Title : Passionate Intensity Author : Rob Morris Type : A flashback to Sarek's youth Series : The ST:TOS-based AU, The Ancient Destroyer Cycle Rating : PG13 Summary: A tale of Young Sarek's brush with purest evil becomes a necessary inoculation in later years, as a corrupt galactic power structure forces his hand in unthinkable ways. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." - WB Yeats, The Second Coming Passionate Intensity by Gojirob November, 2200, Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, Terra It was the dawn of the final century. Whatever remained when it was done would bear only passing resemblance to the galaxy people had known when it began. As many philosophers on many worlds had often said, when had this not been so? This said, it should be noted that some changes cut deeper than others, such as those wrought by the creature of mythical and irrational proportions that had made dust out of two space-faring powers that would have otherwise risen to challenge the Federation in a future this universe would never see. It was a year that marked off the warped reality of life in the Funnel, for those few who knew the true nature of the reality they inhabited. Most simply didn't know anything about this at all. In fact to most, it seemed a typical Human year, for those that knew of how Human years were counted. Most religious and cultural scholars had long since agreed to let the counting stand as beginning just over two millennia ago. They reasoned that one, some things of extreme historical significance had happened at that time, and two, since no one could agree exactly when the primary event of note in this counting's start had taken place; being offended by its use was not an issue. So while star dates were coming into full use, many Federation documents included this alternate counting. Despite originating in one religion on one planet, this year also was typical for any form of truly sentient life that used days and dates in such a fashion. This was observed by a Vulcan still largely a child in the eyes of his people, again assigned by the counting of years. After all, he was not yet even fifty. Sarek of Vulcan, grandson of Sra Sra T'Pau, was attached as a junior attaché to Staven, his planet's Ambassador to the Federation since the tragic and not accidental death of the very first Ambassador, Soloj, father to Sarek's lost mother T'Lara, and the Vulcan who had made that legendary walk down the ramp to greet Zephram Cochrane almost a century and a half before. What he did and did not understand of his hosts on Terra would take too much time to explain in full. But one thing had become clear. Humans thrived on vagueness, and lived and worked in the shades of grey between order and chaos. This made 2200 a very typical Human year. Some counted as the beginning of a 23rd Century, while literalists said it was merely the end of a 22nd. Sarek had, on the oddly frequent occasions he'd been caught in such a debate, logically pointed out that assigning exactly when something began and when it ended was arbitrary. As he had read in the works of the prescient and often misunderstood Terran author Herbert George Wells, days indeed went on and time continued when there was no one around to count either. "Sub Consul Sarek? He's ready to see you." Sometimes, the shadings were more starkly drawn, yet they were always present. There had been few greater sticking points in the negotiations that finalized the Federation Charter than the inclusion of General Order Seven, the one death penalty law remaining in a time virtually free of them in the civilized galaxy. The Vulcans had fought hard and long to include so many checks and balances on the enforcement of this brutal option, its use would be restricted to cases wholly extraordinary in their nature. Certain conditions had to be met, spelled out in excruciating detail, or GO-7 would not go at all. "He has ceased his efforts to waive counsel?" There was now a dispute. An abominable, incomprehensible act by a Starfleet officer had the Humans convinced that the conditions for General Order Seven had been met. The filing of an objection from the Vulcan Embassy had shown a dramatic difference of opinion. "No. But the Supreme Court just issued its opinion. The extraordinary invoking of General Order Seven demands that the accused have counsel under all circumstances, even if this is contrary to their wishes." Sarek had filed the objection without his Ambassador's prior approval, believing that this would have been Staven's wish. While Staven approved-with a discernible glare-after the fact, a terse message from T'Pau reminded her young grandson of the importance of going through channels. Yet there was also a message for Staven, and Sarek discerned from the reaction among the other Embassy staffers that it was perhaps also an admonishment from T'Pau for allowing the possible use of General Order Seven to go unchallenged by those bred to peace. "His one right negated, then, balanced against the greater need to ensure that the matter of his life be adjudicated thoroughly and fairly. Logical. Perhaps even acceptable." The absolutist stance of the Vulcan government on this matter had not