Kappa-2 Monoceros
The Borderlands
{Eleven years previously}
"It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom of living, this was the first morning of summer…"
Pûrâh sighed, quietly, as he set the novel down beside him, placing it gently on the handmade settee which he had crafted during the long, cold, and bitterly dark winter. He had spent many nights—there were no true "days" in winter—with little more than a knife and hatchet, trimming the sapling bark and fashioning notches in hardened branches; lashed together with hemp and covered with a hand-sewn mattress, stuffed full of the downy fluff he had collected the previous summer from the woolly oxen treading the barren plains to the north.
Of course, the children's home in exile was not lacking in industry; it would have been a relatively simple matter for Pûrâh to have fabricated the low-slung couch from reinforced alloys and machine-crafted cushions. Or, if he had pleaded his case with strong reason and logic, Father may have been willing to barter for a couch during one of his periodic trips to the Orion border.
But what, Pûrâh thought, would be the point of that? What was the point of having something? No, it was the creative effort itself that was the reward: the resulting object was merely a side-effect, something that more often than not simply took up space. He had, through study and practice, taken his need and produced it for himself. He had mastered his need in a way that buying a commodity never could.
And the bleakness of winter had passed as a flash, until the first rays of the star's light crept above the horizon, signaling the dawning spring and the rebirth of the planet of their exile. Soon, the light would be a constant companion, reddening slightly as it dipped towards the horizon, but never disappearing until the brutal gusts of the winter winds once again swept downward from the northern barrens.
As the warm breeze drifted through his open window, Pûrâh inhaled it gently, teasing out the different aromas with the enhanced receptors of his nose. There were the okiense blossoms flowering on the leaves of the nivellea trees, and the microscopic pollen of galeomma; the rich, and occasionally rotting, odors of thawing topsoil; and most importantly, the smell of roasting meat wafting across from the fire pit.
Sector 010
Captain's Log, May 25, 2154. The Enterprise has rendezvoused with the Hawke. Commander Reed reports that he detected no Orion surveillance craft following him. Our little ruse appears to have been successful; at least, the deception lasted long enough to get us away safely.
Dr. Phlox reports that the nine abducted crewmembers all require several days of observation and treatment before returning to duty.
The screeching wail of the ship's alarms sent Archer catapulting to his feet, moving forward with pure inertia as he exited his ready room, crossed the meter-long corridor outside, and burst onto the Enterprise bridge.
"Report!" Archer snapped loudly, projecting his voice over the siren, as his eyes and ears automatically scanned the bridge. Information poured in quickly, appraising him of the situation; the specific warbling tone of the alarms indicated a clearly-hostile vessel, and the bridge was populated with a mixture of primary and relief crew.
"Sir, Klingon bird-of-prey approaching!" Neda Rahimi, the second-shift tactical officer, responded alertly. "On intercept course, weapons range in five!"
"Sir!" This shouted notice, expressing an air of surprise, came from Hoshi Sato. "We're receiving a communications request from them!"
What the hell? Klingons offering to talk first and shoot later? "Open a channel!" Archer ordered. Eschewing his chair, he took up a standing posture behind the navigator. "And Neda—cut the noise!"
"Aye sir!" The shrieking siren cut out suddenly, leaving behind a reverberation between the captain's ears.
"Sir, it's text only!" This was Hoshi again, expressing her puzzlement at the odd communiqué. "They're requesting to dock." The young woman furrowed her brow before continuing. "I don't know what to make of this, Captain. It's not translated Klingon; the message is in original Earth dialect."
Vatis'Kish mentioned something about the Augments seizing a Klingon bird-of-prey.
…
They're shorter than I expected, Archer reflected as the first Augment stepped through the airlock. The Augment said nothing, merely stepping to one side with a gruff snort of air, giving the captain a moment to reassess his assumptions. The Augment was not significantly taller, but was broad of chest, tapered in the waist, and neatly chiseled with naturally-developed muscle; easily the match for the best martial arts practitioners on Earth. And he was clad in black; leathery black pants over black boots, and a torn fishnet tunic for his shirt.
The next Augment stepped through the airlock, and Archer shifted his attention involuntarily; the second one, another male, radiated an aura of power and authority that was nearly intoxilizing. This was—has to be—the leader, Archer reasoned, even though he was not the most physically superior; here was a leader who ruled by brains just as much as by brawn.
