Stardate 69011.60 [18+]
Posted on 19 Apr 2019 @ 12:33am by Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri
4,127 words; about a 21 minute read
[ Rated 18+ for disturbing imagery and violent content. Readers discretion is advised.]
[ON:]
“Science officer’s log. Stardate 69011.60. I am almost done with my therapy sessions with the Counselor. Today’s session was probably the worst I’ve ever had with Lake. Yeah, I’m calling him by his name now. Why is it that every counselor I’ve ever met is nosey? And no, it doesn’t go with the job description. There’s nosey…and then there’s Lake. Anyway, I’m just glad there’s light at the end of the tunnel and it isn’t an oncoming train.
An uneventful week; rescue a survivor, see a volcano destroy an entire planet slowly. A wrecked ship and a boatload of mystery. You know…the usual stuff. If I didn’t laugh with this job then I’d be a permanent patient for the dear Counselor.
We have a staff meeting in fifteen minutes and I need to find me a cup of coffee. Oh, I’m running scans of the surface and mapping the surface with a new system from the DTI. Slow. It’s very slow going. I hope all this work is worth it. I’ll know in…twelve minutes and eighteen seconds.
But who’s counting?”
=== END OF LOG ===
A wise Cardassian once said, "I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen all the time. Everyday in fact. But, I don't trust coincidences."
Far across the alpha-quadrant, on Fontalis, seated on benches on the floor of the Senate a group of Starfleet officers were there. Addressing the Senators, the assembled members, both Houses and the representative for the Crown as well as the hundreds that had the event on their monitors.
It was a day just like any other in Serse. The sun was shining brightly, the air was cool as it usually was and the ocean salt-air faintly censored the winds and reminded everyone that this was an ancient port city.
Further inland and on the Origenio mount, a gentle sloping hill that used to house the Imperial palace and was now the seat of both Houses of the Parliament and the Senate sat a large and ornate building. Imposing as it were, the size was gargantuan. A product of eight different Emperors and sixteen Kings the structure had been crafted and recrafted to suit the styles and whims of those in power. Today, most historians agree that it was returned to the style and panash of Emperor Tacito Vinulata's reign, for the most part.
Past the towering marble columns, the base that was as big as a modest dwelling. Past the public halls, up the stairs and through the heavy, thick doors of the Senate chamber we can see the members of Starfleet addressing the chamber.
For the third time now, the application for full-membership to the Federation, a move that is widely appealing to many - but not to all - has been rejected and Fontalis will remain merely a protectorate. Citing, among other complaints, classisim, inequality in economics, access to healthcare and a separate military in addition to the absolute refusal to abolish the archaic parliamentary Houses in favor of just a single governmental body, i.e., "The Senate". The officers charged with delivering the bad news do their duty and they are shouted down with jeers and lamentations.
From the back, from the out of the way places, from the hard-benches, from obscurity a clarion voice gains the attention of the representative of the Crown.
Hushed voices ask, "Who is that? From where? I don't know who that is? What?" And people strain to see. The voice belongs to a man. He is modest in appearance. A moderately tall gentleman, he appeared to be fully Fontalan having the characteristic long blond mane. But this man was not aristocratically pale. He looks like a working man. His tanned skin and thick-skinned hands show the signs of manual labor. Despite his senatorial robes, emblazoned with the colors of his House and the peoples he represents, he is younger for a man of his station. He wears the neatly trimmed beard of a Senator and his broad shoulders fill out the robe that adorns him.
For everything there is a time. With the shifting of the winds and this latest setback, this man makes his move. He nods to an aide who leaves the chamber for a moment. He steps forward and with a bow to the Crown and addresses the senate. He walks toward the middle of the broad aisle; the Starfleet officers have returned to their tables near the speaker's bench as they watch him.
But it is not a quiet affair. The Houses and the Senate are a noisy bunch and they chatter and yell. The speaker hammers his gavel and threatens to expel certain Houses from the chamber a move that meets with more laughter than fear.
