Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

* * *

Rome’s Forum had changed over the millennia, but only incrementally so. The determinedly traditional Romans had added new civic buildings and temples, replacing or repurposing some as religious icons fell out of favor and others which had fallen literally, erased either by force of arms or the forces of nature.

What on Earth was a collection of crumbling ruins was here on Magna Roma a thing of breathtaking vibrancy. Columns abounded, whether Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian, some standing in solitary majesty, others supporting massive structures that had been fastidiously maintained for thousands of years. Temples, palaces, arches and basilicas crowded one another, rising layer upon layer into the sky in a stepped mélange of conflicting architectural styles.

In contrast to those remains on Earth, so long ago bleached by the sun and scoured clean by archologists, the structures here were painted in a variety of colors, with blue, straw, black, purple and chestnut among them.

Trujillo had set foot on numerous alien worlds during her career, some offering advanced urban vistas of far greater splendor than this, but she had been unprepared for the full weight of the emotional resonance of this bizarre, alternate Earth. Its history settled onto her like a physical weight, leaving her almost dizzy with its implications. This was not a dusty museum or a holographic recreation, but a living, breathing place inhabited by a human culture radically different than the one she knew.

She had visited the ruins of ancient Rome half a dozen times as a child and young adult, mesmerized by the majesty and dread they evoked. She was drawn to both the enormous potential and terrible savagery that the Roman Republic and the later Empire had represented. So many of the democratic ideals perfected by later ages had grown here, seeded by the example of the Greeks and the excesses of the Etruscans. Those ideals had eventually collapsed into totalitarian rule, swallowed by despotism fueled by internecine warfare.

Trujillo wondered how much of what she remembered of Rome’s history from her own world had occurred here. Had their people suffered the civil strife leading to the rise and eventual murder of Caesar? Had they enjoyed the poems of Ovid and Virgil, the histories of Tacitus and Suetonius? She cursed herself for not having asked Helvia those questions before now. She’d been so damnably preoccupied with the mysteries known only to the Federation historians and cultural specialists assigned here, those whose findings remained under lock and key courtesy of Starfleet Intelligence.

A stiff breeze blustered through the Forum, snapping the Romanii banners and guidons carried by the ceremonial legionaries, and making Trujillo grateful for the thermostatic properties of her dress uniform. A dusting of ash continued to fall, blowing to and fro, complements of the five active volcanoes within three hundred kilometers of the city. The air carried the faint scent of sulfur, adding to the surreal quality of the scene.

She wore an assemblage of ‘fruit salad’ beneath her Starfleet communicator badge, rows of ribbons denoting medals, citations and campaigns. In the top row, sandwiched between her Legion of Honor and her Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry was her newest award, the Grankite Order of Tactics presented to her so recently by Vice-Admiral Ch'thannak.

The awards would be meaningless to the Romanii, of course, aside from the fact that they were honors rendered to her for accomplishments in the line of duty. That was presumably something so martial a people would understand and might appreciate.

Trujillo was flanked on one side by Ambassador Dax, and on the other by Lieutenant Helvia, the trio escorted by Reykjavík’s own honor guard of sixteen security personnel in armored vests and helmets, holding phaser rifles at port arms.

A part of her envied Curzon. To him this was just another alien planet, devoid of any psychological implications or unwelcome comparisons to his own homeworld.

A column of soldiers marched past in a flawless formation, wearing the garb of ages past. Their helmets, breastplates, shields, swords and spear-tips gleamed in the sporadic sunbeams that penetrated the ashen skies.

“I’ll give them this,” Trujillo said sotto voce to Curzon with grudging admiration, “they really know how to put on a show.”

“This is what martial hegemonies excel at,” he replied in a like tone. “Pomp and circumstance, banners, swords and shiny armor to impress the barbarians.”

A woman approached, followed by a phalanx of what appeared to be administrative personnel. She was tall and radiated a regal sort of elegance. Obviously high-born, her aristocratic bearing was immediately obvious in her posture and movement. It was as though she glided across the cobblestones rather than walked. Her face was a near perfect oval, with a well-defined chin, attractive aquiline nose, inquisitive hazel eyes and flawless pale skin.

She wore a traditional stola, a sleeveless garment comprised of heavy fabric containing many folds that wrapped around her and covered her undergarment shift. This golden fabric boasted ornamental shoulder pads and a leather belt secured the vestment’s waist. A section of the stola served as a hood to cover the woman’s elaborately coiffed raven hair.

