Rebellion in Paradise.
Posted: 2005-02-05 06:38pm
Rebellion in Paradise
Chapter 1
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill
Federation Penal Colony, Austral VI. 14 Light Years from Starbase 375.
The soft moon of Austral shone a dim light across the valley. The forest tree’s absorbed the rest of the moonlight and created dark swaths of shadow. From one of these shadows, Lieutenant Dan Hathaway observed the prison below him.
He used a primitive telescopic device, as no active or even electronic sensors were allowed during the mission, to view the compound below him. A large clearing was made in the lush forest of the continent and four massive buildings sprang up out of the black wood.
Somewhere in those buildings, his objective awaited.
His platoon had been on this planet for over a week. Since being inserted from a cargo ship that came out of the Argolis Cluster, his troops had moved in close to the prison and performed recon on it. Had observed it. Mapped it’s edges, traced its guards.
Lt. Hathaway now knew everything he needed to know to finish his mission. Looking through the binoculars, he checked one last time the positions of the various mission objectives for his three squads before crawling back over the ridge to his squad leaders.
“Mission is a GO.” He said in a hushed voice.
“Squad one will proceed to the subspace comm. relay. Two, you’ll advance to the transport inhibitors and sensor pallets. Three, you’ll move in to the objective rally point and await a go code from one and two. When we get a green code, we’ll move in and take the objective and all squads will move to extraction points.
Remember. All active sensors are offline. Don’t even power up your rifles until second squad blows the sensors. Keep every electronic signal off until the fireworks start.
Any questions?” Hathaway added.
He waited a moment to make sure, then nodding to his troops; he made a wide sweeping motion with his hands that signaled his platoon to move out.
*************************************************************
Federation Penal Prisoner 42521138 sat in his cell. It was not really a cell as most species thought of it. This was a Federation Prison, and as such, prisoner 42521138 had just about every comfort one could imagine.
His cell was really a small suite in building 4. The three room suite had a living room, a bed room, and a bathroom. The only real thing the prisoner lacked was his own kitchen. His cell was one of six on the floor, though there was only one turbolift out of the level. This was perhaps the only thing that reminded prisoner 42521138 that he was in a penal colony.
Sure, he was allowed out of his cell twice a day. Meal times and the daily activities. But when he was in his suite, he could almost pretend that he was at home. He had requested and gotten quite a few books that he wanted. His former rank giving him privileges that other Federation prisoners couldn’t get. His library was quite extensive.
Schwarzkoph, Sun Tzu, Pope, and a lot of the ancient classics of Plato, Tactius, Caesar, and Napoleon, all adorned his shelves.
He was once a man of history. A man of the present. A military man. And he soon would be again, if he read the messages correctly.
The old prisoner rose and began to dress himself. Slowly and almost painstakingly, he put on his dress uniform. The symbol of the entity he intended to fight, to the death if need be.
His creased slacks, his polished boots, his well ironed shirt and matching jacket. Hanging from that jacket, various medals and ribbons dangled. Tokens from previous battles. Some won, others lost, but a reminder of the lessons learned and the men who had believed in him.
Those same men or at least those like them, who reached out and found him at this place, this illusion of paradise. He had failed those who had believed in him once, he did not intend to loose again. The stakes were just too high this time.
He had arranged the last of his four rank pips, when a shock wave rumbled through his cell. A muffled ‘bang’ accompanied the dirt and debris that shook itself loose from the ceiling.
Prisoner 42521138 stood at parade rest, facing away from the entrance to his cell, his suite, his false home. He waited there in the dark shadows of the early morning. That no alarm or no sudden rush of guards arrived to check on him gave him no pause.
The people who were coming for him would take care of everything. So with a patience born of a military commander, he waited.
It seemed like hours, but prisoner 42521138 knew it was more like minutes, eventually the lift at the end of the corridor of cells hummed to life and soon he could hear footsteps of a group of people approaching.
The footfalls ended, and again the prison level fell into silence. Out of the dark, a voice sounded. Confident and strong, the male voice reported with a hint of respect, “Sir, all is ready. With your pardon, we should be leaving.”
