7. CONFESSION
"LEUITENANT Dax is everything alright with your mission? No unforeseen problems or delays to report." Captain Rodd looked concerned that they had made contact, which was understandable as she hadn't expected them to do so. Unexpected messages mid mission were almost inevitably harbingers of bad news, in the experience of a CO.
"Yes captain the mission is fine, we've just about wrapped up retrieving all the salvageable information we can wring out of the bases surviving computer mainframes and we're prepared to blast the outpost off the face of the planet."
The captain nodded "Good, get off that world as soon as you can. The Pya'Chl are going to go nuclear when they realise what you've done to their military base. I wouldn't want to face their wrath, and neither would you lieutenant. But the question remains, if the mission is still good to go, why you are using precious time to contact me."
Dax got straight to it; best spill the beans right away. "It's interesting you mention forces on Zalod facing the wrath of the Pya'Chl sir. For our part, we'll be long gone by the time they arrive. Others however, will not be so fortunate."
Rodd looked both confused and disturbed at the same time. She didn't know what they were on about, and more importantly, she didn't want this sort of unexpected situation to unravel the entire mission completely. "What are you talking about Dax? Are there others stranded on that world." "Yes captain, thirteen Remans on that Romulan ship. The ship has no capacity to escape, and we have ample evidence that the Romulans have intentionally stranded the crew there as some form of punishment."
The captain stiffened at what she had heard; suddenly taking it all in. That the two of them had disobeyed orders, and that their new allies were employing hugely immoral battlefield tactics which could cause a potential rift. "You made contact with that ship, and spoke with the crew of the vessel, as you were explicitly instructed not to do so by one of our major war allies?"
O'Brien jumped in, sticking up for Dax. There was no way in hell he was going to let her single handedly carry the can for disobeying orders. He was if anything, the one who was more complicit in them making contact. "Captain, it was my fault we disobeyed orders sir. We discovered from passive scans, nothing invasive - that the ship had no warp drive, or impulse engines. We attempted covert reccy on the ship to see why this was, again my idea. However we were apprehended in the process and the Reman commander, General Jenvon took us prisoner, but released us when we told him the Romulans didn't know that we had made contact. The Remans seem very afraid of upsetting them, which is understandable. He's been sent there to die, along with his entire crew by the Romulans. It's a sort of Reman Karma apparently, dying in a senseless battle to protect such a miserable place. A Romulan warriors code of honour sir, that sort of thing."
Rodd was still taking in what they had said, though she was clearly furious at the pair of them for disobeying orders so brazenly as she saw it, like they had. "It is a little late to try to save your superiors skin Mr O'Brien, so don't even try. As far as I am concerned you both consciously disobeyed orders and I have little interest in who goaded who on to break them. I thought humans had a saying Mr O'Brien, about curiosity killing the rat. What applies to one lifeform can apply to others. Your "adventures" could create a lot of trouble between us and the Romulans. They are the sort of people to cut off their nose just to spite their face. Overreact in proportion to the injustice they feel they have had been dealt. They may well threaten to abrogate the treaty of alliance over this incident. I don't need to tell you that it isn't going to go down well with Commander Korvar when he discovers you've been fraternizing with the slave castes, although I am surprised that the Reman volunteered so much information about their plight. It's very un-Romulan empire of him."
Dax decided upon two things at this moment, the first was that it was time to admit that they hadn't just restricted themselves to one contact with Jenvon, and the other was that it was probably not the best time to point out that Rodd should perhaps brush up on Terran mammals. "He didn't volunteer information easily sir. He kicked us off the ship without scarcely even a word after we mentioned the Romulans. It was only through further contact we learned that he'd been exiled, although he wouldn't tell us why. My own theory is that he is subject to some kind of Romulan court martial by death sentence. I believe according to the Starfleet code of conduct, and following basic sentient morality, that we should intercede on his and his crews behalf.
The fleet captain closed her eyes and rubbed her head ridges as if they had suddenly become afflicted by chronic itchiness, at the was not the sort of news she wanted to hear about the mission.
Rodds voice was as pained with the extent of the trouble they'd landed her in, as her body language was. She said "Not only did you disobey orders once, you did so again by initiating another off the cuff contact yourselves. Our entire alliance could be put in jeopardy over exiles who may well have committed criminal acts against the empire. Let us remind ourselves we don't actually know why the Remans have been stranded there, or what the supposed transgressions they committed, if they even did - might actually be.
O'Brien said "Sir, General Jenvon, the Reman commander – didn't strike me as a criminal. He had a decency about him. There was such regret in his eyes sir, a sorrow at having to let his men meet their end on such a rock. If you'd been there you'd know what I mean. He reminded me of an innocent man condemned to die for a crime he never committed in the first place."
