Nede Prime Directive

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Nede Prime Directive

Stardate 501803.05

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

 

It had been a full 12 years since Nede Prime. Like Watergate, the term needed no descriptor; it had become a descriptor in itself. The mere mention of the planet to anyone within the Federation conjured lurid details of a mission that threatened to topple Consul General Elaine Jaffe and send ripples to the lowest peon, like an earth tremor radiating from its epicenter. There had been an inquiry. Heads that should have rolled didn’t. The name Manticore had not been mentioned; the ship had technically never been there.

 

The main target of the inquiry’s wrath was Elaine Jaffe herself. She and her cohorts had weathered storms, but this one exceeded all expectations. She held her own, a tribute to either her tenacity, her political clout, or both. The entire affair left some wondering what file she held over the chief prosecutor’s head and left others drooling to get their hands on it. Things had quieted down in ensuing years, but the phrase looks like another Nede Prime endured as common politispeak.

 

Twelve years after Nede Prime found Dr. Jami Farrington in an office at Starfleet Headquarters supervising the construction of a science/medical complex that would serve the Academy as a teaching facility and the Federation as a research center.

 

At this particular moment Jami stood staring out the window and across the grassy mall that separated the main headquarters building from the construction site. Had she been a smoker she would have lit her fourth or fifth by now, but she wasn’t, so she folded her arms across her chest and drummed her fingers on her biceps, like a chess player contemplating the next move.

 

A middle-aged man by the name of Mitch Campbell sat on the opposite side of her desk. Retired reporter for Millennium, The Weekly News Magazine, his name had become a household word. A blue button-down shirt hid more battle scars than some of Starfleet’s finest. He’d earned his stripes behind enemy lines as an imbedded journalist where he cultivated a quiet but direct manner, a bald spot fringed with a hint of gray hair, and a ruddiness that came from being in the trenches for days without food or water.

 

Mitch’s interest du jour was Nede Prime, a diversion from his current assignment as historian and biographer for Starfleet. He seemed to believe that Jami had more to offer than the others on his list since he had been interviewing her almost daily for the past month. Though his easy manner and penchant for confidentiality allowed Jami to trust him implicitly, he was a stickler for detail, and at this particular moment it gave Jami pause.

 

Until a few minutes ago she had been sitting at her desk twirling a stylus in one hand while she chatted amicably with him, engaged in the small talk that was always a precursor to the relevant question. Light from the window behind her danced from the stylus to the highly-polished dark mahogany surface of a desk that had been in her family for generations. Its wood came from a tree that had existed a century before the maker cut it and would have endured another century had he not. It had a history of users and once had a life of its own. The grain marked years of drought and years of plenty and held countless tiny petrified organisms with which the tree had once co-existed. The desk reminded Jami of her mortality, and that the rich heritage they shared was too often shunned or forgotten in the name of progress, tossed aside as so much chaff in a winnowing wind.

 

When the question came the stylus had stopped, Jami had leaned back and rubbed her eyes, then swivelled her chair towards the window. Mitch waited with a patience that had become his trademark, a patience that said take all the time you need, a patience that had gotten him in the door of many inaccessible Federation leaders and had earned him a Pulitzer prize.

 

Where is he going with this? Why bring up Topan after all these years? What the hell does he have to do with Nede Prime? She had stood and walked to the window to gather her thoughts while looking out at the new science complex that may or may not be finished in time for the next academic year.

 

“Yes, I was married to a Vulcan once. His name was Topan, but I suppose you know that already.” The comment was more caustic than Jami intended, but she let it pass and apparently so did Mitch. “We had a child. Janis. Topan died before she was born. He never knew her, never saw her, never had the chance to see how beautiful she was, watch her first steps . . . hear her first word . . . .” Her voice dropped in a sigh, so she paused to regain her composure. “I gave her my surname, but Vulcan genes are dominant, you know, and being more Vulcan than Human she was raised on Vulcan by her grandparents.”

 

“So you have no prejudice against Vulcans?”