Prisoner 42521138 turned around and saw his small suite crammed with five other people. One, the poor helpless guard detailed to his suites floor, stood with his head to the wall and one of the dark rescuer’s rifles to his head. The four new people were dressed all in dark, rugged clothes and were all armed with phaser rifles.
“I’m at your command.” Said the prisoner.
The leader of the commandos winked and smiled at the prisoner and said, “This way sir. Extraction in three minutes.”
The unfortunate guard was left in the prisoner’s cell in a state that prevented him from reporting the escape of prisoner 42521138 and the four commando’s and their new charge passed through the building of the prison complex heading for the court yard, other men in dark fatigues joining them out of the shadows of the building.
The prisoner and his rescuers emerged into the early dawn, a pale light coming from the eastern horizon across the vast green sea of the forest, and into a small clearing between the prison buildings.
They were soon joined by two other bands of commandos and each group spread out to form a large circle with the prisoner in the middle. Not long after all the commando’s were in the circle, prisoner 42521138 felt a tingling sensation in his body as a soft blue light seemed to encompass the entire party.
The beautiful view of the forest disappeared as the transporter beam carried him up to the awaiting ship. The green trees were replaced by the worn face of two older men wearing uniforms of Starfleet Admirals and an expression of relief.
“Welcome aboard, Ben.” Said one of the Admirals.
Benjamin Maxwell, former Federation Prisoner 42521138, smiled at his compatriots, Admirals Leyton and Pressman. All was in place, and now the liberation of the oppressed masses of the Federation would soon commence.
Chapter 2
There is one source, O Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers. -- Demosthenes
Starfleet Command Orbital Annex, Earth.
Starfleet Chief of Operations, Admiral Janeway walked into the conference room with the rest of the Admiralty that they were able to gather in the last four days. In front of her, as she strode into the room and headed for her chair at the head of the large table, were eight of the Fleet Admirals and six of the Command Admirals of various operations and strategic commands. It was time they all knew the problem looming the Federation in the face.
Behind the Chief of Operations, walked a staff officer. A Commander of no distinguishing physical appearance, of medium height and ordinary features. As Admiral Janeway took her seat, the Commander moved to the speaking podium and signaled to the Admiralty that he was ready for his briefing to begin.
“Admirals, if you will. I am Commander Hayden, from the Operations Staff. The Chief of Operations has asked me to brief you on a number of events that have occurred during the last six to eight months. I am sure that with most of the events, one or even two of you might be aware, but the significance of all the events, added together has been kept quiet until we could take a measure of the problem.”
The Commander reached down and typed a series of commands into the LCAR’s in front of him, transferring data to the individual Admiral’s PADD and a large viewing screen behind him.
Hayden didn’t look at the screen. He had already memorized the information, as disturbing as it was. In a corner of his mind, he had already made a bet with himself about if the Admirals in front of him would even see the threat or if he needed to spell it out for them.
“The information on your PADD’s and on screen, lists sixteen Starfleet vessels that have gone missing in the last eight months. Four survey ships have failed to report in, during missions in the Beta Quadrant. Eight medium ships have disappeared during combat patrol of the Cardassian DMZ. Of which, the USS Venture was dispatched to investigate, and has now been listed as missing.
The Honshu, the Lexington, the Horatio, Excalibur. All missing or failing to report in. As you can see, most of these ships are large combatants, refitted during the Dominion War. The rest are new ships out of the yards in the last four years after the war.
One week ago, the USS Ark Royal, the latest Sovereign class vessel, vanished while on a shake down cruise during her trials.”
The Commander paused his briefing as the murmurs in the room were growing louder as the Admirals read the list.
“Are we being attacked by some threat, Commander?” Asked Admiral Jellico.
This question brought on a surge of outbursts from other Admirals, “Those damn Klingons!” Blurted the Commander of the 5th Fleet.
“I’d be willing to bet it is Romulans subterfuge.” Remarked Admiral Hoyota.
Until this point, Admiral Janeway had observed the briefing and the reaction of the Admiralty with one hand supporting her head, quietly listening. Now that the initial shock was out, she interjected. “We first suspected such things. But we quickly dismissed them. All of the events are so scattered through our territory that none of the known powers could have been responsible for all of the events.”
