TITLE: The Needs of the Few
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
SERIES: Star Trek: DS9
PARTS: 1/1
CODES: Angst
RATING: PG. Mild language, some violence.
SUMMARY: How did one old woman drive loyal Starfleet officer Michael Eddington into joining the rebel Maquis?
The Needs of the Few
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
At the time of his defection to the Maquis, Michael Eddington had no relatives or friends in the Demilitarized Zone. The famous renegade would admit, much later, that he'd never even heard of most of the planets in that area until after the Federation and Cardassia signed their so-called "peace treaty." Even then, he wasn't paying much attention. At least not at first.
Then he was assigned to the U.S.S. Adamant, one of several starships which had recently been given the thankless task of evacuating Federation colonists from planets ceded by treaty to the Cardassians.
At the time of his assignment to the Adamant, Michael Eddington was a lieutenant, generally well-regarded if hardly well-known, with a handful of medals and a largely unblemished record. Twelve years of Starfleet service had left him with a well-above-average knowledge of tactics, a certain taste for order and precision, and an unquestioned, and mostly unquestioning, loyalty to the organization to which he'd devoted most of his adult life. A solitary man, he had few friends and had never had many lovers, but those lacks didn't particularly trouble him. More often than not, his work was enough to content him; on the rare occasion when that failed him, there were always his beloved books.
Had he never been assigned to the Adamant, Eddington might have continued in that pattern indefinitely, working his patient, methodical way first to lieutenant commander, then to commander (perhaps higher); eventually earning an Earthside posting and, finally, a quiet and well-ordered retirement.
Had he never met Elspeth Morgan, he might yet have managed to follow that path. But meet her he did, and the encounter rendered him as surely and irrevocably Maquis as if she had required him to sign a contract in blood.
**********
"Ian Morgan?" Respectfully, Eddington addressed the colonist, one of several hundred now making makeshift quarters in the Adamant's cargo bay. The middle-aged man, his powerful body showing the results of what had probably been decades at manual, agricultural labor, regarded him with neutral blue eyes before nodding impassively. "I'm Lieutenant Michael Eddington."
"Yes?"
"It's about your mother."
The man raised a single dark eyebrow before observing simply, "She's not here."
"Yessir. Mayor MacMurtrie reported that. He seems to think she might still be on Melas." At the mention of the politician, Morgan's expression turned briefly baleful before resuming its former imperturbability. "Actually, that's what I'm here to talk to you about."
"Indeed," Morgan said, so flatly that Eddington wondered at the man's lack of emotion.
"Yes," he confirmed finally. "You know that the Adamant's orders--and the treaty agreement--call for evacuation of all Federation settlers on Melas."
"I know it."
"Your mother and a few of the other settlers apparently never went to any of the specified beam-up points."
"No."
The apparent indifference was starting to anger Eddington. This was the man's mother, for crying out loud. How could he pretend he didn't care what was going on with her? "No," Eddington answered, irritability making his voice a little sharper than he'd intended. "I thought maybe you could tell me why not."
"I can't speak for the others." Blue eyes, level but intent, met Eddington's, and the security man's impression of Morgan's indifference vanished like mist in the heat of the sun. "But my mother didn't choose to."
"What do you mean, she didn't choose to?" There was no choice to be made, at least not so far as Elspeth Morgan was concerned. It was a shame, of course, that resettlement was the best the Federation could offer most of their citizens in the Demilitarized Zone--but surely resettlement was a better alternative than leaving people to the tender mercies of the Cardassians. And surely this treaty, however it inconvenienced a handful of people, was a better choice than to re-open hostilities with the Cardassian Empire, with who knew how many lives might be forfeit.
After all, a place was just a place. And the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, as the Vulcans would say.
"I mean she didn't choose to, Lieutenant." Morgan clipped the edges off the words.
"Mr. Morgan, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you must be aware she didn't have a choice."
"She felt she did," the big man answered precisely, "and I decided to respect that choice. But if you think you can persuade her otherwise, Lieutenant, you are welcome to try."
**********
There was, of course, no need to *tell* Elspeth Morgan anything; if necessary, she and the other recalcitrants remaining on Melas could be beamed up to the Adamant without so much as a by-your-leave. Indeed, several ships faced with settlers, or even whole settlements, who refused to relocate, had done just that: beamed them away lock, stock, and personals. But that was generally considered an option of last resort. Some Starfleet officers, and some Federation officials, felt that such actions ventured perilously close to kidnapping. Others, more pragmatic, realized that citizens who `voluntarily' agreed to remove to another location were less likely to cause trouble (possibly of a physical nature, certainly of a political one) than those who faced outright coercion.
So: best to convince the intractables, if that could be done.
