DEGUELLO - Chapter 21
by Trish Bennett
Kirk had gotten very little rest since his last transmission to the Enterprise. His mind was far too preoccupied to allow it.
They were now just minutes away from reaching the planet Organia, and he still had no idea what he was supposed to do once he got there.
The Organians might not even allow them to enter their planetary orbit. They had expressed their wishes on this point quite clearly when they imposed the treaty of peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Specifically, ...both parties will respect the territorial integrity of Organia and make no further attempt to intrude into our planet's territory or affairs...
And even if they were permitted to land, there was still no guarantee that the Organians would agree to speak with him...or that, if they did, they would have anything of significance to say.
The Captain had decided against requesting permission to land, since their very presence in the vicinity of the planet was expressly forbidden by law. Besides, from what he knew of the Organians, they were probably well aware of their presence already.
The ship they had acquired from Starbase Eleven was vastly different from the standard Starfleet design, but Sulu was a remarkably quick study. He handled the alien controls as if he had been born to them, and within a matter of minutes, he had landed the craft almost effortlessly on the surface of Organia.
This was it. They were here. Now it was up to Kirk's powers of persuasion to enlist the Organians' assistance if they had any hope at all of salvaging his First Officer's career.
Kirk's heart pounded in his chest as the doors broke away from the body of the craft, allowing him his first glimpse of the planet he thought he would never set eyes on again.
All the memories of that one previous visit came flooding back to him as he and Sulu descended the steps of the spacecraft. Their landing placed them just outside the stone walls of the village compound where he and Spock had first made contact with the Organians, and Ayelbourne...and Kor.
The bare dirt ground and gray stone edifices were as bleak and dreary as he remembered them. But the Captain had to force himself to remember that all of this was merely a facade, an illusion that the Organians had created to give their comparatively primitive visitors a common point of reference, and to make them feel at home.
There was only one major difference between this visit and his original one. The first time he arrived inside the dismal compound, it had been filled with people. Some were pushing rickety wooden carts through the streets, others had been tending to flocks of farm animals...but there had been at least the illusion of people everywhere.
Now those same streets were ominously silent, the compound completely deserted. And Sulu's tricorder readings only confirmed what Kirk already knew in his heart. There was not a sign of life anywhere.
The two headed quickly for the building which housed the chamber where he had met with the Council of Elders once before. It was exactly as the Captain remembered it...the thick stone walls, the sconces of open flame providing a dim, flickering light, and at the end of the massive hallway the tall wooden doors which led to the inner sanctum of the council chambers.
The doors swung open obligingly at their approach. Kirk glanced quickly at Sulu, then breathed deeply before stepping through them into the room.
It, too, was exactly as he remembered it. The same large, wooden council table stretched across the chamber, surrounded by five chairs bathed in burgundy velvet, the only touch of color in the otherwise dismal surroundings. It was this table before which Kirk had once made an impassioned plea for the Organians to accept his offer of Federation assistance. What a fool he had been!
But still, there was not a soul to be found anywhere. It was now 0830 hours according to his chronometer. The Captain was running out of time.
"Hello!" he called, his voice echoing through the hollow chamber. "Is anyone here?"
He was answered only with silence. Sulu tried the tricorder again, but finally shook his head in frustration. No readings of life forms anywhere.
"Ayelbourne!" Kirk called loudly, hoping that the desperation he felt was not completely reflected in his voice.
"Claymare...Trefayne! Gentlemen, please...I must speak with you!"
After a moment, he felt Sulu's hand rest lightly on his arm. He turned to look into the helmsman's face, but the
Lieutenant was not looking at him.
Kirk turned to follow his gaze toward the large wooden doors of the chamber entrance. Before them stood a robed, bearded figure who offered them a slight bow and a graceful flourish of his hands.
"Welcome to Organia, Captain Kirk."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
McCoy's sense of impending doom was growing stronger by the minute. He had finally managed to encase himself in what Starfleet laughingly called a dress uniform, but he was still tugging at the high, stiff collar when he reached the Enterprise's transporter room.
Scott, Uhura, and Chekov were already waiting for him. And from the looks on their faces, they were just as uncomfortable as he was.
"Are you ready for this?" he asked the Engineer as they moved to mount the steps to the transporter platform.
