Atonement (7 page)

“Do you—” Emem began to ask again.

“No,” the admiral cut him off.

“You did knowingly and willfully violate Voth space, capturing two of their scientists and offering them fabricated evidence of a genetic link between ancient inhabitants of your homeworld and the Voth species. You suborned heresy from both scientists, also considered treason by the Voth.”

Finally Janeway spoke up. “The Voth scientists you speak of boarded my ship using cloaking technology to study my crew. When we discovered them, the lead scientist, Gegen, took my first officer prisoner. We only entered their territory to retrieve him.”

“So your search for a genetic link to further what is known as the ‘Distant Origin Heresy' was simply a means to pass the time while you trespassed?” Emem asked congenially. “And your intention to corrupt as many Voth as possible through the wider dissemination of that heresy should fall under the heading:
the peaceful exchange of information between species?
”

At this, the panel members on either side of Lsia chuckled lightly.

“No charges were brought against us by the Voth at the time of that encounter,” Janeway noted.

“A fact that will be taken into account during the panel's final deliberations, I assure you,” Emem said.

“Thank you.”

Emem paused for a moment.

“You have offered almost nothing in response to the charges presented. Have you no wish to speak in your own defense?”

A ghost of a smile passed over Janeway's lips. Turning her head, she addressed the entire panel.

“Each of the charges brought against me by the individual species concerned is valid,
from their point of view.
To argue the
merits of each would be a waste of time. Your judgment of me, your ultimate verdict, and the sentence you pronounce is not important here. What's really on trial today is the United Federation of Planets, whom I represent. With your permission, I
would
speak briefly about the Federation's presence here, our beliefs, and our intentions toward this region of space.”

Lsia could feel waves of pleasure rolling off Emem. He had hoped that the admiral would open herself up to the most damning evidence that could possibly be presented against her and her Federation, but had known this was not a foregone conclusion.

Until now
.

“An excellent suggestion, Admiral,” Emem said, his dimples carving deep crevices in the sides of his face. “Before you speak, however, I would like to present a single witness to offer direct testimony on the issue you have now raised: the character, the nature, and the core values of your Federation.”

Janeway appeared taken aback, as Emem had intended.

“Please escort Mister Prilch into the chamber,” Emem ordered the single Devore guard standing just inside the doorway.

Moments later, a humanoid male, his species indeterminate, walked with considerable difficulty into the room and was immediately offered a chair opposite the panel. His face had been pathetically mangled. His left eye and ear were missing and overlapping scars covered what remained of that side of his face. His right arm had been amputated below the elbow.

Emem continued, “Let the record show that Mister Prilch is a former Devore officer whose ship was lost nine years ago when it came upon an uncharted wormhole. Mister Prilch and all thirteen of his fellow officers were subsequently found and assimilated by the Borg.”

Janeway stared dubiously at Prilch's face as he began to speak.

“I was Borg,” Prilch began. “I was freed from the control of the Collective when our small scout ship was damaged and its crew was killed. I wandered alone for some time before finding another abandoned vessel I could use to make my way back to Yshandi, my homeworld in the Devore Imperium. Although conscious of myself
as an individual for many years, I retained a one-sided connection to the Borg. I continued to hear them in my mind, until a little over a year ago, when they were slaughtered by the Federation.”

“Go on,” Emem suggested gently.

“
Voyager
first encountered the Borg while I was still part of the hive mind. An alliance was offered and accepted to assist the Borg in defeating an aggressive alien force we identified as Species 8472. That alliance failed after only a few days, when
Voyager
's crew abandoned several of our cubes to destruction. From that point forward, the Collective chose to cease trying to assimilate Federation citizens, as their unworthiness for perfection had been clearly demonstrated.

“
Voyager
's unprovoked attacks continued, however. The last was the most devastating, destroying a transwarp hub along with millions of Borg stranded there and on nearby vessels.

