Table of Contents

Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
17 January 2163 AST
11:44 GST


The first cracks of dawn were coming into the window. Outside, the city of Washington DC (Universe Designate HE-1 version) was waking up to begin a new work week. Offices vacated over a century ago by bureaucrats and officials of the United States Government were now being opened by the men and women who ran the day-to-day affairs of the Allied Nations Government, as they'd done for the last eighteen and a half years. Fliers and posters spread around the city reminded the citizenry that they were still at War, as they had been for nearly three years now.
In the majestic home at 1600 Pennsylvania, staff were reporting to work, night security was giving way to day security, and the kitchen staff were preparing breakfast. It was, from all appearances, just another Monday morning.

But appearances were deceptive. This was no normal Monday morning.

From his bedroom window, Nicolas Mamatmas - 3rd President of the Allied Nations - watched the growing daylight. The city was coming alive, awakening from it's collective slumber, but Mamatmas was not among those awakin, for he had been awake all night.
In one week, his Presidency would end - just a day shy of what would have been the tenth anniversary of his oath of office. His half century political career, following three decades as a sailor, would be over.
But it was not the contemplation of retirement that had kept him awake.

A gentle hand pressed against his shoulder. Mamatmas turned his head to look at his younger wife, Karyn. She was twenty years younger than him, but their love had lasted a half century, half of that dealing with the grief of a lost son. Her hair was a mixture of black and gray, the anti-aging treatments made available from the other universes having benefited her more than him. "Nicolas, when did you get up?"
"Two-thirty," was the reply.
The First Lady of the Allied Nations frowned at him. "My God, you need to get some sleep. Don't you have meetings today?"
"I do." Mamatmas sighed. "I couldn't sleep."
Karyn nodded. "They missed the deadline."
"Yes. Now I have to respond." Mamatmas walked over to the couch and sat down, Karyn taking a seat beside him and putting an arm around his shoulders. "It isn't right, Karyn. It isn't right that one man can cause the deaths of billions." With that lament, Mamatmas' mind wandered to the previous night....


Alliance Security Committee Chambers, Pentagon
01:19 GST


It was Sunday evening, past eight, but in wartime there was no such thing as "normal operating hours" for the highest echelons of government. Here the men and women of the Alliance Security Committee met often, sometimes daily during the progress of the war. Mamatmas, Chancellor Rachel MacKenzie, the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Relations - Matthew Darlington and Peter Wells respectively, the Security Advisor Sir James Bronson (effectively the same as an American National Security Advisor), Director of Alliance Intelligence Samuel White Eagle, and the two military members, the Chairmen of the JCS (Joint Command Staff) and SPS (Strategic Planning Staff); General of the Army Gregory Becker and Fleet Admiral Alexei Simonov.
For this meeting, the other three members of the Joint Command Staff were in attendance. Franklin Richards, the Commandant of the Marine Corps; Gotthard von Berkoff, Marshal of the Aerospace Force; and James O'Connell, Chief Admiral of the Stellar Navy. The holographic projector made their presence clear.

The deadline to the Founders - the shapeshifting race that ruled the Dominion - had passed, and they had not surrendered. They seemed intent on a bloody end. They had only a hundred worlds left in their possession, but the races of these worlds had been under their rule for millennia and had no traces left of their old cultures; they worshiped the Founders as Gods and could not be swayed to rebel or to accept liberation. They would fight to the bitter end.
Now the final offensive against the Dominion was being laid out. An attack on all fronts against an enemy that had been given ample time to have prepared for it. Becker was listing the ground troop component."....altogether we're looking at committing five thousand divisions in the first wave against the outer worlds, with another thousand Marine divisions."
"That's half our official strength," Richards remarked.

"Yes, and we may need another three to five hundred divisions before this is over. The Dominion's been building and even rebuilding fortifications across their Core, in space and on the ground. They've been applying the lessons of this war and of the Winter War with the Cardies. Overall, we may need to use as many as twenty-five thousand divisions to effectively pacify every world remaining in the Dominion."
There were hushed murmurs in every corner of the room. Looking carefully at the holomap display, Mamatmas asked, "Help from our allies?"
"A pittance. Twenty-five Lisean divisions from CON-5 and fifty Bajoran. If we wait a month, another fifty Lisean and maybe ten Scathfordian divisions from CON-5 could be available. Frankly, Sir, we'll need them to help maintain security in the areas we have liberated, especially if this fight gets as bloody as it looks it will."

Mamatmas nodded stiffly. "Okay. Casualty estimates?"
The assembled brass gave each other looks. It fell upon Admiral O'Connell to remark, "Well, Sir, we don't have firm numbers yet..."
"Ballpark it," Mamatmas replied gruffly.
It was Becker who picked up a PDA, brought up the numbers, and read aloud. "We are estimating at least a hundred million on our side alone."
"That's a twenty percent loss rate," Darlington remarked.
"Yes. But we have to factor in the estimated effectiveness of the Dominion's new fortifications, the possibility of Dominion defenses destroying transports despite attempts at suppression, and the possibility of nuclear attack, especially by nuclear mining. The Navy will get it's fair share of lumps too, in both fightercraft and ships."

Richards spoke up once more, addressing Mamatmas. "Sir, I think you must realize that the Dominion has had thousands of years to prepare high-quality fortifications on these worlds. It's been easy to underestimate them because of the poor quality and performance of the Jem'Hadar in ground combat conditions, but the Dominion's leaders are no fools."
"Any chance of a continued bombing campaign?"
"Surviving Dominion industrial capability, aided by their current defenses, might be able to replace facilities faster than we can eliminate them. And Bomber Command's ability for a sustained campaign is not good. They don't have the bomber fleet or the personnel to take any kind of long-term sustained losses."

Mamatmas frowned. "A number of these worlds are heavily industrial and reliant on food from other systems. We've managed an effective interdiction campaign with our stealth ships. Can we starve them out?"
"Could take months, sir, and there are enough worlds with remaining agricultural capability that we'd still have to invade even when the other worlds stave to death."
"All of these choices, and none of them good," MacKenzie muttered. "And it's too late to amend the peace offers."
"Mister President, there is one other option."
All heads turned to the man who spoke; Fleet Admiral Simonov. Mamatmas said, "And what is that?"
"Shiva."
Absolute silence.

Mamatmas looked closely at the Russian admiral. "Is everything in place?"
"All missile ships are in position and awaiting launch orders, Mister President. And as Marshal von Berkoff can tell you, Bomber Command's deployed the first two thousand SB-1s into range. They have sufficient devices for two runs each."
"You're talking about wiping out a hundred different races," Wells remarked in horror.
"I am not," Simonov replied defensively. "All projections show that there would be enough survivors to maintain genetic diversity. Farming supplies and instructions could be air-dropped, if it comes to that."
"My God...." MacKenzie looked like she was going to be sick. "You'd kill billions."
"Given the population of those worlds.... casualty rate could be as high as one trillion." Simonov put his hands together. "The same goes for any other operation discussed here, Sir. If we invade, we will kill a trillion people other than our own."
Mamatmas put a hand on his mouth, clearly thinking. He scratched at his thin mustache. After minutes of silence, Minister Wells remarked, "Sir, you could leave this up to President-elect Dale."

Looking at Wells for a moment, Mamatmas shook his head. "No. This was on my watch. I have a responsibility to decide how to do this." He promptly stood up. "We've had a long day. You'll have my decision in the morning. You may all go."

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

In the silence of the morning, nothing more was said for several minutes. Karyn sat beside her husband, trying to find something in his bleary, tired eyes to tell her what he was thinking about.
For Mamatmas, the same calculations had run through his mind all night. The same choices. The same guilt.
The deaths of those left in the Dominion was, ultimately, not his fault. The Founders were refusing all terms for surrender. Originally they had been drunk with arrogance from their past successes, but that was now replaced by intense paranoia that they would be wiped out if they abandoned any aspect of their autocratic rule of the Gamma Quadrant, the Founders. There were those voices who insisted the strength of the Dominion was broken, that it no longer posed a physical threat. But was this true? With all the Jem'Hadar they continued to produce, with their war factories intact and capable of churning out massive numbers of ships?
After three years of buildup the Allied Nations had fashioned perhaps the most powerful military in the known Multiverse, one that had overrun much of the inhabited Gamma Quadrant while maintaining the occupation of Cardassia and other defense commitments - not to mention the war on Plymouth in CON-5 that was so recently ended. It was with this might that the Alliance had crushed the Dominion's offensive strength and brought it down to this point. But the Alliance was not a coalition of military nations. The peoples of the Allied Nations tolerated the war and it's sacrifices because they felt it necessary.... and because they knew it would end with total victory. They would never agree to a constant state of war-level militarization to keep the Dominion in check.