Scotty shook his head ruefully. "I'd feel a lot better if we had heard from the Captain by now."
McCoy nodded grimly in agreement. "So, what's the game plan?" he asked as Scott gave the signal to begin transport.
Scott gave him a sideways glance. "I was hoping you had one."
As the familiar hum and sparkle of the transporter began, the Doctor heard his own voice echo in his ears.
"Oh, lovely!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Ayelbourne." Kirk felt a rush of relief at the sight of the Organian. He could not have asked for a warmer, more gracious reception.
"You look well, Captain," the Organian continued in the familiar lyrical voice. "Far better than our last encounter."
"I'm afraid I don't remember our last encounter, Sir," Kirk replied. "But I understand that I owe you my life."
The Organian waved his hand through the air as if brushing the comment away. "You owe me nothing, Sir," he said. "Let us speak no further of it."
Kirk was suddenly very humbled in the presence of the Organian, and he had to force himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. The clock was ticking, and time showed no mercy.
"Ayelbourne...please forgive the intrusion. I know your people prefer your privacy, but..."
"But still you came."
"Yes."
Ayelbourne finally moved farther into the room toward the large council table. "And what is it you hope to find here, Captain?"
"I don't know." Kirk's voice was nearly a whisper.
The Organian turned a steady gaze on him as he leaned himself back against the table. It seemed like an eternity before he spoke again.
"Then how will you know when you have found it?"
Kirk forced himself to return the gaze. "I seek the truth, Ayelbourne. And I'll know when I find it."
"Will you?" The alien seemed almost amused. "The truth is already within you, Captain, yet you have failed to recognize it."
Kirk's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't understand."
"You risked a great deal by coming here, Captain," Ayelbourne said. "You must have a compelling motive."
"I do, Sir," Kirk admitted. "Commander Spock is about to go on trial for his actions in the Neutral Zone."
"Yes," Ayelbourne said, his voice and demeanor suddenly very sullen. "I am aware of it. It pains me."
"I've come to ask for your help."
"You do not need my help, Captain," he replied in the tone of a parent to a child. "You have the power within yourself to help Mr. Spock. But you must free yourself of the burdens which obscure the truth that you seek."
Kirk shot a quick glance at Sulu beside him. Judging from the expression on his face, they seemed to agree that this conversation was getting them nowhere.
"I don't wish to appear rude, Sir, but you're talking in riddles...and I'm running out of time."
The Organian considered him in silence a moment. "You of all people," he said finally, "should realize that time is not an enemy, but an ally. Your ticking clock, as it were, provides the catalyst for some of your race's most remarkable accomplishments."
Kirk's impatience was mounting by the second, but he did his best to remain calm. There had to be a reason for the Organian's evasiveness. The Captain just had to discover what it was.
Time is not an enemy, but an ally. Kirk had to agree. He, himself, had done some of his best work and his clearest thinking under the pressure of a deadline.
The events of the past few days were a perfect example. He had been rescued by the skin of his teeth, when he teetered on the brink of destruction. Unfortunately, the rest of his landing party had not been so fortunate.
The thought of his landing party brought back a flood of anxiety Kirk thought he had overcome. The fear, the frustration, the rage...they all hit him with a staggering force which nearly made his knees buckle under him. His breath quickened as he tried valiantly to steady himself.
"Release your anger, Captain," the Organian urged, his voice still soothingly calm. "It serves no purpose other than to cloud your judgement."
As Kirk gazed into the gentle eyes, he remembered vividly all the pain, the sacrifice, and the loss. The faces of his crew appeared clearly in his memory...Foster, and Graham, and Martina Girard...and he had to swallow hard to find an unsteady voice.
"What took you so long?"
Ayelbourne's expression softened, and he nodded his head in silent approval. It must have been what he was fishing for.
"How do you feel about the Organian Peace Treaty, Captain?"
Kirk stared at him, bewildered. Was that supposed to be an answer to his question?
"What?"
"If you could describe the treaty in one word," Ayelbourne prompted, "what would it be?"
Kirk did not hesitate with his reply. "Inefficient."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't settle anything. It doesn't solve any of the problems between our races. It just avoids them."