“Unsated by that victory, the Federation developed a weapon designed to destroy the Borg completely. They called it the
Caeliar
. Before my connection to the Borg was severed, I experienced the deaths of trillions in a single moment of blinding, excruciating pain.”

“But surely, Mister Prilch,” Emem interjected, “the actions of the Borg, their aggressive and destructive behavior toward all species of this quadrant, must be taken into account. Can you blame the Federation for seeking to destroy an enemy as implacable as the Borg?”

“I was relieved to be severed from the Collective,” Prilch replied. “I was one of many victims they claimed. But I still find it difficult to accept that genocide was the only option at the Federation's disposal. The Borg's territory was far from the Alpha Quadrant. The Borg had ceased assimilating Federation targets found in our territory. A détente of sorts existed, or so the Borg believed. Despite the well-known atrocities committed by the Borg, I do not fear the Federation any less. They could not halt the Borg's progress, so they destroyed every last one of them. Any civilization capable of such an act is not worthy of the trust of any other advanced species.”

“Thank
you, Mister Prilch,” Emem said. Prilch was helped from his seat and escorted out of the room.

“As I indicated, Admiral,” Emem went on, “this testimony was elicited in order to present the most accurate picture possible of you and your Federation for the panel. Obviously, you are not personally being charged with genocide, but it is most telling that the Federation you have presented as altruistic, devoted to study and exploration, and dedicated to peace could conscience the actions Mister Prilch described.”

Lsia had watched several emotions pass across Janeway's face as Prilch spoke; sadness, anger, regret, and frustration had been the most obvious. But the alarms that had been sounding internally since the tribunal had begun started to blare when Lsia now beheld the absolute defiance etched on Janeaway's face.

“Inspector Kashyk, Magnate Veelo, Commandant Dhina, Minister Odala, and Rigger Meeml,” Janeway said, “with your permission, I would very much like to set this portion of the record straight.”

Emem faltered briefly. Prilch was one of Kashyk's officers. He had never been assimilated. His injuries were sustained in another recent Devore military action, and his testimony had been dictated verbatim by Emem prior to his appearance. It was based on material readily available in the logs Lsia had taken from
Voyager
before she departed. Given some obvious errors in those logs—
for instance, the fact that Admiral Kathryn Janeway was alive—
and the paucity of intelligence on the Caeliar but for a few references to classified data, Lsia had cautioned Emem about calling Prilch to testify.

As usual, Emem had refused to heed her, confident that this issue would drive a decisive wedge between the Federation and the Confederacy.

Janeway's face assured Lsia that finally, Emem had overreached.

Rigger Meeml spoke for the first time since the proceedings had begun. His flesh was jet black and arranged in generous folds covering his large body. His eyes were silver and his voice
low and rich. Lsia had actually grown rather fond of the sound of it.

“I don't know what your experiences of the Borg might have been,” Meeml said, “but ours was terrifying. If this Federation really put an end to them, I want to know how. I also want to know how certain they are that the Borg are truly gone.”

“Thank you, Rigger Meeml,” Janeway said, focusing her attention upon him. “I am more than willing to share all relevant data with you and the Confederacy. Where trust does not exist, the sharing of intelligence is difficult. But I see now exactly how the mistrust that was at the heart of our past interactions with the Devore, the Turei, the Vaadwaur, and even the Voth led to senseless conflict and loss. And I wonder how it might have been avoided had our interactions been guided by a better understanding of one another.

“In the interest of facilitating that understanding, I hereby order all of the Federation Fleet's classified logs on the Borg and Caeliar transmitted to the
Kinara
and the Confederacy. This may be the last order I give,” she added, a faint smile traipsing across her lips. “It may also be the most important one I have ever given. From this point forward, there will be no more secrets between our people. If we are to find any way to move beyond this moment without further unnecessary loss of life and property, it will only be in the light of mutual understanding.”

“Admiral, if it is your intention to delay these proceedings in order to give your forces adequate time to attempt to thwart the justice being rendered on this day,” Kashyk began, warning clear in his tone.