“Then what are you suggesting?” Asked Jellico in a calm and confident voice.
Admiral Janeway nodded to Commander Hayden and he took the question for her. “As we all know, there has always been a faction in Starfleet who advocated a stronger military tradition than what the Federation Council has always dictated to us. It has ebbed and flowed for as long as there has been a Starfleet.
At the end of the Federation/Klingon conflict at the beginning of the century, the Federation Council dictated a steadily more pacifist doctrine for Starfleet. And it was one we were happy to enact. Great strides in exploration were achieved, and yet there were still those who feared that enemies were around us. They were right to a degree, of course, though never as right as they wished.
With the break out of the Federation/Cardassian war, almost two decades ago, the militaristic faction had a chance to gain attention. Some of those commanders were instrumental for some of the hard won victories, and a lot of the newer officers were brought into their fold.
The way that war ended and the follow on treaties with the Cardassians a decade ago, only cemented some of those officers distaste at the peaceful doctrine of Starfleet.”
Admiral Jellico stretched back into his seat and sighed, “That was a nice, flowery history lesson, Commander. I hope there is a point coming?”
Hayden tried his best to hide his distaste at the rebuke, though failed miserable. “Sir, it was that very cadre that subscribed to the idea of a more militaristic Starfleet that helped restructure the fleet after Wolf 359. Some of the same officers that left Starfleet to fight for the Maqi, or to speak for their cause.
The same ideology that was not content with the treaties giving Federation colonists to the Cardassians, who thought the Cardassians lost the war and saw no reason to give away anything. The same officers who warned of the coming Dominion threat, and then constructed a coup attempt.”
Hayden saw than the pessimistic side of his personal bet had won. The Admirals were too used to the utopia of the Federation that such thoughts couldn’t even surface anymore.
“Sir, the Operations Staff’s opinion on the events, is that these ships have not been destroyed or captured by enemy or even friendly nations. Rather that the Captains of these ships have chosen to disappear.”
“Mutiny?” Exclaimed one of the Admirals in the back that Hayden didn’t know.
Various side discussions erupted at that and quickly ended with Admiral Jansen’s out roar, “That’s ridiculous. Nothing of that sort has happened in Starfleet; at least not on the scale you are proposing Commander. Not in a hundred years. And even assuming you are right, and these Captains have gone rogue, those ships represent thousands of Starfleet personnel. Are you suggesting that thousands of Starfleet personnel, Federation Citizens, are rebelling against paradise?”
“The data is suggesting just that Admiral.” Commander Hayden responded.
The Admirals were staring at him as if he had gone mad, “You’ll need more than a list of missing ships, if you want to convince anyone of that, Commander.”
“There is more data to support this theory, sir. Five days ago, there was a successful escape at Penal Colony Austral VI. The Warden reports that his installation was attacked by a large number of well trained and well equipped troops, those troops and a single prisoner where transported off of the planet, only after the subspace communications system, the transport inhibitors, and the local sensor net was destroyed.
In fact, the only reason we know about this is a cargo ship making a late delivery came into the system six hours after the escape and the Warden was able to send out a message to Starfleet Command.”
“And who was the escapee?” Inquired Jellico.
Commander Hayden straightened, cleared his throat and said, “The escaped prisoner, prisoner 42521138, was Benjamin Maxwell.”
The Chief of Operations stood then, taking the podium from her Commander and said, “He isn’t the only one. The penal colonies where both Leyton and Pressman were held for their crimes have also been raided. We believe that these three rogue officers are engineering a rebellion.”
There was another outburst of voices. Admiral arguing Admiral. It took the Chief of Operations, herself, to calm the room down and proceeded.
“Four days ago, we received a message from Maxwell. It was this message that prompted me to call this meeting.” She tapped a key on her PADD and the ship list on the viewing screen changed to the face of a gentle looking old man with thin blond hair, turning slightly gray at the edges.
His voice was just as soft as his features, though his words were perhaps the harshest thing the assembled group had ever heard.
