Story Notes:
Disclaimer: (c) 2007 Rabble Rouser/Harmony_bites. All rights reserved. This work may not be archived, reproduced, or distributed in any format without prior written permission from the author. This is an amateur nonprofit work, and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount or any other lawful holder.
I'd like to thank Djinn for her beta.
Sela's mood was as bitter as the strong morning brew. She took a sip and nodded at her aide, Mekal. "Just how I like it."
Or at least how she was determined to like it. Sela didn't believe in sweetening her drinks anymore than she did in sugarcoating her reality. And the reality was that dealing with Project Shinzon and meeting the boy wasn't something she could put off.
Shinzon, the name of more than one Praetor, meant sword. A weapon was exactly what the ten-year-old boy had been designed to be. Sela just hoped it didn't prove double-edged.
Mekal cleared his throat reminding her of his presence. She leaned back and stared at him as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. Like most Romulans, Mekal had been taken aback at the first sight of her. He had wrinkled his nose as if she had smelled bad. And no matter how common a reaction that was, Sela couldn't forgive that and enjoyed doing all she could to unnerve him.
"Yes?" Sela said.
Mekal backed away from her. "All the latest reports are on the padd." He didn't turn his back until he reached the door.
Sela looked through the report headings quickly. Most she had read already. It was her habit to come in before dawn to make sure that she would be hit with no surprises at the start of the workday that others could exploit. It was one reason she had made subcommander before she'd reached twenty. She was determined to rise to full commander before too long.
She punched up an intelligence report on the personnel and events on the Enterprise, a pet project her background made her uniquely suited for, and as she took in what she was scanning, the mug dropped out of her suddenly numb hand, spilling the contents over her desk.
So, her mother was dead. Again. Or rather another Lieutenant Tasha Yar was. The Federation lieutenant had been little older than Sela, only twenty-seven at her death. Nothing her mother had told her had prepared her for this happening so soon.
There was a most curious sensation of hollowness at her core, like the feeling of a drop from a great height. Had part of her entertained the foolish notion of a reunion one day? A chance to meet her mother again? To make up for-
Sela closed down on the thought. It was her mother who had betrayed her, tainted her, in trying to leave. Her strange sense of vertigo was just from the bizarreness of the time paradox that allowed for another, different Tasha Yar to live on over a decade after her mother's execution. That was all. Just an echo that had finally faded away. There was no reason for grief. No reason. Sela's intercom buzzed and she welcomed the distraction, stabbing down violently on the console.
"What is it, Mekal?"
"Tivora has arrived, Subcommander."
"Have her wait fifteen minutes, then show her in."
Sela snapped off the intercom without bothering to wait for an acknowledgement. She began mopping up the green liquid from her desk. Tivora could wait, and the longer she waited, the more it would be impressed on her who had the power here. It would give Tivora time to get nervous and would give Sela time to return to a calm state-or at least the appearance of one.
Sela moved to the window and stood there looking down at the vista below through her reflection. One moment she was looking at the great capital city, the next at her mother's face in her own. At the blonde hair, the smooth forehead and pinkish complexion that forever marked her an alien on Romulus, the only sign of her Romulan heritage the pointed tips of her ears. She put both her palms to the cool glass, and tried to push away the ghost. It was only getting harder as she got older, as she grew into the face she remembered. Would it be easier when she grew old, much older than Tasha had been? It took such a long time for a Romulan to grow old.
Why had her father made her look so much like her mother, so human? It was no accident, no genetic roll of the dice. There was nothing natural, unplanned about an offspring of two species. Like all such hybrids, Sela owed her existence to extensive genetic manipulation. She was the product of deliberate choices. The choice of her Romulan father to make Tasha Yar his consort, then to have a child in her image. If Sela hadn't looked so much like her mother, so human, maybe she wouldn't have been such a potent reminder of all her mother had left behind. Maybe her mother wouldn't have wanted to leave.
Yet if Tasha Yar hadn't tucked in a miniature version of herself each night, maybe her mother wouldn't have felt moved to fill her daughter's head with stories of her friends on the Enterprise: Data, Riker, Geordi, Guinan, and particularly Picard. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the hero of dozens of those bedtime tales.
