Atonement Page 9

  “Is she still alive?” Chakotay asked.

  “We believe so.”

  “And the others?”

  “I’ve known for months that something was wrong with Kashyk,” Pratt said. “His obsession with this alliance was completely out of character, despite the possible benefits. It’s good to know now that I wasn’t wrong.”

  “Is he still alive?” Chakotay demanded harshly.

  “Just as long as the door holds,” Pratt replied.

  “We need to move now, General,” Chakotay said, starting toward the bay doors. “Mister Pratt, order your men to hold their fire if they breach the chamber before we get there. We aren’t certain, but we believe that the Neyser consciousness that took your inspector is capable of transferring itself to anyone it wishes. Killing Kashyk and the other officers they took will only result in additional loss of life.”

  “Does the general intend to let us live once you have secured the admiral?” Pratt asked, expending serious effort to keep pace with Chakotay.

  “Every time you speak, I find that I am less inclined in that direction,” Mattings replied.

  Pratt nodded, started to speak again, and thought better of it.

  • • • • •

  The constant pounding on the door had become so regular it was shocking when it finally ceased. The silence came just a few minutes after the ship stopped shaking around them. The battle was clearly over but Admiral Janeway had no idea who had won.

  A crackle of static over the room’s comm system preceded the sound of a voice Janeway remembered almost as well as Kashyk’s.

  “This is Adjunct Inspector Pratt of the Devore Imperium. We have surrendered to the Commander of the Confederacy Interstellar Fleet and are assured that the survival of every life-form within the chamber and aboard this ship is contingent upon the condition of Admiral Kathryn Janeway. For all our sakes, I hope you people are wiser than I believe you to be.”

  “Mister Pratt,” Janeway said, hoping he could hear her.

  “Admiral Janeway, is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you release the door?”

  Janeway looked to Lsia, who nodded to Veelo.

  As Veelo released the interior seals Janeway said, “Advise your officers to keep their weapons down when they enter.”

  “Is the chamber secure?” Pratt asked.

  “It is,” Janeway replied.

  • • • • •

  Finally, the doors slid open. General Mattings entered first, Chakotay a few steps behind with his phaser low. They were followed by four of the general’s men. Two more remained outside, their weapons trained on Pratt and his officers.

  “General Mattings, how good to see you,” Janeway said. Three of the five aliens who had originally comprised the tribunal stood in a cluster behind her. A tall woman Mattings had never seen stood with them.

  “Admiral,” Mattings greeted her warmly. Chakotay moved swiftly past him, stopping just short of Janeway and taking her hands in his. She offered him a tight smile and nod, which he returned before guiding her gently back to stand beside him and Mattings.

  “Who was in charge here?” Mattings demanded of the others.

  “I am,” the strange woman said, stepping forward.

  “I don’t recognize you,” Mattings said.

  Her body shimmered briefly, then solidified again as the Saurian female Mattings knew as Odala.

  “That’s really disturbing,” Mattings said softly.

  She repeated the trick, resuming her previous form. “I am Lsia of the Seriareen. Admiral Janeway has graciously offered to assist us in our future negotiations with the Confederacy.”

  At this, Mattings laughed aloud.

  “You are now prisoners of the Confederacy. There is nothing to negotiate,” he said.

  “We defeated you once on the field of battle, General. You have now claimed a single victory over us. But surely you do not believe that all the forces I command were present here today?”

  Mattings raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Let them come,” he said. “We just turned seven of your ten ships to dust. We’ll do the same to any enemy vessel that approaches the Gateway again.”

  “General Mattings,” Janeway interrupted. “There is no cause on either side for further bloodshed. And despite your victory, these individuals continue to pose a serious threat to any they encounter. They have advised me that they came here seeking access to your space because their ancient homeworld is part of your territory.”

  “Seriareen?” Mattings asked.

  “Seriar,” Lsia corrected him.

  “Never heard of it,” Mattings said.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Lsia said. “Nine millennia have passed since last I saw her.”

  “Be that as it may,” Mattings said, “you led a fleet of vessels against the Confederacy, and that comes with only one penalty. It’s my understanding that we’ll need to be careful about how and where we execute you, but your fate was sealed the moment you opened fire on my people.”

  “General, the Federation has a vested interest in these prisoners,” Janeway said. “Lsia inhabits technology we consider proprietary. And I’ve witnessed exchanges that suggest that the individuals they possessed may still be aware of and fighting their current condition. You cannot execute them for actions they did not willingly take. They are victims here and their rights should be considered.”

  “Admiral?” Chakotay asked. His obvious relief at finding her unharmed seemed to be giving way to confusion.

  “Captain Chakotay,” she replied, “would you be so kind as to collect Lieutenants Psilakis and Cheng?”

  Chakotay’s jaw clenched as he nodded and turned to Pratt, who directed him down the hallway.

  Once he was gone, Janeway continued, “I need to speak with your presider. Until I do, my fleet will take these prisoners into custody. We have technology that will permit us to prevent them from transferring themselves into anyone else and our medical staff will work to determine if there is a safe way to separate them from their current hosts.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Mattings said, his voice cold as stone.