She came to a stop in front of the Federation delegation.

“Greetings. I bid you welcome to Rome, center of our world and of our culture. I am the Imperial Vestal, Liviana Ovicula, representing our Ministry of Alien Affairs. The First Consul and representative of the Senate would like to meet with you in the Curia Julia.”

Trujillo deferred to Curzon, who responded with a respectful bow, “Thank you, Imperial Vestal. I am Ambassador Curzon Dax of the United Federation of Planets. This is Commodore Nandi Trujillo, commanding officer of the starship Reykjavík and leader of squadron that brought us to Magna Roma.” He gestured to the enormous man to his immediate left. “This is Lieutenant Titus Helvia, the commodore’s Chief Security Officer.”

Ovicula nodded in greeting to Trujillo and Helvia, but it was upon the man that her eyes lingered, narrowing fractionally as she spied the tiny links of chain dangling in a dipping curve beneath his communicator badge. That symbol paired with his very Roman name could not have been more obvious.

“Please, follow me,” Ovicula said with a sweeping gesture towards a structure some hundred meters distant, across a paved courtyard flanked by rows of freestanding columns.

The trio, trailed by their security detachment, fell into step behind the woman and her escorts.

Ovicula turned to regard Trujillo, her eyes taking in the woman’s uniform and its various pins, ribbons and assorted emblems. “You are a soldier?”

“Starfleet is more an explo—” Curzon began, only to be cut off mid-sentence by Trujillo’s reply.

“Yes,” Trujillo affirmed, perhaps a bit too loudly. She cast a self-deprecating glance toward the ambassador while smiling faintly. “I believe Ambassador Dax was going to lend some context to that statement. Starfleet serves chiefly as a scientific and exploratory organization, though we are also sworn to safeguard the lives and property of our citizens. Among our ranks I hold myself more soldier than diplomat or explorer.”

“I see,” Ovicula replied. “Most interesting.”

The woman turned, gesturing towards the array of columns surrounding them and turning impromptu tour-guide. “These triumphal columns represent the accomplishments of General Atilius Salutio and his legions which wrested control of the New Lands from the Eastern Barbarians a thousand years ago. Each one represents a battle fought to establish Roman rule across those continents, prior to Salutio’s return to Europa and his ascension to the emperor’s throne.

Trujillo looked with interest at the sculptures atop each of the massive colonnades, the one closest to them denoting Atilius Salutio leading from atop what appeared to be a war chariot.

From beside her Helvia’s voice came in a whisper, “It was a genocide of the Eastern settlers of what you would call North and South America, and that of the remaining indigenous peoples of those lands. Many were put to the sword, but far more fell to fire and disease.”

Trujillo nodded fractionally, her fascination with the columns quenched by Helvia’s graphic description. “Not so dissimilar to our own, then,” she said.

“From whence do you come on your world, Commodore Trujillo?” Ovicula asked.

“Spain,” Trujillo replied, “the city of Salamanca.” She gave Ovicula a curious grin. “What you would call Iberia.”

Ovicula nodded, smiling. “An Iberian. I might have known. You have that cast to you.” She then looked at Helvia. “And you, Lieutenant?”

Helvia took a moment to answer, courting a glance from Trujillo and even one from Curzon.

“I was born in Nola,” he finally answered. “Raised from the age of six in Rome.”

“Ah, so you are that Titus Helvia,” she concluded. “The Hammer returns home.” She smiled wistfully. “You know, I believe my older brother had a poster of you on his wall.”

Helvia had no reply to that, though the big man seemed to shrink into himself somewhat at the mention of his former notoriety.

The group proceeded to the entrance of a relatively modest structure by the Forum’s standards, the oft-rebuilt Curia Julia. A three-story building constructed of brick-faced concrete supporting a huge buttress at each end to reinforce the roof. The lower portion of the building was decorated with slabs of marble, while the upper stories were covered in what appeared to be stucco imitation of white marble blocks. A single flight of stairs led up to tall, narrow bronze doors tinted green with time and weather.

The group ascended the steps as the doors were opened from within by more modern garbed Romanii soldiers, clad in grayish military fatigues and helmets, each armed with a disruptor rifle but still carrying a sheathed gladius dangling from their equipment belt.

The diplomatic party entered, the security detachment arrayed behind Dax, Trujillo and Helvia. The room was filled by middle-aged and older men dressed in something roughly equivalent to a Terran 20th century business suit sans tie, over which a toga was loosely worn as a symbol of office.