So: Lev Alexandrovitch Markov, captain of the Adamant, had assigned a number of his officers to do just that with the stubborn citizens of Melas, allocating one officer to each citizen in need of persuasion. (Less intimidating that way, Markov said, less likely to spark a confrontation. Of course, so long as they wore commbadges, none of the officers were very far from backup if they needed it.)
So: Michael Eddington had been assigned to `persuade' one such person, Elspeth Morgan. He'd hoped that her son could be talked into aiding him in that task, perhaps even into allowing her grandchildren to be enlisted in the cause, but that was clearly not to be.
So: Michael Eddington beamed down to Melas alone.
**********
"I won't go," the woman said. "This is my home." Eyes as cool and blue as her son's swept the room. Sunlight lit the clean, airy kitchen, glowing off the light, oak-colored walls and floor, picking up the bright hues of embroidered flowers against the whiteness of the woven tablecloth. Curtains, also hand-woven and embroidered, fluttered at the open window, in a fresh breeze scented with loam and growing things, and from somewhere far away he heard the musical cry of some bird he did not know.
With the efficiency of a trained officer, Eddington edited the sensory distractions from his awareness, and focused on Elspeth Morgan. She was tall for a human woman, slim and upright, clad in a plain blue blouse and the dark, durable denim slacks favored by many farmers. Her eyes were startlingly vivid, her teeth startlingly white, against the light tan of her skin, and her salt-and-pepper hair was coiled into a loose bun on the back of her head.
"Madam," he said simply, spreading his hands to show his weaponless state, his lack of intent to harm, "you don't have a choice. I'm sorry; I thought your leaders had explained to everyone--"
"Mrs. Morgan," she said calmly. "I am *Mrs. Morgan*, Lieutenant. Yes, they did. But I don't accept their explanation, and I don't accept their reasoning. Nor, I suspect, will I accept yours." Long fingers interlaced with their opposites, coming to rest on the almost-imperceptible mound of her small belly. "I will not leave my home."
"Madam--"
"Mrs. Morgan," she corrected.
"Mrs. Morgan," he conceded. "I sympathize with your feelings, but in a few weeks--"
"Your name?" she asked, her voice as cool as if they were having a casual conversation over tea.
Thrown by the incongruity of her manner and the situation, he said blankly, "My name?"
"Your given name, young man."
He'd introduced himself when she'd first opened the door to admit him. Perhaps she'd forgotten. With formal courtesy, he answered, "Michael. Michael Eddington."
"Michael Eddington," she said briskly. "Pardon an old woman. I remembered your rank, but I'd forgotten your given name. Well then, Michael. I have no intention of going to your starship, and I won't be persuaded to do so. I'll live out my life in the home I made with my husband." The words had a tone of finality to them.
But his orders forbade their being the last words on the subject. "Mrs. Morgan." The tone was as courteous as he could make it. "Under the terms of the recent peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Empire, this planet was ceded to the Cardassians." He told her what she already knew, hoping the repetition would help to persuade. "We were notified some time ago that they intend to base a settlement of their own on this planet, and that they would consider it a violation of the treaty if any Federation settlements remained here."
"Ah, but my settlement doesn't remain, does it?" Eddington mentally conceded that point; most of the settlers who had peopled this small colony were now aboard the Adamant. "Only I." That wasn't strictly true, of course, though the old woman might or might not be aware of the other intransigents still on Melas. "Surely the Cardassians wouldn't go to war over one old woman who can do them no harm. Or do you truly think they'd believe I represent a danger?" She shrugged, her long-boned hands spread out before her as if to suggest the very notion was ridiculous.
It was, but that was also beside the point. Of course they wouldn't go to war over her (not unless her example inspired a sizable number of others to remain on Melas), but the very thought of what a group of Cardassians might do to one old woman who could do them no harm made Eddington's blood run cold. "Mrs. Morgan," he said more intently, "you can't stay here."
"This is my home." The blue eyes hardened. "I will stay here."
"You can't stay here. This planet belongs to the Cardassians now."
"By what right?" she said, her tone sharpening.
"By treaty--"
"By what right? My husband and I worked this land for more than fifty years." Her hand indicated the spread beyond the window. "We cleared this land, some of it foot by foot. We plowed it, we prepared it, we planted it. We tended the plants, we irrigated them, we protected them as best we could against unseasonal cold and heat and insects. We kept them alive, and they kept us alive. For more than fifty years, Michael. And you expect me to walk away from all that?"