No, it was impossible to imagine letting the Dominion remain intact. They would simply have to fight the Dominion again in the decades to come. The Founders had to be stripped of the mechanism of their empire to secure the future from them.
So the war had to continue until the Founders surrendered things they would not give. What was to be done then? Mamatmas had listened as his advisors rattled off the options. Continued blockade of their systems and the strangling of their interstellar trade would, in time, starve billions of the Founders' subjects to death. The factories they worked would quiet. But not all would die, as there were too many industrialized systems that maintained sufficient amounts of agricultural land to feed their workers. The Dominion would be weakened but not defeated. Those factories would have to be knocked out.

Strategic bombing was a possibility, but Bomber Command's pre-war budget suffering had made it thin, and it would take time to get it to the level that could pummel the Dominion worlds enough to keep them down - a campaign that would have no clear end, with the enemy constantly rebuilding lost facilities, and with enemy defenses posing an increasing threat as they learned how to deal with the bombers. The costs of such a campaign would not be equal to it's promise.
The only guaranteed way to remove the Dominion's industry was to invade it's remaining worlds and have ground troops destroy their factories and occupy their worlds so that the factories could not be restored. Then the Founders would have no choice but to accept defeat.

About a hundred worlds remained in the Dominion. They had a population ranging from 1.1 to 1.2 trillion beings, not including an undetermined number of Jem'Hadar. Over the night Mamatmas had grown skeptical that even twenty-five thousand divisions - half a billion soldiers - could pacify all of that. The Dominion's remaining subject races had been in the Founders' thrall for millennia. The Founders were unforgiving Gods who demanded obedience, and most of those people could be expected to obey no matter the cost to themselves. The fighting would be bloody beyond imagination, and billions would probably die in it.

This brought him again to Shiva. An all-out strategic attack with the most powerful weapons in the Alliance arsenal, meant specifically for eliminating enemy societies. It seemed the only viable way to bring the Dominion down and end the war quickly. But Mamatmas' heart ached at it. This was guaranteed to kill untold billions of people who were, effectively, mere slaves.
Waiting longer seemed a possibility. It might net them the location of the Founder Homeworld, still unlocated. Of course, he had been warned of the possibility that the Founders had long decided to disperse to prevent just such an overwhelming decapitation strike should they be found.
Once more, Shiva was the one option that made sense. The weight of that knowledge was the most pressing burden Mamatmas had ever felt, and he had spent decades shouldering great burdens. But here, now, the awesome responsibilities upon him threatened to overcome him. He was so close to freedom, but one week might as well have been one decade with what he had at hand.

"The damned thing is, the Founders probably wouldn't hesitate a moment," he muttered aloud, drawing Karyn's attention. "That's the constant throughout the war. They don't give a damn about the lives of anyone but their own." Laying his head back on the couch, Mamatmas stared at the ceiling, his wife still not speaking. "If I had been lucky I might have had number four over the night."
"Nicolas! Don't joke about that!"
Mamatmas tried not to chuckle at his wife's angered outburst. He had made the public promise that if he had his fourth heart attack - since 2157 he'd had three - he would resign immediately. "I don't want to do this," Mamatmas sighed. "I don't want to be remembered for this. I've had so much bloodshed on my watch that I don't want this to be how my career ends."

"And you can't wait? Allow Robert to make this decision, since he'll be the one who has to deal with it's consequences."
Mamatmas looked at Karyn. He could see her true intent in her eyes. She was no more suggesting it than he was considering it.
But how appealing it was! After all, in one week a new President would be in charge of the Allied Nations, a man of renowned moral character and personal confidence who would, undoubtedly, carefully weigh the subjects at hand and make a decision. Mamatmas had indeed missed Dale's counsel in the year since Dale had resigned the Defense Ministry to make his Presidential bid, and moreso, he'd missed the friendship of Dale, the solid-footed son of a humble Kansas farming family who often spoke longingly of returning to the simplicity of the farm over the complexities of interuniversal politics and government - a sentiment that Mamatmas, now so close to his own retirement - understood greatly. At the least Mamatmas could leave public life knowing that the Allied Nations - a dream he had shared with so many - were in capable hands.

The temptation was a sweet one. Allow Dale to make that decision, since he would be responsible for it either way. Relinquish the heavy burden of having to make this decision to another and leave quietly. But such a temptation was basically incompatible with the manner of the man in question. Above all else, Nicolas Mamatmas the statesman had long stood for taking a stand and holding to it. Passing the buck was not consistant with his way of thinking.
And so it passed, and the dreadful decision again presented itself.

"I wish we'd been right twenty years ago," Mamatmas said. "I wish that the founding of the Alliance had brought the security and peace of a new Golden Age. That we'd never have to fight another war like the one against the Agresskan. But, here we are..."
"It couldn't be helped. You know that."
"I know, I know. But I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the briefings, the strategy reviews, the casualty estimates. I've spent most of my Presidency either fighting wars or prepping for them. I've had to put off domestic issues to get approval for more military spending. And... I can't do this anymore." Mamatmas leaned forward now, his left elbow resting on his left knee and his head resting on the hand, fingers covering his face. "Every damned time I'm in the office looking at pictures of these young kids who got themselves killed or maimed, and I'm writing the orders for them to get medals, I think of Kevin. It's been twenty-five years and I still think of Kevin."
"I do too." Karyn took his right hand into her's. "I miss him."
"I've always thought that losing Kevin helped me sympathize with the other people who lost their kids in this war or that war, but even then, even with that, I still kept making these policy decisions that steered us into more war. History's going to look back and remember me as a great wartime President, and God dammit I don't want that. I hate this, I hate it all, because I God damned well know what it's like."

Mamatmas stood up, fists clenched. He swallowed hard.
And his decision was made.
Like that it had come. There were so many millions of fathers out there who, like him, worried daily about their children out on the front. Fathers who were probably more worried about getting their children back home safely than winning the war. He had an obligation to the men and women on the front, and to those in their homes praying for the safety of their children. They were, after all, his people, and he was responsible for them.
History might judge him a monster, but that was out of his hands. For the moment, he was still President of the Allied Nations. This was his responsibility.
Walking over to the nightstand, Mamatmas picked up the phone with his right while his left thumb pressed against the sensor. The fingerprint and skin cell DNA scan authenticated him and a light on the phone turned green. "Hello, this is the President. Get the Service Chiefs and bring them to meet me in the Office in ninety minutes."
Mamatmas' grip on the phone strenghtened.
"Oh, and Major? When you come... bring the football."

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

My thanks to K Newman and Dan 601 from HPCA on modern sub missile launch procedure.


13:30 GST


The four Service Chiefs were given various seats in the Oval Office. Mamatmas was fully dressed with formal suit and tie, sitting silently at his desk with a cup of coffee partially finished. Finally, after a few minutes, the door opened once more and a large tan-skinned Marine officer walked in, a black case handcuffed to his wrist. He walked up to the desk and placed the case before Mamatmas. Mamatmas nodded at the man and took a key out of the drawer to uncuff the case from his wrist. Mamatmas now looked to his assembled military chiefs. "No other way?"
They all shook their heads.
Mamatmas nodded once more and opened the case. It was a briefcase computer, mostly it's security devices with a transmitter system and database. The screen flipped on. "Begin Identification Procedures," a slightly feminine voice stated, matching the text on the screen.
Mamatmas placed his hand on the scanner and looked forward into the screen. A small light briefly ran over his eyes. "Kilo Echo Sierra Tango Zulu."
A few other systems processed. One by one the screen displayed lines of text that flashed green.
Retinas: match.
Handprint: match.
Voiceprint: match.
Geneprint: match.
Mass: 99.993% match.
Bioelectrics: 99.9999% match.
Then a final line.
Identity confirmed: Mamatmas, Nicolas - POTAN.
The electronic voice spoke once more. "Identify confirmed. Strategic Command Authority is now online."
Mamatmas swallowed. He took out a preprinted order authorizing the commencement of a Shiva attack. Taking a pen in his right hand, he placed his signature on the line at the bottom. "Strategic Command, this is President Mamatmas. I hereby authorize the implementation of a Shiva operation on the Dominion. Please implement Shiva-Dominion immediately."
There was a momentary delay. The screen went to waiting status for a moment. And then the screen reactivated with new text, read by the artificial voice system in the black case.
"Transmitting launch codes now."
And so it was done.


Sanders AFB, Ju'ritan, ADN Gamma Quadrant Occupation Zone
Universe Designate ST-3
13:45 GST

Seated in his office in the expansive prefab facilities that controlled Sanders AFB, home to the 110th Strategic Bomber Wing, Air Commodore Ryan Sheppard was toking on one of his favored cigars when he got the call. He nearly ran the short trip to the base command room, and when he arrived he bellowed, "The code! Is it authenticated?!"
A honey-haired, moon-faced cutie with Chief Technician rank insignia stood from her chair and handed Commodore Sheppard the incoming order and authentication code. The two sets of alphanumeric digits, sixteen digits long, matched up perfectly. Sheppard lowered the PDA device and picked up a mic to speak over the base PDA. As the base's alert klaxons screamed, his voice carried over the entire base, instantly recognizable to most present: "Attention, this is not a drill! We have confirmed orders for Shiva! I repeat, this is not a drill. I want all bombers armed and in vacuum immediately!"

