The Hard Line

Fleet Captain Samji felt that maybe the discussion would take a turn to the matter at hand, and if not with support of the ultimate goal, then at least support toward focusing on what really needed to be done by two of the Fleet's Captains.

Then at the outburst from the Flagship Captain, Samji, visibly annoyed, buried his head in his hands. He then glared at them and countered with, "Look, I don't think some of you understand. We're not talking about evacuating trillions of people in a few hours here. Or even a few days, or even a year. Starfleet is not run by complete incompetents, after all. This is a situation where we have time. Not a lifetime, but time nonetheless. All they are saying is that the few planets that are very much in danger of being overtaken in the next few days or weeks will have to be evacuated. Yes, we could move them all out further toward Sol and beyond. And we could keep doing that over the months that it takes us to keep trying to stop the Anomaly while fighting off whatever resistance we continue to invoke from the other factions involved. We can try to jam them into the hundreds of already populated inhabitable worlds in Federation space. Or we can venture out. To discover new planets. Ones that are hopefully inhabitable but unused by the sentient life that exists there. It won't be a mass invasion. It will be a trickle at first while we see what's out there. As humans did when we first began exploring space over three hundred years ago."

His voice beginning to tint again with anger, he said, "And those of you who call yourselves Starfleet Officers... who cower at the notion of exploration of new lives and new civilizations... you jump to conclusions about one simple statement and declare your superiors to be insane. Without asking any questions, or trying to understand the full meaning behind it. Well there's no time right now to explain the Federation's plans even if I knew all the details myself!" he declared almost shouting now.

"But you don't need to know them. All you need to know is that if we don't contain the Azimuth Horizon in the coming days, you will aid and participate in the first part of the evacuation. Scout ships will be sent through to find suitable, uninhabited worlds. Ships will be boarded with people who are willing to leave, and they will be sent through... before their planets are overrun and obliterated. And we will aid our citizens in erecting settlements."

He pointed to the back of the conference hall. "Now, those who would like to continue to declare our superiors insane are free to walk out those doors and send them a subspace message informing them of that fact yourself. Those of you who would like to contribute to our work to contain this Anomaly right now, however, will give me your full attention while we discuss the Klingons."

Samji was fairly certain nobody would be actually taking him up on that offer, but he stood in silence for a long time while he gave them that very opportunity and browsed through his PADD attempting to figure out where he left off.