"Mrs. Morgan--"
The old woman's voice swept right over him. "This house you're standing in, Michael--we built it with our own hands, John and I. We shovelled out the soil for the foundation, and built the cellar out of fieldstone. We cut the trees and we planed the wood, and we cut it and we weatherproofed it. We built the frame and we built the house. The curtains, the bed linens, the tablecloths--in the winter, I stayed in here and I wove them, and when we had enough, I embroidered them. Everything in this place came from our hands, Michael, and from our hearts and from our souls. For fifty years, Michael." She never raised her voice, but the intensity of her words drilled into him like a phaser set on narrow beam.
"And now the Federation seeks to tear me away, and your Starfleet thinks that I can leave? And the land, the work of all our lives, has been ceded to some Cardassian who never touched it, never knew it, never loved it? I ask you again, Michael Eddington--by what right?"
Nonplussed, he stammered, "The treaty--"
"By what right does the Federation sign a treaty, and with a few simple words take away everything my husband and I worked for for half a century?" Looking into her eyes, Eddington remembered suddenly that blue, so often thought of as a cool shade, was also the color of the hottest flame. "And then try to refuse even the decency of letting me die on my own land?"
"Mrs. Morgan--" He groped for the words Captain Markov had given him, words presumably passed on from his Starfleet superiors, and from the Federation officials who had devised the treaty and the policies for its enforcement. "You'll have other land, a whole new planet of it. Starfleet and the Federation are resettling everyone affected by the treaty, to planets where the Cardassians don't have a claim. The people from your settlement are being moved to Empflie, and it's a--"
"A new land." Her eyes upbraided him, and her syllables reproved him. "What good is new land to an old woman, Michael? Or, perhaps more to the point, what good is an old woman in a new land?"
"Surely your son--"
"Would find me a burden." Evidently his shock at those words found its way into his expression, for she raised a hand as if warding off his protest. "No, Michael, of course he would never say so. And of course he would never abandon me. He is my son." Her lips tightened. "But Ian is not a young man either. The work of starting another farm will be at the limits of his strength, even with his wife and his children to help him. One more mouth to feed--" She broke off, studying his face. "Where are you from, Michael? Where were you reared?"
"Earth," he answered, wondering at the question. "A country called Canada."
"I went to Canada when I was a girl." She nodded. "It's a beautiful country." Her eyes hardened again. "But it's tamed, Michael. All of Earth is tamed. You don't know how we live out here, and how slim the margin of survival can be when you're just starting out. Life is precarious on a new world. And rations can be thin. One more mouth to feed can be the difference between survival and death." Her jaw clenched. "The Federation may choose to jeopardize my grandchildren, but I will not. My garden and the coops here will feed me, and it'll be enough." She looked away. "We wanted to give them a legacy," she said more softly, "but this--if it must, this will be enough."
"Mrs. Morgan." Eddington said it urgently, fearing, knowing, that the old woman would not be persuaded, that he would have to force her to comply with the Federation's requirements, with his own orders, regardless of her feelings or of the validity of her arguments. The Cardassian threat would not go away, the treaty would not be amended, to comply with the needs or the wishes of one old woman. "The Federation doesn't choose to jeopardize your grandchildren. We'll do everything we can to help your son and his family--everyone from this settlement--get started again." Even as he said it, he realized he was not really certain whether that were true. Certainly Adamant's only task was to move the colonists.
And certainly his only task was to persuade this woman, for her own safety and in the name of peace. So he pressed on. "But that's all we can do now, help with your resettlement. We can't leave you here, Mrs. Morgan. Don't you realize the Cardassians would kill you?" And probably not quickly, he added silently.
Level blue eyes came back to his. "Don't *you* realize that I would rather die than leave?"
"You can't mean that," he protested automatically, instinctively.
"I do mean that, Michael," she told him. "This is my home. This is the world--this is the place--where my husband and I lived and worked all our lives. This is the place where he died. This is the place where I'll die. I've known that, and I've wanted that, my whole life. I won't let you or your Starfleet or any number of Cardassians take that away from me."
Heart heavy, Eddington knew certainly now that only force would avail. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Morgan," he said, with real regret. "If it were up to me--" Shaking his head, he touched his communicator pin. "Eddington to Adamant. Stand by to beam up two."
Her incandescent eyes accused him. "You'd betray an old woman, Michael?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Morgan," he said again. "I don't have any choice. You'll have to come with me."
She stared at him another moment, her lips tightening. "I see," she said at last, lowering her eyes. "I see. May I have a few moments to get my things, then?"
"Of course," he said gently. "Would you like some help?"
"No, thank you. I can manage." Shoulders stiff, she turned away from him and walked through the entranceway, into the next room. Eddington heard some muffled noises, as of things being moved, and realized that the woman must truly never have intended to leave Melas; she obviously hadn't even packed.