Squadron Leader Tiffany MacClintock's 555th Strategic Bomber Squadron (Triple Nickel Squadron) was the first ready, already on standby to join the 19th Group's bombers that had been in space at the time of the Go order. With careful skill "Tiff" MacClintock maneuvered the SB-1 stealth strategic bomber she had dubbed the Iron Bitch of Ju'ritan onto one of Sanders AFB's runways. The engines fired and the great aerospace craft moved forward, gathering speed as it rolled along the tarmac runway until it had gained enough speed to lift off. It gained altitude minute after minute, Tiff pushing the Iron Bitch as fast as she dared, until the time came to switch the engines to the subluminal impulse drives. The bomber gained orbit rapidly - compared to it's earlier ascent - and waited for the other nineteen bombers of the Triple Nickel Squadron.
The SB-1s - dubbed the LeMay - were pitch black. The black material that coated the craft was a special absorbant that made the bomber stealthy even without the Emissions Cloaking System (ECS) turned on. When it was flipped on, a ripple seemed to cover the bomber and then obscure it, shifting light around the shape of the ECS field as it protected the bomber from detection relating to it's emissions, electronic and otherwise. With this degree of stealth, even the most advanced sensor suites would have only the slightest chance of detecting their arrival in a solar system before they fired their impulse boosters in such range that their powerful Ragnarok missiles - three per booster - would be showering warheads on their targets before enemy defenses could react to the sudden sensor contacts.
The Triple Nickel now received it's target information. They moved into formation and, with time-honed precision, initiated their new Boeing-McDonnell UL100 Cochrane space-warp drives, racing off at over ten light years an hour toward their target in the Dominion Core.


DNS Haakon Svegard, Dominion Inner Core
15:03 GST


Captain Michael Walton remained seated, as he usually did on a Conn watch, observing his crew operating in the partial darkness of a stealth "boomer" rigged for quiet running (a euphemism, apparently meaningless in space, that came from the old wet navy submariners that most strike ships considered to be their direct predecessors; it meant that the ship's emissions were carefully regulated to avoid detection.). The ship's reactors were dialed down and the ship at standby for combat alert due to the encounter an hour ago with a Jem'Hadar patrol that peeked a little too closely in the area for Walton's comfort. Their "anti-proton" scans could penetrate the "cloaking field" of a ship with active ECS (Emissions Cloaking System) under ideal circumstances, but the hull of the Haakon Svegard was specially made to "absorb" even those types of scans, though he personally didn't know how that worked from the science point of view; he just knew it kept him and his crew alive.
The light from the holographic representation of his Typhoon-class stealth strategic strike ship, sixth ship of the third flight of SSB (Stealth Strike Ship, Strategic Missile), shined on his dark skin as he checked on the status of repair for a malfunctioning fuse in the ship's lower right section. Though it wasn't important, Walton was a cautious man and preferred to stay on top of such things.

The peace was broken by a series of beeps coming from overhead. A single display in the Conn lit up, showing the letters "EAM" prominently. At the same time, a female voice with a German accent came over the ship PA. "Conn, Radio, we are receiving ELF burst, Emergency Action Message from Strategic Command Authority, authorizing strategic missile launch."
Walton picked up the mic above his chair and replied, in a deep baritone, "Man Battlestations Missile, this is the Captain, set Condition 1SQ, spin up missiles one through six and sixteen through twenty-two." Afterwards he immediately headed off to get his launch key, the XO echoing his order as he did so.
At that time the ship's crew suddenly jolted to attention, running to their stations under the klaxon call of a General Alert, as the ship's Communicator, Lt. James Rockwell, was joined by a junior officer of the watch, Lt. Theresa O'Lear, in the compartment off the Conn where the launch verification keys were kept. Each junior officer on the ship knew just one individual passcode for the twin locks, which were set so that two were required - allowing any combination of two junior officers to be used in the verification process, for which they were all trained.

By this point, the Svegard's Weapons Officer, Lt. Cmdr. Roger Huntingdon, had made his way to Missile Control (MCC), where he retrieved his own launch key; a joystick button that connected by cable directly to the Missile Fire Control System. Here he waited, the system at the ready.

The two lieutenants had swiftly acquired the launch code keys from the safe and returned to the Conn, where they were soon joined by Captain Walton and the XO, Commander Karl Newman. A printer on the bridge printed out a paper of the official order received by the Radio division, forestalling the need for Walton to walk to Radio for such a thing. Taking it in one hand, Walton held it so that Newman could see it. Both men had grave expression on their faces as Lieutenants O'Lear and Rockwell read out their launch verification code cards.
"Alpha Tango Sierra Hotel Hotel Golf Zulu."
"Alpha Tango Sierra Hotel Hotel Golf Zulu."
"Sir, message is authentic," Rockwell said after O'Lear confirmed the code.
"Do you concur, XO?" Walton asked Newman.
"I concur, Sir," was the reply he received.
Walton nodded gravely and again picked up his mic, setting it to the ship PA. "This is the Captain speaking. Our launch orders have been verified. Depressurize tubes one through six and sixteen through twenty-two."
The two men went over to the one thing that no command officer on an SSB wanted to use; the Launch Activation Console. Almost simultaneously they inserted their keys and turned them, causing the console to light up.

Down in Missile Control, Lt. Cmdr. Huntingdon oversaw the process as the missiles were readied and their targets set according to the target package ID listed on the launch order. It took just a few minutes - Walton's drilling had trimmed five minutes off of the launch time over the past few months - and within eight minutes of the order for launch coming down, the weapons were ready. Huntingdon held onto his launch key, sweat appearing on his brow despite the comfortable room temperature of the MCC.

On the Bridge, confirmation of readiness was answered by a slight exhalation of Walton, the tension in the air thick as the crew had braced itself for the launch. Walton picked up his mic and Newman another. "Conn, Weps, this is the CO. Commence firing."
"Conn, Weps, this is the XO. Commence firing."
Lt. O'Lear made the sign of the Cross on her shoulders and forehead, tears appearing in her bright brown eyes.

In MCC, Lt. Cmdr. Huntingdon breathed, "Merciful God, forgive me," and pulled back on the trigger.
A shudder filled the ship as pressurized gas pushed the missiles out of their tubes and into the vacuum of interstellar space. Their main sublight thrusters fired for just a couple of moments, orientating them properly before their high-speed Cochrane drives initiated and thrust them into superluminal speed toward target worlds in the Dominion Core, ECS systems on each missile activating to hide them from detection as well.
Immediately thereafter, the Haakon Svegard went to warp as well, changing it's position to avoid being caught by the Jem'Hadar patrols.


Mrak'resfj, Dominion Inner Core


Gru'vip was the typical Mrak'resfj child. Standing at three feet tall, about eight cycles old - comparable to a Human five year old - he was as happy as a child could be in his place, his parents both workers at a plant in the capital that provided weapons used by the Jem'Hadar to defend the Holy Founders.
Gru'vip's parents were now working harder and longer, and even Gru'vip was made to help, as they put all four arms to use digging further into the earth to provide a further redoubt to retreat to when the Great Evil came, the beings of Chaos that seeked to usurp the Holy Founders from their rightful place governing the Order of All Things. The Evil that denied the Divinity of the Founders, and which all faithful Mrak'resfj hated.
Looking up from the receptacle that Gru'vip was pouring loose dirt into, he could see streaks appear in the sky. He didn't think much of them at the moment, believing they were just more transport ships of some kind or another.
Then the bright flash came, and Gru'vip screamed as it completely blinded him.


The system defense for the Dominion had been geared toward detecting incoming enemy bombers or ships, and the Vorta and Jem'Hadar in control of the planetary defenses prided themselves on the ability to raise shields within three seconds of hostile contact (as they had done in one prior surprise drill).
Unfortunately, the missiles had only given them two seconds.
Without any prior warning, a dozen separate warp fields dropped and the same number of missiles plunged down toward the planet, getting within the planet's defensive shield two seconds after detection. The missiles plunged into the upper atmosphere at different points and from there broke apart, scattering multiple warheads in pre-arranged directions that would ensure everything between them was completely and utterly destroyed.

The flash that blinded Gru'vip was the result of a Guyverite-boosted anti-matter warhead detonating with a blast yield of approximately 150 gigatons (closer, actually, to 149.19GT). His life soon ended from the air blast wave created by the explosion, tearing his little body and those of his parents apart as it destroyed the city he had called home his entire life.

Across Mrak'resfj, this process was repeated dozens of times, each group of warheads focused upon particular concentrations of industry and infrastructure, inevitably resulting in the utter annihilation of all metropolitan areas. Even misses did little to lessen the damage, only spreading it out further into the countryside - what little was left of it anyway, given Mrak'resfj was a modernized "factory world" for the Dominion's war machine.
Within minutes, however, it had been reduced to a shattered husk of a planet, most of it's population of fifteen billion people dead or dying and everything of value to the Dominion lost.
And even as Mrak'resfj suffered her mortal blow, so too did the other worlds of the Dominion....