And that ironically was, as Riker might have put it, her ace in the hole. Because Tasha Yar had known from Guinan that there was a Captain Picard in both futures, and Sela's father had learned that from Sela's recounting of her mother's tales. And her father was no ordinary Romulan, but a general of the Tal Shiar who brought to the attention of his colleagues that Picard would become important, a starship captain with a key role in the affairs of the quadrant. From that had grown the plan to clone Picard, to raise his clone here on Romulus and in time to replace Picard with him, giving the Empire their own man at the center of Starfleet and the Federation.
Sela knew it was no accident she had risen so fast, so high in rank at her young age. Many were just as brilliant as she and better connected. But only she had the blood-deep knowledge of humans, of Starfleet's flagship and of her increasingly celebrated captain. With the Empire pushing outward again, that knowledge had only gained in importance and brought her to the attention of the new Praetor. Which is why Tivora, the scientist currently with custody of the boy, now reported to Sela, and why the woman had some explaining to do about her handling of the Empire's potentially most devastating weapon-and embarrassing secret.
#
Sela frowned as she watched the boy on the monitors at the observation center. Shinzon's room was filled with model starships hanging from the ceiling and cramming the shelves and the small roll-top desk. Not Romulan, but Federation starships, at least one a model of a ship dating from before first contact. Sela felt satisfaction in identifying Archer's Enterprise, and Kirk's, resting on the shelf above the bed.
"We have captured Picard's boyhood home in every detail in the holosimulation," said Tivora.
"Not every detail. That couldn't possibly have hung in Picard's room as a boy." Sela tapped one screen, pointing to a model of the current Enterprise. Picard's Galaxy class ship had been launched less than a year ago. It hung there nevertheless.
"It was felt a promise and token of the boy's future, right within his reach, might prove inspiring."
"I don't see much point in that. Or why we're immersing the boy in his human heritage when he's so young. Better to solidify a Romulan identity and allegiance." She moved closer, tapping twice on a screen to zoom in on the boy's face. "Our dangerous secret weapon." The ironic note in her voice seemed to escape Tivora.
"He is always watched, carefully watched."
"Yes, that seems to be the only constant in his life. Everything else changes with each new Praetor."
Shinzon had been shifted from place to place over the years. His last residence had been a boy's boarding school. A recent illness had caused him to be sent back to the institute where he had been created and here he remained. The boy, and his round ears, had been attracting too much interest. It was decided he should live under more controlled, more isolated conditions.
"Do you like children, Tivora? Do you like Shinzon?" Sela read the answer in Tivora's pursed lips and her narrowed eyes glancing at the screen. "I don't like children. I don't like dealing with them, with the chaos they bring."
Sela gestured for Tivora to follow her and strode to the holosuite. The boy did not look up from his book even though he must have heard the door open. Certainly Tivora's heavy, shuffling step would have been unmistakable.
"Shinzon, dear," Tivora said loudly and slowly as if the boy were deaf and dumb.
"Go away," he said, pointedly moving his seat away from the door.
Sela lifted him, chair and all, to face her and snatched the book from him. "It's rude to turn your back on visitors-and dangerous to turn your back to strangers. Any Romulan of your age should know that."
"I'm not Romulan."
No, he wasn't. Shinzon was the first human she had seen since her mother's death. Was this what people saw when they looked at her? An alien?
His eyes widened as he gazed up at her, his face split by a tremulous smile. He took in her face, her hair. His hand reached for a golden strand, but she quickly stepped away from him.
"And rude to lay a hand on someone without their permission."
"May I touch your hair?"
"No."
He stared at her then with a look as invasive as any physical contact, but she only laughed, though she felt little amusement.
"You really have been raised by wolves."
"Shinzon has been reared by scientific principles..." Tivora said.
Both ignored her.
"I've been raised by no one," he said. He paused and frowned. "That's a human expression. You look human."
In answer she tucked her hair behind her ears, exposing their points. "I'm Romulan by blood, as you are by birth. We're both children of the Empire. Empires take in those of many bloods and call them to a common greatness."
