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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 18 November 2007
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 The Human Cost
Editorial by James L. Anderson, Santa Rosa Chronicle, Santa Rosa, New Mexico
1 December, 2156
The devastating news of the loss of Salem One Station became intensely personal for Santa Rosa residents today when Mr. Michael Louis Orsino was delivered the following by personal courier from Starfleet Command this morning.
The President of the Coalition of Planets desires me to express his deep regret that your son, Lt Charles Michael Orsino, has been missing in action since November 28 on Salem One Station. Lt. Orsino is one of 67 members of the Coalition forces whose remains have not been identified, however since his battle station was destroyed by enemy fire, it is presumed that he died in action. If further details or other information is received you will be promptly notified.
On behalf of Starfleet and the combined governments of the Coalition of Planets I assure you of our deepest sympathy in the loss of your son. You are not alone. The 198 who served aboard Salem One Station and the 74 who were lost on the Vulcan cruiser, Sompek, are today the center of a web of bereavement that covers the whole of the Coalition of Planets.
I have served in Starfleet and before that in the United Earth Space Probe Agency for over forty years and I can tell you that writing this letter and the other 71 like it is, sir, the single, hardest thing I have ever had to do in all my years of service.
Admiral Garrett Black
Commander Starfleet
On behalf of your friends and neighbours, the Santa Rosa Chronicle would like to offer our deepest sympathy at this time. A celebration of remembrance will be held in the gardens of Santa Rosa High School on Sunday where all are invited to share their memories of this fine young man.
When I spoke to my old friend, Mike, this afternoon he was still coming to grips with the news. He told me how his grandfather had lost a brother in the Eugenics War and before that how the family had a tradition that the first Orsino to come to New Mexico from France during WWII, leaving everything behind. He told me how the family had built up their ranch, putting everything into the land. Charles - Chuck as his family called him - was all he had since his wife had died five years ago. When Mike is gone, there will be no more Orsinos in Santa Rosa.
I remember Chuck as a likeable kid who just wanted to be friends with the whole universe, "to meet new life and new civilisations" as Cochrane put it. He lived for what he was doing. I remember how proud that he was to be one of the few chosen from our town for Starfleet Academy, a pride we all shared.
Gone, his life snuffed out by an unknown enemy. The dawn of the 22nd century was supposed to be the start of a new age of peace, free from war, poverty and famine but war seems to have found us in space. My every fibre burns for revenge, for Starfleet to make them pay for what they have done to us ... but this is not what Charles would have wanted, nor his father.
Admiral Black talks about sympathy but how sincere is it? How can he truly know the human cost of Starfleet's breakneck expansion into the unknown? There are rumours that this could be the start of a war, but if it is, all I can say is make it stop. Don't fight to win a war, fight to make them stop. I don't want to have to write any more epitaphs, say any more eulogies or comfort any more bereaved friends. I don't want anyone else to feel the pain that has turned Santa Rosa into a town in mourning. Whether they are human or live on some rock at the other end of the galaxy, no parent should loose a child, no wife lose a husband.
Just make it stop before the cost to humans, Vulcans, Andorians - to everyone - becomes too much to bear.
This Dispatches from the Romulan War report was contributed by Kirok.
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