The crewman tried, but shook his head. “The jamming’s too strong!”
So much for that idea. Even if Ortega could bring them down in one piece, Kimura knew it wouldn’t be long before a band of hulking, murderously xenophobic Kalar came hunting for them.
This is what I get for not listening to Hoshi was Kimura’s final thought before the shuttlepod went down.
11
U.S.S. Pioneer, Rigel IV translunar Lagrange point
MALCOLM REED PACED in the tight confines of his ready room, intermittently pausing to stare at the data on his desk monitor, data transmitted by the Kanyors just minutes ago. “Another decoy ship,” he said to Endeavour’s captain, who stood by the door, calm and motionless. “Another dead end. And another member of my crew gets captured.” Mayweather and Sangupta were hours overdue for contact, and the Rigel III satellite grid was unable to detect the navigational beacon from their skiff. Reed feared the worst. “They’re picking us off, T’Pol! They sent us off on this, this interplanetary scavenger hunt to split us up, to divide and conquer. And I let them. I played right into their hands.”
T’Pol replied with reassuring calm. “Given the situation, it was a reasonable allocation of resources.”
“Superficially, yes. But that’s what they wanted us to decide. I should’ve seen it. Should’ve . . .” He trailed off, studying the reflection of his bearded, gray-fringed visage in the ready room’s small viewport. His mind contrasted it with an image of the crisp, clean-shaven face that had stared back from the mirror in his prime. “Back when I was an armory officer, I would’ve questioned it. That was my job: to be suspicious of everything. Now . . . all I could think about was protecting my crew, getting justice for Mishima.”
“You thought like a captain.”
“I believed I did. But . . .” He couldn’t voice it. What if he wasn’t ready for this responsibility? Was that why Archer had sent T’Pol to backstop him when things had grown tense? At first Reed had felt a twinge of resentment about his former captain being assigned to look over his shoulder. Now, though, he was grateful for her check on his judgment. “What would you have done, T’Pol?”
The Vulcan contemplated the question. “I cannot judge what my state of mind would have been in that hypothetical situation, for I now have information I would not have had then, and thus my perception of the situation differs. As does yours.”
T’Pol stepped closer. “Malcolm . . . the important thing is not to reconsider our past decisions, but to focus on the decisions we must make now. And to make them with a clear mind and a focus on our goals.”
Reed met her dark eyes gratefully, imploringly. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Her reply was gentle, pointed, and understanding. “Trust your officers.”
Babel Station
“. . . All I have been saying is that there is no need for haste.” Avaranthi sh’Rothress’s gaze moved to meet the eyes of the other ambassadors at the conference table. “How can we legitimately and fairly decide what standards we should use to judge a world’s readiness for Federation membership when we haven’t even reached a full consensus on what we want the Federation to be? Is it fair to ask Rigel, or even Vega, to join us when we offer them mixed messages about what we expect?”
T’Rama observed the Andorian ambassador’s delivery carefully. If she sought to pursue a diplomatic career herself, she could pick a worse role model than this poised, charismatic statesperson. Though sh’Rothress’s views on Rigelian admission put her at odds with Solkar, her reasons struck T’Rama as considerably more rational than Mikhail Kamenev’s thinly veiled xenophobia or Ysanne Fell’s preoccupation with political standing. T’Rama was of the opinion, which her husband’s-father shared, that sh’Rothress was the one opposing ambassador who was likely to be swayed in favor of admission if her concerns could be adequately assuaged through reasoned argument.
Kamenev, however, was as stubborn as ever. “This is ridiculous,” the dark-mustached Martian exclaimed. “Why are we even still here, pretending to have a civil debate with these pawns of the state, when their poster boy Jonathan Archer has tried to assassinate a presidential candidate?”
“Allegedly tried,” T’Rama corrected. As Solkar’s assistant, it was not normally her place to participate in the negotiations without the ambassador’s invitation; but Kamenev’s allegation was not part of the diplomatic debate, and it involved a matter on which she was the one most qualified to comment among those present. “The investigation is still under way.”