Feeling a little guilty over what she had probably thought of as his high-handed action (even though she'd left him no choice), he tried to project good cheer and optimism as he called into the room, "You won't regret it, Mrs. Morgan. I hear Empflie is really a beautiful world, and I understand the northern hemisphere should be coming into spring soon."
"I'm sorry, Michael." Her voice came back to him, thinner and more distant than the few yards and single wall between them should have made it. "I will not go."
The next sound was loud, explosive, devastating.
Starfleet security officers were trained in the use of many varieties of weapons, and Michael Eddington knew the sound of an old-fashioned projectile weapon when he heard one. Instinctively, he dove for cover behind the table, pulling his phaser at the same moment. "Mrs. Morgan!" he called urgently. "Mrs. Morgan, don't do anything foolish--"
But there were no other noises. After a few minutes, he called, tentatively, "Mrs. Morgan?" No answer. "Mrs. Morgan?" Still no answer, still no noise; nothing.
A terrible fear, this time not for himself, gripped Eddington. Rising from his crouch, he ran into the next room-
And found Elspeth Morgan lying sprawled on a blood-drenched bed, pistol still in hand and her head half blown away.
**********
He was still in shock when he reported the news to his captain. Lev Markov accepted it quietly, with what looked to be just a hint of regret, and Eddington wondered, dazed, if the older man saw Elspeth Morgan's suicide as just another solution to the problem she had presented. An unfair thought, perhaps, but Eddington couldn't dismiss it, knowing that certainly that was the way Federation bureaucrats would see the matter.
Then he went to Ian Morgan, and told him everything.
**********
They buried her next to her husband, Eddington and the big, muscular man who had been Elspeth Morgan's son. Working together, in a silent choreography so exact it seemed almost to have been rehearsed, they dug the hole and lowered her coffin into the soil. Ian Morgan murmured a brief formula that sounded like a prayer. Then, again working together, they shovelled the dirt back over the plain wooden box that, like Elspeth Morgan's home and Elspeth Morgan's life, had been made of materials native to Melas.
Eddington only spoke once, after it was all over. "I should have let her stay. We should have let her stay."
"Yes," said Ian Morgan.
**********
They returned to the Adamant not long afterward, Eddington escorting the colonist to the cargo bay where his fellow citizens had their temporary quarters. On Morgan's entrance, a tall, dark-haired woman and three children, an adolescent boy and two younger girls, converged on him. The woman and the girls looked as if they had been crying; the adolescent had the stiff-faced look of one trying to deny his own impulse to do the same.
Averting his gaze to allow the little family privacy, Eddington found himself looking at the rest of the people who had populated the Morgans' Melasan community. For the most part, they were large people, the Caucasians visibly tanned and those of other racial groupings tending toward the darker end of their particular spectrums, all of the adults and most of the adolescents muscular and capable-looking. But as a group they were wan, somehow, and quiet; many of them had slumped shoulders and a look of vast weariness in their eyes.
Few of those people were so old as Elspeth Morgan, but most had probably lived out their lives on Melas, given everything they had to make their colony, their homes, prosper. Some of the younger ones might have inherited their farms or businesses from parents who had made that sacrifice in hopes of being able to give their descendants such legacies.
Now the colonies, the homes, the legacies were gone, the effort and struggle and sacrifice set at naught.
As he looked out at the people of Elspeth Morgan's homeland, Michael Eddington thought he could hear the old woman's fierce question sounding in his ears. //By what right?//
He echoed the words, silently. //By what right?//
**********
The Adamant's counselor, Luisa Estavez, sought to counsel Michael Eddington about his experience on Melas. The security officer cooperated with her of necessity, but he said little of moment. Eventually, Estavez concluded he was sufficiently recovered from the event, and ended his sessions. Certainly he seemed unchanged from his old self.
In the course of the next several months, Eddington finally received his promotion to lieutenant commander, and with it a transfer from the Adamant to Starfleet Security. Meanwhile, covertly, he began to track down certain rumors he had heard, about an organization calling itself "the Maquis."
When he finally uncovered the name of a potential contact, Eddington managed to set up a clandestine meeting with the man. When he went to that rendezvous, though, Eddington found himself in the center of an ambush, with half a dozen phasers trained on him.
"So you want to talk to the Maquis, *Starfleet*?" his contact sneered, brandishing a weapon in his face.
"No," Eddington answered, precisely and without flinching. "I don't want to talk to the Maquis. I want to join them."
"Of course you do, Starfleet. But why should we trust you?"
Suddenly, from the shadows, there emerged a muscular middle-aged man in the garb of a farmer. Studying Eddington's face for a moment, he turned to his companions and gestured for them to lower their weapons.
"He was a student of my mother's. You can trust him," said Ian Morgan.
