When Matthew O'Shannon looked down, he noticed his hands were shaking. Strange, he mused, I haven't been this nervous in years. But, then again, how often do I get to change the course of history? He was interrupted from his reverie by the pneumatic hiss of the door to his office opening. A man walked in, dressed in the Imperial Purple of the chief of staff for the Chancellor of the Commonwealth.
"Your Excellency," the man bowed respectfully to O'Shannon, addressing him in the respectful tone required when conversing with the Chancellor of the Galactic Commonwealth.
O'Shannon, seated in a high-backed chair behind a large, mahogany desk, responded with the warmth shown to an old friend, "James, I can probably guess why you're here. The vote has been called."
James nodded his agreement. "Yes, Your Excellency. Senator N!at has brought the Articles of War before the floor, and—as expected—your presence is required before the Senate; they want you to speak on the issue." Noticing his friend's barely restrained nervousness, he added gently, "Sir, the Articles must be passed if we are to continue existing as a Commonwealth. You know it as well as I do, Matthew; don't give out on your people yet."
The Chancellor, his eyes gleaming with courage—all trace of his nervousness gone—responded curtly as he rose from his seat, "I have no intention of acquiescing to the wishes of the cowards who, through their willful blindness, have brought this great government to its knees. The Commonwealth has existed for over a thousand years, and it will not collapse while I am its Chancellor. We'd better go, or we'll be late."
They walked out of the ornately appointed office together. As O'Shannon traversed the Palace of Governance, seat of galactic power for countless generations, he couldn't help but admire the sights and sounds of the citadel. The massive colonnaded pathways he and James walked through were filled with thousands of other civil servants representative of all the various species of humanity—a fact O'Shannon was pointedly reminded of when he was blindsided by a Hurta's massive tree-like body. ("People with no eyes shouldn't be allowed to run that fast!" he yelled pointedly at the retreating figure.) Recovering, the two of them continued, glancing into some of the many chambers, workrooms, and halls that formed the intellectual nucleus of the Commonwealth. They could catch glimpses of intense debate and discussion, as the particulars of government—everything from food shortages to trade disputes—were aired before the brightest minds in the galaxy to be picked, poked and prodded at until a satisfactory solution could be had. In all of this commotion, O'Shannon was especially grateful for the sound buffers—disguised behind priceless works of art mounted on the walls—installed to prevent the ruckus generated by the building from overwhelming his hearing.
When they reached the great Liquid Bridge connecting the Palace to the Hall of the Humanities, home of the Galactic Legislature, both of them had to stop and take command of their emotions. Located 2,000 feet in the air and connected to a small aperture in each building, the Bridge was composed of liquid water made to act solid. Those who walked across it felt as if they were walking on concrete, though concrete doesn't usually have tropical fish swimming beneath its surface. At the site of this marvel of engineering, suspended with the help of hidden force-field projectors, O'Shannon's back stiffened in pride. "It is for this I serve the people," he explained to James, sweeping his hands outwards to encompass the Bridge at the end of the hallway, "I want only to give the people of the galaxy peace and time to create more such works, to continue their quest for knowledge."
James nodded his understanding, "Of course, Your Excellency. But the Commonwealth is stagnating, sir, and you know it. When was this bridge made, 100 years ago? Yet in that century, no other innovative engineering project has been undertaken anywhere in the galaxy! We aren't creating anything anymore; we aren't discovering—we're sitting back and remembering the glory days of centuries ago. The Commonwealth is losing its spirit, and it's this ossification that's allowing the Enemy his victories."
What could O'Shannon say to something that rang so true? They crossed the Bridge in silence, wrapped in their own thoughts, until, after descending countless levels of the immense building, they reached the entranceway to the Hall proper. The Doorkeeper, a blue-skinned Eurcean dressed in her ceremonial white robes, stood before the ancient oak door, flanked by two guards. "Who goes there? Who dares interrupt the Senate while in session?" she trumpeted the traditional challenge with the brusqueness she was famous for.
"I come before the Senate to offer testimony. As Chancellor of the Galactic Commonwealth, I command you: open these doors, Madame," O'Shannon replied, following the age-old formula, yet backing his words up with a commanding air that brooked no disobedience.
The old lady—feeling perhaps a slight measure of respect for the "dangerous" reformer that she had heretofore disdained—bowed in formal greeting, grasped the ceremonial white staff she held in her hands tighter and responded, "As His Excellency commands. I will announce you before the Hall and have the guards direct Master James to the galleries." One of the blue-uniformed guards, responding to her verbal cue, motioned for James to follow him, as the Doorkeeper pushed open the mighty doors that were the both the beginning and the end of her domain.
