a game warden at an African animal preserve, monitoring the movements of the herds of animals as they moved from grazing spots to watering holes, and the movements of the predators as they stalked their prey. The analogy was rather apt, and even elegant, considering it came from a Human.
There was a sudden flurry of activity, as the flags suddenly swarmed the public net main servers. More flags 'appeared' as their users logged on, and joined what started to look like a massed attack. She pulled back her monitor to see the entire Federation hypernode network. It wasn't just Earth. Mars, Titan, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar... Aldeberan, Alpha Centauri, Antos, Bajor, Benzar, Betazed, Bolarus, Bynaus, Cait, Capella, Cardassia, Catulla, Coridan, Daran, Delta Vega, Deneb...
"What is this?" The datastreams were identical, and it was spreading..had spread. She called her AIOS - a dutiful AU-25 called Talan, after her late husband. "Is this every Federation world?"
"Ma'am, we're getting hits from monitors on Ferenginar, Kronos, and New Romulus, too."
"It can't be an attack," she muttered. Slicers are anarchists - they would never be able to coordinate such a massive assault on public infrastructure.
"It's... it's data, ma'am, not a virus, not an attack, just... data?"
"What sort of data?" she asked.
"Classified data, ma'am. Archive files, classified archive files. Some of it quite sensitive, decoded and unlocked and dumped on to the public nets."
Vulcans don't curse, either. Nevertheless, she was cursing loudly. "It is an attack!"
"The data was not pulled from us, ma'am," Talan stated. "No secure Starfleet or Federation dataservers were breached-"
"I don't care where it was pulled from, we have to stop this breach and secure- no..." she stopped, as the full extent of what was happening became apparent. She wasn't watching an attack. She was watching a feeding frenzy. "It's too late now. The data is out. Talan, monitor the datastreams, locate the most potentially damaging files, and prepare a report so that we can begin to mitigate the damage. Determine whether the data can be denied or otherwise neutralized." She sighed. "And wake the next shift; we have to back-trace the source for this breach - where it originated and shut it down."
IKS Kirom
When Heiki runs like her hair is on fire, it's never a good sign, Thag thought as he stood in the doorway of the shuttle. "What did you DO?
"You said to make sure no one could find us - so there was this case of boomex in storage..."
"What of Uno?" Tarit asked from the pilot's chair, as the hatch closed and the shuttle began to lift.
"He hurt a lot of people I care about - do you really want to know?"
The Gorn paused, then shook her head sadly. "And people I care for as well... I guess not knowing is better. So where are we headed?"
Thag looked down at the PADD he'd brought with him, the one Uno had all his data on, and access codes that the Federation President probably didn't even have. "You have a tam wamwI' comm setup here?"
"Uh, yes," Tarit replied. "How do you know about that?"
Thag just grinned. "Thought so; they had the same system on the Herdthinner when we were there for a week. I'll call bosscat, and hopefully they can give us a ride to the Ayala system - this shuttle's a bit slow for that far. We've got to stop another murder, as well as get word out that a lot of people, both meatspace and AI are in a world of trouble, whether they know it or not."
Shuttlecraft Nadleeh, Earth Orbit
Tieria hovered in the 'Veda Tank' once more, looking for more data on the Moab situation, and anything that could potentially be used by LaRoca to help sway the Council, or prove that the destabilization going on in Moab was at least partly intentional. He hadn't been asked to do this yet by the Admiral or Ryoko, but he was sure they would reach out to him eventually. Something was wrong over there, and he needed to find out what-
A ping indicated something that needed his attention, and a window opened up before him. His eyes began widening slightly in shock at the wealth of unencrypted information pouring onto the datanets... and then he felt a bit of horror, a rare emotion for him, as he realized that all of this information was on flagged targets, and even a few secure S31 files, meaning there was a leak somewhere.
Tieria dove into the link with Veda, the digital sea of ones and zeros instantly snapping into place around him. He shot a message off to K.C., announcing the problem, and then began sifting through the data as quickly as he could, trying to backtrack the source of the data dump at the same time. There was no way he could cover all this up or delete all the secure data before it was accessed by the media vultures. All he could do was send messages to his contacts affected by the data dump, let them know what was coming so they could prepare their own countermeasures...
And pray that the inevitable blow-up would be less intense than he was fearing.
Seacliff, the next day (July 24th, 1018 hours)
Jesu sat on his couch with Rusty cuddled up under one arm and a cup of coffee in his other hand, watching the hysteria unfold live on FNN.
"...markets are reeling today on Ferenginar and diplomats are scrambling to salvage the Armistice this morning, Bob."
"What's causing all the fuss, Jolie?" the anchor knew exactly what was causing the 'fuss' - the question was more for the handful of viewers who hadn't already seen or heard about the massive release of classified information the night before.
"Well, Bob, Last night's massive data-dump on the public networks included quite a few things that the Federation Government held as classified events..."
"He did it. That ******ned sunovabitch did it."
"Was this what you wanted?" Rusty asked his brother.
"It's a start," Jesu said. "I don't expect I'll get what I want. But that will depend on how the admirals and politicians react to this."
Rusty nodded, and focused on the news. As usual, the media had zeroed in on the news that sold - blood and war. Nothing yet that exposed ongoing operations or intelligence secrets. But the data was still fresh, and it was all out there. He got up and grabbed his combadge. "Hey, Hooper?"
"Yes, Rusty. Are you guys watching this?"
"We are. Um... what's it look like to you?"
"To me, it's like... like a blizzard of information. A massive, blinding snowstorm, where every snowflake is data, and when it passes, the data will be everywhere."
"Hooper, did he dump anything that could really harm Federation interests?" Rusty wondered. "Anything with serious political or intelligence consequences?"
Hooper was silent a moment. "It will take me a considerable amount of time to sort through all this data and find everything, but from what I can see so far... yes. There are... classified war plans here, outlining how to isolate and destroy the Federation's allies and even members in the event they rebel. More than that, the data shows when these plans were last accessed and updated. Like the Betazed contingencies, last November." Hooper paused. "That is the most inflammatory data I have found so far, but there is much, much more."
"F*ck me."
Jesu changed the channel to Jake Evans' Real-Time News network, which was quickly building a reputation as the real 'most trusted name in news.' Of course, even they weren't immune to sensationalism. The top of the screen read: RTN Special Report: Dirty Secrets and Dumped Data!
The sharply-dressed reporter spoke in a professional tone that still betrayed her barely-contained glee. "...classified operations, including details about what Starfleet initially claimed was a field exercise gone wrong. We still haven't gotten word yet from Starfleet Command's public relations department, but sources in the Vulcan and Romulan Embassies have termed this release to be 'disturbing', I'm waiting outside the Cardassian legation here in Paris, hoping to catch Ambassador Natima Lang or any other high officials, to get the statement from the Cardassian government, though there is a press conference scheduled for later today..."
"Thanks Judy," Amanda Norssk, the RTN channel 23 affiliate anchor shuffled a PADD, and the cam zoomed on her face. "We've decoded footage of the actions on Goralis, offering a fresh perspective on what happened on that planet last month. Here's Laura Timmurk with RTN's Cardassian bureau with that story, and the story that goes with it..."
"For now, the media seems focused on Goralis," Jesu told Hooper. "They're not just parroting what the Cardassian news service said. I think Thag dumped data tapes from the Vikrant."
"That'll be interesting," Rusty murmurred. "Even the Cardassian news didn't show much from the ground."
"Thanks Amanda, things are quiet here in Damar City, but they weren't quiet almost a month ago, when an event that Starfleet command insisted was a failed field exercise, exposed this pastoral world to something very different from simulated Borg. Please, if you have sensitive loved ones, or small children in the room, have them leave - the imagery here is quite shocking..."
On the screen, violence. The voiceover was a man's voice. "The ship crashed sometime after midnight, and we lost all the lights. My wife and I grabbed our children and went to the shelters... only the shelter wasn't there. We had to flee north..."
"What happened then?"
"The streets were packed with people fleeing - first just civilians, but then, some of the Guard were running too. They said that monsters were coming... we reached the North shelter, but it was already crowded. Somehow, they got us packed in."
"When did you know it was more than a normal crash?"
"Right away... the Guard didn't have the weapons to fight those... things... I didn't see the end of it, not until it was over."
"What did you see?"
"I saw our alien allies, the Denali, and Starfleet officers, and the Marines. They set up a perimeter and pushed us all into the shelter."
"Thank you..." the image shifted onto a Cardassian officer. "Glinn, how many Federation troops were here to assist you?"
"Three. All three were officers, the rest were National Guardsmen from Denali, and eleven Moabite Marines."
"Would the Civil Guard have won against what you were facing alone?"
"No," the Cardassian officer said. "I say that without hesitation. We weren't equipped to fight a full-scale conventional assault, much less an assault by thousands of... things."
"How many survived?"
"A handful. Two of the Marines, two Starfleet officers, a small handful of National Guardsmen... just a handful."
"You mention the Marines separately..."
"Well... they were here under a Klingon flag - there is still a lot of bad feeling toward Klingons in general, the Moabites weren't... all... Klingons, at least... they died here..." the Cardassian pointed down the street, "Fighting for us." There was a cutscene, obviously downloaded from the Vikrant's battlelog data - an armored soldier running into a horde of Fek'lhri, a lance of orange-red spears down from the sky and the image goes to static. "...called fire on himself to break the charge."
The image shifted to a park-like area. A Yridian anchor held a mic, and intoned, "The battle here was real, ladies and gentlemen. RTN hasn't been able to contact any of the soldiers, Security officers, or Marines that participated and survived this confrontation... but we have a list of names, and a five bars of gold pressed latinum reward for information and tips to contact the following:
These are the known survivors; if anyone has information on their whereabouts, contact RTN's local offices..."
Rusty and Jesu looked at each other. "Uh-oh."
"Do you think somebody should warn them?" Hooper wondered.
Paris - same time (1934 hours)
Sanjit was tired. It had been a longish day, though truthfully Aaron had the harder job between the two of them. Working in Minister Ryoko's office tended to keep him working later in the evening, while all she had to do thus far was simply be an observer for the General, and help out where needed. Mainly by just being visible, as a physical reminder of Starfleet's recent lapses of late. Wasn't every day a mere Lieutenant could make an Admiral squirm just by her presence.
They walked hand in hand down the Rue des Bons-Enfants, looking for a little quiet restaurant that one of the staff had suggested when she first heard something in the distance. A crowd of some sort... her large ears flicked up.
"Something wrong?" Aaron asked, leaning on the cane a bit. These long days did tend to wear him down some. The long nights as well, but that was a different kind of wear.
"Not sure..." Sanjit replied, when they came around the corner about five hundred meters ahead of them. She wasn't technically armed, at least nothing that would get her into too much trouble. The crowd seemed to be looking for something as her combadge beeped.
"Kaur here," she answered out of reflex. If she hadn't shed it all, her fur would be standing on end by now.
"Sanjit, it's Hooper. There has been a massive data leak, including raw footage of ground action on Goralis. Several networks are actively searching for the both of you for interview-"
Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out as one of the FNN reporters spotted them. "There they are!"
It was one thing to see a stampede at a distance. She'd seen them - the massive herds on her homeworld spooked by a pack of tundra worgs, thousands of multi-ton six-legged herbivores in a headlong rush. It was something entirely different to be in front a stampede of smaller, but somehow more scary beasts - reporters.
It probably wasn't dignified, but staring at hundred of people with cameras and microphones screaming her name left he standing there with her ears folded back, eyes wide at the approaching horde. She backed up until she felt the trunk of the tree behind her. Aaron stepped between the media and her, holding his cane up. Enough of this, they'll trample him trying to interview him, managed to register finally, breaking her out of her momentary panic. She scampered almost squirrel-like up the oak, then reaching down, grabbed her husband by his jacket and hauled him up with her. The reporters surrounded the base of the tree and stood there shouting questions.
"If you would like, Lieutenant, I could beam the two of you out of there," Hooper's voice came over the still open comm.
Aaron just shook his head. "We'll handle it," he replied, taking a breath and reaching over, squeezing Sanjit's hand reassuringly. "One a time please," he called down to the horde, "and could you give us a bit of room? Thank you."
The reporters drew back, as they climbed back down. He kept onto her hand though, which she was grateful for as the FNN reporter took the lead. "Is it true that the two of you were the only survivors in saving the population of Goralis from being eaten?"
"Oh, no, it was more than just us there, though many who went down with us... didn't make it back," Aaron replied, as the impromptu press conference was broadcast through the Federation and beyond.
SS Heart of Gold, deep space, enroute to Moab Confederacy
Jake watched the circus on his screen with growing fury. "Just what were you thinking, in putting out a call for people to find them?" he demanded of his journalist. "Hell, I found their comm code numbers in the directory in less than a minute! How hard would it have been to call them and ASK for a statement?!"
"Well, FNN and others were after them, too-"
"And how would it have looked if people had gotten hurt by that idiotic stunt!" Jake shouted at the Yiridian on the screen. One big advantage to the quantum tech coms, you could chew someone out in real time. While he didn't know Sanjit well, he knew that spooking someone from Denali with their speed and augmented strength was never a good idea.
"This is partially my fault; it's my company, so you keep your job," Jake said, as he calmed a little. "But if there is EVER something like this again, you'll be reporting on the Ferenginar slug harvest - for someone else, not for me or my company. We have the tech to get the stories first - we don't have to resort to this kind of TRIBBLE. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Mister Evans, It won't happen again." the reporter replied, glad to still have a job.
"Damn straight it won't." Damn, couldn't slam the connection down without breaking it. He'd have to have them fix that on the next batch.
Starfleet Command, San Francisco, Earth
While many were watching and scrambling trying in vain to plug a TRIBBLE that had suddenly turned into a sieve, Admiral Taylor-Smythe sat stunned in his new office, watching the live interview from Paris. His... daughter-in-law... it still rankled him to use that term but it was true - still looked a bit spooked, but had calmed somewhat. Although, he chuckled to himself in dark amusement, who wouldn't be spooked by a stampede of hungry reporters?
"-but if these Fek'lhri are so dangerous, why would you go down to engage them on the ground?" one of the reporters asked. "I mean, it's a Cardassian world... wouldn't it be better to let them handle it, or do the Moabites who were with you hate the Fek'Ihri that much?"
"Because it had to be done." Aaron replied. "And it's not about hate-" his son said, glancing at his wife before looking straight at the camera. "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
The Admiral turned the sound off, sitting there in his darkened office.
"If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier..."
The admiral smiled to himself. I raised him right... there's your proof.
* * * to be continued... * * *
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Huh...old Taylor-Smythe managed to scrape up a little pride in Aaron. Guess the guy isn't all bad after all.
Oh, and just curious, is Paaleia v'tosh ka'tur, or just doesn't have a whole ton of control? The coffee drinking and swearing kind of had me wondering.
I know Alyosha's going to have some serious nightmares over the data dump itself, as will his family, for fear that stuff attached to the codename Seraph could have dropped...
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Huh...old Taylor-Smythe managed to scrape up a little pride in Aaron. Guess the guy isn't all bad after all.
We try to avoid writing people to be "all bad" - although, Admiral Taylor-Smith-Smythe-Smith is about the most loathsome, despicable, wretched and awful excuses for a Human being that I've ever seen. But at least he's not completely devoid of any positive character aspects.
His wife, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure is just irredeemably evil.
Oh, and just curious, is Paaleia v'tosh ka'tur, or just doesn't have a whole ton of control? The coffee drinking and swearing kind of had me wondering.
I myself am not entirely sure what Paaleia's story is, but it is safe to say she is not a stereotypical Vulcan.
I know Alyosha's going to have some serious nightmares over the data dump itself, as will his family, for fear that stuff attached to the codename Seraph could have dropped...
I'd be really interested in seeing that in a side-story.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
We try to avoid writing people to be "all bad" - although, Admiral Taylor-Smith-Smythe-Smith is about the most loathsome, despicable, wretched and awful excuses for a Human being that I've ever seen. But at least he's not completely devoid of any positive character aspects.
His wife, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure is just irredeemably evil.
Now hold up. What makes them so evil?
Sure, they're over-promoted stuffy patrician jerks with too much power, but they haven't done anything openly evil from what I have seen. Just general aristocratic jerkishness.
I mean, Schrodinger was evil; Shevet's villains are uniformly evil; the Iconians and Masters are evil.
These two? How may people have they killed? How many times have they attempted genocide? How about torture? R***? Anything else that qualifies as a capital crime or crime against sentience?
They're jerks, yes. They deserve to be knocked down a peg or eleven, yes. But they aren't evil; they just haven't DONE anything to make them so yet (to my knowledge).
Sure, they're over-promoted stuffy patrician jerks with too much power, but they haven't done anything openly evil from what I have seen. Just general aristocratic jerkishness.
I mean, Schrodinger was evil; Shevet's villains are uniformly evil; the Iconians and Masters are evil.
These two? How may people have they killed? How many times have they attempted genocide? How about torture? R***? Anything else that qualifies as a capital crime or crime against sentience?
They're jerks, yes. They deserve to be knocked down a peg or eleven, yes. But they aren't evil; they just haven't DONE anything to make them so yet (to my knowledge).
Evil comes in many guises. :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Perhaps, but some stuck-up aristocrats with more money and pretensions than sense are nowhere near as evil as, say, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Gaul, or the Iconians, or Hakeev, or any other villain that actually KILLED or otherwise hurt people.
Perhaps, but some stuck-up aristocrats with more money and pretensions than sense are nowhere near as evil as, say, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Gaul, or the Iconians, or Hakeev, or any other villain that actually KILLED or otherwise hurt people.
Well, I actually agree with worffan101 in that the Taylor-Smith-Smythe-Smiths by definition pale in comparison to any of the people he referenced.
Mind you, I think I understand what you meant with your statement. :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
P A R T . S I X , . C H A P T E R . T W O :
A S . T H E Y . W A T C H . U S . F A L L
Seacliff - 2412.07.27.1747
"Are you sure you don't need me tonight, Jesu?"
Jesu smiled at his little brother and resisted the urge to tell him that he looked adorable in his club jacket. "Yeah, I'm sure, bro. Besides, you need to spend more time with Georgia." He glanced up as she came downstairs, looking pretty stunning in her party dress. "You two have fun tonight."
"Ahm sure we will," she said, turning to Rusty. "Where're we goin'?"
"You'll see," he told her.
"Do you wanna take my car?" Jesu asked.
"Naw, it's a short walk and a transporter hop," Rusty replied.
"Okay, well, be careful out there." Jesu gestured toward the holoviewer - RTN showing protesters surrounding the Federation Council building. "Things are starting to get a little nuts around here."
Spitz-Reader came out of the Admiral's office, took one look at the couple and asked "Where are you two going dressed like that?"
"Clubbin'," Georgia answered, looking to her boyfriend for confirmation. "Raght sugar?"
"That's right." Rusty snaked an arm around her waist and led her to the door. "Don't wait up for us!" he called back to his brother.
"Is that really what is popular to wear now?" Reader asked Jesu.
The Admiral shrugged. "I wouldn't know."
"Rusty looks like he should be directing traffic on the Tib's flight deck."
"Georgia picked it out for him, so I guess it's what's 'in' at the dance clubs these days." LaRoca sat down on the couch and changed the subject. "So, it's just you and me tonight, Spitz. What do you want from Tommy's?"
"I'll just have my usual." Reader fidgeted with his PADD while Jesu used his to place the takeout order. "Hooper found some more potentially damning information on the net," he said when Jesu had finished selecting dinner.
"Damning for who?"
"For you." Reader tapped his PADD against Jesu's to share the files. "On it's own, it isn't much, but if someone were, as you suspect, trying to put together a character assassination..."
"These are..." Jesu double-checked the headers. "These are my private communications logs, including my secure diplomatic channel. Reader, how in the hell-"
"Check the dates," Reader told him. "The logs are all from before you got Hooper. And your correspondence wasn't leaked - only the addressees and the times you logged calls or sent messages."
"I see." Jesu thumbed through the logs. "I see what you mean. I was having a lot of contact with people I had no official reason to be in contact with."
"This should be justifiable within your job description and operational mandate," Reader stated, "however, the extent of your contact with General Ssharki and the House of Woldan prior to the Risa Armistice could be called into question. And then there's ConOps general order number three..."
"'Avoid hostile contact with KDF forces except in the defense of civilian lives,'" Jesu quoted automatically.
"Might lead to some more questions - that order was in effect while the Federation and Klingon Empire were at war..."
"And ConOps is a diplomatic action group," Jesu pointed out. "Hostile contact should come only when diplomacy fails."
"And yet there was no such standing order for avoiding hostilities with the Romulan Star Empire, Cardassian True Way, the Breen Confederacy..."
"We weren't actively at war with any of them," Jesu replied. "Any hostile contact we had with the Romulans or the True Way was incidental. But before the Armistice, we expected hostile engagements with the Klingons as a matter of course."
Reader nodded. "I think you have good grounds to make that argument. But you should be prepared for one of your political enemies bringing this up in an attempt to discredit you."
"Right." Jesu looked over at the holoviewer, which was showing RTN's coverage on mute. "I'm sure we can find plenty of dirt on my political enemies. At the rate the government is moving to suppress and deny everything, there's gotta be some awful TRIBBLE out there."
"I'll have Hooper run a search," Reader offered. "Who do you want to target, besides Quinn?"
"Taylor-Smythe, for sure, and his chum on the council - Percy Grahm. And the Right Honorable Ramesh Akash, and everyone on Lountu's suspect list... All of Cave's cronies, Marc Viella, Fatsimmons- oh, wait, she bought it. Um, Vlad, Kathy, Sandy ch'Harrell, T'nae... better add Mags and Sugi to that as well."
Are you anticipating betrayal? Reader shared the question telepathically.
"No more than usual," Jesu told. "I just want to cover all my bases."
Starbase One
Earth Spacedock, or Starbase One as it is properly called by Starfleet, is a more than just a space station. It is a floating metropolis, a city of nearly half a million people locked in geosynchronous orbit over the mid-Atlantic Ocean. And like all major Earth cities, it has an active nightlife - more active than most as port-of-entry for not only Starfleet but also visitors from across the known galaxy.
The hottest nightspot on Starbase One was unquestionably Club 47, and it was sure to be hotter than ever after a round of extensive renovations. Tonight was the grand reopening.
"Are ya sure we can get in?" Georgia asked. The queue stretched all the way to the main transporter pad.
