Rating: R
Genres: drama
Keywords: Romulans
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This story is number 1 in the series Five Year Mission
1 year and 2 months earlier….
Feb 17, 2155 (Monday) 1512 - 95th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
The Hall of State was a massive building. Its square base was 800 meters on a side and it towered one hundred stories above the Romulan capital city of Ra'tleihfi. On the roof, a park like area surrounded the ancient Senate Chambers, lifted stone by stone from their original location at ground level and reassembled high above the city. Beneath the Senate Chambers was much of the bureaucratic machinery of the Romulan Imperial government. Senator’s offices made up the top three floors. The five floors beneath those made up the Office of the Praetor. Scattered throughout the building were the headquarters offices of the Galae s’Shiar and various ministries. All were continually vying for space closer to the top, closer to the seats of power.
The Praetor’s Foreign Threat Council was meeting. The Council consisted of the Praetor, Proconsul Tamman, Senator Selak, Chair of the War Committee, Senator Miral, Chair of the Intelligence Committee, and General Vralax, the head of Intelligence for the Galae s’Shiar. They had gotten past the preliminaries and now the topic being discussed was the takeover of Vulcan.
The Praetor was the same age as Proconsul Tamman, 147. They had graduated from the Romulan Military Academy together, 117 years before; Tamman had been first in the class, the Praetor, fifteenth. The Praetor had always had that extra bit of drive, though, that extra bit of charisma, that had put into the limelight while Tamman supported him. It had worked out well, and together they had ascended to the peak of the Romulan Empire. The Praetor enjoyed his food and drink more than Tamman, carrying quite a bit more weight, making him look a little soft in contrast to Tamman’s sharp, hawk like features. Believing the Praetor to actually be soft inside had been the fatal mistake of more than one rival.
The Praetor was not happy. He said, “We were this close to taking complete control of Vulcan. We had control over the Administrator of the High Council! It’s now been nine months since those idiots V’Las and Delon bungled everything; you’ve had plenty of time to evaluate the situation. Where are we now?”
Proconsul Tamman said, “Well, we extracted and disposed of V’Las.” His body had been pushed out of an airlock a light year away from Vulcan. They had been merciful – he had been killed with a shot to the head from a disruptor first.
He continued, “Former Centurion Delon has been demoted. We are working to reestablish our network of operatives on Vulcan. The Vulcans are still unaware of our influence but they have been generally removing anyone in government who was associated with V’Las. This has had a negative effect on our penetration of their government.”
The Praetor looked at his old friend. “Excuses, excuses, Tamman. We were ready to take full control! Then, out of nowhere, there is now a ‘Coalition of Planets’? The Andorians and the Tellarites are talking to each other? And worse yet, they are both conspiring with the Vulcans! This is unacceptable! Our only chance to take control is to conquer them one by one. We cannot take on all of them together! How are we going to bring our plans to fruition?”
Proconsul Tamman spoke. “We need more information, Praetor, we need more information.” He turned to General Vralax. “General Vralax. It has been six months since you took over Intelligence. At that time, you said it would take six months to produce a report on the Coalition of Planets and the member races. How is that proceeding?”
The General shifted nervously. “Well, Proconsul, we have been having some difficulty collecting all of the required information. Our policy of concealment with respect to our cousins the Vulcans and their neighbors has slowed the process considerably. Our agents operate most freely on Vulcan but it is difficult to sneak ships past the Vulcan defenses and subspace transmissions are allowed only for the most urgent communications.”
Senator Miral decided to jump into the fray. She said, “That sounds like an excuse, General. The report was supposed to be ready by now. We need sound intelligence to plan.”
Vralax was trapped. “No excuses, Senator. The reports are being prepared now. We will have them by Friday.”
The Praetor spoke. “See that we do. Let us move to the next item on the agenda: Improving intelligence quality with efficiency tracking and reporting. That sounds promising…”
Feb 17, 2155 1615 - 75th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
General Vralax returned to his office after the meeting. He was lean, 110 years old. Most of his career had been spent in the operational side of Intelligence. He was used to problems that you could shoot with a disruptor and subordinates that wanted to take action; not sit at their desks drinking seklal (the Romulan equivalent of coffee). He had been promoted to General and Head of Intelligence in the wake of the V’Las fiasco. He had cleaned that up, but he was finding taking firm control of the bureaucrats to be difficult. They always had some weaselly answer, always some loophole to excuse themselves. Well, no more. It was time to kick some ass and get this report finished.
