"Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone."

-Percy Bysshe Shelly. The Revolt of Islam

Chapter Five

Archer shuddered as he watched the dozens of people moving about in the cargo bay converted into a makeshift morgue, his medical personnel moving among the bodies laid out in neat, white-sheet covered rows on the floor like the ghosts of the slain. For what seemed like the hundredth time tonight, his eyes were drawn to the smaller white sheeted bodies on the floor, the tiny hands of children peeking out from under them. In time, they'd all be transferred to the freezer units being mounted by the engineering personnel working diligently along the walls.

It was all a gruesome reminder that Earth's merchantmen tended to be generational ships. The early freighter's low warp speeds tended to make bringing in new crewmembers something that happened only occasionally, when they managed to make it back to Earth or larger human colonies like Proxima or Deneva. Makati City had been the first step towards changing that. She had been one of those freighters refitted with the newest warp drive at Deneva, which had held out the promise of finally knitting Earth and her colonies and her allies closer together. A worthy goal.

Making space travel faster and more routine unfortunately doesn't make it any safer, Archer thought, resisting the urge to shudder, at much at the human distaste with being around so many dead bodies as the fact that the temperature in the room had been lowered to retard decay now that they were no longer being exposed to vacuum.

He heard the sound of metal footfalls clanging towards him down the catwalk and he turned to see Captain Hernandez walk up to him.

"I just heard from my first officer," Captain Hernandez said, the raven-haired fortyish woman said, arms crossed as she watched the macabre scene playing out below them. "We're beaming over the last dozen spaceborne bodies as we speak." She gave a pained sigh. "Including three more minors I'm sorry to say."

"That should account for all of them," Archer groused, tapping his fingers on the scaffold's handrail. "What are we up to, about eighty? And we can't even get them home yet. We still have to track down who murdered them and what they did with the weapons they stole."

"Both our science divisions are looking for any clue as to where they're going," Hernandez said, putting a hand on her friend and senior captain's shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

"T'Pol to Captain Archer," the dispassionate voice of Archer's vulcan first officer and science officer filtered into the room.

Archer walked over to the comm panel and activated it. "Go ahead."

"We may have found the warp trail of the perpetrator's ship," T'Pol reported. "Could you report to the bridge?"

Archer looked at Hernandez, her own surprise at the timing of this revelation mirrored on her face. "We're on our way."

A few minutes later, Archer and Hernandez stepped out of the turbolift into the brightly lit bridge and walked over to the situation table in a recessed area of the brightly lit bridge module, his senior staff was already assembled around the small, squat, digital display table, including, he noted, staring at the dour andorian thaan staring at the screen on the wall, the newest member of his crew. Yet there was something off. Where is T'Po-oh."

Commander T'Pol was there, looking down at the table and presumably refining an analysis, was not in the modified Vulcan Defense Force uniforms she'd continued to wear even after she was formally commissioned into Starfleet at the equivalent of her vulcan rank. Instead she had opted to wear the new regulation Starfleet uniform, with the Seal of United Earth on her right shoulder and Enterprise's mission patch on her left shoulder.

He smiled. He'd hoped she'd finally get comfortable enough to wear the same uniform everyone else wore someday. He had been giving her time to come to that on her own, but if she hadn't soon, he had been about to try to tactfully press her on it.

Hravishran th'Zoarhi, on the other hand, wore his Imperial Guard uniform, as he wasn't actually in Starfleet, and technically was his liaison to the Andorian Imperial Guard.

"Report," Archer said as they walked over to them.

"We've found the residual warp trail," T'Pol said. She tapped out a command, and a blinking blue line ran from roughly their location out to the edge of the system and beyond. "It appears to be headed out of the system. It's very faint, however. It's doubtful we'll be able to track it once we leave it."

"Then we're back where we started," Shran groused.

"Maybe not," Captain Hernandez cut in. "Let's think about it. How many star systems are within, say ten light-years of this system."

T'Pol entered a query and a list of star-systems appeared on the screen behind the situation table, organized by distance from their current location and showing spectral type.

"Twenty-three," T'Pol reported.

"How many have been surveyed?"