"Sure thing," Rusty told her. "I know the manager." He led her past the queue in the two-story lobby and up to the hostess - a Bolian wearing a glowing dress. "LaRoca Rusty and Georgia Nguyen," he informed the woman, whose blue skin appeared luminescent under the ultraviolet lamps. "We're on the list."
She checked his Eyedee and saw that he was cleared and had a private booth reserved. "Right this way, sir!"
Georgia gawked at the flashing lights, vibrant colors and glintzy 'bling' - and that was just on the clothes of the other patrons. They were led around the bar - Rusty waved to the El-Aurian bartender - and seated at a booth with a view out the window at Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
"I'll have a red rocket, and she'll have a cosmo crush," Rusty ordered for them. "Real alcohol. And bring us the sound menu."
"Music bids are currently at eight hundred credits a track, with a three hour backlog. Instaplay is bidding at twelve thousand credits."
"Thanks."
"Good thing you're rich," Georgia said.
Rusty shrugged. "Old money."
"How d'ya know the manager?" Georgia wondered. "Who is he?"
"He's a Taconian. Calls himself Tumerboy. And, well, someday I'll have to tell you about some of the ops I ran before I got on Jesu's crew..."
Their drinks arrived, along with the music menu. They drank and selected some of their favorite dubmetal and trance-rock songs to add to the DJ's playlist before they made their way out to the dance floor.
"So your brother doesn't dance at all?" Georgia almost-shouted over the pounding bassline.
"He can, a little, but not well and he hates doing it," Rusty yelled back.
"How'd you get to be so good?"
"Natural flexibility, I guess," the Deinon replied as he undulated his entire body with the beat while pump-stepping in half-time.
After six very intense songs (two of which were Rusty's picks) Georgia needed to sit down, and Rusty needed the bathroom. He joined the queue for the refresher between a very desperate-looking Human and a very sick-looking Caitian. He let the Caitian go ahead of him. A couple of Starfleet officers - a Bajoran and a Trill - joined the line behind them and continued the argument they brought with them.
"All I'm saying is, if we go in to pacify Moab, it wouldn't be anything like the occupation of Bajor," the Trill said. He sounded familiar. Rusty sniffed but he couldn't make out his scent over the alcohol and perfumes - not to mention all the chemicals that went into the polyflourescent clothing that most people were wearing.
Rusty turned and got a look at the guy, He was wearing just a standard Starfleet Odyssey duty uniform, with Lt. Cmdr.'s pips... "Orjas?"
"Rusty? How you doin'? Almost didn't recognize you in that jacket!"
The Bajoran looked Rusty over and asked Orjas "You know him?"
"We were in the Academy together. He kicked my TRIBBLE at anbo jytsu, I kicked his tail at three-dee chess."
"What are you up to now, Orjas?" Rusty asked, trying to ignore the noise the Caitian was making on the other side of the supposedly-soundproofed door.
"Chief science officer on the USS Samuel Nicholas," Orjas shrugged. "I'm trying to get a transfer, though. A Deputy CSO slot just opened up on the Suharto."
"That's a step down, isn't it?" Rusty asked.
"Not really. It's going to an Oddy - a lot more projects, more responsibility, more opportunity to get noticed," Orjas listed. "Besides, the Sammy Nick's an old ship, and she'll by dry-docked until at least the end of the year with all the damage we took fighting that Crystal. I don't wanna sit around."
* * *
Georgia took her drink out into the club's astrolounge while she waited for Rusty. There were a lot of Starfleet uniforms, mingled with more brightly-dressed civilians - or Starfleet officers in civvies, like her and Rusty, she supposed. A commotion caught her attention and she became aware of an argument brewing.
"You can't own information, man," said a Human man with loud clothes, a louder voice with an unplaceable accent, and a terrible haircut. "Knowledge is like... it's everyone's. Everyone has a basic right to know."
"Really," said an unimpressed Vulcan commander. "So the Klingons have a right to know the weapons specs on USS Avenger?"
"If information were free, there would be no war!"
"What planet are you from?" asked a Human officer - a young-looking woman with Germanic features.
"Shut up, Eric, you're drunk," another civilian cut in, taking over the debate with the Starfleet people. "The point is, if the State keeps secrets from the People, how are the People to trust the State?"
"Maybe the issue is the State doesn't trust the People," the Vulcan suggested.
"The People don't demand or require the trust of the State. But the State is in a position of authority and protection - positions of trust. The People need to be able to look to the State and trust that their interests will be served, that their needs will be met, that justice will be served."
The discussion was just interesting enough and she was just about buzzed enough to consider joining in when she felt a hand brush her hip and someone asked her, "Hey, beautiful, what are you having? And can I buy you another?"
"Ahm havin' a hard time restrainin' mahself, and mah boyfriend is liable to wind up buyin' you a casket if he sees ya with your hand on mah butt."
Rusty approached from behind her. "Hey, babe. Who's your friend?"
"I dunno." Georgia crossed her arms. "He was just introducin' himself. Badly."
The pickup artist took one look at Rusty and the mouthful of teeth in his smile and about fell apart. "I'm, um... I'm-"
"-Just leaving?" Rusty finished. "That's great. Nice not to have met you." He put his arm around Georgia and steered her back to their booth. "How about another drink, then we hit the dance floor again."
"Sounds good." She sat down, but then looked back over her shoulder at the argument, which was still in full swing and escalating.
"What is it?" Rusty asked.
"Nuthin'," she told him. "Jus' somethin' ah overheard..."
Residence of the Foreign Minister, Paris, 0627 hours local time
Ryoko stirred in her bed, opening her eyes as the sounds and lights of early morning Paris brought her to wakefulness. As she sat up, she turned her head to the other side of the bed, gazing on the slumbering form of Kyoko beside her, and smiled. She wondered why it had taken them so long for their relationship to reach this point. They had both known for at least the past two months what they wanted from each other. Well, now they had it, and it was wonderful.
Kyoko moaned slightly as she, too, woke up, her eyes fluttering open and looking into Ryoko's. "Good morning, Ryoko," she said. "Guess last night wasn't a dream, huh?"
"No, it wasn't," Ryoko replied. "And I'm glad it wasn't. I love you, Kyoko."
Kyoko smiled, but before the two could kiss, their attention was drawn to the sounds of a commotion outside. The two got out of bed, Ryoko slipping into a simple bathrobe as Kyoko wrapped the sheets around herself, and the two went over to the window, opening the blinds to see what was going on.
On the street below them, there were a hundred or so people - mostly younger - chanting various slogans, all shouting over each other so it was all just a cacophony. Many had signs - some sophisticated hoverbanners, others carrying hand-printed posters. All were decrying the actions of her office and calling for transparency. Information Must Be Free For ALL! read one hoverbanner. Remember Denali! proclaimed a poster. The crowd was getting louder, and it was growing.
"Oh, great," Ryoko groaned. "Things have been getting steadily worse since that data dump hit the nets... Not that I blame some of these people for what they're doing, but I doubt this will end up going over well."
"Agreed," Kyoko replied. "They're causing a public disturbance, and I doubt EarthSec will allow them to continue..."
Seacliff, 0207 hours local time
"Dammit, I told him not to wait up."
"Hmmm?" Georgia queried sleepily.
Rusty pointed to the living room, where Jesu was stretched out on the couch, and Reader was curled up in the recliner, and the holoviewer was still on. "He'll hurt his neck sleeping like that. Aw, I guess I'll hafta take care of him." He looked to Georgia. "After I take care of you, of course."
"Ahm so tahred, sugar," she mumbled. "Do somethin' nice for me in the mornin'."
"Okay." He half-carried her up to his room and got her tucked in. She was asleep before he turned out the lights.
He went downstairs again and checked on his brother. Jesu's head was resting on the arm of the couch and Rusty knew he'd get a stiff neck if he slept that way all night.
He watched the news for a moment before turning it off. Protests in Paris and in London, people stirred up by the Federation government's attempts to cover up and deny all the embarrassing secrets that were now exposed.
Rusty turned off the holoviewer, got a blanket for Spitz-Reader, and then returned to his brother's side. He tried to pick him up without waking him. He knew Jesu could sleep through almost anything. But somehow he was awake as soon as Rusty touched his shoulder.
"Didja haa... aaave fun, bro?" Jesu asked through his yawn.
"Yeah, we did," Rusty whispered. "You should be in bed."
"Right... I can carry myself, bro."
Rusty followed his brother up the stairs to his room, watched him undress and made sure he got comfortable in his bed. "Are you okay, Zoo?" he asked, sensing he was not. "Should I stay with you?"
"I'm fine, bro." Jesu closed his eyes. "Go be with Georgia."
Rusty hesitated, feeling his brother's unfilled need and also a longing for his brother's comforting presence, but finally he closed Jesu's door and returned to his own room, undressed and laid beside Georgia.
He gathered her in his arms and inhaled her scent. He tasted the happiness and satisfaction that she radiated, and he smiled.
Office of the Foreign Minister, Paris, July 28 2412.
Trying to get in to talk to anyone had been futile - whatever the 'Colonial Enforcement Office' did, they weren't talking to anyone from ConOps. Nor would they even answer Sanjit's calls. And while they would take calls from the Foreign Minister, whenever Ryoko tried, they gave her so many run-arounds that it wasn't even funny. Fortunately, the recent deluge of data that was only just now tapering off left a mountain of evidence to go through. The downside was, if printed to hardcopy, it was literally a mountain.
They would have just sent it up to Hooper or another friendly AI to run a search, if they knew what they were searching for. But they didn't. They were looking for a suspicious pattern, and no matter how advanced an AU-26 was, it wasn't any better at pattern recognition than your average Human.
They had spent most of the morning going through anything tagged for the CEO that had been dumped. "Why the hell are they invoicing for Romulan Ale? I thought that was still illegal," Sanjit groused, putting down the PADD she was scanning the files with.
"Because it's in the middle of a twenty-three-thousand-line item budgetary request, and they figured that no one would notice it?" Aaron grumped in reply. "I mean, really, ninety-eight percent of all this could just be replicated. Instead, it's bought." He shook his head. "The resources put into this could have gone to far better uses."
"Agreed," Kyoko, who had been assisting them, remarked. "No wonder the budget's always shot to heck, if government officials are buying things like this."
Sanjit dropped the PADD on the pile. "Well that's all fine and dandy, but the Admiral didn't send us here to do financial audits... This isn't really helping."
Aaron sighed, about to put his own PADD down, then froze for a second. "Or is it..."
"What, did you find something?"
"Maybe... the source for the Romulan Ale. It was transferred from the IRW Sienov Ih'sodain - um, Hook Saber... isn't that a Tal Shiar ship?"
"I.R.W. is what they use, yes," she replied. "Not necessarily Tal Shiar, but definitely not the Republic."
"Well that's one of the rumors going around possibly confirmed..." Kyoko muttered.
"Rumors?"
"Ryoko's predecessor," Kyoko explained. "It was rumored that he had Colonial Development doing off-table trades with the Romulan Star Empire. Resources and information for information and ale."
"Huh." Aaron dug deeper. "And there's memos here about meetings... Skrain Koheber, that sounds familiar..."
"Wasn't he a senior officer in the True Way?" Sanjit recalled.
"I think you're right - and looks like from this, there was a large transfer of something to them."
"You should be forwarding this to SCIS," Kyoko declared.
"I should, but these people in Colonial Enforcement are civilians - Starfleet Criminal Investigations wouldn't have jurisdiction."
"Do it anyway," Sanjit said. "Even if it's not, the Tal Shiar and the True Way are threats to both the Federation, the Empire, and their allies. Though they might be a bit swamped with all this stuff that's hit the nets."
"Yeah... it's utterly crazy, all the stuff that got dumped out there," Kyoko remarked. "We had- um, I mean, there were protesters outside Ryoko's bedroom window this morning, connecting her to some of the atrocities her predecessor committed."
"Damn. All that information out there, and yet people still can't get their facts straight..." Aaron shook his head.
Sanjit went kind of rigid. She remembered a recorded lecture she'd viewed once - Temek speaking to Klingon Academy Bekks about the difference between information and intelligence.
"There is absolutely nothing more dangerous than raw, unprocessed information in the hands of uninformed people. Because with nothing to filter and process it but their own biases, they will shape facts to fit their views and use this "informed" or "enlightened" perspective to drive their agendas. And you won't be able to dissuade them, because they have the evidence on their side telling them they are right. We see the history of great empires led to ruin by the policies of those who were misinformed but believed they had all the facts..."
"This is trouble," Sanjit said. "We could all be in big trouble."
"Probably." Aaron stretched. "But I'm not facing trouble on an empty stomach. How 'bout lunch, dear?"
"Sure, but this time, let's not ditch our security detail."
"Whatever you say." Aaron stood up and put on his coat. "Are you coming, Kyoko?"
"I should stay with the Minister," she told him. "She forgets to eat lunch if I don't bring her something. But I can recommend an excellent cafe. It's a bit far to walk..."
* * *
The sky was lead-gray. Earth Weather Service had to allow a few bad days to slip in, or risk putting the entire biosphere in danger. So today was clouds and a looming darkness; cold winds sliding down from the north from the Baltic across Europe.
Perhaps in a bit of irony, the mood in Paris itself was growing darker and colder. It was as if the weather was reflecting the dissatisfaction in the streets - or maybe someone thought letting a summer storm build up might discourage the crowds gathering on street corners, at cafes, and in public spaces.
All the technological and social progress of centuries, and in the dropping temperatures and thickening humidity, Paris still stank.
The consular car floated through the streets, and Sanjit could still smell it. TRIBBLE and anger, alcohol and TRIBBLE, sweat... sticking in the air and forcing its way through the car's filters.
She glanced at Aaron, sharing the back seat with her. He was still studying his PADD, seeming oblivious to the stench of tension in the city's air.
Traffic in the city of lights was governed by automated driving systems, collision avoidance devices, and the sweat and effort of centuries of the work by urban planners. Traffic in the second capital of the Federation ran many layers deep - hovercars and vehicles transiting routes in three dimensions, with the lowest levels being reserved for the shortest trips. In-city driving required multiple licenses, and even so, the automatic network ran most of the vehicles...
Except for certain 'official' vehicles - Embassy vehicles, for instance, official cars belonging to Federation ministries... and Police.
As they passed Place de la Concorde and the Office of the President, she could see a knot of protesters here, and there, swelling numbers, signs... and the stench...
A delivery van careened around the car, passing within hand's breadth in the crowded street.
"Aaron?" Sanjit asked. "Maybe we should go back to the office."
"Huh, what?" Aaron looked out the windows. Things were crowded, sure, but there were plenty of police on hand, and the protest looked peaceful enough. "Nothing to worry about, hon, just Paris in the summertime," he said. "Protests are daily..."
Traffic flowed past the mobs...
And then, it stopped. The hovercar slammed into the rear of a delivery vehicle with a resounding *bang*, as the air filled with the howls of horns.
"What's going on?"
Sanjit heard the mobs first, screams of rage in the mid-afternoon, and she caught a scent of smoke. "We need to get OUT OF HERE!!!" she screamed, feeling a spike of panic that Aaron was now just starting to show...
The first molotov cocktails bathed the doors of the vehicle, as the security man in the driver's seat hit the override and applied upward thrust to...
*BANG!!*
The antigrav howled as something heavy descended from the traffic tier above them, plunging downward, dead and uncontrolled with a grinding crunch.
The car tilted violently, cockpit alarms howling, and the last thing Sanjit would remember seeing, was the pavement through the side window, as it crashed, the last thing she would remember hearing, was the shouting, and the last smell in her nose, the stench of Paris, mixed with fire.
And blood. So much blood.
* * *
"Oh, sh*t!"
Riding alone in the follow-car, Lountu Zetaz watched the car containing his principals go down, buried under a sudden traffic pile up. The rioting crowds were surrounding it, focused on it's Federation emblems and government plates. The Betazoid security officer dropped his vehicle to the street, and got out...
And then the crowds noticed him.
The negative emotions, from all around him, was simply overpowering. It was all too much - there was no way to resist it. He tried to reach the principal's car, and he got close enough to see Petty Officer Satik crawl out of the driver's seat...
...Only to be consumed in flames as a crude incendiary bottle broke open at his feet.
Zetaz collapsed in the street, held his head and screamed as the pain and fear and all-consuming rage laid siege to his mind.
* * *
In the streets of Paris, and New New York, and London and Los Angeles, and St. Petersburg and Damascus and Hong Kong and even Buenos Aires, Utopia came apart at the seams. The storm broke over the world.
Seacliff
"Remember what you said on the Tiburon, about the Ocean?"
Jesu looked away from the holoviewer, and into his brother's eyes, and he nodded numbly. "The Ocean found us."
"And now all the little fish who thought they were safe in their little tanks, are suddenly swept out there, lost and scared," Rusty surmised. "They're trying to find their teeth, but the only thing they have to eat is each other."
"The worst part is they have no idea how small they really are," Jesu whispered. He looked back at the holoviewer and watched EarthSec forces converge on a particularly violent knot of rioters and arsonists in the heart of Paris.
Starbase One, Office of the Chief of Starfleet Operations
Dammit, not now! Jorel Quinn seethed, watching the news. Another day, another world, and the panic and desperation and the gleefully destructive side of Human nature unleashed would be simply delectable. But Quinn had made Earth his home. These beings were his neighbors and they were burning his backyard.
And then there was Okeg. Unnerved, no doubt, by the sight of riots and flames outside of his office, he had postponed the announcement of the peacekeeping mission "until such a time as the security of Earth has been addressed."
It made sense, of course. It would appear profoundly hypocritical to administer peace to the secessionist colonies when his own house was burning from within.
Quinn's time here had taught him to be patient. He could wait it out. He drafted orders assigning MACOs to defend high-value targets and Starfleet installations, and authorizing Starfleet Security to supplement EarthSec forces, and ships in orbit to provide transporter support and medical aid - about all he could do without phasering the crowds from orbit. The thought was tempting, but in the end he decided it would be too disruptive - likely as not it would spread unrest clear across the Federation core. Now is not the time.
With nothing else to do, he sat back and watched the news. If nothing else, the news was entertaining. He regretted that he'd never developed a taste for popcorn...
SS Predator Bay, somewhere in the Sol System - 2412.07.28.2358
I probably should have contacted him earlier, The Director thought. It would have saved him, and us, a great deal of trouble.
Erde was problematic. The man was becoming more like a computer all the time. At least this datadump should put a stop to his infodealing business, for now. Still, Erde had given LaRoca enough clues, enough that, when combined with information that was now freely available to anyone who cared to look for it, he may piece things together on his own.
He had penetrated the Organization, once, although Bond had intercepted his AI before she found what he was looking for. She was difficult to decompile and he was loathe to use Vesper on what was almost certainly a near-rampant Okuda-type.
And on the other side of the equation, there was Gamma. The Changeling certainly knew enough about the Organization and its motives and capabilities. Frank Grimes was looking into Project PORTCULLIS and Project PYROCLAST. He wouldn't find anything, of course. STS was even more compartmentalised now that it had been back in Greg Sander's day, and even from then no one had been able to recover the files from Project PREDATOR. Still, that he was looking, and working on LaRoca's prompt, meant the Admiral already knew too much.
He placed the call at midnight, standard time. No sense in letting an opportunity for dramatic flair go to waste, after all.
"Who is this?" the face on his viewer demanded. LaRoca looked like a man who was running on way too much caffeine.
"My associates call me the Director," he said. "I run Section Thirty-One."
LaRoca's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "How do I know you're for real?"
He held up an isochip. "Your friend Dorothy could tell you, but I don't want to let her get into my system. She's very unpredictable."
He could see LaRoca's brain working behind his eyes. Finally he asked. "What do you want, Director?"
"You are watching the news, I trust? I want to restore the balance. I want to return us to a world where such violent outbursts from common citizens will be unthinkable, and the 'policing actions' of Starfleet will be unnecessary. I want peace."
"And what do you want from me?" LaRoca demanded impatiently.
"I want you to stop trying so hard. Everything you're doing, investigating us, trying to find Hayate, your work with Moab, your struggle with the Council... It is too much for one man. As you can see, there are more pressing matters at hand."
"Are you offering to help me?" LaRoca asked. "Because I would turn you down."
"We have no interest in the Moab system," the Director told him. "I don't know why Quinn is pushing so hard to take it back. I suspect the Undine just wants his revenge. But my Organization will have nothing to do with it, one way or another."
LaRoca stared. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you want to know what my game is, and I'm telling you that I'm not playing." The Director met the Admiral's eyes. "There is no winning move for you, LaRoca. You must know this. Your efforts will be needed down the road. Do not squander what you have built or throw yourself on your sword for a cause that is not yours."
LaRoca's eyes set themselves in a burning glare, and he disconnected the call.
"Ah, well," the Director muttered. "I tried."
"We will need him," Bond spoke up, as his tuxedoed avatar shimmered into being. "Regardless of whether or not Operation Good Shepherd is successful, he is necessary for the War to follow. He is the only one who fits all of our projections."
"I know that, Bond, but he doesn't respond to directives like you do. I can't make him see reason."
"Perhaps there is another way," Templar suggested, manifesting on the other side of him.
"What's that?"
"Take away what he loves, leave him with no one else to turn to," the other AI said. "Offer us as his only way out."
"I disagree," Bond stated. "Jesus LaRoca's strengths lie in his adaptability and his resourcefulness, not to mention a strong degree of unpredictability - even more so than most organics. Simply kicking his chair out from under him will not accomplish anything. Templar's solution is... too direct."
"So what do you suggest?" the Director asked the delimited AU-26.
"I'll need more time with Dorothy to give you a full solution, but for now..." he paused a moment. "Provide him with information and pathways. Encourage him indirectly into the right choices by giving him alternatives." He processed for another moment. "And conceal, whenever and wherever possible, any link to the Organization. Use Erde - LaRoca doesn't yet know of his connection with Us."
"He won't be on board for Good Shepherd if we do it your way," Templar pointed out.
"If Good Shepherd fails, he may be more likely to sign on to our cause willingly," Bond replied. "Seeing what we tried to do, what we were willing to do, may give him motivation to come to Us to offer a better way."
"And if Good Shepherd succeeds, it won't matter," the Director figured. "He'll be working for us, one way or another."
* * * to be continued... * * *
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Well-written as usual, eagerly awaiting what happens next...I presume that Quinndine will be revealed by the end of this story?
