The treaty was signed by noon. Valance had been in the building since 0800.
The Governor’s Residence sat at the elevated heart of the city of Vedrex, its pale stone catching the midday sun. Records of this moment would come with perfect lighting. Inside, the signing hall was all high ceilings and deliberate light and flagstones that made the moment echo with importance. Director Talarin had been visibly moved when she took her place at the table. Even Governor Vhiemm, whose motivations Valance had spent weeks navigating around, had an air of sincere reverence when he pressed his thumb to the document.
She had stood to one side through the formal moment, in dress uniform, with the stillness required for an officer who was present, significant, but not central. Hale was at the table. Airex beside her, after he’d spoken with Talarin, because the scientific cooperation treaty was as much his work as anyone’s.
But it was Rourke representing Starfleet in the centre, also in dress uniform, his presence bringing the institutional weight she could not. Even though the work before the ceremony had been hers.
A year and a half ago, she’d sat across from Vhiemm and negotiated emergency repairs in exchange for survey data, with a ship barely holding together, and only once the Klingons were no longer a viable choice. She’d left Rencaris with the repair work done and a lack of surety that she’d made the right choice – that she hadn’t just given Vhiemm’s regime, and all of its autocratic tendencies, a dose of legitimacy.
But this time she’d had weeks, a newly commissioned Yorktown-class in orbit, and Ambassador Hale at her elbow. Weeks of careful conversation, of negotiations that happened as much between meeting rooms as in them.
The formal portion was the pomp and circumstance she expected. Remarks from Vhiemm, from Hale, from Talarin. Brisk handshakes from Rourke. Pictures taken. Confirmation that the Federation and Rencaris would embark on a new era of shared knowledge together. And then it concluded.
The room shifted into its reception configuration: small knots of conversation, careful mingling. Hale moved through it with the ease of someone who’d been doing this for a quarter century, showing that confidence Valance quietly thought of as her superpower – the ability to be entirely genuine in a room full of performance, and still to never be naive or exploited. Vhiemm found his way to Rourke, which Valance expected; nonsense words, likely, empty gestures, but more opportunity for the governor of Rencaris to be seen talking with a Starfleet flag officer.
Valance moved, and wasn’t sure if she made her next step in a calculated fashion, if she’d been ambushed, or if this was just happy coincidence.
She’d known Representative Dhael was in the room; had seen the name on the guest list days ago, and remembered her from Kharth’s cagey report a year ago as well as the briefing from Beckett before they’d arrived. When they’d last been here, she’d been a student activist, brushing up close with dissident opponents of the Vhiemm regime. Since then, she’d made it as a junior councillor in the Rencaris Assembly, backed up by resources Valance suspected were Republic, and the latest young, proud voice for progressive politics in the system.
‘Captain Valance,’ said Dhael as she approached, and stuck out her hand in a slightly practiced manner, as if she’d planned the human ritual a little too much. ‘An honour.’
Beyond her, Valance spotted Vhiemm glance away from conversation with Rourke towards them. He would not be the only one to notice such an exchange.
‘Representative Dhael,’ she said, and accepted the hand. ‘Congratulations on your election.’
Somewhere, pictures would be being taken. Politicians and lobbyists and figures of import in Rencaris watching and seeing. It could not be a conversation; that would be too much, be seen as undue engagement with a very minor politician.
‘Thank you,’ Dhael said calmly, though there was a glint of gratitude in her eye. Valance wondered just how nervous the young woman was.
Then they parted ways, and it was enough. Behind Valance, she heard the cluster of junior officials settle back into conversation; the rest of the room sink to the exchanges that filled the aftermath of such formal gatherings.
Eighteen months ago, Vhiemm had used Valance’s mere presence in public as indication of Starfleet endorsement of his regime. A handshake with young, progressive Representative Dhael now couldn’t be overlooked.
She stayed another hour. Circulated as the occasion required – the right words with Talarin, glowing with satisfaction at the work done; a brief, cordial exchange with Vheimm himself, who smiled with a practiced warmth that meant what she’d done had landed. Hale finished her own circuit and caught Valance’s eye with the faint nod confirming that the work was done, and this had gone as well as it could.
By the time she found her way through the Residence’s back corridor and out into the garden, the sun had dropped below the highest buildings, and the light was long and gold, catching the geometric stonework of the paths and plantings.
Rourke was already there when she stepped outside, jacket loosened, hands in his pockets as he looked at one of the planters like it held secrets, and more likely because it was something to stare at as he reconfigured his thoughts.
‘Good ceremony,’ he grunted by greeting.
‘Yes.’ She came to stand beside him, the noise of the reception muffled behind the stone of the Residence. ‘For a good treaty.’
‘Keeps the door open on Rencaris and the Federation. The ambassador’s been singing your praises in the negotiation room.’
Valance studied the long leaves of one of the plants bowing down from the setting sun towards them. ‘I had the advantage of a prior relationship with Vhiemm. I’m sure that the ambassador had the measure of him better than I by the end.’
Rourke looked at her, brow furrowed. ‘Why?’