"Precisely, Captain," Ayelbourne said approvingly. "We were not so naive to believe that we could force your races to become friends. A true, lasting peace must be born in desire, and bred in mutual agreement."
Everything was finally coming together, and Kirk found his meaning uncomfortably clear. "You never had any intention of enforcing the treaty," he said. "It was a bluff."
"Yes, Captain," Ayelbourne confessed. "Your races are still evolving, still growing, still developing...but you both show much potential. We felt that, if we could delay your mutual annihilation long enough, you would develop beyond the need for violence as a solution to your problems."
He continued to gaze at Kirk levelly. "We had hoped that the threat of Organian intervention would be enough to dissuade any further hostilities between you until that time. Apparently we were wrong."
At least it was nice to know that even the Organians were not infallible.
"So why did you intervene?"
"Because I saw something in you, Captain, which impressed me deeply. Something in you...in all of you...which I had failed to recognize before."
"What was that?"
The Organian pushed himself up from his perch on the table to stand before him.
"You had the motive and the means to destroy the Klingon Commander when you took his disrupter from him. Yet you did not."
Kirk felt a twinge of anger in his chest. "I couldn't have even if I had wanted to. He had drained the disrupter."
"But you did not know that at the time, and still you let him live. I was intrigued."
Ayelbourne began to walk a slow circle around the two Enterprise officers as he spoke, studying them intently. The action made Kirk vaguely uneasy, but he held his ground.
"And do you remember a time, Captain, deep inside that barren planet, when you truly believed you were going to die?"
Kirk looked away from the alien's probing eyes. "Yes."
"Do you remember what you said?"
"What I said?" Kirk repeated, puzzled. "No, I don't..."
"You were alone," Ayelbourne explained softly. "You were dying. And yet you found it in yourself to deliver the most eloquent eulogies to friends you thought were lost forever."
It was starting to come back to him now. And he did remember...every word of it.
"Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain...for they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain..." The Organian offered him a gentle smile. "I, too, know Shakespeare."
Kirk was at a complete loss for words. He could only stare at the Organian in stunned silence.
"You believed you would not live to see another day, yet your thoughts were not of yourself, but of your friends. And I was moved."
Ayelbourne's eyes moved to study Sulu a moment before finally turning back to the Captain.
"And these friends of whom you spoke...they intrigued me as well. Rather than follow their human instinct for self-preservation or the commandments of their governing body, they instead chose to follow their hearts to see you safely home."
Kirk exchanged a quick glance with Sulu, but still he said nothing.
"And Commander Spock..." Ayelbourne continued. "He also had the motive and the means to kill the Klingon Commander. Certainly the Klingon was prepared to kill the two of you. Spock considered it...indeed, he came very close to doing it...but he did not. And I was uplifted."
Kirk finally managed to find his voice. "That's why you stepped in when you did."
"Yes."
"Do the Klingons know that?"
Ayelbourne breathed deeply. "The Klingons believe what they have been told...that the peace treaty is being enforced to the fullest extent of our power."
Kirk nodded his understanding. "And Spock?"
"I told Commander Spock what I have told you...and that he could express his sense of gratitude by simply keeping the peace."
Kirk head snapped up as the realization struck him. So that was it!
"That's what he's doing," Kirk said. "Keeping the peace. If both sides believe that the treaty is being enforced, it maintains the balance of power."
Ayelbourne nodded with infinite satisfaction. "Precisely, Captain. Your Mr. Spock is an intelligent man. He knows that such information could be dangerous in the wrong hands."
Kirk's brow furrowed slightly. "In the Federation's hands?"
The Organian's voice was as gentle as his gaze. "Men sometimes have their own motivations, Captain. Motivations which, when acted upon, can affect us all."
"What does that mean?"
"Perhaps nothing," Ayelbourne replied thoughtfully. "Perhaps everything."
Kirk looked urgently into the Organian's eyes. "Ayelbourne...I know you've involved yourself in this more than you ever intended, but...come back with me. Let Spock off the hook. Tell the Federation what you've told me."
He paused for a moment as he studied the alien's face. Ayelbourne's expression was unreadable.
"Please, Ayelbourne," he urged. "We're running out of time. Spock's trial will be starting any minute now."
