Final Address

July 5th, 2006 · No Comments· 6 views

The atrium was filled with noise, and bodies moving, seemingly at random. I paced my little island of anxiety, a circle defined by those who avoid me like I had the plague. Some glance my way. Others purposely look away. Occasionally a passerby offers a friendly sound, or a rude epithet.

The doors of the hall have opened and the delegates and their staff file in. The movement takes time, as everyone with an interest or a morbid fascination wants a seat. My circle of isolation gradually grows until I am left alone.

I have been preparing for this day for months. Every expert there is has briefed me. The speech writers have forced me to memorize seven different speeches, each dependant on the mood of the crowd. My body language has been altered. My dress and grooming took several hours and a half dozen assistants this morning. I have been medicated to the gills with anti-anxiety drugs, performance enhancement drugs and anything else the pharmas thought would help.

The doors are closed now, leaving me alone. Alone with my thoughts and the weight of the future on my mind.

This is our one chance. If I fail here today, we will have no allies, no friends in the conflict that will follow. We will be alone, out manned and out gunned. In a matter of days or weeks our fate will be sealed and we can no more avoid it than a bug can avoid a car windshield.

We do not understand the charges brought, or the reasoning behind them. We have been given the chance to defend ourselves, but against what?

One solitary door swings wide. It’s time. As I enter the great hall, slowly walking the distance to the podium in the center, I think about the last meeting I had. He was an old man, in a plain cassock, living simply amidst the palaces and museums that he ruled.

“Pray, my son, and trust in God. He will speak to you.”

There was dead silence as I approached the podium. Some watched me. Some made a point of looking away. My footsteps rang hollowly on the stone. The steps to the podium were designed for longer legs and I struggled a little without a railing.

There I stood, at the center of all eyes, with a hundred cameras focused on me. Our fate was in my hands, my hands alone. Seven prepared speeches and one small chance.

I thought back to that holy man, in his cassock. “Remember who you are” he said. “Remember all of us.”

I felt the weight of my people, my race, upon me. And I knew, I knew without a shadow of a doubt what I had to say. Facing a hundred races, a government so powerful it could snuff out my people in a moment, I knew what made us who we are. No one watching me knew us, not really. But they would learn.

“To the peoples of the United Planets. I bring you the response to your message from the united populace of Earth.”

“Fuck you!”

I turned and walked out of the hall as the buzz of a thousand tongues in a thousand languages grew and grew.

They didn’t know who we were. From that first caveman who dared to walk amidst the lightening and thunder, to the crews of Columbia and Challenger, we were not what the universe expected.

The first desperate battle, where a thousand Special Forces troops cast adrift in space suits boarded an alien battlewagon and seized Earth’s first warp-capable ship, set the tone for all the others. The losses were great, but we prevailed. The United Planets surrendered, signing the documents aboard the battlewagon Missouri. Admiral King’s final words to the enemy delegation were those that began the war, “Fuck you!”