END
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
SERIES: Star Trek: DS9
PARTS: 1/1
CODES: Angst
RATING: PG. Mild language, some violence.
SUMMARY: How did one old woman drive loyal Starfleet officer Michael Eddington into joining the rebel Maquis?
The Needs of the Few
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
At the time of his defection to the Maquis, Michael Eddington had no relatives or friends in the Demilitarized Zone. The famous renegade would admit, much later, that he'd never even heard of most of the planets in that area until after the Federation and Cardassia signed their so-called "peace treaty." Even then, he wasn't paying much attention. At least not at first.
Then he was assigned to the U.S.S. Adamant, one of several starships which had recently been given the thankless task of evacuating Federation colonists from planets ceded by treaty to the Cardassians.
At the time of his assignment to the Adamant, Michael Eddington was a lieutenant, generally well-regarded if hardly well-known, with a handful of medals and a largely unblemished record. Twelve years of Starfleet service had left him with a well-above-average knowledge of tactics, a certain taste for order and precision, and an unquestioned, and mostly unquestioning, loyalty to the organization to which he'd devoted most of his adult life. A solitary man, he had few friends and had never had many lovers, but those lacks didn't particularly trouble him. More often than not, his work was enough to content him; on the rare occasion when that failed him, there were always his beloved books.
Had he never been assigned to the Adamant, Eddington might have continued in that pattern indefinitely, working his patient, methodical way first to lieutenant commander, then to commander (perhaps higher); eventually earning an Earthside posting and, finally, a quiet and well-ordered retirement.
Had he never met Elspeth Morgan, he might yet have managed to follow that path. But meet her he did, and the encounter rendered him as surely and irrevocably Maquis as if she had required him to sign a contract in blood.
**********
"Ian Morgan?" Respectfully, Eddington addressed the colonist, one of several hundred now making makeshift quarters in the Adamant's cargo bay. The middle-aged man, his powerful body showing the results of what had probably been decades at manual, agricultural labor, regarded him with neutral blue eyes before nodding impassively. "I'm Lieutenant Michael Eddington."
"Yes?"
"It's about your mother."
The man raised a single dark eyebrow before observing simply, "She's not here."
"Yessir. Mayor MacMurtrie reported that. He seems to think she might still be on Melas." At the mention of the politician, Morgan's expression turned briefly baleful before resuming its former imperturbability. "Actually, that's what I'm here to talk to you about."
"Indeed," Morgan said, so flatly that Eddington wondered at the man's lack of emotion.
"Yes," he confirmed finally. "You know that the Adamant's orders--and the treaty agreement--call for evacuation of all Federation settlers on Melas."
"I know it."
"Your mother and a few of the other settlers apparently never went to any of the specified beam-up points."
"No."
The apparent indifference was starting to anger Eddington. This was the man's mother, for crying out loud. How could he pretend he didn't care what was going on with her? "No," Eddington answered, irritability making his voice a little sharper than he'd intended. "I thought maybe you could tell me why not."
"I can't speak for the others." Blue eyes, level but intent, met Eddington's, and the security man's impression of Morgan's indifference vanished like mist in the heat of the sun. "But my mother didn't choose to."
"What do you mean, she didn't choose to?" There was no choice to be made, at least not so far as Elspeth Morgan was concerned. It was a shame, of course, that resettlement was the best the Federation could offer most of their citizens in the Demilitarized Zone--but surely resettlement was a better alternative than leaving people to the tender mercies of the Cardassians. And surely this treaty, however it inconvenienced a handful of people, was a better choice than to re-open hostilities with the Cardassian Empire, with who knew how many lives might be forfeit.
After all, a place was just a place. And the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, as the Vulcans would say.
"I mean she didn't choose to, Lieutenant." Morgan clipped the edges off the words.
"Mr. Morgan, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you must be aware she didn't have a choice."
"She felt she did," the big man answered precisely, "and I decided to respect that choice. But if you think you can persuade her otherwise, Lieutenant, you are welcome to try."
**********
There was, of course, no need to *tell* Elspeth Morgan anything; if necessary, she and the other recalcitrants remaining on Melas could be beamed up to the Adamant without so much as a by-your-leave. Indeed, several ships faced with settlers, or even whole settlements, who refused to relocate, had done just that: beamed them away lock, stock, and personals. But that was generally considered an option of last resort. Some Starfleet officers, and some Federation officials, felt that such actions ventured perilously close to kidnapping. Others, more pragmatic, realized that citizens who `voluntarily' agreed to remove to another location were less likely to cause trouble (possibly of a physical nature, certainly of a political one) than those who faced outright coercion.
So: best to convince the intractables, if that could be done.