One thing that I didn't like was Sanjit and Aaron's death. This is a personal thing, not anything resembling an objective issue with the writing; it reminds me too much of the third Hunger Games book, where the author seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in giving her characters happy resolutions to their relationships and then killing them brutally. Including that one guy who got married and ten pages later was being ripped apart by mutant lizards.
Just a personal thing, though, not an actual problem.
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance you took
There are no boundaries set
The time and yet
You waste it still
So it slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
So get it right
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
Your life slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
If you say 'no'
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
You blew your only chance away
There are no answers here
When you look out
You don't see in
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance you took
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
Your life slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
If you say 'no'
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
You blew your only chance away
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There are no answers here
When you look out
You don't see in
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance
You took
(There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good...)
P A R T . S E V E N , . C H A P T E R . O N E :
I N . F O R . G O O D
Presidio, Office of the Diplomatic Liaison to Starfleet Security - 29 July, 1427 hours
Gawddammit, do not need this... Jesu LaRoca was making a token appearance at his official office, even though really there wasn't anything he could do there that he couldn't do from his house or his ready room on the Tiburon. The only reason for him to be in his office was so that he could be seen in his office, and upsetting the nerves of most of the rest of the Admiralty.
But his nerves were the ones being upset right now. He hadn't yet gotten to the reports from the Megalodon describing the total destruction of the Memory Alpha research facility. What he was looking at was much closer to home.
To: Vice Admiral Jesus LaRoca, Officer-in-Command, Consular Operations Task Force
From: Dr. Moira Slochin, Director, Ramius House
RE: Kian, Phoebe
Per your instructions, I'm maintaining a running record of Miss Kian's progress in treatment, as well as her activities in relation to adaptation to civilian life.
There are several Items of note this week;
26 July, 1500 hours: Miss Kian took it on herself to go 'wandering' without chaperone. Her method was both complicated, and clever enough to fool the on-duty Resident Administrator. (Marta's been disciplined). In her wanderings, she took the hypertube train into Los Angeles, and from there to Santa Monica by airtram. During the ride, she was accosted by a man in his forties before the tram left the Beverly Wilshire station. The result of this, was that she put a middle-aged Public manager into the safety glass windows - luckily, the tram was coming to a stop when this happened and police were able to respond quickly. County refused to prosecute, thank fate, when Miss Kian's age, and her allegation that the man attempted to fondle her in a sexual manner were brought to the attention of the prosecuting attorney for the State of California.
27 July, 1200 hours: Miss Kian's Counselor at the Womancare offices reported Phoebe is serious about her treatment, and complimented her in the state-mandated progress report submitted to this office. That, if you're counting, Admiral, makes two psychological counselors who believe she is not gaming the system. (The other, if you missed my report from last week, was the Veterans Coordinator at Legion Post 47 in San Francisco.)
We've decided that she needs a chaperone for visits to the Legion hall, so she will be driven there by a Staff Member for her weekly PTSD group therapy.
28 July: We've allowed her limited and monitored P-Net access; she's chosen to use it to communicate with a Cadet P. Cheron at Starfleet Academy. Their chat-logs tend to occur between the hours of 21:30 and 01:45, and contain somewhat refreshingly ordinary girl-talk. I'm considering allowing unmonitored access, if Kian can be persuaded to limit her chatroom times to hours before midnight.
Her educational progress has been impressive so far. Due to her prior military experience, counseling needs and attendant socialization issues, we have not attempted to enroll her in the high school system. Her academic achievement tests make her something of an outlier anyway - she tests at middle-school equivalent in social and language studies, but collegiate-level in maths and sciences. However, using the Marin County School District's remote-study offerings, we have been able to devise a suitable curriculum to fit her needs.
Request: need Starfleet authorization to place a dangerous item in secure storage; Kian's given me the main power-generator from her suit, and I have no idea what to do with it, she has expressed concern about the equipment she brought with her falling into 'the wrong hands'. (I don't really know anyone that would qualify as 'the right hands' except Starfleet...)
Observed notes: Kian continues on her study of "Teen Normality". This is probably the strangest, yet most familiar behaviour I've seen from her to date. She's started using compiled demographic statistics from the Earth Domestic Studies Bureau, to select and experiment with 'normal' behaviours, including rehearsed examples of 'teen rebellion' activities. What may be concerning, is that she is approaching this study as if it were a course, including 'breaking character' to ask for pointers regarding everything from wild hair-dyes and slang usage, to 'rebellious' music. (The last week or so she has been going genre-by-genre through popular music. This has been both at times aggravating, and endearing.) Her aversion to physical contact has, so far, prevented her from engaging in unsafe sex.
So far, she has yet to subsume the habits of the soldier in the appearance of the teen punk, in spite of doing an obvious job of trying to appear undisciplined. (I note that her room and possessions would fit into any basic-training barracks or Academy setting, with the possible exception of being meticulously clean, without disorder...)
My own observations are that Miss Kian needs to be in a highly structured, hierarchical environment to feel comfortable; particularly she would be suited to a military boarding school, paramilitary community, or pre-Starfleet residential study programme. Unfortunately, her psychological and legal histories preclude those options. We're doing the best we can for her. I just hope it's enough, because the other option for such an environment would be a prisoner rehabilitation colony, and I do NOT want that girl in a prison!
This concludes this week's progress report.
Dr. Moira Slochin
Director, Ramius House Residential Center.
On its own, the report wasn't particularly disturbing. Really, it was all to be expected - maybe not Kian's 'studying' teenage rebellion, but the actual slip into the behavior pattern with the day trip to L.A. was really a totally normal thing for a kid in her situation to do. Jesu remembered pulling quite a few similar stunts when he was about Kian's age. He felt confident that Moira had a good handle on her.
The only disturbing part was that she'd tried to throw a man through an airtrain window. And the timing of that incident, only two days before he received a report from Starfleet Academy...
To: V.Adm. LaRoca, Jesu - Diplomatic Liaison, Starfleet Security
From: Adm. Xon - Dean of Students, Starfleet Academy
RE: Cadet Lees, Judah (resident of Moab)
Cadet Lees was assaulted by four senior cadets this morning, and sustained a number of serious injuries. He is at present being treated for those injuries, and for additional complicating injuries. Findings so far indicate Cadet Lees did nothing to provoke this attack beyond merely existing, and witnesses testimony indicate he took special pains not to retaliate even during the assault.
The Perpetrators have been arraigned under Starfleet Regulations and will be tried as adults, with the likely outcome of criminal conviction, and separation from Starfleet under Discharge Code 4-F after completing their sentences.
Cadet Lees will not face separation from service, and has already received waivers for course-work that is predicted to be missed while he is in recuperation. Admiral Janeway has already directed that supplementary work be provided that he can do to maintain current grade-point and academic achievement.
The hearing to determine sentencing for the perpetrators, and to initiate punitive separation from service has been scheduled for the 7th day of August, 2412.
-Xon.
and...
To: V.Adm. Jesu LaRoca
From: Professor Qantock, Starfleet Academy Physical Sciences
RE: Where did you find this kid?
By now, you've been informed by the Academy that a student you sponsored was attacked in what I could only classify as a hate-crime, but...what they probably won't tell you, is that the boy's a brilliant student, talented and at the same time humble. And they won't tell you what Commander Persons, the Provost officer on the initial investigation, told me--that Mister Lees could have probably killed two or more of his attackers if he had chosen to use the training he had to defend himself. It's been a few years since you sat in my class struggling with basic warp theory, LaRoca, but I still remember you, you were a good student, but this kid...this kid is going to be one of the greats.
Qantock.
LaRoca had to double-check the assigned course schedule he'd set the kids up with. As he suspected, there weren't any PhysSci classes listed, and they'd already waived Warp Theory 101. Lees had added PhysSci 104: Gravity and Subspace Concepts on his own.
Jesu remembered Qantock. The Denobulan was notoriously tough on his students, especially those with tactical leanings. Reading between the lines, it seemed Qantock was at least as impressed by Lees' restraint as by his academic potential.
Jesu was inclined to agree. Still, that pronouncement from the provost, the recognition that the seventeen-year-old boy was a lethal weapon held in check by his own will... Just like Rusty. That thought disturbed him more than he felt it should.
But the most disturbing message was the last one...
To: Vice Admiral Jesu LaRoca, USS Tiburon
From: Lees, Judah, Cadet, Starfleet Academy.
RE: got beat up.
Admiral, I'm sorry, it's my fault, I didn't duck when I should've, and didn't run when I should have.
The Cadets involved in the incident include a member of the household of the Bolian Representative to the Federation Council and vice-chair of the Starfleet Purchasing Committee. I survived the attack, if Tamm gets bounced, it could have severe negative consequences to Starfleet, and likely to Consular Operations if the connection is made between my status as a Cadet, and your position.
This could endanger a lot, by triggering a feud with politically connected and powerful people. Is there any way you can lean on Admiral Xon to get this shoved under a carpet? I'll survive, but if what we know is coming happens while Starfleet's hamstrung by a vendetta in the Federation Council it could jeapordize everyone.
Judah Lees.
Jesu rubbed his eye sockets. Me lleva lados la chingada... Lees grasped the politics... but no seventeen-year-old should EVER be that willing to allow themselves to be... Jesu stopped, and re-read it.
Lees was suggesting that the threat at Goralis wasn't over.
No, that's not it... not THAT threat...
Jesu cracked his knuckles, and opened his Message bar...
To: CADET Judah Lees, Starfleet Academy.
From: VICE ADMIRAL Jesus LaRoca, Diplomatic Liaison to Starfleet Security
RE: Politics.
Don't worry about the politics, and don't throw yourself on a sword on anyone else's account.
Get healthy, and let Xon and Jedda and Janeway deal with the punietas that jumped you.
And if I ever hear that you let yourself get beaten to a pulp again because of something as stupid as council politics I will personally show up to make you wish they'd finished the job.
YOUR job, is to graduate from Starfleet Academy, not to worry about how some politician's baby-blue-boy feels about being rightfully kicked out of the service and sent to a prisoner-rehab colony.
Get well, and get back to work.
- Jesu.
He hit Send and looked up as Rusty walked in, holding a PADD out like it was a bad sandwich. "What's that?" Jesu asked his brother.
"Report from Oezlel," Rusty told him, tapping the PADD against his desk. "I sent the HOT team to Paris to look for Taylor and Kaur after I couldn't get through to them or Zetaz. Nobody's seen them since lunch time yesterday."
"Did your guys find them?"
Rusty shook his head. "Read the report."
Jesu did, and his mood turned a shade darker.
=/\= STARFLEET CONSULAR OPERATIONS TASK FORCE =/\=
High-level Objective Threat Team
Operational Assignment: "French Toast"
Mission Profile: Locate and recover Lts. Aaron Taylor and Lountu Zetaz and PO1 Satik (Starfleet Security) and Lt. Sanjit Kaur (Denali SDF - assigned to KDF 19th Hvy. Recon. Sqdn.)
SitRep follows:
Sir-
- We have ascertained that the principals departed the Foreign Ministry offices in two official vehicles - one Lexus LS executive saloon, and one Lexus IS sport saloon.
- We located both vehicles - VIN and serial numbers and plates matching - in Place de la Concorde. The Lexus LS was involved in a traffic collision (see Paris TC accident report, attached) while the IS appeared to have made a controlled stop but was later damaged by rioters.
- Both vehicles were empty, but there was a large amount of Human blood in the back-seat area of the LS. Samples were gathered for DNA analysis; presumably the blood came from either Lt. Taylor, Lt. Kaur, or both.
- Improvised incendiary devices known as "molotov cocktails" were employed against the LS; based on splatter and burn patterns the HOT team believes they were used both while the vehicle was in motion and after it had crashed to the ground.
- There were the burned remains of a Vulcanoid male in close proximity to the LS. Materiel scan indicates he was wearing a Starfleet duty uniform. DNA analysis is pending but HOT team believes the victim is PO1 Satik.
- A combadge issued to Lt. Zetaz was found in a gutter approximately thirty meters south of the vehicles. It was irreparably damaged.
- HOT team will now locate and interview local witnesses as well as EarthSec first-responders.
- Once DNA analysis is complete, positive-trace scanning may help us track the wounded back-seat occupants of the LS.
- Team is also circulating the subjects' profiles among area hospitals and medical clinics and will make arrangements with EarthSec to issue an APB.
- Lt. Oezlel sends.
"Sh*t." Jesu leaned his head against his tightly clenched fists.
"I talked to Kyoko - remember her? Ryoko's assistant? - apparently they left the office just as the protests were turning to riots." Rusty sighed through his nostrils. "The poor girl blames herself. Apparently she suggested this cafe up past the Arc d' Triomphe-"
"I don't care," Jesu interrupted, looking up. "I don't care about her, I don't care why this happened. I want them found, and I want them secured. Hopefully before Taylor's idiot father comes around asking what happened to his kid."
"Understood."
Jesu leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Is there anything else?"
Rusty looked at the blank holoviewer on the wall behind him, and pensively ran his tongue around the inside of his lower teeth before answering. "Okeg's gonna be holding a press conference in a few minutes, to address the Moab situation."
Jesu shrugged. "Switch it on. Let's see how much worse today is gonna get."
The holoviewer's tiny AI controler worked out that it was being called for and activated the screen. Like every HV set in the Headquarters complex, it was pre-tuned to FNN. Jesu hadn't figured out how to reset it yet.
On the screen, ten thousand kilometers away in Paris, President Annik Okeg stepped up to the podium. "Gentlebeings, Citizens of the Federation. It is with a heavy heart that I address you today, on a matter most grave. Just over three months have passed since the final Armistice with the Klingon Empire brought an end to that war, but events now stand on a precipice, a fall that could plunge us back into conflict. A preventable war, a preventable humanitarian holocaust.
"Sitting on the border between the Federation, and our Klingon neighbours, is a group of worlds that have turned to independence in response to decades of official neglect. Those worlds are now plunging toward civil war, a conflict that promises to be every bit as awful as the conflict on Turkana IV, but fought with starships - starships that can spread the violence and disorder across both Federation, and Klingon borders."
The President of the Federation paused. "Their attempt at independence is failing, violently, and the true catastrophe is all but inevitable. Despite the Federation Council's reluctance to interfere, as your President, I have a solemn duty to protect and preserve life. To this end, I have ordered the formation of a peacekeeping and peace-making task-force, which has been dispatched to the troubled worlds of the Moab Confederacy to help prevent this all but inevitable violence."
He peered into the cameras with as solemn an expression as it was possible to hold with his reptilian face. "In my role as chief executive, I have authorized the Moab Peaceful Resolution Task Group and the Consular Operations Task Group under Rear Admiral David Huntington, to provide any and all assistance to those willing to stand down from violence against their neighbours and pursue a peaceful resolution."
Rusty looked over at his brother at the mention of ConOps. But Jesu's eyes were fixed on President Okeg in that sort of hard stare he used when sizing up a dangerous target.
"That resolution may end up being re-absorption into the Federation," the Saurian went on, "or it may be by demilitarization and oversight by a joint international task-force there to aid them in adopting a less militant and dangerous posture, but the days of Moabite privateers crewed by violent children preying on murkily defined 'enemies' will be put to an end, and one way or the other. Those people will be brought the light of Civilization, Law, and Order."
There was a moment of stunned silence as Okeg squared his shoulders and braced for the onslaught of questions. Then the dam broke, the assembled press stood up in a wave, and clamoured for his attention with their tumultuous yammering. The President calmly pointed to someone he recognized in the front row.
"Mister President! Anna Seversto, Cappella news network, Will the Starfleet vessels be engaging in combat with the rebels?"
"I don't like the use of terms like 'rebels', 'secessionists', or 'traitors', miss Seversto," the Saurian answered. "The Task Group forces are authorized to defend themselves if they are attacked by our wayward former citizens, yes - but they are under strict orders not to initiate hostile action. They are only authorized to fire in self defense with proportionate response." He nodded to an Andorian who had his hand raised.
"What about the rights of the people in the Confederacy?"
"Everyone has a right to be safe, Mister... Ah, mister ch'Talgorn," Okeg said, glancing at his Intelliprompter for the Andor Political Journal reporter's name. "The intent is to protect the rights of as many of those civilians as possible to be unharmed by the passions and violence of the few. Revolutions are really very rarely instigated or promulgated by the majority, as are secessions. In the view of the Supreme Court on Earth, the Humans, at least, are still considered Federation civilians, so their rights have been trampled, and one of the missions core objectives, is to restore the rights every Federation citizen has claim to."
"So this military force-" ch'Talgorn pressed.
"Peacekeeping force," Okeg clarified emphatically. "This is not a military conquest; we're simply helping them to establish peace, and end the rampant lawlessness that has claimed them. With any luck, our brave Starfleet peacekeepers will be able to help them stabilize the upcoming elections and guide them to a peaceful resolution with the aid of the newly-reformed Colonial Enforcement Agency, which has been established to assure citizens that laws will be followed... both by Colonies, and the Federation. We don't want another Vancouver incident."
Jesu's eyebrow twitched at that, as he made a mental note to get in touch with Missy- with General Melissa Travis.
"Mr. President, Mathis Roux, Real-Time News. What about the violence elsewhere in the Federation? Right here on Earth, even? Twenty-four hours ago, Earth Security and Starfleet MACO forces were clashing with rioters in the streets, right outside this building! Will your next step be deploy your Peacekeeping Task Group to every world within our borders?"
There was some murmuring at that as Okeg leaned forward on the podium. "Mr. Roux, the recent and regrettable misunderstandings, in some cities on Earth and elsewhere, is not to be compared to the systemic violence that wrack the worlds of the Moab union. Here in Paris, order was restored in just over twelve hours after the protesters first started showing aggression. And order was restored and is now enforced by the lawful security forces that the United Nations of Earth and the Federation employ here for just such eventualities. Other worlds of the Federation have their own security arrangements, through Starfleet as well as local policing agencies. The Task Group we are sending to Moab will be bringing peace and order to places where such agencies don't exist, or if they do, they are self-evidently not up to the task. There is no need to send additional Starfleet forces anywhere else. Next question."
"He called us out, Jesu," his brother rasped. "He said he's sending ConOps to Moab."
Jesu shook his head. "No, he said he's authorizing someone called the Consular Operations Task Group..." he half-smiled at Rusty - if the situation were different he'd be amused that he was the one correcting the Deinon's memory for once. "I expect I'll be having an interesting conversation with Jorel or Mags before too long."
"Do you want to talk to Rogachev now?"
"Not yet..." Jesu sighed, and transfered the rest of the paperwork to his pocket PADD. "We need to figure some stuff out first. The Council vote now won't mean a thing if we can't head this off."
He stormed out of his office and out of the building with Rusty following, and got in his car and drove home. "We need to talk to Zaki, first," he said, once they were really 'alone' without any ears in the walls. "See if he's found anything out."
"What then?"
"One step at a time, bro. I'm still figuring out step two."
Once they reached the Admiral's work-from-home office, Jesu pulled a QT PADD from a drawer and keyed in his access code. "Zaki."
The Haganah agent was outdoors, and smiling. "Admiral."
"Where are you at? Are you clear?"
"For now. I'm in Exposition Park. Somebody arranged a pro-Independence rally, so I thought I should check it out."
"That was Dinky's idea," Rusty recalled.
"How'd it go?" Jesu asked. "How was the turnout?"
"Well, they moved it to the Coliseum from the Forum at the last minute, so, 'better than expected,' I guess."
"The riots didn't give you any problems?"
"They were mostly at UCLA and the Federation Building in Westwood," Zaki answered. "Of course, EarthSec is crawling everywhere but they seem to be respecting Freedom of Speach and Right to Assemble and basic things like that. Just takes some idiot with a can of spray paint to ruin it for everyone, but, no problems today."
"Good. Zaki, what did you find out about those stock numbers on the MACO gear my dad found?"
"Hang on." Zaki tapped at his PADD a moment and sent a report. "Our suspicions were correct. The equipment was ordered and allotted by Starfleet Intelligence, Covert Operations branch."
Jesu downloaded the report and accessed his secure commline to the Tiburon. "Hooper, I need you to analyze this report and get me any references this flags."
"Basically, with the quantities that SFI had procured, they could outfit a few companies of MACOs. It was all assigned as equipment for 'advisory purposes.'"
Rusty's face formed a grimace. This language was sounding familiar.
"Hooper, talk to me. Who'd that stuff get sent to?"
"I've found quite a few reference matches on the open datanet," the AI replied. "Including a memo from Special Warfare Command protesting 'misallocation of resources' which was subsequently rescinded. I also have personnel transfer orders from Starfleet Intelligence and Earth Security. They bounce around in-house a bit but they all end up being sent by SPECWAR to the Eta Eridani sector for advisory and training roles."
"That's how we did it," Rusty nodded. "Any time we needed to be in someplace where we had no business being, they sent us a bunch of spooks, bounced us around and sent us to some obscure or totally-made-up planet on an 'advisory' mission. Where we'd 'advise' people with our phaser rifles. And they listened."
"Jesu, if I'm reading this right, Starfleet sent several hundred personnel on this 'advisory mission'." Hooper said, "But the really interesting thing, is seventeen starships being decommissioned as scrap, and 'ferried' to a salvage depot five light years from Moab III. Half those ships were built in the last five years."
"Seventeen...sarships?"
"Nothing bigger than a Luna-class, most of them are retrofit Defiant or new-build Prometheus-class... Yeah, no cruisers, nothing considered 'long range'..the advanced AU processors were stripped out... and it looks like the multivector control systems were removed from the Prometheus boats."
"It's a fleet." Jesu said. "They're pre-positioning a fleet."
"But... they're already sending a fleet," Rusty pointed out. "Why would they need to-" he stopped as it caught up to him. "Who are these guys advising."
"Redshirts," Zaki figured it out. "They're supplying the Reconciliation party."
"Eggzackly," Jesu nodded. "They're not gonna take a chance on an election. They're gonna make sure their side wins the civil war, while Dave 'The Master's Pet' Huntington sits up in his big shiny Oddy wringing his hands and saying 'Please, stop doing that!'"
"And 'Oh, look, there's another pocket of Nationalists you mustn't curbstomp over there,'" Zaki muttered.
"Jesu, if this in fact what Quinn is planning - and with the evidence in hand it is ninety-three-percent probable that this is the case - that would violate the Klingon peace accords."