T'Pol queried the database. "We surveyed 61 Ursae Majoris four years ago," T'Pol said after a moment. Archer winced as he remembered his crew's first survey mission…and how it had gone sideways so quickly. "It has an M-class world but the region we landed in had flowering plants with a type of pollen that has…hallucinogenic effects on human and vulcan brain chemistry."

"Not one of our better missions," Tucker remarked dryly.

If you can call it that, considering that you took T'Pol hostage in a hallucinogen-infused rage," Archer thought.

"Nineteen of the other systems on this list have either no planets or no indications of life, complex or otherwise."

"Doesn't mean someone couldn't have established a base in those systems," Lieutenant Commander Reed pointed out.

"Yes, but why?" Lieutenant Sato responded. "The Orions wouldn't need our weapons." Reed had determined the weapons signature of the ship that had assaulted the Makati City within moments of Enterprise and Columbia's arrival on scene.

"Unless they've been hired to acquire weapons by a third party," Shran pointed out. "But the closest powers are Trill and Denobula, and they're not facing any sort of serious internal crisis."

"I think it's clear that we're looking for someone that none of the local powers have run into before," Hernandez said. "There are three G-type stars on that list, I say we go down them one by one, starting with the closest." She looked at the screen, and her lips curved upward in a pleasantly surprised smile. "Beta Canum Venaticorum. Otherwise known to Earth's astronomers as Chara."

"Multiple Vulcan and Andorian vessels passing by the system on their way to Denobula or Trill have reported indications of a planetary system and possibly a Minshara-class planet," T'Pol said. "Though no one has to my knowledge actually surveyed the system."

"Well, at least we have a destination," Archer said. "Let's finish up what we're doing and be on our way."

"What's our ETA at warp six for Chara?" Hernandez asked.

"T'pol's ran her hands over her panel, querying the computer. "At warp six approximately five days."

"Someone can do a lot of damage in five days," Tucker muttered.

"Hoshi," Archer said after a moment. "Contact Denobula. See if a Denobulan or allied vessel is available to rendezvous with us in Chara and take Makati City's crew home. Travis, set a course for the Chara system, we'll leave as soon as we're done here."

His crew left to carry out his orders, leaving him alone in the situation area on the bridge with Hernandez and Shran.

"What is it, Jonathan?" Erika asked.

Archer tapped his fingers against the edge of the display table. "There's something about this whole situation that's rubbed me the wrong way."

"The dead children we've been beaming up all day?" Shran asked pointedly.

"No," Archer began. Then stopped himself. "Well, yes, but that's only part of it. Why do this, at all? Hoshi's right, the Orions or the Nausicaans have comparable enough weapons to ours. If they really wanted to sell weapons to some local faction, they could just sell them their own."

"You think that they were hired to go after our weapons specifically," Hernandez said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Archer nodded. "Someone's playing a game out here. A game that's already killed over a hundred people that we know of and who knows how many more to get to this point."

"If that's true, whoever's screwing around here may want us to go to Chara," Hernandez pointed out.

"What choice do we have?" Shran retorted from her right. "We don't know enough about what's going on yet. No. If someone's playing a game with us, then we have no choice but to play their game by their rules. At least for now."

Aang sat in the royal airship's somewhat cramped dining quarters, staring out the large window at the rolling fields of the Earth Kingdom. They were in the Northern Hemisphere's autumn and the verdant green farmland below had gone brown as it had lay fallow. It still made a remarkable sight as seen from the air, which was why he and Kuzon had loved it so much when they were boys.

I wonder what happened to him, he thought. Probably served in their military when he was old enough. Did he survive to be discharged? Or did he die on some battlefield in the Earth Kingdom? Our world has seen enough of war.

He was interrupted in his musings by Zuko and Katara, who were carrying trays of spiced sea slug and cups of mulled tea. His two oldest friends plopped down in the seats on either side of him and started to eat. The smile on his face froze at seeing Katara even as a sinking feeling entered his gut.

"Have we crossed the Ba Sing Se defense perimeter?" Aang asked, desperately trying to avoid giving voice to what he was feeling.

"A few minutes ago," Zuko responded before shoving a bit of slug into his mouth.

Katara took a sip off her mug of tea. "It's going to feel weird heading back there," Katara said. "Almost as weird as it is not being First Counselor."

