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“What’s that thing where you hit the ball over the wall in the back?”

“A home run?”

“Right. I think you just hit one of those.”

Nan laughed. “Hell, Esperanza, that was a grand slam.”

“That’s where all the plates are full, right?”

“Bases are full, yeah.”

“You said before it was plates.”

“No, the batter’s at the plate, the runners are at bases.”

“How can they be at something if they’re runners? Shouldn’t they be running?”

Waving her finger in a manner depressingly similar to the way she used to wave it at Annabella when she was eleven years old, Nan said, “If you don’t cut this out, I’m gonna force you to sit through that program Sisko gave me on a repeated loop.”

Esperanza put up her hands. “Hey, I’m just trying to understand you better.”

“Well stop it. I’m complex and contain multitudes. It is not for lesser minds such as yours to comprehend.”

Smiling, Esperanza said, “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

Nan headed to the door. “C’mon, let’s go tell the others. I want to see Helga’s eyes pop out of her head.”

“Right behind you, ma’am.”

Jas Abrik, retired Starfleet admiral, watched as the future president of the Federation stood before a small crowd and gave his statement of purpose. That statement was being sent out via subspace to every part of the Federation, and many places outside it.

Fel Pagro was an excellent public speaker, and Abrik had no doubt that his oratory would win the day. Governor Bacco had a certain regional charm about her, but that wouldn’t help her on the galactic stage. When the council announced the candidates, Abrik had made a thorough study of Bacco’s speeches over the years. The former admiral was born and raised on Trill, and had spent most of his ninety-seven years in the service of Starfleet, but he did not recognize most of Bacco’s arcane references until a Vulcan staffer explained them. Apparently, some human game called baseball was played on Cestus III, and Bacco was a fan.

Obscure human sporting references were cute up to a point, and the woman was certainly no fool, but Abrik doubted her ability to adapt to the variety of circumstances one encountered every day on Earth. Sure, over ten years she handled refugees and the Gorn attack and the war—but that’s just one day’s work when you get that nice office in Paris.

No, Abrik backed winners, and that was why he’d accepted the job as Pagro’s campaign manager.

Standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, which had been rebuilt after the Breen attack on Earth had all but destroyed it, Pagro spoke, his voice carrying out to the entire Federation:

“For two years, we fought a vicious, brutal war against the Dominion. It’s easy to look back now and ask why we didn’t try to negotiate with them, to live in harmony with them. But the name says it all: Dominion. They had no interest in living in peace, they just wanted to dominate us. We couldn’t allow that to happen, so we fought them. The cost in lives was appalling, but ultimately worth it because the alternative was so much worse. Becoming part of the Dominion would’ve been no better than becoming part of the Borg collective—and the ashes of Cardassia Prime bear testimony to how the Dominion would treat those who dare to think for themselves or act of their own volition.”

Abrik smiled. Jino Bustopha, the Efrosian woman writing Pagro’s speeches, had done her usual good job. She’d been on Pagro’s staff for years, and Pagro owed a lot of his popularity to her skills.

“But what we need to do is take it one step further. Our way of life is important to us—our freedoms, our ability to become the best that we are capable of becoming. It is the antithesis of what the Dominion stands for, and that’s why we fought them—but we cannot afford to stop with the Dominion.”

Checking his chronometer, Abrik saw that it was almost nine in the morning, which meant it was almost noon in New York. Pagro’s speech would be over right about when Bacco started hers. Abrik had been hoping that Bacco could have made her speech first, but ultimately the decision came down