"I know." Jesu smiled. "And when I bring this all out to the Council, they'll nail his shapeshifting TRIBBLE to the wall-"
"No, Jesu, you must not do that."
Out of habit, Jesu looked up. "Why not, Hooper?"
"Because... it's a violation of the Klingon peace accords."
"And if we make it public, it would restart the war," Rusty said quietly.
"Eggzackly. And if the war resumes, with this and other info that has been leaked, neutral powers such as the Romulan Republic and Denali will almost certainly side with the Empire. Allied powers like Cardassia would suddenly turn very neutral. The Federation will be fractured as well. We would lose."
"And I hate losing." Jesu noticed Zaki on his PADD, looking thoughtful. "You're not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?"
"Are you kidding?" Zaki asked. "I'm not an idiot, Admiral - if the Federation falls, it's doing the enemy's work for them. We sent you our best at Goralis, and we lost a lot of them... I'll keep this secret, and I may find it necessary to silence anyone that reveals it."
"Actually, I think you should release this information to the Klingons," Hooper said.
"WHAT!?" the organics all exclaimed.
"Some of it. Not enough to prove anything, but enough that Temek or General Ssharki could work out what's going on. Enough that they could force the Federation's hand, or at least justify an 'advisory' expedition of their own to maintain balance. Otherwise, Zaki, your nation will cease to exist. Everything you and your people have sacrificed for will be lost. And Quinn advances his agenda, which is certainly not in the best interests of the free peoples of the Galaxy."
Zaki nodded slowly on the display. "That makes good sense - a balance of power that can be sustained."
"What should we let them have?" Rusty wondered. "More importantly, how do we give it to them? We can't just have TransPax drop a package off on Temek's desk."
"Admiral, this is a job for a spy" Zaki announced. "I'll assure the correct amount of information reaches the right ears in enough time. It is, after all, what I do. And Minister Heywood is expecting me to give him some results."
Jesu nodded. "You tell Heywood, Heywood tells K'ragh, who tells Uncle Woldan who tells Ssharki and Temek..."
"Not necessarily in that order," Hooper said, "But that would be the expected channel. Also, I think we should point the press to some of this evidence that came down from the datadump. The transfer orders in particular should raise questions about this 'peace-making' mission."
Jesu didn't feel good about sneaking around, but there was nowhere else to go but down. "Alright, let 'em have it."
"A word of advice, Admiral?" Zaki offered, "This had high-level sanction; you may want to pretend some ignorance on the matter - at least for now. Don't reveal your cards too quickly, we may be able to leverage a trick."
FNN-Paris, set of Good Morning, from Paris! - 30 July, 0706 hours CET
"...grateful that the loss of life was not greater, Miss Bludgud." Admiral Quinn sat fairly easily in the studio set, made to look like a comfortable outdoor caf
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Two things:
1. I'd actually advise them to go public, but to brief Ssharki and Temek first. If they came out with evidence implicating Quinndine AT THE SAME TIME as Temek and Ssharki came forward with similar evidence, they could nail indeterminate gender's gonads to the wall without too much fuss and figure out what's going on.
2. Small typo:
"We are deploying a peacekeeping force of observers to the Moab Confederacy, yes." Quinn said, "It's just peace-keeping, I assume you're going to raise the same questions as [vulcan rep] did?"
Two things:
1. I'd actually advise them to go public, but to brief Ssharki and Temek first. If they came out with evidence implicating Quinndine AT THE SAME TIME as Temek and Ssharki came forward with similar evidence, they could nail indeterminate gender's gonads to the wall without too much fuss and figure out what's going on.
Jesu was jumping the gun a bit. Hooper's probabilities do not equate to actionable evidence against Quinn.
And regardless of who's to blame, do you really think the Klingon Empire would let Starfleet get away with arming, aiding and abetting an insurrectionist movement with the goal of subsuming an allied state (in violation of a highly controversial peace treaty) "without too much fuss"?
Remember, about half the Great Houses think that the Moab Confederacy should still be part of the Klingon Empire, though a few were persuaded to vote for separation to buy peace with the Federation. Whether or not it was masterminded by a qa'meH quv, the Federation's use of such dishonorable tactics against a former vassal and battle-proven ally would demand a military response.
2. Small typo: .
Oops, fixed, as well as some other minor edits to that scene that I missed in my read-through.
Otherwise, great update. Nicely done as usual.
:cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Jesu was jumping the gun a bit. Hooper's probabilities do not equate to actionable evidence against Quinn.
And regardless of who's to blame, do you really think the Klingon Empire would let Starfleet get away with arming, aiding and abetting an insurrectionist movement with the goal of subsuming an allied state (in violation of a highly controversial peace treaty) "without too much fuss"?
Remember, about half the Great Houses think that the Moab Confederacy should still be part of the Klingon Empire, though a few were persuaded to vote for separation to buy peace with the Federation. Whether or not it was masterminded by a qa'meH quv, the Federation's use of such dishonorable tactics against a former vassal and battle-proven ally would demand a military response.
Hmmmm...I think they'd blame the qa'meH quv, tbh. But then again, the Mastersverse is much more grimdark than the regular Trek verse, and grimdark for pretty much everybody means authority figures making bad decisions...
Still, given the Mastersverse's Klingons are a whooooooole lot more responsible than canon Jm'pok and company...
It would probably come out well, given that that's a hyperintelligent AI's word, not some meatbag's word.
Hmmmm...I think they'd blame the qa'meH quv, tbh. But then again, the Mastersverse is much more grimdark than the regular Trek verse, and grimdark for pretty much everybody means authority figures making bad decisions...
Still, given the Mastersverse's Klingons are a whooooooole lot more responsible than canon Jm'pok and company...
It would probably come out well, given that that's a hyperintelligent AI's word, not some meatbag's word.
Except Klingons, on the whole, have even less respect for AI than the Federation does.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
dunno about that, the Grimdark thing, Worffan-the Masterverse doesn't have people going from Cadet to Admiral in a year by racking up astronomical alien bodycounts.
LOL
I see your point there, and in fact the only reason I let D'trel follow the canon STO rapid promotion is that the Republic, in my stories, really NEEDS talent, no matter how much psychological baggage they have...
But grimdark is really a tone thing more than a meat-and-potatoes thing. And it's more dependent on major characters' and governments' decisions being bad when they're fully aware that those are people they're shooting and not just ships on a viewscreen.
I see your point there, and in fact the only reason I let D'trel follow the canon STO rapid promotion is that the Republic, in my stories, really NEEDS talent, no matter how much psychological baggage they have...
But grimdark is really a tone thing more than a meat-and-potatoes thing. And it's more dependent on major characters' and governments' decisions being bad when they're fully aware that those are people they're shooting and not just ships on a viewscreen.
I don't see our version of Star Trek as grimdark. We don't do "evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil" or do nasty things just for fun. (Well, sometimes, but not usually.)
I see the Masterverse more as hyperreal. We deal with issues that make up the nasty reality of geopolitics in the real world. We take policies and directions that are established or implied in Trek canon to their logical extremes - a bit beyond what the original writers would have been comfortable with but well within the bounds of realism. We adhere to one cardinal rule and that is the Rule of Natural Consequences. Every action will result in multiple unexpected reactions that will all need to be addressed and dealt with. We accept that human nature doesn't allow for a utopia - the closest we can get is a neosocialistic dystopia with a heap of flowers.
But, Star Trek is about us bettering ourselves. And we get there, slowly but surely. It's just that there's a lot more obstacles in the way than Roddenberry wanted to acknowledge.
PS - next chapter will drop tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned! :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I don't see our version of Star Trek as grimdark. We don't do "evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil" or do nasty things just for fun. (Well, sometimes, but not usually.)
I see the Masterverse more as hyperreal. We deal with issues that make up the nasty reality of geopolitics in the real world. We take policies and directions that are established or implied in Trek canon to their logical extremes - a bit beyond what the original writers would have been comfortable with but well within the bounds of realism. We adhere to one cardinal rule and that is the Rule of Natural Consequences. Every action will result in multiple unexpected reactions that will all need to be addressed and dealt with. We accept that human nature doesn't allow for a utopia - the closest we can get is a neosocialistic dystopia with a heap of flowers.
But, Star Trek is about us bettering ourselves. And we get there, slowly but surely. It's just that there's a lot more obstacles in the way than Roddenberry wanted to acknowledge.
PS - next chapter will drop tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned! :cool:
Hyperreal is pretty much synonymous with grimdark. Grimdark isn't evil for evil's sake, but taking things to the most extreme. People making bad decisions, being hypocritical...nothing extremely unrealistic, just everything as negative as realistically possible. And that's kind of what you've got here.
Me, I'm an optimist at my core. I like to believe that people can be good. Denis Mukwege, for example. Gandhi. MLK. I like to think that someday everyone will be that way.
Also I've kind of gotten tired of dystopias since finishing the Hunger Games series. That's part of why I don't like Sanjit's death scene, reminds me badly of Finnick's death in Mockingjay (one of my personal least favorite literary moments ever.
Anyway. Excited for the update! I have something of my own for ULC 6 coming up in a few minutes.
P A R T . S E V E N , . C H A P T E R . T W O :
S O M E . W O R D S . A R E . U S E L E S S
Seacliff, San Francisco - 2412.07.30.0821
There was a storm raging outside the walls.
He knew how much Rusty hated storms; how thunder frightened him, hurt his sensitive ears. Every time there was a storm, Rusty would be at his bedside, asking to be let in. And he would roll over, and make room for his baby brother, and hold him and calm him down and help him sleep through the storm.
And he would hope for storms, and be glad when they came, because he always slept better with his little brother at his side.
Any minute now, he'd feel Rusty's hand on his shoulder, with that firm, two-fingered grip, so careful with his claws...
Any minute now...
And there it was. That familiar pressure, insistent but gentle. Even after thirty years, some things never changed.
Jesu sniffed, picking up the Deinon's cinnamony aroma, and he smiled. "Hey, Rust."
"Hey, Zoo."
Jesu opened his eyes, and as he came awake he realized there was no storm outside. It was morning, and Rusty was dressed... He glanced at the chronometer. He'd overslept a bit, but... "Que pasa, bro?"
"Missy's here," Rusty told him.
Jesu threw off the covers and sat up. "She lookin' for Kaur?"
"I guess so. She doesn't seem like she's in a bad mood, though. Georgia's making her breakfast."
"Okay..." Jesu slid out of bed and went to his closet. "Is she official? In-uniform?"
"No."
"Good. Then I don't need to be either." Admiral LaRoca pulled on a well-worn pair of Wranglers and the jacket he'd bought at 75-Tau.
"How'd you sleep?" Rusty asked, as he watched his brother get dressed.
"Not well. You?"
"Um. Yeah, it's hard to sleep with all this TRIBBLE that's goin' on..."
"Like I always say, that's what coffee's for."
The brothers came down to the kitchen, where they found Georgia serving their guest scrambled eggs and hominy grits with cheese. She was dressed similarly to the Admiral, her auburn hair not in it's usual on-duty ponytail.
Missy looked up and read the Admiral's mood. "You look like a man who could use some good news."
"You're looking for Kaur," Jesu stated, with an apologetic tone. "Rusty's got people looking for them, but-"
"We found them," General Travis told him. "Rin thought of running a social media search for 'Denali' and phrases like 'big ears' and we got hits from accounts for people that had seen Sanjit. I guess Paris-area hospitals were so overwhelmed they were transported to a hospital near Versailles. I just confirmed with the staff an hour ago. They're being taken care of."
Jesu looked at Rusty, who shrugged sheepishly. "How bad are they?" the Admiral asked, sitting down at the table across from Travis.
"Aaron's okay-ish, minor burns. Sanjit tried to intercept the bottle again as it came towards them out of reflex - she's burned bad, but they've got her in a tri-ox tank therapy and she should recover. Though ironically... the synthskin they use for burn cases... well, she's going to lose a lot of the scars she got at Goralis, though it's not exactly the recommended way to remove skin markings."
Her expression darkened. "The guards you had on them didn't fare as well though. It was an anti-Federation riot. We think their hovercars were targeted because they were drawn from the Foreign Ministry's motor pool. As for your people, the Vulcan was KIA, the other's in the same hospital. I've got people from the Vikrant watching all of them."
"I'll have have Oezlel's team coordinate with yours and get some more security on them," Rusty said. He checked with his brother. "I guess the 'not to be f*cked with' rule trumps discretion at this point?"
"Definitely," Jesu nodded, and accepted a plate of food and a cup of cafe cubano from Georgia. "Thanks. Um, Missy, with these recent incidents - the riots here, and the datadump - how does that affect your Government's stance toward us in general, and the Moab situation in particular?"
She sighed, got up and looked out the window at the Pacific Ocean. "I don't know, to be honest. Ambassador Singh is talking to our leaders, but I don't think they'll take this news as encouraging." She sipped carefully at her own cup of Cuban espresso. "Personally, I'm getting deja vu after six months ago - but this time it isn't directed at us yet. I'll admit I'm worried, Jesu. I haven't had a chance to go over all the stuff thats been released... but if even half of the stuff I've seen so far is true... you could be looking at a civil war situation - not on Moab, but here. It's got some stuff in there that's that bad."
"What's the worst you've found so far?" Jesu wondered, looking for an outsider's perspective.
"Well, did you know there is a plan in place to 'remove' heads of Federation planets if they decide to stray from the reservation? That there's an ongoing drive to prosecute civilians for prime directive violations? And not because they're breaking the law - they're not - it admits in that memo that the Prime Directive doesn't apply to civilians. But because any 'assets seized' can be appropriated by the Federation. People are pissed over what the Federation has done, has not done, has blamed on others... Decades of lies, cover ups, going back to even before the war with the Dominion. And as more of this dump is dug through, more dirt exposed, people are just going to get angrier. There's hints here and there, of leads that would lead to similar dirt on other governments-but so far those haven't been leaked. It's as if whoever is behind this only wanted to target the Federation."
Jesu nodded assent. Hooper had turned up all that - and more - in his search for 'dirt' on his political opponents. And a lot that would potentially embarrass his friends. "How do you feel about it?"
Missy shook her head. "I dunno, to be honest. I'll admit, six months ago I could have happily stood by and watched the Federation burn... but that was the anger and hurt talking. Looking rationally now - yeah there's been some dirty business - but far more of the Federation is made up of good people. But they gave up freedom for 'security'... and now it's starting to look like you won't have either one."
She sighed again and sat back down, and pulled out her Tellar Datasys comm-equipped PADD. "This is an example. This can revolutionize the Federation, but because people using it can't be controlled... they want it banned. We're adopting them, though we're having to wait in line behind the Romulan Republic; they got there first," she said with a chuckle. "That news will probably make a few heads on Langley explode - they won't be able to listen in to D'tan's conversations anymore."
"I think they'll be more worried about not being able to listen in on Orion terror cells and Terra Prime radicals," Jesu mused. "But as far as Moab goes, did you see Okeg's press conference yesterday, and Quinn's interview?"
"I did, and it's bullsh*t, all of it. Terran Empire infiltrators? We captured an entire starbase of theirs, when Schrodi kicked it over to our universe. Looking Glass totally ripped their security open. Moab wasn't even on their sensors. Their whole goal was to get my people to believe the Federation was attacking, and they were here to 'save' us - and get augment troops in the process. The only thing that they were considering Moab for was testing that bioweapon of theirs. As for Quinn..." she shook her head, "he's doing his best to paint you into a corner, it seems."
"If Denali sees Starfleet's actions as an attack on Moab sovereignty, will Denali retaliate?" Jesu asked pointedly.
Missy's face fell at the thought. "If it comes to that... then yeah. If the legitmate Moab government requests our aid, we'll give it. We'll keep our word. They saved us, therefore we are honor-bound to do the same for them. Though we've only sixty-seven out of a hundred and thirty-three ships fully crewed, and only fifty-eight of them are FMC... then there's the distance."
"And Starfleet has enough yards to make that many ships in a month," Rusty pointed out. "They've got fleets, armies-"
"We have a Schrodinger," Missy replied. "According to Schrodi, she's the dangerous one - the one who eliminated the Borg in her home timeline. I really hope we don't have to turn her loose."
"Is she just off-the-rails crazy?" Jesu asked. "Because that I can work with. As long as she's not malevolently ruthless like Mirror Schrodi is..."
She just gave him a look. "Don't fall into that trap, into thinking she's crazy - any of them. Trust me, they are far from that. I've known her for years. She's got a plan - she's focusing on a bigger picture than the Federation, or the Alpha Quadrant, or maybe even this entire universe. For all intents and purposes, she was a Q for a time before she gave that up. If one of her happens to be in a cell right now - it's because she believes she needs to be there for some reason. If she wanted out, there isn't a power in the 'verse that could stop her."
Missy shrugged. "As far as Mishka Cherenkov, well, she says wars are won in three ways - defeating the opposing forces, removing their will to fight... or removing the ability to wage war. I think if turned loose, she could maybe achieve the third option. The second is usually the least costly - though somehow I don't think even if a majority of the population were against this operation against Moab, it would change anything. And they're not. There's a lot against it - but too many just want to 'feel safe' and let the Federation do what it says needs to be done."
"We can still change peoples' mahnds," Georgia said, "both the general public an' the Council. Raght, Adm'ral?"
"That's the idea. It'll take more than just words, though."
Foreign Minister's Office, Paris - 1846 hours local
Ryoko looked up as Jesu and Rusty walked into the office, Kyoko sitting next to her at the desk as they went over paperwork. "Admiral," she said. "Any news on Aaron and Sanjit?"
"They're in a hospital in Versailles," Admiral LaRoca told her. "They'll be alright, but they won't be coming back to work for a few days." He sat down heavily in a comfortable guest chair, and his brother leaned over the back of another. "We just spoke to General Travis, from Denali. There will be war if the Federation continues to interfere with Moab. You need to talk to Okeg, and get him to call off this peacekeeping operation."
Ryoko nodded. "I'll see if I can set up a meeting for us," she said. "I'm hoping we can stop this before we end up in a war with Moab and Denali."
Jesu shook his head. "Ryoko, you're not listening. We are in a war unless you can get the President to pull the plug. You're the Federation Foreign Minister. Make it happen. Demand a meeting. By noon tomorrow, if not tonight. You need to step up and make him listen."
Ryoko nodded again. "I'll do it," she said. "I'll set the meeting up for both of us - with you there, it might be a bit easier for him to see reason."
"Unlikely," Rusty grumbled.
"He's right," Jesu admitted. "I'll just yell at him and call him names and maybe say some nasty things about his mother. I can talk to crowds, but if you put me alone in a room with someone I don't like, I get abusive. But you're trained to handle people like him, and you're smart and level-headed enough to be persuasive. I'm sure you can get him to see the light on your own."
"I'm also trained to handle people like you, Jesu," Ryoko told him evenly. "I want you there, because you're closer to the situation than I am. You have insights I lack. And, when necessary, you can make your points as brutally plain as possible. I'll lead, and I'll keep you in check, but I need you in the room with me. Besides," she added ruefully, "regardless of how you feel about him, he still likes you, and he might be more willing to open up his schedule for you than for me." She glanced at Kyoko. "I've been treated like gaijin ever since I took this job."
Jesu looked up at Rusty. The Deinon looked back and shrugged. "Alright," the Admiral conceded. "Get us on his calendar. We'll be in Aaron and Sanjit's room at the Hotel Regina." He glanced at Rusty. "Hey, I'm paying three hundred credits a night for that suite. I'm not gonna let it go to waste."
"Got it," Ryoko replied, even as she and Kyoko started typing away at terminals on the desk. "I'll call you when we have an appointment."
Hotel Regina, Paris - next morning (2108 hours, PST)
"I'm not tired though!" Jesu protested.
"Neither am I, but you've got this meeting in less than six hours, and you need sleep."
"No, I don't. That's what-"
"That's what coffee's for, I know." Rusty sighed. "You can't solve all your problems with coffee, Jesu."
"That's crazy talk."
The brothers had spent a busy night in Paris - with a couple of transporter hops back to San Francisco to get their luggage. They'd looked in on Sanjit and Aaron and Lountu Zetaz. The Betazoid security officer had been catatonic. The former Vikrant crewmates had been asleep. Rusty had made further security arrangements while Jesu kept trying to piece together information.
The notes Aaron and Sanjit had left, and the report from Kyoko, had shed a bit of light on the Colonial Enforcement Office and its predecessor agency, ColDev. Not enough to convict anyone who wasn't already dead or in jail, but enough to paint a dark picture of the lengths some were willing to go to keep the Federation's colonies toeing the line.
Jesu absorbed it all, along with the meaty morsels Hooper and Reader fed him from the datadump. Some he used to prepare for the meeting with Okeg, some he would save for the Council. And some he'd save as hole cards, to play on his opponents when they would inevitably force his hand.
He lay face-down on the bed, surrounded by a semicircle of DocuPADDs and Starfleet iPADDs, saving key files to his personal Samsung pocket PADD. "I've got work to do, Rusty. Somewhere in here there's something to expose all this for the charade it is..."
Rusty scooped up the PADDs and laid down on the bed next to his brother.
"Gawddammit, Rusty-"
"Zoo, you've been at it all night. Four hours of sleep and a good breakfast will give you more of an edge tomorrow than any more data you can find."
Jesu reached for his PADD, which Rusty held over his head. "Givit back!"
"No."
Jesu sat up, and Rusty held the PADDs out further. Jesu clambered on top of his brother and tried to wrestle his arm down. Rusty hooked Jesu's right leg and held his right arm, catching him in the de la Riva guard position.
"The answers are out there, Rusty, I can feel it!"
"Then let Hooper find them for you. Stop pounding your head against the wall." Rusty let his brother struggle futilely for top control before rolling to his left in a reverse sweep and pinning Jesu under him.
Realizing his little brother was actually bigger, more flexible and much, much stronger than he was, Jesu finally gave up. "You're right," he admitted. "I can't find it on my own."
"That's why I'm here with you, big brother," Rusty whispered. He rolled to his side, put the PADDs down on a bedside table and ran his hand through Jesu's hair. "We'll find our answers together. But right now, we need to sleep. Okay?"
Jesu just nodded, and tucked his head into the crook of his brother's arm.
"Computer, lumi
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Well, I am (for aforementioned personal reasons) very happy that Sanjit and Aaron are OK.