And so, the man's voice is what finally gets the job done, “HEAR ME!! FONTALIS!! Hear me! Fellow citizens!"
The noise continues but then starts to grow softer and less. The aide that left before now walks in. In his arms he carries a child. Perhaps four or five years old. The child has been badly burned. Probably by phaser fire but it is not certain. Whether the child is a boy or a girl we cannot tell. Senators and the Parliamentarian Houses fall silent in shock and sadness as the aide walks toward the Senator.
The aide hands him the child and we see that the burns are very, very bad. There is only one arm and one leg.
"Fontalis! Witness me now, I am Gessius Thrax Domna, and this.... babe...is my son!"
A silence fills the room, and Gessius takes his boy in his arms and lifts him onto his shoulders and walks with him to the speakers bench. Above the bench, carved in Caracalla wood is a symbol, an icon of Fontalis, a carving in the wood and painted in vibrant colors of the god "Possiamo in Regent" below that sits the representative for the Crown, the Houses and the Speaker for the Senate. The current representative for the Crown is a lovely woman and she averts her eyes, as they fill with sorrow for the wee child.
Gessius holds his son on his shoulder and faces the floor of the cavernous Senatorial interior. Amplified by waves of pain and powered by grief in government gone wrong and none to help he speaks and his words fill the room. All eyes watch him.
"People and Senators of Fontalis! There are few crimes in our legal system that are more harshly forbidden, more despised and none so intolerable in our culture and by our people and in our Writings than sacrifice to the hated, abomination that is the god Lokomai. The sacrifice referred to by the Prophet was of living children consumed in the fires of offering to accursed Lokomai. Ever since Origenio wiped them out, worship of Lokomai has been the sign of a deeply degraded culture. My brothers...*WE*...have become that degraded culture!"
Immediately, people stood and began to object. But Gessius' voice carried the day and he continued, "And when the most beloved Emperor Vinulata reached the distant shores of Aquilla...did he not justify the destruction of that city by noting that children were sacrificed to Lokomai there? These are not MY words? I am saying nothing new to you this day! The Prophet wrote of Lokomai when Origenio still walked the land. Lokomai, as the first enemy of mankind who joined hated Radamio's war on all Fontalans everywhere."
“Listen then…if you have ears…” Gessius picked up the Book of Writings from off the Bench and opened it to the Chapter of the Emperors and read these words from the Prophet as he described the wretched scene in Lokomai's temple:
"Then, Damiana, taking a timbrel in her hand and together,
with all the assembled, they made hommage and worship to Lokomai.
Round about his starry throne, adorned with skulls of innocents sat he.
Chief of him who is damned, servant to Radamio, all fallen in deadly worship,
First accursed Lokomai, hateful, horrid king,
smeared with blood of sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
The silent scream for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, thrashing in wicked agony,
that passed through fire to his grim idol.
Great Possiamo, Monarch of the Sky, enraged, flew as lightning quick,
His rallying voice and commanding voice that inflamed the hearts of men,
And with one swift stroke, Lokomai dispatched.
And he gave to righteous Vinulata the power and the might and he tore their idols down.
Never to be rebuilt."
Gessius walked from the speakers bench and looking at the Starfleet officers set his son on the table before them. The Federation diplomats recoiled a bit and the painful sight.
The boy was badly burned by phaser fire. Direct burns, deliberate maiming. Gessius put his hand on his son's head and said, "We have become again a deeply degraded culture. And it is because of you. By your presence here on this our island in the stars. Our home. You have brought back to life the old ways!"
The aide now laid on the table, in front of the whole assembly at least one dozen high-powered Starfleet Marine issued phaser rifles.