“Greetings. I hope that this message will eventually find its way to Starfleet Command. As you probably already know, I am Benjamin Maxwell. Incarcerated by the Federation for actually seeing a threat to my nation and taking action against it. I was a Captain of a ship, designed for exploration and repeatedly sent into combat. Sent into situations made worse by the blundering actions of our government.
It is these things, I have contacted you to address. I am not the only one with these feelings. There are many in the Federation that feel that the worst enemy the Federation faces is the Federation herself. Or at least the Federation that she has become.
It is in this that we declare war against the tyrannical hold that the Council has over the populace and the pacifistic bent of those charged to defend them, unless certain issues are resolved.
I know that most of you think of me and those that think as I, as warmongers. But that is far from the truth, and in truth, we do not wish to fight. So as a gesture, we wish a Federation Ambassador to meet with us and discuss these issues.
If you wish to avoid bloodshed, have your ambassador go to the Helena system and be on station no more than eight days after you receive this message.” With a burst of static, the message ended.
“Civil War?” The mere sound of the phrase was bitter in the ears of the assembled Admirals.
Admiral Janeway replied, “That seems to be his intent.”
“He’ll need more than sixteen ships, to defeat Starfleet.” Said Admiral Hoyoto.
Admiral Jellico sighed, saying, “What makes you believe that he only has sixteen? For all we know, they have twice that many, or three times that many. Still hiding in the fleet, waiting for orders.”
“Jellico is right,” Said Janeway, “There is no telling what resources they have.”
Admiral Hoyoto leaned forward then, “What do you suggest? Send an ambassador? You know it has to be a trap. Or even a chance for more ships to cross over to his ranks.”
“We should take care to send a capable and loyal Captain. But also one who could spring a few surprises too.” Jellico said. “More importantly, I think we should send a symbol to the rebels and to the loyal at that.”
Janeway caught on, “Send the Enterprise.”
Jellico nodded. “Shelby will be able to control the situation.”
Hoyoto added, “Then send in Picard too. As the Ambassador. The Enterprise with Picard on board will be a strong message to this rebel scum.”
Admiral Janeway glanced around the table and saw the nod of agreement from the Admiralty. “Agreed.” She said.
Chapter 1
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill
Federation Penal Colony, Austral VI. 14 Light Years from Starbase 375.
The soft moon of Austral shone a dim light across the valley. The forest tree’s absorbed the rest of the moonlight and created dark swaths of shadow. From one of these shadows, Lieutenant Dan Hathaway observed the prison below him.
He used a primitive telescopic device, as no active or even electronic sensors were allowed during the mission, to view the compound below him. A large clearing was made in the lush forest of the continent and four massive buildings sprang up out of the black wood.
Somewhere in those buildings, his objective awaited.
His platoon had been on this planet for over a week. Since being inserted from a cargo ship that came out of the Argolis Cluster, his troops had moved in close to the prison and performed recon on it. Had observed it. Mapped it’s edges, traced its guards.
Lt. Hathaway now knew everything he needed to know to finish his mission. Looking through the binoculars, he checked one last time the positions of the various mission objectives for his three squads before crawling back over the ridge to his squad leaders.
“Mission is a GO.” He said in a hushed voice.
“Squad one will proceed to the subspace comm. relay. Two, you’ll advance to the transport inhibitors and sensor pallets. Three, you’ll move in to the objective rally point and await a go code from one and two. When we get a green code, we’ll move in and take the objective and all squads will move to extraction points.
Remember. All active sensors are offline. Don’t even power up your rifles until second squad blows the sensors. Keep every electronic signal off until the fireworks start.
Any questions?” Hathaway added.
He waited a moment to make sure, then nodding to his troops; he made a wide sweeping motion with his hands that signaled his platoon to move out.
*************************************************************
Federation Penal Prisoner 42521138 sat in his cell. It was not really a cell as most species thought of it. This was a Federation Prison, and as such, prisoner 42521138 had just about every comfort one could imagine.
His cell was really a small suite in building 4. The three room suite had a living room, a bed room, and a bathroom. The only real thing the prisoner lacked was his own kitchen. His cell was one of six on the floor, though there was only one turbolift out of the level. This was perhaps the only thing that reminded prisoner 42521138 that he was in a penal colony.