The second Augment paused in the threshold, as if slowly surveying the Enterprise before entering, and casually brushed a lock of blond hair behind his ear. "My name is Maâlîk," he offered politely, and Archer noticed a most peculiar accent in Maâlîk's voice; not an accent, Archer realized. The Augment was speaking with incredibly precise diction.
"I'm Captain Jonathan Archer," the baseline human replied, keeping his hands clasped behind his back; their guest was out of reach, and was making no effort towards a handshake. "Welcome aboard the Enterprise."
"We are—pleased —to meet you," Maâlîk answered, again elucidating precision in his speech. "I had not expected to find a human starship out this far."
"The Enterprise is a new-generation vessel," Archer offered up in explanation. "It's designed for deep-space exploration. In fact, we've—"
"Yes, we know," Maâlîk interrupted sharply, as if he cared little about pleasantries with the captain. "The Delphic Expanse. You made it a thousand light-years out before…returning."
Archer cleared his throat to forestall answering; the circumstances surrounding the Enterprise's return were highly classified, and a number of popular explanations had already developed. "Yes. We've prepared a conference room, if you'd like to follow—"
"A conference room?" Maâlîk snorted disdainfully. "What, so we can talk? Anything less than action is death, Captain. " The Augment moved abruptly, stepping down from the threshold and nearly bowling over a security guard as he brushed past. "We're only here for one thing, Captain," Maâlîk called out over his shoulder, already receding into the corridor before the scrambling security contingent. "Where is he?"
"Who are you talking about?" Archer asked as he issued a flurry of hand gestures. The guards responded quickly, acting more on instinct than the unclear motions.
Maâlîk turned for a moment. "Dr. Arik Soong," he replied caustically, nearly spitting in Archer's face. "And don't bother denying it, Captain: we both know he's here, and I so dislike dealing with deception."
"Yes, Dr. Soong is here," Archer replied, cautiously.
Maâlîk's eyes seemed to shoot rays of venom. "Where?" the Augment snarled, his voice dropping to frigidity.
"He's on the ship," Archer stated again, unwilling to yield his trump.
Maâlîk stepped closer to the captain, stopping an arm's-reach away. "What is it you want with us, Captain?"
Striving to match the Augment's fury with calmness, Archer forced himself to remain steady. "My orders are to take you back to Earth."
Maâlîk moved closer, allowing Archer to detect his bizarrely mint-laced breath. "And then what?" the Augment retorted, snorting scornfully in the captain's face. He launched on before Archer could respond. "Are we going to be 'integrated' into your so-called open society? Will we be allowed to walk the streets, like any other human? Or will we be locked up?"
Flinging his hands up, as if ceding defeat, Maâlîk began pacing across the alcove; his voice rose in pitch, as if building to a dramatic scream. "Shoved away in a cage for the rest of our lives, to be poked and prodded by your doctors and scientists? Tell me the truth, Captain Archer." His voice plunged sharply. "What will happen to us?"
Maâlîk could kill me, Archer told himself as he struggled to hold his position against the wave of malice radiating from Maâlîk. It was something he knew academically—yes, death is always a risk in space. But uncontrollable coldness ran down Archer's spine as his visceral awareness caught up with his mind. This isn't bluster. There's no heroic escape. Maâlîk could quite literally kill me, right here. I'd be dead before the guards even reacted.
"I don't know for certain," Archer heard himself saying. His words were barely audible over the cresting breakers slamming against his ears. "My assignment is simply to bring you back to Earth."
Maâlîk snorted scornfully. "Earth considers my father a criminal," the young Augment retorted. Archer shifted backward, away from the air of malice. "Why? How can it be a crime to bring a human being to life?" The Augment paused, spitting a wad of blackened bile onto the deck. "Do you incarcerate the parents of every child that you disapprove of, or just us?" he snarled angrily. "What is so wrong with us that it justifies that sort of behavior, Captain?
"Isn't it enough that we're outcasts from your society?" Maâlîk brought himself face-to-face with the captain. "Do you have to hunt us down, drag us back in chains, and lock us away?"
"You're human beings," Archer retorted. His voice was weak, but he was proud that he could speak at all. "It makes you subject to the laws of Earth."
"Does it now, Captain?" The words twisted with Maâlîk's bitterness. "And do those laws allow you to incarcerate people who have committed no crimes against Earth? Am I human enough to be subject to your laws, but not human enough to claim their protections?"
"People like you—"
Archer was cut off promptly. "Exactly, Captain," Maâlîk rejoined. "People like me. Not me. What law have I broken?"