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
18 January 2163 AST
00:16 GST


The White House conference room was quiet now that the Security Committee had departed. The agenda had been focused on the unfolding civil war in the Gilean Confederacy and the plight of Alliance citizens trapped in the city of Kalunda, besieged on all sides by an alliance of primitivist nations armed with semi-modern weapons. But despite his best efforts, Mamatmas had barely been paying attention as his advisors discussed the situation. His mind, his heart, was still focused upon the horrible thing he'd ordered that morning.
The door opened and Mamatmas looked up from the table. The man that entered was shorter than him, stockier as well, and had a head of gray and black hair.with brown eyes that were a few shades lighter than his skin. In his hands were two small glasses and a bottle of brandy.
"I figured you would be needing this," Roger Nxumalo, Mamatmas' Chief of Staff, said as he walked up to where Mamatmas was seated. He placed the glasses on the table and poured some of the brown drink into both bottles.
Mamatmas and Nxumalo had known each other for years; Nxumalo had been a young commissioned officer in the African League's Navy when he met the grizzled old Master Chief Mamatmas, who spent the last years of his Navy career "advising" Nxumalo into becoming a good sailor. While Mamatmas had gone into politics, Nxumalo had remained an officer in the wet navy, even after increasing contact with the Multiverse led to a migration of skilled personnel to the United Earth space services. Nxumalo had only just retired in 2157, having reached briefly the highest rank in the African League's much-reduced wet-navy, and had immediately been offered the position of Mamatmas' Chief of Staff. He would be joining Mamatmas in retirement soon enough, looking forward to ending his days in quiet and some luxury from his pension and careful saving from his salary as a White House official.

"Am I that predictable?" Mamatmas responded, a slight grin on his face.
"You have always been a brandy man, Chief," Nxumalo chuckled. "Remember back on the Cetshwayo, when every sailor and officer knew to come to you for the brandy?"
A grin crossed the President's face at that moment. "Those were the good old days, weren't they. Before Multiversal Contact, before the War... before things got so complex."
"Yes, well, the Multiverse has been kind to us in some ways, not so kind in others," Nxumalo said, before adding, "But, yes, those were good days. You kicked my ass into shape."
"That I did," was the hoary reply.
The two men finished a couple glasses of brandy in silence before Nxumalo spoke up again. "You did what you had to do, Chief."
"I know."
Nxumalo nodded slowly. "Did you know my grandson was at the front?"
Mamatmas looked up. "I thought he was still in boot?"
"No, got shipped out just after Christmas. 3rd South African Rifles, attached to the Alliance Army's 385th Division. The 385th was scheduled to hit Mrak'resfj next month." Nxumalo poured Mamatmas another shot and then one for himself. "You saved his life, Chief," he said before taking another swig.

"The casualty reports have already confirmed 500 billion dead," Mamatmas said, ignoring the brandy for the moment. "They're saying that it might hit well over a trillion. And do you know what that makes me think of?"
"What?" Nxumalo asked curiously.
"This old saying I once heard... I forget who said it to me. 'One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.'"
Nxumalo nodded. "Stalin."
"Stalin?"
"Yes, Chief, that's attributed to Josef Stalin."
Mamatmas made a "hmph" noise and took a sip of brandy, as if to test the strength of it. "How many did Stalin kill, Rog?"
Nxumalo seemed to be thinking for a moment. "I believe ten or twenty million. That's what I remember hearing, anyway."
That was replied by a nod, after which Mamatmas asked, "And how many millions are there in a trillion?"
"I believe... a million. A million times a million is a trillion."
"Ahhh...." Mamatmas suddenly picked up and gulped down the entire glass of brandy he had, after which he stood up. "So, in other words, I've beaten Stalin by what? One hundred thousand to one?"
"Chief...."
"I did it for them, I keep telling myself I had no choice!" Mamatmas gestured to the window looking out at the city. He went up to it and opened the window, showing the distant city lights at night time. "I did it for the People. I did it to save their kids, their husbands and daughters... their parents. I... I couldn't create more Kevins... I couldn't..." Putting a hand to his face, Mamatmas slumped weakly into a chair. "Oh God, what have I done?"
Nxumalo remained quiet, watching his old friend wrestle with his conscious. "The moral responsibility was not your's. The Founders refused to surrender."
"I gave the order!" was the angry reply. "I could have said no! I could have waited, could have stalled for time, worked to create options..."

"Chief, don't make me smack you on the head!" Nxumalo shouted. "You know in your heart that there was no other way. If you are afraid of being remembered as a butcher, remember just how you have acted today. You are no monster, you are not Stalin or Hitler or Mugabe. You have a conscious, a conscious that has driven you to fulfill your duty to the People. You did just that, and if you don't stop moping around about it I'm going to put my foot up your ass!"
When Nxumalo's tirade ended, there was quiet for a moment. Mamatmas looked off at the city before turning back to the brandy. There was still a bit left, and he went to take it, but suddenly he seemed to rethink that and drew his hand back. "Well, I'll be damned," he muttered, before beginning to chuckle and look up at Nxumalo. "I used to be the one threatening to put a foot up your ass."
At that, the two old men started laughing, which they did for about thirty or forty seconds before Nxumalo stretched a hand out to Mamatmas, a courteous offer to help him to his feet. "Who do you think I got that from?" Nxumalo said warmly. "Come, Chief, let's go see Karyn about a nice dinner. Only one week left before they throw us ugly old sailors out and bring in that handsome young man and that beautiful wife of his, we might as well enjoy it while we can."
Mamatmas nodded in agreement, smiling along with his old friend, his regrets and grief departed for the moment, though not forgotten.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
21 January 2163 AST
17:16 GST


A lunch prepared by the White House staff was laid out upon the conference room table for the enjoyment of the Security Committee as it discussed what was hoped to be the final combat actions of the Dominion War.
The Shiva strike had taken an unexpected three waves to complete, with the final attacks by missile ships requiring coordinated strikes to break through defensive shields and to hit the planets' surfaces. But by the 24 hour mark of the launch order, the operation had been completed. All one hundred worlds of the Dominion had been annihilated utterly, suffering civilization-crushing damage and quite a bit of ecological damage as well, damage that would have to be dealt with by careful process from orbit.
With the worlds destroyed the Jem'Hadar did about the only thing they could; a suicide lunge into Alliance forces. In twelve seperate engagements across the front, Alliance naval forces, with a smattering of Bajoran and Klingon ships, had met and crushed what was left of the Jem'Hadar, who themselves caused casualties by purposely ramming their ships into any target they could. In this final conflagration of the war, the Alliance had lost another hundred and twenty-three ships, with over 50,000 more casualties; the Dominion warfleet had ceased to exist, leaving only space facilities and habitats that were destroyed over the course of the previous two days.
The Dominion no longer existed.

"Reconnassiance of the Inner Core is continuing," General Becker reported for the benefit of the Committee. "What intelligence we have indicates that the Founder homeworld is somewhere in the area, but it could be weeks before we locate it. We're moving ships into position to begin screening debris and dust out of the affected planets' atmospheres. Next will be airdrops of vital supplies and instructions, in Dominion Basic, on how to begin sustenance farming." Darlington checked his PDA for more points. "I've also begun preparations for the post-war demobilization. Now that the Dominion's been turned to ash, we're going to see some pressure to bring the boys and girls home."
Mamatmas listened to the others give their views and reports on the Dominion situation. When they finished, he shifted in his seat and leaned forward. "I know I only have a few days, but just for form's sake, what are we doing about the Gilean Civil War?"
It was Becker who replied for him. "Planners are drawing up operations for inserting troops into Gilead to relieve the Kalunda siege, but we're hoping to hold off on that until the British confirm their intervention intentions. It is their protectorate, after all."

"And I don't see them doing much about it." Mamatmas sighed. "But this is a matter Robert will have to handle on his own, nobody's going to pay attention to what I say because I only have four days left in my Administration. I want you all to make sure he's briefed over the course of the weekend."
They all nodded. Before the briefing could continue, however, Bronson's phone beeped, followed by Darlington's before Bronson could even answer his own. They each took their calls and looked at each other with some amusement, their respective chain of contacts having worked hard to beat the other. "Minister, if you wish to..."
Darlington nodded at Bronson and began to speak. "Rescue teams found a Vorta survivor on one of the warships that were destroyed by our fleet during the Dominion's suicide run. He came out of his coma several hours ago and gave a statement." Darlington looked around, as if to ensure he had everyone's attention. "According to this.... Cayreth, the Founders are all dead."
There was a moment of dead silence.
"We're waiting for a holo-recording of his formal statement, but Cayreth's told our people that the last Founders died about nine months ago of an unknown disease that spread through their entire population, which they thought was our doing. And that their final order to the Vorta was to fight to the bitter end. Quite literally, 'kill as many Solids as you can'."
"Those smug bastards..."

