Star Trek Hunter
Episode 28: The Covenant
Scene 4: Rearranging the Deck Chairs
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28.4
Rearranging the Deck Chairs
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"Don't be alarmed, Johnny, this is not an attack," said Julian Bashir. "We're just here to tie up a few loose ends and say our farewells."
Johnny Canada found himself in the familiar dreamscape of the overstuffed armchair in the interview room Emory Ivonovic had built years ago to launch his podcast, Subspace Radio Ivonovic. Canada was seated on the far left. Chief Justice Julian Bashir was seated next to him. On the far right was a small, attractive elderly woman with blonde hair whom Canada recognized instantly - Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev, for the past decade the Director of Star Fleet Intelligence. Between Bashir and Nechayev sat Shiva. But her hair was different. Now nearly all black again, it was cut short and styled rather boyishly, revealing both the slightly pointed ears from her vulcan ancestry and the light spotting along the sides of her neck from her trill ancestry – her worry lines had largely vanished – an astoundingly beautiful old woman – the former matriarch of a large Chinese family. Canada looked at her with no small amount of trepidation.
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"I am not Shiva anymore. But I don't think I can be Minerva Irons again, either. I haven't decided on a new name, but I think I'm going to avoid mythological names. Maybe a nature name, like Song* or Yue**."
"Tung-Mei?" suggested Bashir.
"Oooh – the winter plum. I like that. I am Shiva no longer. My name is now Tung-Mei.***" The newly minted Tung-Mei, formerly Shiva, formerly Minerva Irons, stretched. "By spreading your new religion of Shiva the Creator, Shiva the Restorer, you have made my job so much easier. Shiva the Devourer can now be retired. And I am so ready to retire. Being Shiva gave me a new lease on life. But now it is time to leave him behind. I leave Saketh and its people in your very capable hands," said Tung-Mei.
"And King Prometheus has made our job so much easier," said Bashir. A definite change could be seen, Julian Bashir looked happier and far more relaxed than Canada had ever seen him. "I thought Section 31 would consume my life and that my last job – and your first job – would be to see to the drafting of our people into the borg. You will still need to police that, but King Prometheus and Chancellor Greta have made that so much easier for us – at least the beginning of it. Which gives me the opportunity to do something that very few directors of Section 31 have ever been able to do."
"And what would that be?" Canada asked.
"Retire. Tung-Mei is taking me in her ship, The Shadow of Death, to the Gamma Quadrant. I sent Jodiah and Ezri there some time ago. There is a planet near the galactic rim. We established a colony a few years back – well off the beaten trail – outside of the Dominion. There are about 18,000 refugees there – trills, romulans, humans, cardassians, bajorans and several who are native to the Gamma Quadrant. So I am leaving Section 31 in your hands now. You will find everything has been moved to your office in Trantor. The cloak and dagger are officially yours."
"Why me?" Canada asked.
Bashir smiled. "Because you, Johnny, will lose sleep over every decision you will be called on to make. It's not great for your complexion and you can turn into a bit of an anti-social ogre. But that's what makes you the only kind of person who is fit for the job…"
"Which means you will be working more closely with me," said Admiral Nechayev. "We've gotten along so well in the past..."
"Meaning I've given you intelligence and you buried it." Johnny's trademark friendly smile was more than a little brittle.
"Oh no, Johnny," said Nechayev, her smile far more genuine. "I made good use of it. You have been an invaluable source of information. It made the takeover of Vulcan so much easier. Almost bloodless."
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"Did you just admit to betraying the Federation?" Canada was incredulous, but at the same time well aware that there were many people who had always suspected Nechayev of treason - or would prefer to. Star Fleet Intelligence had always been rather shadowy and mistrusted by the rest of the organization.
It was Julian Bashir who responded. "The luxury of political loyalty was destroyed the moment Minerva, er, Tung Mei that is, confirmed what I had learned about the Dead Zone," said Bashir. "And we had to allow some rather nasty things happen just to make that mission possible."
