Twenty-Five Years 07 - Paren's Tale
Jul. 12th, 2009 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
measured_wordsNotes: They keep getting longer @_@. this will probably cease to be true now that I'll have less dedicated writing time...
This chapter draws heavily on, and therefore is spoilery for some TOS episodes, namely the Balance of Terror, and (especially) The Enterprise Incident. In fact, I would say that though the telling of if is my own, the *story* presented here belongs primarily to DC Fontana. This draw also heavily on some of the story, not just the flavour, created by Diane Duane. While her work influences the series strongly in general, I think it is worth mentioning for this chapter specifically. Series Notes and chapter index here
Thanks as always to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earis for betaing.
Twenty-Five Years 07 – Paren’s Tale
Little is know of the first contacts the empire had with the federation – not Earth, with whom we had warred before, but Earth prime within a network of allies. Some among the Praetoriate and the Senate wished to test the power of that alliance after so long with no contact. There are many reasons this may have been so, but they have little bearing on this tale. What is important is that one ship was sent across the Neutral Zone to set our strength against theirs, and that it was destroyed. The ship who destroyed her was the Enterprise – not the first of that name, but the first of note to our people. Her commander was called Kirk. Her first officer we did not know then: a Vulcan, Spock. The time of that encounter lies in the future, and I cannot see that it will unfold in such a way again, nor that the tale I shall tell can be repeated. These stories belong now only to us, whose home and future are dead. More so than the lore I have spoken on other nights, more than Departure, more than the Journey, more than all the trials and triumphs of our people, this tale of Spock is important more than any other. We were brought here by his actions, his betrayal and failure, for vengeance against him.
Parts of this tale are well known. Others have been kept more private, and yet in some places are known. It concerns Spock, Kirk, and Enterprise, and along with them it concerns a commander of the Imperial fleet. Her name is gone – stricken – and she is dead in name and spirit. Such was her fate. What is known, though not often spoken, is that her house was Rllaillieu. She was niece to Ael, Empress of the Sword, though this was before her time. There is no coincidence, for the one tale grows from the other, and so the world settles in to history under the sway of the Elements.
Perhaps it was because Enterprise dealt with – destroyed – the Rihannsu ship who crossed the Neutral Zone. Perhaps it was because of Spock, who was Vulcan. Enterprise was chosen herself to cross the zone and enter our space. She and her crew shared the experience of our people. Spock shared pieces of our heritage. She was ordered in to our space on a mission of espionage, and sabotage – a transparent plot, yet they crafted a tale to deceive us.
It was to the commander that they first spread their lies. She spoke first with Kirk, the captain, whom she brought aboard her flagship. Kirk’s weak lie was to claim instrument failure, but this was calculated to support a stronger lie. Thus did the Federation wear its deceit openly, while claiming to be an organization of peace. It was clear they had ordered Kirk to spy on us, and inconceivable that we might accept so weak a story. She spoke next with Spock. We had known there were Vulcans in Starfleet, and some by name. And yet Spock surprised the commander.
The history of our people, such as some have heard from me and some from the Vulcan himself at meetings held in first secret on our worlds, to foster views of sameness, was known to the commander. In her time, which may also be counted as this time where we find ourselves, there were – are – many who respected the Vulcans from afar. They considered them as brothers, though we had no contact since the early years of the Journey and though they had sided with outsiders who were enemies to us. The commander was one of these, and she held the Vulcans to be honourable people and thought the same of Spock. When she called upon his honour, he would not corroborate the tale told by Kirk, of instrument failure, and exposed the weak deception. Yet it was never by speaking the truth, but in his refusal to speak it that the lie was revealed.
This is the lie that Spock told in its place: that Kirk was mad for glory, and crossed the Neutral Zone of his own accord and under no other authority. She had called on his honour, and because it is said even in our time that Vulcans cannot lie, she believed this. Kirk played his part and railed like a madman against Spock, and she had him locked away. When he threw himself against the energy barrier and was injured, they called to Enterprise for their physician, McCoy, to come and tend him. But this matter was left at first to her subcommander, Tal. And she spent her time with Spock.
