AS KANT JOREL WALKED DOWN the hallway toward the holocom, he riffled through the padds in his hand. “You sure we don’t have a statement from Ross?”

His new assistant, an Andorian whose name he simply could not remember, said, “Permit me to use my telepathic powers to ascertain if the answer to that question has changed in the seventy-five seconds since last you asked it.”

Kant, a middle-aged Bajoran man who had served as the Federation Council’s liaison to the press for the past two and a half years, and gone through seven assistants in that time, grunted. “Being sarcastic won’t get you very far in this job.”

“Based on the sheer number of predecessors I’ve had, I’d say that nothing gets anyone very far in this job.”

“Yeah, but that’s only because I’m impossible to work with.”

“That is what I heard.”

Kant looked down at the padd on top of the bunch in his hand, which contained the official statement from the council that he was about to read to the members of the press. “The statement’s been vetted by everyone who’s supposed to vet it?”

The Andorian’s antennae twitched. “I assume so.”

Kant stopped walking and stared his assistant right in his blue-skinned face. At that moment, he remembered that he was called Zhres. “You’re assuming, Zhres. That’s bad. Assuming is what gets people killed.”

“Councillor Ra’ch’s aide told me that it was ready to be given to the press. Hence my assumption.”

“Fine.” He started walking again.

“Oh, by the way,” Zhres said, “there’s a new reporter in the room—a woman from the Free Vulcan Gazette named Annalisa Armitage.”

Kant let out a long breath and prayed to the Prophets for guidance. “I was really hoping those lunatics had gone away.”

“I take it the Free Vulcan Gazette is not a reputable journal?”

“Not remotely. For starters, not a single Vulcan is on its staff, and I would be stunned if there were any in its subscriber list.”

“That’s odd. I took a brief look at their latest issue, and they seem to advocate a very pro-Vulcan stance.”

Kant scowled. “That’s one way of looking at it. It started publication about three hundred years ago, right after the first contact between Vulcans and humans on Earth. A group of humans felt that Vulcans should rule the galaxy. They started the FVG, and it’s kept going strong despite being officially repudiated by the Vulcan government, and being the laughingstock of pretty much everyone who doesn’t subscribe to it, which is about ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of sentient life.”

Zhres tilted his head in a way that Kant found especially annoying. “What’s the basis of their argument?”

“What, why Vulcans should rule the galaxy?” Kant shrugged. “I guess because they’re the only ones smart enough.”

“It’s a case that can be made.”

Glowering at his assistant, Kant said, “I’m going to assume that was a joke.”

“I thought assuming was bad.”

“See, that’s your second mistake. Your first was assuming. Your second was to believe that I’m someone who expects, desires, or needs you to think. Thinking just gets in the way of the work and irritates me. Kindly stop it.”

Kant and Zhres reached the large doors that led to a small, empty room that was about to be full of people who weren’t there.

Holographic technology had improved to the point that it could be married to communications technology. As a result, the days when Kant would be in the same room as the various members of the press assigned to cover the doings of the president and the council were long past. Instead, he scheduled his briefings, the press folk in question would activate their own holocoms, and their images would appear in this room, located in the same building as the council chambers in Paris.

The doors parted at their approach, revealing a room with the usual grid pattern on the walls indicating holographic emitters. As soon as they entered, the room activated, the computer altering the surroundings to one of a pleasant, wood-paneled room, with a podium by the north wall and plenty of floorspace in front of it. Kant preferred it this way. He never understood why the press all got to sit while he had to stand, so right after he took the job as press liaison, he had all the chairs removed. With the advent of the holocom, that all changed, as the reporters could present themselves however they wished—including at their seats—a change that Kant also found annoying.

Standing behind the podium and in front of the Federation flag that hung on the north wall, Kant asked, “They ready?”

The technician that was hidden in some other room where Kant couldn’t get at him said, “Yes, but Councillor Ra’ch’s office specifically told me not to activate the holocom until noon.”

Kant checked his chrono, which read 11.58. Damn literal-minded techies.

He turned to Zhres. “Check with Starfleet again, see if Ross has released any kind of statement.”