A man in a military-style uniform sporting gaudy epaulets and a blood red sash over one shoulder rushed forward to examine Helvia before calling back to the others. “By the Gods, I told you it was him!”

He reached out without warning to snatch the links of chain from the front of Helvia’s uniform tunic, throwing the symbol to the ground behind him in a gesture of profound disgust. He then turned to face Curzon. “We thank you, Federations, for returning our stolen property.”

* * *

It had been six years, nine months, and twenty-seven days since Trujillo had last physically struck another person in the line of duty.

She sidestepped deftly in front of Curzon to deliver a palm-heel strike that snapped the Romanii officer's head back, which bobbed forward again just in time to receive her knife-hand jab to his throat. As the man recoiled backwards, coughing, choking and clawing at his neck, she grabbed hold of his decorative red baldric and tore it from him, casting it behind her in much the same way he had Helvia’s linked chain.

The Romanii soldiers’ rifles came up, followed a second later by those of the Starfleet security contingent.

Trujillo stepped forward with practiced nonchalance to bend down and retrieve the religious symbol from the floor. She handed it back to Helvia, who accepted it solemnly, though his eyes twinkled with silent amusement.

There was a rush by several senators to take hold of the offending party and pull him back away from the visiting delegation. He was hustled unceremoniously out of the room.

A man moved forward; hands held up at shoulder height. “Please, everyone, this is a terrible misunderstanding…”

“Is this how the Roman Empire treats its honored guests?” Trujillo seethed. “The Orions were correct, you are a just a pack of backward barbarians, aren’t you?”

First Consul Hrabanus Macer gestured for the Romanii guards to lower their weapons as he walked forward squarely into the Starfleet security team’s firing line. “You have my most profound apologies, Commodore. General Caudex is given to drink and has consumed far too much wine on this occasion.”

Trujillo advanced on him, still glowering. “Lieutenant Helvia is a Federation citizen and a commissioned officer in Starfleet. He will not be manhandled by your general or anyone else. Your people have already committed multiple acts of aggression against the Federation in the attacks upon our transport ships, and now you compound these crimes by this disgusting display!”

“Again, Commodore,” Macer beseeched, “I apologize profusely for his actions, and I will see to it that he is appropriately disciplined.”

Trujillo looked to Curzon, whose right hand reappeared from behind his back after sliding his hidden mek’leth up and back into its concealed scabbard across his back beneath his robes.

“Shall we remain, or return to our ship, Mister Ambassador?”

Curzon considered that a moment and then replied, “Let us see where this goes from here, Commodore. Perhaps this was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. We should at least allow them to try and make amends.”

Trujillo nodded curtly. “As you wish.” She turned back to address the security contingent. “Weapons down,” she ordered.

The emitters of the phaser rifles lowered in unison.

She turned back to Macer who had interposed himself between the diplomatic party and the remaining Romanii. "And you are?"

“I am First Consul Hrabanus Macer. On behalf of myself, the Consular Authority, and the Roman Senate, I welcome you to Rome.”

* * *

Lieutenant Garrett had routed all geological sensor displays through the stellar cartography chamber, the largest imaging array aboard ship. They had continued taking detailed scans of the planet since arriving in close orbit, probing the depths of the planet’s crust, mantle, and core.

Davula stood with her atop the viewing platform, staring out at the magnified view of Magna Roma’s churning tectonic activity. “So, what you’re saying is the only reason Rome’s still standing is those seismic dampeners?”

“Yes, sir,” Garrett answered. “They’re clearly of Lissepian manufacture, though they appear to include some Orion, Klingon, and Benzite components.” She raised her hand, the cursor on the giant viewer following the line of her finger as she traced a path to another sub-surface installation. “These are geothermal regulators…” another cursor was drawn several hundred kilometers towards the equator, “…and this is an entire region where all volcanic activity has been suppressed.”

“Suppressed?” Davula wondered aloud. “How?”

“Some kind of cold-fusion detonation, but I’ve never seen anything like it. That someone would use so dangerous a device just to cap an active volcano is madness.”

“It would flash-carbonize anything within tens of kilometers, annihilating all plant and animal life in the process,” Davula observed. “Nothing would grow again in those areas for hundreds of years.”

“Yes, and yet there’s signs they’ve done it all over the planet, possibly hundreds of times.”

“They’re desperate,” Davula concluded.

