Work Text:
Status: Completed 10/11/2007
Season: 1
Spoilers: Forced Perspective
Archive: Ask first.
Disclaimer: Andromeda and its characters are the property of Andromeda Productions Ltd., MBR Productions Inc, Tribune, and whoever else has a claim to 'em.
Word Count: 2,332
"Dylan, are you okay?"
I look at Trance. My hand had unconsciously covered the scar of a very old wound. You know, getting shot really, really, hurts. I say nothing as I look back to the door of the room we just approached, once again lost in a memory over three hundred years old.
I pull myself from the memory. "Rhade was right," I tell Trance.
It really wasn't supposed to be that way. It was supposed to be a nice, simple extradition. We go. We grab Ferrin. We get out. I'd done this kind of mission without a hitch many times before. I figured this time would be no different. I got complacent. I should have known better; should have realized Ferrin would never come willingly and without a fight. ...Especially after Venetri had told us that twelve teams had tried before Rhade and me.
As the old saying goes, hindsight is twenty-twenty. I won't make the same mistake twice.
"The only way I'm going to get the outcome I want here is with a bullet."
I start to move but Trance wraps her tail around my arm.
"Dylan, stop. Think."
I've done nothing but think since I woke up in this place, strapped to a chair, and found out Venetri was the reason why. I've thought that maybe I gave the man too much credit when I told Rhade that Venetri was brave for helping us. Thought that maybe if I'd listened to Rhade in the first place, I wouldn't be in this mess now. I've thought that I really should not have left someone so easily intimidated as Venetri in charge of an entire planet.
Time to stop thinking and start acting. I won't make the same mistakes twice. I tell Trance as much.
And here we go again with the multiple possibilities.
Control is an illusion? What reality has she been living in? She really has no idea.
"Venetri's control over these people is no illusion and I'm going to end it now." I'm starting to lose my temper with Trance. Why does she always have to speak in riddles?
She doesn't let up.
I explain to her briefly about what happened over three centuries ago.
"Then how do we improve things, Trance? Huh? How do we make things better? Because intentions aren't enough." I found that out the hard way.
She's like a dog with a bone.
"But they're a start." Trance begins, "It's kinda like the way you described slipstream to me - You can't quite control what is going to happen. There are so many different paths, but your intentions can help determine where you are going to end up, so if you start with good intentions, you have a better chance of ending up with good." She smiles and nods hopefully.
Slipstream? She really just doesn't get it. ...And I don't have the time or patience to explain it to her. I'm going to end this now, one way or another. I enter the room, gun drawn, and face Venetri. I don't need to look to know Trance is behind me.
"I tried interrogation. I tried torture. But nothing reveals your bad intentions better than that…," he pauses for just a second, "gun."
My bad intentions? Are you freaking kidding me?
"What the hell did you expect? You had me kidnapped, beaten, and tortured."
Venetri goes on as if I hadn't said anything. "I have my truth. You're a liar. You've always been a liar."
Here we go again. "I never lied to you."
He advances on me as he talks. He brings up the dead guards again.
"That was a mistake and you know it." …And it was. No one was supposed to get hurt. I'd give anything to change that.
"You said the Commonwealth would back me up," he goes off again. The Commonwealth collapsed!"
That's right, Venetri; we all had future knowledge that the most powerful alliance in the known worlds would crumble so swiftly and completely. That it would be destroyed by one act of betrayal by a man I would have laid down my life for, a man I had thought would never be capable of such an act. ...An act that, he is conveniently forgetting, cost me three hundred and three years of my life!
"No one wanted that," I say.
He's trying to justify his actions again. I wonder if he really believes what he's saying?
Structure? Who does he think he's kidding?
"You became just like Ferrin."
"I became what you made me," he says with venom.
He really believes what he's saying. It's so much easier to blame me for things I had no control over than to take responsibility for his actions. I should just shoot him and get it done with.
"No!" There's no way I'm letting him put this all off on me. "You made yourself what you are now. The choice was yours, no one else's. No one put a gun to your head and made you deal with things the way you did. You took the easy way out and you know it."
I can tell he isn't listening. He only hears what he wants to hear. I try another tactic.
"No one could have anticipated how things were going to work out. And I'm sorry...."
He interrupts me. "You're sorry. What are you sorry about? Your time here, Mister April, gave you everything you wanted, hmm. Didn't it? Didn't it, Captain Hunt?"
With those words, I'm momentarily lost in the past again, reliving the time when Rhade and I were "rewarded" for a so-called job well done. I tried to turn down the promotion, but Admiral Stark wouldn't let me. "Your last mission was voluntary," she'd said. "This one is not."
I guess I could have retired, but what good would that have done? I'm not entirely sure they would have let me anyway. Besides, what else would I have done? Being in the High Guard was my life. It was all I ever wanted for as long as I could remember. So, reluctantly, I accepted. With that, my days with Argosy Special Operations were over. I was officially the reluctant captain of a Glorious Heritage Class starship with Gaheris Rhade as my first officer. I still remember the sick feeling in my gut as the Admiral told me they were fine with the outcome. I knew, without a doubt, that Gaheris had been right. They never expected us to bring Ferrin out alive. I'm not even sure they expected us to come out alive.
