"In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one."

-Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809-Aprl 15, 1865) 16th President of the United States of America. Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment.

Chapter Thirteen

Katara sat in Enterprise's deserted mess hall, watching her world below them out the windows. The vast expanse of the Fire Nation, and its trail of islands leading into the Mo Ce Sea glittered like green and brown jewels in a sea of cerulean blue. It was a view she never tired of looking at from the first moment she stepped on this ship.

She heard one of the mess hall's doors slide open behind her and looked to see Ty Lee enter the room, walking over to the drink taps on the other side of the room. Katara watched her as she grabbed a metal cup and filled it with one of the fizzy fruit drinks they called "soda." Effectively a fruit drink with carbonated water, it added a pleasant taste to on top of the fruit flavor. She'd already tried all the flavors they had on tap. And particularly liked their cherry vanilla flavor.

The lighter-skinned girl stopped when she noticed Katara, sitting alone at her table. "Mind if I join you?"

She gestured at the chair across from her. "Please." The pretty brunette who had become her friend in the last year plopped down.

The two women looked in silence at the vast expanse of the Fire Nation out the ship's windows. Zuko and they had returned to the city she had called home for the past six months. The safehouse had been a treasure trove of information, as promised. It confirmed that Admiral Chan's chief of staff was the mole who had allowed Izani to penetrate their security that first night. She had been under arrest within an hour of Zuko returning to the capital. And, according to her, the orders to kidnap his son had been intended to coerce the Admiral into supporting them. The damage he could have done when he assumed the position of First Naval Lord was almost incalculable.

Still, the fact that she had managed to conceal her true loyalties from everyone around her and keep her position had suggested that she and Zuko hadn't done quite as good a job at cleaning house as they thought. Most of the people who had been giving her problems during Katara's tenure as First Councilor had decided to assuage their "outraged patriotism" by agreeing to support Medora "when the time came." And now they were currently sitting in Enterprise's brig.

"It's good to be able to go home," Ty said, "And we were able to clean out that rat's nest that had been giving us problems for months."

"Which I'm grateful for, believe me," Katara said feelingly. "The Starfleet Intelligence contingent that is going to be talking to them soon enough, aren't they?"

Ty nodded. "Hopefully we'll be able to get something usable out of them."

She leaned back in her chair. "I'm curious, Katara. Why is it, whenever I hear you speak of home the last few days, you sound like you're talking about Crater City than the South?"

Katara sighed. I was wondering when someone was going to bring that up. "Probably because I am."

Ty's eyes widened as though she'd just casually declared her undying allegiance to Koh the Face-stealer. "That," she said, "is a surprise. I understand that you stayed to help Zuko and Aang, but given the endless torrent of criticism you've been putting up with, I would have left first chance I got. We are responsible for your mother's death after all, and the state your homeland is struggling to rebuild from."

"No," Katara said, a flash of anger on her voice. "Yon Rha killed my mother." And he knows it. Just as he knows I could have killed him, that day in the rain.

"That still doesn't answer my question, though," Ty pointed out. "Why have you made plans to settle in your Fire Nation grants instead of returning to your homeland in triumph?"

"Because a large part of me doesn't see the South as home anymore," Katara pointed out. "And it doesn't see the North as home either." She tapped her fingers restlessly on the table. "I love my brother. I always have and I always will, but you didn't know Sokka before he met Suki. He was a sexist, arrogant prick who believed a woman's natural skills were cooking and cleaning and that men were the ones skilled at fighting and leading. He deferred to me, most of the time, but that was because it was me, and I think he separated 'me' from 'women in general.' And he still tried to lord over me on occasion, in fact we probably would not have discovered Aang if I hadn't been tearing him a new asshole after he put me down for the umpteenth time. And that attitude is what's culturally expected of Water Tribe men. That's starting to change, thank La. But it's not complete yet. And, more than that, I'm not the same woman I was when I left any more than my brother is the same man. I do want to go back and see my father and my grandmother. But I'd only be visiting, I don't have a place there anymore."

Ty nodded. "You know, I think you're probably right."