"No, Captain," the Organian said quietly. "It has already begun."
by Trish Bennett
Kirk had gotten very little rest since his last transmission to the Enterprise. His mind was far too preoccupied to allow it.
They were now just minutes away from reaching the planet Organia, and he still had no idea what he was supposed to do once he got there.
The Organians might not even allow them to enter their planetary orbit. They had expressed their wishes on this point quite clearly when they imposed the treaty of peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Specifically, ...both parties will respect the territorial integrity of Organia and make no further attempt to intrude into our planet's territory or affairs...
And even if they were permitted to land, there was still no guarantee that the Organians would agree to speak with him...or that, if they did, they would have anything of significance to say.
The Captain had decided against requesting permission to land, since their very presence in the vicinity of the planet was expressly forbidden by law. Besides, from what he knew of the Organians, they were probably well aware of their presence already.
The ship they had acquired from Starbase Eleven was vastly different from the standard Starfleet design, but Sulu was a remarkably quick study. He handled the alien controls as if he had been born to them, and within a matter of minutes, he had landed the craft almost effortlessly on the surface of Organia.
This was it. They were here. Now it was up to Kirk's powers of persuasion to enlist the Organians' assistance if they had any hope at all of salvaging his First Officer's career.
Kirk's heart pounded in his chest as the doors broke away from the body of the craft, allowing him his first glimpse of the planet he thought he would never set eyes on again.
All the memories of that one previous visit came flooding back to him as he and Sulu descended the steps of the spacecraft. Their landing placed them just outside the stone walls of the village compound where he and Spock had first made contact with the Organians, and Ayelbourne...and Kor.
The bare dirt ground and gray stone edifices were as bleak and dreary as he remembered them. But the Captain had to force himself to remember that all of this was merely a facade, an illusion that the Organians had created to give their comparatively primitive visitors a common point of reference, and to make them feel at home.
There was only one major difference between this visit and his original one. The first time he arrived inside the dismal compound, it had been filled with people. Some were pushing rickety wooden carts through the streets, others had been tending to flocks of farm animals...but there had been at least the illusion of people everywhere.
Now those same streets were ominously silent, the compound completely deserted. And Sulu's tricorder readings only confirmed what Kirk already knew in his heart. There was not a sign of life anywhere.
The two headed quickly for the building which housed the chamber where he had met with the Council of Elders once before. It was exactly as the Captain remembered it...the thick stone walls, the sconces of open flame providing a dim, flickering light, and at the end of the massive hallway the tall wooden doors which led to the inner sanctum of the council chambers.
The doors swung open obligingly at their approach. Kirk glanced quickly at Sulu, then breathed deeply before stepping through them into the room.
It, too, was exactly as he remembered it. The same large, wooden council table stretched across the chamber, surrounded by five chairs bathed in burgundy velvet, the only touch of color in the otherwise dismal surroundings. It was this table before which Kirk had once made an impassioned plea for the Organians to accept his offer of Federation assistance. What a fool he had been!
But still, there was not a soul to be found anywhere. It was now 0830 hours according to his chronometer. The Captain was running out of time.
"Hello!" he called, his voice echoing through the hollow chamber. "Is anyone here?"
He was answered only with silence. Sulu tried the tricorder again, but finally shook his head in frustration. No readings of life forms anywhere.
"Ayelbourne!" Kirk called loudly, hoping that the desperation he felt was not completely reflected in his voice.
"Claymare...Trefayne! Gentlemen, please...I must speak with you!"
After a moment, he felt Sulu's hand rest lightly on his arm. He turned to look into the helmsman's face, but the
Lieutenant was not looking at him.
Kirk turned to follow his gaze toward the large wooden doors of the chamber entrance. Before them stood a robed, bearded figure who offered them a slight bow and a graceful flourish of his hands.
"Welcome to Organia, Captain Kirk."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
McCoy's sense of impending doom was growing stronger by the minute. He had finally managed to encase himself in what Starfleet laughingly called a dress uniform, but he was still tugging at the high, stiff collar when he reached the Enterprise's transporter room.
Scott, Uhura, and Chekov were already waiting for him. And from the looks on their faces, they were just as uncomfortable as he was.
"Are you ready for this?" he asked the Engineer as they moved to mount the steps to the transporter platform.