  “Why not?” Janeway asked.

  Mattings was shocked. “Admiral, I witnessed more than enough of your so-called tribunal to satisfy myself that these people are unworthy of calling themselves civilized, let alone law-abiding. They don’t deserve our mercy, or yours.”

  Janeway considered Mattings evenly. He hadn’t spent enough time with her yet to get a sense of her personal power, but an extended gaze from her hard blue eyes was beginning to educate him. “I appreciate your position, General, but the Confederacy’s are not the only interests that deserve consideration here.”

  “I just brought twenty thousand of my finest officers here to rescue you, Admiral,” the general admonished her. “Your courage in ordering your ships into the fight that claimed the Lamont and forty others was laudable. Given what I’ve learned of your people over the last several weeks, it was also unsurprising. When you agreed to become the Kinara’s prisoner, I made a personal vow to see to it that you survived that choice. It should never have been asked of you. Presider Cin was unaware that her first consul had already begun discussions with the Kinara behind her back. He thought you were the one preventing him from getting his hands on the Federation’s technology. One conversation with me would have set him straight. Your Federation is defined by its sense of honor and duty. Captain Chakotay would have probably destroyed your ships before he let Dreeg set foot on them again, let alone take any of the technology he wanted for the consortium.”

  “Probably,” Janeway agreed. “But all of that is in the past. The situation has changed radically, and accommodations must be made.”

  “Fine. You can discuss those with the presider. In the meantime, I have to take these people into custody.”

  “Respectfully, I can’t allow you to do that, General.”

  Mattings paused, unable to
believe the admiral’s defiance.

  “You don’t strike me as a man who retreats when things get hard,” Janeway continued. “I don’t either. This is a critical moment in our relationship. We must be able to trust one another.”

  “They were going to shoot you down like a diseased deng, Admiral,” Mattings insisted. “Why are you trying to protect them now?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do. Neither of us knows what forces they might still have prepared to move against us. One wrong move now, on either of our parts, and this thing devolves into armed conflict.”

  “We’re ready for that.”

  “That’s not the point,” Janeway insisted. “We do everything we can to avoid firing our weapons. Military engagement is a course of last resort. That’s easy to forget when you’ve been hurt, General. I know the losses they inflicted on you still burn deep. I’ve stood where you are standing too many times. We make choices in the heat of battle and tell ourselves after the fact that we had no other option. But every time you allow yourself to settle your conflicts by force, you add to the chaos rather than containing it.

  “There is another path. It’s the harder one. But it is the only way through this moment that is not guaranteed to end with a larger body count.”

  “Whatever these people want, they want it from us, Admiral,” the general said. “I know that you feel responsible for that hologram. But her days of causing trouble are over. We’ll see to that. There’s no reason for you risk anything on our behalf.”

  “Of course there is,” Janeway countered. “Peace is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is dragged kicking and screaming from competing agendas. It requires compromise. It requires faith. And it requires trust.”

  “The peace you want to create here could also require your life. Are you honestly willing to give that for beings you only met less than two cycles ago?” Mattings demanded.

  “Yes,” Janeway said simply. “What are you willing to give, General?”

  Mattings considered the question. For the Confederacy, he would gladly lay down his life. For Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay, he might do the same. But those who had attacked the Gateway, those who had taken lives of his fellow officers on the field of battle, for them, he could barely find the strength to offer mercy, let alone quarter.

  But Janeway’s raw nerve, her determination, and her belief that from the wreckage around them some sort of peaceful solution might be found, touched a chord within him.

  Only a few weeks ago, Mattings had expressed to Captain Chakotay his fear that what the Confederacy had built could be destroyed by the continuous attacks upon her by outsiders. What he had not said aloud, and barely acknowledged to himself, was that the appearance of the Federation fleet had done more to feed that fear than the growing numbers of hostile ships attacking the Gateway.

  His inner strength had been rooted in the belief that the Confederacy rested at the pinnacle of potential sentient achievement. They did not plead with others for acceptance. They did not compromise their values. They were the envy of all civilized species they encountered. Even the Borg had failed to wipe them out. Others looked to them from afar and strove to be worthy of acceptance by the unconquerable Confederacy of the Worlds of the First Quadrant.

  The cognitive dissonance that was created when he was forced to accept the vastly superior technology the Full Circle Fleet possessed had been painful, but soon quelled. Tools were simply tools and the Confederacy’s were more than equal to the tasks required of them.

  Much harder to silence were the doubts that arose when he considered how much further the people of the Federation had traveled in half the time his Confederacy had existed. The space the Confederacy claimed wasn’t one-third of the area held by the Federation in the second and fourth quadrants, and they were already exploring beyond that into the first and third.

  Was it possible that the Confederacy was no more than a parochial, backwater power? Were they ultimately doomed to burn through the resources they could hold in their distant corner of the galaxy without ever even tasting all of the wonders the Source had created?

  That the people of the Federation hadn’t even expressed the slightest arrogance when it was obvious how greatly their accomplishments dwarfed those of his people only added to his humility.

