Star Trek - TOS - Section 31 - Cloak
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Kirk introduced them to one another, even knowing that a few had met before. Commodore Bob Wesley. Commodore Aaron Stone. Captain Nick Silver. Commodore Jose Mendez. Captain Waterston. There were nods of recognition, smiles, a handshake where it was convenient.
A young boy, a native of the planet, wandered back to ask what they wanted. At the shrugs from the others, Kirk asked for a pitcher of the local brew, a kind of fermented grain drink from what he could gather.
As soon as the boy was gone, Silver spoke up. "Talk to us, Jim. What's this about?"
Kirk reached into the lining of his shirt and pulled out a hardcopy of the Starfleet Charter. A part of it, anyway, sections 28 through 34 printed out on a single sheet of paper. He handed it to Wesley, sitting to his left.
"I'd like each of you to read section 31, carefully," he said. "It's short, it won't take long."
Their server brought back a brimming pitcher and a half-dozen mugs before disappearing again. Kirk filled the mugs as the hardcopy was passed around the table, Stone reading last. When he raised his head, looking as confused as the rest of them, Kirk began his story.
It took a few minutes and he didn't like telling it, but he left nothing out, starting with the line from section 31 that rather obscurely referred to the establishment of "an autonomous investigative agency," one that held nonspecific discretionary power over nonspecific Starfleet matters. Hidden in plain sight.
From there, Jack Casden and the Sphinx. The possibility that Admiral Cartwright and perhaps Commodore Jefferson had been involved in a plot to get the cloaking device and then keep its use a secret, knowingly or unknowingly. Kettaract's politics, and the death of Gage Darres. The Lantaru station, and the terrible accident that had occurred there, that was responsible for the Omega Directive, only just instituted for Starfleet flag officers. He told them about everything ... except for Jain, of course, because that part of it still hurt, and because it wasn't necessary for them to know about her. And he avoided bringing up Bones's near brush with death. The disease the doctor had diagnosed during the crisis had since been cured, thanks to their discovery of the Fabrini medical archive.
When he'd finished, no one spoke for a moment. He could see some skepticism, some doubt--but he also saw five good men, men he would trust with his life ... and he believed that each of them might say the same about him.
Mendez cleared his throat, looking unhappily at Kirk. "You realize what you're telling us, what you're saying."
"I do."
Wesley shook his head in disbelief... but Kirk could see beneath it, could see that he just didn't want to believe. Kirk knew exactly how he felt.
"You're telling us that there's a shadow agency operating within our ranks, Jim, and has been for over a century--how sure are you about this?"
Kirk raised his hands, motioning at then- group. Three commodores, three captains, each of them with established lives in different sectors, commands in different parts of the galaxy. "You tell me."
He watched it sink in, watched each of them struggle against the idea just as he had struggled. A part of him, an innocence, had died when he'd accepted the truth, and he hated that he was asking them to do the same, to sacrifice their trust in the sanctity of their home--because that's what Starfleet was, to all of them.
"So what are you proposing?" Waterston asked. "It sounds like we won't even be able to prove that this "Section 31' exists."
Stone was nodding. "If all this is true, they've already done a good job covering their tracks. There's not even any evidence, is there?"
Kirk shook his head. "No. And I doubt that there's going to be any, not now. Maybe not for a long time. They're careful, whoever they are, very careful, and it appears that they have the resources to keep doing what they're doing. Which is why I propose no action at all--"
He quickly pressed on before anyone of them could respond, well aware of what each man was thinking. Hadn't he thought the same things?
"--because it won't work, we don't have anything on them, and if this is the type of group I think it is, bringing this out in the open means they disappear," Kirk said, looking seriously at each man in turn, knowing their frustration as his own. "Gone, faster than we can point a finger. For now, all we can do is wait for them to make a mistake. And they will... maybe not this year, or next, but nobody can hide forever."
"Why this meeting, then?" Mendez asked. "If there's nothing we can do ..."
"Because there is something you can do," Kirk answered. "Something that I should have done, when I first got the order from Admiral Cartwright, when I knew--I knew--that something wasn't right. What you can do is keep your eyes open. What you can do is listen, and watch, and tell the people you trust to do the same.
"I'm convinced that what Starfleet stands for is good and true, and I think this Section 31, whatever it is, exactly, is only a very small part--like a tumor, a cancer. Something that doesn't reflect any of the virtues and beliefs that Starfleet is about. But if each of you--each of us--is willing to question that one order that doesn't feel right, if we are willing to accept the responsibility of keeping our faith, by no longer taking it for granted--if we're willing to do that, then the cancer won't be able to spread."
He spoke the rest only in his mind. All it requires is accepting that there's something hiding in the shadows, in the darkness that you didn't even know existed. Oh, and losing some of your innocence--but it doesn 't hurt for very long.
The six men talked for a while longer, but everything had been said that needed to be. One by one, they left the tavern to return to their lives, perhaps not as shining and pure as they had thought them before, until only Kirk remained.
He sat, thinking, for long time. Finally, as the shadows began to stretch across the floor, the captain picked up his mug and toasted the empty air, setting it down again without drinking. He dropped a few coins on the table and walked out, wondering if any of it was worth anything at all, knowing at his core that it was.