Scotty shook his head ruefully. "I'd feel a lot better if we had heard from the Captain by now."
McCoy nodded grimly in agreement. "So, what's the game plan?" he asked as Scott gave the signal to begin transport.
Scott gave him a sideways glance. "I was hoping you had one."
As the familiar hum and sparkle of the transporter began, the Doctor heard his own voice echo in his ears.
"Oh, lovely!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Ayelbourne." Kirk felt a rush of relief at the sight of the Organian. He could not have asked for a warmer, more gracious reception.
"You look well, Captain," the Organian continued in the familiar lyrical voice. "Far better than our last encounter."
"I'm afraid I don't remember our last encounter, Sir," Kirk replied. "But I understand that I owe you my life."
The Organian waved his hand through the air as if brushing the comment away. "You owe me nothing, Sir," he said. "Let us speak no further of it."
Kirk was suddenly very humbled in the presence of the Organian, and he had to force himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. The clock was ticking, and time showed no mercy.
"Ayelbourne...please forgive the intrusion. I know your people prefer your privacy, but..."
"But still you came."
"Yes."
Ayelbourne finally moved farther into the room toward the large council table. "And what is it you hope to find here, Captain?"
"I don't know." Kirk's voice was nearly a whisper.
The Organian turned a steady gaze on him as he leaned himself back against the table. It seemed like an eternity before he spoke again.
"Then how will you know when you have found it?"
Kirk forced himself to return the gaze. "I seek the truth, Ayelbourne. And I'll know when I find it."
"Will you?" The alien seemed almost amused. "The truth is already within you, Captain, yet you have failed to recognize it."
Kirk's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't understand."
"You risked a great deal by coming here, Captain," Ayelbourne said. "You must have a compelling motive."
"I do, Sir," Kirk admitted. "Commander Spock is about to go on trial for his actions in the Neutral Zone."
"Yes," Ayelbourne said, his voice and demeanor suddenly very sullen. "I am aware of it. It pains me."
"I've come to ask for your help."
"You do not need my help, Captain," he replied in the tone of a parent to a child. "You have the power within yourself to help Mr. Spock. But you must free yourself of the burdens which obscure the truth that you seek."
Kirk shot a quick glance at Sulu beside him. Judging from the expression on his face, they seemed to agree that this conversation was getting them nowhere.
"I don't wish to appear rude, Sir, but you're talking in riddles...and I'm running out of time."
The Organian considered him in silence a moment. "You of all people," he said finally, "should realize that time is not an enemy, but an ally. Your ticking clock, as it were, provides the catalyst for some of your race's most remarkable accomplishments."
Kirk's impatience was mounting by the second, but he did his best to remain calm. There had to be a reason for the Organian's evasiveness. The Captain just had to discover what it was.
Time is not an enemy, but an ally. Kirk had to agree. He, himself, had done some of his best work and his clearest thinking under the pressure of a deadline.
The events of the past few days were a perfect example. He had been rescued by the skin of his teeth, when he teetered on the brink of destruction. Unfortunately, the rest of his landing party had not been so fortunate.
The thought of his landing party brought back a flood of anxiety Kirk thought he had overcome. The fear, the frustration, the rage...they all hit him with a staggering force which nearly made his knees buckle under him. His breath quickened as he tried valiantly to steady himself.
"Release your anger, Captain," the Organian urged, his voice still soothingly calm. "It serves no purpose other than to cloud your judgement."
As Kirk gazed into the gentle eyes, he remembered vividly all the pain, the sacrifice, and the loss. The faces of his crew appeared clearly in his memory...Foster, and Graham, and Martina Girard...and he had to swallow hard to find an unsteady voice.
"What took you so long?"
Ayelbourne's expression softened, and he nodded his head in silent approval. It must have been what he was fishing for.
"How do you feel about the Organian Peace Treaty, Captain?"
Kirk stared at him, bewildered. Was that supposed to be an answer to his question?
"What?"
"If you could describe the treaty in one word," Ayelbourne prompted, "what would it be?"
Kirk did not hesitate with his reply. "Inefficient."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't settle anything. It doesn't solve any of the problems between our races. It just avoids them."