Katara stared quizzically. With Sokka or Zuko she would be sure they were playfully mocking her. With Ty…

"I mean it," she said, getting up and walking to the window, looking out at the sun-drenched jewel of their homeworld. "In fact, I think ultimately your place is here," sweeping her hand to take in the mess hall. "Or on one of their other ships."

Katara couldn't help the wistful smile on her face as she leaned back. "I have thought about it, a lot. I mean we're on a ship in orbit. It's like every fantasy I had watching the stars at night, looking up and wondering what was up there, come to life. Archer and Hernandez can talk all they want about how they command the two newest, fastest ships they have, but there's a voice in my head saying, 'Who cares?' They're ships that fly in space."

Ty Lee's face flushed, and she bowed her head. "I know what you mean. But that is not what I meant. At least not entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you been reading Archer's logs of his previous missions?"

Katara nodded vigorously, her hand straying to the padd in her pocket. "We all have. It's fascinating reading. There's still a few concepts I'm having trouble wrapping my head around, but I'm catching up fast."

"It is," Ty said, "I'm struck by the similarities between Archer and a friend of mine. I mean. They both lost a parent when they were kids. They both harbored a serious resentment of another nation throughout most of their lives but began to move past it after sustained contact with them. They're both natural leaders. Sound like anyone you know?"

Katara smirked. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say me."

"Yes," Ty said. "But there's more to it than that. Whoever started this went through a lot of trouble to lure Starfleet out here, and they're not going to go away even if we manage to foil their plot. Sooner or later, war will break out. I'm an officer. Somehow our armed forces will be merged with theirs, so me and the other Kyoshi Warriors are going to be out there, one way or another, probably as MACOs. You, your brother, and if he weren't the Firelord I'd say Zuko, are going to be needed out there as well."

"Why?" Katara asked. "I mean I want to. I really want to but why do you think I need to?"

"Because on paper Starfleet is their space-based navy/exploration arm," Ty Lee said, "but Archer's said it himself. Most of their ships are too old and too slow to carry out military and exploration duties beyond their nearest stars. Only Archer's ship was fast enough to make a meaningful difference against the Xindi. And towards the end of the campaign, he decided to go by himself to destroy the Xindi weapon in a suicide attack."

Katara sighed, twigging onto Ty's point. "I remember reading about that part. I see why you would be concerned"

Ty nodded. "It was clear Archer didn't have the mindset necessary to fight wars. The fact that the experience of ordering the destruction of a military relay station with a small crew in hostile territory that was about to give away this ship's position so badly affected his judgment that he felt the only solution was a suicide mission is proof enough of that. And he decided he had to pilot it himself because he couldn't live with his guilt. Because he said in his log, 'I'm not about to ask anyone else to die.' Except for the thousands of Xindi surrounding that weapon which would have been killed had he not been captured before he could carry it out."

Katara stared, poleaxed, at the other woman. It was the first time Katara had heard Ty say anything critical of Archer. "Not everyone has perfect judgment all the time, you know. We both did things that made sense to us at the time that in hindsight were idiotic."

Ty raised her hand to forestall whatever she had been about to say. "Look, I'm not saying I don't like or respect him. And I'm not saying that I think that the Archer of today would make the same mistake, but if he's any indication he's not alone, especially in a fleet that doesn't have much experience beyond moving back and forth between relatively safe locations at very slow speeds. That's changing, but it's going to need to change a lot faster if both our worlds are going to have a chance of surviving, and officers who have a…different mindset are going to be needed."

"Yes," Katara said, nodding in agreement. "But depending on what calendar you're using, I'm either fifteen and a half or seventeen. And even if I were ten years older, they still wouldn't just give me one of their ships straight out of officer training,"

"Of course not," Ty said, with an utter vehemence she'd almost never heard out of her. Except when she was talking about one person. "But even the lowest-ranked junior officer with a head on her shoulders in the right place when everything turns to shit may make the difference between survival and destruction."

It was Katara's turn to lean back in her chair and look at her friend quizzically. "You're worried, aren't you?"

Ty suddenly became very interested in the contents of her hull-metal gray cup. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're worried about what's going to happen later. When Zuko and Archer sit down with Azula."

Storm-gray eyes looked up at her. And she sighed. "Maybe I am."