"The protection is for your own good," Archer answered back, scrambling for firm footing.
Maâlîk chuckled once. "I'm about to attack you," he announced. Before Archer could flinch, the Augment grabbed the captain around the neck and turned Archer about, creating a shield between himself and the guards. "You see?" Maâlîk hissed into Archer's left ear. "Even with a warning, you're not fast enough."
"Let him go," Montag growled, warning the Augment.
Maâlîk's grip didn't lessen. "We have five times your strength, double your intelligence."
"I said, let-him-go!" Montag barked again, pointing his photonic pistol.
Archer spoke up suddenly. "Your strength and intelligence isn't the difference between us, Maâlîk," he remarked, his voice finally airy and light.
"Then what is?" Maâlîk countered suspiciously.
"It's your willingness to kill that makes us different."
Surprisingly, Maâlîk did not tighten his grip. "What about your willingness to condemn the unborn? You see, Captain, I may kill more freely; but I kill in order to survive, whereas you do it out of fear.
"Câîm!" Maâlîk shouted out, not turning to look at his single comrade as the second Augment moved forward in a blur of speed, disarming the Enterprise security detail in the course of a blink. The stunned guards staggered backward, caught unprepared for the sheer, swift nimbleness, their pistols lying on the deck before they even perceived the movement.
It wasn't exactly a quick turn of fortunes, Archer realized. It was simply a matter of the Augments choosing their moment.
With the task complete, Maâlîk gave Archer a rough shove, sending the captain into a bulkhead; as his head hit the hardened plasticine, the wall refused to yield, and Archer bounced off, stumbling his way to the deck.
"Pêrsîs!" Maâlîk called out, presumably summoning another of his comrades; and the airlock doors reopened behind him, disgorging a stream of mangy-haired, tatter-clothed, disruptor-wielding Augments.
Kappa-2 Monoceros
The Borderlands
{Eleven years previously}
Their planet of exile lay, coldly isolated, amid the rocky fragments, failed stars, and gaseous clouds that composed the sparse population of the Borderlands. Its parent star, one of the few in the region able to support stable planets, was a bland and indistinguishable affair; a KV-subdwarf, it glowed a dim orange, already invisible from the farthest reaches of its own system. It was only the planet's proximity to the star that kept it habitable.
But it was, in many ways, idyllic for the young children as they grew. During the frigidness of winter, when the highest levels of the atmosphere sublimated downward, they kept warm in the extensive limestone caves, naturally lighted with bioluminescent fungi; there was never a lack of things to do, new caverns to explore, new underground rivers to chart, and always a steady dose of learning.
And when summer came, and the atmosphere thawed in the yellow-orange rays of the sun, the meadows came alive with lush grasses and multi-colored flora; great savannahs sprung up on the northern plains, and to the south, endless ranks of stout trees ran on endlessly. One could fly overhead for hours without seeing a single clearing. And then came the seas; never-ending seas of shallow water, colored in a brilliant turquoise-lime, leading to the multitude of islands and atolls that spread across the planet.
Sector 010
The prisoner in billet E-14 heard the sounds of the scuffle coming down the corridor; the harsh barking of voices, the unmistakable whine of disruptor rifles, and the thud of bodies hitting the deck plates sculpted in his mind a picture of the quick and furious battle being waged. They were coming closer, nearing his berth; the disruptor fire outlasting the countervailing photonic pistols, indicating that the attackers were winning.
Dr. Soong positioned himself in the center of the room, preparing for the inevitable. This could be it, he told himself, standing steady. The intruders could be anyone—but there was only one party which would come to save him, rather than kill him.
The doors hissed open, and Soong's jaw nearly dropped. It wasn't an Orion, or Nausicaan, or Klingon, or any one of the enemies he had accumulated over the years.
Instead, the first being to cross the threshold was a young human woman, no more than twenty years old. She held a Klingon disruptor rifle by her side, pointed away but ready for action; her hair was nearly raven-black, and pulled back in a ratty ponytail.
Could it be? Soong asked himself as the woman stepped in. It had been ten years, ten long years, since he had seen his children. He had heard nothing, nothing until recently, to indicate that they had even survived. But this? Was it possible that his children had grown into such young, vibrant adults?
"Pêrsîs." She spoke once, identifying herself for him, and the spell broke; Soong reached forward, grasping her in firm embrace, and the abashed woman broke into a huge smile, as if a young child greeting her father home after work.
