* * *
The Lenthal-class destroyer USS Koh Yor raced towards its destination at emergency speed, privy to information that the ship’s captain felt could be of significant value.
Lt. Commander Aronas Žukauskas fought the urge to lean forward in his command chair, conscious that that doing so would not force the ship ahead any faster despite the fact that it felt as though it could.
A passing Barzan freighter had hailed them to make notification that they had seen what appeared to be a battle between two vessels at extreme sensor range, one of the two ships appearing to be Orion. They had thought it unusual that the Orions had not issued a distress signal, despite being on the losing end of the contest. The other vessel had appeared to be an aged but well-armed Klingon craft.
Žukauskas had alerted Reykjavík of the incident and set off at maximum warp to try and confirm the sighting. He was aware that he might be taking his ship and crew into an ambush, but waiting for additional ships would cost him more than a day in a situation where every minute might count.
His XO, a tall and willowy female Andorian, Lieutenant Sivih Sh'vaakrot, touched a hand to her earpiece at her station which doubled as the Communications post. “Now picking up a garbled transmission on a Syndicate favored frequency, fairly low in the subspace bands, sir.”
The compact Greek CO turned fractionally in his chair, giving her about three-quarters of his full attention. “Coded transmission?”
“Yes, sir, encrypted but very weak. It’s likely a highly focused transmission and we just happen to be within its bleed-over cone.”
“Can you triangulate its origin, Number One?”
She nodded, having already done so, and moved to display a rough position fix on one of her monitors. “Yes, sir. It’s very near to where the Barzans said it would be.”
“Well,” Žukauskas thought aloud, “that at least checks out.”
Sh'vaakrot gave him a cautious look. “This certainly seems to fit the parameters of the ambush Gol ran into, sir.”
He nodded soberly. “I know, but we’re obliged to check it out regardless. We’ll use maximum caution and utilize probes and long-range sensors wherever possible.”
“Commodore’s orders, sir?”
“Her XO’s orders, actually. The commodore was in active negotiations on the surface when I called.”
Sh'vaakrot’s expression soured, but before she could comment, Žukauskas said, “Commander Davula still outranks me, and besides, I’d have moved to check it out in any case.”
She smirked. “Better to ask forgiveness rather than permission, sir?”
“Few people get the job done being timid, Number One.”
“One officer’s timidity is another’s prudence, Skipper,” she countered, her antennae waving in short, spasmodic bursts, a sure sign of her anxiety and dark humor.
“Now reading one Orion Zephyrus-class corsair on long range sensors, Captain,” Ops reported.
“Red alert,” Žukauskas announced, advancing the ship’s readiness from condition yellow. “All hands to battle-stations.”
* * *
The day’s negotiation session had broken up an hour earlier, with the majority of the participants going home or, for the Federation contingent, beaming back to the ship for the night.
Today’s session had been far less constructive than the previous day’s, with the Romanii throwing up numerous roadblocks to sidetrack the talks. Various minor issues had suddenly required sidebars and ancillary conversations erupted at regular intervals, clearly some kind of conscious stalling tactic on their part.
It seemed that the First Consul and the Senate leadership were unwilling to address certain sensitive topics in full session, and so Trujillo and Curzon had been invited to a small gathering to follow later that evening. The pair had remained behind, escorted by a smaller-than-usual security contingent. Curzon’s diplomatic team and aides had beamed back to Reykjavík.
Wine was poured liberally and had been declared safe from poisons or additives by Trujillo’s concealed scanner. She surrendered to the ages-old truism, courtesy of Pliny the Elder (a notable apparently shared by both Magna Roma and Earth) in vino veritas.
“Now that the others are gone, let us talk plainly,” Macer invited, seating himself across from Trujillo and Curzon. “So much of what we must discuss has been withheld from so many of the junior senators and our military that it is impossible to convey the full weight of our plight with them present.”
Curzon was about to speak when Trujillo said, “Thanks to our probes, we know about the Orion’s deep core equipment. It’s only accelerating your planet’s condition. We estimate in a little over a decade your world will be another asteroid field orbiting your star.”
Macer swished a mouthful of wine around, nodding slowly before replying. “It was done at our request. Desperate though it was, those machines cut the planet’s volcanic activity in half. We were dropping dozens of cold-fusion weapons across the globe every year, and we’d have extinguished all life on the planet with those long before Magna Roma’s core fractured.”
“You should have started evacuating this planet decades ago,” Trujillo assessed. “Now, even with all of Starfleet’s resources, we could not conduct a planetary evacuation in time to save even half your population.”
