by David
She started to bend back to her work, then
stopped; her trained ears had caught the sound
of a transporter beam. Then she discerned the
approaching figure more clearly, and stiffened in
surprise; the man walking toward her, his
cloak of dark purple swirling about him as he
strode across the dusty field as though he
walked the polished floor of the Roman
imperial court, was Captain Lucius
Aelius Sejanus.
Reflexively Jenny stiffened to attention.
With a little half-smile the captain said,
"Be at ease, Ensign." He laid a hand
on her shoulder. "Gaius told me how
upset you were over this attack. I came down
to make sure you were all right."
"I'm fine, sir. Just a little ...
frustrated."
Sejanus eyed her questioningly.
"Frustrated?"
"Yes." Jenny's normally timid voice
filled with anger. "Had the security teams
been there earlier--indeed, had the Tenarans
themselves accepted our offers to arm them--we could
easily have prevented this."
Sejanus nodded. "Go on."
"The Tenarans are weak, Captain
Sejanus," Jenny said angrily, all the
frustration of the last few weeks eating at her.
"They will not arm themselves, they cannot fight, they
..." Words failed her, and she finished the
declaration with a weak gesture.
"I share your concern, Ensign," Sejanus
replied. "But perhaps they can be protected, so
long as you and your personnel perform as
valiantly as you did today."
"Thank you, sir."
He eyed her carefully a moment before speaking
again. "And perhaps there are other measures we can
take as well."
"Sir?" Jenny asked, slightly confused.
Sejanus' communicator chirped.
"Excuse me a moment." He touched his
insignia. "Sejanus here. Go ahead."
"Captain, we have just received word from the
Enterprise. Chairman Melkinat is
dead."
"Oh, no," Jenny said, the shovel
slipping out of her hands.
Sejanus' face turned grave. "Thank
you, Lieutenant. Hold one moment." He
turned back to Jenny. "I must go ... but I
would like to continue our conversation. The next time you
are aboard the Centurion ...?"
Jenny almost blushed. She was planning to beam
up there later this evening to see Gaius, after her
work on the surface was completed. But there was no
need to tell Captain Sejanus that. "I will
be aboard tomorrow morning, sir."
"Excellent," Sejanus said. "Come
talk to me then." He bowed, then reached up
to tap his communicator. "Sejanus
to Centurion. One to beam up."
It was a long time before Jenny could concentrate
her thoughts enough to go back to work.
Chapter Eleven
Captain's Log, Stardate 41800.9
I have just returned from a very disturbing session
with the remaining officials of Tenara's Great
Saavta.
The death of Chairman Melkinat has
shaken the whole government to its core. They are
now calling for the removal of all
Federation forces, and that call is being led
by Gretna Melkinata--the late chairman's
daughter. Up until a week ago, I would
have counted on her support for a continued Federation
presence here to help the Tenarans defend their
world. I am at a loss to explain her actions
--while Commander Riker, who knew her best of
all, remains unconscious in sick bay,
recovering from wounds received during the latest
attack by the M'dok.
There is one encouraging piece of news in
all this, however. The M'dok we have captured
bear out Commander Data's hypothesis of famine
in the empire. We have dispatched this information
to Starfleet, who are bringing increased
diplomatic pressure to bear. In the
meantime, the situation here remains explosive.
I feel that Captain Sejanus and
Centurion are merely waiting for the M'dok
to reappear to start a full-scale war.
Picard sighed and leaned back in his chair,
shutting off the log recorder.
"Quite a day, sir," Deanna Troi said.
"Indeed, Counselor. And it's only
morning." He put a finger to his lips and
rubbed them thoughtfully. "I wish I could talk
to Commander Riker about all this." He flipped a
toggle on his chair, opening a channel to sick
bay. "Dr. Crusher, how's our patient?"
"He's lost a lot of blood,
Captain." Beverly Crusher's voice came
back. "But he's coming along nicely."
"I need to talk to him."
"And he needs to sleep. At least another
twenty-four hours."
The determination in her voice was clear.
Picard gritted his teeth. "Very well,
Doctor. Keep me informed."
He turned his attention to the main
viewscreen, dominated by Tenara and the
Centurion.
Much more than I need to talk to Commander
Riker, I need to talk to the captain of that
ship. To find out what he's thinking, what he
plans to do next.
And he might as well be a million
miles away.
