The Silence Ends

Written with Assistance from sander233, patrickngo, and Takeshi Yamato

This fic takes place in the shared universe The War of the Masters, the same setting as my earlier piece "Remembrance of the Fallen". To get those unfamiliar with the 'verse up to speed, much of the recent events of that 'verse, "The Silence Ends" included, deal with a breakaway state called the Moab Confederacy, a cluster of former Federation colonies that broke away from the UFP approximately three years ago in-universe over neglect and set up their own semi-libertarian government. With assistance from the Klingon Empire, which declared them a protectorate during the Federation-Klingon War but very recently cut them loose in order to sign an armistice with the Federation, they created a first-rate military on a tenth-rate economy, but then suffered a string of severe setbacks ranging from a Fek'Ihri invasion to a near-war with a Federation member state. With cold war-style machinations still going on between the Federation and the Empire, and various parties trying to bend the situation to their advantage through means both covert and not, the situation comes to a head and the Confederacy falls into a civil war, with the Federation and Klingons each backing their own factions in the region.

For more detail, you're going to want to google "The War of the Masters Timeline" and read primarily A Property Line Dispute (deals with the Moabite-Pentaxian border conflict), Come the Fall, A Change (Moab perspective on the immediate lead-up to the civil war), and The Sign at the Crossroads (Federation perspective on same).

And so the time has come, it's here
The silence ends, change is near
You wait in the balance libertine
Come into the pantheon

Welcome to the universe
Welcome to the universe

If there's a past into the clear
We better take the pace
Erase this face
In constant search for everything

You wait in the balance libertine
Come into the pantheon

Welcome to the universe
Welcome to the universe
Welcome to the universe
Welcome to the universe

A new day has begun

"Welcome to the Universe", 30 Seconds to Mars

Starfleet Reserve Officers Training Corps Armory, Leran Manev State University, Leran Manev, Federated States of Trill, 7 Kiris 8208 Central Date (3 March 2407 Earth Standard), 1457 hours local

It was the third day of the Trills' eight-day week, uniform day for Starfleet ROTC cadets. The main lecture hall at the ROTC armory was packed to the brim with a sea of blue-garbed sophomores and juniors as a short, willowy woman in a red Sierra uniform expounded over a holoprojection centered on an M6V star, a red dwarf 220,000 kilometers wide. "So, Wolf 359. The battle that changed the Federation forever, possibly the single most important event in naval history of the last century, and in terms of losses the third-worst military defeat in Starfleet's history. Now, allowing that hindsight is twenty-twenty, what did we do wrong?" There was silence. "Come on, anyone?" A light-skinned cadet from Tear'c in the northern hemisphere raised her hand. "Yes, Cadet Yover."

"Lack of coordination and fire concentration, sir?"

"Full marks," Tyria Sark said with a grim smile. "That's the big takeaway from the battle: fundamental swarm tactics against the Borg. You overlap your shields and concentrate fire on a single section, and you keep command-and-control as intact as you can. You absolutely do not do this," and she clicked her remote over to a clip from a ship's external camera showing an Excelsior-class cruiser charging ahead of the fleet, only to be ensnared in a tractor beam and have half the saucer sliced off in short order. "800 crew, dead. Admiral Jonathan P. Hanson, dead. USS Melbourne, beyond economical repair. And this in the battle's opening volleys. Classic failure of a complacent peacetime Starfleet—I'm sorry, Cadet Ronson, where do you think you're going?"

A lanky young man from one of the out-system colonies angrily answered, "My grandfather died on the Melbourne; I'm not gonna sit here and listen—"

"Sit down. That's an order," she cut him off calmly but firmly. "I'm sorry to hear that, but a good officer is compelled to evaluate what's happened, so he can apply what he's learned. Which is exactly what we did," she added, segueing smoothly back into the lecture. "After the battle R&D goes into overdrive and a dozen or more new classes emerge, beginning with this ugly little mother." The projection changed to a stubby pancake of a ship bearing the registry NX-74205. "Defiant-class tactical escort. New corvette class with no finesse whatsoever, just a set of big guns hooked to an engine. Cheap to build, cheap to crew, outperformed anything in its weight class at the time, and designed for the express purpose of overwhelming Borg targeting and shields with sheer weight of numbers and firepower. More directly relevant, fleet C&C and formation doctrines are rewritten. No more going it alone.