Katara and Zuko had finally implemented their long-awaited plan of easing her out of the position she'd held in Zuko's Government since Azula had been taken down. Replacing her was Iloji Sakaar. The First Lord of Admiralty and the civilian head of the Fire Navy. She was one of the relatively few members of Zuko and Katara's cabinet that had seemed to appreciate Katara's efforts on her nation's behalf and she also felt that the Fire Nation should be happy with what it had gained prior to the war starting and leave the rest of the world alone.

Zuko had almost not replaced Katara. There was a new threat, and every instinct in both of them warred against the notion of stepping down on the eve of a crisis. But First Lord, now First Counselor, Iloji was three and a half times Katara's age, and had served in both the Fire Navy and the Fire Navy's civilian support structure since she was eleven years old. When she had been Katara's age, she had been a junior officer on a destroyer, fighting in the last war. Not shepherding a civilian government in a position that she'd only assumed because no one else was available.

Which, despite her worries about the coming crisis, did actually suit his best friend just fine. She'd never felt truly happy chained to that desk.

"Everything will be fine back in the capital," Zuko said reassuringly. "Besides, Iloji was right about what she told you before we left."

"Hmm?" Aang asked

Katara put her hand to her face to hide the grin that broke out on her face. "She said, 'the best thing that a hard-charging young whippersnapper can do for both her nations right now is go out there and fight this new war. Let me keep everything going."

Aang smirked even as he marveled at the change that had come over his best friend. She was still a citizen of the Water Tribes, as the Northern Government had made clear, but she was also a Fire Nation noble due to being granted the Lordship over Ember Island, which made her legally one of Zuko's vassals, and by extension a Fire Nation citizen.

A more complete change from the young woman who had been passionately committed to the destruction of the Fire Nation and all it's works he'd met in South Pole what seemed a lifetime ago he could not imagine. It wasn't like she'd forgotten the Fire Nation's role in the world over the last century or the role it had played in the destruction of her both nation and her mother's death, but she'd learned that the people of the Fire Nation were just that, people, not a faceless mass of monsters determined to the last man and woman to destroy everything she loved.

She'd seen the hard core of the Fire Nation Aang had known growing up and wanted to see that Fire Nation make its way back from the ash heap Sozin's dynasty had condemned it to almost without meaning it during their quest to unify the planet by whatever means necessary. A Fire Nation that had had a proud military tradition but also had produced some of the most celebrated works of art and literature on the planet. That was the best way to ensure the safety of both her countries.

Now all we have to do is make sure a bunch of people who can't let go armed with weapons from beyond the stars don't kill it forever. Either by themselves or forcing the rest of the world to do it for them.

"So," Aang said, just a little too tightly, "are you excited to see your father again?"

"Of course," Katara said brightly abruptly averting her gaze to her left, away from Aang on her right and Zuko right across from her. "Though I wonder how he'll feel about-," she jostled her hand back and forth, "you know."

Katara had admitted to them that she was seeing Chan the same night he'd returned with the mysterious object they had taken from the Southern Air Temple. Aang had said with as much genuine sincerity he could muster that he was happy for her. And part of him was, he supposed. Not that that did much to keep this gnawing ache that out of his stomach.

"Do you think he'll mind his daughter dating one of my officers?"

"I won't deny it if he asks me," Katara responded after a few moments of chewing sea slug. "But I won't go out of his way to tell him. Besides, it's not like either me or Chan sees us as growing old together."

Aang let out an anxious breath before he could stop himself and stood up from his bench. "Excuse me," he said bowing, a touch too low, a touch too formally. "I didn't get much sleep last night and I want to be somewhat fresh when Iroh greets us in a few hours." That, at least, had the virtue of being mostly true. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, largely because he was thinking of Katara and Chan.

He was walking back towards his quarters, when he heard footsteps behind him. Big, heavy ones clunking on the metal floor.

"Aang," Zuko said quickly from behind him. "Aang stop."

Aang came to a halt and took a deep breath to keep the simmering anger in him under control. He rounded to face his older friend. "Yes, Zuko?"

The taller, older man jerked his head to the right beckoned him to follow him into his quarters.

"Can we talk? In private?"

Aang sighed again, fighting to keep the simmering anger under control, and gave a sharp nod and followed Zuko into his private room on the airship.

