"Still ending, and beginning still,"

-William Cowper (November 26, 1731-April 25, 1800), English poet and hymnodist. The Task

Chapter Ten

Chara began to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in hues of red and gold, as Archer stood in the middle of the base. He watched as Starfleet engineering and medical personnel moved through the rubble and half-destroyed buildings surrounding him. A triage area was filled with wounded on the airship landing field, with the worst cases transferred up to Enterprise and the newly arrived Columbia for treatment.

"John?"

He turned around to see Captain Hernandez walk up to him, a crestfallen look on her face as she watched the human and structural wreckage around them. "My trauma teams have received the first casualties from the surface," she said without preamble. "I'm sorry. I could have sent a few shuttles with medical personnel before I went through the corridor, taken some of the load off your people."

Archer shook his head. He understood the pain she was feeling, but she had made the right call. "You couldn't have known for sure where that corridor was going to take you, Erika. Or how damaged your ship was going to be on the other side. Holding on to them was the right call, and we both know it."

Erika took a deep breath. "I know. It's just, this is a lot to take in at once. I haven't seen anything this bad since the aftermath of the Xindi attack."

"I can imagine," Archer said softly. Ghosts of the anger, pain, and sadness that had struck him in those moments when Admiral Forrest had contacted him about the attack flitting through him. The attack the Spherebuilders manipulated the Xindi into launching against Earth killed seven million people, from Florida to Venezuela, in a manner horribly reminiscent of a disturbed child killing ants with a magnifying glass. The scale of that devastation had dwarfed even Ba Sing Se. But by the time he and his crew had finally returned to Earth, the initial flurry of evacuations and rescue and recovery operations had ended. Leaving just…emptiness. The ruins of cities where people had dropped everything when they were evacuated. And a gouge, down to bedrock, across multiple countries, where seven million lives had been burned away in an instant.

"Captain Archer? Captain Hernandez?"

She turned to look at Ty Lee. Like Archer, the young local officer was a mirror of most of his people right now. Her previously tied up hair had come undone at some point, and her green uniform was stained almost soot gray. One of his people had given her a respirator mask at some point, one that hung loosely down her neck.

"Yes, Ty?"

"Firelord Zuko requests a moment of your time, sirs," the young officer who's army rank equated to a senior-grade lieutenant said politely

"Of course," Archer said, nodding.

Ty nodded. "If you'll follow me, please, sirs?"

Archer and Hernandez looked at each other as they followed the young woman his medics had resued into the base's ruined administration building. Through the very hole, in fact, that General Iroh and the various ambassadors and White Lotus members had emerged from last night.

The building had seen better days, there was no doubt about that. But the concrete dust had settled out of the air, and the rubble had been cleared away. The need to have a central place to coordinate rescue operations had forced them to push the rooms that were accessible back into service.

Major Lee led them into the conference room where they saw Zuko and Katara standing there. Both of them, it seemed, had not gotten any sleep since last night. They both had bags under their eyes (or eye, in Zuko's case, considering his left eye had a scar around it.), and the whites of their eyes were shot red with blood. Their brightly covered clothes were also now gray and brown with dirt and soot.

"Have you two gotten any sleep?"

Zuko nodded wearily. "Not enough, but some. Just enough to keep me from keeling over as I'm digging in rubble."

"I sat on them a few hours ago and insisted they take a nap, sir," Major Lee said from behind them where she was standing, at parade rest, next to the door.

"Yes, she did," Katara cut in for the first time. "But now that operations here appear to be well in hand, we need to go back to the larger issues. Have your relief workers and combat personnel begun disembarking in Ba Sing Se?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Captain Hernandez said. "General Singh has asked me to convey to you and King Kuei his respects, and that he looks forward to meeting with both you and your opposite number at your earliest convenience."

Zuko nodded. "And we will, of course, take him up on that. But that's bureaucratic details right now. With this situation well in hand, there are larger issues to deal with. We know virtually nothing about your systems of government or your world. Or the basis of your claims to be from humanity's original homeworld. And we need to seriously meet and plan for how we're going to deal with the larger issue here. We can't move forward at all beyond the immediate short-term crises here and in the city without knowing that. If I'm any judge of character, I believe you're sincere in trying to help us, but you are soldiers, and soldiers follow orders, and we need to know what kind of government gives you those orders if we're ever going to really trust each other."

Archer sighed. He was right, of course. They didn't actually know all that much about each other.

"Then let us answer your questions," Archer said, "We can't answer everything all at once. But I can answer at least part of your questions. But as soon as we're done here. I have a responsibility to the survivors of the base attack, Ba Sing Se, and my own crew. General Singh informs me that he'll be in place by the end of the day, and I can start the process of withdrawing my own crew. Which I can have done by tomorrow morning."

The young man stared back at him levelly, clearly trying to take the measure of him. He understood why. They had just met, but for the sake of the people he was supposed to be leading, he had no choice but to trust this man who had literally dropped in on him from the stars.

"Agreed," Zuko said, nodding, after a moment. "We meet in one day."

Sokka sat on the steps to the Ba Sing Se University campus, looking up at the clear blue sky. The storm clouds that had graced the area had disappeared entirely in the last few hours. At least the weather's improved, he thought sullenly, if nothing else has. He looked behind him, at the cracked façade of Ba Sing Se University's main administrative building. It had been turned, along with every building on the school grounds that wasn't too heavily damaged, into a makeshift hospital. A good chunk of them treating the students and their families that lived and worked in the area around it, with more coming in from surrounding districts every hour.