So: Lev Alexandrovitch Markov, captain of the Adamant, had assigned a number of his officers to do just that with the stubborn citizens of Melas, allocating one officer to each citizen in need of persuasion. (Less intimidating that way, Markov said, less likely to spark a confrontation. Of course, so long as they wore commbadges, none of the officers were very far from backup if they needed it.)
So: Michael Eddington had been assigned to `persuade' one such person, Elspeth Morgan. He'd hoped that her son could be talked into aiding him in that task, perhaps even into allowing her grandchildren to be enlisted in the cause, but that was clearly not to be.
So: Michael Eddington beamed down to Melas alone.
**********
"I won't go," the woman said. "This is my home." Eyes as cool and blue as her son's swept the room. Sunlight lit the clean, airy kitchen, glowing off the light, oak-colored walls and floor, picking up the bright hues of embroidered flowers against the whiteness of the woven tablecloth. Curtains, also hand-woven and embroidered, fluttered at the open window, in a fresh breeze scented with loam and growing things, and from somewhere far away he heard the musical cry of some bird he did not know.
With the efficiency of a trained officer, Eddington edited the sensory distractions from his awareness, and focused on Elspeth Morgan. She was tall for a human woman, slim and upright, clad in a plain blue blouse and the dark, durable denim slacks favored by many farmers. Her eyes were startlingly vivid, her teeth startlingly white, against the light tan of her skin, and her salt-and-pepper hair was coiled into a loose bun on the back of her head.
"Madam," he said simply, spreading his hands to show his weaponless state, his lack of intent to harm, "you don't have a choice. I'm sorry; I thought your leaders had explained to everyone--"
"Mrs. Morgan," she said calmly. "I am *Mrs. Morgan*, Lieutenant. Yes, they did. But I don't accept their explanation, and I don't accept their reasoning. Nor, I suspect, will I accept yours." Long fingers interlaced with their opposites, coming to rest on the almost-imperceptible mound of her small belly. "I will not leave my home."
"Madam--"
"Mrs. Morgan," she corrected.
"Mrs. Morgan," he conceded. "I sympathize with your feelings, but in a few weeks--"
"Your name?" she asked, her voice as cool as if they were having a casual conversation over tea.
Thrown by the incongruity of her manner and the situation, he said blankly, "My name?"
"Your given name, young man."
He'd introduced himself when she'd first opened the door to admit him. Perhaps she'd forgotten. With formal courtesy, he answered, "Michael. Michael Eddington."
"Michael Eddington," she said briskly. "Pardon an old woman. I remembered your rank, but I'd forgotten your given name. Well then, Michael. I have no intention of going to your starship, and I won't be persuaded to do so. I'll live out my life in the home I made with my husband." The words had a tone of finality to them.
But his orders forbade their being the last words on the subject. "Mrs. Morgan." The tone was as courteous as he could make it. "Under the terms of the recent peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Empire, this planet was ceded to the Cardassians." He told her what she already knew, hoping the repetition would help to persuade. "We were notified some time ago that they intend to base a settlement of their own on this planet, and that they would consider it a violation of the treaty if any Federation settlements remained here."
"Ah, but my settlement doesn't remain, does it?" Eddington mentally conceded that point; most of the settlers who had peopled this small colony were now aboard the Adamant. "Only I." That wasn't strictly true, of course, though the old woman might or might not be aware of the other intransigents still on Melas. "Surely the Cardassians wouldn't go to war over one old woman who can do them no harm. Or do you truly think they'd believe I represent a danger?" She shrugged, her long-boned hands spread out before her as if to suggest the very notion was ridiculous.
It was, but that was also beside the point. Of course they wouldn't go to war over her (not unless her example inspired a sizable number of others to remain on Melas), but the very thought of what a group of Cardassians might do to one old woman who could do them no harm made Eddington's blood run cold. "Mrs. Morgan," he said more intently, "you can't stay here."
"This is my home." The blue eyes hardened. "I will stay here."
"You can't stay here. This planet belongs to the Cardassians now."
"By what right?" she said, her tone sharpening.
"By treaty--"
"By what right? My husband and I worked this land for more than fifty years." Her hand indicated the spread beyond the window. "We cleared this land, some of it foot by foot. We plowed it, we prepared it, we planted it. We tended the plants, we irrigated them, we protected them as best we could against unseasonal cold and heat and insects. We kept them alive, and they kept us alive. For more than fifty years, Michael. And you expect me to walk away from all that?"