won them any fans in the Federation at large. Even some Vulcans, citing the brutality and pointlessness of the crime, stated that their government should be satisfied that the existing strictures on this last remaining death penalty were observed, and they were. Sarek had noted as much, when he made his filing of objection. Yet T'Pau's office had made it clear: Vulcans had never wanted this law to exist in the first place, and by definition would fight its ever being used with every resource they had. "Begging the Sub Consul's pardon, but a monster like that has no rights." The accused had never disputed his guilt. He had never expressed any remorse. He had not offered any explanation. His only public statements were laced with venom and contempt that seemed to verge on the omni-directional, but with particular disdain for the ‘Terran Alien Occupation Government', an extremist term for the United Federation Of Planets. "I will not pardon you for a statement you do not seem to regret in the slightest. I will also direct that you not refer to my client as a monster. Vulcan teaching holds that there are no monsters, only life that defies our ability to easily categorize it." Sarek was in a poor position to defend a hated man justly found guilty under a system designed to screen out all but the worst of the worst to be placed under the last penalty. His time was nearing, and thirty-five was a prime age for that time of hiding away while rituals never spoken of kept back the animals all Vulcans had once been. But though he could feel the first barest stirrings of his time, he would see this through. In fact, Sra T'Pau had given him the simplest option possible for ending this crisis. He would propose it to the accused, who would logically choose his life over his death. It would be done. There would be a cost, but it would be done. "No, sir. You are wrong. There may not be dragons or space serpents. But there are monsters. They may not look it, but there are monsters. You're about to meet one." Melvin Koren looked nothing like a monster. But the first hint of his nature showed itself as soon as the meeting room door was unlocked, and he saw his new, unwanted defense attorney. "You've got to be kidding." Sarek, who was not kidding, turned to the holding facility's administrator. "Please undo his shackles." "No, Sub Consul. This was discussed. Even if it hadn't been, I would not allow him out of his cell unshackled, even at the point of being relieved of duty." Koren smiled at his jailer. "Joe. How about those kids? Your daughter pass her driver's courses yet?" The jailer looked at Koren. "What makes you believe I assign any worth to anything you bleat out? You're going to die for what you did. This man can't change that fact." Koren looked around the room, as though he couldn't see Sarek at all. "What man, Joe? It's just you and me in here. Did something get in when you opened the door? Maybe an animal that thinks it's a man? Lots of those around. Fewer soon, though. Lots fewer. Humanity Prevails. It's just a matter of time." "Sub Consul-Your client and you are welcome to him." Koren mockingly pursed his lips. "You breaking up with me, Joe? Awwww. We had such a good thing going." The door closed, and the distinctive hum of a force-field generator being turned on was heard. Sarek now thought better of the officer, showing restraint in the face of Koren's childish taunts. He now allowed for the vile nature of the man he had come to save. "Whatever you think me, I am your last hope of not being executed. Since I do not comprehend or care for the exchange of vapid witticisms, I will first make my offer. At my signal, you can be transported from here, and shipped rapidly to Vulcan. You will still be in what is likely to be lifetime custody." "But I will live?" "A diplomat may choose to give asylum. The wrong of allowing you to be executed easily balances off against the wrong of offending our partners in the Federation. Yes. You will live, and know the full protection of my government, this at its very highest levels." The man sat, and if he could have, he looked as though he would have rubbed his chin. "My name is Melvin Caspian Koren. I killed most of my fellow crewmembers on the Enterprise, Registry NCC-01, and the second ship to bear that name. Those I didn't get, I watched die as the ship-which I sabotaged-plunged into Jupiter's gravity well. Only the alien press corps' so-called Miracle Baby, one George Samuel Kirk, made it out by being shoved into an escape pod. If I could have shot that pod down from my own pod, I would have done it gladly." Sarek shook his head. "You have not told me your decision regarding my offer." Koren shrugged. "When I die, I will be surrounded by xenophilic trash. Race-traitors. But I will be surrounded by fellow Humans, members, diluted and deluded though they may be, of the one true species. You want to know my decision on your offer, Vulcan? You just heard it." Sarek decided that, while there were no monsters, there were those who made a conscious effort to defy all efforts at understanding. "I will not abandon you to your fate, desired or not, deserved or not. I will act as your defense counsel, and in time, it is logic