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"You're late" that's what he says when the massive starship breaks atmosphere, bringing with it safety and salvation. Too late. Too late to save his neighbors, too late to save the crop, too late to save his last chance at childhood. He's not wrong, not even remotely, and everyone knows it, nothing can be fixed and everyone knows it.
"You're late." He says, because he used to take care of twelve children and now he only cares for eight. Four thousand people and Four of his kids are buried under the dry dirt of Tarsus IV. He tried so hard to help them but there's only so much a thirteen year old can do for a bunch of malnourished desperate children. They could've been saved and the Tarsus Nine know it.
"You're late." He says because he hasn't had a meal in five months. Five months of fighting for any morsels he could scrounge up, only to feed them to his kids instead. Five months is so short in retrospect, but he'd lost any remaining chance of a happy childhood, sacrificed his innocence to protect that of his brood's. It couldn't have been saved, he knows so, it had been lost a long time ago.
"You're late." He says because he knows too much about strategy for a thirteen year old. He knows too well how to hide in plain site and how to avoid phaser fire. He knows too well how to weave around Kodos' guard. He shouldn't know, should've never had to have learned how, he shouldn't have had to teach the same lessons to his kids. It could've been prevented but Star Fleet was too late.
The sky turned grim, the ground faded to dust and dirt with no plants to keep it tied down. Wind blew dirt as far as it could reach until it covered everything in site, and the streets were empty. Empty, because four thousand people had been mercilessly slaughtered by Governor Kodos. Tarsus IV was dead, the people and the animals were dead, and Star Fleet was late.
Those were just facts of the universe, nothing could be changed now, but it could've been prevented and it wasn't. It wasn't, because Star Fleet was too late, No one could save them now and nothing could put them back together, because help came too late. Tarsus and its society was gone, dissolved under the hands of a tyrant while its saviors roamed the stars, unaware. Desperate children clung to the bones of a planet and refused to let go when it tried to shake them off, crying 'Come help us, please.' And by the time their help came their hands were little more than blisters and bone, scarred from holding on so tight, but by then their cries had turned bitter and accusing, 'You're too late.'