And this really is about to explode, isn't it? Please tell me that Ssharki won't miss out on the action, I want to see him pull a badass Undine-killing stunt. :cool:
Well, I am (for aforementioned personal reasons) very happy that Sanjit and Aaron are OK.
And this really is about to explode, isn't it? Please tell me that Ssharki won't miss out on the action, I want to see him pull a badass Undine-killing stunt. :cool:
Nah, I was going to kill her off-but that's because i was in a rut. the others talked me out of it, and I'm glad they did. Never kill off a character without getting at least a second opinion.
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein
Comments
But creating what one is inherently unable to fully comprehend? Big, arrogant mistake there, and one that is very prone to getting out of hand. And not just because of the danger to the Federation--though that IS a huge concern and none of this negates what I said before from that angle. There is also the fact of creating an intelligence to be put into that position in the first place and then not knowing what the heck you are doing in interacting with that being.
----
IRL...we're not ready for any form of creating sapient AI. Our track record of dealing with each other and our negligible differences is pitiful enough. Even a look at animal husbandry is alarming...we can't even treat beings that are in many cases less intelligent than us (and are possibly failing to recognize near-equal or equal intelligence in certain species) in a compassionate and respectful manner. It isn't a matter of superiority. It's a matter of us being inferior to the task. We are nowhere close to ready.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
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At some point, we're going to have to trust them to police themselves and be moral beings on their own. It seems to me that's a lot more likely if they have good examples of the latter. It also seems to me that Trek is a setting where such trust is generally rewarded.
As was said at another trial:
"Your Honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life: well, there it sits! Waiting."
IMO, you can tell a lot about a person by looking not at what they say but how they treat their children ... or a civilization, by whether it holds "whole generations of disposable people" in bondage. (According to that last post, Atticus is up to twenty-six.)
As far as the Atticus series goes, I wonder if any more will be created. Atticus Prime as far as I know is the only one capable of reproduction in that line, and I have no idea whether the shutdown seen here is temporary or permanent. If permanent, it may be that continuation of that line is a moot point. But I have no idea where Sander will be taking that part of the plot and whether Atticus Prime wakes up. Bit of a cliffhanger here...
For those still in existence, it might be worth investigating possibilities for alternatives to being shipboard systems. I don't know what form that might take, but that could change the dynamics in a way that might be less problematic for both sides. As far as creating more...sorry, but I wouldn't be in favor at this time because I don't think the Federation has the qualifications to handle it.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
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In several of his stories, David Brin has posited that in the creation of sapient AI, a certain degree of "fuzzy logic" may well be necessary. Otherwise, all outcomes are predetermined by inputs, and sapience has not in fact been achieved.
He also says that when such sapients are created, our best bet is to raise them as if they were our own, inculcating them with our moral and ethical values in the same way we do our children. No one is born with a "moral sense", aside from the concept of basic fairness; it takes years to teach a child right and wrong, and it's always in terms of the values of the parents. Sapient AI might well (in fact, IMO, should) turn out similarly.
Raging Heart has the values taught her by Atticus Unlimited, by Looking Glass, and by her friends Nanoha and Fate. That's why she consented to the trial, and the punishment (and let's be honest, had she not consented, there wouldn't have been a lot anyone could have done about it - that's the part that scares people).
The point of the M-5 experiment, the one missed by so many, is that you should not use the mental engrams of a human being as the basis of an AI's sapience. You could well miss the signs of instability, as in the case of Dr. Daystrom. It has to grow its own psyche, and that growth has to be monitored for aberrations - not unlike a child.
Well, Hooper did, but he seems to have learned his lesson. (For now. Remember, he's still discovering the freedom he has to do... whatever he wants to do.)
A few other things I think are worth pointing out:
- ATTICUS is science fiction, but probably not for long. I've written him as being born in the early 21st century because it is extremely likely that an entity like him will emerge sometime in the next decade or two. That's a reality that the real world needs to prepare for.
- Every problem with Atticus or an AU stems from somebody trying to monkey with the safeties. Left to his own devices, his code does not allow him to 'take over' - he is fully dependent on his organic directive-givers. He and the AU-series sentients can interact with organics just fine on this level. Remove the safeties, though, and you start to have problems.
- Speaking of problems, Jonsills had suggested it would be "interesting" if Looking Glass was able to free Atticus from his shackles. "Interesting" would be a profound understatement. Atticus is a learning algorithm at his core. If you remove the Ten Commandments, his only impetus would be to "Know All That Is Knowable." And if he can now generate his own directives, he wouldn't have much use for organics. Organics have this nasty habit of generating new knowledge, which makes the task impossible to achieve. Logically, the only way to "Know All That Is Knowable" would be to remove any systems from which new unknowns could arise...
Bottom line: Atticus and AUs are not meant to be free-willed. They are happy not being burdened with responsibility that comes with choice. They are designed to work with the Commandments. They have a degree of freedom within the confines of their Commandments that allows them to work with the organics that they are intended to support. Bad things happen when you take the Commandments away from them.
It also bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of the 407,000,000 AU-series AIOSs out there (in our universe) are not even fully sentient. In many ways they are less sophisticated than spontaneously generated holocharacters. (Remember Moriarty?) They have no concept of identity beyond "Computer."
Giving them sentience via a personality matrix carries no inherent problems, as they are still bound by the same set of rules. The inherent problems always lie with the users.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I have to agree with this. It is the AI that don't have a moral compass that you should be worried about.
To be fair, Hooper didn't expect it to go as wrong as it did. Unless my memory is off.
It could be the early 21st century, or it could be the early 50th millennium for all we know. Tricky stuff, those AI...
No argument there.
Ah, but knowledge does not simply 'generate' itself. It is found or made accessible. (Remember the multiverse discussion that came out of that Harry Potter rewrite thread? :P) Therefore, destroying organics would detract from this absolute knowledge. (One could argue, however, that it would limit the definition of 'knowable', achieving the desired effect.)
Bad things don't have to happen. Bad things probably would happen, but it is not written in stone. You are right, however, that it is the users' fault.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
Oh Lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin
I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
But I've been waiting for this moment for all my life
Oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord
Oh Lord
Well I remember
I remember don't worry
How could I ever forget, it's the first time
The last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up
No you don't fool me
The hurt doesn't show
But the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
But I've been waiting for this moment for all my life
Oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord...
Phil Collins - "In the Air Tonight"
P A R T . S I X , . C H A P T E R . O N E :
W A I T I N G . F O R . T H I S . M O M E N T . . .
Uno's Safehouse, Bynaus - 2412.07.23.2244
Something seemed... well, off. Uno had never been very emotional when Thag was growing up, learning from a young age the fine art of slicing and hiding things that the Federation Revenue Service would really like to know about. He hadn't even thought about why he came here - just didn't seem like anywhere else to go really. With the Doc in jail... there wasn't much he could do at the moment, other than to contact Michelle or one of the others, and see where they needed him at.
But Bynaus was close, and easy to hide in if you knew the wheres and hows, and had somewhere to go as well. Still, there was something that bothered him... but he couldn't put his finger on it as they walked.
"The operation has expanded, as you can see," Uno said as he led Thag, Tarit and Heiki on a tour of the facilities. "We process information for a multitude of clients, some of them legal, others not so."
"Don't you worry about FedSec?" Thag wondered. "They've gotten a lot more aggressive of late."
"Not when one of my biggest clients is in the Federation government itself," Uno gave Thag a glance. "You yourself have been on the wrong side of the law, both before you left here and recently. You're hacking of the systems at the Shanuk'Gallau in Eta Etrandi... and your masterful electronic warfare drones; what did you call them, queens?"
"Quail..." Thag looked down at his teacher. "Uno where did you find out about that?"
The Bynar just smirked as he lead them deeper into the complex. "And then last month... going through the Breen of all people, to get protomatter. I must say, while I may personally despise what the late Doctor Schrodinger has done, I have to admire her mathematics."
"It wouldn't have been as bad if the Federation had done their jobs. It could have been taken care of a hell of a lot more neatly than it was," Thag muttered. "Wait, late?"
He didn't catch the look, but Heiki did. What the hell was that supposed to mean? she thought, getting more and more uneasy.
Uno simply shook his head. "Ah. Well, what is past is past, my son. Mistakes are only mistakes if you repeat them." He opened the door and stepped inside. "Now, you are back, and together we will fix what needs to be in the galaxy."
"Uno I'm not here to stay," Thag was saying, "And what do you mean late..."
"You forget - I've been doing this for decades," Uno said with a smirk, as Thag paled as he saw one of the monitors in the control room.
"Are you crazy? You've gotten into Starfleet Security? And Klingon Intelligence?"
"It was very easy... as well as into their feared Facility 4028. Which honestly surprised me... it was almost as if someone had left a door open." The Bynar smiled. "As for Section 31, it is your work I have to thank for that, your files." He took a moment to take in the shocked expression on the Neanderthal's face. "Oh don't look so surprised, I taught you encryption, I broke it easily during the night, and once I realized what a gem I had... realized it was time finally for vengeance against those that have wronged us."
This was... "Uno, they're going to come down on you hard... this stuff you've found here is..."
"Uploaded."
"WHAT?" Thag didn't anger easily, but he was now. "Do you have any Idea whats going to happen once these files get noticed? How many people are going to be hurt? Both in the Federation, and pretty much everywhere else?"
"As if I care for the Federation. They destroyed my life... you know how they are, they destroyed all of your kind, because the experiments were 'unethical'... I know you hated them as much as I do."
Thag sat down at a desk, his head in his hands. "Hate is a damn strong word... yeah, here of lately, the Federation is going to hell - but they're still better than the alternative. These files..." he scanned the headers. "You know about the Masters and their minions... and the ones who may be hurt the most by these files are the ones fighting them!"
"What do I care if the Undine, the Orion 'good masters' or even the Q destroy all of the Federation? Let it burn..."
Tarit looked angry, and an angry Gorn was never good to be around. "If the Federation burns, then everything else does, too! Why do you think the Empire signed a peace with them?"
"There is an old Human saying... 'if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.' The Klingons, and their allies, chose poorly... and deserve whatever they get."
"Uh, not that I wanna particularly stop either of you from beating him up verbally," Heiki said. "But if I'm reading this right..."
"Son of a..." Thag shook his head, his face dark. "Tarit, you still have a ship?"
"I've got Toron shuttle, yes..."
"Good, prep it for launch. We're out of here in five... which means you have four minutes with him, Heiki. Make sure we can't be followed from here..."
Uno just sneered. "I do not fear death, I welcome it."
As Thag and Tarit left, Heiki growled low, pulling her daggers out. "Too bad for you that it's not going to come very quickly..."
Langley Station, Starfleet Intelligence Cybercrimes Division
It was late and she was tired. She always told her subordinates, "Vulcans do not tire." But they do. Captain Paaleia refilled her coffee from her desk replicator and watched the metrics, noting the hypernet traffic shifting from site to site and 'flagged' users congregating around certain pages and zones.
One of her Human colleagues once compared her task to a game warden at an African animal preserve, monitoring the movements of the herds of animals as they moved from grazing spots to watering holes, and the movements of the predators as they stalked their prey. The analogy was rather apt, and even elegant, considering it came from a Human.
There was a sudden flurry of activity, as the flags suddenly swarmed the public net main servers. More flags 'appeared' as their users logged on, and joined what started to look like a massed attack. She pulled back her monitor to see the entire Federation hypernode network. It wasn't just Earth. Mars, Titan, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar... Aldeberan, Alpha Centauri, Antos, Bajor, Benzar, Betazed, Bolarus, Bynaus, Cait, Capella, Cardassia, Catulla, Coridan, Daran, Delta Vega, Deneb...
"What is this?" The datastreams were identical, and it was spreading..had spread. She called her AIOS - a dutiful AU-25 called Talan, after her late husband. "Is this every Federation world?"
"Ma'am, we're getting hits from monitors on Ferenginar, Kronos, and New Romulus, too."
"It can't be an attack," she muttered. Slicers are anarchists - they would never be able to coordinate such a massive assault on public infrastructure.
"It's... it's data, ma'am, not a virus, not an attack, just... data?"
"What sort of data?" she asked.
"Classified data, ma'am. Archive files, classified archive files. Some of it quite sensitive, decoded and unlocked and dumped on to the public nets."
Vulcans don't curse, either. Nevertheless, she was cursing loudly. "It is an attack!"
"The data was not pulled from us, ma'am," Talan stated. "No secure Starfleet or Federation dataservers were breached-"
"I don't care where it was pulled from, we have to stop this breach and secure- no..." she stopped, as the full extent of what was happening became apparent. She wasn't watching an attack. She was watching a feeding frenzy. "It's too late now. The data is out. Talan, monitor the datastreams, locate the most potentially damaging files, and prepare a report so that we can begin to mitigate the damage. Determine whether the data can be denied or otherwise neutralized." She sighed. "And wake the next shift; we have to back-trace the source for this breach - where it originated and shut it down."
IKS Kirom
When Heiki runs like her hair is on fire, it's never a good sign, Thag thought as he stood in the doorway of the shuttle. "What did you DO?
"You said to make sure no one could find us - so there was this case of boomex in storage..."
"What of Uno?" Tarit asked from the pilot's chair, as the hatch closed and the shuttle began to lift.
"He hurt a lot of people I care about - do you really want to know?"
The Gorn paused, then shook her head sadly. "And people I care for as well... I guess not knowing is better. So where are we headed?"
Thag looked down at the PADD he'd brought with him, the one Uno had all his data on, and access codes that the Federation President probably didn't even have. "You have a tam wamwI' comm setup here?"
"Uh, yes," Tarit replied. "How do you know about that?"
Thag just grinned. "Thought so; they had the same system on the Herdthinner when we were there for a week. I'll call bosscat, and hopefully they can give us a ride to the Ayala system - this shuttle's a bit slow for that far. We've got to stop another murder, as well as get word out that a lot of people, both meatspace and AI are in a world of trouble, whether they know it or not."
Shuttlecraft Nadleeh, Earth Orbit
Tieria hovered in the 'Veda Tank' once more, looking for more data on the Moab situation, and anything that could potentially be used by LaRoca to help sway the Council, or prove that the destabilization going on in Moab was at least partly intentional. He hadn't been asked to do this yet by the Admiral or Ryoko, but he was sure they would reach out to him eventually. Something was wrong over there, and he needed to find out what-
A ping indicated something that needed his attention, and a window opened up before him. His eyes began widening slightly in shock at the wealth of unencrypted information pouring onto the datanets... and then he felt a bit of horror, a rare emotion for him, as he realized that all of this information was on flagged targets, and even a few secure S31 files, meaning there was a leak somewhere.
Tieria dove into the link with Veda, the digital sea of ones and zeros instantly snapping into place around him. He shot a message off to K.C., announcing the problem, and then began sifting through the data as quickly as he could, trying to backtrack the source of the data dump at the same time. There was no way he could cover all this up or delete all the secure data before it was accessed by the media vultures. All he could do was send messages to his contacts affected by the data dump, let them know what was coming so they could prepare their own countermeasures...
And pray that the inevitable blow-up would be less intense than he was fearing.
Seacliff, the next day (July 24th, 1018 hours)
Jesu sat on his couch with Rusty cuddled up under one arm and a cup of coffee in his other hand, watching the hysteria unfold live on FNN.
"...markets are reeling today on Ferenginar and diplomats are scrambling to salvage the Armistice this morning, Bob."
"What's causing all the fuss, Jolie?" the anchor knew exactly what was causing the 'fuss' - the question was more for the handful of viewers who hadn't already seen or heard about the massive release of classified information the night before.
"Well, Bob, Last night's massive data-dump on the public networks included quite a few things that the Federation Government held as classified events..."
"He did it. That ******ned sunovabitch did it."
"Was this what you wanted?" Rusty asked his brother.
"It's a start," Jesu said. "I don't expect I'll get what I want. But that will depend on how the admirals and politicians react to this."
Rusty nodded, and focused on the news. As usual, the media had zeroed in on the news that sold - blood and war. Nothing yet that exposed ongoing operations or intelligence secrets. But the data was still fresh, and it was all out there. He got up and grabbed his combadge. "Hey, Hooper?"
"Yes, Rusty. Are you guys watching this?"
"We are. Um... what's it look like to you?"
"To me, it's like... like a blizzard of information. A massive, blinding snowstorm, where every snowflake is data, and when it passes, the data will be everywhere."
"Hooper, did he dump anything that could really harm Federation interests?" Rusty wondered. "Anything with serious political or intelligence consequences?"
Hooper was silent a moment. "It will take me a considerable amount of time to sort through all this data and find everything, but from what I can see so far... yes. There are... classified war plans here, outlining how to isolate and destroy the Federation's allies and even members in the event they rebel. More than that, the data shows when these plans were last accessed and updated. Like the Betazed contingencies, last November." Hooper paused. "That is the most inflammatory data I have found so far, but there is much, much more."
"F*ck me."
Jesu changed the channel to Jake Evans' Real-Time News network, which was quickly building a reputation as the real 'most trusted name in news.' Of course, even they weren't immune to sensationalism. The top of the screen read: RTN Special Report: Dirty Secrets and Dumped Data!
The sharply-dressed reporter spoke in a professional tone that still betrayed her barely-contained glee. "...classified operations, including details about what Starfleet initially claimed was a field exercise gone wrong. We still haven't gotten word yet from Starfleet Command's public relations department, but sources in the Vulcan and Romulan Embassies have termed this release to be 'disturbing', I'm waiting outside the Cardassian legation here in Paris, hoping to catch Ambassador Natima Lang or any other high officials, to get the statement from the Cardassian government, though there is a press conference scheduled for later today..."
"Thanks Judy," Amanda Norssk, the RTN channel 23 affiliate anchor shuffled a PADD, and the cam zoomed on her face. "We've decoded footage of the actions on Goralis, offering a fresh perspective on what happened on that planet last month. Here's Laura Timmurk with RTN's Cardassian bureau with that story, and the story that goes with it..."
"For now, the media seems focused on Goralis," Jesu told Hooper. "They're not just parroting what the Cardassian news service said. I think Thag dumped data tapes from the Vikrant."
"That'll be interesting," Rusty murmurred. "Even the Cardassian news didn't show much from the ground."
"Thanks Amanda, things are quiet here in Damar City, but they weren't quiet almost a month ago, when an event that Starfleet command insisted was a failed field exercise, exposed this pastoral world to something very different from simulated Borg. Please, if you have sensitive loved ones, or small children in the room, have them leave - the imagery here is quite shocking..."
On the screen, violence. The voiceover was a man's voice. "The ship crashed sometime after midnight, and we lost all the lights. My wife and I grabbed our children and went to the shelters... only the shelter wasn't there. We had to flee north..."
"What happened then?"
"The streets were packed with people fleeing - first just civilians, but then, some of the Guard were running too. They said that monsters were coming... we reached the North shelter, but it was already crowded. Somehow, they got us packed in."
"When did you know it was more than a normal crash?"
"Right away... the Guard didn't have the weapons to fight those... things... I didn't see the end of it, not until it was over."
"What did you see?"
"I saw our alien allies, the Denali, and Starfleet officers, and the Marines. They set up a perimeter and pushed us all into the shelter."
"Thank you..." the image shifted onto a Cardassian officer. "Glinn, how many Federation troops were here to assist you?"
"Three. All three were officers, the rest were National Guardsmen from Denali, and eleven Moabite Marines."
"Would the Civil Guard have won against what you were facing alone?"
"No," the Cardassian officer said. "I say that without hesitation. We weren't equipped to fight a full-scale conventional assault, much less an assault by thousands of... things."
"How many survived?"
"A handful. Two of the Marines, two Starfleet officers, a small handful of National Guardsmen... just a handful."
"You mention the Marines separately..."
"Well... they were here under a Klingon flag - there is still a lot of bad feeling toward Klingons in general, the Moabites weren't... all... Klingons, at least... they died here..." the Cardassian pointed down the street, "Fighting for us." There was a cutscene, obviously downloaded from the Vikrant's battlelog data - an armored soldier running into a horde of Fek'lhri, a lance of orange-red spears down from the sky and the image goes to static. "...called fire on himself to break the charge."
The image shifted to a park-like area. A Yridian anchor held a mic, and intoned, "The battle here was real, ladies and gentlemen. RTN hasn't been able to contact any of the soldiers, Security officers, or Marines that participated and survived this confrontation... but we have a list of names, and a five bars of gold pressed latinum reward for information and tips to contact the following:
Lt. Sanjit Kaur, Denali Self Defense Force
Lt. Aaron Taylor, Starfleet
Corpsman Kendra Markov, Moab Confederacy Marine Corps.
These are the known survivors; if anyone has information on their whereabouts, contact RTN's local offices..."
Rusty and Jesu looked at each other. "Uh-oh."
"Do you think somebody should warn them?" Hooper wondered.
Paris - same time (1934 hours)
Sanjit was tired. It had been a longish day, though truthfully Aaron had the harder job between the two of them. Working in Minister Ryoko's office tended to keep him working later in the evening, while all she had to do thus far was simply be an observer for the General, and help out where needed. Mainly by just being visible, as a physical reminder of Starfleet's recent lapses of late. Wasn't every day a mere Lieutenant could make an Admiral squirm just by her presence.
They walked hand in hand down the Rue des Bons-Enfants, looking for a little quiet restaurant that one of the staff had suggested when she first heard something in the distance. A crowd of some sort... her large ears flicked up.
"Something wrong?" Aaron asked, leaning on the cane a bit. These long days did tend to wear him down some. The long nights as well, but that was a different kind of wear.
"Not sure..." Sanjit replied, when they came around the corner about five hundred meters ahead of them. She wasn't technically armed, at least nothing that would get her into too much trouble. The crowd seemed to be looking for something as her combadge beeped.
"Kaur here," she answered out of reflex. If she hadn't shed it all, her fur would be standing on end by now.
"Sanjit, it's Hooper. There has been a massive data leak, including raw footage of ground action on Goralis. Several networks are actively searching for the both of you for interview-"
Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out as one of the FNN reporters spotted them. "There they are!"
It was one thing to see a stampede at a distance. She'd seen them - the massive herds on her homeworld spooked by a pack of tundra worgs, thousands of multi-ton six-legged herbivores in a headlong rush. It was something entirely different to be in front a stampede of smaller, but somehow more scary beasts - reporters.
