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[b][color=DC143C][h2]ACT ONE
THE ROMULAN CRISIS[/h2][/color][/b][/center]

The President of the United Federation of Planets looked out across the bustling city of Paris. Flying craft, following the carefully designated lanes of air traffic, bustled through the busy day while down below, commuter land traffic and pedestrians went about their day - all too oblivious to the struggle of the man in the pristine marble building located only a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. Even through the devastating Third World War, the landmark had survived - when so many others in Paris and throughout the World did not - and although there were many buildings now that towered well over it, it still dominated the city with its ancient presence.

There had been a time when the Presidential Palace had been a place of great comfort to him, but now it was nothing more than a gilded cage. To have moved in here from the large - but still modest - manor that he possessed on Alpha Centauri was a culture shock. There were so many rooms in the marble palace that he did not know what to do with them all, and so many servants and dignitaries attached to it that, although he had been in office for nearly four years, he had not yet learned all of their names. [i]To think I had once prided myself on always remembering a face...[/i] he looked solemnly down towards the gardens, where Presidents of the past had entertained guests from Vulcan, Andoria, and Kronos. 

Now, although the flowers were in the full bloom of spring, it seemed to him as if the life was dying from them. As if they were slowly withering away - as if the Sun had abandoned them.

"Mister President, the members of the Cabinet have arrived..." the President's thoughts were shattered by the staffer, intruding into the conference room and informing him of the new arrivals. He did not reply, but simply bowed his head in acknowledgement. President Anton Luther felt the tug of destiny pull him away from the balcony, and towards the ornate conference room behind him. As he walked towards the oak table, where a holographic display matrix sat - looking rather out of place - in the middle of the great table, he looked at the paintings that lined the white walls. Some of them were old - a reproduction of Liberty Leading the People catching his eye at first - but some were newer, including one depicting the great moment at the end of the Dominion War when a Marine officer planted the flag of the Federation above the Cardassian Chancellery. 

Sighing deeply, he tugged down at his tight fitting three-piece black suit, and took a seat at the head of the table, a painting from John Martin titled 'The Last Judgement' right behind his head. And there he waited, his pale face growing paler as the seconds ticked by, waiting for the entry of the Cabinet. He knew in his mind what would happen when they walked through those doors - the news that was being plastered on every holoprojector from here to Deneb told him that well enough - but he wanted to avoid it. To hide from it. 

He had been elected to see the Federation return to prosperity after over a decade of economic downturn and setbacks. The Conservative Party had made him their golden child, as the man who would stave off the extremists of the Unity Party - and indeed the radicals in his own and in the Workers' Party - and to lead the Federation into an era of peace and plenty that they had enjoyed before the Jem'Hadar had stormed out of the Bajoran Wormhole and wreaked havoc across the Quadrant. But ever since he had ended up in this office - in this palace - he had been thwarted at every turn.

Starfleet could not be reined in, and their budget continued to increase exponentially with every quarter as more starships and more personnel entered into service.

The Principality of Betazed, the Republic of Bajor, and hundreds of other Member States continued to require billions of credits to repair their planets from the devastation wrought upon them by the Dominion occupation over a decade ago.

Upstart colonists - and even planets deeper into the core of the Federation - chafed and swore under the yoke of the heavy burden placed upon them by the Dominion War. Taxes had gone up, but wages had not. And these planets had become fertile ground for the new up-and-coming party in Federation politics, which was soon growing from a minor nuisance in the smaller electorates to real challenge in Parliament.

And to top it all off, by some act of the Divine, Romulus had been destroyed! Its star had gone supernova unexpectedly, and had taken both Romulus and Remus out of existence, plunging the Empire into chaos - which would surely spill over into the rest of the Quadrant. 

If he had any hopes of reelection, the news of the brewing crisis had put an end to that. [i]And, to think, I was already preparing my victory speech...[/i]

The white double doors opened suddenly, smashing through his self-pity, as men and women in fine suits entered in one by one. He knew them well. There was Foreign Minister Ramadhani Shamasdin, his olive-skin and his beard striking him out prominently as he took his designated seat, followed by the beautiful Betazoid Chancellor of the Treasury Lerorat Egaar, the political-cat Prime Minister, a stout and portly Tellarite by the name of Brortund lorin Clerv who was a Conservative - just as the President was - and a good ally and friend of his as well. There were others, such as the Minister of Defense Alexander Schultz and Minister for State Security Stellir, son of Sko, who took their seats accordingly. Finally, after the civilian ministers entered in, the Chief of Starfleet Operations walked through the door.