As soon as he finished closing the door on the spacious (for the space available on an airship cabin provided to the monarch) Zuko rounded on him, a look of both anger and pain on his face. "Aang, you need to stop."

"Why?" Aang bit back, his fists balling, fighting back tears. "Would you 'just stop' feeling upset if Mai was in Katara's shoes?"

"There's a difference, Aang," Zuko said, his arms crossed across his chest. "I was in a committed, exclusive relationship with Mai. You most emphatically are not."

"I know that!" Aang responded, half-shouting. "It's just…we kissed. Twice. And why shouldn't I feel jealous. The age difference between me and Katara is not that much greater than you and Mai. You're eighteen, she just turned sixteen last month."

Zuko sighed, his face softening with sympathy. "True. And if that were the only consideration that'd be one thing. But it's not."

"What other considerations are there?" Aang asked pointedly. She clearly feels something for me? What's stopping her?

"Katara has…blossomed to use the flowery language of court poets," Zuko said pointedly. "As has Mai. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you still look like a tall ten-year-old."

Aang flinched as though struck. The thought had run through his head more than once over the past six months. Katara wants someone who she'd feel comfortable warming her bed at night. Right now, that's not me.

"But sometimes that happens," Zuko said, clearly trying to sound conciliatory. "I've seen male passed midshipmen at fourteen and fifteen with strapping physiques and full beards, and others who were still skinny as reeds and squeaked like kids. They were still accorded the respect due to them by their juniors, but not even the girls in their cohort paid much attention to them in matters of the heart until they actually did grow into their own feet. No young woman who doesn't have…issues to rival Azula's is going to want to have a passionate tryst with someone who still looks like a kid, even if intellectually they know they're technically old enough."

Aang gave an uncomfortable, shaky breath. "You know," he said, the back of his neck burning. "There's nothing that says we have to go that far together after only a few days you know." I knew I was right, he thought. Katara was going to want someone she could take to bed if she wanted, and that wasn't him.

"Yes," Zuko said gently. "But if Katara was truly willing to put off exploring that aspect of her sexuality until however long it takes for you to grow into your own feet don't you think she would have said so by now? Maybe you're right, maybe she will be willing to look past your physical development, but you have no real right to expect her too. Do you?"

Aang sighed, blinking as he fought to avoid crying. What Zuko said had been whispered in his own mind more than once over the past year. "No," he said, ashamed at the tremble in his voice. "No, I don't."

"And even when you do grow into your own feet," Zuko continued gently, with the air of someone doing something distasteful he knew had to be done, "There's no guarantee that either of you will still want the other. I happen to think that you two will end up together someday. I don't think today is that day. Do you understand me?"

Aang nodded, tears falling openly. "I have been acting like she was 'supposed' to be my girlfriend, haven't I?" I'm an idiot. A big idiot. I can save the world from Ozai but I can't even figure out why Katara was so awkward. I was so sure it was just she was afraid of admitting her feelings.

"You, her and Sokka were meant to meet that day in the ice of the South," Zuko said. "It doesn't mean that she was destined to marry you one day. Fated meetings are for children's stories, it gets a little murkier in the real world. History will determine if you and Katara are destined to be together…and history hasn't rendered it's decision yet."

Zuko walked back down the corridor to the mess hall, his stomach roiling in shame and self-disgust as he tried hard to blink tears out of his eyes. He had hated himself every second he was dressing down Aang, And there is no other term for it, is there Zuko, he thought. But it was a lesson Aang needed to face. Your first love always breaks your heart.

Aang was in his room, where he was quite certain he was sobbing as he finally did the painful thing and let his heart break. That alone made him want to go sit in his room with one or two bottles of rice wine. But they were arriving in Ba Sing Se in a few hours, and the Fire Nation's sovereign could not afford to get off the ship in what was still technically the enemy capital falling down drunk.

He strode into the mess hall to see Katara standing in the doorway, arms crossed across her chest and blue eyes like frozen daggers of ice as she glared at him.

"You mind telling me what that was?" Katara bit out, as she closed the distance in quick angry strides, giving him a challenging look. "My relationships are none of your business, Zuko!"