The door to Sejanus' quarters slid
open, and Ensign Jenny de Luz stepped
inside. Sejanus was waiting for her, standing beside
a desk. He was wearing a simple Starfleet
uniform just like that worn by Jean-Luc Picard;
it made his similarity to the Enterprise
captain all the more striking, even uncanny.
He smiled with pleasure and came forward
to take her hand in greeting. "Ensign de
Luz. Welcome to my ship. May I call
you Jenny?"
"Yes, Captain. Of course."
Sejanus released her hand and walked over
to the windows and stood looking at Tenara spinning
lazily below them. "I've been monitoring your
holodeck exercises." He turned back
to her and smiled. "Your scores are most
impressive."
"It's thanks to Gaius, sir."
"You're too modest, Jenny. He tells
me everything--and he tells me you're one of the
most promising young officers he's come across in
years. Even including the Magna Romans.
But then, there's a little bit of Rome in your
background, isn't there?"
Jenny smiled. "Actually, sir, only
partly. Most of my ancestors were the native
peoples conquered by the Romans."
"The same may well be true of me,"
Sejanus said with a laugh. "I've never been
convinced that the Volcinians, or any of the other
gentis who claim to trace their ancestry
back to the original Roman patrician
families, have kept their bl oodlines as pure
through the centuries as we like to tell ourselves."
He seated himself on the edge of the desk. "I was
brought up believing that all of
that--ancestry,
purity of blood--was more important than
anything else. I believed every detail of it.
But for years I've struggled to overcome that
upbringing. First I tried to make myself see that
I had to think in terms of my whole world, of
all Magna Romans, and not just of Romans.
Then I tried to expand my view still further,
to embrace all the member peoples of the
Federation."
"Yes, sir." Jenny nodded. "That's just
what I had to learn when I left Meramar.
That's what Captain Picard says quite often."
"Does he?" Sejanus cleared
his throat. "Your captain is a great man.
He's famous throughout Starfleet and the Federation,
and justly so. A scholar, a soldier when
necessary, a diplomat, a leader--yes, he
deserves his fame. I can certainly understand why
his crew admire him."
"We do, sir."
Sejanus nodded. "And I'm sure that
Captain Picard's real concern is for the good
of the peoples and worlds that make up the
Federation."
"I'm sure of that too, sir."
Sejanus raised his eyes to meet hers.
"But, Jenny, it's important not to be
blinded by hero worship. Even Jean-Luc
Picard is capable of making mistakes."
"Of ... of course, sir. I'm sure
he'd be the first to agree."
Sejanus nodded. "I'm sure you're
right," he said seriously. "That's partly a
measure of the man's greatness--that he's willing
to admit that he's as fallible as anyone else.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that he's
always able to see where he's going wrong, even if
it's pointed out to him. He may wish for the best
for the Federation, but he may not be taking the best
approach to ensuring the Federation's health."
Suddenly Jenny began to feel confused.
"I don't know what you mean, Captain."
Sejanus stood slowly. "Let me give
you some background to the Battle of
Britannia. No, I'm not changing the
subject. You'll see; it's relevant. Do
you know why the German tribes put aside their
differences and undertook an expedition
to Britannia to attack Londinium?"
"Gaius told me they thought it was
undefended, that the legions had been
withdrawn."
"Yes, but why did they think that?"
Jenny shook her head. "I didn't
ask."
His voice turned crisp and
authoritative. "Like the Romans of Earth,
my ancestors tried unsuccessfully to conquer
the Germans. We lost untold numbers of
men in those forests, and we scarcely gained any
ground.
"But we noticed that the Germans were becoming
more like us! They resisted us as
conquerors, but between fights, they traded with the
Roman settlements along their borders, they
learned Latin, they learned to emulate our
forms of government and military organization.
If anything, we realized that this made them an
even greater threat to us. But it also pointed the
way to a different method of conquest.
"So we started sending in teachers and traders
instead of soldiers. The first few were
slaughtered, of course, but eventually the
Germans let them survive and stay. Bit
by bit, our culture, our civilization, was
bringing about the conquest that our armies had failed
to achieve.
"And then a revivalist movement started in
Germania--cultural revival,
nationalism, rejecting everything foreign, which is
to say, Roman. Within two years they had
dismantled everything we had built, killed or
imprisoned all of our people, and terrified all
the Romanized Germans into returning
to primitive ways. Food, language,
housing, the arts--everything became primitive
again. And we were back where we had started
centuries before.