While the off-campus buildings surrounding them had been by and large on the edge of the blast wave, the heat and light had traveled even here. A good chunk of the people being treated here had light to moderate burns and flash blindness from happening to look in the wrong direction when the Flash started.

More than that, though, the University was below the flight path the small craft operated by this "Starfleet" were using. Even now, she could see a shuttlepod headed towards the areas Earth controls in the city. Sokka peered forward, Katara, and, to his surprise, Mai seemed to believe their intentions, at least in the short-term, were honorable. That they really were trying to help. He just wished they'd spread it around more.

Be fair, he thought, no one thought something like this was going to happen. Right now, everyone's resources are stretched to the breaking point. Why should theirs be any different? He looked up at the ship, his curiosity getting the better of him. But while I'm here. He pulled out his spyglass, extended it, and put it to his right eye.

The shuttle was roughly the shape of a big, bulky triangle, and he didn't want to think about its aerodynamics. The first couple times he'd observed one of them, he had been perplexed about how it was staying up there without some sort of lighter-than-air gas in a clearly identifiable bag. There's only three ways to do it. Either a lighter-then-air ship to allow the ship to float, or putting enough thrust behind an object to counteract gravity, like a rocket. Or whatever Appa does. My guess is the second one. Then he noticed the blue glow out the back on the ungainly thing. Which probably explains that.

"Dragon for your thoughts?" A sharp-edged voice said from behind him.

She turned to see Mai standing behind him. She was wearing her usual fare: high-necked brown, russet, and white robes.

"I was just looking at one of their ships coming down," Sokka said. "How's Aang doing?"

"He's doing what he can," Mai said softly, "he has some healing training, mostly from Katara. But Aang is no more a fully trained healer than Katara is…and even waterbending healing is mostly a stopgap."

"I know," Sokka nodded glumly. "It can increase the rate of healing cuts, reset broken bones, but there's not a whole lot it can do against most internal injuries. It's why Jet died, and why she needed a vial of spirit water to keep Aang from dying in the Avatar state and breaking it forever. I just wish we knew if the others were okay."

A courier had come in from Ten-Mile-West around sunrise, bearing news that the Lightning Swords had attacked the base. They had inflicted heavy casualties before the shock of the newcomer's ship, the Enterprise, bearing down on them had caused them to retreat. Zuko and Katara were staying to help rescue survivors.

"They're okay," Mai said, "nothing in the message packet had any of the codes to indicate they were under any sort of duress."

Sokka nodded. He knew that he'd read the same message himself. "I know, but she's still my sister, and Zuko's your boyfriend, we have to be worried about them."

Mai sighed. "Zuko and I…are taking a break."

The non sequitur had Sokka rounding on Mai in shock. Given everything they went through to get this far, the sacrifices she'd made for Zuko, the notion that she and Zuko would do anything other than get married was ridiculous. In fact, he'd been surprised they didn't marry six months ago.

"Why?" Sokka asked. "And why didn't Zuko tell me?"

"It was a recent decision," Mai said, looking down at the cracked dirt road. "One we didn't make until last night. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but things have not been going the way either of us planned. He's always tired, I can count on one hand the number of times we've touched each other in the last month, and to put it bluntly, we've both spent more time talking to Katara and you than each other. Which is why, right before he left to meet with Archer directly, he took me aside, and we decided that we were going to take a step back. From each other."

"But given everything going on, don't you guys need each other more than ever?"

Mai sighed, and the prettily sharp young woman nodded. "You and Aang still aren't quite getting it, are you? You're looking at this through the lens of standard Avatar weirdness involving spirits and overly-ambitious warlords. Someone onanother world, and note, I do not believe it to be the people we've been dealing with the last few days, stole a shipment of weapons, and handed it to our dissidents. And no one saw it coming until they were literally shooting at us in the middle of our palace. A weapon that can do everything from incapacitating a human to burning one to a crisp to blowing holes in a wall. One that no one would have believed possible until it actually happened."

"Hey," Sokka growled, "I held that weapon. We test-fired it. I know what those weapons are capable of."

"Yes, but you're acting like once this is over, we can return to life as we knew it, with even the random events that define life at least being ones we have context for. We were still acting like this was just a bump in the road when the truth is our fundamental understanding of the universe is changing before our eyes. We were handed dramatic proof that we are not alone!" She held up a hand. "And I'm not talking about the Spirit World, we've always known that the spirits we worship exist. But the fact that there are other organic beings on worlds other than our own? That the mathematical and physical models to allow for travel to other stars not only exist but have been translated into practical technologies? That weapons like that can exist? That one rifle we all held in our hands was proof of all of it. Aang saved our world, as an Avatar should, but he didn't change it. That rifle did. And just to drive the point home that the rules under which we were all living under before no longer apply, one of those spacefaring vessels fucking blew up in orbit. The debris turned this city into a smoking cinder. So no, it makes no sense that we would try to save a relationship that was entering a rough patch anyway in large part because of the ground shifting under our feet. Not at least until this new world finishes taking shape.

For a long moment, the two of them stood in the stone courtyard, blue eyes meeting light brown. She's right, he thought, maybe I have been trying to pretend this is just another job for Team Avatar. But the world is changing, and I must change with it. We all must.

