“Damned right,” Nogura replied as he reached for his tea. “Unfortunately, most of the people currently running Starfleet are like me, and we have only ourselves to blame for what happened in the Taurus Reach.” As Kirk opened his mouth to respond, the admiral held up his hand. “Yes, our motives may have been pure, but our methods left much to be desired. Some of the decisions we were forced to make may have been inescapable, but the circumstances that led us to those decisions were of our own creation. Whether blinded by hopeless optimism or boundless arrogance, we made our bed out here.”

It was unusual to hear a flag officer, particularly one of Nogura’s experience and standing, ruminating in such a fashion. However, Kirk had known for some time that the admiral was not the typical bureaucrat of the sort that seemed to fill the halls of leadership and power, not only within the upper echelons of Starfleet Command but also the Federation civilian government. Far too many of those people—in Kirk’s opinion, at least—seemed more concerned with protecting their own careers and casting blame away from their areas of influence, rather than asking the hard questions that demanded difficult and often unpleasant answers. Kirk much preferred officers who presented themselves in the latter fashion, and though he and Nogura did not always agree, such as when they butted heads over security and Kirk’s need to know regarding aspects of Operation Vanguard—he found his respect for the admiral growing each time they met.

“And the Tholians did their level best to make us lie in that bed,” Kirk said. “Though, as you say, we pushed them to that point.”

Nogura finished his tea. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Given the usual Tholian xenophobia, it’s not as though we ever were going to be the best of friends, but that doesn’t mean we needed to go out and antagonize them, accidentally or otherwise. Once the link was discovered between the Tholians and the Shedai, and how sensitive they were to the entire situation, we could’ve backed off, or stopped altogether, or maybe—in a fantasy world—somehow enlisted their assistance. A few individual Tholians helped us along the way, after all. It’s too bad we couldn’t have expanded on that collaborative spirit.”

Kirk shifted in his seat. “If the Tholians’ ancestors were slaves to the Shedai, it makes sense that they’d never want to risk that happening again.”

“And yet here we were,” Nogura replied, “having captured the last of their ancestors’ oppressors.”

Kirk recalled what he had read about Tholian culture and history, at least the little information that was available or collected in the brief time the Federation had enjoyed what passed for diplomatic relations with the cloistered race. After delving beyond the usual reports about their low regard for most humanoid species and their penchant for expanding and retracting their borders with no apparent rhyme or reason, there was one fact about their physiology that had fascinated him. “From what I understand, the Tholians are able to somehow share or experience the memories of their ancestors, which in turn are passed along with the memories of each generation to the next. However they do it, they seem actually able to feel as though they lived through such events themselves.”

Nodding, Nogura replied, “It sounds crazy, I know, but there’s apparently some truth to it. If that’s the case, then it’s entirely possible that the current generations of Tholians possess memories of their forefathers living under Shedai rule, and for all we know it feels to them like it just happened yesterday.”

Kirk grunted. “It sure as hell’s a unique explanation for holding a grudge.”

“And that’s before we went and tried to use the Shedai trapped in Xiong’s array,” Nogura countered. He leaned forward, his voice growing quieter as though he suspected his next comments might be overheard. “We destroyed a planet with the damned thing, Kirk. Ursanis II, an uninhabited rock chosen just for the purpose. We crushed it to powder before making it disappear to who knows where. Remember the Jinoteur system? Imagine being able to do that at will.”

Dread gripped Kirk as he recalled what he knew of the Jinoteur system, both from official Starfleet reports as well as the explosive feature written by that journalist, Timothy Pennington, for the Federation News Service. Believed to be the origin point for the Shedai, the system was the scene for what turned out to be a remarkable confrontation between members of the mysterious race and Starfleet. “The Shedai made the whole system disappear,” he said. “Whether they destroyed it or transported it to some other location or dimension is anyone’s guess.”

“Exactly,” Nogura said. “And once the Tholians realized what we had and what we could do, there was no way they were going to let us keep it. They didn’t want it, and they weren’t going to risk us losing control of the Shedai and letting them escape. In their minds, that left one option: send the Shedai, the station, and everyone on it straight to hell, and God help anything or anyone who got in their way.”

NINE

Stardate 5822.6

U.S.S. Enterprise

Despite full power to the Enterprise’s shields, the effects of the first barrage of Tholian weapons fire were strong enough to lift Kirk from his seat. He clutched the arms of his command chair and planted his feet on the pedestal to keep from being pitched forward, but not everyone on the bridge was as fortunate. In front of him, Chekov was bounced from his own seat at the navigation console and went tumbling to the deck. Kirk was already pulling himself from his chair in order to help him when the younger man rolled onto his side, saw his captain, and held up a hand.

“I’m fine, sir,” Chekov said, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his station.

“Maintain course and speed!” Kirk called out, his full attention already returning to other matters at hand. “Lock on targets and stand by to fire on my command!” Thanks to Sulu’s piloting skills, the Enterprisehad dropped out of warp almost in the midst of the armada of Tholian vessels swarming about Starbase 47. The image on the main viewscreen was saturated with the signatures of weapons fire from the enemy ships, Vanguard’s considerable armaments, and—so far as Kirk could see—a single Starfleet vessel attempting to assist the station. His eyes widened at the sight of the damage inflicted upon the starbase. Dark pits and twisted hull plating marred its surface, and the flames from plasma fires belched from within as compartments were sliced open, only to be extinguished as those sections were exposed to space.

Good God.

Reports of a fleet massing at the Tholian border of the Taurus Reach had been distributed by Starfleet Command and Starbase 47 almost from the moment the U.S.S. Endeavourdetected its inception weeks earlier. What remained a mystery, at least to most people, was the purpose or possible target of the mobilization. Nogura had informed Kirk of the deployment when he assigned the Enterpriseto rescue the freighter Ephialtesnear the Iremal Cluster, at the time adding that he was certain the target of any major Tholian offensive would be Vanguard. In the admiral’s opinion, it was not a matter of whetherthe Tholians would attack, but when.

And when is right damned now.The thought taunted Kirk as he gazed upon the scenes of bedlam, with Starbase 47 at its center. Whatever Nogura and his people had done to precipitate such a response, there could be no mistaking the Tholians’ intent: utter annihilation of the station along with everyone and everythingaboard it.