MSNPC Imogen “Admiral” Lacy — Remembrance
Nolen Hobart
((Conference Room, Deck 1, USS Khitomer, en route to Deep Space 33))
Admiral: A lowly quartermaster, a Tholian. Captured at the Siege of DS33, he proved to be a… unifying and stabilizing figure. Eventually, Supreme Leader. Unified the alliance, and conquered the Quadrant within a decade.
This was where the Admiral’s path first met resistance, and it did not surprise her in the least. What she was going to propose was underhanded, illegal, and frankly, unfair in a way that took many of the Starfleet survivors longer to accept than it took her. Imogen Lacy was a woman who lived for rules, thrived under them. And when rules inevitably needed to change to adapt to a new reality? She thrived under the new rules, too.
El’Heem: Great man theory? You want us to kill baby Hitler?
Michaels: History is full of examples where a single strong leader dies and another rises up to take their place.
Richard: Even if you took the leader out before they rose to power. You haven’t done anything to stop the situations that are occurring right now to have set them up. Who is to say someone else doesn’t slot right into place. If assassination is your goal here I mean.
Tori: Sorry - who’s Hitler?
Hobart: Somebody worth strangling in the crib.
The digression was wearing on Lacy’s patience, but she swallowed her pride, weaved her fingers together and picked a point on the large conference table to focus on until it was time to dive back in.
Any: Response
Ayemet: Hitler was a 20th century dictator who was the leader of Germany on Earth. The war against him cost millions of lives.
El’Heem: What made ::pausing:: uhh makes this…Tholian so formidable?
Tori: He speaks fluent Sheliak.
And when the time came, Tori was more than capable of answering. She nodded approvingly, and gestured for the younger woman to continue. That fact alone was not obviously important to those who hadn’t spent years living and dying in Alliance-held territory.
Tori: You have to understand that, at this time, no member of any species has ever learned the Sheliak language. Even telepaths can’t understand them. It's part of what their sense of superiority is built on. But Tholians being imprisoned side-by-side with Sheliak created a unique environment for one to learn the language. His book will be the first published in their language by an alien to their culture. He will be the first non-Sheliak to deliver addresses in the language. Factor in his radicalization during his imprisonment, and he’s going to become a force of uniting hatred the likes of which this quadrant has never seen.
In truth, even by their time she could name no other who’d accomplished it. As Tori said, it was part of what made them feel superior, though her time in service under the command of Captain Shayne and the tutelage of Commander Dewitt worked wonders to instill in her a sense that by making things more complicated than they needed to be in order to prove a point, one wasn’t being superior—just smug.
Tori: Tholian and Sheliak units don’t combine outside of Federation prison. It’s possible there will never be another like him.
Michaels: That is possible. But, it is not impossible that there will be several more like him. Based on what you said, every Tholian or Sheliak in that prison is a candidate.
Ohnari: While I can understand how dangerous an extremely charismatic opportunist can be...how are we certain that this particular Tholian is the linchpin?
Admiral: Because of the dramatic change in fortune upon its rise. The Alliance simply… got better at choosing battles, supplying its forces.
Michaels: I have a question. ::beat:: A two part question. ::beat:: I confess that I do not understand the equations and engineering around time travel or inter-multiverse travel. I will concede that your version of the Ouchita is capable of both. You could have travelled to anywhere in space and time. Why did you pick this place, in a nebula that makes detection difficult, and this time? If the quartermaster is the critical individual, why not travel to DS33 during the seige, where there were numerous dead Tholians, and kill him there?
If they could have, they would have. Imogen looked to Tori, as their resident science expert to explain it. Lacy had heard the explanation, repeatedly, but somehow it always ended up with them sitting at a table all day, making diagrams with straws. But it wasn't Tori who spoke first.
Kael: Traveling through time ain't like dusting crops! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end our trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
Ohnari: ::snapping:: Kael. Give the Lieutenant some grace, we're all just trying to come to terms with...::her hands gestured to the trio:: and how it came to pass.
A smile slipped across Imogen’s lips. She and Ohnari and the rest of the Khitomer survivors kept close in touch, even before things fully fell apart. She could have sworn she heard an older Talia give much the same speech to a younger Kael.
Banks: To clarify: you’re saying that your ability to travel back in time is constrained, and there are only certain places or times you can successfully travel to?
Tori: Yes.
The Admiral sent Tori a surprised look. It had been Tori who advocated for telling the Khitomer crew everything, and the Admiral who’d expressed caution. Semara had believed that the partnership would only work on trust, which would only be possible with full disclosure, and while Lacy didn’t exactly disagree, she knew her old colleagues. They were sharp, but even they could be overwhelmed by revelations.