Nodding, Zhres put a blue hand to his right ear, disturbing his well-groomed, feathery white hair. Speaking in a low voice, he asked to be put through to Starfleet Command’s press office.

An eternity later—though Kant’s chrono insisted that it was only thirty seconds—the answer came through the Andorian’s earpiece. “Nothing yet.”

“Did they at least give some kind of estimate as to when we’d get one?”

Zhres shook his head. “All they would say is that the admiral will make a statement when it’s appropriate.”

Kant rolled his eyes. “Now is when it’s appropriate. Right after the council has declared him a candidate. Pagro and Bacco understood that, why the hell doesn’t he?”

“Is that a rhetorical question? Because I’m afraid my telepathic abilities haven’t improved in the last few minutes.”

The technician cut off Kant’s snide reply. “Thirty seconds.”

“About time,” Kant muttered.

Half a minute later, several figures appeared in the room in front of Kant. Some were humanoid, some not. (This was another major change with the holocom: It allowed those with different atmospheric needs to those of most humanoids to be in the room instead of in a separate area. While Kant agreed with the spirit, the actual result of more people in the room was something else he found annoying.) Some were of sufficiently acute resolution as to seem like they were right there in the room, others were laden with static and poor image quality. Some stood and some, to Kant’s dismay, were seated. Some were also far enough away that there would be a time delay in their questions and responses, which Kant had gotten used to, but had no intention of ever liking.

When the figures blinked into existence, a cacophony of sound hit the room like a photon torpedo. Kant had grown accustomed to it; Zhres, though, winced. I wonder if he’ll get used to it. Probably won’t last long enough to. Kant took a certain pride in that.

The noise died down as soon as everyone realized they were “on,” so to speak, the more distant reporters taking longer thanks to the time delay. Kant began speaking as soon as the room was completely quiet.

“First I have a statement, then two announcements, then I’ll take questions.

“Here’s the statement: ‘The Federation Council has examined all the petitions for presidential candidacy that have been submitted, and has chosen three who fit the criteria for consideration. An election will be held three weeks from today, with the votes to be tallied by an independent auditor and announced one week after that. The three candidates are: Ktarian Special Emissary Arafel Pagro, Cestus III Governor Nanietta Bacco, and Starfleet Admiral William Ross.’ ” Putting the padd with the statement aside, he then read from the one under it. “Both Special Emissary Pagro and Governor Bacco have agreed to run in the election. Special Emissary Pagro will be giving a press conference on the Golden Gate Bridge on Earth tomorrow, and Governor Bacco is en route to Earth for a press conference of her own at the Statue of Liberty, also tomorrow.”

He then set aside that padd, and looked up. As soon as he did so, several voices blared at once. Before Kant could call on someone, a short human woman asked, “What about Councillor T’Latrek?”

Kant looked at her, pulled one of his padds, checked her face against the press list. Yup, it’s the new woman from the FVG.

“Ms. Armitage, you’ve never been in here before, so let me fill you in on how we do things—I call on people who then ask a question. You do not barge in and get your question asked first by virtue of being ruder than everyone else. That’s my job.” He turned to a Trill woman. “Ozla?”

Ozla Graniv of Seeker, one of Trill’s leading news-magazines, smiled sheepishly. “Actually, Jorel, I was also going to ask about T’Latrek.”

Kant glowered at her. “Fine. For you, I’ll answer it. T’Latrek’s name was not submitted to the council for consideration.” He turned to the reporter from the Times. “Edmund?”

“Has there been any further word from President Zife—sorry, ex-President Zife—on the subject of why he felt the need to resign now?”

“That ground was well covered in the resignation speech, I thought.”

Edmund Atkinson smiled superciliously, as was his wont. “I didn’t think so, and neither do my readers. He’s three years into his second four-year term. What did he do that was so terrible that it required holding an election a year early?”

Kant sighed. “I would think that your readers would be grateful for a politician who realized his own shortcomings and moved to address them. Maria?”

The squat human woman who covered the council for the high-gravity world of Pangea asked, “Does President Zife’s resignation have anything to do with the horrific events at Tezwa, and is the Federation’s alliance with the Klingon Empire in any danger of collapsing again, especially in light of the incident at the Federation embassy?”

