“Just remember the plan,” Kirk said to Riker, Worf, and McCoy, who stood with La Forge behind the operator’s station at the front of the bay. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to stop that war. So get Picard to the Tal Shiar first, then come looking for us.”
Kirk could see that they all had a comment they wanted to add, probably saying how much they hated that plan. But Joseph’s presence constrained them.
“Energizing…” La Forge said.
Kirk’s hand squeezed Joseph’s shoulder as the transporter bay dissolved into light all around them. A moment of nonexistence later, the light shimmered away, to show that the bay had been replaced by a vast greenhouse dome, with a grass floor, large shade trees, and even a rushing stream.
Kirk looked around from the vantage point of the raised transporter platform he and Joseph stood on. Immediately, he saw Norinda, standing by a transporter console with Virron, Sen, Nran, and a fourth Romulan unknown to him.
Kirk checked his pocket and the phaser was missing as he had expected. But he felt the welcome pressure of the mek’leth on his back, and the civilian communicator was with him as well.
He pulled it out, switched it on. “Kirk to Calypso. Are they on board?”
La Forge replied promptly. “All present, in good health. Captain Picard requests the contact information for the…representative that Norinda promised him.”
Kirk stepped down from the platform and Joseph followed, staying close.
“Do you have that information?” Kirk asked.
Norinda held out her hand for the communicator.
Kirk gave it to her.
“Captain Picard,” she said into the communicator, “I offered you love. I offered you peace. I offered you understanding. You rejected it all. You lied to me, and you deceived me.”
Kirk stared at Norinda. She was building to something. She was speaking as if she did not even need to hear Picard’s response.
Picard did not seem to sense what Kirk had.
“I told you the truth. I told you that sometimes there were other things we needed, but that we were both committed to stopping this war.”
“I think you don’t fear war enough,” Norinda said. “I think you do not really know what war is. So now, you will have your chance to learn. And perhaps when the war is over—in the months or years or decades it will take to spread through your precious galactic quadrants—then you will know what it means to reject love, and so, at last, you will come to embrace it.”
“Don’t do this,” Kirk said to her. But she wasn’t listening to him any more than she was to Picard.
“Norinda,” Picard’s voice pleaded. “I do know war. That’s why I must stop this one. Give me the name you promised! While there’s still time.”
“You should not have rejected me,” Norinda said. “Jolan True.” Then with sudden violence, she threw the communicator onto the grass and in the instant it hit, Nran fired a disruptor and destroyed it.
Kirk reached for Norinda’s arm, forcing her to listen to him. “You can’t condemn millions to death because Picard disappointed you!”
With unexpected strength, Norinda pulled her arm from his grip. “Picard chose death over love. You all do.”
“Picard did what he thought best—for peace! If you’re angry about the holographic duplicate of my son, look!” Kirk waved his hand at Joseph. “Here he is! I’ve kept my word! Show us all that you know what love is. Show us all that you can forgive!”
Norinda shook her head. “You understand nothing about love. When all are loved, when all share peace and understanding, then all are the same, and there is no need for forgiveness.”
“But you heard Picard. We’re not all the same.”
“In time,” Norinda said, “you will be. Totally the same.”
With that, she took her attention from Kirk, held out her hand to Joseph. “T’Kol T’Lan, I am Norinda.”
“I know,” Joseph said in a sullen, challenging tone.
Norinda smiled.
Kirk watched with horror as her features began to subtly change, with her Romulan forehead smoothing and expanding, growing fine Klingon ridges.
“Joseph! Look away from her!” Kirk called out in warning to his son.
Norinda’s face reset to its Romulan form in seconds as she turned to Kirk. “Why deny your son? You all want something. Something I can give.” She pointed to the four Romulans. “They understand. They accept my gifts. But not your friends. Not you. Why?!”
To Kirk, the answer was simple. “Because your gifts aren’t real,” he said, moving to stand between her and his son. Shielding Joseph from what he should not see.
But Norinda merely reached out to the portable transporter console, and activated several controls and a transporter warble began to sound.
She was beaming something—or someone—in.
A column of light formed on the raised platform.
Kirk readied to defend himself and Joseph should a Reman bodyguard suddenly appear and attack. He knew it couldn’t be anyone from the Calypso. The ship was already out of range.
“Here is a gift,” Norinda said. “It is what you want. And it is real. Will you reject this, too?”
And then the light faded.
Kirk gasped.
It was Spock.
26
S.S. CALYPSO, STARDATE 57488.3
Beverly Crusher was insistent. “We have no choice, Jean-Luc! We have to warn them. It’s the last chance we have to stop the war.”
“And it could be just the thing that starts it,” Picard argued.
Crusher threw her padd on the fold-down chart table in the Titan’s yacht, still docked with the Calypso. He, McCoy, and Scott were seated at the table. Crusher, Riker, Worf, and La Forge were standing around it.
“If we do nothing, Jean-Luc, it’s going to start anyway. So what do we have to lose?”
Picard matched her throwing of the padd by banging his fist on the table. “I will not gamble with the lives of billions of people simply because I don’t know what else to do!”
“How about a measured warning?” Riker suggested, and Picard understood he was trying to find a middle ground. “I could get word to the commanders I deal with in the Romulan Fleet.”
“But what could they do in less than a day?” Picard asked.
Worf snorted in derision. “They would evacuate their friends and family from likely target zones, then applaud the destruction of Remus.”
“We have no time left for diplomatic initiatives,” Picard said. “Even if we had tried that from the beginning, there are too many factions on Romulus, too many differing opinions on how Remus should be handled. And there’d be no way to tell if Tal Shiar operatives were manipulating the message.”
“There is another possibility,” Worf suggested. Picard and everyone else in the passenger cabin looked at the resolute Klingon. “The Titan will arrive in less than six hours. That will give us approximately ten hours to attack and disable the three Reman warbirds that the Tal Shiar hope will launch a counterattack on Romulus.”
“Now that’s a Klingon for you,” McCoy said. “Stop a civil war by starting an interplanetary one.”
Worf growled under his breath. “Our attacks on the warbirds will not be an act of war. It will be a preemptive strike to preserve peace.”
