Nan smirked. “Actually, it’s ‘your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ but we’ll let that go.”

  “Being smart’s your job, ma’am. I’m just here to make sure you remember to match your socks.”

  “So that’s your job, I was starting to wonder,” she said with a smile as they entered the stateroom. “By the way, I was only half kidding about exhuming Bobby’s body before.”

  “Fine,” Esperanza said, “we’ll just exhume half the grave, then.”

  “You know, sometimes you can be incredibly funny. Then there’s now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The bed had, of course, remade itself while she was gone. Setting her half-finished mug of coffee on the desk, Nan sat down and activated the workstation. Cestus III’s emblem appeared on the screen, shortly thereafter replaced by that of Starfleet.

  “I’ve got Admiral Ross,” said Derek Fried over the intercom.

  “Put him through.”

  The last time Nan had seen William Ross was three years earlier at the Council of Governors meeting on Pacifica, where he had been the guest speaker. That occasion was only a few months after the war. Back then, he looked exhausted, the years of fighting having worn him down. Now, though he had more gray in his hair and his jowls had grown more pronounced, he actually looked better. He no longer had the same level of responsibilities in the admiralty, and that seemed to suit him. Well, he’s earned it, she thought.

  “Good morning, Admiral,” she said.

  “Governor Bacco, it’s good to see you again. You too, Commander Piñiero.”

  Esperanza smiled. “No one’s called me that for three years, sir.”

  “And Starfleet is poorer for it, believe me.”

  Nan leaned forward. “I’m gonna assume you didn’t call to chastise my campaign manager for her career choice, Admiral.”

  “No, Governor, I haven’t. Several people in your campaign have put out feelers to various captains and admirals regarding possibly serving as advisors.”

  Shrugging, Nan said, “Several people in Special Emissary Pagro’s campaign have probably done the same thing. Pretty standard. Is that a problem?”

  “Not as such, I was just wondering why none of those feelers has reached my office.”

  Rarely did Nan Bacco find herself speechless. When it did happen, though, it often wasn’t for very long, so it took her only three seconds to say, “Well, until yesterday, we assumed you were one of the feelers. Are you saying, Admiral, that you’d be interested in an advisory position on my campaign staff?”

  “ ‘Position’ is too strong a word, but I would be honored if you’d allow me to serve as a consultant.” He let out a long breath. “It’s been fairly obvious for some time that the Federation needs a change at the top. With all due deference to Special Emissary Pagro, he’s not the change we need. I’ve seen what you’ve done on Cestus, and anyone who can actually convince the Metrons to sign a treaty is someone who I think deserves a chance at the highest office.”

  Nan smiled. This was as big as Sisko—maybe bigger. So much for writing off Starfleet. “Admiral, I would be just as honored to have you available to be consulted, so assuming our respective honors can handle the pressure, I’d say we have us a deal.”

  “That’s good to know, Governor. Oh, one thing—out of curiosity, how did you get the Metrons to actually sign the treaty? They’re energy beings, after all.”

  Chuckling, Nan said, “Trade secret, Admiral.”

  Ross smiled. “Fair enough. If you’d like, I can join you in New York this afternoon.”

  “I’d like that very much, Admiral, thank you.”

  Esperanza added, “Have your people contact M’Tesint on our staff—she’s handling the arrangements.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you both.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  The screen went blank. Nan leaned back in her chair. All the coffee she’d drunk suddenly felt heavy and leaden in her stomach. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Ma’am?”

  Nan looked up at Esperanza. “This is really happening, isn’t it? I’m really seriously running for president?”

  Esperanza looked down at her. “Er, yes, ma’am, you are.”

  She waved her arm in front of her face at Esperanza’s worried tone. “I know what you’re thinking, but the point is, it didn’t seem like it was—I don’t know, real until now. I mean, yes, we were making plans back on Cestus where it’s safe, and it was just you, me, Fred, Ashanté, and the rest of them, but now…” She pointed at the now blank monitor. “Now William blessed Ross is telling me he thinks I can do this. I’ve only met the man once. I respect him, but I don’t really know him, and now he’s telling me that I should be president of the Federation. It’s one thing for you to say it, you’re supposed to be nice to me.” She looked up at Esperanza. “About that, you should probably make more of an effort. I don’t feel sufficient love coming from you.”