“As I already said, the reasons for the resignation were covered in the speech. Given that this has been in the works for several months, it is unlikely that the tragedy of Tezwa had any impact one way or the other. As for your second question, relations with Chancellor Martok’s government are as strong as ever. Regia?”

A human woman from the Federation News Service asked, “If this was in the works for months, why haven’t we heard anything about it?”

At this, Kant smiled. “Do you really think the president would have been able to accomplish anything for the last few weeks if everyone knew he was resigning? Secrecy was necessary to allow him to continue to do the job properly until the time was right to announce the resignation.”

He was about to call on another reporter, but Regia wasn’t finished. “C’mon, Jorel, there are always leaks, but this came out of nowhere. Does the Zife administration really think that it’s a good idea to suddenly announce a vacuum in power without giving anyone in the Federation time to adequately prepare for it?”

“You only think there are always leaks because we provide them periodically. Don’t underestimate our ability to fool you guys.” Some laughter went throughout the room. Kant then turned to one of the static-laden images, as much to get it out of the way as anything. “Regradnischrak?”

A two-second delay, then: “That’s Regradnischrak,” the reporter from Sebrotnizskeapoierf said. It always made that correction, even though Kant had never been able to determine the difference between Regradnischrak’s pronunciation and Kant’s own. It came from the rather distant world of Antares VIII or, as they called it, Grilasdixraksirvek. “Will any of the candidates be addressing the issue of alternative sources for faster-than-light travel, and will they be coming to Antares to speak to the issue?”

Kant sighed, having seen that one coming. Some Antarean scientists claimed they had come up with a new, more efficient way to travel faster than light that didn’t come with the inherent risks of matter-antimatter annihilation. Kant knew this because Sebrotnizskeapoierf had taken up this cause célèbre, and so where once Regradnischrak would have asked substantive questions, now it just harped on this to the exclusion of all else. “You’d have to ask them.” He gazed around the room to see if any of the other crackpots were in the room before going back to real news sources, saw none, and so called on a man from Bolarus and You. “Sovan?”

“Starfleet sources say Admiral Ross has said that he has no interest in running for high office. Does the council have a comment on that?”

“Someone submitted the admiral’s name, though I can’t say who, as such submissions are confidential. The council deemed him worthy of the honor. From this point, it’s up to the admiral to decide if he’s going to take them up on it, and if he says yes, it’s up to the voters if they think it’s a good idea. But, as you may have gathered from the fact that I didn’t provide one, Admiral Ross has not yet made a statement accepting or declining candidacy. Kav?”

The stocky Tellarite cleared his throat. “Does the council have any comment on the rumor that the Ontailians are once again considering leaving the Federation?”

Again, Kant sighed. Damned Tellarites. “Kav, how long have you been covering the council for the Tellar News Service?”

“Seven years.”

“Which means you’ve been here for the two and a half years that I’ve been running this particular room, right?”

“Of course.”

“In all that time, have I ever passed on a comment from the council, the president, or any of their staff addressing a rumor?”

This got more laughs, though Kav was not among the amused. “Not to my knowledge, no.”

“That answers your question, then. T’Nira?”

Before the Vulcan reporter could ask her question, Zhres handed him a padd. Its display simply contained the words ADMIRAL ROSS’S STATEMENT, with a glowing box next to it. He gave the Vulcan reporter an apologetic look as he applied his thumb to the box.

“Hang on, T’Nira, I was just handed a statement from Admiral Ross regarding his candidacy.” At his thumb’s touch, the display showed a short paragraph, which Kant read aloud. “ ‘While I am grateful to the council, and to those who submitted my name to them, for their implied confidence in my leadership abilities, I have no interest in running for public office at this juncture. I have every confidence that the new president, whoever it is, will lead the Federation to continued prosperity in this post-war age, and I look forward to working with him or her for the next four years. Starfleet Command has always shared a solid bond with the Federation government, and I look forward to keeping that bond as solid as ever.’ ” Gotta remember to recommend that Ross get a better speechwriter. He looked up. “T’Nira, your question?”

“President Zife was considering curtailing relief efforts to Cardassia. Is the council still considering that in light of President Zife’s resignation?”