  Mattings could never say this aloud. But he couldn’t ignore it either.

  Was this how they had managed to come so far in such a short time? Was the leap Admiral Janeway was challenging him to risk with her, this willingness to take up the cause of people who had been intent on publicly executing her only a few minutes ago, utter foolishness? Or was it truly the price her people’s greatness demanded?

  Finally, he replied, “I’m not a diplomat, Admiral. And I’m not willing to lay down my life for these strangers, but I might be willing to risk it to see what you can create from this mess. My understanding of compromise is that all sides walk away equally unhappy.”

  “What do you suggest?” Janeway asked.

  “I can transfer the prisoners to a neutral space where the Confederacy and your fleet can observe them at all times.”

  Janeway smiled warily.

  “My men will secure this ship while you and the presider figure out how we move forward from here.”

  “I would suggest that once the Manticle has been disarmed and repaired, you send her back to Devore space. Those who witnessed what happened here should let anyone else looking for a fight know how they fared against the CIF.”

  “Don’t push it, Admiral.” Mattings smirked.

  “You may not be an official diplomat,” Janeway said, “but you do an awfully good impersonation of one, General.”

  “Then we have a deal?”

  “We do.”

  6

  EARTH ORBITAL CONTROL

  Icheb would normally have found Commander Blayk’s company boorish. Given the data he had hastily absorbed from the padd Paris had given him and the understanding that the transporter protocol revisions Paris had requested needed to be implemented before Icheb’s first shift had ended, Blayk’s incessant, inane prattle was maddening.

  “Have you ever been to Marseille, Cadet?” Blayk asked through a wide yawn.

  “No, sir,” Icheb replied as he pretended to continue running transport simulations. His station had been taken offline for his orientation. It would take mere seconds for Icheb to re-activate it, but clearly Blayk did not suspect that Icheb knew how to do that.

  “Oh, it’s a great city,” Blayk said, stifling a second yawn.

  Icheb only nodded as Blayk launched into a lengthy dissertation on Marseille’s many merits, highlighting the bars and cafés with the most attractive staff.

  The controls were familiar. Icheb had first learned standard transporter operations aboard Voyager, and B’Elanna Torres had personally instructed him in dozens of esoteric applications she had devised. At the Academy, he’d suffered through two additional basic survey courses and had aced the requisite exams.

  Lieutenant Paris had requested more than just a simple transport of several individuals from a nearby runabout, however. He had also asked that Icheb delete all records of the transport once it was complete.

  Altering the contents of transporter logs was never permitted, but the basic required programming had been part of his coursework to enable any officer to determine if the logs had been subjected to tampering. This had given Icheb all of the insight he required into the many ways there were to hide any trace of a transporter’s use.

  The only complicated request Paris had made of Icheb was the last. It involved eliminating the ability of the transporters to lock onto a specific signal for the foreseeable future without a personal command override. Hacking the main database was risky, but also well within Icheb’s abilities. It was, however, a dangerous proposition.

  It was not difficult to imagine why Paris would have asked that Seven’s transporter signals be disrupted. It was essential that she not be detected once she
was taken off the runabout. She required the ability to move unrestricted and invisible for several days. But, should she require emergency transport, only Icheb would be able to provide that, and he would only be present to do it for a few hours each week. Had Icheb been able to discuss this further with Paris, he might have suggested a few safer alternatives. As it was, he could only obey and hope for the best.

  This would not be possible as long as Blayk was present. Icheb fully expected that Blayk would require another short break during their first few hours together. When the commander had returned from his initial absence, he no longer held the bottle Paris had given him. Blayk’s breath, however, suggested that he had sampled it liberally prior to depositing it into his personal locker. His eyelids had begun to droop only a few minutes into his orientation presentation and almost as soon as Blayk was satisfied that Icheb grasped the basics of transporter control, he had settled himself onto the chair set before the panel, leaning his back against the wall and crossing his arms over his belly.

  Finally, after receiving Icheb’s assurances that he would ask for Elayne should he ever visit the Bistro Marmont in Marseille, Blayk seemed to have exhausted conversational topics, and a merciful stretch of silence began while Icheb pretended to continue his simulations. He was, in fact, searching for access to the master database.

  A grating inhalation caught Icheb’s attention. He turned to see Blayk’s eyes closed and his mouth hanging open.

  Icheb froze. If Blayk would only nod off for a few minutes, Icheb could execute Paris’s request.

  Unfortunately, Blayk snorted himself awake seconds later and, after wiping his mouth, grinned sheepishly at the cadet.

  “Sorry about that,” Blayk admitted. “I don’t know why I’m so tired tonight.”

  Icheb knew. Among the notes in Paris’s padd was confirmation that the Aldebaran Ale he had given the commander as a thank-you gift was spiked with a mild sedative. Paris clearly knew his old friend’s weaknesses and was leaving nothing to chance.

  “There is no need to apologize, Commander,” Icheb assured him. “If you require a short break, I will continue to familiarize myself with the system.”