that will prevail. If you truly desire the sentence your prosecutors seek to enact, then you must still cooperate with me, so that no delay will be caused by your recalcitrance, and the concerns for justice this will raise. Whatever your true aims, they will only be served by your cooperation." Koren seemed intrigued by the apparent utilitarian nature of Sarek's argument. "What would you have me do, Vulcan?" "I would first have you tell me of any reason you had for killing the crew of the Enterprise. Any reason at all will provide a start, and a possible basis for any sort of legal defense." Sarek perhaps thought that the force of logical self-interest had penetrated the aura of hate that nearly poured from his client. "You want to know why I killed the Enterprise crew, Vulcan?" Sarek was wrong, as he heard when Koren leaned as close as his restraints would allow. "They were aboard." VULCAN, SEVENTY-EIGHT YEARS LATER Ambassador Sarek sat with a girl who did not know her own worth, but whose full worth he would soon have need of. "That tale only relates the beginning of what would become my struggle with the Order Of The Ancient Destroyer. I had known it had deeply infected Vulcan. I had thought somehow that Earth, in its until-recent galactic isolation, had been spared. Koren proved me wrong." Saavik Brianna Kirk asked the obvious question. "Was he executed?" Sarek found there was no way to prepare her for the answer. "Several times, on many different occasions. His life was not as ours. On the last occasion, he claimed to be a many-thousands-years-old, and begged a man named Adam Pierson, who he claimed was older still, to ‘release' him from servitude to the Order and their cloning process. It is a process that apparently rebirths body with soul in each instance." What Sarek claimed bordered on sorcery, not science, but the girl did not dispute him. "On Vulcan, the Order is entrenched in T'Pring's house. On Romulus, in the Senate itself. Q'onos claims to have eliminated The Order, but its literature has been found in the possession of its most violent warlords. Father-where does it find its home on Earth?" Sarek had always made it clear to the Hellguard refugee that she could call him by that title, James Kirk's adoption of her aside. In fact, her true father was the man whose life bound Kirk and Sarek's together. But this was never spoken of, to the girl, or especially, to the father whose traumatic captivity on Hellguard had produced her. Again, there was no preparation for the answer he gave. "In Admiralty Hall. The Order's home on Earth is the top echelon of Starfleet Command itself." Again, the claim was not disputed. The Order tended to gather its shadows where the power was. "You wish me to enter Admiralty Hall, using the stealth and survival skills I gained from Hellguard." "Indeed." "To what end, Father?" "To this end, Saavik. Before you, Captain Kirk adopted his orphaned nephew." "Peter Kirk. I have been to his grave, next to that of my namesake grandmother, Brianna Kirk. Uncle Jim roared at the fact that Peter's middle initial was an incorrect ‘R', rather than ‘C'." "Saavik, your adopted brother is alive. He is the prize you will seek to liberate, from the deepest, most shielded parts of Admiralty Hall. His ‘death' was a kidnapping, staged by the Hall and its allies in Section 31. For ten years, they have held him, and attempted to twist his existence to their purposes and goals." Saavik now found a claim her mind could not simply accept. "Their dislike and contempt of Uncle Jim is legend. He cites it as the reason his crew has not advanced to commands of their own. But why direct so much effort against a mere boy, whoever his family is?" "That his name is Kirk is almost irrelevant. Suffice it to say that the Order worships a being who is as the devil. And on the day Peter Kirk was born, the devil shrieked to know that the one who would end his reign had arrived." Saavik again gave an indication of her disbelief. "Father, I will gladly rescue my brother, if only for the delight it will bring to Uncle Jim and to all his crew. But to rely on old myths as our guide?" "Will you do it?" "I will. Forgive my impertinence. But I must also ask this: why relate the sorry tale of so heartless a being as Koren? What has he to do with all this?" Sarek nodded. He had been building to a point. "To obtain your target's freedom, and to defeat the casual attitude towards all life espoused by Koren and his masters, you will briefly be forced to adopt it. Your brother has been their helpless captive all these years, locked in cryo-stasis. He will be of no aid in your efforts to free him." For the moment, Saavik did not question where this information had come from, or why James Kirk had not been informed. "Then I will deal with those who find me out in the worst way possible?" The man of peace surrendered a piece of himself in the name of nothing less than universal survival. "Of them, it will be best to say: They were aboard." As she left to begin her preparations, Sarek realized he would have to repeat this hateful process with the rescued boy himself, when the time came. And he wondered how much of each of them would be left by the time all was done.