She was the commander of not a single vessel, but a fleet of three. They had thought to take Enterprise as a prize. Along with this, she thought to have Spock – to take him from Starfleet and bring him in to the Empire. I cannot say what impulse moved her, what Element swayed her thoughts and passions in this. Perhaps it was enough that he had seemed to betray his captain in the name of honour, and that he was Vulcan and so intrigued her. It is known that first she commanded him to attend her, and then she merely asked, and at his request she sent away the guards so that they might be alone.
When the physician came to see Kirk, he requested to bring the captain back to their own ship. The commander was called, and with her came Spock. She had McCoy confirm Spock’s story, and in doing so he drew himself into that lie and into the espionage for which he would later stand trial at the old capital, Ra’tleihfi, when the Sword was taken. As I have told you, these tales weave together. Through Spock, they touch on our own tale, which will end in its time with fire and death for him. Kirk denied the accusations that he was space mad, and raged against Spock for his treason, and attacked him. When he lunged, Spock caught him, according to the accounts given, first on the face and holding him by the shoulder. Kirk collapsed, and the physician named him dead. So little did we know of our distant brother race at that time – in this time – that when Spock claimed that in defence and surprise he had used against Kirk the Vulcan Death Grip, he was believed. There is no such thing, and never has there been such a thing, as we all know. But this lie was accepted and Kirk returned to his ship to prepare for greater mischief.
The commander and Spock ate alone in her quarters. From the transcripts of her trial, we know that she wished for him to take command of Enterprise for her, and bring that ship to a Rihannsu port. Surely they spoke of this. She served ale, and special dishes from old recipes thought to please a Vulcan palate. They were alone together some time, and during this period when there was none to account for the actions of either, she left Spock alone and he made a call within the ship on his communication device. When it was traced, which was quickly, his duplicity was made known. But this did not happen straightaway. They ate, they talked. Who can say what else? When Tal came to alert her of the transmission, she had chanced from her uniform to civilian dress. They stood close and she was made very angry to hear she was betrayed. “How could you do this to me?” she cried. “What are you that you could do this to me?” And who was he, to rouse such personal anger? Yet surely she could see the price for her errors in judgement even then, and perhaps this alone spurred her reaction.
Despite this, she never sent Spock away, though quickly she accepted she had been tricked and accused him as well of espionage and sabotage. Being Vulcan, he saw no purpose in denying his guilt and accepted his position. He requested the Rite of Statement, a thing which showed how much better our enemy knew us then than we did them. In his statement, of which we have kept records, he admitted his guilt, that he was there to spy, and had deceived the commander and our people. I cannot give you his words here, in his own voice, though I have heard them. They were honest enough words. He spoke of Starfleet, and duty, and how the common heritage of our people was a starting point for his deception even then. He lied in the face of his own honour, and despite it, because of orders he was given from his commanders. Duty before honour. This was his defence. It is a thing our people can understand: the honour of the Empire, the state, the family, before oneself.
Still, this was no defence at all. It could not undo his treachery. What could? Nothing, no words. But it explains Spock, and his dealings with the Rihannsu then, always. Whatever his goals, whatever his hidden passions may warm his cold Vulcan heart, all of these are subject to the will and authority of others: Starfleet. The Federation. The Vulcan High Council. When he came to my clan on ch’Havran, we asked him what his masters wanted of him there, and in the Empire. He spoke of history, unification, common history. We played back his words for him – he spoke of history then as well, when he gave his statement. His masters wished to soften us in to something they would not need fear, and we saw this. He left, as he saw he could not make us trust him.
