Assessing the Situation

[Mark Garrison 0]

"Assessing the Situation"

 

It was nearly 2400 hours. Mark knew he should be in bed right now at least attempting sleep, because soon Excalibur would be returning to Camelot and this Pandora's Box would be ripping open even further, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Sleep seemed harder to reach each night that passed. With everything that had happened, he'd managed to push it to the back of his mind, focus on the here and now and what needed to be done. However, with the prisoners firmly secured with no escape attempts and the Scorpiad acting more diplomatic then every previous encounter he'd had with them combined, well there wasn't much for him to do at the moment. In fact, things were relatively normal. Normal of course being a very perverted and distorted word on this ship.

 

Victria. The Al-Ucard and Eratian rebellion, Scorpiad genocide, Federation policy all plagued his mind at this late out. Plagued it enough that the final distraction, a fine bottle of whiskey procured and carried all the way to his quarters, had yet to be opened. Victria, ironically was the easiest of his woes. In fact, he'd already decided what to do on that front. Still, every time he thought back to the holodeck, her...feeding...on him, it produced a rage that could send the bottle flying into the wall. The beginning of a destructive spree that would ruin his quarters and finally force him into an exhaustive sleep. He could always reserve that notion if it got too late.

 

Focusing on her was the easy thing to do because it was a small, petty thing in the grand scheme of the cosmos. Easier to focus on his personal problems then have to change his thinking on a growing crisis that affected billions, if not trillions of lives and that was on the verge of throwing the quadrant into chaos. When he'd come on board, he'd been an assistant security officer. A man who had decided to give one more tour one more try. His responsibilities were limited and he could defer to Segami's rank and Victria's personal experiences here in the Gamma Quadrant. Now, he had more pips, and more responsibility then he sometimes cared to have. Still, the past two years had done much for him, and he didn't think there was much else he could have done and been as satisfied with the way things had turned out.

 

Back then, opinions had been easy. The Al-Ucard were the oppressed, righteously striving for their freedoms. The Scorpiads were their evil overlords, who had created them to serve, by hunting and destroying their enemies, and the Dominion was mostly yesterdays news. Turns out they weren't such old news as he spent the next year on board Excalibur as the crew worked towards procuring some mythical communication device that would allow the Vorta (who had been running the Dominion in the absent Founders stead), to communicate with their gods following their seclusion after the war. Much to Mark's (who had fought in the war) amusement, Odo had basically told the Vorta that the Founders would be ready to return when they were ready and they'd have make due until then. Thus began the final stage of the Dominion's slow decay. The Vorta were bred to be servants to the Founders, as the Jem’Hadar were bred to be servants to the Vorta. When you cut off the head of a snake, the body tends to wither and die. Every day, more and more planets under Dominion rule are beginning to flex their muscles, see how far they can assert autonomy. So far, the Dominion has managed to deny, stall or otherwise divert most of this. The talks on Granar Minor, where Excalibur was before this most recent mess might be the beginning of the end though. The Dominion is now forced with letting more planets then they care slip through their grasp, or try to violently hold onto them all, using a disillusioned military and a listless leadership. Regardless of the choice, God help everyone involved when the bough finally breaks.

 

Mark supposed, looking in retrospect that the year spent hunting the Holy Grail of the Vorta had now proven to be worse then better in a personal way. The first year working with Victria had been...difficult but it had left him with some views that were now basically moot. There's no denying that the Al-Ucard have a different lifestyle and society then the Federation, but watching Victria he had believed there was a chance. Wearing that uniform, conforming to Starfleet rules and standards had been difficult for her, but she managed...mostly. He had believed that if she could do that, live on a Starfleet ship and live that life, that there could be hope for some sort of a diplomatic relationship between the Federation and the Al-Ucard people...if they ever achieved their freedom. The last few days however had shattered that dream. Victria hadn't come quite as far as he'd believed, it was clear her own people viewed her as and outcast, and it was obvious they have little want for anything from the Federation. So now the Al-Ucard weren't quite the righteous revolutionaries that deserved the Federations aid and caring, at least to Mark. Did they deserve freedom? He wanted to say yes, but after this affair he was left with doubts, especially after his conversation with Morill in the brig. “You’ll never know us as anything but prey.” He was left with the growing belief that freeing the Al-Ucard and Eratians would only create two more enemies for the Federation, in this already extremely unfriendly quadrant. What were the Scorpiad though? Friend, foe, or something in-between?

 

He had to admit to himself that he came to the party late. He wasn't around for Starfleet's first contact with the Scorpiad. Nor was he around when they'd blocked off the wormhole, leaving every Alpha Quadrant native stranded thousands of light years away from their homes. He didn't see them collar and try to harness the wormhole as an energy source to construct their terrifyingly powerful warships. In fact, most of what he knew about the Scorpiad came from Victria, who obviously biased. Was he going to turn around so far as to say that he supported them over the rebels/terrorists/whatever? Absolutely not. Right now, it felt more like trying to choose the lesser of two evils, picking your poison, the devil you know and a hand full of other cliches.

 

In the end all this mulling around did nothing more then leave him with a headache and a pit in his stomach, which finally prompted him to open the bottle, and defile it's vintage by drinking straight from it. For a long time now, each day seemed more bleak then the last, and though he wanted more then ever to be selfish and look to his own, and the Federations problems he couldn't. It was clear that it was the countless denizens of the Gamma Quadrant who would be the real winners, or losers in whatever was to come.

 

Right now, in the dead of night there wasn’t anything he could do about those things. Turning back in on himself however, there was something he’d put off for too long now. Without another drink, he capped the bottle and shelved it. He’d square away his own personal problems first, before taking the galaxy on.