Chapter 5 - Discernment

After a quick dinner, Jack and Melissa rested on the couch in Jack’s apartment. Melissa reclined on the couch, her head in Jack’s lap. He had just related his day to her, especially his encounter with Wakernaggle.

“This Omega Directive has to be exposed for what it is—an excuse to commit atrocities,” Melissa said. “I still think you should report Wakernaggle for breaking into the apartment.”

Jack smiled. He was glad Melissa understood. “I’m glad we’re seeing this the same way.”

She frowned. “Did you think I was going to see it differently?”

“No,” he said. “It's just good to know you're on my side, and on the side of what's right. Sitting in that courtroom I feel very alone as if I’m the only one in Starfleet who gives a damn about what we’re supposed to stand for.”

“If they hadn't closed the hearing, I'd be there for every minute of it.”

Jack looked down at her and smiled. “Thanks.”

Melissa smiled. “You're going to win this. You have to.”

“I hope you're right.”

“You have doubts?”

“Wakernaggle wouldn't be involved if this weren't important to someone high up in either Starfleet, the Federation Council, or both. I've stirred up more than I suspected.” Jack considered his meeting with the ambassador earlier in the day. “That talk about charging the rest of you bothers me.”

“They can’t charge us for failing to follow a directive we don’t know about,” she said.

“But what about disobeying Dameron’s order?”

“To obliterate the population of a planet?” she asked with a chuckle. “That’s right out of our first year Academy ethics class. We had it drilled into us that we weren’t to obey illegal and immoral orders.”

“I think this case is different,” Jack said, his mind drifting. “There’s more at stake for Starfleet.”

“It'll work out, Jack.” She began to sit up, but at that moment, her comm badge chirped. She tapped it. “Vargas.”

The voice over the badge was Zaylie Burton. “Commander, several officers from the spacedock have arrived and say they need to meet with you concerning repairs to the ship.”

“On my way,” Melissa said. She looked at Jack. “That ship is all consuming, isn't it?”

Jack grinned. “It can be.”

“Sorry about supper,” she said. Melissa got up from the couch. “I had thought I'd cleared up several hours this evening.”

“Any chance you can come back?” Jack rose up and stood with her.

“I’m supposed to meet later with Loftus,” Melissa said. “She told me she may have some important information about Dameron and the Virigina late tonight. Sorry. Maybe I can reschedule with her.”

“No, you have duties,” Jack said. “And besides, the Dameron information might be important.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“We can’t get back lost time,” he said. “We can only make the best of the time we have.”

She gave him a quick kiss. But Jack wanted more than that. He held her in his arms, looking into her eyes.

“How about we try tomorrow?” Jack asked.

Melissa smiled. “I’ll be here.”

***

Mei-Wan sat at the dining table on the large balcony of Forcas's suite. She was careful to watch every nuance of his actions while keeping a tight control on her own unconscious behaviors. The air was cool, but not cold, allowing her to stay alert to any mental manipulations which Dani had continued to warn her about. While Mei-Wan didn’t find Forcas a particularly handsome man, there was an attractiveness to him that she couldn’t quite place. Perhaps it was his bright orange eyes, or the confidence he exuded at every moment. Or perhaps Dani was right, and Forcas was using a low-level telepathic influence to pull people toward him and maybe there was a sexual element to it as well.

But as she considered all of that, Mei-Wan suspected his intent wasn’t to manipulate her, but persuade her. The question troubling her was why?

“The thing I don't think you grasp about the Ancient Progenitors is they faced a hostile galaxy in their day,” Forcas said. “The non-humanoids kept crowding them out of territory, pushing them back further and further.”

“Interesting the rest of the galaxy didn't see it that way,” Mei-Wan said with a grin.

He took a bite of vegetable off his plate. “What is the human saying? Oh, yes... History is written by the victors.”

“They didn't see themselves as victors, only survivors, and that just barely. The Ancient Progenitors were systematically wiping them out, planet by planet.”

“And what would you do with the Borg?” Forcas asked. “If they were to assimilate half the galaxy, and you finally discovered a way to stop them, would you attack them even if it meant annihilating them?”

“No.”

Forcas's eyes widened as he froze in place. A piece of steak fell off his fork. “Really?! You would allow the other half of the galaxy to be assimilated?”

“No,” she said, understanding what he was trying to do. “Starfleet taught me never to allow myself to be trapped between two equally bad choices. Dualism is the realm of small minds. There are always other possibilities. We just have to be willing to seek them out.”

“When you look at your own world, the Carthaginian peace was quite successful,” Forcas said. “Carthage never troubled Rome again.”

“But where did Rome end up?”

He grinned. “Are you implying Rome's brutality was what led to its eventual fall?”

“I am implying that a government which sees brutality as a means to its ends is so morally vacuous as to sow the seeds of its own inevitable destruction.”

Forcas stared at her. “You truly believe that, don't you?”

“Dictatorships usually rely on a cult of personality around a leader, or upon some notion of racial or religious purity to build momentum for their power, but that can last only so long,” Mei-Wan said. “The leader dies, leaving the most sycophantic of his inner circle to fight over leadership, or the racial or religious purity finally loses its appeal. People realize you can’t build a just society on either of those.”

He smiled. “You think I'm building a dictatorship?”

“Yes,” Mei-Wan said, eating a small morsel off her plate.

His smile widened. “I hold no position in any government.”

