“Yes. Though technically all Arcturians are the products of ancient genetic engineering, the enhanced abilities of the Warborn arguably qualify them as a type of Augment. Plus, the notion of creating a race of people specifically as expendable troops was… incompatible with Federation ethics.” Rakatheema’s hooded eyes took on what seemed to be an embarrassed expression. “We had wrestled with the ethics of it ourselves for countless generations, but the custom was entrenched in our culture and traditions. It is an irony that our shorter generations compared to other humanoids make us slower to change as a society, for we mature so quickly that we have little time to question or challenge convention before we must take on the adult responsibility to carry it forward.

“It took an outside nudge—the prospect of Federation membership—to make us finally act on our ambivalence and outlaw the creation of the Warborn.”

Kirk leaned back in his seat. “Commander, while I find this history lesson fascinating, I assume you’re going to make it relevant to the present at some point.”

“Yes, Admiral. You see, we thought we had finally put the Warborn in our past… until about two decades ago, when the Klingons invaded the Federation. I trust you know that history quite well, sir.”

The observation required no reply. It had been twenty-three years before, when Kirk had been a young lieutenant on the Farragut. Ironically, that ship had come through the war intact, then lost its captain and half its crew to a gaseous alien creature barely a month after the armistice. Yet more than a few of Kirk’s friends and mentors from the Academy had died in the war or survived with something broken inside them. It was not a time that many in the Federation enjoyed reminiscing about.

After a moment, Rakatheema went on. “As the war worsened, some in Starfleet and the Federation government came to our leaders and proposed breeding a new generation of Warborn to fight the Klingons. Their argument was that, as Arcturus had been a Federation member for nearly a century, fighting in the Federation’s defense would be merely an extension of the Warborn’s purpose. But our leaders did not agree. The tradition handed down over the centuries was that the sacred purpose of the Warborn, the only cause that could legitimize creating them to fight and die, was the defense of our own hard-won world. That we could not cheapen their sacrifice by allowing it for any other cause, lest we end up throwing their lives away as profligately as our ancestors did in the ancient wars.”

Kirk studied him. “You don’t seem… entirely convinced.”