The Beginning of the End

Posted on 11 Nov 2023 @ 10:32pm by Captain Bane Plase

ON

Bane, sitting in the Aide's office of the Tashi of Antioch III, the one that had used to belong to Hadrea, one of the very first on this planet to die from the disease that he and his shipmates brought here, looking at report after report of The Great Dying, as the Antiocians had called started calling this disease. He took note of how hard the Capital City had been hit, and how many other cities had been suffering too. He could see clearly the paths the pandemic had taken, and how it now encompassed the entire planet. He had seen the reports of the collapse of local governments' (though thankfully the planetary government was still functioning, even if half of the Council of Elders had succumbed to the Dying), and had heard the reports of rioting, looting, and even Killing Squads in a few places. Finally, he had seen the report of missing Starfleet personnel, Security mostly. He feared the worst for them, but still held out hope they were fine.

Exhaling in a puff, simultaneously sitting back in a collapse into the over-sized chair (he used to feel silly and childlike in this chair and at the desk, but now found it oddly comforting) and closed his eyes for a moment. He wondered for a moment how Commander Larsen and crew were doing on the ship, but quickly pushed that out of mind. If something were going on, Commander Larsen would reach out to him. His focus needed to be here. Still, he needed to get something off his chest.

He tapped his commbadge, activating it to the ships computer, high above in orbit.

"Captain's Personal Log, Stardate 76539.6

This mission has been challenging, to put it mildly. When we first arrived, things here were going so well. The people of Antioch III accepted they were a part of the larger interplanetary community and that there was intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy. They allowed us to roam their streets, to study their culture and people, and took an active interest in us, studying our respective cultures, coming to the ship to see the path they are on, and being very gracious and curious.

All that came to an end when a pandemic spread over their planet. It didn't take a genius to see that the pandemic coincided with our arrival. My Chief Medical Officer tells me that the pandemic is...well, I cannot remember the scientific name for it, but he did tell me it was a minor illness in humans, something that they are a carrier of, something called the Common Cold. Apparently my Chief Science Officer had come down with it somehow, and in a series of errors, was not treated when it was identified shortly before he was assigned to an Away Team to Antioch III. Then, my Chief Engineer had noticed some minor system glitches but didn't report it beyond a single line in the departmental report that went to the Executive Officer, and that he had missed that as well to his report to me. And finally, the biofilters in our transporter systems were malfunctioning, which did not cleanse my Science Officer from the virus, and therefore brought it to the planet. The Antiocians do not have an immunity to this disease like all of us on the ship that may encounter Humans, and it spread like wildfire on dry brush through the population. Clearly, it has mutated several times as well, causing death within 120 hours of contracting it, making it just about as deadly a disease as I have ever even heard of, let alone seen.

The death toll has been staggering, and new numbers are coming in almost constantly from across the planet, and from the ship. I knew coming into this mission that our presence and our actions would forever change the history and trajectory of these people and their civilization, but I did not expect nor anticipate this at all. That is my failure. It has been nothing short of catastrophic.

While there were minor failures and mistakes made from several of the officers and crew on the ship, I do not fault them, nor do I blame them. Any one of those mistakes would have never been an issue. However, all of them happening in sequence the way they did has led to this. The failure and blame is mine, and mine alone to carry. The guilt and any punishment are mine.

I talked to Admiral Brexx at Starfleet Command and let him know what was going on. I think he thinks the same thing, that the fault is mine. Of course, he never liked me or cared for me much anyway; it is his expert and considered opinion that any Captain that loses a ship, especially in such a way in how the Pegasus-D was lost under my command warrants, at minimum, being trumped out of Starfleet. The fact that I ended up getting a promotion out of it and given another command flew in the very face of what he expected and demanded of Starfleet, especially now that he is such a high-ranking officer. I imagine, if I ever make it back to the Federation, I will be arrested on sight and a court-martial held for the failure of this mission under my command. It is not lost on me that I will not be an officer in Starfleet much longer, and that my rights and privileges as a citizen of the Federation will be stripped of me, and I will spend the rest of my natural life in prison.

Which brings me to my last point. I talked to the Tashi yesterday, and let her know that The Great Dying -- honestly, that does have a poetic ring to it. If I were to name a pandemic, I would hope I could come up with something that poetically perfect -- was our fault, and explained how it happened. She was, unsurprisingly, quite upset and wondered if we had engineered this. I assured her we had not, that it was a mistake. She wondered how such an advanced people, with our technology so advanced that it was almost magical, still had disease within our society. The part that surprised me though, was that she didn't immediately banish us from her world and hope her medical technology could catch up and save people. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it would likely take decades for her medical scientists to come up with a solution enough to keep people from dying from this, and that was if her central government didn't fall, and if her leading medical professionals and scientists didn't die from the disease, or anything else. She indicated that someone would need to pay for what had happened. Thankfully, her people do not believe in executions like the Klingons and Cardassians, and do not believe in long-term imprisonment the way that the Federation does. I know she meant me, and honestly, I am the person that would be held accountable, anyways.

Because of that, I have not left the planet, and will not, not until she releases me. For me to leave, even if temporarily, would send the wrong message to her and to the people of Antioch III. Things would go from really bad, to as bad as they could possibly get very quickly. As such, the Cygnus will be placed under the temporary command of Lieutenant Commander Larsen once we...they...are ready to leave orbit. At that time, I will relinquish command and give it to the Executive Officer. He and the crew can get the ship back to Deep Space 9 without me. From there, another Captain, and I presume another Executive Officer, since Larsen has already been assigned elsewhere, will assume command of the ship. She has so many more stories to be told, and so many more adventures to go on. I am so incredibly sad that I will not be a part of that. I can literally feel the loss in my core. The loss of family. The loss of belonging. The loss of tomorrow and all the promises that it held.

I am not ready for that to happen. I am not ready for my career in Starfleet to be over. I am not ready for my freedom to be taken from me. I am not ready for all the deaths on this planet, for the people of Antioch III, as well as any Starfleet people that may have been killed in the riots across the planet, to be on my conscious.

Whether I am ready or not, that day is here, unfortunately.

Computer, end personal log."