Mamatmas remained quiet for a moment, prompting the others to do so after a moment of murmuring and questions. When there'd been enough silence, he asked, "Can we confirm this?"
"Not yet. We need to find their homeworld, see what's left. It could all be some kind of lie, for all we know. Something told to the lower-ranked Vorta, perhaps, while the upper ranks maintained a secret redoubt that the Founders were evacuating too."
"Still, it would explain why we've seen an end to any Changeling infiltrator activity," White Eagle remarked. "Either they were wiped out by a plague, or they've all run off somewhere."
"I want this investigated, immediately. Make sure that Robert is informed as soon as possible after his inaugeration." Mamatmas stood up from his chair. "I have a brief meeting with the Hispanic Empire's Ambassador in ten minutes, so this meeting is officially concluded. I'll see you all Sunday for our transitional meeting."


One of the limos that left the White House about half an hour later was returning Samuel White Eagle to the AID complex in Bowie, Maryland. Seated with him was Sir James Bronson, who was heading there as well to get a briefing from AID analysts on the Gilead situation. They remained silent as the limo worked it's way east to get to old US 50, and it was only when they got to eastern Washington that White Eagle finally spoke. "You think it's them?"
"It has all the markings of one of their little games, maybe gone out of hand. Infect a suspected Changeling infiltrator with a plague, let him spread it via link to the other Changeling infiltrators, eventually it'll get to a handler heading back to the Dominion," Bronson replied. "Maybe they're even upping the ante and they intentionally meant for this to happen."

"Our sources in Starfleet Intelligence do indicate some activity on their part a few years ago, in regard to direct involvement in installing the anti-Changeling security measures in the Federation's governmental facilities," White Eagle stated. "But, as usual, we don't have any good confirmation. They're good."
"They've always been good," Bronson said.
"You still haven't told Mamatmas?"
Bronson shook his head. "No, there was no reason. The President doesn't like thin cases, especially from intelligence. What do I tell him about an analysis branch of Starfleet Intelligence in truth being a vicious black-ops agency which is responsible for half of the torch marks on AID's memorial plaque, one that likely poisoned the Founders and caused their extermination, but that we have almost no hard proof of any of this?"
White Eagle nodded at that. "We do have confirmation, though, that the exiled Changeling working with the Bajorans is still healthy."
"He's called 'Odo'. Our reports indicate that he hasn't linked with any Founders in a long time. It's probably what's saved his life."

That was answered by a nod. There was some more silence before White Eagle asked, "Are you going to tell Dale about Section 31?"
"If I have to. I want to feel him out first, see how he'll act as President. It won't be the same as his time as Defense Minister, this I know for sure." Bronson looked out the window. "Until then, we'll do as we've been doing for the last decade."
"The shadow war, you mean?"
"Such an interesting way of putting it, since if our conflict with Section 31 ever came out into the open..." Bronson sipped at some of the drink in the car, undisturbed to this point. "Then we'd be dealing with an actual war."
With their peace said, the two men remained quiet for the rest of the journey.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
24 January 2163 AST
16:40 GST


It was noon in the Capitol and the appointed hour had come. The crowds had gathered in the Mall, in the sunlight of a chilly January day, and all had been arranged by formal protocol.
Sir Omar Shackleton, the Chief of the Court of Supreme Justices, stood at the podium with Bible in hand as the young-looking septuagenerian Robert Dale stood from his seat, taking a quick kiss on the cheek from his blonde-haired wife before walked to the podium. His left hand went on the Bible and his right hand was raised and outward.
In the comparitive warmth of one of the dens in the White House, Mamatmas watched the inaugeration ceremony with his wife, some of his younger grand-children, and Nxomalo and other members of his staff.

Shackleton spoke first, asking the President-elect to repeat his words.
"I, Robert Allen Dale..."
"I, Robert Allen Dale..."
"...do solemnly swear..."
"...do solemnly swear..."
"...that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of President of the Allied Nations..."
"...that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of President of the Allied Nations..."
"...and to the best of my ability preserve, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the Allied Nations..."
"...and to the best of my ability preserve, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the Allied Nations..."
"...so help me God."
"...so help me God."

And that was it. Mamatmas almost felt the burden rising from his shoulders as Dale finished the Oath of Office. After years of service as a Senator, Vice-President, and President of United Earth, then Chancellor of the Allied Nations, and finally the past ten years spent as President of the Allied Nations, Nicolas Mamatmas was again a private citizen, devoid of any political office.
The air already began to smell sweeter.

For the moment the attention in the room was on Dale's inaugeration speech, a decent and uplifting thing invoking the usual hopes after a war's end; namely, that there would be no more war for a long while, that peace and prosperity would reign with freedom, and all the other platitudes wished for by a population wearying itself from the exertions of large-scale interstellar war. Mamatmas nodded to himself in approval at the address.

Finally the speech ended and the ceremonies broke up. There would be celebrations afterward, but not in the Mall, for Dale had chosen to have a quiet inaugeration in respect to the billions of Alliance citizens still engaged in the cleanup from the war. Mamatmas stood up from his chair, Karyn at his side and his grandchildren and Nxumalo behind him.
When he exited into the hall, he was met by the staff of the White House. They were the cooks, janitors, security men, and maids who kept the place running whether he was there or not. Over ten years Mamatmas had gotten to know most of them by name, with knowledge of many of their families. In their lead was his secretary Ms. Henley, who looked healthy and thin - Mamatmas had been rooting on her keeping to the current diet, after slipping from prior ones - and she was teary-eyed as she gave him a hug. So, too, did the other staff approach for hugs, which he warmly gave, as did his wife and family and Nxumalo.
When the goodbye hugs were all given, Mamatmas turned to them as his family moved around him. "It's been a wonderful time, everyone. Over the last ten years I've gotten to know most of you, and your families when time and duty allowed. I'm very proud to have been supported by such a friendly, hard-working staff. If I've made any good decisions since I moved into this house, it's been because you've kept my food warm, my bed kept, and my rooms clean. Any bad decisions I've made are my fault and my fault alone." Chuckles and grins answered him. "You are the unsung heroes of the White House. It's been a great pleasure and honor knowing and working with you. God bless you all."

Waving goodbye one last time, Mamatmas and the others walked to the car port, where they were placed into a limo that would take them to Dulles Spaceport and the private airliner waiting to take them home to Cape Town. They were pulling out onto the street when his great grand-daughter, Betty, a precocious four, looked back and asked, "Grandpa Nick, why do we have to move?"
"It's not my house anymore, Betty." Mamatmas let her into his lap. "It belongs to someone else now."
"Will we get to go back?"
"Of course we can come back and visit. But it won't be to stay, not anymore." Mamatmas looked out the window as the White House disappeared from view. His memory recalled a line and he breathed it to himself.
"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last."

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

Mamatmas Residence, Cape Town, South Africa
Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
27 August 2164 AST
21:28 GST[


The light in Mamatmas' personal study was dim, and most of the light in the room came from his computer monitor, which gave a whitish glow to the dark room that could be seen through the bedroom door. Mamatmas was seated in his chair facing the main monitor, which was displaying the face and shoulders of his moon-faced grandson Samuel. His skin was lighter in color than Mamatmas', a healthy brown, a result of his mother Claudia just as his blue eyes and round face were. Samuel was Mamatmas' only biological grandson, born in the early 30s before Kevin Mamatmas' death in the Agresskan War.
Unlike Nicolas or Kevin, Samuel had not joined the military, and he had shown little interest in politics. He had rather decided to go to university to pursue his life-long fascination with history and it's diversions in the known Multiverse, receiving a degree in Human History from the University of Virginia (HE-1) and now working on a doctorate at the prestigious Avital Goldstein Multi-Universal History Department at the University of New Israel, New Tel Aviv Campus, purely on the strength of his Master's Thesis from UVA, a detailed history of 21st Century South America in all known universes and the various divergences. He was aspiring to be the first member of the family to have pursued a full university education and acceptance into the academia.

"Grandpa, the book is coming along marvelously, really," Samuel said in reassuring tones to Nicolas. "You're doing really good for someone who's never written a book before in his life."
Mamatmas shook his head. "Oh, you don't need to flatter me, Samuel, I know what I can do and what I can't do, and I've never been a good writer."
"You're not writing a novel, Grandpa, or a history book. You're writing your memoirs. They don't fall under the same rules." Samuel chuckled. "I feel really honored that you sent them to me to be edited and not to a professional."
"You are a professional, Sam, don't let anyone else tell you different." Mamatmas smiled confidently at his grandson. A pain came to his chest and he put his hand there, rubbing it.

Samuel noticed this and a concerned look came to his face. "Grandpa, are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine, it's just the Thai that Karyn wanted to try." Mamatmas, for effect, took a drink of the cup of water he had to his side. "I'd never eaten such a hot thing in my life."
Again his grandson chuckled. "Thai food is about the spiciest Human food around. When I tried it, I drank an entire case of soda and still felt like I had a bonfire on my tongue." Grandfather and Grandson laughed together for several seconds. "Look, I'll send you my first edited copy and you can read it over in the morning."