"I can't believe it," Soong whispered as he held on, amazed by the strength and vitality of his daughter. "I can't believe it!"
"Father," she said carefully, seeking to restore some sense of mien. "The others are here too."
Soong nodded, somewhat dumbly, as he released her, taking a moment to wipe the tears from his eyes; but his attempt at gravitas gave way to emotion as he stepped outside. Ten of them were present, standing in a rough semi-circle in the hallway; they were healthy and animated, strong and alert, each one a unique and special individual.
"Câîm!" Soong exclaimed, then: "Pûrâh! Ruâx!" He went down the line, calling each of his children by name; the faces were so familiar now, though unseen for many years. "I knew we'd see each other again!"
"Father!" Maâlîk was the last in the row, and when his turn came, the young man eagerly embraced the doctor. "We have so much to tell you! But first—we need to leave."
"Yes, yes, of course." Soong couldn't avoid a tearful smile as he let his arms fall.
"Yes, Father." Maâlîk gestured down the corridor. "We have a ship waiting at the docking port."
"Very well, then." Soong didn't bother looking back at the room that had been his cell. "Lead on, my son."
…
Malcolm lay in wait at the T-intersection heading an E-deck corridor; Kossovskii and Montag were across from him. Geared up for close-quarters combat, all three men wielded handheld photonic pistols; the full-size rifles were far too bulky to be of much use in the narrow corridors.
Malcolm heard—it required no official report—the Augments coming his way, taking no care to quiet their escape as feet slammed against the deck plating and Klingon disruptors whined, slicing through bulkheads and ripping to conduits and machinery, leaving behind a trail of sabotage en route to the docking port. It was harsh, but necessary, to sacrifice the delicate innards of the Enterprise; with the speed of the Augments, Malcolm was unwilling to risk a head-on assault. Biding their time in a trap was the best option.
The heavy feet grew closer, moving faster than Malcolm expected; and fiving a short, furtive burst of hand signals, he instructed the two other members of his team to fall into waiting stance, and fire when a clear shot emerged. They would only have a few seconds from the moment when the first Augment appeared to the moment when the first Augment was upon them.
There. Malcolm's ears detected the lead Augment, approaching the opposing intersection of the corridor. Crouching down, he leaned around the corner, taking care to expose only his pistol and his eyes; the regular lighting behind him was shut off, giving Malcolm and his team the benefit of lower lighting to hide in. It was only a slim advantage—the Augments' eyes could no doubt see in dim light—but it was, hopefully, an advantage.
Malcolm's own eyes detected the flurry of a moving shadow. Bracing his pistol, he loosed the safety; and seeing the first movement of a human body, he fired, lighting the corridor up with red fire.
Across from him, Kossovskii and Montage opened fire as well, pouring a horizontal river of lightning down the corridor towards the approaching Augments. Constant, sweeping fire was their best bet; and Malcolm—
Malcolm slumped, unconscious, onto the deck plating. He had not even seen the Augment coming.
Kappa-2 Monoceros
The Borderlands
{Eleven years previously}
"Some claim humanity rose up against the Augments." Dr. Arik Soong, his hair not yet silver, spoke calmly and fluidly as he addressed the children. They sat around him, in a semi-circle, listening intently to the words of their father; only one seemed distracted, whispering to a neighbor, who not-so-eloquently told his companion to be quiet.
"Others say the Augments began fighting among themselves," Soong continued, pleased that Raâkîn was already learning to assert his natural authority. "The truth is that we don't know for certain. The historical records were lost during the Final World War." A war started by baseline humans, and not Augments—and with far deadlier results. Soong did not particularly approve of Khan Noonien Singh, but the doctor found it ironic that Noonien Singh was better-remembered than his bloodier baseline counterparts.
The glass ceiling of the classroom allowed the springtime glow of sunlight through, casting a gentle halo over the heads of the students. Their focus was rapt as Soong knelt down before them, bringing emphasis to his next point.
"When it was over," he went on, "people like you were feared. Baseline humans sought to exterminate your brothers and sisters, even those who were still unborn. They denied an entire racial group their right to exist. And for what? What harm had the unborn Augments ever done to baseline humans?"
One child raised his hand, waited for acknowledgment, and spoke. "We scared them?"