"Which brings us to the homework for this week. You are to select one technical and one doctrinal improvement made in the post-Wolf 359 period, and write a minimum four-hundred-word essay on how the two worked together in subsequent engagements. This is due next week, and I've uploaded some useful papers to the course homepage. Any questions? Yes, Cadet Winga?"

A bronze-skinned cadet from the equatorial city of Iklan stood up and asked, "Umm, yes, sir, is there a maximum word limit?"

It was an unseasonably warm and sunny day for early Kiris in Leran Manev. Usually there was at least an inch or two of snow on the ground this time of year, on its way to melted and muddy, but something had been funny with the ocean currents on the coast a hundred klicks northwest the last couple of years. It was 22 degrees, warm enough the students were out in force on the university lawns playing springball, chilya, and plain old catch and tag.

Tyria had an hour free before her next class and had finished her paperwork and office hours early, and so she had found a quiet corner between two of the hundred-meter ancestral blackwood trees by the armory to attach a hammock and read the latest Jake Sisko novel, a well-reviewed piece of historical fiction set on Bajor in the 17th century, human time. Some of the phrases in Kendran dialect he'd used were a bit hard to grasp but she was getting by.

She was so engrossed in the book she didn't see the human approach until he was right on top of her. "Lieutenant Commander Tyria Sark?" a deep voice asked in Federation Standard.

Tyria glanced up, then at the sight of a full-bird captain's chest pins frantically dropped her PADD and scrambled out of the hammock to come smartly to attention. "Sir!"

"At ease, Commander," the bald, bulky, dark-skinned man in operations yellow told her. "I'm Captain Henry Wake, BUPERS."

"What can I do for you, sir?"

"Walk with me."

The two officers strolled down the concrete sidewalks at a sedate pace. One of Tyria's officer candidates waved to her from the front porch of a dorm before rearing up in shock at the sight of Captain Wake's uniform. He waved one hand and kept walking.

Finally he stopped at a fountain and began reciting without preamble, "Tyria Sark, born Tyria Rohallin, Class of '98. Operations Research major, graduated in the top three percent of your class, cadet commander in your brigade and captain of the women's basketball team. What happened?" She gave him a somewhat confused look. "Well, from your records you were a real go-getter. Trained as a space warfare officer at Annapolis, then alpha shift conn officer on the Excalibur. We had your file flagged as on your way to the captain's chair early, possibly even admiral material. Then suddenly in '04 you request shore duty."

"I had some life changes." Wake gave her a look. "I took a symbiont, I got married, I had a kid. Wasn't that in the file, too?"

"Of course it was. I wanted to know if there was anything else."

She sighed. "No, sir. I wanted to take time off so my daughter would have at least a few early memories of me, that's all. I ask you again, what can I do for you, Captain Wake?"

"The USS Warsaw is nearing completion of major repairs after it was hit during the Archanis Sector Offensive last year. She needs a new first officer: Commander Azevedo, I think you know him, is getting a medical discharge."

"Yeah, he was tactical officer on the Excalibur. What happened?"

"Traumatic brain injury."

"Damn."

"In any case, during one of his more lucid moments he suggested you to Captain Sirin Tev."

"Don't know him. Sounds Bajoran." He nodded. She sighed quietly. "When would I ship out?"

"End of this school year, after your current class of seniors graduates." Wake handed her a manila envelope. "If you accept, you'll get an early promotion to full commander, effective July 7 Earth Standard."

"Don't really have much of a choice, do I, sir."

"You always have a choice, Commander Sark. Good day."

Sark-Tabris townhouse, Lakeshore Borough, Leran Manev, 1836 hours

"No, I don't have a choice," Tyria told her husband as they labored over an electric cooktop. She'd been taught to cook by her mother as a girl, and though they used mostly replicated ingredients to save money they still did the preparation themselves as a daily ritual. "You know how these things work as well as I do. When they offer you something like that and you turn it down, it screws your career prospects—they think don't you have the drive. Pass me the goldspice?"