 

It took a few seconds for the question to register, but when it did Jami turned from the window, agitated, her entire body questioning his point.

 

If her action had sent up a flag Mitch didn’t show it. He remained relaxed, leaning back in the armchair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his fingers casually intertwined. He unlinked them and waved a hand over the padd on his lap. “Just wondering about your relationship with Captain Sovak. I thought it might have some bearing on your decision after the incident at Nede Prime.”

 

Jami relaxed and let out a breath. Mitch had inadvertently opened a wound she thought had been healed long ago. “Captain Sovak had no bearing on my decision. He was - and still is - a very dear friend. I know that some say his ‘cold, calculating Vulcan ways’ contributed to the decision, but the fact is that Nede Prime was the proverbial last straw in a long series of missions, Mitch. You know I can’t go into specifics.” He nodded. “Working in Black OPS puts strain on a being like nothing else in the military. But you know that. You’ve seen it in action.”

 

She crossed to her desk, ran her finger along a prominent grain, then slipped easily into her chair, leaning back to reach her coffee.

 

“Nede Prime,” Jami began again, taking small sips as she spoke. “We had been watching them for several years, didn’t like what we saw -- we being the Federation, of course. Oh, how we can play God.

 

“Pre-warp civilization. Our orders were to investigate and report findings with the idea of thwarting their efforts somehow. We went. We saw. We found more than we bargained for. It got nasty. I wish I could tell you more.”

 

Mitch’s coffee mug nestled in an indentation he had carefully cultivated in the arm of the easy chair over the past month. His eyes remained firmly fixed on Jami while he ran one finger around the lip of the mug. “And these orders came from . . . ?”

 

“Off the record?”

 

Mitch sighed. “Off the record.”

 

“Jaffe.” Jami placed her cup with the now-cold coffee on a side table and turned her back on the window to avoid the direct rays of a setting sun. A few clicks came from beyond the office door as the night watch slipped their access codes into various terminals up and down the corridor. Jami’s assistant, Saliq, entered briefly to retrieve the coffee tray and ask if they required anything else. As she watched him leave she wondered how Mitch could possibly think she had any prejudice whatsoever against Vulcans. Then she realized the question had been a ploy, a toss of the dice in the game of investigative journalism.

 

“So, Sovak had nothing to do with your decision?”

 

Damn, he’s persistent. “Mitch, there comes a point in everyone’s life when one questions the validity of their actions, wonders what their true purpose is, wonders if what they are doing is the right thing -- you know the routine.” He nodded. “I’d lost too many patients, too many friends, seen too many civilizations die in the name of what one or two people called justice or peace. Nede Prime was deja vu, and when Dr. Major was captured it was the proverbial blessing and curse. The blessing was that we now had someone on the inside. The curse was that she might lose her life.”

 

Jami stood and began to pace. “We were planning our strategy, sitting calmly in the conference room talking as if she were . . . some kind of asset, something to be manipulated. We discussed the people on the planet as though they were no more than obstacles in our path. I finally realized what had been nagging at me since I joined Black OPS, what I had pushed to the back of my mind because I honestly believed we were making a meaningful difference in the galaxy. Hell, Mitch -- we were dealing with living, breathing sentient beings -- not objects, not conglomerates. Planets are populated with beings!” She slammed her fist on the desk.

“Governments are groups of beings!” Slam!

“And ships’ crews are beings!” Slam!

“And Elaine Jaffe had lost track of the fact that Manticore was not an entity, but a ship loaded with sentient beings whose psyche can be -- and was being -- deeply marred by directives such as she had just dealt out, and whose lives can be lost in more ways than one!” Slam.

 

She sat down again, took a few deep breaths, and after several minutes she continued in a whisper. “It took me over ten years to figure that out, Mitch. Ten frackin’ years of deception, death, and destruction. I had to leave. I had to leave.”

 

Jami sat there for a long time staring out the window, looking past the construction site, beyond the waning sunset, beyond everything. When she turned around Mitch was gone. It had been an arduous journey, and it was finally over.