“As you can see, gentleman, this is quite an offer,” Wellington said, finally moving to sit behind the wood desk that dominated the room. “But it’s not without some drawbacks, both philosophical and practical. First to the practical, if you wouldn’t mind, Admiral.”

“Realistically, we would struggle to fend off a serious offensive on our own territory,” Marcum began. “That means that any military assets that are sent to help the Ushin leave us just that much more vulnerable. There has been a strong effort since the Phage War to implement planetary and system-wide defenses, but so far only the more wealthy systems have managed to get anything in place. We’re working to mitigate that, but there’s currently nothing in place so we’re completely dependent on a depleted Starfleet. So … from a purely practical standpoint we can deploy the Fleet to help the Ushin or hold them back and protect our own systems.”

“This raises another problem,” Nelson said, his eyes never leaving Marcum’s. “I’ve seen the numbers … Fleet doesn’t have enough ships to protect all Fed planets.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Wellington cut in. “No matter what’s decided here, hard choices will need to be made about what systems are critical and which will need to fend for themselves. So now that we know what’s at stake, here’s where the logic gets a bit mushy. In the last ten years we’ve gone from knowing about one other species from humans in the galaxy to four new ones, each seeming to be much further up the technological ladder than we are.”

“Is there a point to this, Mr. President?” Illoka asked. “With all due respect, sir, we all know we’re here to be sold on something. Let’s hurry along to the point and then we can get down to the nitty gritty of the matter.”

“Very well,” Wellington said. “We need allies. From what we’ve been exposed to it’s unrealistic to think that we can remain isolated and keep to ourselves. We’re too spread out, our ships are too slow, and we’re extremely vulnerable after the Phage War. The Ushin are offering territory, planets, and technology in exchange for military intervention. With the new Articles of Federation we’ve all just signed I have the authority to deploy CENTCOM assets in emergency situations, but I don’t think this would count as one. For the Fleet to be involved in the Ushin/Darshik conflict I would need a resolution from the Parliament. Let’s also not forget that we’ve been attacked as well.”