"I don't disagree," Jolin Tabris said as he passed her a small jar containing the sunny yellow powdered seeds of a plant native to Romulus. Jolin was a good head taller than her, with light olive skin and black hair. "I just want to make sure you've thought this through. You know what it'll mean for us, for Sameen. Ready for the oil?"

"Please." She took the bottle from him and poured a generous dollop into the frying pan, waited a minute for it to heat up, and added a helping of goldspice and chopped onions. The kitchen began to fill with familiar odors of cooking and their three-year-old daughter came jogging into the room as usual. Tyria stooped and lifted Sameen into her arms. "Oof, you're getting heavy, little one."

"Hello, Mama." Little Sameen looked like most Trill toddlers, face round and chubby, host markings still big and blobby instead of fine and intricate like Tyria's and Jolin's.

Tyria hugged their daughter tight and turned her head back to Jolin. "We did agree, back when we decided to have her."

"Yeah, I'm the house husband while you go off and be the big joined hero," he said with a jaunty grin, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, then he took Sameen from her so she could start frying the skutfish. "But that was back when you were going to be a professor and an officer recruiter, not go running off to slay dragons."

"And I'll miss you both like mad," she agreed, dropping a breaded filet of unreplicated fish into the hot oil with a sizzle, wincing as a spatter struck her hand. "Ow!" She rushed over to the sink and started running cold water over the burn.

"You okay?"

"Fine, just a sting. Where was I?"

"You'll miss us, but…"

She let out a sharp breath. "Captain Wake's right, I didn't join Starfleet just to end up right back on Trill, I wanted to be in the Chair. Don't get me wrong, I like teaching and I don't want to leave you two but… I want to feel space beneath me again."

"Okay."

She looked at him in surprise as he came over to her. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." He turned her to face him and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. "I love you, Tyri. I want you to be happy. And if that means I don't see you for months or years on end while you're off saving the galaxy"—she snorted—"then I guess I'll have to live with it."

"Even if it means I'm on the front lines?"

He reached out and stroked the marks on the side of her neck. "Even if."

"Forty hosts of Gaunt, I love you so much, Jolin Tabris." She reached her left hand around the back of his head and pulled his mouth down to hers.

Then she felt a wet spot form on her cheek and started laughing. "Sameen! Stop it!"

This one goes out to the one I love

This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love

Fire
Fire

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love

Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
Another prop has occupied my time
This one goes out to the one I love

Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire (she's comin' down on her own, now)

R.E.M., "The One I Love"

Captain's Ready Room, USS Black Prince, Moab System, 10 August 2412 Earth Standard, 0204 hours ship-time

"Captain Sark," the light brown Caitian interrupted her, "we're less than five minutes out."

"Thank you, S'ulluru," Tyria said without looking up from the screen. The Caitian turned sharply on her heel and walked out, the door sliding shut behind her. "Gaunt's hosts, I leave you to go off and fight the damn Klingons, and now we're trying to help their proxies," she told the face on the screen. She gave an ironic laugh, then sobered. "I miss you so much, Jolin."

"I miss you t—Oof!"

"Hi, Mama!" A nine-year-old girl with a messy mop of black hair forced her way into the camera's frame, jumping into her father's lap. "I lost a tooth!"

Tyria laughed at the gap-toothed smile. "How was school?"

"I got an A on my test!"

Tyria glanced at Jolin. "Prealgebra."

"Doing better than I did at that age, kiddo," Tyria said, smiling proudly.

"Captain," S'ulluru messaged through the intercom, "we'll be exiting quantum slipstream in sixty seconds—you'd better get over here."

"Thank you, Commander," she acknowledged, perhaps a touch snippily. She shook her head and looked back to the screen. "Duty calls."

"Go get 'em, killer. I love you."

The screen flicked to a Starfleet insignia and Tyria snapped it closed. She spared a glance at the holoimage of them sitting on her desk, then at the wall safe containing her orders, then set herself and strode onto the bridge in suitably dramatic fashion.