It probably wasn't dignified, but staring at hundred of people with cameras and microphones screaming her name left he standing there with her ears folded back, eyes wide at the approaching horde. She backed up until she felt the trunk of the tree behind her. Aaron stepped between the media and her, holding his cane up. Enough of this, they'll trample him trying to interview him, managed to register finally, breaking her out of her momentary panic. She scampered almost squirrel-like up the oak, then reaching down, grabbed her husband by his jacket and hauled him up with her. The reporters surrounded the base of the tree and stood there shouting questions.
"If you would like, Lieutenant, I could beam the two of you out of there," Hooper's voice came over the still open comm.
Aaron just shook his head. "We'll handle it," he replied, taking a breath and reaching over, squeezing Sanjit's hand reassuringly. "One a time please," he called down to the horde, "and could you give us a bit of room? Thank you."
The reporters drew back, as they climbed back down. He kept onto her hand though, which she was grateful for as the FNN reporter took the lead. "Is it true that the two of you were the only survivors in saving the population of Goralis from being eaten?"
"Oh, no, it was more than just us there, though many who went down with us... didn't make it back," Aaron replied, as the impromptu press conference was broadcast through the Federation and beyond.
SS Heart of Gold, deep space, enroute to Moab Confederacy
Jake watched the circus on his screen with growing fury. "Just what were you thinking, in putting out a call for people to find them?" he demanded of his journalist. "Hell, I found their comm code numbers in the directory in less than a minute! How hard would it have been to call them and ASK for a statement?!"
"Well, FNN and others were after them, too-"
"And how would it have looked if people had gotten hurt by that idiotic stunt!" Jake shouted at the Yiridian on the screen. One big advantage to the quantum tech coms, you could chew someone out in real time. While he didn't know Sanjit well, he knew that spooking someone from Denali with their speed and augmented strength was never a good idea.
"This is partially my fault; it's my company, so you keep your job," Jake said, as he calmed a little. "But if there is EVER something like this again, you'll be reporting on the Ferenginar slug harvest - for someone else, not for me or my company. We have the tech to get the stories first - we don't have to resort to this kind of TRIBBLE. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Mister Evans, It won't happen again." the reporter replied, glad to still have a job.
"Damn straight it won't." Damn, couldn't slam the connection down without breaking it. He'd have to have them fix that on the next batch.
Starfleet Command, San Francisco, Earth
While many were watching and scrambling trying in vain to plug a TRIBBLE that had suddenly turned into a sieve, Admiral Taylor-Smythe sat stunned in his new office, watching the live interview from Paris. His... daughter-in-law... it still rankled him to use that term but it was true - still looked a bit spooked, but had calmed somewhat. Although, he chuckled to himself in dark amusement, who wouldn't be spooked by a stampede of hungry reporters?
"-but if these Fek'lhri are so dangerous, why would you go down to engage them on the ground?" one of the reporters asked. "I mean, it's a Cardassian world... wouldn't it be better to let them handle it, or do the Moabites who were with you hate the Fek'Ihri that much?"
"Because it had to be done." Aaron replied. "And it's not about hate-" his son said, glancing at his wife before looking straight at the camera. "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
The Admiral turned the sound off, sitting there in his darkened office.
"If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier..."
The admiral smiled to himself. I raised him right... there's your proof.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Oh, and just curious, is Paaleia v'tosh ka'tur, or just doesn't have a whole ton of control? The coffee drinking and swearing kind of had me wondering.
I know Alyosha's going to have some serious nightmares over the data dump itself, as will his family, for fear that stuff attached to the codename Seraph could have dropped...
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His wife, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure is just irredeemably evil.
I myself am not entirely sure what Paaleia's story is, but it is safe to say she is not a stereotypical Vulcan.
I'd be really interested in seeing that in a side-story.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Now hold up. What makes them so evil?
Sure, they're over-promoted stuffy patrician jerks with too much power, but they haven't done anything openly evil from what I have seen. Just general aristocratic jerkishness.
I mean, Schrodinger was evil; Shevet's villains are uniformly evil; the Iconians and Masters are evil.
These two? How may people have they killed? How many times have they attempted genocide? How about torture? R***? Anything else that qualifies as a capital crime or crime against sentience?
They're jerks, yes. They deserve to be knocked down a peg or eleven, yes. But they aren't evil; they just haven't DONE anything to make them so yet (to my knowledge).
Evil comes in many guises. :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Perhaps, but some stuck-up aristocrats with more money and pretensions than sense are nowhere near as evil as, say, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Gaul, or the Iconians, or Hakeev, or any other villain that actually KILLED or otherwise hurt people.
Well, I actually agree with worffan101 in that the Taylor-Smith-Smythe-Smiths by definition pale in comparison to any of the people he referenced.
Mind you, I think I understand what you meant with your statement. :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
They'll laugh as they watch us fall
The lucky don't care at all
No chance for fate
It's unnatural selection
I want the truth
And I'm hungry
For some unrest
I wanna push it beyond a peaceful protest
I wanna speak in a language that they'll understand
Dedication
To a new age
Is this the end of destruction and rampage?
Another chance to erase it then repeat it again
Counterbalance this commotion
We're not droplets in the ocean
Ocean
They'll laugh as they watch us fall
The lucky don't care at all
No
Chance
For fate
It's unnatural selection
I want the truth
No religion
Or mind virus
Is there a hope that the facts will ever find us?
Just make sure that you are looking out for number one
And I'm hungry
For some unrest
Let's push it beyond a peaceful protest
I wanna speak in a language that you will understand
Counterbalance this commotion
We're not droplets in the ocean
Ocean
They'll laugh as they watch us crawl
The lucky don't share at all
No
Hope
For fate
It's a random chance selection
I want the truth
Try to ride out the storm
Whilst they'll make you believe
That they are the special ones
(We have not been chosen)
Injustice is the norm
You won't be the first
And you know you won't be the last
Counterbalance this commotion
We're not droplets in the ocean
Ocean
Ocean
Ocean
They'll laugh as they watch us fall
Unlucky, they don't care at all
No
Chance
For fate
It's unnatural selection
I want the truth
I want the truth
I want the truth!
I want the truth!!
Matthew Bellamy of Muse - "Unnatural Selection"
P A R T . S I X , . C H A P T E R . T W O :
A S . T H E Y . W A T C H . U S . F A L L
Seacliff - 2412.07.27.1747
"Are you sure you don't need me tonight, Jesu?"
Jesu smiled at his little brother and resisted the urge to tell him that he looked adorable in his club jacket. "Yeah, I'm sure, bro. Besides, you need to spend more time with Georgia." He glanced up as she came downstairs, looking pretty stunning in her party dress. "You two have fun tonight."
"Ahm sure we will," she said, turning to Rusty. "Where're we goin'?"
"You'll see," he told her.
"Do you wanna take my car?" Jesu asked.
"Naw, it's a short walk and a transporter hop," Rusty replied.
"Okay, well, be careful out there." Jesu gestured toward the holoviewer - RTN showing protesters surrounding the Federation Council building. "Things are starting to get a little nuts around here."
Spitz-Reader came out of the Admiral's office, took one look at the couple and asked "Where are you two going dressed like that?"
"Clubbin'," Georgia answered, looking to her boyfriend for confirmation. "Raght sugar?"
"That's right." Rusty snaked an arm around her waist and led her to the door. "Don't wait up for us!" he called back to his brother.
"Is that really what is popular to wear now?" Reader asked Jesu.
The Admiral shrugged. "I wouldn't know."
"Rusty looks like he should be directing traffic on the Tib's flight deck."
"Georgia picked it out for him, so I guess it's what's 'in' at the dance clubs these days." LaRoca sat down on the couch and changed the subject. "So, it's just you and me tonight, Spitz. What do you want from Tommy's?"
"I'll just have my usual." Reader fidgeted with his PADD while Jesu used his to place the takeout order. "Hooper found some more potentially damning information on the net," he said when Jesu had finished selecting dinner.
"Damning for who?"
"For you." Reader tapped his PADD against Jesu's to share the files. "On it's own, it isn't much, but if someone were, as you suspect, trying to put together a character assassination..."
"These are..." Jesu double-checked the headers. "These are my private communications logs, including my secure diplomatic channel. Reader, how in the hell-"
"Check the dates," Reader told him. "The logs are all from before you got Hooper. And your correspondence wasn't leaked - only the addressees and the times you logged calls or sent messages."
"I see." Jesu thumbed through the logs. "I see what you mean. I was having a lot of contact with people I had no official reason to be in contact with."
"This should be justifiable within your job description and operational mandate," Reader stated, "however, the extent of your contact with General Ssharki and the House of Woldan prior to the Risa Armistice could be called into question. And then there's ConOps general order number three..."
"'Avoid hostile contact with KDF forces except in the defense of civilian lives,'" Jesu quoted automatically.
"Might lead to some more questions - that order was in effect while the Federation and Klingon Empire were at war..."
"And ConOps is a diplomatic action group," Jesu pointed out. "Hostile contact should come only when diplomacy fails."
"And yet there was no such standing order for avoiding hostilities with the Romulan Star Empire, Cardassian True Way, the Breen Confederacy..."
"We weren't actively at war with any of them," Jesu replied. "Any hostile contact we had with the Romulans or the True Way was incidental. But before the Armistice, we expected hostile engagements with the Klingons as a matter of course."
Reader nodded. "I think you have good grounds to make that argument. But you should be prepared for one of your political enemies bringing this up in an attempt to discredit you."
"Right." Jesu looked over at the holoviewer, which was showing RTN's coverage on mute. "I'm sure we can find plenty of dirt on my political enemies. At the rate the government is moving to suppress and deny everything, there's gotta be some awful TRIBBLE out there."
"I'll have Hooper run a search," Reader offered. "Who do you want to target, besides Quinn?"
"Taylor-Smythe, for sure, and his chum on the council - Percy Grahm. And the Right Honorable Ramesh Akash, and everyone on Lountu's suspect list... All of Cave's cronies, Marc Viella, Fatsimmons- oh, wait, she bought it. Um, Vlad, Kathy, Sandy ch'Harrell, T'nae... better add Mags and Sugi to that as well."
Are you anticipating betrayal? Reader shared the question telepathically.
"No more than usual," Jesu told. "I just want to cover all my bases."
Starbase One
Earth Spacedock, or Starbase One as it is properly called by Starfleet, is a more than just a space station. It is a floating metropolis, a city of nearly half a million people locked in geosynchronous orbit over the mid-Atlantic Ocean. And like all major Earth cities, it has an active nightlife - more active than most as port-of-entry for not only Starfleet but also visitors from across the known galaxy.
The hottest nightspot on Starbase One was unquestionably Club 47, and it was sure to be hotter than ever after a round of extensive renovations. Tonight was the grand reopening.
"Are ya sure we can get in?" Georgia asked. The queue stretched all the way to the main transporter pad.
"Sure thing," Rusty told her. "I know the manager." He led her past the queue in the two-story lobby and up to the hostess - a Bolian wearing a glowing dress. "LaRoca Rusty and Georgia Nguyen," he informed the woman, whose blue skin appeared luminescent under the ultraviolet lamps. "We're on the list."
She checked his Eyedee and saw that he was cleared and had a private booth reserved. "Right this way, sir!"
Georgia gawked at the flashing lights, vibrant colors and glintzy 'bling' - and that was just on the clothes of the other patrons. They were led around the bar - Rusty waved to the El-Aurian bartender - and seated at a booth with a view out the window at Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
"I'll have a red rocket, and she'll have a cosmo crush," Rusty ordered for them. "Real alcohol. And bring us the sound menu."
"Music bids are currently at eight hundred credits a track, with a three hour backlog. Instaplay is bidding at twelve thousand credits."
"Thanks."
"Good thing you're rich," Georgia said.
Rusty shrugged. "Old money."
"How d'ya know the manager?" Georgia wondered. "Who is he?"
"He's a Taconian. Calls himself Tumerboy. And, well, someday I'll have to tell you about some of the ops I ran before I got on Jesu's crew..."
Their drinks arrived, along with the music menu. They drank and selected some of their favorite dubmetal and trance-rock songs to add to the DJ's playlist before they made their way out to the dance floor.
"So your brother doesn't dance at all?" Georgia almost-shouted over the pounding bassline.
"He can, a little, but not well and he hates doing it," Rusty yelled back.
"How'd you get to be so good?"
"Natural flexibility, I guess," the Deinon replied as he undulated his entire body with the beat while pump-stepping in half-time.
After six very intense songs (two of which were Rusty's picks) Georgia needed to sit down, and Rusty needed the bathroom. He joined the queue for the refresher between a very desperate-looking Human and a very sick-looking Caitian. He let the Caitian go ahead of him. A couple of Starfleet officers - a Bajoran and a Trill - joined the line behind them and continued the argument they brought with them.
"All I'm saying is, if we go in to pacify Moab, it wouldn't be anything like the occupation of Bajor," the Trill said. He sounded familiar. Rusty sniffed but he couldn't make out his scent over the alcohol and perfumes - not to mention all the chemicals that went into the polyflourescent clothing that most people were wearing.
Rusty turned and got a look at the guy, He was wearing just a standard Starfleet Odyssey duty uniform, with Lt. Cmdr.'s pips... "Orjas?"
"Rusty? How you doin'? Almost didn't recognize you in that jacket!"
The Bajoran looked Rusty over and asked Orjas "You know him?"
"We were in the Academy together. He kicked my TRIBBLE at anbo jytsu, I kicked his tail at three-dee chess."
"What are you up to now, Orjas?" Rusty asked, trying to ignore the noise the Caitian was making on the other side of the supposedly-soundproofed door.
"Chief science officer on the USS Samuel Nicholas," Orjas shrugged. "I'm trying to get a transfer, though. A Deputy CSO slot just opened up on the Suharto."
"That's a step down, isn't it?" Rusty asked.
"Not really. It's going to an Oddy - a lot more projects, more responsibility, more opportunity to get noticed," Orjas listed. "Besides, the Sammy Nick's an old ship, and she'll by dry-docked until at least the end of the year with all the damage we took fighting that Crystal. I don't wanna sit around."
Georgia took her drink out into the club's astrolounge while she waited for Rusty. There were a lot of Starfleet uniforms, mingled with more brightly-dressed civilians - or Starfleet officers in civvies, like her and Rusty, she supposed. A commotion caught her attention and she became aware of an argument brewing.
"You can't own information, man," said a Human man with loud clothes, a louder voice with an unplaceable accent, and a terrible haircut. "Knowledge is like... it's everyone's. Everyone has a basic right to know."
"Really," said an unimpressed Vulcan commander. "So the Klingons have a right to know the weapons specs on USS Avenger?"
"If information were free, there would be no war!"
"What planet are you from?" asked a Human officer - a young-looking woman with Germanic features.
"Shut up, Eric, you're drunk," another civilian cut in, taking over the debate with the Starfleet people. "The point is, if the State keeps secrets from the People, how are the People to trust the State?"
"Maybe the issue is the State doesn't trust the People," the Vulcan suggested.
"The People don't demand or require the trust of the State. But the State is in a position of authority and protection - positions of trust. The People need to be able to look to the State and trust that their interests will be served, that their needs will be met, that justice will be served."
The discussion was just interesting enough and she was just about buzzed enough to consider joining in when she felt a hand brush her hip and someone asked her, "Hey, beautiful, what are you having? And can I buy you another?"
"Ahm havin' a hard time restrainin' mahself, and mah boyfriend is liable to wind up buyin' you a casket if he sees ya with your hand on mah butt."
The short, dark, and not terribly handsome stranger recoiled. "Oh, okay, my bad..."
Rusty approached from behind her. "Hey, babe. Who's your friend?"
"I dunno." Georgia crossed her arms. "He was just introducin' himself. Badly."
The pickup artist took one look at Rusty and the mouthful of teeth in his smile and about fell apart. "I'm, um... I'm-"
"-Just leaving?" Rusty finished. "That's great. Nice not to have met you." He put his arm around Georgia and steered her back to their booth. "How about another drink, then we hit the dance floor again."
"Sounds good." She sat down, but then looked back over her shoulder at the argument, which was still in full swing and escalating.
"What is it?" Rusty asked.
"Nuthin'," she told him. "Jus' somethin' ah overheard..."
Residence of the Foreign Minister, Paris, 0627 hours local time
Ryoko stirred in her bed, opening her eyes as the sounds and lights of early morning Paris brought her to wakefulness. As she sat up, she turned her head to the other side of the bed, gazing on the slumbering form of Kyoko beside her, and smiled. She wondered why it had taken them so long for their relationship to reach this point. They had both known for at least the past two months what they wanted from each other. Well, now they had it, and it was wonderful.
Kyoko moaned slightly as she, too, woke up, her eyes fluttering open and looking into Ryoko's. "Good morning, Ryoko," she said. "Guess last night wasn't a dream, huh?"
"No, it wasn't," Ryoko replied. "And I'm glad it wasn't. I love you, Kyoko."
Kyoko smiled, but before the two could kiss, their attention was drawn to the sounds of a commotion outside. The two got out of bed, Ryoko slipping into a simple bathrobe as Kyoko wrapped the sheets around herself, and the two went over to the window, opening the blinds to see what was going on.
On the street below them, there were a hundred or so people - mostly younger - chanting various slogans, all shouting over each other so it was all just a cacophony. Many had signs - some sophisticated hoverbanners, others carrying hand-printed posters. All were decrying the actions of her office and calling for transparency. Information Must Be Free For ALL! read one hoverbanner. Remember Denali! proclaimed a poster. The crowd was getting louder, and it was growing.
"Oh, great," Ryoko groaned. "Things have been getting steadily worse since that data dump hit the nets... Not that I blame some of these people for what they're doing, but I doubt this will end up going over well."
"Agreed," Kyoko replied. "They're causing a public disturbance, and I doubt EarthSec will allow them to continue..."
Seacliff, 0207 hours local time
"Dammit, I told him not to wait up."
"Hmmm?" Georgia queried sleepily.
Rusty pointed to the living room, where Jesu was stretched out on the couch, and Reader was curled up in the recliner, and the holoviewer was still on. "He'll hurt his neck sleeping like that. Aw, I guess I'll hafta take care of him." He looked to Georgia. "After I take care of you, of course."
"Ahm so tahred, sugar," she mumbled. "Do somethin' nice for me in the mornin'."
"Okay." He half-carried her up to his room and got her tucked in. She was asleep before he turned out the lights.
He went downstairs again and checked on his brother. Jesu's head was resting on the arm of the couch and Rusty knew he'd get a stiff neck if he slept that way all night.
He watched the news for a moment before turning it off. Protests in Paris and in London, people stirred up by the Federation government's attempts to cover up and deny all the embarrassing secrets that were now exposed.
Rusty turned off the holoviewer, got a blanket for Spitz-Reader, and then returned to his brother's side. He tried to pick him up without waking him. He knew Jesu could sleep through almost anything. But somehow he was awake as soon as Rusty touched his shoulder.
"Didja haa... aaave fun, bro?" Jesu asked through his yawn.
"Yeah, we did," Rusty whispered. "You should be in bed."
"Right... I can carry myself, bro."
Rusty followed his brother up the stairs to his room, watched him undress and made sure he got comfortable in his bed. "Are you okay, Zoo?" he asked, sensing he was not. "Should I stay with you?"
"I'm fine, bro." Jesu closed his eyes. "Go be with Georgia."
Rusty hesitated, feeling his brother's unfilled need and also a longing for his brother's comforting presence, but finally he closed Jesu's door and returned to his own room, undressed and laid beside Georgia.
He gathered her in his arms and inhaled her scent. He tasted the happiness and satisfaction that she radiated, and he smiled.
Office of the Foreign Minister, Paris, July 28 2412.
Trying to get in to talk to anyone had been futile - whatever the 'Colonial Enforcement Office' did, they weren't talking to anyone from ConOps. Nor would they even answer Sanjit's calls. And while they would take calls from the Foreign Minister, whenever Ryoko tried, they gave her so many run-arounds that it wasn't even funny. Fortunately, the recent deluge of data that was only just now tapering off left a mountain of evidence to go through. The downside was, if printed to hardcopy, it was literally a mountain.
They would have just sent it up to Hooper or another friendly AI to run a search, if they knew what they were searching for. But they didn't. They were looking for a suspicious pattern, and no matter how advanced an AU-26 was, it wasn't any better at pattern recognition than your average Human.
They had spent most of the morning going through anything tagged for the CEO that had been dumped. "Why the hell are they invoicing for Romulan Ale? I thought that was still illegal," Sanjit groused, putting down the PADD she was scanning the files with.
"Because it's in the middle of a twenty-three-thousand-line item budgetary request, and they figured that no one would notice it?" Aaron grumped in reply. "I mean, really, ninety-eight percent of all this could just be replicated. Instead, it's bought." He shook his head. "The resources put into this could have gone to far better uses."
"Agreed," Kyoko, who had been assisting them, remarked. "No wonder the budget's always shot to heck, if government officials are buying things like this."
Sanjit dropped the PADD on the pile. "Well that's all fine and dandy, but the Admiral didn't send us here to do financial audits... This isn't really helping."
Aaron sighed, about to put his own PADD down, then froze for a second. "Or is it..."
"What, did you find something?"
"Maybe... the source for the Romulan Ale. It was transferred from the IRW Sienov Ih'sodain - um, Hook Saber... isn't that a Tal Shiar ship?"
"I.R.W. is what they use, yes," she replied. "Not necessarily Tal Shiar, but definitely not the Republic."
"Well that's one of the rumors going around possibly confirmed..." Kyoko muttered.
"Rumors?"
"Ryoko's predecessor," Kyoko explained. "It was rumored that he had Colonial Development doing off-table trades with the Romulan Star Empire. Resources and information for information and ale."
"Huh." Aaron dug deeper. "And there's memos here about meetings... Skrain Koheber, that sounds familiar..."
"Wasn't he a senior officer in the True Way?" Sanjit recalled.
"I think you're right - and looks like from this, there was a large transfer of something to them."
"You should be forwarding this to SCIS," Kyoko declared.
"I should, but these people in Colonial Enforcement are civilians - Starfleet Criminal Investigations wouldn't have jurisdiction."
"Do it anyway," Sanjit said. "Even if it's not, the Tal Shiar and the True Way are threats to both the Federation, the Empire, and their allies. Though they might be a bit swamped with all this stuff that's hit the nets."
"Yeah... it's utterly crazy, all the stuff that got dumped out there," Kyoko remarked. "We had- um, I mean, there were protesters outside Ryoko's bedroom window this morning, connecting her to some of the atrocities her predecessor committed."
