John sat in his penthouse on Douglass Street, staring out over the horizon, over the brightly lit city, and into the black night. He smoked a cigar even though they were no longer fashionable and sipped whiskey from his glass. He walked to the clear wall and looked down to the street 100 floors below and wondered what it would be like to jump.
He also wondered how long it would last – San Francisco, Earth, and the Federation and all of its planets. The quadrant. The galaxy. The universe. Time. Nothing went on forever, not even time, if certain fields of theoretical physics were to be believed. But as he looked down at the slow Sunday night traffic beneath him, he felt afraid what he saw would end much sooner than it ought to and felt ashamed of his role in it.
He looked up at the sky. A cloaked Romulan vessel was hiding somewhere in Earth's orbit, though maybe it had already departed for the Neutral Zone by now. He checked his watch: no, not yet, not for another hour or so. He wondered if they had gotten to Amanda and if she was on board with the Castaneda kid. They'd probably already tortured Castaneda to death by now. He'd never thought any of the family members knew anything, but Bentham was desperate.
John never wanted to hurt Amanda; she was a good person. That's why he'd volunteered to be the one to bring her in and he'd been so relieved when she wasn't home. He took her PADD instead but it hadn't had much information on it. Bentham had been hopeful about the deposit box, but apparently all it contained was some old jewelry and sentimental items.
He had wanted to warn her for weeks about Bentham but hadn't found a decent way of doing it, not until that afternoon. He had rearranged her picture frames and hoped against hope that she would notice and leave town. Instead she did was normal people would do and called the police, and given that probably half of the San Francisco police department was in Bentham's back pocket in some way or another, that had gone about as well as anyone could really expect.
Bentham now believed she was working covertly for the Vulcans because she had been hanging around the Vulcan ambassador who had knocked him out at the conference. John hated the smug bastard, but Vulcans were supposed to be smart, and he hoped this guy was smart enough to figure out how to help her, because he certainly couldn't anymore.
It said a lot about Bentham as a person that first he had wanted to recruit her for her skills, then he wanted to interrogate her for information, and now he simply wanted to kill her for helping the Vulcans. After interrogating her, of course. Bentham was an old hand at chewing people up and spitting them out, but where most people would quickly lose power after burning so many bridges, the inverse appeared to be true for the sociopathic head of Starfleet.
He swallowed the remaining alcohol in his glass, extinguished his cigar, and went back to his desk. He was amazed he was even here right now. He had known Bentham for several years and he despised the feeling that the small man could read minds. Bentham had so many people tucked away in so many places that he had expected to die before he even made it out of the parking lot with Amanda's crackpot upstairs neighbor in the trunk.
He had hung the data file around her neck on a lanyard when he pulled up to the hospital and dumped her out onto the sidewalk, crying and still gagged but very much alive. He had tried to apologize to her as best he could, but every time he had gotten close to her she had understandably tried to bite him, kick him, spit on him, or head butt him. Was her name Vida? Vera? It didn't matter.
The data file he gave her was his insurance, in case he was either killed on his way home or got cold feet at the last minute. He sat down at his computer console and reread his confession. There was so much more he wanted to say, but it had most of the basic information. It had at least enough to get the ball rolling, anyway.
His finger hovered over the "send" button on the touch screen and stopped. He filled his glass with the last of the whiskey in the bottle and poured half of the burning liquid down his throat. He looked at the handful of old-fashioned pills on the desk and the hand phaser and continued to debate which option would be better. He plucked one of the pills into his glass and took a sip. Not so bad.
He did another and another and felt an exhilarating fear. Soon all the pills and whiskey were gone. His eyelids began to feel heavy. He pressed send.
Sarek walked hurriedly into the Vulcan consulate. He had received several calls and messages from each member of his senior staff en route and diverted them all to an automated message informing them of his impending arrival.
The Vulcan consulate was normally a quiet and somber place and technically still was at the moment, but there was subdued tension riveting through the lobby. There were 24 Vulcan citizens crowded into the reception area, including several children. All of them were watching the central holographic screen, along with most members of his staff.
He didn't have to watch the news program to understand why. The bold caption above the news anchor's head simply said, "ROMULANS."
Several of the Vulcans approached him for information and he admitted he had none to give but was on urgent business. He excused himself and entered his office, trying to logically determine how this would complicate both the emergency secession meeting and the scheduled Vulcan evacuation the following day. He immediately turned on his secure console and before he could even dial in the communication link to the High Council clerk, he received a call.