Sure, he was allowed out of his cell twice a day. Meal times and the daily activities. But when he was in his suite, he could almost pretend that he was at home. He had requested and gotten quite a few books that he wanted. His former rank giving him privileges that other Federation prisoners couldn’t get. His library was quite extensive.
Schwarzkoph, Sun Tzu, Pope, and a lot of the ancient classics of Plato, Tactius, Caesar, and Napoleon, all adorned his shelves.
He was once a man of history. A man of the present. A military man. And he soon would be again, if he read the messages correctly.
The old prisoner rose and began to dress himself. Slowly and almost painstakingly, he put on his dress uniform. The symbol of the entity he intended to fight, to the death if need be.
His creased slacks, his polished boots, his well ironed shirt and matching jacket. Hanging from that jacket, various medals and ribbons dangled. Tokens from previous battles. Some won, others lost, but a reminder of the lessons learned and the men who had believed in him.
Those same men or at least those like them, who reached out and found him at this place, this illusion of paradise. He had failed those who had believed in him once, he did not intend to loose again. The stakes were just too high this time.
He had arranged the last of his four rank pips, when a shock wave rumbled through his cell. A muffled ‘bang’ accompanied the dirt and debris that shook itself loose from the ceiling.
Prisoner 42521138 stood at parade rest, facing away from the entrance to his cell, his suite, his false home. He waited there in the dark shadows of the early morning. That no alarm or no sudden rush of guards arrived to check on him gave him no pause.
The people who were coming for him would take care of everything. So with a patience born of a military commander, he waited.
It seemed like hours, but prisoner 42521138 knew it was more like minutes, eventually the lift at the end of the corridor of cells hummed to life and soon he could hear footsteps of a group of people approaching.
The footfalls ended, and again the prison level fell into silence. Out of the dark, a voice sounded. Confident and strong, the male voice reported with a hint of respect, “Sir, all is ready. With your pardon, we should be leaving.”
Prisoner 42521138 turned around and saw his small suite crammed with five other people. One, the poor helpless guard detailed to his suites floor, stood with his head to the wall and one of the dark rescuer’s rifles to his head. The four new people were dressed all in dark, rugged clothes and were all armed with phaser rifles.
“I’m at your command.” Said the prisoner.
The leader of the commandos winked and smiled at the prisoner and said, “This way sir. Extraction in three minutes.”
The unfortunate guard was left in the prisoner’s cell in a state that prevented him from reporting the escape of prisoner 42521138 and the four commando’s and their new charge passed through the building of the prison complex heading for the court yard, other men in dark fatigues joining them out of the shadows of the building.
The prisoner and his rescuers emerged into the early dawn, a pale light coming from the eastern horizon across the vast green sea of the forest, and into a small clearing between the prison buildings.
They were soon joined by two other bands of commandos and each group spread out to form a large circle with the prisoner in the middle. Not long after all the commando’s were in the circle, prisoner 42521138 felt a tingling sensation in his body as a soft blue light seemed to encompass the entire party.
The beautiful view of the forest disappeared as the transporter beam carried him up to the awaiting ship. The green trees were replaced by the worn face of two older men wearing uniforms of Starfleet Admirals and an expression of relief.
“Welcome aboard, Ben.” Said one of the Admirals.
Benjamin Maxwell, former Federation Prisoner 42521138, smiled at his compatriots, Admirals Leyton and Pressman. All was in place, and now the liberation of the oppressed masses of the Federation would soon commence.
Chapter 2
There is one source, O Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers. -- Demosthenes
Starfleet Command Orbital Annex, Earth.
Starfleet Chief of Operations, Admiral Janeway walked into the conference room with the rest of the Admiralty that they were able to gather in the last four days. In front of her, as she strode into the room and headed for her chair at the head of the large table, were eight of the Fleet Admirals and six of the Command Admirals of various operations and strategic commands. It was time they all knew the problem looming the Federation in the face.
Behind the Chief of Operations, walked a staff officer. A Commander of no distinguishing physical appearance, of medium height and ordinary features. As Admiral Janeway took her seat, the Commander moved to the speaking podium and signaled to the Admiralty that he was ready for his briefing to begin.
