Atonement Page 5

  “The tribunal empaneled to hear evidence of the admiral’s illegal, immoral, and unjustifiable acts of aggression against current Kinara members consists of myself, First Minister Odala of the Voth, Magnate Veelo of the Turei, Commandant Dhina of the Vaadwaur, and Rigger Meeml, representing the Skeen, Karlon, Muk, and Emleath. Once the charges have been read and answered, a swift verdict will be rendered.

  “Our goal is not revenge, but justice. As you will all realize once you have heard the charges, Admiral Kathryn Janeway, formerly captain of the Federation Starship Voyager, has personally transgressed against us. The time has come for her to answer for her past actions. Once this matter has been resolved, we look forward to continuing our peaceful negotiations with the Confederacy.”

  Everything about the scene before her, particularly Kashyk’s obvious relishing of his position as arbiter of Admiral Janeway’s fate, suggested that what was about to unfold was worse than Farkas had yet dared imagine.

  MANTICLE

  Lsia tried to focus on Emem.

  Kashyk, she reminded herself again.

  She tried to keep her face neutral, her affect professional. But her eyes betrayed her, continuing to stray toward the face of Kathryn Janeway. Despite Emem’s insistence that she be shackled—a needless humiliation that served no security purpose—the admiral still managed to carry herself like royalty. The pride, determination, and utter fearlessness of the woman might have been galling had these not been traits common among and held in high regard by the Seriareen.

  Of course, the admiral probably believed that no fair tribunal would find her guilty when her side of the story was set beside the one Emem would tell. Had there been anything “fair” about the tribunal, she might have been right.

  Lsia watched Janeway study the face of each panel member as they introduced themselves. The admiral’s gaze was curious, penetrating, as if she were sizing them up. For the few moments her eyes locked with Janeway’s, Lsia experienced the momentary certainty that the admiral could see through her, but quickly dismissed the notion.

  Finally, Emem addressed Janeway directly and from that moment forward, her eyes remained glued to his.

  “Admiral Kathryn Janeway, a list of charges has been prepared and submitted to this panel by individuals with firsthand knowledge of your previous interactions with their species. As each charge is read, you will be permitted to answer it with direct testimony either substantiating or refuting the charge. Once you have addressed all of the charges, panel members may ask follow-up questions. When that process concludes, the panel will render its verdict on the charges and issue your sentence.

  “Please bear in mind that while many lesser violations were submitted for the panel’s consideration, they were too numerous to add to the present list of charges and have been waived. Only the most serious issues have been brought to this tribunal for consideration and, in most cases, the proscribed penalty is death.”

  “I understand,” Admiral Janeway acknowledged.

  “Do you have any questions before we begin?” Emem asked.

  “No.”

  “Very well.” Emem smiled cheerily at her, then turned to include the panel. “Admiral Kathryn Janeway, you stand accused of the following crimes.

  “You did knowingly and willfully bring prohibited telepathic individuals into the territory controlled by the Devore Imperium, in breach of the agreement you accepted in return for safe passage through Devore space.

  “You did not turn those individuals over to Devore custody, as was required by your agreement. Instead, you harbored them aboard the vessel you commanded, the Federation Starship Voyager, to hide them from Devore inspection teams and violated your course restrictions on at least two occasions in order to access an unstable wormhole that allowed the telepaths in question to escape Devore territory without facing charges for their illegal trespassing.”

  Emem studied Janeway’s face for a moment before asking, “Can you offer any evidence to refute or mitigate this charge?”

  Janeway’s chin dipped ever so slightly, though her eyes continued to hold Emem’s steadily.

  “No,” Janeway replied.

  FIFTH SHUDKA

  Captain Chakotay’s heart had stilled the moment Kathryn was brought in to face the panel. He had forced his breath to remain steady, reminding himself that he was going to enjoy watching Kathryn frustrate the designs of those she now confronted.

  But one word from Kathryn set Chakotay’s pulse pounding furiously.

  “No.”