He leaned back in the chair then, looking reassured. It was as if with her stock phrases, he had taken her measure. Other boys had family and ties of love to protect them. Shinzon had only this. His "destiny." He must have heard that many times.
Sela decided to change her tactics. She nodded coolly, which seemed to confuse him. "Not inclined to salute when I run up the flag, are you? Would you prefer to live on a Federation world, maybe even Earth?" She leaned toward him, fixing her gaze on him, looking carefully for his reaction. "I might be able to arrange that."
He scowled. "Are you serious? Arrange it? Isn't that the point eventually? What choice do I have? And isn't it rude not to give your name?"
"It's Sela." She felt her mouth quirk upward, trying and failing to completely suppress a smile at his challenging tone. "I already know your name."
"I'm sure you know everything about me. Everybody does. My favorite food, what I like to read, even how fast I should run. Even before I know it. But I never learn anything about anyone. It's not fair."
Sela was not sure how to reply to that. She remembered her own irritation as a child. How unfair it seemed that her father could relate every fault of hers since she took a breath while he seemed to have been born an adult. How on Romulus ever since being a child, she took it for granted that nothing was private, that it was the duty of a neighbor or playmate to inform on her. But at least she had never had a template everyone was hammering at her to fit. She swallowed down the unbidden sympathy. That was a danger of meeting Shinzon she had not anticipated.
"I don't like it here," he blurted. "I might as well be in the Federation. Everything's alien. Even the sheets smell funny."
Sela moved to the bed and wrinkled her nose at the flowery scent. "Lavender. Impressive detail."
The boy's scowl told her what he thought of that. "You should try the food. The other day I was drinking the tea and the taste changed mid-way-as if they had just programmed the right taste in. If I ask my 'Maman,'" his voice dripped with derision at the word, "about the Picards her face goes blank. Like she's trying to access data not on record. When she does tell me something, I don't know what's real and what's been made up."
Suddenly Sela felt something brush against her pants leg as a gray terran cat leapt on Shinzon's lap, reaching up to bat his nose with a paw.
Shinzon produced a sound Sela didn't think the solemn boy was capable of making. Giggles. He reached up and scratched under the cat's chin, and the cat settled on the boy's lap as if it belonged there.
"Shadow," the boy said at her questioning look.
"Now, Shinzon, dear, you know his name is Claude," Tivora said.
"His cat's name was Claude. Mine is Shadow."
His face set, and Tivora drew back. What was wrong with the woman? It was as if she was afraid of the boy. The way he hurled the name at them both was as much test as taunt and his choice of a name wasn't lost on Sela.
"Well," Sela said. "One thing that seems to meet with your approval."
"Shadow's real. About the only thing around here that is," Shinzon said.
Tivora nodded. "Taibek felt it would be valuable to give Shinzon responsibility for a living thing."
Sela moved to examine the antique instrument set up by the window. "Tivora tells me you don't look through your telescope anymore."
"She complaining I'm not fitting the pattern? His pattern?" His face pulled down in an expression that made him look much older. "It's not our stars out there. It's his, the other's. It's as phony as the stars on the ceiling at the Saleen museum." He swallowed then and his voice shook. "Let me out. I'm scared that soon I'll forget what's real."
She forced herself not to respond to the plea in his eyes, or at how the hope in them died at the practiced indifference in her face. "Your future depends on you." She shrugged. "All childhoods are like being in prison. People tell you what to do and where to go. Eventually you have more choices. How many and what choices you have depends a lot on how much you learn. How you behave." She shot a look at him at that and he squirmed. "After all, as you said, what's the point if we don't eventually let you go? But before you can have freedom, you have to show discipline. Obey Tivora and your teachers."
"I didn't ask for this," he said.
She didn't allow a trace of sympathy in her voice. "Did the heir ask to be born to the Empress? Do you think anyone asks to be born to their mother and father?"
She couldn't keep a trace of bitterness from her voice and the boy seemed to pick up on it, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forward, as if he was trying to read her like his book. She looked down at the book in her hands and began leafing through it. That seemed to make him uncomfortable and he shifted in his seat, causing the cat to leap down with an indignant meow. From the way he kept shooting her nervous glances, it was as if it was his mind she was rifling through.