The giving of his statement by rite was itself another trick. He needed the time, as McCoy did at his trial later to allow Kirk to work his mischief. After his seemed death, Kirk returned to the flagship, well disguised, to steal a cloaking device using information revealed to him by Spock. Starfleet knew, still knows, little of such technology. During this time, the commander’s soldiers searched for Spock’s accomplice, but once Kirk returned to Enterprise they had no chance to find him. Besides this, he was well disguised. When the device was taken, they sought to recover Spock as well. With him came the commander, by her design and not by theirs. They thought to bargain for their lives with hers, but she ordered them destroyed. It was only because they employed the device they stole from us that they reached safety.
She was returned to the Empire and stood trial for treason. I have told you her sentence: She let the device be taken, though she tried to act for honour and mnhei-sahe, and she was deceived. This too was no defence. She had failed in her duty. Her name was stripped and she was made dead.
What she has taught us of Spock, I have spoken. I will speak it again. Perhaps he truly loves the Rihannsu. He surely knows us as no other outsider ever has. For much of our history with the Federation he has been present. But he is not his own man. He acts not as a true child of Vulcan, but as the Federation’s creature. This has long been known, though often disregarded. It is the federation who master his duty, and his honour. Even at our senate he spoke as the Federation Ambassador. We cannot trust him to do anything other than what he is commanded. Duty is no defence for his crimes, then or now. It cannot protect him from the Elements. It will not protect him from us. Mnhei-sahe demands we respect the honour of our enemy, and so we must know this of him, and we must know to whom he subsumes his honour, for they must pay as well.
During her tale, Paren looked calmly to her audience – the gathered refugees leaning or sitting against their barracks beds, wrapped in dirty prison furs. Now she looked to her commander, and to Ayel beside him. There was a breath. Nero nodded – a bare hint of acceptance, though his eyes burned angrily. He rose – Ayel followed.
Later, he told her that her tales were good. Welcome. Even needed. But she was never to speak of Spock again unless told. Some Fire burns too hot and too wild to be fed or fanned by even the most careful Air.
This chapter draws heavily on, and therefore is spoilery for some TOS episodes, namely the Balance of Terror, and (especially) The Enterprise Incident. In fact, I would say that though the telling of if is my own, the *story* presented here belongs primarily to DC Fontana. This draw also heavily on some of the story, not just the flavour, created by Diane Duane. While her work influences the series strongly in general, I think it is worth mentioning for this chapter specifically. Series Notes and chapter index here
Thanks as always to
earis for betaing. Twenty-Five Years 07 – Paren’s Tale
Little is know of the first contacts the empire had with the federation – not Earth, with whom we had warred before, but Earth prime within a network of allies. Some among the Praetoriate and the Senate wished to test the power of that alliance after so long with no contact. There are many reasons this may have been so, but they have little bearing on this tale. What is important is that one ship was sent across the Neutral Zone to set our strength against theirs, and that it was destroyed. The ship who destroyed her was the Enterprise – not the first of that name, but the first of note to our people. Her commander was called Kirk. Her first officer we did not know then: a Vulcan, Spock. The time of that encounter lies in the future, and I cannot see that it will unfold in such a way again, nor that the tale I shall tell can be repeated. These stories belong now only to us, whose home and future are dead. More so than the lore I have spoken on other nights, more than Departure, more than the Journey, more than all the trials and triumphs of our people, this tale of Spock is important more than any other. We were brought here by his actions, his betrayal and failure, for vengeance against him.
Parts of this tale are well known. Others have been kept more private, and yet in some places are known. It concerns Spock, Kirk, and Enterprise, and along with them it concerns a commander of the Imperial fleet. Her name is gone – stricken – and she is dead in name and spirit. Such was her fate. What is known, though not often spoken, is that her house was Rllaillieu. She was niece to Ael, Empress of the Sword, though this was before her time. There is no coincidence, for the one tale grows from the other, and so the world settles in to history under the sway of the Elements.