Councilwoman T'Lona greeted him along with Councilman Tes of the Vulcan Ministry of Information, as well as Vulcan's leader, Chief Minister Sevek. They exchanged the usual pleasantries at a brisk pace and Minister Sevek asked if he was on the agenda to speak during the emergency session the following day.
"No," replied Sarek. "As you know this is an internal Terran matter-"
"With great potential consequences for all of the Federation," interrupted Minister Sevek.
"Indeed," Sarek replied. "The floor will be open for alien members of the Federation Council to speak following Earth's deliberations. I believe Councilman Suvok will likely give remarks."
"He was scheduled to," Minister Sevek explained. "But we have been unable to contact him. We have asked the Federation Investigation Service to locate him, but have not heard back."
"What do you require of me?" asked Sarek.
"If we are unable to locate him, we require you to speak in his place. You are not a member of the Federation Council, but at present you are the most senior member of the Diplomatic Service on Earth, and as a founding member of the Federation, Vulcan has a right to be heard. As you likely know by now, someone at Starfleet released the information about the possible role of the Romulans in the attack on the Comstock, which will certainly have repercussions for the emergency session tomorrow."
"I believe that individual was the Starfleet Chief of Staff, Admiral Maxwell Bentham," Sarek replied.
Councilwoman T'Lona and Minister Sevek exchanged looks, while Councilman Tes appeared to be reading something in his lap.
"I am certain I am not working with all available facts, but I have obtained additional information through Amanda Grayson," he explained.
He began to outline the conversation she'd overheard through the door when Councilman Tes interrupted him.
"If this message is legitimate, Ambassador Sarek is correct," Councilman Tes interjected, motioning to his PADD.
"To what message are you referring?" inquired Minister Sevek without looking behind him to acknowledge the speaker.
"A classified emergency dispatch just sent from a personal residence directly to the Vulcan High Council, along with the Federation Council and a number of other Federation governments. It is a private confession and contains details of a wide-ranging Federation plot."
"Allow us to confer privately and then renew our discussion, Ambassador," Councilwoman T'Lona stated, before Minister Sevek raised his hand calmly.
"I do not see why he should not be granted access to this communiqué, given his position and the present circumstances," argued Minister Sevek. "See that it is forwarded immediately."
After 30 seconds, a message appeared in the inbox of his secure message service, and over a communication link with the heads of his own government, he learned how the governments of Earth and the Federation were likely on the brink of falling apart.
To whom it concerns,
I do not personally know how deep the roots of the Earth Autonomy Movement go, and if you are involved, then nothing in this message will come as a surprise. To everyone else, this is how the EAM has plotted for more than a decade to bring down the Federation. This is also my confession for my part in it.
Admiral Maxwell Bentham is the leader of the Earth Autonomy Movement. I met him two years ago at a private club in Colorado when we discussed my interest in the Earth First Party. He was supportive of the isolationist movement and introduced me to many campaign donors. I would not have been successfully elected without his help.
I thought he was simply mentoring me due to our shared political ideals, but I eventually became aware he had a hand in putting countless people into positions of power. I do not know the full extent of his influence, but I've attached a list of those whom I personally know to be working for Admiral Bentham.
Eventually I discovered Admiral Bentham's true motivations behind helping me further my political career. His involvement with the EAM began while he was serving as commander of a Starfleet intelligence detachment tasked with patrolling and intercepting transmissions along the Romulan Neutral Zone. Sometime during his command he intercepted plans for a large-scale weapon that could produce massive amounts of thalaron radiation and effectively destroy a planet from very remote distances.
He never turned this intelligence over to Starfleet. Instead, he set about building the weapon for himself. I do not know all of the technical details, but it took him more than ten years to assemble the necessary materials and bribe and mislead the engineers who built it, as well as to rise through the ranks of Starfleet and promote the careers of people loyal to his cause and threaten or remove anyone who stood in his way.
Eventually he confided in me that his intent is to destroy both the Klingon and Romulan home worlds. When I first became suspicious of his true intentions, I am ashamed to admit I still supported him, as the Klingons and Romulans are war-faring societies and I feared for Earth's safety. Then six months ago, I discovered by accident that he does not intend to stop with the Romulans and Klingons, but seeks to take revenge on the Nausicaans, Rigelians, Coridians, and Vulcans for their failure to evacuate the Jouret colony during the Klingon and Romulan war. Whatever my opinions of alien species and the Federation, I cannot in good conscience allow the annihilation of billions.