"Dumas' Three Musketeers? Well, you certainly have no problem reading the language." One of Shinzon's recent reported rebellions was a refusal to speak French with the holograms. "I recommend his The Man in the Iron Mask. I suspect you'd find it...interesting." She remembered a period when she couldn't get her hands on enough Terran books. Especially stories like this one with their strange adventures and alien honor. It was still one of her guilty pleasures. She looked into Shinzon's smoky gray eyes and felt startled by her sense of kinship.
She considered admitting her human heritage to him. It could be a bond between them, a way of gaining his loyalty and cooperation. What made her hesitate was how much she suddenly felt she wanted that, how much part of her longed for a connection to what was human in her.
"You are human," he said. "Or half human."
Sela gripped the book so hard her knuckles went white. "What makes you say that?"
"You look it. And no one would know Dumas unless-"
"On the contrary, Mister Picard."
His face tightened at her address.
"Know your enemy is not just an Earther saying." She shut the book and slammed it on the desk beside him so hard Tivora jumped.
He only smiled. He had gotten to her. She had been tempted to confess her humanity, but he had seen it for himself and was attempting to use it against her. She could see the pleasure he was taking in rattling her. In a way, she couldn't blame him and his defiance won her grudging admiration. But she also felt a dangerous rage at being caught out and it made her decide to leave before she wiped the insolent look off his face with a hard slap.
"I like you." His side-glance at Tivora made it clear who he was contrasting her with.
She ignored him and started to head out the door.
"Shall I ever see you again?" he asked, sounding almost contrite.
"Probably not," she said without turning back to face him. "If you're lucky."
#
"He has been completely mismanaged."
Sela was in a meeting of the small council in charge of projects like the boy. Projects that were supposed to return the Empire to a predominant place in the quadrant. She looked around her, sizing up each member and how she should play them. Although of the six people in the room, all but Teraz, seated to her right, was unimportant. Tivora was present not as a member of the council, but as the purported "expert" on the boy, and the two men flanking her on each side, Tulla and Bracus, would do whatever Teraz wanted. Lynaris, the old woman seated across from Sela, could be unpredictable, but her time was past.
Teraz, the general in charge of the Tal Shiar had only a shot of iron gray near his temples and faint crow's-feet about his eyes on an otherwise boyish face. Young enough in looks and style to relate to the younger soldiers eager to have the Romulan Star Empire again take its place among the great powers, while still credibly mature enough to soothe down those doddering old fools in the Senate afraid of another Tomed. His voice was smooth, warm, used to alternate between a cajoling informality and a soaring rhetoric. She knew he wanted to be the next Praetor. They were lovers and she despised him.
"Shinzon has been handled by the greatest minds of the Empire," Tivora said.
"In that case," Sela said, "we should surrender to the Federation now and save ourselves the trouble of a fight."
Teraz laughed. "Fortunately we have you, Sela, as our secret weapon."
She got up and began to pace. It was a breach of protocol. One stood at attention or sat quietly in front of your superiors. Her moving freely was not just an expression of how upset she was but a subtle challenge to the authority of those in the room. Not one she thought it likely they'd call her on however.
"Sit down, child. Looking at you makes me dizzy," said Senator Lynaris. Lynaris was a former battlegroup commander the Praetor called the conscience of the Empire and, as befit a conscience, everyone ignored her.
Sela sat across from the old Senator trying to force down her urge to glare at the woman for her form of address. Judging from the old women's amused smile, she hadn't succeeded. Sela worked at a crick at her neck and sighed. Where to begin?
"Had I had charge of Shinzon from the beginning, I would have made sure he knew nothing of his origins or purpose. Safer for both him and us, and we'd have avoided this arrogance, this attitude of his that he's heir to the throne." Although maybe that was innate? Starship captains were not known for their humility.
Sela had expected to hate the boy at sight. Had in fact avoided meeting Shinzon for weeks after getting him as a charge because she was unsure how she'd react. And this was a twin to Jean Luc Picard. In a way, he was the person who had taken her mother away from her, the man who represented what her mother had been going back to, who she had chosen over her father.