Huh, he thought, I never noticed her eyes were that shade of brown before. He shook his head. You know you're with Suki, right? But he hadn't seen Suki in weeks. Even before that, however, every so often, he had imagined running kisses down that slender neck of hers. He'd dismissed it at the time as the harmless fantasizing most people did (not that he'd tell Zuko). Now he wasn't so sure.

Mai started, a flush appearing on her face, and she abruptly tore herself away from him and looked away.

A rumbling sound abruptly filled the air, causing shocked mutterings to appear from the people milling about in the street. He looked to see what was unmistakably one of the shuttles he'd been viewing from a distance overflying the crowd. He could see now that it had wings, short stubby wings, but wings nonetheless. The crowd, it seemed, had grown used to the shuttles flying over. Or perhaps it was something so beyond their experience that they didn't know whether to flee or, for any Earthbenders in the crowd, to try to attack.

Nonetheless, the shuttle landed, a metal door swung out in a whir of hydraulics…and Katara stepped out. There were bags under her eyes, her hair was a mess, and her clothes were almost gray with dust, but it was her, nonetheless.

"Katara!" He said, relieved beyond words. "Are you all right?"

His younger sister nodded wearily. "Yeah," she said, her voice rough with exhaustion, "I'm all right. So is Zuko. We've reached an agreement for you and Aang to meet with them tomorrow. He offered to give me a ride back to the city to discuss it, and they were able to track the communicator we left with Mai here."

"Aang needed something to do," Mai offered helpfully. "So, he was trying to use what healing ability he had to help."

"His abilities are even less than mine," Katara muttered. "Let's leave the healers here to their work and get back to the Palace. We need to meet with Kuei. We have a lot to discuss."

The sun rose in the courtyard, casting long dark shadows across the grey stone as Aang and Sokka stood in the lonely courtyard, his hand around his glider staff. Momo stood on his shoulder, chittering away as he ate a piece of fruit. He resisted the urge to tap his feet, and he could see the mixture of apprehension and excitement he was feeling mirrored in his friends' eyes. For the past two days, Zuko and Katara had been meeting with the people from beyond the stars, now it was his turn.

"You all right, Twinkletoes?" A familiar, bright voice said. He turned to see Toph standing behind, yawning. He smiled. The newcomers had used their technology to beam Zuko to collect her, Suki, and Suki's first officer using the same technology to bring them back with him. Good, he wanted his friends by his side right now. All of them.

The summit he had been working towards for months was back on. There were just going to be a few new guests, and the agenda was now going to be entirely different.

"I'm fine," he said, "just excited. What do you think of everything that's going on?"

"You know, I wouldn't have believed you if Zuko hadn't just…appeared right in front of Suki and me with this weird sound. That and the fact that the three of us traveled from Suki's office in Crater City to here in an instant in less time then it's taken to describe it to you."

"That…is impressive," Sokka said, eyes wide, "I mean, I saw you three arrive, but having it described is still kinda cool. I want to try it."

"I'm pretty sure you'll get your chance," Ty remarked softly. The two of them turned to see Ty Lee, Mychikio, Suki, Katara, and Zuko walking forward to join them. The three Kyoshi Warriors were in their dress uniforms: in the green armored uniforms and white and red facepaint of their regiment. Their swords and fans hung at their sides as though they were part of them. She gestured with her head. "Look."

Aang turned to see three of the vaguely triangular, stubby winged small craft they used to ferry people and supplies between their orbiting ships and the surface. Rumbling through the air, the three craft landed as smoothly as any landing he and Appa had made over the years. The doors on the shuttles began to open in a whir of hydraulics and out stepped an older man with fair skin, sandy brown hair, and light brown eyes.

"To those who haven't been introduced," Katara announced formally, gratitude for saving the life of her and Sokka's father, and Iroh, warming her voice. "Allow me to introduce Captain Jonathan Beckett Archer of the United Earth Starfleet vessel Enterprise. Captain Archer, allow me to introduce my brother Sokka, Colonel Suki, commander of the Kyoshi Warriors, Toph, Lady Beifong, and Avatar Aang."

Aang somehow managed to bow formally, despite being distracted by his uniform. It was a blue-and-gold jacket with blue trousers and a high-necked white undershirt. Where have I seen-?

This is beautiful, Aang thought as he sat at the gold-framed glass table in the center of the room. The chair he was sitting in was small and upholstered in red with white filigree designs running down the seat and back. In fact, he noted, red and white seemed to be the two primary colors in the room. The walls and the floor were covered in gold-fringed white marble. The square the table was sitting on was laced in tiles in red and blue colored marble, and the windows had thick and heavy red drapes. He looked at the document bound in blue leather sitting on the table in front of him. The charter he had helped to craft, and one he was to sign in a few hours on behalf of his entire world. The massive white double doors in the left-hand corner of the room pushed open with a small thud, and he heard a familiar warm voice fill the room. "Aang?"

Aang looked up to see Katara standing in the center of the room. She looked as ever, beautiful. Her long, freshly brushed black hair flowed down to the shoulders of a command officer's dress uniform's jacket, flowing over the pips of her rank over her right shoulder.

"Katara?" She said quickly, casting about for a clock to tell him the time. "Is it time for the ceremony already?"