  He was risking everything on his certainty that he knew Kathryn’s mind as well as his own.

  But did he?

  “I do not understand,” Presider Cin said softly.

  Chakotay didn’t either, which severely limited the range of responses he could offer her.

  MANTICLE

  Cautious jubilance rose in Emem’s eyes at Janeway’s response.

  Lsia should have been relieved at such an auspicious beginning. Instead, soft internal alarms began to sound insistently.

  “Moving on, then,” Emem continued. “You, Admiral Kathryn Janeway, did knowingly and willfully refuse a direct and reasonable request by Turei Magnate Veelo to allow his officers to board your vessel in order to delete the information your ship’s sensors had gathered while traveling through the ‘underspace’ the Turei claimed as part of their sovereign territory. You fired illegally upon the Turei as you attempted to flee and in doing so, caused the deaths of thirty-nine individuals and the loss of two Turei vessels.”

  Janeway’s eyes found Tirrit’s, dark holes embedded in a face so ghastly, even by alien standards, that Lsia had hesitated on principle to consider the Turei acceptable Seriareen hosts. The Turei visage was roughly humanoid, but composed of several small, pasty-white overlapping flaps of flesh that gave it an unformed appearance, like something half-melted. It occurred to Lsia that the admiral might never have known exactly how many Turei had perished during that encounter. The death toll seemed to trouble her deeply.

  “You did knowingly and willfully bring six hundred nineteen Vaadwaur officers out of self-imposed stasis. That act was in direct violation of Turei law. Under their code of justice, any Vaadwaur individuals discovered in their space were to be immediately transferred to Turei authority. You further assisted the Vaadwaur in activating several of their grounded vessels in preparation for assisting them in fleeing their former homeworld. This, too, is considered treason under Turei law.

  “In the battle that ensued between the Turei and the Vaadwaur, another seventy-three Turei officers were killed, forty-seven were injured, and four vessels were destroyed.

  “Do you wish to dispute these facts, Admiral?” Emem asked.

  Returning her gaze to the man she believed to be Inspector Kashyk, Janeway replied, “No.”

  “You agreed to protect the Vaadwaur you had brought out of stasis from harm while seeing them safely to an uninhabited world beyond Turei space. You refused to arm them appropriately to enable them to defend themselves, in fact insisting that several disarm themselves completely for the transit, and then knowingly and willfully abandoned those ships to battle the Turei. You are also responsible for the deaths of two hundred ninety-one Vaadwaur officers and the destruction of sixteen of their vessels.

  “Do you—” Emem began to ask again.

  “No,” the admiral cut him off.

  “You did knowingly and willfully violate Voth space, capturing two of their scientists and offering them fabricated evidence of a genetic link between ancient inhabitants of your homeworld and the Voth species. You suborned heresy from both scientists, also considered treason by the Voth.”

  Finally Janeway spoke up. “The Voth scientists you speak of boarded my ship using cloaking technology to study my crew. When we discovered them, the lead scientist, Gegen, took my first officer prisoner. We only entered their territory to retrieve him.”

  “So your search for a genetic link to further what is known as the ‘Distant Origi
n Heresy’ was simply a means to pass the time while you trespassed?” Emem asked congenially. “And your intention to corrupt as many Voth as possible through the wider dissemination of that heresy should fall under the heading: the peaceful exchange of information between species?”

  At this, the panel members on either side of Lsia chuckled lightly.

  “No charges were brought against us by the Voth at the time of that encounter,” Janeway noted.

  “A fact that will be taken into account during the panel’s final deliberations, I assure you,” Emem said.

  “Thank you.”

  Emem paused for a moment.

  “You have offered almost nothing in response to the charges presented. Have you no wish to speak in your own defense?”

  A ghost of a smile passed over Janeway’s lips. Turning her head, she addressed the entire panel.