“It is not,” Janeway said. “I left standing orders with my crew not to take any action that would jeopardize the cease-fire. My only goal, before a verdict is rendered, is to shed as much light as I can upon events that are as relevant to you as to the Federation.”

Looking again at Rigger Meeml, Janeway continued, “My experience of the Borg was also terrifying. When my ship,
Voyager
, was first lost in the Delta Quadrant several years ago, we
encountered them many times and each of those times, we barely escaped with our lives.

“The alliance Mister Prilch referenced occurred the first time we came face-to-face with them. I was desperate to avoid assimilation, and the Borg were desperate to turn the tides against Species 8472. What I learned as our alliance progressed was that the Borg had initiated that conflict. Species 8472 are native to a realm we call ‘fluidic space' and only entered our space/time continuum when theirs was invaded by the Borg. We developed a nanoprobe-based weapon that leveled the playing field. We were able to assist the Borg in bringing an end to their war with Species 8472, but only after heavy losses were sustained on both sides.

“It is also worth noting that we eventually encountered Species 8472 again and were able to come to a more lasting, peaceful understanding. It is my sincere hope that history might repeat itself now with the Voth, the Devore, the Turei, and the Vaadwaur. Our first encounters were disasters. Regardless of the final results of this tribunal, I expect every officer under my command to leave the past behind and do whatever they must to lay the foundations for better future relations between our peoples.

“
Voyager
destroyed the Borg's transwarp hub as stated. Like you, Rigger Meeml, we feared the Borg. We risked our lives and our ship in an effort to limit their ability to expand their network of transwarp tunnels and to continue assimilating innocent people throughout the entire galaxy. We were never, however, as Mister Prilch suggested, in a state of détente. Every time we met the Borg, the choice was to either destroy them or be assimilated.

“There is one other extremely significant fact Mister Prilch somehow forgot to mention. A few years after we destroyed that hub, the Borg amassed an armada of thousands of vessels. Using previously undetected subspace tunnels, they entered the Alpha Quadrant. They did not come to assimilate. They came to annihilate. They attacked dozens of planets, destroying many of them. The Federation was engaged in an existential struggle. There was no doubt that the Borg were intent on wiping out
every living being. Had we failed, the Borg would now control vast areas of the Alpha, Beta, and Delta Quadrants.

“We did not fail, nor did we
destroy
the Borg. During the invasion, one of our vessels, the
Titan
, discovered an ancient civilization and a
species
that called themselves the Caeliar. They were catomic beings, effectively immortal, and had evolved to a point where they were composed entirely of programmable matter. They existed in a gestalt, a shared communal reality where all were one while absolutely retaining their individuality. Through that encounter, Starfleet learned that the Caeliar had unwittingly spawned the Borg thousands of years earlier. That act had been accidental, but also a result of a contact between the Caeliar and the Federation's forerunner, over two hundred years ago. In a way, our ancestors were as responsible for the existence of the Borg as the Caeliar. The first Borg, created on a distant planet deep in the Delta Quadrant, were hybrid life-forms born when a single Caeliar, near death, effectively merged with an officer of the United Earth Starfleet in order to sustain its existence.

“Despite the Caeliar's intensely xenophobic nature, one of our captured Starfleet officers, Captain Erika Hernandez, worked tirelessly to help the Caeliar understand their greater responsibility to the universe in regards to the Borg. Ultimately the Caeliar chose to use their technology, which was advanced beyond the Federation's, to
transform
the Borg. They were able to make contact with the entity that had always been at the heart of the Collective, the essence that was incarnated countless times as the Borg Queen. They were able to contain her and, once her control of the Collective was severed, welcomed all of the Borg into their gestalt.

“The Borg were not destroyed. They evolved. They
became
Caeliar. The Federation witnessed that moment. We were essential in bringing it to pass. But we were not its instigators. And in the days between the beginning of the Invasion and that moment, the Federation lost sixty-three billion citizens, several planets, and hundreds of vessels.