Being Picky

Posted on Tue Jun 9th, 2020 @ 11:38am by Lieutenant Laural Hawke

Mission: Cruel Meridian
Location: XO's office
1955 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Focus. Cassie needed to focus. It was difficult with Lily still in sickbay, but there was work to be done. Events had delayed this important meeting, and she had already postponed her appointment with Commander Hanover on account of her being at her girlfriend's bedside. This couldn't wait any longer. This archaic betrothal contract still bothered her, and she wanted to know for sure if it was perfectly legal.

She took a deep breath when the lift stopped on Deck 3, stepped out, and few moments later, rang the chime.

The door swished open to allow entry. Inside, Commander Hanover stood from his previously seated position, carefully placing a PADD down on the table in front of him before he turned to greet his guest.

"Hello Cassie," he raised a hand to indicate he wasn't finished. "Before we even begin, my deepest sympathy and best wishes to both you and Lieutenant Sullivan. She is important to us all, but nobody knows that better than you. I have the utmost confidence in Doctors Stark, Sekat, and the entire medical team. She'll be right as rain in no time, I'm sure of it."

"Thanks. She is one tough cookie, she'll make it through," Cassie responded when she had entered the office.

"Now, to the matter at hand," Jared continued as he motioned for her to take her choice from the seating arrangements. "We have the rather unique opportunity to pick apart a contract with little to no skin in the game. About as objective as it's possible to be, one would hope. Tell me, have you been able to make any inroads towards a possible diplomatic resolution to our situation?"

Cassie sat down and shook her head. "I've sent messages to representatives of both parties, but neither have responded, despite my follow-ups. Considering we've been chosen as escorts to the Princess, I thought they'd be a bit more cooperative, to be honest. So we're basically on our own."

"That's... disappointing, to say the least," Jared responded. He took a moment to consider the implications of radio silence from not one, but both the Tulias Alliance and the Sozon Empire. Any logical conclusions he arrived at were less than ideal. "Well, eliminating a technical error with our communications, we must assume our messages are being received and ignored. I did some digging myself since we last met. Tell me, have you come across the Hrongan Union in your research?"

"No...should I have?" Cassie asked, cocking her head: her curiosity was piqued. "What is the Hrongan Union?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you read it during one of your briefs and immediately dismissed it as background noise or a rumor propagated by the masses like mothers telling their children about the boogeyman in ancient Earth culture," he explained. "I certainly did, but then I started to see a few patterns. Modus operandi, if you will."

The holo-display in the center of the room illuminated showing a three dimensional replica of the portion of space embroiled in conflict. Blue and red represented the two sides with a yellow dashed line demarcating the generally agreed upon territory claims. However, unlike previous iterations of the map that most of the senior staff had seen, Hanover had added several green markers to the map.

He stopped for a moment as the door slid open to admit the newly assigned Chief of Strategic Operations. Jared motioned Laural inside to join them, filling her in on the conversation up until the point where she had arrived.

"So my friends, do we notice a pattern?"

Cassie studied the map further. Four of these markers were relatively close to either side of the Tulian-Sozon border: outposts, most likely. However, the remaining seven were further out, suggesting strategic resources or facilities. She zoomed in on all markers one by one, noticing the stardate marked beside each of them. "All of these happened within the past year," she remarked. She quickly cross-referenced the signature date on the betrothal contract. "Most of them happened during the drafting of the betrothal contract."

"Aye, that's what I found too. Most, if not all of these events are recent. Here's one from six months ago. The Sozon Empire lost a valuable supply depot and a dilithium processing facility within a week. Naturally, the Tulias media were quite to credit their side with the victory, but I'm not so sure," Jared swept across the display with a hand gesture, moving to the next green marker. "And here again, this time the Tulias Alliance takes it on the nose. Ship building facilities and long range sensors. All eleven of these events have a common thread - quick strike capability, strategically significant targets, but minimal casualties to both sides."

"But these two here," Cassie pointed at two markers on either side of the border, "what are these, outposts?"

"Intelligence is regretfully sparse here. Very little information is available on either of those events, which is a marked difference from the media coverage of the other attacks. The only thing we know for sure is that these two events are the most recent," Jared zoomed the display into the two markers in question. "In fact, they are very recent, indeed."

Cassie leafed through the contract in her PADD, looking for a specific keyword. "Here," she said as she transferred a section of the document. "There's a cease-fire clause in this contract, applicable upon signature. And it says here, and I quote, 'any violation, from either the Sozon Empire or the Tulian Alliance, of article 3 of present contract may result in the invalidation of the agreement stated in this document.' And these two strikes, which happened weeks following the final signature, seemed to have been kept pretty hush-hush."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Hanover looked across to his colleagues.

