Chapter Fourteen
Weakness and Strength

It took a very long time, so long that Hoshi thought that every meal she had eaten aboard this ship had come back. Finally it was over and she could lean back. Mayweather was beside her, his arm draped supportively about her shoulders. She had never heard the door open. "Get the fu–"

"No."

Astonishment at his cut-off prevented her from resisting as he reached up to a control. The rush of water which disposed of the detritus was unusually loud to her ears.

She knelt, leaning against his support, simultaneously embarrassed and grateful. He reached with his free left hand to a short stack of towels, wetting one in a stream of cold water from the sink and pressing the cool cloth to her forehead, never once relaxing his supporting grip about her.

Hoshi held the towel to her forehead, gradually feeling the universe, and her stomach, settle back into place. When she could look into the eyes of her bodyguard, she didn't know what to say.

"Thank you," seemed too little.

"For what?" he allowed a small smile. "All I see is my Empress working at a desk."

She couldn't imagine being more grateful. "A desk sounds nice right about now."

He helped her to stand, and in the mirrored cabinet they found refreshing compounds. Hoshi washed out her mouth several times before she felt better, and by the time they'd left the tight confines of the privy her nausea had largely passed.

Perceiving she no longer needed his support, Travis released her and she eased herself into a chair at the desk. She didn't have any words for what had happened, and he wisely didn't volunteer any.

x

She had been furious with Sherman, but Hoshi realized her fury came more from Sherman's taking upon herself the decision to kill Tucker. She hadn't wanted Tucker dead.

Far beyond any feelings of friendship she had had for the man, she could not afford to lose his skills as an Engineer. Beyond his value as the only surviving Command Officer of Enterprise, someone she knew just how far she could trust, she needed him as a Chief Engineer.

But now she was stuck with Sherman, unless she let Margan recommend a replacement - and she wasn't happy with the way he'd recommended an Executive Officer. He'd clearly had it in mind even before Tucker's death - he hadn't known Tucker had died. Furthermore, his choice of an X.O. had too much irony for her liking.

Still, the woman McCabe seemed competent, and just might make a good X.O. She supposed she should send Margan a message thanking him - and she must not forget to inquire about the health of his granddaughters.

x

But right now, Mary Sherman was her problem. There was no one else she could choose as Chief Engineer. Tucker had executed Vindicator's C.E. as a lesson to that ship's crew, and the Avenger's C.E. had been a Betazoid and had gone up with his ship.

Not that she would ever allow a Betazoid into close proximity to her. Members of that telepathic race made excellent covert spies, but she didn't trust them. She had too many plans, too many concerns, to allow someone near her who could read her mind.

"Bridge to Empress Sato." The intercom set upon the desk broke her reverie.

'Then again, maybe mind reading isn't necessary,' she thought in a glance to Mayweather, her expressive eyes sending them back to their previous discussion of just hours before, before reaching out to touch the activation button on the monitor standing upon the desktop. "Sato here."

x

The face of Grace Winters appeared on the screen. "Your Majesty, we have just received a message from the Andorians. They have accepted all the terms you set for the Conference."

Hoshi restrained any change of expression. She had counted upon the reactionary Andorians to make the first move. Where they led, many of the factions would follow. Now she only had to make sure they 'led' right behind her. "Remind them one ship has safe passage to Earth. I will meet with one representative, who must be empowered to make a binding Agreement for his people. I will tolerate no prevarications. Have them transmit identity and ETA."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Now listen carefully, this is what I want done." She gave long and detailed instructions that would involve many divisions of the ship and its resources. It was a long time before she could close the channel and lean back with a sigh, eyes closed. "And so it begins."

x

Hoshi sat for a long moment with her head back, long enough to prompt Travis to inquire "Are you all right, your Highness?"

She opened her eyes just far enough to see him. "I'll thank you not to ask me stupid questions."

"Yes, your Highness."

"I was just reflecting. I told Phlox, when I told him that I would never allow the Booth to be built again, that 'there should be consequences to the inflicter of pain as well as to the recipient'. I hadn't known then how right I was."

"It would seem so."

"Do you think I should have had it built?"

"I wouldn't want to be inside it."

"Are you afraid of it?"

For a moment he didn't answer. He didn't want to say 'yes', he couldn't say 'no'.

"Pit me against any man, and I'll give him the worst day of his life - or the last. But that thing is convenient cruelty. It should never have been invented."

"I agree."