"In a few minutes, Aang," she said, smiling at him. For a moment, the combat veteran transformed back into the idealistic beautiful young woman he'd met in the Southern ice a lifetime ago. "I just wanted to see how you were holding up?"
Aang sighed. "I'm good. After everything that's happened in the last few years, I'm just amazed we're finally here. That we're finally doing this." Aang smirked. "You know, I originally had this idea of solving the disputes between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom over the colonies by proposing that they become their own state. One that would combine the best influences of both nations. Then that terrible night in Ba Sing Se opened the door to this. A new union encompassing not just our four nations, but four entire species. With room for more."

"Ty was the first to see where we needed to go," Katara reminded him.

"But not even she knew just how it would turn out. She still doesn't, and neither do I."

"I'm just amazed you're both still alive to see it. There were points in the last couple wars, the one against Ozai and the one we just got done ending, that I didn't think any of us were going to make it out alive. We very nearly didn't."

Aang sighed, that scar in his back from where Azula had shot him tingling. "No, we didn't. And this is why we're doing this. The peoples of this region, both on our world, and the others waiting to sign this charter, are far more alike than they are different. We all at least aspire to the idea that everyone in our societies has value. That they deserve a say in how their lives are run. But if people like Ozai, Azula, and John Frederick Paxton have taught us anything, it's that those values need to be stood up for if they're going to survive. Once, the Avatar Cycle was the only guarantor that someone would always stand up for them, at least on our world. Now there's this. What we are about to create here will serve notice to those among us who would go the way of Ozai and Azula that we're not going to just lie down and let them destroy who we are as a people. It will serve notice to those like them from outside our borders who think our commitment to those ideals makes us weak that we are, in fact, strong. And maybe, just maybe, it will convince those from outside our borders to think twice about inflicting those miseries on anyone else."

"I hope so, Aang," She said, with the fervency of someone who'd spent the last half-decade at war. "I hope so."

Aang smiled. Then that same silly little quibble popped back into his head. "I still say we should call it the United Republic of Worlds."

The waterbending master and Starfleet officer flashed one of her beautiful, winsome smiles at him. "Personally I like the 'United Federation of Planets' better. Has a nicer ring to it."

With a flash of white light in front of his vision, he returned to the present.

Aang shook himself. "On behalf of the Four Nations," he managed to say with as much formality as he could muster, "I welcome you formally to this city and our world."

The high-domed meeting chamber in the Ba Sing Se Palace had no formal name. In fact, it hadn't been used in over a hundred years. The last meeting to be held there had, in fact, been a conference called by the then Earth King; to gather his vassal monarchs together to decide how to respond to Sozin annexing the largely autonomous freeports facing the Mo Ce Sea. The decision ultimately had been to lodge protests, but not to take any military action until and unless the Avatar took action. Roku died, the Air Nomads were destroyed, and they had no choice but to go to war.

Now though, Katara was staring at two dozen heavy wooden tables all arranged in a semicircle facing a larger version of the computer screens used on Starfleet ships. The high stone walls echoed with the delegates conversing among themselves. The Earth King, the Chiefs of the United Water Tribes, and every Earth Kingdom vassal monarch or their First Counselors and equivalents, as well as their legal and military advisors, roughly one hundred and twenty people, were all gathered in one place for the first time in over a hundred years. Plus, a few attendees from other worlds entirely.

Jonathan Archer, Erika Hernandez, and their senior officers sat a table at the far right of the hemicycle, and her eyes were drawn to the two nonhumans in the group. T'Pol, was a tawnyish skinned woman with short straight brown hair…and ears that came to pointed tips with a slight greenish tint to her skin. Yet she could pass for human at a distance, a habitually expressionless and dour human, but a human nonetheless. It was her colleague that really drew attention. He had blue skin, ice-white hair, antennae. Unlike the others, however, he wore an entirely different uniform. In fact, he was technically a liaison officer, and his government, the Andorian Empire, had explicitly tasked him with representing his government's interests at this conference. T'Pol, she gathered, was much like her, someone who's life had led her outside her home nation to take service with another.

Given that she was an officer in Earth's Starfleet, someone else had also been sent to represent her home nation at this conference. Sitting at the table was a robed vulcan man, with the same close-cropped hair as T'Pol, albeit graying. An intricate design spread down his uniform. His name was Soval, the vulcan's ambassador to Earth. If T'Pol resented him, she gave no sign. In fact, she had trouble parsing his emotions too. His body language would change, but not nearly to the extent she would expect of a human.

The door to the room and Aang stepped into the room. The smaller boy took a deep breath, a pained look on his face. Katara reached out and put a warm hand on her best friend's shoulder. "You can do this, Aang."

Aang looked at her, and a tired, pained smile appeared on his face even as he gripped her wrist. "Thank you, Katara."

She felt someone walk up to her and turned to see Chan. He was standing there in full dress uniform, a black double-breasted tunic with a red collar and shoulders, and black trousers with red up the inseam. "How are you holding up?" She asked softly.

"As well as can be expected," he said softly, "considering that our entire world just changed in the course of a few days. Though I have been worried sick about you the last few days. I didn't spend the last six months keeping someone from slipping a knife in your back to lose you now."