"Not when it affects my ability to do my job," Zuko grated, not wanting to get into this with Katara of all people right now. "I know you Katara, you would have wanted to try to spare Aang's feelings, and we both know that wouldn't have worked here. You would have either waited, hoping for a more appropriate time, while Aang stewed in his own hurt and this irrational feeling that you're somehow mocking his pain by carrying on with Chan. Or your attempt to reason with Aang would have spiraled into an argument because of his crush on you. Either way, he might have run away on us, again. At least he listened to me this time."

Katara let out a deep breath and dropped her arms to her sides, clearly conceding the point. "You know," she said after a moment, still giving him a moderately reproving look, "the first time Aang ran off, it saved him from being killed outright a hundred years ago. The second time he discovered a powerful new energybending technique. Who knows, maybe if he runs away now, he'll find some new power to blow up stuff across interstellar distances."

"And thus, our world is saved," Zuko said dryly. "Though seriously, we got damn lucky the first two times. Sooner or later, his luck, and ours, is going to run out. So, it's better that Aang sobs his broken heart out on his pillow now, as much as I hate doing it to him. And on that note," Zuko said, eager to change the subject, however slightly, "how are things between you and Chan?"

Katara's face flushed, and she looked away from him, suddenly very interested in picking out every little detail of Aang's salad, still on the table. "He's not as arrogant as I was concerned about from your previous interactions with him," she half-muttered after a moment.

"Having the Fire Nation Crown Prince ransack your house would do much to deflate anyone's head, even if I shouldn't have done it," Zuko found himself agreeing. "When I was told that Lieutenant Chan had been given to this assignment, I almost countermanded it personally."

Katara looked back at him "Why didn't you?"

"Because ever since he's been commissioned his record's been spotless," Zuko said pointedly. "For the supreme commander of the Fire Nation armed forces to take him off an assignment would be seen as reassignment for cause to anyone who looked at his record. If that happens, he can pretty much kiss the rest of his career goodbye. It's not my place to judge him for his record before he signed up. His dad took care of that already, anyway. I could have denied him a commission, but I chose to accept giving him a chance."

"Good," Katara said, a wan, tired smile on her face. "That's good. He deserves it."

Still though. You pretty much went and whispered in Chan's ear to "drop by your room at the end of your shift" the moment you left the room. "I know I told Aang that he had no business expecting you to wait for him," Zuko said aloud, "though I'm a little surprised you actually took my advice in the way that you did."

Katara smirked teasingly. "It's not like I'm a prude. Or did you forget the fact that I had sex with you right before we went off to Crater City."

"Neither of us was sure we were going to live to see the next day," Zuko said. You wanted to see what it was like, and I never thought I'd see Mai again and you are one of the most beautiful women I've ever met," he muttered, face heating as he flashed back to that…intense night under the stars. "But that doesn't explain why you're doing it now."

Katara sighed, looking out the window. "I have spent my entire life fighting the good fight. I worked hard day and night to keep my people alive when Hakoda took virtually the entire military age population of the Southern Tribe that weren't mothers with small children off to fight the Fire Nation. I healed and fought my way across this entire kingdom and the Fire Nation. I have put everyone before myself. I told Sokka once that I would never turn my back on anyone who needs me, and I won't. But I have my own wants and desires, Zuko, and you were right that I don't do enough satisfy them. Now that doesn't mean, I'm going to go out tomorrow and become some self-absorbed drunken hedonist, and I sure as shit won't let anything interfere with my duties. But that doesn't mean I should have to go to bed alone. We're friends and he's…good with his hands. That should be enough for now."

"It is enough, Katara," Zuko said. "It is," He walked up and stood at her right shoulder, staring out at the sea of brown and green below.

"This doesn't leave this room," Zuko began, "but I would like to hear one of your speeches about hope right now."

Katara sighed. "I'm going to find every copy of that play and burn it. Assuming our new friends don't get there first."

"Katara," Zuko growled.

Katara looked at him, pain in her eyes. Then she sighed. "I told my brother once that I believe Aang can save the world. I meant it then and I mean it now."

"I just wish I knew how."