"Are you suggesting the Union might be trying to invalidate the contract?" the diplomat asked.

"it's possible, but it may also be a splinter faction," Laural observed.

"Yes, perhaps," the executive officer rubbed his beard as he was prone to do when lost in matters of thought. The holographic fire inside the nearby wood burning stove crackled away; the light flickered and danced on the opposite wall.

"What other clauses exist in the contract?" Hanover continued. "For argument's sake, let's say there is a third party involved in the proceedings with the goal of stopping the wedding. They would have to operate in the shadows, lacking the strength to work in broad daylight, using the technicalities and entrapment of a culture shackled by tradition to their own political advantage. So what else could they use in the contract? Anything?"

"There's the matter of a virgin wedding, which I've already expressed my opinion about..." Cassandra said distantly, almost to herself as she searched the contract through keywords. "Here," she finally pointed. "Article 9. Opening of embassies following...putain de merde... consummation. A Sozon embassy on Tulia III and a Tulian one on Sozon II. Good way to introduce spies, especially since violation of certain clauses could invalidate the contract post-wedding. Most notably," she explained, scrolling down to another section of the long document, "Article 17. Both parties are subject to sanctions in case of any event proven to be an act of sabotage. That goes up to and includes annulment if said act is proven to have been committed by the Tulian Alliance."

"This is giving me a headache," Jared allowed his PADD to fall onto the desk with a unceremonious thunk. "Perhaps we should come at this from a different angle. There is a lot of bias in this room against this situation because of personal ethics and morals. I wouldn't change any of that, not for a second - but, for sake of argument, let's talk about the other side of the coin. What are the reasons that this wedding should continue?"

“Political alliances like this can lead to peace for both sides. There’s also preferential treatment such as trading treaties and scientific research,” Laural observed.

"Let's see... Article 3 does state a cease-fire between the two parties, applicable upon signature of the contract. According to this, a full-on peace treaty would be possible a certain amount of time after the wedding. Article 4 states that trade routes could gradually be opened after the wedding, sharing of resources, et cetera. Access to scientific faciities are outlined in article 5," Cassie paraphrased from the document. "Cultural and educational exchanges in article 6..."

"It all sounds nice, if only we could ensure they would be implemented as written," Jared sighed, remembering for the third or fourth time in the last ten minutes why he had not pursued a career in the diplomatic corps. "My concern is twofold. One, we have discovered evidence that may suggest a splinter faction operating in the shadows. Lieutenant Hawke, I'm going to count on you to discover as much as you can - even if it means we're chasing down a lead that isn't actually there.

"And Miss Leblanc-Reed," Jared turned his attention towards the ship's lead diplomat. "I'm afraid I am not skilled enough to articulate my exact thoughts concisely, so I will have to burden you with a longer explanation of my thoughts. I am concerned that we may be pursuing our own agenda in this matter. I would hazard a guess that our intentions are pure and come from having a moral compass that is strong enough to cause us to want to take action, but is it our place? Our mission has not changed. We were assigned to escort Her Royal Highness."

"And we are escorting Princess Leyana to Sozon II. That's not in question. I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that this document advantages the Empire much more than it does the Alliance. It's subject to much more severe sanctions than the Empire is," Cassandra explained. "But then, I may be overstepping my bounds, and looking at this too much in terms of Federation law, notwithstanding local customs. I apologize."

"On that front, we may have some leverage after all," Hanover returned to the display. A copy of two similar documents appeared in holographic representation in the middle of the room. "I'm rehashing old facts here, but remember, both sides are actively expressing interest in becoming members of the Federation. Settling this war is a major prerequisite to both applications, so while Federation law may not apply, perhaps this is an angle we can use."

Cassie thought about this for a moment. "It would apply to the condition under which the applicant's government should have achieved stable planetary political unity, demonstrating a resolution of social and political differences and a respect of the rights of the individual. That particular condition is certainly open to interpretation by whoever is reviewing the case, no?" she asked as she quickly read over both applications. "Certain clauses could be viewed as violating that condition," she speculated.

Jared could do little else but nod at the discovery. Navigating the political quagmire of technicalities, appendices, and sub-clauses to sub-clauses was far from his forte, but he certainly felt that they had a chance to establish a foundation for their argument against the contract.

"I like it, let's move forward with this for now. Thank you both for your expertise in the matter. I must admit I'm out of my comfort zone and my forte here, so I'm all the more appreciative of having your experience on our team," Hanover nodded at both Laural and Cassie. "If there's nothing further, you are dismissed. I'll keep you advised if anything new pops up."

---

Commander Jared Hanover
Executive Officer

Cassandra Leblanc-Reed
Chief Diplomat

Lieutenant Laural Hawke
Chief Strategic Operations Officer