"I'd rather you just mailed me the thing in book form, or at least on paper," Mamatmas grumbled.
"Oh, Grandpa, isn't the replicator unit hooked up to your computer? You can have it replicate you the entire thing, in a fake leather bounding if you want, just like a real book."
Mamatmas made a sound in his throat. "Oh, forget about that damned thing. Last time I tried to replicate something it had all the pages crossed up. It's over at the tech shop getting fixed."
Samuel rolled his eyes jovially at Mamatmas. "Grandpa, one day you're going to have to get out of the 21st and 22nd Century and into the 29th. Or the 27th. Or, hell, at least the 24th!"
"Hey, watch your language, I can still wash your mouth out with soap!" Mamatmas said with a mock scolding tone. Again the two laughed, and the pain in Mamatmas' chest flared up a bit more. "Well, I'd better go before your Grandmother wakes up, finds me here, and drags me to bed."
"Take care, Grandpa, and I'll go ahead and get a paper copy of the edited draft and mail it to you, okay?"
"That'll be fine. Talk to you later, Grandson." Mamatmas reached over and pressed the button again. Annoyed by the growing pain in his chest, he went and took some antacids and his usual nightly meds before slipping into bed beside his sleeping wife, who's only response to his arrival was to turn over and murmur, "You are in so much trouble for being up so late."
"Don't I know it," Mamatmas replied with a light mumble before closing his eyes, trying to ignore the annoying chest pain. He drifted off into sleep.


Washington D.C.
28 August 2164 AST
06:49 GST


The phone in the Presidential Bedroom was ringing loudly, waking Robert Dale from his sleep. His wife Julia woke with him, feeling him stir, and moved from where she had been laying her head by his. He reached over with his right hand and picked up the phone, the unlit light signifying it was not on a secure line. "Yes?"
Julia, from her position, slipped out of the bed. Her right hand came up and swept a lock of rich blonde hair out of her bright blue eyes. She slipped on a purple night robe over her white sleeping gown and walked into the nearby room to check on Michael, their one year old son, who was sleeping soundly in his crib - thankfully his room was soundproofed and the phone call hadn't disturbed him.

Having checked him, Julia returned to the main bedroom and fought her husband seated at the edge of the bed, his right hand holding his head and covering half of his face. "What was that about?" she asked him.
Robert looked up at Julia. She was surprised to see some wetness around his eyes. Tears?
Then he explained it all in one brief sentence.
"That was Karyn. Nicolas.... died in his sleep last night."

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

New Methodist Church of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
4 September 2164 AST
11:30 GST



The New Methodist Church was packed to standing room with dignitaries and press, as well as the relatives and close friends of deceased. Mamatmas' body, having laid in state for a week at the Capitol, was now placed within the coffin laid before the altar. The Reverend James Sibande delivered the memorial sermon as the crowd watched in solemn silence. Mamatmas' adopted children and grand-children - and a few great grand-children - were seated in the first row around his wife, all in black clothes, and to her left Karyn had given a seat to President Dale and his wife.

The sermon ended after over an hour of scripture reading, preaching, and prayer by the Reverend Sibande. The first speaker was Roger Nxumalo, who shared with the assembled remembrances of his times with Nicolas. When he finished, he looked down to the casket and gave a perfect military salute. "See you on the other side, Chief," were his final words upon the podium before he left it.
Next up was Samuel Mamatmas, Nicolas' biological grandson, on special leave from university for this occasion. Samuel remarked about his grandfather's achievements, his love for his family and for people in general, and his overriding need to do right by them all. The young man bore up the grief and loss well, not losing his voice for a moment and reminding some assembled, including Dale, of Nicolas.
Finally it was Dale's turn. He shook hands with Samuel as they passed each other beside the coffin and he scaled the short steps to where the podium was placed behind the altar. Behind him was the large, fifteen feet high cross of bronze that decorated the church, a painting of the Crucifixtion further back in the baptismal bin. His view turned from it to the large crowd assembled in the pews of the church, ground floor and the upper balcony filled to capacity. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his PDA, with his speech appearing on it immediately. After checking to make sure that the mic on his collar had been turned on, he began to speak.

"Before I begin, I would like to thank Mrs. Mamatmas and her family for not only their formal invitation, but for the honor of being allowed to sit with them. That has been among the foremost honors I have ever been given in my life, the chance to be treated as family by Nicolas and his loved ones."
"Today, the peoples of the Allied Nations, and all free peoples across the known Multiverse, mourn the loss we have taken. In the histories of Sentientkind, few have ever spoken so eloquently, or acted so bravely, so resolutely, in the defense of liberty... as Nicolas Mamatmas has done through his entire life. A man who loved peace, Nicolas nevertheless knew that peace was only sweet when it was joined with liberty, and that if one must be abandoned it is better to stand with liberty and forfeit peace for the moment, because it is always easier to reclaim lost peace than it is to reclaim lost liberty."
"His devotion to this ideal weighed heavily upon his soul, and it cost him much. His first son Kevin was lost to war, a wound on his soul that would never heal. Under his authority policies were laid, strategies planned, and actions taken, that led to the deaths of billions of people, many of them sadly innocent, a great number of them young men and women much like the son he lost. Nicolas bore these billions on his soul willingly; he mourned them as he mourned his son, and did his best to bear the pain for all of our sakes. It was, indeed, a crushing burden... a burden that could smother the greatest among us under it's weight, that terrible weight that comes to those who, as the saying goes, have to make 'The Decision'."
"But these terrible decisions were ones that had to be made, and for all that it hurt him, Nicolas never shyed away from doing his duty. He believed in the righteousness of his cause, he believed in the greatness of the Allied Nations and our place as defenders of freedom and the idea that freedom, that liberty, is the most precious thing of all, and that it was worth fighting for and worth dying for. This is why he endured the course for these past twenty years. A new generation was born and raised to adulthood in the time that Nicolas reached the pinnacle of his life and completed his life's work."

"First, as Chancellor of the Allied Nations, he tirelessly worked to ensure that lesser men did not thwart the promise held in it's Constitution, it's newborn and growing institutions. When President Verdes was struck with disease and forced, by circumstance and illness, to vacate her Presidency, Nicolas rose to the challenge. Those were days of crisis, with threats as diverse and as lasting as the Blakists and the Borg coming to the forefront. And Nicolas rose to the occasion, making the great decisions, finding the right path for us all. With his decisions he brought us through the crisis and war with Cardassia to victory, he won the glory of the liberation of Bajor, he saved the liberty of the Lisean Republic from Pylmouth, he opened the slave pens of Orion and Devenshire... and he led us through the most terrible war History has ever known to the greatest victory History has ever seen."
"These victories in war would be nothing without the things Nicolas stood for in his life, without the generosity and love he had for other living beings. We would be hard pressed to find any other leader who, under his or her authority, saw so many people freed from one bondage or another in so short a time. So long as there are Bajorans or Orions, the legacy of Nicolas Mamatmas will remain. When we first saw the footage from Orion, of innocent people released from their shackles and freed from their slave pens, I knew his heart was beating with joy, as it always did when liberty was given to those who had been robbed of it."

"Now that heart lies still. It is a loss, a loss for the family he adored, for the people he loved, and for the Alliance, the great work that his shoulders held up despite the burden. It is, in my opinion, a loss for each and every person in this room and across this Multiverse. But though his heart is stilled now, the things that were raised under it's direction remain. It remains here, with this flag..." Dale gestured down toward the torch-and-stars flag of the Alliance draped over the coffin. "...because memory endures longer than life itself does, and we shall always remember him."
"Nicolas Mamatmas did not write our Constitution. He was not the first to call for the formation of the Allied Nations. These honors belong to others. Nicolas Mamatmas' greatness lies in how he has supported them. His spirit, his ideals, are the great rock upon which the structure of the Alliance has been built. This rock will remain forevermore, long outlasting his life and the lives of those in this room. A rock upon which the institutions of the Alliance are built, and on which the strength to protect and defend the liberties of trillions of living beings is now to be found."
"Today we mourn Nicolas Mamatmas, the man, the husband, the father and grandfather. Tomorrow and on through the years, we will remember Nicolas Mamatmas, the Champion of Liberty... and the Rock of the Alliance."
There were applause from some in the audience, but that was not on Dale's mind when he saw, for the first time, the empty area of the pews to the side where the foreign delegations were sitting... and the corresponding absence of Ambassador Sutep of the Federation.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

The Pavilion of Peace, San Francisco, Earth
United Federation of Planets
Universe Designate ST-3
13:00 GST


The PAPAL rally was the largest seen since before the Dominion War, and after years of decline the movement seemed to have picked up strength it had not seen since the Borg Scare. It was standing room only in the massive Pavilion, with at least two hundred thousand PAPAL activists standing and cheering as the wiry, elderly frame of Deborah Miller ascended the steps.

