“I’m not sure I see your point,” Eviku said after a pause. “We seem to have a goodly number of the various local sentient races aboard.”
“There are significantly moreNeyel here than any other group,” Torvig noted. “And they are human offshoots.”
Eviku looked at him as if he had just grown a new eye. “What are you implying? That we’re showing favoritism to the Neyel because they’re genetically human?”
“I’m merely making an observation,” Torvig said.
Eviku turned away momentarily, and Torvig’s bionic eyes registered a look of disgust on his austere features when he turned back. The Arkenite opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, apparently pondering the question further.
Finally, he said, “Let’s say for the moment that the Neyel aregetting preferential treatment. Could that be because they are more numerous than any of the other species?”
Torvig nodded, ready to concede that obvious fact. “But we could certainly try a little harder to find and rescue more of the indigenous peoples.”
“I don’t think we’re ignoring anyone,” Eviku said. “Have youignored anyone? Has anymember of this crew actively pushed aside an Oghen native in favor of a Neyel?”
Shaking his head, Torvig said, “No. Not that I’ve seen.”
Eviku went quiet for a moment, apparently pondering again. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “I understand your misgivings, Cadet. I know that Titanhas been lauded by many for its crew diversity. On the other hand, I also know that nobody can fail to notice that most of the chief decision makers for the ship are either humans or humanoids that I can’t distinguish fromhumans without a tricorder. And that may indeed influence the way certain decisions aboard Titanget made. But I don’t believe anyone involved in this rescue effort is practicing racial bias. It seems to me we’re all working as hard as we can to save as many of these beings as possible, regardless of where their genes originated.”
Torvig nodded, and surveyed the crowd once more, facing forward again after the hatch had closed the aft section off from the cockpit once again. Upon further dissection of his perceptions, he was forced to agree with Eviku’s conclusion. Still, he felt unsettled.
After all, the Neyel outnumbered the natives because they had enslaved, displaced, and slaughtered them centuries ago. Not because there had been more Neyel originally.
On Oghen and Vanguard, just as aboard Titan,the minority was ruling over the majority.
“You may be right, of course,” he said to Eviku. “I was merely pursuing an interesting avenue of speculation.”
Torvig wondered quietly how those speculations would play out in reality.
U.S.S. LA ROCCA,STARDATE 57037.9
Chief Axel Bolaji pushed the controls forward, sending the captain’s skiff La Roccadeep into Oghen’s distressed, highly ionized atmosphere. Mauve oceans and green-brown continents rose to meet the small craft. Towering columns of fire and smoke colored the dawn sky an angry orange, and quickly grew near enough to force the chief to weave the skiff carefully between them.
Akaar sat beside the chief and brooded on his own recent actions. He had informed Captain Riker only that he was personally joining the rescue efforts and that he was commandeering the skiff, the only Titanauxiliary vessel that hadn’t been committed to the evacuation effort. Until now, the small craft had been held in reserve for use as an emergency lifeboat.
But the current mission met Akaar’s definition of “emergency.”
Accompanying Akaar aboard the La Roccawere Lieutenant Feren Denken, the now one-armed Matalinian who had received his injuries during the raid on Romulus’s Vikr’l Prison, and Paolo and Koasa Rossini, the pair of Polynesian engineers. They were big and strong, which might help if they encountered any resistance.
From the report that Tuvok had made, the people of the town of Lfei-sor-Paric were intent on their own deaths—prepared to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs. And though it went counter to the spirit if not the letter of the Prime Directive, Akaar was determined to prevent them from making that entirely unnecessary sacrifice. The others on the skiff would help him. He didn’t know, nor care whether they were doing it under duress because of his rank, or because they agreed with his line of reasoning.
Denken and the Rossinis had outfitted themselves in the black stealth isolation suits that the security teams had worn during the prison raid on Romulus, and Akaar began to don one as well, though the largest suit available was almost intolerably snug on him. They didn’t need the stealth functions of the suits per se, but the standard environmental suits were all being used at the moment by the engineering crews working on the external retrofitting of the Vanguard habitat. And Akaar’s group needed some kind of protection in order to execute the admiral’s plan.
“Coming up on the enclave, Admiral,” Bolaji said. “Two kilometers ahead.”
Akaar watched the rapidly approaching desert plain, which was now being distorted by flashes of interspatial energy as well as intense heat. Watching the energetic flashes, the admiral thought, Death is indeed coming for you. But so are we.
“Scanning is difficult with all the atmospheric ionization,” one of the Rossini twins said, looking up from a port-side console.
The other Rossini spoke up. “I’m guessing that most of the populace is inside the domed octagonal structure we’ve just picked up. I read at least fourteen life signs there, of various mixed species.”
Akaar pointed toward Denken, who was standing ready at the transporter controls. “As soon as you have the coordinates, Mr. Denken, beam them in.”
A few moments later, Akaar turned toward the aft section and watched the multiple dispersal canisters of anesthezine gas as they shimmered away from the transporter platforms. At such close range, beaming objects down wasn’t difficult, atmospheric ionization notwithstanding. And soon, if all went according to plan, Titanwould be able to lock onto and beam up every living thing in the desert compound.
“Hold position above the enclave,” Akaar told Bolaji. “I will signal you when we have the pattern enhancers in place.”
“Yes, sir,” Bolaji said.
As Akaar and the others beamed into the spacious, cathedral-like enclave, they were astonished at the number of bodies they saw arrayed around them. There were a lot more than fourteen people here. Many were slumped over in chairs, while others lay prone on the floor or in the corridors. An attenuated residue of the anesthezine still lingered in the air.
Denken scanned several of the bodies, then looked over at Akaar. “Most of those in the chairs are dead, sir.”
Akaar felt his hearts drop. Had these people been allergic to the anesthezine? Had he just killed an entire enclave of religious people by trying to save them?
One of the Rossinis spoke up, from an area that surrounded what may have been an altar of some sort, where a large number of people were slumped over haphazardly in several rows of pews.
“Sir, most of thesepeople are still alive. It looks to me like the, ah, sacrament they came here to partake of has been poisoned.”
Akaar looked around him, more horrified now than he had been before. He saw children lying among the bodies, some Neyel, and others representing the many races that once had been enslaved by the Neyel. He didn’t want to check to see whether they were all living or dead, but he knew it had to be done.
“Break out the pattern enhancers,” he said. “Begin scanning and tagging anyone who remains alive, priority to the children. Direct Titanto begin beaming them aboard immediately, medical emergency.”
As Denken and the Rossinis got busy, a small part of Akaar’s mind seethed at the actions of the older believers. In spite of himself, he felt a pinprick of dark satisfaction at the knowledge that at least some of the adults here were not going to be rescued after all.