Katara smiled, suddenly overcome with emotion as she blinked back tears. The world was far more uncertain then it was only a few weeks ago. The world had changed so completely, and everyone was still trying to process what that meant for them, both as a people and as individuals. That one attack had thrown forever everything she'd planned out of whack. And only exacerbated the uncertainty about how she felt, how she really felt, about a certain Avatar. But she knew her friends had her back, however complicated her relationships were with a couple of them. And if that wasn't enough to begin to rebuild a foundation, then she didn't know what was.

"No one knows when it's over, Chan. I could die in an entirely random accident tomorrow, or by the end of today, or in five minutes, or I could outlive you. But I'm not going anywhere."

A gong abruptly sounded. "Go back to your post," Katara muttered as she moved to catch up with Aang.

"Good morning," Aang said, as she stood there facing the sixty men and women gathered in this room. "We had all come here to discuss formally ending the war that has raged across this planet for a hundred years. But that's changed now. Our world has changed, our lives have changed forever, even if we're still working out the details. To help illuminate this, I would like to turn this over to someone far better at giving speeches then I am." He gestured at her. "Please welcome my best friend, the daughter of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and former First Counselor of the Fire Nation, Lord Katara of Ember Island."

Katara nodded and stepped forward. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A few weeks ago…"

Forty-five minutes later, she turned to face Archer and Hernandez. The two of them stood up and nodded towards her. "And I would like to thank Captains Jonathan Archer and Erika Hernandez, who led the first ships from his world to ours, for the tireless efforts of them and their officers and crews. Through their efforts, thousands of people, Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike, were saved. But as events have made clear, we have a common enemy. An enemy that has killed hundreds of Archer's people, that tried to kill us and may very well have been the ones to devastate this city. We don't yet know who this enemy is, but we will never get to the bottom of this without their help. Because such a long-term commitment requires mutual trust and understanding, I will turn this meeting over to Captain Jonathan Archer. He will tell us more about his world and help us to understand this new interstellar stage we've been thrust onto totally unexpectedly." Katara bowed to Captain Archer, who bowed back, stepping into her spot even as she made her way back to Zuko.

"Do you have a whole file of speeches you've prewritten you just haven't told me about?" Zuko muttered.

Katara punched her best friend in the arm. "Shut up," she said playfully.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Archer said, "There's no point introducing myself again, so let's get right down to it, shall we?" He pulled out a padd and pressed a button, revealing what was clearly a detailed map, yet revealing landmasses and continents that she'd never seen before. "This is Earth, my homeworld and the origin world of humanity. As of the last census, its total population is nine billion. A number that would be higher if it weren't for the continuous stream of people emigrating to the extrasolar colonies…"

"And it was during this period," Archer said after recounting the history of his own world's war. A war, curiously enough, that had ground to a halt right when her war was heating up. Describing it had taken a good hour. "That a man and a woman arrived at shantytown outside Bozeman, Montana." Two images appeared on the screen. The man was older, in his fifties, by Katara's estimation, with age lines around his blue eyes and brownish hair going gray. The woman dark-skinned, darker even then her complexion, with short curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. She also appeared a good couple decades younger than him.

"The man is Zephram Cochrane, an engineer and physicist." Archer continued, "and the woman is Lily Sloane. Cochrane had wandered around for years before ending up back in his home state, where he ran into his former graduate student. His research before the final years of the war had involved making faster-than-light travel possible. From their own accounts, they were out drinking when they hit on the idea of turning one of the unused nuclear missiles into a sort of test ship for their theories. Nuclear weapons are among the most powerful weapons ever created, utilizing the very processes that give power to the stars themselves. But they gave enough power for at least part of what they needed. It took ten years to find the other experts they'd need, develop the necessary technology and build the ship, but they succeeded. On April 5, 2063, just under ninety-two years ago by your calendar, they launched the Phoenix into orbit and activated its warp drive. It could only travel at warp one, the functional equivalent of the speed of light, but it flew over ten light-minutes away from Earth in the time it takes to walk from here the palace doors."

She and Zuko exchanged startled looks, as a soft susurration of surprise filtered through the crowd. The speed of light in a vacuum had been independently confirmed by physicists in Crater City and Ba Sing Se six months before she was born. Anything that could travel that far that fast would have been guaranteed to be impressive. Especially since that with two exceptions, one of them used by Cochrane and Sloane, it was impossible to travel faster than light.

"It was an incredible achievement," Archer said, "but it wasn't the only incredible moment that day. For during that first test flight, a scoutship for T'Pol and Soval's people was passing through. They altered course, and landed right outside that city. A human being made first contact with an alien race, unambiguously, and our world was changed forever. As yours is being changed right now. In similar circumstances to ours. A long, bloody conflict is ending, and you've been exposed to aliens for the first time. And therein lies the risks. Our relationship with Vulcan was beneficial. They helped us rebuild from the war, and their fleet presence kept our rebuilding world by being savaged by opportunistic pirates and slavers who were now aware of our existence. But it was also strained. The vulcans, as Soval and T'Pol can attest to, had lost their spiritual center in the last couple centuries. They became more warlike, more willing to trample over the rights of less advanced civilizations contrary to the teachings of Surak, their most important philosophical leader. I will never say that there is never any reason to intervene in another world or nation's affairs, but they listened to their fear. Convinced that we would conquer them ourselves, they tried to hold us back. Now, not handing us their weapons and propulsion technology was one thing, but they also deliberately slowed down and delayed our homegrown research programs. Yet we launched anyway. And over the last four years, we defeated a plot to destroy our homeworld as a prelude to destroying humanity everywhere, made peace between Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites, as well as restoring the true teachings of Vulcan's greatest spiritual leader and philosopher, changing Vulcan society for the better."