Garrett concurred, “It certainly looks that way, sir. There are abandoned remains of dozens of major cities across the planet, all destroyed by local volcanic or seismic activity. Some of them were flattened by quakes, others smothered in pyroclastic flows or choked under meters of scalding ash.”

“How long has this been going on for?”

Garrett checked some figures. “From what data I’ve been able to collate, the better part of forty years.”

“And can we tell from the planet’s plate-tectonics whether this is a natural occurrence?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Garrett said. “The geological record suggests that this world is far more active in that respect than is Earth, but this level of activity is generally seen much earlier in a planet’s lifespan. Earth’s Precambrian period or Andor’s Glacis Age are good examples.”

Davula stood back and nodded. “Okay, Mister Garrett, excellent work. Let’s say we shift our focus now to why this is happening.”

* * *

The negotiations continued late into the night, with Trujillo witnessing firsthand why Curzon Dax was considered such a renowned envoy within the Diplomatic Corps. The man was engaging, charming, cunning, and utterly focused when in his element. The Magna Romanii representatives were quite good, having bargained for decades with the likes of the Orions, but Curzon had the edge in skill and experience.

Meanwhile, the medical sensor secreted into Trujillo’s belt buckle was transmitting telemetry to the tricorder carried by one of the security escorts, which in turn was being broadcasted under heavy encryption back to the ship. Via the tiny hidden earpiece in her left ear, Dr. Bennett was able to assure Trujillo that none of the Romanii in the room were Augments. In fact, no one she had come close to during her time on the surface had been identified as being genetically enhanced.

The same sensor had enabled the team to scan all of the immense quantities of food and drink on offer for poisons or other contaminants, perhaps designed to make them more pliable during the negotiations.

The Romanii had been tight-lipped so far, refusing to acknowledge responsibility for the attack on the Starfleet deuterium fueler, despite the overwhelming evidence that those who carried out the assault were enhanced Magna Romanii. They argued that their own military spacecraft were limited to sub-light, and they possessed no warp-capable vessels, suggesting that if these raiders were Romanii they were brigands striking without official sanction using foreign assets.

They seemed fixated on potential trade relations with the Federation, either collectively or with individual member planets. Their need for assistance with the geological catastrophe that was currently unfolding on their world was no secret, and their desperation for advanced seismic sensors and regulation systems was palpable.

Trujillo sat in on some of the early talks, taking the opportunity to stretch her legs between sessions as she studied the Romanii delegation. Helvia was the focus of a great deal of attention, some of it blatant, while others at least made an attempt at subtlety.

Helvia himself appeared hyper-focused on his duties, though whether this was simply his typically disciplined demeanor or an attempt to distract himself from standing on the soil of his homeworld for the first time in more than fifteen years, Trujillo couldn’t tell.

The man was an ascetic, living only to serve Starfleet. When he wasn’t on post, he was training, praying, meditating, or sleeping. He had no social life, at least none that anyone else aboard had even spoken of. His faith and his duty consumed him utterly, and his fellow senior officers considered him something of a warrior-monk. They had long since ceased inviting Helvia to after-shift social events or shore leave excursions.

Trujillo found herself growing tired and irritable at Romanii obfuscation as the hours ground on. Curzon had circled back to the attack on Federation shipping, this time from another angle, but his tactic yielded the same results. Denials, dissembling and distraction were all employed yet again as the Romanii protested their innocence.

Curzon had signaled her covertly some minutes ago with a seemingly innocuous hand gesture. It was once again time to play the role of the temperamental soldier, a marked contrast from Curzon’s jovial bonhomie. Given her darkening mood, the part would be far easier for her now than it had been hours earlier when they had first arrived. True, striking the general had not been an explicit part of their gameplan, but the man had genuinely angered her and his drunken oafishness had given Trujillo an opening to establish with the Romanii that the Federation were anything but pushovers.

“Enough!” Trujillo barked, causing a number of their hosts around the table to start as she brought her hands down palm-first onto the large circular table with a resounding bang.

Curzon, too, had begun to tire as the session crept into the wee hours, and was himself startled by the commodore’s sudden interruption.

“We are not fools, and I am through entertaining your lies,” she growled, scanning the faces of their adversaries situated around the table. “We know these men are Augments, and that you have had help from one of your foreign allies in resequencing their genome. This was likely enabled by the same power that provided you with your hand-me-down warp ships.”

A murmur of protests began, and Trujillo waved them away impatiently.