That had been covered in the briefing Ra’ch had given Kant half an hour earlier. “There are no plans to reduce humanitarian aid to Cardassian space. The Cardassians have suffered enough the last few years, and the Federation is not about to let their people starve just because their recovery has had a few setbacks. Vairo?”

“Yeah, I’m wonderin’ about that ‘solid bond’ Ross mentioned. Is he includin’ when Starfleet tricked President Jaresh-Inyo into declaring martial law on Earth seven years ago?”

Kant closed his eyes. “Hang on, let me use my telepathic powers to see what the admiral was thinking.” He opened them. “Nope. Sorry, Vairo, left my telepathy in my other pants today. That’s it, folks, next briefing’s at 2100 tonight.”

With those words, the room emptied of all save Kant and Zhres. That was the one thing Kant liked unreservedly about the holocom: the off switch.

As the two of them exited the room, the Andorian said, “You stole my telepathy joke.”

Shrugging, Kant said, “I wouldn’t call it stealing.”

“Really?” His antennae quivered. “What would you call it.”

Kant considered the point for half a second. “Okay, it is stealing, but I’m entitled.”

“Oh?”

“I’m your boss, your every thought is mine to use as I will.”

“Did you not say earlier that I was not supposed to think?”

“Now you’re starting to understand.” Kant smiled.

Again, the antennae quivered. “Understand what?”

“Why I’m impossible to work with.”

 

The sound of a communication signal interrupted Governor Bacco’s dream, for which she was eminently grateful. In eighty-seven years of life, it was only in the last four days that Nan Bacco started having weird dreams.

“Governor, it’s time to wake up.” The voice belonged to Nan’s campaign manager and old friend, Esperanza Piñiero.

“The hell time is it?” she asked. Or, at least, that was what she tried to say, though it came out with fewer actual consonants.

However, Esperanza had long experience in deciphering Nan’s morning voice. “It’s 0600, Governor.”

Nan blinked. “Esperanza, you mind telling me why the hell you’re waking me up at this ungodly hour? Not that I mind all that much—I was having another one of those damn dreams.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you wanted to be awake when we came into orbit around Earth.”

Nan rotated her body ninety degrees so her legs hung over the side of her bed. “Are we in orbit now?”

“Uh, no, ma’am, but we will be in an hour. I figured if I woke you now, there was a chance you’d actually be awake by the time we made orbit.”

“Nobody likes a wiseass, Esperanza.” Nan waited for some energy to creep into her legs. Said energy was not forthcoming.

“So you keep telling me, ma’am.”

“All right, all right, I’m getting up.” Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Nan got out of bed despite the lack of energy and slowly stumbled her way in the general direction of the replicator. The yacht on which she rode, the Palombo, was at the disposal of Cestus III’s governor, and included a rather large stateroom. “This room is too damn big.”

“Ma’am?”

“The room. It’s too big. This bed is farther from the replicator than any sane person should have to ambulate first thing in the morning, especially when her pain-in-the-ass campaign manager gets her up at 0600.”

“It’s my job to be a pain in the ass, ma’am.”

“Explains why you’re so goddamned good at it.” She finally made it to the replicator. “Coffee, black, unsweetened.” The replicator hummed and provided a large mug with the needed beverage. “And will you, for crying out loud, call me Nan? We’re not on Cestus and it’s not like I’m president or anything.”

“We’re hoping to change that, ma’am. Still having the dreams?”

Nan took a sip of her coffee, the feel of the hot liquid in her throat having a cascade effect on the cobwebs in her brain. Getting Esperanza not to be deferential was a hopeless cause, but that didn’t stop her from trying. She spent too much damn time in Starfleet is the problem. “Yeah. It’s ridiculous. Eleven years as governor, been through DMZ refugees, a major galactic war, and a Gorn invasion, and I sleep like a rock. I decide to run for president, and now I’m dreaming I’m sitting on the Gorn throne with a Metron glowing in front of me while two Vorta ask me if they can invade my planet. This is what happens when you move from the kiddie table, I guess.”

“Probably, ma’am. The staff and I will be waiting for you in the lounge.”

