“Even if we are able to figure some way of contacting them,” said Jaza. “It may not be as simple as just asking them to please stop.”

  “Are you concerned about the potential Prime Directive violation, Commander?” asked Tuvok.

  Jaza frowned. “Aren’t you?”

  “I admit this situation does present some unique permutations,” said the Vulcan judiciously.

  “Pardon me,” said Ree, his great reptilian head cocked slightly to the side. “I don’t believe I understand. How do these circumstances invoke the Prime Directive? Starfleet is prohibited from contacting civilizations before they have independently developed warp technology, yes?”

  “That is correct, Doctor,” said Tuvok.

  “But our current predicament is due to these Orishans having done precisely that.”

  “Not exactly,” said Troi, eliciting a look of mild confusion from Vale. What the hell was she talking about? It was clear from her expression that she too was uncomfortable with the way the conversation had turned. “The Orishans have warp technology, or a version of it, but they do not engage in space travel, so we may not be permitted to-”

  “Wait,” said Vale, switching from Troi to Riker. She knew her incredulity was plastered across her face like Hybarian wall art and she didn’t care. “Are you saying, even though we know what’s causing this and who’s responsible, we aren’t going to ask them to stop?”

  No one spoke. No one moved. All their eyes were on the captain, waiting for the only response that actually mattered.

  “You’re all dismissed,” he said at last. “Chris, Counselor, you stay.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Vale. “You can’t honestly be considering not contacting the Orishans.”

  “I think she’s right, Will,” said Troi softly. It wasn’t the most solid declaration of support one might hope for. Vale wasn’t sure how happy she was to have the counselor on her side. The trouble between her and her husband couldn’t possibly help his mood, which was darkening by the second. “I think we have to find some way to-”

  “John Gill,” he said, cutting her off. By this time he had positioned himself by the plexi window wall and was gazing out into the black.

  “Don’t give me that,” said Troi, moving closer. “There’s no similarity.” She kept her distance though. Something about Riker’s posture screamed back off.

  “Leonard McCoy,” he said, turning to face her.

  “Will…”

  “Benjamin Sisko,” he said and rattled off several more names in quick succession. “James Kirk, Mark Jameson, Rudolph Ransom, Joshua Grant.”

  Vale recognized some of the names of course-Sisko and Kirk were immediately ID’d-but the others gave her trouble. Troi obviously knew them all. With each one, she seemed to withdraw further into her original mask of emotional distance. He was striking at her with the names, obviously, but how?

  Riker spat out more names-Tracey, Pike, April, Calhoun, B’Liit. Still more captains? What did they have in common? What did any of them have to do with Titan’s current distress?

  “Jean-Luc Picard,” said Troi, as if coming to the end of some lengthy and fantastically constructed legal argument. To Vale her demeanor was like that of an Izarian judge that had slammed her gavel down on the marble top of the bench.

  Riker stiffened, almost as though he’d been told to snap to attention.

  “No, dammit,” he said, slamming one big fist down on the conference table, making Vale’s padd dance. “No.”

  He left the two women standing there, silent in the wake of his anger. When Vale had deemed an appropriate amount of time had passed, she asked what the hell that had been about.

  “All of those people have violated the Prime Directive, Christine,” said Troi. Her voice was low, full of some powerful emotion. Anger? Disgust? It was too complex for Vale to decipher. “Almost all of their violations brought irreversible change, sometimes complete destruction to an entire culture. Will doesn’t want to be added to the list.”

  “But,” said Vale. “I thought-I mean, he’s never been happy with the PD.”

  “He’s fine with the spirit of the directive,” said Troi, clearly in agreement with her husband on this matter. “It’s the letter he doesn’t like. How can we judge the worthiness of a culture simply by the level of their technological development? There are many things that constitute civilization and maturity. Why is technology the Federation’s only arbiter?”

  Vale didn’t have an answer. Warp tech was so potentially volatile-even more than she’d first imagined, thanks to her attendance at the Jaza and Ra-Havreii Show-that it seemed to her the perfect yardstick by which to measure a new culture.

  If a civilization could handle it without blowing itself up, it followed that they were mature enough to be invited into the larger universe, the one teeming with beings totally unlike themselves.

  If they weren’t mature enough? Ka-boom; they wiped themselves out with escalating warfare or planetary environmental degradation, cleaning the slate and giving some other species its shot in the sun.

  It had always seemed so cut and dried to her, a perfect expression of everything the Federation stood for. Now, with Titanin its current state, breaching the PD might be their only way to freedom.

   Not so easy now, eh?said her mother’s voice from the past. Not quite the grand adventure you thought.

  “There are three hundred and fifty sentients on Titan, Deanna,” said Vale quietly. “There are children here. Babies.”

  Another indecipherable expression, possibly some esoteric mixture of surprise and sorrow, flickered across Troi’s face and was gone.

  “He knows that, Commander,” she said. “He knows.” The doors shushed open, Troi passed through, and Vale was alone with her thoughts.

   Males. Can’t live with them. Can’t rip out their throats and eat them for supper.

  Ensign Hriss had thought that so many times during her days at the Academy and her subsequent duty aboard the U.S.S. Voorhees. Tonight was no different.

  She’d bristled when Keru had assigned her this duty. In the middle of a Red Alert, pandemonium and shattered tech all over and he sticks her down here in the guts looking after ships that can’t fly and would have nowhere to go if they could. Was he expecting crazed crew members to steal one of these tubs and scramble off into the black? It would be a hell of a trick, considering the current state of affairs.

  Nevertheless, “It’s not all blood and sex, Hriss,” Keru had told her. “Sometimes you get to sit.”

  So she sat in the shadows of the huge empty hangar, the minutes crawling over her fur like blood mites.

  The hangar’s high vaulted ceiling, the many deck protrusions, the hulking shapes of the new heavy-duty shuttles all combined to remind her of the great cavern on Cait and the gatherings of the various prides that she had attended there in her youth.

  Even then she had never been content to sit with the other cubs through the interminable boasting speeches of the elder males.

   Females do all the work, she had thought to herself more than once. Why am I even listening to this nonsense?

  Males. They had their uses, certainly, some of them quite pleasant, but, once they fell to chattering, it could be hours before anything meaningful got done. And it seemed so regardless of the species.

  Aside from Mr. Tuvok, who managed to adopt an appropriately stoic demeanor, even the males who outranked her could all stand a good grab by the scruff and a shake. Even Keru. What was he thinking sticking her down here when he could have saddled that cold fish Pava with the job? Andorians were good at standing around waiting. It was practically their religion.

  Humanoid. Felinoid. Reptiloid. It didn’t matter. Wherever you went, a male was a male was a male.