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  “Absolutely,” interposed Professor Blune, tapping a meaty finger on the table. “Starfleet officers are explorers, scientists, and diplomats first.”

  “Which is the goal of this undertaking, Professor—to give the Warborn an opportunity to broaden their range of abilities,” Rakatheema replied. “Their training to date may have emphasized combat, but their innate capacity to learn goes beyond that. Their rate of cognitive development and assimilation of new knowledge surpasses what is normal even for my people, and the rapid learning techniques we Arcturians invented for their training have already been successfully adapted by the Federation for medical rehabilitation, for language acquisition in circumstances where computer translation is unavailable, and so forth.

  “Naturally,” Rakatheema went on, “we would expect the Warborn to meet the same qualifications as any other cadet. The sponsorship requirement is taken care of thanks to Admirals Kirk and Cartwright. Our candidates are already undergoing rapid remedial training on Arcturus, and any further catching up can be done during the summer preparatory program. They would hardly be the first entrants who drew upon the preparatory program to compensate for a lack of conventional educational achievements, due to coming from small colonies, emigrating from non-Federation worlds, or having otherwise exceptional backgrounds.”

  “Their very exceptionality is a concern,” Captain T’Vari put in. “In stressing their learning speed, you remind us of the Warborn Arcturians’ augmented physical and mental capabilities. Starfleet cannot be seen to embrace the recruitment of Augments, least of all those engineered for military purposes.”

  “By a strict interpretation of those rules, Captain, I would be forbidden from service, as would Professor Blune. Both of us are from species that have undergone genetic engineering in the past.”

  “On a species-wide level. The restriction regards those beings who are artificially enhanced beyond the general optimum for their species, granting them an unfair advantage.”

  “Advantage?” Rakatheema countered. “The Warborn have little advantage over other Arcturians. Their accelerated growth gives them shortened lifespans. They are outsiders among our people—placed on pedestals for their sacred role in our defense, yet viewed with discomfort in peacetime, for they have no place in our everyday lives. They are strong and skilled in combat, yes, but little more so than a natural-born Arcturian in peak condition. After all,” he added, lowering his head, “they were bred for their numbers and speed of reproduction above all else.” He declined to put the cruel calculation into words: parts designed to be disposable and easily replaced did not have to be especially durable.

  “Still, Captain T’Vari has a point,” Superintendent Chandra put in. “Aside from the ethical concerns, there are political considerations as well. The Klingons would see it as an abrogation of treaties and agreements going back to the Augment Crisis of 2154. Given the current… deteriorating nature of our relations with the Klingons, it would be unwise to provoke further mistrust.”

  Kirk frowned and shifted in his chair, reminded of his own unease at the consequences of the Federation’s Augment policy. It had been more than a dozen years since he had exiled Khan Noonien Singh and his fellow Augment leaders to Ceti Alpha V following their attempted takeover of the Enterprise. He had recommended to Starfleet Command that the planet be made an official, supervised penal colony, expecting that a legion of historians would descend on the lush, untamed world to fill in the extensive gaps in the recorded history of the Eugenics Wars through interviews with the very men and women who had waged them.

  Instead, Starfleet Intelligence had classified the entire incident, not wishing to let the Klingons learn of the existence of dozens of human Augments under Starfleet supervision—least of all the direct progenitors of the genetic line that had caused the Augment Crisis. War had broken out regardless barely a month later, but at the time, there had still been hope of staving it off. Even after the brief conflict, Starfleet had not wished to jeopardize the Organian-imposed peace by revealing the secret. SI had assured Kirk that Ceti Alpha V would be monitored, so Kirk had moved on, not without regret that military secrecy had required censoring one of the greatest historical finds of his career.