Nan took a final gulp of the remainder of the coffee. Starting to feel almost lifelike. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay, ma’am. See you in half an hour.”

“You know, Esperanza, one of these days I’m actually going to make it somewhere when I say I’m going to for the express purpose of pissing you off.”

“Don’t go to any trouble on my account, ma’am. See you soon. Out.”

One shower and another cup of coffee later, Nan put on a brown suit and ran a brush through her paper-white hair. Damn, she thought, looking in the mirror at her wrinkled face, tanned from eight decades of exposure to Cestus’s rays, I got three more worry lines. Esperanza would say she was seeing things, which was why she resolved not to share her recognition of these new wrinkles with her campaign manager.

Buoyed by the caffeine rush and the thought of visiting Earth for the first time in almost three years, Nan exited the stateroom—still too damn big—and walked the few meters across the Palombo’s middle deck to the lounge, arriving precisely half an hour after she told Esperanza she’d be there in twenty minutes. Damn her, anyhow.

The lounge was almost as big as her stateroom, which Nan found ridiculous. Someday I’ll understand the human need to make everything bigger.

Present were the “inner circle” of her campaign staff. Seated on the large couch, drinking tea from the service that they took with them everywhere, were her speechwriter and political advisor. The husband-and-wife team of Fred MacDougan and Ashanté Phiri looked nothing alike—he was tall, pale, and bald, she was short, dark, and wore waist-length braids—but regularly finished each other’s sentences. How endearing that was depended entirely upon Nan’s mood. Still, they were both excellent at their jobs, and had been part of Nan’s team from her earliest days in politics on Cestus, when they were interns helping the campaign that got Nan elected as representative of Pike City’s Fifth District. Nan was also the one who, after they’d been dancing around each other for ten years, told them both to stop being morons and get married already.

Standing at the replicator and removing a plate of donuts from its slot was the deputy campaign manager, Helga Fontaine, whom Esperanza insisted on hiring despite her being too young to have even hit puberty. In truth, she was thirty, but that still made her a toddler as far as Nan was concerned. Helga was talking with the transportation manager, a taciturn Triexian named Bral—if there was any more to her name, Nan had never been informed of it. Curled up in the chair perpendicular to the couch was the tall, lithe, furry form of M’Tesint, the Caitian whom Nan had hired as press liaison at the recommendation of Fred and Ashanté. Nan had to admit that she had done an excellent job so far, so much so that, if she lost, she was giving serious consideration to keeping M’Tesint on as her press liaison on Cestus. Not that there’s anything wrong with Piers, but there’s nothing especially right with him, either.

And sitting at the large chair on the far side of the room was the short, stocky form of Esperanza Piñiero, her raven hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a severe outfit that might as well have been a Starfleet uniform, for all that it had no insignia. You can take the woman out of Starfleet… she thought, not for the first time. The outfit and tied-back hair served to harden what would otherwise have been a very soft face, as even all Piñiero’s years in Starfleet couldn’t put lines in her smooth olive skin.

“Remind me,” Nan said without preamble as the doors whooshed shut behind her, “whose cockamamie idea was it for me to run for president?”

Esperanza smiled. “Yours, ma’am.”

“No, it was my idea to run for president next year when the election is supposed to be held. I know that was my idea. I distinctly remember having it, and planning out an entire strategy that would involve months of campaigning. It’s this whole thing where I get five minutes to run for office that I don’t remember agreeing to.”

Ashanté set her teacup down on the table in front of the couch. “Not like you had a choice. Hell, if you didn’t jump on it now, it’d be four more years before you’d have another shot.”

“And a lot can happen in four years,” Fred added.

Helga smiled, the jelly filling from one of her donuts staining her teeth. “Yeah. For example, four years ago, Min Zife was sufficiently popular that he’d win reelection unopposed less than a year later. Today, he’s resigning under dubious circumstances.”

“What’s dubious?” Ashanté asked. “Hell, I’m amazed he made it this long. Trill, the Ontailians—”

Fred picked it up. “—the holostrike, the Genesis wave—”

“—that Iconian con job,” Ashanté continued, “the Selelvians.”

“Which brings us nicely to the first order of business,” Esperanza said.