"And now here we are," Archer said, "representatives of three species standing in the same room for the first time in this world's history. And I make this solemn promise, from my worlds to yours. How you proceed is entirely up to you. If you tell us to pack up our people, return to our ships and leave, we will. I can't promise that we won't pass through your system, because there is a wormhole between our two systems, and we do have a colony to the galactic south of you. But we will never initiate contact between our worlds again. But making that choice won't make the fact that someone stole our weapons and tried to assassinate the leadership of one of your world's nations go away. And the fact that they clearly have some plan against both our worlds. If you choose to let us help, I promise you this. We will not falter, and we will not rest, until the actors who precipitated this crisis, on both this world and beyond, are exposed. They must be stopped, they will be stopped. To paraphrase the founders of my nation, to you, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Katara stood up, eager to be the first person to voice her approval of Archer's formal offer of assistance, when a loud echoing clap of the butt of a staff on stone filled the room. She looked over to see Aang standing up, a determined look on his face.

"I thank you for your offer. May we have the room to discuss it?"

Archer's eyes widened in surprise, but he nodded. "Of course," he said. He, Hernandez, and the rest of the newcomers filed out of the chamber, Chan and a Kyoshi Warrior lieutenant closing the door behind them.

Katara looked over at Aang, for once totally flummoxed about what Aang was trying to do. "Aang," she began, "what are you-?"

"Toph," Aang said as though he hadn't heard her. "Is anything he said a lie."

Toph Beifong closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "No, Aang. Of course, I can't tell if someone's simply repeating bad information in good faith, but unless he's a manipulative sociopath on par with Azula he means every word he said."

Aang nodded wearily. "It's as I thought," he said softly.

"So I take it you're not opposed to them as allies," Katara said.

"Far from it," Aang responded. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said louder. "Our world is facing something no Avatar has faced since the Four Nations took their current shape over two thousand years ago. This world is now in far greater danger than it's ever faced, even in the last hundred years."

"Yes," a fortyish woman with tawny skin and graying raven hair, the First Minister of Gaoling, who's name escaped her at the moment, said. " And I'm sure you'll lead us in overcoming it, Avatar."

"I will lead," Aang said, "but not in the direction you think. Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "We all heard Archer's presentation on the government uniting the nations of Earth and it's colonies. I propose that we, here, now, make a formal offer to join that system on behalf of our nations."

"What?!" Katara yelped, shock and no small amount of anger coursing through her. Are you serious, Aang?!" Part of her, the wounded daughter of the South,; she who'd risked everything and suffered on behalf of two nations and couldn't help but be outraged at what sounded like a naked attempt to sell those two nations down the river. But there was a more rational part of her that couldn't help but think Aang was right.

The room, however, had exploded into shock, shouting and yelling at each other, at Aang. Aang was shouting back, trying vainly to get some semblance of order back over the room.

A shifting out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn around and see Zuko standing up, a hard look on his face even as he caused a ball of fire to appear around his fist. Shooting his fist into the sky, a gout of flame roared, loudly, to the ceiling. The room fell silent at once as he let the fire fade.

"Now," he said angrily, the glint of his eyes daring any of the assembled, shouting men and women to do his or her worst. "Let the Avatar explain why before you declare him some sort of traitor or sellout."

"Look at what Archer said happened between his world and the vulcans," Aang said, "They came to his world to help, and they did, but whether it was on purpose or not, Earth became their client state. Archer claims how we proceed is entirely at our own discretion, but they have every technological and strategic advantage, despite their good intentions. The Four Nations would become their client states whatever they want. This is the only way all of us, our world and theirs, can avoid the same pitfalls that befell them."

"By offering ourselves up as client states from the beginning?" Her father asked pointedly.

"I see where you're going," Zuko said, a hint of curiosity on his voice. "If we're full members, we'd have full access to the fruits of their research programs. Full access to each other's markets, representation in their parliament, a common citizenship, and our citizens could join their armed forces on an equal basis with theirs. It'd be a lot harder to screw us over, on purpose or by accident."

"Yes," Aang said with a nod. "That's it, exactly."

Katara sighed, finding herself agreeing with their logic. "But why not just have each nation decide for themselves to join their government on the same basis as the nations on their homeworld, in their own good time." As soon as she said it, she didn't think it would work.

"Because whoever's gunning for us didn't ask us what we wanted," Aang said pointedly. "This decision must be made. Today. Now."

"But this parliament idea," Iroh said musingly, "People in both nations elect their village councils, and we have our own Grand Assembly. But it sits at the Firelord's pleasure and is primarily supposed to advise the Firelord and allocate money at certain extraordinary times. The notion of being a permanent body that regularly changes its membership, and that it's members take the lead in governing this world? Some people will say it cannot be done."

"They'll rise to the occasion," Aang said, with a tone of absolute surety on his voice that shocked her.

"You're right, Aang," Sokka said, "so I say we put it to a vote ourselves, in this room. And…pledge ourselves to be bound by the will of the majority."