  Kirk noted Admiral Cartwright’s gaze upon him; no doubt he had noted Kirk’s reaction to the mention of Augments. Once Cartwright was satisfied that Kirk intended to keep his silence, the older admiral turned back to the superintendent. “It’s precisely because of the state of Klingon relations that we need the Warborn in the fleet. Ever since Chancellor Kesh figured out that the Organians can’t stand interacting with corporeals and won’t intervene in our affairs as long as we leave them alone, he’s been testing our defenses more and more, or tacitly encouraging rogue captains to do it. It’s easy for you sheltered Academy types to focus on the peaceful ideals of the Federation, but out there in the field, it’s getting more dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before the Klingons invade us yet again.” He glanced at Kirk. “And things aren’t much better on the Romulan front, even after the Renz Verus business. With enemies testing us on two fronts, we need every advantage we can get.”

  “That’s not what this is about, Lance,” Kirk interposed. “The commander made that clear. The Warborn see it as their sacred duty to fight only for Arcturus. We don’t have the right to try to subvert that for our own interests.”

  Rakatheema raised a wrinkly hand. “That is essentially true, Admiral. Of course, it is always possible that some Warborn might feel that they protect Arcturus by fighting for the Federation. But that should be for them to decide as individuals.”

  “My point exactly,” Kirk replied.

  Cartwright nodded. “All right, yes, I grant you that,” he said, though he did not sound humbled. “I merely meant that the Warborn recruits could substantially bolster our numbers. As for their skills in combat, their mere presence might be seen by the Klingons as a deterrent.”

  “Or a provocation,” Professor Blune said, “as the superintendent suggested.”

  “Pardon me,” Rakatheema said, “but in all this talk about the broader astropolitical or military ramifications of the Warborn as a group, you are forgetting what really matters: who they are as individuals. These are people who seek a place to belong, a constructive purpose to fulfill. I admit that even we Arcturians tend to perceive the Warborn as a faceless, interchangeable mass. They can be difficult to tell apart visually. But I have met them, spoken with them, and even with their collective upbringing and training, they are as unique as any of us.

  “Yet the one thing they have in common is a yearning to serve. To contribute. All I ask is that you give them that chance.”

  “He’s right,” Kirk said. “When has it been Starfleet’s way to judge potential applicants by their race, or by the circumstances of their birth? All we have ever judged any applicant by is their merit.” He looked around the table at the others. “At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. This is our chance to prove that we mean it.

  “Will it lead to challenges, to complications? No doubt it will. There have been many challenging, complicated students in the Academy’s history, from almost every member species. I’m sure a number of you are dying to point out that I was one of them.” That generated a few chuckles. “But more than one of my instructors told me something that I’ve now learned for myself from this side of the equation: There is nothing more satisfying for a teacher than a student who challenges us. Who makes us question what we thought we knew. Who makes us better, in the same way we strive to make them better.

  “We don’t know what new challenges we’ll face if we admit the Warborn. But we don’t know what challenges we’ll face if we go out to explore other planets, meet other cultures. And that is exactly why we do it. That, to us, is the very thing that makes it impossible to pass up.”

  Kirk stopped himself from saying anything more. These were fellow Starfleet veterans, after all—officers who had lived for discovery and challenge as long as he h
ad, or considerably longer. There was no need to oversell them—simply to remind them of what they already knew.

  Chandra looked around the table, sizing up the thoughtful looks on the others’ faces. “It appears to me that Commander Rakatheema and Admiral Kirk have both made their points persuasively. Do any of you still wish to object to admitting the Warborn?”

  Only Professor Blune spoke in response. “I still don’t know how well they can adapt to our curriculum, or how we might need to adapt the curriculum to them. But I suppose that’s something we’ll just have to figure out as we go.”

  “As it so often has been,” Chandra replied. “Very well. The motion carries unanimously.” He smiled and looked around again. “Shall we break for tea?”

  Chapter Two

  Sulu residence

  Lower Pacific Heights, San Francisco

  Demora Sulu was annoyed when Uncle Pavel got a call on his communicator right in the middle of dinner. The Starfleet people who called Uncle Pavel and Dad always seemed to do it in the middle of something like dinner or a trip to the park or some other time when Demora wanted them all to herself. Demora thought that was very rude and had made up her mind never to join Starfleet.