"It's also the best deterrent to violating regulations that we have ever had."

Hoshi sighed sadly. "I agree."

x

After a long moment she sat forward and activated the monitor. "Empress Sato to the Mess Hall." A moment later the circuit was complete. She didn't activate the visual circuit. She didn't want to be seen, and she didn't want to see. Even before anyone spoke, agonized screams cut through the circuits.

"Phlox here." Interesting that, in the huge room across the corridor, he would be the one to take the call, as if he had known it would be for him. Another scream of agony filled the air, but the pain that caused Hoshi to wince was in her conscience.

"Turn Sherman loose." Hoshi had realized, part of the way through the woman's discipline, that it had moved from punishment to something far worse. Her own choice of the spot on which to focus the most massive jolt had been what had truly sickened her. She remembered with no pride what she herself had done with her blade upon Enterprise. It was also as if she were punishing the woman for being the victim of what Tucker had done to her that had led to his own death.

"She may rest," she could not appear to be too weak or sympathetic, or too sorry for her own revenge, "for fifteen - for ten minutes. Then I want her back on duty."

"Yes, your Excellency." There were no longer any screams in the background, but that silence lasted only a moment. Then came broken, hysterical sobbing that stabbed her heart. The sound receded from the audio monitor, but never stopped.

"Is Commander McCabe still with you?" She hardly needed to ask, but wanted to test nonetheless. Where else would McCabe go without her leave?

"This is McCabe," the woman reported crisply. Her voice did not carry any effect from what she had witnessed. Hoshi decided she would have to ask her.

"In twenty minutes meet me in," she hesitated. She hated the fact that this wholly remarkable ship didn't have a Ready Room for the Commander's use. Did they hold all conferences in that far removed Briefing Room? That was a design flaw she intended to correct in the future Fleet. "In the Briefing Room. One of the MACOs will escort you while the other attends to Sherman."

If McCabe was to be First Officer, or for whomever did hold that post, Hoshi would have to see that the X.O., like the Captain, had a Personal Guard. Perhaps if Tucker had had one…

This she had no choice but to file under 'too little, too late'.

"Aye, your Majesty. Twenty minutes."

Hoshi switched off the circuit and stood up, grateful to cut off the sounds of sobbing, grateful for the silence. She wasn't entirely sure whether Sherman, who had not been able to stand against an ongoing series of abuses by her superior officer, was particularly weak or that this 'new improved' Booth was so much more terrible than its predecessor.

Either way, she didn't believe she would ever order anyone into it again.

x

It would be some minutes before anyone left the Mess Hall across the corridor. She would not meet anyone. It was not that she was concerned, but that she simply didn't want to endure anyone's company now.

"Where next, your Highness?"

"My quarters. I really need to freshen up."

xxx

Hoshi Sato pulled the scarlet dress off her shoulders and pushed it to her waist when the intercom on her desk whistled at her. She turned to the offending device, but the monitor set upon the desktop was dark. She glanced at Travis who stood just inside the door. "Would you mind shooting that thing?" she asked, exasperated at having been called again.

Travis thought it was an odd request, but raised his phaser rifle anyway.

"Wait! I didn't mean it." He lowered the rifle again as she sighed. "God."

She didn't stop to think about the contradiction of invoking a deity when the Empire had categorically proven, even to the most stubborn or backward, that there is no 'god'.

She drew up the material again to cover her bare chest. It was one thing to be naked, or half naked, before someone in privacy, but though the Imperial Starfleet had trained such nonsense as 'modesty' out of women by the selection of uniform design, she was still particular about to whom she granted this privilege. She touched the activation control. "Yes, what is it?" she asked irritably as the monitor came to life. Upon it appeared the face of Lt. John Wilson.

"Your Majesty, I am pleased to announce that I have returned with 225 of the top ranked 3rd year Cadets from the Academy. As ordered, they are selected purely by Academic excellence and loyalty, and all are anxious to prove themselves to their Empress."

"Very well, I shall address them in the Shuttle Bay. Assemble them there immediately."

"Yes, your Excellency."

"Then contact Commander McCabe and tell her there is a change in plan. Have her meet me in the Shuttle Bay."

She turned off the monitor and sighed.

"Now I know why the Emperor had a Regent," she said tiredly, making final adjustments to her dress. "What time is it?"

"Twenty two seventeen hours, your Majesty," he told her matter-of-factly.

She looked up from her adjustments. "You're kidding."

"No, your Majesty," Travis said as if he had never conceived of such a thing.

"All right. We'll get done with this - and then I'm going to bed."

xxx

The cavernous Shuttle Bay was wide enough to house six craft, three along each wall with the central area set aside for launches and landings. It was two stories high and one hundred feet long. On the second level there were a control booth and a railed platform that ran the length of the starboard, or left side of the room when looking toward the towering doors that formed the rear access port of this ship. When those two huge doors parted, the entirely of the cosmos would be displayed.

Assembled on the main level along the landing platform, facing the high control booth, were nine ranks of twenty five men and women, all holding strict Attention, arrayed with the precision seemingly only possible with Cadets. Lt. Wilson had aligned them, males and females comingled and, having orders not to remain, had departed. It would be inappropriate for anybody to detract attention from the Imperial Presence.

How different this was from the group that had faced Jonathan Archer in the Fighter Bay of the Avenger just days ago - or was it longer? That group had been seasoned and jaded veterans. She herself had been there, arms folded in as insolent a manner as she dared, listening with strained patience to her former Commander speak of treason and rebellion as he walked upon a fighter craft, spouting plans for conquest. His speech had been intended to rally the crews to his cause but had done nothing to win the support of non-Terrans, who saw nothing in his plan for them save the destruction of their worlds and their own deaths.

That mad scheme, in fact, had become the basis for her entire plan of unifying the Empire, only she would use the lessons of the Federation instead of the Empire. That Database which Archer, as his final order, had told her to delete was one of her prime resources, and she had the only existing Access Code.

Now it was she who stood in the control booth on an elevated platform, facing seven ranks of fresh faced Cadets, young men and women, the new, soon-to-be pride of the Terran Empire. They held themselves in precision formation, waiting to be addressed by their Empress.

She hoped she would make a better speech.

x

Hoshi stepped out of the booth onto the platform where she could be seen, followed by Commander McCabe, Travis Mayweather and Paul Estes. She'd assigned Estes as McCabe's Personal Guard during her unknown time aboard. Now she watched two hundred twenty five men and women salute in unison and stand firm to receive her orders.

She knew that this moment was one about which some of those assembled before her would tell their own grandchildren; the day they saw the Empress with their own eyes, and were addressed by their Supreme Leader before beginning a career of Honor and Glory.

Hoshi just wanted to get through it without stammering.

x

"TONIGHT–" she had to pause as her amplified voice boomed through the tremendous chamber, seeming to echo into eternity. She glared at Travis, who adjusted a control at his belt. "You stand at the beginning of the New Age of the Empire." Now her voice did reverberate impressively, but with no risk of blowing out bulkheads.

"You men and women, young though you are, form the backbone of the Empire. This Flagship, the first of its kind, will be the ship that sees the end of the Rebellion and that ushers in a Golden Age. This is the beginning of an era that will bring the Empire not to its former glory, but to a Glory surpassing anything you have ever imagined.

"You brave men and women are the best that Starfleet has to offer. Here you will be tested by technologies your grandchildren would not have been ready to wield. Your training, your adaptability, your wisdom will be tested beyond your imagining, and you will all succeed.

"I know I can depend upon each and every one of you. Together, you will bring the Empire to the Glory it deserves. Your names will go down in History for what you are about to do here, and you will know the Honor of being the Pride of the Empire.

"Today, with you, Earth shall be Supreme. Long Live Earth! Long Live the Empire!"

Two hundred twenty eight soldiers, including the three beside her, struck their chests in unison, hands thrust stiffly out, and their cry reverberated through the chamber. "Long Live Earth! Long Live the Empire!"

x

Commander McCabe took a half step forward. "Each of you has been assigned your berth, and will be given your departments and stations. About …" She paused a moment. "Face." As the throng snapped about, the door to the outer corridor opened. "By Files, Right, Forward … March!"

The nine rightmost Cadets marched forward with carefully drilled precision, departing in single file, followed by the next nine and then the next until all had departed. Ultimately, Hoshi, McCabe, Mayweather and Estes were left alone on the upper platform. Hoshi turned to McCabe. "So, what did you think of my speech?"

Patricia McCabe didn't even glance at Mayweather behind her, nor at Estes who nominally backed her up but surely not against the Empress. She faced up to Hoshi directly. "Rhetorical bullshit, your Majesty."

Hoshi did glance briefly at Mayweather, and could not completely restrain a pleased smile as she carefully appraised the taller woman.

"You've got the job."