"Mrs. Morgan--"
The old woman's voice swept right over him. "This house you're standing in, Michael--we built it with our own hands, John and I. We shovelled out the soil for the foundation, and built the cellar out of fieldstone. We cut the trees and we planed the wood, and we cut it and we weatherproofed it. We built the frame and we built the house. The curtains, the bed linens, the tablecloths--in the winter, I stayed in here and I wove them, and when we had enough, I embroidered them. Everything in this place came from our hands, Michael, and from our hearts and from our souls. For fifty years, Michael." She never raised her voice, but the intensity of her words drilled into him like a phaser set on narrow beam.
"And now the Federation seeks to tear me away, and your Starfleet thinks that I can leave? And the land, the work of all our lives, has been ceded to some Cardassian who never touched it, never knew it, never loved it? I ask you again, Michael Eddington--by what right?"
Nonplussed, he stammered, "The treaty--"
"By what right does the Federation sign a treaty, and with a few simple words take away everything my husband and I worked for for half a century?" Looking into her eyes, Eddington remembered suddenly that blue, so often thought of as a cool shade, was also the color of the hottest flame. "And then try to refuse even the decency of letting me die on my own land?"
"Mrs. Morgan--" He groped for the words Captain Markov had given him, words presumably passed on from his Starfleet superiors, and from the Federation officials who had devised the treaty and the policies for its enforcement. "You'll have other land, a whole new planet of it. Starfleet and the Federation are resettling everyone affected by the treaty, to planets where the Cardassians don't have a claim. The people from your settlement are being moved to Empflie, and it's a--"
"A new land." Her eyes upbraided him, and her syllables reproved him. "What good is new land to an old woman, Michael? Or, perhaps more to the point, what good is an old woman in a new land?"
"Surely your son--"
"Would find me a burden." Evidently his shock at those words found its way into his expression, for she raised a hand as if warding off his protest. "No, Michael, of course he would never say so. And of course he would never abandon me. He is my son." Her lips tightened. "But Ian is not a young man either. The work of starting another farm will be at the limits of his strength, even with his wife and his children to help him. One more mouth to feed--" She broke off, studying his face. "Where are you from, Michael? Where were you reared?"
"Earth," he answered, wondering at the question. "A country called Canada."
"I went to Canada when I was a girl." She nodded. "It's a beautiful country." Her eyes hardened again. "But it's tamed, Michael. All of Earth is tamed. You don't know how we live out here, and how slim the margin of survival can be when you're just starting out. Life is precarious on a new world. And rations can be thin. One more mouth to feed can be the difference between survival and death." Her jaw clenched. "The Federation may choose to jeopardize my grandchildren, but I will not. My garden and the coops here will feed me, and it'll be enough." She looked away. "We wanted to give them a legacy," she said more softly, "but this--if it must, this will be enough."
"Mrs. Morgan." Eddington said it urgently, fearing, knowing, that the old woman would not be persuaded, that he would have to force her to comply with the Federation's requirements, with his own orders, regardless of her feelings or of the validity of her arguments. The Cardassian threat would not go away, the treaty would not be amended, to comply with the needs or the wishes of one old woman. "The Federation doesn't choose to jeopardize your grandchildren. We'll do everything we can to help your son and his family--everyone from this settlement--get started again." Even as he said it, he realized he was not really certain whether that were true. Certainly Adamant's only task was to move the colonists.
And certainly his only task was to persuade this woman, for her own safety and in the name of peace. So he pressed on. "But that's all we can do now, help with your resettlement. We can't leave you here, Mrs. Morgan. Don't you realize the Cardassians would kill you?" And probably not quickly, he added silently.
Level blue eyes came back to his. "Don't *you* realize that I would rather die than leave?"
"You can't mean that," he protested automatically, instinctively.
"I do mean that, Michael," she told him. "This is my home. This is the world--this is the place--where my husband and I lived and worked all our lives. This is the place where he died. This is the place where I'll die. I've known that, and I've wanted that, my whole life. I won't let you or your Starfleet or any number of Cardassians take that away from me."
Heart heavy, Eddington knew certainly now that only force would avail. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Morgan," he said, with real regret. "If it were up to me--" Shaking his head, he touched his communicator pin. "Eddington to Adamant. Stand by to beam up two."
Her incandescent eyes accused him. "You'd betray an old woman, Michael?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Morgan," he said again. "I don't have any choice. You'll have to come with me."
She stared at him another moment, her lips tightening. "I see," she said at last, lowering her eyes. "I see. May I have a few moments to get my things, then?"
"Of course," he said gently. "Would you like some help?"
"No, thank you. I can manage." Shoulders stiff, she turned away from him and walked through the entranceway, into the next room. Eddington heard some muffled noises, as of things being moved, and realized that the woman must truly never have intended to leave Melas; she obviously hadn't even packed.