"Sorry to interrupt you, sir," S'ulluru murmured to her. Tyria grunted noncommittally. "How long has it been since you managed to get back to Trill to see them?"

"Year and a half, just before I took command of the Prince."

"I don't know how in the hell you manage it, Captain," Lieutenant Commander Jazz Velasquez said. The ship's copper-skinned chief engineer was making an adjustment to some of the controls for the multi-vector assault mode.

"Well, you miss a lot of birthdays and you make a lot of vid calls."

"Simpler being single," Velasquez muttered, slamming the access panel closed. "All right, that's done. Imunna head back to Engineering."

As Velasquez jogged into the turbolift, the conn officer announced, "Beginning deceleration. Cue-ess-dee offline, exiting warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark."

Starlight and ambient matter twisted and bent in a spray of color as the Hephaestus-class escort dropped below lightspeed and a brownish, reddish Class M world inflated into view. "Welcome to Moab III," somebody muttered at the back. "Klink-lovers and sundry crazies a specialty."

Tyria spun around angrily. "That's quite enough of that. I don't know who said that, I don't care who said that, but I don't want to hear anything else resembling it for the duration. And if I hear the word 'Moby' from anyone I'll have them in front of a captain's mast for conduct unbecoming. Is that clear?" Nobody moved. "I said, is that clear?"

A chorus of "Yes, sir!" echoed through the bridge.

"Good. We're here to help these people. We can't do that if we piss them off." Any more than they already are, she added silently to herself.

"Suharto's hailing us, sir," the Coridanite at communications said.

"Onscreen."

A middle-aged, graying brunet human in service blacks trimmed with silver thread replaced Moab III on the viewer and Tyria snapped to attention. "Rear Admiral Huntington, sir."

Oooh, he's a cutie, Tyria "heard" her security chief Riella Thrace comment from somewhere behind her.

You know you're broadcasting, right? she thought back at the blonde Betazoid. Her mouth quirked in a wry smile.

"Captain Sark, I trust there weren't any technical issues getting here?" Admiral Huntington asked.

"Well, we've never had the Prince at quantum slipstream for that long before, but we didn't have any problems, no."

"Good, you were supposed to be partnered with the USS Nighthawk on Observer duty, but they're still in the yard reporting severe technical difficulties, so you'll have to pull double-duty until either we get that old Sovereign-class back, or their replacement arrives. In the meantime, I'm sending over a full briefing packet on the situation here—which has gone from Yellow to Red. I assume you, or your ops officer, have already seen the newscasts but if you haven't…" He paused to gather his thoughts. "The local head of state was assassinated in public shortly after losing a bid for reelection, though the new First Minister is responsive and eager to cooperate with Starfleet efforts in the area, so you won't have to work too hard to get cooperation from most of the Moab government. Unfortunately, two other worlds in their little confederacy have declared a state of civil war, and that the elected First Minister's government is 'unlawful, illegitimate, and collaborating with occupiers'." He grimaced. "And a third planet is already involved in fratricidal conflict over disputed elections returns and simmering local grievances."

"Yes, I'm aware of most of this, including the fact that according to a strict reading of the Moabite constitution, Speaker MacAuliffe is in fact correct regarding Minister Odelaw's legality." Huntington's head rocked back and he gave her a startled look. She smiled sweetly at him. "I was a naval history instructor, sir. If I don't do my homework, what kind of example does that set for my students? Don't worry, I'll follow my orders." Particularly the ones you don't know about.

The admiral now looked rather like he'd eaten something unpleasant. "I'm, uh, glad to hear that, Captain, because I need you on-side. The upshot is, this system and four others within ten light-years are in a state of civil war." He let out a weary breath. "When you were detailed here, it was only a possible outcome; now it's the real thing, and they're not confining attacks to each other. You need to maintain a constant state of alert: there have already been attacks against both Starfleet- and Klingon-flagged observers by factions in the sector."

"Understood, sir. I'll factor that into the tactical sim schedule, as well."