“Admirals, if you will. I am Commander Hayden, from the Operations Staff. The Chief of Operations has asked me to brief you on a number of events that have occurred during the last six to eight months. I am sure that with most of the events, one or even two of you might be aware, but the significance of all the events, added together has been kept quiet until we could take a measure of the problem.”
The Commander reached down and typed a series of commands into the LCAR’s in front of him, transferring data to the individual Admiral’s PADD and a large viewing screen behind him.
Hayden didn’t look at the screen. He had already memorized the information, as disturbing as it was. In a corner of his mind, he had already made a bet with himself about if the Admirals in front of him would even see the threat or if he needed to spell it out for them.
“The information on your PADD’s and on screen, lists sixteen Starfleet vessels that have gone missing in the last eight months. Four survey ships have failed to report in, during missions in the Beta Quadrant. Eight medium ships have disappeared during combat patrol of the Cardassian DMZ. Of which, the USS Venture was dispatched to investigate, and has now been listed as missing.
The Honshu, the Lexington, the Horatio, Excalibur. All missing or failing to report in. As you can see, most of these ships are large combatants, refitted during the Dominion War. The rest are new ships out of the yards in the last four years after the war.
One week ago, the USS Ark Royal, the latest Sovereign class vessel, vanished while on a shake down cruise during her trials.”
The Commander paused his briefing as the murmurs in the room were growing louder as the Admirals read the list.
“Are we being attacked by some threat, Commander?” Asked Admiral Jellico.
This question brought on a surge of outbursts from other Admirals, “Those damn Klingons!” Blurted the Commander of the 5th Fleet.
“I’d be willing to bet it is Romulans subterfuge.” Remarked Admiral Hoyota.
Until this point, Admiral Janeway had observed the briefing and the reaction of the Admiralty with one hand supporting her head, quietly listening. Now that the initial shock was out, she interjected. “We first suspected such things. But we quickly dismissed them. All of the events are so scattered through our territory that none of the known powers could have been responsible for all of the events.”
“Then what are you suggesting?” Asked Jellico in a calm and confident voice.
Admiral Janeway nodded to Commander Hayden and he took the question for her. “As we all know, there has always been a faction in Starfleet who advocated a stronger military tradition than what the Federation Council has always dictated to us. It has ebbed and flowed for as long as there has been a Starfleet.
At the end of the Federation/Klingon conflict at the beginning of the century, the Federation Council dictated a steadily more pacifist doctrine for Starfleet. And it was one we were happy to enact. Great strides in exploration were achieved, and yet there were still those who feared that enemies were around us. They were right to a degree, of course, though never as right as they wished.
With the break out of the Federation/Cardassian war, almost two decades ago, the militaristic faction had a chance to gain attention. Some of those commanders were instrumental for some of the hard won victories, and a lot of the newer officers were brought into their fold.
The way that war ended and the follow on treaties with the Cardassians a decade ago, only cemented some of those officers distaste at the peaceful doctrine of Starfleet.”
Admiral Jellico stretched back into his seat and sighed, “That was a nice, flowery history lesson, Commander. I hope there is a point coming?”
Hayden tried his best to hide his distaste at the rebuke, though failed miserable. “Sir, it was that very cadre that subscribed to the idea of a more militaristic Starfleet that helped restructure the fleet after Wolf 359. Some of the same officers that left Starfleet to fight for the Maqi, or to speak for their cause.
The same ideology that was not content with the treaties giving Federation colonists to the Cardassians, who thought the Cardassians lost the war and saw no reason to give away anything. The same officers who warned of the coming Dominion threat, and then constructed a coup attempt.”
Hayden saw than the pessimistic side of his personal bet had won. The Admirals were too used to the utopia of the Federation that such thoughts couldn’t even surface anymore.
“Sir, the Operations Staff’s opinion on the events, is that these ships have not been destroyed or captured by enemy or even friendly nations. Rather that the Captains of these ships have chosen to disappear.”
“Mutiny?” Exclaimed one of the Admirals in the back that Hayden didn’t know.