He spoke loudly as he walked the floor. He gestured as he spoke and his voice was strong and powerful. It filled the room and stirred people's hearts, "If I had as many eyes as Fontalis has wounds I would have seen it all coming! Woe to the hands that have shed this precious blood. Not of mine own son, but of your sons and your daughters and your children everywhere. Some of our own sons and daughters...even serve in Starfleet! My son, was captured by cultists of Lokomai. They used Starfleet...FEDERATION weapons to do...this to my son before the Fontalan security force stopped them. They found another sixty....children that were not coming home. And now, that they have brought this murder to our shores we are to be content?!"
People stood up in the chamber and yelled.
Gessius continued, "NO!! I tell you NO!! The Federation rejects us after it has visited upon all Fontalis such horrors as the return of the cult of Lokomai? We are cursed by them? So that curses shall befall us all and curses shall alight themselves all about the Crown? Tell me! When did it become particularly Fontalan to lie down and take these injustices as a dog?"
A murmur started and slowly grew louder.
Gessius nodded and raised his hand and said, "Yes....yes...and these same curses shall be loosed on the land and the people so that there shall be such civil strife and domestic FURY!! HEAR ME!! Fontalis! I tell you – I tell you that I prophesy that though they reject us; we shall reject them and throw them off. For when the people see for themselves that we are undermined will they not cry aloud and SHAKE THE ROOF OF HEAVEN?"
Many senators and Parliamentarians stood up and yelled. Some at Gessius, more at Starfleet.
"I am telling you that nothing good has come from this alliance. We have been lied to and undermined at every turn."
Some objected, they stood and demanded to be heard. It was to no avail. Gessius had waited this long and for this moment not to have miscalculated his impact. And the impact of Him whom he served.
The Senators and the Houses eventually quieted down. Domna continued, "So that.....so that....blood and destruction shall be so familiar to our people and everywhere in our streets and these dreadful energy weapons will be everywhere! They proliferate in our cities so much that parents - - instead of shrieking and bringing their dead to the Temple - - they will only smile because their sacrificed children were spared the horrors of the coming war and were instead merely burned and quartered before their very eyes by the cult of Lokomai?"
A thunderous roar went up of "No!"
With outstretched arms, in a most dramatic way on the floor of the Imperial Senate Gessius made his plea, "Do you not rage with me fellow senators? DO not be swayed by the honeyed words of the Federation! They deny giving weapons to anyone outside of Starfleet and yet our cities are filled with them. Our youth believe that the Federation offers them a better way...a right way to go? They turn their backs on the ancient, glorious ways and they ignore the blessings of Possiamo himself.
Are there any men left among you? Who are sickened by the fact that Lokomai has again risen to power? Is there not a single voice among you - is there no man - what...must the rocks of the ground themselves cry out if you will not?!"
This time a yell from the floor and many people leaving their seats and openly yelling at the speakers bench. For minutes it was chaotic and for the safety of the Starfleet officers, the Crown had them escorted back to the Federation Ambassador's residence.
The guards came and after almost twenty-minutes to get from the floor to the door, finally managed to get the officers to the safety of the Ambassadorial wing. Now that he had stirred these people, he continued even more. Gessius was just getting started, "How is it that I, Gessius Thrax Domna, from no noble House and lowly birth can see the storm and you learned Patriots cannot? When the very Emperor for whom this palace was built aided by the very GODS whom we worship came from the skies the reason that they gave for such intervention was because the cult of Lokomai killed children!! Have you forgotten? Are your eyes so blind, your stomachs so full, your hearts so dead that anything...ANYTHING...the Federation tells you you will believe?"
"No!!", they shouted. Others shouted, "The Federation brings PEACE...the weapons must be stolen!"
In a flair from the drammatic, Gessius leapt from the floor and stood on the table in front of the whole senate. Lest that idea be given a chance to flourish!
In a practiced and calculated move, he incited the crowd that had gathered to violence by gesturing and yelling, "In the fires of such a ghastly and beastly act Origenio himself went to the shore and falling to his knees wept rivers of tears for them, these innocent young ones that were offered up to Lokomai. And...filled with such a rage as fills me now, burned, cast down, and razed...knocked down every bloody stone so that such a heinous act should never be repeated among us.