"But," Aang began-

"It's either this," Sokka interrupted, in a tone that brooked no argument, "or the people who voted one way go to war with those who voted the other way. The fighting will fracture all our nations, and we won't stand a chance against our real enemies. It may even force United Earth to occupy us to restore order, which will drain their resources as well. We all go, or we all stay, it's that simple. Does everyone here agree?"
A chorus of murmured agreements ran through the room. "Very well," Aang said. "Sokka, get the ledger of everyone attending the summit…and call the vote. And, however it goes, may our children forgive us."

A young girl about Toph's age, in the green robes of a court scribe, approached Sokka with a tray bearing a leather book, a quill, and a vial of ink. She handed it to him, bowed and scurried away.

Her brother opened it, inked up his quill and looked straight at her and Zuko. Katara took a deep breath.

"Lord Katara of Ember Island," Sokka said, using her Fire Nation title without mocking irony for the first time ever, "how say you?"

"Captain Archer, sir?"

Ty Lee's voice jerked him up out of his own thoughts. After making his dramatic offer, he and the other delegates from Earth and Vulcan had been ushered out of the room, clearly to discuss his offer among themselves. For the sake of both their worlds, he had hoped that they wouldn't turn his people away. He had even prayed to the God he hadn't spoken to since he was twelve and watched his father die an agonizing death from Clarke's Disease.

Now he was about to find out.

The impossibly youthful officer he'd rescued along with his friend from the mud was clearly struggling to maintain a professional demeanor and not smile as she snapped him her world's salute. "I am ordered to bring you back into the meeting chamber now."

"How do you think it went?" He heard Tucker ask Reed.

"Did you see that smile on her face," his tactical officer remarked softly. "I bet it's good news."

As they filed back into the vast amphitheater, Erika and their officers returned to the tables they had occupied. He was following them when Katara's voice rang out.

"Captain Archer," the youthful noblewoman said, "wait, please."

Aang stood up and looked at him with his gray eyes. "Captain Archer," Aang said, "we have considered your offer of aid against our mutual enemies and have accepted it."

Archer bowed, utterly relieved. "Thank you."

"I'm not done," said, with the air of someone trying to get out something quickly before he changed his mind. "And by majority vote of the delegates assembled here, we formally request that you convey to your world our request to be admitted to the United Earth Federation on the same basis as your other extrasolar worlds. And as you said to us, we now say to you, 'we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'"

It was very quiet in the meeting chamber, so quiet one could hear a pin drop and echo through the room. Most of the dignitaries had decamped to send word back to their governments, leaving only Aang and his friends to treat with the representatives of Earth and her allies. The senior of which, Aang noted, seemed like he couldn't tell if he was excited, concerned or angry.

"Well, Mister Aang," Archer said, leaning forward in his chair to stare at him levelly across his desk. "You seem to have made quite a few waves."

Aang nodded. I did kinda do it. "If I thought I had any other choice I would have taken it, but I didn't. And please note, I didn't force anyone to do this. We voted, the majority of delegates here agreed to it, and we all agreed that we were bound to go through with whatever the majority followed up on."

"Yes, but why did you feel you had to bring this up?" Hernandez interjected for the first time in this conversation. "We would have been perfectly content to just have you as allies."

"Everyone thinks I'm just some naïve kid," he said, years of practice ensuring that the irritation he felt when someone dismissed him as "just a kid" didn't show on his face getting more work than it ever had in a conversation. "But I did get some education before I got myself frozen for a hundred years. Enough to be able to read between the lines of your speech to realize that your relationship with the Vulcans wasn't nearly as good as it seemed to imply."

"Well," Archer began only to be cut off by Soval.

"You are correct," the older vulcan man said softly. "My people had strayed from the true path of Surak. Deliberately attempting to stymie human exploration and warp development efforts was part of our efforts to ensure they could never pose a threat to us. It was a decision born of paranoia and arrogance, not logic."

"Which is exactly why we agreed we had to do this," Katara said suddenly, folding her arms as she stood in front of her desk. "I was as skeptical as any woman in this room, but he's right. A hundred years of our world's history was marred by one man's belief that he could make the world…better on his own. That this was a 'War of Unification' that would lead to an ultimately brighter world in the end."

"And how well did that work out?"

"Well Aang's people were exterminated," Katara said, as though reciting from a list, "my country lost most of its infrastructure, barely holding on to enough of our education system to give my brother and I decent educations, and Zuko…well," sheepishly looking over at him, clearly unsure if he'd approve of her making that point instead of him.

"My grandfather, Firelord Azulon, was a ruthless man" Zuko said, sweeping the room with a look in his pained eyes, "yet he had some form of moral compass. When my cousin Major Lu Ten died repulsing an attempt by Omashu to turn my Uncle's flank, he broke the siege in his grief. Shortly after word arrived home, my father came to his father. He was outraged at my Uncle's 'weakness' and demanded that he be disinherited. My grandfather said he'd only do it if Ozai agreed to kill me in front of him, so he'd know the pain of losing a son. He agreed."

Aang's eyes widened in shock and horror, as his eyes, and everyone else's whipped over to the older boy.

"Dear God," Archer said softly, "And your father agreed to this?"

Zuko nodded. "Things are, at best, unclear, but my grandfather died within hours of Ozai telling my mother. She disappeared that very night. I haven't seen her since."

The room fell into silence as the other's stared Zuko.