That’s why I keep her around, Nan thought with amusement as she ordered a third cup of coffee from the replicator and took a seat in the large chair on the opposite side of the room from her campaign manager. Helga took a seat next to Fred, while Bral remained standing. Guess when you have three legs, being on your feet isn’t so bad.

Esperanza continued. “We’re going to get hit with questions on everything Ashanté and Fred just mentioned. If, say, a planetary government is found to be mentally manipulating other Federation worlds the way the Selelvians did, how would President Bacco handle it?”

Nan rolled her eyes. “Oh, for pity’s sake.”

“Governor, it’s something we’ll have to face.”

“And I suppose I can’t just say, ‘How the hell would I know?’ ”

M’Tesint bared her teeth. “You could, Governor, but that would significantly decrease your chances of being elected.”

“Right, ’cause God forbid I should tell the truth.”

“Gee, Governor,” Fred said with a cockeyed grin, “I thought you’d been in politics long enough to know better.”

“She does.” Esperanza smiled at Nan. “She just hasn’t had enough coffee yet.”

“She’s right,” Fred said.

“What,” M’Tesint asked, “about the coffee?”

Fred shook his head. “No, I mean when the questions do come, we need to be ready. We’re supposed to have contingency plans.”

“Like more thorough examinations of planets that apply for Federation membership,” Ashanté said.

“We can throw the Evorans in their face,” Fred added. “The Zife administration let them in during the war, and they turned out to have a huge anti-alien faction on-planet, one that almost succeeded in overthrowing the government.”

“How does that help with something like the gateways crisis, though?” Helga asked. “There was no way to see that coming, and the Federation’s response was pretty good, all things considered.”

Ashanté snorted. “Tell that to all the people who got screwed by all those gateways opening at once.”

M’Tesint straightened in her chair, stretching her already tall form even more so. “I believe we should make it clear that we won’t handle anything rashly. If there’s anything that characterized Zife’s administration, it was haste. A lot of that was necessary because of the war, but the war’s been over for four years. We can emphasize that we’ll be cautious, that we won’t, say, authorize the imprisoning of sentient beings without cause, as happened with some of the Voyager crew when they returned.”

Helga shook her head. “I’m not sure cautious is the right way to go. I mean, no, we shouldn’t come out in favor of some of the ludicrous things Zife signed off on, but we still need to be aggressive if we’re going to impress people enough to win this.” She turned to Nan. “I know you were being facetious, but to actually answer the question you asked when you came in, one of the reasons why it’s best to run now, as opposed to next year or four years from now, is that your star is pretty bright right now. The treaty with the Metrons was huge, and it’s made you a name people outside the Cestus system might actually recognize. But that recognition will only go so far. If we come across as too tentative or cautious, no one will pay any attention. Or worse, they’ll think you’re another Jaresh-Inyo.”

Nan leaned forward. “First of all, what in hell makes you think I was being facetious before? And secondly, Jaresh-Inyo was a good person.”

“Yes, but he let Starfleet fool him into declaring martial law. That killed his political career.”

“And,” Esperanza added, “paved the way for Zife to get elected. His leadership was a big reason why we won the war.”

Helga smiled sweetly. “Not the best example to use, Esperanza, given how he wound up.”

“Zife may not have been the right person to lead in a time of peace,” Esperanza said, “but that doesn’t change that he was very much the right person to lead us in war.”

“The war’s been over for almost four years now.”

Nan angrily placed her mug down on the end table next to her. The ceramic on plastiform made a very satisfying clunk. “Anybody else want to mention that the war was four years ago? ’Cause I’m old and I don’t retain facts all that well, so it’s good to remind me every five minutes.” She leaned back in her chair. “All right, fine, tell me this: How would I handle it if half the planets in the Federation suddenly decided to secede? Or if a bunch of energy creatures decided to turn us all into giant newts? I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty damn curious to know.”

“Governor—” Esperanza started.