Captain's Starlog, supplemental:

After five days at high warp we've arrived in the Chara system. I just hope this lead pans out. It's unlikely we're going to hit pay dirt straight out of the dock, but I can hope. Something about this situation…the more I think about it, the more like it feels like we're being set up. If this system is inhabited, what are we going to find? Fellow victims? Whoever's behind all this? Innocent bystanders? Some combination of the three? That's assuming that there's anything here, and it isn't just a waste of time.

"Well?" Captain Archer asked, sitting in his command chair, looking at the yellow-white ball of Chara's G0V primary filled the viewscreen. Both he and Captain Hernandez had ordered their ships to conduct long-range scans of the entire system as soon they dropped out of warp at the system's edge.

"I'm not picking up any signs of artificial electromagnetic signatures anywhere in the system, Captain," T'Pol said.

"All subspace and sublight communication frequencies are clear except to the open channel to Columbia, sir," Hoshi said from communications. "At the moment we're the only ones out here talking."

"We're not reading any warp signatures out here," Hernandez said over the open channel, her voice filling the bridge. If someone has been here recently their warp trail's decayed by now.

"Sir," the Kerala-accented voice of Lieutenant Commander Asha Naidu, Columbia's science officer, filled the room. "I'm picking up some odd subspace oscillations…out somewhere in the system's ice zone."

"What sort of oscillations," the Manila-accented voice of Commander Lisa Reyes, Columbia's first officer responded. Archer nodded at T'Pol who began a new series of subspace scans.

"Hard to tell at this range, sir," Naidu responded. "We'd have to get closer."

T'Pol's console beeped. She tapped it out and nodded.

"Erika, we're reading those oscillations as well," Archer responded.

"I'd like to investigate, sir," Hernandez said.

"Okay," Archer said. "You'll investigate the readings while we take a look at the M-class planet in the system."

"Will do," Hernandez said. "Let me know if there are any good vacation spots once this mission is over, will you?"

"A good beach sounds great right about now," Archer bantered back. "Stay safe."

"You too, Hernandez out."

The channel cut off with a click. "Channel closed," Hoshi reported formally.

He looked at his dark-skinned conn officer, who was turned around in his seat, looking to him for orders. "Travis?"

Travis Mayweather immediately began tapping out commands on his console. "Setting course, now, Captain. ETA sixty minutes."

It's certainly a beautiful planet, Archer thought as the blue-white sphere got larger in his viewscreen.

"T'Pol?" Archer asked.

T'Pol turned and looked through her holographic viewer set into the console behind her. "I'm reading one large supercontinent straddling the three out of the planet's five latitudinal zones, one large continent at each pole, and a series of islands stretching down the Northern Frigid, temperate, and Torrid zones.

"Lifesigns?"

"Standby-," T'Pol began, but she never finished the sentence as multiple proximity alarms began sounding on every console at once.

"Captain!" Reed shouted from tactical. "A ship just dropped out of warp. Headed directly for the planet!"

"What ship," Archer demanded.

T'Pol was back at her main console, "I'm reading a Klingon warp signature, consistent with a civilian freighter."

"You won't be reading it for long," Reed responded. "I'm reading fluctuations in their power grid, internal explosions." An even more insistent alarm peeled from their stations. "And their warp core is losing containment."

"On screen," Archer said. T'Pol switched the viewscreen over to seeing a dark-green/gray bulky ship with the bulbous look of a Klingon tramp freighter, trailing warp plasma. Explosions rippled along both side of the hull as Klingon escape pods began tearing away from the ship like seeds blowing away from a dandelion.

"Hail the Klingons-," Archer began, a few moments later.

"It's too late," Reed said softly, eyes widened in shock.

The ship on the screen disappeared in a flash of blinding white light.

"Oh, my God," Hoshi said, transfixed by the explosion on the screen. "Oh, my God."

"I'm reading metal fragments and probable escape pods entering the atmosphere," T'Pol said. "Most of them appeared to be centered in the northeastern quarter of the main continent." Her console beeped. She tapped out queries into her console, confusion clear even on her own Vulcan face. "This can't be correct."

"What?"

"I'm reading human biosigns," she responded after another moment of querying her console. "All over the planet. The largest population density apparently is in the northeast corner of the main continent."

"Right where the wreckage is raining down," Travis said leadenly as he stared at the humanitarian disaster suddenly unfolding right before their eyes.