It wasn't the answer Soong was seeking, but he couldn't help smiling. "Yes, Câîm," the doctor replied patiently. "But more so, they resent you. Baseline humans have always sought to tear down the smartest and the strongest among them, and the Augments are no different. But it is good for them to fear you." Soong raised his voice slightly. "A strong leader may be loved, but he must be feared."
"Or she!" another child piped up.
It gave Soong a chuckle. "Yes, Pêrsîs," he replied. "Or she. But the humans on Earth would never allow you to be born, to grow, and to assume your rightful place—which is way I've brought you here. Even a lion, in its infancy, can be killed by a weaker animal; and so I brought you here for your safety, to give you your rightful chance to live and grow. And one day, you will return to take your place as the pinnacle of humanity. You are homo sapiens sapernus."
Along one side of the semi-circle, a boy—somewhat shorter than the rest, with stringy, blond hair—raised his hand. Soong nodded to the boy in acknowledgment. "Yes, Maâlîk?"
Maâlîk's face was bright and eager as he asked his question. "Are there others like us, Father?"
Soong nodded firmly. "There are many others, my son, but they are still asleep. Someday, it will be your duty to wake them and set them free."
Sector 010
"Archer to the bridge!" Archer barked out, slapping a comm panel with the palm of his hand as he staggered upright. "Report!"
"Mayweather here!" Travis shouted back, his voice loud but steady as it wove through the comm systems. "They've returned to the bird-of-prey. They're severing the docking umbilical!" Another voice could be heard in the background: "They cleared!"
Archer fell back to the deck as the Enteprise shook violently, inelegantly absorbing the blow of the bird-of-prey's disruptor cannons. Over the racket, he could barely make out the voices coming over the still-live comm channel.
"Starboard nacelle is down!" "They're going to warp!" "They're gone!"
…
Ten years—his incarceration, his separation from his children, had lasted ten long years. Ten years of not knowing where they were, how they were doing, or even if they were alive. Were they growing up strong? Had they gone feral? Were they running for their lives, or living in safety and relative comfort?
Ten long years of not knowing. Ten years of forced silence—he could not say anything to the Earth authorities; the UEP would happily chase after his children, but only for the sake of locking them up, hiding them away in the gray areas of legal nonexistence. No, revealing the location of their exile was not an option. He could only hope that those ten years of lessons, ended artificially early, had been sufficient to keep his children alive and united.
But this—Soong shook his head in wonderment as he stepped through the elongated neck of the Ba'Sugh, entering the bridge from the rear. Seizing an intact Klingon bird-of-prey was no small feat, no small accomplishment for anyone; it required speed and agility, hard strength, and cunning intelligence, all focused as one. His children were barely twenty Earth years old—if they had come to him in a dilapidated freighter, he could believe it. But not a bird-of-prey.
Of course, not all was perfect. Soong's own memory, more potent than most baseline humans, identified seventeen of his twenty children onboard the spacecraft. Tûrêl was gone on assignment, conducting espionage on Gamma Deuteron Ceti. But that left two, Raâkîn and Udär, unaccounted for.
Still, could baseline humans have accomplished a ninety percent survival rate under similar conditions? Not likely. A group of baseline humans would last, at most, a month; his children made it ten years, and then forged their own escape. It was, in a way, the proof that Soong had been looking for; hard proof that, if humans were to survive in space, then serious alterations had to be made to the species.
The cold. The heat. Radiation. Poisonous gases. No breathable air. Atmospheric pressures. Alien viruses and parasites. Unimagined carnivores. Inedible native foods. Belligerent alien races. Variations in gravity. And a hundred more problems.
Pacing slowly as he thought, Soong reached the front of the bridge, and now turned about to face the Augments. "There were times," he began, speaking quietly as he sought to suppress tears. "There were times back on Earth when I doubted myself, doubted my work." Standing before the ship's viewscreen, the doctor's face was framed by the Cherenkov effect, rendering the otherwise-invisible stars as passing rays of light.
"But seeing you all—it makes me so proud to be your Father. To see the young men and women that you've become. Everything I've worked for, my entire life, as come to life in you. Seeing you today…I know that everything has been worth it." His words were somewhat disjointed, as he struggled to piece together coherent thoughts.
"You are the future," Soong went on, gradually finding a stride. "You are the promise of humanity, the promise of a bold, new era. The new human race—the race that will survive—will be your progeny.
"But we can't begin that task just yet," Soong added. He looked at each of his children in turn. "Thousands of your brothers and sisters are still trapped in purgatory, waiting to be born." He took a deep breath.
"Let's go get them."