  “Each of the charges brought against me by the individual species concerned is valid, from their point of view. To argue the merits of each would be a waste of time. Your judgment of me, your ultimate verdict, and the sentence you pronounce is not important here. What’s really on trial today is the United Federation of Planets, whom I represent. With your permission, I would speak briefly about the Federation’s presence here, our beliefs, and our intentions toward this region of space.”

  Lsia could feel waves of pleasure rolling off Emem. He had hoped that the admiral would open herself up to the most damning evidence that could possibly be presented against her and her Federation, but had known this was not a foregone conclusion.

  Until now.

  “An excellent suggestion, Admiral,” Emem said, his dimples carving deep crevices in the sides of his face. “Before you speak, however, I would like to present a single witness to offer direct testimony on the issue you have now raised: the character, the nature, and the core values of your Federation.”

  Janeway appeared taken aback, as Emem had intended.

  “Please escort Mister Prilch into the chamber,” Emem ordered the single Devore guard standing just inside the doorway.

  Moments later, a humanoid male, his species indeterminate, walked with considerable difficulty into the room and was immediately offered a chair opposite the panel. His face had been pathetically mangled. His left eye and ear were missing and overlapping scars covered what remained of that side of his face. His right arm had been amputated below the elbow.

  Emem continued, “Let the record show that Mister Prilch is a former Devore officer whose ship was lost nine years ago when it came upon an uncharted wormhole. Mister Prilch and all thirteen of his fellow officers were subsequently found and assimilated by the Borg.”

  Janeway stared dubiously at Prilch’s face as he began to speak.

  “I was Borg,” Prilch began. “I was freed from the control of the Collective when our small scout ship was damaged and its crew was killed. I wandered alone for some time before finding another abandoned vessel I could use to make my way back to Yshandi, my homeworld in the Devore Imperium. Although conscious of myself as an individual for many years, I retained a one-sided connection to the Borg. I continued to hear them in my mind, until a little over a year ago, when they were slaughtered by the Federation.”

  “Go on,” Emem suggested gently.

  “Voyager first encountered the Borg while I was still part of the hive mind. An alliance was offered and accepted to assist the Borg in defeating an aggressive alien force we identified as Species 8472. That alliance failed after only a few days, when Voyager’s crew abandoned several of our cubes to destruction. From that point forward, the Collective chose to cease trying to assimilate Federation citizens, as their unworthiness for perfection had been clearly demonstrated.

  “Voyager’s unprovoked attacks continued, however. The last was the most devastating, destroying a transwarp hub along with millions of Borg stranded there and on nearby vessels.

  “Unsated by that victory, the Federation developed a weapon designed to destroy the Borg completely. They called it the Caeliar. Before my connection to the Borg was severed, I experienced the deaths of trillions in a single moment of blinding, excruciating pain.”

  “But surely, Mister Prilch,” Emem interjected, “the actions of the Borg, their aggressive and destructive behavior toward all species of this quadrant, must be taken into account. Can you blame the Federation for seeking to destroy an enemy as implacable as the Borg?”

  “I was relieved to be severed from the Collective,” Prilch replied. “I was one of many victims they claimed. But I still find it difficult to accept that genocide was the only option at the Federation’s disposal. The Borg’s territory was far from the Alpha Quadrant. The Borg had ceased assimilating Federation targets found in our territory. A détente of sorts existed, or so the Borg believed. Despite the well-known atrocities committed by the Borg, I do not fear the Federation any less. They could not halt the Borg’s progress, so they destroyed every last one of them. Any civilization capable of such an act is not worthy of the trust of any other advanced species.”

  “Thank you, Mister Prilch,” Emem said. Prilch was helped from his seat and escorted out of the room.

  “As I indicated, Admiral,” Emem went on, “this testimony was elicited in order to present the most accurate picture possible of you and your Federation for the panel. Obviously, you are not personally being charged with genocide, but it is most telling that the Federation you have presented as altruistic, devoted to study and exploration, and dedicated to peace could conscience the actions Mister Prilch described.”

