Sometimes, All You Have Are Bad Choices, But You Still Have To Choose
Posted on Mon Aug 29th, 2022 @ 11:23am by Caithlin t'Leiya
2,074 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission: What Lies Ahead, Between, and Behind
In retrospect, the die was cast for the collapse of the Romulan Star Empire in a thousand tiny cuts: The first time the Senate allowed their balance of power to shift with regards to their authority over the Tal'Shiar; and certainly the second time they did so; on to the thousandth time. Or perhaps it was cast with the creation of such, even; inevitable that someday, the monster you have created will grow and turn on its master and devour them. At any rate, that die was cast long before Caithlin was a senator; long before she was even born: She simply had the misfortune to be the one of her house fated to live at such a time, and live out the end result of it all, and answer for the sins of others long before her time.
When Caithlin thought back on it, she could see in hindsight so many little pieces falling into place, or rather falling out of it. That her grandmother had died, along with the entire rest of the Senate, in the aborted coup back in '78 had deprived the body as a whole of skilled stability, and likely contributed to everything that had come later, or the flawed handling of it. That her father had spoken out in ways many of the Senate frowned on, as to the urgency of relocating more of the population of the core worlds to outlying areas outside the projected path of destruction; that he had tried to do what he could to not just inform and allow but facilitate relocation for those in his district, at least...That had made him, along with his entire house, a target. And he clashed with the Tal'Shiar and the houses allied with them rather less gracefully than his mother would have; and they had been bolder in response: The nova itself had taken a good chunk of her family even onto distant relations; because while her father's decision to remain had been of his own volition; Caithlin could see looking back hints of how many others had likely been under such close watch and counter actions that they had been trapped unwillingly, despite their theoretical place and power; trapped like so many of their people, but in their case less as a blanket denial than as targeted and specific sabotage.
Still; she had not been alone, in the aftermath, at first. As Caithlin surveyed the remains of the Empire in those first days and weeks and months, she had gathered what she could of what remained of her kin and their allies around her. She had raised her voice in the body she found herself a part of now, challenged some of those who had dared to claim continued membership in it despite having been so before the disaster as well; who had dared to do so little to save so few of their people--or outright prevent such practically in some cases--and then dared to continue to claim the power and the right, or continue to live on at all, afterwards. She had demanded they account for such dereliction and treason; and she had forced no less than 8 of them into combat with her and won. And then...She had stopped. There was a risk and a benefit to it all, after all: She had made her point, and removed the heads of some of the most egregious offenders; continued persistence was unwise as each such carried the risk of her own death. So, likely in an attempt to otherwise occupy her and enhance their own odds of survival, the rest of the body had offered her the open Continuing Committee seat. And, in a play to enhance the odds of her own and that of her kin, allies, and children, she had taken it.
The months and years after, however, were as unstable and chaotic as those first weeks, if not moreso. One after another after another, praetors rose and fell; and the Committee soon found itself, in addition to ratifying replacements constantly, as the defacto daily managers of what remained of the Empire. Which had all the problems that one would expect from what remains of a society in the aftermath of such a disaster, that quickly multiplied. Closer to 'home', Caithlin herself had other problems, too: Continual clashes with the Chairman of the Tal'Shiar, and continual loss of more of her relatives and allies, in ill-ending challenges; assassinations; political misadventures; civil war and riots; mysterious ends; and vanishing without conclusive end at all. Her husband, lost with his wing of warbirds in an ambush defending the border from a Klingon incursion, had been one of the first losses, never to see the children she had birthed them shortly after his death; but he had been followed by dozens and dozens more, until eventually...
...Eventually, in the last weeks of the Empire proper, the Senate was no longer meeting regularly, though problems and instability throughout RSE space and worlds had only increased exponentially, with a new riot each day, or more; frequent incursions by enemy powers or simple pirates; breakaway regions or attempts; blatant disregard of the law; supply chain 'issues' that became catastrophic famines and the like. Some posts had been abandoned entirely; others had died without successors and attempts to replace them had fallen on bickering in the Committee itself, also now with several vacancies among the required nine. The praetor's slot was one of those vacant, without the votes to agree upon a replacement, but the sign to Caithlin that things had reached a tipping point had been when that center seat in Committee meetings had begun to be brazenly taken by the Chairman of the Tal'Shiar...And no one had contradicted this. When he had made an unthinkable motion to dissolve the Senate itself...And only two had voted against. The other vote against was found dead in his quarters within the day, and Caithlin had known her time was short as well, but nothing had prepared her for the sheer reality of the next day, when she had left the meeting and returned to where by now her one remaining relative and staffer--her cousin Katera, who had stepped out of her role as a fleet subcommander to serve as one of Caithlin's aides, rising through simple survival to chief of staff in an obscenely rapid three years--had of late been missing most meetings and instead serving another role: As the only person left Caithlin felt she could trust with her young twins.