"Glad to hear it. I'm chopping you to the Observer group, Captain. The Advisory group's primary duty is supporting pro-Federation forces and they'll likely end up coming into conflict with the KDF at some point. I need to have a few officers available who can handle diplomacy, with enough firepower to back it up. Observer Group's job is to observe, coordinate with the KDF observers and the Romulans, and assist in containing the violence and preventing it from spreading to outside systems. It's no cakewalk—one of your primary duties is to insure that both the Empire and the Federation hold to the modified terms of the armistice, since both sides are also actively supporting factions here. It's a complex and dangerous situation and an extremely hazardous duty, though not as hazardous as the actual military advisors will be dealing with."

Tyria pressed a palm to her forehead. "Gaunt's hosts, this is starting to sound like Dalaran all over again."

"Beg your pardon?" Huntington looked confused.

"Sorry, Trill historical reference." He gestured for her to explain. "I carry a very old symbiont, sir. My first host served in a national army during a cold war in our Information Age. Two major superpowers, Moash and Vella, each wanted a smaller nation, Dalaran, to join their side and backed opposing factions in-country." She gave him a pointed look. "It didn't end well for anyone involved, the Dalarani least of all."

"Well, with any luck things will turn out differently this time. You have your orders, Captain Sark. My adjutant is sending over the coordinates for your patrol zone."

Tyria shot a look at the comms officer, who nodded. "We have them, sir."

"Very good. Dismissed." Moab III reappeared on the monitor.

Tyria turned to the conn officer. "Lieutenant, set a course."

"Aye, Captain," Lieutenant Junior Grade Ronson confirmed from the helm station.

Author's Notes: So, toon number four: my Delta Recruit, Tyria Sark, along with some of her crew. And my first fic taking place fully in the Masterverse.

I've decided to go with a parallel timelines model to justify the relationship between normal STO canon, the Masterverse, and the Worffan/StarSword continuity. The timelines run in parallel, many of the same events happen (sometimes at different times), and they share characters: Remember "Remembrance of the Fallen"? Versions of Tia Lanstar and Kojami Sobaru that were tutored by Kanril Eleya also exist in the Bait and Switch-verse, but presumably later events happened quite differently given that my own stories hew closer to mainstream STO canon (quite possibly Kojami is still alive, although Takeshi says otherwise).

Note from Takeshi Yamato: Indeed, Kojami Sobaru's death after marrying Tiana "Tia" Lanstar is a necessary part of Tia's character development, as she accepts Sobaru's final 'gift' (genetic material she can use to impregnate herself) and becomes captain of a ship of her own as she seeks to both build a peaceful future for their child, but also so she can keep others from having to make the same sacrifice Sobaru did. Her path also goes a bit… darker, but I won't spoil it much beyond that (I will provide a hint, though: Kuban Sanjuuichi).

Anyway, with Tyria Sark I'm attempting to write a very different character than Eleya: less hot-blooded and impulsive, but also less self-doubting. Unlike Eleya, who is prior enlisted and transferred from a military with a very different organizational culture, Tyria is career Starfleet and intended to be more of an archetypical officer: middle class background, high achiever, and more polite and cultured (sort of like Morgan as opposed to D'trel). That she's a long-distance wife and mom and spent several years teaching are also major factors in her makeup. And as she said, the Sark symbiote has been around a long time: Tyria is host number eleven.

Some thoughts on the Trills in general: they might have a long institutional memory through the symbionts. While the Trill Symbiosis Commission takes steps to prevent an "aristocracy of the joined" (e.g. by banning one from romancing one's past hosts' flames), note that they seem to select high achievers for symbiosis, and note in turn that high achievers tend not to live mundane lives in general: they're likely to end up in high positions in business, politics, or the military (contrary to what Cryptic thinks, in reality they don't let just anybody be an admiral: they only let the best students into the Academy in the first place, and only the best of those get to flag rank). Also, like Tyria, joined Trills may have previously lived through state collapses and proxy wars similar to the Moab political crisis, either on prewarp Trill or in their space colonies period. As a result, rather like the asari in Mass Effect are said to in the codex, the Trills might take a moderate, centrist political perspective, encouraging the long view and careful study before committing to a course of action (time permitting), lest history repeat itself.