Various side discussions erupted at that and quickly ended with Admiral Jansen’s out roar, “That’s ridiculous. Nothing of that sort has happened in Starfleet; at least not on the scale you are proposing Commander. Not in a hundred years. And even assuming you are right, and these Captains have gone rogue, those ships represent thousands of Starfleet personnel. Are you suggesting that thousands of Starfleet personnel, Federation Citizens, are rebelling against paradise?”
“The data is suggesting just that Admiral.” Commander Hayden responded.
The Admirals were staring at him as if he had gone mad, “You’ll need more than a list of missing ships, if you want to convince anyone of that, Commander.”
“There is more data to support this theory, sir. Five days ago, there was a successful escape at Penal Colony Austral VI. The Warden reports that his installation was attacked by a large number of well trained and well equipped troops, those troops and a single prisoner where transported off of the planet, only after the subspace communications system, the transport inhibitors, and the local sensor net was destroyed.
In fact, the only reason we know about this is a cargo ship making a late delivery came into the system six hours after the escape and the Warden was able to send out a message to Starfleet Command.”
“And who was the escapee?” Inquired Jellico.
Commander Hayden straightened, cleared his throat and said, “The escaped prisoner, prisoner 42521138, was Benjamin Maxwell.”
The Chief of Operations stood then, taking the podium from her Commander and said, “He isn’t the only one. The penal colonies where both Leyton and Pressman were held for their crimes have also been raided. We believe that these three rogue officers are engineering a rebellion.”
There was another outburst of voices. Admiral arguing Admiral. It took the Chief of Operations, herself, to calm the room down and proceeded.
“Four days ago, we received a message from Maxwell. It was this message that prompted me to call this meeting.” She tapped a key on her PADD and the ship list on the viewing screen changed to the face of a gentle looking old man with thin blond hair, turning slightly gray at the edges.
His voice was just as soft as his features, though his words were perhaps the harshest thing the assembled group had ever heard.
“Greetings. I hope that this message will eventually find its way to Starfleet Command. As you probably already know, I am Benjamin Maxwell. Incarcerated by the Federation for actually seeing a threat to my nation and taking action against it. I was a Captain of a ship, designed for exploration and repeatedly sent into combat. Sent into situations made worse by the blundering actions of our government.
It is these things, I have contacted you to address. I am not the only one with these feelings. There are many in the Federation that feel that the worst enemy the Federation faces is the Federation herself. Or at least the Federation that she has become.
It is in this that we declare war against the tyrannical hold that the Council has over the populace and the pacifistic bent of those charged to defend them, unless certain issues are resolved.
I know that most of you think of me and those that think as I, as warmongers. But that is far from the truth, and in truth, we do not wish to fight. So as a gesture, we wish a Federation Ambassador to meet with us and discuss these issues.
If you wish to avoid bloodshed, have your ambassador go to the Helena system and be on station no more than eight days after you receive this message.” With a burst of static, the message ended.
“Civil War?” The mere sound of the phrase was bitter in the ears of the assembled Admirals.
Admiral Janeway replied, “That seems to be his intent.”
“He’ll need more than sixteen ships, to defeat Starfleet.” Said Admiral Hoyoto.
Admiral Jellico sighed, saying, “What makes you believe that he only has sixteen? For all we know, they have twice that many, or three times that many. Still hiding in the fleet, waiting for orders.”
“Jellico is right,” Said Janeway, “There is no telling what resources they have.”
Admiral Hoyoto leaned forward then, “What do you suggest? Send an ambassador? You know it has to be a trap. Or even a chance for more ships to cross over to his ranks.”
“We should take care to send a capable and loyal Captain. But also one who could spring a few surprises too.” Jellico said. “More importantly, I think we should send a symbol to the rebels and to the loyal at that.”
Janeway caught on, “Send the Enterprise.”
Jellico nodded. “Shelby will be able to control the situation.”
Hoyoto added, “Then send in Picard too. As the Ambassador. The Enterprise with Picard on board will be a strong message to this rebel scum.”
Admiral Janeway glanced around the table and saw the nod of agreement from the Admiralty. “Agreed.” She said.