Admiral: The singularity we created in the nebula. It’s the only way any of this works. It limits where and when we can go. ::beat:: It also pins the timeline together. Any changes made before the singularity collapses in the next fifty-two years will stick. ::a glance to Tori:: Or so I'm told.
Connor: So what is the exact plan, then, Ginny?
Admiral: Khitomer must get to the prisoner camp before the Lattice attack. We must strike first.
Ayemet: Admiral, I’ve had my taste of the Lattice Alliance hospitality :pause and then speaking slowly: But you can’t seriously think that by killing this individual it will somehow change everything for the better? You’ve no idea the effects their death might have.
She raised a hand. It was larger than an individual, even an individual as important and pivotal as the
Admiral: You misunderstand. It's not just the one I want to kill. The entire facility needs to go. It's the only way to stop the raid for sure.
Any: Response.
Ayemet: You expect us to help you? Why would we do that?
“Because I told you to, and you don't feel like starving to death” is what Imogen might have said to one of her privateers a week ago, should they have asked the question. And, upon consideration, it probably would have been a perfectly valid way to respond to Ayemet. But Imogen didn't think they were ready for that infirmary. Not yet.
Tori: Because if you don’t, you die.
Obviously, however, Tori disagreed. The Admiral suppressed the face she wanted to make, and bit her tongue to keep it still.
Tori: Not all of you, not all at once, but most of you soon enough. :: Beat :: Mostly pointless deaths fighting pointless battles. If you don’t like the sound of that, then open your ears.
Michaels: ::To Tori :: Miss, unless you desire to become a Cassandra... and if you do not know what that means, I am certain that Admiral Lacy can explain it... you may wish to consider the need for trust. Your male companion's... Kael is it not? I assume you were not named after Superman... Your companion's "answer" to my question has convinced me that there is a great deal you are not telling us. Whatever your reasons, it does give the impression that you do not trust us. That leaves us :: beat :: that leaves me little reason to trust you.
Ohnari: ::stern:: Lieutenant Michaels that was entirely unnecessary. Do not insult them. While this is a lot to take into account..I am sure there is a sense of urgency on their part, considering what was the timeline Admiral? A week's time? A little desperation is understandable.
She raised a hand towards Talia. She wasn't wrong. Time was of the essence. But neither was Lera. It was a difficult thing, deciding what to reveal, and when. Hold back, and the Khitomer crew was likely to suspect manipulation. Reveal everything, and they might feel it intuitively.
Admiral: Lera has a point. We haven't told you everything, because we—I didn't want it to cloud your judgment. Starfleet principles aren't worth much anymore, to us, any more than Napoleonic principles are worth to you. ::to Tori:: Another European conqueror, with a much better reputation.
Hobart: Might as well tell us.
She sighed.
Admiral: Might as well. After the raid, Khitomer and newly-promoted Commodore Shayne were tasked with organizing the search for the Alliance launching point. Khitomer, Ronin, Renown, Lowell, and Cadence were all deployed, but it was Khitomer that got lucky. Or unlucky, as it turned out.
Shayne / Any: Response
She closed her eyes, and thought back to the day. She'd been on the bridge, at the aft Engineering console. She remembered their voices, and the way the bridge looked. She remembered the smiles, and the jokes. She remembered the confidence most of all.
Admiral: We followed a lead to an uncharted system, just a series of letters and numbers on a star chart. They saw us before we saw them. The battle was brief. We crashed onto an L-class planet. Survivable—for a while.
Any: Response
She opened her eyes, and looked around the room, counting the faces they lost, some to fire, some to snow, and some to despair. With sadness threatening to break her composure, Imogen looked away from Lera's piercing gaze. She remembered the cold. She remembered the hunger. She remembered the bodies, covered aboveground, owing to the frozen soil. She remembered how odd green blood looked in the snow.
Admiral: Between the battle, the impact, and the nearly three weeks it took for Starfleet to find us, less than half the crew survived. Those that did were pulled off the line.
Any: Response
Admiral: That was the beginning of the end. They knew what they'd taken off the board, and hit DS33 hard and fast. Within a few months, the Federation gave up all claim to the Isles. But the Alliance was never going to stop there.
Any: Response
TBC
——— | ———
Imogen “Admiral” Lacy
Free Isle Fleet
as simmed by
Lt. Commander Nolen Hobart
Executive Officer
USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)
A240001NH3