She entered through the opening and followed a narrow walkway to the center of the Hall, a large circle situated in the middle of an immense amphitheatre. O'Shannon followed her and, looking up, could see the endless rows filled with thousands of Senators, representing every planet and sentient species in the Galaxy. The loud murmuring of the chamber slowly fell silent as its occupants noticed the entrance of the Doorkeeper and the man accompanying her. She raised her white staff over her head and slammed it to the ground three times. Hidden microphones captured the sound and amplified it to reach even the deepest recesses of the immense Hall. Her voice, amplified in the same manner, carried across the chamber in a wave as she proclaimed, "Honorable Senators, I present to you the Chancellor of the Galactic Commonwealth, His Excellency, Matthew O'Shannon. All hail! All hail! All hail!" Her duty done, she quietly withdrew from the chamber as the Senators rose out of respect for their Chancellor.
O'Shannon stepped into the center of the dais, motioning for the Senators to sit, crouch, disassociate or curl up as each delegate was accustomed. Then, clearing his throat, he began, "Honorable delegates, I am privileged to stand before you today, though I wish my visit was under better circumstances. You all know why I'm here, and I won't belittle your intelligence by dancing around the issue. You are all aware of the race known as the Imshasha." At the mention of the name, many of the Senators shifted in their seats, clearly uncomfortable.
"You mean the species responsible for the destruction of my homeworld, the extragalactic Invaders whose sole goal is to eradicate the sentient life of this galaxy?" a Senator, the august Gentleman (this month, at least) from Agradia, interrupted, waving his four green arms wildly in the air as a microphone placed in front of his resting rack amplified his voice and caused it to echo throughout the chamber.
O'Shannon, temporarily thrown off-balance, quickly recovered from this interruption—being used to the "open debate" format of the Senate—and replied over the low roar of the chamber, "Yes, Your Grace. I mean the mass-murderers who are responsible for the deaths of millions. I mean the imperialists who wish to colonize this galaxy and replace this noble government. I mean the killers who plan to exterminate all life in this galaxy." Having gained the Senators' attention, he continued in the booming yet coolly logical voice he was renowned for, "Gentlepersons, over the course of the last two years, the armies of the Imshasha Imperium have invaded this galaxy. They have seized habitable planets, exterminated whole populations and stolen the natural resources of those planets. We are under attack! Unless we respond..."
O'Shannon was cut off at this point by Alsheiz Vendrium, the young firebrand from Metruchia. Standing erect on his eight legs, he bore himself proudly as he loudly retorted, "Your reasoning is flawed, Your Excellency! It is not the Imshasha that are at fault, it is this Commonwealth!"
"What madness do you speak of, Vendrium?" Senator Orkan of the Orion Nebula yelled out over the swell of voices chanting Vendrium's name in approval—the newly elected Senator controlled a sizable faction within the Senate.
"It is not madness, but reason, sir! It is our Galactic Army that is the danger to peace, not the Imshasha. You know as well as I do that the galaxy of the Imshasha is overpopulated—the race has the right to survive through expansion. It is we of the Commonwealth who greedily hoard our plentiful resources and land; we are the criminals." The Senate was now at a high roar, with delegates both opposing and supporting him yelling at the top of their lungs. Vendrium risked being drowned out by the cacophony.
Seizing on the superior microphones surrounding his dais, O'Shannon quickly moved to take command of the chamber. "SILENCE!" he roared over the assemblage. The Senate, shocked at the Chancellor's audacity, shutup in near-unison. "It is you, Senator Vendrium, who speaks of madness! It is you who has brought us to the dawn of our own execution! It is you who risks tearing down the great civilization that our ancestors forged long ago!" The entire room was silent now, in awe of the spectacle of the usually reserved O'Shannon turned energetic orator. He had reached his rhetorical pinnacle, gesturing and pacing as he conveyed his vision to the crowd. At this one moment in time, it was not a Chancellor speaking to his Senate but the combined weight of all the Chancellors before him—of all those in the past who stood for order and civilization—bringing a recalcitrant Senate to heel. He brooked no dispute; he simply was, and through his presence the force of generations was brought to bear on a body that had turned provincial and corrupt, blinded by its own shortsighted myopia.