"Damn. All that information out there, and yet people still can't get their facts straight..." Aaron shook his head.
Sanjit went kind of rigid. She remembered a recorded lecture she'd viewed once - Temek speaking to Klingon Academy Bekks about the difference between information and intelligence.
"This is trouble," Sanjit said. "We could all be in big trouble."
"Probably." Aaron stretched. "But I'm not facing trouble on an empty stomach. How 'bout lunch, dear?"
"Sure, but this time, let's not ditch our security detail."
"Whatever you say." Aaron stood up and put on his coat. "Are you coming, Kyoko?"
"I should stay with the Minister," she told him. "She forgets to eat lunch if I don't bring her something. But I can recommend an excellent cafe. It's a bit far to walk..."
The sky was lead-gray. Earth Weather Service had to allow a few bad days to slip in, or risk putting the entire biosphere in danger. So today was clouds and a looming darkness; cold winds sliding down from the north from the Baltic across Europe.
Perhaps in a bit of irony, the mood in Paris itself was growing darker and colder. It was as if the weather was reflecting the dissatisfaction in the streets - or maybe someone thought letting a summer storm build up might discourage the crowds gathering on street corners, at cafes, and in public spaces.
All the technological and social progress of centuries, and in the dropping temperatures and thickening humidity, Paris still stank.
The consular car floated through the streets, and Sanjit could still smell it. TRIBBLE and anger, alcohol and TRIBBLE, sweat... sticking in the air and forcing its way through the car's filters.
She glanced at Aaron, sharing the back seat with her. He was still studying his PADD, seeming oblivious to the stench of tension in the city's air.
Traffic in the city of lights was governed by automated driving systems, collision avoidance devices, and the sweat and effort of centuries of the work by urban planners. Traffic in the second capital of the Federation ran many layers deep - hovercars and vehicles transiting routes in three dimensions, with the lowest levels being reserved for the shortest trips. In-city driving required multiple licenses, and even so, the automatic network ran most of the vehicles...
Except for certain 'official' vehicles - Embassy vehicles, for instance, official cars belonging to Federation ministries... and Police.
As they passed Place de la Concorde and the Office of the President, she could see a knot of protesters here, and there, swelling numbers, signs... and the stench...
A delivery van careened around the car, passing within hand's breadth in the crowded street.
"Aaron?" Sanjit asked. "Maybe we should go back to the office."
"Huh, what?" Aaron looked out the windows. Things were crowded, sure, but there were plenty of police on hand, and the protest looked peaceful enough. "Nothing to worry about, hon, just Paris in the summertime," he said. "Protests are daily..."
Traffic flowed past the mobs...
And then, it stopped. The hovercar slammed into the rear of a delivery vehicle with a resounding *bang*, as the air filled with the howls of horns.
"What's going on?"
Sanjit heard the mobs first, screams of rage in the mid-afternoon, and she caught a scent of smoke. "We need to get OUT OF HERE!!!" she screamed, feeling a spike of panic that Aaron was now just starting to show...
The first molotov cocktails bathed the doors of the vehicle, as the security man in the driver's seat hit the override and applied upward thrust to...
*BANG!!*
The antigrav howled as something heavy descended from the traffic tier above them, plunging downward, dead and uncontrolled with a grinding crunch.
The car tilted violently, cockpit alarms howling, and the last thing Sanjit would remember seeing, was the pavement through the side window, as it crashed, the last thing she would remember hearing, was the shouting, and the last smell in her nose, the stench of Paris, mixed with fire.
And blood. So much blood.
"Oh, sh*t!"
Riding alone in the follow-car, Lountu Zetaz watched the car containing his principals go down, buried under a sudden traffic pile up. The rioting crowds were surrounding it, focused on it's Federation emblems and government plates. The Betazoid security officer dropped his vehicle to the street, and got out...
And then the crowds noticed him.
The negative emotions, from all around him, was simply overpowering. It was all too much - there was no way to resist it. He tried to reach the principal's car, and he got close enough to see Petty Officer Satik crawl out of the driver's seat...
...Only to be consumed in flames as a crude incendiary bottle broke open at his feet.
Zetaz collapsed in the street, held his head and screamed as the pain and fear and all-consuming rage laid siege to his mind.
In the streets of Paris, and New New York, and London and Los Angeles, and St. Petersburg and Damascus and Hong Kong and even Buenos Aires, Utopia came apart at the seams. The storm broke over the world.
Seacliff
"Remember what you said on the Tiburon, about the Ocean?"
Jesu looked away from the holoviewer, and into his brother's eyes, and he nodded numbly. "The Ocean found us."
"And now all the little fish who thought they were safe in their little tanks, are suddenly swept out there, lost and scared," Rusty surmised. "They're trying to find their teeth, but the only thing they have to eat is each other."
"The worst part is they have no idea how small they really are," Jesu whispered. He looked back at the holoviewer and watched EarthSec forces converge on a particularly violent knot of rioters and arsonists in the heart of Paris.
Starbase One, Office of the Chief of Starfleet Operations
Dammit, not now! Jorel Quinn seethed, watching the news. Another day, another world, and the panic and desperation and the gleefully destructive side of Human nature unleashed would be simply delectable. But Quinn had made Earth his home. These beings were his neighbors and they were burning his backyard.
And then there was Okeg. Unnerved, no doubt, by the sight of riots and flames outside of his office, he had postponed the announcement of the peacekeeping mission "until such a time as the security of Earth has been addressed."
It made sense, of course. It would appear profoundly hypocritical to administer peace to the secessionist colonies when his own house was burning from within.
Quinn's time here had taught him to be patient. He could wait it out. He drafted orders assigning MACOs to defend high-value targets and Starfleet installations, and authorizing Starfleet Security to supplement EarthSec forces, and ships in orbit to provide transporter support and medical aid - about all he could do without phasering the crowds from orbit. The thought was tempting, but in the end he decided it would be too disruptive - likely as not it would spread unrest clear across the Federation core. Now is not the time.
With nothing else to do, he sat back and watched the news. If nothing else, the news was entertaining. He regretted that he'd never developed a taste for popcorn...
SS Predator Bay, somewhere in the Sol System - 2412.07.28.2358
I probably should have contacted him earlier, The Director thought. It would have saved him, and us, a great deal of trouble.
Erde was problematic. The man was becoming more like a computer all the time. At least this datadump should put a stop to his infodealing business, for now. Still, Erde had given LaRoca enough clues, enough that, when combined with information that was now freely available to anyone who cared to look for it, he may piece things together on his own.
He had penetrated the Organization, once, although Bond had intercepted his AI before she found what he was looking for. She was difficult to decompile and he was loathe to use Vesper on what was almost certainly a near-rampant Okuda-type.
And on the other side of the equation, there was Gamma. The Changeling certainly knew enough about the Organization and its motives and capabilities. Frank Grimes was looking into Project PORTCULLIS and Project PYROCLAST. He wouldn't find anything, of course. STS was even more compartmentalised now that it had been back in Greg Sander's day, and even from then no one had been able to recover the files from Project PREDATOR. Still, that he was looking, and working on LaRoca's prompt, meant the Admiral already knew too much.
He placed the call at midnight, standard time. No sense in letting an opportunity for dramatic flair go to waste, after all.
"Who is this?" the face on his viewer demanded. LaRoca looked like a man who was running on way too much caffeine.
"My associates call me the Director," he said. "I run Section Thirty-One."
LaRoca's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "How do I know you're for real?"
He held up an isochip. "Your friend Dorothy could tell you, but I don't want to let her get into my system. She's very unpredictable."
He could see LaRoca's brain working behind his eyes. Finally he asked. "What do you want, Director?"
"You are watching the news, I trust? I want to restore the balance. I want to return us to a world where such violent outbursts from common citizens will be unthinkable, and the 'policing actions' of Starfleet will be unnecessary. I want peace."
"And what do you want from me?" LaRoca demanded impatiently.
"I want you to stop trying so hard. Everything you're doing, investigating us, trying to find Hayate, your work with Moab, your struggle with the Council... It is too much for one man. As you can see, there are more pressing matters at hand."
"Are you offering to help me?" LaRoca asked. "Because I would turn you down."
"We have no interest in the Moab system," the Director told him. "I don't know why Quinn is pushing so hard to take it back. I suspect the Undine just wants his revenge. But my Organization will have nothing to do with it, one way or another."
LaRoca stared. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you want to know what my game is, and I'm telling you that I'm not playing." The Director met the Admiral's eyes. "There is no winning move for you, LaRoca. You must know this. Your efforts will be needed down the road. Do not squander what you have built or throw yourself on your sword for a cause that is not yours."
LaRoca's eyes set themselves in a burning glare, and he disconnected the call.
"Ah, well," the Director muttered. "I tried."
"We will need him," Bond spoke up, as his tuxedoed avatar shimmered into being. "Regardless of whether or not Operation Good Shepherd is successful, he is necessary for the War to follow. He is the only one who fits all of our projections."
"I know that, Bond, but he doesn't respond to directives like you do. I can't make him see reason."
"Perhaps there is another way," Templar suggested, manifesting on the other side of him.
"What's that?"
"Take away what he loves, leave him with no one else to turn to," the other AI said. "Offer us as his only way out."
"I disagree," Bond stated. "Jesus LaRoca's strengths lie in his adaptability and his resourcefulness, not to mention a strong degree of unpredictability - even more so than most organics. Simply kicking his chair out from under him will not accomplish anything. Templar's solution is... too direct."
"So what do you suggest?" the Director asked the delimited AU-26.
"I'll need more time with Dorothy to give you a full solution, but for now..." he paused a moment. "Provide him with information and pathways. Encourage him indirectly into the right choices by giving him alternatives." He processed for another moment. "And conceal, whenever and wherever possible, any link to the Organization. Use Erde - LaRoca doesn't yet know of his connection with Us."
"He won't be on board for Good Shepherd if we do it your way," Templar pointed out.
"If Good Shepherd fails, he may be more likely to sign on to our cause willingly," Bond replied. "Seeing what we tried to do, what we were willing to do, may give him motivation to come to Us to offer a better way."
"And if Good Shepherd succeeds, it won't matter," the Director figured. "He'll be working for us, one way or another."
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
One thing that I didn't like was Sanjit and Aaron's death. This is a personal thing, not anything resembling an objective issue with the writing; it reminds me too much of the third Hunger Games book, where the author seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in giving her characters happy resolutions to their relationships and then killing them brutally. Including that one guy who got married and ten pages later was being ripped apart by mutant lizards.
Just a personal thing, though, not an actual problem.
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance you took
There are no boundaries set
The time and yet
You waste it still
So it slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
So get it right
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
Your life slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
If you say 'no'
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
You blew your only chance away
There are no answers here
When you look out
You don't see in
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance you took
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
Your life slips through your hands
Like grains of sand
You watch it go
There's no time to be lost
You'll pay the cost
If you say 'no'
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
You blew your only chance away
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There are no answers here
When you look out
You don't see in
There was no promise made
The part you played
The chance
You took
(There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good
There's no way out of here
When you come in
You're in for good...)
Ken Baker - "There's No Way Out of Here" (performed by Monster Magnet)
P A R T . S E V E N , . C H A P T E R . O N E :
I N . F O R . G O O D
Presidio, Office of the Diplomatic Liaison to Starfleet Security - 29 July, 1427 hours
Gawddammit, do not need this... Jesu LaRoca was making a token appearance at his official office, even though really there wasn't anything he could do there that he couldn't do from his house or his ready room on the Tiburon. The only reason for him to be in his office was so that he could be seen in his office, and upsetting the nerves of most of the rest of the Admiralty.
But his nerves were the ones being upset right now. He hadn't yet gotten to the reports from the Megalodon describing the total destruction of the Memory Alpha research facility. What he was looking at was much closer to home.
On its own, the report wasn't particularly disturbing. Really, it was all to be expected - maybe not Kian's 'studying' teenage rebellion, but the actual slip into the behavior pattern with the day trip to L.A. was really a totally normal thing for a kid in her situation to do. Jesu remembered pulling quite a few similar stunts when he was about Kian's age. He felt confident that Moira had a good handle on her.
The only disturbing part was that she'd tried to throw a man through an airtrain window. And the timing of that incident, only two days before he received a report from Starfleet Academy...
and...
LaRoca had to double-check the assigned course schedule he'd set the kids up with. As he suspected, there weren't any PhysSci classes listed, and they'd already waived Warp Theory 101. Lees had added PhysSci 104: Gravity and Subspace Concepts on his own.
Jesu remembered Qantock. The Denobulan was notoriously tough on his students, especially those with tactical leanings. Reading between the lines, it seemed Qantock was at least as impressed by Lees' restraint as by his academic potential.
Jesu was inclined to agree. Still, that pronouncement from the provost, the recognition that the seventeen-year-old boy was a lethal weapon held in check by his own will... Just like Rusty. That thought disturbed him more than he felt it should.
But the most disturbing message was the last one...
Jesu rubbed his eye sockets. Me lleva lados la chingada... Lees grasped the politics... but no seventeen-year-old should EVER be that willing to allow themselves to be... Jesu stopped, and re-read it.
Lees was suggesting that the threat at Goralis wasn't over.
No, that's not it... not THAT threat...
Jesu cracked his knuckles, and opened his Message bar...
He hit Send and looked up as Rusty walked in, holding a PADD out like it was a bad sandwich. "What's that?" Jesu asked his brother.
"Report from Oezlel," Rusty told him, tapping the PADD against his desk. "I sent the HOT team to Paris to look for Taylor and Kaur after I couldn't get through to them or Zetaz. Nobody's seen them since lunch time yesterday."
"Did your guys find them?"
Rusty shook his head. "Read the report."
Jesu did, and his mood turned a shade darker.
"Sh*t." Jesu leaned his head against his tightly clenched fists.
"I talked to Kyoko - remember her? Ryoko's assistant? - apparently they left the office just as the protests were turning to riots." Rusty sighed through his nostrils. "The poor girl blames herself. Apparently she suggested this cafe up past the Arc d' Triomphe-"
"I don't care," Jesu interrupted, looking up. "I don't care about her, I don't care why this happened. I want them found, and I want them secured. Hopefully before Taylor's idiot father comes around asking what happened to his kid."
"Understood."
Jesu leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Is there anything else?"
Rusty looked at the blank holoviewer on the wall behind him, and pensively ran his tongue around the inside of his lower teeth before answering. "Okeg's gonna be holding a press conference in a few minutes, to address the Moab situation."
Jesu shrugged. "Switch it on. Let's see how much worse today is gonna get."
The holoviewer's tiny AI controler worked out that it was being called for and activated the screen. Like every HV set in the Headquarters complex, it was pre-tuned to FNN. Jesu hadn't figured out how to reset it yet.
On the screen, ten thousand kilometers away in Paris, President Annik Okeg stepped up to the podium. "Gentlebeings, Citizens of the Federation. It is with a heavy heart that I address you today, on a matter most grave. Just over three months have passed since the final Armistice with the Klingon Empire brought an end to that war, but events now stand on a precipice, a fall that could plunge us back into conflict. A preventable war, a preventable humanitarian holocaust.
"Sitting on the border between the Federation, and our Klingon neighbours, is a group of worlds that have turned to independence in response to decades of official neglect. Those worlds are now plunging toward civil war, a conflict that promises to be every bit as awful as the conflict on Turkana IV, but fought with starships - starships that can spread the violence and disorder across both Federation, and Klingon borders."
The President of the Federation paused. "Their attempt at independence is failing, violently, and the true catastrophe is all but inevitable. Despite the Federation Council's reluctance to interfere, as your President, I have a solemn duty to protect and preserve life. To this end, I have ordered the formation of a peacekeeping and peace-making task-force, which has been dispatched to the troubled worlds of the Moab Confederacy to help prevent this all but inevitable violence."
He peered into the cameras with as solemn an expression as it was possible to hold with his reptilian face. "In my role as chief executive, I have authorized the Moab Peaceful Resolution Task Group and the Consular Operations Task Group under Rear Admiral David Huntington, to provide any and all assistance to those willing to stand down from violence against their neighbours and pursue a peaceful resolution."
Rusty looked over at his brother at the mention of ConOps. But Jesu's eyes were fixed on President Okeg in that sort of hard stare he used when sizing up a dangerous target.
"That resolution may end up being re-absorption into the Federation," the Saurian went on, "or it may be by demilitarization and oversight by a joint international task-force there to aid them in adopting a less militant and dangerous posture, but the days of Moabite privateers crewed by violent children preying on murkily defined 'enemies' will be put to an end, and one way or the other. Those people will be brought the light of Civilization, Law, and Order."
There was a moment of stunned silence as Okeg squared his shoulders and braced for the onslaught of questions. Then the dam broke, the assembled press stood up in a wave, and clamoured for his attention with their tumultuous yammering. The President calmly pointed to someone he recognized in the front row.
"Mister President! Anna Seversto, Cappella news network, Will the Starfleet vessels be engaging in combat with the rebels?"
"I don't like the use of terms like 'rebels', 'secessionists', or 'traitors', miss Seversto," the Saurian answered. "The Task Group forces are authorized to defend themselves if they are attacked by our wayward former citizens, yes - but they are under strict orders not to initiate hostile action. They are only authorized to fire in self defense with proportionate response." He nodded to an Andorian who had his hand raised.
"What about the rights of the people in the Confederacy?"
"Everyone has a right to be safe, Mister... Ah, mister ch'Talgorn," Okeg said, glancing at his Intelliprompter for the Andor Political Journal reporter's name. "The intent is to protect the rights of as many of those civilians as possible to be unharmed by the passions and violence of the few. Revolutions are really very rarely instigated or promulgated by the majority, as are secessions. In the view of the Supreme Court on Earth, the Humans, at least, are still considered Federation civilians, so their rights have been trampled, and one of the missions core objectives, is to restore the rights every Federation citizen has claim to."
"So this military force-" ch'Talgorn pressed.
"Peacekeeping force," Okeg clarified emphatically. "This is not a military conquest; we're simply helping them to establish peace, and end the rampant lawlessness that has claimed them. With any luck, our brave Starfleet peacekeepers will be able to help them stabilize the upcoming elections and guide them to a peaceful resolution with the aid of the newly-reformed Colonial Enforcement Agency, which has been established to assure citizens that laws will be followed... both by Colonies, and the Federation. We don't want another Vancouver incident."
Jesu's eyebrow twitched at that, as he made a mental note to get in touch with Missy- with General Melissa Travis.
"Mr. President, Mathis Roux, Real-Time News. What about the violence elsewhere in the Federation? Right here on Earth, even? Twenty-four hours ago, Earth Security and Starfleet MACO forces were clashing with rioters in the streets, right outside this building! Will your next step be deploy your Peacekeeping Task Group to every world within our borders?"
There was some murmuring at that as Okeg leaned forward on the podium. "Mr. Roux, the recent and regrettable misunderstandings, in some cities on Earth and elsewhere, is not to be compared to the systemic violence that wrack the worlds of the Moab union. Here in Paris, order was restored in just over twelve hours after the protesters first started showing aggression. And order was restored and is now enforced by the lawful security forces that the United Nations of Earth and the Federation employ here for just such eventualities. Other worlds of the Federation have their own security arrangements, through Starfleet as well as local policing agencies. The Task Group we are sending to Moab will be bringing peace and order to places where such agencies don't exist, or if they do, they are self-evidently not up to the task. There is no need to send additional Starfleet forces anywhere else. Next question."
"That's enough," Admiral LaRoca snapped. "Holoviewer off."
"He called us out, Jesu," his brother rasped. "He said he's sending ConOps to Moab."
Jesu shook his head. "No, he said he's authorizing someone called the Consular Operations Task Group..." he half-smiled at Rusty - if the situation were different he'd be amused that he was the one correcting the Deinon's memory for once. "I expect I'll be having an interesting conversation with Jorel or Mags before too long."
"Do you want to talk to Rogachev now?"
"Not yet..." Jesu sighed, and transfered the rest of the paperwork to his pocket PADD. "We need to figure some stuff out first. The Council vote now won't mean a thing if we can't head this off."
He stormed out of his office and out of the building with Rusty following, and got in his car and drove home. "We need to talk to Zaki, first," he said, once they were really 'alone' without any ears in the walls. "See if he's found anything out."
"What then?"
"One step at a time, bro. I'm still figuring out step two."
Once they reached the Admiral's work-from-home office, Jesu pulled a QT PADD from a drawer and keyed in his access code. "Zaki."
The Haganah agent was outdoors, and smiling. "Admiral."
"Where are you at? Are you clear?"
"For now. I'm in Exposition Park. Somebody arranged a pro-Independence rally, so I thought I should check it out."
"That was Dinky's idea," Rusty recalled.
"How'd it go?" Jesu asked. "How was the turnout?"
"Well, they moved it to the Coliseum from the Forum at the last minute, so, 'better than expected,' I guess."
"The riots didn't give you any problems?"
"They were mostly at UCLA and the Federation Building in Westwood," Zaki answered. "Of course, EarthSec is crawling everywhere but they seem to be respecting Freedom of Speach and Right to Assemble and basic things like that. Just takes some idiot with a can of spray paint to ruin it for everyone, but, no problems today."
"Good. Zaki, what did you find out about those stock numbers on the MACO gear my dad found?"
"Hang on." Zaki tapped at his PADD a moment and sent a report. "Our suspicions were correct. The equipment was ordered and allotted by Starfleet Intelligence, Covert Operations branch."
Jesu downloaded the report and accessed his secure commline to the Tiburon. "Hooper, I need you to analyze this report and get me any references this flags."
"Basically, with the quantities that SFI had procured, they could outfit a few companies of MACOs. It was all assigned as equipment for 'advisory purposes.'"
Rusty's face formed a grimace. This language was sounding familiar.
"Hooper, talk to me. Who'd that stuff get sent to?"
"I've found quite a few reference matches on the open datanet," the AI replied. "Including a memo from Special Warfare Command protesting 'misallocation of resources' which was subsequently rescinded. I also have personnel transfer orders from Starfleet Intelligence and Earth Security. They bounce around in-house a bit but they all end up being sent by SPECWAR to the Eta Eridani sector for advisory and training roles."
"That's how we did it," Rusty nodded. "Any time we needed to be in someplace where we had no business being, they sent us a bunch of spooks, bounced us around and sent us to some obscure or totally-made-up planet on an 'advisory' mission. Where we'd 'advise' people with our phaser rifles. And they listened."
