“Seems like we’ve done this before, Gentlemen,”
Admiral Archer said, walking slowly around a long table. Seated at the table
were two Orions, and three Tellarites. Marandola sat at the head of the table. Ensign
Samuels and Mr. Laskin sat at the other end. “It’s time to settle this.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” said Therad. “We had an agreement with the Tellarites for
the photons, and the thulium. They’ve been taking the thulium for themselves
and keeping the profit!”
“You dropped a trilithium charge on our reactor.”
“How else are we to get your attention? You don’t
think we’d stand for your cheating on our agreement?!” Therad stood up,
towering over everyone else in the room. “We don’t take kindly to dishonesty.”
“That is the only thing you brutes understand!”
shouted Hag Tanch, the primary contact for the consortium. “All you think about
is your women and your money.”
“And do what else would there be to think about, you
trolls. You have no manners!” Therad said with conviction.
You two have waged a war between each other on my
planet,” Marandola snarled. “You have killed dozens of our people, ruined our
town-“
“Your people are enjoying a renaissance in
technology!” the Tellarite shouted. “We’ve given you a wonderful source of
electricity, jobs, your town is better than ever!”
“And who financed those reactors?” Therad boomed.
“Who had the technology for those reactors?” Hag Tanch
retorted.
“STOP!” Archer shouted, holding up his hands. “Just
stop. How the two of you got mixed up in this together is beyond me. You’ve
destroyed a civilization with your greed.” He shook his head, unable to believe
his own ears.
“Neither of you were invited here. You manipulated our
townspeople into thinking this technology came from our own people.”
“And you believed it,” the Tellarite jeered.
“What about our thulium? We have buyers that are
screaming for what you promised us. Are you selling to our buyers?” Therad
shouted.
“Wait,” Archer said. “What did you say about photons?”
“There’s no problem with the photons,” Therad stated.
“But that’s all we are getting. The agreement was for photons and thulium.”
“Thulium – lasers, medicine...what do you mean
photons?”
The Tellarites and Orions looked at each other.
“We recrystallize dilithium with the photons. Being
such a rarity it’s bringing a tremendous profit without the expense and dangers
of mining it. It’s a recycling program, if you will, Admiral.” Therad spoke
with false conviction, but Archer wasn’t amused.
“You built reactors on this planet,” he said to the
Tellarites, “to create electricity to operate your thulium mines,” then he
turned to the Orions “and you financed them because you could gather photons to
recrystallize dilithium,” and again to the Tellarites “but you kept the
thulium…?”
“Admiral Archer, I underestimated you,” Hag Tanch
admitted.
“Jon?” Marandola asked. “Admiral?”
Archer sat down at the table, his head in his hands, a
bit of a fury rising.
“I lost a damn fine friend in this bombing. Families
have been destroyed. And all for what?” he slammed his fist on the table.
“Someone better explain this whole damn fiasco to me before I wring someone’s
fat neck!”
“Tellarites use nuclear power on Tellar. We’ve been
buying photons from them for years. We didn’t like having to travel 200 light
years to get them, it was eating our profit.” Therad started.
“So when we found thorium on this planet,” Hag Tanch
cut in, “we knew we could put up reactors, give this people electricity, and
provide photons to the Orions.”
“But they also found thulium!” The Orion glared at the
Tellarite.
“Thulium wasn’t part of the agreement,” Hag Tanch shot
back.
“Admiral,” the Orion interrupted, “we claimed the
mining rights.”
“No, they belong to us.”
“I think you’re both out of line,” Marandola stated.
“You lied to us,” she directed at Hag Tanch. “You are stealing our natural
resources,” she said to the Orion. “And Jon, I don’t even know where you fit
into all this.”
“I’m going to sort this out right now since the two of
you can’t seem to agree on much except that you’re both exploiting these
people. It took a bomb to finally get this out in the open and I don’t want
another disaster.
“Marandola, I was here 12 years ago, in this city,
when a disease was spreading among the people. It was an anti-matter reactor
depositing toxins into their water supply. My team,” he paused, waving at
Laskin and Samuels, “others at the time, removed it and put your population
back to its normal evolution.” He stood
up again and started to pace back and forth.
“We are allies with Vulcan. They were supposed to come
by, covertly, and make sure other aliens weren’t exploiting your people.”
“Why?”
Marandola asked plainly.
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