“If you continue on in this fashion there will be nothing left for us to discuss. I will order an entire fleet into orbit of your world. We will disable your weapons satellites and your quaint little space navy and blockade your planet. No more Orion or Lissepian help, no more advanced technology, and no more ore shipments from your off-world colonies. We’ll watch from on high while Magna Roma tears itself apart and you choke on volcanic fumes and ash. Your Augment soldiers will be tracked down and be either captured or killed, since they won’t be able to come home for repairs or resupply.”

“You dare threaten us?” a senator shouted.

Trujillo stared daggers at him. “Well, at least I can now confirm that you possess the intellectual capacity to realize when you’re being threatened. Good. I was afraid I was going to have to resort to an illustrated diagram!”

Curzon dropped his head in seeming dismay, when in reality he was fighting back laughter.

The senator nearly recoiled in shock, struck speechless by her audacity.

Trujillo encompassed their surroundings in a sweeping gesture. “You are fortunate you chose to attack us, rather than the Klingon or Romulan Empires. Either one of them would have darkened your skies with a full battle fleet and burned your world down around you. No negotiations, no mercy. They’d have done to you what your General Salutio did to the peoples of the New Lands.”

This quieted much of the rising outrage from the Romanii, who looked to one another in confusion or outright concern.

“Unlike those powers, we can be negotiated with, but only so long as you do so in good faith. Treat us with respect, and we shall reciprocate. Lie to us, attack our interests, and we will treat you as no more than unruly children in need of strict discipline.”

A chorus of shouts and curses erupted only to be dampened by Curzon jumping to his feet and gesturing frantically for calm. “Please, please, the commodore is speaking from a place of emotion! We were sent to negotiate, and though you’ve been gracious in your welcome, you’ve insisted on lying to us about things we know to a certainty. I must give our government something, some sign of good will and trust on your part.”

He cast a glance towards Trujillo, who had turned away to give the appearance of still fuming.

“Starfleet can be reckless when their blood is up, and your people killed dozens of their personnel. I ask you, were our positions reversed, would the Roman Empire tolerate such an affront?”

It would have been impossible to miss the surreptitious glances between the Romanii senators, diplomats, and high-ranking military officers.

Curzon looked pleadingly toward them. “There is no need to make us an enemy. We could provide far more in the way of assistance than could the Orions. They are a fractious nation, riven with competing clans and great houses, with power and resources unevenly distributed throughout their society. The Federation, though, we can boast the greatest scientific minds in the quadrant from dozens of worlds, all united in purpose.”

Trujillo turned back to face them. “The choice is yours. There is no better ally than the Federation. The fact that we’re here, speaking with you, should give you pause. We desire neither your latinum deposits nor the slaves you’ve been selling to the Orions. All we desire is for the attacks on our interests to cease, and for those responsible to be turned over to face Federation justice.”

She tapped her combadge. “Trujillo to Reykjavík, bring us home.”

The security contingent assembled and joined her and Curzon, vanishing en masse as the cascading energy engulfed them.

Trujillo, Curzon and Helvia regained cohesion along with three security personnel in one transporter room, as the others were shunted to other pads aboard ship.

She glanced at Curzon, smirking. “Too much?”

He laughed out loud. “I dare say at first I thought you might have oversold it, especially after you humiliated their general in front of the first consul and senators, but I think you’ve made a lasting impression.”

Trujillo bobbed her head once in relief, turning to address Helvia. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Lieutenant. I knew you and your symbol would cause a stir, but I hadn’t bargained on that extreme a reaction.”

He inclined his head in response. “Thank you, sir, but I believe you successfully defended my honor.” A smile crept across his features, a rarity for so reserved a man. “For what it's worth, you demonstrated strength in the only way the Romanii respect. That is no small thing.”

She turned back to Curzon. “And you! Who brings a mek’leth to a negotiation?”

“My Klingon friends, and all their friends,” Curzon said with a mischievous smile.

Trujillo stepped down off the pad, unclasping her dress uniform tunic at the shoulder and allowing the flap to fall open. “Well, I have a feeling that if we’re not brought up on charges for today’s performance, we might be invited to teach an entire course on gunboat diplomacy at the academy someday.”

"Tomorrow, the real negotiations begin," Curzon cautioned. "Today we successfully threw them off balance, but they'll recover quickly. Now they know where our red-lines are, how far they can push us."

"The question remains," she countered, "how desperate are they, and what risks are they willing to run to get whatever it is that they need?"

* * *