"There could be no Federation if the Alpha Quadrant were sterilized," Nechayev added. "We realized that our highest priority was not the survival of the Federation, but the preservation of life within the Alpha Quadrant. And the only way that could possibly happen was to surrender a fifth of our populations to become borg. The people of the Federation would never accept that - look at what happend when everyone learned that they really had no future - all our races would be exterminated…"
"War," Bashir concluded. "We did very little. We just stopped preventing it. The klingons knew. The humans knew. The romulans had known for a hundred years." Bashir's voice became uncharactaristly angry - the first time Johnny had ever seen the Chief Justice and master spy lose his famous cool. "The vulcans knew! The goddamned vulcans knew! And what did they do? They started killing each other over petty tribal differences. Just like everyone else: Kill the hybrids! Kill the humans! Kill the trills with the bigger spots! Even the klingon war was more about competition among the noble families - it was as much a civil war as all the others. Millions have been killed in these wars. And every single klingon, human, vulcan, romulan - every single one of them knew they were only rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
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"I hate to admit that I actually quite enjoyed being Shiva the Devourer," said Tung-Mei. "It was unbelievably refreshing to revel in the bloodthirsty, sadistic side of my human and vulcan nature. But I only unleashed that evil because the people of Saketh would have fought to the death to prevent their world from being transplanted - even knowing their grandchildren would be exterminated by gamma radiation. Now the true believers in Shiva will make the transplant of Saketh happen. But they will need your help. There will still be more fighting and bloodshed - romulans and hemra trying to prevent it. Trying to do what people always do - hide their heads in the sand and pretend there is no problem." Tung-Mei shook her head. "I'm afraid it is now your job now to save Saketh and its people. In spite of themselves."
Bashir smiled grimly. "I sacrificed millions of lives to save billions of lives. Imagine the current situation without the Klingon War… Instead of a rescue from a hopeless war, the arrival of the borg would have been received as more borg aggression. No one would have been willing to listen to stories about gamma waves. We had to allow some rather dreadful outcomes to make sure people would be receptive. Now Venus - that was a wrench..."
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Canada was shocked to his core. "You destroyed Venus?"
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Bashir shook his head slowly. "You give me too much credit… And not enough. Section 31 has been preventing such outrages for generations. It was faction of Earth First that destroyed Venus - with funding by both klingon and romulan agents provacateur. We could have stopped it. We didn't stop it. It was the only way to bring home to people what we're facing. Without that example of what sudden, total annihilation looks like, and right next door, humanity would never accept giving one in every five of their children to become borg - even if only for 20 years."
Bashir took a deep breath, deliberately calmed himself. "But that's only the start of it. In 20 years when the first humans and bajorans, romulans, klingons, ferengi and others are returned after 20 years of being borg drones, people will finally begin to understand just how terrible the price of saving all of the life in the Alpha Quadrant will be… Depression. Suicide. Families ripped apart… Millions of them will not survive. Billions of them will survive but will never recover. And once people realize the true price that is being demanded of them, they will rebel. There will be bloody civil war throughout the Alpha Quadrant for centuries. And you, Johnny, you will have to find a way to make sure that is a war they can never win."
"To create a future for life in the Alpha Quadrant, billions will lose their lives," said Nechayev. "My youngest son has volunteered, as has one of my granddaughters. They might never come back and if they do, they might never recover from the experience of being borg drones. No one ever wants to contemplate such a price. And it will be your job to extract it – to make sure that price is paid."
"I sacrificed millions to save billions," Bashir repeated. "You will have to sacrifice billions to save trillions. This task cannot wait 4,000 years. It cannot wait a single day. Not if we are to save life in this part of the galaxy from complete extermination. Somebody has to make the tough choices, Johnny. I can't say I envy you…"
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* Song – Chinese Feminine Name: Pine Tree
** Yue – Chinese Feminine Name: Moon
***Tung-Mei – Chinese Feminine Name: Winter-Plums
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28.4