“No, but those who do see your followers and can't resist the allure of all that power just waiting to be taken in hand and wielded to their own ends,” Mei-Wan said, putting her fork down to take a sip of wine. “You have their ears already. It will be only a matter of time before they find the power you offer too much to resist.”

“That's the difference between me and them, and even you. I don't see my followers as some power base,” he said. “True power is something few ever grasp, and even fewer wield it well when they do have it. Too often they are driven by their baser selves.”

“But you're different?” she asked, working hard not to smile.

“I will never wield power,” he said. “I am merely the one who will herald true power, and show the way when it arrives.”

Mei-Wan fought off the urge to laugh. Forcas was ultimately, a man driven by religious passion which was based on how he wished the universe was rather than how it truly was.

“You think me mad,” he said.

“I'm sorry, I don't mean to...”

“Of course, you do,” he said. “It's what makes you feel superior to others, your lack of belief. You see belief as a failing rather than as the core of what makes a person who they are.”

“I see it as clinging to fairy tales that make you feel better, but doesn't really drive progress forward in history.”

“I'm not sure you could handle even a small truth if you encountered it, Doctor Lau.”

“I deal in facts.”

He nodded and took a sip from his glass. “Then perhaps it is time you encountered a fact.”

She shook her head. “No, please continue... who exactly are you going to herald into power?”

“The Ancient Progenitors.”

Mei-Wan couldn't help herself this time. The laughter erupted before she could stop it.

Forcas smiled again. “Now for the fact, and the explanation for why I know the Ancient Progenitors will return to take power.”

“Okay,” she said, forcing her laughter back.

“I… am… one of the Beota, an Ancient Progenitor.”

Instead of laughter this time, Mei-Wan sighed, feeling sad for this man more than anything else. He seemed so self-assured, so full of his own abilities, but now he seemed small, and pathetic.

“Nothing to say?” he asked.

“I feel sorry for you.”

His smile widened as if he were an animal about to strike its unaware prey. “You found yourself on Hel'yra five billion years ago.”

Mei-Wan’s heart skipped a beat as her world shattered. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

“That was the plan,” he said. “Two of us would go ahead of the others. I was Dajjal Therion, a commander of one of our largest fleets. I volunteered to go ahead, as did my love... Ulithia Mecval. I succeeded, but you and that Wubon traitor as well as that meddlesome Temporal Investigations agent, Carlos Lorente, forced her to return to Hel'yra, and you came back to your body in the twenty-fourth century.”

“Who told you about that incident?!” Mei-Wan fought off the panic building in her mind. He knew far too much. Temporal Investigations would never have released anything about that mission. Could Belvedere have…

“I have lived it!” Forcas roared. “A pathetic, small-minded farmer named Forcas on a worthless rock named Merion V happened upon the installation we had left on his world. All it needed was a single person to find it and walk into it. The when didn’t matter. He did so, and then found himself back in my body just as you found yourself in Ulithia's.”

“This is a lie,” Mei-Wan said. “Somehow you got your hands on classified information, and are spinning this tale to build yourself up.”

“They sent me a signal from Hel'yra just before it was attacked,” Forcas said. “Ulithia told me she had failed. But she expressed the thrill of looking into a mirror and seeing your face looking back at her, to know that what we sought to do was indeed possible. You met Manu, the commander of the Hel’yra installation.” He leaned forward. “I knew the name Mei-Wan Lau five billion years before you were born.”

“This isn’t possible!” Mei-Wan got up from the table nearly toppling her drink in the process. “You’re reading my mind or something...”

“If you truly wish to learn about the Ancient Progenitors, I can teach you things no archaeological work can ever reveal to you.” He stepped up behind her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “And I can do things for you that blue monster never could.” He took a slow breath. “Let me show you the heights of humanoid existence as you’ve never experienced them before.”

“You are lying,” she said, stepping away from him. The sexual attraction she felt at that moment was nearly overwhelming, but she knew it wasn’t real. It had to be something he was mentally inducing in her. Mei-Wan quickly cleared her mind. “Someone gave you the file on that mission. Someone...”

“You can’t walk away now. You have to know. Your mind is insatiable,” Forcas said softly, leaning toward her ear. “I can reveal all the secrets of the Ancient Progenitors to you. All their plans and what is really going on in this galaxy could be yours to know.” He leaned in closer to her, his mouth only millimeters from her ear. “Come to bed with me, and I will tell you everything.”

Mei-Wan couldn’t understand why she was even considering this offer, but her mind wasn’t reacting properly. It was as if she were in a dream where nothing, including her own thoughts worked as they should. But… if he did know their secrets, if he was an actual Ancient Progenitor, how could she pass up this opportunity? How could she walk away from this chance to know everything about them?

Finally, the resolve Mei-Wan had been seeking came back. Her mind was hers again. She pulled away from him suddenly understanding how a fly felt when it escaped a spider’s web.

“Is that what this was all about?” she asked barely above a whisper. “You parade out some bullshit story just to get me into bed?” Mei-Wan turned to him, letting out a laugh. “You are pathetic.”

He stared at her a moment, his smile getting wider. “Deep in your soul, you know everything I’ve told you this evening is real.”

“Just a bunch of wild claims.” She walked toward the exit off the balcony.

“Eventually you will come home to me when you realize I'm telling the truth,” Forcas called after her. “Ask your blue friend about me… about Dajjal Therion. She can verify who I am!”

-GO TO CHAPTER 6-