He called Sub-Commander T’Mirin. T’Mirin was in charge of the intelligence gathering effort versus the Coalition. The younger man on the screen braced to attention when he saw Vralax. He thumped his chest and made the Romulan salute immediately. “How may I serve, General?” he asked.
General Vralax leaned forward in his chair. “Sub-Commander. We need to have the Intelligence Briefings on the Coalition of Planets and all of its member worlds finished for the Foreign Threat Council. These are to be delivered to my office by Thursday.”
“Sir, we are still gathering and compiling information,” T’Mirin replied.
“Is that an excuse, Sub-Commander? You have had five months to compile information. I want those reports finished.”
“Sir! They will be delivered on Thursday.”
“Good.” The General broke the connection.
Feb 17, 2155 1630 - 25th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
Sub-Commander T’Mirin began contacting each of the offices responsible for the Coalition planets, spreading the pain rapidly and efficiently. The reports were now due to him Wednesday.
Feb 17, 2155 1635 - 14th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
Sub-Commander Valin turned away from the viewscreen. He called the 19 other specialists assigned to the Vulcan desk into the large conference room.
Feb 17, 2155 1637 - 10th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
Centurion Varal gathered up the 10 intelligence operatives assigned to the Andorian desk.
And so it went, until…
Feb 17, 2155 1650 - Sublevel 3, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
“Earth desk, Uhlan Neral speaking.”
T’Mirin peered out of the screen. “Where is Sublieutenant Shival?”
“He stepped out for a moment, sir,” Neral said nervously.
“No matter. We need to have the Intelligence Briefing on Earth prepared by Wednesday.”
“Wednesday, sir? We have not received all of the required information yet. We were only formed a week ago!”
“Is that an excuse Uhlan? This report is going to be seen by the Praetor!”
Uhlan Neral gulped and squeaked, “Yes sir! Wednesday, Sir!”
“Get to work Uhlan!” T’Mirin barked and broke the connection.
Feb 17, 2155 1700 - Sublevel 3, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus
Sublieutenant Shival walked back down the hall from the restroom. He was 131, had been a Sublieutenant for fifty years and he would probably retire a Sublieutenant. The Earth desk had been formed a week ago as the obscure planet began to appear in more and more reports. He had spent most of that time organizing his desk, procuring a seklal dispenser and issuing requests for information to the field liaisons. He had yet to actually read anything about Earth. Uhlan Neral had joined him two days before. Thirty years old, he was fresh from the Romulan Military Academy.
When the door slid open on the small, cramped office they shared, Neral jumped to his feet.
“Sublieutenant, I’m so glad you’re back. We just got a call from Sub-Commander T’Mirin. He wants the Earth Intelligence Briefing to be finished by Wednesday!”
“Oh he does, does he? Calm down Neral, calm down. Did you tell him that we haven’t received all of the information yet?”
“Yes! He told me no excuses and this was going to the Praetor!”
“Calm down, calm down. Well, we’re just going to have to make do with what we already have. It’s not as though anyone is really interested in Earth anyhow. Don’t worry.”
“You think we can put it together that quickly?”
“There’s a standard form. Relax. I’ll pull up the form and you get the information that we have already.”
“OK!” Neral was much relieved by Shival’s calming comments.
Shival got a mug of seklal from the dispenser and sat at his workstation. “All right,” said Shival, tapping around. “Here we have it. Intelligence Briefing, Alien Planet. Let’s see… name… coordinates I have here… What’s the population?”
Neral flicked around quickly. “Ummm, according to this Vulcan report, 6 billion.”
“6 billion?”
“That’s what it says here.”
Shival sighed. Everyday was training day with these young people. “OK, you have to use some common sense when compiling these reports. What’s the population of Romulus, Uhlan?”
“Uhhh…1 billion?”
“Correct. Vulcan?”
“600 million?”
“Correct again! How about Andoria?”
“About 200 million?”