But it had not been Picard Sela saw at all. Just an angry little boy in a cage because of her recounting of the tales her mother told her as a small girl.
"Eventually," Sela said, "for our plans for him to work he needs to be free, inside the Federation and outside our control. Our plan depends on his loyalty to us and we have done nothing to gain it." She thought of her father and her fateful, instinctive reaction to her mother trying to take her from him. Her voice lowered to almost a whisper. "People cannot feel loyalty if loyalty has never been shown to them personally. The boy needs to be part of a family. The only time Shinzon had anything close to that, the couple that took him in was warned not to show him affection. He was taken away when his foster father, Balrek, seemed to be getting too attached."
"There were other reasons for that," Teraz said.
"There was another reason for him being taken away." The real Picard had been reported missing, believed dead, which would mean no more need for Shinzon. A centurion had been sent to collect him. That was when Shinzon became aware of the other's existence. Even when it became clear Picard had survived, Shinzon had not been sent back to the "good, traditional" Romulan couple with which he had been placed. "It's clear in the reports that Balrek's fervent efforts to find out where Shinzon had been taken and get him back were why he wasn't returned."
Teraz steepled his hands in a gesture Sela knew he believed made him look thoughtful and statesmanlike. "If his loyalties are so doubtful perhaps it's time to cut our losses, get rid of a potential...awkwardness."
"No!" The violence of her reaction surprised her, and embarrassed her.
Teraz made a derisive clucking sound. "Feeling a motherly instinct? The boy, after all, is one of your own." His tone was insinuating, nasty.
Sela felt herself bristle and took a deep steadying breath. "Because he's human?" She saw he didn't expect her to be so direct. "No, but I do understand what its like to be made in someone's image." Or so honest. "I know how he should be handled. Which does not mean I'd put the boy's welfare over that of the Empire. Never doubt that. But he's an asset. If nothing else, he has the high abilities and potential of a Jean-Luc Picard. And I hate stupidity. I hate waste."
"He's your asset. That I understand." Teraz smiled, but it wasn't pleasant. "I have to agree that simply eliminating the boy would be a waste. I'm sure we can think of other ways of keeping him under control." His smile only grew wider as his eyes got colder.
Sela was surprised to hear Tivora speak up. It was easy to forget the woman existed. "We've been thinking of just that, sir. After all, if Shinzon is to replace Picard, we must deal with a gap of decades. We could go for a more cosmetic approach, but, Taibek, one of our scientists, has a very promising proposal. The same genetic change that can trigger him to skip decades, can be so designed that he'll need a transfusion from Picard to survive it." Tivora licked her lips, then smiled as if she tasted something delicious. "He'll need us then. To help him get to Picard, and to keep his secret afterwards."
Teraz nodded agreement, but Lynaris scowled.
"There used to be a time," she said, "when honor would forbid making war through children." For some reason, the senator caught and held Sela's gaze. "I know, very antique of me to mention that."
Tulla slammed down his hand on the table. "Why are we even debating this? Cloning and genetic enhancements are forbidden in the Federation. The humans have a particular horror of it. The boy's very existence could cause a war we're not ready for. Get rid of him."
Bracus yawned and stretched. "Seems the simplest, safest solution to me."
"No," Teraz said. "No, I have to agree with Sela. I hate waste. We'll recommend that the boy undergo the procedure suggested. And then? Killing the boy gains us no return on our costly investment. Now if we sent him to the mines on Remus...?" His tone was jocular, but Sela recognized the ploy and bit back her impulse to ask if he was serious. He was-but the joking tone could allow him to pull back if ultimately the Praetor did not agree.
Lynaris made a sour face at the comment. "You sound more like a Ferengi than a Romulan. Better to kill a man than make an implacable enemy."
"Shinzon is not a man."
"No," Lynaris said acidly, "But he will be."
Teraz turned to her finally. "So what do you think, Sela?"
Sela had always been adept at politics. And the first thing you learned was how to count, and who counted. Senator Lynaris could afford to make noise. Her career was all but over while Sela's had just begun. And even if the woman had once disgraced herself by losing the cloaking device and letting herself be captured, at least people weren't reminded of it every time they looked into her face. With her looks, Sela couldn't afford to be soft on humans.
