While Making Other Plans:
Chapter 28

  “How dare you?” Jaren demanded once they were alone again after their conversation with Bill, his voice breaking with his emphasis on ‘dare’.  “How fucking dare you so casually offer up to these aliens the entirety of my people’s most precious resource?”

  Kathryn sat on the bed and as calmly as she could watched her husband pace angrily back and forth across the room.  She certainly understood his anger, and was willing to allow him to aim it at her, but she remained utterly unmoved by it.

  “Jaren, it is neither mine to give nor yours to refuse.  We will both make our case to our respective leaders and the decision will be theirs, not ours.”

  “We, will do no such thing, I will have no part in this.” he stopped pacing long enough to yell at her with a pointed finger before resuming.

  She could honestly say she’d never seen him anywhere near this angry.  He wasn’t particularly prone to getting angry at all, and she found herself just watching him pace back and forth trying to put her finger on what exactly it was that had sent him into such a state.

  “Very well,” she said.  “Then I’ll need to do it myself.”

  He stopped pacing again and stood in front of her with his fists on his hips.  “You just don’t fucking get it do you?”  It was rare for him to use profanities in general, let alone twice in succession like that.

  Kathryn rose to her feet in front of him.  “No, I don’t Jaren.  Explain it to me.”

  He threw up his hands with an exasperated sigh and resumed his pacing.  Kathryn shook her head with disbelief as it moved side to side watching him move back and forth.  

  “It was one thing to take part in their mission,” he said as she watched him pace, “one thing to give them what little we had with us for the chance to rescue our daughter sure, but this… this is something completely different.”

  “I don’t see how,” Kathryn answered, starting to get angry herself as she lost her considerate willingness to allow him to speak to her way, but she continued to work hard at keeping her cool so she could get out of him what was really bothering him.  “This is just the same on a larger scale.  We gave them a bit of anti-matter to help them gain intel which would allow them to win the war in exchange for their help saving our daughter.  Now we want to give them a lot more to help them win the war in exchange for saving everyone’s daughter.  Is this not the logical next step?”

  Jaren stopped in front of her and held his thumb and forefinger in front of her face.  “Small scale Kathryn, small scale.” he sneered before resuming his pacing.  “My people are not war mongers, but you want to turn us into intergalactic war lords or arms dealers or something!  It goes against everything my people and I stand for!”

  She chose to ignore the accusation and insinuated implication about her own for now in the interest of digging deeper into what his problem was but she was losing patience.  She stood and could feel her calm ebbing and didn’t know how much longer she could tolerate him like this.

  “It goes against everything your people stand for?”  She asked, keeping her voice as calm and composed as she could.  “If that’s so, then tell me why it was only your people who developed such weapons in the first place?”

  “Because we’re the only ones who figured out anti-matter technology at all,” he condescendingly sneered.

  Her voice grew flatter the more she was having to suppress her honest reaction.  “Your people shared that technical information with us, and still Kobol is the only colony to have developed anti-matter weapons.”

  “That’s just it!” he exclaimed.  “If we give up all of our anti-matter, we’ll be completely defenseless!”

  “Defenceless Jaren?  Against who?” she asked.

  “YOU!!” he cried.  “All of you off-worlders!”

  And there it was.  Wide-eyed, Kathryn finally saw the core exposed.

  “We cooperate enough to run Star Fleet together, but we always have to be worry about the other colonies turning on us!  We share so much and it never seems to be enough for you!  We never know when that day is going to come when Haven and Roma decide we’re not sharing enough and decide to do something about it!  That’s why we build weapons Kathryn, to be sure to be able to defend ourselves when that day comes!”

  Kathryn’s anger gave way to utter disbelief.  “You’ve got to be kidding me…” she softly uttered as she looked up at him.  “After all these years…” she shook her head and then rose to her feet, “after all the joint programs and initiatives, all the joint missions…” he paused a moment, still having trouble believing it, “your people are still, that fucking paranoid?  Jesus Christ, Jaren… I had no idea you were such a partisan, such a nationalist!  I really thought you believed in our cooperation and integration as much as I did.  I thought you believed in the dream, in the project of true unity between our worlds that we’ve spent all these years on.  You’re still…” she shook her head again and looked up at him finally.  “You still think we may turn on you at some point.  I can’t believe it.”

  Shame calmed most of the anger out of Jaren’s voice, but not all of it.  The rest remained fueled by his determination.  “Contributing substantially to one side of a galactic civil war, contributing enough to turn the tide of that war, inserting ourselves into something so massive which we understand so little of, goes against everything I believe in, everything I believe my people stand for.  My people may be xenophobic, but we are also pacifist by nature.  We build weapons to defend ourselves, not to wage offensive wars.  What you are suggesting, doing this will create blowback, unintended consequences which we can’t even begin to anticipate.”

  “And if we do nothing,” Kathryn asked, “how long before they come for us?  They know we’ve helped their enemy already and they know where we live.  Some day they will come, probably sooner than later, and if we go home now and bury our heads in the sand we will just be waiting to die.  These people have been good to us.  They’ve so far proven themselves to be good, reliable allies and we need friends like them right now.  

  “This is about more than their war too now Jaren, this is about more than the risk of being attacked by their enemy when they’re no longer around to help us defend against them.  Can’t you see that this is also now about the future of humanity itself?  Making an alliance with the Bobbins opens up the galaxy for humanity.  If we help them out in such a big way in their moment of greatest need, they’ll be forever in our debt.  There’s nothing they wouldn’t share with us, we could be part of a mutual community with them.  It could mean a whole new era of prosperity and development for humanity, but only if we act now and help them when we have the chance to really make a difference for them instead of watching them disappear forever and wait for their enemy to come destroy us.  I can’t accept that Jaren, I won’t.  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do now what I could to secure that kind of future for all of us, for our daughter.

  “You’re making so many lot of assumptions, Kathryn.”

  “I know,” she acknowledged.  “But that’s what it takes sometimes to be hopeful.”

  “And what about the vanquished?  What about all of the enemy Bobbins who aren’t slaughtered by our weapons in the assault?  What do you think will become of them?  What happens when their children grow up being taught that we are the scourge that cost them, their future?”

  “I can only assume that their Link will be deactivated, their leadership held accountable, and their people reintegrated into the friendly Bobbin society.  I imagine a great many of them must be unwitting slaves to the permanent link and will welcome us as liberators once it’s turned off.  A great many of them must be unwitting slaves to the permanent Link.”

  “So many of assumptions…”

  Kathryn had had enough, and she finally stood to assume a more defiant pose.  “Be that as it may, I have a professional obligation to report to Command the facts on the ground as I see them, and to offer my best recommendations based on all of the information available to me.  You will do the same, and in the end the ultimate decision won’t be up to either of us.”

  Jaren stared at her for a few moments in a way that made her increasingly uncomfortable before he waved at the wall to melt away a circular portal.  “I will have no part in this,” he said.  I’m taking Maggie home and washing my hands of all of it.”

  “Jaren, I…” she started, desperate for things to not be left this way between them but no knowing what to say.  “I would have insisted you take Maggie home either way,” was all she was able to say.  She looked at him as he remained still and looking away on the threshold of the doorway, hoping he’d look back at her, that they could have some sort rapprochement, some glimmer of eye contact which could assure her that despite all of this and the way things were right now that in they’d reconcile, that no matter what for better or worse they’d always still be Kathryn and Jaren, that they always would be.

  “I will make my report to command.” he stated before leaving without looking back at her.

  Kathryn cried.