"There will be dozens of armed guards, all armed with particle weapons. Azula can shoot lightning, yes. But now so can we."

Archer found himself standing in an interrogation room that wouldn't have been out of place in police and gendarmeries on Earth or her colonies. He looked over at his local allies. Zuko was trying his damndest to project the confident monarch and naval officer, but his anxiety was written all over his face. Ty Lee and Suki were also trying their best to project confidence…and failing. Regimental commander and company commander alike seemed to have their hands straying repeatedly to the hilts of the swords buckled around their waists. Katara and Aang also looked like they wanted to be literally anywhere else but in the same room with Azula.

Considering their history with the violent mental patient being brought up from her room, he couldn't say he blamed them. If even half of what Zuko said about his younger sister was true, she was extremely dangerous. Fortunately, he had an entire fireteam in the room with them, and an entire squad in the corridor outside.

The sound of a mechanical lock disengaging echoed in the relatively small room, and the heavy metal door swung open, ushering in a pair of local gendarmes in lacquered black Fire Nation between them with her hands manacled behind her back was probably one of the most stunningly beautiful young women he'd ever witnessed. She was petite, looked about eighteen in Earth years, and had…interesting contours that the Archer of twenty years ago would have been drooling over.

And a slight smile on her face that never reached the amber eyes she shared with her brother.

Archer felt a chill travel down his spine as he regarded how coolly she regarded the room, even after months of incarceration. This is a dangerous woman, Johnny. Be careful.

"Ah, Zuzu," she said, with just a hint of mockery, as if the man in the totally unfamiliar blue uniform wasn't even in the room. "This is a surprise. You haven't been down to see me in months. I understand you're a busy man, sitting on my throne and all, but come on, aren't I your baby sister?"

"The baby sister who tried to murder Katara, stuck prisoners of war in a camp with political prisoners and then butchered half of them all because Ty Lee had the gall to stand up to you?" Zuko asked.

Azula pretended her brother hadn't said a word and slid her eyes over to stare challengingly over at Archer, who glared back at the young war criminal chained to the desk in the room. "And who is this? He's an officer clearly, but I don't recognize the uniform."

"Captain Jonathan Archer," he growled. "Of the United Earth starship Enterprise."

"You're one of the newcomers the rumor mill has been going nonstop about for the past couple days, aren't you? Some say you devastated Ba Sing Se in moments. Others say Zuko finally grew a spine and decided to just terminate that ball of corruption and inefficiency known as the Earth Kingdom government, and you stopped him cold."

"Even if any of that happened, and it didn't," Archer said, "I'd keep in mind that I can destroy any target on this planet from far beyond anyone on your world's ability to respond."

"I have no doubt," Azula said. "Still doesn't explain why you're here."

"Because you know more about what's been going on here lately then you let on the last time we spoke," Ty broke in for the first time. "A lot more."

"And what are you going to do if I don't divulge any of this information that I supposedly have? Are you going to have Lee here beat it out of me like she's been itching to do for months?"

"As a Starfleet officer I am sworn to prevent a prisoner from being abused by an officer under my command," Archer said. "As a man however…you have it coming. And should you ever get out of here, you're going to have to answer for what you did prior to your mental breakdown earlier this year. Give us something, and we promise that you may actually survive that experience. In fact, I'm prepared to ensure you spend the rest of your life in one of my people's prisons, instead of being executed by your government." However much you deserve it.

"So instead of a quick death by hanging," Azula offered, "you're giving me an existence not much better than the one I have now."

"In relative comfort," Archer said. "You'll have a cell to yourself. Access to reading materials. Limited access to the fiction produced by my world's entertainment industry. It won't be a resort, but it'll probably me more comfortable than this."

"But I can never leave," Azula said.

Archer shook his head. "No. That's not possible given the nature of the charges that will almost certainly be leveled against you for your actions over the previous year. Think it over."

Zuko motioned to his guards. "Take my sister back to her cell please?"

As soon as she was gone, he sat down at the other side of the interrogation table, facing Archer.

"So, what do you think of my sister?"

Archer nodded in understanding. "I'll admit that I had trouble with the idea that a young woman who's only seventeen and a half standard could amass the record of allegations your sister has. Now I don't have too. She's stone cold, isn't she?"