She recognized the smile on Teraz's face. One that said he'd already made up his mind what to recommend to the Praetor. All that left was to see if he could catch her at being human.
Her voice was strangely thick, her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth. "I believe you have struck upon an elegant solution. And if we ever change our mind, the boy will still be at hand."
Sela could see the sense of it. Best to cut their losses indeed, yet still leave the option open. And no prison or institute was more secure, more isolated, than the Reman mines.
When Teraz asked for a vote, one Sela knew that was a completely symbolic gesture, only Lynaris refused to support the recommendation. Nothing Sela could have said or done would have made any difference.
Except to her.
#
Sela hurried ahead of the centurions. She did not wish to invite conversation, just to get this over with. She was here to bear witness as the boy was taken away to his fate, just as she had done at her mother's execution. Her father had demanded it of her. His hands had been shaking, but he had put them to each side of her face, turning it toward her mother and the firing squad. Sela had thought he could force her to look, but not see, but in the end she had seen. Neither of her parents had believed in looking away from the consequences of their actions. Neither did Sela.
So now it was time to face Shinzon. She owed him that much. When she and the two centurions entered Shinzon's room, he blinked rapidly as if the light streaming from the door hurt him. Well, at least where he was going that would no longer be a problem.
"Gather your things, boy," one of the centurions said gripping the boy by a shoulder and shoving him out of his chair.
"That's enough," Sela said. She moved to Shinzon's side and helped him up, brushing his cheek with her other hand in reassurance. She realized how cruel that was when he shot her a hope-filled glance and she stepped away from him. She handed him his knapsack, and he went around the room with it throwing in items seemingly at random. His hands were shaking and he swallowed convulsively. When he finished, he looked up, and their gaze held for a long moment.
There seemed little that was childlike about his expression. No pleading, or fear, or even vengeful accusation in it for all that old senator's warning. Just a question. Who are you? She felt as if his gaze could turn her to stone. She backed away only to brush against the model of the Enterprise. It wobbled in small circles, smaller and smaller, slower and slower, until stopping.
"That's as far as it'll ever go," he said softly. "You're not here to take me home with you, are you?"
"No."
"Where?"
"Remus."
His eyes went wide at that. Every Romulan knew what that meant. She waited for him to burst into tears. To ask why. Instead he just settled the knapsack across his shoulders, and straightened his tunic. "Well, best get on then." He stared at her. "I guess you're Romulan after all."
She nodded jerkily at that. That acknowledgement was all she had ever craved. So why could she taste bile in her throat?
Even though it was day outside the building, it was night here. She looked out the window to see a bright white disk that was flooding the room with a silvery light. Not Remus. Remus always showed one face toward the sun and its light side never fully faced Romulus. Luna. Terra's moon.
One of the centurions cleared his throat. "The transport's waiting, Subcommander."
"Computer, end program," Sela said.
She expected that to end all of it, leaving them in a room empty of everything but yellow grid lines. She had forgotten the cat. She heard a hiss, and looked down toward her feet, instinctively grabbing at the gray blur streaking past her. She was rewarded with a sharp bite and claws raking at the top of her hand. She cried out and dropped to the floor, sucking at the wound. She knew with the familiar feeling of nausea what she'd see if she looked. Red blood. She pressed her hand to her uniform tunic but she could tell they had all seen. Shinzon was smiling.
"Don't worry, Sela. No need to care what I think of you. After all you'll never see me again." His eyes raked her contemptuously. "If you're lucky."
At that he walked out the door without a look back.
Sela waved the centurions ahead to go deal with Shinzon. "Go!" At her order the two men ran out the door as if they couldn't leave fast enough.
"It's not contagious," she whispered to herself. She heard her own shaky intake of breath and started to laugh. She lifted her hand and forced herself to look at the red streaks. "Prick us do we not bleed?" Who was she anyway? "Oh, good for you, cat. Good for you."
She sat there a long time, then slowly got up and headed out the door. She'd have to let them know there was a dangerous animal still around. Or maybe indulge herself and hunt the cat herself.
Lynaris was right. Better not to leave a live enemy behind you.
The End