This time it's Venetri who pulls me from my thoughts as he accuses me of being a hypocrite.
Trance comes to my defense. I'm not sure if it's her appearance or her words that causes him to back up. Maybe it's both.
It makes me think. Maybe he isn't as bad as I thought he was.
"Trance, he's right. I am a hypocrite. Everything I am and everything I have came out of what happened here. By accepting the Andromeda, I sanctioned it."
She's quick to defend me again. Something I'm ashamed of? That's putting it mildly. I appreciate what Trance is saying, and she is right in a way, but the fact remains that, if I had done my job right, Ferrin would have been captured alive and none of this would have happened. I should have found a way.
As Trance finishes, Venetri rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "Another fool believer. Why don't you enlighten her Dylan, hmm? Why don't you show her what the gun is all about? Why don't you do what you came to do? Kill me!"
"I didn't come here, Venetri. You kidnapped and brought me here!" I pause for a second.
I can't believe I'm trying to reason with this bastard. Damn it! He is blaming everything on the Commonwealth and me. Justifying his own actions by saying it was my fault because the Commonwealth couldn't fulfill my promise of help. He had me beaten and tortured, both physically and mentally, (you try having several rifles pointed at your head, thinking you're about to die, just to have nothing happen, then try to tell me that's not torture), and generally tossed around like a child's unwanted plaything. He twisted a young woman into believing I murdered her ancestor and doomed generations of her family to poverty just to use her anger against me. ...Not to mention the lies he fed to the people of Mobieous all these years.
Even with those thoughts, I don't believe Venetri is evil. He's just a man who found himself in a difficult position, without the support he was promised, and took the easy way out. ...The only way he knew. If I'm brutally honest with myself, I am partially to blame. I knew what kind of man Venetri was. He was never a "bad" man. He did agree to help us extract Ferrin. He just was never a very courageous man. I never should have left him to deal with things on his own. He was an architect, not a politician. I should have checked on things here to make sure he was doing okay. The Commonwealth should have.
With my "borrowed" gun still trained on him, I continue.
"I know what I want here today, Venetri. The same thing I've always wanted, justice, freedom for the people of Mobieous. But I'll be honest with you. I don't know, right now, how things are going to turn out." In that instant, Trance's earlier words come back to me. I look at her, then turn back to Venetri and speak again. "Maybe all I control here are my own intentions. So I'm not going to kill you. Because the basis of my Commonwealth is persuasion, and I think you're open to being persuaded." He doesn't look relieved. Or surprised for that matter. For the first time since he brought me here, I really look at Venetri. His face is pale and drawn, his eyes have the sunken look of a zombie, and he just looks very, very tired.
He looks at me skeptically, almost defeated. "What makes you think that?"
Well, let's see. For starters, I'm still alive and, thankfully, don't have any more holes in my body than I had before I was kidnapped. That escape was just a little too easy which leads me to believe he let it happen and that he wanted me to find him. I think he genuinely wants to know where he went wrong. He wants a solution that doesn't come from the barrel of a gun. So, I'm standing here talking instead of being locked up in a cell or lying dead in a shallow grave.
I tell him as much.
He looks at me in disbelief. Whether he doubts the sincerity behind my words, or he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop, I don't know.
I pause and glance at Trance, who has remained silent. "I'm here to offer you another possibility, maybe even the perfect possibility."
He's quiet for a moment, contemplating my meaning. Then he turns away. "And what would that be?"
Trance explains it to him. He looks at us and I can see the longing in his eyes. He wants to believe us, wants a chance to redeem himself for what he has done here.
"I once knew an architect," I say. "He had good intentions." And he did, back then.
As a child, I always wondered what was meant by the old Earth saying, 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.' I understand it now. I think Venetri does too.
I can hear the disbelief and desperate hope in his voice. "You're just going to let me go? After all I've done?" He really wants to believe that he is going to get a second chance, that he deserves one.
"I'm not going to do anything. I don't have the right. I never did." After all, who am I to play judge, jury, and executioner? "Besides, violent action promotes violent men and I think Mobieous has had its fill of violent men. Don't you?"
I think he's finally starting to realize this isn't a trick, that I really don't intend to kill him. ...Anymore.
"I could turn over power to the senate, but it could create chaos. The dissidents might rise up."
"Then include them in the government." It is their planet too after all. I decide to play up to his architect nature. "Set up a process for a peaceful transition, a blueprint. And then leave things in the hands of the builders."
With that said, I know he finally sees what I'm saying and accepts the fact that I am trying to help him. I send Trance back to the Maru to prep for departure, and then turn back to Venetri. He looks relieved. I don't think running a planet every really suited him. A politician, he is not.
We discuss a few things briefly. After assuring him that I will be back to help him transition Mobieous to a new government, and the new Commonwealth, I turn to leave.
As I reach the door, I turn back to him, "One more thing, Venetri. One of the first things you should do is get rid of that damn homeless camp and set up a proper home for those kids. Children who lose their parents should be raised by competent, caring adults. Not thrown to the side and left to care for themselves."
He gives me a small smile and nods.
For the first time since I first set foot on this planet, I feel like I've actually accomplished something.
It feels pretty damn good too, which is more than I can say for my battered face and body. Slowly, and with some satisfaction that this time I did the job right, I make my way back to the Maru.
THE END