It was possible, she thought as she stepped inside a turbolift, that one day Quinn might forgive her for all the pain she had brought into his life, directly or indirectly. Given enough time, Tim Pennington might forgive all her transgressions, as well. As she recollected all those persons she had harmed over the years who knew that she was to blame for their sufferings, T’Prynn could think of only one who she was certain would never absolve her of her sins.
I will forgive when I can trust myself not to repeat the errors of my past, she vowed, and not until then. She didn’t know how long it would take her to recover that faith in her own ethical compass, but as she thought of Quinn being ferried away to anonymity and freedom, she felt certain that her own life was, belatedly and at long last, heading in the right direction.
For the moment, that would suffice.
28
Clutching the last feeble straws of his patience, Nogura strode into the Vault backed by JAG officer Lieutenant Commander Holly Moyer and a phalanx of twenty armed security officers. They found Xiong and his cadre of Starfleet science experts waiting for them, standing in a tight formation with folded arms and expressions of hard resolve. As Nogura had expected, this meeting was off to a wonderfully confrontational start. He met Xiong’s hard stare. “Lieutenant.”
The lean younger man replied simply, “Admiral.”
“Let’s just cut through it, shall we?” Nogura extended his hand to Moyer, who handed him a data slate. “It’s my understanding that you and your team are refusing to obey orders to run the test series requested by Starfleet Command. Is that correct?”
Xiong appeared unrepentant. “That’s right.”
“On what grounds?”
Nervous looks were volleyed between Xiong and the other members of the Vault contingent, and then Xiong said, “We believe these orders to be unlawful and immoral, sir.”
Nogura felt as if he wanted to simply explode. “Mister Xiong, while I understand and can even sympathize with your reaction to the . . . distasteful nature of these orders, I am compelled to remind you that they are, nonetheless, orders. Your compliance is not optional.”
“And while I understand your legal obligation to uphold the chain of command,” Xiong said, “I’m compelled to remind you, Admiral, that no unlawful order is valid, and that as Starfleet officers, we are required by regulations to challenge such directives.” The other scientists’ heads bobbed in cautious concurrence.
Playing the role of devil’s advocate was one of Nogura’s most despised duties as a flag officer, but his review of the Starfleet Code of Military Justice and the relevant portions of Federation law had left him no choice in this matter. “Tell me, Lieutenant . . . what part of this order do you consider ‘unlawful’? Because I don’t think you have a case. You’re not being asked to do anything others before you haven’t done. Crushing a planet might seem radical, but it’s not like it’s a populated world. It’s a dead ball of rock far from the nearest inhabited planet, and it’s a confirmed Federation possession. So . . . what’s the problem, here?”
“The problem,” Xiong replied without delay, “is the role of the Shedai in this fiasco. Their presence inside the array is what gives it the power for this insane exercise. But no one’s obtained their consent. The experiment we’ve been ordered to run uses them as slave labor to make it possible. But we captured them as part of a military combat operation. That makes them prisoners of war—and, as such, they have certain rights under Starfleet regulations, as well as under Federation and interstellar law.”
Nogura felt exhausted just listening to Xiong prattle on. “It might interest you to know, Lieutenant, that there’s never been a formal declaration of war in the Taurus Reach. Not by us, or the Shedai, or anyone else. At least, not that we’ve heard of. So we can’t very well be holding prisoners of war when there is no war.” He scrutinized the isolation chamber with mock intensity. “In fact, if I had to characterize our encounters with the Shedai, I think their actions would better fit the paradigms of insurgents or terrorists. In which case, we’re fully within our rights to hold them as hostile nonstate actors, or maybe even as common criminals—both of which are routinely subjected to forced manual labor as a condition of their incarceration.”
“At least criminals are entitled to impartial trials before we put them in prison,” Xiong retorted, his ghost of a smirk suggesting his delusion that he’d scored a rhetorical point.
“Lieutenant, if I thought it was even remotely safe and practical to release the Shedai, individually or collectively, to face charges before a Starfleet tribunal, I would convene such proceedings with all due haste . . . right after I finished courtmartialing you and all your compatriots—a process that will begin immediately unless you all give up this hopeless insurrection and proceed with the new experiments, as ordered.”
Xiong said nothing, but the mood in the room remained defiant. Nogura spoke past the impassioned young department head and addressed the other Starfleet officers behind him. “Please understand: I don’t like being pushed around by bureaucrats any more than you do. But if you don’t comply with my orders and start running these tests, I will have no choice but to order all of you taken into custody. You will be court-martialed and convicted. Your careers in Starfleet, and as scientists, will effectively be over. You will be sent to penal colonies—in some cases, for the rest of your lives.” He let that hang in the air for a few seconds, then he continued. “The really bad news is that once you’re all out of the way, Starfleet Command will send out its own hand-picked bunch of eggheads, who, I have no doubt, will be far less ethical and scrupulous than any of you when it comes to putting this acquired technology through its paces. Frankly, I don’t know what they’ll do with unfettered access to your work. I’m not sure I want to find out. The real question is: Do any of you want to take that risk? Or would you rather keep this program under your control and be able to pull the plug if it goes too far?”
No one spoke or moved for several seconds. Then, one by one, Xiong’s team broke ranks and began drifting back to their work stations, to their cubicle offices, to their private research labs. Finally, only Xiong, Theriault, and Klisiewicz remained. Klisiewicz shifted awkwardly until he caught Xiong’s eye. “Ming, I’m sorry, but . . .”
“Go ahead,” Xiong said. “It’s fine. He’s right. Let’s get the experiment prepped.” He gave a reassuring nod to Theriault, whose embarrassed half-smile shrank to a thin line as her lips folded inward and vanished from view as she stepped away.
Nogura continued staring at Xiong, waiting for an answer. “And you?”
“I’ll stay,” Xiong said. “We’ll have the R and D team’s protocols ready for a trial run in a few hours.” He stepped forward and stood nose to nose with Nogura. “But as for pulling the plug before it goes too far? For the record, I think that ship has sailed.”
“Then it’s your job to bring her home in one piece.” With a glance he dismissed Moyer and the security detail, then he looked back at Xiong and said sotto voce, “Do your best to make this work, but use your judgment. If it starts to go south, end it. I’ll keep the brass and the suits off your back. But we have to maintain the appearance of cooperation, or else they’ll send us all to some rock with no name and hand this lab to somebody else. Understood?”
A grave nod. “Perfectly, sir.”
That was all Nogura could reasonably ask for under the circumstances. “Then carry on, Lieutenant. As soon as you have results, report to my office.” He turned and followed the last of the security officers through the hatchway that led out of the Vault.
Nogura’s decades of experience as a Starfleet officer told him this entire undertaking was going to end in disaster.
His instinct for danger told him that was an understatement.
Outcast and alone, Ezthene [The Silver] had little sense of how long he had languished in exile aboard Vanguard; he knew only that the passing of time seemed to have slowed to a halt since the death of Nezrene [The Emerald], his fellow expatriate from the Tholian Assembly.