Perhaps it was because Enterprise dealt with – destroyed – the Rihannsu ship who crossed the Neutral Zone. Perhaps it was because of Spock, who was Vulcan. Enterprise was chosen herself to cross the zone and enter our space. She and her crew shared the experience of our people. Spock shared pieces of our heritage. She was ordered in to our space on a mission of espionage, and sabotage – a transparent plot, yet they crafted a tale to deceive us.
It was to the commander that they first spread their lies. She spoke first with Kirk, the captain, whom she brought aboard her flagship. Kirk’s weak lie was to claim instrument failure, but this was calculated to support a stronger lie. Thus did the Federation wear its deceit openly, while claiming to be an organization of peace. It was clear they had ordered Kirk to spy on us, and inconceivable that we might accept so weak a story. She spoke next with Spock. We had known there were Vulcans in Starfleet, and some by name. And yet Spock surprised the commander.
The history of our people, such as some have heard from me and some from the Vulcan himself at meetings held in first secret on our worlds, to foster views of sameness, was known to the commander. In her time, which may also be counted as this time where we find ourselves, there were – are – many who respected the Vulcans from afar. They considered them as brothers, though we had no contact since the early years of the Journey and though they had sided with outsiders who were enemies to us. The commander was one of these, and she held the Vulcans to be honourable people and thought the same of Spock. When she called upon his honour, he would not corroborate the tale told by Kirk, of instrument failure, and exposed the weak deception. Yet it was never by speaking the truth, but in his refusal to speak it that the lie was revealed.
This is the lie that Spock told in its place: that Kirk was mad for glory, and crossed the Neutral Zone of his own accord and under no other authority. She had called on his honour, and because it is said even in our time that Vulcans cannot lie, she believed this. Kirk played his part and railed like a madman against Spock, and she had him locked away. When he threw himself against the energy barrier and was injured, they called to Enterprise for their physician, McCoy, to come and tend him. But this matter was left at first to her subcommander, Tal. And she spent her time with Spock.
She was the commander of not a single vessel, but a fleet of three. They had thought to take Enterprise as a prize. Along with this, she thought to have Spock – to take him from Starfleet and bring him in to the Empire. I cannot say what impulse moved her, what Element swayed her thoughts and passions in this. Perhaps it was enough that he had seemed to betray his captain in the name of honour, and that he was Vulcan and so intrigued her. It is known that first she commanded him to attend her, and then she merely asked, and at his request she sent away the guards so that they might be alone.
When the physician came to see Kirk, he requested to bring the captain back to their own ship. The commander was called, and with her came Spock. She had McCoy confirm Spock’s story, and in doing so he drew himself into that lie and into the espionage for which he would later stand trial at the old capital, Ra’tleihfi, when the Sword was taken. As I have told you, these tales weave together. Through Spock, they touch on our own tale, which will end in its time with fire and death for him. Kirk denied the accusations that he was space mad, and raged against Spock for his treason, and attacked him. When he lunged, Spock caught him, according to the accounts given, first on the face and holding him by the shoulder. Kirk collapsed, and the physician named him dead. So little did we know of our distant brother race at that time – in this time – that when Spock claimed that in defence and surprise he had used against Kirk the Vulcan Death Grip, he was believed. There is no such thing, and never has there been such a thing, as we all know. But this lie was accepted and Kirk returned to his ship to prepare for greater mischief.
The commander and Spock ate alone in her quarters. From the transcripts of her trial, we know that she wished for him to take command of Enterprise for her, and bring that ship to a Rihannsu port. Surely they spoke of this. She served ale, and special dishes from old recipes thought to please a Vulcan palate. They were alone together some time, and during this period when there was none to account for the actions of either, she left Spock alone and he made a call within the ship on his communication device. When it was traced, which was quickly, his duplicity was made known. But this did not happen straightaway. They ate, they talked. Who can say what else? When Tal came to alert her of the transmission, she had chanced from her uniform to civilian dress. They stood close and she was made very angry to hear she was betrayed. “How could you do this to me?” she cried. “What are you that you could do this to me?” And who was he, to rouse such personal anger? Yet surely she could see the price for her errors in judgement even then, and perhaps this alone spurred her reaction.