  “I’ll be sure to work on that, ma’am.”

  Nan shook her head and chuckled. “Batting practice is over. Now it’s a ballgame.”

  “What’s that thing where you hit the ball over the wall in the back?”

  “A home run?”

  “Right. I think you just hit one of those.”

  Nan laughed. “Hell, Esperanza, that was a grand slam.”

  “That’s where all the plates are full, right?”

  “Bases are full, yeah.”

  “You said before it was plates.”

  “No, the batter’s at the plate, the runners are at bases.”

  “How can they be at something if they’re runners? Shouldn’t they be running?”

  Waving her finger in a manner depressingly similar to the way she used to wave it at Annabella when she was eleven years old, Nan said, “If you don’t cut this out, I’m gonna force you to sit through that program Sisko gave me on a repeated loop.”

  Esperanza put up her hands. “Hey, I’m just trying to understand you better.”

  “Well stop it. I’m complex and contain multitudes. It is not for lesser minds such as yours to comprehend.”

  Smiling, Esperanza said, “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  Nan headed to the door. “C’mon, let’s go tell the others. I want to see Helga’s eyes pop out of her head.”

  “Right behind you, ma’am.”

  Jas Abrik, retired Starfleet admiral, watched as the future president of the Federation stood before a small crowd and gave his statement of purpose. That statement was being sent out via subspace to every part of the Federation, and many places outside it.

  Fel Pagro was an excellent public speaker, and Abrik had no doubt that his oratory would win the day. Governor Bacco had a certain regional charm about her, but that wouldn’t help her on the galactic stage. When the council announced the candidates, Abrik had made a thorough study of Bacco’s speeches over the years. The former admiral was born and raised on Trill, and had spent most of his ninety-seven years in the service of Starfleet, but he did not recognize most of Bacco’s arcane references until a Vulcan staffer explained them. Apparently, some human game called baseball was played on Cestus III, and Bacco was a fan.

  Obscure human sporting references were cute up to a point, and the woman was certainly no fool, but Abrik doubted her ability to adapt to the variety of circumstances one encountered every day on Earth. Sure, over ten years she handled refugees and the Gorn attack and the war—but that’s just one day’s work when you get that nice office in Paris.

  No, Abrik backed winners, and that was why he’d accepted the job as Pagro’s campaign manager.

  Standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, which had been rebuilt after the Breen attack on Earth had all but destroyed it, Pagro spoke, his voice carrying out to the entire Federation:

  “For two years, we fought a vicious, brutal war against the Dominion. It’s easy to look back now and ask why we didn’t try to negotiate with them, to live in harmony with them. But the name says it all: Dominion. They had no interest in living in peace, they just wanted to dominate us. We couldn’t allow that to happen, so we fought them. The cost in lives was appalling, but ultimately worth it because the alternative was so much worse. Becoming part of the Dominion would’ve been no better than becoming part of the Borg collective—and the ashes of Cardassia Prime bear testimony to how the Dominion would treat those who dare to think for themselves or act of their own volition.”

  Abrik smiled. Jino Bustopha, the Efrosian woman writing Pagro’s speeches, had done her usual good job. She’d been on Pagro’s staff for years, and Pagro owed a lot of his popularity to her skills.

  “But what we need to do is take it one step further. Our way of life is important to us—our freedoms, our ability to become the best that we are capable of becoming. It is the antithesis of what the Dominion stands for, and that’s why we fought them—but we cannot afford to stop with the Dominion.”