"Senator Vendrium, you purport that this Congress is at fault. You claim that it is we who were not generous enough that we should have given the Imshasha whatever they wanted. And so we would have; we would have been eager to treat with them, to trade with them, to be their brothers and sisters.
"But such was not to be. It was they who attacked us. They, in their greed, did not ask; they simply took. They have the
blood of countless millions on their hands already and will only continue their pattern of aggression. You fault us for being strong, yet I fault you for bowing to their wishes. We will not prostrate ourselves before an amoral aggressor. We will not appease the Enemy, for the Enemy will just continue his attacks until his lust for power and blood is sated by the dead carcass of the Commonwealth.
"How dare you propose that we do, Senator! For in doing that we sow the seeds of our own destruction. I stand before you with the weight of countless years of civilization behind me, countless years of cultural, political and scientific advancement championed by countless former Senates. Now I ask this body to take up the cross of its forbears and embrace the burden of civilization. We must not allow this government that has stood for millennia be torn apart simply because we are too wrapped up in our own self-delusions to raise a hand to stop its death. If this body votes against the Articles of War against the Imshasha Imperium, then history will find this assemblage as the cause of the destruction of this Commonwealth. I, on behalf of the citizens that you represent and the innumerable citizens that have championed the cause of civilization in the past, urge you not to turn your back on them."
The Chancellor was finished, drained, his last energy spent on the floor of the Hall of the Humanities, hoping beyond hope that this body would stand at his side, would take up its responsibility and defend its people. As he looked up, panting, at the thousands of faces arrayed around him in ever-widening concentric circles, he strove to read their thoughts, to discover whether he had succeeded in swaying enough souls to make a difference.
As he turned around to leave the Hall, however, he failed to notice one face in the crowd, the one face that he could have predicted with absolute certainty: Alsheiz Vendrium's. And, not to anyone's surprise, his face was contorted in inexpressible rage, but he, alone out of that sea of peoples, could act on his anger. He clutched the ceremonial knife strapped to his hip, allowed entry into the Hall because of the Senator's religious requirements. As his hand stroked the blade, his anger welled-up all the more, until it became a roaring flame, consuming any rationality and intellect remaining in his skull.
Finally, the Senator's emotions came to a head. He leapt from his place in the Hall, hopping down the levels of the chamber, using his eight legs to get the spring he needed to make the long jumps necessary to cover the distances required. This stunning display, not unnoticed by the other delegates, caused an immediate uproar. The Chancellor, curious to see what was going on, turned around just as Vendrium landed on the dais. In one short leap, he was within arms-length of O'Shannon. The Chancellor's face barely had time to register surprise before Vendrium raised his weapon high in the air and stabbed the Chancellor through the heart.
He fell to the hard marble floor with a loud crack. O'Shannon's last sensory perception before the blackness consumed him was of the utter chaos that descended upon the Hall and, then, the loud screams of, "Vendrium and peace! Vendrium and peace!" that quickly drowned out all other noise.
* * *
The child looks up from her teaching screen, still amazed at what she is seeing despite the untold times she has viewed the same images: the Great Hall, the shouts of countless people, the dead body lying limply on the floor. "Papa?" she asks as she looks up to the figure towering behind her, "is this the end?"
"No, my dear," he answers in the traditional manner, "it was not the end, but the beginning—the beginning of the end. On the day of the Chancellor's death, Senator Vendrium staged a coup, seizing the Hall of the Humanities and the Palace of Governance."
"But what of Chief of Staff James, Papa? How could he allow this to happen?"
"He was dead, dear, the last of the Chancellor's supporters to die—for his resistance to the Peace Movement, he faced days of slow torture."
"Then what happened, Papa? Get to the good part!" she implores, breaking protocol in her eagerness to get to the crux of the matter.
"Why, dear, you know what happens next. The Peace Movement, with a firm grip on power, posed no resistance to the Imperium. The armies quickly overran what scattered resistance was put up and, within a year, took Earth, the capital planet. It was simply a matter of gassing the population that survived the aerial bombardment, and then the Imperium was free to establish a new Order from the scattered ashes of the Commonwealth."
"So that's how we came to be, Father? That was the beginning of the Glorious Reign of the Master Race?" she inquires.
"Yes, it was the beginning of our ascendancy."
"But how, Papa, did we win? The Commonwealth outnumbered us ten to one. Its military was incomparable. Its economy was strong beyond reckoning. How did it not swat us out of existence?"
"Why, daughter," he responds as contempt for the long-dead people of the Commonwealth flits across his face, "the best way to win a war is to let your enemy defeat himself."