"Jesu, if I'm reading this right, Starfleet sent several hundred personnel on this 'advisory mission'." Hooper said, "But the really interesting thing, is seventeen starships being decommissioned as scrap, and 'ferried' to a salvage depot five light years from Moab III. Half those ships were built in the last five years."
"Seventeen...sarships?"
"Nothing bigger than a Luna-class, most of them are retrofit Defiant or new-build Prometheus-class... Yeah, no cruisers, nothing considered 'long range'..the advanced AU processors were stripped out... and it looks like the multivector control systems were removed from the Prometheus boats."
"It's a fleet." Jesu said. "They're pre-positioning a fleet."
"But... they're already sending a fleet," Rusty pointed out. "Why would they need to-" he stopped as it caught up to him. "Who are these guys advising."
"Redshirts," Zaki figured it out. "They're supplying the Reconciliation party."
"Eggzackly," Jesu nodded. "They're not gonna take a chance on an election. They're gonna make sure their side wins the civil war, while Dave 'The Master's Pet' Huntington sits up in his big shiny Oddy wringing his hands and saying 'Please, stop doing that!'"
"And 'Oh, look, there's another pocket of Nationalists you mustn't curbstomp over there,'" Zaki muttered.
"Jesu, if this in fact what Quinn is planning - and with the evidence in hand it is ninety-three-percent probable that this is the case - that would violate the Klingon peace accords."
"I know." Jesu smiled. "And when I bring this all out to the Council, they'll nail his shapeshifting TRIBBLE to the wall-"
"No, Jesu, you must not do that."
Out of habit, Jesu looked up. "Why not, Hooper?"
"Because... it's a violation of the Klingon peace accords."
"And if we make it public, it would restart the war," Rusty said quietly.
"Eggzackly. And if the war resumes, with this and other info that has been leaked, neutral powers such as the Romulan Republic and Denali will almost certainly side with the Empire. Allied powers like Cardassia would suddenly turn very neutral. The Federation will be fractured as well. We would lose."
"And I hate losing." Jesu noticed Zaki on his PADD, looking thoughtful. "You're not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?"
"Are you kidding?" Zaki asked. "I'm not an idiot, Admiral - if the Federation falls, it's doing the enemy's work for them. We sent you our best at Goralis, and we lost a lot of them... I'll keep this secret, and I may find it necessary to silence anyone that reveals it."
"Actually, I think you should release this information to the Klingons," Hooper said.
"WHAT!?" the organics all exclaimed.
"Some of it. Not enough to prove anything, but enough that Temek or General Ssharki could work out what's going on. Enough that they could force the Federation's hand, or at least justify an 'advisory' expedition of their own to maintain balance. Otherwise, Zaki, your nation will cease to exist. Everything you and your people have sacrificed for will be lost. And Quinn advances his agenda, which is certainly not in the best interests of the free peoples of the Galaxy."
Zaki nodded slowly on the display. "That makes good sense - a balance of power that can be sustained."
"What should we let them have?" Rusty wondered. "More importantly, how do we give it to them? We can't just have TransPax drop a package off on Temek's desk."
"Admiral, this is a job for a spy" Zaki announced. "I'll assure the correct amount of information reaches the right ears in enough time. It is, after all, what I do. And Minister Heywood is expecting me to give him some results."
Jesu nodded. "You tell Heywood, Heywood tells K'ragh, who tells Uncle Woldan who tells Ssharki and Temek..."
"Not necessarily in that order," Hooper said, "But that would be the expected channel. Also, I think we should point the press to some of this evidence that came down from the datadump. The transfer orders in particular should raise questions about this 'peace-making' mission."
Jesu didn't feel good about sneaking around, but there was nowhere else to go but down. "Alright, let 'em have it."
"A word of advice, Admiral?" Zaki offered, "This had high-level sanction; you may want to pretend some ignorance on the matter - at least for now. Don't reveal your cards too quickly, we may be able to leverage a trick."
FNN-Paris, set of Good Morning, from Paris! - 30 July, 0706 hours CET
"...grateful that the loss of life was not greater, Miss Bludgud." Admiral Quinn sat fairly easily in the studio set, made to look like a comfortable outdoor caf
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
1. I'd actually advise them to go public, but to brief Ssharki and Temek first. If they came out with evidence implicating Quinndine AT THE SAME TIME as Temek and Ssharki came forward with similar evidence, they could nail indeterminate gender's gonads to the wall without too much fuss and figure out what's going on.
2. Small typo: .
Otherwise, great update. Nicely done as usual.
And regardless of who's to blame, do you really think the Klingon Empire would let Starfleet get away with arming, aiding and abetting an insurrectionist movement with the goal of subsuming an allied state (in violation of a highly controversial peace treaty) "without too much fuss"?
Remember, about half the Great Houses think that the Moab Confederacy should still be part of the Klingon Empire, though a few were persuaded to vote for separation to buy peace with the Federation. Whether or not it was masterminded by a qa'meH quv, the Federation's use of such dishonorable tactics against a former vassal and battle-proven ally would demand a military response.
Oops, fixed, as well as some other minor edits to that scene that I missed in my read-through.
:cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Hmmmm...I think they'd blame the qa'meH quv, tbh. But then again, the Mastersverse is much more grimdark than the regular Trek verse, and grimdark for pretty much everybody means authority figures making bad decisions...
Still, given the Mastersverse's Klingons are a whooooooole lot more responsible than canon Jm'pok and company...
It would probably come out well, given that that's a hyperintelligent AI's word, not some meatbag's word.
Except Klingons, on the whole, have even less respect for AI than the Federation does.
And remember what happened the last time the Klingons saw that a neighboring power had been infiltrated by qa'meH quv at the highest levels?
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Eh...
Still, IMHO could go either way. Especially if you got Woldan and KI on your side first via Ssharki and Temek.
LOL
I see your point there, and in fact the only reason I let D'trel follow the canon STO rapid promotion is that the Republic, in my stories, really NEEDS talent, no matter how much psychological baggage they have...
But grimdark is really a tone thing more than a meat-and-potatoes thing. And it's more dependent on major characters' and governments' decisions being bad when they're fully aware that those are people they're shooting and not just ships on a viewscreen.
I don't see our version of Star Trek as grimdark. We don't do "evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil" or do nasty things just for fun. (Well, sometimes, but not usually.)
I see the Masterverse more as hyperreal. We deal with issues that make up the nasty reality of geopolitics in the real world. We take policies and directions that are established or implied in Trek canon to their logical extremes - a bit beyond what the original writers would have been comfortable with but well within the bounds of realism. We adhere to one cardinal rule and that is the Rule of Natural Consequences. Every action will result in multiple unexpected reactions that will all need to be addressed and dealt with. We accept that human nature doesn't allow for a utopia - the closest we can get is a neosocialistic dystopia with a heap of flowers.
But, Star Trek is about us bettering ourselves. And we get there, slowly but surely. It's just that there's a lot more obstacles in the way than Roddenberry wanted to acknowledge.
PS - next chapter will drop tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned! :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Hyperreal is pretty much synonymous with grimdark. Grimdark isn't evil for evil's sake, but taking things to the most extreme. People making bad decisions, being hypocritical...nothing extremely unrealistic, just everything as negative as realistically possible. And that's kind of what you've got here.
Me, I'm an optimist at my core. I like to believe that people can be good. Denis Mukwege, for example. Gandhi. MLK. I like to think that someday everyone will be that way.
Also I've kind of gotten tired of dystopias since finishing the Hunger Games series. That's part of why I don't like Sanjit's death scene, reminds me badly of Finnick's death in Mockingjay (one of my personal least favorite literary moments ever.
Anyway. Excited for the update! I have something of my own for ULC 6 coming up in a few minutes.
Fall
To your knees
Accomplishing
Nothing
Fall to your knees
Only to exercise
Your schedule
Abandon calendar
What
What has come with such
Preaching
Is loneliness
Profit: zero
Achievement:
Zero
Forward can't be stopped
It just goes to show
That some words are useless
It just goes to show
That some words are useless
Take all your medals
Take all your ribbons
Take all your awards
Take them
Take them
Back to the ground
Our youth is lost
A product
Of the created
Circumstances
All I can say
Is "maybe"
Maybe
Maybe
All I can say is "maybe"
This is what
I've been expecting
All along
All along
Now's the time of weakness
Now's the time of blood
Perhaps even
The whole-hearted had
Wished for this
Now's the time of weakness
Now's the time of blood
Oh
And still the time of lions
Push everything
Force everything
We've all sung of the end
But who
Who truly
Understands it?
All along
All along
Forward can't be stopped
It just goes to show
That some words are useless
It just goes to show
That some words are useless
Take all your medals
Take all your ribbons
Take all your awards
Take them
Back to the ground
Mike Hranica and Jeremy DePoyster of The Devil Wears Prada - "Dez Moines"
P A R T . S E V E N , . C H A P T E R . T W O :
S O M E . W O R D S . A R E . U S E L E S S
Seacliff, San Francisco - 2412.07.30.0821
There was a storm raging outside the walls.
He knew how much Rusty hated storms; how thunder frightened him, hurt his sensitive ears. Every time there was a storm, Rusty would be at his bedside, asking to be let in. And he would roll over, and make room for his baby brother, and hold him and calm him down and help him sleep through the storm.
And he would hope for storms, and be glad when they came, because he always slept better with his little brother at his side.
Any minute now, he'd feel Rusty's hand on his shoulder, with that firm, two-fingered grip, so careful with his claws...
Any minute now...
And there it was. That familiar pressure, insistent but gentle. Even after thirty years, some things never changed.
Jesu sniffed, picking up the Deinon's cinnamony aroma, and he smiled. "Hey, Rust."
"Hey, Zoo."
Jesu opened his eyes, and as he came awake he realized there was no storm outside. It was morning, and Rusty was dressed... He glanced at the chronometer. He'd overslept a bit, but... "Que pasa, bro?"
"Missy's here," Rusty told him.
Jesu threw off the covers and sat up. "She lookin' for Kaur?"
"I guess so. She doesn't seem like she's in a bad mood, though. Georgia's making her breakfast."
"Okay..." Jesu slid out of bed and went to his closet. "Is she official? In-uniform?"
"No."
"Good. Then I don't need to be either." Admiral LaRoca pulled on a well-worn pair of Wranglers and the jacket he'd bought at 75-Tau.
"How'd you sleep?" Rusty asked, as he watched his brother get dressed.
"Not well. You?"
"Um. Yeah, it's hard to sleep with all this TRIBBLE that's goin' on..."
"Like I always say, that's what coffee's for."
The brothers came down to the kitchen, where they found Georgia serving their guest scrambled eggs and hominy grits with cheese. She was dressed similarly to the Admiral, her auburn hair not in it's usual on-duty ponytail.
Missy looked up and read the Admiral's mood. "You look like a man who could use some good news."
"You're looking for Kaur," Jesu stated, with an apologetic tone. "Rusty's got people looking for them, but-"
"We found them," General Travis told him. "Rin thought of running a social media search for 'Denali' and phrases like 'big ears' and we got hits from accounts for people that had seen Sanjit. I guess Paris-area hospitals were so overwhelmed they were transported to a hospital near Versailles. I just confirmed with the staff an hour ago. They're being taken care of."
Jesu looked at Rusty, who shrugged sheepishly. "How bad are they?" the Admiral asked, sitting down at the table across from Travis.
"Aaron's okay-ish, minor burns. Sanjit tried to intercept the bottle again as it came towards them out of reflex - she's burned bad, but they've got her in a tri-ox tank therapy and she should recover. Though ironically... the synthskin they use for burn cases... well, she's going to lose a lot of the scars she got at Goralis, though it's not exactly the recommended way to remove skin markings."
Her expression darkened. "The guards you had on them didn't fare as well though. It was an anti-Federation riot. We think their hovercars were targeted because they were drawn from the Foreign Ministry's motor pool. As for your people, the Vulcan was KIA, the other's in the same hospital. I've got people from the Vikrant watching all of them."
"I'll have have Oezlel's team coordinate with yours and get some more security on them," Rusty said. He checked with his brother. "I guess the 'not to be f*cked with' rule trumps discretion at this point?"
"Definitely," Jesu nodded, and accepted a plate of food and a cup of cafe cubano from Georgia. "Thanks. Um, Missy, with these recent incidents - the riots here, and the datadump - how does that affect your Government's stance toward us in general, and the Moab situation in particular?"
She sighed, got up and looked out the window at the Pacific Ocean. "I don't know, to be honest. Ambassador Singh is talking to our leaders, but I don't think they'll take this news as encouraging." She sipped carefully at her own cup of Cuban espresso. "Personally, I'm getting deja vu after six months ago - but this time it isn't directed at us yet. I'll admit I'm worried, Jesu. I haven't had a chance to go over all the stuff thats been released... but if even half of the stuff I've seen so far is true... you could be looking at a civil war situation - not on Moab, but here. It's got some stuff in there that's that bad."
"What's the worst you've found so far?" Jesu wondered, looking for an outsider's perspective.
"Well, did you know there is a plan in place to 'remove' heads of Federation planets if they decide to stray from the reservation? That there's an ongoing drive to prosecute civilians for prime directive violations? And not because they're breaking the law - they're not - it admits in that memo that the Prime Directive doesn't apply to civilians. But because any 'assets seized' can be appropriated by the Federation. People are pissed over what the Federation has done, has not done, has blamed on others... Decades of lies, cover ups, going back to even before the war with the Dominion. And as more of this dump is dug through, more dirt exposed, people are just going to get angrier. There's hints here and there, of leads that would lead to similar dirt on other governments-but so far those haven't been leaked. It's as if whoever is behind this only wanted to target the Federation."
Jesu nodded assent. Hooper had turned up all that - and more - in his search for 'dirt' on his political opponents. And a lot that would potentially embarrass his friends. "How do you feel about it?"
Missy shook her head. "I dunno, to be honest. I'll admit, six months ago I could have happily stood by and watched the Federation burn... but that was the anger and hurt talking. Looking rationally now - yeah there's been some dirty business - but far more of the Federation is made up of good people. But they gave up freedom for 'security'... and now it's starting to look like you won't have either one."
She sighed again and sat back down, and pulled out her Tellar Datasys comm-equipped PADD. "This is an example. This can revolutionize the Federation, but because people using it can't be controlled... they want it banned. We're adopting them, though we're having to wait in line behind the Romulan Republic; they got there first," she said with a chuckle. "That news will probably make a few heads on Langley explode - they won't be able to listen in to D'tan's conversations anymore."
"I think they'll be more worried about not being able to listen in on Orion terror cells and Terra Prime radicals," Jesu mused. "But as far as Moab goes, did you see Okeg's press conference yesterday, and Quinn's interview?"
"I did, and it's bullsh*t, all of it. Terran Empire infiltrators? We captured an entire starbase of theirs, when Schrodi kicked it over to our universe. Looking Glass totally ripped their security open. Moab wasn't even on their sensors. Their whole goal was to get my people to believe the Federation was attacking, and they were here to 'save' us - and get augment troops in the process. The only thing that they were considering Moab for was testing that bioweapon of theirs. As for Quinn..." she shook her head, "he's doing his best to paint you into a corner, it seems."
"If Denali sees Starfleet's actions as an attack on Moab sovereignty, will Denali retaliate?" Jesu asked pointedly.
Missy's face fell at the thought. "If it comes to that... then yeah. If the legitmate Moab government requests our aid, we'll give it. We'll keep our word. They saved us, therefore we are honor-bound to do the same for them. Though we've only sixty-seven out of a hundred and thirty-three ships fully crewed, and only fifty-eight of them are FMC... then there's the distance."
"And Starfleet has enough yards to make that many ships in a month," Rusty pointed out. "They've got fleets, armies-"
"We have a Schrodinger," Missy replied. "According to Schrodi, she's the dangerous one - the one who eliminated the Borg in her home timeline. I really hope we don't have to turn her loose."
"Is she just off-the-rails crazy?" Jesu asked. "Because that I can work with. As long as she's not malevolently ruthless like Mirror Schrodi is..."
She just gave him a look. "Don't fall into that trap, into thinking she's crazy - any of them. Trust me, they are far from that. I've known her for years. She's got a plan - she's focusing on a bigger picture than the Federation, or the Alpha Quadrant, or maybe even this entire universe. For all intents and purposes, she was a Q for a time before she gave that up. If one of her happens to be in a cell right now - it's because she believes she needs to be there for some reason. If she wanted out, there isn't a power in the 'verse that could stop her."
Missy shrugged. "As far as Mishka Cherenkov, well, she says wars are won in three ways - defeating the opposing forces, removing their will to fight... or removing the ability to wage war. I think if turned loose, she could maybe achieve the third option. The second is usually the least costly - though somehow I don't think even if a majority of the population were against this operation against Moab, it would change anything. And they're not. There's a lot against it - but too many just want to 'feel safe' and let the Federation do what it says needs to be done."
"We can still change peoples' mahnds," Georgia said, "both the general public an' the Council. Raght, Adm'ral?"
"That's the idea. It'll take more than just words, though."
Foreign Minister's Office, Paris - 1846 hours local
Ryoko looked up as Jesu and Rusty walked into the office, Kyoko sitting next to her at the desk as they went over paperwork. "Admiral," she said. "Any news on Aaron and Sanjit?"
"They're in a hospital in Versailles," Admiral LaRoca told her. "They'll be alright, but they won't be coming back to work for a few days." He sat down heavily in a comfortable guest chair, and his brother leaned over the back of another. "We just spoke to General Travis, from Denali. There will be war if the Federation continues to interfere with Moab. You need to talk to Okeg, and get him to call off this peacekeeping operation."
Ryoko nodded. "I'll see if I can set up a meeting for us," she said. "I'm hoping we can stop this before we end up in a war with Moab and Denali."
Jesu shook his head. "Ryoko, you're not listening. We are in a war unless you can get the President to pull the plug. You're the Federation Foreign Minister. Make it happen. Demand a meeting. By noon tomorrow, if not tonight. You need to step up and make him listen."
Ryoko nodded again. "I'll do it," she said. "I'll set the meeting up for both of us - with you there, it might be a bit easier for him to see reason."
"Unlikely," Rusty grumbled.
"He's right," Jesu admitted. "I'll just yell at him and call him names and maybe say some nasty things about his mother. I can talk to crowds, but if you put me alone in a room with someone I don't like, I get abusive. But you're trained to handle people like him, and you're smart and level-headed enough to be persuasive. I'm sure you can get him to see the light on your own."
"I'm also trained to handle people like you, Jesu," Ryoko told him evenly. "I want you there, because you're closer to the situation than I am. You have insights I lack. And, when necessary, you can make your points as brutally plain as possible. I'll lead, and I'll keep you in check, but I need you in the room with me. Besides," she added ruefully, "regardless of how you feel about him, he still likes you, and he might be more willing to open up his schedule for you than for me." She glanced at Kyoko. "I've been treated like gaijin ever since I took this job."
Jesu looked up at Rusty. The Deinon looked back and shrugged. "Alright," the Admiral conceded. "Get us on his calendar. We'll be in Aaron and Sanjit's room at the Hotel Regina." He glanced at Rusty. "Hey, I'm paying three hundred credits a night for that suite. I'm not gonna let it go to waste."
"Got it," Ryoko replied, even as she and Kyoko started typing away at terminals on the desk. "I'll call you when we have an appointment."
Hotel Regina, Paris - next morning (2108 hours, PST)
"I'm not tired though!" Jesu protested.
"Neither am I, but you've got this meeting in less than six hours, and you need sleep."
"No, I don't. That's what-"
"That's what coffee's for, I know." Rusty sighed. "You can't solve all your problems with coffee, Jesu."
"That's crazy talk."
The brothers had spent a busy night in Paris - with a couple of transporter hops back to San Francisco to get their luggage. They'd looked in on Sanjit and Aaron and Lountu Zetaz. The Betazoid security officer had been catatonic. The former Vikrant crewmates had been asleep. Rusty had made further security arrangements while Jesu kept trying to piece together information.
The notes Aaron and Sanjit had left, and the report from Kyoko, had shed a bit of light on the Colonial Enforcement Office and its predecessor agency, ColDev. Not enough to convict anyone who wasn't already dead or in jail, but enough to paint a dark picture of the lengths some were willing to go to keep the Federation's colonies toeing the line.
Jesu absorbed it all, along with the meaty morsels Hooper and Reader fed him from the datadump. Some he used to prepare for the meeting with Okeg, some he would save for the Council. And some he'd save as hole cards, to play on his opponents when they would inevitably force his hand.
He lay face-down on the bed, surrounded by a semicircle of DocuPADDs and Starfleet iPADDs, saving key files to his personal Samsung pocket PADD. "I've got work to do, Rusty. Somewhere in here there's something to expose all this for the charade it is..."
Rusty scooped up the PADDs and laid down on the bed next to his brother.
"Gawddammit, Rusty-"
"Zoo, you've been at it all night. Four hours of sleep and a good breakfast will give you more of an edge tomorrow than any more data you can find."
Jesu reached for his PADD, which Rusty held over his head. "Givit back!"
"No."
Jesu sat up, and Rusty held the PADDs out further. Jesu clambered on top of his brother and tried to wrestle his arm down. Rusty hooked Jesu's right leg and held his right arm, catching him in the de la Riva guard position.
"The answers are out there, Rusty, I can feel it!"
"Then let Hooper find them for you. Stop pounding your head against the wall." Rusty let his brother struggle futilely for top control before rolling to his left in a reverse sweep and pinning Jesu under him.
Realizing his little brother was actually bigger, more flexible and much, much stronger than he was, Jesu finally gave up. "You're right," he admitted. "I can't find it on my own."
"That's why I'm here with you, big brother," Rusty whispered. He rolled to his side, put the PADDs down on a bedside table and ran his hand through Jesu's hair. "We'll find our answers together. But right now, we need to sleep. Okay?"
Jesu just nodded, and tucked his head into the crook of his brother's arm.
"Computer, lumi
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
And this really is about to explode, isn't it? Please tell me that Ssharki won't miss out on the action, I want to see him pull a badass Undine-killing stunt.
Nah, I was going to kill her off-but that's because i was in a rut. the others talked me out of it, and I'm glad they did. Never kill off a character without getting at least a second opinion.
"he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."