Day 62
B'Elanna and Nanton climbed to the top of a cliff that over looked a diverse cluster of islands. B'Elanna whistled as she took in the sight. She was invigorated by the half-day climb.
Nanton brushed her long hair back from her face and dropped down to the ground. Studying the energetic woman from her spot on the rocks, Nanton saw that she'd have to adjust her strategy.
Nanton lay back against the rocks and stared at the sky, a trace of Shantix Three's rings were still apparent in the day light.
"Our physiology is very different."
B'Elanna tore herself from the picturesque view. Her host was perfectly exhausted.
"Oh… I'm sorry. I thought you were good with our pace."
"I've climbed that rock face more times than I can count." Nanton took a slow steadying breath. "Except it's always been a full day's climb."
B'Elanna rested one hand on her hip and put the other over her brow to block the sun. Both satisfied and self-conscious, she was unsure how to respond. She looked back out towards the sea.
Nanton propped herself up with her arms. "As I said, we have very different physiologies. For both of my races I am in exceptional physical condition, but obviously no match for a Klingon climbing partner."
"Half Klingon." B'Elanna corrected her.
"Half Klingon," Nanton repeated. "Well a half Klingon/half human can beat a three quarters Mowasi and one quarter Zahl up a mountain any day."
B'Elanna smiled and then the significance of Nanton's words struck her. "Zahl? Haven't they been the Mowasi's enemy?"
"Yes, the Zahl were the enemy of the Mowasi and their oppressors for centuries, until we managed to overthrow their spatial dominance just 40 years ago."
"You don't look any different."
Nanton smiled knowingly. "Not to you, but to every Mawasi I am obviously Zahl. My skin is darker and I'm two inches taller than a tall Mawasi woman."
B'Elanna was silent as she contemplated their similarities.
Nanton continued, "Which brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about -physiology."
B'Elanna snorted, "You climbed a mountain with me to talk to me about physiology!"
Nanton smirked. "I thought that after a good climb you'd be more subdued. And, once we're here there isn't anywhere you can go too quickly."
"Must be important."
Standing up and stretching out her weary limbs, Nanton replied, "Come this way."
She walked towards the other side of the cliff and down a natural incline, to a place more suitable to sitting. B'Elanna sat down beside her.
Gesturing with her hand to the coral island below, Nanton explained, "Most people come here to see that, but I come here as much to watch those." She pointed to the rings of Shantix Three.
B'Elanna stared at the rings as she listened to Nanton's story.
"The Zahl oppressed us, yes. My mother was the daughter of a young Mawasi girl who was assaulted by a Zahl soldier. That's all we know of her parents. My mother wasn't raised by them. She was placed in a charity school, a place where unwanted children are provided education and prepared for some kind of menial labor. Except my mother had a remarkable aptitude for engineering sciences, and her Zahl characteristics were less obvious than those of the average half-breed. She was even shorter and paler then I am. Her skills were brought to the attention of an eccentric aristocrat from the same family line as Chancellor Bergo. This aristocrat, named Nanton by the way, actually adopted her, and pulled many strings to have her educated in the finest of our schools."
"Sounds like a bold move."
"It was, but one that paid off for Bergo's family and the whole Mawasi race. It is ironic really." Nanton again glanced up to the rings.
"What's that?"
"It took a Zahl-Mawasi half-breed to come up with the strategy and technology to beat the Zahl. Physiology, you see." Nanton smiled ruefully. "The Mawasi throw terrific parties, make the best appetizers and cakes, and are likely the greatest architects in the universe, but they don't have an ounce of military strategy in them. My mother fell in love with a pilot assigned to defending the Mawasi perimeter. At that time, a Mawasi defense pilot's life lasted an average of three months beyond conscription, but my dad was both lucky and very good and always came back alive."
B'Elanna listened intently. All her defenses down, she realized this unusual woman had something for her to learn.
"The funny thing is that because the love of one man, my mother was instrumental in liberating an entire civilization."