The years had been unkind to the former President of the Federation and founder of the Progressive And Pacifist Action League. From her nervous breakdown after her removal from office at the outbreak of the Tsen'kethi War to the "years of bloodthirst" (as she and her cohorts called them) when even the Federation seemed willing to be swept up in the hateful, brutal tide of reborn Human militarism embodied in the Alliance, to the extent that the Federation provoked the Dominion by laying the minefield while Cardassian children were starving without Dominion aid supplies.
Now that horrible war was over. The Alliance had slaughtered over a trillion people to fulfill it's imperial ambitions, and all Miller and her people could do was watch and cry. They were lost, unable to understand how they had failed to reason with the people in the Alliance, to make them rise up against the elite overclass that was sending them to die on it's wars of conquest and to begin crafting a peaceful society of justice, like the one that PAPAL enjoyed in the Federation.
Now, after years of this failure, they were getting angry and frustrated, and all of that anger was directed at the Alliance and the timid Federation government that failed to stand up to it. Miller had grown distant from the Party, having seen it betray it's own name just to get scraps from the imperialist table that would satiate the corrupt that had entered it's ranks after Miller was thrown from office. PAPAL would become a political force of it's own, this she knew to be true, and she would gain the Presidency again and expend all effort into ensuring the downfall of the Alliance and the beginning of a Multiverse of Peace.

"My fellow citizens, thank you for your warm welcome," she began, speaking louder than she had in a while. The medicine would help her speak stronger and louder for a while, but eventually her weak vocal cords, strained from a lifetime of speaking out against hatred, injustice, and cruelty, would force her to stop talking. "We are here to express a sadness at the recent passing of Nicolas Mamatmas, President of the Alliance." A chorus of boos came from the crowd.
"We express this sadness wholeheartedly, because all life must be preserved, even his, and because it robs his victims of a chance to see him put on trial for the trillion lives he brutally extinguished on behalf of the corporate overlords and xenophobe generals that were his puppet-masters!"
"But our pursuit for justice is not over! We will not rest until every government in the Multiverse affirms the rights of all peoples and joins our fight against the warmongers! Then we will cut them off from the latinum they quench their greedy thirst on and watch them weaken while the people they hold down and mislead with their racist propaganda rise against them, finally seeing them and their lies for what they are! And then all living beings in the Multiverse will join together in one grand Federation of peace and justice, where none will have want and all will gain the paradise we have built here today!"
Cheers erupted from the assembled PAPALites. "From here we launch our great campaign to retake the hearts and minds of the people of the Federation from the corruption that has turned them away from the plight of the peoples under the Alliance's bootheel! PAPAL will, as never before, demand it's voice be heard, and it will always call for the same; an end to privilege, an end to poverty, an end to violence, and an existance where all beings have no social class but live in the justice of perfect equality and of plenty!"
There were more cheers, and Miller took them in wholeheartedly. Her campaign to reclaim the Presidency, and to restore the Federation of Peace she had once built, had begun.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
17 January 2183 AST
14:00 GST


The ceremony began at 9am EST sharp with the large crowd already gathered in the New Mall. To their backs was the Capitol Building, the age-old symbol of legislative power, and further west from that was, of course, the Old Mall, where the Smithsonian, the National Aero-Space Museum, and other America-centric memorials and monuments were still to be found.

The New Mall was the brainchild of Harriet Donaldson, a senior city councilwoman in 2144 AST when the newly-formed Alliance of Democratic Nations opted to temporarily take up Washington D.C., the former capital of the USA (which, in Universe HE-1, had seen it's capital moved to Philadelphia in the 21st Century due to the upheavals and wars that had nearly torn America apart). Though the future of the capital was still undecided, Donaldson acted to head off the inevitable plans to build a new capital on another world by engaging in a beautification campaign that nearly bankrupted the city but saw it's old monuments restored to luster and also involved the creation of the "New Mall" to go with the "Old Mall"; the New Mall went east, not west, of the Capitol, all the way to the Anacostia River where the old RFK Stadium had been refurbished. Here, the monuments of the Allied Nations would be constructed.
It began, in the 2150s, with the Wall of Honor, a memorial area where three great marble walls would bear the names of those soldiers who were awarded the Grand Cross of Honor by the Council - the ADN's equivalent of the US Medal of Honor of the British Victoria's Cross. In the 60s the Cardassian War Memorial had been added, the Jennifer Verdes Memorial in the 70s. Near the RFK Stadium, the Interuniversal War Memorial was being built to commemorate the simultaneous wars against the Dominion and Plymouth.

Before the crowd now was the new great memorial for the Alliance Capital. The Nicolas Mamatmas Memorial was build in similar fashion to the Lincoln Memorial, constructed to resemble a Doric temple of the Classical Greeks. It faced west as Lincoln's faced east, with three staired-entrance pathways moving north, south, and west, each of them covered by ceilings decorated with traditional symbols of liberty, including the eagle and the Alliance four-colored torch. The grand columns of marble numbered twenty facing to the east and eighteen each facing north and south - a pair of symbolic numbers, as twenty nations had founded the Alliance when Nicolas became the first Chancellor of the Alliance Council, and there had been fifty-six member nations when he had left office in January 2163 - maintaining the limestone roof with the decorated ceiling until one got to the cella in the middle, supported by the innermost columns and the solid construction of the rest of the structure. There, standing in a serene, firm pose, was the statue of Nicolas Mamatmas himself. Clad in his customary suit-and-tie, his face weathered from age and trial, Mamatmas' visage gazed east at Capitol Hill, as if he were keeping watch on the institution he had been the first to lead. His stance was simple but elegant, based upon his official Presidential portrait by Francois de Rumy, with both hands pressed firmly together behind his back. At the base of the statue, upon the marble pedastral, was an inscription.




Behind the great sculpture of Mamatmas, at the northeast, east, and southeast corners of the cella, were the engravings of his greatest speeches; his acceptance speech when elected as the Alliance's first Chancellor, his first State of the Alliance speech to the Alliance Council just a few days after he entered office, and the infamous speech of April 29th, 2160 AST, when Mamatmas issued his call to arms to the Allied Nations following the outbreak of war with the Dominion and the imminent outbreak of war with New Plymouth Colony, New China, and New Oranje in CON-5. There were, furthermore, small containers for informational pamphlets, as well as watch stations for the memorial's security and maintainance staff.

In a moment, the screens that had hidden parts of the memorial from view were gone, showing this sight to the assembled crowd, which showed it's approval with applause. Assembled for this occasion was an array of officials. President Alexandria Verdes, Sixth President of the Alliance (and the daughter of Jennifer Verdes, Second President of the Alliance) was in attendance. To her sides sat numerous dignitaries. Nicolas' aging widow, Karyn, looked far older than her last public images had shown; since her husband's death Karyn had grown increasingly withdrawn from the world, seeking solitude in more quiet acts of charity and benevolence to honor her husband's legacy. She was joined by many of Nicolas' family, including Doctor Samuel Mamatmas, the newly-minted Dean of the Orina Belluci School of Sentient History at the University of New Brooklyn, and Admiral Peter Mamatmas, the eldest of Mamatmas' adopted children.
Also in the crowd were other established dignitaries. The two other surviving ex-Presidents of the Alliance, Robert Dale and Sir Kevin Maxwell-Fyfe, were in attendance with families and other close ones. Rachel MacKenzie, the only surviving Chancellor to have served alongside Mamatmas, had also present, as was Prime Minister Omiko Takahara of Japan SE-1, who had served as Mamatmas' trusted Security Advisor in the first years of his Presidency.
A number of foreign dignitaries had decided to be in attendance, mostly people noted for closeness to Mamatmas or sympathy toward him. Standing with her closest advisors was President Delenn of the InterStellar Alliance (Universe Designate EM-5), and nearby, Emperor Vir Cotto of the Centauri Republic from the same universe; both leaders had worked closely with Nicolas Mamatmas in his Presidency in an attempt to maintain the peace of their home universe. Sir Alexander Grant, Alexandria Driscova, and Gabrielle Newson, former Prime Ministers of the British Empire and the Kingdom of the Devenshires and President of Lisea respectively, had come to pay a final respect to their wartime ally of twenty years prior. Some heads turned at the sight of an entourage of Talorans, sitting near Robert Dale, headed by Ulahs Trisimhla, a Hereditary Censor of Quesadia, the most populated city of Talora Prime and one of the major economic centers of the Multiverse.

Shakaar Edon, former President of the Bajoran Republic, had led a delegation of Bajorans to the ceremony, and was joined by Fleet Admiral Benjamin Sisko, Commander-in-Chief of the new Federated Worlds' Stellar Navy and hero of the Dominion War and the Federation Civil Wars, leading a delegation of several prominent officials from the former Federation who regarded Mamatmas as being responsible for their freedom from the Federation and the end of it's increasingly-corrupt government.


Alexandria Verdes was the first to speak.
"I am honored to be here today, in the midst of such a great company of people, to commemorate the opening of this memorial to the great man who proved indispensable to the development and stability of the Allied Nations. Even in death, he continues to inspire with the story of his life, his hardships, and his personal courage. I look around, and I see the common people he loved so greatly, and I see the great and powerful who came here humbly to recognize him, and it fills me with awe that one man can have such a great effect upon others."
"Nicolas Mamatmas believed in the institutions of the Alliance. He believed in freedom, in liberty, in the common man, in a way so few do in the Multiverse. He was blessed with an intelligence and a vigor that led him to high office, from where he could do the most good. And we have all seen the good he did."
"Now we have built this place in his honor, a place of memory that will allow for many generations to come and learn about him. Nicolas himself may be gone, but with this place, he will be immortal in the hearts and minds of all those peoples who love liberty."