“If you’d asked me six years ago how I’d handle a big Gorn ship showing up in the system and blasting Pike City all to hell, I would’ve gotten a good laugh out of it and said, ‘What a stupid question. We haven’t heard hide nor scale from the Gorn in a hundred years, what makes you think they’ll attack us now?’ Truth is, any answer I give to a question like that is going to be crap, and anyone with half a brain is going to know it’s crap, and frankly I don’t want to be elected by a Federation with half a brain. Do I know how to handle a crisis? Hell, yes, I handled dozens of them. Do I know how I’ll handle the next one? Hell, no. There’s no blueprint for these kinds of things, and to pretend there is one is to just insult people’s intelligence. We can send people through space at thousands of times the speed of light, we can speak instantaneously to people halfway across the galaxy, we can cure most of the ailments and diseases out there, but we still can’t figure out how to predict the future, and until we do, questions like this are just a knuckleball in the dirt, and I’m not gonna swing at it.”

The lounge was silent for several seconds.

Fred put down his teacup. “Works for me.”

“I like it,” Ashanté said.

Helga looked confused. “What’s a knuckleball?”

Esperanza quickly said, “Baseball.”

“Oh, okay.”

Nan suppressed a chuckle as she dry-sipped from her now-empty coffee mug. They make these damn things too small. Getting up to get a fresh cup from the replicator, she added Helga’s lack of baseball knowledge to the growing list of things she didn’t especially like about her deputy campaign manager. True, Cestus III was one of the few planets in the galaxy that played the sport, though its growing popularity on that world was leading to revivals of the once-dead game elsewhere, but Nan saw that as a feeble excuse. “What’s next?”

“Good news, actually,” Esperanza said. “We found Bobby.”

It took a great effort for Nan to keep from stumbling.

Nan Bacco married Roberto LaManna when she was twenty-two years old. Bobby was thirty-seven at the time, and she thought he was the most wonderful man in the galaxy. Four years later, he walked out on her only as a preemptive strike against her throwing him out. Nan had, it turned out, been the fourth woman the con artist had tricked into marrying him, but the first who had cottoned to him before he could make off with all her worldly possessions.

He had disappeared decades ago, with Nan’s sole reminder of him the only one she truly wanted: their wonderful daughter Annabella, now living on Luna with her family.

“You’re sure it’s him?” Nan asked as she gingerly took her seat, trying to keep her hands steady as they held the hot coffee. “Remember the last time?”

“It’s definitely him,” Esperanza said. “And he’s definitely dead.”

Nan blinked. “What?”

“He settled on Rigel VIII a few years back, opened a small tavern. Fairly popular place among the miners.”

“How’d he die?”

“Natural causes.”

Nodding, Nan turned to the others. “We’re stopping at Rigel at some point. Bral, set it up.”

The Triexian said, “Of course,” even as Helga asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I want to visit the grave—and, honestly, I want to make sure the son of a bitch is really dead.”

“You shouldn’t,” Helga said. “Not before the election. The whole reason we tracked him down was to make sure he couldn’t hurt the campaign.”

“He can’t hurt anything if he’s dead,” M’Tesint said.

“Oh yes he can. Even acknowledging his existence can hurt us.” Helga started waving her arms around as she spoke. “Can you imagine what Pagro would do with the information that your husband—”

“Ex-husband,” Nan said emphatically.

“Fine, ex-husband is a career criminal? If you go to his grave, you’ll hand that to them on a silver platter. Worse, you’ll make it look like you miss him, and they’ll twist that.”

Esperanza sighed. “She’s right, Governor, we can’t afford it.”

Bastard finally died and I can’t properly enjoy it, Nan mused as she took a thoughtful sip of her coffee. “All right, we’ll wait. But I want confirmation. See if you can get the Rigelians to exhume the body in secret or something. What’s next?”

“We’ve got to start thinking about endorsements,” Helga said.

Esperanza shook her head. “They’ll come in due time.”

“We don’t have due time. The election’s in only three weeks. If we were doing a normal campaign, I’d agree, but we can’t afford to sit around and wait for people to decide they like us.”

Nan smirked. “So I have to make people like me, is that it?”

“Actually, that isn’t too far off, Governor.” Helga removed a padd and a stylus from the pocket of her suit jacket. “We should start with the FNS.”

M’Tesint’s ears flattened. “No.”

“They’re the most reputable news service out there.”

