Orders

On the holoscreen sat two admirals, both Starfleet: One a gray-skinned Cardassian; the other a human man named Tristan Skye, side by side at a single desk.

Captain William Alan Prentiss didn't know either of them, but decided, within a moment after contacting Starfleet Command, that he didn't like them.  Prentiss contacted them about the Arcadians.  Though they were considered fanaticals, and had even been labeled terrorists (despite evidence to the contrary), they were still human beings, and supposed to be under Federation protection.  But Skye didn't seem to have their interests at heart.  Whoever he was sucking up to, Prentiss didn't know, but Skye was sucking up to somebody, somewhere.  He had that detachment about him, as he rattled off the standard fare, heard all too often these days: Orders from the Federation Council.  But then, the Council also no longer seemed to have human interests at heart.  It might have had to do with the fact that humans were only a minority voice in the Council.  It had been that way for a long time... ever since aliens overran Earth.  Humans were now a minority on their own planet.

The Cardassian, Prentiss decided, just looked suspicious for some reason.  Or maybe it was the taint of personal history influencing his perception.  Cardassians killed his parents.

"Your understanding isn't required," Skye said, in a crisp British accent.  "The orders are clear.  All that is required is for you to follow those orders."

"Sir... you're talking about a foreign fleet entering our sovereign space."

"Are we not allies, Captain?  Klingon ships have been crossing our territory for the better part of a century."

"But with all the recent troubles—"

"This conversation is over," Skye declared.  "You have your orders."

"Admiral... I must protest."

"If you wish to file a protest," Skye said, eyes narrow, without missing a beat... as if he had been through this... "...you'll have to do it through official channels."

"But be warned, Captain," the Cardassian suddenly spoke up.  Prentiss didn't know his name.  He could have easily identified him via complant, but knowing it would have made no difference... nor made him feel any better.  "Protesting orders that have come down from the Federation Council?... may not be wise for your career."

Prentiss eyed the Cardassian, wanting to ask aloud the obvious question, but didn't... and kept his jaw from twitching.  That essentially summed it up.  The Cardassian could not have been in Starfleet long enough to make admiral, all the way from the Academy.  Cardassia joined the UFP in 320 CE, which translated to 2383 on Earth's old Gregorian calendar... around 25 years ago, in Earth terms.  (The Federation commonly used a new 'Common Era' calendar now, with 2161, the year of Zefram Cochrane's historic warp flight, marked as 'year 1'.  For this reason, CE also sometimes meant 'Cochrane Era'.)  When Cardassia joined, many guls and glinns and other Cardassian military personnel were arbitrarily given equal ranks in Starfleet, without having earned them.  The same was true of the Bajorans, the Bartokians, and practically any other race who joined the Federation.  (Even though several had seceded in the last few decades, Bartok and Khalindar among them.)

And some, like Prentiss, could not help but resent it.

"I understand."  He finished the conversation as quickly as possible and severed the communication, just to be done with it.

He returned to the bridge to sink down in his chair, with a sick feeling inside.

Orders.  Orders.  He imagined a media headline about the slaughter of thousands, and the only excuse of those who could have stopped it would be, I was following orders.  Not that there would probably be much fallout over the decimation of the Arcadians.  An intelligent man could read between the lines, and see that those in power in the Federation had been itching, for years, to do something about 'the Arcadian problem': Specifically, to get rid of it.

It wouldn't be the first time.  How many atrocities occurred repeatedly, throughout history, in the name of orders?

There were those inside and out of the UFP, who labeled the Federation an imperialist, warmongering state.  It seemed so preposterous, most of their opponents dismissed it without thinking.

If they only knew the truth.  Someone, somewhere, did know the truth... several someones, more than likely... of just how many awful things the Federation had actually done.  It was not as enlightened and tolerant as many believed, influenced by the media or Starfleet's meticulous indoctrination program.  Prentiss himself believed it, once.  They pumped him full of it at the Academy.  The so-called Age of Optimism.  The era of enlightenment.  Prosperity.  Peace, love, equality, diversity, understanding.  All a great lie.  If only they had seen some of the things William Alan Prentiss had seen.

