New Divide

"Bareil to fleet.  Status report."

Captain Bareil Zumit sat stiff in his chair, kneading truncated ridges above his nose, as routine updates came in.  It was quiet, despite the latent background hum of operational computers, aboard the starship Winn.  Too quiet on the bridge... and too quiet out there, in the vast spatial blackness.  Tensions ran thick lately, patrolling the Corician border.

All was not as it seemed.  The Coricians were watching.  He knew it, the crew knew it; everyone with any experience dealing with Coricia knew it.  Though hidden, it was obvious: The only reason they had yet to show themselves.  Corician starships were... well, monstrosities: Five miles wide, designed unlike any vessel the Federation ever had, appearing as pure light, capable of morphing and transforming between energy states, and faster, certainly faster, than the fastest Starfleet craft.  Corician technology was advanced: More advanced, some claimed, than the Federation's, and Fed-tech was nothing to sneeze at.  Because they were so advanced, they did not need to attack if they chose to do so, or engage in other types of military offensives.  The burden was not upon them to defeat a Starfleet incursion, but rather, vice versa.  As commander of Starfleet's 46th Fleet, Bareil knew, if he received an order to invade, he'd follow it... suspecting it would be a fool's end.  He made a brief personal prayer to the Prophets.  It was in their hands now.

Starships were heavily automated nowadays, with the result of fewer organic crewmembers.  In all, the Winn's numbered sixty souls... two-thirds Bajoran, like Bareil; the other twenty or so a mix of humans, Klingons, Cardassians, odd specimens of other races.  But the Bajorans were decidedly in command, as they were now in de facto control of the Federation.  The ship itself was named after Winn Adami, a recent kai-turned-queen of Bajor.  Interestingly, for Bareil, she had been a political enemy of his uncle, Vedek Bareil Antos, who (according to the grapevine) died at her hands.  And now Bareil Zumit captained a ship named for her.  The Prophets had a weird sense of humor sometimes.

Like putting him here, with the UFS Winn and the rest of the fleet, on the Corician border... a plainly provocative show of arms.  And over what issue?  Few understood exactly why they were here.  But he knew why.  Religion: The new divide in the Federation's ongoing struggle.  The Coricians had their own religion, not connected or reflective in any way of the Bajoran church which swept the Federation.  Coricians came and went daily through the Federation; some served in Starfleet.  But the Corician Empire was still an independent nation, and incredibly powerful.  The Federation Council sought to add Corician worlds to its shrinking roster... except Coricia would have no part of it.  Why should they?  They did not need the Federation.  The Federation needed them.  However, Bajor – which was to say, Bajor's Vedek Assembly, swaying the Council on religious grounds – opposed such an antithetic body, for fear of what it would do to their influence.

That was not the issue which put Starfleet's military might on show today.  No, it was the reaction to one man's involvement... a man who had become known far and wide to the Federation and beyond – if he could be called a man.  His name: Stephen April.  A legend in his own time.  He had returned, seemingly from the dead, in pursuit of his own religious agenda, a mission he once spearheaded in the 2380s, a mission of religious revival.  His efforts, those decades past, yielded several movements in his wake, and encouraged by his return (rebirth?), they had begun again to fluorish... further threat to the new (Bajoran-led) order in the Federation.

Whereas the Coricians were unwilling to deal with Bajor, they listened to April.  April.  A legend.  Coricia, for all of its sophistication, liked heroes of the former Starfleet captain's stature.  Their very name, Coricia, came from Coric, an ancient astronaut, revered ancestor of their civilization... who could easily be equated with the likes of Stephen April.  And if April had his way... convincing them, as he publically proclaimed he would attempt, to join the Federation on religious grounds... it could mean another civil war.  For this reason, it was decided, April could not be allowed to succeed.

Bareil Zumit sat up.  In the holosphere, something was happening.  There was movement in sector thirteen.

"Bareil to fleet.  All weapons, stand by."

The last thing Bareil expected was a new Starfleet vessel.  Hologenerated displays identified it: Quantum-class.  Then a communication came.