I knew I could not immediately go to the authorities without proof and I have spent the last six months compiling all of the convincing evidence I could obtain. I hope it is enough. The more I have learned, the more I am certain that Admiral Bentham intends to completely destroy the Federation and countless alien lives.
The weapon was structurally completed six months ago and is being hidden on a planetoid orbiting Iota Eridani. The weapon is designed to have some limited mobility and the Romulan schematics detailed the necessity of an artificial quantum singularity and a massive quantity of superfluid helium-3.
Admiral Bentham solved the first problem by crossing into the Romulan Neutral Zone five months ago and boarding a disabled Romulan ship called the Tafv and capturing the vessel and its crew. The ship possesses not only the quantum singularity propulsion system but also extremely advanced cloaking technology, which in addition to hiding the ship has also been modified to conceal the weapon.
Due to the lack of the Federation's knowledge of the Romulan language, I was tasked with recruiting linguists familiar with Romulan to the EAM to help interrogate the captured Romulan crew and decipher the schematics of the ship's systems. Bentham now has a small human crew on the Tafv and is using it to advance his operation.
Admiral Bentham had less obvious means of solving the second problem, which was to obtain trillions of cubic meters of enriched helium-3. Even if he possessed the funds to purchase it, the estimated amount of helium-3 in all the Federation reserves would have still been insufficient to properly use the weapon for an extended period of time. Then, by coincidence and dumb luck, two months ago I discovered that Amanda Grayson, one of the linguists I had attempted to recruit to Admiral Bentham's cause, had a relative who had just hit upon a discovery of helium-3 in the Saurian sector. He was the captain of the Comstock.
Despite a month-long scan of the sector, no helium-3 was detected. Two weeks ago, Bentham's people found the Comstock exploring a nebula at the edge of Saurian space and Bentham's crew aboard the Tafv demanded the location of the helium-3. Melvin Grayson, the ship's captain, refused to comply with their demands and attempted to escape by fleeing into the nebula where the Comstock was destroyed.
The loss of the Comstock forced the admiral's hand. He has not stopped working on the weapon, but now his contingency plan is to incriminate the Romulans in the attack on the Comstock. The Tafv crew retrieved debris from the nebula and put it in orbit around a planet in the Bolian sector to throw investigators off the trail while he continued to search for the helium-3. The relocation of the debris to a planet nearer the Federation and Romulan border had the added benefit of making it easier to blame the Romulans for the attack.
Bentham's interim plan is to spark another war with the Federation and use his political power to urge the Earth to secede from the Federation while he continues to develop the weapon. As you know, the emergency session is to take place tomorrow. My role was to sway votes in favor of this ruling.
This confession only scratches the surface of the amount of influence Admiral Bentham holds and the lengths he's willing to go to for power and revenge. Many of the personnel he recruited to the EAM were not willing participants but were coerced through all manner of means. Once they had fulfilled their role, they were usually murdered. I will never absolve myself of the guilt I feel for watching him nearly drown the infant daughter of the project's chief engineer, Marlo Hansen, when Bentham suspected him of sabotage. Hansen was later vented into space upon the project's completion, though the official report of his death is listed as a transporter accident.
Among the technology recovered from the commandeered Romulan ship were several torture and interrogation devices. I know they were used to obtain information from the former head of the Federation Investigation Service before his alleged fatal skiing accident three months ago, and from the late Vulcan ambassador Sulak when Bentham suspected Sulak had vital information about the proposed Romulan corridor expansion. Regrettably the ambassador was tortured to death before he yielded information, so Bentham arranged to steal the information from his personal files at the Vulcan embassy following his death but was unable to do so. I do not know for certain, but I believe these devices were also used on former Starfleet Chief of Staff Jason Winters two weeks ago and Federation Councilman Suvok last night.
In the last week he has hunted down the close family members of the Comstock crew in the hopes they have information on the whereabouts of the helium-3. Maria Polyakova was murdered using these Romulan technologies, as were Michael Kitts and as of this morning, Anthony Castaneda. Bentham is still searching for Angela Maruzen and the aforementioned linguist, Amanda Grayson. I believe anyone associated with the Comstock is in immediate, serious danger, as well as anyone possessing a large quantity of helium-3 or detailed knowledge of Starfleet defenses along the Romulan Neutral Zone, superfluids, or large-scale weapons.
I had intended to keep this message short, but it has been a long two years and much has happened. I have attached numerous documents and files supporting my claims: I trust you will find everything is in order. I am guilty of many crimes, both directly and indirectly. I hope you will not judge me too harshly, because I tried to make everything right in the end. I only hope it has been enough.