There were polite applause. Karyn Mamatmas joined in them, but she was weeping greatly, the wound in her heart still strong after the passing of the years. She missed her beloved husband so greatly that this only served to aggravate the wound.
But she still forced a smile when the cameras came to her. For her family's sake, for Nicolas' sake, she would bear the burden here today, like those burdens he bore so long ago, and allow the people he loved to honor him.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik

EPILOGUE

Shiva's Forgery - The Origin


Titan Project R&D Facility, Planetoid AD-492862, Alpha Korva System
Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate SE-1
19 March 2165 AST


The single aerospace military transport, having arrived from the frontier system of Reynolds, slid to a stop on the arrival runway built ino the planetoid. Gravity generators assured a comfortable 1G of gravity for the uniformed runway operators as they secured the craft.
The transport craft was normally designated Reynolds TC11-391 and part of the 391st Transport Squadron of the Alliance Aerospace Force. But on approach it had been called by another designation: PT1.
The designation of a craft carrying the President of the Allied Nations.

Robert Dale descended the steps, accompanied by United States (SE-1) Air Force Lieutenant General Mark Crierie, the officer in charge of the facility. The awaiting detail of Air Force MPs snapped salutes at the President and the General as they made their way off the landing deck.
In the reception area, the President was greeted by two figures; USAF Colonel Shelley MacIntyre, the Chief of Security, and Doctor Phil Richards, the overseer of the civilian research teams that called the facility home. While they talked, Dale was handed the "introductory flier" given to all new arrivals, civilian and military, at "Titan HQ", with Colonel MacIntyre explaining that she wanted him to understand how strict she was in keeping security. Dale nodded in acceptance of the flier, but he stopped reading it at the harsh reminder of the classified nature of the very facility and the threat of criminal prosecution and "lengthy jail time" for even mentioning the facility in an unsecured area.

"I already know the purpose of this place," he noted when closing the flier. "Used to be an American R&D facility, handed over to Alliance control in July 2153 when President Mamatmas signed Executive Order 3-14, establishing the Titan Project."
"Yes. At first, we had one sole purpose...."
"....to develop weapon systems and other means for use in a full-scale war against the Borg," Dale finished for Doctor Richards. "Then you developed Shiva. Preliminary warhead testing began in 2157, I still remember getting the preliminary report as Chairman of the JCS and Defense Minister. After the onset of the Dominion War, you'll remember that it was my signature on the paper approving the first test detonation of a fusion-device boosted with this 'Guyverite' stuff. Then eight months later, you detonated the first Guyverite-boosted anti-matter warhead, again on my signature. By the time the President ordered the Shiva Operation, you'd churned out just enough warheads for the operation to work. Once again, production on my signature."
"We're planning on the Big Bertha detonation in four months," Crierie remarked. "We're shooting for three hundred gigatons."
"I seem to recall making it design policy to search for smaller, more plentiful warheads, General, not big damn ones," Dale remarked.
"Yes sir, but sometimes you have to build big before you can begin to build better small ones," was Crierie's reply.

"So, why did you want me out here, obviously not to see the detonation."
"No sir. We wanted to share something with you." Richards looked back to Dale as they walked past a set of transport tubes, each going to a different lab. "We showed this to President Mamatmas when he visited in 2157 to see the first warhead test."
"The one that fizzled?" Dale asked pointedly.
The remembrance of that embarrassment made Richards' cheeks turn red. "Um, yes, Mister President." He could clearly remember Mamatmas' reaction.
"Okay, so, what is this?"
"Well, sir, it's the source of Guyverite, you might say... it's how Doctor Guyver learned to find it naturally and to give it the refined form necessary for use as a booster in warheads."

The conversation quieted again as a transport tube was opened for them near the end of the transport corridor. It took them deep within the planetoid, to some of it's initial floors and structure. Once they exited the transport tube, they came to a long corridor, with some of the lights overhead flickering and thus showing age. An electric transport cart was waiting for them, complete with a USAF Airman to drive them down the length of the hall. "How long has this been around?" asked Dale. "Looks a lot older than the rest of the base."
"It's the original level, Mister President, built here about seventy years ago," Crierie explained.
"I wasn't aware that the Americans of SE-1 were working on Guyverite that long," Dale answered.
"They didn't start the first work on it until the 30s, sir, after the contact with the Agresskan."
The cart came to a stop at the very end. To their right, stairs led up to what Dale presumed to be a control room, but it was to the large metal double-doors that he was led by Crierie. Crierie put his hand on the security scanner, looked into it, and stated, "Crierie Bravo Delta Zulu Charlie."
The system confirmed his identity with multiple checks on bioelectrics, mass, handprint, geneprint, retina, and voiceprint. When it was done a light flashed green. The doors swooshed open, and the set within did so a moment later, revealing the chamber within.
It was a generally drab chamber, over eighteen feet high, twenty-three feet wide, and eighteen feet long. The gunmetal gray walls were simple and adorned, and there was only a forcefield projector along the side that could, if necessary, seal off the rear two-thirds of the room. To the upper right were the windows of the control room, complete with blast shutters and their own forcefield generators. Dale thought he could see primers for explosives placed along the wall, a final self-destruct measure if necessary.
But the real surprise was toward the rear of the room.

A giant metal ring, easily thirteen or more feet in diameter, had been locked into place by four clamps, one in the ceiling, one on the floor, and two along the walls. Within the ring was a second ring, on which what easily looked to be thirty or more symbols were etched, and along the circumference of the main ring were nine pieces that were shaped like chevrons and looked to fit individual symbols on the ring.
"Just what is that?" Dale asked.
"It's made out of Guyverite," Crierie explained. "Soaks up energy like a sponge and the mechanism looks you dial it like one of those ancient telephones of the 20th Century. Looks like there are some kind of emitters or emission system inside of it, but hell if we know what it does."
"Actually, Doctor Michaels thought that it could be some kind of wormhole generator, like a minitaturized interuniversal jump point generator," Doctor Richards chimed in. "Most of us laughed, but over time the mathematics looked like it could work that way. The energy absorption of the material would potentially be enough to punch a wormhole in space without blasting the ring to bits, but what would anyone do that for?"
Crierie made a harumph sound. "Actually, it gets wackier, 'cause our records from the world where it was found say that the surroundings had a bunch of Egyptian-like hieroglyphics on them. Had an Egyptologist look 'em over, he said it looked like nonsense, but if one translated them a certain way by using Egyptian symbols we know that look similar to what was there..... it made reference to something called a 'Gate to heaven' or a 'Stargate'."

"Just where is this world that the ring was found on?"
"Ever heard of Universe Designate SRC-19, Mister President?"
Dale felt the reference tickle the back of his brain, as if he'd heard it somewhere, but he couldn't think of it. "Not that I recall," he answered.
"It has a rather lonely spot on the IUCEC's blacklist. It's got a big, nice 'Do Not Enter' sign on it on every IU Gate Assembly and GateShip in the known Multiverse."
Dale's only question was, "Why?"
"Back in the 2090s, just before the DN-9 contact caused everyone's feathers to get ruffled, a company here in the US established a colony there. A survey of a nearby Earth-like world found that thing..." Crierie pointed to the ring. "And brought it home just before the company was kicked out by the military and everyone forced to leave the colony and not come back." Crierie smirked. "Hell, I looked over the records myself, and the only thing I could find out was that a USSN explorer ship, the Abigail Thompson, was lost about fifteen hours before the order came down from Washington to get the hell out of SRC-19. Every record they have about the Thompson's final mission, and the last things the military did in SRC-19 before we pulled out for good is sealed way above me. Hell, Mister President, I doubt even you could get into it, since I figure some NSA bureaucrat would find it conveniently misfiled if you asked about it like President Mamatmas did."

"I don't like mysteries, General Crierie," Dale said as he looked over the Stargate. "And I've got my own contacts."
"Well, sir, good luck with that." Crierie nodded to Colonel MacIntyre. "Mac, why don't you take the President up to see our cyberwar department, he can find out about all the nasty computer viruses that our boys will be trying to put into Borg systems if the Borg ever hit again."
MacIntyre nodded and escorted the President out. Once he was gone, Crierie and Richards looked at each other. "Did Michaels ever finish that device he was working on?"
"You mean the rigging that he thought might let him turn that thing into an IU gate and let us hook it into any others that might be around in SRC-19?" Richards snorted. "Still working on it. I don't know why, Hell, sometimes I think we should just melt it down and use it's Guyverite for more warheads."
Crierie snickered. "So do I, Doc, so do I. But standing orders are to find out how the damned thing works, maybe make our own one day. So we'll just keep going by that."
The two men looked at each other and left the room, plunging the solitary Stargate back into pitch black.

---

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Moderator of SDN, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik