The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [172]
“This is outrageous! Freedom of the press is fundamental to both the United Earth Constitution and the Coalition Compact!”
“But not the freedom to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. Besides, I didn’t suspend all of your reporters’ credentials. Caen passed muster right away.”
“Caen only writes about food, wine, and celebrity gossip, Admiral. But I suppose those things are a lot less troublesome for you than topics like the Romulan raid on Beta Hydri IV.”
“Every battle in this war is a potential hornet’s nest on the home front. Gannet Brooks has been stirring up too many of those, going back to the Romulan-Andorian skirmish at Threllvia and even earlier than that. In my judgment, she’s posing a threat to domestic security.”
McEvoy found what he was hearing infuriating, though not at all surprising. “Whatever danger you might see coming from Gannet’s editorializing, I can assure you that public ignorance will do a hell of a lot more harm in the long run.”
A smile spread across the admiral’s face. “And I assure you, that’s the last thing Starfleet wants to bring about. As I said, if everything goes smoothly, all this business with the reporter credentials and the security reviews should be cleared up in a few weeks.”
“And exactly how does Starfleet define ‘smoothly’?” McEvoy asked, not impressed in the least by the smile, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“Put a leash on your dog, Brooks,” Black said. “That would go a long way to smoothing out just about everything for Newstime.”
The implied threat, of course, was that a decision to do anything else would ensure that life would be anything but smooth for Newstime.
“Do you really expect Gannet Brooks to come running obediently home if I were to recall her?” McEvoy said. “I don’t think she’d cooperate if I tried to put her on the sports beat, or gave her the gardening section.”
Black shrugged again. “Starfleet has both the ability and the authority to greatly curtail the dissemination of her subspace broadcasts. I don’t think she’d enjoy essentially talking to herself out there on the ragged edge of the war. Wouldn’t she find it in her... professional self-interest to try to take a more cooperative tack?”
“Cooperative. Are you asking Newstime to become a propaganda service for Starfleet?”
“Of course not,” Black said, actually looking offended. “But seeing as the survival of her own species is at stake, does she really need to portray our war effort as so... ineffectual?”
McEvoy considered commenting that the objective truth of Starfleet’s efficacy was largely up to Starfleet, but decided against it. Though he felt no less violated now than he had before, he had to admit that he could see the admiral’s last point—just as he could see he wasn’t going to budge Starfleet on this, the purity of his journalistic ethics notwithstanding.
“All right. I’ll ask her to be a little more... moderate in her criticism,” McEvoy said at length. “Would that make things go more smoothly on the background checks?”
Black grinned, then rose from behind his desk. “It certainly couldn’t hurt.”
McEvoy nodded, though he couldn’t bring himself to offer a “thank you.” When the admiral extended his hand, he turned without waiting to be dismissed and found his own way to the door.
I can try to put Gannet Brooks on a leash for you, Admiral, he thought. But I can’t guarantee she won’t leave an unwelcome surprise or two on your lawn.
FORTY-NINE
Yorktown, Zeta 2 Reticuli
I GUESS I REALLY have become a “bad-luck charm” since my Enterprise days, Travis Mayweather thought as he surveyed the correspondences on his padd.
The bulbous primary hull of the Yorktown gleamed like a crescent moon outside the wide observation windows that ringed the repair and shore-leave facility’s public gallery. The place was all but deserted at this hour of the local night, which made it