Despite this, she never sent Spock away, though quickly she accepted she had been tricked and accused him as well of espionage and sabotage. Being Vulcan, he saw no purpose in denying his guilt and accepted his position. He requested the Rite of Statement, a thing which showed how much better our enemy knew us then than we did them. In his statement, of which we have kept records, he admitted his guilt, that he was there to spy, and had deceived the commander and our people. I cannot give you his words here, in his own voice, though I have heard them. They were honest enough words. He spoke of Starfleet, and duty, and how the common heritage of our people was a starting point for his deception even then. He lied in the face of his own honour, and despite it, because of orders he was given from his commanders. Duty before honour. This was his defence. It is a thing our people can understand: the honour of the Empire, the state, the family, before oneself.
Still, this was no defence at all. It could not undo his treachery. What could? Nothing, no words. But it explains Spock, and his dealings with the Rihannsu then, always. Whatever his goals, whatever his hidden passions may warm his cold Vulcan heart, all of these are subject to the will and authority of others: Starfleet. The Federation. The Vulcan High Council. When he came to my clan on ch’Havran, we asked him what his masters wanted of him there, and in the Empire. He spoke of history, unification, common history. We played back his words for him – he spoke of history then as well, when he gave his statement. His masters wished to soften us in to something they would not need fear, and we saw this. He left, as he saw he could not make us trust him.
The giving of his statement by rite was itself another trick. He needed the time, as McCoy did at his trial later to allow Kirk to work his mischief. After his seemed death, Kirk returned to the flagship, well disguised, to steal a cloaking device using information revealed to him by Spock. Starfleet knew, still knows, little of such technology. During this time, the commander’s soldiers searched for Spock’s accomplice, but once Kirk returned to Enterprise they had no chance to find him. Besides this, he was well disguised. When the device was taken, they sought to recover Spock as well. With him came the commander, by her design and not by theirs. They thought to bargain for their lives with hers, but she ordered them destroyed. It was only because they employed the device they stole from us that they reached safety.
She was returned to the Empire and stood trial for treason. I have told you her sentence: She let the device be taken, though she tried to act for honour and mnhei-sahe, and she was deceived. This too was no defence. She had failed in her duty. Her name was stripped and she was made dead.
What she has taught us of Spock, I have spoken. I will speak it again. Perhaps he truly loves the Rihannsu. He surely knows us as no other outsider ever has. For much of our history with the Federation he has been present. But he is not his own man. He acts not as a true child of Vulcan, but as the Federation’s creature. This has long been known, though often disregarded. It is the federation who master his duty, and his honour. Even at our senate he spoke as the Federation Ambassador. We cannot trust him to do anything other than what he is commanded. Duty is no defence for his crimes, then or now. It cannot protect him from the Elements. It will not protect him from us. Mnhei-sahe demands we respect the honour of our enemy, and so we must know this of him, and we must know to whom he subsumes his honour, for they must pay as well.
During her tale, Paren looked calmly to her audience – the gathered refugees leaning or sitting against their barracks beds, wrapped in dirty prison furs. Now she looked to her commander, and to Ayel beside him. There was a breath. Nero nodded – a bare hint of acceptance, though his eyes burned angrily. He rose – Ayel followed.
Later, he told her that her tales were good. Welcome. Even needed. But she was never to speak of Spock again unless told. Some Fire burns too hot and too wild to be fed or fanned by even the most careful Air.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 09:01 pm (UTC)I'm loving this series. Twenty five years is a long time, and it's about time someone wrote about what happened to the Romulans while they were waiting for Spock to return. You've researched them well, and your detailed understanding of their race is what makes this series so well written. Waiting for more :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 10:19 pm (UTC)