“More like 250 million. I think you get the point. Coridan has 3 billion and it’s the most populated world I can think of. Six billion is ridiculous, especially for people that just barely have warp drive. That must have been a translation error – Vulcan and Romulan share the same root language and on short phrases the translation program sometimes recognizes Vulcan as Romulan and just passes it through.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Well, live and learn Uhlan. Some shared words have shifted in meaning and it causes no end of trouble. The Vulcan gerak means 1,000,000 and our gerak is 10,000,000 so when you see big numbers that look too big by a factor of 10, that’s usually it. Most likely someone on Vulcan wrote it out as 600 Vulcan gerak and then the auto translator passed it through as 600 Romulan gerak and then it got translated into digits. Let’s put that down as six hundred million. The planet is probably more fertile than Romulus or Vulcan,” he lectured.
“Yes sir!” It was so good to work with someone of Shival’s experience, thought Neral.
“OK, languages?”
“There are 20 listed and it says there are more than 3000 spoken on the planet.”
“What? Those Vulcans. All that logic and they come up with the stupidest things. Copy off the top five and send them to me. Even that seems like too many.”
“OK, that’s sent. Next?”
“Well, we need population centers.”
“Yes sir. They’re listed here by size. Tokyo, 35 million. Jakarta, 22 million. Mumbai, 21 million.”
“Stop. It must be that damn gerak unit again. Copy those over and divide them all by 10.”
“Yes sir. Um, sir, we haven’t gotten any recent data from the Vulcans apparently. This report I’m reading is actually from a historical record. It’s nearly 150 years old! Why would we be getting this kind of data?”
“Well, it’s not like we have a tap into the Vulcan network we can use here. Everything has to be requested from one of our operatives, copied and then smuggled out. We can’t take massive data dumps without getting caught so it’s very directed. I don’t think anyone ever asked for any information on Earth before. This was probably background for another report. Check the provenance. It’s that button up in the upper left hand corner.”
Uhlan clicked and squinted at the tiny type that appeared in a box on his screen. “You’re right. It was attached to a report on Vulcan explorations.”
“It should be fine, things never change that quickly.”
“But this is going to the Praetor!” objected Neral.
“They know how to read intelligence briefings up there, trust me. We’ll just make sure that it’s documented. Let me introduce you to your new best friend. It’s called a ‘footnote’.”
Sounds like being a staff officer on Romulus isn't all that different from being a staff officer on Earth.
I'm always amused by the process of generating "facts". There was one time I was trying to track down the source of a particular number that showed up in the usual suspects' (Gartner, etc.) white papers and finally went back through the chain of references and tracked it to a company where I'd worked in the past. And I was there, when that number was generated, and I know that the person who generated it just pulled it out of the air (actually, I usually use another three letter word that starts with a). I was expecting that all of the "analysts" had verified it somehow, but no, they'd just passed it along and put their own stamp on it so it's now a commonly accepted fact.
I've seen smart people make smart decisions that turn out to be really dumb because the data was wrong many, many times.
In this timeline, I'm thinking that WW III happened sometime in the 2020's or later, so the numbers they're working from are really a historical document from the early 2000's that the Vulcans copied in verbatim for some other reason.
And things don't change that quickly - except when they do! We went to see King Tut's stuff recently. Egypt had thousands of years of basically the same history. So, is the last hundred years of constant change the new normal or is it all going to settle down again?
Thanks for the comments!
I can't help chuckling, to see the orders slowly grind through the massive Romulan bureaucracy at work. I suppose they've had a couple of thousand years since the Sundering for the bueaucracy and processes and paperwork and vested interests to accumulate. And by the time it gets to the people who actually do the work, six months have been frittered away in planning and requisitions and finding a really good seklal machine.
By my reckonning the Vulcan survey would have been shortly after the third world war, when population was at a low. Based on contemporary population figures I guess the population could realistically have grown by an order of magnitude in the subsequent hundred and fifty years. It does make sense that the Vulcan and Andorian populations would be much smaller, given how inhospitable their home moon and planet are. I'm beginning to see why the vulcans are so concerned about those volatile humans. Still, there shouldn't be any problem. After all, things never change that quickly. :D
Gotta love bureaucrats. it would appear that the human sub-species bureaucratus weaslus is common in other humanoids, along with buckus-passus.