Zuko smirked mirthlessly. "Oh yes. One thing you must remember about her: Azula always lies. Always. About something or other. Even if she eventually tells something that approaches the truth, something in it will be a lie designed to manipulate you to her advantage."

Archer pursed his lips. His father surely had never heard of men like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin. Yet he sure as hell seemed determined to emulate their accomplishments. And she sure as hell would have found herself right at home with any of them, I am sure.

He looked at Suki and Ty Lee, troubled looks on their faces. Something he instantly understood. They think she's going to get away with it, that somehow and someway she's going to have to avoid answering for what she's done.

"Our world has had to deal with the like of Azula and Ozai before," he said softly. "People like them have haunted our world throughout our history, but never like in that century that brought us the Second and Third World War. Every civilian and military official is sworn to protect Earth and all her colonies against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which by nature includes people like her. So yes, she and her father, and anyone else who was a major player in their crimes, will get the trial that's coming to them. It will be completely scrupulous, and completely fair and impartial. And when they do, they'll go right back to prisons like this and stay there. On that, you have my word."

Zuko cleared his throat. "Look," he said, "I agree with you. Katara and I already did some of that when we were cleaning house, but my father and sister had a unique role in this and I decided I couldn't just execute them.

Archer looked pointedly at the younger man. "In what way?"

"Meaning I was originally going to propose the creation of a special tribunal drawn from all the belligerents to examine her actions as part of the peace settlement."

Archer nodded. That is how we first approached the problem back in 1946 after all. But this world's situation has changed overnight

"I understand," he said aloud. "But you understand this world's situation has changed even more dramatically than it had when you and Aang deposed them earlier this year. The decision about what to do with them may not be up to you for too much longer."

Commander T'Pol watched Archer's conversation with Zuko unfold on the Enterprise's main viewscreen, via the camera that had been set up to allow her and Hernandez to view the interrogation from their ships. Considering the damage wrought by people like them before the rise of Surak, she understood the need to punish them for their actions. It had been people like them who had banded together under the Raptor's wings to resist the fundamental change that had swept Vulcan societies. More than once she'd thought about the vagaries of evolution that had allowed humans, andorians, tellarites, and indeed most species vulcans had encountered, to fully use their emotions and still build complex, state-level societies. Ones that didn't collapse within a few generations in a sea of paranoia and homicidal rage.

"Commander!" Reed shouted from the tactical console to her right, interrupting her thoughts. "Two orion interceptors just dropped out of warp in the inner system, closing fast."

"Tactical alert," T'Pol ordered. As the lights on the bridge darkened and the interfaces began to flash red, she settled back into her chair. "T'Pol to Captain Archer."

Zuko forgot whatever he was going to say when T'Pol's voice came out of the communicator. The older man flipped the grille open and put it to his mouth.

"Go ahead, T'Pol," Archer said.

"Two orion interceptors just revealed themselves and are maneuvering to engage us," the vulcan's too-calm voice said, and he stood up, heart racing. Since he'd first met her, he'd understood more about why vulcan's felt they had to control their emotions to the extent that they did but it was still vaguely off-putting. That was beside point though, the pirates that had slaughtered that merchantmen and inflicted such harm on both their worlds had put in another appearance.

Archer reached forward. "Alert Columbia and Tal'Kir. If we can capture either ship without destroying it, do it.I bet you anything one or both of those ships was involved in the attack on Makati City. They're going to tell us who paid them, and why."

"Acknowledged," T'Pol said, the unmistakable sound of weapons fire impacting a ship clear even through the communicator.

T'Pol gripped her command chair as the disruptor shots impacted against the Enterprise's new shields, shaking the bridge with the sheer momentum that still managed to get transferred through any shield. T'Pol watched on the viewscreen as the red lashes of light of Enterprise's phase vented their fury against the green glow of the orion's shields.

"Their shields are holding," Reed reported, holding onto the sides of his console as the ship seemed to try to tear itself apart around them.

T'Pol leaned back in the command chair. The orions usually knew better than to attack vulcan or andorian allied worlds. It was time to remind them how illogical such propositions were.

