Kirk nodded. “There is a matter where I might be able to use your… intercession. Or rather, introduction.” The admiral picked up a data slate that had been resting next to the cole slaw, displaying a paused vid file. “This is from a protest rally that was held near the Academy a couple of days ago.”

The file showed a slight, black-haired woman addressing a multispecies group of civilians in a public square, though the angle didn’t give McCoy a clear look at her face. He tapped the screen to resume the video and hear what she had to say.

“Over the past several years, we’ve expressed our concerns about the increasing militarization of Starfleet. As tensions with the Klingons and Romulans have worsened, Starfleet has adopted measures that seem to be anticipating war rather than de-escalating. Shipbuilding has increased. New designs and refits are more heavily, more visibly armed, as if intended to intimidate or provoke. New combat simulations have been added to Academy training. Even the uniforms have become more martial.

“But the admission of the Arcturian Warborn to Starfleet Academy sends a particularly troubling message. Ever since first contact, the Federation has denounced the archaic Arcturian practice of breeding a race to serve as cannon fodder. Arcturus IV was required to abandon the practice in order to join, and aside from a single lapse during the First Klingon War, they have abided by that commitment to peace and sentient rights. Yet now, the admission of these Warborn students, with more to follow if the program succeeds, appears to be a Federation endorsement of this immoral practice.

“They say the Warborn will be taught like any other cadets, but isn’t that the problem? What does it say about Starfleet’s intentions for our human youth, our Vulcan and Andorian youth, our Tellarite and Rigelian and Caitian youth, if the Academy’s teachings are now seen as compatible with the practice of breeding a servile race to die in battle?”

As the speaker paced the stage to take in the whole crowd, McCoy got a better look at her face—an oval face in its mid-forties, with a strikingly beautiful blend of Chinese and European features. It only took him moments to realize why her voice sounded so familiar. Once he’d heard enough (and finished half his sandwich), he paused the playback. “That’s Doctor Ashley Janith-Lau. We worked together on a research project seven or eight years back.” It had been during his all-too-brief return to civilian life, between resigning from Starfleet after his first five-year stint on the Enterprise and being drafted back in by Kirk and Admiral Nogura for the V’Ger crisis. Janith-Lau, a pediatrician, had sought his help in developing a treatment for a congenital developmental disorder causing cognitive defects in children on Terra Nova.

“I know,” Kirk said. “I was hoping you could arrange an introduction.”