He remembered reading a news story – from an open source, not even censored – of six Klingons who beat a human to death, on Earth, simply for defending someone.  They admitted in court that they had gone out looking for a human to kill.  A hate crime, racially motivated.  And based on circumstantial evidence, or lack thereof, they walked free.  Guilty of murder.  The media (controlled by aliens) claimed it was the human's fault, for instigating it.  The lesson was clear: When you want to avoid guilt, blame others for your crimes.  What made it worse: Humans exonerated the attackers.  They made it possible.  And in so doing, they sold out their own kind.  Everyone seemed afraid to speak the truth nowadays.  They had to be politically correct.  It was not a good time to be human.

Incidents in his own childhood reinforced it: Being ganged upon (they always ganged up on victims), threatening him, blaming him for something he never did.  If not for the intervention of an adult human, they might have done much worse than merely threaten him.

It took a while, but eventually it opened his eyes.  He couldn't go home anymore, without seeing aliens everywhere... all staring at him like he was the stranger.  Like he didn't belong.  He sold his house, and stayed away from Earth as much as possible.

Humans were becoming an endangered species.

There was a man once, in Earth's 22nd century, who had tried warning everyone about this.  Few listened.  His name was John Paxton.  Interestingly, he died in a tussle with Starfleet officers.  Those few who did listen didn't let his message die.  Paxton was seen as a martyr by some; a saint or savior by others.  In a world of humans, increasingly overrun by aliens, his cause gained strength, and grew.  By the late 24th century, followers of his movement, once known as Terra Prime, called themselves Humanists.  Most thought it short for human supremacists.  It really meant human nationalists... advocates of a human state, operated and populated by humans, free of alien influence.  Free of the increasing number of alien-human hybrids infecting the gene pool.  Free of the fear that their way of life, even their very racial identity, would be destroyed.

Earth, under the pressure of the dominantly alien Federation, ran out many of the Humanists after a riot in 2382.  Some moved to other worlds, and created colonies.  One was located on the second planet in the Meloc system, named after a ship which supposedly crashed there... a colony which eventually gave its name to the planet: Arcadia.

Arcadia was the most active, and vocal, of these Humanist colonies – calling out to their human brothers and sisters to rise up and retake their world, to stop letting the heathen aliens walk all over them, and reclaim their dignity.

Starfleet hadn't gotten around yet to committing outright massacres.  The Federation still had an image to maintain... though it was only an image.  So they called on the Klingons... their staunch allies.  Their 'friends', who were oh so respectable.  Code of honor and all that.  Apparently it was honorable to attack a poorly armed planet and commit mass murder... all for politics.

And afterward, those who dared to speak up about it... if anyone... would be ridiculed or silenced.

Prentiss recalled a phrase, vaguely remembered from history books: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

There seemed to be a lot of evil in the Federation, these days.  He had never quite looked at it like that before.  But now, it struck him: The world was in the grip of evil... and the Federation, despite all the window dressing, was a tyrannical power.  There was no other way to look at it.

The world was going to hell.  And who was to blame?

He was staring off into nothing when the tactical officer spoke.

"Sir, there's a Klingon fleet entering this sector."

Prentiss closed his eyes.

"Captain?"  The first officer to his right sat up.  "What are we going to do?"

Prentiss sighed.  "We... are going to follow orders.  That's what we're going to do."  Without turning, he said, "Our orders are to stay out of the way."

The XO was understandably confused.  "We're just going to sit here?"

"That's what we're going to do."

"But... sir..."

"I know what you're going to say, XO.  But what would you have me do?  We have to follow orders."

The crew around Prentiss turned, overhearing... silent, grim, awestruck, everyone afraid to voice the thought... what they knew was going to happen.  Most of them were human.  Only three non-humans, a Wadi, an Evoran and a J'naii, were present on the bridge... working quietly at their stations, oblivious.

Prentiss fully understood their confusion.  Relations with the Klingons were getting rocky.  Klingon renegades, opposed to the treaty with the Federation, had attacked and raided several Federation outposts in recent years.  Their government denied sanctioning it... but Prentiss didn't believe it.  And now, a fully armed fleet was being allowed to cross Federation space.

From their coordinates and heading, it was plain to see, at every bridge station, where they were heading.

Finally the XO said it: "Captain, they're going to slaughter those people.  They won't stand a chance."

Prentiss said nothing at first, all too aware of the fact.  Finally he said, "Commander... I don't want to hear another word about it."

"Sir, with all respect—"