“We know this,” Macer replied in a strangely emotionless voice. “I have lived with that knowledge for over a decade, and I have come to terms with the horror of it.”
“What can we do to help, First Consul?” Curzon asked. “What resources can we reasonably offer at this late hour to assist your people?”
“Evacuation of some small number,” he answered. “Drawn by lot from among the leadership.”
Trujillo snorted, shaking her head ruefully before taking a long draught of wine from her cup. “Once again you don’t miss an opportunity to disappoint.”
Macer studied her, his eyes narrowing. “Who else would you suggest we evacuate, Commodore? The slave classes? Those Eastern peoples who still rise up against us every few decades?”
“An entire world is imperiled, and you can only think to rescue your wealthy and landed elites,” she shot back. “Leaving everyone else behind to perish.”
The First Consul’s eyes seemed to harden, something in the man crystalizing from the combined pressures of pain and loss, anxiety and regret. “And there it is, finally… the judgement of our betters.”
Curzon raised a hand, trying to interject, but Macer silenced him by throwing his goblet the length of the table to clatter off the nearest wall.
“You have no idea!” he raged. “No concept of what it’s like to live in Earth’s shadow.”
Trujillo cast a sidelong glance at Curzon while replying to Macer. “Obviously not. By all means, explain it to us.”
Macer glared across the table at her, his fury rivaling his indignation. “No matter what our people accomplish, no matter how grandiose our achievements, your Earth did it first… did it better. We have conquered and united our world, but Earth? Earth is the capital of an enormous interstellar coalition. Yours is a world so rich you no longer have need of currency! Your technology produces food and water from thin air.”
A servant scurried forward to hand Macer another full cup of wine, which he drank from before continuing.
“We have learned from the Orions that your Starfleet has encountered multiple worlds which appear to be copies of your Earth, all echoing different periods of your planet’s history.”
Trujillo conceded the point with a bob of her head. “This is true. We have no more credible explanations for the existence of those worlds than we do for yours.”
“Is that what we are, then? Someone’s failed experiment? A pale imitation of Earth’s magnificence, a defective copy of the original?”
“Now, First Consul, I hardly think—” Curzon began.
“Yes,” Trujillo interjected, causing Curzon’s head to snap around in her direction, his expression struggling to remain neutral.
“Why sugar-coat this?” Trujillo posited to her colleague before turning back to Macer. “That is indeed what we believe. Someone or something was enamored of Earth’s Roman culture and created a facsimile here some three thousand years ago. It’s why your star system is such a jumble; they just tossed your planet into an existing system without any concern for the havoc that would cause on a celestial scale.”
The anger drained from Macer’s face, only to be replaced with something approximating resignation. He collapsed back into his chair, throwing up his hands. “You see? Everything we’ve accomplished here, all our history, our conquests, our saving Rome from certain disaster… it’s all for nothing! We’ll be snuffed out like someone switching off the lights in a laboratory at the end of the day.”
Trujillo finished her wine and stood, an uncertain Curzon following her to her feet.
“It’s all out in the open now, First Consul,” Trujillo said. “You and your people need to figure out what it is that you want from us, what you really need in the short time Magna Roma has left. Until that’s decided we’re just wasting our time here.”
“And send the senate and our populace into a panic? Learning the truth will cause utter chaos, our society will fracture!”
Trujillo’s expression was somber, and her tone acknowledged the tragedy of their situation. “Your world is dying, First Consul. You have my sympathy; despite the crimes you have perpetrated against my people in your desperation. We may still be able to assist you to some modest extent, but your own fear and indecision has cost you valuable decades and potential allies. This was your doing, not ours.”
He said nothing in reply, his eyes glistening as the heady wine brought his emotions closer to the surface that he would normally have allowed.
Curzon looked to Trujillo for a moment before turning to address Macer. “First Consul, I can add nothing to what the commodore has said, except to underscore her point that it is imperative that your leadership decides on a realistic course of action, and soon.”
They took their leave, transporting back with their security contingent.
As they exited the transporter room, Curzon gestured for Trujillo to hang back.
“Not precisely how I would have voiced our position,” he said with a wry grin, “but essentially the same message. I think he actually heard us tonight.”
She dropped her chin, staring at the deck-plates before replying. “I’m tired, Ambassador. Tired of this world, tired of the Romanii, their lies, and their pretense.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “It’s only fair of me to advise you that I will be recommending to Starfleet Command that if we participate in evacuating any of their population to Class-M worlds in Federation space, they will have to be integrated into existing Federation colonies. This society cannot continue as they have without intervention. There will be no more slavery among Romanii refugees, not on my watch.”
He nodded his assent. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Commodore.”
* * *