  Checking his chronometer, Abrik saw that it was almost nine in the morning, which meant it was almost noon in New York. Pagro’s speech would be over right about when Bacco started hers. Abrik had been hoping that Bacco could have made her speech first, but ultimately the decision came down to availability and travel times. Pagro was already on Earth, whereas Bacco wasn’t arriving in the system until early this morning. It probably didn’t matter much in the end, but the last speech always left the better impression.

  Then again, he thought, there’ll be plenty of speeches.

  “It’s long past time we stopped making excuses for our so-called allies. Fifteen years ago, we signed a treaty with the Cardassians, yet we let their oppression of the Bajorans continue. We aided them in their conflict with the Klingons only to have them turn and join the Dominion behind our backs. And look at the Klingons—they continue to conquer worlds, indeed they make such conquest policy. Yes, they’re taking worlds in distant parts of space nowhere near Federation interests, but does that change what they’re doing? Do we not fight for the rights of Bajorans, of the Children of San-Tarah, of the Brenlekki, and of all the others who do not have the freedoms we enjoy because it’s convenient for us to be allied with their oppressors?”

  Abrik certainly was grateful for the chance to right the many wrongs of the Zife administration. Their idiotic covert actions would serve only to hurt the Federation. Abrik left Starfleet because he couldn’t stand the secrecy, the compromises that he was forced into for the so-called greater good. What’s the good of being a free and open society if we still have to hide like rats in the shadows?

  “We fought to preserve the Federation’s way of life. Did the people who died on this bridge sacrifice their lives for nothing? I say, no. The people who died on this bridge died because they were free. If it’s worth dying for, it’s worth fighting for, and as president I will guarantee that those deaths will not be in vain and those freedoms will not go undefended. My name is Fel Pagro, and I’m running for president of the United Federation of Planets.”

  The crowd, a carefully picked group of Pagro supporters, had been cheering, building to a crescendo at the end that almost drowned out his final sentence. That’s not necessarily bad, Abrik thought. It’s not like there’s anyone here for whom the information in that sentence was news. The only ones not cheering were the press, of course, because they were supposed to remain objective—or at least neutral. That’s fine, as long as they send out the whole speech.

  Waving to the still-cheering crowd, Pagro left the podium he’d been standing behind and approached Abrik.

  “Good work,” Abrik said.

  Pagro shrugged. “It was all right. I could’ve been stronger. I cut the bit on the holographic-rights issue. It didn’t flow right. Jino’ll probably be pissed.”

  They started walking toward the shuttle that was going to take them to their Earth campaign offices in Vancouver. “I’ll talk to Jino. C’mon, we’ve got a staff meeting. We’ve got to see Bacco’s speech.”

  Frowning, Pagro asked, “What for? She’s just some governor who pulled a cute trick with some energy beings. Big deal. She’s nothing. We need to focus on how we’re going to—”

  Abrik put a hand on Pagro’s shoulder as they walked. “Fel, listen to me. Elections are volatile things. You of all people should know that. Until those votes are actually counted, you’re not president yet, and it behooves you to be completely familiar with the one person who stands in your way.”

  “Please.” Pagro rolled his eyes. “She’s only in my way insofar as I have to step on her to get the presidency. We’ve already got the important endorsements lined up on the political side and the celebrity side, and Starfleet’s pretty much in the bag. I’m telling you, Jas, now’s the time to strike—we can finally make the Federation what it needs to be, what it was always intended to be. We can—”

  “Fel,” Abrik said as the shuttle door opened at their approach, “save the speeches for the people that need convincing. Let’s get you elected first, then we’ll take care of the rest of it.”

  Pagro made a dismissive gesture. “Fine, fine.” He took a seat on the passenger couch.

  Abrik got in next to him. And then we can really get to work, he thought. A retired admiral he might have been, but he still had contacts in Starfleet—and he knew what really happened on Tezwa. The Federation—and Starfleet in particular—had been making excuses for those Klingon animals for far too long. Azernal’s mistake was in keeping everything under all that cloak-and-dagger nonsense so that it was impossible to expose the Klingons for the thugs they truly were.