The man needed no introduction, for the weight of his presence carried itself through the air. He was a man that stories were spoke of in a hushed tone of reverence. He was a man who had saved the Federation on countless times, who had spent his life in service of its highest ideals, who had gone farther in pursuit of knowledge and freedom than any man alive. Admiral of the Fleet Jean-Luc Picard, wearing his dress uniform adorned with more medals than the President thought existed, walked through the threshold and stood for a moment, scanning the faces of the attendees, and then took his customary seat with the President on his right and the Minister of Defense on his left, looking across from the Prime Minister.

"Let's get to business, then," Admiral Picard broke the silence that had fallen upon the room, following the closing of the doors behind him, "we have a lot of ground to cover, and so little time."

"The Romulan Empire is disintegrating by the minute, Mister President..." The Foreign Minister began first, stopping all attempts to get the first word in from anyone else. He leaned into the table, increasing his presence - however vain it might be in the face of a hero like Picard - with every gesture of his hand, "with the destruction of Romulus, it is believed that their entire government is decapitated. The Emperor, his immediate family, as well as nearly the entirety of the Imperial Senate, the Military High Command, and the leaders of the Tal'Shiar are presumed to have been lost in the sudden supernova."

"Have we figured out its cause?" The President asked meekly, trying to avoid the elephant in the room for as long as possible, "is it possible that this is a ruse?"

"Impossible," Picard shook his head, taking firm control of the conversation with a single word, "stellar fortresses along the Neutral Zone, as well as our listening posts along the region of space closest to the Romulan homeworld, detected energy readings from the Romulus system identical to a supernova. They also intercepted internal Romulan communications confirming this..." he paused for a moment, his weary eyes having a glimmer of sadness in them, "...it is believed than nearly 20 billion lives were lost in the explosion. Both Romulus, Remus, and the other planets in the system were totally annihilated in the supernova."

"I see..." The President's eyes fell to the desk. He wasn't sure of the course to take. He wasn't elected President to deal with a crisis like this...[i]A refugee crisis? Destabilization of the Quadrant? The end to the Congress of Bajor?[/i] All of this pointed to the one unshakeable fact: he would be relegated to a single, terrible term. History would forget him, lost in the seas of time to all except a few studious bookworms, "...so what should our response be?"

"Unfortunately, Mister President, the Federation cannot afford any response at this time," the Betazoid Treasury Minister finally spoke up, after getting a full sense of the room. He was sure that she could feel his thoughts of inner doubt - she always did - and they were more stronger today than ever before, "we are running nearly a two-hundred trillion credit deficit. Even an aid mission...it would ruin us economically...."

"Nonsense!" The Defense Minister cried out, slamming his hand on the wooden table with a fright, "we must secure our borders! Any chaos in the Empire will surely spill out into our space! The Federation does not exist in a vacuum."

"I'm not sure the people will support a grand mission of peace, Mister President, no matter how noble it may be..." The Prime Minister spoke up, "we have our own problems at home. People will see the humanitarian mission in Romulus as betraying them...when people on Betazed and Bajor are starving, why are we helping our enemies in Romulan space?"

"I see..." The President solemnly nodded, then looked towards Admiral Picard. Their eyes met, and he could feel the determination in the old officer's eyes. The look of commitment to the ideals he had spent his life upholding. And he wished that he had even half of the courage to stand up for his own ideals as Picard had done for his own, "Admiral, I want to hear your thoughts."

"Mister President, Honorable Ministers..." Picard cleared his throat, as the President listened with baited breath to the speech delivered by Picard. He had heard of these, and he wondered how the Starfleet officer seemed to effortlessly speak what was on his mind. It was as if he had come up with this speech before he had even entered the room, "...I have pledged my entire life to Starfleet. I sacrificed everything in service to the Federation - my time, my youth, my family - so that it may continue to be the guiding beacon of lightness in the darkness of space. I believe in the ideals of freedom, and I will never waiver from it so long as I live. Starfleet has sought, from its early foundations as United Earth's space organization up to today's service to the United Federation of Planets, to live in peace and harmony with the universe. It has sought to help others, to aid them when they are in need. And now, when a race's homeworld has been destroyed and its political union shattered forever, we sit here and debate politics? We sit here and ask ourselves about money?"