"But that's not all of it," Zuko said, "shaking his head. Ozai favored my younger sister over me. What most healers on my world regard as illness, my father taught her to believe was strength. Nevertheless, I was the Prince, destined to succeed my father. When I was thirteen, my Uncle, who still served as one of Ozai's senior general officers, convinced my father to let me into a planning session." He sighed, trying desperately to blink away an uncomfortable memory. Mai walked up silently and put a hand on his shoulder. He grasped her hand silently and took a deep breath. "The plan proposed involved pitting the Forty-First Infantry Division, a newly raised unit that had just been activated against a crack enemy unit, as a diversion to launch a flanking attack on their rear. I couldn't believe it. The unit was newly raised, with no time to actually shake out as a division. I knew it could only end one way. They'd win, but take horrendous casualties doing so. I couldn't let it stand, so I said something. Out of turn. My father declared what I did disrespectful and demanded that I participate in a duel. I couldn't believe that a General of Fong's caliber could so callously throw away so many lives, so I agreed. Only it wasn't General Fong I had to face, but my own father."

"What did you do? Shran said after a long moment, staring at him, a horrified look on his face.

"I couldn't do it," Zuko said, "I fell to my knees before him, begging him for forgiveness. And he said," he swallowed a lump in his throat, "he said, 'You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.'" He pointed to his scar. "Then he gave me this and banished me, ordering me not to come back until I had found the Avatar. My Uncle joined me in exile. That was over three years ago, now. Now look at this from our perspective. Your people have every technological advantage. Even with your assistance, as generous as I'm sure it would be, it will take us at least a generation to modernize our industrial and technological base. Building a fleet capable of defending our world on our own will take longer still, and during that period we will be entirely dependent on you for trade goods and defense against other spacefaring powers. It's only a short step from there to deciding that you need to take control of our world for our own good."

"That won't happen," Archer snapped.

Zuko held up a conciliatory hand. "Don't get me wrong. I like you, Captain. You remind me of my best friend," he said, jerking his head in Katara's direction. "But you and I both know what I said is true. And if we are going to be economically and militarily dependent on you for decades, with all the risks that entails for both of us, then we have no choice but to at least try for a genuine partnership.

Aang pursed his lips, thinking about what they just said, and he was surprised to discover that, even without his vision of the future, he still probably would have made the same choice.

After a long moment, Archer nodded. "I agree with you, but that decision isn't mine. I'm sure you understand that. And given that this exact situation hasn't come down on us since before the Third World War, and given the fact that you made this decision without putting it to your respective peoples for a vote, there are going to be representatives in my governments legislative branch who are not going to take it…well. They'll see it, as a naked attempt by a bunch of self-serving opportunists to saddle us with a new strategic burden and sell out their own populations for their gain."

"I understand where they'd be coming from," Katara pointed out, "But it's not like we have the time or the mechanisms to organize such a vote."

"I know," Archer said, "and without our knowledge of the situation, that fact in and of itself could be seen as proof you have no business in the same political system as us. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The other problem is that, aside from the people in this city, no one knows what's going on. If you're serious about this, it'll be in everyone's best interests if we try to get the word out as quickly as possible. If nothing else, your people have the right to know what their heads of state and government have committed them too, and it will spare you from accusations from members of my world's current government that you're just a pack of self-serving opportunists. Which I know isn't true."

"How about," Sokka said, a gleaming light that was all too familiar to his oldest friends in his eyes. "You offer personally to fly the dignitaries back to their respective capitals. It will impress on them just what you're capable of, and strange craft flying over their capitals will let people know something's going on quickly. We can also print and distribute packets of information on your government and legal systems, and that of your allies, to ensure accurate information gets out to them as quickly as possible on the heels of all this."

Hernandez's head bobbed up and down, and eager light appearing in her eyes. "That is a good idea," the older woman said, a hint of excitement on her voice. "Now I understand that there is a local parliament in the Fire Nation, and the sub-Imperial Kingdoms that make up the Earth Kingdom. They're weak institutions that no one on my government would accept as legal for the purposes of membership under our Constitution, but they're a start. It would probably be a good idea if they were formally convened and that question placed before them for a vote. If representatives directly elected by the people, even occasionally, are allowed to vote on this issue, it would go a long way to improving the odds of my government taking it seriously. Once that is done, I would recommend appointing an official delegation, one we could ferry back to Earth via the corridor, one empowered to speak for all your governments, that would be the ones to formally present it."

Archer took a deep breath. "I can't promise what will happen," the older man said softly. "But if this is as close as the will of your people as we can get at right now, we will do our best to help you see it done. And together, we will try to create a world where no one can do what your father did to you without consequences."

Aang nodded, excitement and anxiety running down his back in rivulets. There were still things that needed to be done. He needed to patch things up with Katara. He needed to learn more about these people and their ways. But for the first time in a long time, maybe since before Gyatso had sat him down in front of that collection of battered toys that had revealed to him his true nature, the future felt…open.

Now it was time to make it worth it.

A/N: You may have noticed I've cut the chapters I put after Chapter Ten, and I apologize for any problems this may have caused, but I have a reason. In reading over what I've written I realize…I've meandered. I have all these grand themes I want to explore but I realize a truly coherent story largely disappeared after Chapter Ten. Eleven on, is, in effect, a separate story and needs to be treated as such. And with that in mind I can plan it better, make better use of my themes, and properly set up my pairings. So, with that in mind I have rewritten Chapter Ten to make it an ending, and then will set up a sequel.