  To the pilot in the front of the shuttle, Abrik said, “Let’s go. Oh, and give us the FNS on the viewer.”

  The small screen mounted on the back of the pilot’s couch lit up with the logo of the Federation News Service, which then switched to the face of a female Pandrilite at an anchor desk.

  “—gro’s speech at the Golden Gate Bridge. Regia Maldonado’s special report from Paris on the presidential candidates will be in half an hour, with commentary from former President Jaresh-Inyo, retired Starfleet admiral Norah Satie, and author Jacqueline Sharp. But first we now bring you live coverage of Governor Nan Bacco’s candidacy statement from the Statue of Liberty in New York City.”

  The image switched to a podium in front of the five-hundred-year-old statue. Abrik looked down at one of his padds, wanting to go over some reports while listening to the speech.

  “What the hell—?”

  Abrik looked up at Pagro’s words. “What is it?”

  “What is Ross doing with her?”

  “Ross?” Abrik looked at the viewer again. He saw Bacco standing at the podium, along with Commander Piñiero—like Abrik, retired Starfleet, though Abrik didn’t really know the woman, and like him, the campaign manager—a Caitian Abrik didn’t recognize, a couple of humans—

  —and Admiral William Ross.

  Son of a bitch.

  “With Ross’s support, Starfleet may not be the lock we thought it was.”

  “I know that, Jas,” Pagro said through clenched teeth. “Fix this. I don’t care what you have to offer Ross, but fix this. He’s a goddamned war hero, if he throws his combadge in with her, we’re screwed.”

  Abrik nodded. Dammit.

  Chapter 4

  Qo’noS

  ALEXANDER HAD ALWAYS LOVED coming to the Federation embassy in the First City, which made being led into its conference room at gunpoint rather irritating.

  “Sit down there, now.” The Klingon dressed in white barked the order while waving a disruptor that Alexander didn’t recognize, but one he knew wasn’t Defense Force or Starfleet issue. Why the kitchen stewards were taking hostages was as yet unclear. Three other stewards were in the conference room when Alexander entered, all holding disruptors. They were also the only ones standing, except for Vark, the kitchen staff supervisor. Everyone else—most of the embassy staff, as far as Alexander could tell—was seated on the floor.

  The spot where Alexander had been instructed to sit was also on the floor, next to Giancarlo Wu in the northwest corner of the room. Wu looked as calm and unflappable as ever, which made him unique among the human civilians in the room. The only other people not fidgeting or complaining or shifting uncomfortably or twitching nervously were the Klingons among the hostages and the three Starfleet security guards, who’d been put in the other three corners. Aside from them, Alexander was the only one in uniform.

  Since there were more than three guards assigned to the embassy, Alexander had to assume that the remaining guards were either still at large or dead. He hoped for the former, but all things considered, the latter seemed more likely.

  One of the stewards held his hand to his ear. “Akor, what happened? Akor!” He looked up. “I’m not getting anything. Everyone, switch to the alternate frequency.”

  The four stewards lifted the white jackets that were part of their uniforms and pressed controls on small devices they had at their waists. Alexander knew that such devices, like the disruptors, were not standard issue for the kitchen staff. Vark did the same, which meant he was in on this whole thing.

  After making the adjustment, the Klingon spoke again. “Dohk, Gimor, get to the second floor, find out what happened.”

  Vark stepped forward. “Have Torvak reactivate the security system. Then we can track him.”

  “No. As long as the ambassador and that other security guard are at large, the embassy is not secure. Until it is, we cannot risk activating the system so either of them can use it against us.”

  One’s still free. Good, Alexander thought. With that one and Father still running around, there’s a chance.

  Shaking his head, Vark said, “This isn’t going as you promised, Rov.”

  Rov smiled. “No plan ever does. All that matters is the result.”

  “The result is that Worf and a Starfleet security guard are still free, and we don’t know what happened to Kl’rt, Gitak, or Akor.”

  “First of all, we don’t know for sure that the guard is alive—Krant said he might have hit her.”