Feeling a little guilty over what she had probably thought of as his high-handed action (even though she'd left him no choice), he tried to project good cheer and optimism as he called into the room, "You won't regret it, Mrs. Morgan. I hear Empflie is really a beautiful world, and I understand the northern hemisphere should be coming into spring soon."
"I'm sorry, Michael." Her voice came back to him, thinner and more distant than the few yards and single wall between them should have made it. "I will not go."
The next sound was loud, explosive, devastating.
Starfleet security officers were trained in the use of many varieties of weapons, and Michael Eddington knew the sound of an old-fashioned projectile weapon when he heard one. Instinctively, he dove for cover behind the table, pulling his phaser at the same moment. "Mrs. Morgan!" he called urgently. "Mrs. Morgan, don't do anything foolish--"
But there were no other noises. After a few minutes, he called, tentatively, "Mrs. Morgan?" No answer. "Mrs. Morgan?" Still no answer, still no noise; nothing.
A terrible fear, this time not for himself, gripped Eddington. Rising from his crouch, he ran into the next room-
And found Elspeth Morgan lying sprawled on a blood-drenched bed, pistol still in hand and her head half blown away.
**********
He was still in shock when he reported the news to his captain. Lev Markov accepted it quietly, with what looked to be just a hint of regret, and Eddington wondered, dazed, if the older man saw Elspeth Morgan's suicide as just another solution to the problem she had presented. An unfair thought, perhaps, but Eddington couldn't dismiss it, knowing that certainly that was the way Federation bureaucrats would see the matter.
Then he went to Ian Morgan, and told him everything.
**********
They buried her next to her husband, Eddington and the big, muscular man who had been Elspeth Morgan's son. Working together, in a silent choreography so exact it seemed almost to have been rehearsed, they dug the hole and lowered her coffin into the soil. Ian Morgan murmured a brief formula that sounded like a prayer. Then, again working together, they shovelled the dirt back over the plain wooden box that, like Elspeth Morgan's home and Elspeth Morgan's life, had been made of materials native to Melas.
Eddington only spoke once, after it was all over. "I should have let her stay. We should have let her stay."
"Yes," said Ian Morgan.
**********
They returned to the Adamant not long afterward, Eddington escorting the colonist to the cargo bay where his fellow citizens had their temporary quarters. On Morgan's entrance, a tall, dark-haired woman and three children, an adolescent boy and two younger girls, converged on him. The woman and the girls looked as if they had been crying; the adolescent had the stiff-faced look of one trying to deny his own impulse to do the same.
Averting his gaze to allow the little family privacy, Eddington found himself looking at the rest of the people who had populated the Morgans' Melasan community. For the most part, they were large people, the Caucasians visibly tanned and those of other racial groupings tending toward the darker end of their particular spectrums, all of the adults and most of the adolescents muscular and capable-looking. But as a group they were wan, somehow, and quiet; many of them had slumped shoulders and a look of vast weariness in their eyes.
Few of those people were so old as Elspeth Morgan, but most had probably lived out their lives on Melas, given everything they had to make their colony, their homes, prosper. Some of the younger ones might have inherited their farms or businesses from parents who had made that sacrifice in hopes of being able to give their descendants such legacies.
Now the colonies, the homes, the legacies were gone, the effort and struggle and sacrifice set at naught.
As he looked out at the people of Elspeth Morgan's homeland, Michael Eddington thought he could hear the old woman's fierce question sounding in his ears. //By what right?//
He echoed the words, silently. //By what right?//
**********
The Adamant's counselor, Luisa Estavez, sought to counsel Michael Eddington about his experience on Melas. The security officer cooperated with her of necessity, but he said little of moment. Eventually, Estavez concluded he was sufficiently recovered from the event, and ended his sessions. Certainly he seemed unchanged from his old self.
In the course of the next several months, Eddington finally received his promotion to lieutenant commander, and with it a transfer from the Adamant to Starfleet Security. Meanwhile, covertly, he began to track down certain rumors he had heard, about an organization calling itself "the Maquis."
When he finally uncovered the name of a potential contact, Eddington managed to set up a clandestine meeting with the man. When he went to that rendezvous, though, Eddington found himself in the center of an ambush, with half a dozen phasers trained on him.
"So you want to talk to the Maquis, *Starfleet*?" his contact sneered, brandishing a weapon in his face.
"No," Eddington answered, precisely and without flinching. "I don't want to talk to the Maquis. I want to join them."
"Of course you do, Starfleet. But why should we trust you?"
Suddenly, from the shadows, there emerged a muscular middle-aged man in the garb of a farmer. Studying Eddington's face for a moment, he turned to his companions and gestured for them to lower their weapons.
"He was a student of my mother's. You can trust him," said Ian Morgan.
END