"Wow. How did she do that?"
"Every time he was sent back out to the perimeter, she wouldn't sleep. She stayed up night after night improving the defense capabilities of our shuttles. Eventually, she developed an entirely new system of defense that utilized the rings surrounding each of our planets. It was a system that helped the pilots hide and made a single fighter as effective as four. There was a great deal of politics surrounding its implementation, but fortunately the Bergos pushed it through right before a major Zahl invasion." Nanton smiled. "We won. The Zahl invasion force was defeated and they completely retreated from Mawasi space. A year later I was born."
B'Elanna swallowed hard. "That's an incredible love story."
"It is. But you of all people need to understand the moral to the story. She used her physiological differences to make her lover and her people stronger. And many of those people still won't receive her. I'd never imagined meeting someone so capable of making the same difference, but here you are."
Nanton stood to face her friend. She looked B'Elanna, the woman, not the angry Klingon, in the eye and said, "You are ashamed of your physiology and angry at Tom for his. My parents had to accept they were different, or the Zahl-Mawasi war would have continued in our home."
B'Elanna's thought briefly of her own parents and their intolerance for each other. "It's about physiology and not personality," B'Elanna repeated. "And if I accept our differences…" B'Elanna thought of Tom's behaviour and winced.
Nanton finished the sentence, "Then those differences can be a source of strength."
"Maybe," B'Elanna replied. "Now this defensive system your mother designed. You haven't shown me this Mowasi technology before."
Nanton smiled. "No, I haven't. We pride ourselves in hospitality but that doesn't mean we serve up everything all at once."
"But, you decided to tell me about it now?"
"I think it can be adapted to Voyager, and since Bergo is so pleased with Chakotay's negotiations he gave me approval to show you this" Nanton pulled a small communicator out of her pocket and pressed a button. "I wanted to be sure I had your complete attention when I showed you this one," she said as they dematerialized.
They rematerialized in a military control center. Nanton briskly walked over to a nearby panel and tapped it. The screen before them lit up and presented a map of the solar system. She punched another button and over a hundred lights appeared in the many rings around the planets in the binary system.
"This is a defensive system that requires a very small crew to maintain. The Naka Jets are always on stand-by and very versatile. They can be used as missiles, or as jets that are optically controlled by a pilot. If we come under attack, we transport the pilots directly into space where they are surrounded by hidden jets, and then they assume control of the jets."
As she spoke she pulled up the specs on another screen. Next to the three dimensional view of the powerful missile jet was a representation of a pilots suit.
B'Elanna tapped the control panel and read the design specifications. "These are capable of withstanding more severe temperatures than any suit I've seen. An optronic relay in the helmet capable of taking commands from the pilot's eye or commands can be routed through a hand sensor relay. One pilot is capable of operating four jets at once?"
"Like this," Nanton said as she ran a simulation. "The suit fixes itself to one jet." The others are programmed to fly in formation. The pilot controls the one he is attached to through the hand relays, while he controls the back up missiles through the optronic relay. It does take some training, but soon they like controlling their own back up and we have a number of training maneuvers on file."
The simulation indicated that the pilot had been targeted by an enemy vessel.
"Virtually all target locking devices lock on the energy signature right?"
"Any we've encountered," B'Elanna replied.
"So when the hostile vessel is locked on the jet that our pilot is attached to he can disconnect. The jet becomes a missile and he sends it off in the direction of the hostile vessel. It and possibly even their own missile, if they can't break target, blows up in their vicinity or strikes them." Both simulations played out one after the other. "If it is safe to do so, the pilot can call another jet to himself with the optronic relay, and he can use it to fly home, or he can use the other three to fire on the hostile vessel. If this happens, his suit will sustain him for six hours, which in all instances has been time enough to retrieve our pilots."
B'Elanna muttered to herself, "Captain Proton is going to love this."
"Pardon?"
"Um, thank you. You're right. We can definitely use a system like this."