And…since the birthday of the sun…we have held it sacred dear to our own hearts that Lokomai shall forever perish from the land!"
His gift for oratory was no accident. Nothing was by mere...accident. He chose his words carefully. Using language borrowed from the Writings and using a more ancient dialect and phrases to address the Senate. In doing so, he was unconsciously, to them at least, giving credibility to his own words - which were most certainly - not his own.
He reached and took the bannered flag from off its pedestal and waved it round, "And...yet...with the arrival of the Humans and the Federation we have Lokomai return to us well!? All our pity choked by tears of fear and rage! All our youth stolen from us by idle dreams of unity that is not ours? As if there is no unity except among the Humans?"
That last comment caused such a stir that Security guards from the Senatorial guard had to break up a few shouting matches and a few fistfights...on the floor of the senate building. They tried to stop Gessius, they tried to silence
him and not even the Crown could. He could speak only after the Houses and the Senate were back in their seats.
No one dared to admonish him!
Except one.
She stood alone. Great women often do.
A lone voice in a sea of torrent and rage. She was in a minority being both Human and Fontalan. Her name, forgoing the traditional ancient titles she was simply known - and yet profoundly known as - Fiorina Capelli.
When she spoke, as this was her first time speaking to the Senate as well, her voice was not so strident; not so harsh and so it gathered attention and finally, after some minutes, she spoke,
"Brothers! Patriots all! Senator Gessius asks of us when did it become particulary Fontalan to be a coward and to live in the shadow of the Federation? An honorable question...which he has yet to answer!
So let me ask you this question. When did it become a Fontalan virtue to be swept along by the heady words of a senator whom we have never heard yet speak? And yet, our brother, has impassioned all here present to such a degree that our Federation friends have left escorted back to their Embassy? When has it ever been a virtue of our people to treat others with anything but respect and kindness?"
Most were silent.
“It is meet and right that pity now stills your tongue my brothers” she said in her best “Mom” voice.
"Gessius says that the Federation is to blame for all our recent ills. And where is the proof?" She touches the weapons and holds one up. "This here? Is this the proof that has made all of you so...righteously...angered?"
She set the weapon down and called to the guards. The same guards that escorted the Federation officer a while ago to safety. "May I see that weapon? Is it not the same? And where did you get this from?"
The guard replied, "Starfleet Senator. Starfleet provided these weapons for the protection of the Senate."
A murmur among the crowd rose, "Are we then to believe that Starfleet is both killing us and at the same time defending us? When did it become particularly Fontalan to be so...thick headed and stupidly impetuous and rush to judgement?"
A few started to shout her down and she prevailed, "You, learned Senators, seem to like to cherry-pick the Prophets words! Since you seem to like the Writings only when they suit your purpose and ignore them when they do not - have you also forgotten what the Prophet has written about Atteon?”
“You rabble about like children! Following the loudest most strident voice. Then turn your ears to me, let me refresh your memory, Atteon, the Hunter and his eight hunting dogs set out one day. And in the open spaces not far from here, they found a noble stag. Atteon, now...incites and rallies his dogs for the hunt and sets them loose to run down the stag. When, during the hunt sees one of the blessed Tallis. The Writings tells us that this Tallis was in fact, Amadea.
Remember? Now, Atteon was an experienced hunter and he knew how to train both his dogs and himself. And, he manages to stay hidden from Amadea as she is in metamorphosis. Changing from tree, to shrub, to rock and fountain as the Writings tell us.
But soon, the Stag evades the eight hounds and they have lost the scent. Atteon, hearing the yelps and cries of the returning hounds thinks that he will present Amadea with the spoils of his hunt. And so, reveals himself to her.