“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t start with them. Or finish with them, or do anything in the middle with them. The only thing trying to curry their favor will accomplish is to guarantee that they’ll endorse Pagro. They’ll judge objectively who to endorse based on the platforms and past records, period. Trust me on this.”

“But—”

Esperanza stared at Helga. “M’Tesint knows this stuff, Helga. Move on.”

Helga looked like she wanted to say more but, to Nan’s relief, she thought better of it. “We can write Starfleet off.”

Nan frowned. “How come?”

Ashanté answered that one. “Once Ross dropped out, Pagro’s stranglehold on Starfleet was pretty much guaranteed. He’s a special emissary, he knows most of the higher-ups.”

Fred added, “And every time he goes somewhere it’s with a Starfleet escort, and he’s sure to spend the whole time making friends with the crew.”

“Fine,” Esperanza said. “Who else?”

Before Helga could answer, Nan said, “Wait a minute, I’m not so sure about this. You said we should seek endorsements, fine, I can give you one right now: Benjamin Sisko.”

Helga blinked. “The Sisko?”

“Well, actually there are several,” Fred said. “His son’s written for the FNS, and his father has this great restaurant in New Orleans.”

“Yeah, and his brother-in-law’s the cleanup hitter for the Pioneers,” Nan said. “I met Sisko at opening day last year. Gave me a wonderful holoprogram of the last World Series on Earth.” Nan had played that program every spare moment she could—though such moments were few and far between—sitting in the stands with the other three hundred fans as the London Kings and the New York Yankees faced off in a dramatic seventh-game contest at Yankee Stadium. She had the box score memorized, but the thrill of seeing Buck Bokai’s home run in the eleventh inning that eventually won the game had yet to diminish.

However, that excitement was as nothing compared with what Nan was seeing now in Helga’s blue eyes. “This is huge. If we can get him, we can guarantee pretty much the entire Bajoran sector. He’s a religious figure on Bajor, and he’s the biggest war hero we’ve got.”

Esperanza nodded. “He’s also greatly respected in Starfleet. It’s worth calling him.”

“I’ll put the call through to Bajor once we’re done with today’s meetings. What’s next?”

Before anyone could speak, the intercom beeped. It was the Palombo’s shipmaster, a kindly old gentleman named Derek Fried, who had been running the Palombo for the last seven governors of Cestus III. “Governor, we’re entering standard orbit of Earth. You’ve got a whole lot of messages, and normally I wouldn’t bother you with ’em, just send ’em to Ms. Piñiero, but there’s one I get the feeling you’re gonna wanna see. It’s from Admiral Ross at Starfleet.”

Nan and Esperanza exchanged surprised glances. Helga’s eyes went wide, and Fred almost spilled his tea.

“Ross wants to talk to me?” Nan asked.

“Well, you and Ms. Piñiero, ma’am, yes.”

“What do you think?” Nan asked her campaign manager.

Esperanza smiled. “I think it’s a fastball down the middle of the base.”

Chuckling, Nan said, “Plate. The batters swing when they’re standing at the plate. It’s the other things they step on that are bases.” She stood up. “Derek, call his office back, tell him we’ll speak to him right away.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

“If only that were true. Thanks, Derek.”

Esperanza also rose. “This meeting’s over for now. We’ve got the official statement at noon. Bral, you and M’Tesint go to the site, make sure everything’s set up. Fred, you have the draft ready?”

Fred winced. “Half an hour?”

“Give me what you’ve got, at least.”

“I’d really rather not.”

Ashanté shuddered. “Don’t do it, Esperanza—you take it now, he’ll spend the next half hour worrying himself inside out instead of finishing it.”

Esperanza sighed. “Fine, but don’t forget, Klingon is spelled with a ‘K,’ all right?”

Nan laughed. “C’mon, let’s go.”

They proceeded back to the stateroom. As soon as the door to the lounge shut behind them, Nan asked, “You sure the Statue of Liberty’s a good place to do this?”

“It’s perfect. Your first big thing as governor was taking in all those DMZ refugees. What better place to formally announce your candidacy than a statue that says, ‘Give me your tired, your sick, your teeming masses yearning to be free’?”

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.