Down the Rabbit Hole-Part Three

Posted on Sun Dec 22nd, 2024 @ 10:17am by Consul Andrinn Orin

Mission: WHAT IF?
Location: Federation Council Chambers, Earth
Timeline: 2355
610 words - 1.2 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

As the room remained silent and collectively held their breaths, they kept their eyes on the Cardassian delegation to see what their next course of action would have been. The delegation knew that all the eyes were on them and they were using it to their advantage, as all three members took their time to stand up. While it appeared that they wanted to talk, one member of the delegation broke off from the rest to stand in front of the two officers.

The leader of the Obsidian Order stood in front of Captain Crusher and Commander Picard, taking another few moments to gather her thoughts while fiddling with something in her pockets. After pulling out two small devices of Cardassian designs, she quickly placed them on the two young men’s uniforms, activating them and within moments, Crusher and Picard were transported out of the Council chambers.

The Council quickly erupted into chaos as the two men were transported out, where T'Pragh quickly called for security to have the Cardassian delegation detained. However, before the security could detain them, they activated personal transporter devices and were beamed to their vessel in orbit.

Andrinn had leapt to his own feet with Louvois as they watched all of this happen in mere moments. It hadn’t even struck Andrinn the gravity of the situation fully until the viewscreen in the main chamber lit up with an open channel to the bridge of the Cardassian vessel, where the delegation were standing with Captain Crusher and Commander Picard. Luckily enough, they were still alive, but the show had just begun.

Both Crusher and Picard had two Cardassian officers holding them each. The officers were holding something that looked like Klingon pain sticks, but that were much more handheld and when they applied it to the sides of the two officers, it appeared to cause way worse pain than anything the Klingons could muster up.

The Obsidian Order chief replied, “What these two officers did to the Cardassian Empire can never truly be repaid. So, instead of empty words by a bunch of politicians and diplomats, these two are going to work off their debts to the Cardassian people in forced work camps on Empok Nor.”

She turned to the officers to give them a non-verbal order to apply the pain sticks again, but she ordered them to be turned up this time around. She turned back to the viewscreen and said, “Don’t even try to come for your officers, as if you do, this will mean war.” With that, the viewscreen cut out and the chamber was left speechless with everything that just happened.

Andrinn and Louvois looked at each other before the room erupted into chatter once more. President T’Pragh took to the podium again and called for order once more, but it was hard for it because everyone was talking over one another. Andrinn gently tugged the sleeve of Louvois and guided her out of the chamber, where he said, “We’ve got to do something. This isn’t right in the slightest.”

Louvois replied, “I know! But, what can we do? I highly doubt that the Federation would do anything to help them out, as this isn’t the 23rd century anymore. Plus, even if the Federation Council and the President wanted to do something, it couldn’t be done by any old Federation starship or anything. They’d be picked off quicker than you or I could imagine.”

Andrinn scratched his chin and said, “I might have an idea, but you’re not going to like it…”

[OFF:]

Consul Andrinn Orin
Chief Diplomatic Officer
USS Elysium