"Photonic torpedoes," she ordered. "Maximum yield." We can disable that one, and Columbia and Tal'Kir can-

Reed's console beeped. "Two more orion ships have just dropped out of warp. Another interceptor and a cruiser. Columbia and Tal'Kir are turning to intercept."

Meaning we have to face the other two orions alone, T'Pol thought grimly.

The viewscreen switched to show both the vaguely dart-shaped green ship with the curved, forward facing wings. One continued its rush to the planet while the other snapped around, it's forward disruptor cannons firing lances of green light against their forward shields. A console behind her exploded in a burst of white-hot sparks.

"They're trying to hold us off while the other one makes a run at the planet," Reed reported.

"Evasive maneuvers," T'Pol ordered, memories of her own period in Orion captivity surfacing. "Get us between the other one and the planet."

"Aye, sir," Mayweather ordered, his hands flying over his console.

"Commander!" Reed said, "the first orion entered orbit and…is dropping its shields!"
They're beaming someone to the surface. Or off it. "Mister Mayweather!" T'Pol said, her self-inflicted damage to her mental disciplines from her time in the Expanse allowing anxiety to color her voice.

"I'm trying, Commander!" Mayweather responded, voice taught with concentration, as he tried to maneuver around the other ship. "This bastard's good!"

Abruptly the ship stopped rattling with the sounds of weapons fire, the viewscreen showing the dagger-shaped craft veering off at full impulse to rendezvous with the other one. "All four orions are moving off," Reed said softly. "They've gone to warp."

"Should we pursue? Mayweather asked.

T'Pol leaned back in her chair. Pursuing now would be premature. They didn't know if someone had been abducted or if teams had been landed. "Take us back to our original orbit, Lieutenant." She looked to Hoshi at her left. "Get me the Captain."

Archer let out an audible sigh of relief as his communicator beeped. He snatched it up off the interrogation room table and flipped it open. "Go ahead, T'Pol."

"The orion ships have withdrawn, after only causing minimal damage," T'Pol reported. "However, one of the ships beamed something to or from the surface."

His people and their new local allies looked at each other in confusion, as Archer did a quick headcount. "We're all here, at least in this room," Archer reported.

"And we're picking up no orion biosigns on the surface," T'Pol reported.

He heard a thumping against the wall, to see Ty Lee leaned against the wall, as if her legs had given out from under her. There was mingled shock, horror, and more than a little anger in her gray eyes. "No," she said softly. "No!" She said louder. "They wouldn't!"

Zuko shot out of his seat, eyes wide, as comprehension dawned in Archer's mind.

"Standby," Archer ordered, closing the grille on his communicator.

The six of them rushed out of the room, into the austere, dimly-lit corridor of steel-reinforced concrete, the squad of MACOs hot on their heels. The hallways passed by in a rush until they got to a block of cells. They had been joined by a hapless looking local corporal in blackened armor, the senior guard on this deck. The short twentysomething young woman with black hair seemed hopelessly flustered by the mass of authority figures and guards armed with strange weapons that had suddenly intruded onto her daily routine.

"Open this door, Corporal," Ty growled, shooting the hapless woman a look that should have reduced her to a terrified puddle on the floor. "Now."

"Y-yes, sir!" She squeaked, shaking hands grabbing at the keys in a loop around her waist. She finally got them unhooked and the correct key inserted into the doorway. The heavy steel door opened inward…to an empty cell with unadorned cement walls. With an equally empty cot in the far right corner.

"Damn it!" Ty swore venomously, even as Archer produced his scanner from his belt. The handheld device beeped back immediately.

"There's an orion transporter signature in here," Archer said, looking over at Zuko, eyes widened as what he thought had happened was confirmed. "Your sister's gone."

"But did they take her?" Katara asked from behind them. "Or did they just beam her somewhere else on this planet."

"There's no real reason for them to take her," Zuko said. "Unless it was to keep her from talking."

"No," Katara said, echoing Archer's own thoughts. "This wasn't an abduction, it was a prison break." She looked up at them, fear and shock in her eyes. "She's out. Azula's out"

Archer nodded. "I agree. And may God have mercy on us all."