Congressman John Louis Molineaux
As Sarek finished reading the message and overlaid the information he had acquired from Amanda, he began to recognize the full gravity of the situation and work out all immediate actions he would be required to take.
If this information were true, it would certainly shut down the emergency secession meeting tomorrow and Earth would profusely apologize for even considering leaving the Federation. On the other hand, Molineaux's account suggested that Bentham was running out of options and growing desperate, and if his contingency plan were to initiate a war with the Romulans, he certainly possessed the means to do so. If he really had captured a Romulan vessel, war might already be inevitable.
More members of the Vulcan High Council and other Vulcan agencies were linked into the transmission, and Sarek summoned the Vulcan members of his senior staff into his office. They debated and discussed Vulcan's strategy to the emerging crisis for the better part of an hour.
People came and went freely from the conversation as they were apprised of more information, left to confirm it, and then returned to update the others. Vulcan vessels were warned and recalled to Vulcan space, probes were launched, and other Federation members were contacted. Chaos and panic were illogical, but his office was coming very close.
Sarek confirmed the arrival of the transport vessels to return Vulcan citizens to their home world and tasked the members of his senior staff with contacting the remaining Vulcans on Earth and notifying them of the developing information. The Federation had faced crises before and survived, but he was not certain what condition it would be in following this one. Just because every other major crisis had been relegated to a footnote in the history books didn't ensure this one wouldn't be on the final pages of the those same books as the story of how the Federation ended.
As he labored, his thoughts lingered on sections of Molineaux's confession, particularly his assertion that "anyone associated with the Comstock is in immediate, serious danger." He worked at teasing out the logical implications of it all. If Bentham had the ability to reach anyone, from housewives to the head of Starfleet, it would be logical to assume he could still easily gain access to Amanda even still. Then it occurred to him that Ambassador Sulak had been murdered in his quarters, the same quarters that Sarek now occupied.
Of course, Molineaux had cast a wide net and news of this confession had by now reached the government of every Federation member planet and had surely trickled into Starfleet. That created a paradox. Naturally Molineaux would fear for his own life and would seek to gain as wide an audience as possible to reveal this information to on the chance that some would ignore the evidence he provided. However, a larger audience meant less chance of managing the crisis quietly behind the scenes before widespread panic set in.
It would only be a matter of time before at least portions of it were leaked to the public, and the reactions of the masses were known to be wildly unpredictable. A logical person in Bentham's position would surrender himself to the authorities, yet if Molineaux's testimony could even be partially believed, Bentham was an increasingly erratic individual. He would not surrender so easily when he had little if anything to lose.
He finished drafting his proposed remarks to the Vulcan High Council for tomorrow's emergency session, should it still be scheduled to happen, and excused himself. He had done everything he could for the moment and his staff was working on the finer details of the rest.
He decided to retrieve Amanda from his quarters himself. He had considered sending a junior staffmember to collect her, but reasoned she would likely be understandably skittish about answering the door for an individual she didn't know. If she had all the information he currently did, she would be even less inclined to open the door for strangers.
He meditated on the brief ride back to his accommodations. He did not allow himself to think of his growing romantic entanglement with Miss Grayson, but it occurred to him that he would be pleased to see her again, though they had only been parted for a short time. How illogical. He was not sure what the future had in store for them, but reasoned it would have to wait until this current crisis passed.
The vehicle had barely come to a stop when he pushed the door open. He moved up the stairs toward his front door, noting the exterior light was off. It had not been when he had departed. He felt a strange rush of fear that repulsed him as he inserted his key card into the door.
The moment he stepped across the threshold he understood the presence of his anxiety. It was because it was her anxiety. In one sweeping motion, he saw her sitting on this black chaise lounge and turning to see him, her face the color of eggshells. Three men stood over her and she stretched out her hand and started to yell, "NO!" when the tallest of the three men punched her hard in the throat and the sound was immediately extinguished.
When he looked back on that moment, he could not be precisely sure what happened next, other than the fact that the five seconds immediately following the tall man's choice to strike Amanda included a number of firsts for Sarek. It was the first time in his adult life that he had ever lost complete control of himself. It was the first time he had ever killed another sentient being. It was also the first time he had ever been stunned into unconsciousness with a hand phaser.
When he awoke some hours later behind a force field in a dark room, Amanda was gone but he would soon discover he was not alone.