• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Now I remember why we stopped watching the news, he thought as he digested the headline and the gist of the copy beneath it.

“What is it?” Elaine Tucker said, cinching her robe about herself as she emerged from the bathroom, her wet hair bound up in a large terry-cloth towel. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, when Bert and Miguel were telling us about that Tau Ceti IV vacation they were arranging for later on this summer?”

“Sure. Why?”

“They may need to come up with an alternate plan.” Then he held up the paper, whose terse headline was printed at billboard size:

ROMULANS TAKE KAFERIA

San Francisco, Earth

After concluding his brief announcement of the changes he was mandating in Earth’s military posture, United Earth Prime Minister Nathan Samuels stood in silence at the podium. He looked out across the spacious assembly room where representatives of Earth’s Coalition partners, Starfleet, and the Military Assault Command Organization had gathered, and had listened attentively.

Admirals Gardner and Black and MACO General Casey were all present along with their small army of functionaries. The UE’s Interior Minister Haroun al-Rashid, Ambassador Jie Cong Li of Centauri III, and Draylax’s observer Grethe Zhor were all seated nearby, along with a handful of their respective staffers.

It was only the Coalition’s nonhuman members who appeared to be underrepresented. Despite the presence of a number of their junior functionaries, the Vulcan contingent was conspicuously incomplete. Ambassadors Solkar and L’Nel had assumed Minister Soval’s duties. Even Thoris, Andoria’s foreign minister, and Ambassador Gral of Tellar were absent, their respective staff members filling in for them.

It seemed strange indeed for Andoria and Tellar to maintain a low profile during an emergency session of the Coalition Security Council. Especially in view of the significant changes Samuels’s executive order would bring to the military landscape: In response to the fall of the Tau Ceti system, the bulk of Starfleet and MACO resources were henceforth to be concentrated overwhelmingly upon the defense of the Sol system.

As the room began to fill with a low buzz of muttered crosstalk, Samuels opened the floor to questions. General Hayes appeared satisfied with the prime minister’s executive order, although neither Admirals Black nor Gardner looked pleased. But since both admirals were disinclined to question their civilian leadership’s orders in front of the allies, Samuels passed them over and recognized the raised hand of Grethe Zhor of Draylax.

“Thank you for taking my question, Mister Prime Minister,” the Draylaxian woman said, her gray diplomat’s attire doing little to conceal the fact that the females of her species had three breasts. “It seems to me that Earth’s new tactical stance might work against the prospect of turning the tide against the Romulans.”

Samuels had anticipated this objection. Forcing a smile, he said, “Starfleet is building an unprecedented number of new starships. It isn’t as though we’ll be withdrawing our presence from deep space, Madam Observer.”

“But you will nevertheless devote the vast majority of your resources to the creation of a ‘Fortress Earth,’ will you not?”

“We have to harden our soft targets.”

She shrugged. “You still must concede the possibility that your decision might serve to undermine your world’s interstellar military reach, and therefore its offensive capabilities.”

“I respectfully disagree,” Samuels said, eager to move on. “Next question?”

A loud crash reverberated from the rear of the chamber. Before he could call security, a pair of familiar figures approached quickly from the back entrance, one tall and almost regal in bearing, the other lumpen and porcine.

Thoris and Gral, Samuels thought. Well, better tardy than absent.

Rather than sitting with their respective delegations, the Andorian and the Tellarite strode toward the central dais, coming to a stop together directly