Rodd sighed loudly at this and O'Brien knew it was because she thought that the chief was just blinkered by his own naïveté, into poor and subjective judgment. "Well Mr. O'Brien, I'm sure people said the same about the Boston Strangler before he was found out. I don't think we can justify damaging relations on the pretext of "Mr. O'Brien just thinks he's a nice man and should get a free pass", either with Starfleet or the Romulans.
O'Brien was incensed at what the captain was saying, she didn't seem to want to know about the Remans plight, and it was insulting to him that she dissmissed him as such a poor judge of character. It was simply a truism that you could determine that someone was a wronged victim of a corrupt form of justice. He'd seen it with Tosk who had visited DS9 shortly after he was assigned there. Who far from being a fugitive as some had thought, was only trying to evade the alien hunters who were sent from the Gamma quadrant to drag him home in irons. As Odo who had admitted to him that he had seen it in himself, when he'd been hauled before that Cardassian kangaroo court all those years ago. You could just tell these cases from the bad apples, and if someone as pessimistic of the sentient condition as Odo could see that then it was more than naïve intuition.
Dax tried to make the Remans case as well. "Captain, Jenvon may have committed crimes against the empire, though I am as sure as the chief that he probaly hasn't committed a "crime" as we would understand the term. Although we can't know for sure if he has, and exactly why he was exiled, the situation still remains the same. Thirteen people are being left to die for no reason in a battle that doesn't need to occur to impact at all on the greater scheme of this war. It surely cannot be acceptable that we leave those soldiers to die on Zalod. Let's leave aside one moment the fact that the Romulans treatment of the Remans is morally repugnant in of itself. This is possibly the time to get our ally to clean their act up in how they treat their Reman troops, and by extension the population of Remus, if they wish to have our assistance in fighting this war."
"If we do upset the Romulans and they walk away fracturing the alliance, we may all be joining them in the Reman mines, and I doubt that conditions will improve under Jem Hadar guards either. These are the stakes in this war, I remind you of that lieutenant. I wouldn't be too hasty in alienating our allies like this if we seek to win." said Rodd sarcastically.
Rodd thought for a while and with some of the earlier sarcasm in her voice diminished, said. "I know you two think I'm being heartless, but I do have to take the practicalities of fighting this war into account, and the greater potential consequences of upsetting an ally like this.
However, as you both pointed out, the moral and ethical objections of the new developments must be observed, and the Romulans behavior towards those troops is unquestionably reprehensible. But we are not without leverage ourselves in dealing with the Romulans, and it isn't all just one way as you also said. However, I must warn you that any diplomatic fall out with them over the affair may reflect badly on your future careers, and you may have to suffer the consequences of disobeying orders.
We will proceed as follows, I will hear the general's request for political asylum for him and his men and we will advise Korvar of his request, and how we will attempt to process the Remans application . I'm sure he'll hit the roof when we tell him, but hopefully; especially for your sakes – we will be able to iron out any major bust ups that occur, pitching it to the Romulans on the context of focusing on winning the war and not letting our own squabbles over a dozen Remans diminish our joint efforts."
Rodd was looking at them with an intense curiosity, she'd picked up on their expressions and smelled a rat, or was it a cat even? She voiced her suspicions and said "He has claimed asylum hasn't he?", and with that O'Brien knew she knew the answer to her awkward last question. "Er. Not technically sir. We're working on that part. I'm sure he will do when we explain how Federal rule of law works." answered O'Brien sheepishly, but Rodd was having none of it. "It's a simple question chief, has he asked for asylum? Yes or No." O'Brien said quietly "No sir." he hanged his head, suspecting he'd just signed Jenvon's death warrant right there with his words.
Surprisingly Rodd looked sad at this as well, she knew that they wouldn't have a leg to stand on with their "allies" if he hadn't asked to be "rescued" "That makes things very difficult. I can't see how we pass it off to the Romulans without that request. I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise anything. Continue with your mission and update me accordingly, Rodd out." and with that she ended the comm.
The two of them stood in silence. That the laws of due process could be a real pain in the backside at times, was putting it mildly. O'Brien was the first to vent his frustrations "I didn't realise that Starfleets latest primary objective of this war was to avoid all attempts to offend the bloody Romulans! It stinks leuitenant, Jenvon's going to die on the altar of keeping his oppressors happy. It's a disgusting state of affairs."
Dax for her part, had the nucleus of an idea "I'm thinking what you said to captain Rodd Chief. Jenvon just needs to find out about that he can put in a request for asylum. I've got a plan Mr. O'Brien; it's time to give the general a crash course on the finer points of Federation law"
O'Brien agreed with what Dax was proposing. Although Jenvon would have to take this lesson to heart, as if his life depended on it. Because, for him and his crew; it really did.