  At least, not unless they learned to stop interrupting people when they were doing other things. Then she might consider it.

  When he came back into the dining room, Uncle Pavel had a look she knew all too well. “Oh, no,” Demora said. “They want you to go away again, don’t they? You just got back a week ago!”

  “Just for a little while, Demya,” Uncle Pavel assured her. “They want Reliant to look into something, but it’s not very far.”

  “What’s up?” Dad asked, glancing in Demora’s direction. “Or can you talk about it?”

  “No, it’s fine, Hikaru. There was an unexplained eruption of energy in space in the Altair system. The readings are similar to what Reliant encountered at Argelius a few weeks back.”

  Dad frowned. “The, what did you call it, vacuum flare?”

  “A vacuum energy flare-up, I think I said.” He pursed his lips. “I like yours better, though. Vacuum flare it is.”

  “Whatever it’s called, I thought you said it was a one-in-a-trillion fluke.”

  “Much less likely than that, even—if it was what I thought it was. Clearly I was wrong.”

  He smiled, which made Demora frown. “You’re happy to be wrong?”

  “Yes, because I am a science officer,” Uncle Pavel said. “Now I have something new to investigate—a new puzzle to solve. It would be boring to have all the answers already.”

  “You don’t sound worried,” Dad said. “I take it nobody was hurt this time?”

  “No, it was in empty space. But you know how delicate the Altair situation is. The native Altairians now suspect the colonial government of doing a weapons test, and they aren’t convinced by their denials. Luckily, they sent their readings to Starfleet, and the computers matched the signature to the, ah, vacuum flare at Argelius. They’re sending us there to make sure, and to convince the Altairians there’s nothing to go back to war over.”

  “War?” Demora asked. “Who would they go to war with? And why?”

  “Well, Demy,” Dad began, “there are two main inhabited planets there. Altair VI was settled by humans over a hundred years ago, though it never joined the Federation. There’s also a native humanoid people on Altair III. At first, they seemed like they didn’t have space travel, so the colonists mostly avoided them.”

  “The Prime Directive?”

  “No, that was before the Directive. They just didn’t think the Altairians had a lot to offer them. But then they found ancient ruins on Altair VI, and eventually they figured out that it was the original homeworld of the people who migrated to Altair III thousands of years ago.”

  “Why did they leave?”

  Uncle Pavel fielded that one. “A lot of smart people have been trying to figure that out for a long time. What we do know is that when the native Altairians found out that aliens had settled their ancient homeworld, a lot of them weren’t happy about it.”

  “So the two planets have been fighting for a long time,” Demora’s father went on. “They’ve been at war on and off for the past hundred years. The Federation’s stayed neutral, tried to broker peace and give medical aid, but the instability on our border was dangerous for the whole region. The Klingons even tried to back the natives, hoping to gain a foothold close to the heart of the Federation.”

  “But then our diplomats finally convinced them to make peace,” Uncle Pavel said. “That was, oh, about a dozen years ago. And it was a solid treaty too, with real solutions. Things have finally stabilized, and there’s even talk of both worlds applying for Federation membership.”

  He sighed. “But that sort of thing always gets a reaction from people who prefer to stick to themselves, so there are new tensions on Altair III. Luckily,” he finished with a smile, “Captain Terrell is very good at defusing tensions.”

  “I hope so,” Dad said. “Altair’s a beautiful system.” He turned to Demora. “Pavel and I were there for the inauguration of the new president of Altair VI, after the last wartime president resigned to secure the peace.”

  “Well, we were a little late,” Uncle Pavel said. “We had to make an emergency detour to Vulcan.”

  “But we were there for the end of it. Luckily there was a lot of celebrating. Even in wartime, Altair VI always had excellent recreational facilities.”

  Uncle Pavel tilted his head, looking puzzled. “Now that you mention it, it’s quite a coincidence that both flares happened at popular shore leave destinations.”

