Do I Dare Disturb the Universe

He remembers sitting on a bench after a boxing match, striking up a conversation with another young man, one that was hesitant and mistrustful (on his part), but eventually spanned through the locker room, to a barstool at a pub-style restaurant, then sitting on a fence post, staring up at the night sky. What did they talk about? Chris doesn’t remember. Maybe they were getting to know each other, which is a strange thought to entertain. It feels like there was never a time he didn’t know Alex. They were cut from the same cloth. Brothers in all but blood.

So where’s the difference? What did Chris do differently with his own life, if he did anything different at all?

He remembers lying on the top bunk of their shared quarters, trying to calculate if the red alert ended mid-Beta shift or early-Gamma, knowing all the while it didn’t matter and his sleep schedule was fucked either way. Alex had been radio silent since he returned from the showers, but now broke out a long sigh.

“It’s dangerous out there.”

At the time, Chris had laughed, lost in the memory of Alex at his back, covering their retreat to the shuttle launch while Chris navigated and cleared the path for the rest of the team. “Yeah, no kidding.”

But Alex hadn’t meant that menacingly, at the time it wasn’t the seed of traitorous intent. He was a man fresh from combat.

Not unlike the time, decades later, after the first few meetings Chris attended as a Fleet Admiral, Alex sat in his office, tipping a glass of whiskey to him, and said, “It’s strange, having you across the table and not at my back.”

Was he to interpret every interaction now as a double entendre? Was he meant to turn their lifelong friendship into a veneer for treachery? Did the dinners with June and later Carol have to be recast as a front for a hidden evil?

Scores of eyes bear down on him as he collected his thoughts at the podium. This is not a momentous occasion, not by a long shot. Change had to happen, there was no stopping the flow of new Admirals rushing in to fill and reshape the chasm Alex’s actions had caused.

In all likelihood, his testimony will be lost in the countless others due to give their accounts. He will be lost in the tide of accusation and denial. But h had a voice, and he would use it, and hope for the better.

“Alexander Marcus illustrated something important about how we define an enemy of the Federation. In pursuing the defense of the system he pledged his life to, he created a conflict that struck us deeper than any enemy ship ever could. In the wake of destruction and death his actions caused, we must consider how we treat what we see as an enemy. His actions speak of a deepset paranoia, and a mistrust in what we don’t know and don’t understand. When we call anyone our enemy, we set ourselves apart from them. We isolate ourselves. We act as if we will always be at conflict with every hostile force we encounter.”