He paused for a moment, and rose to his feet. The silence was suffocating as his well-polished shoes clicked against the floor tiles, the elder Admiral strolling towards the balcony and looking out over Paris. All eyes seemed focus on him, and were not willing to speak until he had finished. Certainly, the President was not. Admiral Picard turned heel, and walked back towards the table, looking directly at the President with a look of fiery passion, "Mister President, I must ask you to forget any notion of retaining power. I must ask you to forget your so-called 'party line.' I must ask you, instead, to think about the trillions of lives at stake here. Right now, it is the time to act! It is the time to stand up for the ideals to which your office stands for! You represent the United Federation of Planets, the greatest force for good the Galaxy has ever seen and ever will see! And you must not allow trillions of lives to be thrown away in the tidal waves of civil war and chaos for electoral politics!"

"Admiral Picard, if I may interject..." if I may interject….” The Foreign Minister butted in, “I don’t believe we have the resources to commit to another full-scale conflict, which this will surely spiral into. Who knows what’s beyond Romulan space! Or what’s in it, for that matter! They’ve never let us know the true number of client races within their Empire. We have no reason to do anything except increase security along the Neutral Zone.”

"And if we do that, honorable Minister, we’ll only be delaying the inevitable flood of refugees. It will be like the Hunnic hordes storming across the Rhine and into Rome. Do you wish to be the one who causes that, Foreign Minister?” Picard looked from the Defense Minister and turned his gaze towards the President, “Or you, Mister President? If not, you must act decisively and you must act now.”

All eyes fell on him. He was the only man who could make this decision. The President's eyes darted around the room. He knew their thoughts - it didn't take Betazoid telepathy to read the expressions on their faces to know them - and he could feel them all waiting on his word. Even the Prime Minister looked resigned, knowing that either choice would sooner or later spell the end for their government. [i]Why couldn't I have stayed away from politics?[/i] He bit his lip and shook his head, resting back in his chair and feeling the anxiety wash over him like waves on a beach. They came with growing intensity, as the seconds ticked by like hours.

Then, finally, he spoke. 

"Very well..." He sighed, rubbing his temples, "Admiral Picard, I want you to formulate a plan of action. I'll leave the details up to you, but we must head into the Empire to restore some semblance of order. Mister Shamasdin, I want you to establish contact with the friendliest regime in Romulan space at the moment, because we will need an ally in it. Mister Tobias, find a way to mobilize the Defense Forces in the systems closest to the Neutral Zone to prepare for any possible invasion. Dear Lerorat, find some way...any way...to balance the books so that we can afford this. I don't care what you have to do...just do it. And, finally, Brortund...I want you to call an emergency session of the Council and to prepare a statement that details our plan..." He paused, giving a look over on the faces of those present. They all were looking to him, some looking relieved, others looking disgruntled, but most anxious and weary, "...for now, I call this meeting adjourned. We will meet back up after the emergency session to discuss more formally our plan of action. If that is all, you may now leave."

The Ministers took their leave, standing up one by one, exiting the room in a similar fashion. Admiral Picard lingered for a moment at the door, with the President still sitting at his chair at the end of the table, rubbing his hands together with anxious energy, "you have done the right thing, Mister President. Don't forget that." And, with that, Picard left the room, the white doors closing beside him.

For a moment, even the briefest moment, the President felt every bit of his title. He felt like a leader of men, doing the job that he was elected to do. Making hard decisions that would turn out to be the right ones. But a part of him nagged at him, gnawed away at him.

And, in the end, the moment faded. And all that remained was the self-doubt and the anxiety and the unshakeable feeling that he had done something awfully wrong. Rising to his feet, the President slowly walked towards the balcony once more, and rested his arms on the steel lifeguards that stopped him from hurling himself over and onto the busy streets below.

The scene was no different from the one he had looked at earlier, but for some reason, it felt different. It felt like a darkness had fallen upon it, and he turned away in disgust - at himself and at the cosmos.