The Tallis, those blessed servants of Possiamo, is so surprised that any man should see her while she changes form that she uses her gifts to change the form of Atteon himself. And she turns the hunter into the hunted. She turns him into a Stag. Amadea, knowing that the dogs only aim to please their master - unthinking, impetuous, well trained dogs that they are - pick up the scent of the now changed man.
Atteon, now in the form of a noble stag runs as fast as he can. But he has trained his hounds too well and there on mount Amadea; Atteon, pursued by his own hounds, he is torn to pieces."
She pauses for effect and then, she recites the words of the Prophet in the original tongue perfectly,
"Spesso lei visita questo amato monte,
spesso si bagna in questa fonte;
qui Atteon incontrò suo fato,
dilaniato dai suoi stessi cani,
e per le mortali ferite,
scoperte, troppo,troppo tardi,
Attean qui incontrò suo fato.
or,
Often, the Tallis Amadea visited this beloved mountain,
often she bathes in this fountain;
Here Atteon met his fate,
torn apart by his own dogs,
and for the mortal wounds,
discovered, too, wildly late,
Attean here he met his fate."
Fiorina paused, “Are you so sure of yourselves that you cannot see what is happening? The hour is not yet passed and we are ready to throw off sixty-years of careful and labored work. Being part of something bigger than ourselves is no loss of our own identity! We are Fontalan today…tomorrow we shall still be Fontalans. The Federation adds to the beauty of the galaxy. We are not lost in the ocean of it; we are a part of the ocean.”
She looks directly at Gessius and says, "Do not act precipitously, learned Senators of the people, for we are also well-trained dogs and we know how to hunt as well!"
Gessius mocks her by clapping sarcastically, "Words...only words. Eloquent, but the time has long since passed for discussion. I will not stand idle by and let them, Federation NOR cultist take my daughter and maim her too. Fiorina, do as you will. But the time and tide are against you! Starfleet and the Federation will fall."
He turned his back to her as the Senate erupted.
"How shall we answer when the spirits of our honored dead will rage about these chambers and break down the doors because none shall act? I say to all here present and to the Crown itself I say that we shall answer for our actions here this day. Three times we have asked to be admitted and thrice rejected. No more! I move that the Senate here and now be so moved that we are Protectorate no more...and return us to our sovereign state!"
Back on their feet again, some were cheering, and some were not. Calling for an immediate recess they tried to quell the passions of the room and had no idea that Gessius had been planning for this a long time. There were not enough votes and at this point, no one seemed able to stop him from speaking.
"I am a man of no degree, surround by such a cloud of witnesses that these facts themselves are not disputed! Are your ears so long in hearing that the words themselves have lost all meaning? Then hear again and let them fall onto your heart anew and take root. What I say to you, you must already know. The Writings are on your hearts and on your minds. Leave with these words from The Prophet. Take these to your homes tonight and think carefully on them,
My soul itself; now weeps! Great Possiamo!
Eternal monarch of the sky, our cruel crime that you decry!
Beware the cult of Lokomai!
The horrid wretch, the enemy of mankind.
With your same all-piercing eye our melting anguish, and tears of sorrow observe.
Possiamo, our beginning and our end, creator, leader, guardian, friend.
All you are returning Tallis, witness! Hear! Attend!”
Gessius pauses as the Senate falls apart. His eyes seem to be glowing and on fire and a cruel smile sets upon him. The last words he says echo in the chamber in a low, menacing voice,
“See your people, inflamed to serve,
And grant us aid we don't deserve."
At which point the Senate in complete chaos disbands. Everyone seeming to argue with everyone else. And just like that. The plan is afoot.
Twelve hours later, a mob set fire and ransacked the Federation embassy not more that 7 kilometers from the Imperial Senate Chamber.
Twenty-four hours later, the Fontalan Star Navy launched an attack on the Nerviaii and destroyed the USS Bentham.
[OFF:]
Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri
Science Officer – Historian
USS Galileo-A
NCC-80010
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