  Lsia had watched several emotions pass across Janeway’s face as Prilch spoke; sadness, anger, regret, and frustration had been the most obvious. But the alarms that had been sounding internally since the tribunal had begun started to blare when Lsia now beheld the absolute defiance etched on Janeaway’s face.

  “Inspector Kashyk, Magnate Veelo, Commandant Dhina, Minister Odala, and Rigger Meeml,” Janeway said, “with your permission, I would very much like to set this portion of the record straight.”

  Emem faltered briefly. Prilch was one of Kashyk’s officers. He had never been assimilated. His injuries were sustained in another recent Devore military action, and his testimony had been dictated verbatim by Emem prior to his appearance. It was based on material readily available in the logs Lsia had taken from Voyager before she departed. Given some obvious errors in those logs—for instance, the fact that Admiral Kathryn Janeway was alive—and the paucity of intelligence on the Caeliar but for a few references to classified data, Lsia had cautioned Emem about calling Prilch to testify.

  As usual, Emem had refused to heed her, confident that this issue would drive a decisive wedge between the Federation and the Confederacy.

  Janeway’s face assured Lsia that finally, Emem had overreached.

  Rigger Meeml spoke for the first time since the proceedings had begun. His flesh was jet black and arranged in generous folds covering his large body. His eyes were silver and his voice low and rich. Lsia had actually grown rather fond of the sound of it.

  “I don’t know what your experiences of the Borg might have been,” Meeml said, “but ours was terrifying. If this Federation really put an end to them, I want to know how. I also want to know how certain they are that the Borg are truly gone.”

  “Thank you, Rigger Meeml,” Janeway said, focusing her attention upon him. “I am more than willing to share all relevant data with you and the Confederacy. Where trust does not exist, the sharing of intelligence is difficult. But I see now exactly how the mistrust that was at the heart of our past interactions with the Devore, the Turei, the Vaadwaur, and even the Voth led to senseless conflict and loss. And I wonder how it might have been avoided had our interactions been guided by a better understanding of one another.

  “In the interest of facilitating that understanding, I hereby order all of the Federation Fleet’s classified logs on the Borg and Caeliar transmitted to the Kinara and the Confederacy. This may be the last order I give,”
she added, a faint smile traipsing across her lips. “It may also be the most important one I have ever given. From this point forward, there will be no more secrets between our people. If we are to find any way to move beyond this moment without further unnecessary loss of life and property, it will only be in the light of mutual understanding.”

  “Admiral, if it is your intention to delay these proceedings in order to give your forces adequate time to attempt to thwart the justice being rendered on this day,” Kashyk began, warning clear in his tone.

  “It is not,” Janeway said. “I left standing orders with my crew not to take any action that would jeopardize the cease-fire. My only goal, before a verdict is rendered, is to shed as much light as I can upon events that are as relevant to you as to the Federation.”

  Looking again at Rigger Meeml, Janeway continued, “My experience of the Borg was also terrifying. When my ship, Voyager, was first lost in the Delta Quadrant several years ago, we encountered them many times and each of those times, we barely escaped with our lives.

  “The alliance Mister Prilch referenced occurred the first time we came face-to-face with them. I was desperate to avoid assimilation, and the Borg were desperate to turn the tides against Species 8472. What I learned as our alliance progressed was that the Borg had initiated that conflict. Species 8472 are native to a realm we call ‘fluidic space’ and only entered our space/time continuum when theirs was invaded by the Borg. We developed a nanoprobe-based weapon that leveled the playing field. We were able to assist the Borg in bringing an end to their war with Species 8472, but only after heavy losses were sustained on both sides.

  “It is also worth noting that we eventually encountered Species 8472 again and were able to come to a more lasting, peaceful understanding. It is my sincere hope that history might repeat itself now with the Voth, the Devore, the Turei, and the Vaadwaur. Our first encounters were disasters. Regardless of the final results of this tribunal, I expect every officer under my command to leave the past behind and do whatever they must to lay the foundations for better future relations between our peoples.