The building was consumed by flames when Caithlin reached it; and in the adrenaline and determination of a mother whose children are under threat, she had rushed in anyways. Finally, in one corner of the main hall, she had found the three dead men, fallen would-be assassins who had doubtless set the fire itself as well, and a sea of green blood and shattered objects and glass, strewn blades and disruptors. Katera was in the very corner, awash in so much blood she was nearly unrecognizable, gasping desperate last breaths as one hand weakly tried to close on Caithlin's. In shock and horror, Caithlin had grasped her cousin's arm back, and shifted her slightly to reveal Arenn and Telek, wide-eyed and nearly catatonic, tears on their faces but making no response for the moment, like terrified toddler-sized statues. All her attempts to serve well the duties entrusted to her went from Caithlin's mind then as it became clear it was over: There was nothing she could do now, for the Empire or its people: It was fallen in all but name and that was sure to follow shortly. She was out of time, past out of time, and she could stay and die in her post and doom her children and the last of her line with her...or abandon it, in theoretical dishonor but to preserve what little remained of her house. And if there was nothing she could do for the Empire or the people; there was only one thing she could do for Katera; their arms grasped tightly to one another as a flash of Caithlin's blade ended her cousins' suffering after first making a deep, deep bow, on her knees with her forehead practically to the floor: Caithlin, as head of house and senator, should have by rights made such gestures only to the praetor or the Committee and under certain circumstances only, but did not care: There was no circumstance like this, and in a thousand lifetimes even, she could never repay Katera for what she had done for her.
The fire had burned faster around them as Caithlin had then snatched her children, now coated herself with the same green blood as the rest of the hall, and fled on foot with nothing but what she had on her at the time, to the first of the safehouses she had set up in a half-fearing, half-denying state the last few months as things had deteriorated.
For six human months, Caithlin had moved among such, in the chaos of the collapse proper of the Empire and the acceleration of the civil wars and clashes between the resulting breakaway states and the consolidation of power in areas held by her enemies; burning whatever she still had left of temporary aliases; political capital and favors owed not only her but hundreds of years owed to the house as a whole; and whatever resources or items of value she still had. Liquidated all, to survive. And finally, the pursuit of the Tal'Shiar, and other old enemies, had combined to close in tighter and tighter around her, as her resources and options dwindled to nothing. Once again, there were no good choices: She had no illusions she could simply cross the border as a refugee and avoid the enemies who had marked her and her children for death: The Federation would be hesitant to take her in; and she and her children would remain easy pickings for their enemies in a refugee camp even if they did. In retrospect, she took nearly too long, really, to finally take one of the bitter choices before her: She would sacrifice and burn the last shreds of her honor and bear the disgrace of going on bent knee to a former foe.
She crossed the border at a point she knew was a likely outpost with a substantive presence from Federation intelligence: The sort of people who could arrange the sort of protection they would need. And in a bizarre melding of too-sharp reality mixed with the fog of a surreal waking nightmare, she had presented herself to the outpost commander and begged for the lives of her children and leave to remain within their space.
In that, and in all that come after, Caithlin could not help but consider and wonder, sometime, what her ancestors would think of the choices she had made. Her father, her grandmother, or the long, long line stretching out beyond them. She had ended millennia of duty and honor and power. But she had done the only thing she could see before her to preserve their house at all. She lived now in disgrace; all the moreso for choosing to live beyond such further herself...But her children lived; and if someday she was called to answer in the beyond, to the Elements and the universe and her ancestors, for her actions, then she would do so...But they could answer alike to her, for effectively having appointed her to preside over the end of days. She had been left with nothing but impossible choices. So she had made the unforgivable decisions she felt she was prepared most to live with and live with the consequences of, when compared against the others. She would feel the shame of those actions to the end of her days, perhaps beyond them; but likewise she would stand tall to them and make the same choices again if presented with the same options...And in that surety, she found some small measure of steadiness and pride: She had done what was necessary, within what was possible. And that was all which could be asked.
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