Picard nodded, relieved; he owed much to the two officers who had braved the singularity’s dangers at his side. With the immediate peril behind him, he felt exhausted, and was sorely tempted to rest. But even though his throat felt as dry as the Chiarosan Dayside, there were still questions he needed to ask.
“The referendum?”
“From what Deanna told me, everything’s over but the shouting down on Chiaros IV. The long and short of it is this: We’d better have our bags packed within the next twenty minutes. Or else.”
Grelun,he thought with an inward groan. The matter of the rebel leader’s asylum plea had yet to be resolved.
“Have Admiral Batanides and Commander Zweller returned to the ship?” Picard said as Nurse Ogawa returned, a small electronic device in her hand.
Crusher shook her head. “No. But I think their shuttle is due back any time now.”
He silently cursed his immobility. He wanted to leap up and run to the shuttlebay, but he knew that this wasn’t an option while his chest cavity was clamped open beneath the sterile surgical field. “I need to see them as soon as they’re aboard. Particularly Commander Zweller.”
“What you need,” Crusher said sternly, “is to sit absolutely still for the next few minutes so I can repair the damage you did to your artificial heart.”
Picard sighed with frustration, then relented. “Fine. But after that–”
“No promises,” she said, interrupting him. It occurred to him that Crusher was probably the only person on the entire ship to whom he allowed that privilege. “After the operation, we’ll see.”
His dry throat made his next words come out in a sandpapery rasp. “Doctor, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you confine me to sickbay.”
“I don’t negotiate, Jean‑Luc,” she said, holding up a hypospray admonishingly. “Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?”
“Beverly, Corey Zweller and I once took a foolish risk by fighting a trio of very hostile Nausicaans. That’s why there’s an artificial heart in my chest today. Forty years later, Zweller is stillrunning foolish risks. Only now, he’s gambling with the lives of his colleagues. Whole sectors of space. An entire civilization.Had the Romulans succeeded in keeping that subspace singularity, his political gamesmanship might even have jeopardized the entire universe.
“But no more. It ends today. And I have to be in the shuttlebay when he arrives so I can tell him that.”
Crusher looked at him for a moment before nodding her assent. “All right, Jean‑Luc. I think I can have you good as new–and out of here–in maybe an hour.”
He smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Bev–”
“If,”she said, once again interrupting and pointing the hypospray at him, “you will promise to swear off taking any more foolish risks yourselffor at least a week.”
Picard managed a smile as Crusher gently applied the hypospray to his neck. “Cross my heart,” he whispered, and then slept.
The shuttlecraft Herschelvaulted away from the Chiarosan asteroid. Zweller watched as the battered, rocky worldlet dwindled on the viewscreen. He sincerely hoped never to look upon its meteor‑scarred face again.
The cockpit had been devoid of conversation during the minute or so since their departure from the planetoid. In fact, neither Zweller nor Batanides had uttered a word to each other since the meeting with Koval had concluded. Zweller supposed it was because neither of them was overly eager to contact the Enterprise–and to hear from Will Riker that the Romulans had killed their oldest friend.
As she adjusted the small spacecraft’s course for its rendezvous with the Enterprise,the admiral broke the uncomfortable silence. “Was it worth it, Corey?”
The question struck Zweller as a peculiar non sequitur.“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the Romulans have what they wanted: the Geminus Gulf.”
He was willing to concede that to her. Although the referendum votes would still be gathered for about the next five minutes, most of the voting districts had already reported their results. The few that had yet to transmit their tallies couldn’t possibly alter the overall result–which was the official ouster of the Federation from the Chiaros system, and thereby from the entirety of the Geminus Gulf.
“The Romulans have what they saidthey wanted,” Zweller said. “Who can ask for more?”
“And you have what youcame here for: a list of Romulan spies for your dirty little rogue bureau. So, was all the blood that was spilled here worth it?”
He knew she was talking about Johnny as much as Tabor. Anger sparked within him, for both men had been hisfriends, too. “My ‘dirty little rogue bureau’ has saved the Federation more times than I can count.”
She looked unconvinced. “How about a recent ‘for instance’?”
“All right. Are you familiar with an intelligent, protowarpera carnivore species called the Nizak?”
“It’s a big galaxy,” she said, shaking her head. “ShouldI have heard of them?”
“I admit, they’re probably obscure, even to most intelligence officers. But you’d remember them if you ever ran into them. Big, scaly, conquest‑bent, and mean as all get out.”
“That sounds like a fairly subjective appraisal.”
“You might not think so if any friends of yours had ever been on their dinner menu. Their own history shows the Nizak to be conquerors and predators by nature. Our exosociology branch concluded a long time ago that the Nizak constitute a clear and present danger to over a dozen nearby Federation systems.”
Her brow furrowed. “I thought you said these people were ‘proto‑warp‑era.’ ”
“They are,” Zweller said, a mischievous smile involuntarily creasing his face. “For the moment. Unfortunately for these fine folk, their most brilliant scientists and engineers can’t seem to keep their prototype warp ships from blowing up on the launch pad.”
She raised her eyebrows incredulously. “Section 31 is monkey‑wrenching the Nizak’s warp experiments. Trampling on the Prime Directive.”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “But no one else from Starfleet can prove that without making extensive contact . . . and risking committing violations of the Prime Directive themselves.”
A frosty expression clouded the admiral’s features. “You’re saying that Section 31 is in the business of . . . neutralizingentire civilizations?”
“We only do what’s necessary to protect the Federation. No more, and no less.”
“And exactly how far does ‘what’s necessary’ go, Corey?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Zweller lied.
Her eyes narrowed. “I mean this: Starfleet has encountered hundreds of intelligent species over the past couple of centuries. I can think of at least a few that haven’t been heard from since shortly after we made first contact with them. Your bureau wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would it?”
He looked away from her penetrating gaze and stared instead at the forward viewer. After a brief pause, he replied, “It’s like I already said, Marta. We do whatever’s necessary to fend off threats to the Federation. No more, and no less.”
When he looked back toward her he saw that she was studying him grimly, her jaw clenching rhythmically. “What’s happenedto you, Corey? The Federation has neversanctioned these kinds of actions.”
He’d heard this argument often, and had long since grown weary of hearing it. “Of course it doesn’t, Marta. It won’t.But the Federation exists in a universe that often means it harm. I know it’s no fun facing that fact, but it’s the cold, hard truth. Surely, as an intelligence operative, you understand that.”