  “Do you think it means anything?”

  “How could it? I still don’t know how it could even happen more than once in a billion years. Let alone in consecutive months.”

  “Maybe somebody’s trying to ruin people’s vacations!” Demora said, alarmed. “That’s terrible!” Demora took vacations seriously. If not for the vacation on which her father and mother had briefly met, she wouldn’t exist.

  Uncle Pavel stepped closer and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Demya. I promise that Captain Terrell and I won’t let any more vacations be ruined.”

  She knew Uncle Pavel was humoring her. After all, she was almost seven and three-quarters, and thus she was not easily fooled. Still, she appreciated the gesture. It was his way of saying he wouldn’t forget about her while he was gone.

  If there were more people as considerate as him in Starfleet, she might just consider joining.

  U.S.S. Reliant

  Altair system

  “As you can see, the signatures of the vacuum flares from Argelius and from your system have numerous commonalities,” Pavel Chekov told the parties assembled in Reliant’s briefing room. Seated on opposite sides of the table were Gon Curi, the ornately robed and hooded ambassador from Altair III’s indigenous nation, and Yoko Sasaki, Altair VI’s current defense minister. Captain Terrell sat at the head of the long table, which was at an angle to the wall screen by which Chekov stood, so that the captain’s large frame did not obscure the view.

  “Reliant’s own scans confirm the accuracy of the initial measurements, and thus the similarity,” Chekov went on. “As the flare at Argelius was judged to be a natural phenomenon, there is no reason to suspect anything different in this case.”

  Curi’s head shifted emphatically, though Chekov could barely make out the ambassador’s features under his voluminous hood. “How can your ship have made scans? You were not yet here. It’s highly suspicious that you have your own separate readings of a phenomenon you claim not to have anticipated.”

  Chekov strove to remain patient, looking to Captain Terrell’s calm as a model. “Naturally, you are aware that light travels at a finite speed. Though starships generally rely on faster-than-light subspace sensors for instantaneous detection, we can sometimes use the speed of light to our advantage. Since the phenomenon occurred twenty-eight hours before
our arrival, we simply made observations with conventional optical and gravitic sensors when we reached a distance of twenty-eight light-hours from the site of the outburst. Thus, in a sense, we were able to watch it as it happened, just as the astronomers of history did on both your world and mine. I was personally able to confirm the same electromagnetic and gravimetric signatures I scanned at Argelius several weeks ago.”

  Minister Sasaki smiled. “And tell me, Commander, was there any hint that the Argelian incident involved any form of weapons testing?”

  “Not at all, ma’am. The Argelians are well known for their pacifism.”

  Curi crossed his loose-sleeved arms. His dark blue-gray hands were his only visible skin. “Very well, then. If this was not a test of some new weapon, what was it?”

  Chekov shrugged. “We… are still attempting to determine that.”

  The Altairian scoffed. “You expect us to be satisfied with that? You simply don’t know? Do you think we’re so gullible as to simply take your word for it?”

  Terrell leaned forward, finally speaking in relaxed, reasonable tones. “If I may, Ambassador… if we’d come here to lie to you, don’t you think we’d have prepared a better story?

  “The fact that science doesn’t pretend to have all the answers is the very thing that makes it such a powerful tool to search for the truth. It’s easy to see a gap in what you know and fill it with your own beliefs or preconceptions—or your own fears. But if you really care about the truth, then you simply step back and let the universe speak for itself. If it doesn’t hand you the answer right away, you just keep looking until you find it, however long it takes.”

  The captain crossed his arms, his tone growing stern. “No, Ambassador, we can’t yet tell you what this phenomenon is. But you know what? You can’t tell us what it is either. You don’t know any more than we do.

  “If this were some kind of weapons test, there’d be evidence of that, surely. Physical debris, a satellite in the vicinity, a recognizable power signature in the readings. Your own scientists would have been able to spot something, and you’d be here with specific evidence. Instead, all you have are questions. The same questions that we have.”