"Then we realized that we were even worse off
than we had been. The new leaders of
Germania were cooperating with each other, and they
were more aware than before of our empire as a
threat. Our spies discovered that they were trying
to organize an invasion of the empire, with
Rome itself as their goal.
"Our first impulse was to organize as large
an army as we could and send it north
into Germania to crush them once and for all. But
the Emperor Belisarius feared that his
legions would simply be slaughtered in the
forest, as had happened centuries earlier. He
and his generals hit upon a brilliant
strategy. They sent couriers through Germania,
on one of the shorter routes toward
Britannia, carrying secret messages to the
legions in Britannia."
"But that seems very foolish," Jenny
protested. "They might have been captured."
Sejanus grinned. "They were. And they were
tortured and killed, and their messages were
translated. The messages were orders that the
legions withdraw to Italia to help repel the
expected German invasion. The true
orders, that the legions were to stay where they were,
were sent to Britannia by sea, along with many
reinforcements. The Germans fell for the ruse and
sent the cream of their forces to attack what they
thought was unguarded Britannia. They thought
to eat away at the empire from the edges, but
instead they fell into a perfect trap, as you
saw on the holodeck. The aftermath was that
Germania was denuded of its defensive
forces, and Emperor Belisarius then sent his
legions in and conquered all of Germania in a
brilliant campaign taking only three
months."
"That was a very risky trick," Jenny
pointed out.
"Yes, but it worked, and that's what really
counts, isn't it?"
"Would those couriers think so, Captain? I
mean, the ones who were sent across Germania with
fake messages? You said they were caught and
tortured and killed."
"They were Romans, Jenny. They knew the
risk, and they accepted it as part of their duty."
He paused. "Perhaps you're beginning to see my
point, why I told you this whole story about the
background to the Battle of Britannia.
What saved Britannia and the rest of the
empire was the willing self-sacrifice of
brave Romans. A direct approach--a
brute-force invasion of Germania--would have
failed. It might even have led to the downfall
of the empire. There might be no Magna
Roma today. And that's really my point. That's
what I want you to think about."
Jenny shook her head, confused. "I'm
afraid I still don't understand what you're
getting at."
Sejanus now turned his back on her and
began pacing across the ready room. "What
I'm getting at, Jenny, is that what your
captain is doing now--here, on Tenara--is a
mistake." He turned to face her. "It's
cost the lives of dozens of Tenarans, and it will
cost the lives of many more people--from this ship and yours,
I would say--before Picard will admit his
mistake."
"With all due respect, sir, that's something
you should take up with him, not me."
Sejanus laughed. He walked over
to Jenny and put his hands on her
shoulders. "I can understand Gaius' interest in
you. He has chosen exceptionally well."
His voice vibrated through her. Jenny
stepped away, breaking the contact. "Thank you,
sir."
Sejanus turned toward the window and studied
the stars outside. He waited a moment before
speaking again. "I remember your words on the
surface of Tenara, Jenny--how you felt the
deaths there were unnecessary. Do you remember mine?"
Jenny nodded. "You said there were other
measures we could take to ensure the Tenarans'
safety."
"Exactly," Sejanus said. He turned
back to her, his eyes alight with excitement.
"The time has come to take those other
measures, Jenny. To strike back at the
enemies of the Federation, to do something bold, something
daring, something that will do more to ensure the long-term
safety of our worlds and peoples than any
number of defensive outposts we could ever set
up!" He gripped her shoulders again, and stared
into her eyes. "Something that will require brave
followers of the old Roman mold, followers
unafraid to sacrifice their lives for what
they believe is right.
"Jenny," Sejanus drew her closer.
"I think you are of that mold--I know Gaius
Aldus does. We want you here, aboard the
Centurion, to help in that undertaking."
"I ..." Jenny chose her words
carefully. "Captain, it may happen that
I'll be requesting a transfer to the
Centurion in the future anyway. I've
been thinking that I ought to speak to you about it,
to make sure you'd approve the request."
"Approve!" Sejanus fairly shouted.
"Jenny, I'd be delighted. I want
officers who can think on their feet, react
quickly--above all, officers unafraid to do
what has to be done. People like you, Jenny."
She drew a shaky breath. "Thank you,
sir. Then I would be honored to serve under your
command."
"Excellent, Jenny." He clapped his
hands. "Why don't you speak to your captain?
And I'll make all the necessary arrangements