"Precisely, Captain," Ayelbourne said approvingly. "We were not so naive to believe that we could force your races to become friends. A true, lasting peace must be born in desire, and bred in mutual agreement."
Everything was finally coming together, and Kirk found his meaning uncomfortably clear. "You never had any intention of enforcing the treaty," he said. "It was a bluff."
"Yes, Captain," Ayelbourne confessed. "Your races are still evolving, still growing, still developing...but you both show much potential. We felt that, if we could delay your mutual annihilation long enough, you would develop beyond the need for violence as a solution to your problems."
He continued to gaze at Kirk levelly. "We had hoped that the threat of Organian intervention would be enough to dissuade any further hostilities between you until that time. Apparently we were wrong."
At least it was nice to know that even the Organians were not infallible.
"So why did you intervene?"
"Because I saw something in you, Captain, which impressed me deeply. Something in you...in all of you...which I had failed to recognize before."
"What was that?"
The Organian pushed himself up from his perch on the table to stand before him.
"You had the motive and the means to destroy the Klingon Commander when you took his disrupter from him. Yet you did not."
Kirk felt a twinge of anger in his chest. "I couldn't have even if I had wanted to. He had drained the disrupter."
"But you did not know that at the time, and still you let him live. I was intrigued."
Ayelbourne began to walk a slow circle around the two Enterprise officers as he spoke, studying them intently. The action made Kirk vaguely uneasy, but he held his ground.
"And do you remember a time, Captain, deep inside that barren planet, when you truly believed you were going to die?"
Kirk looked away from the alien's probing eyes. "Yes."
"Do you remember what you said?"
"What I said?" Kirk repeated, puzzled. "No, I don't..."
"You were alone," Ayelbourne explained softly. "You were dying. And yet you found it in yourself to deliver the most eloquent eulogies to friends you thought were lost forever."
It was starting to come back to him now. And he did remember...every word of it.
"Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain...for they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain..." The Organian offered him a gentle smile. "I, too, know Shakespeare."
Kirk was at a complete loss for words. He could only stare at the Organian in stunned silence.
"You believed you would not live to see another day, yet your thoughts were not of yourself, but of your friends. And I was moved."
Ayelbourne's eyes moved to study Sulu a moment before finally turning back to the Captain.
"And these friends of whom you spoke...they intrigued me as well. Rather than follow their human instinct for self-preservation or the commandments of their governing body, they instead chose to follow their hearts to see you safely home."
Kirk exchanged a quick glance with Sulu, but still he said nothing.
"And Commander Spock..." Ayelbourne continued. "He also had the motive and the means to kill the Klingon Commander. Certainly the Klingon was prepared to kill the two of you. Spock considered it...indeed, he came very close to doing it...but he did not. And I was uplifted."
Kirk finally managed to find his voice. "That's why you stepped in when you did."
"Yes."
"Do the Klingons know that?"
Ayelbourne breathed deeply. "The Klingons believe what they have been told...that the peace treaty is being enforced to the fullest extent of our power."
Kirk nodded his understanding. "And Spock?"
"I told Commander Spock what I have told you...and that he could express his sense of gratitude by simply keeping the peace."
Kirk head snapped up as the realization struck him. So that was it!
"That's what he's doing," Kirk said. "Keeping the peace. If both sides believe that the treaty is being enforced, it maintains the balance of power."
Ayelbourne nodded with infinite satisfaction. "Precisely, Captain. Your Mr. Spock is an intelligent man. He knows that such information could be dangerous in the wrong hands."
Kirk's brow furrowed slightly. "In the Federation's hands?"
The Organian's voice was as gentle as his gaze. "Men sometimes have their own motivations, Captain. Motivations which, when acted upon, can affect us all."
"What does that mean?"
"Perhaps nothing," Ayelbourne replied thoughtfully. "Perhaps everything."
Kirk looked urgently into the Organian's eyes. "Ayelbourne...I know you've involved yourself in this more than you ever intended, but...come back with me. Let Spock off the hook. Tell the Federation what you've told me."
He paused for a moment as he studied the alien's face. Ayelbourne's expression was unreadable.
"Please, Ayelbourne," he urged. "We're running out of time. Spock's trial will be starting any minute now."
"No, Captain," the Organian said quietly. "It has already begun."