Perennial Questions

Posted on Sun Oct 13th, 2024 @ 12:12am by Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Fletcher
Edited on on Sun Oct 13th, 2024 @ 12:13am

1,976 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Boys of Summer
Location: Council Head Office, Costa City, Galen One
Timeline: Mission Day 2, early morning

ON:


||Carlos Gentile's private quarters, Temple Gentile||

"Are the results in yet?" Gentile asked, still sitting in his morning robe enjoying a pipe and an ice cream crepe. The monitor was on, covering the news of the local council elections, but he was still half-asleep and too many people were moving around him, looking for their shoes, or clothes, or spouses. Carlos was struggling to shake off the haze of the last evening, where he had been witness to an extraordinary revelation from his master, Vork. And had fallen back into a dug-induced stupor with his acolytes before he could say a word.

Ever since discovering the all-seeing deity trapped in what was now his holy garden bed, the life of Carlos Gentile had taken a stratospheric rise. Vork had spoken to him, weakly at first, but when cared for properly the words of wisdom had flowed. Emerging as a leader in the struggling and isolated society, with the might and genius of Vork behind him, Carlos wielded near-supreme executive power over the entire population of the remote Galen One colony. But even he was unaware the extent of his reach, at times.

"The last votes are still coming in, sir," his office boy, Preston, told him over the comms. "But it's pretty clear."

"Our candidate won?" Gentile wiped his mop of hair from his eyes and scanned the monitor for a result.

"They all did, sir," Preston replied flatly. "Hedges, O'Malley, Kakgath, D'Waniwanga, and Nob."



Gentile smote the table in relief. The local Council elections were pivotal, and securing five of the six seats with his candidates was exactly as Vork had instructed. The sixth councillor elected, retired staff sergeant Gideon Shackle, had been a keen voice in opposition to Gentile's leadership, as had O'Malley and Nob before they were 'persuaded'.

A fine box of cheap ginseng always works, Gentile mused. And hiding a few latinum strips underneath the leaves didn't hurt.

Gideon's election to the council position was going to be annoying, but Carlos had to accept Vork's master plan. With Sgt Shackle on Council, he was unable to challenge Gentile for the leadership position. And now Shackle was just one voice in six, easily drowned out, while also being a necessary point of dissent so that the Council didn't seem completely in his pocket.

"You said you wanted to speak to the Council when they were elected?" Preston checked, going over the daily itinerary.

"A brunch meeting, I think, Preston," Carlos smoothed his great bushy beard. "It's going to be 36 today, I need to water my hydrangea's before it's too hot."

"You have people for that sir," Preston said. "This meeting really should take priority."

"Have you seen the way those animals hose down my beauties, like rabid dogs," Gentile shook his head. "Watering the leaves in the sunlight, on a high pressure setting, like we're living in the dark ages."


||Later, in the Council Chamber||

"Hi everyone, thanks for coming," Gentile opened with his best and most disarming welcome.

He was sat on a raised dais behind a carved wooden desk, facing the panel of the six elected local councillors of Costa City. They would be sworn in officially later, but first they had to understand a few things.

On the bench to Carlos' left was Preston, taking minutes, and to his right was the seat normally reserved for the deputy leader, which Carlos had deliberately abstained from filling. This would ordinarily have been the role of the Councillor with the highest votes, as Shackle had brought up publicly several times. But as the wise master Vork had always cautioned Gentile, the leadership would be a delicate balance between the old ways and the new. The Council was merely a formality. He needed no deputy.

There was no-one else in the council chamber except for a towering figure guarding the doorway from within. Gentile had scarcely been able to believe his luck when a Nausicaan pirate ship had turned up on Galen One, their captain willing to join his cause. He had kept his first mate and another pirate, but the rest of their crew marooned them here and fled as soon as the pair were disembarked.

Pirate Captain Kow'Farga was an absolute Vorksend for the strength of Gentile's position, all but sweeping away any outspoken resistance to Carlos' leadership. Especially when a journalist tried ambushing Gentile with a predicated smear campaign. Carlos had barely begun reciting the names of those who had died in a recent attack, when Kow'Farga had stepped in. The Nausicaan, with surprising erudition, had said "Enough of Hyumaan's snide insinuations" and sent her flying with a single hit. Carlos had expected the fallout to be terrible, but apparently between fear of the Nausicaan, respect of his leadership, and contempt for the work of the journalist, the issue had been mostly forgotten.

Gentile had been using the first mate and third pirate as security at the base, until first mate Wan'Krag had stabbed their comrade Jiztayn to death for sneezing. The pirate captain had also taken to keeping a small and sickly dog with him as a pet, which he had called Daryl. Riddled with mange and hardly able to walk, taking in the frail dog was a surprisingly soft-hearted act by such an imposing brigand. No-one would touch Gentile when Kow'Farga and Daryl were around.

"Before we go through with the official business of the ceremonies and everything," Leader Carlos continued, gesticulting vaguely as if to casually dismiss these notions, "I thought it best we'd all better have a... a little bit of a get together, you know. Clear some air, talk a little bit about the role, that kind of thing. Tending the garden as it were."