‘It’s her job to -’
‘It’s your job, too. And you do it well.’ He studied her for a beat, head tilting. ‘This wasn’t a one-off. You getting your hands dirty with this negotiation.’
‘Of course I’m happy to aid discussions deepening our relationship with a world which could so easily slide into authoritarianism without external progressive pressure -’
‘But?’
Valance hesitated. ‘Then, come the ceremony, you’re the face of Starfleet.’
Rourke was silent at that, lips working together like he was tasting words to pick the right ones. ‘What about that bothers you? Do you want the public acclaim? To be the face?’
‘No,’ Valance said quickly and sincerely.
‘Or are you worried that not being the ceremonial face means you’ll be seriously involved less and less? Be the transport pilot more and more? Because this wasn’t a one-off, Karana.’
‘I see. We’re moving exclusively onto missions where I have more experience of the specific political context than you?’
He turned to face her now, a flash of frustration in his eyes. ‘You’ve spent the last two years commanding Endeavour out here. Getting your hands dirty in ways I’ve not been able to, even commanding Sirius. Yes, you have regional expertise that is, actually, unparalleled.’
‘And when that stops lasting?’ Her voice was level, calm in a way even she couldn’t fully understand. ‘When my expertise is out of date, or you’ve stood in enough Midgard Sector ballrooms to equal my knowledge?’
‘Karana. Do you regret this arrangement? Because there’s nothing about it that’s final.’ At last, Rourke looked apprehensive. ‘I don’t want you feeling like I’ve trapped you here by dangling Isa and comfortable quarters…’
‘I don’t regret it,’ said Valance, and was dimly surprised to find that she wasn’t lying. ‘But I want to know what the arrangement will be. Flagship captains are junior. With less independence. Less operational freedom, with a flag officer at their shoulder.’
‘First, even after Frontier Day, two years in the captain’s chair doesn’t make you a veteran by the standards of commanding a ship like a Yorktown,’ Rourke pointed out. ‘And, second – do you know what I’ve been doing while you were in the negotiating room?’
She paused. ‘Tell me,’ she settled on at last, rather than guess what his point was.
‘I’ve been at my desk. Reviewing operational reports from the Hotspur and the Mercury and the Liberty and the Vigilant. Feeding information and orders back. The Hotspur had an interesting encounter with a derelict near Rator space that Shepherd’s written up and Borodin’s managed to make sound dull. The Liberty has been chasing up subspace distortions on their sensor feed they think is linked to some phenomenon they’ve not yet identified. I could go on. Three weeks of reports. A whole squadron doing their work.’
‘While we’ve been here doing this.’
‘While you’ve been here doing this. I showed up for a handshake. You’ve been in the room. Yes, because you know Vhiemm, and yes, because we have the ambassador – but not every mission needs the ambassador, and not every mission will be negotiating with a guy you’ve hammered out an agreement with a year ago. But every mission, you’ll be in the captain’s chair. Not me. You.’
Valance paused at that. She never had to fight to keep her expression studied in moments like this; it was as if the words washed over her, and she had to contemplate what she felt about them, rather than struggle. Like she was discovering her own feelings when it came to ambition, not wrestling with them. ‘You will obviously be involved in operations and missions,’ she said at last. ‘Otherwise, you could do this job from a desk.’
‘Big picture,’ Rourke said, hands opening outward. ‘There’ll always be a big picture. Which means either you’re always the tip of the spear here – or you’re my right-hand-woman. And as the tip of the spear, you just sorted these negotiations and gave a photo-op to a young, progressive politician who’s got Vhiemm on the ropes.’ He gestured towards the building. ‘I couldn’t do that. That’s too big. You’re just the right size for that.’
Her lips twitched. ‘That’s quite a thing to say.’
‘I’m throwing it all at the wall here, making sure you don’t think you’re my backup singer,’ Rourke admitted. ‘What I want is for you to help make things happen, sure, but also be someone I can trust who gets things done. We couldn’t open this door at Rencaris properly last time. And now it’s open. And there are forty others.’
‘The sector.’
‘The sector – beyond, everything we don’t know yet. Everything that’s been sitting out here for two hundred years while we weren’t allowed to look.’ His eyes were lighting up in a way they hadn’t, she thought, since they’d been in the Delta Quadrant together. Their last mission as captain and XO. ‘This ship can do things the old Endeavour couldn’t. The squadron can do things one ship couldn’t. Three weeks at Rencaris was one thing we’ve been able to do. What comes next is everything else.’
She thought of the old Endeavour’s cradle at Providence when Thawn had given the news. Of how she’d looked out a viewport on that ship and said goodbye, then through another at this new one at Gateway. With everything too big, from corridors to the bridge to her quarters, but also hers.
‘Alright,’ said Valance after a beat. ‘Because that’s what I want. Everything else.’
Rourke gave a crooked grin. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that’s the first time you’ve told me what you want in so many words. And it turned out it was – bloody everything.’
The garden held the last of the evening light, and neither of them moved for a while.