Shackle scoffed: "We know the job, Carlos, we all read the charters when we signed up. We're not your bloody flowers, just read us the riot act already and then let us go and do the actual work."

Carlos smiled softly. The nausicaan bristled at the door.

"Hyumaan watch tone," Kow'Farga warned the retired Staff Sergeant, as Daryl started to shiver and yipp.

Councillor Gideon fiddled with dress shirt. "Tell your bloody dog to back down. And his bloody dog. I wouldn't waste my breath hitting the bastard."

"Your input as always is welcomed, Staff Sergeant. It's a great honour to have you on the Costa City Council. All of you, a great honour, welcome." Gentile repeated.

"So what is this about," asked Benton Hedges, a local roof-based carpenter. It was his first time holding any senior position, but he was a local hero after helping the local team beath their opposing local team by four points at ball-sport. Carlos had shaken his hand at the photo ceremony and given him a small bansai as a prize, and the young lad had looked up to him since.

"I'm glad you asked," Gentile began. "The role of the city council, especially in these trying times, is tougher than ever. We have Starfleet hanging above us like the Sword of Darmok. Always, do we live in the shadow of their vast canopy, which they claim is to protect us from the heavy rains. But we, a small outer colony, will always look up to those golden leaves and be showered in the droplets falling between the cracks of... sorry, I lost my train of thought there. You get the picture, anyway."

"We're aware of the issues with the Federation, as is everyone," grumbled Nob, a former Ferengi senior clerk with the FCA who now helped put pears into tins at the local grocers. "What do you propose we do, if that is the purpose of this secret meeting?"

"You make it sound so clandestine," Carlos said dismissively. "No, all I wanted to do was to make sure our position here, against Starfleet, is a united one. If we don't stand together, the Federation will cut us down like an old mallorn riddled with borers."

"You want us to hang off your damned trouser legs, you mean, kissing arse," Sgt Shackle shook his head.

"Steady on, Gideon," Meredith O'Malley intervened, screwing her face at Shackle's profanity. Gentile expected her to be a secret weapon of his, so long as he kept inventing local committees for her to sit on. She'd be too busy interjecting herself into every facet of their activities to take notice of his own.

"You go too far," interjected D'Waniwanga, a former Romulan pilot exiled for running squill illegally, who had made a name in the community as a teacher. "Your opinions are well known, Sergeant, but this is still a place of office, and of respect."


"On this we agree," nodded Kakgath, the Kazon traffic coordinator. "We will dissent amongst each other sometimes about the method, but the goal is clear. The strength and independence of this community."

"Quite so," Carlos said.

"Pshh," Shackle crossed his arms and sat back. "This whole thing is a bloody wash. This isn't about community, this is just about lining his pockets, and his damned bed."

"I do not understand," the Romulan furrowed her brow. "Why is the leader's bedding a point of concern?"

"It's not about the bloody bed linen," Gideon snapped.

"I noticed Michelle wasn't at your side in the polling booth today, Gideon," Meredith needled, adjusting her large-rimmed spectacles.

"You leave my bloody wife out of this," Gideon bristled.

"Now I'm lost," Hedges apologised. "What does the Staff Sergeant's wife have to do anything?"

"Nothing at all," Shackle began to turn red-faced. "She had some bad shellfish, nothing more to it."

O'Malley pursed her lips in a wry smile. "He's just mad because his wife and the captain's bedding are one and the same issue."

Shackle erupted with fury, rocketing to his feet so fast his chair fell back with a violent clatter. He hurled expletives in every direction like a lawn sprinkler, and the entire chamber devolved into a clamour of voices. Gentile distinctly heard Kow'Farga roaring with laughter, pointing at Shackle while Daryl yelped: "Hyumaan have intimate physical knowledge with other hyumaan's woman, sexually! Ah-ha-ha!"

Preston, who had been mercifully silent the entire time, simply turned to his leader and shrugged apologetically, unable to parse any of this noise into coherent sentences. Gentile's face sank into his hands.

Perhaps this team I have assembled today will take a little work...

"Councillors," Gentile had to shout to reach them, standing as well. "Let us not fight. When we fight, they win. Whatever your opinion of me, and the leadership, you cannot say this community is not prospering. Everywhere you look we are growing, our numbers expand every day, new ships arrive to our cause and our aide. We are in a tricky position, it's true, but I swear now - on this magnificent maplewood table that Karina and her husband carved, built and varnished from old bookshelves - that I will not have the greatest weakness of this city being our own division. I will not. I have great plans for Costa City, and for Galen One, and we must stand together against this oncoming risk, or we will be felled all at once as if we were never here."

Silence fell over the chamber. The Councillors shied away from each other, straightening their uniforms, and slowly took their seats. Gideon Shackle was still red-faced, but picked up his chair and held his tongue. He would never treat Gentile with anything less than hatred, but he was invested in the community, Carlos knew this; he would not hurt it's interests just to spite the man. He could make this work, he had to make this work.

"Now, before we begin our official work, I think it's best we discuss a long-term strategy, for countering this problem on every front. A defensive strategy I call, 'Operation Plantfinder.'"

OFF

 

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